Tough Times

Trials, temptations, disappointments -- all these are helps instead of hindrances, if one uses them rightly. They not only test the fiber of a character, but strengthen it. Every conquered temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before. - James Buckham

My posting seems to have become less important to me than it used to be. For several reasons. One being that it forces those that I care about and that care about me, to call me and find out what's new in my life. It's also because I'm always busy doing something else. Between working and trying to maintain a life. Not having one but a couple groups of friends that I try and hang out with on a regular basis makes it kind of hard to have some time to myself and when I do get a moment I don't want to spend it in front of the computer. Then when I do have a moment and want to update my blog that's the time that the freaking internet decides to stop working. I'd rather have dial-up than this crap high speed they have us on. Ugh...

So let's go thru some of the major events since my last posting. In my last posting I had bitched about standing on the Viking Ship in Norway. Well, I ended up doing it again. Natalia had asked me to switch days and I in my wonderful friendliness said sure without looking or thinking and ended up switching again into the torture. I insist I was tricked but she says I agreed, but I don't remember.

Embrey left. I want to so bad to leave this paragraph at just that statement. Her leaving was very emotional for me. It was much harder than when the Spring Advantage Program left. I'm sure it some to do with that we were together for a little more time but it has more to do with the dynamics of our friendship. Embrey herself said that when she was saying goodbye to me it felt like she was breaking up with me. Other than Natalia, I was one of the Rangers that Embrey was closest to. She was indeed one of the important people to me here. I held our friendship in very high regards. I took me about three days, after I found out she was self-terminating, to be able to face her in order to say good-bye. After she did leave, Natalia and I had a conversation about her leaving. Her reasons were valid so neither of us have hold it against her. We were however slightly disturbed with how easy it was for her to leave, or how easy it appeared to us anyway. She seemed to show so little emotion and hesitation about it. We're sure it had a lot to do with her up bringing and the fact that she had lead a sheltered life. I'm sure there are a lot of other reasons as well. Neither of us hold ill feelings toward her for it, it was just surprising to us, that's all.

Embrey's not the only one of my friends to self-terminate since my last posting. There were two others. AJ left (about a week before Embrey). His leaving was in a different manner. He just up and left with very little warning and he refused to say good by to any one face-to-face. It would have been to hard for him so he wrote little notes to some of us. It was sad to see him leaving but his reasons were also valid, very valid. My friend Sarah (from upstairs, not Ranger) also left. She left the day after Embrey. Her leaving wasn't was sudden as AJ but left little time to get used to the fact she was leaving. Her reasons may not have been as valid as Embrey's or AJ's but they were decent and honorable reasons. There is a third person who is thinking of self-terminating but she hasn't told the official people yet. Her reasons are less than honorable. But that's her choice.

Another major event would be that Sarah and I had a falling out. A rather large disagreement. Like every argument there are two stories and to tell my side of it without allowing her to tell her side would be unfair but then this is my journal and contains how I feel. So I will give a general overview. Now I can take fault if I see that I was at fault. As I look back at the situation I see none on my part really, except that I shouted back. I should have been able to better compose myself in the situation but she angered me. It was over my complaining about being deployed to custodial so often. She says I complain to often about something that happens so little. Well, she's wrong yet had a small point that she didn't intend to have. But the argument itself isn't what made me so upset it's that it took place in general. Then afterward she decided to drag everyone else into it while I decided to not talk about with anyone else. She also decided to go thru the old deployment papers, for the past 3 weeks, to count up the times I was sent and the times she was sent. She's forgetting that those papers don't include the times we're pre-deployed and I am a pre-deployed Ranger; (I'm pre-deployed 3 days next week where everyone else is once if at all). The thing she did make me realize is that there are a greater number of us that are being deployed to custodial on a regular basis than there are of us not being sent. I can think of 4 rangers who rarely if ever get sent there. Compared to the number of times the rest of us got/get sent there she would be included in those 4 people. However she is indeed being sent there on a regular basis as of now, but so are the rest of us, still. Another reasons I was upset is that she was supposed to my best friend here and she snapped at me for complaining instead of offering some support. I understand that there isn't much she can do and that I complain a lot but that's me. I'm a very vocal and oral person. I speak how I feel. Besides let me bitch for five minutes and I'll move on, unlike some people who sticks to the same subject the entire conversation. The other Rangers compain about it as much as I do just not to her. I've heard them and they all told me that I have a right to complain (or observation make, as I like to call it). The whole situation was very ugly and it upset me. She did apologize to me the next day. I want more than anything to believe her apology was genuine and not just out of fear that she will be shunned from "Ranger Society". Which is silly. I do not hold that much power of the Rangers. They all have minds of their own and I am one to let people make up their own minds which is why I didn't drag any one else into it.

The drama that goes on in the "Ranger Society" is so absurd, sometimes. I really don't understnad why some of these people get so worked up over such small things, really. So trivial are the problems that they have in comparison to those who have real problems. Something that some people need to realize is that they don't truly know the rest of us. All they know is what they see here and that's not all of us. They don't see the problems we have back home or the issues that we've faced growing up. How easy or how hard our life was is unknown to them. The inner turmoils is completely unseen. They have no desire to see or to know them really or they would take the time to understand why someone is the way they are. Nor should they if they wish not to. To get that emotionaly involved with people here is, in some ways, pointless and hard. We've not known each other that long and will be leaving each other in just a few more months. We will probably never see most of each other again. The harsh reality that is life especially on this program. Being here kind of forces you to befriend people quickly including some people that you may never have befriended on a normal basis and I think that they're not taking that into account either. That each of us has been taken from our element and have been planted in the middle of diver-CITY. I have decided to not hold against any ill feelings towards those who have pissed me off or annoyed me because of all this and more. It makes no sense to. I'll be civil with them and be content with knowing that I don't have to ever see them again, if I choose not to. I am hoping to come out of this program and experience with a few close and ever lasting friendships. I'm sure I will. It will only take a little effort on both sides of the friendship. Just need to make sure they're worth it.

My Fortune for today: Trust no one.