The Professor's Year in Review
This idea is straight up stolen, and there isn't anything I can say to explain why I am doing this other than... I love the idea!!!
January: Working in South Jersey and living in North Jersey. I get new wheel bearings put on my car that I bought just a month ago. I drive 92 miles to work each day so that I can snowboard for an hour in the evening. Thankfully I stayed a few nights and had some fun. "You read" was born on this month too and I had a wonderful conversation with some very nice friends, Preeti and Helen. We spoke about religion and all that jazz. I think this is the month that Helen and I drove back from the Residence Inn to the Hilton, and I was pulled over for speeding. Thank God they didn't notice the drunk part! However, they did notice the strangely suspended license. More on that later. Did I mention I stabbed my foot with a huge knife the month before?
February: I get that court date for the silly ticket. Apparently my license is suspended because I didn't turn in my NY plates when I moved into NJ. Boo. I find out at the end of this glorious month, on a Sunday, that I am to travel to Los Angeles and do some work at Warner Brothers. The entire project is independent consultants and IBM guys. Awkward! Tons of fun though and a gorgeous state. Too bad it was so last minute otherwise I would've planned to bring friends out. I start the NY apartment search.
March: Back in New York for a project and coincidentally, it is 15 minutes away from where I find my stupendous apartment! Working at CA was so much fun and I became addicted to Ping Pong and taking random breaks. I get my bonus and raise (or lack thereof) and begin to start a shitstorm. This project I got my first real Data Lead role and man was it cool. I felt so powerful and helpful because I was learning at a blazing rate and everyone needed my help! I had a great mentor though, Shankar. What a guy.
April: I move into my apartment and man do I love it. Kelly helps me unpack stuff and get things situated. It feels good to be so close to her. Traveling all of the time is difficult, especially when you travel all week and all weekend. CA gets intense and I get shipped off to another project. Ironically, it is 15 minutes from where I used to live in New Jersey!
May: This project does not last long and I'm quickly scooted off elsewhere. I honestly can't even remember where exactly. All I can remember is that I performed the first ever uPerform server installation and man, what a bitch! I had the support of my department and company during this difficult task and man did I need it! I am walking in K-Mart and I bump into an old college friend, suitemate and fraternity brother (all in one). We reconnect and become good friends again.
June: Somehow, I end up in Canada working with a rude independent consultant from Kentucky. There was no real need for me to be up there, but I was still there for a week. I learned some software and returned back to the States to begin the shittiest project ever. I meet some of my fraternity brother's friends from Long Island and start to make some new friends of my own. I have guys to hang out with, people to drink beer with, friends to talk to and a wonderful girlfriend right down the street. Life is good.
July: The current project is driving me up a wall and I am doing everything I can to stay sane. JPMorgan gives me a call and wants to explore the possibility of bringing me in as a Project Manager. Nothing ever happens with that but I was still a bit flattered. Just for shits and giggles I put my resume out there to see who bites. I get a ton of bites, none really relevant. All of my Core buddies are over in CT working together and I can't wait to join them. Wait, not all, a couple. But I still wanted to go. And then I did.
August: Even as bad as KCP was, Swiss Army was bad. I worked the longest shift of my professional career (7:30 am to 1:00 am) but that was not to be outdone by the drama that ensued. Good fun in the end. Met Steve Arata from the company, the guy is amazing. His family is all Army devoted and they are just the most genuine and nice people I have met. Preeti and I take a journey for some liquor, and CT has the most terrible liquor laws ever. But we luck out. Sadly, I am sent back to KCP.
September: This was a big month. I had some important interviews as work was starting to overwhelm me. My girlfriend moves in and we get the most gorgeous puppy ever. The traveling starts to wear on me as I can see my health diminish. Asthma makes a nice rebound and comes back to hit me full force - good times. I make my final good bye's to RWD and it wasn't easy. I miss the atmosphere and the work a lot, but I don't miss the travel. Thankfully I am still in touch with the best people ever and we chill when we get a chance.
