Jan's Latest Version

I’m tutoring… English… grammar.  Me tutoring English? ROFL, right?   But, this is what I got a chance to do these days, tutor English grammar.  Am I doing O.K.?

Third language of mine, I don’t find it particularity “fun”, I’m not to great in that grammar stuff…  I suppose for now I am doing O.K.  Judging from the past year and a half, I’m lucky I got some sort of job.  Even if it isn’t even close to what I would like to be doing.

I don’t know what I want/would like to do, but I’m pretty sure teaching English grammar wouldn’t make the top 10 positions… 15$ an hour, 2 hours a week with 10-15hours of prep. … if you can’t do what you want, you do what you can, trying to figure out what you want, so you can do it, right?

The ten steps I need to take to fix my Life.

Step 1: …?

I’m…  There is this “funny” moment…  Imagine walking it a wall!  Nothing weird, you just missed the door by like 17 inches.  Face, plaster, paint… BOOM! face plant.  You step back completely confused and stare.   Looking at the wall, just there for a second, you wonder why did the wall hit you?

I had a moment like this listening to my brothers recital over the weekend.  It was a face palm in a first time on the internet style.

I have been enjoying World of Warcraft for about 15 months now (since I got back to the game).  I have a master level of expertise, in both theoretical and practical sense.  I have an intuition and understanding of how the game works and the inner workings of player based “interactions”.  I can pin point with great precisions most of current items used and pretty precisely guesstimate performance based on limited observations.

I have achieved certain level on skill in manipulating the games world with my avatar and I am considered to be one of the best players on my server in my chosen role.  I have spend massive amounts of time perfecting my abilities, learning my class and role, researching and theory crafting number trying to optimize this non-linear dynamical system.

I have notebooks full of calculations and pages of printed graphs and computer code I used to find the optimums.  Over a 12 month period I turned this game to a full time obligation.  Started green and couple weeks in I was starting to catch up to the best.

Side note.  I was lucky enough to find a group of people that I could play with, without them my chase after the mastery would be greatly hindered.

And so, 12 months and over 100 days played (that does not include about 15 hours a week of out of game theory).  Let me do the math, thats 2400+ hours, thats 50+ hours a week.  There are two stages of being the best (one: you’re the best, two: you don’t need to prove it anymore).  Some where along I crossed the line, but I knew I could be better.  I know my guild and raid group (24 people I played with) could be much better.  Yet I reached a glass ceiling!

There is only so much I can do on my own.  I noticed that my group started to be O.K. with mediocre performance, every one wanted results but…  It was a hassle to “tank” (what I do) in 25 man raids for a while, it was a job.  I didn’t mind, I had our 10 man group to look forward to.  We were decent in the grand scheme of things, we could have been better but it was a lot of fun.  About a month ago it started to be different.  I couldn’t put my finger on it for a while, then it hit me.  One night not to long ago we were attempting to “clear” (kill all monsters on sight) the citadel, and we couldn’t.  (Reminder, raiding is a team sport, alone you can’t do anything)  When we were asked how the 4 hour adventure went, leaders response was “… we didn’t as much as last time, but we had fun.”  That was IT!

For the record my response would be: “OMG, WTF??? FFS GTFO…::sad face::” (translation is not PG rated).

Something broke and I’m done caring.  For the most part I’m done playing for a while too.  I’m tired of people having no respect for other players, their time and not willing to show even slightest effort.  I miss the old days were one was benched for stupidity, talking about random crap during important fights and wipping the raid because you didn’t bother to look at the screen.

“I cannot care more than you care…”-my HS chem teacher, only lesson I learned there.

Hey

What I have to offer:
I’m a 27 year old guy, with a college degree (organic chem).
I’m intelligent, extremely quick learner and very detail oriented.
I’m very dexterous and able to work on very precise things (big and small).
I’ve been told I’m creative and out of a box thinker.
I am good judge of character.
Optimistic, up beat and rarely lacking energy.
I have unbendable loyalty, honest and trustworthy.
I’m a problem solver and a fixer (no rest till things get done right).
I’m good with people and communication is never a problem (peoples person).
I have no problem traveling (I can be ready in under 12 hour, meet you at the air port), over night (great) or to the other side of the globe (super).
I’m spartan when it comes to things I need to get my job done and survive.
Computer and technology savvy.
I am OK with making difficult decisions and announcements (if need be).

