I got my green card. The one thing that ensures I won’t get kicked out of the country, unless I do something illegal of course. Ever since I got a job, I’d been working endlessly to get this small, and not green but white card. Thanks to my amazing and patient lawyer and loads of luck, I am now the proud owner of a plastic that says I am a permanent resident of the United States thanks to my Extraordinary Ability in the field of Information Technology. A huge ordeal that took me over three years of blood and sweat is finally over.

I changed my job and my hours. If I had to describe my last job in one word I would most definitely choose “pain”. There are many others that leap to mind but that is the most prominent one. Thankfully and luckily, after I returned from my business trip and got my green card, I found the balls to finally get myself out of this emotionally abusive relationship between me and my job. Now, I work three days a week at a job I adore and I didn’t even have to change firms.

I lived and worked in Japan for six months and learned Japanese. I don’t like being alone. I didn’t know a word of Japanese and the Japanese, for the most part, don’t speak much English. All my friends recommended against this trip. But I went anyway. I’m still not sure why. But I am so glad I did. If nothing else, I learned that I can be on my own. Important life lesson.

I started volunteering weekly. I’ve wanted to be more active with my volunteer efforts for years. I’ve also wanted to practice and master sign language. I put these together and started volunteering at the New York Society for the Deaf. I learn something new each week and I love meeting different people.

I got Laser Eye Surgery. This was unplanned and not an active wish but it changed my life drastically. It was one of the most painless, speedy and amazing operations of my life. it had no after effects, no pain and outstanding results. Last time I could see without my glasses, I was ten years old. This is beyond incredible.

I did so much more. I quit Diet Coke. I started exercising five times a week. My relationship with Jake improved tenfold. I started my second novel. I started writing this website. I kept up my reading and classes. I learned more about art. I made new friends. I celebrated my nephews' first birthday and my mother’s fiftieth. I felt happy.

It wasn’t all good, of course. It had its bad moments. I lost a friend. I didn’t lose weight. I’m still unsure of my career path. I should be eating healthier. I slipped two discs on my back. And I’m sure there were many other painful moments that I cannot now recall.

But to be fair, I’d have to admit 2000 was good to me.

As for 2001, all I want next year is to be a better person, inside and out.

Previously?

Over a month ago, my computer had a virus which caused me to reinstall the registries on my machine. Thanks to an illness that renders sitting a very painful activity for me, I haven’t used my desktop since that night. I do know however that the soundcard is still not working and I have absolutely no idea how to fix it. I can only imagine the more subtle errors that are still sitting on my machine, which I won’t be able to catch until my discs stop digging into my back.

My clothes are all over the living room couch and the chair in my bedroom. Until we packed for Christmas, our luggage sat on the floor, unpacked since Thanksgiving. This morning, Jake kindly unpacked our bags from our shortened vacation so now my clothes decorate the chair, the treadmill and the bed.

I am supposed to put pillows under my knees when I lie on my back and under my tummy when I lie on my stomach and somewhere under my legs when I lie on my side. On my bed, we currently have six pillows, just in case I am in a certain position and a pillow is not at hand. These pillows start in their correct location (under my knees, for example) but end up on the floor after several hours of battle during the night. A few hours later, they’ll end up back in bed, possibly even under my head this time. The dust in my house and I have become close friends.

Jake has been doing all the house errands, cooking me three meals a day and doing anything in his power to make me put as little effort on my body as possible. He’s kind, loving and generous.

I love him.

I don’t know what I would do without him.

Previously?

As you might have already guessed, everything goes wrong. Two years in a row, Jake and I spent the stroke of midnight in a fight. No bubblies, no laugher, no pretty dresses, just screaming and tears.

After the disaster of last year, I decided that from now on, Jake and I were to spend New Year's out of town. I figured, and he agreed, that if we leave town, I won't be stressed worrying about everything being perfect and will be delighted just to be out of town.

So we made plans. First it was the Galapagos, then Cuba, and then the Bahamas. After they all fell through, we finally settled on a trip to Savannah with Jake's family. The location didn't matter to me, I just wanted it not to be New York.

