If you have any prior knowledge of the military you'll know that those are the core values of the United States Marine Corps.
Semper Fidelis.
The Corps' latin motto that means "Always Faithful", which to my understanding usually means faithful to the Corps, faithful to your brothers and sisters in the Corps, and faithful to your country and defending them even if it means giving your life in the process.
I'd always believed in these values growing up, and I'm not even sure where I learned them, but these ideals have resonated me for as long as I can remember.
My mom jokes that I was born old, other people have joked that in a past life I must have served in the military because there's just something about me. No one has ever been able to place exactly what that something is, but there must be some indelible mark that I can't see.
Something about the Marines has always attracted me, and solely the Marines.
My grandfather was in the Army when he was only a little younger than I am now and I always thought it was a little too brutish and unskilled for me. The other branches of the military never attracted me, there was something missing whenever I'd see the troops visit out school for the Memorial Day celebration (it was fitting that I went to Memorial High School, probably part of the reason I have some military beliefs like someone who went to a Catholic school has religious beliefs.)
The Marine however always stood out, the way he stood, the way he presented himself, there was something about him that you could see from a mile away. Maybe this was the same something that everyone has been able to see in me, I'll never be sure, but all I know.
I remember telling my mom how I wanted to serve in the military instead of attend college. Needless to say she was less than enthused. The short version of what happened is that she said no, however the longer story is much more amusing, at least it would be if it weren't real life.
My mom is my greatest protector, and the biggest threat to someone who tries to hurt me. I feel bad for the recruiters that had to call my house, I can only imagine the things my mother said to them while I eavesdropped from the upstairs landing. She ripped up every packet that came addressed to "Mr. Edward J Paxton" from the various armed services around the country.
I used to get upset that she was preventing me from my destiny, preventing me from living a life of courage, honor, commitment; even preventing me from being faithful.
Now that I get to look back with older eyes and a greater maturity though, I think I should thank her. So here it goes mum, thank you for making the decisions that I was too young to intelligently make at that time myself.
I might not be a Marine, and I might never get a chance, but that doesn't change who I am.
I still have that something in me, I still believe strongly in living my life with honor, courage, and commitment, and I found a more applicable meaning for "Semper Fidelis".
Who knows, maybe someday I'll get a chance to serve my country, whatever country that is in the future, but life has found a way of finding me a purpose.
I used to regret going to college, but that was before I got there. I now realize that there's all things in our lives that we have to give up. I was told that a call to serve the military was like a call to serve God and that very few people could hear it, but for those that do it's like a bell tolling until the point it almost annoys you to ignore it.
This is true, there is some type of pull, some type of call to attention, call to order, and I can tell you that I've heard it, or at least I did.
As I get older I've realized that I have a higher calling and it's not to God, or country, or even myself...but it's when you realize you have a higher purpose with someone else rather than something.
I'm not sure what my future holds with this, maybe someday I'll get another change to prove myself and wear that uniform, but if I don't at least I know I made the right choice and I have no regrets.
Well maybe I have one regret, but there's always Halloween =P
I walked 2.5 miles today in 40 minutes, this was my way home today. Usually I take the bus home and it gets me there in five minutes but apparently on the day it drops below freezing I decide to show some motivation.
My roommate is watching Watchmen right now and all I can hear is moaning, so needless to say I'm trying to find something else to occupy my time to avoid the ummmmm...sex scenes...
So I'm doing one of those obligatory memes that I was tagged in a few months ago and somehow missed-- I'm honestly not even sure how I found it, but Rich tagged me months ago and I guess that is what finals do to my blog roll.
6 Facts, that's not so hard...I think I can manage 6 Facts about myself:
1) I watch Bob Ross almost every day, and I mean every day. There is not one day this past year (barring my vacation without internet) where I didn't watch Bob Ross. And yes, Bob Ross as in Happy Trees, Afro, and painting series. There are some days when I deliberately switch my IP address just so I can watch more Bob Ross videos without having to register for a Pro Account on MEGAVIDEO. I'm actually hoping to get some of the series on DVD this Christmas because I've probably played all the available episodes more than 50 times each.
