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The first part of the summer whizzed by! Seems like graduation was yesterday and now the 'rents are already on my case about packing stuff for college. you know how moms can get. Lists for everything. Dorms-minus-thirty-days-and-counting. I've exchanged emails and done some IM's with my new roommate. He seems like a cool guy. I'm more interested in animal sciences and he's leaning towards agronomy and soil conservation. But we're both from farming families and backgrounds so we have lots in common.
Not too much vacation this year. Jon and I went sailing with the other guys for four days right after we gratuated, but from then on it's been steady work for all of us. What with the price of gas where we live I'm grateful for a job. The field crops are starting to come in and that's always a busy time. I spent all week cutting the rowen in the pasturage fields.
Been doing some RC plane flights, Jon's working on this wicked cool model of some German warship, we're working on our trucks some. Jon bought a set of old lake pipes from a guy up county and we fit them on his S-10. Then there's all the usual tidewater summer stuff. Sailin' some, and crabbin', and fishin', and swimmin' and sailin' some more. Most nights after work somebody will have a cookout and we'll do some swimming.
So that's the update. Hope you dudes are having a great summer too.
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unsui
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Likes it here |
Registered: September 2007
Messages: 338
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No Message Body
[Updated on: Fri, 24 October 2008 17:52] |
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Summer went by like a speeding train. Wish I was getting ready for college, but I got another year of HS to go and i starts around the 13th of August. Just a couple of more weeks of work left for me and I was so glad to get the job.
Weeksends were spent on the farm as usual and Jeff and me had some really good times.
All good things must come to an end.
Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you......
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This old fart wishes you young farts all the best. You guys both impress me as solid and centered and well able to deal with gay vs society...and in the South no less.
Eldon, hope you have a blast in college. Take full advantage of all the intellectual and social stimuli there; you won't see its like again.
Brit
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That's what this summer has been like for me. Of course all the cool stuff Eldon mentioned, and all the fun with the usual suspects. But when I turned eighteen at the end of May, I crossed that weird invisable line into being an adult in the eyes of the law. Eldon won't be eighteen until mid-September, so I suppose what we do with each other is against the law! Not that either of us is likey to be calling child protective services. Then there was the day I had to meet Dad at the bank, with the family attorney, and bank accounts were suddenly in my name alone, and title to the truck was in my name alone, and I learned I had an amount of inherited family money... and weirdest of all was a week later when I had to go and sign my Will. I still don't understand why an eighteen year old guy needed a Will, but Dad and our attorney insisted. It's odd being a "man of property."
Then another threshold this week when I registered to vote. It dawned on me that in November, in an obscure church in an obscure corner of this beautiful State, my one vote will help decide who will be the next President of the United States. Yikes! As corny as it will sound, I suddenly felt this vast continuity to the past, through all the sacrifices members of my family have made in all the wars, from the Revolution onwards, so that I would have this amazing right to choose who I want to govern my Country.
Then, oh man, leaving for college. Leaving friends and family I've seen every day of my life. That's a massive threshold. I'm excited as anything one second and nervous as hell the next. But it will work out. Eldon and I will be about an hour and a half apart, alternate weekends at each other's colleges are being talked over.
But no matter what threshold there is, I know I'm not facing it or crossing it alone. Mom and Dad have been great about everything, Eldon is great.
Dudes, it doens't get any better than this!
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Will?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for reminding me... I'll call my lawyer right away.
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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Yes will. I had to make one when I turned eighteen to as I inherited some property and money. And like our young friends my bank accounts were in dual names with my father as guarantor.
I had to make another one two years ago when I entered a Civil Partnership as the previous one is voided by virtue of the change of circumstances.
Paul.
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But still, wasn't it a strange feeling to be eighteen and be placed in a position to think "if I were to die tomorrow...???" It felt strange to me anyway!
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JimB
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Likes it here |
Registered: December 2006
Messages: 349
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"if I were to die tomorrow...???" I still find it a strange thought and I've got 40+ years on you. Let's hope that you feel the same when you are 60; it means that you are still healthy and young at heart.
JimB
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Yes, It did feel strange, but I went along with itand happily went off to college. Five weeks later I got a call. My dad had suffered a heart attack in the office and did'nt make it. My mother was a total trouper and held us all together during that crisis and would not hear of any delaying or dropping out. She continued to be a force until her 88th year then slipped slowly away. You just never know.
