Wandering, But Not Lost

I attribute my current situation, everything about it, to a general lack of direction. What do I want to do? Well, honestly I have no idea. I don't understand how anyone knows what they want to do with their life specifically. When I think about a career I really don't care what industry or field it's in, I just want to have a job that keeps me happy. I wrote about my dream job (one of my favorite posts!), which is not a feasible position, but that is precisely why I don't know what I want to do. From my perspective, unless you are a professional athlete, I don't see how you can have a job you truly love (for lack of a better word). I still maintain that professional soccer is the best job. Since I have no idea what I want to do, I'm going to look for some temporary work in the accounting field, even though I really did not enjoy accounting in class, in hopes that actual accounting work is bearable. Temporary work will provide me with some freedom because I'm not locked into anything from the beginning, an idea I thoroughly enjoy.

A career isn't the only thing I lack direction in, practically my whole life is one mystery. I usually don't know what I'm going to do each day and make impromptu plans (and apply to random jobs) spur of the moment. Mainly these plans revolve around the same three or four people since most of my friends are really busy now, but it sure beats sitting around alone all the time. Life after college sure is strange. My sister already went through all this when she graduated from college two years ago, but I can't really use her as a template on what to do because her situation is drastically different from mine. She worked for a while at the local public library and then moved out to the Washington state with her boyfriend over a year ago now when he got a really sweet job. That's a unique situation that I will not be following, but I would like to get a sweet job at some point! So I don't have a job because of lack of direction because I only went to a business school and studied accounting on the simple thought process that this course of action would lead me to a well paying job. The trouble is that I didn't really embrace the subject matter. Spring semester my freshman year of college I got a 3.6 GPA, and it was practically downhill from there, especially when junior year hit and I disliked all the important accounting classes that made up the major. I still managed to finish above a 3.0 though (but I'm slightly stupid)! My indecisiveness has left me unsure for a while if I made the correct decision, I even spoke to my parents about changing my major during junior year. However, I decided to take it up the ass and stick it out as an accounting major which brings me to where I am today, looking for temporary jobs because I still don't know what I want. I also realize that I have continued to expand on my career (or lack there of one) when I opened this paragraph writing that "a career isn't the only thing I lack direction in..." Feel free to complain if you would like, the unused comments space is not reserved exclusively for the only two people who have ever commented on any of my posts.

Have I ever mentioned that I really like blogging? I think beginning this blog was one of the best things I've done in my life, and that's saying a lot considering how much I've done to this point including graduating high school, holding a minimum wage job, and beating Halo: Combat Evolved on Legendary with JQ. Life has two very important aspects, a job/career is one (which I just discussed), and a relationship is another. These two aspects, in my estimation as usual, are what make a person's life, why they enjoy or cannot stand life. Lack of direction is also a lead contributor to why I have not yet had a girlfriend. In many ways for the same reasons I have had such slow progress developing a career path, but different. I don't have a checklist for the requirements of the person I want to date nor do I go looking for a significant other. I'm waiting for the right person to show up in my life, but the problem remains that I don't know what I want. What I do know is that smoking, of any kind, is a huge turnoff as well as excessive drinking, it's not my thing. Actually, very recently I had a nice conversation with JQ, my longest standing friend, on the drive back from Cape Cod. Somehow we got on the topic of girlfriends, neither of us currently having one. JQ had a girlfriend for a while that ended about a year ago. I remember the two of them coming to watch me compete at a track meet Junior year when we were running at their school. Anyways, we had gone to a bar the night before with another friend and one of his friends. JQ and I left the bar before them after threw up on myself and some huge guy. When we left we simply walked up and down some of the streets talking about random stuff and listening to these two guys tell us not to go into a bar down the street because it was a "queer bar" while he continually shouted back at the people in the bar that they were all "fa**ots." So on the ride home we were talking about the bar and how neither of us were really the bar scene type. I added that I would not want to meet my girlfriend in a bar to which JQ agreed with me. Why, you might ask. Well, I'm not a bar going type as I mentioned, but chances are if you meet someone in a bar they probably do that type of stuff often which isn't a good fit for me and then there is also the chance that two people that meet in a bar might only like each other when they are drinking.

