Emi's Journal

Very few people I am in touch with will appreciate this for what it is. But there are still a few. And I thought they might enjoy this.

I found it while reading through some old message board threads that I had saved on my computer. I don't even remember writing this. It was written on February 18, 2006…. At 4 AM, apparently. That would put me… In Japan, that would have been when I was in Japan!

Anyway, I apparently wrote this and I thought it was really really cool. Not that most people will appreciate it, but there's a few. So this is for my Westie family….. I miss you guys!
 

"This is just something I was thinking about as I sat in bed working on sudoku…. Just some thoughts that I thought I'd share.

I'm proud to be a Westie. We're more than just people united by the love of Matthew West's music. We're family. Sure, we can be wild at times, but that's just who we are. We have our differences, whether we say so or not. I can remember a few times where a little anger may have started to show, but isn't that how all families are? Online it's easier to hide, but it still shows sometimes. That's just how it is.

The best thing about us would be the welcoming nature… We want you to join us. We want to get to know you. We want to share this friendship/family love that we have. There's plenty to go around. We don't care about what your life is like "in the real world." We want to be your friend. If you go through hard times, we want to help. Whether it's talking you through something hard, praying for you, or just being there to read your rants. We want to do it. We care. We wont judge you. We want to be there for you. Families have fun together, and they go through hard times together too. We wont just push you away when that happens. We wont say "You did this, so we don't like you anymore." We understand, and we want to help, like any good family does.

Is this who the Westies are, or who I want us to be? To be honest, I'm not sure. I know we are welcoming, but I can't speak for everyone in saying all. I know this is who I want to be, and I also know that at times I need to be a bit better about it. But if you contact me, I'll be there… And I want anyone to feel free in doing so.

In all the message boards I've been on, I feel that this one has been the most welcoming, family-like community. It's not a huge community, and I hope that we do grow. In the same way I kind of fear it growing, because it may change…. But knowing the Westies, I don't think I have much to worry about. As long as those of us who are already here keep being ourselves, I don't think I have to worry about it changing. People may come and go (preferably come!), but I think the Westies will always be the Westies.

This board has welcomed me as me more than any other board has. I may be the top poster, I may be a moderator, but does that really mean anything? Not really. I've been here a long time, and get on a lot. I was given a few extra privileges by the admin… But I'm no different from the rest of them, and they know that. Even if I point out at times that "I'm a moderator" or "I'm an old member"… I don't know why I do it, and I try to avoid it. I know as much as they do that it doesn't make me better than them. Any other member could have easily been chosen for the moderator position, but I was given the chance, something I will forever be thankful for. Anyone else could have joined early, posted a lot, it really doesn't mean anything. The Westies know that. For that, I am thankful.

We don't worship Matthew West. We're all fans, but not totally obsessively like people on some other fan boards are. We don't worship the ground he walks on. I think if you asked, a lot of us here would say it's more like he's a friend. That may seem kind of weird, but I think it's true. I know when I met him he wasn't all "I'm popular. I'm cooler than you." He made me feel like a friend. He seemed genuinely glad to meet me. I still don't know if he really recognized "Pikados" or if he was just humoring me… But still. He made me feel welcome. Like a friend, more than just another fan. And I think the other Westies, even the ones who have only chatted online with him, feel the same way. He's a part of the Westie family. Probably the center of the family, seeing as he's the one that got us all here, but still a part of the family.

The Westies are just a down to Earth group of people. We know it's not about us. It's not about Matthew, it's not about music, it's not about CDs, it's not about any one of us. It's about the One who is control of it all. There may be some members who may not totally believe that yet, and hey, that's cool too! We hope someday you do, but we wont judge you for it. We wont pressure you into anything you aren't ready for. Stick around, join in the fun, and maybe someday you will choose to join the biggest family of all, even bigger than our little Westie family here!

So I guess there's one thing I really want for the Westies…. I want us to be a totally open community. Regardless of where you're from, what you've been through, who you are…. I want anyone to feel welcome to come in and talk. I want people to be able to say what they're thinking without any judgment? Isn't that what I'm doing here? Just saying what I'm thinking….. It's kind of weird, but if I guess it all has to start somewhere. Nobody should feel OBLIGATED to do so, but they should know that they are most certainly WELCOME to. There's no way for me to know if we have fully succeeded in this. I never will. But every time I see someone comfortable enough to come out and tell us some stuff about themselves that may be kind of hard to share, I know we've at least made a step in the right direction….. And that makes me pretty darn happy. I see it fairly often in the prayer request forum… I remember long ago asking Jake to make that area, and I'm so glad he did! It may not be as popular as our lounge or our games, but I see a lot of good stuff going on in there. Stuff that makes me proud to be a Westie. The openness, the understanding, and the willingness to step up and say "I'll be praying… What else can I do?". People just willing to be there, willing to pray, willing to listen (or read, as the case may be). That's pretty awesome, if you ask me.

