Looking forward to this summer makes me look back and remember of past summers. One sticks out as one of the perfect summers that I've had in my life. Basketball, Friends, a Girlfriend and Freedom. I don't think a high school boy needed anything else.
[Time to Walk Down Memory Lane With Me]
Almost every day a bunch of my friends and I would go to our friend's house in the country that had a nice sized pool. We would have barbecues and pool parties and just most of all having fun. We would do this all the time during the day and at night we would either have basketball practice or we would travel to Kato and partake in our summer basketball [Bethany] league. One of the days stick out the most. It was just Blaine, Aaron, Billy, and I. We were in the pool waiting for other people to come so we had to think of things to pre-occupy us. Doing flips off the roof got old and playing football get old after a while also. So we built a plan to catch a bird. (Now I know this sounds really... useless... but trust me this is going somewhere) So we all manned our stations, all of us besides Blaine were hiding in the water underneath pool floats and were waiting for a bird. We started to make up a bird call and it went a little like this [CA-KA]. This call surprisingly worked and everything set up to plan and on the third [CA-KA] we all came up and threw water balloons at the bird....
The moral of the story here is that this calling sound saved our asses numerous of times through our high school and my college days. It saved mine from getting tasered one night. It was homecoming and we just had to TP our school. Why not. Most of all it's not right to tell high school kids to do something they are obviously going to just do it because they were told not too. So it was a small group, probably 7 or 8, and we had gotten split up since the cops came pretty fast. Billy and I hid and let the group take the cop cars away from us so we could sneak back and throw some more TP. On our way back to the school, I notice this red dot on Billy and then it went back on to me. I'm like, "Hey it's Matt." (Matt had this little obsession with laser pens) So what do we do, [CA-KA]. (It got pretty popular after we started using it all the time). No response. We look at each other and we were like this is weird. Then all of a sudden we hear, "Freeze or I'll taser you!" I glance at Billy and we just nod at each other. (We definitely knew this situation called for every man for themselves) After that nod, we just broke down in a dead sprint through some houses and backyards. I hear him fire the taser (weirdest noise ever), I look back, Billy is still running and he goes, "Holy Shit, we just got shot at!". We split up he takes one path and I take another. I'm in a dead sprint (4.6' 40yrd dash) and what happeneds? I smoke a wall and trip over a stupid boat or canoe. Adrenaline is rushing so I just get up and keep dashing. I come to the other side of the street and I just see it lit up with Red and Blue cherries. So I keep on dashing until I hear a really low CA-KA... It's Billy underneath a giant dog house. We ended up staying there for 4 hours that night watching cops cars drive around the area. We army crawled around and figured out that someone had slashed all four cop tires that was parked by an apartment complex. No wonder he shot a taser round at us.
But if it wasn't for that Summer of Awesomeness and making up a really silly call, I would have definitely had a different life path after that night. Since it has been about 7 years since then, my requirements for a great summer is down to one requirement. Finding a job. Especially now that I will be down with college after this semester and will be holding a piece of paper that proclaims I am smart! The real question that arises is... how picky should I be when I look for a job.
Should I just follow and live in any city where I find a job? I couldn't imagine leaving all my friends behind. Moving to Taiwan has shown me that it's hard to find good friends. It's easy to find people to hang out with but real friends, those are much harder to find.
So do I just focus on finding a job around my friends? Yes and no (in my opinion). I shouldn't be scared to accept a job offer of a lifetime because it's in a whole new area away from my friends. Skype and FB make it pretty easy to stay in contact. I've found that out from being in Taiwan also.
What about a significant other? (Currently single) But I have had this pop in my mind before. Yes, I am young. Yes, I don't plan on settling down. Yes, I have a lot to learn about life. But this is always a tough question, especially when friends ask or when I thought about it. I am young and not ready to settle down but at the same time, why be apart from someone that would make my day that much better being able to see them everyday instead of once a month or even less. We are young but we are young enough to at least play out our lives being happy and if shit hits the fan... well look on the bright side we are still young enough to move on, right? I know my view is way slanted on one side of the spectrum on this because doing the "Corporate Grind" does not sound fun nor even worthwhile in my books. I'd rather enjoy my life than to suck up to some Company that makes the world a little worse everyday.
I guess I'll have to ponder this in the next few month I have left in Taiwan. My plan at the moment, is to just find a job that will pay the bills until I find the perfect job. Job Searching while having a job, I think that's the key to it all. Never settle until you find the right one.
Cheerio,
Alastar Swift
Life... It's a bitch but it's so worth every second.
No comments:
Post a Comment