Hooplah.Org

As I go into the 6th year of owning this website and likely the 3rd year of passively wondering why I continue to pay for it, there is the occasional moment where the expense is forgiven and I actually feel the need to write. Despite it’s rarity it’s an unfortunate occurrence for everyone involved, not only for myself and the struggle it puts me through but also for those whose obscure Google searches somehow lead The People of the Internet into thinking that this site could contain any information that they actually wanted to find. Whenever I look at my very small referral list I wish I could apologize to all 5 of them, to the point where the idea putting a disclaimer across the top of this site has has crossed my mind numerous times, as there’s nothing of note worth finding here – just the whining and complaining of an overall uneventful person, even by blogging standards – but there comes a time when I have to risk their disappointment and refresh my standing on the Google search results by updating this page out of need and not obligation. And that distinction deserves emphasis, as over the past 3 years I can count how many times I’ve updated this site out of “need” on a hand that’s missing a thumb and maybe a finger or two.

I have always been an extremely cautious and reluctant person, despite what some of my decisions may suggest. There is nothing that I say or do that isn’t a result of hours of thought and planning, and I am extremely uncomfortable and stubborn to do anything that doesn’t follow that routine. This is not only my personality but more importantly it is my safety net; while most people struggle to overcome their shortcomings I have chosen to protect mine and avoid their agitation at all costs. Therefore, if stress and surprises make me panic and result in physical illness, I simply avoid the stress and surprises rather than work toward overcoming panic and experiment with medication for illness. This approach makes complete sense to me, and while it is still my preference to live this way, I’m finding more and more that the world doesn’t have much tolerance for anything that could be qualified as weak. That is something I’ve always known to be common sense, that the world is unforgiving and yadda yadda yadda, but when it comes to the point of making the realization that you are the weak one they’ve been talking about and you’re visualizing the inevitable uphill climb before you it can be a little bit daunting and pretty fucking depressing.

This coming August will mark 2 year anniversary that I have lived in Phoenix, and sometimes when I look back on it I am nothing short of amazed that I was able to accomplish it. As I just mentioned, I could never do anything of this magnitude without careful planning, so it should come as no surprise that my move to Phoenix was the result of 4 years of preparation. I spent the time between mid 2002 and the early part of 2004 in self-imposed isolation in order to figure out the interworking of my IBS so that I would no longer become deathly ill just because the wind blew in a different direction. I feel I successfully accomplished the goal of regaining control over my body and felt confident that my efforts would enable me to take the stress of starting a new life in Phoenix head on without a hitch. To date, my IBS has not been a notable problem while living in Phoenix so consider that “mission accomplished.” I also spent an additional year getting a Certification in Computer Information Systems which, despite its technical title, would simply grant me the credibility that I can make a spreadsheet and word document that doesn’t completely suck. I know this seems a little underwhelming for a career platform, but it was another careful choice; I have a high tolerance for repetitive tasks and take a deliciously nerdy pleasure in data storage, reporting, and manipulation. Given those natural abilities, perusing a career in Data Entry and mild Database Maintenance seemed like a match made in heaven. It took a few months of searching, but I have held 2 different jobs in this field while in Phoenix and so far I’ve been extremely happy with my choice

In addition to all of the above, during my 4 years of planning, there was always a very specific piece to the puzzle that was key to making it all work: I had someone I intended to spend the rest of my life with. Out of all the places in the world, I was moving to Phoenix because this was where Matt was born and raised and where he wanted to continue to live. I had fallen in love with Phoenix, too, so while he was the one that planted the idea I was most certainly a willing participant. My life philosophy, almost entirely derived from watching my parent’s misery, is that happiness would always be my paramount goal which is why I felt comfortable picking Data Entry as my career, despite the fact that it is not necessarily the money powerhouse that I had once dreamed myself to become. Over time I became accustomed, and admittedly comfortable, with the idea that I would be a support income for the household, as by the time we moved out to Phoenix Matt would have his Mechanical Engineering degree and making $50k+ a year. I was also leaning toward the idea of one day becoming a stay-at-home mother, like my mother had been for me, so at times it seemed like a wasted effort to bust my balls for a career that I would one day walk away from, likely by the time I was 30.

Sometimes I wonder if I should consider myself lucky if all the plans that I made for my life in Phoenix was the first time that everything blew up in my face. Overall, though, whenever I think about the magnitude of the risks that I took all I feel is foolish for not taking the time to consider what I would do if it didn’t work. For all my talk about planning and precautions, how could I have not once considered that Matt may realize that he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with me once I moved out here?

In September 2007, I found myself in a position that was best put as being “stranded in the middle of the ocean in a rowboat.” I was 2 thousand miles away from anyone that I could look to for support, as both Matt and especially his family were now unavailable alternatives. I was making roughly $1200 month, which doesn’t quite cut it when rent is a minimum of $600, utilities $100, gas $200, school loans $200, credit card payment $50 or more, car insurance $100, cell phone $50…. if you add it all up it doesn’t leave any money for food, let alone “luxuries” like TV or internet. For a few months my name remained on the lease for the apartment that Matt and I shared, so I was fortunately only having to pay my $400 portion of the rent – but most of my expenses were still ending up on my credit card in order to make ends meet. I watching my debt grow during a time when my emotional state put me at risk of becomming a prisoner of depression and illness all over again, carrying with it the potential to debilitate me to the point that I could lose the small source of income that I did have. Then the little rowboat that I was clinging to would be gone as well.

