Back in December, I went up to Stevens Point to visit my good friends, Ben and Annette. While we were up there, Annette directed me to a list that she had made, of 30 things that she wanted to accomplish before she was 30. Since I met Alexus, I've been in a major self-improvement sort of mood, and I've been thinking a lot about what I want to accomplish in the next 4 and half years. I wrote this a week or two ago, but I've spent the last couple weeks tweaking it to make sure it's absolutely how I want it. I think it's perfect, now. And yes, some of them are incredibly nerdy. But come on, guys. You should know me by now. I'm trying to keep them reasonable, but challenging.
Without further ado, here are 30 things that I want to accomplish before I'm 30 years old. I will start a photo album on here to post photos or screenshots (as the case may be) to verify my progress. I will also update the note with completion dates.
Wish me luck.
1. Get Married.
2. Have a child, or at least be expecting one.
3. Own a house.
4. Learn to cook 20 "everyday" meals from memory. I don't know how to cook anything, really.
5. Learn Finnish. Of course, the language that I want to learn is one of the few not offered by Rosetta Stone. Figures, right?
6. Begin attending Tai Chi classes again.
7. Learn to play guitar.
8. See the following bands in concert: Coheed & Cambria, Marilyn Manson, Offspring, Smashing Pumpkins, Electric Six, Avenged Sevenfold, Nine Inch Nails.
9. See a classical music concert. I'd also accept an opera. Extra points if it's Don Giovanni.
10. Read 5 novels. Considering I never read, this'll be more difficult than most people would probably give me credit for.
11. Completely design a videogame. Either an old-school RPG or a survival-horror game. Maybe both in one? Find someone to help me make it.
12. Beat every Silent Hill game and every Tomb Raider game.
13. Have at least 5 Warcraft characters at the level cap. They don't have to be any good, but they have to get there.
14. See every episode of Star Trek. From every incarnation of the show. The movies too.
15. Make at least 25 pieces of artwork that aren't "work" related. Photography doesn't count.
16. Make at least $100 selling photography.
17. Wake up early and get at least 12 photo-shoots at sunrise. One in each month of the year, and each one in a different place.
18. Actually write the story I've had in my head for about 5 years, now. I don't know in what format it'll be, but I want to get it written down and viewable to the public.
19. Write 3 short stories.
20. Have at least $2000 invested in the stock market.
21. Successfully find 500 geocaches.
22. Go camping at least 5 more times.
23. Go canoeing at least 10 more times.
24. Take a multiple-state road trip with friends. Destination is not important, but we have to be gone for at least a week.
25. Travel to any one of these distant lands: New Zealand, Easter Island, Scotland, or Finland. Only one is required.
26. Visit Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio. Roller Coaster capital of the world!
27. Visit Roswell, New Mexico.
28. See the aurora borealis in person.
29. Have the perfect day. Watch the sun come up. Go out for an awesome and filling breakfast. Come home and play video-games until the food coma goes away. Go geocaching or canoeing all day, or at least spend all day outside. Have the spicy chicken pasta from Chili's for dinner. Go see a horror or sci-fi movie afterwards. Find a place to get ice-cream (even if it's late at night by this point.) Go for a walk in the countryside after sunset, just like old times. Come home again and sleep. Perfect.
30. Find a way to work from home. This is probably a pipe dream, but I'm going to try.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
How Fortuitous
Things are a little jumbled up around here. I say that as though it's something different than normal. A lot has happened in the last week, and in some ways it feels like nothing has happened at all, if that makes any sense. It kind of feels like all of this stuff is happening at a time where I can "start fresh," as it were.
My boss has confirmed that starting the search for a new job would be encouraged. I've got until around August before I "officially" run out of work to do around here. But since all the part-timers are running out of work to do NOW, and they're getting their hours cut because of it, they'll have no problem parsing my work between the others. So basically I get a nice, cushy, 7-8 month window to find a new position. I'm also reaching that point where I can get away with saying that I have 5 years of experience. No more entry-level! Well, not necessarily, at least.
I've decided against going into the dog-training field at this point because I simply don't have enough experience right now. I had considered the Petco/PetSmart dog-trainer options as well, but I'd definitely like to conserve more money for the time being, and it'll be easier to make that going back into Graphic Design. In all fairness, I thought I'd have until 2013 to get more experience in that before I'd have to start looking again.