When I got real sick at the beginning of December, I panicked about the planned vacation. The doctor told me to relax and that I'd make it to my vacation no problem. So I skipped everything to ensure I'd get to go on this vacation. I didn't go to my volunteer job three weeks in a row, I missed Jake's family's annual Christmas party, I spent endless hours on my couch, getting bedsores just so I could make it to Savannah. This New Year's would be fun, even if it meant ruining December.

Two days before our trip, I felt 1000% better. I could sit, walk and stand without much pain. I was ready for Savannah and I knew it was ready for me. We took the train from New York to Boston (where Jake's parents live) and celebrated Christmas with them. On the morning of the 26th, all of us went to the airport. My back had started aching slightly but I figured I'd keep up my exercises and rest a lot and things would be fine.

Well it didn't turn out that way.

The morning after we got to Savannah, I woke up with acute pain. Jake and I walked around for an hour and pain shot up and down my legs. In the last month, the one thing doctors had asked me was whether the pain went down to my legs and it never had. They kept saying that as long as the pain didn't go down, I was fine. And now it was going down. All the way to my toes.

We went back to the hotel and after several hours of sleep, the pain wouldn't stop. Finally, I called my doctor and he says my MRI results are back and I have two herniated discs on my back. He said if the pain is back I should come back home and have bed rest for a few days. He goes, "You can get up to go to the bathroom, but no moving otherwise." Gee. Thanks.

Lumbar 3/4 and 4/5. Two discs for the price of one.

Jake and I take the 6:30am plane back to New York. I spend all Thursday in bed. Today I went to my physical therapist and pain is attacking my back, my legs, my knees.

Here we are, two days before the year is over and I am to lie in bed for twenty minutes and walk around the house for twenty minutes as I alternate between having heat and cold applied to my back.

Happy New Year.

Previously?

This holiday season I seem to be spiraling into a rather odd mood. I don't know whether it's the excessive amount of medication that's been piling up in my body, just usual holiday blues or something else, but I do know that I'm a little off. I go from ecstatic to miserable in a matter of seconds. One minute, I'm sitting on my couch, watching something stupid on TV, relaxing and the next minute I'm weeping uncontrollably. Does this mean I should see a professional? Probably. I think it's just the overwhelming amount of stress I lay upon myself. I have seven untouched books, all due to the library in ten days. I have a novel that's waiting to be written and I am really behind at work. But what do I spend my free time doing? Watching TV and sleeping. I just don't feel motivated to do anything.

Let's hope this week in Savannah turns out to be what I need.

For those of you who celebrate, Happy Channukah!

Two days ago a close friend of the family came to New York. My mother, as is often the case, sent me a package with her. She sent me the marrons glaces I mentioned earlier this week. She also sent me the following photograph of my sister, brother-in-law and my twin nephews.

When I look at that picture, my heart melts and I suddenly feel that all my selfish reasons for living a million miles away from my family are terrible. I want to be there. I want to see my nephews walk and talk. I want them to see my face and smile just the way their faces light up when my mother enters the room. I want to hug them every single day.

Sometimes my decisions are too hard to live with.

Previously?

When I was in Japan, there was an arcade right by my house. I'm not originally a huge fan of arcades but this one had a typing game that my friend John and I played until the wee hours of the morning. It's the same game as The House of the Dead but instead of shooting, you have to type the words that appear on the screen to kill the monsters. The Japanese version had Japanese words, therefore making the typing really hard. I almost bought a Dreamcast just to be able to play this game but there was no American version. Until Now. Yeaaaaayyyy!!!

Ten Passed Technologies [ via slashdot ] Real interesting but they certainly should have included Betamax as well.

Okay, I admit. I watch the Rosie O'Donnell Show. Embarrassing? Probably, but I like it. It keeps me abreast of many upcoming movies. I like that she's so nice to all her guests as opposed to other talk show hosts who try to squeeze out the juicy bits of the guests’ lives. Today she had on the man who won the Teacher of the Year award from Disney and this teacher was so excited and he talked about how he had a second job as a waited cause his salary was so low and his bills were so high. Thanks to Rosie's show Barnes and Noble donated 10grand worth of books to this teacher's class and Rosie made his lifelong dream of seeing the Great Wall of China come true by buying him and a friend tickets to China. This guy was so amazingly thrilled that I teared up. I know slate hates her and I know that I should be embarrassed to be watching it, but I love seeing all the happiness that she works so hard to give. In a world where there are so few well-intentioned people left, she makes me smile.

