Hello all! Welcome to my new Blog! I've been thinking about things I've wanted to tell everyone over the last couple weeks, but for whatever reason, I haven't gotten around to it. Between projects, take home finals, and just general business, I never found the time to sit down and write emails. Not to make it look like I'm skimping out or anything, but I feel that writing a new Blog is probably the easiest way to tell a bunch of people that might be interested about reading what's going on in my life now. So here goes nothing! Or here goes something! Whichever makes more sense.
So as many of you may know (or might not know!), I just recently graduated from the University of Rochester. Well, I guess actual graduation is the 16th or something, but since I'm not attending I didn't give much effort to remember the date. I ended up with a Dual Major in Computer Science and Linguistics, and a Minor in Japanese, which isn't too bad, especially taking a Semester Abroad. I learned a lot about myself, the world, other countries, and life in general. I also found new hobbies, rekindled my passion for some old hobbies, and really just had a great 4 years.
So what am I up to now you ask? You don't ask? Well, I'm going to tell you! I start my first day of work tomorrow at SunGard Higher Education, an IT company that services 55 Universities across the country. I believe they do this by Phone and Email, I'll let you know more once I actually start the job. I got a 6 month contract with them, so I'll be up here until at least October. I wanted to be closer to home to be closer to Marissa, but I couldn't find a job there and I did find this one, so I just accepted it. Gotta start somewhere and my loans won't pay themselves, so I wanted to get a jump start on that. Hopefully in a year or so less can be living with Marissa somewhere or at least near her, but for now it's Rochester.
As for where I'm staying... I was almost considering a one bedroom apartment near where I am now, but $800 a month is a little steep. I recently found Room Mate searching sites that let you find a place to rent with someone else, and I wrote to some people and maybe will be doing that. I realize it's outside of my character, but if I can save $300/mo., that's almost $2,000 over the next 6 months that I could put to living / loans. At first I thought I would definitely require an apartment of my own, but I have had the best experience ever sharing a place with the person I roomed with at college. It's really too bad he wasn't staying in the area as he became my best friend in Rochester. In the very least I'm going to miss living with him and playing games, making fun of TV, and having someone to talk about Pokemon with. (Yes, I still love Pokemon, get over it!) I think throughout the years I've gotten used to having people around, if nothing else just to say hi to, so if I can save $300 - $400 a month by rooming with tolerable people, I'm going to give it a try. And it just so happens that the people I have written to have furnished apartments, something that none of the other places I've looked at have. So... it'd be nice to have a bed and stuff up here and not have to worry about hauling it. I have until the 16th of May to work this out, then UR gives me the boot (or makes me pay out my butt for late fees!) At $50 a night... no thanks! /end long paragraph/
As for hobbies that I mentioned previously... let's see. I still love everything Japanese, so I'm on the never ending journey to become fluent in Japanese! (To read more about this, read my blog about Japan! ^_^) I'm still into video games, not as much as I once was, but I still enjoy them. Perhaps with less school work I'll play them more. Manga! I just got into that. For those of you un-cool cats not in the know, Manga is the comic book form of Japanese animation. It's like... a graphic novel, much like a comic book, but much more accepted in Japan than comic books are here. I also really enjoy and have recently been practicing Poi and Juggling. When I get a place and have the means to do so I'll record my crazy Poi skills (which have improved since last video). And I still loooove photography, and am stoked to get a new camera from my Grandparents for graduation! =) Other random hobbies I've picked up over the last half a year or so are Texas Hold 'Em Poker (low stakes, don't worry!), competitive Pokemon online, and expanding my Japanese music library!
Let's see... some things I've learned.
1) Life goes fast. Much faster than I could ever have expected. I remember Christmas time when I was starting to get ready to apply to jobs and how I started around March, and honestly, April just seemed to never happen. I don't really remember what happened in April but I soon found myself finishing my final projects in May and was like, "Holy Shit, I'm graduating in 2 or 3 weeks!" It's a strange feeling. It's like this feeling of being free yet sort of defenseless all at the same time. Nobody's prepared for what happens next until they are thrown into it, and at that point it's all about who adapts the most. Hopefully college has taught me things about myself that will let me survive and not be ripped apart by the metaphorical demons of reality.
2) True love is a great thing to have. As many of you might know, I'm still with the girl I was with when I graduated high school. She's been a great support to me the whole time, and there isn't a day I wish that I wasn't closer to her. We attend(ed) different colleges, still in NY, but far enough away to make visiting difficult. I can't wait until we're both done with college, or at least undergraduate college, so I can be closer to her because she really means so much to me in my life.
