When I was 5, I started drawing maps. Mind you, not real maps, but maps of these semi-real places. Imaginary maps of imaginary cities with imaginary names.
Yeah, I was pretty weird.
I lived in Chicago til 5. I still remember noticing in Chicago that there was this one traffic light that was horizontal ( RED YELLOW GREEN sideways, not stacked), and I was in awe. It was like I saw the seventh wonder of the world.
and then it got worse.
I pestered my mom to buy me
Matchbox cars every time I could. we were really poor back then so the $1 cars meant a lot to me. I'd collect them, put them on the carpet, and just kind of sort them in fleeting scenes. the story wasn't really the important part, just having a bunch of cars to sort out in a nice little imaginary ecosystem.
And I drew more maps.
My dad bought me a computer in 5th grade. back then, nobody had computers at home. soo I was pretty special and to be honest he was spoiling me. the computer was obsolete in 2 years but when he bought the 486....it was a roadster. My uncle started me out with solitaire. I never really liked that game until I became cynical, later in high school. so then the computer kind of sat there, not being used, the monitor always covered by the plastic dust shield my dad bought because asian parents are into those kinds of things.
and then I got Simcity.
and so I became more of a city-building dork. I still remember my first successful city, I called it Darwin because I remembered seeing an atlas with Darwin being a city on the northern Australian coast. and this city was a bit of an island and I was starting on the north so it seemed to work out. I built a seaport, which cost me a sizable $5000, and then built the glorious city around. I spent hours zoning, rebuilding, and tweaking.
this was before I realized years later that Darwin was a scientist.
I drew more maps but I got distracted by other games. sure I bought simcity 2000 and such but I began to realize that playing simcity was the opposite of cool. I bought Street Fighter for my super nintendo to try to be a cool gamer but I never was really any good at that. besides, arcades were expensive.
I'm glad
arcades went out of style.
I'm not sure how I lost my way but when I told these things to Alan today, the mentor guy, he said, "maybe that's a sign". he said that when he got his MBA, they let him take one class as an elective in any department and he chose a geography class and loved it. whenever I thought of geography as a major I thought:
Applying for job: Geography major. Will take $20/hr with government or $25/hr working as a bookstore clerk. Vague aspirations of graduate school.
But then again. I fell in love with the idea of being an operations research major and not really operations research. and like Alan said (cause he's an entrepreneur), when he worked for himself, he always did something he loved. and he said maybe this is something you would love doing.
I used to take atlases into the bathroom to read.
poop. if I change my major now I'll graduate in like 2011. but if I don't, I'll always wonder what if. and if something will motivate me to do better in school I can sure as hell use it.
Geography > me?