What I am looking for:
I would like to find an internship, p/f job.
I don’t have a chosen field, although my strengths are making sure things get done, and I like to work with people.
I don’t have a salary requirement but would like to be payed fairly (job) or not at all (internship).
Mostly I’m looking for experience, hands on.
I would like to get my foot in, and I don’t have 5-7 years of corporate experience just yet.
I’m looking for some one who give me a chance to show what I can do.

Jobs I have recently looked into:
Personal assistant (travel arrangements, arriving on location before hand, checking if everything is up to par)
Human management (college building director, HR coordinator, community leader)
Auditor (abandoned buildings and properties, would like to learn the financial aspects and tracking of corporate expenses)
Life coach (support and motivation without direct intrusions into progress)
Corporate teacher (lecturing and coordinating education materials design for business end managers about the science/technology side)
Basic IT (reinstalling OS, teaching first time users web, email, MSword etc)
Game Design (Design of spaces inside of virtual buildings, character placement and behavior mechanics).

I do have a resume to share, and if there is a specific skill that is missing please let me know.
You need some one with knowledge of PShop and Quick books, no problem. I will learn it.

I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

Much had happened since last Wednesday.  Much has changed and since I do feel like I should update… Don’t make the mistake to think that I am writing just to you, that is not true I write to get it out, bounce ideas of the white-semi-blank screen of my Mac.  And although I am not writing for you personally I would very much appreciate your company through the long shortcut of the last seven days of my life.  In no particular order I would like to start Wednesday and work on…  Go get a soda, I’ll wait, I have a feeling this won’t be short.

I’m alive.  I still alive!  There is a highlight of the past week.  I am young again.  Last Wednesday I was 25 years old, this week I am 26 years young.  I know that is the compensation talking… screw it, I feel great.  The major points are: job application, birthday wishes followed by the birthday itself, new-job-ish time commitment, guild issues, raiding, my new scarf, half empty beer bottle, friends, somewhere in between I will try squeezing siblings, Hawaii and my old school, new book, THE cake piece.  That which I have missed and I have missed a lot, I find to be special enough to remember but not as story-telly to be blogged about.

“… It was a pretty Thursday morning and yet I struggled to get up.  I didn’t really want to miss the day, but on the other hand the task at hand was a bother.  I was worried, concerned, distracted and so I got up late that morning. …”  The “dream” job application was sitting on my desktop for the longest time.  I manage to squeeze a walk around the park, two breakfasts, one lunch, two 5-o’clock tea breaks and a beer while I re watched old football clips (I mean the real football!).  I avoided the application sending, re-adjusting single letters, postponing decision about alignment of text.  I was dumb, but I wanted to make sure perfection was send.  Perfection… funny my GPA, quitting Grad-school, a sense of humour and high (normal?) expectations of humanity are pretty far from good selling points.

Long hours of planing, worked out, fifty-fifty but at least there was some success.  My brother was coming home for the weekend, at that time I have not yet realized he was coming home for me.  Didn’t really appear to me that the long trip he endured was just so he can see me.  I was all involved in another world, another time, making sure that what I have been scheduling for the past week and a half would not gone to waste.  “Blood thicker than water”- I try holding very true to that, but that night I failed.  He is one of the greatest people I have the pleasure, chance of meeting.  On a more materialistic and unusual note, there is this ’95 French Red Bordeaux sitting on my desk.  Rated very highly rated, can’t wait to indulge it.  Can’t wait finding how great his red-wine taste is.  I brought my corkscrew downstairs to avoid sleep walking accidents.

How important friends really are?  What are you willing to drop and break to help out?  I don’t know what the healthy limit is.

Saturday.  I remember smiles, good wishes, three trays of sushi… I wake up every day knowing that I was one of the three luckiest people on the planet.  My and my brothers have end up in a amaizing family, crazy, highly entertaining, with plenty of good standards and enough of common sense.  It was a good day.  Call, NYC on Sunday? sure, why not…

Sunday, I got… well… I am a stage manager for a theater production in NYC.  There is plenty to be done and to be honest I’m clueless on how to fix that which I don’t know how to name… this will be fun.

Since Monday I have been looking up theaters and trying to find a working venue for the play.  Busy, it is good.  One down side though, when I have an idea for a entry there is usually no paper-pencil or no time to jugged it down.  I will try to make more time to do so, hate to leave you out of the weirdest rides since I came back from Europe.