One of my other very good friends, Seanahue (hope he enjoys that one! But I didn't come up with that name), and I have also discussed a similar topic many times before. I've known Seanahue since freshman year of college and even got to live with him and some other really great people for a year! We used to speak about how we didn't want to meet someone (a potential girlfriend if you are having trouble following) at a party. I don't mind if I meet someone in class or an activity who then goes to a party, but I don't have the inclination to meet a girl via party. I like to get to know people, and I don't think parties are the place for that. Of course it's nice to see what people are like in that situation, but there's so much more to a person than who they are when they're drunk. I prefer getting to know someone by having conversations with them personally in a one-on-one situation or in small groups. This probably has something to do with my fascination of how people act, but I really like having one-on-one conversations. Also, if you can't have conversations one-on-one with someone that you enjoy, then there's no way in hell you should date them either. But getting back to the point I was making, I don't have any sense of direction for a girlfriend either. As I said before, I don't go looking for one, rather I believe that it will happen naturally. However, not knowing what I want has led me to taking far too long to begin exploring the possibilities of having a relationship twice now.

Maybe this is the direction I need

I have gained valuable knowledge from each of these experiences, and honestly, I just wasn't ready for a girlfriend at the right moments. In other words, those moments weren't the right moments for me. I don't have a checklist for a potential girlfriend, but I definitely have turnoffs. I mentioned smoking of any kind as one of those because it's not good for you and it smells really bad. I also don't like the smoking of marijuana, not because it's illegal, but because I don't see why anyone would want to get high. But I also don't understand why people like to get drunk, so I'm probably just weird. I think I'll make a post about turnoffs, and maybe turnons, in the future. That actually sounds like fun to me! More studying of peoples' habits! I've also been watching these sweet videos on YouTube for the past few weeks of this guy who does real life social experiments! I really enjoy them and I think you should check them out, too. You can see them in the video below and there are new videos every Monday. See what I did here? I'm helping promote someone's videos on a blog that barely anyone reads, obviously I'm helping out.


While I don't know what direction I'm going, I like what J.R.R. Tolkien had to say: "Not all who wander are lost." Speaking of having no direction, I originally planned for this post to segue into Batman because of how incredibly brilliant he is, but that's not going to happen now. I'll save that for another post, but The Dark Knight Rises is coming out in theaters soon and I'm pumped for that! Batman is my favorite superhero dating back to my childhood when I would randomly dress up as the caped crusader on any given day. Maybe it sounds strange, but I'm happy to have this situation upon me, I don't feel like I'm tied into anything in particular. My options are wide open. I mentioned that I really like blogging, but in case you didn't get that part, I really like blogging. I also like randomness, to a certain extent that is, which is why I occasionally jump around to different topics. But I do like blogging if you haven't figured that out yet. Now that Sycophantic Laughter has existed for over a year I have found that one of my favorite things to do with the blog when I'm not actually writing for it is checking the traffic sources. I like viewing where the hits come from. Most of the hits come from the pictures I post on the blog, meaning that barely anyone actually reads anything on it, or at least I highly doubt they do. So the 6,000 something hits indicated on the blog page right now are extremely misleading in terms of how many people read my dumb crap. However, I really do like looking at the traffic sources to see where hits are coming from and what keywords are bringing up my blog in Google searches and the like. This week when I checked the traffic sources I noticed that I had some hits from Stumbleupon and I think that's great. I think it would be funny if some people randomly stumbled upon this blog and took the time to actually read any of its content, even if they absolutely hated it.

