Tuesday, May 10, 2011

An amazing person, leaving behind an awesome legacy

I recently stumbled upon a headline during my break at work. "Blogger Posts His Own Death."

Of course, I was intrigued, if not a little confused, as typing may prove difficult in that particular state. I was, however, pleasantly surprised by what followed. See, the article was about Derek K. Miller, who was a pretty well-known blogger in the tech and science circles. He had started his blog about ten years ago, and in 2007, he was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic colorectal cancer. The posts that chronicle his journey through chemo and radiation, as well as his drive to live a "normal" life despite the fact are nothing short of inspiring.

And yes, he did ask his family to publish his "Last Post" after his death, and it is amazingly well-written and insightful. He doesn't sound angry, bitter, or resentful. Instead, he sounds grateful for the time he had with his family and the experiences he was able to have.

I love the fact that he was incredibly straight-forward about his particular circumstances. Yes, he had cancer. Yes, it was going to kill him. No, he wasn't going to let it completely consume his life. And really, he didn't let it.

Derek Miller reminded me that life is still, and is always beautiful, regardless of one's worries and troubles. We get so mired down by the petty things, constantly moving those things up our priority list until we completely lose sight of what's really important. It seemed to me that Mr. Miller never let cancer obscure his vision of what was truly significant to him.

I'm sorry I just found your words, Derek, but they serve as a powerful reminder  that life is full of complications, yet so very precious to us all.

Here's the link to the blog itself: http://www.penmachine.com/

Saturday, May 7, 2011

It's only been what, a few months?

Hi everybody! I'm not sure you all remember me, but you can just call me the worst blogger every in the history of blogging. And it's not like I haven't wanted to. Trust me. But, life has a way of running away with  you, especially when it's stuffed with things like work, graduate school, trying to get rid of this flab in my middle, planning a wedding, and chasing after two rather neurotic cats. If you're reading this, thank you for being so very patient. I appreciate it.

Life has been pretty great these last few months, but its been marked with moments of uncertainty. Not in regards to the wedding, mind you (unless you count me wondering whether it's really necessary to have menus when we're having a buffet-type dinner) but about where it is I'm going with my professional career. If you've been watching the news at all, you might have noticed that the field of education is not exactly stable. This isn't exactly comforting, as I'm getting my Master's in Education. I feel like a person studying Finance right before the Great Depression. So, there are days when I wonder whether this is the right path for me. Those are the days when I wish I was one of those, "just wait and see what happens," people. Sadly, I'm not. I'm pretty proactive when it comes to my future, especially when said future is proving to be rather expensive at the moment. I don't want to drop thousands and thousands of dollars on something that isn't going to make me happy in the long run. There are those people who say that a job is just that: something to go to for the majority of the day and get paid to do. But I can't subscribe to that school of thought. I want a job where I wake up excited to go and contribute. I just don't know what job that is, yet. And that is somewhat frustrating.

I realize that I'll figure out someday. But, I want that realization to come sooner than later. When you realize what it is you want to do for the rest of your life, you want that life to start as soon as possible.

In the meantime, however, I'll appease my troubles with cute little wedding details and my new music obsession, The Weepies. I'll even share one of my favorite songs with  you all.