An Insubstantial Absence of Reflexive Content

Over the last few months I have been trying to think of something to write about for this blog, and ideas have come and gone but obviously I haven’t gotten my thoughts together enough to post anything. To give you a brief update, nothing has really changed. Work is still ill-defined; the people are still very cool but the projects are still nebulous and provide no feeling of satisfaction. As before, things continue to change weekly so I hold out hope that things will get better over time. There is some talk of big changes soon, but then again I suppose that kind of talk has been going on since I walked through the doors. That seems to be what we do though. Talk. I can’t say we’ve ever really gotten anything done. At least not the project I’ve worked on. Anyway…

Other than that I’m currently prepping for a big move. I’m moving out of my current house-share and into a 2 bedroom apartment that Megan and I will share when she gets down here in May. We have a really nice l place picked out down in Lorton, VA and I’m really looking forward to finally having a place of our own. I know at one point we owned enough furniture to fill an apartment but I guess over the last few years we have been slowly losing possessions, so the big game lately has been trying to acquire a handful of items to put into the apartment. Currently the search has focused on Craigslist but I will hopefully be buying real furniture in the near future, although we have decided to avoid big purchases until Megan finds a job down here. She has received a lot of good feedback from potential employers so we’re optimistic, but she doesn’t have anything solid yet. I have a feeling that once she is here though things will fall together. Anyway, that has pretty much been the update on the big move and after 3 years apart I am definitely looking forward to living in the same area as my fiancée.

Beyond that, the professional life has had an interesting impact on my psyche. A little while back (actually a previous failed attempt at a blog update) I had the realization that I’ve really wandered away from who I was in High School, or even who I was at NMU. I’ve lost touch with nature and it seems to have left a massive hole in my spirit. I’m still working though what this all means, but in the mean time here is a section of the previous unpublished post that I wrote during the event:

“I saw the stars tonight for the first time since I moved to the D.C. area. I have decided that this is not a commentary on the area but rather a commentary on a change in my behavior since I arrived here. At this point I suppose I should give you fair warning, I have no idea where this is going. Normally I at least have my general point worked out mentally before I start typing, but in this case, not so. Anyway, I just walked outside and the sky was beautiful, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen stars in awhile. This was weird to me because I remember how important nature was to me when I was younger. There were nights in Michigan when I would just hang outside and stare at the sky for a while, and without question I felt a connection to the environment. This was such a common experience for me that I’m sure I took it for granted, and that is probably why it’s been 7 months and it wasn’t until now that I realized this was missing from my life. I’m not 100% sure what this means yet but I felt the need to share…”

So yeah, I guess if you want to know where my head is at these days that might be a pretty good read. For years I spent my free time thinking about the type of person I wanted to be; thinking about my place in the universe and my role in society. Lately it seems that these thoughts are not as frequent. I’ve lost sight of the something more and I’m beginning to think that maybe there is something about the city that forces our attention away from nature, and that this may in fact be a very bad thing for society. I feel like this theory requires more time and thought than I have at the moment so hopefully I can return to this soon. On the other hand, maybe I’m wrong… maybe it’s not nature but Megan. Maybe our separation is the hole. I’m not sure but I guess if that is the case time will soon tell. But the bottom line is that I don’t have the same life focus I used to. I don’t feel like I am living life any more, when in reality I’m probably “living life” by society’s standard more so than I ever have before.

My buddy Craig said something one time that has stuck with me to this day. It was after he left for army training; we we’re talking about how life was different in the army because everything is provided. Despite the fact that he has one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, he told me he disliked the army lifestyle because there was no risk. I laughed and asked him what the hell he meant, and he commented that the real challenge in life was trying to live… to play the everyday game of life and do it successfully. For years I thought there might be some truth to this but I’m living the dream and I’ve never felt so empty.

Anyway, this was not meant to be a downer piece, but rather just to express the state of confusion I currently find myself in. Make no mistake, I’m one lucky bastard, and I know it. I played the game, played it well actually, and I was lucky enough to find a job that actually pays me enough to “live the dream”… which is more than I can say for some of my colleagues, who I would argue might actually be more deserving. I also have a woman I love, who loves me in return, and somehow we managed to make it through 3 years of distance. If things go well and she secures a job here soon, we might actually be able to get our heads above water financially as well. In these times I could not imagine asking for more. I’m a lucky son of a bitch and I know it. I honestly just hope that someday I will have the opportunity to be able to give to others the opportunities that we’re given to me.