Lia has confirmed that she's leaving, because we just can't stand living together anymore. She's still figuring out what date she'll be out, but she's planning on it being sometime in February. Maybe as soon as February 1st. Honestly, I've reached the point where paying for the rest of the lease by myself is a preferred alternative to saving money and having her around. Whatever. I'll get by.
Things with Alexus are still great. Saturday was one month for us. I'm still very happy. Her transfer out of the far-away Saukville Walgreens finally went through, so that's definitely good news.
I've had a bronchial infection since last Wednesday/Thursday that is seriously taking forever to go away. It's filled with that wonderful kind of coughing that burns deep in your chest and makes it difficult to breathe most of the time. Even these antibiotics don't seem to be kicking it. I've currently taken 3 and a half sick days because of it. Not feeling particularly great today either, but I don't want to keep missing work. (Even though I'm not particularly fond of work and I'll be done with this job relatively soon. What's that all about?)
So for now, it's like taking each day one-at-a-time. There's a lot of uncertainty in the next few months, but somehow, I'm just not that worried. Lately, a fresh start has seemed overdue. It's just rare for it to happen with every aspect of my life at once.
My boss has confirmed that starting the search for a new job would be encouraged. I've got until around August before I "officially" run out of work to do around here. But since all the part-timers are running out of work to do NOW, and they're getting their hours cut because of it, they'll have no problem parsing my work between the others. So basically I get a nice, cushy, 7-8 month window to find a new position. I'm also reaching that point where I can get away with saying that I have 5 years of experience. No more entry-level! Well, not necessarily, at least.
I've decided against going into the dog-training field at this point because I simply don't have enough experience right now. I had considered the Petco/PetSmart dog-trainer options as well, but I'd definitely like to conserve more money for the time being, and it'll be easier to make that going back into Graphic Design. In all fairness, I thought I'd have until 2013 to get more experience in that before I'd have to start looking again.
Lia has confirmed that she's leaving, because we just can't stand living together anymore. She's still figuring out what date she'll be out, but she's planning on it being sometime in February. Maybe as soon as February 1st. Honestly, I've reached the point where paying for the rest of the lease by myself is a preferred alternative to saving money and having her around. Whatever. I'll get by.
Things with Alexus are still great. Saturday was one month for us. I'm still very happy. Her transfer out of the far-away Saukville Walgreens finally went through, so that's definitely good news.
I've had a bronchial infection since last Wednesday/Thursday that is seriously taking forever to go away. It's filled with that wonderful kind of coughing that burns deep in your chest and makes it difficult to breathe most of the time. Even these antibiotics don't seem to be kicking it. I've currently taken 3 and a half sick days because of it. Not feeling particularly great today either, but I don't want to keep missing work. (Even though I'm not particularly fond of work and I'll be done with this job relatively soon. What's that all about?)
So for now, it's like taking each day one-at-a-time. There's a lot of uncertainty in the next few months, but somehow, I'm just not that worried. Lately, a fresh start has seemed overdue. It's just rare for it to happen with every aspect of my life at once.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Round and Round
I consider myself a planner. The sort of person who also has goals set and a destination in mind at every turn. Seldom does anything ever go as planned, of course. Now that high school and college are finished, I'm discovering that the future is becoming a lot more hazy than I would care for.
Consider the terms of my current lease. I broke up with Lia in July, immediately after signing the lease. Lots of foresight there, clearly. The last several months have been a weird mixture of angry door-slamming to reluctant acceptance to "let's try be friends." Lately it's been kind of a blend of all three. A day or two ago, Lia broke the news to me that her brother and his roommate might be interested in taking the lease over in April. While that's amazing news because it gets us out of this awkward living situation sooner, it makes me wonder what else is in store.
A few months ago, my boss took the opportunity to remind me that my job will be essentially "over" when this giant project gets finished. Originally, that was supposed to be done in 2013. Over the last couple months, the other coworkers in my department have been running out of work to do, so the big-wigs have been taking the work that was meant for me and delegating it to the others to give them something to do. According to my boss's projections, I MIGHT be done as early as August. I genuinely do not want to leave this job sooner than I have to, but my boss has been dodging my questions about the subject for the last couple days, so that's generally not a good sign.
