- 10,459 miles. That's a lot of miles. My car was an absolute champ. Didn't give me any problems.
- 30 states, including 20 new states, bringing my state total to 49. The only state I haven't been to is Alaska. The most beautiful part of the trip was the entire drive down the Pacific coast. Everything you've heard about how amazing that drive is is true. Really, from Mt. Rushmore to the Grand Canyon, everything was unbelievable. The whole trip was great, but that was the highlight. Mt. Rushmore was as impressive as advertised, Yellowstone was gorgeous at every single turn, I had the best salmon I've ever had in my entire life in Seattle, the Redwoods were gigantic and remarkable, San Francisco was probably my favorite city in the entire trip, I got to sit on the couch in Central Perk from my favorite show Friends in Los Angeles (highly, highly recommend the Warner Bros. Studio Tour. It was fantastic), and the Grand Canyon was spectacular.
- 49 state license plates. 49. So close... The one hold out? Not one of the states that you're expecting. No, I saw a Hawaiian license plate in Iowa of all places (on a route I almost didn't take no less) and I saw FOUR Alaskan license plates (one in North Dakota, one in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, one right after I crossed into Washington state, and the final one in Missouri). Nope, the one state's license plate I did not see during this trip: Rhode Island... Which I guess makes sense seeing as how it's the least populous state (if I say I totally passed a license plate that looked like Rhode Island's in the torrential downpour on day 31 on my way home, can we count it as all 50? I think so). The most license plates I saw came from the state of California (again, makes sense seeing as how it's the most populous state), with an unofficial top five also including Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
- 1 set-back. I accidentally locked my keys in my car at the Hoover Dam. Whoops. Thank you to the Hoover Dam Police for helping me out.
- 17,557 steps. According to my Fitbit, that's the average number of steps I took per day over the 31 days of the roadtrip. Not bad for a guy who sat in a car for an average of six hours a day. The average is buoyed by huge step days of 37,085 in Seattle, 41,652 in Los Angeles, and 44,316 in San Francisco. Since I drove to get to these places, I wanted to walk around them once I got there, so, other than Los Angeles, which is pretty much impossible to get around without public transportation, I walked everywhere once I got to my location.
- 71. That's the number of unique stops I made during the trip to monuments, landmarks, museums, forest, parks, and just about anything else that I spent some time at. These include, but are obviously not limited to, the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin, the Mall of America, Mt Rushmore, Black Hills National Forest, Bighorn National Forest, Yellowstone National Park, Old Faithful, the Space Needle, Pike Place Market, Meredith Grey's house, the International Rose Garden, Thor's Well, the Redwood Forest (including the Avenue of the Giants), the Golden Gate Bridge, Union Square, Fisherman's Wharf, Alcatraz Island, Ghirardelli Square, Palace of the Fine Arts, Stanford University, Malibu beach, the Hollywood sign, Warner Bros. Studio, Dominic Toretto's house, Hollywood Walk of Fame, Death Valley National Park, Las Vegas, Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, Four Corners, a Breaking Bad tour in Albuquerque, Cadillac Ranch, Dealey Plaza, three Presidential libraries, Bourbon Street, the Gateway Arch, Louisville Slugger Museum, Muhammad Ali Center, Churchill Downs, Ohio State University, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the Flight 93 Memorial.
- 3.5 replica Oval Offices. If you didn't know before the trip, you certainly know now that American history is one of my favorite subjects. As such, I visited three Presidential Libraries on the trip. President Lyndon B. Johnson's in Austin, TX, President Bill Clinton's in Little Rock, AR, and President George W. Bush's in Dallas, TX. I highly recommend all three. You may be wondering where the half comes from then. During the Warner Bros. Studio Tour, the desk from the Oval Office, with the backdrop behind it, was set up from another of my favorite shows, The West Wing, so I got to sit behind President Jed Bartlet's desk as well.
- $17.76. That was my dinner receipt on my July 4. America forever.
- The most important number from the trip: 85 Pokémon. Pokémon Go came out at the end of my second week, when I got to Los Angeles, so naturally, it became a large part of the second half of the trip. The 85 is the number in my Pokédex. I've literally caught Pokémon from coast to coast. It's the perfect roadtrip game.
