Six Years

I have often fielded questions along the lines of “How did you end up here?” or “Why are you here?” when I tell people I grew up in New Jersey. I tend to give people the long answer since, unfortunately, the shortest and most truthful answer is also the most painful. The short answer is that six years ago my father passed away.

Almost every major circumstance in my life since then has been as a result of the fallout of that event. I was a junior in high school when he died, but his condition had begun its slow decline over a year prior. I don’t exactly recall when he first began showing symptoms, but there are a few things that I do vividly recall. After seeing our family doctor about a cough he couldn’t seem to rid himself of, he decided against the doctor’s advice of having his gall bladder removed, instead opting to get a second opinion. The second opinion ended up being the same, and Dad did get the surgery to remove his badly infected gall bladder. Apparently the surgeon who removed the organ said it was one of the worst he had ever seen. Despite this though, the surgery was successful and it seemed like Dad would be back to normal.

It was one Sunday afternoon not long after that, as we were all sitting around the dinner table, when my parents said they had something to tell us kids. Dad sat there and told us that they, the doctors, had found some cancer while they were removing his gall bladder. I don’t remember if much more than that fact was really spoken of, but either way, I didn’t understand the gravity of the situation. I don’t know if any of us kids did, or if either of my parents really knew what this meant for our family. It must have been early 2003 at this point if not slightly earlier, and Dad had just started a new job at a different school. He had taken the position because my brother was currently in college, I would be in that position before long, and the extra money was what we needed. It was extremely difficult to watch him as he struggled with the stress of a new job and an increased work load, while his physical body was failing him.

The infection he had that consumed his gall bladder was blamed for the cancer that now infested his liver. It is unclear though if immediate action on my Dad’s part would have spared him of his condition, I don’t think even if he had gotten the surgery as soon as it was recommended, it would have made any difference. He had been doing his coughing thing for a while at that point, and there is no telling how long any infection he had was actually there for. In any event, the cancer he had was inoperable. From what I understand, portions of the liver in a human can be removed, with little or no ill side effects. Unfortunately the cancer that Dad had was centered right on the duct that connected his liver to the rest of his digestive system. They simply couldn’t remove the cancer without removing the liver’s functionality. While you can live without a gall bladder, you can’t live without a liver.

After some time, Dad began spending more and more days at home, unable to make it to work, let alone any function that took place outside of the house, and eventually his bedroom. Once in a while he would make it to work, where he ended up staying late to catch up on all the work he would miss, or make it to church where everyone would be worrying about how he was doing. He would be in and out of the hospital, and in and out of the chemotherapy suite. We all watched as he went from the man we were used to, to a frail, gaunt and tired figure. His hair turned gray, and fell out. His fingernails fell out. He was bed ridden, having to feed himself intravenously. It was horrible.

I remember Thanksgiving in 2003. Traditionally we would all head to Dad’s parent’s home where we would all enjoy what always proved to be one of the best meals of the year. This year however, we decided to go out to have our Thanksgiving dinner. I believe we had made reservations at some slightly upper class restaurant. The food was fine, the experience just about the same. We returned to my grandparent’s apartment that night, where at some point I decided to take a nap in a chair that was in the living room. I remember being awake enough to hear a conversation that took place between my dad and his parents. He was crying, telling them how much it hurt, and that he just wants it to go away.

One of the last memories I have of him when he was still at home, lucid, and able to somewhat care for himself was Christmas 2003. We spent that Christmas with the usual family that year. I remember sitting next to him, and him asking me to help open his gifts since his fingernails were so far gone that he simply could not tear the taped up paper. Probably the last time he would ever open any gift.

January 2004. This month saw the most rapid decline in Dad’s health yet. The cancer was spreading to other organs in his body, including his stomach. He was being eaten from the inside out. At some point, early in the month, Dad was placed into the hospital. He would never see his home again. Since he wasn’t at home, I have no way of telling how he was from day to day, but it was clear that when we made the trips to the hospital, that each time his condition had worsened. The last time I remember being able to talk to him and him being able to respond was late in the month that January. My Mom had taken my sisters and I to the hospital that night. On the car ride over, she explained to us that the medicine they had him on was making him very weak, so he isn’t going to look like the person we remember. When we arrived at his room, he wasn’t in his bed. It was clear he was using the bathroom, so I stepped out in the hall. I returned to the room just as Dad was returning to his bed. In my mind I knew that who I was looking at was my Dad, but he indeed looked nothing like how I remembered him. He was pale, extremely thin, and could not stand up straight. Mom asked us kids to go out into the hall for a minute. I suspect to give Dad a little dignity while Mom helped him into bed.

