the path

I found out today that this summer I’m going to again be the teaching assistant for the robots class. I’m happy because I’ll be able to be active in those projects, get paid for my time, and improve my skills as a teacher. Most importantly I’ll get a chance to change the things that I thought I (or the class in general) lacked. Maybe I’ll get motivated and even build a robot next semester.

Today I received a copy of an email today from one of my professors to the vice chair of the department asking for me to again be one of the teaching assistants for the robotics class over the summer. It makes me feel good that Dr. Arroyo has a positive opinion of me and my ability to help others because in the past two weeks I’ve felt more like I was getting in the way than helping. By ruining a design by deleting something important, not being as positive about ideas as I should be, or not being entirely productive when I need to be I feel as though I’ve let a few of the students down. I try hard to meet all of their expectations, but I’m going to try a little harder in hopes that I’ll meet mine. I don’t treat the job as a job, and that’s a start, because that means I haven’t lost sight of my goal of helping those who want to succeed.

So after almost five years of classical training I’m still no further to finding a job than I was at 18. Granted, I’ve learned the random something but am I any closer to a career? I’ve had six or seven job interviews — one each with Microsoft, Livewire Communications, Siemens, and a company I cannot remember, as well as three with IBM — but thus far only one sub-par offer from Atlanta based Livewire. I wonder if my advanced degree will bring anything new in regards to employment opportunities. Perhaps it’s the industry telling me to stay in school or that I’m not qualified. The latter doesn’t concern me, but I’m not sure I’d be willing to stay in education any longer.

Everything I’ve accomplished fits on one side of a piece of paper — to me that’s kind of scary. All it does is allow some company representative who doesn’t know the first thing about me make a judgement on whether or not I would be a valuable hire. A decision, I’m almost sure, that is more based on luck of the draw than on any real talent or accolade. So I think tomorrow I’m going to show up with a Hawaiian t-shirt, a pair of board shorts, sandles, and a six foot sombrero… and I’ll see how the cattle call goes.

Next Tuesday I’m going to be giving my first ever full 50 minute lecture to the IMDL class. I guess it isn’t so much a lecture, but a tutorial on how to create robot parts that will eventually be cut out of balsa wood. It’s not so much having to talk for a long time, it’s having to be interesting and effective. One thing that makes me moderately nervous is the fact I’m not an AutoCAD expert. Furthermore, AutoCAD isn’t something one can teach in one class period so it’s more of a crash course that is meant to give a basic understanding and foundation from which to work. There’s also the chance that I will make a fool out of myself, but I hope that won’t happen. Three pairs of individual pieces will combine to make a three dimensional box — if not, I’m in trouble.

It always seems as soon as I count something or someone out a door to that thing or person opens. Case in point: This semester I’ve been granted to opportunity to be a teaching assistant (TA) for the robots class I took last year. Not only was the appointment a complete surprise when I found out about it last month, but coupled with the fact that after I was hired I discovered my full tuition was being paid for me… well, that was a total shock.

Looking at any of the benefits, I’m most excited about getting the opportunity to give my design ideas to students. I look forward to working and helping because it is all new to me, and I think with my innate work ethic I will excel. I’m in for a hectic semester with my new circuit design job, the TA position, and my three classes. Through each new part of my life, my goals are to have fun, learn, and secure gainful future employment.

So as of Tuesday at five o’clock I’ve been finished with my first midterm as a graduate student. I don’t think it went well, but at least everyone thinks it didn’t go smoothly either. I made at least one careless error that I know about, and didn’t answer two questions worth a total of 15 points. Going into the last problem I estimate at most a 50/70 with a maximum of 20 points earned on question three. If I pull out a 70 I will surprised. Mostly I’m disappointed in myself because I know I can do better than this. I know I didn’t do my best to prepare for the test, and I can’t do that if I want to further my education. I need to give myself every opportunity.

My second test comes exactly two weeks from tonight. The class, Digital Signal Processing, is the one where I feel the weakest so I’m more or less dreading it. The only positive thing about taking it is to be done. Sadly, though, I don’t think there’s any chance I will excel on that one.

The good news is Erika unexpectedly arrived from North Carolina tonight. I haven’t seen her since she left at the beginning of the summer to do an Economics doctorate at Duke University. I’m really happy she stopped by… it’s great to see her.