Despite this understanding, in the end I am left with the following thoughts: I need a job that allows me to work with people, to get things done, to help others get the things they need. I need to reconnect with nature because it is there that I have had my most spiritual awakenings and truly experienced the greatness of God. I need to be reconnected with my better half and to perhaps focus on a family… something greater than myself. I need to take a step back and reassess my life so I can figure out where I need to go next because I’ve played the game and beat the system, and it took me where society told me I needed to be, and it in and of itself is empty.

The New Life

So it's been well over a month since my last post, and I think by now it is safe to say that I have a pretty good grasp of my new life (well at least for now, until Megan moves down here). So far, despite my promise to try and embrace this new opportunity, I'm still really not that into it. I mean, don't get me wrong, for a city I like Alexandria and D.C. has so much to offer. And the people I work with truly are great (without question they are the single best part about my new life) but something about it just doesn't feel right. I pursued a career with the government because I have this never ending urge to "serve", and one of the key things that everyone mentioned when I first met them in Vegas was the sense of pride they had in serving our troops ("those who serve our country"). However, since my arrival, I don't feel like I have done anything to serve anyone outside my building (and I hardly feel like I have accomplished anything for the people within my building either). It's hard to stay motivated when your job is to come in and search through doctrine to create a diagram that will likely never be seen by anyone outside my group, and then will very likely be shelved as a deliverable that no one asked for. I mean, I do have some work for a contractor which may be promising, but its still pretty much tech work and not really what I thought I was getting myself into. I relate more to the intelligence community than I do to the engineers, but unfortunately I was brought in to kind of bridge the gap between those 2 communities and I don't think that anyone really believes that's possible... people are just fighting change, and I have a very strong fear that the project I am on will fail to amount to anything useful, will lose funding, and then I will no longer have a place in this organization unless I learn a programming language or something. And to be honest, I think I would rather be jobless then become a strictly tech guy (and no offense to those of you who enjoy the tech stuff. You do great things; it's just not for me). So I guess we'll see what happens... I hope that when I eventually move myself into an administrative position (project leadership, etc.) then things will become a little more fulfilling for me, and maybe that will change things for the better... but for now it's becoming difficult to push myself through the day. I just have to keep reminding myself that I came in during a "transitional period" and that once things get moving under the new leadership, I'll have a chance to begin shaping the project myself and hopefully then I will have more of a personal investment in my work.

Other than that, life has really been pretty good. This weekend was Oktoberfest at the base and it was a great time... good food, live music, and several of my work colleagues who we're very enjoyable to hang out with. I have also recently fallen into a new camera, so I have decided to work on photography as a new hobby. One of my fellow colleagues, Jason, is an avid photographer so hopefully he can show me a few things and I can stimulate my creative side a little after work. Hmmm... I don't think much else noteworthy has happened, except for a few trips into the district. Last weekend there was a buffalo wing competition to support the D.C. Firefighters Burn Foundation, so I happily contributed to that worthy cause and got several hours of great food to boot. Alan also dragged me into the District that weekend as well to show me a little of the D.C. nightlife, which was also a good time... and happily there are no major noteworthy stories (read "arrests") from that evening.

So yeah, as you can see I really have very little to complain about regarding this new life, other than the fact that something just doesn't feel right. I miss the nature. I miss long rides through the lands "inbetween the places". I miss just walking the shoreline when I was bored, and working my thoughts to the shallow crash of waves against the docks. I miss the feel of a small town with a shared history. D.C. definitely has a history but it's a transitional one... I get the feeling that people come to serve their time and then depart (much as I myself plan on doing), and then the next group comes in and remakes the wheel the way they see fit. It's a healthy business model I suppose since there will always be jobs correcting the previous groups "mistakes", but I often have the feeling of "nowhere" when I am here. Maybe it's just because I don't have a history here... but on second thought, it bothers me that I cannot find a "local neighborhood bar" anywhere around me. Where do the people who actually live here go? Isn't there a place that's not themed or geared for tourists? The local places are where you find the true feeling of the town... and frankly I'm not sure it exists here, at least not as I understand it (although I must accept that a shared transitional history is still a shared history, and it may just be something that I don't enjoy that others here do). Anyway, it was not my intention to rant about this tonight, but I suppose it's good to let the heart guide every now and then...

