Failing to make Major Life Decisions....

Since I graduated University in May I have been trying to figure out what to do with my future. At first I wasn’t too worried about what my plans were going to be. I went on an almost month long roadtrip with 2 of my best friends in the whole world, seeing America the way it should be seen, from the window of your car. (Seriously, if you live in the US and haven’t gone on a roadtrip across America, you are missing out. You don’t even have to go everywhere, but at least get out of your own state and explore some of the amazing places in this country. We found some crazy stuff along our travels, but that would be a whole other post /end rabbit trail). I knew that I would be moving back in with my parents and I figured that I could just wing it for a while. But after my roadtrip was done and I had been back at home for a week or two reality set in. My parents began to pester me about securing a full time job (even though I was at that time putting in at least 3 job apps per day and not hearing a thing…), I had to start giving them money to cover my portion of all the bills and so on. So as soon as I was offered a job I took it without looking back because I needed my parents off my back. However, looking back I feel like I should have spent more time looking for jobs that were more in the lines of work that I actually want to do instead of just applying everywhere because my parents were on my case. Because now, almost six months later, I feel trapped in a job that I don’t really like (although I love my co-workers), and I don’t know how I will be able to just drop everything to pursue the life I want. 

I want to go back to school to get a ‘degree’ in artist management and have found the perfect online school to help me achieve that. I want to move to Nashville so I can more actively get involved in the music culture and business that thrives there so that hopefully I can see my dream of working in music promotion and merchandising fulfilled. And recently I have felt/seen some signs that seem to be pushing me that direction, but I am still hesitant. And I am not totally sure why I am so hesitant. Maybe it’s because I know I would still need to find a part time job, so I could pay my bills while attending school and also maintain my credit so I could get/keep the loan I would need to take out in order to attend school. Maybe it’s because right now I only have one potential option for a place to live if I moved and it is tentative at best. Although I know that I can make it on my own, since I lived in an apartment with my friends the last two years of university and lived in Nashville last summer during my internship, I still feel that maybe it isn’t quite the time. Or maybe I feel a little uneasy and guilty for what I am giving up to pursue this. I would be quitting my job, leaving my employers, people I respect a lot in a horrible position when they have been nothing but nice to me. Even moving me into a different position than I was originally hired for because they knew it would be better for me. Maybe, it is because I feel safe living at home and having that comfort of living with my parents again after four years of seeing them sparsely. But I also know that I am not happy with settling for this life. I’m not saying that I am depressed or anything, but I want to stop dreaming. Stop saying that someday I will be doing such and such. Or someday I will move to Nashville. Someday… fill in the blank. I can’t just sit back and hope that things will happen for me. I know that I have to take action if I want to live the life I want and I feel that the longer I wait, the further my dream slips away from me. That if I take the safe path, and stay at my job, stay at home and continue to save all my money (or at least all the money that doesn’t go to the few bills I have), I will eventually just settle into this life and never do what I want to do. 

My parents are trying to encourage me to wait. My mom keeps telling me that I should stay at my job until I have worked there at least a year, because then I will have a year of professional experience under my belt. But so much can change in a year, and I feel like I need to pursue this now. I have so many friends who didn’t keep after their dreams and now they have settled into ordinary lives, and I don’t want that to be me. I see some of my friends (mostly the bands that I would die to tour with as a merch girl/promo manager) and I see how happy they are because they are actively pursuing their dreams. They often don’t have a place to live or any money in their wallets but damn are they happy. And that is how I want to be. I may be living off of ramen noodles or something, but I would be doing what I love. And maybe my parents don’t understand that and maybe that is partially why I am hesitant. They are hesitant and because I don’t want to disappoint them I am questioning myself. 

So here are the big questions I have and I only have 5 weeks to get all the answers:

1) Do I move to Nashville to be closer to the industry?

1a) If I do, I will need to quit my current job where I get paid $9 and try to get a new one once I get to Nashville. 

1b) Who will I live with? (I do know of a girl who needs a roommate starting in January, which is the timeframe I am working with.)

