Suddenly, everything is clear

A few weeks ago, or maybe more, I'm not sure, I took a career test. Actually, I wouldn't call it a test, but rather tests, because it was about much more than careers and there was most definitely much more than one test. There was a lot in there about personality, who I am, and as I mentioned before, career and the future. Anyway, I did the test and sent it off to a fellow who's been in the counseling business for some time now.

So, a few days ago I had an appointment with him. His insight was incredible. He knew me better than anyone has ever known me and was able to explain the way I am in every aspect better than I could dream of doing myself: why do I look at school the way I do, how I approach work, my social habits, the value I put in different aspects of life. Mostly stuff that I knew was true, but didn't have a concrete way of expressing. And that was only the beginning.

He continued to tell me what I was going to be and how I was going to get there and in doing so I was flattered like I never have been before, but ironically, he said that that's normal, he expects a person like me to, "slip through the cracks without being noticed." He said that it's likely that no high school teacher has or ever will think much of me, but to not let that discourage me, although, with my character, he suspects--and he's right--that I couldn't give a rat's ass if high school teachers think much of me.

I'm rambling, but this is my personal space--that's why I'm selfishly writing about myself, duh!--so I shall ramble on. Just thought I should warn.

Anyway, I should clarify what all that, "slipping through the cracks" means. In clarifying, I think I should also jump back and say a bit about this guy's methods. First, he is very, very well-respected in the counseling business. His main competitor in the area said that when she gets stumped with a patient she sends them to this guy. Not that this is an indicator of his brilliance either, but this guy's written loads of books as well. Enough of why he's awesome; I need to spell out his methods the best I can. What he does is take the questions that I answered and matches the answers up with other people who have taken the same kind of tests, and I should mention that the people he matches answers with are people with careers. Oh yeah, I should mention too, that this guy's seventy-four I think, so he's got a large backlog of data he's working with. Anyway, so in doing so he finds what college would be best for me to attend, what career path I should take, etc.

So what did he find? Well, essentially the most flattering ego-boost I've ever received from anyone. He first told me something along the lines of--not a quote since I don't want to get a word wrong--I'd be very surprised if in fifteen years you were not teaching at the college/university level. He had clarified this previous by saying that I am an absolute academic and that I would not be happy doing anything that everyman considers useful. Instead, my career lies in discussing things like philosophy, literature, anthropology, and eventually writing both fiction and nonfiction. He also said that I should most definitely not have an orthodox education, instead, I should go to Earlham College (or a very similar liberal arts school, but he recommends Earlham), spend two years there and either transfer then or go far away to do something interesting like hike across God knows where or become, you know, a monk, or something; most of all I should at some point do something very interesting and out of the ordinary. Then, after that, I should eventually finish school and become a professor. Oh yeah, and all in between be writing a whole bunch. He said that what's key for me is to have many experiences so that fuel of experiences will turn into writing. Apparently, I "cannot be taught to write," I will instead, "learn to write."

So, my big question would have been, uhm...that's all well and good, but I kind ‘of suck at school and all the indications point to me being, at best, slightly above average intellectually. To this idea, he said that my high school grades are no indication of my intellect, and that he is sure that I am in the top five or ten percent intellectually, but with my character, it would be very possible to never know that. He said that I'm perfectly capable of straight A's, but that it's not in my character to strive for that, and that that's OK, because if it was an option, the best thing for me to do (in his opinion) would be to skip out of high school now as a junior and go on to college, because for me, my diploma will be pointless.

This probably all seems pretty weird, and it is to me, too, but this is the path he says I should take, the path that will most likely lead me to success, yes, it so happens that I guess I will have an interesting life along the way, but his methods aren’t for finding how people should go through their lives to be happy, his methods are for finding out how people will succeed, and it just so happens that my track for success will needs to be filled with these interesting things. He’s not trying to map out a fun life for people, but one of success; it just so happens that the way to success for me looks to be a fun one, or at least it looks fun to me.

That is all for now on my career test adventure.

To change topics entirely, I bet whoever isn't reading this could never guess my motivation for writing this overlong post. It was because I got a new wireless keyboard (and mouse) and it feels way good and I wanted to type something long on my lap. Anyway, he recorded the half-hour meeting and is sending us a CD of it. And, since this is my personal blog and I can do what I want on it, I may transcribe the meeting onto the this space sometime. Hey, if this were for other people I would tag things in my posts so people could find it, but it's not, it's more like my journal, or something similar that someone from my school would also call homosexual, or some such.

That is all for now.

