proving grounds

Current Mood: what if?

We just passed Armed Forces Day, and it's almost Memorial Day.  In addition to several new relatives (that officially became a part of my family when I married Jenny last July) that currently or have served in the military, I'm proud to say my little brother is an enlisted Airman in the United States Air Force.  I've been told it's not cool to post specifics about his service, so I'll just say he joined this year, he's been in Texas (I got to see him recently for the first time since he left), and he's in contracting (not a contractor, per se, he doesn't hang drywall, but he's more about the paperwork).

At some point he'll be leaving for a far away place to do Air Force things.  He's always been a few hours drive away from me, so having to think of Skype as the easiest way to see him isn't easy to get used to.  It will definitely shake up our family holidays (like we haven't had enough of that!) and I think my mom's taking it the hardest (like I said, totally allowed).  I think he'll enjoy it, though, and I wish him all the best. 

Bradley's now an Airman.  My friend Brant just joined the Army.  Another friend (Benji) almost joined several branches.  It makes me think about how at one point, I almost joined ROTC to help pay for college, and how differently my life would have turned out.

Even beyond that, though, there's a deeper significance I put on being in the military, and I wish I could tell you it was purely a noble, self-sacrificing, guarding your country and fellow man kind of thing.  Really, it's a pretty stereotypical guy kinda thing.

Ugh.  I know I'm not going to explain this well.

Let me back up.  Growing up, I sometimes felt jealous of other people who had a strong sense of identity.  They played sports and loved their team/school (I did not - at least not until I got Purdue, I think that's part of why I love this school so much).  They had some sort of ethnic heritage and celebrated unique holidays (I did not).  They were religious and had special ceremonies (I did not).  They had groups to belong to and rites to go with them.  Basically, growing up, it seems like boys around me had plenty of opportunities to "prove" themselves to be Men with a capital M.  I'm talking about Eagle Scouts, Bar Mitzvahs, Mission Calls, stuff like that.  Some sort of rite of passage they took on to emerge on the other side as...I dunno, as adults, as men.   They were confirmed, they were sports guys, they went hunting with their dads... something they could point to as accomplishment.

The military?  Well, that's definitely one of those things.  I consider that one of the oldest and truest tests of self, of confidence, of courage, and of manliness.  I dunno, it's strange - I never really want to be in combat, to fear for my life, to have to risk everything, to have to possibly take another person's life - and yet, I wonder if I would ever have what it takes.  Does that make any sense?  On some level, I wonder if I could do it, if I could stand up and face that.

Mom suggested my back surgery as a test that I passed, and I shot it down - I didn't pick that.  That experience was something that happened to me and I dealt with it the best I could (still do, even).   Getting married and being a husband didn't make me feel like any more of a Man.  Don't get me wrong, I love my wife and I will do my best to provide for her and take care of her, but most days it feels just like when we were engaged (or dating)...and honestly, she's the one who provides for us right now.


I dunno, maybe this all comes back to feeling like I'm never going to be done with school.  I never finished engineering - I never got the diploma or the ring.  I don't feel like an engineer.  I never finished my flight lessons.  I don't feel like a pilot.  I don't have my A&P [yet].  I don't feel like a mechanic.

Some days, I wonder what to call myself.  UGH, that sounded so stupid.

start with the corners, then fill out the border

Current Mood: waiting/anticipating

What a whirlwind week it has been. Well, weekend, really.

First off, the big news - after weeks and weeks of applications, applications, scanning and writing, more applications, and a few interviews, Jenny was offered a job on Friday. She will be teaching 2nd grade in her own classroom at a school here in town. That is pretty much the very best case scenario that either of us could have hoped for- no co-teaching, not on the other side of the state, not even moving grade levels. She likes the principal, they have a Science Club, and did I mention it is seriously close? Closer than her current school. I know she will kick ass there and I'm not an especially sunny optimistic guy but I have to believe that the two years she has spent at her old school has helped her prepare for her first year on her own. It'll probably be tough in the fall, with lots of extra time spent at the school, but we got through student teaching okay so I think we'll be okay. This school does not have the extra school hour her old one did, and it's in a different district - old school was high poverty, high mobility and lots of intervention... new school is likely to be overeager parents and professor's children, so I think things are about to be flipped upside down.

