I'm going going, back back...

...to New York, NY... yup, it's time for my seasonal pilgrimage back East. I'll be stopping off in Brooklyn to hook up with my buddy BT and my li'l bro before hitting off beantown for the 5 year BU reunion. Yes friends, that's right, it's been 5 glorious years of alumnihood for this xanga-er. 4 years of which were spent figuring out how to get a career started and where to live, but at least that's somewhat settled now. In honor of 5 years having passed since the "best days of my life" finished, I will now present a major life lesson learned in each year after graduation. Today's entry will be from year one, or as I like to call it, "Please Don't Tell Me This Is The Rest Of My Life."

- Regardless of what you studied or what you think you learned in college, you better get one thing straight right now: No one trusts a 21 year old graduate. Oh, you might think that you're hot stuff, what with your fancy B.A. and fortune 500 internships, but believe me, starting out 99% of us will be eating humble pie for breakfast (followed by a lunch full of Spite and a dinner of Top Ramen). Invariably, that's how post graduate life starts out; sure, there's the couple of over-achievers who go on to law school or med school, and some of us even have a chance to become mid-level managers or consultants, but the fact of the matter is most grads are going to be going on interviews for jobs that would be outsourced to India if not for the need to have receptionists make coffee in the same building as the higher-ups, or else it would be cold when it ships over.

I remember most of the days after college got out; I'd wake up bright and early (usually before noon) and scour my inbox for news from monster.com, hotjobs.com, careerbuilder.net, and yahoo fantasy baseball. Ironically, only yahoo showed up most mornings. This is tip #1 on job hunting after graduation: don't rely on those goofy websites. Most companies only use them as a recruiting legality; usually, businesses have a policy that they must post a position publicly before hiring the CFO's nephew's girlfriend to make their coffee. By law, they can have someone already interviewed and picked out, but can't hire them till they post a help wanted ad in monster or the new york times so that the "public" gets a fair shake. Having worked in an ad agency's human resource department, I know the pain that recruiters go through to not find a qualified candidate online. Most people would rather hire someone on a randomly vague recommendation than based on a strangers resume. And it makes sense; would you rather go on a blind date with someone your friend says is great catch, or walk down the street and wait to see which greasy guy looks the most trustworthy? So stay off the internet job sites and actually contact people who work in the field you want to work in. Look up alumni offices in your area, or just talk to friends about people who can help you get started. Most of them would be flattered to help you, or at least give you some insight to what the heck you're getting into.

Now, assuming you get the job in the field of your choosing, make sure you know that anyone, and I mean anyone, fresh out of college would be thrilled to have your job for about 2 weeks. That's how long most honeymoons last, and that's how long you will be thrilled with your job. You will learn the ins-and-outs of the fax machine, how to un-jam the copier, and probably be the only one who can transfer calls on those darn lucent technology phones. You will realize that after 8 hours of training, your 4.5 years of college got you a headset and a pencil cup. All romantic notions of the first job after school start melting away as your middle aged, flabby office mates ask you for menial tasks that they pay their kids to do at home (usually at a better hourly rate, to boot). After that, it's pretty much like that old Dodge Caravan you rode in as a kid to baseball games and soccer practice. Comfortably familiar, but you can't wait to get something much nicer.

At some point, you will fall totally out of love with your job, and most likely will come to despise it. Low level jobs are like that, and you will come to grips with it. You'll turn your back on what was once your only benefactor in the world, the company that gave your life new meaning and some crazy sense of hope. You'll have a little bit of money stashed in an unmatched 401K, 3 days of vacation time not yet acrued but already spent, and about 10 shirts you wear to the office and the occasional wedding. You will in fact, hate your life and wonder if this is what the rest of it is about....

But you know what? It's ok. really, it is. You have that one God-awful job in the beginning, and then like magic, *poof* you realize you want something so bad that it hurts not to have it, and you can't quite put your finger on it, but you have to find out what you want. You start taking classes and going to career fairs and meeting people in other fields. you might have a mentor or an older co-worker to talk to about it. You start to think about the future, and what it can hold if you just find a career that might pique your interest. And just like that, you suddenly have a fire lit under you and you get out of your crappy job and year one is over. You're a little older, a little wiser, and about 7 lbs heavier, but it's done. You've paid taxes and rent and had a new group of friends and maybe found a significant other, but in a flash it's done. And that's where year 2 starts up....

Good Friday epilogue...

