I had a good weekend. I didn't go crazy and rage- I just had a couple of drinks with my friend Seth at this nice little bar on Philly Street. Sang some karoke and all that fun stuff. The next night I went out to Wolfie's and danced. Friday night I got to see the Plain White T's, and that was fun.

But the best part about this weekend was the sense of utter contentment I had. I've made some choices that have left me satisified about where my life is headed, and I just feel good.

Sunday afternoon, it was beautiful day out...I walked around IUP, marveling at this rare nice weather day. I stopped at the Oak Grove, which is the campus quad full of big old oak trees. I saw all these people out, enjoying their own day...friends lying out on towels and blankets, enjoy each other's company. I saw little kids playing with one another, next to what I'm assuming would be their parents. I saw people sitting on benches, quietly reading. It was all ordinary, yet extraordinarily beautiful.

So here I was, observing this beautiful day. I sat down over by a bench, and I was just overcome by the beauty of everything that surrounded me...I started crying tears of joy. At how wonderful the world can really be, when you stop to really look at it, and how lucky I am that I'm still alive and able to experience it.

And this sense...this sense of "I was right to come here" just came over me. Yes, it would have been cheaper to have gone to Del State, yes I might have been better served by getting a degree from Wilm U, but yeah....I really do feel like I made the right choice in coming to IUP. This place just feels like home, and that's the first time I ever truly felt that, deep down in my gut. And realizing that I moved on; that I can be happy in a life outside of being a University of Delaware guy...well, I really did need to learn that. Because when I was a senior in college I thought the best part of my life was over when I finished UD. And I realize now that I was wrong; that I still have a lot great moments of happiness left even though I'm no longer a crazy UD college kid.

I hope of all you get that kind of experience every once in a while...the only I can best describe how it feels would be the words of Louis Armstrong:

I see trees of green, red roses too

I see them bloom, for me and you

And I think to myself

What a wonderful world

I see skies of blue, and clouds of white

The bright blessed day, dark sacred night

And I think to myself

What a wonderful world

The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky

Are also on the faces, of people going by

I see friends shaking hands, sayin', "How do you do?"

They're really sayin', "I love you"

I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow

They'll learn much more, than I'll ever know

And I think to myself

What a wonderful world

Yes, I think to myself

What a wonderful world

Oh yeah