Previously?

I had my last art class today. We had several student presentations. One girl picked hands as her topic. As she spoke I realized how much we convey through our hands. Some of the things she mentioned were really interesting. For example, how come we put our hand in our mouth when we're sad? We tend to inadvertently use our hands to symbolize our emotions. Think of when you're happy or sad or mad or excited. I remember when I took a public speaking class. The hardest part was to figure out what to do with my hands.

We had another presentation about cultures influencing each other. For example, he mentioned how Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon was painted over when he was influenced by African Art. If you look real closely at the woman on the lower right, you can see clear marks of something that was originally there and then erased to be painted over. The idea that Picasso erased his own work and put a darker complexion on the woman on the left and the masks (very much a tradition in African Art) on the two women on the right is quite fascinating.

One of the other students did her project on nudes. Her final image was Magritte's The Rape. What an amazing painting. Says so much, doesn't it?

Talking about figuring out what to do with my life, my friend Natalia sent me the following quote from Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. "...we can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come..."

Previously?

I believe there are two kinds of people in the world: ones who make lists and ones who don't. While the makers can't understand how the others can keep track of things, the non-makers don't believe in keeping track. Anyhow, since I'm a list maker, my friend Mike's idea sounds just like my kinda project.

He said that he had this friend who made a list of 100 things she wants to do before she dies. The list contains anything from 'having a baby' to 'being on TV'. He talked about how his friend tries to do one thing in the list each year. After our conversation I started thinking about wishes that would make it to my list.

So I sat down and made one. Believe it or not, it was hard to think of 100 things, I could only come up with 50. I figured I'd start on the 50 while I thought of others to add. I'll type up the entire thing in a few days but in the meantime, here are some sneak previews off my list.

- fly a plane
- go to Antarctica
- read a book in French
- get drunk
- own a Dalmatian

The items can be anything, the only criteria is that you want to do it. Some items can be things that you know you will do someday like getting married while others can be things that will really take an effort to accomplish, like climbing the Everest. The only caution I want to mention is to make sure the list item is something you can measure. If you put an item like 'be happy' on the list it's really hard to figure out if that item is ever officially off your list.

Anyhow, it's your list so you can put anything you want on it.

What items would make your list?

Previously?

Steven Champeon of a jaundiced eye quotes from Justice Steven's dissent. You can read the entire opinion here.

If you ever thought there was such a thing as private email, think again. Yum or not, it probably wasn't meant to be distributed. [ via MetaFilter ]

This Time Magazine cover made my day! Even if it's a total fake. [ via CamWorld ]

Thoughts
I write fiction.

You might not be able to tell from the quality (or lack thereof) of these posts but I do write fiction. I'm currently in the process of writing a novel.

This morning, at my physical therapist’s, I realized two things. One, I'm in the wrong profession for getting juicy tidbits of other people's lives. Two, it's amazing what people are willing to tell a physical therapist.

There seem to be quite a few people to whom we don't mind telling intricate stories about our life. Besides the physical therapist, there is the hairdresser, manicurist, dietician, personal trainer, dry cleaner, masseur... Most of these people are consistently in your life but for only small periods at a time.

This morning as I lay in a curtained-away table with a small electrical rod massaging my lower back, this guy in the section next to mine started talking in detail about his job to his therapist. Two interesting facts: I could hear every word and he worked in the same company as I did. As this person started divulging more and more information about his job, I felt like getting up and telling him that I was sure he didn't want me to know this information. Last week the same thing happened to me with another therapy patient talking all about her life, but she didn't work in my firm so it was less relevant.

The morning's session got me thinking about how we tend to share information with people whom we barely know. I can recall many manicure sessions where another client would talk about her bitchy mother or how she was a week away from quitting but was just waiting to receive her yearend bonus. Amazing how much we're willing to share when we think there is no way the information can be repeated to someone in our work or personal environment.