Happy Good Friday

I'm not sure if this should be considered a happy holiday, but I don't really know what salutation you use for Good Friday. It's kinda strange, but this is probably the most meaningful holiday I celebrate all year; as a Christian, alot of people would say that Christmas is the biggest holiday of the year, since without Christ's birth, there could be no Christianity. It's also the most stylish of the holy days, with all the world pretty much on the gifts/good will/ reindeer bandwagon. And I have to admit, it's definitely the most fun. But 90% of Christians will tell you it's not the BIG one. Easter is usually regarded as the most important day for the religious, since Christ's birth is pretty much just a precursor to the resason he came here; which was to die for our sins, becoming the scarifice that we could not give for ourselves. If you believe in the Bible (which I do), then you believe it says that Christ was basically God on earth as a man. He was perfect, committed no wrongs, and was willingly killed for us in order to pay for our admission to heaven, which required a perfect sacrifice to make up for our wrongs and mistakes. As a Christian, I believe that without that sacrifice, nothing I do can make up for the wrongs I have committed; if heaven is really a perfect place, then imperfect me (and everyone else who is imprefect) can't be there, since that would negate the perfection of it. It wouldn't matter what I do to 'make-up' for my wrong doings; the fact that I can't be perfect means that if I go to heaven on my own terms, then heaven suddenly becomes less ideal, because everyone could do the same. That's logic talking about an illogical place that can't be seen or scientifically proven, so back to the topic....

So yes, Good Friday is the most meaningful holiday of the year, because much like Christmas, you can't have Christianity without Christ dying, but much like Easter, his death represents exactly what his mission was. It wasn't to hang out in a manger or get gifts from wisemen or fat bearded guys in red suits; it wasn't to find eggs and eat jelly beans or get an extra day off in april; it was to die for us, cheaters, liers, and goofballs that we may be, so that we could have a  perfect sacrifice that would allow us into someplace we didn't belong. It's like the all-time greatest gift voucher in history. Good Friday is like a hybrid of fun holidays and the meat of Christianity, and that's the first time I've ever tried writing about it. Hope it made sense...

The Road to Oscar Gold Starts here...

And in other thrilling news, I've decided to enter a short film contest at Riot! Yes sports fans, it's time for mikegn to dust off that word processor and get the creative juices flowing once again... The company wants to make a short CGI film, something along the lines of a Pixar short, that will be our calling card and hopefully something totally creative and awe-inspiring. The long term goal is to make our CG department a feature film department, so this will be the beginning... I've already got 2 insanely awesome story ideas going, a storyboard artist working away furiously for guacomole and beer, and 2 writing partners in bucuomatt and jnalupta. I can't guarantee anything, but I can say that it's going to be at LEAST as good as the Faketrix. The impossible dream right now, if I'm honest, is to get nominated for an academy award for best short film; heck, I don't even care if we win, just so long as we get nominated.  I want to rent a tux, sit next to the geeky nominees for best costume design, and show up on the split screen when they announce the first-time nominees. I know it probably won't happen. I'm keeping the 3rd weekend in February open just in case...

Moving on...

How do you know when it's time to move on? That's the question I struggle with more than anything right now. After a lot of upheaval in my life recently, I think it's time to take an inventory and figure out what exactly is in Mike's Plan For The Year. And no matter what I imagine my life to be like in 2006, I know that I need to move on from certain things in my life....

Moving on is tricky for several reasons. It's scary and mysterious, mostly because it means leaving behind the situation that you thought you wanted and entering into something that seems like a back-up plan. I always have a back-up plan; ever since I moved to LA, I've always kept plan B in reserve, whether it was for work, roommates, or dinner. You should always be prepared to fall back on something. And normally, you can go to your alternate plan without too much fuss; if something doesn't work you go to the next one. But what happens when you're living "The Dream?"

The Dream is a crazy, life altering experience that so few people get to realize, it's actually quite sad. It could be landing that fantasy job, the one everyone dreams about as a little kid and thinks that it's probably never going to happen. It could be finally dating that one girl that made you feel so special, like you were the luckiest guy on the planet just to be around her. It could be overcoming physical obstacles, like a speech impediment or injury. Whatever it is, The Dream throws even the slightest plans out of wack, because in order to attain The Dream you will have to put up with more crap and more struggle than anything you have ever encountered. And that's when you have to ask yourself, is it worth it?

I guess the best way to walk away from a situation, even one that you have sweated and bled for, is to see if it's A) hurting you, and B) not returning enough happiness on the investment. When I look at my issues, I see that (A) is clearly answered; if I'm not sleeping at night and constantly stressed, it's easy to see if it's bad. But (B) is harder to guess; sometimes I'm happy, and sometimes I'm not. How do I know if this is worth the effort? Who can tell me if there's something better I should be doing or someone else I should be seeing? Why am I writing this really long entry on Friday night?

These are questions I can't answer yet; please feel free to leave your thoughts on it. I came to California to chase my dream. Now that I've caught it, I'm starting to ask myself if this is the situation I should be in. And now the Dream is complicating things. It's one thing to be forced into a bad place; it's something else entirely to work your life to get to a point that you might not want to reach. Even though your situation may stink reeeeeeeeally bad, at least you know that you wanted that situation and were giving your all to make it happen. And that's where I stand right now. Backing up plans as far as the eye can see...