Going back to the career thing, and thoughts of my dream job, I have no idea where I'll be in as little as five years. I enjoy leading an active lifestyle, but most "professional" jobs are almost entirely sedentary. I like to express my own thoughts, ideas, and opinions via blogging, but most jobs don't allow you to express your individuality. Maybe George Carlin was right, maybe it is called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it, but at least a job isn't what completely and absolutely defines a person. That's an issue I have with the way things are in society right now. When you first meet someone, often in the introductions you and the person you're meeting introduce themselves with their name and then tell you what they do for work. What bothers me is that people tend to let their job define them. This is so-and-so, they're an _______________ (accountant, student, flight attendant, police person, musician, fashion guru, baseball player, asshole, movie star, custodian, high school teacher, landscaper, etc.). I was recently speaking with a recruiter and he asked me to tell him some things about myself that would not appear on my resume. I've been to a bunch of interviews over the past year or so and he's the first, and only person, to ask me anything like that. I ended up really enjoying that interview far more than any of the others I have had. I commend him for asking me that because there is so much more to people than what looks good on a resume. I just don't think people should define themselves by their jobs or careers, but rather by what interests them. Jobs and careers might contain some of a person's interests, but I don't believe that 100% of anyone's interests lies within the constraints of their job.

I should have worked more, it's the only thing I'm good at

Of course eventually I would like to have a successful career, but I want to achieve success in so many other areas, too. I still hold that Huxley's Brave New World is the most powerful book that I have ever read and I have no idea why I don't own it yet. I really do think that people are raised to love their servitude for the country and I thank Mr. Huxley for that idea. I strongly recommend reading Brave New World, that book would be way ahead of its time if it had been published today. I want to enjoy myself by doing the things that make me happy and surrounding myself with people I like. I could care less what my title is in the "professional world," I just want the ability to live comfortably while I have a good time.

That's all I have for right now. I really enjoyed putting this post together, hopefully it is serving as a harbinger of a string of good posts. I'm not quite sure what's in the queue for upcoming posts, but there will probably be something about Batman (the greatest superhero ever) and who knows what. Joe bless you.

JQ

Honesty and respect are two of the most important aspects of people. Saying that, I think that sometimes people have trouble staying honest with themselves. I'm not going to lie, I haven't been too happy recently, but luckily I tend to write most passionately when something is bothering me. However, today (I'm speaking of Saturday since it's technically Sunday when I'm writing this) was an exceptional day. I would also like to thank Chase Robertson for watching a bunch of Euro Cup games with me over the past week, it's always good to see you, buddy. Today was so great because I got a familiar, but old taste of the what my life used to be like. Chase and two other friends of mine from home and I simply went to a baseball field and screwed around. When most people think of me athletically now they think track. But before I was a track runner I was a baseball player. I played shortstop for most of my organized baseball career, but I was always an outfielder at heart. Why? Well because I really enjoy running down fly balls. That's exactly what I did today with some great friends.

The idea to go to the field to hit and shag flies was brought up by JQ, my longest standing friend. Unfortunately I had not seen JQ since I returned from the west coast about two weeks ago I believe. Spending time with JQ always makes me feel great because of the history that we've built together. As a young child I lived in two different states and two different countries. I was born on the east coast of the United States, but my family soon relocated to California and eventually to Brazil. Our frequent moving made for an interesting childhood. I don't have any friends that I've known since kindergarten or anything like that because I attended kindergarten in California, but then went from first to third grade in Brazil. Moving does not make for easy friend retention. However, when we came back to the United States from Brazil we happened to move into the same neighborhood as my uncle. At the end of each summer my uncle has an end of the summer barbecue party. At the first end of the summer barbecue party I met JQ. Little did I know that JQ would turn into such an important person in my life. We've been friends since the fourth grade and we've had some great times. Here's a little look at how our friendship has developed over the past decade or so.

 I'll start at the beginning, when we were very young. One memory that stands out occurred on a nice day when JQ invited me to play some basketball at a nearby neighbor's basketball hoop. I went and we got into some type of verbal altercation. I have no memory of what this altercation was about, but we ended up leaving unhappy. I remember eating dinner after that when the phone rang. It was none other than JQ offering for me to come over to his house after dinner so we could make up for the incident. You have to remember that this was circa fourth or fifth grade. What a classy move for such a young age. I went over and everything was fine. I also know for a fact that we have never fought about anything since then. At the time I didn't really think much of the event, but that was such a nice thing to do.