That night was the last time I got to speak with my father. I was so happy at that point because I had just gotten my full fledged license. I remarked this to him, and all he could do was say congratulations, and wearily lift up his hand to shake mine. I don’t recall most of what else transpired that night. I think Dad was fading in and out of consciousness, and we routinely had to rouse him from what was either the drugs, or his own body shutting down. I don’t remember saying goodbye, although I’m sure I did.

A few days later, Mom gathered the three kids who were still at the house together, my brother was at college at this point. It was a Sunday morning. She sat us down and told us that it was Dad’s time to go, that God was calling him home. I lost it.

On Monday, February 3^rd, 2004 Mom came and picked all us kids up from our various schools and drove us to the hospice that Dad was placed into. I remember walking up the unassuming building. I remember walking through the halls. I remember the Chaplin who was employed by the hospice giving us a little talk before we were allowed to enter the room where Dad was. Most of all I remember the room. For whatever reason, this room, just like all the other rooms in the building, is seared into my memory. There was the bed, a couch, a window, and a dresser that had a little water fountain on it. Dad, or what was left of him at that point, was laying in the bed, covered by some sheets as if he was simply sleeping. It was painfully obvious he wasn’t just sleeping though. He was having trouble breathing and he not lucid or conscious. I remember my Mom making my youngest sister tell Dad about the new dog we had gotten. She struggled for words in the face of what was before her. I couldn’t bear to watch any of it. I pretended to be interested in the little fountain on the dresser while I fought back tears. I didn’t, or couldn’t, approach the bed that held my father that day. I left without saying anything to him.

Tuesday February 4^th, 2004. Once again Mom picked us up from school and we made the same drive to the same building, and walked to the same room as the day before. On this day there were a few family friends there, mostly from our church. There was a separate room that most of us stayed in while each individual took their turn to say their final farewells to my Dad. I remember Mom asked me if I wanted to have the room to myself for a few minutes, and I said I did. I remember standing over his bed, sobbing, telling him everything that I thought was important. I couldn’t bring myself to hold his hand. Something about touching him in the state he was in, would probably have made it all too real.

After a few minutes of being alone in the room, Mom came back in and consoled me. Some time passed, and when it was time to go, everyone gathered in the room where we sang a hymn or two, and said some prayers. I remember leaving that day, the last time I would see my father alive. We got home and wanting to get away from it all, I went and sat in my room. I don’t remember how long we were home before we got the phone call. Mom came into my room and delivered the news that Dad had died.

The funeral happened fairly quickly after that. At the viewing I remember seeing Dad’s old friends, some of whom I had never met talk about the man he was before I was born. I remember extended family whom I rarely, if ever, saw. I remember friends of Dad’s, who I knew, who were just as broken up about this as anyone else. I remember the whole basketball team that Dad used to coach come through and pay their respects. A few of my high school teachers even showed up. But what I remember most about this was the body of my father. The most disturbing part of all of it was that as he laid there in his casket, he lied motionless. The man who we all remember as being so very active, lied breathless. It was surreal to see him, with his embalmed body and pinched features, remain utterly still. The fact that his chest wasn’t moving, the fact that he wasn’t breathing, it was just… My Mom, my sisters, my brother and I got to say our last goodbyes in private before they closed the casket.

I was one of the pallbearers of my father’s casket along with my brother, my Mom’s two brothers, my Dad’s brother and my uncle. It was a short walk from the funeral building to the hearse, but it was a long ride to the cemetery. It was very cold the day Dad was buried, there was snow on the ground, which was typical of a February day, and the wind was blowing. The people in attendance at the burial were huddled in tight, I was standing behind my two grandparents, my Dad’s Mom and Dad. I can’t even begin to imagine what they were thinking at that time. The ceremony took place, led by our church’s former pastor, and afterwards we adjourned ourselves to the church where we held the repast.

Indeed life for each of us changed irrecoverably from that day on. Moving to the South was something that my Mother had always wanted to do. Now it was something that it seemed we had to do. New Jersey is an expensive place to live, and if we were having the slightest amount of difficulties when Dad was alive, it would be near impossible to do without his help. I told Mom that I just wanted to graduate high school, then I would move wherever. Turns out, this is exactly what happened. I graduated in June of 2005, we moved the next month. We’ve all had to bury our lives that were, and trade them for new lives that we lived down here. It’s been quite an experience.

