Happy Endings

The past few days have been relatively quiet. You know, apart from catching a cold and feeling absolutely miserable, still going to training while feeling like that, and putting two veteran linebackers on the ground...(okay, so I got put down several times first).

Right now it's early morning, I'm lying in bed because I don't want to go back to sleep, and I don't actually have to be up for another hour or so. It's odd how sometimes the most eventful weekends are the ones with the fewest stories that arise. On friday we went to the Euro 2012 qualifier (yeah, be jealous) between Wales and Bulgaria (okay, the match was terrible, but I was close enough to have spit on the goalie).

It was a great experience though, granted, I wish I'd been able to get us all tickets up with the Bulgarians, they were in their own secluded corner of the stadium with a police escort, and they looked to be having fun.

On the walk back we had to stop to pick up Debjani, I'm not sure why but something lit a fire in me (unrelated to initial clause other than timing) so I took off. At first I was running to catch up to Sagarika so she wasn't walking by herself along the dark street, but then I couldn't stop. Yard after yard my feet stretched along the pavement under the streetlamps. My lungs burned and my legs ached after training but there was a path before me that was calling me to run.

Over the weekend events transpired that led to a powerful lesson, the tale is not mine to tell, but the moral remains with me. When you are with someone, if you don't know if it's love, try to imagine life without them. If there's a hole there, a lack of breath, and impossibility to wrap your head around (I'm not talking kiddy Twilight BS, I mean literally) then it just might be love. Minor imperfections are not what define us ("oh he only hits me when he drinks" or "She only sleeps around when I work" are not minor imperfections; ditch 'em) What defines us is whether or not we are willing to truly put our own pride aside for another. Man is by nature proud, some pride is good, the pride in a job well done, the pride of convictions; but what truly makes a man is when he is able to willingly cast aside his pride for the sake of someone else, whether that someone else be dear, or merely a friend, or even a stranger.

Not much else has happened lately. Yesterday Dan, and myself and two girls whose names I tragically do not remember had coffee in the cafe before Steel Design. Dan is Kazakh, one of the girls was also, and the other was Nepalese. We represented one of the most interesting groups, we had Hindu, Christian and Muslim all sitting at the same table. Maybe it's a trait of postgraduates, or maybe it's that the people that come all the way to the UK to study are a bit more open than others, but we were able to have an interesting, respectful discussion of each other's cultures based both on religion and also on Nationality. The Kazakh's have one of the most awesome traditions ever, although trying to transfer it to America would be bad. If a guy and a girl are in love, and the girl's parents refuse consent, then all they have to do is conspire together and the guy kidnaps the girl for seven days. After that point the parents must give consent. The thought of someone doing that in the States made me laugh so hard I almost snorted Coke out my nose. Sadly I had to dash the illusion that in America there is an underground dance scene where gangs compete for street supremacy in back alleys during special effects thunderstorms. That's when I realized that as much as Hollywood messes with our perceptions of other countries, it does the same to them about us. Maybe before we ever go to war over cultural differences, all political leaders will be forced to sit together in a bar and drink. Seems to me like that would either clear up the conflict, or they could get in a barfight and kill each other, saving all of us the trouble of dying.

Now I'm off to shower and get to Eng Management...woo...yeah...peace.


-JK