Sleeping is for Quitters

Eating a really large apple takes a lot of ambition. The first bite into the crisp, juicy flesh is easy, enjoyable even. You chew it contentedly, and you eagerly look forward to the next bite. But then you set the apple on the table, and you turn it around. The expanse of uneaten fruit is so vast that from the other side the apple looks untouched. You turn it back around, and you look at your teeny, tiny bite. That bite was good, you admit, but you're already feeling kind of full, and all you really wanted was the taste of the apple in your mouth.

Inertia drives you to take another bite, and you soldier on. This one sours in your mouth. You start criticizing the apple, searching for any reason you can find to stop. The skin is too chewy, and looks like it was genetically engineered to be shiny. The flesh is showing the first signs of brown from oxygen exposure. The remnants are looking vastly unappetizing, and there is still so much apple left.

You take another bite. By this time, your mouth is kind of tired, and pieces of apple are jammed into the cracks between your teeth. You chew resignedly, trying to ignore the taste, and swallow with a grimace. You fucking hate apples - they're the bane of your existence. You set the apple on the table and glare at it. It looms hatefully large and insultingly undiminished. No one presented you with a medal for your efforts. Finishing the apple would be a thankless task. Your initial ambition ebbs away, and you lob the apple in the nearest trashcan.

Somewhere up there in all of that is a relevant analogy for my life. I picked International Area Economics at UCLA as my major on a whim really; I liked economics senior year, I wanted to study abroad, and my dad told me it was a good program, so I declared it as my premajor.

Lo and behold, I came to UCLA, did some research, asked some questions, and realized that I would hate the major, primarily due to the math requirements. I changed my major to Psychology, mainly because I had all the prereqs done, but I'm having the same doubts.

I feel like I've been making throwaway decisions all of my life, with colleges, majors, ambitions, everything. But I've found this thing, this living, breathing energy inside me that is my ambition to pusure journalism. I hope it won't turn out to be just another apple.

I'm a really corny bastard.