- And finally, the number that everyone who's ever seen me drive a car has been wondering: 0 tickets / citations. That's right. I drove 10,459 over 31 days and did not receive a traffic violation for anything, including my propensity for driving a little fast. You're all very impressed.
By: Stephen C. On Sunday, I returned from my month long roadtrip around the United States. It was one of the most incredible experiences I could imagine, and, although it was a lot of driving, was 100% well worth it. Rather than go day-by-day on what I did (again, here's some shameless self-promotion, but check out my Instagram for 32 pictures over 31 days. I posted twice on day six because I saw a bison after I had already posted that day. That was well worth two posts in one day. The bison was about 50 feet from me), I figured I'd give a look at the numbers that made the trip even more fun.
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By: Stephen C. So far, I've been to 29 states in the United States. Of those 29 states, I've only been in an airport in four of them, so there's 25 states that I've actually done something other than just wait for my connecting flight. Since I decided to take some time off before I go back to school in August, I didn't want to just sit around watch Netflix or play PlayStation for three months, as much fun as that would have been. Instead, I decided to see how many of those states I can cross off. The result was an almost 10,000 mile, 30 day trip that goes around the United States and hits 30 states. It hits landmarks like Mount Rushmore, Old Faithful, Thor's Well, Death Valley, and the Grand Canyon, among others. After the trip, I will have been to 49 of the 50 states, with Alaska the lone state I will yet to have been to. I leave tomorrow and I'm incredibly excited about it. It's the trip of a lifetime, and I won't have the time to do something like this for the next 40-50 years, if ever. If you happen to be on the route path along the way, let me know. Also, shameless self-promotion, if you want to see the trip through social media, follow me on Instagram (sciarrocchi) and Snapchat (sciarrocchi). Hopefully I don't blow out a tire on the PA turnpike. Below is a picture of the route (side note, if you ever go on a roadtrip, use furkot.com. Really great to use for something like this. Definitely saved me some time). I go out west on the northern route and come back east on the southern. See you in a month.
By: Stephen C. I never thought I would ever go back to school after I graduated from Penn State in 2013. I honestly never even considered it to be an option. I thought I would be happy with my post-collegiate life, working a good, stable job with a well-respected company. I really thought that everything would just fall into place after I started the "real world." To say I was naïve would be putting it lightly. But here I am. After almost three full years working for EY, I'll be leaving the firm to go back to school.
Most people are probably assuming I'm talking about going back and getting my MBA. Given my background (I was a finance major and have nearly three years of work experience at a Big Four accounting firm), that makes sense, but I'm going in an entirely new direction. Instead, I've decided to try to get my JD. This fall, I'll be going back to school at the Temple University School of Law. These last three years have easily been the most interesting of my life. Throughout my time with EY, I've traveled to twelve different states in the United States, as well as one trip to Canada, for work. Although I've realized that the kind of work I was doing at EY was not what I wanted to do long term, I'm incredibly thankful for my time there and for the people who I have worked with. Accounting may not have been for me, but if you're interested in it, I would 100% recommend EY to start your career. Today is my last client facing day at the firm, while my last official day will be Tuesday, May 31. It's bittersweet to be leaving, because, as I said, I will miss the people that I've worked so closely with these past three years, but I truly believe this is the best next step for me. Going to law school opens up so many opportunities for me to find what I want to do with my life. I've always been interested in politics, history, and law, so honestly, it's kind of surprising I didn't choose this path sooner (another story for another time). Whether it be someday running for office (I'm eligible to run for the House right now if I wanted. Watch out), trying to run a sports team, or representing someone in a court of law, obtaining a law degree allows me to better position myself to do something that is better aligned with my interests moving forward. Coming out of college, I was so confident that I would have my life completely figured out by now, but the only thing that I’ve actually figured out at this point is that I probably won’t ever have my life completely figured out. There are so many variables, so many things that can go in any infinite number of ways, but the biggest variable, by far, is me. I’m constantly changing, constantly trying to improve myself, and constantly trying to figure out exactly what I want to do. Rather than continuing to go through the motions with my good, stable job at the well-respected company, I've decided to jump head first into uncertainty. It's exciting and terrifying all at the same time. The last three years have been the most interesting of my life, but they might just pale in comparison to the next three years. Here goes nothing. T for Temple U. By: Stephen C. I’ve never really been in shape, but I’ve never really been that out of shape either. At least until my post grad life. My weight has yo-yoed a bit (freshman year of college for instance! What’s college without the freshman 15? In the first semester?), but for the vast majority of the last 10 years, I’ve been right around 175-180 pounds. I’m pretty average height, so the fact that I was pretty average weight makes sense. When I graduated from Penn State in May 2013, I was right around that weight. Then the real world started.
