Oh and as to why I don't keep doing what I'm doing now, it's a temporary appointment, as nearly every entry-level position in the development sector is, lol.

Ah yes and lastly krellin your post about why all this impetuosity to do this now in your twenties before you've even established yourself. I bring you Thoreau:

"One says to me, “I wonder that you do not lay up money; you love to travel; you might take the cars and go to Fitchburg today and see the country.” But I am wiser than that. I have learned that the swiftest traveller is he that goes afoot. I say to my friend, Suppose we try who will get there first. The distance is thirty miles; the fare ninety cents. That is almost a day’s wages. I remember when wages were sixty cents a day for laborers on this very road. Well, I start now on foot, and get there before night; I have travelled at that rate by the week together. You will in the meanwhile have earned your fare, and arrive there some time tomorrow, or possibly this evening, if you are lucky enough to get a job in season. Instead of going to Fitchburg, you will be working here the greater part of the day. And so, if the railroad reached round the world, I think that I should keep ahead of you; and as for seeing the country and getting experience of that kind, I should have to cut your acquaintance altogether...

This spending of the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet. He should have gone up garret at once."

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And to the notion that I need the practical experience of being out in the world I've been studying in books, relying mostly on myself, Thoreau has this to say about students and education, which I find very personally convicting:

"The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful. “But,” says one, “you do not mean that the students should go to work with their hands instead of their heads?” I do not mean that exactly, but I mean something which he might think a good deal like that; I mean that they should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end. How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living? ...

Which would have advanced the most at the end of a month- the boy who had made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for this - or the boy who had attended the lectures on metallurgy at the Institute in the meanwhile, and had received a Rodgers penknife from his father? Which would be most likely to cut his fingers? ...

To my astonishment I was informed on leaving college that I had studied navigation!—why, if I had taken one turn down the harbor I should have known more about it. Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably."

Thucy - I hope you did not view me as being critical. Honestly, my gut says you *need* to go to New Orleans; it's the Dad in me that says "be sensible".

I think both options will give you a great life, because life is what *you* make of it; life is not where you are, it is what you do and who yo impact, wherever that is.

As a father, I struggle with what is practical for my daughters, and what I need to just let them experience, even if it means failing and dealing with pain – especially as they enter their high school years and my relationships turns from one of “control” to one of “influence”. I struggle with guiding them to an education that will get them a great job, versus telling them to go after their heart, and don’t worry about the money - i.e. find a husband that makes good money! :P

So…that it how I view you as you ask advice…but a *true* examination of self would probably tell me go to New Orleans…you don’t’ want to live with the regret of not doing that..and you *will* if you don’t I believe.

Good luck whatever you choose Thucy – do good in this world.

Agreed that life is what you make of it. I would not be unhappy in Williamsburg, it would just hurt to know I had come so close to New Orleans which I have lovingly idealized from my home in Houston. Gulf Coast and that.

So I tend to agree. It seems difficult to part with the idea. I certainly didn't take your questions to be critical, rather, sensible.

I was listening to NPR on the way home from work yesterday and they did a segment about New Orleans...and then watching PBS last night (The Create Channel) this chef from New Orleans was one talking about the culture and the food…and it was like God was speaking to me…”Tell Thucy to go to New Orleans!!! Go forth and do good!”

So here I am, buddy. :)

Lol it is infectious isn't it?

stop screwing around with the kid's brain and tell him to go to Virginia krell :-)

http://qkme.me/3vk5w5

So…Redhouse…are you suggesting that because of my past associations with Thucy…which have been, er, “rambunctious”…you think I am trying to mislead him to do him harm? Ahhh….far, far from it. In all my interactions with Thucy I always seek to improve his lot in life (although, yes, my methods often are far from effective…heh heh…) I care about Thucy, whether he believes it or not…and more and more my gut leans towards New Orleans a the right choice. If he doesn’t take this opportunity, he will regret it forever. He can always make more money…but he’ll never be twenty in old New Orleans again when the years slip by. And despite my assertion that I can enjoy traveling the world at 44…well, there is just something about the un-settled brain of a 20-something…almost an adult, almost mature, able to live on their own but still “invincible” enough to do really stupid things and create memories that will last a life time and bring a smile to his face in the dark times, whatever the rest of life holds for him. He pretty much has to go to New Orleans to, as he said it best, to self-actualize…and I think that’s probably the best reason he gives – the unexplainable, “I just have to” reason.

Anyway Red…hater of America…let me know when YOU land on our blessed shores! :P

Ah krellin, you overly sentimental old booby, if Thucy just has to go to New Orleans he would have already told the chap with the job in the other place a polite thanks but no thanks. He's already decided to go for the job, but the inner child, who is still rather keen on the idea of New Orleans, is making a desperate attempt to find good arguments to change his mind. It ain't gonna happen.

Bahhhhh!!! You festering, rotten, nerfherder, Octavious! In New Orleans he will mingle with the blended cultures of the world, the voodoo man and zombies in the back woods. He'll be seduced by a witchy woman who will cause him to see unforgettable visions of midgets having sex. He *must* go to New Orleans, so that we may live vicariously through his reports on life.