This is pretty long…. It started out as just a few points randomly coming to mind, and the thought just kept coming as I typed. I'm not entirely sure why I decided to write this all out, but I think I'm glad I did. It has helped me to see things I need to improve in…. Maybe it'll help another person out there too. Maybe it'll encourage someone to step up and say "Hey, I could use some help here." I don't know. Maybe it'll just be something for me…. I know for sure it's at least helped me. I'm only making this longer now…. Kind of rambling on. So I guess I'll finish up. If you read it, cool. If not, cool. To those who are reading, I love you guys! Keep being the awesome Westie family you are, and maybe even improve a bit. There's always room for improvement, right? I love you guys. You are the best family I've had through the internet! "

I'm not one for sending Christmas cards. Mostly because I'm cheap. And also because I'm lazy. But I'm not against doing a "letter." Except that I do it as a blog post, because I'm cheap. And lazy. But I do like to do a year-end summary thing, and a lot of people do that as their Christmas card. But I do it as a blog post. Sometimes it's a New Years thing, sometimes I don't do it at all… This year it's my "Christmas card."
 

So Merry Christmas from myself and my boys (Ret, Nemo, and Pyrite)! And I guess Indie and Ery too, though they're pretty much in hibernation at the moment.

It's been a great year for us. Of course the start of the year was largely consumed by me coming off my high from my trip to Antarctica last year. And catching up on sleep. But soon it returned to being consumed by school. And my once-a-week internship at the Alsea Hatchery working a fish trap, among other things.

After my job in Alsea ended I was once again unemployed. Then in May I began my first REAL job! I was hired on for a 6 month position with the Western Oregon warmwater fish program with the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife. It was a job that I LOVED and look forward to returning to next spring.

On June 11 I graduated from Oregon State University with a double bachelor's degree in Fish & Wildlife Sciences and Zoology, and a minor in Chemistry. Though I was not the youngest graduate (who was 19), I was close, and was one of the 180-ish students graduating with more than one degree. I was honored the night before with the Senior of the Year award at the graduation party for the Fisheries & Wildlife department at school. This is an award I first learned about freshman year, and have dreamed of winning since then.

I also moved out of my apartment in June, and bought my first home! I am now living in a 37 foot 5th wheel toy hauler, that goes wherever I need it to go. Currently it is parked outside of Monmouth, on my grandma's farm. I love living out there, and Ret does too! It is there that I acquired Pyrite, my second cat. He was less than a pound when I caught him, and is now quickly approaching six pounds.

So this year has been a big year. Or at least the first half was. The second half was not as exciting, mostly containing working, and now unemployment. I keep myself busy with volunteer projects and fishing, and of course geeking out for Christmas! And the start of the year more than makes up for the calm of the second half.

Working, graduation, and buying a home. Now I enter the real world. I am several months in to paying off loans now, with more loan payments kicking in shortly. We have entered into the real world, and are loving every second of it. The boys run around outside all day, and I do whatever needs to be done. It's been a great year, and I hope it has been the same for you.

Merry Christmas everybody, and may your new year be blessed!

It's Christmas time. I love Christmas time! I love decorating, I love baking, I love making candy, I love giving gifts. I love doing Tree of Joy in Creswell.

But as much as I love being home for Christmas, being with my family, doing all this stuff I love…. A piece of me aches for the southern hemisphere. I find myself almost unable to look at pictures without tears coming to my eyes. Every day I'm reminising on "one year ago today…"

And I wonder if my fellow Antarctic travelers are having the same problem. Or am I alone in this? I was the one person that wanted so bad to never leave the ship… The one that didn't ever want to leave. The one that didn't want to go home. So maybe I'm the one that aches to be back? Every day. I long for a world of ice, penguins, and pristine beauty as far as the eye could see.

Don't get me wrong. I'm excited to be home! The family Christmas is… Well, I guess now it's today. I love being with my family! I love giving gifts! And getting them isn't half bad either. I was so glad to be able to do Tree of Joy distribution this year, as I missed it last year. And I love Christmas!!!

It's just that part of me can't help it. And sometimes it's a disturbingly large part of me. I miss my friends. I miss my travel buddies. They had my back. And I was the trouble-maker, so that's saying something! Not that I chose to be the trouble-maker. Things just turned out that way. But despite the trouble I got myself in to, I long to be back. I long to be on the ship. I long to be on deck. I long for the snow, the noise, the waves. I long for the people I barely knew that cared about me, and helped me even when I was so tired I was freaking out. I long for the hours of sitting in complete awe of what was in front of me. Hours I spent just staring at the ocean. Or the penguins. Or the ice. I'd give anything to be back.

