I heard about the coffee shops and being able to smoke marijuana out in the open and couldn’t get used to the idea.

I read about the museums and the rich history and the beautiful city and I couldn’t understand why the rest of the world couldn’t be more like Amsterdam. I still can’t.

Well, it turns out they are really not that different from women anywhere else, and eventually I was able to get a little something.

It’s interesting to me that everything I said on this note on my journal about what I wanted to do and my relationship with Tracy I still feel. I think it is so because I was being honest with myself. I’m learning that in relationships, being able to act honestly is the best thing… even when it hurts.

My life changed a lot at that point. I went from dreaming, to having a real opportunity to act on everything I had dreamed. Now six years later I feel like I’ve grown a lot, but my dreams are still that. It turns out that it is a lot harder to do than to dream and that because of what I want to do with my life, there is a lot I have to put in before I can get something out.

The main thing to me is that I don’t want to be one of those people that find dreams impossible. As long as I feel like I’m moving forward, I know I’m getting there.

He asked me why I believe Senator Obama would make a good president for the United States, I said I would have to believe in what the media tells me about him, but that’s different. We are talking about the Word of God, not some presidential candidate. I should get what God wants to tell me, not some translator.

We talked about this for maybe an hour, and we can continue to talk about it for much longer, but the bottom line is Sunday is going to have faith in what is in the Bible and I will continue to analyze it. It is the way it is.

It reminds me that I’m getting a little better at writing songs though.

It just goes to show that I’ve been hearing voices inside my head for a long time.

A few months later I started doing the fastest growth I’ve had so far in terms of my social skills. I think that for a lot of people being social just comes naturally because they see others do it and they do it from a very early age. For me it was a little different, so I took everything in a very academic sort of way. I remember I would write lists of things I had to overcome: look at people straight in the eyes when I’m talking to them, figure out the right distance to be when I’m talking to a girl I like, when to smile, what to say, you name it and I thought about it.

I learned some big lessons from Regina and Shannon. I remember making calls to Regina one after the other. It was not until much later that I realized how desperate I looked. Guess what? Girls don’t like desperate guys. It probably sends a vibe that says there’s something wrong with the guy for him not to have anyone else to call.

About Shannon, I missed this one because I didn’t presented myself as a man with a plan. I came up to her and was so afraid to ask for her phone number and she sensed that, still she gave me her number. Then I asked her out for dinner and she said yes, but when she asked me where we were going I said: “I don’t know, where would you like to go.” WRONG! Girls like a man with a plan. I made this mistake once, next time I asked for a number I didn’t hesitate and before I asked another girl out on a date I knew exactly where I wanted us to go, what time and what day. I even had options that I could mention just in case she said “yes”, but the day wasn’t good or she couldn’t eat a certain food. I got that on lock!

Whatever I was thinking when I wrote this was consuming my thoughts. This was March of 2002, now I’m very happy for my family and my life. I guess I just had to go through that.

I’m sure I cheered up when I got the news that my U.S. green card was approved. A little less than two months later my life changed: I was now living in America with Tracy sleeping next to me.

There will be ups and downs. But never give up your dreams.