I really shouldn't do that again

I can see that in my fog of lack of sleep, my last two posts were a little silly, especially the last one. I think in the future it would be wise of me to abstain from running-off-on-the-keyboard past three o'clock in the morning.

If I showered now I bet I could come up with a clever title for this post

The shower is truly a wonderful place. It's where some of my best ideas come to me. It's where I came up with most of the ideas for my short stories. It's where I think about philosophy. It's where I consider the current week's This American Life. It's where I consider the last Radiolab I heard. It's where I came up with an idea for an art project that made me wish I had taken art to develop the skills I needed to actually make my idea a reality. It is, as they say, where the magic happens.

I felt the main reason I should discuss why virtually all of my creative ideas arrive to me in the shower as of late is because of the reason why they don't occur to me anywhere else. The ironic thing is that without the reason behind why less and less creative ideas occur to me outside of the shower, I wouldn't have the means of which to have my mind come up with the ideas I deem so valuable in the shower.

To be brief and perfectly, brutally honest, the answer to this question of what stops my brain from coming to revelations of creativity outside of the shower is noise. When I'm in the shower I obviously can't bring my ipod, my computer, or a book in with me, and thus, I'm left to entertain myself with my thoughts. Again, though, without my ipod to listen to Ira Glass or Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, my computer to, apart from checking Facebook, listen to music and look deeper into stories related or similar to the ones Ira or Jad and Robert point to, books to gain perspectives on the world, and everything besides, I wouldn't have the wood for the fire that sparks the ideas that come to me in the shower.

Well, I guess the moral of the story is to take more showers, kids. You may just write a novel because of your greater cleanliness. Or, not.

Wow, I wish I knew about this crap sooner

I just found out yesterday that I have a summer reading assignment for my AP Language and Composition class next (school)year.

This could mean one of two things for my most loyal readers--Mr and Miss Nobdy:

1. This summer reading cuts into my summah time so much that I never have a chance to finish even one short story thus resulting in zero content appearing in two dimensions this summer.

2. In reading, my creativity is sparked and I actually write at least one short story.

One other thing I thought about while I was in the shower--because that's where all my thoughts and ideas come from--is that I think I ought to have my English teacher crack his whip at my story before I send it in to Knox. Why am I even bothering to write this? Two reasons:

1. I can't stop typing.

2. This will mean that if I finish my short story(ies hopefully) there will be a big update to one or more of them.

That is all.

I think I now have the motivation I need

So it seems high school is flying by, being a senior and all next year.  To be honest, I have rather mixed emotions about being a senior. I guess, though, they're not as mixed as they once were, at least now I sort of know what college I want to go to, and have a back-up just in case I don't get in. Nevertheless, it's strange, seeing the seniors graduate, it's like a preview for next year I guess, which is somewhat surreal to me.

The motivation I meant to talk about was motivation for me to complete my short stories.  As of now, my work ethic is rather poor, and all I have to show for it is a page, and some ideas that are written down in my notebook in the form of little paragraphs in between drawings of random things...like toasters...I like to draw toasters sometimes.

So what is this motivation? Well, to save myself some time, it's this: http://www.knox.edu/writersscholarships.xml.  After spending about two months looking around the internet about colleges, I decided I really liked Knox College.  I wasn't sure If I was going to be able to get in though.  My main concern was my SAT, because I hadn't done so hot on my ACT a few months earlier, and at the time I decided I liked Knox I hadn't received my scores for my SATs yet, but alas, I got my scores three days ago, and I did exponentially better than my ACT, and good enough for Knox. 

My hope is that I can get all the paragraphs of ideas to turn into short stories over the summer.  And now, I've got more motivation.  If anyone actually reads this and is interested in my other college choice, it's Hope College in Michigan. It's a walk away from the shore of Lake Michigan, and like Knox, is in a beautiful town.  Really, they're both good schools, I simply prefer Knox because of its respected and well-known creative writing program.

I hate everything

I especially hate that someone on my Facebook friend's list made this note.

"First Book of Democrat

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Yesterday at 9:06pm

CAN WE GET AN AMEN!!! 





FROM THE FIRST BOOK OF DEMOCRAT 


PSALM 2008-2012 



OBAMA IS MY SHEPHERD, I SHALL NOT WANT. 

HE LEADETH ME BESIDE THE STILL FACTORIES. 

HE RESTORETH MY FAITH IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

HE GUIDETH ME IN THE PATH OF UNEMPLOYMENT. 

YEA, THOUGH I WALK THRU THE VALLEY 

OF THE BREAD LINE, I SHALL NOT GO HUNGRY. 