(I just noticed I was listening to him paint right now too)
2) My feet are a physical nightmare-- I have had bunions since birth, I suffer from fallen arches, and flat feet (which are not exactly the same thing according to my doctor). I had my first Austin Bunionectomy on my left foot about a month after my 20th birthday (my surgery was on Canada Day 2009). My foot is mostly healed but I have a horrendous scar on my foot that looks something like this
(I found this on Flickr, I'm oddly jealous of how much nicer their scar looks than mine)
My scar is puffy and purple and is my new ironic cross to bear. Before my feet were barely functional, but fairly attractive as feet come. Now my foot is still only moderately functional (recovery is 6 months total) and I have a horrendous purple scar that will probably never fade in my lifetime. I have to have my second surgery on December 30th, 2009.
In regards to my arches, I have an illusion for an arch. I look like I have well defined arches, and then I take a step, and my foot is flat on the floor again like I'm some over grown baby foot. Because of my fallen arches I am also incredibly flat footed. My doctor likes to joke that my feet are that of my past life and that I got the body of a young man, but I got the feet of a WWII infantry man. I have to admit this does make me chuckle some.
3) I am the furthest thing from metrosexual/homosexual (yes, I know sexual stereotyping...sue me), but with this being said, I love shoes. If you've ever seen those guys on Cribs with box after box after box of shoes-- yeah, I'm that kind of guy. I'm at least responsible with my shoes-- I usually don't buy anything too expensive unless I really feel like I need it. There's a guy who goes by the moniker of Sole Junkie and he makes customized shoes-- needless to say if I was loaded I'd buy a pair of customized shoes from him.
The first time I saw these shoes, I realized that this would be my mark of success someday
4) From age 12-18 (or so) I used to wear a hat to bed, and I'm not even sure why. It wasn't necessarily even the same hat...over that span of 6 years it had been lots of different hats. I always found something comforting about having a hat on my head, especially while I was sleeping. I'm not sure why I stopped, I think living with a roommate changed a lot of my habits because you don't really want to seem weird. I think also because most of my hats have gotten pretty ratty I just stopped abusing them any more than they needed to be.
5) I'm commonly referred to as a Renaissance man, and not by any insisting of my own. I'm just interested in an insane amount of fields like writing, languages (especially foreign languages), psychology, mythology, science, history (largely history associated to wars and pre-WWII Europe and North America), theology, law, medicine, film, computers, meteorology, and anything that comes to my interest at any time. (and yes, I have pondered a career in every one of the previous)
6) I used to hate coffee, it used to make me violently ill and I never knew why. For the longest time I just assumed I couldn't tolerate coffee or I just really wasn't a fan of it...something logical like that. It was only over the past year or so that I learned it wasn't because I hated coffee, but because I learned I had become lactose intolerant sometime during my freshman year (I was not lactose intolerant until I got to college, which I thought was weird). Now that I've started taking my coffee black (admittedly with some sugar) I've started abusively drinking coffee-- I'm not sure I see this as a positive, but at least it gets me going in the morning minus the cringing regret and uncontrollable vomiting.
And yes, of course I end it on a classy note...win!
Woke up to my roommate's alarm, a few minutes before my own
Dropped my phone off the edge of the bed and grumbled while trying to silence the screaming of Howard Jones from KsE
Recovered my computer from where it got dropped on the floor last night-- it has all the signs of damage now including a green line that waves about my monitor until I smack it
Spent time with my adorably feverish fiancee, who as said was both adorable and feverish
Lay in bed for another 20 minutes before deciding to go to the Financial Aid Office
Financial Aid Office was actually a waste of time
Checked the mail for my Jarhead DVD
Got profiled at the market by some blonde girl, she apparently doesn't like metal music or military bomber garb
Went back to the room and streamed Red Sands from Megavideo
Made a steak sandwich
Dripped BBQ sauce on my laptop and only realized later what I was licking it off of-- my laptop has a very distinct dust and BBQ sauce taste now
Googled more shooter style games, I'm in need of a video game fix for sure
I also just learned that my eldest cousin is going back to school, which means both my eldest and middle cousins are officially in college-- both of them studying some type of medical profession. Essentially this means that both Alex and Shanna could wind up being nurses. I'm both amused and proud of this fact.