Many many thanks go to everybody who helped Jenny look for job openings everywhere, and I can't believe how awesome her old bio professor has been going to bat for her with the local administrators.

ANYWAY. Now that Jenny has a job and it's in town, we are green lights for finding a new place to live. We have to be out of current apartment in 25 days, so looking for a new place ASAP. So we're moving, losing a roommate, and moving some of Jenny's teaching things to her new room.

Wedding stuff is getting crazy. Yesterday was 4 weeks until wedding and we still have a checklist of just about 95 things to do. Take a day off work to go to the courthouse and apply for a license. Get rings, tuxes. Finalize rehearsal dinner plans. Pick songs to get to DJ. And so on. If you've been married recently, you probably know *exactly* what I'm talking about. I'm sure we'll get it all done, but geez. I'm not nervous to get married, but I'm hoping everything goes well the actual day of the wedding. WEDDING WEDDING WEDDING. Feels like that's all I talk about sometime.

We were so worried about job stuff that we'd put off really doing stuff like getting the a/c fixed in our shared car, or planning a honeymoon, so that stuff is back on now. Y'know, like we don't have enough going on...

This weekend Jenny's family threw us a cookout/bridal shower. I guess co-ed showers are becoming the norm these days but it was really great - she has a giant family and they all pitched in to get us some really nice things. My mom and grandma were the only ones who could make it, so I felt like my family was a little under-represented. But I guess in 4 weeks it will also be my family too, right?

Job stuff has settled down somewhat, which is good. I feel like I'm kinda getting into a groove, getting used to the hours and the tempo and stuff. I don't know that I've made any world-changing discoveries (yet) but I think I'm pretty consistently working through the assignments and projects my boss gives me. It's very different than working there in the summer - during the spring I was trying to grab a few hours here and there and it felt like it was hard to get anything done. Now, I have 8 hours in a row plus 4 other guys there so it's much more productive. We goof off a little bit and Fridays are mostly clean-up days, but I get along pretty okay with the other dudes. I'm pretty sure I will keep working there in the fall.

Super ready for football to start back up again. I hope the CBA talks continue in time for the offseason to get back on track.
Pretty ready for school to start in the fall, too. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. 4 more semesters. 2 years. Gonna try to find an internship for next summer, too. Building my resume up so that hopefully when I'm all done here somebody will look at me and say "that's the guy I want to design/invent/maintain/repair my airplane/rocket/spaceship". Or something like that...

welcome to the rest of your life

Current Mood:

I like to think I'm a pretty mature guy, pretty grown up in my actions and deeds. But the truth remains that many days I still feel like a kid. I get the feeling that might change this summer though.

Tomorrow's my 25th birthday. Now, around my mid teens my birthday started to feel like much ado about nothing, in that the day itself didn't mark any sort of significant change in my life. I never felt any older than the day before. Other than the big milestones (18, 21) nothing *really* changed and even when it did, I rarely took notice. I didn't go out on my 21st (not that I'm complaining - I just don't care that much about alcohol I guess). And tomorrow's not much different, but I'm now halfway through my 20s, and that marks me as a quarter century old. That feels pretty old to me. Not OLD old, but certainly not a kid anymore, right?

I'm about to start my 8th year of college. UGH. I'm getting "Adult Continuing Education Plans" emails in my inbox instead of "Beware the dangers of drinking". I don't stay out late and today - A Saturday of a Three Day Weekend - I got up before 8 am, voluntarily. I try to eat better and sleep regularly. Just about everybody I started school with in 2004 is graduated, dropped out, gone to grad school, has a Real Job, and/or has a family - something different than perpetual undergraddom like me.

I'm getting married in a little less than 2 months. That's a grown up thing, right? I've been with Jenny for five and half years, so long that the idea of getting married doesn't really seem like that big of a change (which is something I like, means I'm not freaking out or worried about it). We're just gonna keep on doin' our thing after tying the knot, I imagine. Still the same people you guys like, I hope. If I completely change and become a different person that sucks, tell me please? Most of the wedding details have been settled but we have more work to do... just about every weekend from now until then is booked with some kind of wedding thing so I have my summer pretty well planned out.

