It's a funny feeling - knowing that what you've been doing is over there, in that inaccessible continuum of time that we call The Past. That changing what has been is completely and utterly impossible. But it's a breath of fresh air to realize once again that the present is changeable, available for whatever temporal alterations we wish to impress upon it's fluid surfaces. It is the personal change that one finds most compelling - the subtle change in attitude, the slight shift in one's outlook on life that effect the most positive and lasting changes in day-to-day life. The mediums of discovery are mundane - a simple, powerfully-spoken sentence in a book, the soft-spoken yet wise advice of a friend, or yet another day of the same problems at the same time from the same people - but through them come the realizations that you need to change; that what you've been doing is not producing the results that you wanted to see.

Chris got mad at me a few weeks ago for constantly showing up not knowing what I was supposed to be doing that week. And it occurred to me that someone who wants to develop his leadership skills and become a more effective technician (Indeed, most of the teachers there already look to my technical ability when they're having problems.) should probably take the initiative and know what he's doing on any given week. I decided to take it a step further and know what everybody was doing any given week.

It's easy to mope and do nothing. At least I think it's easy, because I do a lot of it, and I generally don't have to force myself. But it gets me nowhere. The saying that you can't get other people to change, you can only change yourself is completely true. I want to become better at leadership. I have a tendency (Okay, as long as we're being completely honest, let's just say it. I do this constantly.) to dwell on past failures, to the point of detriment to my current performance. I'm so bloody insecure that I find myself constantly asking others to evaluate me. Evaluate my performance. Evaluate my any and every skill to the point of absurdity. This character flaw is not conducive to becoming a better leader. But yesterday is behind me, and I can fix it now. I can move like today never happened.

And now for something completely different.

Tonight, I drove 45 minutes outside the city to look at the stars. You should do this sometime. If you do, please keep the following things in mind:

- Find someplace dark - really dark.

- Bugs of the blood-sucking variety are persistent, and will fly and / or crawl through anything to get you, even if it means braving your chemical-soaked epidermis slathered with enough DEET to cause your firstborn to have eleven toes. Wear long pants / shirt. After you have done these things, give your eyes about two minutes to adjust to the low light levels. Then, and only then, should you look up.

Prepare to be awed by the magnificent creation of the night sky.