For the first year and a half of my job, I was on the road just about every single week, and being on the road, we ate out at restaurants just about every single night. Having just found out about this really sweet concept of “money,” plus the fact that work paid for my meals while I was on the road, PLUS the fact that I really like eating AND can eat more than just about anyone I know, well, you do the math. I ate. And I ate a lot. And a lot of what I ate wasn’t exactly good for you. There was one restaurant near that first client site where we ate at pretty consistently, and my dinner was an appetizer of buffalo wings (which was split between me and another person, so I’d eat about three or so. They were a pretty solid size though) and lobster mac & cheese. Trust me when I tell you they did not skimp on the cheese. On the drive home, I would stop at a rest stop on the turnpike and get a bag of those mini Reese’s just because I could. I wasn’t paying for it! May as well eat it! I’d eat the entire bag in one sitting. I’m not saying eating those things is bad or wrong, and I’m sure if I had them with any sort of moderation, it wouldn’t have been nearly as bad, but the word “moderation” never registered when it came to food. It never had to. But a typical day over the past three years has included a lot of me sitting or lying down. Work for eight to ten hours, sitting in front of a computer screen. Drive to and from work, sitting in my car. Watch Netflix, sitting / lying in bed. Watch TV or play PlayStation, sitting / lying on the couch. You get the picture. My daily exercise was when I walked the 250 feet from my car to my desk at work. There wasn’t much physical activity to balance out the crazy amount of food I was eating like there had been in the past. As I said, I’ve never really been in the best shape, but I would always at least go play football or basketball or do something when I was in school. After I started work? Yea, I used my free time to do absolutely nothing. And it really started to show. I noticed, but I didn’t really care that much. What’s it matter? Everyone gains some weight after they start work. It’s basically a rite of passage, right? I refused to go anywhere near a scale, partly because if I didn’t actually see the weight, then it wasn’t true and partly because I really didn’t see an issue. One year went by, then another. Finally, this past year, I really started to notice it, and so did other people. I play in a softball game every Memorial Day with my church, and I hit a SHOT way over the outfielders’ heads (let me brag a little. I destroyed that ball). There’s no fence, so I probably should’ve had a home-run on it. I got a triple, and was absolutely completely out of breath by the time I got to third. It’s not like we were playing on a major league field with 90 foot base paths. They were like 30-40 feet or so. Not exactly a far distance… Someone mentioned that I really shouldn't have been that out of breath from just running that much. They were right. A little later, a co-worker saw a picture of me from college and said “wow, Steve! You used to be really skinny!” (which, compared to what I looked like at the time, he was probably right, but that was also the first time I was ever called skinny in my life, so I’ll take it!). Moments like these would happen every so often during the last eight or so months of 2015, but it never really registered with me. Don’t get me wrong, I knew I had gained some weight, but I didn’t consider it a problem or anything. In my mind, I was probably around 190. No way was I over 200 pounds. Couldn’t be. Finally, as a result of curiosity moreso than anything else, I stepped on a scale. Imagine my surprise when the number 231 was staring back at me. You read those last two paragraphs. The fact that I had ballooned up by about 50-55 pounds shouldn’t really have surprised me. But it did. I stepped on that scale in December, so I told myself I needed to do something, and I needed to start it soon. I decided to do the most stereotypical of stereotypical New Year’s resolutions: lose some weight. One of my best friends lost a ton of weight a few years ago, so I knew I could count on him to help throughout the process, plus, I have three brothers, all of whom work out and work out a good amount (one’s a federal agent who literally gets paid to chase people, the other runs a sports complex where he basically lives in a gym, the third is on the high school football team and lifts just about every single day), so there are positive influences in my life from that perspective, but that wouldn’t have remotely mattered until I wanted to actually do this for myself. I could have had the best influences in the history of the world, but until I told myself that I wanted to get in shape for me, I never would have actually started down this road. On January 4, I started P90X. It’s probably the eighth or ninth time I’ve started it since the program came out when I was in high school. The furthest I had made it was about mid-way through the second month the very first time I did it. That was because I was doing it with two of my brothers. I don’t even remember the reason I had at the time, but I stopped doing it mostly because I didn’t care enough to. As I said, 175-180. That’s where I was most of my life. At that time, I was probably closer to 170. I was fine. High metabolism or something or other. Every other time I did it, I’d last pretty much a week. This time though, I was committed. I had a legitimate reason and a legitimate drive to do those workouts each and