For the truly enterprising, I have taken up blogging again, in some form. I'm currently using Blogspot - Very Clever Blog Title - but I also remembered that I have a permanent account here. Maybe my LJ will be useful again in the future, but we'll see.

One of those "i just had an extraordinary insight that is really quite simple, but eluded me" days.  I keep telling people that my dream job is to write for Pixar.  Why is that?  Well, they create incredible films, the hearts of which are wonderful stories that use simple, time-tested values inside incredibly creative worlds.  I mean seriously, Monsters Inc?  Genius.  The other reason being, of course, my ideas that I want to write screenplays.  And yet....I don't.  I make no effort to actually achieve this dream, as though I expect it to fall into my lap one day, as though John Lassiter himself will call me up and offer me a job.  It's insane, I know. 

I'd like to chase this dream.  I may fall on my face, but I have to try.  What else am I going to do with my writing ability?  A set goal will at least get me working, doing something.  And here is the point where talking about it has to lead to something else.  I'm great at deciding to do things, and then not following through.  In fact, I could probably get in the world record book for something like that.  Kick me in the ass, punch me in the face, just...tell me I can do it.  I don't need a muse, I just need the support.

In other news, it feels like I'm wasting precious time if I'm merely living life instead of trying to progress in it. A couple of months ago I was all set on studying for the GRE, heading off to grad school, and being on my way to professor-hood. Maybe I just decided I need a break, regardless of the fact that I feel like I'm several years behind the curve, but I haven't touched the prep books I got in a while. I'm more screwed up than I admit most of the time...my awful time management skills conflict awkwardly with my desire to always be doing something. My understanding of how I need to budget my income gets punched in the face by that same new-found income, which would rather go towards things like an Xbox and a George Foreman grill.

I really have no idea where I was going with that. I haven't seen my ipod shuffle for a week or two now, and because I have yet to clean my room in an attempt to locate it, I got a replacement player...that doesn't hold a candle to it. iTunes' Autofill function may be the best feature to ever exist since the invention of the mp3 format. Winamp provides a similar function for my Zen Stone, but it doesn't work the same way. Here's hoping I find the shuffle.

I'm schedule to start a class in Video Production on Friday. Still need the book and to pay for the class, which is a nice $200 expense I don't really want right now as rent is almost due. It would be neat to learn, but damn.

Back to the point, perhaps I should worry less about all my future goals just for a little while and do something else...it just seems silly to put things off that I want to attain.

Currently Blasting: Amon Amarth - Pursuit of Vikings

I can't believe it's been nearly a year since I tossed a few words up on LJ. It's not as though I've been blogging extensively elsewhere, really...a dozen or so on MySpace in the space of a couple years. I guess I've had more people to talk to about stuff? Yay for good friends. Also yay for friends who I don't see but don't seem to have given up on me yet. And finally, yay for this kickass new chair I got for my desk today. After 5 years and countless splashdowns, my old chair cracked at the welding and became a rather amusement park-like ride for a week or so. My new one is incredibly comfortable, which will serve me well.

Let's recap the last 10 months, then, shall we? The contract job I was working with the City was terminated at the end of the year and I was subsequently unemployed for 2 months, towards the end of which I began to question my worth. I couldn't believe how hard it was to find work. Then Pitney Bowes, the mail meter people, called. I've been working at a Sprint billing site for the last 5 1/2 months as a Systems Customer Service Representative - basically, when one of the machines Sprint uses to process their bills breaks, I fix it. It's a good job with which I have not gotten bored, because there's a lot to learn. It's a real company, finally, a huge company in fact that takes good care of me, financially and otherwise. I'm still at the proverbial bottom rung, but while I do not intend to make this a career (and many folks do), it will serve me well for a while. The best(?) part is that because they are so big, there are sites basically everywhere in the country that I could transfer to, i.e. Seattle. I think I have to put in a year before making the request, though, so hopefully an opening will exist next March. If I could get out of here before another summer, that would be sensational.

