Explanation of my current doings

Okay so I have had a few people ask me what's going on, are you planning on quitting school? The answer in short is no. When I wrote the blog saying how life sucked, I was enrolled in a class that I was not prepared to take, in fact I am about a year's worth of preparation away from taking the class. So I changed my degree plan to include less mathematics and more computer science. I plan on taking the mathematics at some point but I want to take a series of courses that will better prepare me.

Also, I have applied to Teach for America and am thinking about taking two years out of my schoolwork and going to teach at a poor school here in Chicago. For me, this is not an attempt to get away from the drudgery of my schoolwork but rather an attempt to do something very close to my heart. It doesn't take me very long to look back at my youth and see how a few great teachers really showed me how a good education was the key to coming out of the slums. I was fortunate enough to have that lesson taught to me, and I would like to give back to the community in some serious way. I know what people say, "Scientist help with society." or "Get your career in place first and then go change the world." Both of these ideas cross my mind daily but really do not embody the amount of service I want to give.

There has been something missing in my life here in Chicago. All I really do is study and research. I have been active in my Church and the Pro-life association here on campus. I have also done lots of service type stuff, like giving out food or helping with an organization drive for communities. But when I decided to come to Chicago, one of the major reasons was because there was a Catholic Worker House nearby. A professor at my old school shared his experience once with living in a Catholic Worker House and helping the poor. Okay it was more than helping the poor, it was partnering with the poor and agreeing to help each other through life's challenges. This is what I want to do in a very real way. To not only be a witness and advocate to the problems in the educational system, but to be a partner invested in the success of the educational system.

With that said, I don't know if I will go away for 2 years or not yet. I just applied to the program and that could or could not mean I get into the program. I am also applying myself 100% to my studies because I do believe that science changes the world.