Saturday, February 28, 2009

Why Am I Doing This to Myself

I don't know why I even do this to myself.

I just finished a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats cereal to wake myself up from my drooping eyes, suffering from 3 hours of studying. Okay, I wasn't studying the whole 3 hours. I did chat a bit, shot off a couple emails, did some laundry. But anyway, I came here to rant about why the hell am I here on a Saturday night at home when I should be out galavanting with the girls!

I'm taking three classes this quarter and I can't believe finals are the week after next week. Next quarter, my final quarter, I'm taking 4 classes...geez. WHY?

Sometimes I ask myself "Why did I go back to school?" I'm missing out on all the fun stuff I could be doing, hanging out with my buddies, partying, eating out! Yeah, whatever, Lorace. I was bored out of my mind during my company shutdown over the holidays. Yup. I went back to school willingly. It's for my own good to advance academically and for my career. I guess I always knew that.

I was chatting with Jeanette online this evening and we were talking about our approach to our 30's. In our 20's, we were still trying to figure things out. Now that I'm 29, I can say that while I was around 25, I thought I had everything figured out. I had a plan--finish my BS in Mechanical Engineering, get a good engineering job, get married, buy a house, start a family. I don't like deviating from my plans, so I tried my best to stay on that path, even when the other party wasn't pulling their weight. I don't know why I allowed that, but lesson learned, right?

Anyway, back to my plan. Jeanette was telling me that even back then I knew what I wanted and I went for it--finished my undergrad, found a job right away in Utah, found a good job at Lockheed Martin. I had to stop and think about it. I've always just seen it just as a sequence of events and not much about "knowing what I wanted."

I was months away from graduation and the only job offer I got was from ATK in Utah. I thought what a loser I am. I couldn't even find a job locally, directly correlated to a crappy GPA or lack of internship experience. So, I went off to Utah, and found a sea of cheap housing; more bang for your buck! My parents helped me invest in a house half the price it would have cost here in the Bay Area. There was no sense in renting there if I had a good down payment.

I started working on the solid rocket boosters for the Space Shuttle, assigned to the Final Assembly Work Center working on exit cone, Nozzle Severence System. I was bored out of my mind in Utah. I didn't have too many friends. I flew back home every month. I started taking classes for my MS, did a lot of landscaping and gardening, shoveling snow.

I'd say about a year later, I started looking for a job back home. During the fourth of July weekend while I was home visiting, I applied for an ordnance position with Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale, just 20 minutes away from my parents house that definitely beats the one hour commute from my Utah house to ATK. The job requisition was very similar to what I was doing at ATK. I thought it was too good to be true!

A month later while I was at a Pyrotechnic Conference in Maryland, I received an email from Lockheed Martin's recruiting center saying they are interested in flying me out for an interview. Coincidently, my suitemate worked for the same group I was going to interview for. How weird.

So, I got the job and had to pack up and leave Utah. I found great renters to live in the Utah house and I had no problems with them while they were living there. I moved back home. I went back to my old halau and started dancing again, went back to school. Looking back, the only thing that didn't stay it's course was the guy part. I guess I was so use to everything else going so smoothly that the whole guy thing would eventully follow through.

I'm doing fine though. Dating here and there, just letting things flow. Life is nice. I have great parents, and a great set of friends, my support network. I'm learning everyday...=)


~Lorace

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