This puts me in quite a spot as far as concerns my next lease. Let's assume I'm out in April. I'm not going to want to take on a year lease if I may by jobless in a few months. 6 months might work and month-to-month would definitely work, but leases like that are hard to come by these days. That also brings up concerns about the roommate situation. Alexus and I like to spend a lot of time together. I realize some of you frown on that since it's only been a month, but that's how both of us like to pursue relationships, so it's working out great as far as we're concerned. I don't see that changing anytime soon. If I would go the roommate route, though, I think any roommate would probably get sick of having another frequent visitor pretty quickly. At the same time, living "alone" is a lot of undue financial strain. Even if Alexus weren't in the picture at all, I really liked the freedom of living alone and having free-reign of my territory. Not to mention that if I do end up jobless, even for a month or two, it would screw over a potential roommate pretty badly.
My original plan was to finish up my dog-training classes, practice until 2013, and then see what I'm comfortable with at that point. I'm not going to have time for that if August is my deadline. The last time I met with my mentor, she asked me what I wanted to do with the certification. I told her I wasn't certain yet. She did tell me that she knows that the Washington County and Ozaukee County Humane Societies need a lot of help from experienced trainers. I was unclear if those were paid positions or not, but it's a lead and I have a reference, I suppose. I really don't want to work graphic design again unless I have to. I've done it for years now, and the more it goes on, the less I think it's my "calling." I suppose if all else fails, I can take a pay-cut and check into my options working as a trainer at a Petco or Petsmart. I'll look for graphic design again if I have to, but I'd prefer to avoid it if possible.
In the end, I suppose here's what I'm left with. If the lease is done in April now, I would probably need to have a good idea of what's going on with work at some point in February in order to formulate a better plan of attack. I've discussed this with a couple of coworkers here, and they've reminded me that NPH doesn't grant any sort of unemployment because it is a non-profit that is in the church industry, and therefore not eligible to be used for such a thing. I'm not entirely certain how the legality of everything works there, but I'm trying not to bank on it as an option, just in case. Thoughts? Anybody?
Consider the terms of my current lease. I broke up with Lia in July, immediately after signing the lease. Lots of foresight there, clearly. The last several months have been a weird mixture of angry door-slamming to reluctant acceptance to "let's try be friends." Lately it's been kind of a blend of all three. A day or two ago, Lia broke the news to me that her brother and his roommate might be interested in taking the lease over in April. While that's amazing news because it gets us out of this awkward living situation sooner, it makes me wonder what else is in store.
A few months ago, my boss took the opportunity to remind me that my job will be essentially "over" when this giant project gets finished. Originally, that was supposed to be done in 2013. Over the last couple months, the other coworkers in my department have been running out of work to do, so the big-wigs have been taking the work that was meant for me and delegating it to the others to give them something to do. According to my boss's projections, I MIGHT be done as early as August. I genuinely do not want to leave this job sooner than I have to, but my boss has been dodging my questions about the subject for the last couple days, so that's generally not a good sign.
This puts me in quite a spot as far as concerns my next lease. Let's assume I'm out in April. I'm not going to want to take on a year lease if I may by jobless in a few months. 6 months might work and month-to-month would definitely work, but leases like that are hard to come by these days. That also brings up concerns about the roommate situation. Alexus and I like to spend a lot of time together. I realize some of you frown on that since it's only been a month, but that's how both of us like to pursue relationships, so it's working out great as far as we're concerned. I don't see that changing anytime soon. If I would go the roommate route, though, I think any roommate would probably get sick of having another frequent visitor pretty quickly. At the same time, living "alone" is a lot of undue financial strain. Even if Alexus weren't in the picture at all, I really liked the freedom of living alone and having free-reign of my territory. Not to mention that if I do end up jobless, even for a month or two, it would screw over a potential roommate pretty badly.
My original plan was to finish up my dog-training classes, practice until 2013, and then see what I'm comfortable with at that point. I'm not going to have time for that if August is my deadline. The last time I met with my mentor, she asked me what I wanted to do with the certification. I told her I wasn't certain yet. She did tell me that she knows that the Washington County and Ozaukee County Humane Societies need a lot of help from experienced trainers. I was unclear if those were paid positions or not, but it's a lead and I have a reference, I suppose. I really don't want to work graphic design again unless I have to. I've done it for years now, and the more it goes on, the less I think it's my "calling." I suppose if all else fails, I can take a pay-cut and check into my options working as a trainer at a Petco or Petsmart. I'll look for graphic design again if I have to, but I'd prefer to avoid it if possible.