So, anyway, with that I end tonight and as always promise to try and provide more updates more often, but as always you should expect that I will fail in this task... so look back in a month or so and hopefully I'll have something new by then :). Until then I will say goodnight to dream of my small town life by the lake, and wonder if I'll ever be able to achieve it happily... friends by my side and a happy Megan... or if our desires are so different that compromise will take us places that neither of us wish to be... but I suppose that if we are lucky, we'll at least be together on the journey through nowhere. Hopefully that will be enough. I'm just not sure, but I suppose the uncertainty is life.

The Idea of Marquette

So, like most of my posts I have written and rewritten this post several times, each time losing focus and ranting extensively on a topic that was not my central focus when I began. As I mentioned in my last post, these last few weeks and travel and transition have given me a lot of time to think about things: broadly the past, where I am now, how I got here, and where I am going. I keep retuning to this concept that I am going to refer to as “the idea of Marquette”, and I’ll explain why I call it that in a little bit. It’s actually a theory about relationships, and this applies both to relationships between multiple people and relationships between people and non-human entities. This theory originated back in my early years at NMU when a sort-of relationship triangle exploded and many people who were “in love” with other people had their hearts broken. Some of these feelings were so strong that I would say they were bordering on obsession, and that is what interested me at the time. After thinking about it and discussing things with many of the individuals involved, it occurred to me that most people attract themselves not to other people, but to an idea of that other person. We take the partial knowledge that we are given about an individual and we form an emotional bond to it, even though this is highly irrational and many of our preconceived notions about this other person (or who we think this other person is) are often very much false. To some extent this is how most relationships work, and why most fall apart: someone thinks they know a person but eventually the other person acts outside the original person’s preconceived belief of who the second individual really is, and they feel betrayed, etc. As far as my limited experience has been, this idea still stands.

So why am I telling you this? No, Megan and I are not having problems… it is just that I have noticed a lot of similar emotional responses within myself through this most recent transition, and in hindsight, during my transition from Marquette to Oxford. Most of the time I was in Marquette I was depressed and miserable. I had a few good friends (great friends actually) but generally speaking I had high expectations of the people that I was going to meet and interact with in college, and for the most part many of them let me down (although admittedly many of them did not know they were doing so, and this is not to pass judgment on any of them… They lived their lives the way they chose to and I respect that; these issues were within me). I was so bummed out with my life at Northern that there were multiple points within my time there that I considered dropping out or moving home, and those feeling had little to do with the school itself. Yet when I moved to Oxford, OH, the only thing I wanted my first semester at Miami was to be back up north. Yeah, I hated most of the people but I missed the feel of the town, the sound and smell of Superior’s nature, and the feeling that we were removed from most of the rest of the world… or at least that is what I thought I missed. In reality I don’t remember if I felt this way while I was there. Most likely I did not and this was my romanticized love for Marquette because I was no longer there; no longer required to deal with the stuff that I didn’t like, face to face, every day. I was simply left to my ideals, and my ideals told me that I would have rather been unhappy with something I was familiar with than deal with the stress of the transition.