I have a new scarf and it is awesome and I will not give it to you.  In the calendar I have created earlier, January entry had a line: “The days you wished your in Hawaii”, the islands sure sound nice, change of scenery.  I promise at least one picture, maybe two, hate to spoil you ^.^

My guild is good, but I have failed to motivate the masses, I will try for one maybe two more weeks to engage them, afterwards I will step down as an officer.  They are a fine bunch but I don’t seem to be able to find that one thing that they care about.  I have responsibilities to four guilds and for all sakes and purposes I don’t have any reasons to favour one over the others.  Thus my time commitment should be same, right?  There is drama to ensue, just hopefully with out me in the centre of it.

I will do the cake, beer thoughts in the next post… I’m lost, I can feel loosing that little edge I had to be able write in such a way as to keep you here though most of the rants.  I’m sure I’m muse-less, been for a while, why than I feel as if I’m loosing inspiration…

I don’t have the right to complain.  I wanted it, I sought it… I got a full spoon and a half.  Since I got back to World of Warcraft few things have happened. I power levelled my character to the top, grinded dungeons, repeatedly killed “bad” and “very bad” monsters for their treasures.  Got a new sword, cool looking shield (three, actually) and a strong breastplate.  One could say that I went from Zero to a Hero in only couple weeks.  This is where the interesting thing started.

In the small imaginary world I play in I got to be considered good at what I do.  People want to play with me and they value my opinions and care for my input.  It feels amaizing to be appreciated in this imaginary society, when the real life one has pushed me to the outer margins.  I’m not a person to take and when I do, I try to give back, I try to help.  I might be greatly geared, and decent and being a tank but being best means you’re alone.  If there is nothing else in front of you but the stars you can jump but you will trip and fall or you could…

I was given the opportunity to become a officer, join the rank of leaders for my guild (community).  It was an honour.  So I  became one of the shepherds of a flock of players.  Slowly I started to help them win “fat-lootz” and get geared.  We don’t have a high energy core, a core of raiders that would give momentum to the rest of the guild.  Everyone does their own little thing, every one looks with more or less envy at players wearing dragon ornamented armours, lich-blood soaked swords… etc.  I want to help.  My plan is to challenge myself with other “hardcore” raiders, kill the bigger and scarier dragons.  I want to advance, but I’m far from leaving my villagers on their own.  I want to help my guild improve, I want them to reach the mountain top I stand on.

I am Main Tanking for three guilds as of this moment, I am an officer in one, I am starting-maintaining a dialogue with two others, I care for my friends and I care for three of my tanking disciples.  I have to motivate all, I need them to help me understand their needs and most of all I want to improve and progress with them.  I wanted this, I wanted it all and I’m not a person to back out.  I will crack before I admit I have failed and I’m yet to break my word.

Ever since I started juggling more than two responsibilities, started to care for more than one group I feel little lost.  Till now I always assisted some one that knew what their were doing.  Now, I am that man with the plan.  I guess the hard thing about being a leader is…

Well, it is not that you have to choose between right and wrong, that you have to manage between discreat diffrences in peoples personalities and time-scheadules, it is not even about the managment of power.  The hard part is that you care and the choices you have to make, the ones that matter are usually between: bad and worse.  There does not seem to be a set of easy choices, I guess those were made by people involved.  You care, I do and each every choice is hard to swollow when it misses perfection, even if it was the right one to make.  Logistics become like Dante’s inferno, you want every one to be happy,but that never seems work.  I feel as if my loyalty is being tested, and my patience tried.  Although I can’t care more than my flock does, I do and it pains me that my efforts are going unnoticed, unacknowledged and unanswered.  I want to help but if I don’t manage, who will?

I found It. I found it last Tuesday. I found it and tried to forget about IT. I have been looking for so long that when I saw it, I didn’t want to believe. One could say that after legions of HR-personal sending me rejections, I have gotten used to the downside. The simple notion that, although I might be happy, I will not find a dream job became real. That I will have to do other stuff, till the people at my dream job find me good enough. House broken enough, trained and groomed enough to give me, what I have been looking for…

I have let the job ad sit on my desktop. I saw it every morning, every evening, I saw it every time I change the song on iTunes. I was there, taking over space… Since end of September I was looking up 20 jobs a day, 5 days a week, since September I have not seen more than one that I would be mesmerized by, since September I have not felt my finger tingling this way. It has been like love at first sight. It is like the stomach pain before the first phone call, you know what the date should look like, you know what … Not true, I don’t know, I’m lost, I’m scared.

