In my head

My time here in D.C. is coming to a close, and I feel like I have so much to write about.  Though I don't let myself get on the computer during the day, not while my nephew Joseph is awake and he wants to play.  I love that kid, and I got all that I could ask for out of him.  The following are in my head.  I'm going to call them mini-blogs because for the exception of a couple of them, what I write here will be the extent of how much I will write about it.

Called To Fatherhood
This blog is very important to me, especially since I've been discerning about priesthood for months now.  I started it the other day, but it has become quite overwhelming because I have so much to say, longer than a normal blog should be.  It has become revealing to me that one of my (best-selling) books I'm going to publish one day is going to have that title: Called to Fatherhood.  It's going to be about men's discernment and calling to Fatherhood, and how we should take it as seriously as priests do about their calling to priesthood.  I feel like I've been writing/thinking about this for the past couple years now.  I've already started the first chapter/introduction.

Mid-Jump
This blog idea came to me at the end of my trip to Pennsylvania hanging out with my two best friends, Bobby and Anthony.  It seems to me the three of us are in "mid-jump" of what we want/need to do in our lives, in our dives past our fears into becoming better men and what we're called to be.  We haven't jumped completely yet, but we also haven't just started jumping.  We're mid-jump, kind of like that free-falling van in Inception (great movie, btw, huh? Saw it over break.)

2010: A Year of Change
At the end of the day, I'll tell you 2010 was a great year.  Though, it was the biggest year of change ever in my life.  Let's see, hard break-up from a loved one, graduated from college, moved and living in a different country with brand new people, speaking a different language, Melissa's new baby.  One of those things is enough change, but all of them together?  Whew.  Oh yeah, my Blue Devils won their 4th National Championship that year, too.  You can't tell me 2010 wasn't a great year.

New Year's Resolutions
At the end of my work semester at St. Francis, I did a self-evaluation and reflected on what I felt went well, and what I want am praying for for next year.
My resolutions include:
-Sticking to waking up at 6:30 in the morning during my work week.
-Making more an effort to have confidence with talking to my fellow teachers. (Ha, one of the things I decided is that I'm going to start wearing shirt and ties to work so I can really blend more in with the male teachers.)
-Take away my pride with my Spanish and really humble myself to ask more questions and not "fake" conversations anymore.  If I don't understand something, I should say it all the time.  It's the only way you'll learn, Matt.  This goes along with really wanting to make the language my own and not being afraid of it.

My dad and brother
I had a great time with my dad and brother last night at our New Year's Eve party.  I haven't laughed that hard in awhile.  It's funny how guys are, we kind of have this manly and ideal thoughts on what we should do to feel like we're bonding.  Example, I thought it'd be cool if we went out and smoked cigars together.  Is it manly and ideal that we were continually spitting out the remnants of our cigars as we smoked because they were cheap and we had a rough cut with a dull knife?  The three of us played flipped up with the other guys. Is it manly and ideal that my dad and I were the first two to lose in the survival-spin round?  We also played pool.  Is it manly and ideal that we were pretty terrible at it, embarrassing ourselves in front of the other players, scratching, missing balls completely, and even hitting them off the table (cough*Mark*cough).  I remember Mark's and my game with our embarrassing plays, it came to a point where it was so bad we would laugh for minutes at a time, that kind of laugh where your eyes are closed, teeth out, cheeks red, your stomach hurt, and you're bent over because it's hard to stand kind of laugh.  Was it any of it manly and ideal? Maybe not, but the bonding did happen, and that's all I could ask for.

Anyway, hey 2011.  Good to see ya.  I know I'll be writing about you, too.  Bring it on.

Amén.