wedding bells

this weekend was a mini-escape from the reality of everyday life (ie vet school). my 1st cousin, whom we all grew up with, got married in durham, NC. it was an extravagant wedding. the food was absolutely amazing (at the reception AND the rehearsal dinner). and there were 2 open bars. i ate and drank too much and spent much of today feeling vaguely full and queasy. but it was a decadent, good time. i got to see my family and spend some time with them. not much, as everyone was up for the weekend only. but it was enough. and i'm going to FL next saturday for my spring break, to stay with my grandparents and help out where i can. it was kind of hard seeing everyone, because i can see the toll that crosby's death has taken. the joviality of our family - the loud raucousness - while still present - is much more subdued. i could see that my family isn't sleeping well, as a whole. still, everyone contrived to have a nice time. i think it would have been the best wedding i'd ever been to, if the cloud of crosby's death hadn't been hanging over it. that - and his 2nd birthday was last week.

t. and a. (haha, i never realized they're T&A) looked very happy. i guess everyone calls him by his given name now, he made people stop calling him by his nickname years ago. but i grew up with that kid - and he was and always will be t. to me. but to no one else outside our family, i guess. it's funny how time goes by and you lose track of things. we used to see t. virtually everyday. and now, i'm lucky if i see him twice a year at family gatherings. the shape of your life is constantly changing, but you're so inside of it that you don't notice the change. then one day it hits you - bam! your life is never the same, from moment to moment. and yet it is. and yet it manages to change.

i'm reading the fountainhead still. nearing the end (150pgs more to go). it's absolutely riveting and galvanizing. it makes me want to take a stand for total integrity and absolute idealism. not to let the pettiness of mundane life drag me down into the mud. it's such a beautiful and disturbing book. it brings to light both the most awful and depraved within people and the most beautiful and luminescent. seeing the two side by side gives me an uneasy feeling, because it's hard to see where i fall. toward the awful and depraved, i fear. or is that only how my christian upbringing would have me perceive myself? at any rate, i am finding the book to be a lot less boring than i expected! i can't put it down. and i'm afraid of what's going to happen when i'm finished. not afraid that i'll affect some big change in my life - but afraid that i won't. that i'll read something that clearly expresses my ideas and feelings about the world, and then i won't act on them. i'll store the knowledge away, to gather dust in the back of my mind. unused, untouched, uncontemplated. it's easier just to go on living life according to the status quo. it really is. and that's what most of us will do. it's sad. as socrates said, 'the unexamined life is not worth living.' i'm probably taking that quote terribly out of context, but it suits my purposes.

ah. at any rate, enough pseudo-philosophical ramblings. i will never attain what i want with my life - that state of near perfection, of righting all the character wrongs, and whatnot. so why try? i hate a defeatist attitude, but it lingers on.

oh yes, i am in vet school. i finished endocrinology up on friday. we had our midterm, and it was incredibly grueling. it was in the neighborhood of 18 pages and took the entire time (which is unusual for me). i was glad to be finished. we left for the wedding about 2 hours later (2 hours of frantic packing and cleaning). nutrition winds up this coming friday - heralding the start of spring break. but we have 2 new classes to add to the roster - zoonoses and pharm part II. so...it's not letting up. but i'm not stressed anymore. i have finally and successfully removed myself from the stress of school. not the stress of never having any time to myself, but the stress of caring about grades and performance. and the stress of trying to be socially accepted. i find that those things matter very little, ever since crosby died. sad that it took something so tragic to TRITELY snap my perspective back into focus. but alas, i'm human and trite, just like the rest of you.