On A Day Like This I Wish My Name was Lloyd Dobler (BEDA #2)

So fun trivia questions for the day based on the title:
1) What movie am I referencing?
2) If you can go so far as to guess, which song do you think I'm listening to?

I honestly think it's pretty obvious, but I'm also a cinema major and a nerd...soooooo...

So today wasn't a bad day, but I'm going to admit I was feeling a lot of that TGIF love from the moment I woke up. School is finishing in a few weeks though so I'm really psyched to get the summer of '09 kicked off and just relax and work on some of my to do list which is to:
1) finish my book
2) lose some weight
3) read all the books on my shelf
4) Get a job

All pretty attainable I think, but the summer has yet to start, so we'll see how my motivation turns out as soon as the humidity sets in.

I am feeling particularly motivated lately, something about all the suckness that has been occurring over the past couple weeks has really driven my contentedness back up to over 9000.

Today in fact was one of those days that I can label as "Days Pax thinks too heavily about his future"-- but for once it didn't involve me panicking and talking about how I'm going to be employed at Best Buy.

So basically what I've decided is to... drag this point on even further by doing one of those little meme type things, hey... be thankful I'm not doing this in vlog form, you can always choose to stop reading now.

Basically I'm sure a lot of people had something like this in school, but if not I'm just going to preface it a little.

Do you remember when you're a little kid and they have career day in Elementary School? You know, when you dress up as what you want to be when you grow up- -for no reason other than when you're a little kid we label career proficiency in what we can dress as. Most people wind up dressing up like doctors, or ice skaters, or football players-- let's just say I wasn't always the same.

In first grade I told my mom I wanted to be a molecular biologist/chemist (and yes, I was 6 years old at the time and wasn't even sure these careers existed *they do*). I got all dressed up in a lab coat and my mom gave me an empty salad dressing container which she drew the little atomic symbol on. My mom even gelled my hair up with her hair gel so I looked like mad scientist and they let me wear my nice shoes to school with dress pants. After a few hours at school I accidentally opened the container and found out my mom hadn't soap it well enough and it reeked of garlic. Needless to say I got glared at, but the girl who sat next to me gave me her star shaped eraser and told me that my lap coat made me look smart and cute. That girl is actually one of my best friends now still and when I tell her that she laughs and asks what happened-- science never was my thing.

In second grade I told my mom I wanted to be a veterinarian, I was 7 at the time and used to check out books from the library on pet care. I was hoping that if I showed my parents how responsible I could be, they would get me a new puppy (I already had a dog named Mack who I thought was ancient at the time, he was only 9). My mom stole one of my dad's v-neck work undershirts and made me a badge that said Dr.EJ Paxton to clip on my shirt, it was even the first time she let me take a toy to school (not really a toy per se, she let me take a stuffed dog to class, it looked like our dog, but it was more fun). When I got to school I was promptly told my Robbie Lemieux that only girls took care of animals and he called me a girl. I get sent to the office that day and had to tell the principal why I had chosen to trip a fellow classmate at recess and asked him "who's the girl now, stupid?". Taking care of animals or people was never really my thing...

In third grade I got really into art and made the decision that I was going to grow up to be a painter. My mom went out and bought me a new smock, paint brush, and even a paint pallet I use to pretend I was painting. I told my mom that I didn't look right enough and I had to be like the guy who was on a kid's show I watched on Fox Family. Apparently when I was 8 being a good painter meant looking French. My mom sewed me a black beret and painted a fake Chef Boyardee looking moustache on my face. The beret was a hit and I decided from there on out that wearing hats just made sense, however the paint gave me a rash and I decided two things: 1) I never wanted facial hair (which would become ironic 7 years later) and 2) I didn't want mummy's help with career day anymore.

In fourth grade I developed a hero worship for my dad, and I wanted to do whatever daddy did and my dad is an electrical engineer with intense backing with computers, computer programming, and circuitry (my father really is an intelligent man, which is why it's surprising to hear he still loses his sunglasses on his head). I told my dad I wanted to be a computer programmer and I think looking back now he beamed a little bit with that fatherly pride. The next day my dad woke me up early and brought me into his room, Wishbone pajamas and all. By the end of him dressing me my mom must have been appauled at her 9 year old son coming out of their bedroom in a polo shirt, suit coat, khaki pants, and sunglasses with the lenses popped out. My dad even used his office copier to make me my own work clearance ID that said "Edward J. Paxton- Programming Head". I'm not going to say this was one of the more defining moments, but it was the first time someone called me a nerd and it was the first time I realized I was pretty proud of that fact. The kid who dressed up as the football player that year showed me what he thought of nerds though-- it took them a long time to get suit arms unbuttoned.

In fifth grade, I was 10 and decided to take all my past follies which meant:
nothing chemically dangerous, nothing girly, nothing harmful to my health, and nothing nerdy. Sadly this was the year we moved into the new house, so asking mum and dad for help wasn't of any good because they were too busy. I just so happened to be out of luck that career day followed the week we moved. Now you have to wonder what a 10 year old who has no adult supervision wants to be when they grow up. The next day I woke up all dressed up, and now looking back I think my mom was laughing her ass of at her 10 year old son in Hawaiian shirt, OP shorts, sandals, with sunscreen on his nose, and sunglasses that were a little too big with a cardboard cut-out of a crayon colored surf board. This is the only time I was readily accepted for my career day, and I felt pretty cool. At that age I felt like it would going to be the perfect career for me-- too bad I never did learn to surf though...

It's been about a decade now since those Elementary School career days and strangely I've come to find that my career aspirations at 9 are pretty much what they are at 19.

Which is why today I've come to the future decision that even through all my years of high school in which I wanted to be a doctor, an artist, a writer, only one of which stuck, I've realized I'm always going to be that nerd getting tied to the fire escape by his suit coat (I'm hoping figuratively, and not literally, that would suck).

So this is why today, well not today really-- but soon...

I'm adding Computer Science to my studies, probably in a minor, but still the idea is there that not only will I be that nerdy writer nerd, but I'm going to be that nerdy computer nerd... just call me freaky Computer Boy (someone just giggled =P)

But in all seriousness...
if you can teach me to surf, I'll definitely reconsider