Merry Christmas, all, especially to the guy yelling in front of the church across the street

As I sat down to write something, I suddenly heard the sound of a man yelling down on the street.  Jen and I looked, and she correctly deduced that he was "crazy preaching", dressed like the Fourth Wise Man who was written out of the story.  The iPhone picture really doesn't do his outfit justice, since he was carrying what must have been one or two Holy Bible-esque parcels with his left arm, in the manner of students holding schoolbooks against their chests.  Even though we can often hear full conversations at the level of normal speech being seven stories up, the man's loud yelling bouncing off of all of the stone walls is making it difficult to make out much of what he's saying, except when he said "That is NOT loving thy neighbor as yourself!".  He's still going as I type.

I was going to write something about getting started on a book I bought several months ago, Harvard Business Review on Managing Yourself, about how I'm working to build up the fearlessness that I'll need to secure a paid internship for the summer, about how I was excited to go downstairs to the gym since it's never technically closed.

But all that has a tin ring to it when compared to the street preacher on a cold Christmas early-afternoon.  Most everything that I have to worry about is containable and none of those things involve the possibility of being unhinged in public.

As they saying goes, "the Lord works in mysterious ways".  I don't think you have to be religious to understand that.

Give thanks for your loved ones, work your plan, and enjoy the unstructured time that you've been given, wherever you happen to be.

Slow Saturday night, now Sunday morning

Semester is done, save for one paper that's due on the 23rd that I want to have done by the 21st.  Gave a good representation of what I could do, learned the system, what carries weight, met some great and solid people over the last few months.  Three-and-a-half months went by pretty quickly, it seems, but I feel like I'm on the right track with the school idea, and obviously need to have things fall into place financially for Year Two to happen, but trying not to be too concerned with what I can't control yet.

I have just over two weeks off until the winter semester begins and with it the summer-internship stampede, where I see what I can get and where I'm wanted, obviously in the hope of staying exactly where I'm at here in Toronto.  Jen continues to stay on the job-hunting trail and seems to have more frequent interviews coming along, so hopefully something will come through for her - not just so that we can breathe financially, but so that she can more fully take part in this city.

It's actually hard to write about the uncertainty, even though being a "poor" college student is hardly new or uncommon.  I feel like I can make the needed grades as long as I can stay the course, can meet the people that need meeting, can find the opportunities that need finding, create what I need to.  But the money thing... fuck.  Before, living in the same city where I grew up, there was always the feeling that I could just crash out somewhere if things really fell apart, could keep up the continuity of a job, where no one has to know or care where you live as long as you keep on showing up and keep meeting and exceeding what's expected of you.  But my family unit doesn't have that flexibility now; if we do, I can't imagine where that flexibility would come from.  And if "it" doesn't work, then what?  Do we get on a bus and go back to Minneapolis, or do we go somewhere else?  To Washington D.C., for example, where Jen has friends?  Do we try our hand in a place like Chicago?  And we have two little four-footed members of the family to consider, too, if it ever came to that - how would we pull it off?

The flip side of this, of course, is the amazing opportunity of just being here, having this platform to truly improve, and I can feel it helping.  Maybe this is what a new professional sports player feels knowing that they can be cut or sent down to the minors at any time, have everything upended; maybe this is what a fighter feels when they step into the ring, where the wrong defeat at the wrong time can throw them, sometimes permanently, from the ladder or wall that they've been climbing.  But the thing that keeps these people going is their own will to succeed, cliche though that may be.

I feel an affinity with that - I went downstairs to the gym today for the first time in weeks, determined to push my physical self as I've pushed my mental and time-blocking self with my schooling, I want to build my network further over the next few weeks, and really start to set out publicly what I'm all about when it comes to postitioning myself within and outside of school.  For I may feel the age and life-experience gap with a number of people, but that doesn't take away from the fact that they're good people, and ultimately that's the best reflection of the experience that I can take away so far.

As always, I keep on, and keep working to make the best keep on happening.