One day midway through my senior year of high school some four and a half years ago I was sitting at lunch table with the usual three other people: Kari Bowen, Ryná Wolfe, and Ben McAfee. I was probably eating some sandwich variant, probably turkey, and was in one of my then usual pessimistic moods when I came to the conclusion that this was the last year that we would all be friends. After we moved away to college, I figured we would all lose contact a few months later since the only thing we all had going for each other was proximity. When I mentioned this to the group at the table, only Ryná (pronounced like Renee) acted like I was out of line and swore that she would still be our friend despite us living in different places.

Sometime during my first semester, but before the 2000 election, I spoke to her on the telephone and she was enjoying her time at the University of Central Florida. I invited her to come stay with me in Gainesville for a few days, but she declined and so it wasn’t until months later that I got word about how she was doing. As far as I know she didn’t like UCF and settled back home in Palm Beach County where she was attending the community college. I think at around that time she was also working for a telemarketer and was riding a bike to work everyday. Soon after started dating a Colombian boy with whom she was with for a while (she very well may still be with him for all I know). The last time I actually heard from her directly was the summer after my freshman year when she stopped by the movie theatre in Royal Palm Beach. At first I didn’t recognize her because of the corn rows in her hair coupled with a different accent than I was used to hearing, but after a few seconds I could tell it was her. I have no idea what happened to her after that except for the rumors I have heard about her getting pregnant or getting married, neither of which I know to be true or not. Even though I’m far removed from her there’s still a little part of me that gets sad thinking about the person who didn’t want to lose me was the first to be lost, and completely on her own accord. If you see her along the way, tell her I say hi.

Despite being relatively disconnected from everything, Ben managed to stay in touch with Kari and me for a little over a year. This was due, mainly in part I believe, to the fact that we were both managers of the movie theatre during the summer of 2001. If this hadn’t been the case, I’m sure he would’ve disappeared just as quickly as Ryná. Eventually he did stop communicating and if he didn’t come out of the woodwork every few months to write Kari an email I wouldn’t even know he was alive.

What is the point of trying to keep in touch at all if no one ever does it? Let’s just be honest and tell each other we’ll never see each other, shake hands, and be on our way. If at some point that should not be the case then it can be treated like a pleasant surprise instead of a letdown when you realize you never hear from anyone.

I’m fairly stressed. With one week down I thought I would be more relaxed about being here. Ironically I’m feeling pressure already and exams won’t begin for a few weeks. It’s not that my classes are too difficult; it’s that I don’t completely understand the wave of information that has been thrown at me. I want that trend to not continue because it doesn’t bode well for the future.

In high school I honestly thought I was one of the smartest people at my school. I wasn’t really challenged and that probably hurt me more than I could have realized then. All four years of undergrad college I had it in my head that I was somewhere just above the middle. When I tried I did well, and when I didn’t the outcome was never good. Now, I really believe that it was a miracle I was accepted. Currently I’m lacking self confidence, and that is extremely frustrating for me, a quasi perfectionist.

Never in my life have I felt this way, and I keep telling myself that I should work hard and everything will sort itself out. I am getting overwhelmed… and for no logical reason. I want to remain positive and once I start getting work done I’m sure I’ll begin to make strides towards my goal.

Let me preface this with how I will never post about my day with minuscule details as are given as an example in the following excerpt:

“So today I fed my cat and/or pet lizard, went to drop off my Star Trek watch at the jeweler, and then ate pizza with my friends. Overall it was a good day, I guess it could have been better, but it was just good. I’ll post again tomorrow with more boring as hell commentary that will inevitably be pointless.”

On the same note, if I ever give a laundry list exposing the dullness of my life or what I drank last night or last weekend then I will surely never add anything further for I will have broken my own promise. For these reasons, I have waited a long time to put something like this together. I should put my rules on paper - although unlikely, maybe I’ll do that tomorrow and I’ll be sure to record it here.

I haven’t traveled on an RTS bus to get to campus in over two years, so when I got on this morning near Kari’s apartment it was a shock. I wasn’t taken back with the fact I was on the bus, it was that everyone on there seemed so young. So young in fact that I thought I was actually doing something wrong by looking at some of the girls because they looked like they were seventeen. In some cases you just can’t help but look because they are wearing almost nothing. After all, it is Florida in August. Besides, it’s not that looking is a crime but I’m into people around my age or older. Some of these people were in middle school the first time I set foot onto a college campus. Soon enough I’ll be too old for any college girls. That will be a sad, sad day.

