last day of school for my freshman year!!!  Wow, that actually is a kinda cool thing, ain’t it.   I don’t really think that the totality of that statement really hit me until I saw me writing that just a moment ago…wow… I’m a Junior in college!  In a few months… Wow.



So I thought a couple of days ago about the coolest thing about this whole thing… Just one year ago, before I quit my job, I received an employee review.  “Average” was the outcome, straight up average.  I received “3”s on everything on a scale of 1-5, except one that was over, and one that was under (the standard corporate trick).  One year ago, I was an average, midgrade corporate employee.  Today, I am a straight-A student (well, maybe one B…all came down to the final).  Neat, eh?



I just had a short conversation last night with this chick in my bagua class…she’s part of the reason that I’m actually where I’m at; one of the…three(?)  that said I needed to stop screwing around wondering, and put my heart into what I was really meant to do.  Anyway, right now she is where I was a year ago, and she hates to realize it.



Since I quit my job and decided to enroll back in school full time, the most obvious sign that I’m “in the flow” or whatever, has been Money.  I had been a good saver, and had enough saved up for my first semester by the time I had quit my job.  After the first semester, that money started to run out, but right about then?  Contract work just happened upon my lap; enough for ¾ semester.  



After that three quarters of semester, I needed money again!  Go to do my taxes, and realize that there’s a tax bonus for all first and second year students; just enough to get me through the rest of the semester and some.



Semester’s over, and I need a summer job that will let me save enough for the next year of school and darned if I don’t just happen to get a call for somebody that, oddly enough, needs somebody with my qualifications that can handle an 8-10 week job at decent pay.  Well that's just about how long my summer's gong to be; interesting, that!



So I’m telling this girl last night at class: When you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing, everything Just Works Out.  She growled back at me.



Anyway, so here I am: first year down, outstanding marks so far.  Oh, and did I mention just how much I’m totally loving it?  School freaking Rocks, and I am having so much fun there, meeting the most amazing people.  It’s struck me a few times already that there’s just this entirely different energy when hanging out with students (learners), especially when contrasted with the standard corporate environment.  Almost daily, I am surrounded by people who dedicate a majority of their time to education, to learning!  How freaking cool is that?  And everywhere that I listen, there’r these conversations going on, about life, dreams…gossip mostly, sure, but still per conversation-capita, the focus is noticably different than where I was just one tiny year before.  



Not to mention a couple of the most amazing professor-people I have ever had the honor of knowing. And learning that language/writing/english classes have the friendliest people so far…



So, I thought I would write something aboot’it.  Zaadz had just as much a part of this entire thing as anything else, so I guess I do owe a thanks to everyone here, everyone that helped me find the way to where I’m now at, and…Well, and I guess that’s all I had to say.

It's late, and I haven't stretched my bloggin' bones in a while, but I felt the inspiration and now I'm here - great!



It's all Shelly's fault; she has a great new blog about the lessons in perspective that she's learned, and how they came through in a conversation with a gifted girl at a mall makeup counter.   Check it out!



Shelly's blog gave a strange itch in the back'a my mind, because it reminded me of a little project of mine, that I think I've let slip: working on my role in a conversation.



I've been riding the bus a lot lately, going to school; there's been some blizzards and chances for spontaneous-stranger-community to pop up all around, so I've had a chance to analyze how I act when talking with others.  You know what I've noticed that I tend to do?  Agree with everyone; about everything.



I don't know how it came about, thinking back it's something I've always done; probably another habit rooted from times of lacking self-esteem.  Maybe it has to do with an overun of empathy?  I do tend to get wrapped up in other's perspectives quite the easily - seeing their way of looking at things and completely blanking out my own.  What I do know, is that all too often I find my self nodding my head during a conversation, only to shake it later.  What's to do with that?



I first noticed this a couple'a months back.  I was on my way into a super market, and got hit up by two men who were "selling" ornaments of some kind for dontations; fundraising for their church.  Now, it's a whole other story on why I never give in to these sorts of things, so I politely said no and kept walking.  They pushed me a little bit, but then I just had to be a little firmer and they smiled and started to walk on towards this other fellow that was making his way towards the store.  I didn't expect it, but the man started bellowing at me.



"Hey,  what do they want!  What are they trying!"  He was talking to me, apparently making it obvious to the fundraisers that he wasn't interested.



"Oh, I don't know.  Money for a church or something."  I tried to be friendly as the man increased his pace from behind, now striding next to me.  I didn't know what to expect, especially when the conversation was forced on.