I was thinking how this therapist must have millions of little stories in his head from all the patients he sees. Considering the fact that he has three appointments an hour and works a twelve-hour day, he's got a minimum of 35 stories every day. Even if over half of his patients are totally silent and half of the rest are boring, we end up with at least 8 stories a day. I guarantee that's more than what I hear as a computer programmer.

Methinks it's definitely time for a career change. Any recommendations?

Previously?

Today's all about movies. In the last week, I've watched The Sixth Sense, X-Men and The Myth of Fingerprints. All of which I found enjoyable and thought provoking.

I don't watch horror movies. The last time I saw one, I was ten and my parents were divorced. I was in my father's house and my sister's friend was watching Happy Birthday To Me. I maybe saw three scenes but they were enough to give me nightmares for the next ten years. So I decided it wasn't a good idea for me to watch horror and I haven't watched a movie since. That's why I didn't see The Sixth Sense when it came out on theater. Little did I know that it really wasn't horror at all. Several months later, I made a friend explain the entire plot (including the major twist at the end) to me cause I knew I'd never see the movie and I was tired of hearing how awesome the ending was. Two weeks ago I convinced Jake to rent the DVD and we sat to watch it during the day (just in case it was scarier than people claimed). I knew the ending so I was watching for flaws and Jake was watching as a first time viewer. The movie was awesome and worth watching for both of us. For those of you who have seen it, the only potential flaw I saw was that Bruce's character's wife is cold at the end of the movie and the director claims that it's only cold when there are angry spirits around. Otherwise, all details were perfectly consistent. I loved how they used the red color as a symbol to represent the link between this world and the other and how beautifully they crafted each scene such that once you knew the ending you could go back and watch the entire movie again and not feel cheated. The neat thing about their twist was that it was the kind that allowed you to make such a choice. In Fight Club, once you learned the huge twist at the end, you couldn't go back and look for clues. In the book you could have but in the movie there was no way. That's only cause of the nature of the twist itself. Anyhow, if you still haven't seen The Sixth Sense, I totally recommend it and can say that it definitely wasn't a horror movie even though the music stresses you out the entire time.

X-men is another movie I resisted seeing in the theater but for a different reason. I figured it would be a waste of 20 bucks. And it would have been. While I enjoyed the movie a lot, I don't know that it was worth seeing in the theater. The effects were fantastic and there was somewhat of a plot and it kept my interest the whole time. So if you are into those kind of movies, X-men is much better than the usual quality.

I must say my first fascination with The Myth of Fingerprints was the name. What a neat title for a movie! Jake refused to see it in the theater so I had to wait till my TiVo picked it as a recommendation. I know that this movie was a small budget, not hyped movie but I really enjoyed it. I thought the setting was beautiful, the cinematography was awesome and the some of the acting was amazing. Both Noah Wyle and Julianne Moore performed very well and the story was interesting to me. I've written before about how thanksgiving seems to be a time when most families get together and fight and this movie is exactly about that. It's the thanksgiving holiday of a dysfunctional family. It made me think a lot about why people have the hang ups that they do and how much we get influenced by our family members. I also wondered about my values and limits. Would I be able to stand up to my parents if I knew they did something wrong? In my case, I believe the answer would be yes cause I have a very communicative family and we have mutual respect, but there are so many families where the kids will never be able to go against their parents. Even when they are adults. The movie highlights some of these issues and it's executed beautifully. I'm glad I finally got the chance to see it.

What was the last movie you saw that made you think?

Previously?

After another sleepless night on Monday, I've been given codeine. I'm praying it will help me get through the night cause this pain has started testing my and Jake's patience and the strengths of our relationship. When you lie awake at three in the morning, with pain, and someone else is sleeping soundly next to you, it's amazing what goes through your mind. Especially since I've been taking pills that make me psychotic (more so than usual).

Anyhow.

It seems we're finally gonna have a president. I must say that I'd much rather wait several more weeks than get this guy as the president for the next four years. I was quite pissed with the Supreme Court yesterday. I can't believe they took as long as they did with the decision making. They did know that the entire nation was waiting for them. After those many hours, they didn't even make a real definitive ruling. What a bunch of crap.

