Dear Readers

Dear Readers,

Since I started this blog on August 4th, 2007, I have written 102 posts and had 68,974 hits. A large majority of those hits came from my “Harvard Interview” post, but recently, a lot have come from viewing my home page, which is exciting!

I think I’ve gotten so many views lately because my Harvard Interview post was used as a source on ehow.com.

This project was meant to go hand and hand with journal entries to help me gain meaning from my life and ensure that I wouldn’t forget lessons that I learned. I realized that I forget many of the things that have happened since before I was 13 years old. I mean yea, I remember some things, and if there was someone there to trigger the memory, I would remember, but I can’t just conjure up early memories easily.

Like Shay Carl (youtube vlogger), with each entry, I try to provide an experience for the reader (which is also myself at later times) so that they can understand the lessons I learn and why I hold the views I do. It also helps me to write about them because it kind of solidifies the experience.

This blog could be labeled as being “narcissistic,” and I agree that some parts of it are. Everyone needs to feel important, and this is one way of giving my thoughts and feelings importance. However, narcissistic or not, this blog is my stage and though there might not be a lot of people in the stadium seats, I hope that they get some meaning from reading it.

Since I’ve reached the 100 post mark, I’ve decided that I’m going to take a change of direction. To be honest, I didn’t think that I would keep up this blog for this long. It’s not necessarily a lot of work, because even if this blog didn’t exist, I would think about many of the issues I write about and probably write them in my journal, however, it’s difficult to summon up the motivation to put them on here because it feels like I’m sending these posts out into empty space, hoping someone will hear and like the transmissions.

Nonetheless, these recent spikes in activity have made me really excited! I’ve decided to sort of make a new chapter on this blog. I don’t know if I’m going to create a new page or something, but I want to start a new project that will be about the things that I experience in college. I don’t think I’ll start the project until summer rolls around (and use the first few sections to reflect on my freshman year).

So far, this blog has been very loosely rooted… I write in it sometimes, not consistently, about random things from my views, to exploring D.C., to relationships, to book and movie critiques.

I want to make it more structured, while maintaining the sort of personal style. From taking university writing at my college, I realized I love writing essays about self-exploration and such. Initially, I was going to use this blog as a creative writing platform, but it’s kind of expanded into something more analytical and I like it!

I think what I’m going to do is have a weekly entry that sums up the thoughts/stories for the week that will be posted every Monday.

I might also have a bi-weekly entry (kind of like Phillip defranco’s “do something fun” vlogs) where I’ll talk about something new that I explored/did in D.C. or wherever I’m at.

Phillip defranco (from youtube) has three channels… his show, his vlog, and his reviews of video games.

That’s wayyyy too much for me to do, but I think I will work thoughts on books and movies into the “explore” bi weekly entry thingy.

At the moment, I’m at page 295 in my journal. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVEEE journal writing, but I’m going to transfer my energy from that to this blog (except for very personal stuff). When I begin this project, I’m going to consider this weekly and bi-weekly posts as more of articles instead of blog posts. They will be a little more formal, but still have my voice and allz.

I recently wrote a letter to an old friend, and after I sent it I was like FUCK I’m not going to see that letter any time soon…that’s the problem with talking with friends or emails/letters. They help you explore your emotions in the same way that a blog does, but in a year you won’t remember the details of what you wrote or said and it’s kind of awkward to be like “hey can you send me back that one letter I wrote to you?”

Anyway, just throwing ideas out there. Nothing concrete yet. Not sure if I’ll work in videos, but I might do one like once a month just so peeps can see my face (you know who you are).

My basic idea is to give an account like “the naked roommate.” If you’ve ever read it, there are a lot of different people quoted for their experiences in college. I want to be able to have a bundle of my good and bad experiences that I can look back on when I’m done with college and not forget them as I grow old. The biggest difference is that I think I’m going to write this more in a non-fiction book-like style instead of a journal style. Meaning i’m writing for both the audience of 2-3 people and myself. Right now, I write all the entries for myself.

My hope is that this blog will grow into something that I am proud of and see as an accomplishment that has added some meaning to my life.

Like I said, probably won’t start it until summer, and there will probably be weekly and bi-weekly posts and possibly a monthly video all devoted to this four year section of my life.

I hope some people will get something out of it, but mostly I’m eager to see how I grow over time. It’s like those time-lapse videos on youtube or when they show how someone’s face changes over a period of a year.

Meep,
TK

P.S. Got this idea somewhat from Marly and Me (the movie) because that guy wrote about his life and stuff and then had all these articles when he was older that he could look back on and remember the good and bad times. Hopefully, this blog will make a nice book one day that I can put on my shelf and be proud of.

I found this post in my “drafts” box… I guess I never posted it. Oops!

As some of you know… a large problem in my life has been deciding on a major. Last week on monday I went to visit my Criminal Justice teacher. One of the majors that I’ve had floating around my head was Criminal Justice and so I wanted more information as to what the major entailed and how likely it would be to get a job I would like (meaning working with the federal government/the fbi as either an agent or an intelligence analyst of some type).

Before I go into that though, I want to talk about my spring break. Literally, nothing happened on my spring break. It was utterly depressing, lonely, and boring. I was very much kicking myself for not using my money to go to some exotic place. Oh well. I did see Alice and wonderland which SUCKED and I saw green zone, which was extremely action packed and decent. I tried reading the count of monte cristo but I didn’t get very far. I will have to pick that up again later. I also went for one run.