I'm not sure what the rest of tonight will hold, but I'm pretty content with how things have been lately. Life is good, and I don't want to trade it for anything.
My tiny chickens have finally let up and I feel much better. I've used that phrase a lot this week and figure it takes some explaining.
Tiny chickens= Hank Green inspired Nerdfighter phrase that is synonymous with a head cold (aka, the pecking in the brain, and the general gooey disgusting facial appearance)
I'm however particularly restless right now after a night of drinking Butterbeer with my roommate. Yes, Butterbeer as in the fictitious treat enjoyed without the confines of the Harry Potter fandom. Google it, there's a recipe for it on Mugglenut and it's an instant jolt-- I had two mug fulls and I'm just....buzzzzzzzzzzz.
I just had another one of those "adult realization" moments-- once again inspired by my dad. It's strange how I'm learning more about the things he taught me as a kid now than I ever did when he first told me.
When I was a little kid my dad used to make me watch Stand By Me with him (Rob Reiner film, Stephen King short story) and I used to complain at being forced to watch it with him. I didn't understand what the point of it was for me to sit there and just watch my dad transfixed by this movie.
I know deep down it has to do with his mom, my nana. I'm not sure if it was her favorite film or something, but for some reason I think of this film and I think of my dad giving talks about my grandmother.
My nana died in June 1989, I was born in June 1989, there was a very small window in which I "knew" her. I have no memories of her so I have to kind of watch my father's reverence for her. I've never ask much about her, but over my life he's given me more about her and I kind of appreciate every bit of information I get about her. I've only realized now how well I've known her all along.
I remember whenever we'd watch this movie my dad would say "someday you'll appreciate this" and I think I mocked him much in the way a little kid calls their dad crazy.
Well dad, I get it now. You're still not any less crazy.
Sitting here watching this movie it's fallen into place in a weird way.
It's a chain of events, a tradition that I'm just meant to continue out of honor. I'm pretty sure my dad doesn't even like the movie, but that's not the point. My nana liked this movie and in turn it reminds my dad of her. My dad showed the movie to me because it links me indirectly to her and directly to him. Someday it'll be my turn to sit my kids down and link them to their grandfather and great-grandmother and wait 20 years for the realization.
But I honestly need to stop having these epiphanies at 5:44AM...
Short post today, partially because I'm tired of thinking about this topic and I want to do a quick brain dump and then forget about it for a while, and also because I'm suffering from an awful case of tiny chickens.
Some people know that I was recently invited to rush a fraternity, co-ed, service fraternity and has a lot of great prestige following it. I really wanted to do this and essentially after another rush meeting they are going to extend a bid (not usually how it works with social fraternities which is why I'm still being considered). I really want to do this, I have this fascination with brotherhood (and sisterhood, though they are also called brothers because woman's lib is funny like that).
However there's the other part of me that is a dedicated member of one of the largest clubs on the school campus-- we are affectionately called the Guild (essentially it's the geek club without me explaining too much). I love doing things with the Guild and a lot of my friends are in the Guild with me, I actually feel like I can be myself there.
These two clubs share a lot of the same events and in turn I'd probably have to choose going to the event to help represent APO or going as one of the Guildies.
At the moment it sounds like I'm being made to choose Greek over Geek, and I'm having a hard time reconciling this. I know that a lot of the APO members do two organizations, even 3 at once, so I guess it couldn't hurt to just ask them how they did it and how they balance brotherhood, education, social lives, and all that.
I have decided though that I am going to try and be both, do both-- and if it fails then I have the option to always de-pledge in the process. I just don't want to sacrifice who I am for who I want to be, and it's proving to be harder than it sounds.
Damn you Troy Bolton, you made this "be yourself" thing look so easy!
Not weird as in "Socially Awkward Penguin" weird, but as in like everything seemed to work out...right, I suppose is how I would word it.
