"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."
Albert Schweitzer


"The true way to render ourselves happy is to love our work and find in it our pleasure."
Francoise de Motteville

Career

Has anyone else ever had the feeling that the four years spent in college was a waste as you are not doing what you really want to do? I’m having an internal conflict with this. I went to Penn State, which was the best four years of my life, majoring in Chemical Engineering. I really didn’t want to major in ChemE but my dad kinda “nudged” me into it because he didn’t want me to major in just chemistry, which is what I really wanted to be in. Well it turns out I hated ChemE and it wasn’t as much chemistry as I was hoping, thus being talked into engineering again, I went into Ag and Bio engineering. I was finally happy with my major…the professors were awesome, my peers were some of the best people I’ve ever met, and the work was challenging but interesting.

I moved onto a career as a Civil and originally worked for FEMA (sorta) and another company where I did stuff I was interested in, however my interest started to decline, particularly in this last year. I’m now out of school for 4.5 years and I need a new career NOW! I am so disgusted with my current job that every hour I’m there is an hour closer to me going insane. I have been working at this job for about 10 months and I really really really hate it, actually “hate” is not strong enough of a word. (on a side note, I was at first concerned about putting this up here as some of my coworkers, that are friends, have access to this, but I just don’t care anymore, I’m just that miserable with this current employer) Thus, this makes me think, do I hate engineering because this job is SO awful, or do I truly just dislike the whole industry? Should I stick it out and find a new job that could possibly be better or find a new career? Well I think I partially found my answer last Friday.

Last week I had an interview with another company, as I’m on the phone and they’re asking me the typical interview questions, a feeling of dread came upon me. Why am I doing this? Why am I on the phone with another company for anther engineering position? I shouldn’t have been thinking these things I should have been happy at the prospect of moving on to a new experience. Yup, big red flag went up immediately. I am definitely very unhappy with my career prospects and need something better.

So, what should I do? I’m very very interested in biology and chemistry and just generally how people and the world works on a scientific level. I find myself migrating toward some type of medical field whether it be dentistry, optometry, PT, or PA…these are my top choices. So should I take the plunge and do a career move? This prospect excites me so much, thus I’m thinkin’ it would be a good option. However, the ever looming worry of money hangs over my head. If I go back to school, how will I make money? What will I do with the financial obligations I have like my car, rent, student loans, etc…? how will I pay for school itself? And another big question, what about my age? I mean, I’m no spring chicken and I would like to have a family before I’m 40. Is putting real life on hold for another four years a viable option? Is there anyone out there who can give advice?

Well I was always told by my parents that I should have a career I love; something I look forward to most mornings upon waking up...this is not how I feel. I know more thought needs to go into this but I can’t help to want this change now. I know I need to be patient but it is just so hard. I have faith that sooner or later I will end up in a profession/job that I will love, but that time can’t come soon enough.

Learn

“Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.”
-Mark Victor Hansen

Colorado

So I have now lived in Colorado for ten months and I find I really really miss the east coast. I’m not sure if it’s me and my desire not to give this place a try or that I truly don’t like it or a series of unfortunate events…I’m thinkin’ it’s the latter. I find that I’m a very liberal and athletic person, thus I thought what better place to live than CO. All you hear about is all the wonderful outdoor activities (including skiing of course) and the relaxed way of life... yea I haven’t seen much of that relaxed way of life. People here drive me insane! It’s all about having the best equipment or how many times you’ve been up skiing, or how many fourteeners you’ve done; it’s all just one big competition to see who is more outdoorsy. In my opinion, that’s not what being outdoorsy is about. I think it’s a personal relationship with nature and the universe surrounding you, appreciating the beautiful world we live in, NOT how many times I skied last year. I bet you I got asked over twenty times as to how many times I got up to the mountains…well I don’t know, I’m not that shallow to keep count! But to play devil’s advocate, east coast people (in particular DC peeps) aren’t all sugar and spice either. Yes, east coasters can live up to their reputation of being rude or snotty, but ya know what, not one of them would ask me how many times I’ve been to the beach (east coast equivalent of the mountains…or something). Yea I’m pretty sure I’m an east coaster at heart, but I love checking out new places to live (perhaps sometime soon I’ll be checking out another state ;) ).

As far as the series of unfortunate events go, there is just too much to list but to sum it up: sick a lot, both serious and non-serious, creepy roommate, awful AWFUL job, and my amazing, incredible, love-of-my life, cat, Yukon died L. So yea maybe some of my opinion of CO is based on things that happened to me while being out here with little friends, but things are getting better (except for the job, I still LOATHE that) and I’m still not happy with CO. I think a change is very near, and it will be one to a different state to hopefully settle down for a while, if not permanently, and be happy.

As I bitch about how awful CO is I would like to point out the wonderful things that have happened here…I met Ryan, I got a new kitty Kona, and recently added a dog, Ty Domi….OH and I skied 127 times haha j/k, I really have no idea how many times, but I have to admit the skiing is great. Meeting Ryan and building somewhat of an animal farm J are definitely worth the experience overall. As I look for a new change soon, I know that Ryan and the animals will be with me and that definitely makes me happy!

