Well, I did it. I finished The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. And as I read the book, feelings of deep sadness crept over me. I felt the feelings slowly slipping away... I can't really explain it, the words hit you like a train. He repeats himself all the time and it's not like they're new every time, but they make you think back to when he said them last and you see the images. It's like the story's said many, many times and you can't escape it. I'll you this, if I had the choice of not reading this book, I definitely would not have read it. It's not that it's bad, it's a great book, but the emotions he describes just make me question my own life. It's like, "Wow, his first loved died when they were nine. Did I ever have those kinds of feeling when I was that young? Do I even have those feelings now?" He said that he wasn't very good at expressing his feelings and that he just wasn't learned in small talk simply because he was only nine years old. But I'm 18 years old and those same skills have eluded me my entire life. This book has made me realize that I haven't done anything in my life. I haven't... I haven't... God! The words are there they just won't come. I'm an empty shell, waiting to be filled by someone with the courage to fill it. But no one ever just fills it, they give the shell the choice to be filled, to look at the ups and downs before filling. And the shell never gets filled because it can never make a clear choice. Sure, I've made a choice, one that could give me a great life ahead.

That choice was to act. I love to act, it gives me great pleasure to be on stage, no, just to be around theatre, writing, directing, acting. I love the theatre, but the down side is always the catch... I want to be in the theatre, but 90% of actors are unemployed so I had to look for other means of income in the mean time... I finally settled on teaching. Sounded easy, I go in, teach the class, grade papers and do theatre on the side, right? Wrong... Teaching is SOO much more than that, there's committees (and don't think you can just not be on a committee when you're a teacher, you have to be) there's all this stuff I never realized until I talked to a teacher first hand about their job... I talked to Mr. Santino, Ian's dad, he's a Professor at the college and he told me all this stuff... I'd tell you guys too but I accidentally left my interview paper at Ian's... I... Guess that's about it... I kinda got off topic a bit and getting back on is not something I want to do right now. Reading that book... It really brings you down, and I have way to much to do today....