大家好， 抱歉，好久没写了。很忙。最近开始学会计学。很不错。未来想考CPA试验。星期六开始安排ESL英文班。我弄完在写好吗

Latest update

What have I been up to lately? Well, I am back in school. I have been a professional student most of my life and it looks like I will still have another year to go. I am getting a second bachelors of science in accounting. I wish I had gotten into this sooner because I really like it. I would like to take the CPA exam in the near future. The classes are really hard because it is full of really tenacious adult students who have tons of real life experience. The students are nothing but names on a screen and it is very competitive. I feel like I am learning a lot however. This weekend I will be in charge of the Columbia Pike library's ESL program. I hope to be able to revitalize that program. I will post a new update afterward.

OK, some points of business. Why the Chinese? In this case, I had to go with the numbers, there are a billion people in China, and while not all of them are literate in what we call the Chinese language, (there are many languages and dialects spoken in China; Languages like Uighur, Tibetan, Mongol, Kazakh, and dialects like; Shanghai, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Min-nan, Hakka, etc.) I have to do this in the interest of readership, it's simply a practical matter. Why the title? Big Happiness in the Yellow Village? When I lived in China the name of my city was 黄村，which means Yellow village, the county was 大兴, which means, you guessed it "Big Happiness". I think this kind of edgy symbolism is what my billions of worldwide readers are looking for. I am sorry that I haven't written lately but I have been extremely busy with this Economics class that I have been taking. As an update, I am still unemployed but I have decided to go back to school full time and study Accounting. This seems like the opposite of what I was doing before which was East Asian studies. I decided that I should develop a skill that people would be willing to pay me for. In the last month I have become an expert in Economics because I have been taking classes online and they are really concentrated. So it turns out that in this last month I know more than Alan Greenspan. Which leads me to today's post.

Black Market Economics 101

You may ask yourself how street drug addicts can support their drug habits. There is no simple answer. They must find an alternate way of being productive. The good news is that the sleazy underbelly of society is often a sellers market full of opportunities for the enterprising denizen of the transient world. I am thinking of one market in particular that is quite productive. If I were to tell you that you can take a certain leafy green vegetable matter, put it into a plastic bag and re-sell it for at least a 500% profit what would you think? I am telling you that this is a reality. What am I talking about? Well, it starts with an 'M'. You guessed it, I'm talking about Mistletoe. What is mistletoe you ask? Despite the fact that I have often profited off sale of this comodity, I am not quite sure. It has something to do with one of the most popular holidays in the occidental world. Christmas, honors the birth of the Lord and Savior of mankind. Many scholars point out, that Jesus Christ was actually born in the summer but the tradition remains to celebrate his birth on December 25th. I have been a Christian my entire life and have participated in roughly (exactly) 47 Christmases, so I consider myself somewhat of an expert on this custom. I have never seen nor visited the residence of any christial who actually uses mistletoe as part of their holiday decor. Nevertheless, it appears to be an important part of the cultural lore surrounding this holiday. Singer Burl Ives, known for his rendition of the "frosty the snowman" theme, among other holiday classics, is a prominant propogandist for mistletoe. In his hit, "Holly Jolly Christmas" mentions mistletoe on two ocasions. According to the theory, mistletoe is normally suspended above the heads of revelers and is believed to justify random kissing of apropiate partners who happen to come in proximity of another and both are within the accepted range of this decoration. This seems problematic from a legal perspective but I have been assured that it is still practiced with reasonable levels of goodwill on the part of participants. Botanists have explained to me that mistletoe is a cancerous growth in trees and has little intrinsic value. For this reason, we do not see farming of mistletoe the way we do with evergreen trees. When I lived on the streets, I stayed in a Christmas tree lot and mistletoe was available to be distributed by holiday minded entrepreneurs. Usually placed in a plastic bag and with appropriate ribbons, we have one of the most spectacular marketing success stories. This business is not without it's pitfalls. Mistletoe has a shelf life of aproximately, the month of December. But during this brief period in the Roman calendar, this poisonous weed is transformed into one of the most profitable of botanical merchandise.

Chinese version

大家好？今天消息不达好。收到一封很失望的信。我说实在的。我以前做过不少犯法的事情。我不得意的。就是实在的情况而已。希望未来有本人成功的可能性。有没有人会给我工作？ 现在很不愉快。希望未来比较好 。再见。

