(I’ll give you all a moment to catch up on those previously discussed topics, if needed…)

I am told by several reliable sources now that I am going to be moving to San Antonio, TX immediately after graduation to start a new full time, big-boy job with Rackspace.  I would be pretty excited.  For almost a decade now I’ve had this thought in the back of my head about working for a web hosting company, on the front lines of globally applied information technology.  I guess it’s really going to happen.

Mother is all excited.  Not that her “big bad beautiful baby boy” is moving 1,706 miles away to a different time zone, but that I am succeeding and all that general proud-parent stuff.  She has even started to plan the party, before I even officially accepted the position just this afternoon.

In the next 2.5 months there will be a lot to plan and arrange and get figured out.  Ideally we (Stacey and I) would have a while longer after graduation to get things figured out and plan for our future, but I guess that will have to come later.  It was commented to me about the quickness of everything, “Welcome to the real world.”  I’ve heard all sorts of commentary and complains about how quick and fast paced American culture and business is, so maybe this is it.

I don’t complain, though.  I am really quite fortunate.  I have been most of my life.  Maybe a prolonged record of good fortune means I’m good at what I do?  I make my own good fate, as it were?  Nah, those ideas are (a) too self-centered for this site and (b) thoughts that I will have to later expand on for a new class I’m in this quarter, and don’t want to get carried away too soon.

I’ve had all the toothpaste I want for a while now, but soon I’m going to be able to make decisions about things named after parts of US legal code, like 401k and IRA.  I personally can’t wait.  It feels like I’ll be more in control of the little universe that exists in my head.

But for now we have to wait still.  At least we aren’t waiting in faithful uncertainty anymore.  I know it’s going to be there waiting for me.  ”Your future awaits” as they say in the movies.  (And bad TV commercials.)  Although the uncertainty was a little soothing to the mind.  I was able to be confident still, to some degree, about being okay in the future, without having to actually know or prepare for any of the details.  But if my LAN party planning experience is any indication, I sort of like the details sometimes.  Again, master of my universe.

I feel like starting a huge poster board checklist.  And since I suck at arts and crafts, it will be a web-based poster board checklist.  Interactive progress bars and everything.  ”Here are all the things between Andrew & Stacey and the real world.”

I want to own a private jet that goes between Rochester and North Carolina whenever we want.

I want security.

I want to feel secure in my future.

I want to not have to worry week to week or month to month about anything.

I want to be happy.

I want to have all the latest and funnest stuff.

I want to be able to  decide what and how I use the things I have.

. . . . . . . . .

I don’t want to sound like a brat or ungrateful or anything.  I’m just saying.  I guess there are a lot of various things that everyone wants for one reason or another.  That is life.  That’s being human, with all the desires and hopes and dreams that come with that.  Being happy and content is about finding a way to “make do” with what we have and can achieve.  Happiness can be a choice, even.  Forget the fact that you don’t have everything you want, forget that you are only mortal, forget that you do not have access to limitless resources.  Just forget it all, and be happy.  Blissful ignorance.  (I have to say, in the last couple years I have been finding connections to that phrase/concept a lot more…)

I mean, what is “make do” supposed to mean anyways?  Again, are we supposed to just forget what we want and what we need to achieve it, and do something else?  Be something else?  That is not the same.  I’m sorry, universe, but I will not be fooled like that.  I cannot just make do with what I have.  I can accept what I have.  I can accept it as a temporary condition which will be changed in the near future.

But to me, it sounds sort of sad and a lot of hopeless, to just be happy and make do.  What good are these dreams if not to be achieved eventually?  Whatever process it was that created us and our minds gave us this ability to desire.  It has to be good for something.  It is at the very core of all of human progress and innovation, isn’t it?  Is that its only purpose?  Are all desires supposed to be for the betterment of mankind alone?  Looking at the most accurate guide to the future we have, the Star Trek timeline, it was not until the human race went through a third world war, first contact with alien races, and the total collapse of the global economy that all the nations even started to come together for any actual common purpose.  It was another 150 years or so until the Utopian ”United Federation of Planets” came together.  Look at what had to happen first, before man was ready to want only for his fellow man.  Are we just not there yet?  Am I still allowed to want for myself, at least until the men with the pointed ears land?

I don’t have any real answers here.  As with every other existential question I pose to myself, I will answer just with what I have been doing so far.  I will continue to want and desire and dream.  I will continue to be driven by that towards my goals, and I will achieve them.  That is not a question.  That is a statement.  Period.  Another period.  (I want to make sure you feel as final about that statement as I do.  Period.  End parentheses.)  There will be some day when I am completally and 100% content with life, the universe and everything.  That is not today.

For now I will continue to “make do.”  I will try not to whine and moan too much about what I don’t have.  Although, right about now I would really like that airplane.

