33 in a 20

Speeding tickets are a reminder that we all need to slow down.  The analogy for life.  But do we ever learn our lesson?  Perhaps.  Or perhaps we learn that in a specific situation or context, our actions are not the desired ones.  But I know that I will not mistakingly miss the flashing school lights sign as I enter Alexandria again.  15 minutes earlier and I would have been going under the 35 mpg speed limit.  However, will I apply this lesson in a different context or location? Probably not.

Slowing down seems counterintuitive to the American culture or even the World culture.  Slowing down makes us prone to laziness and defeat.  I need to get to my next location ten minutes before I am supposed to, so that I can quickly complete a goal that would most likely get done anyway.  Typically I still get to bed.  Whatever I don't accomplish the night before does get done unless I'm facing some type of deadline (which in my case right now life is a deadline).  Then I forgo sleep in order to get the needed task accomplished.  I'm rambling.

Learning a concept is one thing.  But to process, practice, embed, and recall the said concept is another.  It takes conscious effort.  When I arrived in the next town, Johnstown, to flashing lights, I found it difficult to drive 20 mph.  Perhaps I'm desensitized to speed.   I mean 20 mph is fast.  I can't run 20 mph.  And I'm pretty sure I can't ride my bike that fast...for a prolonged amount of time.  I had to force myself to raise my foot off of the accelerator.  I actually had to resist the urge to not comply.  Wouldn't it be better to arrive everywhere faster?  Even an ugly city can appear beautiful when driving too fast to process it.  Calm down, I'm not implying these cities are ugly.  

That's our problem.  At least one of them.  We are a culture that has chosen to bypass the process of... processing.  We want it our way. All the way.  We want to believe that we understand when perhaps we don't.  Or worse, we want to pretend we understand when we know we don't.  I saw it in the educational system clearly.  But I think it is much more prevalent in life than we would like to think.  Who has problems remembering names? 

Several bloggers hands go up.

Bad memory or a lack of conscious effort?

I feel soo stressed out right now....I feel like i never have time for anything. I cant seem to get myself on a schedule with being a new mom , school and working all the time. I never know whats goin on. Its hard for meto get any school work done without a computer in my house, I have to go here or go there to use a computer in between classes or work. I need get a rythme going. I dont think I have ever been this overwhelmed.

What I know, is motherhood has became my new source of learning. I absolutely love it! Its definitely hard, but worth every sleepless night and time without friends. My son is the new love in my life! I cant get over the things he does and the way he smiles at me. Being a parent has opened my eyes to a whole new world. I know that things can only get better from here!

Grades....why I give it my all.

I wish that I would have tried as hard to get good grades in high school as I have in college. its so mind blowing to me. I guess I just never put my full potential out there and kind of just got by with whatever I got. Now that I am in college, its totally different. Why is that? Well for one, I am paying to take the classes so if I fail its coming out of my pocket and for two, I am the adult now and I realize how important it is to get those good grades. Believe me I am no where near perfect, I have taken a class or two twice, and I not only learned more than the first time around but I also realized that if you don't put your all into it than you only get back what you put forth, so I always try my hardest, because I know that I am going to get back what I put into it, and I want that good grade. Don't we all?

Down Time

Just after high school my best friend and I got a job at a place called Major Builders. We built MI homes in a shop, labeled each wall, stacked, and nailed them together. After that we would load them on to a semi truck, and they would be shipped to the job site and put together like a puzzle. It was a blast, building a whole house on a table, wall by wall, interior and exterior. The hours were awesome, 4:30 am until 1:00 pm, half hour for lunch, and two fifteen minute breaks. When we would clock out it was time to party. Then I got a girlfriend, and boy did that whole party thing did not fly with her. So I got the newspaper out and found a wanted ad for a company by the name of Romanoff Electric, on the technology side.
I worked for Romanoff for about four years, until that side of the company went under. While working there I met two brothers and we ended up being pretty good friends. We were the last techs to be "laid off", so we exchanged info one last time and went our separate ways. Form there I went to different jobs for about six months, outside the construction field. Then got a job installing metal doors and frames for a company called Titan Doors.
After working at Titan Doors for about 5 years, I ended up on the same job site as the two brothers I met at Romanoff. We went to lunch and talked about what each of us was doing with our lives. They had started a sub-contracting company and was looking to add another employee. When they walked in and saw me they knew who they wanted to hire. So two weeks later I was working for Browns Cabling, a sub contractor for Consortium Communication. Every thing was great, for about two years, we were traveling different places like Michigan, West Virgina, Indiana, Iowa, Alabama, Louisiana, Connecticut, Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania. Working a companies like DHL, Best Buy, Buffalo Wild Wings, and the University of Phoenix. Then the "down time" hit, and we were lucky to get twenty hours a week. Before too long we were only working two or three days every two weeks, then we didn't work for a month. But since March of 2008, I had been waiting for Central Ohio Technical College to send my financial aid information. So it was time to go back to school.