every day. This was one of those times when I channeled my competitiveness and stubbornness towards myself and tried to make something good of it. Last Saturday was day 90. Of the 90 days, I only missed two workouts (once because I did not feel well, which I blame on quinoa, and once because I went skiing, so it still counts, right?). I was pretty determined to get through all 90 days, but even I was a little surprised that I actually made it. There were definitely days when I didn’t want to commit an hour plus to having Tony Horton yell at me or make me contort in ways I still don’t think are imaginable, but I pushed myself every single day to, as Tony says, “just push play. Do your best and forget the rest.” As of last Saturday, I was 205 pounds, down 26 pounds in the last 90 days. It’s still not where I want to be, but it’s WAY better than where I was when that scale stared back at me last December. This week, I re-started the program from the beginning, with today being day four (yoga day, which I still contend is the most difficult one seeing as how I’m the least flexible person in the entire world). I don’t have a number in mind for what I want to get to by the end, but I want to just be a bit healthier, a bit more mindful of how much and what I eat, and in overall better shape. To be honest, I don’t write this for the potential “congratulations!” posts that could come when people read this. I almost feel like the arsonist who gets credit for helping put out the fire that he started. The only reason I lost this weight was because I found it in the first place. I don’t even write this to potentially inspire someone else, because, as I said, you have to want it for YOU; otherwise, nothing will come of it. I hope that will happen with someone, but it’d be a secondary goal. I write it mostly for selfish reasons. To hold myself accountable. Peer pressure is real, and the more people that know what I’m doing, the more I’ll hold myself accountable to continue to get in better shape. I feel better. I look better. And I will continue to be better. I’m not quite there yet, but I’m well on my way. By: Stephen C. Today’s a big day apparently. 24 years ago today, I entered the world. 24 years have come and gone, most of the good, some of them okay, none of them that bad. I’ve been fortunate and blessed throughout my life so far. I’ve been given the opportunity to put myself in a position to be financially stable for the rest of my life (today, I made my last payment towards my student loans. Until next time, debt). I’ve surrounded myself with people I genuinely enjoy being around. Overall, life is pretty good right now as I begin yet another year.
I’ve always liked birthdays, just not my own as much as others. If I’ve had any contact with you since your last birthday, I try to at least shoot you a text wishing you a happy birthday. I’m sure I’ve missed some, and if yours is one of the ones I’ve missed, I do sincerely apologize. Everyone deserves that one special day where it’s about them for 24 hours (some people decide to dedicate an entire month to their birthday… you know exactly who I’m talking about), so I try to do my best to at least contribute to that through a simple text message. According to the calendar, it looks like today is that day for me. So I want to thank each and every one of you. Thank you for the text messages. It’s nice to know that people care enough to take a second and wish me a nice day. Thank you for the facebook posts and the tweets. I try my best every year to go back and like them and leave a comment saying thanks. Thank you for helping to shape me into the person I am today, because every single person I’ve ever met has had an impact on the person I am today (whether positive or negative, I guess only time will tell), no matter how small or large that impact may be. Birthdays tend to be another one of those points in life where you sit back and re-evaluate everything. One of those reality checks. Just in case you haven’t had a reality check recently, you have an annual one built in. For instance, I had arguably the biggest “wow” moment of my entire life on Sunday. My mother was driving me to the airport to fly back out to the client site when she turned to me and asked if I wanted to hear something crazy. She then proceeded to tell me that I was turning the age she was when she had me. I’m pretty good at math, so it’s not like this was difficult information to ascertain, but still. Actually hearing that? I think the only word I said for the next five minutes was “wow.” It is weird that I’m at the age now where people I know are getting married and starting families and being “adults,” but to be honest, I don’t think that’ll ever not be weird. So I smile and shake my head, amazed at something so simple, yet so complex, as life truly is. Another year closer to adulthood. I’ll let you know when I feel like I actually get there. Oh, and P.S., Stephen H. turns 23 tomorrow. Maybe you remember him. It’s been a while. But wish him a happy birthday tomorrow. These two days are Stephenpalooza (we love paloozas here at With a PH), so celebrate accordingly. By: Stephen C. Before last Tuesday, I can’t remember the last time I didn’t need my glasses or contacts. I got my glasses in first grade, and for six years, I wore them every single day until I also got contacts. For the next twelve years, I wore either my contacts or glasses, whichever I felt like. If you’re adding it up at home, that’s 18 of the almost 24 years I’ve been on this planet that I’ve worn corrective lenses. But not anymore.