I shouldn’t classify this as my first real day of graduate school because I’m only enrolled in one course on Monday, so I decree tomorrow to be the official day. Today was more of a warm-up, but I do like the setup of two of my classes. In an effort to attract busy professionals, the College of Engineering has been doing a FEEDS program in which they stream the class over the internet to off campus students. This serves a dual purpose in that if I miss a class it will be available to me on the web so I don’t miss all that much. It’s not something to fall back on, but not a reliable replacement for actually attending the lectures. I’m paying enough, so I want to be there.

I’m looking forward to being immersed in school again. I’ve forgotten what it is like being excited about starting something new and how I still have the potential to stay ahead in all of my classes. Undoubtedly that feeling doesn’t last more than a week or two, but for now I will revel in it and pretend it will last all year.

One of the promises I made to myself before beginning this whole ‘journal’ business is that I wouldn’t be vague and skip around what was really on my mind. Following that goal, I’ve been about as detailed as I want to be since I don’t want to verbally discuss my anger. I am left to merely put it into words.

I find it ironic that one of the primary reasons I stayed at the University of Florida no longer applies to me right now. I have been looking forward to teaching ever since I sat in my very first lab in early January of 2002. I distinctly remember sitting in a 70s style orange swivel chair at a brown desk with a small yellow box in front of me. Inside were a series of chips (ICs) of which I had no clue as to their purpose, a digital multimeter that I couldn’t figure out how to use, and a breadboard that wouldn’t connect to the given power supply. With no prior training and not half a clue as to what to do, I sat next to Kari patiently waiting instruction from the someone I could barely begin to undestand. My first reaction was to get up and walk out, but I knew this was something I had to learn so I started to cut the wire while at the same time trying to see what the person across the table from me was doing. Looking back, I must have appeared to be a total idiot because I remember telling Kari to make sure not to touch the wires together out of fear of her electrocuting herself. Little did I know that there were only 5 volts between power and ground.. and there was no way electrocution was possible. I had basically no idea how to put a circuit together, and didn’t understand what the drawings on the board were supposed to represent (probably how to get an LED to light up). Anyways, as the lab continued to progress over the next few weeks I managed to get the assigned material completed but kept noticing how little the TA was actually able to assist me.

It wasn’t the language barrier, nor was it her unwillingness to help because she always tried as best she could. The fundamental flaw was that her way of teaching simply didn’t get through to me. The more courses I took, the more aware I became and the more I wanted to do something about the lack of the educational foundation that was laid for myself. Throughout all of this, the thought that stuck in my mind is how if I was in the position to be the helper, how much differently I would have done everything. Perhaps that sounds elitist or arrogant of me, but that is honestly the way I look at a lot of things (I’m sure a good number of people silently share that same characteristic, but I’m admitting it). To me, the ability to give students a solid foundation and understanding is crucial to their success further on. Even going back to high school, I knew I wasn’t being pushed as hard as I could have been, and I now had the chance to push myself from the very beginning but had no idea where to start. Thus, the beginning of my frustration. The more at the beginning usually translates to less at the end, and I wanted to give what I didn’t get to someone else. I doubt I’m alone in thinking this, but that was my sole motivation for wanting to teach. I really enjoy helping people. Not because it makes me feel good or whatever, but because I like to think that in a similar situation another person would do the same for me. Now, through no recent fault of my own, I failed to reach my goal. Seeing as how I am traditionally used to getting what I want, especially when I work hard to achieve it, it is difficult for me to come to terms with why I would be denied the opportunity to better not only myself but perhaps someone else as well.

Two days later, I’m no longer bitter but I am left feeling just as disconcerted. If I work hard enough for the next three and a half months, I should be able to secure some sort of teaching assistantship (eg, the robots class) so I can pass on what I’ve learned and hopefully inspire a student in a way that a few of my TAs inspired me.

Overall, the experiences of the past 36 hours made me rethink my life’s path. I don’t know if I made the right decision, and for whatever reason I cannot shake my initial sentiment that, in fact, I chose incorrectly. But at this point it doesn’t matter if it is right or wrong, because there was obviously something that kept me from going to New York City or taking one of the job offers to come my way. In a few months, I know my current attitude and frustration will seem to have been unfounded, but for now I am fed up.