No Cars Go
So I'm still somewhat going through my quarter-life crisis. Yes the sports car helps. Yes it's getting much (much!) better. But it's still almost like I've been living some alternate life for a while now. Like it's going to start up again and all I have to do is wait for that one day when I wake up and everything is different and great again.
There's a great thing that Roger Waters of Pink Floyd once said when describing his thoughts behind Time from Dark Side of the Moon.
"I suddenly realized then that year that life was already happening. I think it’s because my mother was so obsessed with education and the idea that childhood and adolescence, and well everything was about preparing for a life that was going to start later...and I suddenly realized that life wasn’t going to start later, that it starts at “dot” and it happens all the time and at any point you can grasp the reigns and start guiding your own destiny…and that was a big revelation to me…it came as quite a shock"
I'm kind of been coming to terms with that idea. That life isn't going to all of a sudden start one day. That one day I'll just know that "this is what I've been training for!" In school I could somewhat convince myself of that. I remember as early as elementary school, when I was the smartest kid in the class, I knew that I had the ability to be a Nobel Prize-winning scientist. It was just a matter of getting the right education and letting things just sort of happen the way they were already happening. I mean without much effort I was one of the top-performing students. I could do those timed multiplication quizzes like they were nothing. Surely the road to the Nobel Prize would be similarly easy.
Then high school happens. Still haven't really been shaken from my outlook on life. I get knocked down a couple pegs, get bitch slapped by AP Euro, but still I'm a 5-on-his-APs, 1510-SAT, 4.3+ GPA, top-of-his-class, cross-country-captainin, first-chair-saxophonin, lead-bass-singerin, best-roller-coaster-builderin kind of guy. And it took work, but not that much.
Mudd will be hard? Can't be that hard! I took AP calculus for fuck's sake! I took community college classes when I was in high school with a bunch of college-aged kids. And I was the top performer in the class! I took AP Euro and survived. I'm smart. Not only can I pull off Mudd, I bet I can do a whole lot better than most people.
"If you're such a strong math student, perhaps you can place into the advanced math classes as a freshman," my Mudd interviewer told me. Haha.
When it comes to math, I'm no dummy. I'm pretty god damn good. But compared to Mudders, I'm average at best.
Whatever, it don't matter.
I like referring to this comic whenever I talk about this subject.
That's not to say this is an emo post. I'm not complaining. I'm not whining. I'm not being an emo little LJ kid. My life is going pretty damn well. I got my car which I love. I really like the people I'm working with. I'm currently living in my friends' living room which is much bigger than my old house's room and it's much cheaper. The lack of privacy is a little annoying, but it's nice living with people I get along with and can hang out with rather than two relative strangers who I barely talk to.
And there's a chance that one of my roommates might be taking a month off in India so I might move into his room and sublease it.
My bosses at work fucking love me. I got a $200 Visa gift card for putting up with all of our cranky customers. I was awarded a Star of the Month award. And our SVP of PS said that I'll likely be in the top tier when ranked against engineers at the end of the year, which means a bigger bonus and a bigger raise.
The bonus combined with selling my Saturn combined with a possible tax refund means lots of mula at the end of the year. Hopefully enough to refinance my BMW and make lower payments each month.
Oh and I'm much closer to the gym now, so it's that much easier for me to go swimming. I think I might start my triathlon training again (for no triathlon in particular), but this time I'm going to do a swim-heavy regimen. Those swimmers have the right idea. ;)
And I get to go to concerts and listen to vinyl and watch TV and take on dates and go to the beach and go for drives with Erin! And she puts up with a lot of my crazy crap. But I like to think I treat her pretty well :) I'm a pretty damn good boyfriend like that. (Never once has she opened up her own car door. Well maybe a couple times when she snuck in there before I could, but I swear it was against my will!).
- Michael
There's a great thing that Roger Waters of Pink Floyd once said when describing his thoughts behind Time from Dark Side of the Moon.
"I suddenly realized then that year that life was already happening. I think it’s because my mother was so obsessed with education and the idea that childhood and adolescence, and well everything was about preparing for a life that was going to start later...and I suddenly realized that life wasn’t going to start later, that it starts at “dot” and it happens all the time and at any point you can grasp the reigns and start guiding your own destiny…and that was a big revelation to me…it came as quite a shock"
I'm kind of been coming to terms with that idea. That life isn't going to all of a sudden start one day. That one day I'll just know that "this is what I've been training for!" In school I could somewhat convince myself of that. I remember as early as elementary school, when I was the smartest kid in the class, I knew that I had the ability to be a Nobel Prize-winning scientist. It was just a matter of getting the right education and letting things just sort of happen the way they were already happening. I mean without much effort I was one of the top-performing students. I could do those timed multiplication quizzes like they were nothing. Surely the road to the Nobel Prize would be similarly easy.
Then high school happens. Still haven't really been shaken from my outlook on life. I get knocked down a couple pegs, get bitch slapped by AP Euro, but still I'm a 5-on-his-APs, 1510-SAT, 4.3+ GPA, top-of-his-class, cross-country-captainin, first-chair-saxophonin, lead-bass-singerin, best-roller-coaster-builderin kind of guy. And it took work, but not that much.
Mudd will be hard? Can't be that hard! I took AP calculus for fuck's sake! I took community college classes when I was in high school with a bunch of college-aged kids. And I was the top performer in the class! I took AP Euro and survived. I'm smart. Not only can I pull off Mudd, I bet I can do a whole lot better than most people.
"If you're such a strong math student, perhaps you can place into the advanced math classes as a freshman," my Mudd interviewer told me. Haha.
When it comes to math, I'm no dummy. I'm pretty god damn good. But compared to Mudders, I'm average at best.
Whatever, it don't matter.
I like referring to this comic whenever I talk about this subject.
That's not to say this is an emo post. I'm not complaining. I'm not whining. I'm not being an emo little LJ kid. My life is going pretty damn well. I got my car which I love. I really like the people I'm working with. I'm currently living in my friends' living room which is much bigger than my old house's room and it's much cheaper. The lack of privacy is a little annoying, but it's nice living with people I get along with and can hang out with rather than two relative strangers who I barely talk to.
And there's a chance that one of my roommates might be taking a month off in India so I might move into his room and sublease it.
My bosses at work fucking love me. I got a $200 Visa gift card for putting up with all of our cranky customers. I was awarded a Star of the Month award. And our SVP of PS said that I'll likely be in the top tier when ranked against engineers at the end of the year, which means a bigger bonus and a bigger raise.
The bonus combined with selling my Saturn combined with a possible tax refund means lots of mula at the end of the year. Hopefully enough to refinance my BMW and make lower payments each month.
Oh and I'm much closer to the gym now, so it's that much easier for me to go swimming. I think I might start my triathlon training again (for no triathlon in particular), but this time I'm going to do a swim-heavy regimen. Those swimmers have the right idea. ;)
And I get to go to concerts and listen to vinyl and watch TV and take on dates and go to the beach and go for drives with Erin! And she puts up with a lot of my crazy crap. But I like to think I treat her pretty well :) I'm a pretty damn good boyfriend like that. (Never once has she opened up her own car door. Well maybe a couple times when she snuck in there before I could, but I swear it was against my will!).
- Michael