I don't think I've officially mentioned Candy Land here. Thanks to Heather who's got the board, Michael, Dinah, Daniel and I are playing it online. I've never played this awesome game before so I'm enjoying it tremendously. Up until yesterday, I was the major loser but Mr. Mint's come to my rescue and I'm charging ahead. Come root for me!

'Tis the season to give. And get. What do you want from Santa this year? Harrumph (actually it's Jezebel) asks "Have you been naughty or nice?" Come on, you know you want the goods, it's time to face the music.

As opposed to most normal people, I'm a huge fan of the holiday season. I love the Christmas lights (even if that makes me a bad Jew) and I love making my resolutions (even if I never keep them). For those of you who don't like the holiday season, why not try to change your point of view this year, just to try something new? Maybe it'll grow on ya.

Who knows?

Previously?

Guess what?

It wasn't a bone. I ate my filling. I had a temporary crown filling on the upper left corner of my mouth and it's no longer there. I now have a huge hole in that very spot. I contact my dentist who tells me not to eat anything hot or cold until I can get into his office. So here I am, still couch-bound and now with a pounding tooth as well as the grinding, stinging feeling on my back.

Loving life!

I remember that when I read Meg's comments, I was thinking about how much I agree. It's amazing how much and quickly I've managed to integrate many web-based services into my life. I don't want them to go away. Having read Heather and Caterina in the last two days, I feel like things are slipping and I want to hold on. As much as I've enjoyed taking advantage of the Internet boom on a user level, I'm not and never really have been a true part of the web-based career world. Considering the highly technical school I attended, it’s weird but I can only think of one real close friend who started his own firm and ended up selling it to a bigger company, making a lot of money as a result. I remember being extremely happy for him. This friend worked extremely hard, developed a great piece of software and got what he deserved. While I laughed at the other people buying stock in companies that barely existed, I marveled in my friend’s good fortune.

Besides him, I don't have any close friends who work in the Internet industry, so I haven't had the annoying conversations with millionaires who certainly don't deserve it and I don't know anything about the stupid VCs who accelerated and augmented everything. I also don't personally know the people who are now losing their jobs because of the hype. I understand that some ideas were stupid and should never have gotten funded but some of the others were great and should stay around. It's not fair that we're in this 'all or nothing' move. How can all the Internet or web based companies be bundled into one thing? Why does it have to be that they are all worth millions or nothing?

It's weird. My life doesn't depend on it, neither does my job or the jobs of my close friends, but reading all the recent comments, I feel frustrated and angry. I don't want this to go away. I don't want people to give up. The amount of creativity that has exploded in the last few years had made my life so much better that the idea of not having it makes me truly depressed.

For those of you who did know a millionaire snotty friend who got rich from holding stocks or options on a moronic idea, you can now rest in peace that those days are over and the fact that you didn't take that road did finally pay off. But for all the others, I'm praying that your good intentions and amazing courage will pay off, too.

Cause you deserve it.

Previously?

In case you were convinced that Bush won, over a month later you still can't be sure. I wonder how many people's careers are gonna be over before we get a new president?

Thoughts
from calm to psychotic in under 60
This morning I woke up much better than yesterday. My back was still aching but I'd actually managed to sleep most of the night so I figured that had to be a good sign. On the way to work, flurries of snowflakes were falling and I smiled. I love snow, especially when it's sweet and non-intrusive like it was.

Until 3:45, I was having an okay day. Small frustrations of getting my schedule together were annoying but not enough to throw me off. My sign language class is offered on Tuesdays now so I was actually happy. And then....and then my so-called doctor's office called.

I went to this doctor for the first time on Monday morning. I specifically asked how long the appointment takes cause I had a 10am class and they told me it would be no problem. No problem my ass. I got out of there at 10:25 and then I still had to call back to schedule a follow-up appointment. When I got out of my class, on the way to another, I called the office and had to call three times just to be able to get an appointment. That morning when I was seeing the doctor, I told him I really didn't favor taking pills and he said that while he agreed with me, he still wanted to put me on steroids cause he said it would heal my disc problems immediately. So I said fine and started taking all three medications he prescribed.