2) Do I go back to school part-time to acquire my master certificate in Artist Management?

2a) If I do, how do I get the money to pay for it, i.e. get a loan? 

2b) Would I enroll in January or wait until summer semester? [this might be contingent on the loan panning out.] 

So dear followers, (if any of you actually read this), what do you think?

Where I Belong....not here.

After you graduate you'd think that you should know what it is that you you want to do in life. Afterall you have spent four years at university figuring out who you are and what you're passionate about. Yet here I am, five months out of university and completely lost. Sure, I have a full time job that pays well but sometimes that and my co-workers seem to be the only pros to my current job. And I never wanted to be one of those people who stayed at a job simply because it payed well. I would rather make less money doing a job I LOVE that being payed really well doing a job I only tolerate. And this is definitely the point I seem to be at. I have no passion for the job I am doing. Which sucks when all your co-workers seem to thrive and love what they do. Although, at the moment I honestly feel like none of us want to be there because we are all burnt out. We have been operating for close to three months short-staffed while continuing becoming busier and busier. Since I have started working our patient visits have increased pretty much every week. Meaning we are seeing more patients than we can probably handle at our current staffing arrangements so we are all working overtime just to simply function, and I am tired of all of it. I am tired of bringing my work home with me. Tired of being criticized and feeling inadequate in my job everyday because 1) I wasn't trained properly and 2) I just don't feel the same passion that they want me to portray. They tell me to speak and act from my heart, but I am sure that what my heart would tell me to say is not what they would have me say. Most of the time I dread even answering the phone because I am not sure what to tell the patients on the other end of the phone. And it doesn't matter that we train on situations all the time, when the time comes, my mind goes completely blank and I usually, probably, say the wrong thing. Each day I feel like I am painting a smile on my face, and suffer through the day, counting down the minutes until I can go home. But even when I am home I can't even relax. I find myself worrying about situations that arose at work and how I might have handled them better, or did I remember to do such - and - such. All the stress is really taking its toll. I have had a cold on and off for about a month now, and I feel isolated from my family since I am working all the time. When I come home I am so exhausted I usually go straight to my room and crawl into bed, I don't feel like this is fair. Eat, sleep, work. Day in and day out. Even the weekends bring no relief because I have to catch up on things that didn't get accomplished during the week, laundry, cleaning etc. I am so tired of feeling tired. So tired of feeling stressed. I know that perhaps I should consult with my employers about how I am feeling but there is a part of me that doesn't want to disappoint them. But I feel like I am drowning. And what makes the feeling worse is that I feel like I am just below the surface. I can see the light dancing across the surface of the water, but I cannot swim the few feet to the surface and take the life-givig breath of air. I have this feeling that there is something better waiting for me just out of reach. The air that will fill my lungs is still just beyond the surface of my situation. If only I could take the risk. I know that somethings will never happen unless we make them happen, but it is hard to just leave everything behind and jump. But what is life without a few risks? That my friends is the true question....