3) I'm really good at making friends with people a short period of time before I'll never see them again. Like in Japan with Dobby, Emily, and the entirety of the Hakone and Baraki Nakayama males group, I just got to know a few people in the CS department and the Linguistics department I never knew before. One of the CS people is Japanese and likes similar things I do, and it's possible that I'll never see him again. And another I played Tetris with online in Web Programming and took a Graphics Course with. It's possible I'll see them again now that I'll be up here for half a year+, but the idea is the same.
4) On the counter side of that notion, I have learned that good friends are great things to have. Alongside the person I've been housed with for the last 3 years, I've made a handful of good friends in the CS department. It really takes the very last week of classes to realize that you might actually miss these people, which for those of you who knew my tendencies a few years ago, may come as a surprise.
5) Caring parents are great things to have. I'm not just saying this because I feel obliged to; I really mean it. They've been there when I have had questions about anything as well as helping me through college. Not only my parents, but everyone around me in Waverly and the surrounding areas, and all relatives in general. I probably wouldn't be where I was today if it weren't for them.
6) LOST keeps getting weirder, and I'm not convinced it will end coherently. So there was this plane crash in Season 1, mysterious Others in Season 2, new parts of the Island in Season 3, rescued people in Season 4, time travel in Season 5, and giant smoke monsters that are really dead guys and more things that don't make sense in Season 6. It's going to end in 3 episodes I think. I found myself watching this, Supernatural, and House a lot my last semester, and I thoroughly enjoy all 3 of them.
I'm sure there are more than 6 things I've learned, and perhaps they'll come at later posts, but for now I'm heading to bed. Sorry about not writing or updating anyone, and hopefully this will inform some people of what's going on.
And in a last ditch effort, if you liked this entry and want to see more, any sort of donation to help pay back my enormous college loans will guarantee further postings of wit, humor, and reality. But really this is just an out-on-a-limb ploy, and regardless of whether you donate or not I'll continue to write. Probably a bad strategy to admit that, but it really was meant as a joke. Unless you want to. By all means. Send away. I'll paint you some calligraphy if you do. It'll say something meaningful, and not something immature like "penis" or something, promise. But you might have to trust me on that one, because it will be in Japanese.
Anyway, I should go to bed now. My first ever job starts in 8 hours! Exciting! I'll update this blog regularly, maybe I'll set a specific day, maybe I won't.
And if you're wondering about the URL, well, you don't see me making fun of your URLs! I like platypuses. They're weird. Like life.
Thanks for reading, and more to come later (I promise!),
Damian
As for where I'm staying... I was almost considering a one bedroom apartment near where I am now, but $800 a month is a little steep. I recently found Room Mate searching sites that let you find a place to rent with someone else, and I wrote to some people and maybe will be doing that. I realize it's outside of my character, but if I can save $300/mo., that's almost $2,000 over the next 6 months that I could put to living / loans. At first I thought I would definitely require an apartment of my own, but I have had the best experience ever sharing a place with the person I roomed with at college. It's really too bad he wasn't staying in the area as he became my best friend in Rochester. In the very least I'm going to miss living with him and playing games, making fun of TV, and having someone to talk about Pokemon with. (Yes, I still love Pokemon, get over it!) I think throughout the years I've gotten used to having people around, if nothing else just to say hi to, so if I can save $300 - $400 a month by rooming with tolerable people, I'm going to give it a try. And it just so happens that the people I have written to have furnished apartments, something that none of the other places I've looked at have. So... it'd be nice to have a bed and stuff up here and not have to worry about hauling it. I have until the 16th of May to work this out, then UR gives me the boot (or makes me pay out my butt for late fees!) At $50 a night... no thanks! /end long paragraph/
As for hobbies that I mentioned previously... let's see. I still love everything Japanese, so I'm on the never ending journey to become fluent in Japanese! (To read more about this, read my blog about Japan! ^_^) I'm still into video games, not as much as I once was, but I still enjoy them. Perhaps with less school work I'll play them more. Manga! I just got into that. For those of you un-cool cats not in the know, Manga is the comic book form of Japanese animation. It's like... a graphic novel, much like a comic book, but much more accepted in Japan than comic books are here. I also really enjoy and have recently been practicing Poi and Juggling. When I get a place and have the means to do so I'll record my crazy Poi skills (which have improved since last video). And I still loooove photography, and am stoked to get a new camera from my Grandparents for graduation! =) Other random hobbies I've picked up over the last half a year or so are Texas Hold 'Em Poker (low stakes, don't worry!), competitive Pokemon online, and expanding my Japanese music library!
Let's see... some things I've learned.
