So...hello. What can I say that might interest you, the discerning reader? I haven't posted in a while, mostly due to exams, partially due to a lack of inspiration. Tonight I could talk about anything from religion, to politics, to relationships...even my life. I just don't know what to say. Well hey, how about the next person who comments tell me what to write my next entry on? I'll write about anything and give it my best effort. I promise to give my honest opinion too. Too many times people censor themselves on their blogs...I am not going to do that to save face anymore. So fire away, if you wish. If I get no comments, I'll just pick something again, or never update (not happening, though I bet people wonder).
You know, I could be really emo tonight (I'm feeling it) and do an entry about why I dislike myself, or how my relationships never work out...but I think that would just feed into my problems and I promised this blog would be a new beginning. So I will try something more constructive.
I think I am a pretty lucky guy. I have a lot of grand friends who care about me and I somehow manage to get good grades in most subjects...I am fortunate enough to be a good problem-solver. Ahhh, there's a topic!
My future and past as an engineer. I can satisfy a part of my emo-self by prefacing this by saying that I once wrote a huge letter about this to someone that I decided to make very important to me in the past...and never sent it because it felt silly (probably because I can't believe that person would care-maybe that is part of my problem). An aside to be random: I wrote David three letters and never sent them because I take too long to write them and the beginning of the letter became old news. *ahem* Back to the topic.
Onward! I decided as a small child that I wanted to be a chemist. I had a golden vision of my small self in goggles and a lab-coat, mixing chemicals in a fancy lab. It was a fun choice for me. As I grew up, I changed my mind and wanted to work for NASA as an aerospace engineer. I envisioned myself wearing dress casual clothing and wide-rimmed glasses (in fashion nowadays, I hear) gazing with a cool demeanor over a computer console as a rocket blazed upward in the distance. I wanted badly to send something into space and I truly wanted to make a mark on the future of mankind. I decided in 8th grade I would go to MIT to reach my goals. However, around my sophomore year of high school, I realized I wasn't really smart enough to work for NASA or go to MIT and that physics was not something I really enjoyed doing...so I put my old dreams aside for a big fat "undecided" label.
Then, and I'm not afraid to admit this, along came a fair maiden. This particular person soon convinced me that chemical engineering was a good field to get into...ah the amazing power of suggestion females can have. But I am a logical person! I would not continue on a path just because of a single person...right? Right! I soon realized that I loved chemistry and was pretty darn good at it. I did research and saw how broad chemical engineering was and that it could provide enough flexibility to make me happy one way or another. Materials engineering was especially attractive to me, but I considered it enough of a sub-division of CHE that I wouldn't narrow my prospects by majoring in it...and I so was decided.
Now that I am actually majoring in chemical engineering, let me talk about where I want to go with it. I have two absolute "dream dreams"...things that I don't believe possible but would love to do. The first dream is me working as a Chemical Engineer for NASA, either trying to colonize the moon, Mars, or just working with the future of space-travel...because, in my humble opinion, we can't stay here forever. If humanity doesn't want to become extinct from a freak accident or stupid act of war (but aren't they all stupid) we need a second, third, fourth, fifth, etc. base away from here. The second dream is me working as an engineer or college professor in Japan. I already plan on an international co-op and Japan is my first choice. I think the culture there would suit me better than too. We'll see what happens though.
Here's what I think will happen. I'll work this summer on base and at the end of the summer they will ask me about my plans for co-op (i.e. am I working for them). I won't be able to say no to them because it is a very solid job and a great path to the future...plus I feel like I owe them a bit. So, I'll co-op on base while living at home, miss out on going to Japan, graduate high in my class, and be hired non-competitively as a civilian at Wright-Patt. I will move out of my home to somewhere in Fairborn and visit frequently Huber while becoming part of the base sub-culture. I may find someone I want to date, but it isn't likely. So, I'll be well-employed and marginally happy with my life while working close to home. Finally, when I'm a senior engineer (if I'm not married), I'll pull so strings and get transferred to Egland base in Florida until I retire to a quiet beach home and try to live out my days in peace. I'll probably have cats and write poetry (it will likely be bad...I'll have been an engineer for quite a while). Then I'll die and some people back home will be sad for a little while.
Not so bad, eh? Nothing ever goes as planned though. This point is illustrated pretty well by my bracket...I have a solid general idea of where things are going, but I could never hope to get it right.
Wow, this entry got pretty long. I'll end it now with my best wishes to all my friends and anyone who might randomly stumble onto my blog. I'm rooting for you all. Don't forgot my comment request!
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1 comment:
I know i'm commenting a few posts back, but what the hey.
There are two incidents that all this makes me think of, that i'm going to pass onward in hopes that they at least enrich the direction of your life. One is that, on several occations, my mom and step-dad have sighed over how lucky i am to persuing a degree in what i want to do, jewelry, right from the start, despite its questionable economic stability. They generally reflect upon their own college careers, majoring in commercial art or as an electrician, more because they had good money-making futures attached then for any other reason. Do you think our generation in general is doing mroe college time for what we want then for what we need? Ever since Pepitone and Microserfs, i've tended to drift off and wonder what really sets our half-decade of an age group off form our parents.
The other thing i shall mention has to do with jobs. At one point, a few months into my job at the theater, there came a chance that i could get a job at a Jared jewelers instead. (a friend leaving, new opening, things like this) At the time, as i submitted my application and sat and hoped, i was really emotionally crushed by the idea that i'd be leaving my new friends already, even though the new job would have been both a pay increase and situated firmly in my chosen career field. Everytime i got to thinking about seriously leaving i became seriously upset. But they never called back. Now check, just a month ago i recieved a call from a skatepark, which only brings the perk of being much closer to home. (the pay isn't even better.) And i've still switched jobs without more then one or two mornfull hours and several promises to come back and see a movie sometime.
So, perhaps the point of all this is, maybe you will be able to say no to Wright-Patt, or somehow to get your Japanese transfer. When the opportunity arrives, you'll have to decide if what you 'should' do is more about what you want, or what you need. And you'll just have to promis to come visit and watch a movie sometime.
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