Eventually I got passed it and made some great friends at Miami as well. I even learned to love the quaintness of the town and somehow embraced the fact that we were culturally stranded in a Midwestern corn field. Yet it happened again when I moved from Oxford to Alexandria, and that last sentence or two should serve as a proof. Most of the time I was in Oxford I wasn’t happy about it, but it was temporary so I swallowed my discontent and worked through my 2 year sentence. Yet even being consciously aware of that fact I have still spent much of this last week wishing I could be back at Miami. I’m not really sure why I feel this way, but I believe that “the idea of Marquette” followed me again. Things have gotten better after the first week, but the first few days I hated the somewhat sprawling landscape… hated the pace… hated the traffic and the noise… and part of me wanted to justify this all like I did Miami: It’s only temporary. But this time, it’s not. Maybe this specific house, but as far into the future I can see, this town and this job will be my life. I don’t consider myself a commit-a-phoebe, but that’s kind of a scary thought for someone who has lived “in transition” for the past 6 years. I suppose all life is transition though, ever changing…

Anyway, I am not really sure where that was intended to go but those were some of the thoughts that I have been having since I got here. As before, things are already getting a little better and I am sure it is only a matter of time before I find my comfort here, but I couldn’t help but laugh at myself when I realized that I was treating my old lives like lost girlfriends: idealizing their characteristics and believing there could have been a future when everything inside told me it couldn’t last while I was there. It’s time to move forward though. As hard as it can be for me to not look into the past sometimes and ask myself “what could have been?” I suppose this opportunity, this experience, is most important now. My new goal is to try and embrace the new opportunities I get every day, even when change is not desired. Don’t sacrifice the gift of change; this is my challenge now.

A Transitional Update...

Well it's been over a month and a lot has happened, yet nothing really noteworthy enough to post about. I finished up work at Buhr for the summer, and then proceeded to move stuff from OH to MI, from MI to OH, and from both locations to my new place in VA (which I just arrived at a few days ago). Other than packing and moving, I also had a chance to catch up with friends all across the northern midwest region, sharing a few beers and saying our temporary goodbye's. Besides that, things have been surprisingly uneventful. I did attempt to self-install a hitch on the jeep, which ended up being a week long, glorious disaster which ended when I dropped the jeep off at the dealer and begged them to fix my work the day before I was schedule to leave. Luckily they had the parts I needed and were able to fix and install everything that I worked on for a week, in about 2 hours. After that, the move went smoothly... and for those of you who ever have the chance to make the trip, the route between northern WV and across northern MD is by far one of the most beautiful routes I have ever driven (I do not, however, recommend making the trip with a full trailer and a 4 cylinder vehicle). Once I arrived, my new roommates helped me unload and then we we're off to a house party... not a bad way to be welcomed to the neighborhood. Anyway, I've since moved into my room and am more or less killing time until Monday, when I report for my first day with the Army Corps of Engineers.

So that's that... with the amount of down time I had had recently, there are other things I want to discuss, but more will come when I've had some time to get my thoughts in order...

A Much Needed Update...

Well after a wise crack from my fiance' I suppose it's time for a much needed update. For those of you who don't know yet (which I believe you all do because most of you found this through facebook, and I have kept that updated far better) I did get a tentative job offer from TEC (the D.C. gig). I say tentative because even now, a month into the process, I'm still going through authorization paperwork before my formal start date of August 3rd. My formal title will be Geographer, with a working title of "project intern" until I pass my security clearance. All in all I am really happy to finally have a real job, although it is still a little bit of a bummer because Megan has one more year out in MA and will not be joining me in VA until next spring. We have decided to keep out August 2010 wedding date though so shortly after that we should be a happily married couple. Other than that I can't tell you much more about the job because I'm not sure of the specifics of my project yet, but I'll try to keep you posted with as much as I can legal share, when I know it.

In terms of this summer, things have been well. I just bought my first vehicle. It's a brand new 2009 Jeep Patriot and I absolutely love it. The timing couldn't be better either because I have 2 weeks left working for the city of Ann Arbor and then I have to make a week long trip back to OH to tie up my loose ends down there, before roadtriping to VA to find a place to live... and then back to MI for 1-2 weeks before moving to VA permanently. So those of you in the area who wanted to hang out while I was back in MI, no worries... I'm not running away quite yet. Working the pool has been fun though, although I am working both Cashier and Day Camp now so I have not had as much time to work on my thesis as I suspected. I have a few days coming up in the near future here though so hopefully I will be able to put the last few changes on it and close that chapter of my life. We'll see... wish me luck.