The following years, the middle school days, JQ and I spent almost everyday together. I actually remember him telling me one time that we weren't going to hang out for a week because he wanted to show his sister that we did more than just hang out. I miss those days when JQ and I would hang out and play the first Halo. We actually beat that entire game on Legendary, the hardest difficulty. I can recall playing the same parts of the game what seemed like hundreds of times until we finally made it through one time. The part that really stands out was near the beginning of the third level when you first get on the space ship and there are invisible elites with swords. For those of you who don't play video games or are unfamiliar with Halo, the swords are a one hit kill. I think JQ and I played that part 1,000 times, getting killed by one of those invisible bastards 999 of those times.

In middle school we had two hand touch football games at the bus stop practically every single day. Our neighborhood had a decent amount of people my year in it and the year ahead of me in it. So we usually just played sixth graders vs. seventh graders (and seventh graders vs. eighth graders the following year). This was around the time when I began to realize that I had some speed, especially when I could outrun the older kids! Anyways, JQ was our quarterback and I was the go to receiver. We played with the rules that each team has four downs to score a touchdown. JQ and I had a set play for third down that we would just look at each other and say third down and we knew what was coming. The play was basically a post pattern. When JQ hiked the ball I would run straight at a decent pace, but after about four or five steps I would cut toward the middle of the field and burn in a diagonal toward the end zone. JQ would just throw the ball up in the air and I would go get it. We actually had a pretty damn good success rate on this play because I could get by anyone covering me and as long as JQ got the ball in the air somewhere where I could run it down we were good. I must add that JQ was quite good at it.

JQ and I entered high school as extremely good friends. This one time we were hanging out at his house after school, I believe it was sophomore year. For some reason we were sharing the nightmares we had in our youth. I'll never forget his reaction after I told him about one of the most common nightmares I used to have. When I was very young I used to have nightmares where I was in a building. The building was some type of warehouse that had wooden boxes everywhere. The building was not well lit, I must have been there at night. I know not why I was in this warehouse, but I do know that I was running away from giant rats. When I was in the process of telling JQ about this dream I didn't really think much of it. I was merely recounting a nightmare that I used to have. I've never seen someone laugh so hard and for so long as JQ did. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that he might have been laughing loudly and genuinely for about ten minutes. It was one of those moments where I began to laugh loudly, too simply because he was. He was just sitting there laughing hysterically, commenting "maybe that's why you're so fast!"

Sophomore year of high school was when I was beginning to notice that maybe I did have some sort of track talent. I came in second in both hurdle events at leagues outdoors that year and eventually qualified for states. I think those are decent accomplishments for someone in their third season of track. Obviously JQ was aware of the success I was having because we spoke all the time and he was also friends with other people on the track team, too, our high school wasn't that big. We still played sports outside of school, frisbee, wiffle ball, football, and occasionally basketball or something else. Starting sometime during sophomore year and stretching to senior year, every time we had a pickup game and I was involved in some type of physical contact JQ would always yell at the person who came into contact with me, saying "hey, he's valuable to LHS!" I got a kick out of it every time he would say it. I know neither he nor anyone we were playing with would intentionally try to hurt me or anyone else we were playing with, but he would let them know. It was almost like a joke within itself because I would always say that no one gave a shit about the track team anyway, which actually did have some truth to it.

Even when we both went off to college JQ and I have always been in touch. There have been some long lapses of communication, but that has not damaged our friendship at all. The summer after freshman year, which I think was the best summer of my life to this point, started out with a classic JQ memory. One day we were at the grocery store and there was a deal for ice cream, something like buy one and get one free. So JQ and I decided to each get a half gallon of ice cream and take advantage of the deal. We went back to JQ's house and we were playing some NBA 2K8 or 9 given the time frame. We were playing with the stacked legends (or something teams), don't think I don't remember dominating with Patrick Ewing, JQ! We were eating the ice cream while playing. I somehow was managing to dominate at the game with Patrick Ewing, but after a few games JQ looked into my carton of ice cream and realized that I had eaten almost all of it. "Oh my God!!! Do you have a stomach ache?!?!" Another classic reaction there. Luckily I did not have a stomach ache despite consuming an entire half gallon of ice cream in one sitting. That ice cream did not go to waste, not on my watch.