I woke up a little later than expected today and sadly missed some cozy couple time, which is okay we'll make up for it later-- which is something I think we both need with the stress of school, or just the stress of generally being as awesome as being Paxmay entails.
I woke up at about 12:10 and just laid in bed for a while, thinking. Not about anything in particular but kind of that free thought dream extension where everything is still kind of mindless. I like that time, I guess you could say I do some of my best reflective thinking then even if I can't remember it hours later.
Today was another day with pancakes, of which I'm indifferent to pancakes in their actuality, but they do evoke some familiar sense of home. I've been using those Bisquick "Shake 'n' Pour" things, they come in a yellow container that resembles Tide-- just add water and you get delicious pancake batter. This is definitely something I recommend to parents, if you're the homemade breakfast kind this would be a worthwhile investment. I think it literally took me 5 minutes total to prepare everything and the clean up after was limited to my spatula and frying pan. I've never been so impressed by modernization of food before today.
I've learned a lot of handy cooking stuff as of late, even just this weekend I was always busy making something. Last night I made Filipino style spaghetti with little to no failure, which was impressive enough for me. I think more dinner foods should be as sweet as that. I also made bacon, onion, and cheese stuffed burgers on the stove tonight-- I'm learning my way around home grilling without a real grill, and let's say road bumps are expected. I only managed to set off the fire alarm 3 times this weekend, which is much better than the usual given how sensitive it is to steam and general humidity. Which means yes, if the weather patterns change to quickly our smoke detector goes off.
The real exciting part doesn't come until about 4PM when I received a call from the woman I met at the job fair this week. I know I was guaranteed a job because of work study, but it's still cool to join the ranks of the employed again after nearly 2 years without a steady job. I'll be doing the basic paper pusher, phone stuff, mixed with some specialty web design work and video editing. Basically if "Pax" could be labeled as a job versus a person, this job would be what we call Pax.
This brings me one step closer to my goal of being Jim Halpert, because even I'm too sane to be Dwight, also my conversation German could use some work.
Work starts Friday and I have every intention of blasting the Scrantones the whole way there-- you can bet on it.
So I'm sure that many people know by now that I'm an utter YouTube fanboy, and also that I have a familiar preoccupation with the vloglovers AKA Liam/Min who I've probably referenced in my blog more than once.
vloglovers is something that May and I watch together, because it's so utterly familiar down to even the weirdest idiosyncrasies, at least on my part.
Anyway, after watching Liam's video this week I have decided that as soon as I have time to sit down I'll probably be doing something oh, like...this.
I mean, I'm going to have to be weird and creative given my lack of a camera, but basically to appease my adorable ninja fiancee I'm going to be posting clips up on IMEEM of songs that sync up to answers similar to these. She's claimed I could do a "better job" because I'm the "music guru", which is clearly just her bias talking, because I think Liam did a hilariously bang up job especially with the Scatman John cover of Invisible Man.
and who knows, maybe after this I can convince her to do a bloglovers with me, eh, eh? [/ang cheesy]
I have to apologize to a lot of people about why I've flown off the handle a few times today, I know I'm usually a firebrand as it is but today has hit a certain number of sensitivities that exist in very small doses.
8 years ago today I was 12 years old, sitting in my middle school Language Arts class, I can still remember what I was wearing all the way down to my shoes. I can remember walking down the hallway and hearing snippets of what was going on. It's funny how as a kid you take the words "plane crash" with a grain of salt as if it's something you're supposed to expect.
And then we got told the whole mess.
Let's not pretend for one second I was afraid for what was going to happen to me in the future-- I was scared for my dad.
My father is a traveling salesman-- not like in the Bible selling way, but he was the main distributor for parts to computer systems in a Corporate setting. I know it has to do with circuit boards and chips, and the occasional military technology that even at 20 I can't understand.
On September 10, 2001, I got screamed at by a certain traveling salesman for doing something I should have--I probably left my bike under his car, or lost my temper and kicked a wall, or it could have even been the constant skateboarding in my room dinging up the walls; I was a typical 12 year old boy.
On September 10th at 9PM when my dad came to talk to me after cooling down I told him I hope he died-- because I was a 12 year old boy and you never grasp the meaning of your words, just that they sound powerful.
