past, present, future life

so yesterday my manager asked me about GHP - WOW that was a quick rush of memories -

okay so i tried to be dramatic but it didn't really work. heh. but she did probe me further as to what it was like, etc. and i realized (once again) how hard it was to describe something without experiencing it yourself. sure you can say you're off on your own and it's like going to college, and you love the atmosphere ... but it really is so much more than that.

hrm, oh well. we did spend an hour talking about it though (pity it was when i was leaving or else i could have clocked the hours lawl). well, it was a continous flow from ghp to high school to advice about that to jobs afterwards. heh, her friend's son's future to my future to futures in general.

anyway, she asked me if there was any advice i could give on ghp, or even hs classes. oh right, and then i talked about her daughter's futures which included middle school.

so my advice was basically to take as many fun classes as possible in hs. and by that, i guess i meant honors and ap classes. i wish i hadn't cared about grades as much back then and just took all the classes i wanted to then ... i mean, looking back on it now, i don't think it really matters.

ESPECIALLY middle school classes. man, i can't believe i worked my butt off in lang. arts and none of those grades carried over. just math and language (i was sure to advise her to tell her daughters that to make sure they had good grades there).

oh yes, but back to it. hrm, i realize now that i should have taken hrm....everything. i just want the exposure. we had ap art history... we had auto shop class... man my school offered a lot. :)

which is why when i get back to tech i'm going to take advtg of... oh wait, hah...what classes again? :P my goal when i come back (spring 2010) is to take joint classes at emory. MMHRM! i want to take some of their philosophy/ethics classes there. that would be nice i think.

mmm and of course dance class.

heh... i was proud of myself today. while we were talking i asked my manager what she thought i should do for a future (she was recommending that to get higher up, i needed to specialize, not necessarily a masters in a technical field but maybe even business) but she told me my strengths. hearing praise is always nice, but i guess hearing it from her was nice because i wasn't sure how she felt about me after i came into work late a few (...) times.

she said my strengths was that i picked up things very fast, especially technical skills (that made me feel good). she also said that one of my strenghts that engineers didn't have, was that i could communicate with people very well.

i guess that led to how i told her i wanted to be a field service engineer. for those that i haven't described it to, the way i heard of it was you work for a company that specializes in something, say, pacemakers. then you work with the company who makes the pacemakers, with the hospitals and doctors that you're trying to sell it to, and also with the patients that are using it. so you need to have the skills to describe to everybody how it functions and what it'll be doing for you. i would enjoy that.

but then she pointed out that after a few years, you would probably see the same things over again and it might not be as interesting. that was where she told me that if i wanted to get further i might have to specialize. sigh, all this is so far away. i hate wanting to get ahead, and yet i know i need to. something about me... always pushing.

hrmm...

on another note, reading my friend's blog about how he wanted to be a man after God's own heart was very... encouraging, to say at the very least. it's the happiness and at peace that i seek for but don't know how to ... obtain?

and it's fitting when i listen to the song, "on fire" by switchfoot

"But everything inside you
knows there's more than what you've heard
There's so much more than empty conversations
filled with empty words"

i know i've felt this time and time again.

actually, the whole l yrics,

They tell you where you need to go
They tell you when you need to leave.
They tell you what you need to know
They tell you who you need to be.

But everything inside you
knows there's more than what you've heard
There's so much more than empty conversations
filled with empty words

And you're on fire
when he's near you
You're on fire when he speaks
You're on fire burning at these mysteries
Give me one more time around
give me one more chance to see,
Give me everything you are
Give me one more chance to be near you.

When everything inside me
Looks like everything i hate
You are the hope i have for change
You are the only chance I'll take

And I'm on fire when you're near me
I'm on fire when you speak
I'm on fire burning at these mysteries.

I'm standing on the edge of me,
I'm standing at the edge of everything I've ever been
And I've been standing at the edge of me, standing
at the edge"