Last Tuesday was the day I’ve been waiting YEARS for. Ever since I was in fourth grade and my mother got Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis (more commonly known as LASIK. It’s just a fancy, medical way of saying a laser corrects your vision), I knew I wanted it. Then my older brother got it a few years after that. And I wanted it even more. I didn’t even really know what it was. I just knew I wanted it. I’ve always had some of the worst vision out of anyone I know. You know that giant “E” on the top of the eye chart? Yea, I couldn’t see that. Not only could I not see it, everything just blurred together to the point where I couldn’t even tell a letter was there. That “E” is 20/200. My vision was worse than that. Apparently the technical term (according to my mother, who is a PA and worked at an eye doctor’s office for a few years) is “20/hand wave” because I could detect motion. That’s not even a joke. That’s what my vision was. I remember the first time I asked my eye doctor if I could get LASIK. I was 19 years old. The doctor almost laughed. He said I still had a few years, which was the answer I was expecting because I knew my brother was 23 when he got it done. What I wasn’t expecting was the answer he gave to my follow up question of “why?” He told me I needed to wait until my eyes “stopped getting worse.” I remember being dumb-founded. Worse? I honestly thought the only step down from what my vision currently was was blind (trust me, there are steps in between. We’ll get to that later). In order to be cleared for LASIK surgery, the doctor told me my eyes needed to stabilize, which made sense to me. Since I was still young and spry, my eyes were constantly changing. No doctor in their right mind would operate on my eyes as they were. So I had to wait. I asked each time I went back. How about now, doc? The answer was no for the next four years until I went back this past June and asked again. My eyes had finally stabilized. My vision hadn’t changed in the past two years, making me “a good candidate for LASIK surgery.” We scheduled the surgery as soon as possible, but due to the surgeon’s restraints and my travel schedule, it had to wait until September 9. So again I waited. Not nearly as long this time though. I had to start taking Vitamin C pills every day just for the added boost to the eye’s health, and I was instructed to wear my contacts less (which wasn’t hard, because at that point, I hardly wore my contacts anymore. Basically, sporting events and special occasions only). I was told no contacts at all for the two weeks prior to the surgery, so on Sunday, August 24, I threw away my last pair of contacts for the last time. Finally, the day of the surgery arrived. Incredibly excited, and honestly, a little nervous (I don’t like change very much, so even good changes tend to make at least a little nervous), I went on my way to get my new eyes. They gave me a pamphlet during my pre-op check that explained the surgery, so I felt like I had a decent idea of what was going to happen, but even so, it doesn’t prepare you for everything. I don’t know what I was expecting, but if you watch medical shows such as House or Grey’s, it wasn’t that kind of surgery at all. The room I went in seemed like a “normal” room. There just happened to be a gigantic machine in it with a chair underneath. The surgery itself took about 15 minutes, but it definitely seemed longer than that. It was just a weird experience overall. First of all, you’re awake for the entire procedure, because as I said, it’s only about 15 minutes long (people who get a little freaked out by eyes, you should go to the next paragraph because you won’t like this next part). The surgery I got was Epi-LASIK, so it’s a little different than normal LASIK. To start the surgery, the surgeon put some numbing drops on my eyes, for obvious reasons. The surgery is one eye at a time, so the surgeon started with my right eye and taped my left eye shut. The surgeon has to keep the eye open (again, for obvious reasons), so he inserted some tool on the eye so keep the eyelids from closing. The first step of the surgery has to do with something regarding eye pressure. I’m still not exactly sure why (other than “it’s a part of the surgery.” I don’t know, some medical thing, I guess), but another device got placed on the surface of my eye to increase the pressure in my eye. This is the part that freaks the most people out. Not because of the device on the surface of your eye, but because you actually go temporarily blind in the eye. Yes, your eye is open, and yes, you can’t see anything. They tell you this to prepare you, but nothing will really prepare you for it. It’s pretty crazy. It actually wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, but it was still pretty insane. I was expecting an immediate cut to black that probably would’ve freaked me out. Instead, it’s a nice slow fade into darkness. You have no vision in the eye for maybe a minute (I really don’t know. It’s tough to have any real concept of time during this), which is a pretty long time to have your eye open without being able to see anything. Finally, the vision in the eye fades back in, and you’re