i have something niggling at me that i need to write down - but every time i start to attempt to explain it, i find that i really can't. rattling around inside of my brain is the feeling of impermanence, coupled with the knowledge of my own ephemeral existence. on top of that...i just feel ... odd? i guess. i don't know. i have too much time on my hands. i'm volunteering at the shelter and supposedly - any day now - i'll start the research that i'm getting paid for... so it's not exactly like i'm choosing to be lazy. i can't get another job - with the possibility of actually starting my research soon looming...so i'm basically stranded...waiting for real work to begin...and i guess i'm bored. which is always bad, because it gives my mind ample time to work up to a neurotic episode. i had a panic 'flit' last night - which is the beginning of a panic attack -that i got under control in amazingly rapid time - a few minutes...i guess. i was still up till 4am though, assuring that when i finally did go to sleep, i would stay that way.

i don't know what started this weird feeling. yes i do...actually. i was browsing around on vetnet and stumbled across a classified ad for a room rental. the post was by an incoming first year from NCstate. when i saw that pictures of the room/house for rent were posted, i went and looked - and wound up on the girls photo album website. i stayed and cruised around, looking at pictures of this future vet and her friends, family, trips, holidays, and graduations. i think that looking at those pictures gave me a sort of 'life deja-vu' -- in that -- despite the fact that i know nothing about her or her friends or family...the pictures made me think of my family and friends... and i realized that we are all the same. not in the literal sense - everyone has different life experiences. . . but we are all humans, floating along on this rapidly turning planet, moving toward the inevitable conclusion of life, involved in our own pursuits, our own lives, happily (or unhappily) immersed in the existence that defines our paradigm...and yet (at least in my opinion) we are all headed for the same end. and what's it all for ? ?

i'll refrain from ranting about the futility of life and existence ... because i often wind up arguing from a nihilistic standpoint - and really, that can't work, can it? because if i were a nihilist, i would just slit my wrists and get it over with... life is one big anticlimax.

i had intended to write this post to talk about what i learned from my first year of vet school and what i think about vet school and how i feel about becoming a vet and how excited i am to get to fourth year, even though that means 2 more years of my life are irrevocably gone..but now, i can't think of how to start or why it matters.