But there was always one thing that had bothered me, Dad had never gotten a gravestone. When I returned to New Jersey last December/January for the first time since I left, he still lied in an unmarked grave, nearly five years on. I tried to set the wheels in motion to get this taken care of, and now I am happy to be able to say that Dad finally has the proper burial site he deserves. It was also on February 4^th, 2004 that I decided to let my hair grow out. I generally tell people that I grew out my hair because I had never had long hair before, and that I wanted a change of pace. I grew out my hair as a sign of mourning for my father. Now that he is at rest, with a headstone to mark his final resting place, there is no more need for me to own my long hair. It is but a symbol of a tragic event in my life, one that I have come to terms with, and have thoughtfully learned from.

Dad, I wish you were still here. I wish you were still around to teach me to play guitar. I wish I could still share jokes with you, or go tubing in the snow with you. I wish I could show you all I’ve accomplished. I wonder if you would be proud of me today, Dad. I miss you.

In loving memory.

Time Marches On

A month ago I was just finishing up the Fall semester, and here I am about to start another. So I’ll just get down to it and post my schedule for the next few months.

I have to say, it’s been a refreshing break. The breaks in between the Spring and Summer semesters and Summer and Fall semesters is only a week or so, so it was really nice to be able to take a month away from school and do other things for a while. I spent some of that time working, some of that time traveling, and the rest of the time recreating to the best of my abilities. But all good things must come to an end. That isn’t to say they can’t be replaced by other good things, just different good things. I’m looking forward to my new classes, but not looking forward to how the parking at school is going to be again.

Bring it on.

Goodbye 2009

This year seemed to go by so quickly.

With the advent of a new calendar year upon us, I welcome it with open arms. Out with the old and in with the new. I’m pretty excited about the coming year, mostly because it means at least one thing for me: graduating college. It will be interesting to see what the phrase graduating college implies for me, and I can’t wait to find out.

New year, new opportunities, new people, new experiences. Here’s to hoping we are all prosperous in the coming year!

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

2D Traditional Animation

I’m sure volumes have been written on the waning of the use of hand drawn animation in many big and small budget titles, which is exactly why I’m not going to talk about that. Suffice it to say that 2D animation took a back seat for many years letting the 3D artists take control of the animation front. I haven’t done any 3D animation since my senior year of high school, and up until this past Fall semester I had not ever done any 2D animation. I was chomping at the bit to try my hand at the pencil and paper variety of animation.

Now that the semester is over and done with (thankfully!), I have everything compiled and ready to show. So here is a semesters worth of work in two and a half minutes:

(link)

(link)

The first video contains projects that were meant to demonstrate to us the various principals that are inherent to animation. Not just 2D animation mind you, but 3D as well. Whatever medium you use to create animation, your viewer’s eyes will still be able to pick up on things that make your animation look less life-like. Your job as an animator is to fool your audience into thinking what they are watching is real, or at least entirely believable.

So all the assignments we did up to the final were very literal, concrete ideas. I decided I had to do something that was on the other end of the spectrum for my final. We had to create an animation that was at least 15 seconds long, and that was our only criteria. I had a rough idea what I wanted to do, but I also let the animation go where it might along the way. I would have liked to make it twice as long as it is, but time constraints and all that. Maybe I’ll do an animation for my capstone project.

Great class, great professor. I really want to do more of this stuff.

Adding Insult To Larceny

Wednesday December 2nd, 2009 10:30PM

I arrive back home after a long day at school and park my car, just like any other day. Nothing, it seems, was out of the ordinary. I turn in for the night, just like any other night.  This, of course, was not like any other night. But not by any of my own devices, what made this particular night extraordinary, was a couple of roving larcenists.

Around 8AM the next day, I was woken up and directed to the front door, apparently there was a “situation”. I look outside and see my car parked where I left it, except the trunk was open. I wasn’t quite sure what to think about it immediately. I just thought, well that’s odd. So I put on some shoes and went outside to take a look. Here’s what I found:

Oh, right, someone broke into my car. Obviously they had broken then back window, unlocked the back door, then the front door from there, and went to town. Well, to the extent they could in my car. I don’t keep a whole lot in my car in terms of anything. So they rummaged through my glove box, center console, and the trunk. The only thing they took was a radar detector, worth around $60 – $80, but I didn’t pay for it, so I really have no idea. After looking over the car, I put everything back where it belonged, took some pictures, and plotted my next move.

