Carving Out a Path

I’ve been doing some thinking–which is probably a bad thing knowing me.  I think I may have written off Drexel and what it had to offer to hastily.  Maybe I just wasn’t mature enough to handle it at the time?  I don’t know–but I am glad that I left for various reasons, but in reflection, there are things that I definitley would want to be a part of if I were still in Philly–maybe not much having to do with Drexel, but the opportunities around it.

In the past six and a half months or so that I have been “home” and have had time to evaluate what I want to do with myself, I have been able to come up with some fields that I would like to learn more about.  These fields or topics or whatever you would like to lable them as are as follows: Business, Digital Media, Photography, and Language.  Specifically:

Business

I want to learn about owning and own property–soon.  I am talking about investment properties.  Multifamily buildings that I can rent units in.  I am looking at this as a steady, less risky way of investing.  Sure the economy is really bad right now, and getting a mortgage is going to be a trick.  But I think this is a good idea so I am investing my time by taking general business classes.

What does this have to do with owning realestate?  Well I think it is good to have an idea what the accountant I will eventually hire, is doing.  So I am in a financial accounting class.  In general this field has a lot to do with the economy, so I have a macro economics class.  And I haven’t ruled out other business investments, so I am in a marketing class.

I still need to learn more–maybe some classes on tax accounting or tax law?

Digital Media

Perhaps my biggest loss leaving Drexel–I don’t know yet.  I really love the web so I really want to learn more about developing and designing for it.  But I was also kicking around an application idea yesterday for the Project 10 to the 100 that Google is running.  However, my idea requires massive amounts of coding which I sort of left behind, but not out of mind, when leaving Drexel.

I need to migrate back to that because it seems that whenever I am faced with a problem, I always start thinking about how a program could make my life so much easier.  Structurally, organizationally, and visually–if the program was written how my mind works.  Which is a problem since I don’t know how to code (at least not much, my formal C++ training came to an abrupt stop).

But I am also interested in the design aspect and would like to do more with that also.  I can come up with some pretty good ideas if given the chance and right knowledge.

Photography

This is really a broad concept for me right now because it contains not only still photography but also film.  I took a film class at Drexel and loved it.  I would really love doing more of it.  Right now I am focusing most of my photographic efforts on the black and white class I am currently taking.  Transition your mind back to still cameras so when I say I am using film, you realize it is 35mm and in a little roll that you insert into the back of a camera and rewind when you are done. Yep, I am currently doing photography as an “art” and not those cell phone pictures you call photos.

I want to continue with still photography and am (going to) really intending, to if at all possible, take color photography next semester.  I don’t think the college I am currently at offers classes in motion picture?

Languages

I say languages because I want to learn and be fluent in as many as possible.  I think it is almost disgraceful to be monolingual today.  I only know English, but I am studying Spanish for my 6th year? formally.  But can I really count all those years of high school Spanish as a year each?  I am still pretty pathetic at Spanish–I could probably survive, but roughly at best.

I really want to be fluent in Spanish by the time I graduate college.  There, I need to update that goal because I have added a time objective.  After I learn Spanish, I would like to quickly expand to Portugese and Italian.  From there maybe a new endeavor of German?  Only time will tell.

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So there you have it, that is what I want to study.  I may mention that I feel the need to be persuing three of these if not all four at a time because they are all important to where I am going and who I want to be.  If someone cool is reading this and wants to fund my education or has some awesome program that I should take advantage of–please contact me.  pyrosarco [at] gmail [dot] com

Means To An End?

My life is really warped and strange.  Not because I am abused to violated or anything like that, because I’m not.  Not because I am into dark, evil things like shrunken heads, skulls, black widows, or only leaving the house at night–I’m not.  My life is really strange because I have so many directions I would like to pursue and can only do so one at a time.  This means my other pursuits suffer and have to wait–feeling like they are dying inside of me.

I guess I should have known that I wasn’t going to be the average kid growing up.  Hell I had my dad buy me some General Electric stock for my 9th birthday.  If that wasn’t a warning sign, then I don’t know what is.  My problem right now is that I don’t have a problem.  I am not oppressed, not segregated, not held back financially or mentally (other than by myself), I don’t struggle for anything, there is food on the table and in my stomach, I can lay my head down and not worry about if I am going to wake up.

GE Stock Performance

You might look at that and say that my problem is a lack of self motivation.  And I would respond, yes and no, I am very self motivated, but when the going gets tough, I tend to become more motivated to bail or move on to something else.  This is a problem, and one that I can not address outright because once I quit something, I want to take it back up again.

Take computer science for example–my first intended major–I got out of that because I didn’t want to sit behind a desk all day hacking out code for something that wouldn’t be appreciated.  I also didn’t like the long hours that I would have to put in each week on homework.  But now that I don’t do that anymore, I am so frustrated and curious about it because I can’t program for the web in a way that I think I should.  But that project is essentially on hold.

Right now I am studying business.  Will I get my major in business?  I don’t know.  I am already looking at three and a half years of school on top of the year that I already put in–if I am to get my degree in business.  But while I study macro economics, marketing, and accounting, my mind wanders back to computers–code implementation, design, layout, digital photography, graphics, et cetera.  And then I get confused about where I need to go.

To me studying business is a means to an end.  And I know that I don’t need to get a degree in business to do what I want to do–I just need a solid foundation, a good understanding to get the ball rolling.  I don’t really want to work for a business as an accountant, a marketer, sales person or some sort of analyst.  I want to do my own thing and hire those people.  I want to free up my time.

But obviously, I need to make money to start businesses and keep my head above the water.  To do this I would much rather have a career in digital media or photography or something that I enjoy.  When I see websites like Really Japan or Playgroundblues, my mind starts taking them apart piece by piece.  I start thinking about the div layouts and how images are placed.  Then I start to give up because they become too sufisticated.  This screams to me that I need to study this more or pursue this in college so I have an understanding of website infrastructures, how to use jQuery, and coding in languages like PHP and Ajax.

Photo from Real Japan

But the same thing happens with business. I start to realize what it takes to run a business and when I see places like McDonalds, body shops, or retirement homes, pieces just start coming apart.  I see the marketing–signs in windows, fliers, commercials–I see the customers buying the product–burgers or mufflers or the room they stay in–I see operational expenses–rent, employees, maintenece, products that have to be purchased so they can be resold to the consumer–I see the balance sheets being made, et cetera.  It all starts coming together.

The thing that scares me is whenever my mind can start taking things apart like that, it means I am really interested.  Right now there are at least three areas–for me–in which this happens.  Business, websites, and to a lesser degree, Spanish (the language).  But if I was to study everything to its fullest extent, I would be in school forever-ever.

I guess that is why I am studying business at the moment.  To me it is a means to an end.  Something that I can invest time into right now, start investing and then start to minimize my involvement until I have other people running the show for me.  Granted I will step in to make important decisions and to start new things or contribute new ideas, but I want to be the owner not the manager. I want my time to do with what I will.

To me the big question is how far do I have to follow through with my studies?  I feel as if I got to intermediate business courses and then switched my major to digital media while investing and working on the side, I would be able to make it.  This is the means to then end.  Still fuzzy, still unsure about which path I am going to take after business, but I know I don’t want to sit behind a desk.

Screenshot from Playgroundblues