"That just makes me sick!  I'm sick of everyone trying to get MY money.  It's like a virus!  A god damn virus!"  He was harumphing and shaking his head, sometimes glancing over as if he were scolding the two men who were now hurriedly making their escape.



And what do I say?  "Haha...uh yeah, yeah it's getting crazy these days isn't it." Not sure on what to say - I just agreed.



"Like a virus!"  he just kept saying out loud  as he followed behind me into a store. Getting a little nervous, I just kinda smiled and nodded my head.  Then, right when I was turning off his path to head towards the isle I was looking for, it hit me.  What am I doing?  Agreeing that people raising money for a church are "like a virus?"  This is an opportunity to say something.



"Uh, hey man - they're just trying to raise money - it was for their church."



The man paused for a moment. "Yeah. I know.  I shouldn't let it bother me, but..." the calm was over and he was back to being worked-up "But it does! Ahhh!"  then he turned towards his own isle of destination and kept walking, shaking his head.



So, my project that I've let slip, is taking a more active role in conversations with strangers.  I've been exposed to all sorts of them these days, coversations and strangers, and I do know that many are made for that passive ear on a bad day or whatever. But others?  Others, I'm not so sure about.



I'm seeing that I'm a part of so many different exchanges each day - it seems like an excellent gateway to getting a little more positivity in the world.



And I've failed latley.  There was a person in a long late-night (at the same super market, come to think of it)  who was working her self up about how rediculous it was that we all had to wait so long.  Where were all the cashiers?  The manager just saving money on wages, making us pay with Our time?  She was in a tissy about it and all the rest of us in the line had that wide-eyed understanding as we looked around at each other - but you know what we all did when she bounced her ranting off of us?  We all nodded, and agreed.   I feel bad for the checker now, a lone soldier in enemy territory. And...and I dunno.



Like I said, it's late, i'm blurry-eyed and rambling.



Really, all this started from the question "Wow, I wonder what Shelly said back to her mall-makeup-counter girl?"  And then the question, "what would I have said?" Then I realized what I would've done:  probably nodded my head and agreed.



I gotta remember to work on that.  

Well, this was my first week of the first semester of my new life as "Student" and...Wow!  What the heck was I thinking??



Apparently I've set myself up for a bit of a rough semester, with calculus I and physics. My first day, I was SO worn out!  I went to bed at 7pm.



It's funny the oddness of self and definition that are coming into play at the moment...  There's a whirlwind of paradigm and expectation shifting; a flurry of mis-definition on just what i think it means to be a "me" in this particular point in space and time... I find my self floundering through my thoughs; trying to attach to familiar concepts of old, fighting the new environment it finds it's self (my self's self?) in... It's actually a bit rediculous, to be honest.



First of all, I'm surrounded by people for which this environment is nothing new.  Kids straight out of highschool, professional students for which this is just another class, for... I know much of what they expect me to know...but I don't think that I know it in the way they're expecting me to.  I have rough ideas on the concepts they're touching on, but when the kids in the class shout out the details of things I would need to look to a reference for....it's a bit intimidating.



My first day of classes was horribly rough... I kept thinking about how I could "just" (beware the "just!")  be at work right now!  I could be sipping tea, surfing around on the net, and working here and there to meet deadlines, but NOooo... Now I'm on the bus at 7:30am, exhausting my mind's capacity for thought by trying to forcefully wrap it around concepts and ideas that these brand new authority figures expect to be second nature.   Life could be so easy right now!  However I keep having to admit...this is what I've asked for.



I've already been there on the "easy" track.  Go to work, do some stuff, come home.  The only worries were what I would entertain my self with for the evening, and maybe where the next party was at.  Even though that sounds so nice right now, i force myself to remember just how miserable I was in that [now]seemingly blissful paradise. 



I keep coming back to the definitions of self that I've been holding on to... I went to my accupuncturist the week before school started;  it was the first time that she's shook her head dissapprovingly at the state I was in.   Apparently, in accu-talk, my energy centers were depleted, pulses weak on the whole.  She said it happens when we feel drained from the role we feel we're currently playing in life. 



I had to admit to her that I hadn't felt like my "self" lately.  She brought up the idea of self-definition, and how it can be psychologically rough to go from being a productive member of society to somebody unemployed.  It's the same old story that we've all heard before, and (supposedly) heeded the warnings of... The first thing people ask in social situations is "so, what do you do?"  I've tried avoiding these questions in the past by answering with things like "Oh, I read a lot, and practice martial arts."  But they don't even seem phased and immediately spring to the Real question of "No, I mean, what do you do for a living?"  For me, the past month and a half has found the bottom drop out of that question.