The ice cream, it's all gone!

To say the very least, seeing JQ and hanging out with him today was a real treat. I plan on seeing much more of him in the very near future. That's one of the few things that I can control in the future. My mood has definitely been lifted after today. The end of my college career did not going very much as I would have liked it for a few reasons, which is why I haven't been too happy as of late. One of the things bothering me is track. Track has been such a large part of my life for the last eight years, but I don't think I'm ready to call it quits on the sport just yet. My collegiate track career ended with me feeling very frustrated. Why was I frustrated? Well I've been a hurdler since I began running freshman year of high school, but I've never actually had a coach who knows hurdles. My high school coach, despite claiming that he was a former hurdler, did not offer much insight. He even told me during practice for the indoor New England Championship meet (a practice that consisted of me and him since I was the only one on the team still competing) that I probably knew more than he did at that point. Then freshman year of college my coach told me that he had no expertise in the hurdles, that he was unfamiliar with the event. Our new coach this past year was no different.

What frustrated me was the fact that I rarely ever got to practice the high hurdles. My coach planned almost all of my practices around training for the 400 meter hurdles. I have no problem practicing for the event, but seriously, I need practice in the highs, too. At the end of the season I was actually doing no high hurdle work. At conferences I made the final in the high hurdles, but I was the last qualifier. I didn't qualify for the finals in the 400 hurdles, I only missed by .17 seconds I think, but the hard fact is that I didn't make it. So let's get this straight, I qualified in the event I spent almost no time training for. I did just get in though and when I was back over where our team was sitting my coach started talking to me about how my trail leg was slow. I looked at him in disbelief and said "I never practice it." Then I walked away thinking what the hell do you expect. He could tell I didn't like what he said to me and later on told me he didn't have me practicing the highs because I was getting faster in the event without practicing. Well that was true for a few weeks, but leading into conferences I ran one of my slowest times of the season.

Before the New England Championships, the week after conferences I did no high hurdle stuff again except for when I had a free day to do whatever I wanted. I was ready to go for that meet. I was right next to the fastest high hurdler in New England. I got out of the blocks very well and was with the number one seed at the first hurdle. He got over much quicker than me, but I was having a good race. At the seventh hurdle, I nailed the hurdle with my lead leg and stumbled which threw off my whole race. I decided to finish up the race anyways but I recorded my worst time in the event ever. That includes in high school, too, where the hurdles are 3 inches shorter. I am no satisfied with that. Luckily there are track meets quite often, you just have to look for them. I plan on competing again. I don't know how much more, but I just don't think I'm done with the sport yet. That ending has just been bothering me, I can't let it end like that. I did run my best time in the 400 hurdles later that same day, but it did little to relieve the disappointment I felt from the previous race. Here's why: I spent practically the entirety of my senior year training for the 400 meter hurdles. At the end of the year I had run my best time, but it was best time by .26 seconds. I barely trained for the high hurdles, but in the 110 high hurdles I improved by .39 seconds, which is a great deal in that race. To put it in perspective, I came in second at the New England Championships my senior year of high school and was beat by .40 seconds. You can see what that looks like for yourself in the video below. I'm in the blue shorts and white top in lane 5.

Watch more video of New England Interscholastic Spring Track and Field Championship Meet on flotrack.org

Another thing that has been bothering me is lacking a job. I've been bored out of my mind and am growing tired of searching for a job. However I finally have an interview on Monday. I really hope that turns into something, I'm staying positive about it. This was an exceptionally great day, though. I got to spend some time with three of my closest friends and run around like a lunatic for a bit. I plan on having many more days like this over the summer. I'm coming back to my normal self after a few uncomfortable nights. And remember, be champions.