1) Life goes fast. Much faster than I could ever have expected. I remember Christmas time when I was starting to get ready to apply to jobs and how I started around March, and honestly, April just seemed to never happen. I don't really remember what happened in April but I soon found myself finishing my final projects in May and was like, "Holy Shit, I'm graduating in 2 or 3 weeks!" It's a strange feeling. It's like this feeling of being free yet sort of defenseless all at the same time. Nobody's prepared for what happens next until they are thrown into it, and at that point it's all about who adapts the most. Hopefully college has taught me things about myself that will let me survive and not be ripped apart by the metaphorical demons of reality.
2) True love is a great thing to have. As many of you might know, I'm still with the girl I was with when I graduated high school. She's been a great support to me the whole time, and there isn't a day I wish that I wasn't closer to her. We attend(ed) different colleges, still in NY, but far enough away to make visiting difficult. I can't wait until we're both done with college, or at least undergraduate college, so I can be closer to her because she really means so much to me in my life.
3) I'm really good at making friends with people a short period of time before I'll never see them again. Like in Japan with Dobby, Emily, and the entirety of the Hakone and Baraki Nakayama males group, I just got to know a few people in the CS department and the Linguistics department I never knew before. One of the CS people is Japanese and likes similar things I do, and it's possible that I'll never see him again. And another I played Tetris with online in Web Programming and took a Graphics Course with. It's possible I'll see them again now that I'll be up here for half a year+, but the idea is the same.
4) On the counter side of that notion, I have learned that good friends are great things to have. Alongside the person I've been housed with for the last 3 years, I've made a handful of good friends in the CS department. It really takes the very last week of classes to realize that you might actually miss these people, which for those of you who knew my tendencies a few years ago, may come as a surprise.
5) Caring parents are great things to have. I'm not just saying this because I feel obliged to; I really mean it. They've been there when I have had questions about anything as well as helping me through college. Not only my parents, but everyone around me in Waverly and the surrounding areas, and all relatives in general. I probably wouldn't be where I was today if it weren't for them.
6) LOST keeps getting weirder, and I'm not convinced it will end coherently. So there was this plane crash in Season 1, mysterious Others in Season 2, new parts of the Island in Season 3, rescued people in Season 4, time travel in Season 5, and giant smoke monsters that are really dead guys and more things that don't make sense in Season 6. It's going to end in 3 episodes I think. I found myself watching this, Supernatural, and House a lot my last semester, and I thoroughly enjoy all 3 of them.
I'm sure there are more than 6 things I've learned, and perhaps they'll come at later posts, but for now I'm heading to bed. Sorry about not writing or updating anyone, and hopefully this will inform some people of what's going on.
And in a last ditch effort, if you liked this entry and want to see more, any sort of donation to help pay back my enormous college loans will guarantee further postings of wit, humor, and reality. But really this is just an out-on-a-limb ploy, and regardless of whether you donate or not I'll continue to write. Probably a bad strategy to admit that, but it really was meant as a joke. Unless you want to. By all means. Send away. I'll paint you some calligraphy if you do. It'll say something meaningful, and not something immature like "penis" or something, promise. But you might have to trust me on that one, because it will be in Japanese.
Anyway, I should go to bed now. My first ever job starts in 8 hours! Exciting! I'll update this blog regularly, maybe I'll set a specific day, maybe I won't.
And if you're wondering about the URL, well, you don't see me making fun of your URLs! I like platypuses. They're weird. Like life.
Thanks for reading, and more to come later (I promise!),
Damian
Damian
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the "real world". If you have the right mindset then it's all an adventure - something like "shigata ga nai" but a little broader. Sounds a bit trite to say "it's all good" but while I've loved past chapters of my life I love the current chapter and very much look forward to the upcoming chapters. Not the most sophisticated philosophy but I think a positive and mentally healthy one. If you care to send me your new email address and I'll forward on things Japanese as they come to me.
Claude
I'm... sad now...
ReplyDeleteYou pretty much summed up most of the same things I'm feeling right now, and just reading all that really hits it home that (even though I'm taking a couple classes still) I'm not a college student anymore. I don't think I like that feeling. As you said, these past four years have gone so extremely quickly its hard to believe it. Well, I've had a good time and really hope that since we're both going to be stuck in this area for a while longer we can continue hanging out (hopefully more than we have been >.>)
Glad to see you entering this "new" phase of your life with such a wonderfully enjoyable view of the last phase. So glad you enjoyed it. With your attitude, there's no way that you will not enjoy the "real world", as you call it. I'm sure you'll succeed and enjoy anything you try or do: you always have. We've enjoyed being part of it.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations, Mr. D.
GPA
Curious to hear about your first day, how is apartment hunting going?
ReplyDeleteYay job!
ReplyDelete