Monday, June 22, 2009

Ohhhhh I Am Going Back

I've recently decided that I need to go back to school. There are a number of reasons, most of them being money. I haven't decided what to go back to school for, however, I know that when I get out of school this time, I want to have a job right off the bat that makes a good amount of money. I've recently been thinking about doing the following things that each have pros and cons and I want to get everyone's opinion.

1. Pharmacy:

Pros: 1. Once I graduated, I would make a lot of money, probably a higher starting salary than the other two jobs.
2. I would be in a job where I am constantly helping people, which is good.
3. There is a huge need for pharmacists, so I wouldn't have a problem finding a job.
4. Though medicine and technology are constantly evolving, my job would for the most part, stay the same, which is good.
5. My work days would be fairly normal, with most weeks requiring no more than 40 hours, and some no more than 50, which I don't mind.

Cons: 1. The program is very long, and it might be 5-6 years before I graduated.
2. The program is the most intensive of the three, and I would have 18 hour semesters for probably the entire program, all while trying to work part-time as well.
3. There is a possibility I might not even be accepted into the program if I applied, because they receive so many applicants that do not have the qualities they're looking for.

2. Law/Business

Pros: 1. If I were to do this program, I would gain not only a law degree (J.D.) but a business degree (M.B.A.) as well. And it would only be four years.
2. I'm sure lots of positions would be open to me by having both degrees.
3. Since I love to write, I think a law degree would carry over well with my ability to write and analyze documents, especially if I specialized in contract writing or something of the sort.
4. I'd have a very nice starting salary, probably somewhere around $65,000.
5. I'd have the ability to help people by protecting their rights within the law.

Cons: 1. It'd be at least four years before I graduated, maybe longer.
2. I might be wrong, but I can see this profession having the most intensive work week of the three, with many weeks of over 50 hours of work or more, which I don't like.

3. Finance

Pros: 1. It'd be the shortest program of them all, and if I hurried, I might could finish within 2 and half years.
2. I'd start out at probably the lowest starting salary of them all, but probably no less than $50,000.
3. This would be the easiest work week of them all, working mostly banker's hours, and very few weeks requiring more than 40 hours of work.
4. By majoring in finance, I could potentially (if I showed a lot of promise) move all the way up the corporate ladder, even all the way to being the CFO (chief financial officer) of a company. It is very unlikely, but it'd be nice to know that there is so much potential ahead.

Cons: 1. I'd be mostly crunching numbers and sitting in meetings. Really, really boring in my opinion.
2. While there are a lot of finance positions (because every business needs a finance person), I think there are less opportunities than the other two careers.
3. I'm still thinking about the mind-numbingness of number one.

4. Something else.

I'm open to the possibility that although I've looked into these three careers, that none of them is what I should do. I really feel like I need to go back to school. I've felt like that ever since I graduated, but I just thought I'd eventually get with a company and go back for something they wanted me to go back for so they'd pay for it and I'd have a job when I graduated. Since that hasn't happened, I'm tired of waiting and I just want to go. The end result of all of this is I want to be able to provide for myself and my family. I want to make enough money to not have to worry about it anymore. I want to make enough money so that I can send all of my kids to college. I want to make enough money so I can travel and see the world, and live a comfortable life and not be afraid to go see a movie, or go to Chili's for dinner because we don't have the money. Money isn't everything, but there is nothing wrong for wanting that security and comfort. Anyway, I'd like to hear everyone's opinions about this. Thanks.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Socail Networking: Your Best Weapon During The Revolution

