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2003-05-25 Walking is Good for the Soul You know, it's strange. I love walking - not necessarily up steep hills, but I enjoy being out in the air, the fact that walking forces me to take a closer look at things, to slow down. And yet, I rarely walk, at least not for the mere sake of walking. For errands I usually drive everywhere around my neighborhood, despite the fact that I'm a self-proclaimed tree-hugger. I drive mostly out of efficiency: I can get to more places, pick up more stuff in a shorter span of time. When I do walk, it's up to the bus stop because I'm going somewhere like school or work, and thus I don't have time to just sort of look around. In other words, whether I go by feet or by car, I tend to rush everywhere. But tonight, after supper and after the dishes were done, I was feeling really sleepy. I thought about just making myself a coffee, but I knew it wouldn't help; the sleepiness was stemming from being mostly housebound for the past little while, with no job and no school to go to. Yes, I ran a few errands here, and few errands there, but none of these outings really gave me a breath of fresh air since I was always in the car. So I decided to go for a walk. The rain had stopped momentarily, and everything was wet and fresh and clean. Dark clouds still hovered over the sky, threatening more rain, but it didn't seem to matter. It's not as if I'd melt if it did rain. It wasn't a very a long walk, but I think it still did me a little bit of good. I walked around the block, looked at the houses and duplexes along the way. Then I came across a fair at the Italian church not far from my house, and seeing that there didn't appear to be any admission charge, I went in and listened to the music for a little bit, even though I didn't understand a word of the lyrics. I have to admit that I felt a little out of place, being the only non-Italian I could see, and when the singer made a joke between songs (indicated by the fact that everyone around me laughed), I just sort of smiled. But it was nice anyway. I think that maybe I'll take more walks like that. Sometimes if I have a lot on my mind, it's a good way for me to sort it out, or even to forget about it. Other times, like tonight, when I don't have anything in particular on my mind, I find that it provides a peace over mind and body. ******** In other news, I've decided not to go to my convocation on June 4th. The decision sort of surprises me, though not nearly as much as the realization that I had absolutely NO desire to go did. That realization came a week or so ago, as I sat here thinking about it. It's at 10 in the morning, we'd all have to get there fairly early - me to get my gown on properly, my family to get seats - which means getting up super early. It's scheduled to be about 2.5 hours, which probably means closer to 3 (plus all the waiting around from getting there early), and for what? For me to be on stage for less than 2 minutes? To go, get tapped on the head with the Chancellor's cap? I don't even get my degree on stage; I get it when I go down the other side. To be perfectly honest, the only reason I was going to go was for my family. But see, my dad is disabled, and although he never said anything about it, it'd be so bloody hard to get him there. There's some shuttle taking disabled individuals from one place to another, but that means he'd be separated from my mom, grandmother, sister and George. Then my nanny called today, like she usually does. She'd looked at the calendar and realized that she had a doctor's appointment on the 5th, which she'd had to wait for for 6 months, and there would be no way for her to get back home for it in time. She offered to try to reschedule, but chances are, she'd have to wait another 6 months for her annual check-up. That's when I told her that I really didn't want to go in the first place, so she should just keep her appointment. I think it's settled, although I have this horrible feeling that she's going to call tomorrow all excited and say that she rescheduled it anyway. But I think I made it very clear how much I didn't want to go. I'm sure that part of me will be sad on the 4th, and maybe a teeny bit regretful. But I think it'll mostly be because I think that I should feel that way, the same as how I feel like I should want to go to the convocation. But I don't know anyone else graduating with me; it's not like high school. And the real satisfaction for me came when I saw that last final mark that told me that yes, I'd done it, I'd graduated from university.
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