There were some unexpected things that happened in that time however. Such as about 6 months ago, this girl insisted on being my loving, devoted and epically-fantastic girlfriend. So that was a happy surprise. She is back in North Carolina being epically-fantastic in her own internship now, and I am here going to classes. Yay me. Yay us.

Life has a way of being randomly unexpected at times. People say things like that a lot. I see that it makes sense. What we call “life” in this context and all the things it consists of are “controlled” by a countless number of separate variables/people/things/events. There is no way at all we could predict it all. (Not until Skynet takes over that is…) Given this situation, the logical person adopts a philosophy of “Hakuna Matata” and moves on. This is what I have done for the last several years. Up until recently, this hasn’t been an issue for me really since all the random and unexpected things in my life were either trivial or really good/fortunate happenstances that I was able to gladly accept.

A while ago I was talking about a method of emotional self-protection I’ve observed which causes a delayed reaction to major changes. This major change is still in the process of reacting. The delay was assisted by the fact that I have had unfortunate amounts of shit to shovel and deal with (professionally, scholastically, domestically) in the few days since and it isn’t going to slow down soon. Some would say that is a good thing. Others would rather there be nothing to distract the mind and soul from dealing with the present. Honestly, I once thought I knew but I don’t know on which side of that argument I stand.

Here are some things I do know. I do know that if I were the kind to profess my undying love and infatuation for someone on a public medium this would be the time. (Whenever I see it, it just looks and sounds tacky and a little ridiculous. I guess I can understand it but still, some things are better left in private.) If I were in a movie with a low special effects budget and they were in for a close up of my face, there would be stars and little hearts and puffs of pink smoke in my eyes. If money and future stability were not an issue I would be in a different state right now. If the world were kind enough to work the way I wanted it to, I would not have to be in classes to get a diploma to get a job to get success and all the toothpaste I’d ever want. I could instead spend the rest of my life with the one who makes me happy and her willow tree.

But the world is not that perfect. Here we are in reality, and here I am with my next little chapter of existence. Here I am with my next obstacle on my sprint to success. Now jump.

So, things have changed in the last several months.  I finished my third/second quarter at RIT.  (how do you count a class durring summer quarter?)  With all that out of the way I’m not on co-op working for Cisco in their CALO lab.  (Think of a really cool internship you get college credit for, for those  non-RIT people out there.)  I start Monday.  I’m just about all settled in my new apartment in Morrisville, NC.  (didn’t I just move to Henrietta in the last post?!)  I may post pictures of my new place here.  I’ll decide later on how large a scope I want to brag on.

In these last several months as all this was happening I’ve gotten lots of ideas for posts here.  Some nice yummy topics for us all to chew over.  (it’s about lunch time for me at the moment.)  I even started a few draft posts to get some ideas down.  I think over my 9 months down here I’ll be making a concerted effort to come by here more often and write some more.  Sort of like an online journal of me and my thoughts in this new era of existence.  (did that sound too grand?  too corny?  probably.)

People keep telling me I’ll do well down here.  Either I’ve done a really good job over selling myself or I am some kind of technological prodigy child.  Or something in between.  I’m leaning towards the latter half of that spectrum.  Hope someone’s out there to watch me stumble through it all.

I know how the game is supposed to end.  The main character (me, if you haven’t been following along) gets the girl in the end and they ride off into the (Martian) sunset together (in their hover car) to start a family together and live happily ever after.  (Some details filled in from personal fantasy.)  I look at myself and my peers, and I get the impression that I have a clearer picture of this then most.  Additionally, I seem to either be more worried, less concerned, or more sure of how I will achieve these life goals.  I have yet to come to a definitive conclusion on which of those three it is.

Popular belief is that I somehow acquire either (a) copious scholarships or (b) lots of debt to attend a college of my choice for several years, get a nice middle-class job afterwards with which I can manage any debt I may have, buy a house, car, wife, kids, and all the toothpaste I want.  But what if I can’t find all that on the store shelves?  What if, assuming for the moment that I manage to get to this fanciful point in life, I end up not finding the right car, or the right person, or the right brand of toothpaste.  Falling back to popular belief, I would “move on.”  Settle for the peppermint when what I really wanted was wintergreen.  (they never have wintergreen these days…)  Personally, I refuse to settle.  I am willing to “make do with what I have” or to “improvise”, but I will never settle.  I know what I want, and one way or another, I will have it.  (even if I have to cut down my own wintergreen tree…)

But remember, we have assumed that I will be given the honor of being presented the choice of toothpaste or woman or car.  I still have to get that job with which to buy her/it.  (Lets pretend I’m referring to the car as “her” and save the slavery/prostitution implications for the next post.)  To get this job, I either have to be the luckiest person I know, or have to jump through all sorts of high-strung hoops to prove my worth.  Even when it seems like you will never get the degree or job you want.  Even when the fiscal and logistical requirements to get the degree or the job seem impossible.

I just have to keep on going.  Never ending, never wavering.  Or else, no toothpaste.