With a little bit of history on how i got my car thrown in:SNSign:
You guys get to read a paper for school
Growing up and going through school I was never the one who already had his future planned out and my career decisions already made, I was actually quite the opposite as I would try to put those kind of thoughts away and even after graduating high school I still didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and it wasn’t until I was out on my own that college became such an important part of my future.
Throughout my childhood a very common phrase in my house was “go to school, get good grades and go to college”, all coming from a blue collar father with no college education who drove a truck from day to day for his job. This gave me a false sense of thinking that led to me believing schooling was not needed in life, which was around middle school where my “I hate school” phase started.
All of a sudden I wouldn’t do my homework and cutting class became a common occurrence since it was so convieniet. However even with my most expertise slacking during freshman year I was able to still barely move on. Then sophomore year came along and it was a huge turnaround for me. Growing up I was fascinated by cars and mechanics, and generally just how anything worked, especially ford mustangs, it seemed as if every time I saw one I was on another cloud and nothing in the world mattered. This has over the course of my last 20 years on this planet became by biggest passion, hobby, and fueling for what I consider to be the reason I graduated high school in the first place. One day my dad attached a piece of cheese to a fishing pole dangling in front of my face when he came home with a 1970 Ford Mustang with the intentions of giving it to me upon graduation. Soon after that I started focusing on my schoolwork and studying much harder, I mean. C’mon this is a classic mustang I will lose if I don’t graduate! My grades went up and I graduated Boca Ciega high in 2004 and I must admit this was the biggest fork in the road I had ever encountered.
After the feat of graduating high school flawlessly I had then decided I needed a little break from school so I could make a little money and experiance some fun after high school for a little while, little did I know this would be a long period. So I got a job busting tires and doing small mechanical work ranging from small brake jobs to strut replacements and water pump replacements, and while it was fun to work on cars all day for a while it became old REAL quick. Now I had learned that low paying high labor jobs definitely wasn’t the direction I wanted my future to be going. It was right about then that I was offered a job at a local patent office as an online searcher for a law firm. It is my current job and as much as I love it, I still consider myself under paid and not making NEAR enough to make me happy. However, this is where I became interested in computers and more importantly networking and Internet Security. Our office has a pretty big network system and when I wouldn’t be working at my desk, I would be in the server room talking to the computer guys.
So now all of a sudden two years fly by faster then I could imagine, Im turning 20 and I still wasn’t sure as to what I wanted to do with my life and time was tucking away. Then it started to dawn on me that a computer was involving every different aspect of my life, my space, my car clubs online, I worked on a computer all day and would have no problem at all coming home and sitting at the one in my room until I had to pry myself to go to sleep, and then I would do it all over again. Work, sleep, partying cars and computers seemed to take up every aspect of my free time and for some reason, I just couldn’t squeeze school in or even the time to THINK about what I wanted to do. It was about this time in June (2006) That I realized I really wasn’t going anywhere in life and that I needed to get my priorities in order.
I like to think of my last two years as the “party and figure out my career” phase, and I can honestly say it was an eye opener, and just when I thought things were about to turn for the good, the worst happened! My father and I and a HUGE fight one night, involving an intense amount of yelling, punches about to be thrown and me yelling “ILL BE OUT BY TOMORROW” as I stormed to my car to leave to stay at a friends house. It was definitely in my best interests to get away at that point and time and a good friend of mine suggested getting an apartment. Wow, was I in for a ride! Electrical, water, trash, food, cable, phone etc everything was on me! Me, the kid who spent the last 20 years at home underneath my parents umbrella spending every dime I made on the mustang dad had gotten me trying to make it as fast as my wallet would let me. Making ends meet were harder then I thought and even though cutting some things that were fun to me such as car stuff, drinking with friends and parties and so forth. I still made the bills and it was somewhat gratifying to be able to be making it, barely. One night after coming home late I was shocked because my buddy was still awake and he was normally asleep at this time, but his face did not lead to good thoughts, he promptly told me as I cam in that night that he was having money problems, and I was struggling enough as it was just to cover his share but he had to leave, and I couldn’t afford the apartment any more, wow, money is really important!
This is exactly when I made the commitment to go to college, and I knew I couldn’t happily be on my own and go to school and work full time so I made that oh so wonderful call back home to a family that quickly welcomed me back home no questions asked. After sitting down to the first home cooked meal I had in months which was a quick reminder just how much frozen pizza, roman noodles and taco bell sucks compared to your moms home made lasagna there was a family meeting consisting of my now heavily calmed down father asking me in the most puzzled way why I was back in his home. The look on my dads face when I told him me coming back was solely so I could go back to school was a cross between crying and shock due to the fact that he thought I would never go. I explained to him that being out on my own and struggling, and watching him bust his ass 6 days a week to provide for his family was a wake up call for me.
So I would say myself taking the steps necessary to finally start college wasn’t just one event, one idea or any person hounding me to go. It was a culmination of watching my dad having to work very hard for his money due to not having any college education, myself working a hard labor job working on cars for little pay as well as being out on my own on a semi low paying job just barely having enough money to pay the bills and get food to eat. It seems that to achieve what I picture as future happiness, a great career doing what I love so I can provide for a future family and to fuel my hobbies college is the only way to succeed.