OBAMA HAS ANOINTED MY INCOME WITH TAXES. 

MY EXPENSES RUNNETH OVER MY INCOME. 

SURELY, POVERTY AND HARD LIVING WILL FOLLOW ME ALL THE DAYS OF HIS TERM. 

FROM HENCE FORTH WE WILL LIVE ALL THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES IN A RENTED HOME WITH AN OVERSEAS LANDLORD. 

BUT I AM GLAD I AM AN AMERICAN, I AM GLAD THAT I AM FREE. BUT I WISH I WAS A DOG AND OBAMA WAS A TREE. 

Today's Quote: 

"Americans grew tired of being thought to be dumb by the rest of the world, 

so they went to the polls and removed all doubt.''

It's not that I'm apalled that people dislike Obama; of course people are going to dislike the president. It comes with the territory, but this note is just frustrating on so many levels.

However, I'm so sick of people talking about politics that I don't really want to go into any more detail about this.

On a happier note, I worked a lot more on my short story last thursday and friday, and I'm sure I'll eventually finish it, though, it will still probably be awhile untill I'm actually done.

The story is coming along nicely

I finished writing out my outline and I am getting ready to write the real thing. The only thing is, since I write it during classes, it's all in a notebook, which is going to make getting it onto the internet more tedious, but whatever. 

I cut my pinky

For some reason, I don't I feel like writing those dumb "columns" I said I'd write. I'm not trying to be post-effing-modern, but I guess the idea of posting things under a "column" makes me not want to write anything at all. 

Also, from my previous experiences in trying to keep up a blog, I've realized that writing about things I'm going to write about makes me less likely to write about what I said I'd write about. I said "write about" too much, didn't I? 

My pinky hurts, though. I looked at it in the middle of the day and found a cut on the tip of it. It hurts to type, and I bet it'll be infected if I type too much because of all the grease that covers my almost three year old keyboard.

I guess, since I'm here I should actually write something, though. Actually, what I was going to write about was something I've been working on. It's a short story, but it's in a kind of planning stage right now. So if I say anything more about it, I'm afraid that I won't actually take the time to write it. Thus, I will leave the nonexistent you with a promise: It will not make you think about dumb things like life, religion, and all the other stuff that actually matters in the world. It is also probably going to take me months to finish at the pace I do things. So expect to see it someday, maybe.

Goodbye and good heavens

I came up with a title for the "New i$h"

I think I want to call it "Commitment Issues." 

As said in my last post, it will be about playing way to many MMOs for way less time than they probably deserve. 

I hope to get it up and running either tomorrow or this weekend. If I don't though, it's probably never going to happen at all.

New i$h

I've been trekkin' MMOs lately, and I finally decided to make some actual use for this said trekkin'. Mainly just to justify playing MMOs, but hey, an excuse is an excuse. 

 

I suppose to start out this introduction to nothing I should say what MMOs I played already--or MMOs that I got sick of and thus have no desire to talk about on this here weblog.

 

The games I've trekked' already:

EVE Online

Age of Conan

SMT Online

 

I guess I figured the list would be longer and would thus actually deserve a colon, but whatever, "It is written," and so it shall be. 

 

Now to the (less) fun part: Sayin’ which games I’ll actually be playing for the next few weeks--or days depending on how boring they are.

 

The game I'm in right now is Ultima Online. Of course, I'm playing on a private server, but shoot me. EA doesn't give a sack of walnuts about what happens to Ultima, anyway. Besides, I'll bet the private server I'm on has more people playing on it than EA's official servers.

 

After my exploits in Ultima bore my eyes out of their leather sockets, I'll be limping into Everquest--nothing after that; no two, no adventures, just plain old Everquest.  I've played it before--for like an hour--so, it won't be entirely new for me, but it should be interesting anyway considering it's like ten frickin’ years old.

 

I probably should mention that this "i$h" is going to be called "Master of Nothing," or at least something like that. Speaking of names and such, I'd also like to (but probably never will) make a column called "What the Eff is Nobody Doing" where I write about music, games, movies and other i$h nobody gives an aborted baby about.

 

So without further ado: Get the eff on with your life, Mr. and Miss Nobdy, 'cause I'm not going to go get on with mine.

 

P.S. I don’t feel like writing about MMOs I feel like I did a little more than just trek in. Namely, WoW. I’d rather not dwell on the fact that I can never get those 200+ hours of my life back.

 

P.P.S. In re-reading this, I think it’s safe to say this was most definitely a train wreck of a post. I officially apologize for hitting “Publish Post.”