To all who don't know...

If my gigolo post wasn't enough to convince you, I guess I should just report that I am now completely without a job. Hopefully I have saved enough money to make it until the next paying gig, but I can't help but feel a little disappointed in myself for this one.

Quite honestly, ever since the time that I was sure that I wouldn't being working anymore, I have been looking for a job pretty diligently online every day, and I have found that all the online career sites are horrendously overrated. That, and my accomplishments thus far are suddenly completely underrated; or more accurately, unappreciated. It has become abundantly clear that the only way to get a job in this world is to know someone or have more experience than any college aged kid could possibly have. Not that I didn't anticipate this, but it tends to get even more frustrating when the problem is thrust in your face on a daily basis.

Believe me, I'm not here to whine or complain, because I am without doubt the only one here to blame. Assuming that I did really want to be an engineer, my biggest folly came when I continually turned down surefire internship opportunities my first few summers. Why did I do this? There were all kinds of stupid, but in my mind (and still to this day) real and legit reasons, but maybe it was really just my own way to tell myself that this may not be what i want to do the rest of my life.

It's funny because I'm not even 23 yet and already everybody seems to think that my life is over. I don't think that at all. I'm quite calm about the whole thing really. There are several avenues that I would still like to travel, and I have nothing but time to do so. Hell, if I ever do decide on a different career I have pretty good accolades to even try a good grad school if so needed.

One thing that I am pretty close to actually trying is substitute teaching. I've kinda always wanted to try it just once. I think it would be a rush, not to mention interesting as a 22 year old. I would without question want to do high school only however, as I don't feel prepared to handle the responsibilities that come with younger children. I really want to teach math too, to make up for all those high school math teachers that have no answer to the question of, "Why do we learn this? I'll never use this," because by golly, I have a ton of answers to that question! Do any of you remember learning the square root of -1 you learned in high school, the imaginary number i? It turns out that without this concept all math and physics as we know them today would pretty much mean nothing, but nobody in high school can tell you that!

When I go home everybody treats me like a totally different person than when I am here. While many hold onto the memories they have of me from high school, they still are amazed and sometimes seem to almost admire the changes I have made in my life since high school. The one thing that everybody expects of me when I return back to the home country oh so rarely is a good story, something that I pride myself on being able to deliver. I seem in some way to either attract or seek out adventure in the form of an anecdote quite often in my life, to the point that some even believe that I am creating the events that I portray in my own mind. Regardless of the believed source, these visits home give me the confidence to follow through on my dream to be a story teller full time. What I really want to do is write.

I haven't taken english classes here at college, nor have I made an attempt to further my abilities through self instruction or constant reading. What I have done is live my life in such a way that I have something to say when the fingers do strike the keyboard. I'll give up every rule of grammar I have learned for just one story that affects someone else's life. I feel that I have finally rounded that corner in one's life where they obsess or crumble under the stresses of social obligations (I can now willingly avoid drama), and even at this young age, I may have something of note to say. This is not to say that I feel I have matured beyond my years, but instead to admit that the only maturity one can reach is the common knowledge that we are always struggling to learn more about this life that we live. I will make countless mistakes, be pulled down by numerous guilts, and endure more regrets than one would like to admit within the next few years, of this I am sure, but hopefully I will do so with some dignity and ability to reflect. Basically, I wouldn't mind for the world to maybe get a glimpse of what it is that I do, as the only great way to write is to write what you know, and all I know for sure right now is myself.

I guess this compulsion to share with the world comes from the great efforts I have taken to conceal key ingredients to who I am throughout my time here in Ann Arbor. What is the recipe to my life? Maybe it is finally time to come clean.