Turns out, my next move came to me. About an hour later, the Plano police knocks on my door, and I greet the officer. Walking towards the car, I tell him what I know, which was very little. He, on the other hand, knew quite a bit. There were two people (incidentally both were UTD students) targeting cars with the University of Texas at Dallas parking passes displayed in their cars. The night they came through my street there was one person on foot and one in a car. They were apparently checking to see what cars had the UTD parking tags in their cars. If they did, they would break into these cars. They had been doing this for at least a few days prior to this particular night, and fortunately for the rest of us, it was their last night.

Their little crime streak ended when someone heard them breaking into their car, and chased the thieves down (in his underwear apparently). The person in the car obviously was able to drive away, but the one on foot was caught by the man whose car they were breaking into. From there I’m sure some other people noticed the commotion, the police were necessarily called, and the thief on foot was hauled off. The police officer I was talking to said it wasn’t difficult to track down the accomplice in the car, probably because there is no honor among thieves, and the guy who was caught wasted no time divulging what he knew.

So after hearing the story, I described to the officer what was stolen, which was received by a chuckle, which was probably warranted given the item that was stolen. After he finished writing down everything in his little notepad, he got back in his cruiser and left the scene. I got myself back inside since it was pretty cold outside that morning.

My car has really taken a beating in the past few months.

Going Going Going

Gone. Well, not quite. This is an interesting time for me, I’ve been at my new job for just about a month, and there is just about a month of school left in this semester. And let me tell you something, if I didn’t know the definition of busy before, I certainly do now. Having something to do, somewhere to be, seven days a week, now that’s something. in the past month  have had to restructure my whole schedule in order to get everything that I need to get done, done. On the bright side, though, I can eat meat again.

The end of the semester is coming, and fast. I, for one, am particularly looking forward to the break after this semester is over and done with. The workload for me this semester has been above average, and it’s looking to be the same story come the Spring semester. This comes as a direct result of me taking my major electives. But if I can make it through one more semester of break-neck, heavy duty work, then it’ll (hopefully) be down hill from there. Assuming everything goes according to plan, after the Spring semester I’ll only have four classes left on my degree. I can’t wait.

I have a few neat projects that are either completed, or nearing completion, that I’ve been working on this semester. I am going to catch up on my posting of all these various materials after the semester ends, when I can finally take a breather. But be on the lookout for those, coming soon.

Also, this coming Monday registration opens up for me, so I should have a final schedule for the Spring semester to share after Monday. And I think I’ll just leave this post at that. I feel like I’ve said the word semester far too many times in this post alone. Until next time:

You Can’t Have The Good Without The Bad

Ten months after I began looking for a job, and over a year since I last held a job,  I can finally say that I am once again employed.

I spent all that time in between being fairly productive, although there are those who would say going to school full time just isn’t enough, though for some people your good enough is never enough. However, I managed to complete twenty-five credits of my degree, and at the end of this semester I’ll be a senior looking at nine credits left until I graduate. School, although it is keeping me extremely busy, is going really well, and I’m enjoying my classes. Which then brings me around to the situation I find myself in now.

After filling out well over a hundred applications, the last one was the charm. Here’s the time line:

Friday – I fill out the application online and submit it.

Monday – I get a call to come in for an interview.

Tuesday – I go in for the interview. I get hired, on the spot. Really. All I did was sit down in the office, and sign some papers. I was being interviewed for roughly five minutes. Corporate paperwork and background check are submitted.

Wednesday – I go back in to sign the returned paperwork, which by the GM’s own words came back quicker than any previous paperwork that she can remember. I sign the papers.

Friday – 8AM – I start my job.

From now on, on the weekends, you can find me working in the photo lab at the CVS on the corner of Campbell and Nantucket. And with that being said, I have to tell the bad news. Well, not so much bad news as just an unfortunate event. When I came home from work this afternoon, I had a bunch of things to take in with me, needless to say, I was just a bit discombobulated. Long story short, I locked my keys in my car. The last time I did that was several years ago, and I still lived in New Jersey, and help was never far away. But times have changed and I’m far away from home. Also no one within a seven-hundred mile radius has a spare key to my car. Yes I’m serious.

The good news about this was I was at home when it happened, the bad news was my key chain also had my house keys on it, which were in my car. Ten minutes later I get in the house through the secret passage. Four hours later the guy I called to help get my keys out of my car finally shows up and spends three minutes getting the lock open.