Learning to live in black and white

I really got to thinking this past week as the kids around my neighborhood headed back to school, that this is the first time in my life when I will not be joining them. I am a college graduate. While my degree hangs on my wall, and has been hanging there for over a month, it just now really occurred to me what it truly means. I don't have to go back to school. Whether I will choose to or not is still an option that I am seriously considering, but at this point in time I am no pursuing. I am now part of the 'real' world so to speak. I have graduated from post-secondary education and have the skills to pursue full time employment and spend the rest of my days until retirement working. And while this is a huge feat of accomplishment I found myself lamenting that I would not be returning to school. I am actually finding myself missing the fact that I do not have to go to classes or study or do things like write 20 page papers on topics I may or may not have a true interest in.
But why? Is it because I really want to attend school or is it because I fear where my life is headed at this particular moment. Am I overwhelmed with the job that I have taken on? I think it is a little of both. I love to learn and I want to pursue at least a few more courses that will better prepare me for where I want to go. However, I also believe that my longing comes from the fact that being at school feels so carefree. you don't really have a lot of worries except what homework you need to complete when, and maybe a part time job. But working full time seems to be much harder than I really imagined. Maybe because my last foray into the 'working world' at CMT was so exciting and stimulating. I LOVED going into work everyday because I loved being able to work in an industry that was fascinating to me. And maybe as an intern I never saw the real "work" part of it, but I at the end I was so sad to leave. Now, I have this full-time job, but it just doesn't bring me the same joy as other jobs that I could imagine having. I am not thrilled to go to work everyday. In fact I find myself faking my enthusiasm to be there most of the time, while in the back of my mind I am counting down the time until I can leave. It is physically and mentally exhausting because I have to 'on' all the time. Interacting with everyone who enters the building, and never sitting down except during the lunch break (and sometimes even not then). 10 - 12 hours, four days a week. And maybe I should leave, find something that I could really thrive at, and want to do, but at the moment it is good steady work and I have no other options at the moment, and I feel like the worst possible thing would be to leave before I have an alternative. So I guess instead of sitting here lamenting my school days I should be actively pursuing the job that would fuel my passion. Make me want to work long hours and not be spending all my time at something that doesn't touch me and make me want to contribute. It's even harder because everyone else at my job seems to LOVE it so much. They treat everything that we do as if it is the most important thing in the world. And for them it is, and that's great. But I don't see it as the greatest thing in the world. It is certainly important and I am glad there are people like those that I work with out there, I really do, but I would rather be reaching out to people in a different way. So maybe I should focus on that, and when I have that answer, hopefully everything else will fall into place.

LIfe In the Real World

It has been over a month since I graduated university. I feel like I should know where my life is going, or have some sort of grand plan to make sure that my life goes in the direction that I want or need it to go in. However since I graduated university the only thing I have accomplished is the month long road trip I made with my two best friends, who were also my roommates and rocks during the four years at university. We had a blast exploring the US and discovered what we would do differently if we could start over and do the trip again. (First of all we would avoid the desert. Those two/three days driving through Arizona, NM, and Texas were torture.) It has been about two weeks since I said goodbye to them, but it seems so much longer. These are girls whom I have lived with and spent more time over the past four years than with my own family. And now I have to realize that there is no definite time when we will be reunited face to face. Mutual friends of ours are getting married in October, so maybe we will see each other than, however, who knows where I might find myself in October. I have been applying to jobs frantically since I finished my trip, although so far to no avail. Is this really what life after university is like? Just uncertainty and hoping that you will find a job so you can start paying your bills that are piling up? The most frustrating thing I am finding is that the jobs that I went to school to get aren't available or if they are they are asking for more experience than I have the privilege to have. I find myself wondering what I spent $100,000 on school for when I can't put my degree to use. It makes me almost consider going back to school and majoring in something else to help my chances of landing the job I really want. That or make me kick myself for not taking more PR classes or a business class or two just so I could get started in a different part of the industry and then just be able to get my foot in the door and change over later. As it is, I see in my immediate future working some minimum wage job to support myself which isn't really helping me land the job I want. Although my parents keep telling me that taking a part time position to make some money and then taking an un-paid or low paying internship on the side could be the best route to go so that I am gaining the experience I need while still making some money. I want to believe that it will all work out (and I have to keep reminding myself to have faith) but right now it is very frustrating because I am living at home where everyday my parents are asking me if I have heard back from any of the places I have applied to and I have to keep answering no and then they look at me slightly disappointed and I don't know what else I am supposed to do. I always imagined myself graduating from university, landing an awesome job and moving out on my own. Now that I am actually living it I see how naive my dreams might have been and I see a long road of hard work ahead of me. But hopefully this long road will have a wonderful ending.

Unpopular Opinion Time

I used to be one of those people who completely steered clear of controversial topics. Anything that could potentially cause arguments, I avoided like the plaque. However, as I have grown up (especially over the past four years I have been in University) and have discovered who I am and what I believe on a deeper scale, I have found that it is nearly impossible to avoid conflict sometimes. Sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe is right, even if causes people to go against you. So saying all that, I am warning you that what I have to say may be an unpopular opinion. I may have people completely disagree with me, but I have to express my opinion. I can't sit idly by and watch as people spew hateful words at others while claiming that they are following 'Christ'.

