Inadvertent Laziness
Published October 11th, 2007What am I doing? Where am I going? What is wrong with me?
Been having a bit of a personal crisis lately. Don’t know what I’m doing anymore, where I’m going, no plans. And as frustrated as I feel, as much as I feel that I’m underachieving, stagnating and generally failing - I can’t seem to motivate myself enough to do things. Case in point would be Oracle certification. The study guide is not as….comprehensive as I’d like. Not well structured, and the sample test questions aren’t always answered in the chapters. Yet I can use it just fine for my job - which is the great problem I have now. I’m not book-smart, I’m street-smart when it comes to my job. My History degree doesn’t impress, doesn’t help me get certified or to join any professional organizations. And getting certified at all is tough, mostly due to time and expense. So I’m not entirely sure how to go about this. I just know I need to do something to improve my resume. Not planning on leaving my position or anything, but I’m not going anywhere either and it’s driving me insane. But yet - motivation….I can’t muster it up on a sustained level. I don’t know why. I’ve become allergic to long-term goals. I dunno.
So I need to get this Oracle thing out of the way (since I said I was gonna do it) and it’s not working well on my own. So I’m thinking of taking the 5-day course and getting it over with….but it’s $3K. Work may help with the cost, up to $1600…but that still leaves me on the hook for a chunk. In preparation I’ve looked up some small loans, but none I found had better interest rates than my credit card. So I requested, and received, a $3000 increase in my credit limit. It’s not a particularly high limit in the first place, and I’ve never carried a balance more than 1 month or over $1000 so I’m not too worried about screwing up my credit rating or anything. This would be my first time using my CC as a loan device. I’m hoping the structure of an actual class and the obligations and deadlines that go with it will help me sustain what I need to do to get certified. Because with my History degree, I’m going to need to start gathering some acronyms on my resume to ever get a significant promotion (whether internal or via changing jobs). First acronym would be OCA, then probably OCP sometime next year.
I’ve also looking into getting a PHP certification, since I actually seem to know more than I think I do. I looked at the category headings for the test, and I think I could probably pass most of them. I’ve ordered the study guide to see where I have strengths and weaknesses. And who wouldn’t want a ZCE designation on their resume? Z’s are cool.
So I guess this is the evolution of the Improve Kevin project. Never have been able to stop shredding my nails, oh well. Failure is part of life. At least I pretty much achieved the rest of the goals (even if it took me 2 years). Have to achieve these 2 in less time than that.
Yes, I think you should go ahead and take the class. Class WILL keep you more motivated than going at your own pace when things like Galactic Civ call to you. Plus, knowing that you’re going to carry that sizable debt on your card will probably encourage you to do well, since if you’re going to go into debt for this, you’d want it to be worth it!
I put the web classes I took on my credit card–and with all the low interest balance transfers out there, you usually can beat loan rates by a substantial amount.
Go, Kevin, Go!
She has a point there about Galactic Civilizations 2
Just like with the list of goals for the year that you made, you should write up a list of classes and certificates you want. The first seemed to work so why not give it a go again.
nothing is wrong with you! remember your saturn is in return. just go with the flow. if you said you would get the certification, just get the certification and do it the way that will work best for you. i vote for paying for the class. it will be worth it in the end. especially if you get a raise at work when you come up for review again!
j.j.
how did the move go? the rain held off today.