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Yes, Jon,
Actually it's strange being 73 and thinking what would happen if I die tomorrow. I hope it will feel strange to you when you are 73. But it does make one think about the people you care for and those that depend on you for anything. And it leaves odd results sometimes - my aunt, convinced she was almost a pauper, left the residue of her property (after a few legacies that were not much more than presents to old friends) to a religious charity. When she died it turned out that the residue was over £30,000!
I think she would have had a different will if she had known.
So don't just have a will but review it and bring it up to date as appropriate.
Love,
Anthony
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Yes, indeed, but don't let go.
When I went to university I caught a nasty bug and was in bed for three or four days. The weather was icy and my bedroom was unheated and I knew no-one in the college.
A boy in a nearby room (we all had our own rooms - one room and a bedroom - the lavatories and washing facilities were in another block; one had to walk outside to get to them!) came in and lent me his radio to reduce my boredom. When I got well I had missed many of the start of term parties, introductions and club sessions. I had to choose my social and sporting activities almost blind and perhaps I didn't choose wisely.
Rowing, for example probably took more time than anything else I could have chosen. I then hadn't time to be political or to explore subjects outside my core curriculum. I don't know whether that was good or bad. I do believe it made a huge difference to the 'shape' of my three years at Oxford and I don't think I'd advise anyone to do as I did. On the other hand I've never been so fit as I became then! I still regret not having a lover that I would want to benefit from that.
My uncle went to Yale and joined the fencing team and fencing became his life and he was never happy in his work after that. I wasn't so unlucky - the jobs I had after university were mostly like being allowed to play all day and get paid for it.
I have the impression that young men nowadays are much more mature and better able to choose things that will suit the rest of their lives well - but at the same time I'm amazed how young you are. I was 21 at the end of my first term at Oxford and was still not mature enough to make wise decisions.
But I had no lover and my parents seemed almost not interested. I was on my own in a way you are not. I think you realise how much better off you are too.
Choose wisely - choose so that you will be pleased with your choice in five or ten years.
Love,
Anthony
[Updated on: Thu, 31 July 2008 13:47] |
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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That's what I just did. If I hadn't just had it rewriten everything might have gone to a looser of unlimited proportions.
And I wouldn't want that to happen.
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Why do you think young persons make better decisions now than in the past?
I think I made pretty sound decisions regarding my field of study. The people I was in under-grad school were confident in their choices as well.
I think the only serious difference is the speed the internet provides for responce regarding informed decisions. Feedback is immidiate and therefore provides a direct resource for educational choices.
I've seen this personally because I have returned for another degree and it is a definate advantage when choosing courses.
Also....
Last term I put a bug in the ear of many many students.... I made them aware that we as students have not only the right, but the responsibility to interview college instructors. We spend too much money for this education and we are entitled to the best instructors that money can buy.
It's only fair to have as much information as possible in order to make these informed decisions.
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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Dear Marc,
I was talking about me and my generation, not youngsters like you.
I think I made bad choices. Maybe if I'd made what I now think are better choices they wouldn't have turned out well. Who can tell?
Life does not allow control experiments!
Love,
Anthony
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Well, I'm not in any way a "youngster" I graduated from college the first time some 35 years ago....
And life does indeed allow for control experiments.
Though they are always viewed in retrospect.
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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No, Marc,
Life doesn't allow for control experiments, the essence of which is to discern the effect of changing one variable in an experiment and seeing what effect the change has.
In life you can't try the effect of one choice and then go back and make a different choice if you didn't like the effect of the first one.
Love,
Anthony
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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If you insist...
But doesn't that preclude the chance to alter ones mistakes and create a more comfortable path?
[Updated on: Sun, 03 August 2008 11:26]
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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acam wrote:
> In life you can't try the effect of one choice and then go back and make a different choice if you didn't like the effect of the first one.
I've done it lots of times. What you can't do is totally erase the impacts of your first choice. You can, however, lessen those impacts depending on what your next "choice" is and how you go about implementing that "choice".
(\\__/) And if you don't believe The sun will rise
(='.'=) Stand alone and greet The coming night
(")_(") In the last remaining light. (C. Cornell)
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No, Marc,
Of course it doesn't. You can say sorry to someone you've been unfair to. You can make up with someone when you had a quarrel. You can always do your best to make amends.
But you can't undo the unfairness or the quarrel, all you can do is kiss and make it better.
Love,
Anthony
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Yes, EJ,
ofc ourse one can - as I've just written to Marc - but that's not what a control experiment is. And I was arguing with Marc who did'nt accept that control experiments in real life cannot be tried.
Love,
Anthony
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