Being relatively new (though my seniority rapidly increases at this site..there's significant turnover), my schedule blows to an extent. I work swing shift, which I really don't mind, but I have terrible days off - Wednesday and Thursday, which means I hardly ever see people. Today is my Saturday. I start my week when everyone else is ending theirs...it's just weird. Hopefully soon I can get one weekend day off. To keep me busy during the daytime, I have been working as the head writer for the Dallas Venom, a franchise that is part of the Championship Gaming Series, a true professional video game league jointly put on by DirecTV, Mountain Dew, and Microsoft. It's a paid writing job! :)

I moved to Roseville in December with my very good friend funnyz0r, which has been a good experience. I've learned to be somewhat cleaner and plenty about the female psyche. Maybe more than I wanted to. However, I do not think I will stay once the lease is up, as it's just too far away from work, my friends, and so forth. There's no reason really for me to be all the way up here. It is a really nice place, though.

I know not what the future holds. I harbor dreams of working towards a PhD, either in literature or linguistics, and actually did begin to study for the GRE. For now, though, I may temper those ambitions, as while my company offers tuition reimbursement, it extends only to Master's programs, which I had intended to skip over. In the meantime, then, I may tackle something else; I took some networking classes in the spring, but nothing in that section is offered this fall so it may not come to pass.

I suppose that is a suitable update. Any questions?

Currently Blasting: Allegretto from piano concerto no. 2 in G minor - Prokofiev

Graduating was supposed to matter.  Why did I major in English?  I get more depressed every day that I realize how fucking useless it is right now.

My last college assignment.

The background:

So I'm sitting at work today, looking up what exactly constitutes a Social Science degree, because a friend of mine is pursuing it and I was curious. After I satisfied my curiosity there, I started browing other degrees on Sac State's site. At first, I looked at a few I thought would have made interesting alternatives, such as Biology and Mechanical Engineering. The common theme among them was a lot of math and science, classes I haven't taken in years. I also looked at languages, but little beyond that.

The results:

It got me to thinking...my English degree has not challenged me. It's essentially been a lot of reading and writing, which for me requires very little effort. I don't have to study, I rarely have to work hard. In a way, it's useful because I don't have to kill myself to graduate. But something I know about myself, but had forgotten, is that I need to be challenged. I always thought it was interesting that my best year of college was the one where I took calculus, physics, programming, etc. For example, my 2nd semester at Sac State: Programming Concepts and Methodology I (C++): B; Calculus II: A; General Physics-Mechanics: B. I had a few other classes, but they were in Communications and English. Of course, the next semester it all went to hell, and I had more Physics, Logic Design, Programming II and Differential Equations. I pretty much gave up at that point, but I'm not sure why. Bad timing, I guess. But I digress. My feeling is that I did well that semester because I had a challenge, and I had to work hard. I'm not saying classes later weren't hard, but something else happened to make me stop caring. My point is that I seem to get bored when I'm not challenged. Work is a great example. Nothing I do is hard, or requires much thinking, and that sucks. I'm bored to tears. It's like somewhere along the way, I stopped believing in my own intelligence. I absolutely crave an academic challenge. I'm really smart, but I let other things get in the way of that.

The future:

Now what? I almost feel like getting an English degree has been a waste of my time. Sure, I might find a job, and it might even be interesting, but part of me thinks I could have done so much more. I'd need to be independently wealthy at this point to go back for something else, since having my options limited to the evening or online reduce the kind of degrees I could go for. Basically, I would love to just start over and do something else, one that kept my mind sharp. I think the best chance I have for that is to go after a language, which is something else I gave up on years ago, even though I take to them very quickly. It's also probably the best chance I have for travel. My preference is to learn Mandarin. I need to think more. I really don't enjoy feeling like the last 9 years have led in the wrong direction.

I just want to congratulate the media in this country for successfully making the entire populace afraid of its own shadow.  It blows my mind that every single article now that in some way deals with a plane, or disturbance, automatically includes the phrase "did not seem to be terrorism related". 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060818/ap_on_fe_st/chocolate_virgin_mary

Sigh.

Maybe people will hate me for this, but - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060818/ap_on_re_us/katrina_victim_lawsuit_6

This is a joke.  I'm well aware that the response to the hurricane was on the level of absurdity, but you know what?  That's how it went down.  People died.  First and foremost, it is not the government's responsibility to make sure each and every person is doing alright, wherever they are.  Why exactly did the son keep his mother outside for 24 hours if it was so hot, knowing how frail she was?  People did the best they could under trying circumstances.  Let's start the blame game!  I guess there was no inheritance.