On September 11th at 5:30AM my father woke me up for me to wish him off to the airport. I stoically huffed at him and didn't speak, my own sign of solidarity that I was going to talk to him-- he said "I love you, EJ" and he left.
On September 11th at 9:53AM we were switching classes, I was going from Math to Geography, and I remember in the hallway hearing Mr. Healy (Geography) say to Mr. Turgeon (Language Arts) about a plane crash. I felt like I knew something everyone didn't, and stupidly felt smug knowing something they were going to tell us--and I was just as stupidly wrong.
At 11:30 I was in the downstairs boy's bathroom, just outside the lunchroom, throwing up the majority of my dinosaur oatmeal while my friends were all just silent in the lunchroom, because no one knew what to say or do to the kids who didn't know if their parents were alright.
I was one of those kids who didn't know yet.
It's an unsettling feeling trying to remember all the details from my dad's boarding pass, after all I'd been there when he picked up his initial ticket. We lived right down the street from an airport after all.
That was what we did. On weekends my dad would take me to the airport and pay the five dollars to park in the carport and we'd run up and down the moving walkways and watch the planes take off from the observation bay. Then we'd get McDonald's and he'd narrate the moving walkway for me as I continued to run up and down it doing whatever stupid thing came to mind.
I know that my dad's original plan was not to depart from home this time though, he was going to depart from Logan International Airport in Boston and continue his business in Miami Florida and be home by that Friday so we could go out for pizza at Papa Gino's.
Logan International Airport is now more commonly known as the airport that American Airlines Flight 11 flew out of before hitting the North tower that killed 1,392 people in total.
Imagine being 12 years old and only knowing that a plane from Logan Airport had crashed and killed everyone on board-- they gave no other specifics at that time, just where it flew out of and where it crashed.
I think I fought back tears all day, waiting for the best and worst when I got home.
When I got home on the bus, my best friend, Elijah (who now goes more by Ace), walked me home and said if I needed I could come over his house afterward. I'm pretty sure I just nodded and then proceeded to throw up in my mouth.
I still remember the atmosphere of my house when I walked in-- the TV on and muted and replaying the crash over and over again. The sunny weather almost seemed to contrast it all and it made me feel disconcerted and sick. If you've never experienced that feeling like you've been under water and tried to listen to speaking, you won't understand the overwhelming sense of pressure in my house.
It was about 2:23 when I got home that day, my mom was still a stay at home mom at that time, but even then she would usually be showered and ready by 10AM. When she came downstairs she still wasn't quite finished, like she had just stopped in the middle of it all and forgotten.
The only thing I remember her saying was that she hadn't heard from him, but that it wasn't his flight and that she had been calling the school all day, first my middle school and then my sister's elementary school only to be met with a busy signal. However she hadn't heard from him and to what she knew they were still in the process of grounding all the planes.
On September 11th, 9:58PM our house phone rang, I was sitting in my bedroom reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets with the door just ajar. My mom was downstairs watching TV, if I had to guess she was watching Friends. I remember hiding in the stairwell listening to her talk and finally having that comforting reality that my dad was safe-- he had been grounded in Graceland hours earlier and his cell phone couldn't get service in Tennessee.
On September 14th, 6:42PM my father arrived home in his rental car with a less than shaven face and he tossed me a Louisville Slugger and he said "Kentucky says hello, Sport". He'd promised me that he'd come home with a souvenir from Florida, and he was at least true to his word.
I found out years later that he stopped at the official Louisville store because the radio had been warning of highway robbers and looters and he wanted to be prepared and have a suitable gift for his 12 year old son.
The rest is a blur, I remember lots of crying and and remember lots of joking around to try and lessen the mood-- and I know for a fact that night my father checked on my bedroom no less than 15 times, for reasons that are beyond my understanding even still.
8 years later my father and I share an awkward truce, a lot has happened and I'm not 12 any more. I might not like him, but I always love him and I'd be lying if I said I hadn't cried at least once today.
My mom said he'll always see me as I was at 12, and I think I'm not exactly opposed to that image.