instructed to look straight ahead at the laser that’s going to change your life. There’s an orange dot that you’re supposed to stare at for the entirety of the time the laser is going, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. The laser is basically reshaping the cornea, so your vision is in constant flux during the time the laser’s going. Fun fact, if your gaze strays too far from that stupid orange dot, the laser shuts off automatically. Apparently my left eye didn’t feel like looking at the dot the whole time, because that happened to me. This is also the part that’s a little “uncomfortable.” I don’t know if it hurt or not, but they give you stress balls to squeeze on just in case. I thought I was going to break them I squeezed them so hard during the laser portion of my left eye’s surgery. After the laser does its work, the surgeon places a thick contact lense on the eye that basically serves as a bandage for the eye to heal. The right eye went pretty smoothly. The left eye gave some trouble, but overall, it went well. I sat up, eyes still closed. The tech told me I could open my eyes, and I kid you not, it was probably the most absolutely incredible moment of my life. I could see immediately. I was given a pair of massive sunglasses to protect the eyes that I would be supposed to wear for the better part of the next week. But the results were immediate. At 3:22 PM on September 9, 2014, I could see. Since it’s an out-patient surgery, I was home that day. I had the surgery at 2:30 in the afternoon and was home about 4:00 or so. I’ve been asked if it hurt, which is a fantastic question. Eye pain is different than normal pain. I took pain medication for it, but I still don’t know if really “hurt” versus it was just plain uncomfortable. Either way, the doc prescribed the good stuff, so that was pretty great. I was also instructed to take these three sets of drops, four times a day. Woo eye drops. I essentially just slept the rest of the day and for a majority of the next day as well. I was instructed specifically to not stare at anything “visually stimulating” for too long following the surgery, so since my job requires me to stare at a computer for large portions of the day, I was obviously out the day of the surgery, and I was out the day after as well. It was honestly pretty boring those next few days. I just sat around, not moving much, with my eyes closed. I slept a lot. Listened to the radio on TV in the background (I tried to put on shows such as Mike & Mike, because they’re radio shows, so they’re specifically designed not to be watched). Slept some more. It doesn’t matter how much you’ve slept already that day. If you’re sitting on a couch in a dark room with your eyes closed, you will fall asleep. I went back to work that Thursday and Friday, still a little limited on my staring at the computer screen. A lot of work done on the phone those days, plus some time just taken away from the screen, made for an interesting couple of days of work. By Saturday, I would say I was back to 95%. No “pain,” vision was about as good as it would get with the bandage-contacts on. I went back to my normal life on a Saturday, which consists largely of college football, Madden, and Netflix. I was fine that day. I actually got to see the Penn State game on my TV (although there are LARGE portions of that game I wish I didn’t see. Sure, they ended up winning, but wow, was it not pretty in the least bit), which was pretty awesome. Monday was my post-op appointment to check my vision and take the bandage-contacts off. The doctor first checked my vision with the contacts in. I was 20/30 in my right eye and 20/20 in my left eye, which the doctor immediately said was “better than normal” (story of my life, better than normal ;-) ). I was recovering well, and the doctor said I was right on schedule to have my eyes fully recover and my vision to be 20/15. After the bandage-contacts were taken out, a lot of the blurriness that surrounded my vision the last few days went with it. I have a follow up appointment in three weeks just to make sure that everything is going well, but as of now, my vision is fantastic. I still need to use the drops four times a day for the next week or so, but other than that, my eyes right now are pretty much just as good as yours. Maybe better. I’ll need glasses again someday. That’s fine. At least it’ll be a natural regression this time with age. I’ll need them in a few years, but until then, I’ll enjoy my brand new, crystal clear, 20/15 vision. I’ll wake up every day being able to see without blindly reaching around my bed for where I left my glasses. It’s wonderful. Trust me, this is one thing I’ll never take for granted. By: Stephen C. Last week, I celebrated the one year anniversary of joining the “real world.” Pretty insane, right? It’s been quite the eventful year, literally unlike any of the previous in my entire life. It was a year of transition while also a return to the familiar. A year of new places and old (lots of new places). I learned a lot about myself, what I want, what I like, what I don’t like. Which makes it even more incredible that there’s still so much left to learn about, well, everything.