Finding Myself

So..... after almost 6 years I'm finally ready.

Immediately after high school i enrolled in a four year college and I had no plan or goal for what I wanted to do. I screwed around, taking all of those boring required classes that everyone had to take like math, and psychology. I also took a few half way interesting classes but it wasn't enough to keep my attention for too long. So, without hesitation, one day i quit. I felt like the only reason i was doing it was to please my family and in doing so, i wasn't happy with myself. I was blind to the fact that they were just trying to help me, like they always have.

Until the age of 10 I was the only child in a VERY large and well off family, so needless to say, i was spoiled rotten and for some reason as i got older, it got worse. Everything in my life has been handed to me. If i ever need anything and couldn't take care if it myself, someone did it for me or was there to help. My nice car was paid for, my college was paid for and i really took it all for granted. I just up and quit after two years and baffled my entire family, leaving them all wondering why. My only answer was "because I'm not happy". Lets just say that didn't sit too well with anyone, but i didn't care.

After traveling around the country i ended up back here in Ohio, got a good job, met an awesome girl, then moved away once again. My girlfriend ended up getting a great job, but it was in Michigan, so i quit my job and followed her up there because she was my dream. As i sat around up there, bored everyday and no friends to hang with i had a lot of time to reflect. Time to think about what i want for myself and my girlfriend in the future. The answer was pretty simple...I want to be able to give my future family everything that my family has given me. I realized that wasn't going to happen working random jobs, living paycheck to paycheck, and getting help from my family. So I sat down, found something that i actually really liked/wanted, and took action.

A lot of my family told me that moving up to Michigan was a big mistake and they still might say that but in my mind its probably one of the best things to ever happen. I had to make some really hard choices, including leaving my girlfriend for 2 years, but it will be worth it, for both of us.

The most important thing is that i am happy with myself again.

It may have taken a while but, after finding something that i really like to do, i finally figured out why education and learning is so important.

Curiosity is my main learning tool.

I always wanted to know everything, except what I was supposed to be learning, especially in school. My curiosity has lead be down many paths during my 35 years, from computers to welding, I never wanted to settle on one particular aspect. My grandfather told me that “You either know one thing really well or you know many things kind of well.” I chose the many things kind of well option, even though I don’t think that was the idea he was trying to instill in me. I graduated in 1991 from Licking County JVS for Computer and Related Technology, where we learned how to work from a Mainframe, program in Basic, RPG 2, COBOL, and learned accounting and various other office related technologies. It always frustrated me because they were teaching me to be a part of the workforce, but I just wanted to know about the guts of the computer. I was always focused on how things worked, and if I couldn’t understand that my learning experience was drastically affected. Looking back on growing up and learning, it seemed like I was part of this huge wave of knowledge and even still to this day I find myself playing catch up to all the new things out there. The things I learned in ’91 for the most part don’t apply today, and that pattern has continued my whole life. That is the main reason why I know I will never stop learning. My curiosity has always led me to new fountains of knowledge; I can still hear my Mom talking to my Dad about all the broken electronics in my room. She was concerned that I only had my Speak n Spell for about a week before I took it apart to see how it worked, of course I had no idea what I was looking at so I spent the next few days at the library figuring out what a transistor was, resistance, ohms law, of course I couldn’t spell any of this new found knowledge, because my Speak n Spell was broken. The same holds true today, although now I don’t have to break my laptop to see how it works, I can get online and look at all the schematics I want, I don’t have even go to the library now that there is Google, and Dictionary.com will pronounce the words I don’t know for me. What it all stems from is my voracious curiosity and my willingness to learn from it.