• Not making myself accountable
• Too many segregated goals (ie. Seven Projects)
• Lack of continuity

The first two reasons are pretty much self-explanatory. I’ll need to figure out a way to make myself accountable to failing to work on some of my goals somehow but the problem is that since these are personal goals, there are no negative consequences except for maybe personal shame. I could use some ideas on this one. Second reason is that maybe I put too many things on my plate and that just overwhelms me to the point where I don’t want to work on any of it. One way I can think to fix this is to prioritize my goals carefully and work on them bottom-up. The third reason may need some more elaboration. I currently have what I consider to be a good full-time job that I consider to be rewarding in a multitude of ways and also necessary. I also have a great hobby in photography that I delve into as much as possible but not really necessary but very fun and interesting. My goals are in between these two things and I consider it rather difficult to “shift gears” between each and keep the continuity of the things I am working on.

So my initial thoughts are NOT make the same mistake I did just last year by listing out all the things I want to work on but to just keep it simple and work on goals one at a time so that at the end of 2008, I can write a totally different type of blog post that will reflect back upon things that I was able to complete instead of focusing on the things that I wasn’t.

There, I am very much looking forward to 2008.

It is certainly strange to think that I graduated in 2001 and it is now 2006. All I really remember from high school was wanting to go to college and get away from it all… start anew. Then, in college, all I really wanted to do was get away from it and get into a working life. For this reason, I had several part-time jobs during my college years which I simply used as an ‘out’ from school. Of course there was the financial necessity but it also gave me an excuse to focus on something I liked doing. Ironically, from my best guess, it were these part-time jobs that attracted job offers my way. That and most likely the fact that I went to Georgia Tech… not really what I studied, how well I did, or what I learned.

Fortunately, I can now finally say that I am happy without feeling the guilt of wearing a fake smile on my face. Well, let’s just say that I’m 65% happy about the way everything is going in my life and most of this happiness attributes to my job. I like being in a professional environment; working toward a professional initiative.  While I am out of school, I know there are more than enough things that I’ll need to learn about life so I’ll never pretend to know everything and hope that I can rely on my professional and social peers for sound and trustworthy advice if in need.

The other 35% are some things I’ll need to work on to improve albeit not know exactly how to deal with them yet.  As far as I can remember, I’ve always had objectives to complete.  I don’t know what caused me to make those objectives but I’ve always sought out those objectives to the end, regardless of whether or not I would succeed or fail.  Until I entered the workforce, these objectives were always academically driven.  Now, my personal life objectives broadened and now it is all about improving the quality of my life and the life of others (especially those that I am close to).  My objective for now would be to overturn those 35% and merge it with the reasons why I am happy at the moment.  It can’t and won’t be done overnight and I know those numbers shift dramatically on a minutely basis but at least I now know my personal objectives.

Yet here I am, five weeks later, I keep thinking of all the fun I’ve had and all I’ve learned. While I don’t believe in the idea of fate, I can’t help but think that I was meant to be there at those times. As if all the choices that I’ve made in my life has led me to this point and my experience there was simply a confirmation. Tell me, is it too weird to think that?

It didn’t have to be NYC. I honestly think it could have been anywhere and anytime. It was the people. However crazy this may sound, even though at first they were complete strangers, I felt an affinity with a lot of the people I’ve met there after the first week. And it only took a week.

They are all coming down to Charlotte in a few months; however, I am not naive enough to say that we’ll all keep in touch afterwards. I know we won’t. I will certainly try to keep in touch with everyone but I know I am not very good at it.

Thanks.

Get back to current time. I am part of one of the most profitable companies on Earth. I am temporarily in NYC and my company is helping me get a good start on my career by arranging a training session (the training is pretty new to me since I have a strong technology background). I am networking and befriending people that simply amaze me beyond belief. I like my job.

What a turn of events in such a short period of time. I consider myself extremely blessed.

Around 11am, I thought the road off of the parking deck was clear enough to drive through. I get outside the apartment and was amazed at an almost-smooth layer of ice on the sidewalks that was about half an inch thick. I normally wear my old tennis shoes to work but if I had done that today, I would’ve falled on my ass at least 5 times on the way to my car. Fortunately, I wore my boots and surprisingly, I could walk at a normal pace without feeling any slippage.

Anyway, on Marietta Street. there was an inch or two of ice/snow in the middle of the lane so I thought it was safe to assume that the outer part of the lanes were safer. Well, apparently, although it looked like wet ground, it was actually thin layer of ice.

Glad the building had a parking garage, otherwise, I wouldn’t have dared to have taken my car but rather walked to the Marta station.

Hopefully, it won’t rain anymore tonight and it will get warm enough for the ice to melt into slush or something.

Went into the office to interview on Wednesday and by Friday, everything has been decided and I told them I’ll be working for them. The pay is okay but a little below what I expected… but maybe I had high expectations.

I’ll be working in downtown Atlanta, like maybe a five minute walk from the Omni Hotel and CNN center but like 10 minute drive from school. I’m rather excited about working again, it’s similar to the job I had before except I actually work at the office during the weekends and work couple hours everyday during the weekday from my apartment. I love this kind of work, especially because of my interest with linux servers and my wanting to learn more and more about them. Of course, this isn’t the kind of job that people expect a computer engineering student to go into… but then again, I’ve never wanted to work for companies that we are expected to want to work for. Actually, I’ve mentioned this before, but I want to either work for a small firm or start up my own.

