I'm embarrassed of myself

There have been various moments through out my life, both past and present, in which I have been acutely embarrassed… of myself. I figured I’d share some of these sources of humiliation with the World Wide Web so that perhaps someone out there can enjoy laughter at my expense. Or, at the least, so that I can make someone else feel a lot better about their own self- 'cause I'm all philanthropic like that and stuff.

Let's roll.

#1.) As a child and adolescent I ate a lot of things off the ground- but I swear it was only fallen food items and always food that I myself had personally dropped. Still, this was no ‘5 second rule’ type of thing. It was like a 5 minute rule. I clearly remember one time, around the age of 11, when I crawled on all fours beneath the kitchen table and ate up every single chocolaty Coco Puff that I had spilled on the floor… along with various dust fragments and dog hairs. Perhaps this is why I have such a strong immune system.

It's only ok if I do this though. I will not put up with eyelashes in my Denny's omelet.

#2.) I once had a pager, a.k.a. a beeper. Not only that but I thought it was so, SO cool. It was red, sparkly and made me feel like a P-I-M-P. Friends would be like, “Alright Clarissa, I’ll call you later!” and I’d be like, “Nah, just hit me up on my beeper.” I even had the little clip that hooked onto my pants. Yeah, I know. It was and still is totally vomit inducing.

#3.) My favorite foods include imitation crab meat, oatmeal with mashed banana, fried onion topping and sticky rice wrapped in seaweed and dipped in fish sauce. With that said, it just occurred to me that imitation crab meat, fried onion topping and sticky rice wrapped in seaweed and dipped in fish sauce would be delicious, followed by oatmeal with mashed banana for dessert.

I will steal these out of your pantry and eat them off your green bean casserole

#4.) My grandmother is one of my best friends. I frequently call her up to see if she wants to go shopping, grab dinner, go see a movie or just simply allow me to come over and lounge on her bed for a few hours. I understand that this is not necessarily something to be embarrassed about; however, what is particularly embarrassing is that more often than not my requests to hang out are turned down. Apparently my seventy-four year old grandmother has better things to do than hang out with her loser granddaughter. Though typically she is already preoccupied with other plans, there are still a considerable number of moments in which my grandmother is supposedly “sick”. Now I know elderly people deal with an increased amount of health concerns, but I find it to be no coincidence that my grandmother always seems to have a cold, strep throat, or headache every time I call her to hang out. It’s as if my phone call has the power to suddenly strike her with pneumonia. Sound impossible? I agree.

Sorry grams but your cover is blown.

I'm surprised she even agreed to take a picture with me.

So yeah, I'm not only an embarrassment to myself but also to those closest to me. I'm sometimes surprised that there are actually people that do indeed like me. It probably helps that I stopped eating off the floor and gave up the pager. I now own a Sidekick though which is almost as equally as embarrassing as a pager. Unfortunately I'm stuck with it until an iPhone falls from the sky which I doubt will be happening anytime soon. Well, unless someone is willing to buy an iPhone for me and then throw it at me from twenty feet up a tree.

Eh?

College, schmollege

I'm currently rounding out my senior year at the University of Washington and am now under pressure to choose a graduate field of study. Unlike an undergraduate degree, achieving your graduate degree is not at all a liberal process. There are no longer vague prerequisite courses that allow you to gradually build a solid footing; there is no longer the opportunity to select leisure electives to fulfill empty credits; there is no room for switching majors/concentrations half way through. At this point I need to know exactly what the hell I plan on doing with the rest of my life. If not I will be wasting a substantial amount of money and believe me, I already have enough student loan debt to keep me occupied for many years. Many, many years.

So please, people. Help me choose what I want to be when I grow up.

I feel your pain, girlfriend.

I know I want to work with people, preferably in an intimate and creative way. The occupation that has been at the front of my mind for awhile now is teaching. Not only would I be able to work closely with people- staff, students and parents- but I would also be able to release some creative juices via curriculum and lessons plans. If I go this route I am 99.9% sure that I will teach high school science. I'm not a science buff by any means but there is a huge shortage of secondary science teachers thus equaling a higher number of job openings and, most importantly, the chance for federal student loan forgiveness.

So what's the problem, right? Well, here's the thing.... teachers neither get paid much nor well, though I'm sure you and every other American already knew that. Like, duh. For all the time and energy you invest in helping to shape a positive future for countless students you are rewarded with a rather meager salary. Don't get me wrong, it's not all about money. Still, money is something I am definitely forced to consider when attempting to plan out my future. By the time I wrap up all of these tiring years of full-time schooling (while concurrently working full-time as well) I want to enjoy myself, which, to some degree, requires a ballin' bank account.

These ballers are having nothing short of a fun time.

Secondly, I have good grades. And when I say "good grades" I mean damn good grades. I'm a straight up nerd to the to the umpteenth degree. My GPA would give me exceptional advantage in terms of gaining admission to competitive graduate programs, i.e. law. I feel I should apply my academics toward... shall I say... a more prestigious career.

I'm sorry, teachers. I admire you! Truly, I do. It's just the rest of society that fails to do the same.

All I know is that I have roughly two months to figure out the rest of my life, or at least the professional/occupational realm of my existence, which will naturally bleed into all other areas of my life and thus is a big freakin' deal. Do I become a teacher? A lawyer? A neurobiologist? The next leading NASA chief engineer?

I'll give it another month or so and then I'm going to draw a name out of a hat.