[FONT="]From ANTARCTICA I moved to the ARCTIC to live with a friend from LOWER SLOBOVIA. I pursued various entry-level jobs, all of which were interesting enough until I became sufficiently familiar with them. I learned to install drywall, for example, and to sell lawn and garden supplies, to prepare food and to provide customer support. My immediate goals did not preclude frequent job changes and my long term goals were still in their infancy. It was when I met a man in a CHARNAL HOUSE, the one who taught me to drywall, that I began to realize importance of actually applying myself. He was a middle-aged man, approaching fifty, who had always managed to hold his head above water by virtue of his eclectic skills and natural abilities but who, largely due to a drinking problem perhaps itself related to a general lack of focus, had little to show for his years beyond good conversation and bad relations with family. He would serve a stark contrast to another man that I met in that city.[/FONT]
[FONT="]One of my jobs in WORKING THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT was that of a science tutor and one of my pupils was an injured construction worker who was being rehabilitated as an architectural technician. Before he could begin his college courses he needed a high school physics credit and he was struggling with the course. He had been out of school for more than a decade and lacked a natural aptitude for the subject but through considerable and determined effort, and aided by my instruction, he managed to achieve the credit. [/FONT]
[FONT="]I was never particularly challenged in high school and I sometimes flattered myself with the idea that I might be able to successfully float through life just as easily. I left the ASYLUM with a clear understanding of the fallacy and outright deluded vanity in that notion.[/FONT]
