Ponderings

Hello there Internet.

A while back I posted about my aborted attempt to go to the French Culinary Institute (FCI). I'll recap here for those of you who prefer the executive summary...I'd finally decided to become a chef, or at least try. The plan was to borrow the 20K for tuition and finish the part time evening program in 9 months. However, while driving to the FCI to finalize my paperwork I received an untimely call by my boss asking me to come back from wherever I was and fix a Westcon e-Commerce problem combined with a building panic attack on my part caused me to veer off of the FDR and onto the Triborough Bridge. A few hours later after criss-crossing NYC I returned home, much to Clarisa's surprise.

She really wanted me to get back in the car and get back down there and do it, but I wouldn't budge. She really wanted me to do it but the huge worry about the loan and the crappy starting salary and the odd hours all were screaming at me -- THIS WOULD BE A MISTAKE!! How awesome though, that I get that kind of support.

But now I'm thinking about it again. And I'm thinking about it again because I'm unhappy here at Healthology (did not take long at all!!) and when I'm unhappy, I start thinking about cooking school. From a self analytical point of view, a career change in that direction has become my elysian fields. Just do that, and happiness will ensue for the rest of my days. The objective part of me knows this my habit of loving the idea of something more than loving the thing itself. I do love to cook though. And I am good at it and it makes me happy to do it. Its funny how it just snowballs into a desire to turn my life upside down and don the whites and checks. All I need to do is get a pan in my hand and I'm like Sulu with a Rapier all of a sudden. It just changes me when I do it - - I get in a zone and get that same feeling of satisfaction you get from hitting a great golf shot. Maybe my head is making cloudy what my heart makes very clear...

The culinary world aside, the reality is the situation here is not fantastic and I'll need to make some changes soon. Its a workable problem, so I'm trying not to worry about it, and even if it wasn't workable, there is no reason to worry about something that you can do nothing about either, right?

Some possible low cost career transitions I'm thinking about -

Go back to Coldfusion programming and build some apps.
Start doing some creative writing and try to get published.
Going to School of the Visual Arts (SVA) or NYU and take some courses, maybe in film, maybe in advertising and try to move to a company oriented one of those ways and use my previous skillset to leverage my new one.

I know, I know... my main problem is a lack of focus. I am more scattered than the tribes of Israel when it comes to making a decision. Hell, one day I'll be sure I want to be a chef and the next day Madison Avenue might look good. Maybe even in the same HOUR, never mind the same day. Its infuriating to me. My friend, Dennis, of http://www.d2stuff.com/ fame and I joke about it a lot. We take turns making up whacked job listings like "Seeking Coldfusion programmer with liberal arts background, strong grounding in American Philosophy, aesthetics, botany. Must be experienced with Photoshop, Final Cut Pro. Ability to make a killer hollandaise nice to have."

This new job frustration change thing is kind of ironic. I've been reading Anne, Straight From the Hip for a while now and if you know her at all, she was struggling away for a long time with depression and a crappy job at a Barnes & Noble. Finally she got out of there and got a position working for HBO's "The Wire". No sooner was she there then she brought up how there were things that she did not really like it there, or did like it, but felt bad about a bunch of things... I went from a "Good for you! Way to kick ass!" attitude to thinking, admittedly, "No fucking way!! Unhappy already? You gotta be shitting me...suck it up! You were just at Barnes & Noble for chrissakes..."

Now here I am - two months into this gig and climbing the walls wanting a change. Now being that I've served time at soul sucking jobs like Enterprise Rent A Car and CVS/Pharmacies and moved on to better things -- I should be kissing the very ground I walk on in thanks. Everyday should be happiness and light compared to that. And in a way, it is - but as crazy as those jobs made me, not being challenged is also a big turnoff. It just goes to show everything is relative and that once you get something its never as satisfying as having wanted it. Maye Dostoevsky is right and that man loves to build roads and is constantly in a cycle of creation and destruction. I just happen to have a really rapid turnover!.