January 4th or 5th I'm not sure

Today, I'm afraid that things are not going too well in my job search. I want to say at the outset that I'm far from giving up but things are not looking very good. I recieved a letter from the U.S. department of Census 2010 where I hoped to gain employment and they sent me a very discouraging letter. I really don't want to go into the details but I'm sure you can guess. Let me be frank in case I have not made it clear in the past. I have a minor criminal record. What it lacks in seriousness it makes up for in quantity. I have no felonies however if you look up my record you will find an abundance of vagrancy related misdemeanors. It gives the impression that for the last 12 years I was an iresponsible and delinquent citizen. I don't like talking about this because it is embarrassing and I don't think it helps my job search. When I lived on the streets I was addicted to Heroin and I had a lifestyle that was designed to accomodate that fact. That was over a year ago and I am trying to distance myself from that way of life and assimilate the mainstream. Let me give you an idea of what I'm talking about. My friend and sponsor in my substance recovery is Kip Kreiling who has written the successful book entittled "Impostor". It tells the true story of his life as a young criminal who at one point carried a gun and sold drugs. He tells the story of how he was escorted from his elementary school by a police officer. He later turned his life around and presents a very entertaining series of anecdotes documenting how he transformed his life from one of crime and disfunction, to becoming a successfull captain of industry and expert in corporate efficiency. It is a great book that I would highly recomend. It is inspiring because it reminds us that human beings can transform themselves and rise above their circumstances. His memoirs are immediately recognizeable to anyone who has traveled those dark roads of drug abuse. He talks of having made it to a respectable position and is regarded as an expert in transformation both personal and corporate. His book contains many examples of lessons he learned from the mean streets of his youth that can be applied to the world of successful business transformations. This is a very enjoyable book that has had a profound influence on my rehabilitation. I hope to someday write something similar to his book. My only problem is that I still haven't made a success out of my life. I suppose if you compare my current situation to what I was living 15 months ago it would be a big difference. I am hoping to someday be able to say; "look, I used to sleep behind a dumpster and now I am........., " You see the problem. I don't have an ending. Today, that successful ending looks far away. Maybe I am fooling myself in thinking that it is that easy to achieve. I'm not particularly optimistic about my prospects at this time. I wonder if I will even be able to get a job. Am I wasting my time going back to school studying accounting? Will anyone let me be a CPA? Maybe I will have to be an entrepreneur. Maybe no one will hire me. That seems extreme but I thought that this census job would be something where they wouldn't care about my background as much. After all it was advertised at the substance abuse treatment center where I go for counseling. I assume that they would advertise there knowing they would attract many people who have a history of drug abuse and problems with the law. Well today I am depressed. I hope to have better news on my next post.

New Year's comentary

We are at the end of 2009. On the radio this morning they were doing a year in review as is often the case. In this case it's the decade in review. For me I have spent the majority of this decade living on the streets in Tucson Arizona. This is my first holiday season among "normal" people. So as I aproach the new decade, I feel it is most appropriate to be entering a new decade. I am re-inventing myself therefore it should be accompanied with a change in how the rest of the world refers to things.

During this period, there have been many changes particularly of a technological nature. I am reminded of the story of "Rip Van Winkle" who fell asleep to wake up and things had changed. Well, that describes much of my situation. I was awake for the last 12 years, but I didn't have access to many luxury items and was unaware of how our world has changed by their proliferation. My sister gave me a G.P.S. navigational system for Christmas. This is an example of new technology that has an effect on one's daily life. Recently I used a GPS device to find my other sister's house in the nearby town of Leesburg. The GPS told me to take the shortest route which included a couple of toll booths. Unfortunately I was without money and I had to essentially run the gate twice that evening. I ended up in a frustrating situation due to my dependence on technology. I later learned that you can program the navigation parameters to avoid toll roads but at the time I didn't know that. I heard on the radio that a vacationing couple in Colorado was told by their GPS to take an unsafe route due to weather conditions and ended up being stranded in the snow. They we're later rescued by someone responding to their cell-phone signal. Technology was the cause as well as the solution to the problem. Many things have changed the most profound being the way we process information. I saw a documentary on "Google" that said that we have access to an unprecedented amount of information at our fingertips. I notice that in my own life I use digital media every day for a wide variety of activities.

I think I have adjusted fairly well to the digital age. I have had to do it all in the last year, but I have gotten used to doing many daily tasks in ways that would not have existed just 10 years ago.

This column is devoted to my job search which includes many web based applications and data-bases. It has completely changed the way in which we sell ourselves to other productivity minded people to pool our resources.

Many people dislike technology and claim that we have lost our soul. My thinking is that the game is changed and we must avail ourselves of these new tools to create our humane environment.

Have a Happy New year,

N. Douglas Calhoun

The purpose of this site is to introduce myself to interested parties and to share my rehabilitation to anyone interested in the plight of the homeless in our society. Throughout my life I have always felt that there is some important purpose to life and I felt driven to make something of myself. I have always had goals. About thirteen years ago, I was a graduate student in East Asian Chinese studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson, a veteran of the armed forces, eagle scout and model law abiding citizen. I was driven to go somewhere but I really didn't know where. While I firmly believed that it was important to 'make it' in life, I'm not exactly sure what that means. I have a pretty good idea however, that the way I was living my last 12 years was not it. By any standards in this world, the life of a street heroin addict is not the american dream, in fact it is almost universally agreed upon that it is about as low as a human can sink. The funny thing was that at the time, I didn't really find it that unpleasant. As I look back on the experience from my current situation, only then do I recoil at the memory of my daily struggle. I can't believe I went through it. I think few people from my background have experienced that side of society and are in a position to tell about it.

That is exactly what I intend to do. You may ask yourself, "what is it I want to accomplish by telling this story". To be frank, I am still trying to make it in this world. By telling my story, I hope to attract attention to my goals. Martin Luther King once said; "Judge me not by my position in life, but from the depths from which I have risen."

Do you sympathize with my plight? Are you eager to see people rise above their circumstances in life? If so, maybe you can help me. How can you help me? Follow my story. Talk to your friends about my story. Send me words of encouragement and point me in the right direction if you feel inspired to do so. I welcome all advice and recomendations. Maybe you know someone who has struggled with homelessness or substance abuse. In many respects, my story is their story, any success I may achieve can be their success. Help me prove that it can be done. It is possible to bounce back from a stint among society's most miserable. Right now, my biggest challenge is employment. I am not the only one with our economy being what it is right now. I make no excuses. I am determined to succeed.

The Taoist philosophy claims that weaknesses can be strengths. In that spirit I hope to take what many would consider a failure and convert it into a strength. Could I be so presumptuous as to suggest that my years living on the streets and surviving the daily struggle of a street drug addict gives me unique survival skills that I hope to adapt to a mainstream productive lifestyle. Will I be successfull? Only time will tell. In the mean time, keep following this post.

Thank you, we will talk more later.

Doug Calhoun