For starters, after an absolutely phenomenal four years in the Happiest of Valleys, I moved back home to my parents’ house. After living on your own for four years, moving back in with the folks can be a bit of a transition period. For instance, getting back to the house after 5 AM will cause my mother to stay up worrying since my phone died and she had no idea where I was (at least I remembered to bring milk home. Thank you Wawa for staying open 24 hours). That doesn’t happen in college. Noted. It’s certainly nice to have the home cooked meals with the family and clean laundry at my bedroom door every morning though (before I get yelled at, my mother doesn’t let anyone else touch her washing machine, so even if I wanted to do my own laundry, I’m not allowed). One of the toughest transitions of moving back home is the fact that the people that I lived with and spent the vast majority of the past four years are spread across the country (seemingly not in the locations that I get sent to for work. That needs to be coordinated better). It’s unfortunately not as easy as walking across the hall or down the street to see what they’re up to. Most are still relatively local (when I say relatively local, I mean most are still in the Northeast region of the Eastern Time Zone), but we still have to organize our schedules and make plans to see each other. I’m terrible at keeping in touch with people (something I routinely get yelled at for), so it makes it that much harder to see some of them. I moved back home for two main reasons, the first being that it made too much financial sense. College was great, but it definitely wasn’t free, so living at home provided a great head start to paying back my student loans and then saving some money after that. My student loans should be paid back in full within the next two months (maybe sooner, but we’ll see), so after that, I’ll start to save the extra money that I would be paying towards rent, a car (mine is fully paid off), and a phone (work pays for that). Minimal expenses are a good thing. The other main reason I moved home was my job. I currently work for EY, one of the Big Four accounting firms, as a Staff in Risk Advisory (for simplicity’s sake, I basically help make sure businesses do what they’re supposed to do). My job causes me to travel at least four days a week most weeks. Since I started last year, I have stayed in a hotel room about 175 nights, or about 48% of the time. I’ve traveled to Altoona, PA, Charleston, SC, Chicago, IL, Boca Raton, FL, Richmond, VA, and Toronto, ON. If you’re keeping count, that’s six different cities in five different states and two countries. I’ve gone to dinners at ridiculously nice restaurants with ten (or more) other people, and I’ve eaten alone in my hotel room after grabbing a hoagie from Sheetz or Wawa before firing up the computer again and going back to work. I became a Marriott Platinum member by Christmas last year and I’m well on my way to racking up the airline miles as well. As great as the travel can be, it’s also a double-edged sword. It’s great to see some new locations and see what each place has to offer, but it’s also both physically and mentally draining. I get back home and all I want to do is, well, nothing (which sometimes causes me to not see my friends, both college and high school, for long periods of time since I pretty much hole up in my house when I get home from whatever destination I was shipped to that week. So when I stop traveling so much for work, I’ll probably be much more likely to not be a hermit). Many people ask me how long I plan on staying with EY, and I honestly have no idea. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great experience with a great company, and I like the people I work with, but there’s also a reason why the average turnover rate at these kind of companies is right around two years. They say time flies once you join the real world, and that’s clearly been proved true. It doesn’t feel like I’ve already been a “professional” for over a year, but according to the calendar, I guess that’s right. I think one of the biggest reasons for that is that you don’t really take things day-by-day anymore in the real world. You take them week-by-week, or at least I do. It really is a big difference from the carefree, what-am-I-going-to-do-today life of the college student. In the “real world,” you pretty much know what you’re going to do today, which is why I think I tend to be looking at things on a weekly basis instead. Life seems to be in a holding pattern after year one of the “real world,” which is ironic because with all the new experiences that I’ve had, you’d think “familiar” wouldn’t be one of the best words to describe my first year. Year two has unbelievable potential to go just about anywhere (and believe me, I mean that both literally and figuratively). As I said, I honestly have no idea what’s going to happen next. There’s plenty of different ways to take both my professional and personal life. Here we go. Here’s to year two. By: Stephen C. This past week was an absolute blast for me. For the first time in over a year, I saw my adorable baby nephew, my big brother, and my sister-in-law as we spent the week just enjoying each other’s company before they flew back home. They were town for the wedding of my sister-in-law’s sister this past weekend. It was a beautiful ceremony and a fun reception. But weddings have a way to make us sit back and re-evaluate our lives. They’re obviously a joyous occasion, celebrating the new bond and journey that the happy couple is about to embark on. But in the midst of all the happiness we feel for the bride and groom, we can’t help but sit back and look at our own journey, where we’ve been, where we are, and more pressing, where we’re going to go.
