I am finally waking up

Well hey, y'all. I'm sitting in Tampa International again, waiting on my flight to leave in about an hour or so. I got my Q-no's, my hat, my stubble. All systems go.

This week is going to be an adventure. I've got 2 job interviews, a trip to MLC, a Jay Gatsby party, and I've already had to turn down Wisconsin hockey tickets to boot. For not having the same spring break as most of my high school friends, I'm sure finding things to do.

The most important part of that for me is the interviewing. On Monday I'm going into Watertown to interview for a financial internship with Northwestern Mutual and on probably Tuesday or Wednesday I have a phone interview for a 40-hour office assistant job with Epic Systems in Verona. Both of these jobs have their pros and cons, but I should wait and see if I'm offered either one before I start trying to pick between the two. Either way, it's an exciting time. A lot of people are having trouble finding decent work so I feel quite blessed that I have two interviews for what seem to be really good positions, experience-wise. I hope it all works out. I need to make money for school this summer regardless, so the added bonus of gaining experience and getting a corporate foothold would be fantastic for either of these companies .

Now that I'm seriously facing the possibility of laying the foundation for my career, it's led me to examine my place in life a little bit. I think I view college as a transition period more than most. For a lot of people, college is the place to spread your wings and have fun...but I think that was more of high school for me. Nearly every decision I've made in college was one that lent itself partially to business sense. I guess it comes with the high expectations I've felt (much of which are my own) since the start of the National Merit process. It's felt like every decision I make will have some immense impact on the rest of my life, because I feel like I need to achieve great success to live up to my potential.

So the result is my slow, early transition into your standard business guy, something I don't have too much of a problem with, really...as long as I don't turn into a workaholic who puts everything else behind that. Sometimes I worry that might happen, but it's in my power to prevent that from happening. I'm just caught between being prepared for real life and growing up too fast. The key is finding a balance.

And that kind of leads into the other key point I wanted to mention with this post, about how my time in Florida is almost up. This marks the last time I'll be flying out of Tampa International to come home from USF. When I get back from spring break, I will only have 5 more weeks at USF before coming home for good. It's a lot to think about.

Tampa has been my home, for better or worse, for about 6 months now. While I'm pretty certain about my decision, it sometimes makes me wonder when I think about how fleeting my remaining time here is. The tie-in here is that a lot of my decision was based on my future. Since Wisconsin is such a better business school and since Wisconsin business graduates are so highly regarded, it made sense to me that I'd have so many more and better oppurtunities by transferring. And I stand by that decision...during my job search I was continually reminded of the preference many employers have about a school like Wisconsin over a school like USF.

However, it all comes back to that balance I mentioned earlier. I'm giving up ease of living (the scholarship), good weather, good friends, and what was a really great relationship so that I can...get a better job when I'm old? Obviously, there are many more factors in that decision, but I say this because every time I reconsider the transfer, the business factor is the one that always brings me back to picking Wisconsin.

So that's what's on my mind a lot, especially now as my plane gets ready to depart. My goal now is to make the best of whatever comes next...for that's the best I can do. See ya in Wisconsin, and next time get yourself ready for a milestone that I have taken an embarrassingly long time to accomplish.

Here have some

I see via many facebook statuses that today is the WSMA day (for at least some high schools) and also the day of Lakeside's regional basketball final against Edgewood at Watertown High School.

Boy, do I miss Lakeside sometimes.

No, I don't miss being in high school. I'm perfectly okay with moving on to college and all, but it makes me remember a year ago where the Calebs and I went from WSMAs in Poynette to Watertown to watch Lakeside play the regional final against Edgewood. I think that was included in my second half of senior year/summer recap earlier in blog world, and was hands down one of the best days of high school for me. I'm not even certain why...of course it was fun and all, but it seemed special for some reason. I guess it just felt like a precursor to summer, with almost a mini-road trip with all the driving we did and a memorable Wendy’s jaunt with a number of running jokes born.

But, life goes on. Edgewood/Lakeside/Poynette WSMA day won't ever happen again, but lots else will. Stay tuned.

The power went out here a while ago. Fortunately, the network's still up and my laptop has 3 hours of battery life. So I can still be unproductive. haha.

Spring Break's a-coming and I'm pretty excited for that. There's an outside chance for a Jay Gatsby party, and all sorts of other possibilities (no to mention not being busy with school...of course). One of those possibilities, speaking of Jay Gatsby, is doing a video remake of the Great Gatsby to help Paul for his American Lit project. That would be splendid, old sport.

Also, my time in Tampa is slowly coming to a close (probably) and I'll be able to reflect on that more in a week as I sit in the Tampa airport waiting for my plane to take off. Because what better time to blog than that?

Other than next week's exposition, there's not much to hit on since the last post. The Real Salt Lake game was fun, I got to meet a few players including the dreadlocked and pictured Kyle Beckerman, who was predictably a cool guy. Also, February's over and for the first time I have officially locked down one of this year's resolutions: #7 - Actually go to the beach. I went to Clearwater Beach with Evan, James, Brittany, and Nick and it was a good time. Cold for the beach, but oh well. It's warmer than Wisconsin. One resolution down, 7 more to go to achieve #16. The soccer one is looking good at the moment, because I'm on an intramural team now. It's hard work - soccer is tough in Florida humidity.

A week later, Brittany and I went to Clearwater Beach at night to get ice cream, for the heck of it I guess. Sometimes the view at night is better than the view during the day. I had a lot of fun doing that. It's nice to get out for the sake of being out, and it's nice to see the ocean.

See y'all in a week.