The past year has been an eye-opening experience for me, and overall, I still haven’t come to the conclusion if I like it or not. I do know, however, that I’m not comfortable with the fact that in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter if I like it or not. This is what it is and I can’t figure out how to approach it, let alone take the reigns and move forward. Sometimes I think I can almost feel myself standing still as the world rushes by and leaves me behind.

While before I had a very clear vision and determination of where I was heading in life, now I am left with foggy fantasies and ideas that change from week or week. This type of uncertainty would usually drive me absolutely batshit, but I haven’t come out of this experience completely unphased – my calm acceptance of “living for today” is proof that this experience has changed me, and again, I have not determined yet if it was for the better. I am turning 26 this year and despite my newfound numbness I do still feel a progressive amount of pressure to come to some sort of decision of what my career will be, since apparently, my beloved Data Entry isn’t good enough to cut it. It’s hard to put the gears in motion when I’m perfectly content where I’m at despite the fact that the rest of the world deems it not good enough to survive.

To further add to my confusion I know how difficult it is to change from one established career to another. At my current source of employment, there is the opportunity and promise of advancement, but at what cost? This is a payment service company, dealing with credit cards and bills and residuals, but that has never the career I wanted to peruse. I’ve worked in finance-related companies and departments because they were the ones offering entry level positions for Data Entry, so my reason for being here was to have access to the technology, not to actually do what I’m using the technology for. In the 3 months that I’ve been working here I have tried to keep an eye out for what positions would be available to me as the “next step up”, and from my current vantage point, my best option will likely be the Call Center and as much as I fought to get above that type of job I can’t help but see it as a form of defeat to progress there now. There’s always the slim chance I could venture into the underwriting area, where I would help analyze merchant applications to determine if we want to do business with them but after having researched it a little bit I’ve realized that that may be taking a big step into the hole of a finance-oriented career. It would be a specific job requiring specific training, and I wonder more and more how wise it would be of me to peruse it when it might do me more harm than good for it to be my last credible source of employment on a resume sent in response for a technical position.

For nearly a year now I’ve flirted with the notion of getting into SQL somehow. I’ve said I love databases, and if Data Entry doesn’t cut it, why can’t I be a Database Administrator? When I was unemployed during February and March, my boyfriend helped me set up a side computer with Microsoft SQL Server so that I could start testing it out. And I really did try to make it work – I loaded up the program, I spent a few hours reading over the information sites, tried to follow the steps in a few tutorials but for some reason it wasn’t clicking with me. If I’m supposed to be doing this because I want to do it, why wasn’t I feeling as though I wanted to do it? I’ve thought a lot about it and done even more research in my free time at work, and I keep coming to the same conclusion that it wasn’t what I thought it would be. It requires a much more technical understanding of computers and networking than I currently possess, and while that is an interest of mine it’s not exactly to the extent that would be required in order to get a MCDBA like I had hoped for. In short, I was interested in this career because I thought I already had a respectable foundation of knowledge to build upon only to discover that I likely know more about the Amazon Rainforest than I do about Microsoft SQL server and relating software.

I know this may sound like I’m giving up on a MCDBA because it’s “too hard,” but that’s not exactly the case. It’s not the challenge that bothers me as much as the fact that I was hoping to find a career where I wasn’t starting over from the very beginning. I feel confident that I do have some worthwhile skills already, things that I’ve spent the time to learn over the years, and I’m looking for something that builds off of them rather than letting them go to waste. Especially when I’m starting to feel as though I’m running out of time, the less I need to spend backtracking and learning basics the better.

And by a mere fluke I think I may have found something that seems so obvious that I feel a little silly that I didn’t make the connection before.

After years of debating whether or not to do so, I’m finally learning PHP (and, hey, maybe while doing so I’ll finally figure out how to make the archives on this site work). Once I tackle that, I am going to work on learning how to make PHP and MySQL communicate. So, in short, I’m going to go back to the same dream I had when I was 16 but with a slightly different twist; instead of making the appearance of a web site look pretty I’m going to see if I can make the code that powers them beautiful. I’m going to forgo any professional schooling on the subject and focus on teaching myself, much like I did for HTML and graphic design, and use respected and official certifications to prove my knowledge. I can only hope that this level of self determination and motivation would be respected by a future employer cause that’s all I got to give. Classes and degrees take more time than I feel I have.

I’m afraid to give myself a timeline on this, because I always rebel against any form of pressure-inducing structure. so lets make it modest. Lets see where I am 6 months from now. Ideally I’ll have the PHP thing mastered and be working on MySQL. It shouldn’t be too hard right? My ability to have fancy things like cable TV may depend on it.