I blame Steve Jobs

In his commencement speech at Stanford University, the man said:

"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

Though I've always seen life in this light (special thanks to the American media) Steve Jobs gave it a stamp of approval. The man indeed put a ding in the universe and he's certainly inspired me to venture off, to stay hungry, to stay foolish. And foolish I am to be flying off to New York for an internship that pays significantly less my current one during this economic situation.

I am exchanging stability for uncertainty, income for experience, cars for subways, cardigans for coats, and LA for NYC.

I know. I've already written an invitation to myself: Welcome to the I'm-going-to-NYC-to-follow-my-dreams club. And it's not really following my dreams, it's more creating myself and figuring out what I'm made of. I really don't know exactly what I want to do, but I only have an idea. Remember my rant about me being super spoiled? Well, this will break that mold. My vague plan is to have the internship, work part time during the evenings and Fridays/Saturdays and explore New York Sundays. See, I've got it covered. I've got 3-5 months to make something out of nothing.

As for my parents, they don't understand it, but they're letting me go. My brother recorded it all so I got to be Kim Kardashian for twenty minutes. I really wanted to type out how the conversation went, but it's on film, and yes, I'm lazy again. However, after the confrontation, I wrote this draft on my blog:

Guilt. Nonchalant, Almost careless. Go and try. It's such an American thing. My father doesn't know, and I know he will only worry about the housing crisis. I, too, worry. It's selfish of me, but by me staying, what will that do? Progress is not made.

going to new york in two weeks.
lonely. sad. letting go. money situation.
mother supportive. not yelling.
moved on to car problems.
cardboard dividing the room.
mom mad she threw it down.
my own reality show.
don't wear heels.
my brother recording it all.
"why leave for a lesser income?"
major counts.
3 months will go by so quickly.
bring cats over.
she already bought a plane ticket.
her boyfriend lives there.
why leave when things are so good?
let her do it for 3 months she'll come back.
my mom silly, playing and patting his face.
how much is it?
enough. it's enough.
experience over money.
why?
caught on tape.
sound silly but let's see how it is.

sadness. a new chapter. prove them wrong. i'm so hopeful and i know it won't be so good.

Yeah, if you understood half of that, I congratulate you. Overall, it turned out to be one of the best conversations I've had with my parents. Instead of yelling at me when I proclaimed my plans, my father said in a calm voice, "But that's so far. I'll be sad."