a 10 for success!

it's been 10 days since i posted. on top of working several late nights last week, i started my internship doing PR. i spend (again) 10 hours per week writing and doing the layout for newsletters, making brochures and flyers, etc. it's good way to develop the basic writing and design skills...not exactly what i'm looking to do... but then again maybe it is. who knows. ...i also met with Calvin's Director of Media Relations and he's talking about hooking me up to write some articles covering science stories. i'm afraid that if i go into journalism people are going to keep asking me to write these stories since i have a physics degree. i plan to use my background as an 'in' but then i'll do an extra semseter of grad work and develop an expertise on a different beat topic, such as global issues or religion and spirituality. ...i'm not good at expressing myself, and i'm so afraid that i won't learn how fast enough to be the kick-ass journalimst i'm dreaming of being. i've been thinking about success and how i want it so much, because i want to influence the world for the better...but i wonder if there are warped motivations that are going into this desire. like i need it to keep my pride in tact. or i lived on the east coast with some of the most successful people in the nation (wall street brokers, pastors of the largest churches in manhattan, editors for major publishing houses, reporters for CNN, and the like) and so this success is what i see as 'normal.' of course it comes at the cost of postponing a family, settling down and marriage (however, as far as i can tell i don't want kids, i have a pretty serious case of wanderlust and i'm really not sure i'd be ready to start the hard work of marriage, at least that's what i think). but such would be life in manhattan. anyway, so success. no one thinks someone with a physics degree should be working at a restaurant, but here i am. i should be moving to manhattan and bringing about world peace and inventing time travel and writing the timeless novel, right? is this the success i'm striving for? i mean maybe i want success because i want to be noticed, because i need affirmation that i am worth paying attention to, because i feel like my contributions aren't enough unless theyr'e widely-noticed and well-received. or maybe i'm just dreaming big. is it so wrong to want to be influential? in addition to the realm of influence that everyone possesses in their daily interactions with friends, family, co-workers and strangers, the person of influence builds a platform from which to address the systematic problems of the world. is this so wrong? i mean, i could just be a server/bartender for the rest of my life. ugh.

by the way i now have 10 piano students. the kids aren't particulalry bullheaded and they're all smart, but i'm completely drained after teaching, mostly i think because i dislike it so much. sometimes though it's not so bad...especially with students i've had long enough to get used to.

more to come, as always.