Wednesday, November 11, 2009
(Originally posted on Facebook)
I know! Crazy, right? Another note, only two days later?! Lately, when I find myself in a deep train of though, I begin to plan out how I’d structure it in a blog entry. This is either the start of a narcissistic obsession or a new career path. Anyway, here are my thoughts from today, (kinda) structured for you reading pleasure.
Last Friday, I attempted to take the bus to Bishop Museum because I found out that the cafe inside was hiring someone for food prep. I ended up missing my stop, riding to the end of the line, and giving up to go back home. Now, it wasn’t a big deal to give up on the job pursuit because, well, I already have one. But being a cook for Kikka Sushi in Whole Foods Market just ain’t doing it for me. Here’s my day, five days a week:
-Wake up before 6 AM
-Ride a bike 25 minutes up and down hills to Kahala Mall
-Turn on all the cooking apparatuses (shouldn’t it be “apparati”?)
-Cook rice. A lot of it.
-Prepare soup broths
-Grill meat
-Assemble over thirty different types of teriyaki, curry, and Korean BBQ rice bowls until lunch break
-Enjoy the act of sitting for almost an hour (or leave by noon on Fridays)
-Return to work and talk to the only other English-speaking employee at Kikka while figuring out how to be productive until 4 PM
-Ride home, sometimes after grabbing food and drinks with a friend
-Work out
-Shower, rinse, repeat. . . the whole day over and again
I work hard each day, only to start from the very beginning the next morning. There’s no real sense of accomplishment. And since, as a Kikka Sushi cook, I work in Whole Foods and not for it, I don’t get the discount. On top of that, I am void of much human interaction. My coworkers choose not to and nearly can’t speak English, so they never attempt to talk to me. And I can’t say “Tofu Kung Pao” to them without getting blank stares of incomprehension, so I don’t try either. I work under a giant grill fan with an even bigger noise output, behind a sound-reflecting wall of glass, so I cannot hear the customers on the other side. Even if I could, the mall is too far away from the main tourists spots to attract the world travelers that I oh-so want to talk to. Furthermore, I seldom have time for hanging out or exploring during the weekday, so I am apparently just waiting for the weekends. . . and I never wanted wait-for-the-weekend type job! Hence my failed trek to Bishop Museum.
Now, despite the paragraph of hate the preceded this one, I don’t actually hate each my job. It gives me lots of time to think, an excuse to exercise, and the opportunity to see some good friends. However, when I take a longterm view of what I’m doing, I feel stagnant. My work days aren’t monotonous (it’s a long, non-repetitive to-do list), but they definitely lack progression; I have nothing to strive for. My whole life, I’ve had a long-term goal (make it to the next grade, graduate high school, graduate college); at this point in my life, I have none. I’m just making money, hoping to plan something awesome for the weekend. In lieu of this, I’ve started coming up with goals for which to strive.
My first goal is not actually a goal, but rather an alternative means to my real first goal: find a job in Waikiki. Although this would be a shorter bike ride (and thus, not much of an exercise), I would be able to interact with people all around the world. I’d ideally love to get a front desk job at a hostel, because people who stay at hostels, as opposed to hotels, usually have more interesting stories.
My real first goal: save up enough for a cheap car. I will do this through Kikka or, hopefully, some Waikiki-based job. It will definitely take a while, but it would be well worth it. The traveling and exploring I want to do during the weekends is completely dependent on the schedules of my car-driving friends and family members. I’ve been on this island nearly two months and I’ve barely left the city of Honolulu. My bike can’t take me out of this city. A moped couldn’t do it either. I’m not asking for much, just four wheels and an engine. Maybe some doors.
My second goal: look into writing—or even journalism— classes. I don’t know to what extent I’d want to jump into this, whether it be a single class at Kapiolani Community College or enrolling in a Journalism program at UH, but the more I write in this blog, the more I realize I’d love to do this for a living. (Now, I do not regret for a second majoring in Film Studies. As a general rule, if I am enjoying my current position in life, I cannot regret a single event in the past, since each one had to happen for me to be where I am. More specifically, I loved the Film Studies major, as it taught me so much about my greatest interest. Additionally, I always kept in mind that whatever I did as an undergrad did not necessarily have to dictate my future career.) I can’t for the life of me start writing a story—and by extension, a screenplay—but I can easily spit out personal opinions, descriptions, or ideas about life experiences. Maybe I can be a journalist for National Geographic and travel the world! Or maybe I can be a film reviewer for a newspaper, seeing films for a living! I figure I’m young enough to dream big, yet old enough to do something about it.
Goal three: meet a gorgeous yet surprisingly down-to-Earth and intelligent Roxy model, start a fantastically fun and uncomplicated relationship with her, then, after I make a ton of cash as a Hawaiian journalist, move to New York with her because we both have a zest for life and new experiences. She’ll continue her modeling and novel-writing career while I start a new blog called “Young Man Went East.” Hey, it could happen 😉
She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s been waiting her whole life to run into me.
Young Man Went East 