Two Hours Delay

Wow it has been quite some time since I've made a serious post, I apologize to any of you who actually want to know what I've been up to. With that being said, this post will be a lot of what's been on my mind lately, what I've been planning to do, and what I've been up to.

First of all, what have I been doing?
Well I am now a full blown assistant basketball coach. Along with that title come all the responsibilities of not being the head guy in charge, meaning I have to do a lot of the grunt work. Last night I got to travel to another school, while we had a home game, and scout two of the teams playing. It was my first scouting experience but it was pretty good. Watching two teams play that I have no stock in is interesting, and by half time I found myself routing for one of the teams regardless. During practice times I'm in charge of the extra conditioning, mostly from disciplinary actions, of the kids, as well as make sure practice keeps moving along in a timely fashion, working the scoreboard, getting supplies, and keeping the kids focused. Every now and then I actually get to coach, but since I have very limited basketball experience I suppose its not so much of a bad thing for me to not have too much input.
During the daytimes, I either have been staying at home, or more recently substitute teaching a lot. I have become somewhat of a token celebrity sub as all the kids who about me and cheer whenever they see me in the hallways. I get a lot of sighs when they realize I'm not really there for their class ha. I think  a lot of my renown comes from my little bro, who appears to be known by everyone of all grade levels there. Last Saturday we had a surprise 18th Birthday party for him and there were over 40 kids at our house....40, I can't remember a time in high school when I could get 10 people together much less 40. But anyway I sub anywhere from 2-5 times a week, which means I get to go to bed around 11 every night and wake up at 6. The good thing is this prepares me for the job I'm going to get one day, although at this moment that seems a good bit off.
As for my social life, I've been experimenting hanging out with different groups of people and so far nothing of note has happened. I guess it's true what my little brother says about me I have "high standards for everything." I mean when it comes to friends, at this point, I'm not too interested in making acquaintances I only go out to the bars with, because well I've done all that before, and we did it well. I'm trying to make more well rounded friends that either have their life in order already, or are at least on a path to do so. Oddly enough, the more I substitute teach, the closer I get to a lot of the teachers in the school. They start to ask for me by name to cover their classes and a lot of the younger teachers have heard about me. This is nice because there are a couple of them that I would like to get to know better and for the moment at least they aren't rocking any jewelery on their left hands.
So anyways as a summary, I've been coaching, sub teaching, and searching for a new group of friends closer than Chicago and Michigan.

What I've been planning/thinking about my future.
So what do I want to do eventually, its a question that people always seem to ask you when you meet and a pretty good one I think. It's always nice for a person to know the path their on, and eventually where they want that path to take them. For me the answer is definite, back to school. I'm just about ready to finish paying off my education at Michigan, thanks to living at home and working and saving money, and now about ready to start that grad school thing. Due to my lack of being able to get my official transcripts, I wasn't able to feel the fall deadlines in entirety,  so the people at the office of the local school I'm applying to are trying to work it out or I just might have to wait for spring. In either case I plan on going back to school and getting my master's in counseling psych. After that I want to work asap, and hopefully continue to work towards my Ph.D. As I continue to coach and interact with student athletes, I'm thinking that I have an interest in coaching also. So I'm looking into schools with  graduate assistant coaching positions and potentially trying to do that route as well. In the mean time I will continue to coach at my high school and keep meeting contacts and people in the area to get my foot into that door as well.
As basketball season begins to wind down, I'm looking ahead to my real passion, Track. This spring I get to start coaching track which I am very excited for. To be able to teach kids to love the sport that got me so far in my young life and gave me the opportunities to see things I would never have seen otherwise. I think that while my high school doesn't offer a lot of talented kids, they have tons of kids who are hard workers and listen well, which is precisely the type of kid I was, so I'm confident that I can help make a difference in these kids' lives on and off the track. Its very convenient for me to coach and substitute but I am looking into maybe finding another day job for the spring season.
As for my social future, well that's really the only real foggy part of my future. I'm heading up to Ann Arbor on  Thursday for a kind of "last hurrah" if you will and I'm pretty excited for it. I say it that way because honestly I can't continue to rely on trips to Ann Arbor to get my social fix in. i'm pretty sure I need to find a way to build some kind of presence here, at the very least to be able to show my friends a good time if they ever find themselves on the east coast. While Mike D and I had a great time, I still feel like I could have been such a better host, so I'm working on that. Also I want to start planning some reunion with cass and chin, and now with wheeler moving even further out of reach to Denver, that will be a tough chore indeed. But it shouldn't be so hard after all, because soon enough I'll be able to buy my own car, which will be the first time I'll own and drive a car that is outright mine, so I'm pretty excited for this import step in my independence.


What's on my mind? (Not a facebook status update ha)
Well again I have been struggling with this whole 45 situation. On one side, I am really on or off as in how much I like her and when I'm not really into it. Usually when I'm in a situation like this my intuition tells me that if I'm not always into her, and I don't always want to see her, then its probably a recipe for disaster. But for some reason I'm reluctant to go down that path again. I sometimes get the sense that she too is holding back, just because she doesn't know how to feel about this unnamed limbo we've been in for the last couple of months to a year. So I think that, as a person who talks about taking chances and leaps of faith, I should follow my own advice here. After my michigan trip this upcoming week/end, I think I will finally make that step to official and then actually give her a complete chance of a relationship. The reason is that as for now I have no real reasons to progress or digress, but staying in the middle is bad for both of us and keeping us from moving on. There are a couple of reasons for why I said I'll wait till I get back, one she's pretty sick right now so we won't be able to go on dates or anything like that for a while anyway. And two, well we all know what Rick's is like, I'd rather not put myself in a curious situation in a fresh relationship. Ah man I'm going to guess that a couple of my next blogs after this will be all about the new Stev with a girlfriend so look out for those, they are sure to be amusing and probably confusing.
My mom recently pointed out to me that I've been out of college for a year this past December. That thought made me pause for a second...is this where I pictured myself a year after college? Certainly not, but at least I am on my way to getting to where I thought I would be. I mean a lot happened after graduation and I think i've done my best to stay focused and keep looking ahead, and as always I'm 100% positive that I'm in the position I should be in and will get to where I want to be.


Well that about does it for now, It sucks that I don't have any cool stories to tell or anything. I mean the only interesting thing I've heard lately is my friend say that he decided to give up doing drugs, while he was tripping on Acid....Yeah a pretty unique situation but hey I support anyone who gives up on hard drugs, because as he said he realized "they don't get you anywhere."


The Raven's play today!!!! Yeah it's been a tough year being a fan again, because they are a terribly boring team to watch, unless you absolutely love defense, but lets admit it, good defense makes for bad television. And I suppose the Bears play sometime this weekend too, but I hate them and Jay Cutler, but for the sake of Chin I guess they can win too.