Et ignotas animum dimittit in artes

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while!  I would have done more, and there’s been some stuff in regards to pararescue/SEALs I would have liked to talk about, but with the firefighter application pending and the fact that they’re super thorough and asked for every online thing we do ever to see what we do, I figure I shouldn’t talk about future plans when they could read about that.  Go figure, I didn’t get the job anyways.  Regardless, on to the real post:

I think Glee makes me happier than it should.  So much of the show is stupid, so many episodes have no plot, I hate that Kurt has essentially become a caricature of a gay person and seems to be defined in every way possible by his sexuality, etc.

But it’s amazing.  I think it’s because the main focal point of the show seems to be about being open-minded, enjoying yourself, and doing what makes you happy.  I also think it’s because I wish so, so bad that I had the lives of all the people on that show.  Not of their characters, but of the actors themselves.  For a number of reasons:

1. That group camaraderie that comes from working on something you’re passionate about with great people who are just as passionate about it.  Reminds me of Orientation Advising and how incredibly happy I felt during that period, or the enjoyment I had while doing the Madrigal Dinner.

2. A lot of people know that my dream job would to be doing something with acting, but there’s also a huge part of me that would love the idea of performing music.  Basically, I love performance as a whole.  And these actors get the perfect dream job that combines the performance of acting and music into one big, awesome whole.  And it kills me that I can’t do it.  Hell, they even got to do a big concert tour for their music.  UGHHHHH

3. They get to be friends with Lea Michele and Naya Rivera.  And make out with them for the show.  This slays me.

Anywho, I don’t know what prompted me to write this.  I just read some article about what all the actors are planning on doing for their summer off, and all of them sound like they get to do such cool stuff, which probably is a byproduct of the boatloads of money they also make off of having the greatest job on the planet.  It makes me insanely jealous.  And maybe it just makes part of me frustrated about the rut I’m currently in, even if I’m as comfortable with it as I can be knowing that I’ll be where I want to be soon enough.

Also this song is currently blowing me away by how good it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev7fC-aGV68

Oh lordy.  I don’t know what to do with myself.

For those who don’t want to read a giant post, it comes down to this: I’m very strongly considering backing out of the Navy and swapping to the Air Force.  This isn’t a very easy choice.

If you’ve made it this far, good for you!  Now I can elaborate.

A couple days back one of my best friends (pretty much grew up with him, he’s like a second brother to me) was in town from his Air Force base, and wanted to get lunch.  Coincidentally, another my best friends who just got out of Marine special forces was in town and wanted to get lunch.  So, I went with both of them.  And suddenly my idea of the military was shattered.

Right now my contract is AC, or Air Traffic Controller.  I didn’t know what to think of it, but one of my other ex-Air Force friends then told me it was a great contract.  I looked up its civilian counterpart, and lo and behold, the median salary for them is $110k.  Hot damn.  Except that when I got that lunch, my Marine friend told me he lived on a boat for 4 months and that most ACs are doing bitch work since they only need one guy up there actually guiding in aircraft.  This presents a number of problems:

1. This isn’t in any way how I envisioned the job, go figure.
2. If what he’s saying is true, I won’t even have any relevant experience to land that civilian job.
3. It apparently has the highest suicide rate in the military.  That’s a pretty good indicator that the job sucks.

So, I did my research and some asking around, and I see that Hospital Corpsman (HM) is great and highly versatile, and that it’s one of the best jobs in the Navy.  And, just my luck, I also learn that it’s overmanned and would be really difficult to get a slot, especially in the 4 months I have before my current ship date (it’s quite possibly not a large enough time span).  I could put in the form for it but then it’s just random chance whether or not I’ll get the job; my ASVAB scores, college degree, etc, won’t help me.

Now, of course, there’s still Diver.  Except my first PST didn’t go nearly as well as I’d planned, and now I just have this constant sense of urgency and worry that I won’t get the scores I need in time to land that contract.  Beyond this, if I got the Diver contract I’m almost sure to be living on a boat.  My marine friend said that his time on a boat sucked, and that he (and everyone else he worked with) essentially had to put their brains on autopilot or else they’d become depressed.  That’s not ideal.  Another issue is that, even if I wanted to do SEAL now, I couldn’t.  I can’t get my eye surgery in December anymore because I can’t do that in the Delayed Enlistment Program (DEP).

The two friends also made it very clear that I need to make absolutely sure that I’m going into the military with the job I really want, or else I’ll just look back at my experience in it and regret not doing that.  Even if the experience is enjoyable, there’ll still be that nagging feeling that I didn’t do what I really wanted.