All in all, a pretty lousy cap to a pretty awesome week.

A Rainy Day On The Boardwalk

A number of years ago, when I was both still a kid and living in New Jersey, my family and I went on a day trip to Atlantic City. The actual number of times I’ve been to that city I can count on one hand, it was kind of out of our way. There isn’t a lot that I can recall about the place, since as a kid my mind was probably elsewhere, and not concerned with committing my particular experiences to memory. But it is odd, what you end up remembering from long lost days many years ago.

Walking on the boardwalk, I was earnestly more enamored with the ocean than any cheap thrills the boardwalk might have had to offer. The ocean is free, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, is not. It was, of course, an overcast, rainy day that day, which by no means kept people from the city. It just meant those people who were without umbrellas were huddled under the awnings of all the tourist traps, or lingering in the lobbies of the casinos. We made our way through all the various stores, taking in all the sights and smells the boardwalk had to offer. I only remember but snippets of what I saw that day, until the end of the day was nearing. We we probably just taking a break from walking when we positioned ourselves outside a strip of stores to rest for a bit. The building behind where we were standing had multiple individual businesses inside it, so they could be inside, shielded away from the elements.

I remember standing in the corner formed by the building and the railing the protruded out of it, just watching the people walk by when the door into the building opens. Two people on stilts duck down to walk out of the regular sized door and shuffle way toward the boardwalk. It was obviously a man and a woman, since one was dressed in a dark blue outfit, the other in a shade of pink. It was also obvious that they were employees of one of the businesses inside, whose job it was to hand out flyers. What was not obvious to me, at that point in time, was what would happen next. Keep in mind it had been raining off and on all day, it was overcast, the sun was not out, and the fact that the boardwalk is in very close proximity to the ocean and it all adds up to some very slippery planks of wood.

The pair on stilts saunter out to the boardwalk, flyers in hand. They probably seem taller to me in retrospect because I was a kid back then, I was shorter, and everything looks bigger when you are a kid. But nevertheless the man on the stilts made a false move, which was stepping on the boardwalk to begin with. I can see it in my mind in slow motion. He puts his right foot out on the wood of the boardwalk and in the instant he begins to put any of his weight on it, the tiny stilt-foot slips out from underneath him, which in turn sends his stilt-leg flying into the air soon followed by his other stilt-leg and then with the rest of his body. The oddly proportioned man hits the boardwalk with a mighty thud, kind of like if you dropped 160 pounds of dead weight from six or seven feet up. He lays with his back on the boardwalk, the flyers in his hand, a causality of his fall, lay stuck on the wet boardwalk, which is probably where they would have ended up anyway, so it’s not like his didn’t do his job anyway. The weird thing is, I don’t remember seeing a single flyer that hadn’t landed face down, so I have no idea who they represented or what they were trying to sell.

The woman on stilts tries to bend down to see if he is alright, it’s difficult for her because she is, after all, still on stilts. She says a few words to him as best she can, all the while trying not to replicate what he just did. A few seconds later, she heads inside, most likely to alert whomever she works for, and I don’t see her again. I don’t quite remember how the next series of events unfolded, but I’m pretty sure the guy got himself sitting up, enough to remove his stilts anyway. I watched as he hobbled himself back inside where, just minutes before, he had come from.

I don’t remember how old I was that day, what time of year it was, or really who all was with me. I do remember a guy on stilts falling down though, and that’s fine with me.

Lot P Is A Dangerous Place

The car I drive now has been in my care for just over five years now. In that time I’ve managed to evade any major harm while I was in the car, as well as any harm to the car itself. The car is going on ten years old now, being manufactured in the Summer of 2000. So it necessarily has all the little dents and dings and tiny scratches that just seem to happen from driving your car to places like the Wal Mart parking lot, or on roads paved with gravel. Nothing of great note, until today.

Today someone decided to key my car. As per my usual Tuesday schedule, I drove up to school around a half an hour before my class began to idle around the parking lot waiting to snipe a spot to park. After about ten minutes of driving in circles, I got my chance and backed into the recently evacuated spot. I was parked in the spot from about 12:40 PM until around 3:20 PM, which was the time I was in my mixed media class.

