inadequacies

My trip to Dublin this weekend was incredible. Despite not having visited the Guiness Brewery (truly tragic, I know), I had my fill of fantastic Irish beer, food, folk songs and singing Irishmen. Pretty much everything I could ask for.

Except for the part where we (my roommates and I) almost didn't make it back out of Dublin. After being screwed over by Ryan Air (surprise!), we had to buy a separate ticket to get back to Madrid on Iberia. The weekend was extremely enjoyable until the minute the man at the gate told me, "You don't have a stamp. That means you don't get to travel today."

I'm still not sure how I stayed the rational one in that situation -- I think I had a delayed reaction to the news. But, on the positive side, at least I made it back.

This week, I've been thinking a lot. About lots of things. I've come to the realization that my time here is coming to an end (just three months left) and I need to start thinking about what the next step will be. I already know that whatever may come, I expect it will come in Denver. I miss it, I miss being close to home, and really, what is a better place to figure out what the heck to do with yourself than your own home? I keep thinking that I have been wasting my time here by not experimenting more on my own with videos of my vacation, or even really blogging about them. How am I going to get a job in this new media field if I've had the most fantastic opportunity and I've let it slip through my fingers? It makes me think about how I should really be more of a go-getter, and it makes me wonder what happened to me. I used to be one of those people with a fire under my ass, always trying to do whatever I could to get myself ahead. But now, I'm OK with just taking things a day at a time.

I've been trying to live by the Buddhist philosophy of living in the present moment, but I'm having trouble finding a good balance between enjoying the moment and reconciling it with my former work ethic and need to know what comes next. Perhaps it's a nasty circle, and worrying about not worrying enough means that I'm not really yet at the point where I live in the moment.