First of all, I am a Christian. And as a believer in Christ I can't watch as others who claim to love Him and follow His ways take His Word and complete turn it around. I can't stand some of the people in my own country who are denying the rights of thousands of people because their views on life (or whom they choose to love) are different than theres. I can't help but think about the long years that we denied rights to black people just because of the color of their skin. Now we are denying people basic human rights because of their sexual orientation and it absolutely sickens me. How can you look at these people and say that just because they choose a lifestyle that you wouldn't choose for yourself that they are less than you. That they don't deserve to live their life just as fully and freely as you because of who they choose to love.

Some do this in God's name and say that God is against homosexuality and therefore we need to follow his example and try to rid the world of gays. Do you know who you sound like when you do that? To me you sound like Hitler. Are we going to round up all the gays and send them away to death camps like the Nazi's did to the Jews? How can you say that God hates gays? God doesn't hate anyone. God LOVES us all. No matter our age, sex, race, religion, or sexual orientation. He loves us all because he created us in his image. ALL of us. God doesn't make mistakes, so the fact that someone is gay must mean that God wanted them that way. We, as his mere creations cannot even begin to fathom how his mind works, so who are we to say what he would do.

People will probably try to quote the verse in Leviticus that says that man should not lie with a man like with a woman. That this verse shows us that homosexuality is wrong and should be punished. But if you read the verses that surround that one, there are also versus on how we should kill any man who commits adultery, or gets divorced, or gets a tattoo... Are we supposed to follow all of these... Do we follow all of these... Of course not.

I believe that the whole Bible is the Word of God, and I am not denying that following it is important. But I also know that many of the verses in the Old Testament (especially the laws) were changed later. At the time they were given, they were meant to be followed but as time went on some of these laws were dropped or changed in the Jewish custom. Because that's what the OT laws are, they are the laws of the Jewish people. Well, I am not a Jew so tend to believe that those OT laws are meant to be taken only in the context that they were written in, we are not meant to take them and try to apply them to a time and circumstance for which they were not written. I also believe that when Christ came a new set of laws were given. Christ came to seek and save the lost as well as bring about His new covenant, new law. In that new law He taught us to love our neighbors and our enemies. To show compassion and mercy and to live out His teachings.

To me this means that I need to show love to everyone. I may not understand the gay lifestyle, but that doesn't mean that I am going to diminish that community. They all deserve the same love, respect and RIGHTS, that every other person in this country has. You can't help who you fall in love with or are attracted to. My roommates and I aren't attracted to the same type of guys, but that doesn't mean that I am going to disregard their feelings. Some people think that Robert Pattinson is good looking, but I do not. Does that mean that person is wrong? No. We just have a difference in opinion. Does their liking of someone that I don't like mean they are below me? Absolutely not. So why do we spend so much time trying to diminish the gay community instead of embracing them. Just because their 'culture' is different from the rest of ours doesn't mean they don't have the right to the same rights as the rest of us. Do we go around denying rights to Asians or Spanish or Germans? No! So why are we doing it to the gay community?

Recently some controversy was stirred up because the popular Fox show GLEE showed two teenage GAY boys sharing a kiss. Some people on the right side of the political spectrum were outraged that this was allowed to happen. But why? It wasn't graphic or unnecessarily lewd. It was a chaste kiss that came at an appropriate time in the two boys' relationship. They only reason people seemed to have a problem with it was because it was two guys. If the kiss had happened between two of the straight characters I don't believe that anyone would have cared.

