Well, the past three weeks have been pretty crazy. Dresden, Berlin, and the whole Beyond Borders experience was amazing. I had a great time, a ton of fun, and realy felt that I learned a lot about both German cuture and about myself.

This trip knocked me out of my reguar daily life and changed everything up. Becuse of that, I had the oppertunity to, well, critically examine myself. I don't know if I like what I saw. Frankly, I think that I am very unhappy with myelf in a lot of ways. I feel that I could be doing so much more with myself, but because I am scared and lazy I don't try to acomplish anything because I am afraid of failure. I think I am a very creative person, but I don't have any outlet for my creativity, again due to laziness and fear. I spend so much time each day just wasteing away the hours, filling up the time with pointless things that have no meaning and no purpous, and don't enrich me or even really bring my happiness.

This needs to change; this has to change.

One thing that overshadows everything else is my apperance. I know people don't really talk about it, they don't ever mention anything about it to me, but I know that I don't look right. My body is...warped and twisted - I look like an old man. And I hate this. It just drains away every single ounce of self-confidience that I can muster. I'm sure some of you will want to try and tell me that it's not that bad, that you can barely notice anything, that I am being too hard on myself. But that's just not true, and no matter what you say I can't hear it, it just does not penetrate. I hate how I look; I think I am a monster. But, I can change this - not how I think, but how I look.

When I get back to the States I am going to make an apointment and see a doctor about this. And I am going to do what it takes, and pay the price, so that I can look and feel like a normal human being. Because I am tried of feeling this way.

But thats not the end of it. I need to gain some weight, and I need to work out. This is not just for vanity's sake, but for health and everything else that goes along with it. I really enjoy hiking, but I always make exscuses to stop myself from doing it. I want to start taking a martial arts class of some sort and develop better flexibility, ballance, etc.

But I also want to exerscise my mind as well. I know I am a creative person, hell, sometimes I feel like I am a poet but I refuse to try and act on these impulses. I refuse to give physical form to the emotions and thoughts in my head, for to give them permanence means that they can be mocked, and it means I can fail. I want to create things, not just criticise and tear down the works of others. I want to put these ideas and emotions onto paper, to express them and share them. Not only with my mind though, I also want to create with my hands, but again, I always stop myself from furfilling these desires.

I know I am a smart guy, but I'm only coasting. With my freindships, I'm just coasting along on the momentum from New College. With my skills and occupations, I just coast along on my intelligence without putting any effort into it. Because if I try, it means that I care, and if I care and I fail, that makes me a failure. So I don't care, and I don't try. And instead I end up feeling alone, bored, and sad. I know it sounds nerdy, but I think chainmail is really cool, and two years ago I bought a litle chainmail starter kit; I used it for all of 15 minutes and then put it away. Why? Because I was lazy, because I didn't want to try; because I didn't want to have to push myself to learn, as when you start something you are bad at it, and I didn' want to feel stupid. Well, I feel pretty stupid right now.

I want to learn how to play a musical instrumet. Something simple for now, maybe just the penny whistle or something, but I need to do this. I need to develop myself as a person, rather than just coast along.

Right now I am in Italy. I will be for the next week or so. When I get back to the states I am going to see a doctor, I am going to start working out, I am going to start writing poetry, I am going to start learning how to play a mustical instrument, I am going to start making chainmail, I am going to start going to a marital arts class. I am going to try and live. Because right now all I am doing is slowly dying.

And it has to change.