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Thursday, March 24, 2011

Puddle Jumping

Dear Self,

Do you remember that one time, back in high school?  It was the night after hurricane-like weather blew through, leaving the most massive beautiful puddle out behind the cafeteria.  The puddle was so large and so tempting that it was second nature to take a running start and just JUMP!  

Taken in Taroko National Gorge, Taiwan
But of course, mid-air, you realized that your roommate was standing right there and was going to get soaked!  Too late, of course, you fell into the puddle and while you only managed to get a little wet around the ankles, Danielle was soaked and muddy from head-to-toe.  

Since then, you have avoided indulging too much in your love of puddle jumping.  Unfortunately, you have yet to learn that principle in the rest of your life.  It seems most of your interests are like your love of puddle-jumping: you are barely getting your ankles wet and drowning everyone else.  

Think about it.  A year ago, your roommates knew nothing about Super Junior and now they are decently conversational.  They know much more than the average American and possibly even more than the average Korean their age.  Before that it was Ashin and Mayday or Jay Chou and Gary Yang.

Six months ago, your friends knew nothing about the Bundesliga or Japanese National Team soccer.  Hasebe, Okazaki, Kagawa, Uchida, Nagatomo, Zaccheroni - these might as well have been random noises I invented to pretend I spoke Japanese as names of some of the people that I now keep up on.  

The list goes on and back through the history of your whole life.  It seems you can't love anything halfway and when you do fall for something, you must drown everyone else with facts, opinions about these people no matter whether they consented to it or not.  

Here's praying to the hope that friends and roommates react to your not-thinking-before-I-jump in the same way that your dear roommate did so many years ago: Smile at your spontaneity, laugh at the result and live to tell it to others as a good story. 

Love,
Me

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