Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Writing

I feel like I don't write enough. I feel like when I do write it's always the same thing.  
I feel like I'm living emptily.
Does that make sense? 

I have thoughts and ideas and I express them. I understand things and I create things and I can program advanced algorithms and I can do discrete mathematics. I can understand abstract concepts. 

I am smart. 

However, I feel like I'm a person trapped inside someone else who understands all of these things, how could this be me? I wonder. I feel like I'm experiencing that Murakami quote from Sputnik Sweetheart, So that's how we live our lives. No matter how deep and fatal the loss, no matter how important the thing that's stolen from us--that's snatched right out of our hands--even if we are left completely changed, with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to play out our lives this way, in silence. We draw ever nearer to the end of our allotted span of time, bidding it farewell as it trails off behind. Repeating, often adroitly, the endless deeds of the everyday. Leaving behind a feeling of immeasurable emptiness.” 

I hate this feeling. I want to be free of it. I want to rejoice in the things I do again. I just do everything because I have to, at a bare minimum of effort. 

I am upset about the number of options I have for jobs. It's surreal. Part of me wants to just accept the Garmin offer as is, and run to Kansas City. Some part of me hopes that this would somehow cure me. That running away from everything would make me happy. I somehow doubt it. 

I wouldn't be leaving any stress behind. All of my anxiety travels with me unfortunately. They live in my head. Most of them are hardly issues. 

I'm a little better at piano, oh yea, I bought a keyboard. I haven't been back here in a while so I haven't told you. I guess I should play catch up. I own a piano. I live in an awesome house with Andrew, Ryan, Plaids, and Jake. I have a Job offer from Garmin, I have three interviews in the next week. One with a company called CGI, another PerfectServer, and another CTS. CGI is in Fairfax, VA. Hmm, this gives me an idea: 

                                 CGI                              CTS                                         PerfectServe                        

  
            In Fairfax (Potentially Alec,        Close to friends                  In Knoxville(Friends!)
Pros        Aneliese, etc)                           Chatt has white water         Said they'd match Garmins pay
            Good Base Pay                                   rafting                            offering an internship
            Good Work/Life balance                                                                leading up to employment


            In Fairfax (expensive to               In Chattanooga                   In Knoxville(Stagnant?)

                 live in, far from friends, etc)   (unsure about pay,          Small company, relatively unknown
Cons    No advancement structure             work environment, etc)    (unsure about work environment)
             Potentially working as a
                 business analyst as opposed
                 to being a dev.

                                                                                                                                                                            




So that's pretty much the way the ground looks right now. 

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my life. I want to apply to Quora pretty badly. They have programming puzzles, and one of them is classifying answers to questions as positive or negative. I could do it with my neural network but I would have to rewrite it and implement it and I just don't have the time frame they would need. Or any big company for that matter. I want to apply at Microsoft too through Gbenga, but I think I would have to not give an answer to Garmin or one of these other places if that was going to happen. Which means I could be turning down jobs for jobs I probably wouldn't even get. I have to start somewhere. I supposed I could apply to one of those places later. That's how this is supposed to start right? We always hear stories about "So and so had dreams but, then they got a job and wife and a house and a kid, etc." 

What are my dreams? 


  • Start a successful company and kill at what I do, be passionate about it. 
  • 10,000 hours playing piano. 
  • Live in a vibrant city; have friends there. 
  • Get married, have kids, have a dog, give them the world. 
I must be too conventional. I just realized that I said that because I judge what I want through someone else's eyes; I honestly don't even know what they think, it's most likely not "He's too conventional". I just make up these... excuses? issues? flaws. I just make up these flaws about myself because I need a reason, and for some reason I just won't accept the truth. The truth is I have no control and there is nothing I can do. Accepting that is so fucking hard.

Sorry for that nose dive. When I write sometimes it's like flying an airplane, my angle of attack gets too high and get to the critical angle and I stall out (aka I realize what is happening) and I have to push the nose down so my plane will level and fly. Does that make sense? I guess if you don't know about aerodynamics, it might not. It doesn't matter, the point is I over extend and then have to calm down. I need to start writing coherently on specific subjects so that I can feel like I am still capable of expressing myself clearly.

But tell me you love me, come back and haunt me, ooh and I rush to the start. 
Running in circles, chasing our tails, coming back as we are. 
Nobody said it was easy, it's such a shame for us to part. 
Nobody said it was easy. 

Nobody said it would be this hard.