Y'know, it really took me by surprise that I may be having issues with the definition of my self in relation to societal standards. I mean, we've all heard about it so much!  Most of the self help/spiritual/inner-power material talks about how silly it is that society defines us by what we do for money, how we contribute to society, what we do to 'earn our keep', but y'know?  I have to admit that even with all this knowledge, hearing the message time and time again... I fell into it's trap. 



I live with my girlfriend, and it's been a bit odd having the day off, and then having her come home from working at a job around 5.  Know what it's felt like?  Like I had to "do" something, to be productive for the day, just so that I didn't feel bad when she came home.  I spent the first two weeks of my 'vacation' doing chores!   



When she came home after a day at work and asked what I did all day, I actually felt guilty when saying "oh..read a little...took a nap...played some video games."  like totally guilty.  I found my self doing dishes, and cleaning up every day just so that it seemed like I had accomplished something.  What a trap to fall into!  That's why it was interesting to see my accupuncturist key into the same idea, without me even saying anything to her.



And now, I have to re-define my self again.  Now, I am "a student".  Unfortunately, there's even More oddness to this:  I'm lapsing back into old thought and habits from High School!  My first day of class I had a memory-realization:  I hated school when i was in it!!   So, after my self tried to attach onto my old circumstances of blissful jobness, it turned it's focus towards the past...the pattern it fit in when I was in highschool! 



So, now yet another battlefront: the war "against" the past.  I've spent a lot of time trying to redefine attitudes - sluffing off the old skin while trying to generate the new, more appropriate to the situation.



I noticed an interesting thing while playing video games a long time ago.  Y'know those friends that come over, that you want to play a game with, but you're just so much better than them that they end up hating it?  Well whenever I run into that, I try to prune my playing-skills back a bit, so that it's more 'fare'.  The interesting thing that I noticed?  I can literally "tune in" to a different skill-set of playing;  find the frequency of action from an earlier stage of experience, and fall into it, playing like I did when I was at my friend's skill level.  When I wanted to play good again?  I just tuned back to the skillful frame of mind, and the rest fell into place!



This reminds me of something I heard referred to as "an old buddhist trick", though the accuracy is sketchy since I read it in a Dan Brown novel;  the character in the story used the trick of telling her self to Remember how to do something, though she had never known in the past.  She switched into the frame of mind of somebody that knew what they were doing, instead of her current frame of novice.



So, this is what I'm trying to do:  Slip out of the busy-bee-worker mindset, and into the student-who's-purpose-is-to-learn frame of mind.  I have to be careful not to simply slip into the "old" student frequency..the one that hated school.  I'm not that person any more, and i shouldn't let some person that doesn't exist influence my current frame of mind.  I'm developing a new "me", the self that is a student, the self with the history-of-self that is frustrated with contentment, that wants to grow, and that won't be happy with anything less.  Even though the flame may be "self" destruction, the moth of my ego doesn't accept anything colder than the heat.



And these are the themes of my life for the moment:  Self-definition, tuning into the frequency of the wanted self, growth, and the realization of the want For growth.  My mind tries to attach it's focus to old ideas, old situations, but I need to take the path of greater resistence, for the moment..  This isn't anything like anything I've ever found this self in...and it deserves it's own place, it's own definition, it's own room to grow.

So, I haven't felt very "Zaadzy" lately, and I'm starting to wonder: am I burned out on Zaadz?  What's changed?  Is this place that I once called "the biggest source of change in my life" just losing whatever edge I might have attached to it?  Am I just out of the flow?

I once spent hours surfing through blogs, making comments, adding to other's comments little tidbits I'd heard that related; I was constantly taking thoughts I had or things I noticed and wondering, can I make a blog out of this?  Now, I'm not sure what happened, nothing seems to "grip" me like it used to, there's no drive to contribute.  Where'd it go?

This all makes me think of a sort'a phenomena I noticed a while ago, relating to the "self help" spiritual-type book crazes that go around, that I call "The Self Help Trap."  Y'see, there's all these books out there, that are quite empowering to read.  It feels good to read a Peaceful Warrior, the Celestine Prophecy gives life an extra spark, the habits of highly effective people provides impetus and drive.  It can be addictive to read and read and read these books, feeling great every moment, feeling more powerful and secure every chapter that's finished...but then?  I've seen many a people fall flat.

I think that there's a trap here.  These enticing books with their seductive words can feel great while they're being read, but after a while?  It's all the same.  The ideas are always the same; take control of your life!  Love and let live!  Find your calling, and go!!  This is all quite fine advice naturally, but how often can somebody read about it before losing interest?

