Charleston, Je t'aime.

It seems to me as though throughout my day, the majority of my thoughts revolve around leaving my current state of being. Leaving school, leaving work, leaving PA and getting back to Charleston. My heart aches at the thought of every moment that I missed not being there this past semester. There is nothing for me here. I just can not wait to leave.

work work work

Before I start, I'm just going to remark on my affinity towards repetition in titles. e.g. "thinking thinking thinking" and "work work work." I'll try not to continue and over use the concept, so back to work.

I've been noticing the past few days how people live in regards to their careers. For those of you who don't know, I work at a camera store. It's an ok job. I enjoy helping people. It's a very personal environment as far as retail jobs go. When I'm at work, I really do have the ability to make someone's day a little bit better. It's a good summer job for a college student.

That being said, I always wonder about the ones who aren't college students working through school. Take Chuck, my manager, for instance. He's probably in his forties. He's a really nice guy and all but he's spending his life working at a Ritz Camera. I know not everyone has the opportunity to do whatever they want for their career, but I would assume if I were in that situation, I would not settle for something such as Ritz camera.

Does one just lose motivation to strive for something better? Or is one merely comfortable, with no need to change? Do you just get stuck in the same routine and end up working at the same job for years only to (I know this is cliche but..) wake up one day and wonder where the last ten years of your life went?

I would like to think that I'm far too cognizant to not realize that I'm trapped in monotony. However I feel that I too will end up working in a cubical under florescent lights, shivering in my Mr. Rogers sweater while I wait for five o'clock to roll around. Now if my job in my cubical is vastly fascinating, always changing and challenging, and perhaps in another country, then I might be ok with it. I'm just afraid of getting stuck.



P.s. I've been watching tonssss of movies lately so I'm going to have a "movie on my mind" section featuring the movie of the week, day, or hour, whatever the case may be.

Movie on my Mind:
Chaos Theory
featuring Ryan Reynolds of "Two Guys a Girl and a Pizza Place" fame, and the beautiful Emily Mortimer of Woody Allen's "Match Point," a personal favorite.

Basically some kind of ridiculous stuff happens to Ryan's character but of course in the end love prevails.

I recommend it.

summertime blues

Lately I've developed a case of the summertime blues. I wake up, go to work, come home, go to school, come home, do homework, go to sleep, repeat ad nauseam. I would assume that is the cause of my blueness. But even if I weren't so busy with work and school, I believe I would still feel a certain emptiness throughout my day. There's a constant lack of meaning in my routine. As it stands, there is no apparent remedy to my situation. It will last until August, at which point I will free myself from the monotony of Ritz camera and DCCC and return home to Charleston.

That is how I have felt since my return to Pennsylvania in January, this is no longer my home. There is nothing for me here, save for my parents and a few friends. My trip to Charleston for the month of april was extremely liberating. I narrowly escaped the possibility of being in Philadelphia for the next two or more years, which probably would have turned out to be ok.

But that's all it would be, ok. Nothing more. I don't want ok. I want more than ok. If I was fine with ok, I never would have transferred from Penn State I would be headed up to the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania to spend my days with about 50,000 other college students and only college students. That would have been ok.

For now, I will call Charleston home. Only my second home in my active memory. As the saying goes, home is where the heart is. I don't know how long my heart will remain in Charleston but that is where I belong for now.

Thinking thinking thinking...

I feel as though it might be beneficial to my mental health to write down my thoughts on things and happenings in the life of Ryan. Whether or not people will actually read them or not is not up to me. If you do feel like reading, that's grand. I'm all for people reading whatever I write, otherwise I wouldn't use a medium such as a blog.

If you do read this, feel free to comment and/or share your thoughts on my thoughts... or just say, "hey, what's up?"