Why Kung-Fu Potatoes?

     Kung-Fu Potatoes. Pretty dumb idea right? Why would you name your blog that, especially when it has nothing at all to do with martial arts, or tubers of any kind? I will let 18-year-old me explain.

    That is the self-appointed 'Future Plans' that I wrote myself for my senior year-book. I never took a freelance writing course (not sure that Universities even offer something like that); I never became a stand-up comic (My stage fright is off the charts); and there will never be a best-selling book about Kung-Fu Potatoes (that ship sailed with the movie Kung-fu Panda, and anything similar would be a total ripoff).

    But there are some other things I would like to point out about this yearbook entry. A) one of the first careers I ever dreamed of, was being a writer. 2) Even though I wanted to be a writer as a senior in high school, I managed to use a run on sentence in my yearbook quote. And fourthly, please note the redacted nickname.

     I received an unfortunate nickname from a senior as part of my initiation to the soccer team my freshman year. Every freshman that year got a nickname assigned by the seniors, but unlike my teammates, my name stuck. Maybe someday that name will become more common knowledge, but no one said I had to be the one to post it on the internet for all to see.

    I did, at least, go to college. It took me 11 years from graduating high school to graduating college. One of the large reasons it took so long, was because I couldn't decide what I wanted to be when I grow up.  I knew that writing a book was always an option, no matter what career field I went into, so that ambition took a back seat as I tried to discover something I could do on a day to day basis without going crazy.

    I changed my major 4 times. I drove my parents to drink, and my wife to pull out her hair. But eventually, I graduated from the University of Montana Western with a Bachelor's degree in Biology. The major shifting went like this.

    My first semester of college, I was a Business Marketing major. This is what my dad did, and I had high hopes of someday making hilarious Super Bowl commercials that everyone would love. Things...didn't work out. I had lots and lots and LOTS of fun my freshman year of college. By the second semester, I had changed my major to English, but I didn't perform much better. 

    

    I picked sleep and social life. Being brutally honest, and sharing information that I've kept from my parents until this very moment, I finished my freshman year of college with a cumulative GPA of 0.6.

    Fast forward several years of horrible jobs later, I returned to school, still pursuing a degree in English. My next change in majors was to Secondary Education-English. Because that's people with English degrees do. While studying in this field, I discovered that the job market was positively flooded with English teachers, what they needed, was science teachers.

    So I changed my major yet again, this time to Secondary Education-Biology. This degree, I very nearly completed. But, I still tended to choose sleep and social life over good grades. My personal mantra then (and I still don't take it back) was "C's get degrees!". There is a law in Montana (the great state I was born, raised, and reside in), that says they will not offer teacher certifications to students who do not achieve a 2.5 GPA or higher, and I was not going to hit that particular landmark. So after a come to Jesus talk with my advisor, my major became Biology.

    I truly enjoyed all of my Biology classes, and I finally graduated in 2014. After 5 years working in the field, in which I met some truly wonderful people and made some of my favorite memories, I finally put pen to paper on one of my book ideas.

    The reason that changed everything, the reason I've started this blog and left the field of Biology behind (for good?) is because I finally realized what I want to be when I grow up. After all those years mucking about in the collegiate system and spending I-don't-even-want-to-think-about-how-much money, I discovered that what I want to be when I grow up is... a writer. Just like 18 year old me had declared.

    So now I'm writing, and I intend to keep doing so until the day I die. I have finished one book, and I am already working on the sequel. I started this blog, and I will update it with new content every Monday (Stay Tuned!).  With luck, you'll see my name on the shelves, and I'll even entertain some of you. I might even some day write about...Kung-Fu Potatoes.