Worlds Colliding Gently

Yeah! Did well on the last practice test that I've been using to help me study. If only I can keep my head on straight for the nine hours of the real test on Friday I think I'll be fine. Or I hope I'll be fine. I want to be fine. Oh, heck, I'll be fine! (Trying positive thinking here.)

Maybe going out the last two nights actually was good for my mental state, if a distraction. Had a nice dinner with M. last night then went out with him and his friends (a very rare occurrence). Fortunately I found some of my other friends there to talk with while he was ostensibly trying to round up girls for his friends. Course I busted him later dancing in the middle of about four other girls with their hands all over him. Men! Thing is, I'm not really that upset. Haven't figured out exactly why, probably the fact that I know he really does think I'm the best going option, so nothing of significance would happen with girls he just met at a bar. Nothing of emotional significance that is.

At dinner we got around to talking about how we would be as parents, too. He says he wants to be the fun parent and that I would have to be the enforcer. In the first place I'm not great at enforcing and in the second place, who wants to be the mean one? I said we would have to have a unified front and he just changed the subject. A little worried about how he'll be as a dad, I am. He doesn't know how he'll be either. I don't think he's actually given it much thought. Don't guys see that as part of their future? At least the ones who want it? And the rest have thought about it enough to know they don't want it? Seems like sort of a big part of life to just sort of fall into backward...or frontward. He quoted someone saying that the best part about having kids is making them. In my opinion that is only the beginning.

Then on the drive back from dinner he started talking about making an investment in me or something...like getting me a ring. Yikes. While I have known that was coming, it still freaks me out. He feels that will have to happen to convince me to get into a program where he's going. I feel I will have to be sure I love him for me to do that.

It's funny in today's world with people able to move all over the place and become so distant from all the culture they have known. Across the world with different ethnicities it is, of course, more pronounced in some ways. But even coming from different parts of the country, or the mingling of your parents, or your town, it gets things muddled in an interesting way (not a confusing way like this paragraph I just wrote).

What I mean is that you grow up thinking that everyone's world is like yours. As you get older and get out more you realize that everyone's world is very different from yours in a lot of ways. It takes even longer to start to see that the subtle differences in values and priorities and goals are really want make people connect or not. You grow up in a family which prioritizes dreaming and ideals and mix that with a family that places more emphasis on stability and companionship and it can be a hard sell. Neither is wrong, of course. They just approach things differently.

I think I'm going to take a study break and head to the gym. My hand is healing but I'm not sure it will be ready for a swim. Maybe I'll just study on the elliptical. So it's not really a break then...bugger.