Long Weekend
I can't really say that it has been a bad weekend, but it seems to be a long and rather unproductive one. Not that I had intended on doing much, but I was hoping to do more cleaning (and unpacking) at least. Things are very much in disarray in my room. I haven't completely finished unpacking and am not close to getting my things organized.
It has not been a lack of time that has stopped me from getting my things organized, but a lack of energy and will power. My energy level has been very poor this weekend. I was starting to feel better Thursday night, but have dropped off again. I am lacking in focus and determination, which may be from stress or illness. My throat was doing better for a while but has been much worse the last couple of days, especially this morning. My nose is oddly plugged and running at the same time.
Hopefully my health and my mind will feel better going into next week, as I should begin working. Looking forward to making some extra cash. I have listed several items on amazon and ebay, so hopefully things will start to sell too.
I feel that I am at a crossroads now in my life and that I'm in a position where things can go amazingly well or horribly bad depending on how things unfold in the coming months. I feel that I may very well be a few errors away from total disaster or one job application away from a successful beginning. I feel comfortable where I am right now, but the situation could change very rapidly and I am very much aware of this. As unpredictable as the job market might be at the moment, I am confident that I will eventually find a job. It is a matter of whether or not the job I obtain allows me to pursue my goals.
I am in a position where I feel that I can succeed and be happy, quite unlike when I graduated from high school and undergraduate. I did not enjoy high school, but I did not feel thrilled finishing high school. I was hoping to go to college on the east coast and hoping to be transformed by the college experience to provide some motivation as to what I would do with the rest of my life. Unfortunately for me, the few schools on the east coast that accepted me offered little to no financial aid (or failed to send a financial aid package in a timely manner). These plans had no support at home, as neither of my parents wanted me to leave the state and I would have had to bury myself in debt to pursue these goals. Instead, I decided to take the easy path and attend school locally while living at home. I felt a strong disconnect from college life while living at home and was having difficulty meeting people at my new school. I was doing very well in my classes, especially considering what a shitty high school I was coming from, but had no personal life and was rather miserable. I was exercising less and eating more, so I put on a good deal of weight.
I found some motivation somewhere to resume my exercise and control my diet to lose a lot of weight and decreased my academic focus, as I felt that I had severely limited my personal life and development in the time I spent with the books over the years. I began meeting more people and going out more often as well as exploring my own interests. I was feeling better emotionally, but still lacked direction as far as a career was concerned. I stayed at USC for a 4th year, as I could have graduated in three. I had considered becoming an academic, but my honors thesis was a total failure for a number of reasons. This shattered any confidence that I had in pursuing a career in history, so I decided to take a year off to work.
My interest in archives and special collections as a career path had been stimulated by my experiences at USC during that fourth year working at the Natural History Museum. It was something I had not thought about (and did not really know about, despite encountering archivists in a number of capacities over the years). I was still very divided about what type of graduate program I should enter. I could hone my history skills by getting a Masters in history, pursue SFSU's Masters in Human Sexuality as a stepping stone to a PhD program, or try the Library and Information Sciences to find a job as an archivist.
My options seemed to dwindle quickly as I received several rejection letters and extremely poor financial aid packages from the schools that did accept me. The University of Michigan stood out as the best choice, but I would have to take on serious debt to complete my degree. I was thinking about working for another year to gather funding or simply avoiding school and stay working in the non-profit sector. Ultimately, I felt that I needed to be back in school as soon as possible, as I had missed the academic stimulation, and that I was feeling more certain about the career path, so the economic peril associated with the degree was a worthwhile endeavor.
Finishing City Year in 2008 and getting ready to start at Michigan, I felt very uncertain about how things would go at Michigan. It was a new state, a new climate, a apartment that I had committed to without seeing and I had decided against having a car (because I could not afford it).
Graduating from Michigan was a particularly fulfilling experience because I felt as if I was heading in the right direction for once, despite the huge debt that awaited me. I am in a very different situation than I had anticipated, but certainly for the better. I had anticipated scouring the US for jobs and randomly ending up in the first good job offered in a large city. My personal expenses are rather low, so relocating would not have been a huge issue. If I were to stay local, I could devote a majority of my salary towards my loan payments and significantly reduce accrued interest by paying off the loaned at a accelerated rate.
I am in a position that I had not considered two years ago when starting Michigan, so that makes the future all the more promising. Maybe I might have had more freedom in terms of where I could live and I might have saved thousands of dollars in accrued interest, but it is worth it. I would have had substantially more money in my bank account, but I have no regrets and hope to spend much more before the year is over.
