/sigh its weird how you plan your life to go one way and it turns out way different from what you imagine it to be. at least for me, how naive i was in a sense before i graduated and how i couldnt resist the temptations of money and reality. funny how one moment can change everything. god i sound like such a square right now……
i guess the thoughts all started when i was pretty much in emo mode when i was looking around my old college pictures from facebook. i was hella thinking “damn, ima miss these guys and miss all the random hang outs. im sure ill never see like 90% of them ever again”. i mean im sure its not gonna be that bad but i always think things are gonna be way worse than they actually are. i also have been clearing out my room and looking at all my old stuff when i was a kid. i cant believe how stupid i was and how things so lame were so funny at the time.
my plan when i was still in college was to go into social work and help out my community. i was surprised people before me who were so passionate about the same issues in college can just leave it all behind and get normal ass jobs. and its sad but im going through the same thing. i remember a friend saying how when you get out of college its all about chasing that dollar. i thought it wasnt for me but after awhile i guess reality hit. i need a fucking job. after finding a potential job im jumping all over it. and truth be told im not thinking about issues at all anymore. im more just trying to find out what the fuck to do with my life now. i guess without all the issues revolving around me 24/7 you just stop caring as much.
now all im thinking about is how unfulfilling my life is right now. so all there is to do is get paid and try to get ahead. if all goes according to plan ill move down to san jose and chase that dollar all my life until something catches my attention enough for me to stop. im not really sad or anything even though it has that tone, im just kinda writing down my thoughts. so on that note! i got my kewl ass scene glasses!!!! looky looky!!!
Tags: melty blood
yumetachi.wordpress.com 
July 30, 2010 at 3:35 am |
Sorry d-row … ima bit of a creeper … jobs been slow, so I’ve had a lot of time on my hands to goof around and luuuuuurrrrrrk. Anyways, I remember saying that, but I also remember saying that I was trying to find a new outlet ORR at least that’s what I was thinking.
Before graduation, I thought I wanted to teach highschoolers but after being confronted with that reality, I realized I wasn’t quite ready for that. I felt I didn’t have the life experience to teach ’em, at least the way I’d like to go about it. Plus, I still kinda look like one of ’em, so I figure I’ll be down to teach when I get a good amount of facial hair. Ideally, a long white flowing beard that I could run my fingers through then flick.
Last summer was difficult because I had about 2 months at home before I was going off on my field program. I definitely missed folks, a part of me wanted to go back to SC maybe in the Fall and try to start things back off where I’d left ’em. And the short time span was difficult because I couldn’t really start looking for a “career” but I felt I needed to start thinking about it. I ended up taking a job w/Greenpeace, hollering at people on the streets – a pretty crap experience.
I took off for my field program. I bummed and hiked around the woods and thoroughly enjoyed the NW. I finished and then spent time in Seattle with my cousins doing landscaping and painting n shit for their landlord. I fell in love with Seattle, which boasts a really diverse community and its surprisingly integrated too! I think with SF, SD and SC it’s just not as developed as it was in Seattle. The time up there was fun. I had the chance to visit the Wing Luke Museum, which is a museum dedicated to the history of the Asian American experience in the NW. And continued to indulge in that part of my identity, doing little things like visiting Bruce Lee’s grave, talking to family and friends about their experience, visiting the Asian Art Museum. The message here is that even though you might not be involved in those issues anymore, just having been involved in ’em, you’ll find yourself still attracted to ’em and its something that lies imprinted on your perspective.
I came back to SD again thinking that I’d become a fisheries observer: roll around on a boat, count their catch, spend time out in the NW, Alaska, and eventually Hawaii, where it’s desirable for ya to speak Vietnamese, so you can speak with the fishermen. I volunteered for this scientific cruise w/Scripps landed it, thinking it’d be a good experience to really find out if I was cut out for becoming a fisheries observer. I was suppose to leave in Feb. I needed some xmas $ and just $ in general (ohh how I miss Financial Aid refund checks), so I took a job selling knives hahaha that REEEALLY sucked. The volunteer gig ended up falling thru, so again I had to reevaluate and began looking for a job again because there wasn’t gonna be another cruise until June.
