Thirty-Six Years, Prime Numbers, and Italia

I'm about to celebrate my thirty-sixth birthday. As I've been developing software since I was about twelve years of age, two-thirds of my life have now been dedicated to the design and programming of computer software.

Out of those twenty-four years, I believe I've spent the latter half of them complaining about how much I loathe technology, how I can't stand the directions it's taken, and how I can't wait to walk away from it all. I believe that I've spent nearly the same amount of time complaining about the direction that my country has taken, and debating whether I should invest the time in trying to help fix it or walk away from it all.

I was not a particularly good student in grammar school. While I was quite obviously gifted in mathematics and science, I put absolutely no effort into my studies. I was young, thoroughly bored, and far too lazy to suffer teachers and homework. The only thing that saved me from failing out of school was that I tested well. This turned what would have been F's into C's and occasionally B's.

That having been said, it only made sense that during my first semester of college, I found myself in the same state of boredom and contempt. I withdrew from school during that semester and entered the workforce as a junior-level computer programmer, only to find myself being rapidly promoted to a senior level engineer by the age of twenty.

So now that I've spent just as much time hating my career as I once did enjoying it, it's time to make firm decisions about the future. I'm thirty-five years of age, half way through my useful life, and my brain has begun to refuse my requests for it to continue operating in the methodically logical ways that had once allowed me to excel in software development.

Subjects that my previously logical mind would have found far too abstract to pique my interest now challenge me. Because I've had to pay taxes, I've naturally become interested in politics. Politics has cascaded into an appreciation of history, and history has opened my mind to many things, but particularly philosophy, religion, science and mathematics.

After complaining for so long about the directions of both technology and my country of birth, I've realized something: Neither of these things are going to get any better, and since I'm still relatively young and my mind still sharp, it's time for a change; time to act toward the future. It is with mathematics that I see that future, and it is in Europe where I see it taking place.

While doing genealogical research a few weeks ago, I discovered that the Italian government recognizes implicit citizenship for those of Italian descent, so long as their immigrant ancestor was not yet a United States citizen at the time of his or her child's birth in the US. After doing quite a bit of digging, I found out that I qualify for Italian citizenship via bloodline (jure sanguinis), and am now going through the process of gathering the required documents to apply for recognition of that citizenship.

Having one's Italian citizenship recognized is no quick and easy process. It takes months to gather the documents, a month or more to obtain an appointment to present your application, and thereafter a couple of years for the Italian government to finally get back to you with confirmation of recognition and an application for an Italian passport.

Because of how long the process takes, Milisa and I have at least a few years left in the United States before we can even plan our departure, and so we both intend to pursue our Bachelor degrees. She will be studying Landscape Architecture, while I will be studying Mathematics. Once in Europe, I plan to continue my studies by pursuing a doctorate, while Milisa will likely work as a landscape architect in the commercial sector.

I'm looking forward to this change, and can't honestly say that I'll miss the United States or Software Development, but all of this is still a few years away, so who knows. I can say one thing with some certainty, and that is this: Don't expect any of the Presidential candidates to make your lives any better, because they won't. We've long since passed the threshold at which government ceases to serve the people and instead serves itself. The United States that we once called a Republic is no more.

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