It has not been a lack of time that has stopped me from getting my things organized, but a lack of energy and will power. My energy level has been very poor this weekend. I was starting to feel better Thursday night, but have dropped off again. I am lacking in focus and determination, which may be from stress or illness. My throat was doing better for a while but has been much worse the last couple of days, especially this morning. My nose is oddly plugged and running at the same time.
Hopefully my health and my mind will feel better going into next week, as I should begin working. Looking forward to making some extra cash. I have listed several items on amazon and ebay, so hopefully things will start to sell too.
I feel that I am at a crossroads now in my life and that I'm in a position where things can go amazingly well or horribly bad depending on how things unfold in the coming months. I feel that I may very well be a few errors away from total disaster or one job application away from a successful beginning. I feel comfortable where I am right now, but the situation could change very rapidly and I am very much aware of this. As unpredictable as the job market might be at the moment, I am confident that I will eventually find a job. It is a matter of whether or not the job I obtain allows me to pursue my goals.
I am in a position where I feel that I can succeed and be happy, quite unlike when I graduated from high school and undergraduate. I did not enjoy high school, but I did not feel thrilled finishing high school. I was hoping to go to college on the east coast and hoping to be transformed by the college experience to provide some motivation as to what I would do with the rest of my life. Unfortunately for me, the few schools on the east coast that accepted me offered little to no financial aid (or failed to send a financial aid package in a timely manner). These plans had no support at home, as neither of my parents wanted me to leave the state and I would have had to bury myself in debt to pursue these goals. Instead, I decided to take the easy path and attend school locally while living at home. I felt a strong disconnect from college life while living at home and was having difficulty meeting people at my new school. I was doing very well in my classes, especially considering what a shitty high school I was coming from, but had no personal life and was rather miserable. I was exercising less and eating more, so I put on a good deal of weight.
I found some motivation somewhere to resume my exercise and control my diet to lose a lot of weight and decreased my academic focus, as I felt that I had severely limited my personal life and development in the time I spent with the books over the years. I began meeting more people and going out more often as well as exploring my own interests. I was feeling better emotionally, but still lacked direction as far as a career was concerned. I stayed at USC for a 4th year, as I could have graduated in three. I had considered becoming an academic, but my honors thesis was a total failure for a number of reasons. This shattered any confidence that I had in pursuing a career in history, so I decided to take a year off to work.
My interest in archives and special collections as a career path had been stimulated by my experiences at USC during that fourth year working at the Natural History Museum. It was something I had not thought about (and did not really know about, despite encountering archivists in a number of capacities over the years). I was still very divided about what type of graduate program I should enter. I could hone my history skills by getting a Masters in history, pursue SFSU's Masters in Human Sexuality as a stepping stone to a PhD program, or try the Library and Information Sciences to find a job as an archivist.
My options seemed to dwindle quickly as I received several rejection letters and extremely poor financial aid packages from the schools that did accept me. The University of Michigan stood out as the best choice, but I would have to take on serious debt to complete my degree. I was thinking about working for another year to gather funding or simply avoiding school and stay working in the non-profit sector. Ultimately, I felt that I needed to be back in school as soon as possible, as I had missed the academic stimulation, and that I was feeling more certain about the career path, so the economic peril associated with the degree was a worthwhile endeavor.
Finishing City Year in 2008 and getting ready to start at Michigan, I felt very uncertain about how things would go at Michigan. It was a new state, a new climate, a apartment that I had committed to without seeing and I had decided against having a car (because I could not afford it).
Graduating from Michigan was a particularly fulfilling experience because I felt as if I was heading in the right direction for once, despite the huge debt that awaited me. I am in a very different situation than I had anticipated, but certainly for the better. I had anticipated scouring the US for jobs and randomly ending up in the first good job offered in a large city. My personal expenses are rather low, so relocating would not have been a huge issue. If I were to stay local, I could devote a majority of my salary towards my loan payments and significantly reduce accrued interest by paying off the loaned at a accelerated rate.
I am in a position that I had not considered two years ago when starting Michigan, so that makes the future all the more promising. Maybe I might have had more freedom in terms of where I could live and I might have saved thousands of dollars in accrued interest, but it is worth it. I would have had substantially more money in my bank account, but I have no regrets and hope to spend much more before the year is over.