For some reason I have this urge to go somewhere rural. Some small town. Fort Davis, maybe? I went there for vacation once. It takes about four hours to get there through some very empty land. The landscape starts in desert and gets progressively greener. I remember a couple of hours into driving, it was like nature finally came out. The true version of nature, not the version you find in a city park. Butterflies everywhere. Wild flowers. The air smelled cleaner. We checked into a cabin with no TV. One night was literally spent trying to toss cards into a hat. But it was fun. I want to go back. Doesn't look like that's happening anytime soon. I'm 99.9 percent sure I'm going to spend today sitting in front of a computer instead of running through a field chasing butterflies.

The only computer more unreliable than a PC running Windows: a Mac. Constantly having to restart the thing and having the thing mysteriously not accept my password get really annoying after awhile. It's like a computer with mood swings.

Speaking of moods. I don't know how to describe my mood lately. Kind of bored, actually, despite having a job. My job is starting to feel like playing a video game. And I feel like I have nearly mastered the fine art of what I do. It's not too challenging.

I'm also sick of just being at home all day. Mostly I spend my time at home reading and/or watching TV. Sometimes I give myself little chores to do, like go to the grocery store, or go get my car inspected, or go to the library. I'll spend two hours working on my research. Then back to laziness, TV and a book or a magazine. My social skills are declining, as usually happens during the summer when I start spending more time alone.

The "honeymoon" period with my work is over for me. Not that I don't enjoy working there, or that I don't still think that my job is fun and it is an amazing thing that I work at such a cool place. But it is in fact a job just like any other job. Sometimes I don't want to come in to work. I'd rather spend some time with my family or watch prime time TV. And there are co-workers to get along with. Not that I don't get along with them. I guess it is just how I am, that I am already really shy, and I am especially shy in this environment. I don't have this undying passion for the subject matter that most of these people obviously have. And most of these people are older than me. Oh yeah, and I'm not a guy. So all of these make me feel especially intimidated and I knew this going into it, but still. I feel like the odd girl out there. I guess I expected people to make more of an effort to reach out to me. And the hours are late, the pay is cheap, and I don't know how well this job will translate into experience I can use to get a better job. It makes me wonder, where do I belong? Don't belong in grad school. Still wondering if I belong at this job. Maybe I'll never find a place that I fit in. Truth is, it bothers me to feel out of place but not as much as some people. I don't mind sitting alone in a crowded cafeteria or standing alone in a hallway as people pass by. I don't mind being independent, going my own way. I like to think of myself as an observer in these situations more than anything. I can't stand people who don't do anything that would feel uncomfortable for them, never put themselves in an uncomfortable situation, never hang out with people who think differently from them.

Pretty boring day. I paid some bills and went to get my car inspection sticker. While I was there this adorable little girl with blond curls was there with her dad. I was reading a book and she handed me a crumpled up magazine reply by mail card. It was a gift and I couldn't help smiling. I really need to be around kids more, do some baby-sitting or something.

I'm graduating in less than five months and I'm freaking out already. I'm going to have to join the big bad scary world and leave the semi-comfortable world that is grad school. Sometimes I think I made a huge mistake in signing up for this. If it was a mistake, it was one of the most expensive mistakes of my life. Two years and nearly $10,000.

It hasn't been all bad. I've gotten to know some cool people. I've had some interesting jobs and a lot of free time. And I now know more about computers than I ever expected to. But I did it for the wrong reasons and have ended up discouraged, always doubting myself and fighting a constant inner battle over whether I should continue. It has been uphill climb when it really shouldn't have been. I'm not saying grad school is a bad thing in general. I can see how it could have turned out differently had I gone into it with a more mature attitude, had I had the perspective of working for a few years and actually wanted to learn something new about computer science instead of using it as a crutch to avoid joining the real world.

