03-14-03 - 1:37 p.m.

My birthday was last Friday, and now I am 25. This was rather disturbing to me the day before, and I thought about what it meant. It means I'm halfway through my twenties on my way to thirty, and I feel like I should be getting started on my life. I should be launching my career or something. But I'm not ready for it, despite being almost done with a masters degree. I've had these thoughts before, but somehow it seemed more real now that my birthday was upon me. After thinking about the issue again, though, I decided again that it wasn't important that I couldn't do anything grand right now. I just need to be moving in the direction I want to go, however clearly I can make that out. So I made a list of the things I want to do sometime in the next five years before I'm thirty. One of them is to start my next degree, which will very probably be in psychology. Apparently I make birthday resolutions rather than New Year's.

I had a good birthday. I worked in the museum all day, which is always relaxing. A coworker from one of the libraries came down and gave me a card and a back of Snickers and a helium balloon that was weighed down at the bottom of the ribbon by a yellow plastic star. She told me I wasn't allowed to hide it, so the balloon floated next to me inside the circular desk for the rest of the day, attracting attention. About an hour after she left, four people from the interlibrary loan office came to say happy birthday, bringing some cupcakes and another card and one of those "fun size" Twix bars (which is a misnomer; "fun" would be twice the size of a normal bar, not half). Then I went to the mall and bought some socks with a gift certificate I got at Christmas, and I bought a new watch at Walmart. And I got dinner from Wendy's which is my favorite fast food place, which I don't get to visit as often now because I'm paying attention to my food budget now. So. It wasn't the most exciting birthday by some people's standards, but I was happy with it. It's the best birthday I've had in a few years.