People used to look down on interracial marriages or marriages where there was a huge age gap between the pair. Now, we are looking down on same-sex couples. People say that allowing same-sex marriages is going to hinder the sanctity of marriage. Well, I think that heterosexuals are doing a fairly good job at destroying the sanctity of marriage all by ourselves. The divorce rate is higher than it has ever been, Charlie Sheen lives with a 'family' of hookers and people are still allowed to get married (drunk) in Vegas. How about we stop diluting ourselves and looking for a scapegoat. We need to take a good, long look in the mirror and see the damage that we have caused. Instead of telling these people that they don't belong, we need to embrace them and perhaps this too will pass into normalcy.

I think all this judgement and hate needs to stop. We are never going to fully understand cultures/lifestyles of those who are different than us, but I don't think we have to. I do believe however that we need to accept who we are and accept the fact that there is always going to be someone different than you. We aren't all the same, because God didn't intend for us all to be the same. That would be boring. However, we can accept the differences between us and learn to love and respect each other.

If we all could just show each other love and respect than the world would be a much better place.

I've had the time of my life... and I owe it to TWU

It's spring again, which means that the school year is drawing to a close. Once again I enter that final sprint for the finish line which is full of those final hurdles of the semester. Those final projects, presentations, and research papers that professors save for the final month of school and which are always (coincidentally) due in exactly the same week for all my classes. No matter how much I plan my semester out by making myself reading and project schedules, this phase of the semester always seems to come out of nowhere. Contrary to popular belief (read: my mother) I don't procrastinate (at least on purpose). I have been working hard to keep up in all my classes and not allow things to fall away. However, despite the fact that this may be my least heavy semester (credit-wise) in all my four years at University, this seems to be one of my hardest. I think this is in part to the fact that two of my three classes are project based classes. Projects which are both worth the majority of the grade in the course and which take quite a lot of my 'free' time.

Thinking of all I have to finish, makes me reflect on the fact that this last month will not just be an end to a semester or an end to a year, but it will be the end of something much greater. It is the end of my education (at least institutional education). In a little over a month, I will walk up on stage on front of my peers, professors, friends and family and receive my BA. This is a huge step for me, not just in the obvious way, but because I am the first in my family to do so. And while my family seemed to have the faith that I would finish, there were times that I wasn't sure. School can sometimes be a huge burden to carry, and when you are pulling hour 15 on a research paper and are running off of copious amounts of caffeine just to stay awake, you sometimes wonder if it will ever be worth it. Now that it is finally within reach however, I am glad that I pushed through all the tough times and worked hard for four years to get to this point.

This time of year is usually very reflective for me, but this year I also find myself feeling slightly melancholic. Now don't get me wrong, I am very excited about graduating from University. However, I am also quite sad to be leaving a place which in so many ways has become a part of me. For four years I have lived on this campus. It has become my home in many ways. I have made so many friends here, some of which I know will be friends I will keep for life. Two of which I call my best friends, roommates, soul-mates. We are bonded by philia and they will forever be an engrained part of who I am. I came here four years ago, knowing no one, and now as I prepare to leave this place, I know whole-heartedly that I will never regret a single moment that I have spent here. The memories (the good and the bad) are many and I have learned so much. Not just in the classroom, but outside as well, and these lessons that I have learned will continue to guide me even after I leave this campus.

In many ways, my university experience has not been extraordinary. I go to class and do homework like any other college student. I complain about my professors at time, and definitely complain about the papers or projects that I am staying up to all hours of the night to finish before they are due. However, in other ways, I know that my time at University has been special. I have gotten to know my professors well and develop relationships with them that span outside the classroom. Just this past Friday all the graduating COMM majors were invited to dinner at one of our professor's house. All the COMM profs were there and were able to share memories about the last four years, as well as talk about where we thought we were all going to do after we left TWU. The profs shared some of their memories of us, as well as shared some well-recieved advice about the 'real world'.

I feel so blessed to be able to be at this point of my life. It scares me on some levels, because there are days (and hours and minutes) where I get a stricken feeling that I am not going to be prepared enough for the trials waiting for me. And then there are other times when I know that I just have to take a breath and have faith that it will all come together in the end. God has provided for me thus far and I know he will continue to provide for me in the future. I just need to remember to take one day at a time.