I am worried I will mess up and this will be the end. No “dinner and a movie” and I will be left alone again. I don’t know anything aside what has been posted at the job’s description. I have some sense of the company but it is far from clarified. I love what I see, and what I don’t know makes me excited. As with real dates, the expectations are just slightly higher above my qualifications. As with real dates I have one chance to make enough of an impression to make a change, to bend the standard for the perfect match. I have one chance to show that I’m worth a damn.

I’m stuck with my CV, my transcript, three references (like those ex’s you rarely talk to), and letter of intent. Intent? I want to get married and be happy, I know those are the dreams of a hopeless romantic, by why would you apply if all you thinking about is how much can you earn? For me it is a lost, if pre-nup is all that is visible. It’s a dream job, I want to live the dream. I have been awake to long, seen to much reality. I seen, I learned and now I don’t want to worry about it any more.

But, I’m worried that my way with words won’t convey enough, I’m worry that the state will run out of popcorn, and what if I have to meet with the people who have the power to decide if my love is a legit pursuit or not? Does this sound like an arranged marrige nightmare, or is it just me?

There is a small, if not extremely small, group of people, individuals who have more money that they know what to do with. If you just bought your third new car this year, you probably are in that group. Not a thing wrong with changing maker, model and colour to fit the new girlfriend, season or mood. Most of us are still scrambling to buy our first, probably, used vehicle. Money be gets money, says the old saying and so… you and me both, scramble to have little more, just to make it from paycheck to paycheck.

Charity is a interesting thing. It means to cherish some one, their ideas or values, what they represent. It is a action to help satisfy their loaning’s and their needs, it is what makes the best of us. It is tax-deductible if not giving what you have a lot off to some who do not have enough isn’t a reward on its own. I remember an old stand-up tape made of Eddie Murphy, he said that if you have five bucks, giving some one half, two-fifty you can do. On the other hand if you have twenty million, giving away half is not something you would do. In all stories, it is always the poor, under-privileged units that help, rather than the rich ones.

Either of the sources of money, a link via Pay-Pal usually asking for donations seems little off. There are people that would, could and should help, but doesn’t it seem like begging? Charity is an action imposed by an good emotion is above that, better than, it is pure. Should those links ask for contributions for the work being done? I ponder. I could have Pay-Pal, but that would not cover the kind issue of having a job and steady paycheck, insurance with dental and prospect of a proper and safe-ish husband. Would it now? One could do, achieve a lot with little help of people around them, finding those people is the impossible part.

So what now? You donate, pay for my meals, cloths and that new CD Euro-dance, and in return I’ll keep doing what I feel like doing? You will work a job (unless your the top 5%), try to survive in the society that measures your quality by the quantity of your wallet and you want to donate? I would feel oblidged, I would feel that the next post, piece of writting would have to be excelent, just to honour that which made you see something worth while in my writting, something that has been missed for decades. I have to be honest, I can not accept your money, trust me, I would love to be paid for what I do! What I do is what I love, is what I feel in content with, I create and I love this job. I create, with no restrictions, I create what I please, I’m the master of my universe. I’m a sort of an artist. Who will be starving sooner then later.

I feel that if I can not promise (I try to keep the few that I make) a.k.a. guarantee a product, result, or a final state, I should not accept that which you have worked for. It would make me no different from the guys on the streets begging, I want to work for my meals, I want to create. I want to do what I love and have someone pay for it, I can’t steal from you, but I will gladly take suggestions, maybe you know that one person that could help me out…

I tried putting a short description together. Looking at the existence as a vampire, but it was a miss. I was asked why I’m I writing erotic stories now? Am I? I saw the essay to portrait the pain and suffering of not being human. I meant to show my fascination with simple moments and I wanted to write something that was not over thought as such. It was fiction, based on some images of paintings and poetry from the eighteen century, I was trying to hide that which didn’t need to be stated. Maybe I aimed at the wrong audience or expected the readers to see the pain, rather than the long descriptions. Wasn’t it obvious? If you know your going to loose something precious won’t you linger around it as much as you can? I would, “bummer”, I failed.

