What a long, strange trip it´s been.

Well, first let me start by apologizing for my lack of blogging activity in the past while, I´m not going to make any excuses but that´s just kind of how things worked out, I´m not happy about it either.
Second, when I return to the states I plan to continue my blogging and patch some holes that I left in that absence streak, so even though the stories won´t be fresh, they will be fresh to you and might still be worth while to read.
Third, I also want to do a kind of last blog from portugal, I don´t know if this is going to be it but we´ll see how things play out.
This year has been monumental in my life so far. A very wise teacher once told me, (this was in third grade) she said something to this effect, ``This year has just flown by for me, do you all feel that way too?´´ My classmates and I all looked around to one another and shook our heads, ``No,´´ we said, ``This has been a whole full year and it feels like it.´´ My teacher thought a little bit and then said: `` I have a theory, you all are around 8-9 years old, and I´m about 40 something (I can´t remeber but that fits the idea.)´´ We were doing fractions back then and she asked ws what fraction of our lives had just passed us by. We did the math. We were 8, she was 40, one year in 9 years of life is 1/9, and one year in 40 is 1/40, we then saw that we had a way bigger peice of pie than she had, and we realized what she was trying to say. I guess what I´m trying to say now is that, even with only 1/17 of my life having passed this year, that I´m already feeling the acceleration and my thoughts and emotions are being whirled up into this bathtub where someone has just pulled the plug. That´s my analogy, metaphor or similie (can´t remember right now) for the point where I am in my experience right now. I only hope I can react quick enough and throw in some good braces (kayak term) to guide myself safely throw the churning water.