Yesterday, after having spent a painful and sleepless night, I called the doctor's office at 9am and asked them to find out why I was still in enough pain not to be able to sleep. The fucking office calls me back a day and a half later, and the stupid-ass secretary says she's gonna put me on another medication and that the doctor wants me to schedule an MRI. To say the least, I freaked. I asked the chick whether I was supposed to take this new medicine in addition to what I already was taking and she said yes. I asked her why I needed an MRI and she goes, "Look I have no idea, I'm telling you what the doctor told me. He looked at your chart and told me to do this." So I tell her about how totally unresponsive this doctor's been to me and how I will have to change doctors and she goes "Well, I thought I was being real nice to you." I must tell you that at this point, she probably could not have said anything without me blowing up.

So I hung up and called Jake who told me to call my regular doctor (who is wonderful and amazing) and ask for another doctor. I call the woman's office and she's gone for the day. Her very patient and kind nurse listens to me as I cry and babble over the phone about how I wanna know why I need to take even more medication and how I'm still in pain after these steroids and how this doctor won't tell me what's going on. I just went berserk. I'm at work and I'm weeping. I call my poor mother all the way in Turkey at 11:30pm, still blabbering.

In the meantime, I call NYU to schedule this MRI and the woman tells me I need a permission number to be able to schedule an MRI and since this is a regular procedure, the doctor's office should have already given me one and the hospital can't schedule an MRI without it. So I call the office back and the woman's totally clueless and she says she'll need a few days to get me this number. Let alone the fact that the earliest MRI appointment I can get at this moment is already 10 days away.

As I get off the phone, I realize my regular doctor did call me back and is now leaving to go home. I struggle to call her back but her office is closed so I get her paged. The paging service is a total bitch and hangs up on me as soon as she has my number. This amazing doctor calls me back from God knows where and she calms me down. She tells me that I'm probably having an emotional reaction due to one of the medications I'm taking. She tells me that she wants me to change doctors and says that I totally should feel comfortable with my doctor and gives me another name to call at 9am on Monday morning. I ask her if I'm supposed to take this additional anti-inflammatory medication the other doctor gave me and she goes "But you're already taking an anti-inflammatory" and she says that one should never take two anti-inflammatory medications at the same time. So she tells me to go home and lie down and ignore the other medication. She's kind, she's wonderful, and she’s amazing.

I go to the pharmacy where the asshole doctor called for my prescription and the pharmacist says that with the current medication I'm taking he would recommend highly against my taking this additional medication. I tell him my general doctor agreed and that I refuse to take this new prescription and come home to lie down.

All of this in about 40 minutes. I am now dying with pain and that doctor is extremely lucky he's nowhere near my vicinity.

Why do doctors in this country suck so hard? What happened to personal care and attention?

Previously?

The New York subway system is really entertaining. A woman threatened to smack a guy with her Snapple bottle and a guy started talking to strangers about dick-shaped gum. All of this in the first five minutes of my ride. Don't you wish you lived here?

Have I mentioned how much I love Christmas? A lot. On our first winter in New York, we bought a Christmas tree and since I never had a real one, I didn't know one was supposed to water them. Duh? Yep. Anyhow, this year we're leaving town for Christmas so I didn't wanna buy a tree and kill it once more, but I really love the smell of fresh pine. So guess what I did? I bought a wreath! It smells divine. Color me happy.

If you ever wanted to know what happens behind the closed doors of Alcoholics Anonymous, here's your chance. Then again, those doors aren't really closed. Anyone can attend. I've been to a few with my ex-boyfriend but that's another story for another time. Even with the high rate of alcoholics in America, 2 out of 4 boyfriends seems too high, doesn't it? Amazing how I seem to attract them, especially since I don't drink.

A while ago, I wrote about the author of Fight club. As I talked about his unique style, I seemed to have missed a few details. He also likes the make sure all his books have major twists in the last ten pages. Not to mention that his books are full of twisted people and subjects. Even though I really enjoy his writing style, I couldn't get myself to finish his second novel.

Who are your favorite authors? Whose style do you enjoy?

Previously?

At age 7, I decided I wanted to work with computers. I didn't even have a computer, so I have no idea how I came to that conclusion but I did.