And it hurts to think that maybe Christmas wont ever be the same. Every year a part of me will want to be there. And I wouldn't trade that for anything. I wouldn't. But still. I feel like as much as I love Christmas, I can't throw myself into it like I used to. And maybe that's a good thing, because I was such a Christmas geek before that maybe it needed toning down. Because compared to your average human I am probably still a total Christmas geek, even with a part of my heart stuck, frozen to the other end of the world.

But I miss my ship. I miss my travel family. I miss my penguins. I miss adventure. I miss that endless wonder. That endless awe. That feeling that any moment I might wake up and be back home… That it was all a dream… It was too good to be true, but it was! But now that feeling is reality. Every time I go back… And I do… I wake up back home. And I long to go back to sleep, back to the Sveteva, back to my dreams. Back to the people, the places, the sights, the sounds.

I miss it every day, but especially this time of year. It's hard. People I know are there. Even people I encouraged to go. And I hate that I am jealous, but I am. Because Antarctica is my dream. It's my adventure. And it's a time in my life that has shaped who I am. Antarctica is a part of me now, and I am a part of Antarctica. And that will never change. And I don't want that to change. Through the tears, the longing, the aching to be back…. It's a part of me now. And I will be back someday. I don't know when, I don't know how, but I will be back.

A few weeks back I was listening to the episode of This American Life from the week Osama Bin Laden was killed. The theme for that week was "This Week," chronicling events from the past week. The theme seemed fated, as it was quite the newsworthy week. At one point they were talking to students that celebrated in the streets after receiving the news. One part in particular struck me…

"When I'd asked another student why he and his friends cared so much about what happened Sunday, since they were just little kids when September 11th happened.  It didn't happen to them. He shot back 'No, it didn't happen to you guys. It happened to us.'"
 

I was 10 on September 11, 2011. I had just started 6th grade. I didn't know what the World Trade Center was. Or the Pentagon, for that matter. But when my mom came to wake my brother and I up, saying that the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane, I knew it was something big.

Everyone was hit hard by 9/11, but I think my generation in particular was affected. Like the student on This American Life said, it happened to us. 

At 10 years old I was old enough to watch what was going on, and understand that we had been attacked. That I was watching people die. And this was no accident. I stayed home from school that day, glued to the TV. But at 10 years old, I had no background story. I didn't know what terrorism was. I didn't know there were people out there that hated us.

My world grew on that day, ten years ago. It was a wake-up call. Even as a little sheltered west coast kid, I was affected. I learned what real fear was. What real terror was. And even though I didn't know anybody there, didn't know the places attacked, it could have just as easily happened over here. After all, they hated Americans. We are Americans too…. All of a sudden, nowhere seemed safe.

I remember wondering what would be next. This was obviously no small operation. Who's to say they weren't going to hit the west coast too? After all, when I got up the work day was just starting. Maybe Portland could be a target. It could happen here too.
 

I did more than just watch history unfold that day. I learned that evil exists in this world. That bad things do happen. Watching events unfold, breaking news rolling in, I was forced to confront reality, to grow up. At 10, I was too old to be sheltered from it. My mom realized that, and allowed me to stay home and watch. And for that I am grateful, because seeing everything firsthand as it came in gave me more information to help me understand. There was so much to learn in a short period of time. And I had to get that information to process what was happening.
 

Every generation has something that defines them. I am part of the 9/11 generation. On September 11, 2011, we learned what evil is. We learned that the world is bigger than just us. And bad things happen to good people. It was a pivotal moment. A day that forever changed us. A day that will always define a part of us. And a day we will never forget.
 

I recently acquired a notebook that was mine in 1st grade. And it's pretty amusing. I'll have to scan some of this…. But I thought I'd share some of the amazing things I wrote….

Note that I was 5. And I managed to make this take up an entire page. Plus I messed up on part of it… This is exactly as it is written, misspellings and all.
 

The Song of Math

1+1=2. This is a hard one 800+1000=10800. This is terrific. Lets try anover 100+200=300 Boy im smart The end

I don't really know why I was thinking about this today. It's a weird thing to randomly remember…. Maybe it's because we're going to my grandma's house on Sunday. The last family get-together before my cousin (Amy, who's 9 months older than me) heads off to Idaho for college. I don't know.