Last summer I "worked" "40 hours" at a "full time position" but to be honest I was in a salaried position and got my work done just fine by being in the office from about 1-4pm. I wasn't slacking, but it wasn't a very demanding job. It was pretty rad. Now? Now I WORK forty hours, Monday-Friday from 8-5 at the Composites Lab. Like clockwork. And it is exhausting. I'm not trying to say I have the worst job or anything (far from it) but I don't know how people work 60,70, or 80 hour workweeks without going crazy.

All in all, baby steps, methinks. But I get the sneaking suspicion this is a turning point in my life, and I may look back on this summer as a blurry jumbled "line" dividing something resembling adolescence/early adulthood with the next vague and uncertain stage of life (adulthood? mid-life?).

*Edit* ^ugh. that sounded really dumb, didn't it?

in which some of my choices are beginning to bear fruit

Current Mood: it is snowing outside. WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED?

GRAH. New year, filled with the same optimism, promises, and hopes of an arbitrary day we celebrate. Anyway, I know I've been slacking when it comes to updating here but I still cling to the hope that it's something meaningful. Even though lately I've been wondering the wisdom of spending too much time cataloging and analyzing and dissecting and listing and reposting everything, especially the minutiae and mundane things that make up most of, let's face it, mine and most other's lives. That's not to say that self reflection isn't useful (far from it), but I have to think that parroting back somebody else's work (art, music, film, whatever) is not in and of itself the same as creating your own work - good bad or awful, there is some value to the process, the struggle, the desire and effort to form a thing that was not there previously, combining and synthesizing colors and patterns, sounds, movements, shapes, concepts WHATEVER into something unique and previously nonexistent.

So my brain is filled with plenty of random chaotic thoughts, neuroses, just like everybody else. Right now I'm having trouble sleeping despite trying harder than ever to stick to a routine - go to bed around 11, get up around 7 (admittedly I've been much better this break than I ever have, but still, it's getting worse with school starting back again on Monday).

I hesitated to really bring this up back when it was a nascent idea, but also on Monday I start a new job. That's right! Not long ago I wrote this huge post about my work history and how I wish it was different, and lo and behold last semester I was kicking ass in a class - in part because I've switched to an easier major, in part because I'm not an alcohol fueled freshman dumbass, in part because I actually bother to try.

At any rate, I was doing well in my composite materials class. The first exam, the professor had an open challenge: anybody who could get a perfect score he would treat to lunch. Depending on when you asked me, I would say I either managed to get most of them correctly because I studied and the rest I guessed correctly, or I managed to make that professor pay for that slice of hubris. At any rate, the scary House-ian professor made good on his deal and took me to Pizza Hut and we had a lovely sit down. I told him of my numerous years of struggle in AAE and some about my time at Purdue. He tried to tell me that was normal - after all, his top grad student spent two whole years in AAE. His jaw hit the floor when I told him it took me almost 5 years to switch. But he seemed encouraged and told me to keep up the good work, that he might have an opportunity for me at some point in the future.

I was stoked, but tried to be realistic and not get my hopes up. After all, I was the same student in AAE, just as motivated and personable, and those classes kicked my ass and those professors barely knew my name.

Fast forward to the end of last semester-

side bar, Jenny says I still have a lot of insecurity and fear left over from AAE and I'm inclined to believe... it's now January 6th, spring classes start in 4 days, grades have been out for about 2 weeks and I'm still terrified to look at them even though all indications are that I did very well in my classes

- and my prof (let's call him Prof. S) pulls me aside at the end of lab and tells me he would like to offer me a job. ! I met him with the next week for the details:

*I will be working in the Aerospace Composites Lab at Purdue under Professor S.

*I will be a Research Assistant, working on his various projects that deal with aerospace composite structures.

*His primary project is a special repair gel for Marine Corps helicopters that cures in UV light, which negates many of the expensive/time consuming/tricky requirements of standard repairs. His assistants are helping him test this material to see if it is as strong as conventional repairs.

*I will be making some pretty solid money, 20/hrs a week. The position is for spring and fall, for now.

What else to say. Like I said, I start next week. There is a good chance Prof. S has a spot for a summer internship for me, but we'll have to see how that will mesh with my summer plans for getting married. For now, I'm just happy there's a chance. This is a real Aero Job.

Of course I can't just be happy about something, or proud, or confident, and this is no exception. Prof. S and his Main Grad Student both are kind of intimidating to me. Make that very intimidating. And I did well in the class sometimes because I have already taken two classes on a computer program we used, or lab TAs helping us in lab used my part as an example, etc. Professor thinks I'm some sort of engineering math whiz, which I don't think that I am. So we'll see what sort of work I actually am asked to do.