Here's where there's the trap: If the reader doesn't actually make the changes in their life that these books are suggesting, it's only a matter of time before the words lose meaning, and it all just seems like fluff.  The Self Help Trap:  Too caught up in reading the ideas to practice them, The momentum drops right out.

So I wonder, is that where I am? Have I just not been making enough changes in my life, that now Zaadz has lost all meaning to me?  I look around on the blogs and pods... Love blah blah blah, dreams blah blah...change the world flowery fluffy blah blah blah blah.... where'd the substance go?  Maybe I'm just not  providing it like i used to.

Y'know, though?  I see that I'm not the only one, and maybe that  has a compounding effect...  Only months ago, I felt that I was part of a little crowd.  We were all gung-ho, giving it our all, blogging on the important things, each one of my friends offering amazingly powerful writings!  We've all seemed to fade Zaadz into the background, and I wonder if we're not still connected; if not in the community of Zaadz, at least in the lack of contribution?

Maybe now just isn't the time for talking, and more the time of work to be done for us.  These terrific people that I took the add of "friend" very literally, I know they're all out there doing amazing things right now.  Is that how this place will end up working?  Momentum, momentum, momentum, gathering up, sharing ideas, stirring action, blogging, talking, thinking, and then!.. This place falls in the background as the ideas are realized?  <>

Haha, yeah, so I dunno.  I thought maybe if I got out my zaadz-angst that maybe it'd pass.  Afterall, I gotta say that I'm in the middle of quite the whirlwind of change, and Zaadz is a big part of that.  Maybe it makes sense that I have nothing to add at the moment.  I do know that there's one thing I've noticed:  Now that I'm not chained to a desk and computer for 9 hours a day, the last thing I want to do is spend much time on one!

So Hello to all my zaadzy pals :)  Even though we're not spending much time here, I know that you're out there doing awesome things.  Catch'ya on the flipside of this rollercoaster, eh? 

 

 

Well...Last Friday was my last day of corporate america for a while to come!  Now, it's Monday morning, I'm chillin' at home, eatin' a hardboiled-egg-with-humus-for-yolk thing and checkin' up on some Zaadz!  Been in a "zaadz-funk" latley, so trying to get a little bit back in...

Friday was some Awesome last day to have.  It was "friday goody day", so I came in, and the designated goody-person brought in some waffles and omlettes from Le Peep so we sat around and ate for a bit...

Some of us had just found out that we all own the same portable video game systems, so we all brought ours in and played some head-to-head wireless games for the next few hours... 

Then, it was about lunch time, so a few people took me out to our favorite mongolian bbq restaurant, ate and chatted for a while... 

Came back, and work was throwing an ice cream social to celebrate good quarter-results!  Sat down, ate some ice cream, chatted for a while...

<>Went on a hunt to gather up some boxes for me to pack away all my cubicle-items; books, knicknacks, papers...

Then it was time to go! 

It was actually pretty sad when the boxes were packed, and everyone was leaving, saying bye for the last time.  That's the biggest thing that sucks about leaving a job, isn't it?  All the great people that are gonna be missed.  I sent out my farewell e-mail with contact info and all, but we all know how it goes with keeping in touch.

So now, here I am, officially unemployed (as my girlfriend already Loooves pointing out ;-)  ) and getting ready to get to work at putting together school stuff for next month.   Got a LOT of work to do to get ready for school...Turns out the course catalog they had given me to put together my degree was out of date and some of the classes aren't even offered anymore!  It's taken forever for teachers to reply back to my emails I had sent out...  The course load is way too crazy to handle, so I gotta figure out what to do.  Do I cancel out the botony multi-thing, and just focus on the physics courses?   I need to talk to some teachers to see if I can get out of some of the pre-requisistes for classes... is any of this plan even going to work? 

It's a funky situation to be in...I don't know how many times I felt like hitting the ABORT! button, and just staying at my same old job, with my comfy life... But, with the help of Shelly's "the secret" daily affirmations, my girlfriend Ginger's awesome loving support, and all the great Zaadzters to think'a... Things are moving ahead!

So, will up and quitting my job and the career I've built up to follow goals and dreams  and whatnot, end up being all that I'm cracking it up for?  Guess I better get out there and start workin' towards those new goals to make sure it has the best possible chance of succeedin'.   It's a  scary and exciting thing...hope i'm up for the scarecitement.

Hopefully, I'll still be able to hang out on Zaadz a bit, and get back on track with some more zaadzy-like blogs .  

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