Las Cruces is becoming more like home every day. I think a large part of it is the amazing friends that I have made here. There is a multitude of good memories here now, and everything is becoming so familiar to me. Not to mention that Hatch green chile is the greatest ever.

Today my Wreck This Journal choice of tasks was first the page that says chew on this. I figured that I had better do it first before everything gets all dirty. After some bite marks were placed, my next choice was the page with the directions: tie a string to the journal, go for a walk, drag it. I have been dragging it around with me all day on campus, and it has elicited some very interesting reactions. It's been so very entertaining to watch everyone that was watching me. People were asking me if I knew that I was dragging a book behind me. My favorite so far was the construction worker who was so appalled that he had to ask me why I was doing what I was doing. I just told him that the book was for destroying, and that is what it said to do. There have been a lot of curious people today to say the least. Another interesting set of reactions were those from my professors in my department. They know and recognize me, and I think that they know that I am not a mad woman. They might have questioned it a bit today though. I look forward to the future tasks.

Today I learned that I aced the second quiz in stats. It is an interesting feeling to realize that I am finally starting to understand this other language that is statistics. It will be scary when we leave the review sections and start learning new material. I find it funny that it will be the statistics classes that will get me a job in the industry rather than the horticulture classes.

Last week my Hort 100 students took a tour of the Chile Pepper Institute (which is about a half acre of various chile varieties). Some of my students were brave enough, or stupid enough, to taste the hottest chile in the world. As a comparison, habenero peppers are about 300,000 skoville units of heat. The next hottest and the hottest chile, bhut jolokia, is more than a million skoville units of heat. It also has a delayed heat, so some people will tell themselves that it wasn't that bad and take another bite before the first bite has really kicked in. Bad idea! Although I am getting more used to the spicy flavors of food here, I don't want to put myself through that pain just to say that I did.

Some days I feel very behind everyone else. I know that it's not fair to me to compare myself to others. I should be comparing myself to myself, and noting the progress. However, there are those days when I just don't want to, when it feels easier or more fun to just complain and bemoan about my life. Truth is, that I don't have any reason to complain. It's up to me to decide to be happy in my moment. There will most likely be a time in my life when I look back upon these moments with envy, thinking of the opportunities and freedoms available to me.

I was so very excited to get Wreck This Journal that I thought I could hardly wait for it to come. Then I got it and wrote the date in it, 8/28/09, and haven't done a thing with it but carry it everywhere with me - until today. I finally put in a fruit sticker. I've concluded that I must be either a perfectionist or afraid to do things wrong (or both!). Well, today I am jumping in. Enough holding back. I already know consciously that if I break something the world will go on. I already know that for some things there is no 'wrong' way to do them. Yet somewhere underneath it all I hesitate. What if I don't do it in my own signature way? What if, what if?? Today I am letting that bit of edginess that I am feeling take over the hesitancy. I feel anger for no apparent reason, and so I think that I will take it out on the book. It will absorb my emotions for me. My daily therapy. The spine will be cracked. Scribbling will occur. Pages will be bent. Pages will be burnt, and some will go missing. Sticky things will find their way between the pages. At some point it will fly through the air with blind madness and from great heights. And after it all I will still be me, and the journal will be a product of my own brand of creative destruction. There will be no scars for life from this experience, but perhaps quite the opposite might happen. I might just discover things about myself that I never knew before. I might just find a bit more freedom to live life every day.

I am loving my new apartment. With a few exceptions. #1. It smells. The smell is a mix of new carpet (yeah, new carpet!) and some kind of formaldehyde bug killer emanating from under the kitchen sink that was left over from before we moved in. This is related to #2. Roaches. UGH! I do not like large bugs that run fast and could possibly be crawling on me in the middle of the night. I have had way too many roach chasing adventures already. This is another reason that I am glad that I don't eat hardly any boxed foods. I hate to think of bugs getting into my food.

I am asking myself, what does it take to realize that happiness is something that comes from ourselves and not from without ourselves? Do you just have to think about it a lot? Is it just a matter or trial and error, realizing that time after time it doesn't come from those worldly things? Sometimes I just want to force myself or the people around me to get it already!