Sam’s Life

Today is our last day in town until we depart for California for two weeks.  We’ll be hittin’ up L.A. for a few days, then drivin’ up the coast to San Francisco, then drivin’ back down to catch a plane back home.  For two weeks, I’ll have a totally new place at my fingertips to explore.  When my dad first told me about this now highly anticipated vacation, the first thing that popped into my mind was the new opportunity I would have to do something I’ve been wanting to do for a good while now, a little dream of mine, if you will.  Camcorder in hand, it’ll finally be time to create that video I’ve always thought about.  After all, opportunity will meet the camera with beautiful scenery, deep images, busy streets, classy restaurants, and the countless experiences that my family and I will endure.  Having it all on tape will give me an outstanding base for what will hopefully be a very impressive family video.  We will indeed see, but until then, wish us well on our much needed family vacation.

So, as every one of my blog-readers know by now, I have been working for Office Depot over the summer.  As my first job that that federal and state government have been aware of, I’ve now begun on a much-dreaded journey that will only undoubtedly become worse–paying taxes.  When I received my first pay check, I was shocked to find out that the number written on the check was quite different than what I had calculated for my pay.  Oh wait, there was no mix up.  I had just forgotten to subtract taxes out of my estimate, and let me tell you, as a “poor college student,” every dollar counts.  By now, I could have bought an iPod or computer monitor (two things I’ve been wanting to buy for a while now) with the amount of tax that has been withheld from my paychecks.  Granted, taxes are necessary.  I realize that.  But this much? Since I am not completely financially independent yet, it is not a burden, but I think about the future.  I think about those average starting salaries for chemical engineers.  I was so excited to hear that I would be earning around $70,000/year straight out of college, but wait, subtract around $20,000 from that… that’s what I’ll really be getting.  What a drag.  I could buy two decent cars with $20,000.  It gets worse.  With what’s going on in the federal government, I can only look forward to even higher taxes for programs that will never benefit me (or 90% of the other Americans).  In fact, the latest tax burden that will most likely get through Congress might even cost me a job in the future.  My point?  There are many, but let me just say that things would be so much simpler and more efficient if people didn’t have to pay so many taxes.  I know that I for sure would not be doubtful about my economic future if I knew I would be able to keep more of my hard-earned cash.  But Sam, that tax money goes to help people in need.  Oh really?  You might think that, but……  Plus, did I give anyone permission to redistribute mine?  But that’s all a topic for another day.

So Sam… what’s been going on lately?  Oh I don’t know, I’ve been working my ass off and making tons of commission as well.  The only thing that’s really been on my mind lately is how much I want to go back to school.  I miss Aggieland terribly, and I miss the aura of school work surrounding me every day.  There was something about this past year that just made me feel like I was where I belonged.  It was like a high, and I could feel the emptiness as soon as I left for the summer.  I miss that place.  I miss classes.  I miss going to the Memorial Student Center at 3:00 A.M. to study for physics (although I won’t actually miss MasteringPhysics).  I miss practically everything about Texas A&M, and I’m already eager to go back.  Working at Office Depot has been fun, but there’s nothing like studying my butt off and looking down at an exam a week later with an A written on it.  That’s my kind of job.

The summer is treating me well, I must say.  Being an Office Depot sales associate has been more exhausting than I would have imagined, but nonetheless, it’s quite rewarding.  After all, in less than two weeks, I have earned around $100 in commission, which is actually refreshingly decent considering I only earn commission on extended warranties.  I’m actually pretty lucky for getting the job that I got.  I mean, I got one of the most professional retail jobs in town… in the tech section, out of all things… and in less than two weeks, they’ve been allowing me to man the entire technology department without anyone else near by.  Of course, being a less-than-two-weeks-old employee limits my capabilities, evident when I’m constantly paging someone over the radio to ask where the paper clips are.  Regardless, I’m becoming more and more self-sufficient, especially in the technology department.  And I must say, you wouldn’t believe how many people come in asking for macs.  Unfortunately, they are not sold at Office Depot, I tell them, but I do not refrain from telling them all about the mac anyway.  Ah, yes… rewarding…

Howdy World!  It’s been a while.  I’ve been busy.  Really busy.  Life is treating me well, though.  I finished the semester with a 4.0, after a working myself to the death, it seemed like.  I spent many free nights staying up, preceding the week of finals, not to party, though, but instead to work on my now infamous engineering project where we had to design a viscometer.  My teammate and I easily spent a good 30 hours on the little beast as we so enthusiastically tested fluid flow rates, calculated models, and determined optimal diameters and tubing lengths.  Part of the reason that we both so tediously and diligently worked on it was because we both practically needed an A on this project to make an A in the class.  We must have pulled it off.