So there are multiple reasons why I decided to accept this job:

1) Money – I need the money or else, I’ll be broke in about another month.
2) Tuition – Yea so, there seems to be a high possibility of a tuition hike for the spring semester and the following fall semester.
3) Experience – The 1.5 years I’ve worked my previous job, it seems to have given me a fair share of experience in this industry but there are still more than enough things to learn.
4) School – I get so sick of thinking about school and grades that I need a break from school. If I wasn’t doing anything during the weekends, I’d certainly have school in the back of my mind all the time. I’d hate it. Working a peaceful job during the weekend gives me a break from Tech.

Surprisingly, about 90% of them were actually seeking to fill in a position that I was looking for… All of them thought that I was qualified for the position.

The problem: I can’t find a position that is mostly part-time (20-30 hours per week focusing on weekends). Two different companies asked me if I would relocate and of course, I had to tell them of my requirement to stay in Atlanta for at most another two years. All the others (minus the one that wasn’t hiring), all had different scheduling in mind for me which are not going to work out.

I’m not pressed for money (yet) but I do have a credit card that’s close to the limit after paying this semester’s tuition, books, and other necessities/needs. I got two more checks coming in within the next two weeks which should be sufficient for at least another month’s time. I just hope I can find a job during that time.

If worst comes to worst, I’ll probably take that job that requires 12 hour shifts on Saturday Sunday here in Atlanta. That’ll be tough but I think the pay will be okay and some of the people I worked with at BN thought the company has a great reputation (they do).

Anyway, I think my parents and sisters are worried about my money situation. They kept asking me if I needed money and if I did, all I had to do was ask. My guess is if I do ask for money, they’re going to worry even more.

Anyway, I’m sure I can find a job somewhere fairly soon. The question is… will it be a good job or not

Anyways, got into HTML through Geocities. I saw someone have a web page and I thought: “Cool, I want one of those!” and made one in Freshmen year of high school. Then I realized my first web page (which sucked by the way), was just text placed in different colors and sizes. That was boring so I saw these graphically intense web sites and was like WOW. This is where Photoshop came in… tutorials and whatnot. Sitting and experimenting with photoshop – learning it’s powerful features that allowed me to create graphics.

Next logical step was… make pages for other people. Webmaster’d high school web site for couple of years. Between the Sophomore year I started and Senior year… my designing ability quadrupled. You should see the crappy web site I made for Myers Park High; they thought it was good and I even got some kind of award from Char-Meck Schools. Anyways, senior year, I realized how crappy my own creation was… so I made another design. I’ve worked on it on and off for a month or so… but Senior year got SO BUSY with IB orals & exams, college apps… blah! Not only that but I was helping a friend start a company earlier… which turned out to be a bad idea because he just ditched me (thanks alot, I learned a lot) with the non-profitting company with 4 employees. I was able to sell the remnants of the company for a very very minimal profit though (go me!)

Yes, so the new MPHS design you will see below was NEVER released or seen by anyone who would’ve motivated me to work on it for the benefit of my work and also the benefit of the school. The teacher who was in charge of my work as a webmaster would’ve been thrilled but I just never had the time to get it finished.

1) Some conceptual 3D work I did when I JUST started realizing pseudo-3D with photoshop was boring… shadows and highlights is overused so you need to either go with a completely 2D graphic or go all in into 3D. Don’t try mixing 3D with 2D unless you know what you are looking to get – I hated this combination because it was so… corny. Like I said, this 3D attempt was corny.

2) The Myers Park high school design I was talking about… the ‘design’ prior to this that I worked on as a Sophomore… hehe, was SO CRAPPY. But I got so many compliments for some reason… at least some of my friends were honest and told me it sucked. I actually think my OLD OLD design is more aesthetically pleasing then the current web site

3) TruePixel was a web development firm that I founded back in Freshmen year of high school. This site lasted… what… oh let’s say about 6 months before I got swamped by Tech. I’ve shut it down obviously but I did get quote requests and completed couple of designs under the TruePixel brand. I am hoping I can get this back up and running again… maybe hire couple of freelance developers to take on the work while I do some of everything else that needs to be done.

4) Six different logos that I worked on for 6 different clients. Of course, I started by doing volunteer work… then I started doing design contests on online communities. The first contest I won was a $50 amazon.com gift certificate which I bought a book with and still use today

Oh well, just thought I’d share what I used to do. I am really hoping I can get back into this whole designing thing. I used to enjoy working with pleasant clients… although there were a couple that were just downright rude/annoying. I still would like to take some classes on color theory and graphics design coures so I can learn some of the graphical techniques properly.

Well, to answer some of that – my mind seem to be exhausted from last week. The problem now is, though – the work I thought would be left behind last week has started to spill over into this week. I thought this week would be ‘take a breather, john’ week but nope – it has turned into a ‘quickly catch up, john’ week.

I’ve been working on design ideas for GT ECE Department’s Digital Media Lab – ugh – I must be a bit out of the whole designing/creativity deal because I haven’t been able to get out a single good design. Talk about designer’s block! <insert me being physically erratic here>

Eek – I’m supposed to be working on the design for the GT ECE department next! How am I going to do that if I can’t even get a good design layout going for the DML site? =/

Related to school news: Oooh, I’ve screwed up couple classes of mine already. It’s not even october yet and I’ve screwed myself over. Figures.

For some good news – I’m still satisfied overall, I mean, I am always going to have negative feelings about academics. But compared to last spring where I was depressed for no good reason every single day, things have been a lot better and my mind is relatively clear and not so clouded anymore.

Sleepy time. G’nite.