At age 12, I decided I wanted to go to the United States for college.

Those two decisions have never changed. For a while, I entertained the idea of going to college in Toronto, where my aunt lives, but the moment I visited Carnegie Mellon, I knew I was destined to end up in the US. I've also contemplated going into a career where I'd get to restore paintings by using computers. But my main decisions of leaving my homeland and going into a field that seriously involved computers never changed.

Until now.

At the age of 17, I did leave Turkey and attend Carnegie Mellon, majoring in Information Systems with minors in Art and Computer Science. I even got a Masters degree in management at the same time. During the summer of my junior year, I worked at Bell Laboratories (they hadn't become Lucent, yet). As much fun as that was, I decided to join a firm that wasn't primarily a technology firm. I figured since technology was my field, I'd make sure to keep up on it either way and I wanted to join a firm where I'd have the opportunity to also learn about another field.

So, after graduation, I joined a really prestigious investment bank. It is the kind of firm where I could make a career and since I'm happy to dedicate myself to a firm, it all sounded great to me. Unfortunately, my first few years didn't work out all that well. I've had successes and happy days. I got to live in London for several months and in Tokyo for six months. So it's not that I haven't had great opportunities, but I've also had some unfortunate situations.

Due to that, last May, I decided I needed a drastic change in my life. For the first time ever, I started questioning my choices. As much as I like computers, I wondered whether that's what I want to spend my life doing. I bought a whole bunch of books on choosing a career; I was desperate to figure out what I was really meant to do. I considered every option including going back to college, taking some time off, moving to a different company, moving to a different area in my company, and many others.

At the end, I stayed in the same firm. I moved to a totally different area and I work three days a week. I work from Wednesdays to Fridays. On Mondays, I take three or four classes and on Tuesdays, I volunteer at the New York Society for the Deaf. I am the first to admit that I have a great setup and I'm enjoying it tremendously. I am 100% happier.

The thing is, I still don't know what I want to do. While my current situation is amazing, I'm not really sure how long it will last. I have this continuous nagging voice inside that keeps telling me that I need to make up my mind. For a girl who knew what she wanted since 7, the idea of all this unknown is really scary and I truly hate that I can't just relax and enjoy my current good luck.

If anyone has good ideas on how I can figure out what I should do with my life, I am truly open to any and all suggestions. If you know how to shut up my little voice, speaking up about that would be amazingly useful, as well.

How did you know what you wanted to do with your life?

Before?

I've decided to bring some Christmas feel to my page. Feel free to let me know what you think.

Yesterday, December 2nd, was my anniversary with Jake. 6 years. We've been together for 6 years. Considering that I've only been in the United States for 8.5 years, that's a really large chunk of my American life.

Jake and I met cause we taught the same class in college. It was a student-taught computer course. I was a junior and he a sophomore. The most distinct memories I have from our first couple of months involve lots of laughter. Laughter and hours and hours of talking. We talked until the wee hours of the morning. About nothing. About everything.

He lived in a very unusual dorm and we spent hours hanging out with his friends. I remember a month during which we constantly played Son of a Preacher Man. Non-stop. Every time one of us entered the dorm room, we'd go "Oh my God! Turn it up, it's my favorite song!" We didn't even turn it off while we slept. We also spent several months playing Lucas Arts games, like Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle. Most of my favorite college memories are with Jake.

After I graduated and moved to New York, we spent a summer living together and we fought non-stop. But we survived it. He went back to college to finish his senior year and we survived a year of long distance. We then moved back in together and learned to make it work without killing each other. We've even come to a point where we can't imagine having better roommates than each other. Recently, I spent six months in Japan and he stayed here. The long distance was no problem. We spent hours on the phone, talking like the first days of our relationship. Having recently read Zeldman’s story, I smiled at how much it resembled our relationship.

My life with Jake has had ups and downs. But so many more ups. He's taught me what it means to really laugh and he makes me feel loved more than anyone else I've ever been with. Each time he hugs me, I know that I can never let go. Each time I look into his eyes, I fall in love all over again. He makes me want to be a better person. He’s truly my best friend.

Thank you for all those wonderful years, my love. Here's to many more.

Before?