You guys get to read a paper for school
Growing up and going through school I was never the one who already had his future planned out and my career decisions already made, I was actually quite the opposite as I would try to put those kind of thoughts away and even after graduating high school I still didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and it wasn’t until I was out on my own that college became such an important part of my future.
Throughout my childhood a very common phrase in my house was “go to school, get good grades and go to college”, all coming from a blue collar father with no college education who drove a truck from day to day for his job. This gave me a false sense of thinking that led to me believing schooling was not needed in life, which was around middle school where my “I hate school” phase started.
All of a sudden I wouldn’t do my homework and cutting class became a common occurrence since it was so convieniet. However even with my most expertise slacking during freshman year I was able to still barely move on. Then sophomore year came along and it was a huge turnaround for me. Growing up I was fascinated by cars and mechanics, and generally just how anything worked, especially ford mustangs, it seemed as if every time I saw one I was on another cloud and nothing in the world mattered. This has over the course of my last 20 years on this planet became by biggest passion, hobby, and fueling for what I consider to be the reason I graduated high school in the first place. One day my dad attached a piece of cheese to a fishing pole dangling in front of my face when he came home with a 1970 Ford Mustang with the intentions of giving it to me upon graduation. Soon after that I started focusing on my schoolwork and studying much harder, I mean. C’mon this is a classic mustang I will lose if I don’t graduate! My grades went up and I graduated Boca Ciega high in 2004 and I must admit this was the biggest fork in the road I had ever encountered.
After the feat of graduating high school flawlessly I had then decided I needed a little break from school so I could make a little money and experiance some fun after high school for a little while, little did I know this would be a long period. So I got a job busting tires and doing small mechanical work ranging from small brake jobs to strut replacements and water pump replacements, and while it was fun to work on cars all day for a while it became old REAL quick. Now I had learned that low paying high labor jobs definitely wasn’t the direction I wanted my future to be going. It was right about then that I was offered a job at a local patent office as an online searcher for a law firm. It is my current job and as much as I love it, I still consider myself under paid and not making NEAR enough to make me happy. However, this is where I became interested in computers and more importantly networking and Internet Security. Our office has a pretty big network system and when I wouldn’t be working at my desk, I would be in the server room talking to the computer guys.
So now all of a sudden two years fly by faster then I could imagine, Im turning 20 and I still wasn’t sure as to what I wanted to do with my life and time was tucking away. Then it started to dawn on me that a computer was involving every different aspect of my life, my space, my car clubs online, I worked on a computer all day and would have no problem at all coming home and sitting at the one in my room until I had to pry myself to go to sleep, and then I would do it all over again. Work, sleep, partying cars and computers seemed to take up every aspect of my free time and for some reason, I just couldn’t squeeze school in or even the time to THINK about what I wanted to do. It was about this time in June (2006) That I realized I really wasn’t going anywhere in life and that I needed to get my priorities in order.
I like to think of my last two years as the “party and figure out my career” phase, and I can honestly say it was an eye opener, and just when I thought things were about to turn for the good, the worst happened! My father and I and a HUGE fight one night, involving an intense amount of yelling, punches about to be thrown and me yelling “ILL BE OUT BY TOMORROW” as I stormed to my car to leave to stay at a friends house. It was definitely in my best interests to get away at that point and time and a good friend of mine suggested getting an apartment. Wow, was I in for a ride! Electrical, water, trash, food, cable, phone etc everything was on me! Me, the kid who spent the last 20 years at home underneath my parents umbrella spending every dime I made on the mustang dad had gotten me trying to make it as fast as my wallet would let me. Making ends meet were harder then I thought and even though cutting some things that were fun to me such as car stuff, drinking with friends and parties and so forth. I still made the bills and it was somewhat gratifying to be able to be making it, barely. One night after coming home late I was shocked because my buddy was still awake and he was normally asleep at this time, but his face did not lead to good thoughts, he promptly told me as I cam in that night that he was having money problems, and I was struggling enough as it was just to cover his share but he had to leave, and I couldn’t afford the apartment any more, wow, money is really important!
This is exactly when I made the commitment to go to college, and I knew I couldn’t happily be on my own and go to school and work full time so I made that oh so wonderful call back home to a family that quickly welcomed me back home no questions asked. After sitting down to the first home cooked meal I had in months which was a quick reminder just how much frozen pizza, roman noodles and taco bell sucks compared to your moms home made lasagna there was a family meeting consisting of my now heavily calmed down father asking me in the most puzzled way why I was back in his home. The look on my dads face when I told him me coming back was solely so I could go back to school was a cross between crying and shock due to the fact that he thought I would never go. I explained to him that being out on my own and struggling, and watching him bust his ass 6 days a week to provide for his family was a wake up call for me.
So I would say myself taking the steps necessary to finally start college wasn’t just one event, one idea or any person hounding me to go. It was a culmination of watching my dad having to work very hard for his money due to not having any college education, myself working a hard labor job working on cars for little pay as well as being out on my own on a semi low paying job just barely having enough money to pay the bills and get food to eat. It seems that to achieve what I picture as future happiness, a great career doing what I love so I can provide for a future family and to fuel my hobbies college is the only way to succeed.