The Begining

For as long as I can remember I have been coasting through life without a single true goal. Since I was in the 6th grade, I have often said that I wanted to be a marine biologist, due to my love of aquatic life. This goal was never anything I actually strove for however.

Through my freshmen year of high school I found most of the work too easy and the stuff that was not no one could ever explain adequately so that I could understand. Due to the ease of most of the work, I still had good grades, even when I would get sick ( I was, and still am to a point, prone to catching bad coughs and the newest, nastiest forms of the flu) I could make up weeks worth of work in just a day or so. Come sophomore I had a profound lack of interest in going to school at all, and dropped out halfway through the year to go to a government funded trade school where one could get certified in a trade and also obtain a GED or HSD.

I choose a trade that, to me, sounded like it would be exciting enough and make some decent money, and I also took an online high school course that I literally breezed through, finishing it in less then 6 months and graduating high school three days after my friend (who is a year older then I) graduated from normal high school.(If you see a few gaps of time in the timeline, there was a few month waiting list to get into the trade school, and there was a three month long wait for me to get into the high school program.)

Now, after a year of learning how to weld, gaining my HSD, and feeling generally good about my chances to stay in the program and take advantage of their college assistance, they felt I had been there long enough, and that the new college semester was too far off to allow me to "sit around and do nothing", so they gave me my graduation money and sent me back home.

After looking at colleges for a while, I finally choose one that seemed to have everything I needed to advance in my (half-hearted) choice of a career (the marine biology). The only thing I did not take into account was the campus layout and the commune. At first all went well, I would take either an hour-long bus ride (two transfers) or a thirty minute uphill bike ride (like the only friggin hill in town), and I took the open air campus walks to class in stride, enjoying the late winter and early spring weather.

However, here in Texas, that weather does not last. After biking the two miles uphill and carrying 50lbs of books and papers for 5 hours in the heat, I made the mistake of drinking some very cold water from a drinking fountain. My body went into shock due to dehydration, and due to the swine flu I had contracted that had yet to take effect, I suffered some pretty bad symptoms, the two biggest being temporary paralysis of the legs and chronic fatigue that lasted two months.

For those two months I could not keep up with anything more then keeping myself clean and fed, and fell seriously behind in schoolwork. I also fell into a deep depression. I escaped into the world of video games and books to distract me from my thoughts. I also started to look for a job. It turns out my chosen trade was a bust. Due to the proximity to the border, most of the positions I had the experience to fill were filled by immigrant workers, and the others all asked for at least 5 years of experience. As a result, I searched for well over a year with no success, and with every passing week, my depression grew.

When I finally got a job, I was doing maintenance on and driving one of the tourist attractions here in San Antonio (due to contracts I signed, I cannot mention the name of my ex-employer or the attraction without their express consent). It was decent work, but after 6 months, 20 people were layed off,  as one of the lowest rungs in the ladder, I was one of the 20. Since then I have been looking, with little success for another job, and until recently in a deep depression.

What finally changed was unexpected. There was a game I had played a demo of a few years back, made by some guys in their free time, the game released on my birthday (free game) and I found out a month later, so I started playing. It is a visual novel where you take on the life of a disabled high school student that gets sent to a school for the physically disabled. Throughout this game you meet and forge relationships with some of the other students. It gave me a new perspective on life, seeing how these kids (even though they were fictional) overcame their disabilities, and inspired me to do something with my life.

So here I am, writing my first blog, in hopes to further my dream. My goal over the next 9 years is to do the following:
1. Learn Japanese
2. Find out, and pursue, what I will have to do to teach English in Japan
3. Learn both Japanese and English sign language.
4. Find out, and pursue, what I will have to do to teach physically disabled youths in Japan.

This is where I will stop for today, I will update as I can. Next update will be a step by step plan.

The first step has been taken, onto the next!