This has become one of my favorite times of the day: I've watched some TV at the gym (if I time it right, Good Eats followed by quality like Sex in the City or The O.C.), I'm scrubbed clean, and I've (hopefully) gotten everything done I wanted to for the day; all that's left is to ponder until I drift off to sleep.

At the end of the day I called my platform to schedule a trip offshore to walk out some new piping I'm working on, and now I'm going next week! Even on the phone I was already excited, my heart all a pitter-pat, ready to be terrified by a helicopter before spending 30 hours in the middle of the Gulf. I'm finally figuring out how my workload cycles, with what's becoming normal lulls and crests in quantity and challenge. I'm amazed by the responsibilty I've been given, and even more amazed by the ability I'm finding myself to have in solving real engineering problems. I know I've talked about this general sentiment before, but I have to share my surprise, again, about how applicable school has been so far. Oh, did I already mention how excited I am to go offshore next week?

Driving home from the gym my mind was caught up in making a list of errands to accomplish during my Friday off tomorrow. When I found myself focused on the long list of grocery items to purchase per Mrs. S's Thanksgiving Menu Shopping List, I was struck by the extravagence of it all, this whole Holiday Idea. Because, genuinely, what's the common theme of all American holidays, aside from the commercialism and family? Extreme hyperbole! We don't just have meals, we have HUGE FEASTS. Seriously, it's going to be my mom, dad, and myself at my house for Turkey Day and yet I'm cooking a turkey, Honey Baked Ham, green bean casserole, yams (with pineapple and marshmellow of course), pumpkin pie, pecan pie, brownies, and relish plate - and I might be forgetting some dishes here. FOR THREE PEOPLE! I'm not even going to go into Christmas extremism, but you get the idea - why do we require our holidays to qualify as such by virtue of their exorbitant nature?

I love, love, love the holidays, but when I was driving home and thinking about the sheer massive quantity of food I'm going to buy ingredients for tomorrow, all I could notice around me was the disparate damage shwooshing by outside my car windows. The smell of rotting was pushed out, there were no obvious signs of all the families with no possessions who've left the area, and in my little cacoon of greed and consumption I was oblivious, ignorant to the crying needs of the homeless, ravaged, and ignored.

So what to do? Put some of the money I would've bought food for my feast with towards relief efforts? Or donate food to a shelter? Or what? Just feel guilty? This is our trite "time for thanks," sure, but I don't want just the calendar's page to be my impetus to kind actions, they feel more fake or shallow that way. Ugh I'm such a broken record -- whether it's women raped in Sudan or hurrican relief or environmental conservation, I always get stuck on how much matters. How do my actions matter? So why bother? But if I try to do good, helpful things 'just because' are they then selfish because I'm doing them to feel good about myself and my actions to help the world? Does it matter if they're selfish so long as the actions help someone in some small way? I want to be altruistic, but I so easily lose sight of what altruism is.

I love comments, btw, friends. Thanks for your thoughts, that helped spark my own mind. :)

Lastly for tonight, a huge hug for D (can you feel it? right now?). You're not giving up on love - when you follow your heart you can never be giving up on love. I'm reminded of one of my absolute favorite quotes, from The Alchemist, something like, Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.