The one good thing that happened on my break was that I got a more realistic idea of what I want to do with my life. My dad and mom both gave me very good advice. We set out a plan based on expenses which calculated that I need to be making about 50-60 thousand dollars a year, more likely 70 in order to live the type of lifestyle I want to live.

Also, my mom shared some personal stories with me that really touched my heart and made me cry. I also had a very good talk/talks with my dad about my relationships and what I want to do with my life (which took place at an epic pancake house and at bamboo).

Basically, my mom told me that you can never predict what will happen too far down the road because a lot of the things that she happened in her life were totally unpredictable and that if she went into those situations with the mindset that she her life was going to end in this certain way then the great things would never have happened. She also talked about how it’s important for you to do what you want to and that you shouldn’t let anyone stop you because if you can prove to the person that’s employing you that you are smart enough to do the job, they will give you the job.

My Dad gave me some really good insight into my recent relationship. It’s hard to demonstrate with text, but basically he represented each of our personalities with his hands/fingers. He moved his hands up and down and said that at this stage in our lives our values, personalities, and what we think of the world is constantly changing and that it’s very difficult for us to “link” when we are both constantly moving and unable to meet at a certain point. It’s much easier when you both know who you are and what you want. At the same time, a lot of people get married young and that it’s difficult to stay married then because as you age what you want changes and it’s difficult to keep your interest in your partner when who you are changes over time.

My Dad also talked about how … with my personality… it’s very important that I be more proactive and reach out for events rather than letting them come to me. He also said that it’s important (due to my indecisiveness) that I grab at ANYTHING that I find interesting because in his life, doing that has given him many great experiences and that if he had been tentative, he would not be who he is today. He also said that it’s very important I do what I like and explore, even if I must fulfill general requirements because this is the time to do that… to figure out what I like and want.

Anyway, I do think I need to be more proactive and mature in that way. At the same time i was skeptical because my dad was like “take one business course, take an accounting course, take this take that” and I’m thinking… but employers want to see you have a degree… a concentration in something. They don’t just want to see that you have a few courses in business. They want to see that you have a business degree.

So I come back to GW. God I missed d.c. Westford is so dead and lifeless… true my life in dc is pretty anti-social, but it’s much better being able to walk around the city than being confined to the house or nashua.

Now we come to the point where I had my conference with my criminal justice teacher. And I went into the meeting with all these questions about the criminal justice major and questions about being an FBI agent and careers in criminal justice and …. well… the conversation took a COMPLETELY different turn.

So I figured this out after the conference, but she’s also an advisor. So… that’s why she was so good at advising. ANYWAY

She said that she was very glad that I’ve already started to think about my major (who hasn’t?) and then proceeded to ask me about which classes I like most. I’m like … wtf? I thought we were talking about criminal justice? And I told her that I really like my university writing class because it’s about psychology and writing. And then she went on to ask me about other interests I have… and I told her about criminal justice and I expressed my concern that having a criminal justice degree would be very centralized. She told me about the many different career options in criminal justice (probations, prisoner control, parol officers), but then proceeded to ask me more about my interests. So I also expressed my concern that the first semesters I just picked things that seemed interesting and that I felt like I wasted those course selections because I didn’t really learn anything. She totally shot me down and told me that that’s exactly what I should have done. It was an interesting perspective… that I only have two years to decide what I want to do with my life (and choose a major) and four years to fulfill my GCRs. She said not to worry about my GCRs because I could fill up those classes anywhere at any university if I really needed to and could take classes in the summer, but that I couldn’t get back the lost time in which I would decide a major.

Okay so I think I’m the type of person that needs to push up against someone else. I felt like my Dad is smart, but that he went to college a long time ago. This woman is constantly advising college students and seeing the result of her advising. It felt good to be able to push up against someone and intellectually be shot down because of her greater experience and that she could calm my qualms. She said that what you think you want to do now is likely to be nothing like what you will want to do by the time you graduate and that you can’t ever know what you will want to do later in life so the most important thing is not to plan for that, but to do what you like and have a passion for and that later, if i want to apply to an FBI, because I’ve liked what I’ve done, I will have done well in it and If I really care about it, then I will be able to mold those passions into something that the FBI would want.

It felt really good to hear that. She said that she thinks I should take more courses in fields that I think I will want and that it’s okay if I feel like it’s a waste because either way, I’ve learned something about myself and about what I do or don’t want to do. She said the most important thing is to not play safe and to take the most amount of risks that I can, because now it is very easy to do so even though it costs a lot, but that it will be much harder down the road when I am in a career and unsure if I would like another field of study instead.

Walking out of that room… I felt so… good! Better than I have felt in a LONG time. I seriously felt very very good and relieved. I wanted to cry/jump in the air. I got a sammich from jstreet and sat on the steps and thought about all that she said and wrote some stuff down and watched people go by and just enjoyed the beautiful sun and this time in my life in which I am young and have the entire world ahead of me.

Well, that was my criminal justice conference.

BAHAHA I’ve recently started watching survivor. Started on monday… watched all the episodes up until the one this wed. OMG I was hooked. Russel is by far my new hero. I hope he wins survivor this time. Legit, he’s a mastermind and I love his personality.

Love,
TK