The Journey Continues

I am a person who absolutely loves to travel. Of course I am always amazed at how much people and places differ so vastly from one place to another even when they are only a few hours away from each other. I always experience culture shock wherever I go but it's a shock and thrill that I live for. I love the newness of some place different even though I get weirded out by that fact that it's far from what I'm used to. It's funny b/c I live around other interns that have traveled to Europe and other places outside the US but they classify me as a "traveler" even though I have not been to places as exotic as they have. I think it is because I travel more often and stay much longer than most...and I usually do it independently without family. I tend to emmerse myself in a whole new set of friends as opposed to clinging on to the ones I travel with or the ones from home. According to them, I am extremely adaptable to my surroundings and I have something about me that makes every place that I go to home. I have grown to become a person that literally lives out my suitcase and always has my bags packed ready to find the next adventure. I guess that "something about me" thing that they were talking about is probably the fact that I'm just a restless person. They probably can sense my inability to sit still. In addition, I always have some ludacris story to tell about some random event that happened which leaves most people amazed at how varied and interesting my life is. I need to start carrying a video recorder with me b/c while reminicing with some friends, I realized that there are so many stories that I completely forgot about and have not recorded on my blog. Many of them are too detailed to write about on blogspot given the little amount of time I usually alot myself to write. But as I always say IT'S BEEN ONE HELL OF A RIDE!

Reminicing about those stories sheds a whole new perspective on my life. Yes there have been many, many trials but my life has been filled with so many experiences that most people can only dream of. Because of this I decided that in conjunction to Getting In My Head and Ghettology 101, I would also begin a blog entitled "Storytime" where I'll retell a random event that has happened to me. I'll probably do my first Storytime entry tomorrow when I have more time but until then I'll just write a quick update.....

Well, this weekend was the first time that I visited Los Angeles, California. Me and my roommate decided that we wanted to spend 4th of July in LA instead of Vegas since Vegas is incredibly too hot and we wanted to avoid the crazy influx of tourist (we feel like locals now). We also was craving the beach. I wasn't in LA long enough to give it a yay or nay. But it seems like a place that I would not mind living in (aside from the risk of earthquakes). LA is definitely a whole different place. The culture there is very different from any place that I have ever been to. I'll go into detail about my first impressions of LA soon but for the sake of time, I'll just say that LA has made a good impression on me as opposed to Vegas which to whom I have a love/hate relationship with.

There is so much to say and so litttle time to say but a detailed update will be coming soom as well as pics.....


Stay Tuned


Lata Bitches!

Like Fine Wine: Growing Wiser, Growing Better

As I mentioned in my last entry regarding my personal life, I am beginning to feel more settled. I guess this is mainly due to the fact that I am advancing further in my career than I expected and so now I need to start making moves toward the next step in my life. I do not know why I am so surprised about how far I have come but the truth is, all the blessings that I recently been receiving have always seemed so far away.

Of course the next step for me is grad school. It's something that I keep bringing up so I am sure you are tired of reading about it but bare with me as I go through the grad app process. I brought my remaining study materials for the GMAT today and plan to take the test in mid-August when I return to Baltimore. I really do not feel like going through the application process because, as always, I am tired of pushing myself. A bitch is fuckin tired especially since I more independent then I ever been in my entire life (has to do with the fam situation). But grad school is definitely the last stretch...then it is off to make my money. I know that my career is secure and the hustle is just about over. I'm still intending on encounter obstacles but I know that I will not be phased by them. After 4th of July weekend (I plan on being in L.A. for the holiday), there will be little weekend partying for me since I have to buckle down and study for this thing. I probably will not have the stamina to study after work on the weekdays so I will have to give up my weekends.

Even though grad school is the obvious next step for me it is not the event that I feel that I need to plan for. I have already planned for it and now it is time to carry everything out. Now that my career is at a place that I can be unnerved about, I can finally start giving more attention to my personal relationships. I used to always feel like I would have to give up my career in order to maintain a fulfilling personal life but I'm quickly learning that giving up certain aspects of my career is not that big of a deal. I have always felt that there wouldn't be anyway to maintain a relationship at this point in my life because I do not know where I was going to end up after grad school and I could not see myself sacrificing a sexy job offer for a significant other.

Nowadays, that is not the case. After being so far from home, I am realizing the value of having a familiar face around you. Making friends has never been a problem for me but making the RIGHT friends seems to be an obstacle. I am finally ready to share my life with someone. I am finally prepared to TRULY let someone in.

My nephews and niece have provided me the greatest lessons regarding love. You do not learn about love through endless relationships with the opposite sex. The best lessons regarding love is learned through children. It is as unconditional as love comes. If you can not find it in your heart to uncondionally and fully love a child, more than likely, you are a person who will never fully love anyone. My theory may be completely wrong, but that is what it seems like to me.

In the five and a half weeks that I have been in Vegas, I learned that it is just impossibly too damn hard to be this far away from my nephews and niece. It's driving me crazy. I think about them every second of everyday. I can see myself sacraficing a very lucrative job offer so that I can be closer to my nephews and niece. And I have been making plans to rearrange my life just in case I have to get custody of them. They are the only people that I have ever really been "in love" with. No other person on this earth and in my life has ever made me feel this unselfish (I am generally not a selfish person but when it comes to my career I am no-holds-bar). From this experience, I have learned that this is the way I should feel about a man....and that is how I will begin to judge anyone who I plan to build a life with...being such a career-oriented person, I know that I have truly fallin for a person if I can see me making this same type of sacrifice. No one has even come close to fitting this bill....but I'm optimistic. Once again, like all steps in my life, patience is my biggest enemy. I want everything NOW.

I have fully given up habitual dating. I used to think that habitual dating was a good way to find someone. The theory behind it was that I thought that by dating multiple people at a time, you can go through more of what you don't want so you can be one step closer to what you do want. But I am quickly learning that habitual dating is just step one to the process. Habitual dating allows you to figure out what you want and what works for you. You get to see what type of personalities you click with and which ones will cause you to go to be someone's cell mate. I have been habitual dating for a while, so I have a good idea of what I want and what works for me.

So on to step two....step two is to date one person at a time. Because I know what I want and what works for me, I can recognize a potential partner within seconds of meeting them. The purpose of dating them would not to get to know what works for me. Rather, the purpose of dating them would truly be to get to know them and see how far we can make our relationship grow. That is hard to do with multiple people in the picture. That also is what makes it so hard to open up. When you deal with multiple people, the only way to maintain your center is to hold back. Letting go with too many people will obviously leave you lost, confused, and inevitably standing knee deep in shit. Even when dealing with Mr. Snake Guy, from day one, I always dated multiple people (I did not sleep with any of them tho). In the past I use to think "why is it so hard to find what I am looking for?" but I am learning that it was not until a couple months ago where I realized that I did not know what I was looking for.

In my past entries I have consistently focused on external factors affecting how you go about choosing the right partner (i.e. how you know if he is a dog type stuff)....now I think it is time that I focus on internal ones (i.e. how you know if you are relationship ready). Maybe women attract the wrong man because we ourselves are the wrong woman. Maybe we need to change our own internal mannerisms to find what we ideally dream of. I'm not saying this is true, it's just a thought that I am currently entertaining and in the future will explore in more detail.

Well...it's getting late...I will try to update more often....