The bigger person

Di tengah galau dan bimbang
Kala gelap malam mencekam
Saat pedih menjerat hati
Gelap mata kala amarah
Jika perih mencekik
Ketika hilang arah tujuan
Saat sepi membelit
Saat duka melanda
Ketika lelah menjegal

Kau ada

Kebeningan jiwa
Ketenangan hati
Seulas senyum yang tulus
Uluran tangan terbuka
Perlindungan dari bahaya
Penghiburan senantiasa
Belas kasih tak berujung
Kesabaran tanpa akhir
Arah dan tujuan
Kekuatan dalam pelukan
Semangat baru
Pengertian tak bersyarat
Kasih sayang tanpa batas
Memberi tanpa pamrih

My reason.
My strength.
My love.
My life.

Bad joke (or Sensitive me)

So yesterday Ben took the Corolla that is going to be mine down to El Cerrito... (that's right; a mid-week visit!!). He let me drive from school to my apartment, a story that's probably worth an entire entry by itself. It SO, HARD driving with Ben in the passenger seat!! He's a total backseat driver and he managed to make me flip out and raise my voice at him within minutes of my sliding onto the driver's seat. Just how efficient is that?

But anyways... So we made it home alright with little to no driving error on my part and i thought all is well. But this morning i listened to my voice mails and lo and behold, Pedro left me a message asking if i noticed that i nearly ran him over on Shattuck last night. WHAT?! I was so bummed! What kind of driver would not notice when he/she came close to running over a pedestrian? I felt my heart sank right at that very moment. I called Pedro back, but no answer. I texted him, asking if he was kidding. I texted Ben, asking if he noticed a pedestrian that i nearly killed last night. Nope. But Pedro never got back to me... I kept on thinking about this all day long, feeling sad and convinced that maybe the DMV examiner was right about failing me on my driving test. Maybe i need an entire year's worth of driving lesson before i can be certified to be loose on the streets.

BUT!!!! I finally got a hold of Pedro, and HE WAS ONLY KIDDING!!!! How mean! Apparently he figured the content of that voice mail was so impossible that there's no way it could be true and therefore i for sure will understand that it was a joke. NOT! Now he owes me an ice cream for making me feel bad for an entire day... BAD Pedro!!!

I'm a very, VERY happy girl!!!!

Ibex Hills, originally uploaded by shobster.

So i made it back from Death Valley (an exemplar of the awesome photos that i managed to take while there is presented above) with relatively little additional tan to my complexion, and with a lot of cool experience and tons of new herp species learned. How awesome is that?! But that's not why i'm a very, very happy girl...
Ben just told me that he had a conversation with his mom about me. Of course i gasped. Do i wanna hear what was said in this conversation? Yes, according to him. So Ben was telling his mom about the car that showed up at the shop that he's planning on fixing to GIVE to me. After a brief discussion about the financial aspect of it, apparently she proceeded to ask about whether or not we ever talked about getting married (the answer is yes, btw). Naturally, she wondered about where we're gonna live after getting married, how much longer until he has to leave the country, etc. And the discussion ended with her saying that i'm basically the best girl for him...

Wow. Coming from a future mother-in-law. Just how amazing is that? I've always doubted if the parents liked me, esp. since i'm about to take their son away from them, but apparently i have nothing to worry about... Yay!!

Oh, and another, more materialistic source of happiness: I got my DSLR. It's pretty fuckin' awesome. Now i'm having a very strong urge to just go crazy and invest in all different lenses...