This whole time I played around with a lot of ideas … fireman, journalist, nurse, a geology gig, a non-profit gig, a restaurant job, or some other ehh job and just bum it around SC or SD at the univeristy or the community college (not like really be a bum but just kinda continue immersing myself in academia, though being a bum could be ….). I started taking some classes and getting settled into life back in SD. Then I landed my current gig and 6 months later here I am … sitting in Bakersfield, in a field of oil pumps hahah. You know whats kinda sad is that I kinda enjoy looking out on the lights in the Valley now. I use to hate this place, but it really is beautiful in its own way.
At the moment, the job is fulfilling, most of the time. I have some money, I’m learning a lot about the drilling industry (been mostly oil as of late), and get a chance to explore California. But this job is not something I wanna do for the rest of my life and the oil industry is def not something I wanna pursue further. I figure do this job for 1-2 years then bone out to Vietnam with the family see where I’m from and again reevaluate. I’d like to think that while in Vietnam I’ll find something that’ll enthrall me completely.
$ is important but it’s not everything. In school, I never thought I’d be working alongside big oil companies but perspectives change and/or you justify decisions how you can. Like I said I’m still trying to find an outlet, but in college it was much easier to work at it. I think outside of school people are much more entrenched in their own lives, their own families and a broader community really isn’t as easy to find and become apart of like it was in school (and it was even hard for me then … 3.666666 years before I got involved with the AAPI community), unless you’re about the man Hey-zeus.
But when I did read that last post of yours I was a little thrown off after you had spoken so much about staying involved. The solution seems simple enough to me – get involved, if you still want to, in whatever form you can. After all, you’re in SF, tons of asian folks and there are a ton of UCSC alumni – contact them!
Anyways, to reiterate again it’ll be a roller coaster. At times, you’ll know exactly what ya want and you’ll get at it, it’ll fall thru, or you’ll realize its not for you, or you’ll just not know what the fuck ya want, you’ll fall into something, you’ll not know what it is you want, you’ll be a sad ass, you’ll be psyched and everything between (repeat, repeat, repeat!). I think that’s just true in general (you should read Siddhartha if you haven’t yet). That’s not to bum ya out but that’s just the way it is and it too is cool in its own way.
And I know what you mean by the planning. I’ve never been good at following thru but I am determined to head out to Vietnam. I like not knowing what lies ahead, even though I sometimes do envy those folks that have life plans and follow ’em thru, I like not knowing what lies ahead. I like to wander and chase different things. There’s no point to it ALL, at least for me, it’s just one point to the next. But I could very well be just justifying where I am now though *shrugs shoulders*
Anyways, enjoy the ride!
p.s. beat your post in length … suckaaaa … but I certainly can’t compete w/the studliness of that pic ; )
July 30, 2010 at 3:36 am |
woow thats really long … told you i had a shit ton of time haha
July 30, 2010 at 1:11 pm |
dude, holy shit! youre lucky your my friend or else i hella wouldnt read all this shit just by the pure length of it. but it was a nice read. youve been through hellza even though its only been like a year. its nuts
but i already had my worries in sc about not following through with volunteering. after certain events i really felt like i wanted to do something but after a day or 2 i was just going about with my normal life again. in other words it was hard for me to stay passionate. although i was always kinda annoyed at the people who always had to be politically correct like how gender and sex arent synonyms. eugh, gross. hate that shit
i think my life is heading towards something like what yours has been (except for the fact i have no over-arching goal like going to vietnam). do this until you get bored of it then see what else life has to offer. and if social work is truly my calling then ill find my way back into it one way or another. oh paul, you have such a way with words