In the end, I suppose here's what I'm left with. If the lease is done in April now, I would probably need to have a good idea of what's going on with work at some point in February in order to formulate a better plan of attack. I've discussed this with a couple of coworkers here, and they've reminded me that NPH doesn't grant any sort of unemployment because it is a non-profit that is in the church industry, and therefore not eligible to be used for such a thing. I'm not entirely certain how the legality of everything works there, but I'm trying not to bank on it as an option, just in case. Thoughts? Anybody?
Monday, January 3, 2011
Resolving
I've never really allowed myself to have New Years Resolutions. I've always tried to live my life regret free, believing that both good things and bad ones all happen for a reason, and if you roll with the punches, you'll still end up where you're supposed to be. From that viewpoint, it's always felt frivolous to attempt to enact a change of your own because life's just going to do whatever it wants anyway.
But more-so this year than any before, I can't help but feel like the universe is moving pieces around the board again. The most notable example of which is the addition of Alexus into my life. Since a lot of you out there don't know the full story, allow me to explain in greater detail. And pay attention, I think the details are important here.
The new World of Warcraft expansion had a midnight release on 12/7 for all of the people who had it reserved and fully paid off, myself included. So I show up around 11:45. Since the mall is closed, everyone is supposed to line up at one particular entrance, and the Gamestop employees have brought everybody's copy of the game down to hand out. Meanwhile, I'm standing in this group of guys who are being loud and obnoxious and boasting about how great their characters are. At some point they focus their attention on me and ask about mine, which one of the guys promptly starts berating. Instead of listening to this, I go over to talk to the employees who are patiently waiting for midnight.
Midnight strikes and the employees ask everyone to start forming lines. Since I'm already standing by the employees, I'm "first" in line just in terms of where I'm standing. At this point, the guy who was being a douche to me before starts freaking out about how I have to go to the back of the line because they were all there first. I don't honestly care. It's tired and I'm cold, so I just went without a fuss. Now I'm the last person in line, and I'm standing next to a guy and a girl. The guy introduced himself as James, and that prompted the girl, Alexus, to introduce herself as well. James begins making small talk about how all of his friends have stopped playing, so the game is kind of boring to him. Alexus, meanwhile, pulls out her phone to show us videos of her Warcraft character. As she's doing this, James suggests "hey, let's all exchange phone numbers so that we can talk on WoW." So, we do.
As we're moving up in line, I find out that Alexus is friends with a lot of the people that work at Gamestop, and that she's hanging out with them afterwards. Eventually, I get up to the front and the employees realize that they forgot my copy of the game up in the store. The mall is closed, and we're not supposed to go in, but the store manager decides to bring Alexus and I inside because he's not sending me home empty-handed and she has plans with friends who will be up there too. When we get up there, the employees all go into the Gamestop, but since Alexus and I are not employees, they can't let us into the store. So instead, Alexus and I get to sit down outside the closed Gamestop in the empty mall and chat one-on-one for several minutes. The employees come out and hand me my game, I thank them and say goodbye to Alexus. As I'm walking away, she shouts after me "You have my number, right?" I say I do and tell her to have a good night.
Believing that everything happens for a reason, I was thinking about that whole experience on the drive back home. When lots of little random things happen to put me in a particular situation, I believe that's the universe trying to tell me something. So I'm thinking, if that guy hadn't douched out on me, I wouldn't have gotten sent to the back of the line and met Alexus. If James hadn't brought up the number exchange, I know I probably wouldn't have done it. If the employees hadn't forgotten my copy and ONLY my copy of the game, I wouldn't have gotten to go upstairs. And if the Gamestop employees had let us come in, Alexus and I wouldn't have gotten to talk one-on-one. When you look at the night as a whole, I feel like there were an awful lot of "coincidences" that occurred to put me in that situation. So, I went with my gut, and a couple of quick text messages eventually turned into the relationship that we had now. What are the odds that after talking over the last few weeks that we have the similar hobbies? Personality and sense of humor? Values? Life goals? Beliefs? She's a quirky gamer dork. Just like me. We have a very natural chemistry and the fact that she can make me laugh until I'm crying doesn't hurt either. I can't remember the last time I was this happy. I just can't imagine all of this being "chance".