Walking back to my car, I noticed the defacement immediately since I was walking toward the car on the side where the crime had been committed. This is what was waiting for me. A big X was carved into the right, rear door of my car. I did not notice any marks on any cars around me either, and both cars were dark colors, so I think I would have seem something, had there been something to see. This leads me to conclude that someone specifically targeted my car. Whether it was by chance it was my car that this person chose, or the person knew it was my car and I was the motive for their crime, I do not know. I do however have somewhat of a hunch, albeit a stretch.

The particular spot I was parked in today happens to be a spot that a very particular car parks in. The car that is parked in this spot is a blue Corvette, newer model. They are parked in this spot every single day, at least every day that I am on campus, and they are there longer than any day I am on campus for as well. This would be of little consequence, except for what I previously noted as well as the fact that whoever owns that car is your typical too-good-for-you, holier-than-thou type. My evidence: they park in the spot, halfway into the yellow lines that separate the road from the beginning of the parking spaces as if to say, I’m too good to park in between the lines. While of course what they’re actually saying is, I have many insecurities and I make up for them by driving this car, parking in the same spot every single day, and taking up what amounts to two spaces because I need you to know just how retarded I really am.

So to whoever decided to desecrate my car today, watch your back. You just gave me something to look at everyday, something to remind me so I wont forget about what you did. Something to keep my blood boiling.

For reference, Lot P is on the north end of the University of Texas at Dallas’ campus inbetween the engineering building and the inadequate ATEC building.

 

 

November 8, 2009 EDIT: As it turns out the Corvette that I mention in this post got the same treatment that my car got, only they got it across the hood. They still park like they never learned how to color inside the lines though.

Also, this post was featured in the UTD Mercury’s November 2nd, 2009 issue (Vol. XXIX, No. 18). Here’s the page, converted to a friendler format than PDF: link

 

 

:P

Uh huh, And What Are You Going To Do With That Degree?

A common question. More common than I’d like. Especially since I have no clear cut and concise answer for it.

I’m an Arts & Technology student at the University of Texas at Dallas and I’m finishing up my junior year this Fall. I’ve spent the past three years taking various classes at two different schools that probably have little or nothing to do with what I’ll eventually end up doing. It has only been in the past semester that I finally got a taste of the kinds of things that I came to the program for. I’ve known for a very long time that I wanted to work in the art and animation field, but that was as specific as it ever got, and unfortunately, it still gets. I have no definite direction, no master plan for when I graduate. Mostly due to one simple fact, I’m not very good at any one thing.

To me, the bachelor of arts degree I will hopefully be getting in about a year, feels something like a jack of all trades degree. I can write, but talk is cheap. I can use photoshop, better than the average joe, but I can’t touch some of the talent out there (and I’m using V 7.0). I can model decently, but have only very recently started, and there is a plethora of information out there I’ve not even begun to realize. I can say I’ve programmed Java, but if you tried to set me down and have me program when it actually mattered (and anything more complex than searching one line strings), I would crash and burn faster than the Hindenburg. I can say I have a lot of design foundation under my belt (I do, I rather like design), but I don’t have a portfolio to prove it. I can draw, but human figures are right out. I know how to develop and print traditional film, but who does that anymore, other than for a hobby?

I can’t create a website. I don’t know Flash, CSS, or RSS. I’ve never used any film editing software other than Windows Movie Maker, and that was simply to take many short videos and make one long video out of them. I have no sound design experience whatsoever, and I don’t know the first thing about making a game or a film.

I know just enough about everything to carry on a conversation, for a longer time if the other person is doing most of the talking.

But that all isn’t too frustrating for me. Not yet at least. It’s when people ask me what arts & technology is, and what on Earth that entails. What can you do with that degree? What kind of job are you going to have? How much money are you going to be making with that degree?  Where are you going to be living when you find a job? Tell you what, if I could see the future, then I know one thing for certain, I wouldn’t be talking to you. Though I suppose it is no fault of the people who cannot fathom going to school for something other than engineering or business, as anything else is considered frivolous. It’s simply the age in which every other generation other than our own was raised in. Things move too fast for most of them to keep up, and trying to explain something that is going to go over their heads by default is futile. Yet the questions always continue. And the dumbfounded and looks of disbelief and disapproval continue. But then again, people laughed at the likes of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs when they began their work. So the only choice is to move forward.

I’m sure I’ll find my calling eventually. And maybe that’s what this is all about. Trying so many different things, that when you finally come around to the one thing you enjoy above all else, you’ll know without a doubt that this is the thing for you. Learning a new skill is easy, mastering it takes a lifetime.