------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.) 80's Child – These are the earliest songs that I remember. They really didn't have an impact on my life until I heard them recently and had an incredible nostalgic moment. The songs lit fuses for the revitalization of some lost childhood memories. The only exception is "Billie Jean," because almost every radio station plays it at least 9,999 times a day.

Michael Jackson – "Billie Jean"
Loverboy – "Turn Me Loose"
ZZ Top – "Sharp Dressed Man"
Duran Duran – "Hungry Like the Wolf"
Cheap Trick – "The Flame"

2.) Artistic Entertainment Explosion – The early to mid-90s were some of my fondest and best known childhood memories. Trips to the beach, swimming, summer walks, flowering lifetime friendships – those were just some of the great memories. From the glory days of MTV, to Legends of the Hidden Temple on Old Skool Nickelodeon, this era had it all. This was the golden age of my youth.

John Waite – "Missing You"
Rod Stewart – "Forever Young"
Guns N' Roses – "Welcome to the Jungle"
Polaris – "Hey Sandy"
Ace of Base – "I Saw the Sign"

3.) Grunge Child – As I aged from the mid to late 90s, so did all the great stuff from my childhood. Some of it died off completely. It was a time of great change and the shining of a new generation of music. Grunge and alternative rock shook the airwaves, and everybody in the supermarkets was dancing to the "Macarena." Even the work at school was changing, as it was becoming harder and harder. I had to persevere accordingly just to keep up.

Joan Osborn – "One of Us"
Nirvana – "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
Green Day – "When I Come Around"
Los Del Rio – "Macarena"
The Verve – "Bittersweet Symphony"

4.) Smells Like Teen Spirit – As the end of the 90s came to a close, so did another era of my life. I dreaded starting high school, and my worst fears manifested when I started being bullied constantly about my dress and my ears. Columbine happened, and I felt increasingly targeted because everyone knew how pissed off the bullying made me. Everyone judged the motive of the tragedy too quickly. They blamed it all on the music, when in fact the music is what kept the oppressed people like me sane and alive. It was a dark age of betrayal and death, and pure teenage angst and aggression. When people were finding reassurance in smoking doobies and getting into fights, I found reassurance in the transcendent and uplifting sound of heavy metal. James Hetfield became Mahatmas Ghandi to my ears, and there wasn't a day that went by where I didn't have Metallica's Black Album cranked full blast as I cruised the roads of Snyder County. It was my way of giving a big middle finger to our corrupt society.

Godsmack – "Bad Religion"
Collective Soul – "Why Pt. 2"
Linkin Park – "Crawling"
Metallica – "The Unforgiven II"
Ozzy Osbourne – "Crazy Train"

5. Dazed and Confused – High school graduation had come and gone, and just as I thought I had all the answers to my future, the questions started changing. My freshman year got off to a bad start, but fortunately things only got better. I fell in and out of love again, and I learned some hard life lessons. The one breakup nearly cost me everything, and at times I thought it was going to be my life. There were few people there to support me, and my summer jobs we're filled with asshole co-workers. Yet despite it all, I remained persistent and pressed on, winning new friends and their support. I transformed a negative attitude I carried over from high school into a much positive one. Through it all I also transformed myself, and became a born again Christian.

Vitamin C – "Graduation (Friends Forever)"
Rage Against the Machine – "Bulls on Parade"
HIM – "Right Here in My Arms"
Kayne West – "Gold Digger"
Three Days Grace – "Never Too Late"

6.) Decade of Aggression – Don't let the title of this fool you. This was actually a very nostalgic time of my life, and one where I rediscovered the lost fire of my youth. But as I looked back on my life, I realized that nearly ten years were spent being oppressed by rude, insincere, washed up assholes and drama queens. Most of them likely on drugs, but I wasn't one to judge. Looking back on this oppression lit the ferocious flame of my youth back up again, and I was going to see to it that it that I made my return to shine full force. With all the bullshit I'd been through, I became pretty alienated and anti-social. It was fucked up. I changed it. I became a kid at heart again and won a lot of new friends. And just as it seemed as I was finally starting to enjoy it, love sweeps me off my feet again. I remained vigilant and cautious, keeping in mind the girls who stabbed me in the back of the heart in the past. But Kyndra stood out from the girls in my past, or any girl for that matter. She knew how to enjoy life. On May 10, I graduated from Shithole, err…Shippensburg University. And I only looked back for my friends. Because they're cool like that.