Not to mention I hate working and schooling at the same time. I've done it before (res. hall main office) and it really sucks sometimes. And that was more like 10 hours/week in a cushy office where I could usually do homework. So here's hoping my 6 more credit hours this semester plus 20 work hours any other thing I might do don't pull down what might be my excellent grades from last semester?

So here's to next week... with cautious, footnote laden optimism?

forecast

Current Mood: pensive

I'm not a fan of laundry list posts, but this is more for me than anybody. Plus I just rolled out a survey post, which is pretty lame too. Deal :D

So it's about halfway through June, which means summer is approximately half over for me.

Finals ended Saturday, May 3rd. As soon as I was done with all my finals and a paper, I left Purdue. Jenny and I went to Cincinnati for about a week, went to Union Terminal to see Bodies (the Exhibition) and went to a Red's game. Then I came back and moved into Earhart, and had a week of straight training before jumping right into work. Since then I've beaten Metroid Prime: Corruption and read some books I've wanted to for a while (mostly stuff I put off during the school year). I went to Joey Steenbergen's wedding, and Benji & Corrie's wedding reception. My 22nd birthday came and went. I performed a special summer improv show for Earhart Hall summer school residents with most of the SoF. I've gone to see Iron Man and Indy 4. I've posed as a model for a Purdue brochure. I stopped biting my fingernails! I've kept up on my goal of posting here and on my other story site at least once a week (but not much more). I have also picked up a few extra hours helping with Day on Campus Tours, but for the most part I've been relaxing and hanging out with my friends that have been here (including a game of the new D&D 4.0 rules).

Pretty busy, I think. I am trying not to waste away my summer, but really relax and not overstress. I need some time to recharge my batteries. Thinking back to last summer, I should've either gotten more rigid deadlines from Dr. D for our research, or seriously considered limiting myself to just either a job, or my fellowship.

So where does that leave me for the rest of the summer? I've got from now until summer "ends" with the start of class- Monday August 25th. As of now:

I have about 25 hours of work every week for most of the rest of that time. I don't know when my last day will be, but the last day I could possibly work is August 8th.

That's also the last day for my current apartment lease, so sometime around there I'll need to move. That means up until then I need to continue whittling down the things I have here at Earhart. Peace has to move out, and I'll have to sort out everything there between me n' Alex. Then between Jenny, probably Greg, and hopefully mom coming to help, I'll move everything out of Earhart and Harrison over to my new apartment on the landing.

Mom wants me to try and go to an airshow July 19 and 20th, but I don't know if I'll be able to get off of work then. Similarly, my favorite holiday (4th of July) is coming up, and I'd like to hang out with everybody near Purdue and watch the fireworks, but I may have to work.

I'd like to go to Ft. Wayne and visit Andy and Jacque, and possibly someplace in Chicago - maybe see Scott? On top of that, Monday August 11th, Jenny and I are thinking about going to Green Bay WI to see the Bengals play the Packers @ Lambeau for the preseason. This may or may not count as our anniversary celebration. :D All of that takes a ton of money and gas is a lot more expensive than past summers, so we'll see. I will probably go home after apartment moving and before classes.

GenCon in mid-August, maybe? Also if I can get the right ticket, maybe a Judas Priest concert with future roommate Greg (how much would that rule?)

I will try and make it through the rest of my pile of books, Beard's comics, and finish at the very least Pokemon Diamond and Super Mario Galaxy. I've also got some computer maintenance to do (clean out bookmarks, clean up music files, etc.) but that's not high priority.

I'm going to make a point to keep posting to my blogs. By my best estimate, I have 14 chapters of my story left until I hit my goal [(50k - current 31,819) / 1300 word/chapter average) = 13.9]. I won't stop until I hit 50k, but I also won't quit until I've told my story. At one chapter/week average, I'll be done in 14 weeks, which means I won't finish before the summer ends. Fine, except my posting rate plummets as school picks up.

I should go give blood again, soon.

The last thing I'm writing about as a goal for the summer directly parallels my feeling about it. Something I've been putting off since the end of school. I need to talk to my counselor and get registered for the fall, and possibly take a summer class for July. Ugh.
Do. Not. Want.