So, this brings up my biggest issue with the situation.  If you were to just give me the choice of being a Corpsman, Diver, possibly even SEAL, and Pararescue, then I’d pick Pararescue.  For those who don’t know, Pararescue are part of the Air Force special forces, and they’re essentially the most highly qualified super medics ever.  They learn combat skills, and get all the jump and dive training that SEALs do, etc, in addition to a plethora of other skills.  AND they also get EMT and Paramedic certification.  Essentially, by the time they’re done with their training, they’re capable of rescuing just about anyone anywhere.  So, let’s summarize this job like I did with AC:

1. Pararescue is fucking awesome.
2. They get a LOT of really great training in a big variety of fields.
3. Their sole purpose is to save lives.  That’s probably the biggest draw of all, and would make it really rewarding work.

They’re the guys that initially got me interested in the military.  I didn’t think I’d be back, but hey, look how that turned out!  I’d have to wait to get my eye surgery in December, but right now I’m honestly feeling A-OK with that.  I just want more than anything to feel certain of what I’m doing.  And also because of that delay, I wouldn’t have that constant worry of not being fit enough to get the contract like I have with Diver.  In fact, I wouldn’t even be able to sign a contract until June of next year, which gives me PLENTY of time to get in seriously great shape, so that when I go in and enter Air Force DEP, I can feel 100% confident that I’ll get the Pararescue contract.  Air Force has the best quality of life, too, which is pretty nice.

So yeah, that’s pretty much my life right now.  I’m pretty sure I’m going to go through with it, too.  Sorry, Mr. Navy Recruiter :(

It’s worth noting that I’m not entirely sure I’ll be going the Pararescue route too, as I still have a lot of interest in being a Combat Controller, but we’ll see.  Either way, although I’m feeling kinda anxious about the whole situation, after writing this out and talking to a couple people I feel like I’m more relieved than anything.  Gonna go talk to the Air Force recruiter tomorrow and see what happens.

bnpics:

(Source: vmpics)

So I subscribe to the subreddit of WeAreTheMusicMakers and every time I see people post their studio setups it makes me really upset that I haven’t yet learned how to write music well.  For example, if I see pictures like these…

…I feel like I should be making music.  Writing my own stuff.  Learning how to use FruityLoops or Cubase or something.  Thing is, I do pretty decent when it comes to writing little 5-10 second bits of music.  It’s just that I don’t ever seem to know how to write beyond that.  Just a bunch of little 5-10 second segments of music I write that I like, and then I become clueless.

But these pictures inspire me nonetheless.  They especially do so whenever it’s a picture of just a chair (with or without a person in it, irrelevant) surrounded by audio equipment and instruments.  Such as this one with Ronald Jenkees (a ridiculously good electronic artist), these pictures just embody that sense of creation to me:

Either way, I need to unbox that MIDI keyboard I bought forever ago and just get to it.  I feel like I just need to write music that I’m not entirely satisfied with in order to build up this skill.  It’ll be just like any other skill; I have to write stuff that I feel sucks in order to get to the level of writing stuff that’s actually good.  Ira Glass, the guy who hosts This American Life, put it perfectly:

Boom.

Then of course there’s the issue of time.  I want to be skilled at writing music.

That’s cool and all, but here’s a list of other things I want to do:
1) Be in great shape

2) Be really good at StarCraft II

3) Still have time to play other great games

4) Watch good movies and TV shows, even intellectual ones that teach me things, like QI

5) Similar to #4, I want to listen to/watch so many different interesting podcasts, like Radiolab, the aforementioned This American Life, or TED.com talks

6) Maintain a social life

And, if anybody ever actually decides to hire me and I get a full-time job, there’s absolutely no way I’ll be able to do all of this.  Blargh.

So a group of good friends and I are taking a trip to Austin tomorrow to celebrate one of said good friend’s birthdays.  Thank God.  Home is boring, so I’m pretty much super pumped for this.

So as most of my friends that read this know by now, I want to join the Navy SEALs, and I have to get corrective vision surgery in order to qualify for them.  I’d have to wait about a year to actually go to training what with delays in signing contracts because of the surgery, etc, but oh well.  My surgery was supposed to be in two days.  I was excited to take that big leap over this obstacle and make a big step towards my future goal.

Well, I just got a call from the doc.  I have to wait 6 months.

Shit.

I’d finished up my accutane prescription (awesome!) on the first day I visited for an exam, and they said it shouldn’t be an issue, bla bla, except I just got a call telling me that, oh wait, it actually is one!  Apparently it for some reason makes a tiny hole in my corneas so I have to wait six months so there’s no complications with that.  What really made this hit home was when the doctor told me we should try a check-up in December.  God, that’s a long ways away.

That means a six month delay to signing a contract that will already be delayed six months from this surgery itself.  That means six more months for me to be at home, away from the incredible city of Austin and all my amazing friends there.

Happy thoughts.

I just needed to vent this.  I’m trying to find a silver lining here, and maybe something good will come from this, but as it stands I’m not seeing much.  Oh hey, an unintentional pun!  Maybe that’s something good.

“A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery while on a detour.”