Although this past week was definitely fun, it was also scary at times. For really the first time, I saw my brother as a father and my sister-in-law as a mother. Sure, I was there for the birth of their son, so it’s not like I didn’t know they had a kid. It wasn’t some big secret that was dumped on us as they walked through the door. But seeing them this time? It was real. And it wasn’t just them. One of this blog’s most avid readers just celebrated the first birthday of her first son. At the wedding, I saw one of my best friends from growing up for the first time since God knows when. She’s currently happily married and recently welcomed a son as well. When did we all grow up to the point that our childhood friends are having kids of their own? It was fine when the “grown-ups” were having kids. But now, all of a sudden, we’re the grown-ups. If that thought doesn’t terrify you, nothing will. With the marriage of my sister-in-law’s sister, I can’t help but feel as though I’m on deck (I lied. If THAT thought doesn’t terrify you, nothing will). I don’t feel like I should be, but I can help feeling as though I am. Weddings have a way of doing that. It seems as though with each passing day, the references to my impending marriage are growing stronger. Whether they actually are or not, who knows? But it certainly feels that way at times. Believe me, I have a few friends who are much closer to their wedding days than I am (pretty much every friend I have that’s currently in a relationship. By definition, you’re closer, right?), but as far as members of my immediate family? There’s no one closer than me (again, terrifying). When people ask how old I am, I become more and more astounded by the answer each time I give it. I’ll be 24 in two months, not that that’s particularly old, but when you feel like you should still be around 18 or so, 24 doesn’t have that same ring to it. I don’t feel like I’m getting older, but the world around me absolutely begs to differ. I always thought that by this time, I’d have it all figured out. This age, 23, 24, 25, it all seemed so far away. I’d have plenty of time to figure everything out, and I would because that’s what I do. I’d be with the girl I would eventually marry, I’d have figured out what it is I want to do with my life career wise, and it would all be shaping up into one big happy ending. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that all that fun stuff still won’t happen, but it’s funny how our perceptions continually change as we grow older. That age we thought was so far off is now on our doorstep, and the shoot-for-the-moon expectations we’ve all had about our respective lives are not always the same as the reality that we’re faced with. Which, by the way, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. This past week has caused me to hit the pause button and look at every aspect of my life just a little bit closer. Is the career path that I’m currently on really what I want to do for the rest of my life? If it isn’t, what’s next? Is there someone currently in my life that I would want to spend the rest of my life with? If there is, why haven’t I done anything about it? We all ask ourselves these questions at one point or another, and often times, we ask ourselves these questions almost daily. But the events of the past week have caused these questions to come to the forefront even more than they already were for me. I know I have time to figure all of this out, and again, I’m not looking at doom-and-gloom, forever-alone, work-myself-to-death scenarios, but with each passing day, these questions are becoming something I won’t be able to simply answer “Eh, I got time.” I’ll enjoy the here-and-now as much as I can, but I’m not the kind of person who can sit back and not think about what’s coming next. It’s one of my most prominent (and sometimes obnoxious) traits. I don’t see a situation for what it is. I see it for what it can be. I’m too calculated to not think about how one action will lead to a million other reactions. Sometimes, that works to my detriment. Maybe by this time next year, I’ll have it all figured out, whatever “it” may be. Maybe I won’t. I can guarantee you one thing though: I’ll be thinking about “it” until I do. |
Stephen C.If nothing else, I am consistent. I got LASIK to correct my vision, so I have no flaws. Stephen H.I am so damn good looking. I am also a guest contributor at this point who will probably never post again. Archives
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