When I was a kid I thought that, by the time I hit 24, I'd probably figure it out. I'd know what I was doing, where I was going, what this thing called "life" meant.

It's shocking to find out I was wrong, at least in some sense.

I mean I get some things. I know what I like about some kinds of work, what I don't like about others, and the like. I know I like traveling. I know I like the kind of business-oriented work I'm doing now -- WAY more than I ever thought I would. It's amazing how creative and fun capitalism can be. But I also know I don't want to stick with this organization forever, and I'm not even sure that healthcare will stay interesting for too much longer.

I know I probably should have been trying to explore this stuff while I was in college. And to some degree I did -- internships and the like. But there was a lot of stuff going on in college. There was the whole "I'm thousands of miles from home and suffering major depression" thing, and the "immigrant parents friggin expect a doctor in the family" thing, and the "my dad was diagnosed with cancer" thing. This isn't an excuse. There's no reason to try and make "excuses" on a blog. But it's an attempt to try and figure out why I didn't wring every bit of promise out of those four years. I spent a lot of time either following what I thought was a pre-determined path or just keeping my head down.

So, as unnerving as it has been to be rootless, it's also felt a little liberating too. While I feel like I wasted some time back there, it's nice to have a fairly open field of choices right now. It's nice to look ahead and consider some different long term goals. This blog is part of those goals -- a way to try and explore that process through writing.

Well well, another chunk of good bandwidth wasted on solipsistic ranting to the faceless masses of the intarwebs. What a surprise.

I'll be honest and say I've only recently begun to understand personal blogs. I mean I've been reading blogs online since 2001-ish at least, but those were mostly the blogs of people who I'd want to spend some time listening to anyway. It's one thing to read Markos Moulitsas' views on political strategy, or Juan Cole's take on Middle Eastern history, but I never "got" the weblogs that were just the thoughts of a fairly normal dude with a fairly normal job doing fairly normal things.

So here you are, at the blog of a fairly normal dude, with a fairly normal job, who does fairly normal things. IRONY.

So why am I blogging? It occurs to me that the major purpose of these blogs is likely more for the writer to clarify his or her thoughts than to create some awesome piece of content. And, at this point in my life, I think clarity is something I need. With college and a half-hearted grad school program out of the way, I suddenly feel like I can do anything -- and it's a pretty terrifying and exhilirating feeling.

I currently work in administration at a hospital in Chicago. I have a Masters degree that seemed like a really awesome subject when I got in, but got less interesting at pretty much exactly the point where it would have made less sense to quit than proceed. So now I've got a very specialized graduate degree in a field which is of medium interest to me at best. This sounds lame, but my life is actually all right as it stands -- the bills are paid, the job isn't deathly boring, and I've got good friends. But I've been caught up in school, applications, and the rest for so long that this still feels like a temporary stopover instead of the whole "beginning of the rest of your life" deal. It's a weird feeling, and I'm still trying to figure out where to go next.

So I guess if you're interested in what this blog will be (assuming there's a "you" reading this), I'd bet on there being a whole lot of introspection about life, careers, etc... Maybe some stories about me and my CRAAAAAAAZY friends (hijinks!) Perhaps some political ranting? I guess we'll see!