Upstate NY

It's great here! Really beautiful. The colors are a nice contrast to the brilliant green grass -- yesterday's drive from Syracuse to Rochester was quite nice. The only problem is: it's pouring rain today. The seminar room has even began to leak. NOT GOOD.

I feel like I have more to say, but I can't remember what it is! (Jogging memory...)

Still, I feel like this is all insane. I have to step back and take perspective sometimes when I'm randomly driving in the middle of a town I never thought I'd visit. Usually, these moments are accompanied by phone calls to people (namely, my parents) to rant about how ridiculous my life is -- it's like one long and spontaneous road trip! It's really incredible how one's life can change in a matter of minutes...hours...days. If I didn't happen to take a chance on a Craig's List ad due to the advice of an incredible best friend, I wouldn't have spent last night taking a jog through the beautiful campus of Rochester Institute of Technology, then eating at a random sports bar by myself, and retiring to a wonderful Sleep Number bed that now inhibits every room of the Radisson Hotel chain. I mean...REALLY, who gets to experience all this besides 24 other program managers?

In other news, while I was at lunch today (by myself again - but don't feel bad, I love it!), I was thinking about a few things that I would like to share with you all:

1) I suck at trying new foods. I mean, I like to do it, but I don't actually do it. Big difference. It's getting quite boring eating nothing every morning (no time!), a salad/soup/sandwich/wrap every afternoon, and a burger every night, so I've decided (despite my frugal self) to spend more money on food every day in order to try more interesting things. I need variety! I mean, when will I ever have the chance to not pay for food again? I can be such a stick in the mud sometimes!

2) I randomly started pondering this today: I'm convinced that our society does not promote trusting ourselves. In fact, they make it downright difficult to trust ourselves. Think about it -- they don't trust us to trust ourselves and make the "right" decisions (for us as individuals or for society in general), so they construct laws around ideas that could become (and have become) serious issues. For example, alcohol intake is restricted, smoking is banned in many places (not that I'm opposed, I'm just saying that the government is not allowing us to make our own decisions), drugs use is prohibited completely. Now, don't you think that if the government started to trust us and began to proactively help to install integrity within different populations, then we would more easily be able to trust ourselves and each other? (No wonder Europeans seem to have an innate trust in themselves - the government doesn't interfere with every g-damn thing they want to do. And if there is interference? They strike.) If we were given a choice as to when and how much alcohol we wanted to consume, don't you think that we'd get drunk a few times, but then allow ourselves a happy buzz every once and a while because it's fun? I mean, sure some people may still have problems (a whole separate issue, if you ask me), but I bet we wouldn't have a million and one 18-year-olds dying to go to college to steal into a bar or two and get drunk out of their mind. This definitely isn't a new idea, I just think it's interesting to relate it to internal trust issues - something to which I can definitely relate.

Side note: Tomorrow, I'm traveling to Fishkill, New York! Exciting (and weird)!

PS - You know, it's really enjoyable to have my laptop on location with me, but it's a serious pain in the ass to haul this sucker around along with the other 20 pounds (literally, I am not joking) in my backpack. I'm too cheap at the moment to get a rolling briefcase...but I better buck up soon, or I'm going to kill my back!

Cheers and love from the grand ole state of NY...