October: Birthday month is always fun, I met up with some of the Core in NYC and had a blast on Halloween. We bar hopped and restaurant searched all night. The new job isn't what I thought it would be as I find myself doing MIS type stuff. But I can't complain because I am learning some cool new stuff and I get to spend time with my lady and my puppy. My friends and I start our basketball league.
November: My basketball team sucks. We lose 4 games in a row and don't come close to winning. Thanksgiving was good fun as I ate a lot of food and spent time with good people. I am still in touch with my RWD Folks and I continue to miss them terribly. We make plans to hang out and I tend to suck at following through, but I try. Kelly and I try real hard to train Trot and we don't do a terrible job - but he still poops on my rug.
December: I get a chance to hang out with a lot of the Core as we celebrate my buddy's engagement (Preeti!). Christmas comes and goes and I am back at work. I have a ton of fun making some Secret Santa presents with the help of Kelly (you didn't think I did that all by myself did you?). Kelly and I have our first Christmas living together and we get to share it with our puppy Trot. He is so much fun and super adorable. He grows a lot and has such a wonderful personality. I start to talk to my brother more frequently and we can actually hold a normal conversation now. I just got a call from Kelly, Symbol wants to hire me. Hmmmmm... time to ponder.
Sympathy. Or is it Empathy.
Sympathy: harmony of or agreement in feeling, as between persons or on the part of one person with respect to another.
Empathy: the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.
It has just occurred to me that I may be frequently partaking in one of the above two. Which one? I have no clue. However, upon realizing my sympathetic/empathetic nature - I began to ponder the decisions I have made in the past and tried to determine if any were influenced by this emotion.
Before we go too much further, it is important to identify the etymology of these words; since true understanding comes from the past, we must fully understand the past to truly understand the meaning of these words.
- The root of both words is the Greek pathos which refers to suffering, feeling and emotion
- Syn is the prefix and refers to togetherness
- While pathos may refer to both words in root, the real root of empathy is in Germanic translation with Einfühlung as the root word
- Fühlung meaning feeling or passion when translated to Greek empatheia.
- Ein refers to "in"
In conclusion - sympathy refers to sharing an emotion with someone, generally a sad emotion. Empathy refers to the understanding of a feeling and why the person may feel that way.
So now we get back to the story. Have any of my major decisions been impacted by a sympathetic or empathetic tone? Looking back, I can say that when I chose to leave RWD, my biggest hesitation was leaving the people I had come so close to. I knew deep down that I had to do what was best for me, but on the other hand, I felt terrible for the pain that I thought I would cause (confusing eh?). Some may say it is arrogant of me to believe I would hurt those people simply by changing jobs. However, if one of your friends from work left, how would you feel? If you would be sad and you would miss having that secondary level to the relationship, would you not feel sad? In this case, empathy would be the right word because I was not yet sharing in the emotion, rather, I was experience this emotion vicariously through thoughts of how I would potentially feel in their shoes.
Yet, I am not completely satisfied with this answer. Surely it must be sympathy since I was sharing in a feeling, yet... it has to be empathy because I was experiencing this emotion vicariously. However, I was experiencing this emotion vicariously through my own thoughts and possibly old emotions. If I was thinking back to when other friends left the job, and recalling those emotions, then wasn't I just sympathizing with myself?
The whole idea is confusing and I'm not sure if it even requires this much thought. Most people would just say, "Uh, who cares. You made up your mind and you can't do anything about it. Why dwell on past emotions?"
The only response I can give those people, "I think too much."
It only becomes a dilemma when you become one
So it's coming close to that time in my life when I am not too far away from getting married. I have been thinking about the engagement a lot, the wedding, honeymoon and even the house and kids. I think about a lot of stuff like this as my vision blurs the computer screen and database tables into a soft fur. The blues and greens and whites blended so well together and almost began looking like an impressionists painting, maybe even Van Goh?
As I sit and ponder the direction I am about to take in my life, I can't help but wonder what is going on in my counter part's head; what is she thinking about? We both have spoken openly about things like planning the wedding and honeymoon spots and even how to raise our kids. Being two very strong individuals, we each have our own ideas on how we want to go about each step of the process.