I think the best things in life are out of our control. Look back and you'll see that my interaction and choice to make contact played a very small role in the events leading up to all this. The rest was up to the universe.
That being said, I've decided to make a small resolution this year anyway. I'm going to try and go back to writing a blog every week. I decided to take a break because I was writing a story which I was going to post. But then life got in the way, as it so often does, and I kept pushing it off as my muse faded. Now it's a couple of months later and I've got no writing to show for it. I'm hoping that'll change this time around.
Happy New Year, everyone.
But more-so this year than any before, I can't help but feel like the universe is moving pieces around the board again. The most notable example of which is the addition of Alexus into my life. Since a lot of you out there don't know the full story, allow me to explain in greater detail. And pay attention, I think the details are important here.
The new World of Warcraft expansion had a midnight release on 12/7 for all of the people who had it reserved and fully paid off, myself included. So I show up around 11:45. Since the mall is closed, everyone is supposed to line up at one particular entrance, and the Gamestop employees have brought everybody's copy of the game down to hand out. Meanwhile, I'm standing in this group of guys who are being loud and obnoxious and boasting about how great their characters are. At some point they focus their attention on me and ask about mine, which one of the guys promptly starts berating. Instead of listening to this, I go over to talk to the employees who are patiently waiting for midnight.
Midnight strikes and the employees ask everyone to start forming lines. Since I'm already standing by the employees, I'm "first" in line just in terms of where I'm standing. At this point, the guy who was being a douche to me before starts freaking out about how I have to go to the back of the line because they were all there first. I don't honestly care. It's tired and I'm cold, so I just went without a fuss. Now I'm the last person in line, and I'm standing next to a guy and a girl. The guy introduced himself as James, and that prompted the girl, Alexus, to introduce herself as well. James begins making small talk about how all of his friends have stopped playing, so the game is kind of boring to him. Alexus, meanwhile, pulls out her phone to show us videos of her Warcraft character. As she's doing this, James suggests "hey, let's all exchange phone numbers so that we can talk on WoW." So, we do.
As we're moving up in line, I find out that Alexus is friends with a lot of the people that work at Gamestop, and that she's hanging out with them afterwards. Eventually, I get up to the front and the employees realize that they forgot my copy of the game up in the store. The mall is closed, and we're not supposed to go in, but the store manager decides to bring Alexus and I inside because he's not sending me home empty-handed and she has plans with friends who will be up there too. When we get up there, the employees all go into the Gamestop, but since Alexus and I are not employees, they can't let us into the store. So instead, Alexus and I get to sit down outside the closed Gamestop in the empty mall and chat one-on-one for several minutes. The employees come out and hand me my game, I thank them and say goodbye to Alexus. As I'm walking away, she shouts after me "You have my number, right?" I say I do and tell her to have a good night.
Believing that everything happens for a reason, I was thinking about that whole experience on the drive back home. When lots of little random things happen to put me in a particular situation, I believe that's the universe trying to tell me something. So I'm thinking, if that guy hadn't douched out on me, I wouldn't have gotten sent to the back of the line and met Alexus. If James hadn't brought up the number exchange, I know I probably wouldn't have done it. If the employees hadn't forgotten my copy and ONLY my copy of the game, I wouldn't have gotten to go upstairs. And if the Gamestop employees had let us come in, Alexus and I wouldn't have gotten to talk one-on-one. When you look at the night as a whole, I feel like there were an awful lot of "coincidences" that occurred to put me in that situation. So, I went with my gut, and a couple of quick text messages eventually turned into the relationship that we had now. What are the odds that after talking over the last few weeks that we have the similar hobbies? Personality and sense of humor? Values? Life goals? Beliefs? She's a quirky gamer dork. Just like me. We have a very natural chemistry and the fact that she can make me laugh until I'm crying doesn't hurt either. I can't remember the last time I was this happy. I just can't imagine all of this being "chance".
I think the best things in life are out of our control. Look back and you'll see that my interaction and choice to make contact played a very small role in the events leading up to all this. The rest was up to the universe.
That being said, I've decided to make a small resolution this year anyway. I'm going to try and go back to writing a blog every week. I decided to take a break because I was writing a story which I was going to post. But then life got in the way, as it so often does, and I kept pushing it off as my muse faded. Now it's a couple of months later and I've got no writing to show for it. I'm hoping that'll change this time around.
Happy New Year, everyone.
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