The feelings of dread were there from the beginning. I remember sitting with a professor the month before I graduated in 2003. She had offered me a position as a research assistant. She asked me why I was going to grad school and I almost cried when she asked me that. No one else had, not even my parents. I made some BS remark about how much I loved learning new things and how "out of all the possible options for me right now, this is the best one." Not much conviction there, even in my sham explanation for going to grad school. As I saw it, I had two alternatives, neither of which I was very excited about: school or some mind-numbing corporate job, school being the lesser of the two evils. Then she said, well, I thought you wanted to be a writer, because I had written that in an essay in her class that summer about where I saw myself in ten years. And I hedged and didn't know what to say. I wrote it because I didn't know what else to write, and I never expected anyone to bring it up again. It was like, "this is my dream life but I'm well aware of the difference between that fantasy life and the life I actually lead and I have no right to expect the fantasy to come true." Thus I had no intention of carrying out what I wrote in that essay, but the crazy thing was that she actually expected that I was going to go off and make that happen. She took my dream seriously and I didn't. I said something like, well, either that or a career in research would be interesting to me. Which was actually sort of true at the time, not that I even had any idea of what kind of research interested me. The prof asked me, well do you want to take some time to think it over? Meaning whether I wanted to be an RA. And I said no. I said give me that paperwork so I can have a job in January. Not a thought, not a hesitation, when at that moment I could have and probably should have called the whole thing off and figured out some other course of action to take. My heart wasn't in it and I knew it, but I didn't care.

A year and a half passed by. First semester wasn't so bad. I had one hard class and a research project that flopped badly, but it was OK. Second semester, I had a hard time. I was taking three really difficult classes that should not be taken together but my advisor convinced me I could handle it. I had lost my job as an RA so I stopped participating in my research group. That winter I spent a lot of my time alone wondering why I was so stupid that I couldn't figure out these classes. And I never asked for help. Out of shame, I suppose, and because I let my shyness get out of control.

If grad school was such a burden for me, why didn't I just quit? In December of last year I nearly did. I interviewed with a company and was offered a job. But I ended up turning it down despite all my doubts about school because I still thought that a corporate job would be worse than school. Which just shows my opinion of the corporate world. Besides, I had already finished half my credits and my hard classes were all over. Thankfully, the third semester of school was better. The classes were easier electives and I got started on my thesis project. I was working again, this time as a TA. I still doubted myself and admittedly wasn't the world's greatest TA but at least I knew I would be able to graduate at that point.

Anyway, so having fought and dragged myself through school, I'm nearly at the same point I was at two years ago. This time it looks like I will have to get a job. But as I'm looking for a job and a "career" I hope I am smart enough to avoid making the same mistakes I made before. If nothing else, these two years have been one huge lesson for me, a lesson a million times more important than anything I learned in my classes. To listen to the "inner voice." Not to sign up for something expecting that it will make me miserable because that's exactly what will happen. Above all, to know myself and to choose things for the right reasons, because I actually want to do them, not out of fear or convenience or obligation. It seems so obvious now. Maybe this seems like stupid self-help fluff but I don't care because I have done the alternative, I have forced myself to do something because "this is reality" and "life can't always be fun" but why the hell can't it be? I let my world narrow down so that I saw exactly two options for my life. But there are always options, and in the future I know I can't let myself get sucked into that hole of self-doubt and feeling trapped into a life I don't want. Not to say that I am always going to make the best choices in life, but at least now I want to make my life happy and meaningful instead of just accepting that it will be empty and meaningless.

The Pacifier is the worst movie ever made. Never see this movie.

I'm feeling weird and tired. If I allowed myself to I could probably sleep all day and be awake all night. But the world doesn't work on those hours, or at least most of the world doesn't, the exterminator rings the doorbell at 10 AM and I get up exhausted. Then try to go to school and get some work done. Almost crash on the freeway. Ugh, not good.

Anyone see 30 Days by Morgan Spurlock? Coolest show ever.