However, what I cannot stop thinking about is ... at what point do our two differing thoughts become one single dilemma? I mean, right now we are technically single, even though we share our lives together. When you step into a married life, you become one person, one body, and one mind. So if I want our children to clean the dishes and my wife wants the children to clean off the table - does it become a dilemma at that point? Do my thoughts and mind merge with her thoughts and mind - creating two thoughts and one mind? If so, then every time we are not in perfect agreement, we are in a dilemma.
The only saving grace I have here is that most dilemma's don't offer some middle ground. It's either plan A or plan B - the pure essence of a dilemma is that there are only 2 options! Yet, when our minds become one - won't we still have the ability to meet somewhere in the middle? I believe we will - I at least hope so.
So what happens to the mind after marriage? Why do so many people speak of marriage as this horrible part of your life? Why do TV sitcoms project marriage as a farce and the relationship between two lovers as a battle between opposing sides? What ever happened to the good night kisses and surprise gifts? What is it about marriage that causes so many people to seemingly stop loving? I don't know. I sure as hell can't speculate. All I can do - is wait.
Never saw it coming...
This past week I suffered from a terrible case of the flu. Being asthmatic, when I get sick - I get deathly sick. I try to avoid getting sick as much as I can, but it's hard to do when your immune system is being a big bitch!
Anyways, I came home from work feeling terrible one day this week. I stumbled into my apartment and dropped everything on my way to the bedroom. As I turned the corner I made sure to let Trot out of the kitchen. I opened his gate and heard his collar and tags jingle from under the kitchen table. I dragged my feet towards my bedroom and smacked my touch-sensitive lamp a couple times to get some light on. I turned a slight right around the trunk at the base of my bed and eyeball-fucked my pillow as I unbuttoned my work shirt. Before I could get my second button undone, Trot came flying around the corner and leaped like a fucking gazelle. He landed in the middle of the bed, hair flying around and tongue hanging out. Just as he found his bearings, he rolled over onto his back and curled in his front paws exposing his chest for his daily rubbing.
Even with death looming overhead, even with my arms in so much pain I couldn't lift them for more than a moment, even with my head throbbing in pain so hard I swore I drank a gallon of whiskey the night before, even with the room spinning around me as my lungs worked overtime and drew oxygen from the rest of my body---
I managed to draw a smile. I looked at that little puppy and it all came crashing down in that moment. I never saw it coming on that day (September 9), but this little puppy was going to develop the most wonderful and amazing personality. He looked at me with his dark eyes covered with fur; so much fur that I'm surprised he doesn't run into the walls more often. His tongue hung out as he panted in excitement; slightly rolling back and forth as if to say..
"HURRY UP FUCKER! RUB MY BELLY!"
I leaned over to that beautiful puppy and kissed him on the head as I rubbed his little furry belly. He wiggled and wiggled until he couldn't take it anymore. He jumped up onto his feet and began staring at me and watching my every movement. I dropped on my back to the bed, throwing my arms out to the side. He jumped up on top of me and began licking my face, neck, mouth, ears and hands. As he always does, when he licks my face, he stops so suddenly and looks around for his bone. I get up and dry my face off, feeling almost a little better about my day. Trot leaps off the bed and rounds the corner in full speed. I know exactly where he is going. I get my work shirt off and toss it in my dry-cleaning pile just as he bolts around and hops onto the bed with his destroyed bone in mouth. He curls up next to me on the end of the bed and plays with that bone like he was born to play.
About 20 minutes later, Trot hears a beep from outside... Kelly locking her car. He dashes off the bed and runs full speed into the living room to greet her. His little bitty tail wags so fast and he sits in front of that door waiting for her to open the door. For Kelly, he sits down and waits for his head to be rubbed. He chases her around and jumps on her; doing none of the things he does with me; as if he has developed his own personal relationship with Kelly and his own way of greeting each of us.
I never saw it coming when we picked him up that day, but this little guy has really changed my life.
