It's generally known that there are 12 cycles or 'signs' of the zodiac. I've recently discovered that there is a very rare 13th cycle that comes into play seemingly randomly. This cycle is represented by a symbol that is very similar in appearance to the letter 'X'.. and these years are referred to as "Year of the sparx" or "The year of sparx" depending on which restaurant you're eating at and which vendor they ordered their zodiac placemats from.

2008 is such a year. I saw it in a dream

You know those periods of nostalgic regression? When you start listening to music that you used to like "back in the day", when you feel urges to do things you haven't done since you were a kid - like making snow forts, going sledding, going down a slide and climbing the ladder as fast as you can just so you can go back down again?

Right now I'm just on the music and snow fort part of the phase, but I can feel my mindset changing. I feel much less cynical, much more optimistic and excited about simple things.. and, unfortunately for some people, much more tempted to cut out the parts of my life that I feel are bringing me down.

It definitely feels like it's almost time to move on.. this "moving back" that I'm going through seems a bit out of place, but it's part of the ride.

I can only think of one way to end this post - a video of two baby pandas wrestling. Be amazed by their absolute lack of coordination.

If you recognize that as the first lyric of one of our songs.. then you're probably laughing, or at least smirking a bit.

But really, I did. Unfortunately it was just in a dream.

I've been meaning to post about dreams, not a specific dream, just dreams in general. The only problem is that when I started writing it, it turned into a mess. My thoughts were coming out less coherent than normal, and I just came up with so much stuff that I couldn't seem to cram the thoughts into words. This one will take some work, it might even end up being a few posts/rants to get it all out. Maybe next Monday.

Here's the thing though - very rarely do I remember my dreams. Almost never can I recall specific conversations. And even more rare are the ones that seem so realistic that I have to verify that it was actually a dream and didn't really happen. But last night, in my dream, I met someone that I feel is going to have a profound effect on my life. I can't even describe the bizarreness of that feeling, or how wrong it seems when I think about it, but I really want to just curl back up in bed and continue the chat that I was having last night.

Have you ever stopped to think about how, at this exact moment, you are closer to the end of everything than you ever have been?

This may seem rather trivial, almost not worth mentioning, definitely not worth an entire post: I cut my hair. I woke up with an urge, no, a "calling" of sorts to finally chop the stuff off. Normally I would second guess something like that, put some thought into it, but as soon as it entered my mind I knew that it was right and that it was just something that I was going to do. So it was done.

Why is this significant? I think part of the reason that I grew my hair out to begin with was because of the overwhelming part of my personality that makes me feel like, at times, I should just hide. The hair was a mask, a veil, something that I could put between me and the world. Not so much physically, it bugged the living fuck out of me to constantly push it out of my face - but psychologically it was a barrier that I could use to escape.

I was not recognized today when I went into the coffee shop.

There are people in my life, people I've befriended, people that I work with, and people that I'm just casual acquaintances of that have never seen me with hair shorter than shoulder length. Tomorrow, at work, I know that it will become a topic of conversation.
"Hey, did you get your hair cut?" - yes, do you really need to ask?
"You got your hair cut." - ugh. thanks, I hadn't noticed.
"Nice haircut." - thank you

I'm tempted to just wear my hat all day, and put all of that off until the next time I decide to go into work - which happens to be Wednesday afternoon.. I love using up my vacation time. BUT.. to do that would be to fall into the same traits that I've begun to shed, the reasons why I decided to shed the hair.

You should have seen the pile - It looked like someone swept up a small dog.

.. or maybe just the books and possibly any plant material that may be in the air. I still want to blame it on work though, since it is probably the most unhealthy thing in my life.

This weekend was incredible. It started out with a halloween party that I won't talk about.. and turned into one of those life-changing events that I always seem to be looking for but can never find. There aren't many people that I can attribute with having changed my life, in fact, I think now I'm only up to 3. I've never had someone in my life that could reflect my thoughts back at me so well, or just talk about everything and nothing, with absolutely no string attached to the friendship. Friends like that are rare. It was almost 2 days straight of me learning more about myself than I ever thought I could.. things I didn't even know that I didn't know.

I also rediscovered my ability to make food. REAL food. Food that looks AND tastes good.

So, if you manage to see me around and wonder why I seem to be even happier than I have been… It's an odd feeling, to feel like myself again. I need to hang on to this.

Like many other people, I've tried my hand at learning another language.. only to become bored and give up on it. I had a spanish class in middle school, and took a couple years of german in high school. I remember almost nothing that I learned for either language. Some german has stuck with me, mostly insults, but that's about it. Over the last few years I've also attempted to learn some japanese and russian. I can say "excuse me" in russian and sometimes I'll come up with a phrase in japanese, but won't be able to remember what it means.

There's a new web service call Mango, and I'm very impressed with it. It's currently in beta, which mean the bugs aren't all worked out.. it could stop working, or steal your foot, you never know. Mango is a flash based application, that's completely free, and uses a format that seems superior to anything that I've ever come across (language classes included.)

Each lesson is broken up into slides (like a powerpoint presentation) that you can go through at your own pace. The slides include audio pronunciation, you can mouse over words to see a visual pronunciation guide, and you can skip forward or go back at any point. There are also slides explaining any oddities of a part of speech, and explaining important concept in detail. It's about as close to a 1-on-1 tutor as you can get, not to mention a lot cheaper.

The following languages are currently available in the beta: Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, French, Greek, English for Spanish Speakers, and English for Polish Speakers.

Maybe there actually is a point to us being here, maybe we do all have some important role to play in the grand scheme of things. Or maybe some people do, and the rest of us are just pawns. Neither one of those seems very appealing. In the first case, having something to work towards without having any idea of the goal is just frustrating. The second.. well, you just end up being a pawn. Who wants that? (ok, maybe some people do.)

I'll admit that at times I like to believe that there's some plan and reason to things, and that things usually work out the way they're supposed to. But, for the sake of this post, I'm going to shun the ideas of fate, destiny, predetermination, and any other words with similar meaning. This is another "path to happiness" type post I guess, and it might just be a rehash of what I've posted before - hopefully not.. but sitting here at work has made me start to rethink what it is I'm "supposed" to be doing.

At first I was thinking the answer was "It's not what I'm 'supposed' to be doing, but what I 'want' to be doing." But that's both right and wrong. I'm supposed to be doing whatever it is that makes me happy, and what I want to be doing plays a big role in that. The problem is, I'm not really sure what it is I want to be doing with my life, or what it is that would truly make me happy. I think a lot of people run into this problem, and I think it's why there's such a large market for self-improvement products. It's much easier to figure out that you don't like what you're currently doing than it is to figure out what you'd like to be doing.

A quick inventory of the things that I like brought up: photography, programming, writing, and a girl that I care so much about. If I could figure out how to bring in those good things into my life, and manage to support myself without having to bring in a job that I dread going to.. that would be my dream life. That would be the thing that makes me happy, and the thing that I'm supposed to do.

I think I just figured out a huge chunk of my life in the last 5 minutes. I can't work here much longer. I have to make the leap and try to build a better life instead of sticking with what's comfortable. I don't know how to break past the fear of facing the unknown though. People do it all the time. You, whoever is reading this, have probably made blind leaps towards your goals at times. How?