I'm flying.

Exhausted, I sit here and begin typing these words. The words. The words. These words. They float through my consciousness and soon they're sent to the computer, without much effort or thought. My body so tired, I try to move very little. My eyelids close for prolonged periods of time as my fingers continue to type these words. I drift on the verge of sleep; floating on the surface of unconsciousness.

Today (as in Sunday), I joined Mallory, her boyfriend Brian, one of his friends, Steven Colmeier, Cory, Abby, and Sarah as we went on a hike in the Santa Monica mountains. We hiked up to the very top of Mt. Boney or whatever that mountain might be called which you can always see in the distance in the South when driving on the 101 through Newbury Park and Thousand Oaks. We went up from the back side. We ditched the main trail to get to the peak and did some bush waking as we ascended. It was extremely windy. As long as my back was against the wind, walking up the mountain was almost automatic. The wind just pushed me up. Hah! Once at the very top, I faced into the wind overlooking Thousand Oaks and spread my arms (read: wings). During two extremely strong gusts of wind I my feet left the ground for a second or two and I was actually flying. It was so incredibly windy. I had a crazy adrenalin rush as I was standing on the peak trying to not get blown away. Ahhh, it was intense! My beanie flew away twice. I still have it, though. Round trip, the hike was about 8 miles. Pictures:

I'm taking off.

Now I'm flying!

Left to Right: Brian, Mallory, Sarah, Cory. Pacific Ocean in the background.

The grade (the hill in the middle of the picture) looks so pathetic from up here. I think I see my house.

Cory sits.

There's no official trail over to that peak so we made our own. At the very top I flew.

I'm a shadow. Cory and the rest are not!

Classes start once more for me this Tuesday. I'm not excited. I'm not unexcited. I'm mostly, "meh." Either way, it will add something to do during the week besides work. I've been feeling rather bored with work. I don't know what I'll do when I have to start working full-time year-round. I'll probably go insane. Getting up every morning, going to the same place, doing the same things, going home, and repeating the process 5 days a week for years.. Ugh. I can't.

Only 7 days remain until my birthday. It's crazy to think I'm already turning 21. Wasn't it just yesterday when I looked at people in their twenties and thought, wow.. One day I'll be a twenty year old.. I guess I've caught up with one day. Life seems to have increasingly sped up more and more.

I can recall as a child how hours used to take forever to pass by. Car trips would seem to take eons. Over the years the perception of time seems to have condensed. Long distance car trips seem to pass quickly, and in the past two years it has seemed as though the days, the weeks, the months, and the years have seemingly flashed by. Does our perception of time continue to increase as we grow older? Will decades soon flash by as the sharp sounding snap of my finger reverberates through the air?

Perhaps if I locked myself in my room and never vacated, time would seem to stall, or at least dramatically slow. The purpose behind today's hike was to say goodbye to Mallory as she leaves to go to Canada for a year and a half, but I suspect it wont be long and a year and a half will have passed and we all will be welcoming her back.

Time. Time. Time. Time. Time.

This is the 600th entry for this weblog.