Oh god, not another post...

Oh hush, I know few people are reading this and I'm doing what I've wanted... finding cool stuff online and posting them.

I came across a link to a New York Times article written in 2004 regarding poor writing skills used in formal business emails. I definitely agree with a few of the statements in there that relate to people not using correct grammar or punctuation when sending messages to clients or even potential employers. I know my grammar isn't perfect, but I try to remove as many short cuts from my writing as possible. Call me old fashioned or whatnot, but I think a certain amount of professionalism should be maintained. It boggles my mind sometimes to see how many people seem to not even care how their writing is viewed by others.

I have heard stories from my friends about their parents and coworkers who would throw out applications for poor grammar. Now, the points they were making is valid: if you want to be taken seriously, then behave as such. The "mistakes", however, were specifically going by common usage which many people would not even know are incorrect. One example that stuck out in my mind was throwing out an application that told the reader "please contact me if you have any further questions" or something of that sort. Apparently this is improper usage of contact and looking up the definition this is true. You can be "in contact with" someone but you cannot "contact them". I'm not about to turn into a grammar nazi or anything like that but it strikes me how common phrases are technically incorrect and give someone with a different upbringing a much different opinion of the writer.

Can you say... reading list?

If there's one thing I've always loved... its sci-fi books. So great then, that I come across two great websites in the past two days. First is a list of the top sci-fi books as ranked by readers. The question now is where to find all these books. I could spend a lot of money and buy all of them, and once I'm actually getting a paycheck I most certainly will. Until then, however I can use the internet as a bit of a personal library for a few of the books. They are in crappy formats for reading but at least this way I can figure out which books I actually want to buy.

Ho hum...

Exciting times. Done with college. Time to move on. Get ready to work. Impress people. Advance. Make money. But is that really what I want? Why do I feel like I'm in a state of limbo in the month I'm sticking around Ithaca? I suppose that question answers itself. I've never been the most outwardly ambitious person in my family, or even among my friends. What I do have, however is the desire to prove myself to... well anyone really.

The problem with this is that I am prone to giving up at crucial moments or getting distracted by random things. I was completely ready to do tons of work for the AUV team this summer when I got back up here. Then I put off doing work for a day. Then two days. Now two weeks. I don't know why I'm even bothering being up here. I'm pretty much constantly lying about doing work. I don't like lying, especially when I'm the one doing it, but I've decided that I'm good at lying which angers me since the only way I could be good at lying is if I've been practicing it or I'm just a "bad" person.

It might be safe for me to assume that I'm a good person... and makes this a much simpler rant (I realize I'm not even talking about what I started talking about in the first place... or maybe they're related... bah I don't care). That means that I've had practice lying. Practice implies that I've probably lied to people I care about... maybe even lied to you? A white lie I'm sure, I really only lie for real to other people... never to you. Or is that a lie in itself? Is that what they call a paradox? I'm not even sure what some words mean and I use them, but I think that's fairly common.

I feel like I need to have an assignment that I care about. It takes a lot to motivate me, but I'm fairly good at concentrating when I am motivated. I'm terrified about work. I'm terrified about moving. I'm terrified about clinging to something that won't work out or dropping something that could be amazing. I'm terrified about making all of these decisions in the next month that the slacker in me would love to give up on.

Perhaps this is why I sit here in my apartment and stare at my computer screen and play games, read blogs, listen to music... pretty much do whatever I can to not think about the future. I've never been one to plan out my life, I like going with the flow but at the same time I see a destination as to where I want to be later on and have some confidence that I'll get there eventually. The uncertainty is exciting and terrifying at the same time. I don't like making decisions, I like the time after a decision has been made. I will sit there and analyze the hell out of every damn angle I can think of before deciding on something. I'll get so worked up over a big decision... but the release of tension afterwards is practically a high.

I realize that I identify with the main character in Office Space a bit too much. I don't know if working at a tech company in California is the right career for me. Sure I was an engineer. But the number of times I wanted to quit engineering is quite high. I'm no longer sure if I'm doing what I'm doing because I want to, or because my parents said "hey, do engineering... you like that sort of stuff". Or maybe I'm just looking for an excuse to quit.