It seems that most people are jerks. Well that's how I feel lately. Or maybe not jerks but we're all floating around on our own little orbits and can't understand each other. Conflict is the bane of my existence. Sometimes I don't want to be anything, I just want to exist and have that be it. I don't want to create anything or force change in a corrupt system or save the earth before we all die, I want to zone out in front of the computer and pretend I'm the only person alive.

My little cousin. Isn't he cute? And my legs in the background.

Me with my grandparents.

Disgusting but hilarious.

Sorry to write this way. Randomly. One day I will actually stick to one topic per post. I finished this book called Name All the Animals by Alison Smith. This book was a lot like some of the books I read as a kid, weepy coming-of-age stories like Bridge to Terabithia or A Solitary Blue. Except this book was also about lesbians, which would not have been appropriate in a kids' book. Anyway I suggest to any female to read this book.

I checked out two more books today: A History of God by Karen Armstrong and The Last Samurai by Helen deWitt. The former to satisfy my interest in religions, the latter because it was mentioned on bluishorange and I thought I'd give it a chance. I'm not a big fan of "literature", though, so we'll see how much of that book I get through. I really hate pretentious books that have no heart and a lot of literature is like that, or at least it was for me especially when I used to force myself to read books that I didn't want to read for the sake of "being literate". That said, I'm giving this book one chance, if I don't like it within ten pages it is gone.

My sister is getting her driver's license. This could be scary. At least I won't have to drive her everywhere anymore.

I'm watching I Love the '90s for the second time. This was my childhood. Am I the only person in America who actually liked Crystal Pepsi? When I was nine years old I begged my mom to buy it for me because I thought it was so cool. Then I was all sad when it got discontinued. How could people not enjoy Crystal Pepsi as much as I did? It's still a mystery to me.

Mom baked some potatoes on the grill today that were unbelievably delicious. Perfectly cooked, soft on the inside and crispy on the outside, as all baked potatoes should be. All her recipes this summer come from a book called Cooking with Foil. Kind of an unorthodox cooking method, but I can't argue when it produced those potatoes.

Tiredness has set in. I'm working nights now. My eye has a weird little twitch that I can't get rid of. I'm walking around in a haze today. I got up at 11 a.m having slept nearly nine hours and I am still tired. Chronic fatigue, that's not a good thing.

I'm constantly worrying about the future. Making plans, breaking them, searching for something better. I guess I just have to believe that everything's going to work out for me. My thesis project will get done. I'm going to finish my master's degree. I'm going to get out of school and find a job I don't hate where I can live above the poverty line and have health insurance. That's all I really want out of life at the moment.

My job is going OK. My next day to work is Sunday. I think I'm kind of crazy for taking this job. I guess it just shows how conflicted I am about the future, career-wise. It's not that I don't like computers or technology or that I don't think IT is a good career choice. That's not the reason for trying this out, it's just some irrational thing in me, a whim, a fantasy even. My childhood fantasy was to be a journalist and I still want to be a writer for some insane reason, despite five years of education in a technical field. Enter this job. It doesn't pay much, I don't even get to write, but it's kind of cool and exciting and more importantly there's potential in it. I was so excited to get it and have this tiny glimmer of hope of fulfilling my childhood dream, but I have to get myself out of this fantasy and bring myself back to earth. I don't even know if it's going to work out. I don't know if I'll even be doing it beyond this summer, whether I'll quit or get fired. I don't know if I have it in me to be a journalist. Too much stress, too many deadlines, too many calls where I'll worry about bothering people and getting hung up on. Maybe I'm just fooling myself, maybe I should just stay where I belong, at a job hammering out Java code and software requirements.

At this point I don't have to make a choice but one day I will. One day two roads will diverge in a wood or whatever, and I'll have to pick whichever one looks better at the time. Maybe picking a career shouldn't be such a big deal. Maybe it's all about money in the bank and nice houses and new cars. Maybe it's about which job has better hours and better pay and benefits. Maybe it doesn't even matter what I do or how much it pays as long as I'm happy. Priorities. One day I'll be forced to decide and I will have to live with whatever I have chosen.