Float On: Thoughts Before An Impending Journey

I'm ready for a new year! A lot of highlights this year but it wasn't "my year". A large part of this adventure is putting meaning into a life I have often questioned. Little questions; like what am I going to do today and I wonder if that guy thinks I'm cute, too. And larger questions; like how what am I doing to somehow affect the world for the better and I wonder if this relationship is really fostering growth or just some hormonal reaction doomed to fail. 2013 has been an interesting year. There have been lows. Without question, there have been a lot of lows. The lowest of lows. There has been pain and I have been both the unwilling cause and the unfortunate victim.  But there has been hope.  On this last day of 2013 (is it merely a coincidence that thirteen is an unlucky number?) I make my first official blog post on walkabout. 

I think of myself as a people person. I enjoy being around people and making others laugh. I like spreading life. I delight in lighting up a room. I... I... I.... But there are some truly ugly people in this world. And I do not mean ugly in the superficial sense that they have the potential to make someone's eyes bleed. (though I guess those people probably exist too...). What I'm saying is that there are people who have the potential to make you wish you had never been born and even question the existence of a higher power. When you grow up in a hostile environment; it can be easy to wonder how much those experiences have shaped you. It can be easy to wonder how much you have shaped those experiences; if you were a mere variable or if you were an exponential factor that hyper-accelerated some cosmic force of chaos and you didn't even know it was a thing. But now I'm getting a little too philosophical, maybe even a little too speculative. Whether those ugly people exist is without question. I've met them and I've even lived with a few. Whether I am one? I refuse to believe it for now. I don't want to be an ugly person. I refuse to be a cog in an ever-turning hypocrisy machine. It's time to take myself out of that box. 

I prefer to think I'm not running from my problems to much as allowing myself not to dwell on them and let them ruin all the enjoyment that's out there in the great wide open. Well, maybe "great wide open" isn't the choice expression for the big, bad city but it's a helluva lot more open than a small town. Seeing the same faces over and over, reliving the same day in and day out. It's time for opportunities and growth. It's time for decisions and a little 'different' again every once in a while. And it's time for me to finally take a long overdue walkabout in 2014. 

A lot of the idea behind this jaunt with NSE is just sort of exploring my options, and you know, getting out of Iowa again. After considering switching majors to Art Therapy, I've decided it would make a lot more sense to pursue it as a grad school option. Of course, that sort of program doesn't exist at Iowa State so I'm making my way to New Jersey to see how it all feels. While I'm there, I'll also be taking courses in graphic design and digital media to hopefully graduate on track. I also recently accepted a position at Mashable as a graphic design intern... on PARK AVENUE! A lot of excitement all around, and I can't wait to be there.