Reflections

This time of year is always fairly reflective for most people. Everyone's making their "New Year's Resolutions" and looking back on all of their accomplishments and failures of 2007 and thinking of how much 2008 will be different; better. I try my best to avoid this trap, but have found it difficult to avoid this year.

Starting with my class reunion in November, I had almost nothing to share with these people whom I hadn't spoken to in 10 years. I graduated from college, have a job, an apartment and in my free time I play my horn or watch movies. My job isn't really that interesting to talk about. "I do computer stuff for X company. It's alright. It pays the bills!" is my typical response when people who I haven't seen for a long time ask me what I do. Thankfully in the case of my high school class, they didn't have any jaw dropping stories to tell either so I didn't feel too bad. But most of them have families now and at least have moved into that stage of the life cycle. I can't really relate there. I don't have a significant other, nor a family of my own. In my free time I do drum corps, which only a very small sliver of the population can relate with or even find it interesting.

On Christmas Eve I ran into two friends from high school. Both of whom are essentially living their dream. One of them, Charlie, spends his winter finishing up seminary school and his spring and summer pitching for the St. Paul Saints. Not the major leagues by any means, but there are some big name players who have either started with the Saints or gone there after the majors. But what boy didn't have the dream at some point to get paid to play baseball? The second friend I talked to was Cassie. I hadn't seen her for maybe 4 years and come to find out that she's working on a Masters Degree in something like International student studies at Cambridge and has spent the past 3 years in South Korea. Wow!

So what about me? What can I do? Well, I really do still want to continue my education. In order to do that however, I think I need to take a few steps backwards and probably get another bachelors degree before I can step forward for a masters. My current degree and education left me horribly unprepared to further my education in Classical Archeology and now that I've been out of college for upwards of 6 years, my educational references are no longer legit.

I just need to set a goal and start planning how to achieve it.