I draw immerse pleasure from this blogging process. I sit down, I look at the keyboard, pen and paper (napkin etc.) and I just leak my feelings. I create a small crack in the dam, the dam that has been keeping everything and all bottled up. I start to write, midway though I start covering in fear that I have left to much out. By the time the mess is dried up, mopped and re-polished I am ready to check for spelling errors. The process is done. I reread, but rarely rephrase, I like the thought, but what I have written is usually a failure on my part. I am lost for words and what I wrote is a desperate look at the process of sharing this what I feel I can never present in the right light.

That being said, I will attempt to do it on regular basis. It is a therapy, I can see what I’m thinking and so can the rest of the world. I was never lead to believe that I could do it. I mean I failed a baseline writing requirement in college, I failed it “Five” times. I failed it until my brother and two of my close friends helped me through it. Why I failed? Difference of opinions, I smile about now, but back then it was a dread worth Dantes’ Hell. I failed paper after paper, class after class because what I wrote did not match, closely, the vision of my instructor. I was pushed to write in their language and their style on their topics reflecting their opinions and believes. No excuses, no exceptions. I could not handle it. I cracked and I failed.

Although I’m happy with how me and writing converged again, I feel I am in a peculiar situation. I’m a proclaimed non-writer, I was the kid who dreaded five line writing assignments, I hated writing, with a passion. Now I write and I want to do it. Working for a paper or a magazine is suggested to me, great, how do I get to have my own column? A piece of white space where my ramblings and theories would be accepted or even welcomed? A pace of mind.

Plan four of the job searching endeavour of mine, is to email authors of articles I feel convey more than is written, asking a simple question: “How did you get to where you are now, are you happy and do you have any advice on how should I start getting my life in that direction?” Well it is not simple but now I will be able to see what they want to say. Personally, I would not have a clue how to answer that, but maybe Nancy Gibbs will.

Over seven moths ago I left graduate school.  I left like a beaten dog would leave, barking with little life left in me.  I left with a bad aftertaste, I left not having any future outlooks, I left scared.  I left to be free.  There is plenty I could say about my old school, there is plenty I have said already.  There was the urge to fight back, to care, to give …. about it.

I was finally free and scared.  Took a long time for me to realize that my way of pursuing happiness was flawed.  Took couple very brave and kind people to put me together.  “Soul-searching” they call it, gaining perspective, it’s all nice but not as powerful as what I experienced.  I left for Europe, I left not looking back, I left and arrived human.  So much difference…

I was mad, I wanted to scream, I wanted to yell.  I was tired, I was lost, but I was free.  I took 72 days of normal, like, life to get  the feeling of serenity back.  I came back, re-joined the materialistic society, re-evaluated my perspective.  I bummed a month of September looking at nothing for nothing as the time pass by, looking for ideas for the future.  There was the time for action, the time to change, the job.

Application process was nothing new, although many elements seem to be slightly skewed from what I remembered from academic life.  I wanted to do something meaningful, create things that mattered, be payed well and define happiness in family photos.  Oh, how wrong was I?!  What has haunted me during my late school day, has come back, like an outbreak of bubonic plaque.  My GPA (grade point average) mattered again.  Every one of the dozen-plus rejection, denial, refusal letters outlined my perfection and great suitability for the position I have applied for.  Every one mentioned the difficulty the search comities, HR and others had with choices from such a excellent pool of candidates.  And finally non cared enough to look beyond what was on my paper.

Maybe if I copied and pasted all those great things about me into the next cover letter I would have succeded, maybe I would.  I started giving up, all friends and familly members pushed, supported and advised.  All wanted the best, non saw my tears, non knew I had started to lose hope.  I know that to much of non-creativity will slowly convert me into a “sludge”, I will steadily loose the spark in my eyes and by the time I realized I would be stuck in a cage of my own imaginations.

I ran from the pain, ran into the one thing I knew my work would be appreciated.  I ran to people that looked foward to being around me, I ran to be free.  I end up running to a small closet of a world, place where only the lucky few could create real things, luck few who could live of being great in living an imaginary life of monster slayers.

Round two begins, I look for work, one more time cross my fingers, one more time I want to be able to make a difference.  I have to contribute.  I do not want to be a piece of paper with a name on it, I want to be a name, a face, a handshake, a tie.  I call in, smile, laugh and keep them going.  I manage to set a day, manage to dig up my suite, find a tie, iron my shirt.  Bummer, my pants don’t match.  I’m scared that if this chase of meaning does not work out well and soon, I will be royally….