Ok ok so this post sucks, but I needed to bitch.

IM Wisconsin

Ryan completed Ironman Wisconsin last week in Madison and I couldn't be more proud of him!

After a week of not seeing each other, I flew into Milwaukee on Friday (Sept 5th) and was greeted by Ryan, who drove an hour and a half to pick me up. Upon seeing him I immediately got butterflies in my stomach, always a wonderful feeling! Ryan looked as he always does but, to me, he seemed a little nervous; I'm sure me asking him five times a day for the entire week before didn't help hehe. Yes, I secretly wanted him to be nervous. That night we hung out in Madison, met up with Ryan's sister and a few of her friends and retired a bit early, back to Joel and Sara's house.

The next morning, the day before the race, Ryan and I did a 30 min swim in Lake Monona, where the race was being held. The water was so clean and the perfect temperature, couldn't ask for better conditions for a 2.4 mile swim. After running some last minute race errands Ryan and I chilled out and just watched some PSU football. I could kinda sense Ryan getting more and more nervous as he got crankier and crankier haha. We went to bed as early as possible that night, but I found that Ryan had a little trouble sleeping, well who wouldn't?

Race day morning we were up at 4am and off to the race site we went. Anne and I dropped Ryan off and proceeded to the closest Starbucks for a morning pick me up and some food and after parking the car we met back up with Ryan. Oh boy he was definitely nervous now, his one word replies and his grumpy expression said it all.

Around 6:30am Ryan headed down to the swim start and Anne and I headed up to the top of Monona Terrace to watch the race (great suggestion Carl, thanks!). I swear I was more nervous than Ryan was at this point, I even had to take a potty break to "relieve" some of my anxiety. At 7:00am the race began and boy, what a site it was... 2,200 triathletes began the swim as a mas start. It was so cool to see 2,200 people start together, from up above it looked like a moving island of people, it almost seemed unreal...but it was just so beautiful. After an hour and 13 mins Ryan was out of the swim...his fastest time for that distance EVER! It was amazing, I was bursting at the seams with pride, I must have looked like a real idiot. tehe

Ryan proceed to the bike with a reasonable transition and off he went and off we went. I must admit I was a bit pushy throughout the day as I wanted to see/support Ryan wherever possible. Thus we headed back to Joel and Sara's house, which is conveniently on the course, but we walked to downtown Verona so we can see Ryan as many times as possible. Around mile 56 we caught a glimpse of Ryan as he raced by still looking fresh and relaxed...I was calculating in my head the whole time how fast he was going and according to my calcs 19 mph...yea he was fast. We saw Ryan again a little bit before the 100 mile mark and yet again he amazed us by his speed (18.7 mph) and his fresh demeanor. If it were me, I'd have my tongue hanging out at that point. Ryan completed the bike (112 miles) in an amazing time of 6:08! Next, the dreaded 26.2 mile run.

Ryan is definitely not a runner but he can definitely hold his own. This was the only part of the race I was worried about him. Luckily we got to see him 4 times on the run, which I think really helped his moral. At the start of the run he seemed fresh and happy to be off the bike...this soon changed. Around mile 13 Ryan looked awful, he was pale and his gate had change and you could tell he was laboring quite a bit. After seeing him at mile 13 we dashed off to try and catch him at mile 19. So from 13 to 19 is 6 miles, my guess was we would see Ryan an hour from when we saw him at mile 13, but an hour passed, then and hour and 15 mins and then an hour and a half, I was freakin' panicked! Finally around an hour and 37 mins later we saw Ryan...whew! At the time I didn't know Ryan had hit the wall around mile 14 and had to walk for an hour...that blasted wall, we all can understand that. At this point I kinda underestimated Ryan and assumed he would do the last 7 miles in an hour and 20 mins...boy was I wrong he did it in an hour and 5 mins. He looked awesome when he was finishing, all smiles and tired as hell. I was so incredibly proud of him I was almost in tears! He crossed the finish line in 12:22:10, one hell of a time for a first ironman, let alone his fourth triathlon ever!!!!

I truly believe Ryan was so successful, not only because of his consistent training but because of the dozen+ friends and family he had there cheering him on. I have never seen such support of one individual in a race....now those are some good friends. As of last Monday Ryan and I are both signed up to do IM WI next year...together. I'm very excited, to be able to share this race with Ryan.

Religion

Religion is certainly a controversial topic and I’m pissed that it always is. So I was born and raised Roman Catholic but as I grow older I find that the Roman Catholic church stands for everything I DON’T believe in, thus am I really Catholic? I would say no; and is there something wrong with that, again I say no. My OPINION on religion/God/faith/beliefs is that it is incredibly personal. I truly believe that we have what, 6.6 billion people in this world and I believe we have 6.6 billion different Gods/religions, meaning everyone views God and religion differently. So really is there anything wrong with the fact that I was raised Catholic and I don’t go to church because of my own personal beliefs yet I still believe in God? I would say no, but others vehemently disagree with me…which is great! Without different opinions in this world life would be boring. I guess in the end I’m saying people should respect other peoples’ beliefs and opinions. Instead of judging others maybe we should step back and judge ourselves. Alright I'm done, just my two cents.