my struggle for

the last four to five years has been the thing that pays my bills. that keeps food on the table. that keeps a roof over my family's head. that keeps my daughter playing the game she loves. simple...work.

"how's work going?"

fine

"do you like it?"

not really

"are you looking for something else?"

meh

I know & understand that your work should not define who you are as an individual. I know this all too much. however; my past existence was pretty awesome. I taught philosophy at local colleges for a little over ten years. I was paid to think, talk, & discuss philosophy! ethics. logic. critical thinking. religion. epistemology. metaphysics. how freaking cool is that?!?! take my word for it...very cool. how cool was it being an adjunct...not very. I received high marks from students & the other instructors. I thought I was doing well. then one day I was called into my dean's office & he told me that unless I get my phd & full time position became available he would have to hire any phd over me. I said "but I have this proven track record..."; doesn't matter. fuck. being an adjunct was always difficult because you had to string over 5 classes in one semester together at more than one institution to make what full times guys did with just 3 in one place.

the other part of my major existence was bike shops. managing. wrenching. sales. & if you know anything about bike shops...I did it all, & you know what that means. it was great. getting people to ride bikes. helping people to ride bikes. helping people find joy & happiness by riding bikes. & I took this responsibility very seriously. I mean; life gets complicated & when you have time to ride, you don't want anything messing that up. so that's the way I looked at it. I am here to make sure your happiness goes according to plan.

I am kind of glad about being out of shops (I do help out my friend once & awhile) with all the beeps, boops & motors. I maybe becoming a retro grouch. but the teaching I do miss. tremendously. not going to lie here. however; even though I have my master's, if I were to get into teaching grade school, i'd have to go back for another degree. not a big fan of that idea right now. 

as of now, I have my cdl & drive a school bus. is it great? not really. but as stated before, it's fine. I did put forth an effort to get a different gig; however, in today's age, your resume has to have so many certain words for the algorithm to allow an actual human being to see it. I could be the best human candidate for the gig, but you'd never know. not to toot my own horn, but i'm a pretty likable person. i'm also a very smart person to where I know I could do pretty much any gig or challenge you present to me. my fault though...is that I don't speak bullshit & I can see through yours. I found out people don't like that, cause then that calls them out on theirs. people don't like their egos hurt. another thing I found out is that with what i've done in life, i've actually cared. I cared a lot (cue Faith No More). I cared about teaching. I cared about the bike shop.

to be continued...