Category: life

RIP Xela (8/16/2008 – 12/20/2008)

by skyrien

So… with barely 4 months of life in her, Xela is no more. While driving down 148th Ave NE in Redmond, late Saturday evening, I suddenly lost control, slipped about 90 degrees, and the driver-side door of my car met the broadside of an indestructible pole at about 30 MPH . Needless to say, the damage was crippling: one second I’m driving down the road (straight line, flat), the next, I’m seeing this metal thing come at me really really fast, and the next, I hear a boom(!), a flash of light, and get the wind blown out of my lungs. The window and sunroof, shattered instantly, and the airbag exploded blocking the pole and probably saving my life (or at least, my brain).

IMG_0168

 

It reminded me of the time I fell off the monkey bars in kindergarten; I couldn’t breathe for about 10 seconds, but had the presence of mind to check to see if I had broken any bones. I don’t know how long I was there, but I remember knocking outside my door, and some kind strangers were saying that they called 911, and asked if I was okay.

I slowly came to my senses, and stumbled out of the car:

IMG_0157

IMG_0165

What scared me most was how the pole’s impact was exactly where my head would have been, hadn’t it been for the airbag. With it, I survived, with only a few bruises and glass related cuts. In any case, I’m happy to be perfectly fine, 2 days after the crash. Xela, my beloved Scion tC however, is no more…

IMG_0175

Xander’s College Life – Epilogue

by skyrien
mood: nostalgic nostalgic

All good things…

Class of 2008. Those were the words I read over and over again in 2004 as a freshman entering Assembly Hall, along with the eight thousand or so others in our bright orange “Freshmen” shirts, excited/apprehensive. The year seemed more of a concept than an actual time, really, they might have well said Class of the 22nd Century. Yet now, here we are, in September of 2008, all graduated and well into the next step of our lives. What does this all mean? Unlike the last pivotal transition (from high school to college) which I brutally documented so often, I’ve been very negligent to reflect on this one at all. Quite a shame, given how significant and unique each story is.

But it wasn’t sheer laziness that kept me from writing, oh dear readership–but I think… I needed to make sense of the whole college story before I could move onto reflecting about my present, and quite honestly, I still haven’t made all that much sense of it–especially the last… 3 years or so. School, friendships, relationships, etc… all of it was a blur that got blurrier the longer I gave. The greatest message I got though, as Frost said about life, was that “it goes on”. Whether or not I”m ready to understand the significance of what I went through during those days/months/years, more will come. And the key lesson here is, without looking back, without reflecting on the moments that our lives are made of as we experience them (or soon after), they will be forgotten, and before we know it, more days/months/and years will have gone by as well.

Well. Can’t let that happen, can I?

But if there’s another thing that I’ve learned in the last four years it’s that there is so much in life, that you lose more in the present than you could ever gain by holding onto the past. This is a very important period in my life, here in the Fall of 2008, and while I reflect on occasion to four years ago, I will continue to blog about the here and now.

So, here’s a brief cheer to everything that college was–in terms of friendships, relationships, classes, and life lessons–may we all take what we need, and move onto the next steps more learned and more prepared than we could have been without it. I’ll reflect more on the past in the days to come.

New beginnings.

by xela

Every now and then, you need to sit down, free your mind of your current mood, and get ready for a new age. For me, now is one of those times. One month before the biggest most exciting change of my life, transitioning from a child still dependent on my parents’ allowance, to completely taking care of myself–in a new city, new position, with new surroundings.

Yes, I’m excited. Yes, I’m a little anxious. But hell yes, I’m ready for a new beginning.

College was great, I met awesome people, learned an amazing amount of stuff that I was barely aware of beforehand, but also to never confuse my career with my life. Moderation is everything; that’s one of the wise words that Beckman left behind, and something that I still have yet to fully learn. The great balancing act continues…

New beginnings are a great moment to renew yourself, but I’m still not perfect, going into this next step. I go into this next step with a partially undefined future–but like my weaknesses, this also presents a strength: Anything is possible.

Onward! New blog, new beginnings!