Self-actualize?

What is he going to become, more Thucy? If I were him I'd self-actualize my bank account a little bit. Like I said, the "He can always make more money" you speak of was very true for your generation, but it simply isn't true for ours.

And I love America, I always listen to the Rolling Stones when I'm down.

Red -- first off, "your generation" and its ability to make money? Uhhh...one, we live in a separate economy from yours. We have a lot of problems, but despite Obama the economy is slowly recovering. This depressing, sky-is-falling attitude that you youngens have, like there will never be economic growth and jobs-a-plenty again is ridiculous. Hell, this country survived Jimmy Carter and thrived again, I think we'll make it past Obummer. In fact, from that standpoint, now is a great time for Thucy's boondoggle, because when he returns a few years from now and we are in the beginning of the first *conservative* Presidency in 20+ years, the economy will be *raring* to go, and he'll do just fine. But seriously...don't be such a sourpuss. You act liek there's never been a recession/depression before. How awful it must be to think the economy if forever crumbled, that man is *literally* destroying your planet, etc....when *do* you sad sacks find time to smile?

The Republicans aren't getting their act together quick enough, krell-meister. 2012 should have been a landslide for you guys with such a blatantly incompetent President.

And it's simply going to be very hard for us. That doesn't mean it won't be fun, on the contrary, hard can be fun. But it's going to be a fight. Your generation was first confronted with low-level jobs being outsourced to Mexico, our generation is already being confronted with high-tech jobs going to India.

Thucy would be absolutely misguided to go to New Orleans for the sake of the city of New Orleans. News flash: cities become normal after a while.

Thucy: A couple years ago I moved to a city with the highest unemployment in my country and some of the lowest wages. The city I moved from is the richest in my country. And the difference in wage between entrance level positions reflects this. I'm being payed about half of what I would have back home where I am now.

I've idealized this city (and the ocean) for much of my youth (I had been there once in my youth on a family vacation), and I thought coming here would be an important life changing experience.... to sum it up. It hasn't lived up to expectations. The city hasn't been anything special, and the only thing I'm extremely grateful for is the people I've met as a result of coming here.

I could have met amazing people anywhere. Suffice it to say, I recommend not moving to New Orleans.

Thucydides, I think we're only about a year apart, with me being older. So this isn't some grouchy old man telling this to you. Please keep that in mind.

Having said that, your arguments for not taking the job are fucking stupid. You have a 40k job lined up in a great part of the country that will allow you to use your degree, and yet you're considering living in New Orleans with no job yet and only shit jobs as probable options. That's lunacy.

This is not an opportunity to pass up. It's time to grow up. Just take the damn job and start building your life. Too many people our age will not have opportunities like this. It's a scandal for you to pass it up.

2012 wasn't a landslide becuase the Republicans are in the process of purging the "Moderates" -- Boehner and all the old-school do-nothing-but-retreat-and-compromise-i.e.-sure-we'll-raise-taxes Republipukes.

What is going on in the Republican party is a *healthy look at Democracy*...it is a party seeking it's soul, and that's a good thing. Those emerging as the party's leaders...the new, younger crop - sensitive to people's freedoms, reasonable on matters of immigration, conservative on the fiscal front...these guys will reshape the party in the years to come. And if the competition is the corpse of Hilary Clinton, who has enough baggage to distort the orbit of the planet, or that goofy fuck O-Biden...I think we'll do OK...pus 2014 is going to be *hell* on people's wallets as O-Bummer-care finally starts really kicking in and proves to be the financial disaster anyone with knowledge knows it to be.

@Damian -- that's what I said...until Public Radio/TV convinced me that New Orelans is American Mecca!!!

Of course krellin, of course.

orrrrrr....the sheeple of America will continue to punge us down the eternal hell of liberalism and we'll be sucking crumbs of the boots of our Chinese overlords in a few decades...possibly begging a few bits of rise from the rising Brazillian empire as well...

I think you should purge your party of religious nutters and clowns.

(If you want to win)

What is a "religious nutter and clown". Please define that for me, oh Slanderer from the Left?

The Christian Coalition was once an *extremely* powerful political force in this country. I don't think we have become so godless as a nation that religious individuals have no power. The problem is that the religious, God-fearing people in the country have been bullied in to silence by a godless media, and the few that are outspoken are, as you call them, "nutters and clowns", I guess...but to dismiss a religious coalition, properly formed and managed, is foolish.

In other words...the party ought to *re-assemble* a conservative, religious coalition and tell people IT'S OK to believe in God if you are an American!!!

Sure of course you're right krellin.

I smell sarcasm...

Come to think of it, when I was walking the dog someone told me a bunch of kids were putting places on fire... I can't sleep, I need to smell.

You know... we have a separation of church and state for a reason. Let people believe what they want to believe and let that remain a social issue, not a political one.

Since when is that a social issue? I honestly don't give a crap what people believe. I don't see the issue.