Good day

I took a picture of my favourite tree through the window earlier today. I was too lazy to go outside... tomorrow maybe I'll do that.

This tree is gorgeous. More than that, it symbolizes life and hope for me. I know if Dave was still here he would love this tree. He probably would have taken a chair outside and sat down by it all the time. As for me, looking at it makes me feel happier... I remember that there's still beauty in this world.



Tonight was Toastmasters again, today being Monday. I had planned a speech about "recapturing who we are meant to be". I had meant to talk generally about the need to stay in the present and to figure out our purpose. But, as I practiced it at home earlier, it went in a different direction. I ended up talking about how I was too focused on the future when I lived in LA, how i was so eager to get on with my life that I forgot to appreciate what--and who--I had in front of me. How sorry I was after Dave passed away that I didn't verbalize how important he was to me during the last months we were together. How I almost fell, then, into the other trap of living in the past, of wishing those last months had been different.

When I got up to do my speech tonight, I still wasn't sure this was what I wanted to talk about, because it somehow didn't sound like it went with the title/subject of my speech. Really I think I was just scared to talk about something so personal.

But I did it. I was nervous, and when I talked about Dave I could feel the tears come but I still was able to move forward.

Afterwards, as always, in my head I didn't do well. I only spoke for 6 minutes (it was a 5-7 minute speech), I thought I jumped around too much, and I was sure I repeated myself too much.

And again I got an outstanding evaluation. A different evaluator this time, but he spoke about how meaningful my speech was, how organized, how powerful. Again, the only criticism was that I need to let go of the lectern and move around some. It's weird cause when I was practicing at home I was moving all over the place but once I got up there, it was all I could do not to forget my opening sentence.

In the meantime, I got my large student loan today. $12,500! I know I need to hold onto some of that money in case I have a problem with my tuition next semester or something. I'm thinking about buying myself a drum set. I want to keep learning what Dave had started teaching me. The only thing holding me back is that my dad co-signed the loan, and I'm afraid he'll be upset with me for taking out a loan on something "non-essential". It's not that I need his approval, but that I don't like to argue or have problems, especially when things have been better the last several months.

I've been thinking about the drums a lot lately. I miss playing. My new expansion packs for Sims 2 include various instruments for the Sims to play, inclouding the drums, bass, guitar, and piano. I love it when I get my Sims to jam together. Yesterday one of them started playing the beats Dave taught me and I almost fell out of my seat... I need to start playing again.

I have a bunch of things to do tomorrow, but I found out where there's a music store. Maybe after I deposit my check I can go look and get an idea of what I want and how much it'll cost. The check won't have cleared yet anyway so I won't be able to buy them just yet.

In the meantime, this lady I met at Toastmasters tonight told me that there's positions for Autistic Classrooms in her school, and gave me the principal's name. I'm going to call him tomorrow. He has the same ffirst name as my brother, which is odd because my brother has a very unusual first name.

In any case, we'll see. Things are looking up...