LoL#39: 525,600 minutes...

So for those of you that have seen or are at least familiar with the musical Rent, you recognize the subject line as part of the song "Seasons of Love" which for those of you that don't know it goes like this: "Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes, five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear. Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes - how do you measure, measure a year?"

And the whole reason I bring it up (besides having no other decent way to start this e-mail) is that another year has gone by and tomorrow I'm turning 23!! Now I'm sort of past the point of being overly hyper and excited about the whole cake and ice cream shindig but there is a type of reflective mentality that I always find myself in this time of year - a sort of looking back at what I've done in the past 365 days, wondering how much is the same/different from a year ago (dang! my life got a lot better!!), and also thinking ahead to where I might see myself after another 525,600 minutes go by.

So here we have Lisa's Random Summary of her life as a 22 year old (keep in mind all these answers are Sept 2002-2003 only):

Greatet Carreer Accomplishment: Finally feeling like I know what I'm doing at work
Worst Carreer Accomplishment: Still not knowing what exactly I'm doing with my life
Most Mis-Aimed Goal: Thinking that I should go to Med School
Craziest Self-Torture to head toward said goal: The MCAT
Ongoing Addiction: Caffeine!!!!
Times Tried to Cut Caffeine Addiction: 9
Times Failed at Cutting Caffeine Addiction: 9
Most Caffeine Consumed in One Day: My record this year was 168 ounces in 20 hours (coffee, Mt Dew, D.Coke)
Spats of Insmnia Due to Excessive Caffiene in Diet: Too many to count
Dentist Visits: 2
Dentist Visits For Massively Painful Oral Surgery: 1
Good Habit Enacted: Flossing
Bad Habit Eliminated: Hating the way I look
Best Movie Seen: This one's tough......Finding Nemo? Pirates of the Carribbean? Oh wait...Hands down it's Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers!!
Worst Movie Seen: I'm gonna go with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen just because I was expecting it to be way cool and it SUCKED (...but it was a fun movie going experience....)
Cool New TV shows hooked on last season: 6
Number of those shows renewed for another season: 1
Best Concert: Billy Joel & Elton John (yeah, it's amazing but the best concert of the year was one I went to with my parents!!!)
Best Road Trip: IGNITE!!!
Best Family Vacation: Fourth of July in Michigan
Best Trip to Chambana: 3-way tie - Homecoming ; Entertainment Night ; Lauren's Birthday
Address Changes: 1
Number of friends bribed with free lunch to help me move: 2
Number of friends who would've helped without the lunch: 2
Bad Break-ups: 1
Months vowed to stay single after said break up: 7
Months actually was single before asked to date man of my dreams: 8 :)
Times I cried over a boy: 5 (...but two were actually tears of joy)
Weddings invited to: 7
Weddings able to attend: 4
Best wedding experience: Being Jacklyn's Maid of Honor (...she wasn't supposed to see that wink!)
Number of times rumors started that I was engaged: 5
Number of times annoyingly corrected rumor: 5
Clutziest move of the year: I was gonna say cutting my finger open on a plastic tape dispenser, but I suppose my Statue diving in Louisville tops that...
Wildest move of the year: Getting my belly button pierced
Times I said I was growing my hair out: 3
Times I got hair cut after swearing to grow it out: 3
Most Embarrassing moment: "Jackson..." (If you heard the story, you know what that means ; if not, I ain't telling!!!)
Number of baseball games attended: 3
Number of Cubs games watched on TV: A LOT - I don't know a number but it's more this year than in the past 22 years of my life combined (haven't watched this much baseball since the Twins won the World Series when I was 7!)
Best Hangout Places Discovered: In the burbs - Gameworks ; In Chambana - Cowboy Monkey
Favorite People to Hang there (or anywhere!) with: ALL OF YOU!!!!

So I could go on, but this seems like a pretty decent place to stop. But yeah, it's been a crazy and random year. 525,600 minutes. So long and yet every moment is so precious and so unique. To finish off the song I started: "How do you measure a year? In daylights? in sunsets? in midnights? or cups of coffee? In inches? in miles? in laughter? or strife? In five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes, how do you measure a life? How about love... measure in love. Seasons of love." And perhaps that is in fact the best way to look back at every year of life and the best way to look forward at every coming new one - to look at, look back on, and look forward to how much and how many we are loved by and love.


525,600 Minutesfully Yours,

lisa :)


p.s. I also have to give supreme shoutouts to those super spiffy people that also have September as their birthday month so Super Kudos to Laura G and Matt M!!

p.p.s. Great quotes that somehow didn't find a place in this e-mail:
"Live to love and you will love to live."
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return."
"You want the main purpose of my life.....how about.....love. Oh wait, that kinda makes me sound like a weirdo hippy chick...."