But anyway, today I was thinking about back when we made rabbit stew. When we were little whenever we were at Grandma's we made what we had dubbed rabbit stew. No, we were not out hunting rabbits and making dinner. Rabbit stew was made for the rabbits, in a way that only a group of little kids can do. We would take a pot, fill it with water, then proceed to throw in whatever we could find and somehow associate with something a rabbit would eat. It would start simple enough. Grass, of course. Then we might shred up some dandelions, and other plants we could find. When we ran out of the basics, we would start using our imagination. Finding rocks, dirt, etc. and pretend it was something else.
It's funny to think that we could do this EVERY time we went to Grandma's. For YEARS we would do this during every family gathering. And somehow, every single time it was fun. A pot, some water, grass, dirt, rocks… And over and over again, we'd have a blast.

Between rabbit stew and the litter of kittens that would be there without fail… Grandma's house was always a great place to be. Oh yeah, and can't forget visiting Snuffy! Getting one of the adults to take us down to The Finger…. Though we were allowed to go down to Snuffy by ourselves for about as long as I can remember. Oh, and back when the Old House was there we could sometimes get an adult to explore it with us….. And can't forget the barn! Whatever happened to those great haystacks?

I miss those simple times… Yeah, we still love going down to the pasture. And yeah, we'll go hang out in the barn, maybe feed the cows… But I don't think it has the same thrill it used to. What happened? And what ever happened to rabbit stew?
 

(Pulled from LJ
Imported to WP 07/09/2009)

Today was a sandwich kind of day. I came home craving PB&J, so I made PB&J. Then I wanted grilled cheese for dinner, so I made grilled cheese. Tuna sandwich sure sounded good, but I do have some self control… So I limited myself to two kinds of sandwiches (especially since I probably used 2/3 of a loaf of bread already).

I think I may have some OCD tendencies or something. Or maybe I just cling to my past sometimes. But there's something about sandwiches…. Let me explain.

Grilled cheese sandwiches need to be eaten in strips. Four strips. And you eat the outside (crust) ones first. Then you eat the crust off the inside ones. Then you can eat the excessively cheesy inside strips; the good stuff.
I don't know why that is. It just is. That's how it's been for, well, ever. Four strips, eaten in that order. Grilled cheese is just weird not in strips.

PB&J on the other hand… PB&J requires one slice of bread. It is meant to be a folded over sandwich. Half jam, half peanut butter. Fold it over. Eat the crust, then the gooey inside.
There have been times I've eaten a grilled cheese not in strips, but I honestly can't remember a time my PB&J wasn't a fold-over sandwich. I can't explain why, but that just sounds… Well, kind of gross to be honest. I know it's absolutely no different, but PB&J must be a fold-over sandwich! There is no logical reason to this. It just is.
I did have to step out of my comfort zone with PB&J today, but not to the point of it being a non-fold-over. I just didn't use raspberry jam, which is all I've ever used before on my PB&J.

Other than that… Well, tuna seems like it should be either whole or in triangles, but I'm not really strict about that one.

So I guess I'm OCD… About sandwiches. There is no logical explanation here. It just is. I'm weird about my grilled cheese, and my PB&J. Especially my PB&J. It really does sound gross to me to eat it as a whole sandwich. It's stupid, I recognize that, but it really does.
 

(Pulled from LJ
Imported to WP 07/09/2009)

Kento was just reminding me of dumb stuff I used to do. Apparently whenever I had to "hai-ya" (karate chop type thing) I would say "Hai-YA! Cor-VALLIS!"
No idea why, but apparently I did. Guess Corvallis was always pretty important to me.

Anyway, one thing I did… Every night after dinner I would construct "The Tower of Wisconsin". I guess Wisconsin was the most random place I could think of. No one ever said I was good at Geography. Anyway, The Tower of Wisconsin. I never liked carrying my dishes to the sink, so I would do it in as few trips as possible. In other words, one. I would stack all my dishes into a tall tower, then it would be titled "The Tower of Wisconsin." 
 

Then there were manner dogs… Ugh, I was a weird kid.
(Also, Kento could be really gross at dinner…)
 

(Pulled from LJ
Imported to WP 07/09/2009)

Pikados
Registered: 4/28/04

Posts: 20,421 6/03/04 at 09:29 PM

ROFL!!!!!!! I had to make up for the lack of school today somehow…. If it's not the summer or weekend, I just can't be dumb for a full day…. I think it's a disorder. :lol::lol:

I remember when I was younger and we went to Burger King, I would get a strawberry shake and Kento would get a chocolate.
Kento used to explain to me why he didn’t get strawberry…. He said there were crabs in them, and so he didn’t dare get them.
I always thought he just tried to scare me out of drinking it, so he could have it.