Amon Amarth – "Thousand Years of Oppression"
Hypocrisy – "Fire in the Sky"
The Fray – "Look After You"
Scatman John – "Scatman"
Foo Fighters – "Times Like These"

The torch has been passed to a younger generation of people such as myself, and now I must see to it that it stays lit. I'm not sure if I believe in the whole "real world" bullshit. In fact, I get a little pissed off when anyone mentions the phrase because there is so much negative prejudgment ascribed to the phrase. Granted, I haven't found a job yet, but I've been working hard on it. I will work as hard as I possibly can to see to it that I don't get a job that I'm less than passionate about. People (mostly the older generations) bring up the tough possibility that there may not be anything out there yet that I am passionate about and say I might have to settle for something less. I understand this, but why do I get the overwhelming feeling that they're trying to rape me with a career choice? I'll be damned if I'm going to be sitting home alone at night, 45 years old, regretting the job I chose for the rest of my life. Fuck that. That's how suicides happen. I love my life too much, thank you very much. And if love me, you'd agree.

But so far so good. The job searching isn't going as smoothly as I hoped, but let me just say that there are possibilities around for a job I may be passionate about. Right now, I'm looking into something related in the human services/counseling field. My goal is to successfully cure others of drug and alcohol addiction (usually caused by shitty parents who tell their children that they can't have their dreams) and to show them that they have as much positive potential as they want to possess.

But if I don't get a job in the field right away, or if I do get the job and it wasn't what I'd hoped for, I will agree to settle for something less until I find my passion for the pure reason of income. I will agree that money does not buy happiness, but one more or less needs it these days to survive. If anyone can show me an alternative, then I will gladly consider it. But I will not stay at a job I'm less than passionate about for long. Probably less than six months, and that's at the most.

This is the only time I'm going to say it, so I want to make it absolutely clear: "I will not settle for a career that I am not truly passionate about." Great words spoken by a great man. It turns out that I am not alone in this world afterall. There are thousands, possibly millions of others who feel the exact same way. I didn't believe it until I stumbled across this website: www.oneweekjob.com. Basically, it's a project started by a guy named Sean Aiken that's devoted to finding the dream job. Like me, he graduated college not really knowing what he wanted to do with his life. Like me, he got a degree in a general field (business for him, English for me) to keep the possibilities open. He devoted 52 weeks of his life (that's one year) to working a different job each week in hopes of finding the job that stands out the most. The coolest part about it? All of each wages from his jobs go to charity, the ONE campaign whose mission goal is to get rid of poverty. How'd he survive? All on the kindness of strangers who offered him rides, shelter, and food. Aiken is a modern-day Thoreau, and I salute him. I advise all of you not to take his project lightly and show the same kindness to others as those strangers showed to him.

As I stated earlier, I feel that others are forcing a career on me. I will not let that happen. So long as there is breath in my lungs and blood in my veins, I will not be a whore to the system. That's what Big Brother wants. That's what I feel the older generation wants. Why? I haven't a clue, but I don't like to think of it because it's as senseless as a half-cent. They tell me that I must have realistic goals, when in fact, they are the ones that are being anything but realistic.

Thus, I have entitled this last and current era that is enfolding, "Generation Y." Why? Mostly to mock how the title makes no fucking sense, how someone who doesn't like their career of 30 years can easily come up with something that makes no real sense. That's what I think anyhow. I'm no longer out there to answer the questions, I'm out there to change the wording of them. Here is the first song of the era that I think excellently summarizes everything I've said for the last six paragraphs:

John Lennon – "Working Class Hero" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njG7p6CSbCU)

Thank you Mr. Lennon. God bless you.

P.S.: I recommend you to check out all the songs I've posted. I don't guarantee they'll give you a completely accurate picture of what the road of life for me has been like thus far, but they might.

I want to start off this entry first by saying thank you to the cast and directors of "My Favorite." I thought we did an amazing job, and Matt agrees. Know well that it may have very well been my last stage production. Know well that I must leave you all after this semester. But also, know well that you haven't seen the last of me. I'll be back. In fact, I have some ideas for a play of my own. But that is neither here nor now. We'll see what becomes of it.

I'm really looking forward to graduation now. I'll be honest - at first I was quite intimidated. I mean, my ship of creativity will no longer be docked, and it'll just be me and the wide-open sea of society. It's an amazing feeling, but at the same time very scary.

When Columbus first set sail to find passage to India, everyone told him or at least implied that he would fall off the ends of the earth to his doom. Likewise, I have had the same thing coming my way from many people. But look at what Columbus discovered. John Lennon said "Life happens when you're busy making other plans." And if that is truly true, then why be worried when the distress isn't justified? I've got nothing to worry about. It's just me and great open sea, and that's the closest to freedom I'll ever get while I'm alive on this planet.

For now, I can relax. I don't have to start bracing myself for the hurricane until Saturday or Sunday. And there can only be sunshine after the storm... Tonight calls for a celebration. Here's to all those who have been great friends of mine. Here's to four years of hardships and sacrifice!!!

May my joy resound through heaven...or Valhalla!!!