New Experiences

You know, I've never had a head-cold like this one. My face is all plugged up and it actually hurts. Apparently that happens when your sinuses get blocked up. I hadn't known. And it's giving me a headache, too. It's not like I'm unfamiliar with headaches, but to have one so intimately connected to a head-cold--well, that actually makes a lot of sense.

I'm going to resist talking any more about my head-cold, because I don't want to turn this blog into one of those whine-fests that are apparently very frequent on-line. Instead, I'm going to try to stick with 'new experiences.'

Retreat, which I recently mentioned, counts as one of these new experiences. Partly as a result of retreat, I now seem to be more completely part of the Navs in-group, and that makes me happier than it likely ought. I'm used to being part of group formation; I'm not used to being integrated into an already-existing group. So I suppose that counts as a new experience. Also at Navs this week, I had squash prepared in such a way that I enjoyed it. That certainly counts as a new experience. (On a side note, the person who made it wasn't so happy with it--she had no brown sugar or butter, so was forced to use honey and margerine. Perhaps this is why I liked it, and she did not.)

Interestingly, feeling part of the in-group prompted me to approach someone who was most certainly not part of the in-group and socialize with them. Being graced with acceptance, I felt moved to offer it to someone else. I wish people felt that way more often, especially in highschool. This isn't necessarily a new experience--I did a fair amount of approaching and accepting people who seemed to me to be unaccepted while I was at retreat--but it is part of a more generally recent trend.

I'm going to go to Running and Reading program today as a coach (provided they don't send me home as a source of contagion). This will be a new experience.

One thing that is not a new experience is that I'm unsure of who I should vote for it the upcoming election. Everyone seems to have some decent ideas, and those who have the best-sounding ideas mix those in with some of the worst-sounding ideas (for instance, why does Jack think it's such a good idea to pull out of Afghanistan before 2011? and why does the Green Party want to develop the opium trade? and why does Harper want to cut from the arts?). What's new is the universally applicable nature of the mix-up. I don't think I've heard of platforms with such heterogenous quality before.

-----------------------

Less on the topic of new experiences, I watched a full episode of Life last night. I am starting to really enjoy that show.