Leaving Aggieland was slightly depressing, and I found myself quite anxious as I packed up my things from my dorm room.  I thought about my last night in Lechner Hall where I’ve made so many… interesting… memories.  I thought about my last day with an open Memorial Student Center.  I realized that I was no longer a freshman.  I had done it, completed a whole year of college, and yet the experience swept by ever so quickly.  I was barely even able to keep up.  Looking back on it all, I think I did okay.  Sure, I worked my butt off… blood, sweat, and tears ‘n all, but I also opened up my mind, learned about real tradition, integrity, pride.  I attended my first Aggie football game as a student, my first Aggie basketball game, attended my first Silver Taps, softly called the Muster, lived in a dorm, had my first real dose of college life, was a freshman in college—-and am no longer one.

As soon as I got home, I accepted the fact that I would no longer have school work until the Fall (It didn’t take long.); however, I did not want to float through the entire summer without some responsibility.  I have to be productive or I start to self-destruct.  I first ran back to my distillation simulator.  There is so much that can still be added to it, so I decided to continue to program this summer as I will now be adding pressure and temperature simulation (which slashes the need for a constant relative volatility), valve and pump simulation, a new control scheme, and hopefully if I have time a new and improved graphical user interface.  As of now, however, I already have some of the pressure and temperature simulation completed.

Of course, I must do what every college needs to do, earn money!  So, I decided to start looking for a job… well, more like begging.  I probably applied at ten businesses and got one, must I repeat, one call.  Regardless, I’m glad that the ring was from Office Depot because now I am a “Customer Service Specialist” for the electronics department.  When I first saw the position I would be obtaining, I saw “CSS” and naturally wondered to myself what my position had to do with Cascading Style Sheets.  The job is treating me well, even though my third day on the job is today.

Still, as I mesh into my schedule this summer, I cannot help but miss Aggieland and the things that went to it.  Call me crazy, but I really do miss the school work, the busy schedules, and late homework nights.  I was on a high all school year, striving to make sure that I was prepared for every exam.  I miss that.  Sometimes before I go to bed, I wish I was back right now.  But, I guess all I can do is wait and enjoy the summer.  Yep, enjoy the summer I will most definitely do.

Since classes have ended and our “dead week” has commenced, I’ve been functioning in more of a dream state.  A life support of a routine that typically keeps me from going under has been thrown overboard and replaced by a dream state–a life without worries.  With only finals blocking the freedom of the Summer, things have been flexible and laid back.  For the past three days, I have stayed up until 3 A.M. working on an engineering project, and I’ve rolled out of bed at noon.  That doesn’t matter, though, because classes are over, measly, annoying assignments are over, and stress is over.  All that exists now is the dream state where I can focus all my energy into a laser of studies, where all that matters is destroying each exam placed forcefully in front of me.  With only six days remaining as a freshman in college, I must take everything in as much as I possibly can, for the next three years will rush past as if I hadn’t even budged.  Yes, things will rush by ever so quickly.  I’ll get a Summer job, move into an apartment, take my first chemical engineering class, become involved with more organizations, get my first Summer internship, work my butt off at my first Summer internship, work my butt off the next school year, become even more involved, hopefully make good grades, graduate, get a job, become successful, make a name for myself, stand out, and perhaps one day influence a fellow aspiring student to do the same.  I couldn’t stress upon myself enough the importance of taking everything in at this very moment and the subsequent moments to come.  If I don’t, I’ll end up twenty years from now wondering why I didn’t, regretting that I didn’t.  So, as I sit here in the MSC flagroom for the last time of my entire college career, I currently take this in.  The elegant table at which I sit, the old-fashioned chandeliers that illuminate the room, the fellow Aggies that surround me, the textbook of a physics class that I will never take again resting on the table beside me, the grand piano that sits in the corner of the room, the Aggie ring display behind me, and of course and always, the aura of Aggieland that inspires me every single day.