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In September of 2001 I moved into my first apartment with my friends Joe and TJ.   TJ, with his ear to the underground and his ass in the DJ booth, quickly showed me that there was an opportunity to share my love of music with the masses, or at least the student body of Widener University.  For months, I crafted play lists, learned to use music editing software, created promos for the show that I didn’t have yet, and studied TJ both by listening to him create magic on the radio and watching him in action in the studio. 

When January rolled around, I was raring to go and on a Monday night, 1 hour after a brief training session, I signed on the air and “The Theater of Dreams” blared forth on 89.5 FM.  For the next 5 months, I felt like a god.  I was getting to share the music I was passionate about, imparting knowledge, broadening minds, causing heads to bang and speakers to rattle, and I loved every second of it.  When I was behind the board I felt as if no one could touch me.  I spent more time on my radio show then on my classes.  It was a good thing I had arranged to only have easy classes left my senior year.   And then in the blink of an eye, I signed off of Widener radio for the last time.  Graduation came and I embarked on what I thought was going to be the start of my career path by attending graduate school.

People have often asked me how would I describe hell on earth.  I give the same 4-word answer every time, research based graduate education.  I enjoy learning about the brain, and more so what goes on in the brain that affects the way we behave and act.  Yes, I know I’m a nerd.  I came to terms with that a long time ago and even embrace it now.  I decided through my undergraduate education that I wanted to
continue my education in the realm of behavioral neuroscience, learning how the brain and behavior interact. 

I knew the classes would be hard and I knew that the workload would be intensive.  What I didn’t know was that I was about to enter into 2 years of slavery to a cruel taskmaster known simply as “The Lab”.  Holidays became a luxury, weekends became non-existent, and on occasion, I had to schedule time just to pee.  I was running constant experiments, learning the scientific process, construction my own testing equipment, analyzing data, and in my spare time doing lots of studying.  Pulling 12 to 14 hour days in the lab for 3 weeks at a stretch became commonplace.  And to make all the sacrifice worthwhile, I was financially compensated quite poorly. 

But it was worth it.  I was learning things I never thought I would and making just enough to cover my bills and buy a few rounds at the bar.  But as time went on the enthusiasm that I once possessed started to turn to annoyance.  The passion I had was being replaced by frustration over research projects That were going nowhere and theoretical constructs with no resolutions.  Burn out was setting in and my health started to deteriorate. 

The research I conducted was done on rats, which I didn’t yet know I was allergic to.  Within the span of 9 months I developed an allergic reaction to them that would take a normal person about 15 years to develop.  Constant hives, rashes and allergic attacks are not a good recipe for a healthy body or a healthy mind.  I wasn’t happy.  In fact I was depressed.  I was questioning what I thought I wanted in life.  After much soul searching and self-evaluating, I decided that I need to take some time away from grad school and recharge not only my batteries, but my soul as well.  I needed to determine what the right path in life was for me.  It was as that point that I decided to take the year and half worth of research I had performed and turn it in to a Master’s degree so as to not walk away empty handed.

And so after 2 years of my life spent in indentured servitude, I left Delaware in the summer of 2004, and returned home.  The next 4 months were spent, well, quite honestly, doing nothing.  I had fun, hung out with friends I hadn’t seen in months, went to concerts, and watched my bank account grow smaller and smaller.  With no clue as to what to do next and Christmas fast approaching, I entered a new realm of hell and got a job working in retail. 

I found myself starting from the bottom; you can’t get much lower in retail then being a cashier at Christmas time.  I dealt with rudeness, arrogance, stupidity, and then there were the customers in the store.  And my reward for dealing with crazed parents looking for that last minute present to make their brat of a child happy was about seven dollars an hour, a constantly changing schedule, and the knowledge that I had no job security once the Christmas season ended.  How’s that for benefits. 

It was at this point that I remembered a piece of advice my father gave me once… “Whatever job you may be doing, do your best at it.  If you’re going to be a garbage man, be the best garbage man you can be.  If you're going to be a doctor, be the best doctor you can be.  Whatever you do, just do your best.”  I took that principle to heart and despite the bad hours and even worse pay I put a smile on my face and earned praise from bosses and customers alike. 

Over the next 9 months I worked my way from cashier to sales associate to a department manager with 8 people working under me.    The pay got slightly better, the hours got slightly worse and the level of responsibility increased exponentially.   But still I gave it my all, every day.  Through it all though, I knew I wasn’t happy.  Over the course of 16 months I measured the passage of time through the changing of the retail seasons.  Christmas turned to Valentines, which turned to Easter, summer, back to school, Halloween and right back to Christmas. 

2005 became a blur that tested the limits of my patience, my interpersonal skills and my ability to work with and serve people who at times could test the limits of my self-control. 

In late January of 2006, an opportunity came my way that I couldn’t turn down.   My friend Joe that I lived with senior year in college had moved to Tampa right after graduation.    As it turned out, one of his roommates wanted to move out of their apartment.  I was the first person he called.  The next 2 months were a whirlwind.  I knew I needed to make a change in my life and the chance to move to Tampa, while a huge risk, seemed to be the perfect opportunity. 

Without a job lined up, I signed a sublease agreement, bought my first car and planned my move for the first of April.  I had no stable source of income and only knew one person that I would be living with but I didn’t care.  I knew there were no guarantees I would find anything I was looking for in my life, let alone a job, but it was a risk I knew within my soul that I had to take.   Around 3 weeks prior to the move I finally found some stability, a job.  I heard from a Target in South Tampa and they needed a front lanes manager. 

I already knew that Target wasn’t going to be my career and my patience with the company had reached its limits but I needed a source of income.  With a job, a car, and a place to live, I said good-bye to the support system I had developed in the suburbs of Philadelphia and took my life to Tampa.