My Weird Vocation Journey

[vee]

I think its good to get things off your chest and prayers for you as you continue following Christ. 

What you said about their food struck a chord with me and I understand why it would bother you.  The community Im interested in is very modest in their food, they dont waste things, its simple and healthy and they share what they can with local families in need.  Their poverty fits me very much and Im sorry that that community wasnt a fit for you.

[superblue]

 I am feeling so frustrated over all,  I know there are better communities out there than what I experienced, an it is like the one chance i got and for what ever reason i manage to find the wrong fit right out the gate. An now I am having to figure out why i am even bothering with college anymore. I found a program that i can get into that the state will cover 100% at my local college, and i kid you not this college even though it is a state college is a bloody nightmare on so many levels. The good thing is, if i can some how brush my math skills up, which i was never good at math by any means, EVER, test into college algebra , there by skipping an intermediate math class i need, i would be doing okay. I got to bring my GPA up which isn't hard,  and then take an intro chem class, and then i can apply for the program i am interested in with the school, which only begins June of each year, that is if i get in next year. An then at that point when i am accepted, then the state foots the bill for tuition lock stock n barrel. Between all of that now i gota find a dirt bag job again that will undoubtedly beat up what is left of my tolerance for bs, or i have to convince my parents to invest in me a bit more so i can at least get the tools i need to do wood working that i am good at, and then figure a way to sell that on the side while in college.... THEN if by some Miracle God lets me graduate college in 3 yrs out of a 2 year program , hopefully some how i manage to get an internship and get hired on.

I really wish i had taken my time instead of being so excited to think that i found a great monastery right off the bat, like walking into a store and going amesome i got my ticket and these are my winning numbers for sure and then come to find out that all the numbers were off by 1.

An what is even more evident, is that not only does my mom need me around, i need to be close by to my mom. an my family that is left in town.  the 80s and 90s were amesome but their was no indication that life was going to go down hill so fast once 2000 came around, an my first mistake right outa high school was joining the army. My time in the army took so much from me on so many levels, and some how I managed to come out stronger and able to continue to survive the sludge . My time in the monastery was neither good or bad it was like a holding tank if anything... Oh and what is more amesome news, my next door neighbor whom i never before in my life caught me out front and is like hey fyi my house has been broken into twice now, and i was wondering if you have seen anything. So the neighborhood i grew up in is no longer safe, which i knew that for awhile now.

I do hope though I can get a degree this time and find a professional stable job with tolerable management and coworkers, then maybe i can focus on doing things that i find to be worthwhile and rewarding and beneficial to others. I had to quit photography though an that is naners, too expensive for one, an lack of support just tanked that so fast.

 

and the last random thought

Hug a Zombie. 

 

[Spem in alium]

I really feel for you. What I have discovered, after much struggle, is that the things we may regret can in fact teach us the most. You're in my prayers. 

[Antigonos]

I don't hug zombies, but I do cyber-hug people. Consider yourself hugged. Can I ask you how old you are, Superblue?  You sometimes seem to have packed a lot into a few years.  Sometimes I think you must be in your thirties, sometimes much younger.

Hang in there, this "old trout" [I'm 69] advises.  Everything passes.  Today can be the pits; tomorrow wonderful -- or vice versa.  Whenever we had to do something really unpleasant in nursing school, we were told "think of it as a learning experience".  At 18, I thought that was very trite and a bad cliche; now I know that it was really true.  Choices in future will be made more intelligently because of experiences in the past.  I had a truly terrible time with my mother, when I was a teenager -- and deliberately avoided having a terrible relationship with my own teenage daughters as a result.  I knew what to avoid.

My son, when he did his three year stint in the Israeli army, would come home on weekends and give us a long list of complaints and tell us of all kinds of negative experiences.  Yet his father and I watched him mature during those years. He is now a very successful businessman and admits that much of his administrative abilities he gained in the army, both from doing and observing how officers functioned.   It will take a while for you to put both your army experience and your time in the monastery in perspective -- yet, take hope!  You will discover that, at some point, that you're a better person for being "tempered", even though now it just all seems doom and gloom.