I've been watching the news closely over the past few days for news about Iran. For those of you who might be out of the loop, basically President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (as I will hereto refer to as Crazy Ahmad) has suspiciously won an election in his country in a landslide. Naturally, after hundreds of thousands of Iranians turned out for the election to vote him OUT of office, they have started protesting. And it's about time.
This has caused Crazy Ahmad and company to fire back by not guaranteeing the safety of his opponent in the election, Hussain Mousavi. The protests against Crazy Ahmad have been going on for days now and basically Iran is staring a revolution in the face. But, as the old saying goes, the revolution will indeed not be televised.
The reason is not because Crazy Ahmad has shut down the media in his country (even though he has) but the word of these protests did not get out through CNN or any other major news company, but from normal everyday bloggers and social networkers in Iran. As one blogger wrote, "Iran is going to crap and CNN is showing a program about dogs." (I misquoted that but it was something to that effect).
As the Iranian government has shut down all media stations and ousted foreign journalists, social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook are the only ways for the Iranian people to get news out to the world about whats going on. It's even gotten to the point that the US State Department has recently asked Twitter to delay an update to their site that would put the site offline to the Iranian people for most of the day. Twitter has since complied with the request stating that they realized how important of a role their site was playing in the grand scheme.
As I heard about this, I was elated. Iran has needed a revolution for quite some time and it was so amazing to know that social networking sites were protesters best weapon against Big Brother. The Iranian government has continued their efforts to silence the protestors but with current technology, they are fighting an uphill battle. Finally, we can be assured that the people, the regular everyday people of the world, have the power.
At least until this escalates towards violence. Real weapons are always the ultimate silencers but the truth about the events that are happening now will stand as a witness against those who will use real violence to silence their people. This government might try to squash the truth, to hide it but the world will know. I hope this protest can end peacefully with real change and freedom coming to the Iranian people. But if that is not possible, we will know. And we will know through tweets and status updates. Welcome to the 21st century. Power to the people.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The Elephant In The Room

I've been out of work for quite awhile now. I don't like talking about it mostly because I feel so ashamed of myself and I like to give people the impression that I'm fine. To be honest, I AM fine. But I really do wish that I had a job. I really do like working. There is something that is really unconscious about work, a feeling that you're being useful and contributing that you never notice until it's gone. I've recently been trying to break into a writing career, writing for local newspapers and magazines around Albuquerque but nothing has really happened even though I emailed all of them that I could find. I did get the okay to do freelance work for the Alibi but when I emailed the editors about any assignments they had, they said they didn't have any and that they almost never use freelancers, which is not good for me. I've emailed so many freakin' people about jobs I just want to scream. I keep thinking of giving Accounting Principals another call, which is my temp agency, and telling them I'll do anything they want but it feels like I'd be giving up and raising the white flag if I did that. When I was doing all of those crappy jobs for them, there was not a single day that went by where I didn't feel like I was wasting my time and abilities and that I really needed to leave and find something better. But, I just don't know what to do anymore. I really want to get a career in line so that Stacy and I can start a family and I could support us all. I've fasted and prayed and so has my wife, and many other family and friends. I feel grateful that I've had so much support but I'm sad that I haven't helped that support come to fruition. Anyway, I just thought I should update everybody on what's going on and thank you for all your support.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Milo

This is a video of the aforementioned Milo (see post "E3"). It is both fascinating and frightening. Enjoy.

Monday, June 1, 2009

E3

E3 kicks off today and for those of you who don't know what that is, its the biggest video game conference of the year. E3 stands for the Electronic Entertainment Expo and the biggest video game news of the year is announced here. And after watching Microsoft's press conference, I can say the future is here and its frightening.
Microsoft, after announcing a number of triple-A video games coming to the 360, completely floored me with their announcement of motion-sensing technology. I know what you're thinking, "I liked it better when it was called the Wii" which was exactly what I thought at first. Microsoft's motion-sensing technology differs from the Wii in that you don't even use a controller, and the camera (which you would set on top of your TV) is capable of capturing your full body movements. They showed a demo of a girl frantically trying to kick balls that were flying at her onscreen avatar and it appeared that the camera captured every single movement even down to her little flinches.
The demo continued with the announcement that not only does this technology have motion-sensing, but voice recognition as well. Then ensued a guy who was painting an onscreen canvas with his avatar and simply by speaking which colors he wanted to use, the game recognized it and would change as he painted a picture of a palm tree on a beach.
Then the next part got really creepy. They showed this technology going even further to science fiction level escapades as they introduced a character called Milo. Milo is an actual video game character that a real person can interact with. Using the voice recognition technology, a real person talked to Milo and asked how he was doing and he would even ask questions back. The real person went and played with Milo and fished with him and drew pictures and there was point where the real person drew a picture on a piece of paper and held it up to the camera and immediately Milo had a white piece of paper in his hand as if she had just handed it to him in real life. He looked at the drawing and actually commented on it. I don't know how I felt about this. It was strange and kind of frightening to see a real person interact with a video game character in this way but at the same time, it was fascinating that things like this were possible. Microsoft made no announcements about the price of this technology at this time but I don't see it being very cheap.
It was a hell of a way to kick off E3 and I'm interested to see what the next three days of the conference holds.