I suppose that's all I really have for now. Life, as always, is work and more work. I have been spending quite a bit of time with my good friends Matt and Jess, which I am very happy about. I'm still working on trying to get all of my friends recentralized in one place again, but unless I find them all jobs in DC (which is a possibility) it may have to wait a few years before we can work it out. Either way I have really enjoyed seeing them again, as often as I have been. Anyways, as I said that's about all for now. My father just finished the first summer semester at EMU yesterday so we're all going out for a beer in a few... so on that note, I hope all is well on your end, and good night for now. ~Paul

(P.S. I have noticed that there is some delicious irony to this blog by now... I called it "The Good Life..." with the intention of using this as a place to rant about the political, economic, and academic absurdities of the world yet my last few post have been personal and life for me, at least for now, is phenomenal. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before I have good reason to rant again, but for the time being I will simply leave you with that...)

Definitely More of a Blessing

So I'm sitting in my hotel room just outside of D.C., and after my last post (and since my interview was today) I thought it was appropriate to update you all with another post. Despite my hesitations, everything went very well today (or so I believe) and I actually think that I could be very happy here. I even got to take a half hour and re-work some of my research thoughts with two of my potential future co-workers, and one of them mentioned that a good portion of what they do is reading, conceptualizing new ideas, and discussing ways to practically implement them in brainstorming sessions. Moreover, the goal of many of these programs is to find ways to do things (examples: incorporating time sensitive dynamic qualitative data into a quantitative GIS structure) that have never been done before, at least not well. The idea of putting my mind to use towards unprecedented work that could actively reshape the way we utilize geospatial technology is an amazing concept, and although I'm sure its a little over dramatic and idealized as well, those are the goals that these people have and are actively working to achieve. We spend most of our time in the classroom actively discussing the idealized theory of how to change the world, and then most of us leave the institution and accept positions that never really allow us to devote our time to that sort of research and exploration. Here, it seems that I could make a living trying to change things... trying to make them better. I don't know, I guess part of me had accepted that that wasn't going to happen. That I was going to end up taking an office job, or a city position somewhere that would have allowed me to make an impact on peoples lives but that wasn't necessarily going to encourage me to tackle the big questions with any sort of practical output. I'm excited by the possibilities I suppose, and its a world of possibilities that is at my fingertips and not just in the idealized philosophies that I construct on my own time and have now practical output. Anyway, there has not been an offer or anything yet so perhaps I am jumping the gun with this enthusiasm but I left today being very hopeful of the future, and after my last message I wanted to share the happy thoughts with you all as well. And most importantly, thank you to those of you who expressed your support.

Now, the waiting game...

A Blessing and a Curse...

So, God has been kind enough to bless me with a job interview... and I'm really messed up about it. It's with the Army Corps of Engineers in Alexandria, VA, and for those of you who I have kept in touch have probably just realized that it is not in Lowell, MA, where my fiancé' is and where I had every intention of going to when I finished here. I am decidedly not happy about this fact, and despite the thesis defense and a law final I believe this is the real reason I haven’t slept well in two nights and my anxiety is through the roof. Granted, I haven’t actually been offered a job yet but they are flying me out and paying for the hotel room for two nights... all before I ever even applied for a position... so I think I have a few reasons to feel good about this trip. In all honesty it could be one of the few positions that would allow me to do exactly what it is I have been studying to do the last 6 years, yet I am torn because it takes me away from my friends and family in MI and my fiancé' in MA. I'm also torn because I'm not sure exactly what I am looking for out of life yet. Some day’s I think I'm ready for the big leagues; ready to take on D.C. and to try and actually take on the world. Yet some days I miss the slow paced lifestyle of the U.P. where the bulk of my day involved enjoying nature and just trying to make it, living with the land and doing what you can to help your fellow yoopers make it through another day. Especially after the barrage of health issues I have had this year (and subsequently being forced to contemplate my mortality at the age of 24) I'm not opposed to taking a step back and working below my training if it means I can get the chance to live in the same town as my loved ones again. Anyway... I'm really messed up about this because it could be the greatest opportunity I've ever received, but I'm not sure it's what I want right now. I guess I need to wait to see if I even get an offer or not, but I have been thinking a lot about the future and this situation is really starting to weigh on me. I guess I just needed to vent...