Turning 24 and Looking Back on 23

Yesterday, I turned 24. It was not anything particularly spectacular, but it was nice enough. Fortunately for me, the entire country decided to celebrate my birthday with me, so I didn't have class or work, which really was the nicest thing of all if we're going to be honest here.

And now that I have started my new year, I think about the past year and how many ups and downs I had with being 23. 23 started out on an incredible high. I went to Europe within the first 6 weeks of being 23. It set very high hopes for that year, even though I knew that I would never reach that same high, at least not within that year.

But then, as somewhat documented via blog posts, I hit some severe lows. Sure, they were not the most terrible things that could have happened to me, and that seems so much more obvious in hindsight, but at the time, it felt like the lowest low.

There is nothing like living at home, unemployed, out of school, and constantly feeling like a failure because you can't figure out exactly what you want to do/how to get to the point of doing what you want to do to send you into feelings of depression. I didn't realize it that it was depression at the time. I thought that I was being a brat and feeling sorry for myself, which I guess it's partly true, but it did not become so obvious to me that it was coupled with depression until we got our new puppy, Nymeria, and I found myself not being sad anymore. Sure, at that point I had been accepted into the MBA program, but that feeling or uselessness and just being sad went away with a new puppy.

Finally landing a job is probably another highlight of my year. It felt more like relief than anything else. I was relieved that there was someone that thought that I could be of use. It is going pretty well so far, at least I think so. It will probably get itself its own post in a few weeks (or months following my usual blogging trend). School is alright so far. Then again, I have yet to have a test or anything major graded, so I will reserve my judgement for my year as a 24 year old.

But, through the ups and downs, moments of relief and panic, feeling hopeless or hopeful, I learned a lot about myself during 23. I learned that I need to instill an awful lot of self discipline if I were ever to become a freelancer of any sort (I won't). I learned that as much as I saw and put out the vibe that I do not care what others think or what society's standards are, those expectations and comments still get to me if I am not feeling confident enough in myself. I learned that having a narrow perspective and being stubborn can be damaging to my future. I learned that I shouldn't give up on a dream because it seems "out there." I learned that traveling truly is my passion and I want to find a way to always do it and to make sure that everyone I know does it too. I learned that an adventure does not have to just be wandering the streets a foreign country, but can also be going to a local store you never visited or striking up a conversation with an unlikely stranger. Most importantly, I learned to not be too hard on myself. Sure I have moments of being lazy and not doing what I should be, but most of the time, I am trying my best and that I will eventually get to where I want to be as long as I don't tear myself down.

Here's to being 24.

Getting a Puppy was a Great Indication that I Do Not Want to Have Children for at least 10 Years

That's a long title for a post, but I felt that it was necessary. A little over a month ago, there has been a new addition to our household and as you may have guessed from the title, it is a puppy. My brother found her at a shelter and decided to get her. A few weeks later he decided that she should live with us in our house instead of just with him at his apartment. I really don't know what he was thinking having her locked in his apartment for a good chunk of the day as she is a puppy, but he did have some help in form of a play pen. A play pen that became useless approximately a week after she was brought to our house as she had gotten too big for it.

He claimed that she was mostly housebroken, already reacts to her name (Nymeria), and was 3 months old when he got her from the shelter. All of these things turned out to be untrue, granted that last one was not his fault so much as they were obviously clueless at the shelter. It turns out that now, about 2 months after he got her from the shelter, she has yet to grow her 3 month old teeth. So she was probably about 4 weeks old when he got her..and then would leave her alone sometimes for hours at a time. As I have grown attached to her the past month or so, thinking about this makes me really sad, which is part of the reason why I said what I said in the title.

But, getting too emotional over my puppy is the least of the reasonings. No, there are quite a few more and they are a bit greater of indications than that one. It is tough taking care of a puppy. Taking her out to use the bathroom, cleaning up her messes, making sure she doesn't chew on the furniture, training her to do simple things, and of course spending almost all of my time with her, because ohmyGod why would I leave that poor little baby all by herself, she'll get sad. So it's hard and I feel guilty leaving her alone. I don't even want to imagine how hard it would be with a human baby and OHMYGOD the guilt to come with that if I ever left the baby alone.

Sure, I may be overreacting but, I don't think I am too far off. I mean really. I am struggling with this puppy and I don't have a job and am currently not in school. Fortunately, by the time the semester starts again in August, she will be a bit older and things won't be as difficult. But, man this responsibility and feeling guilty and not knowing if the people I am leaving her alone with will take care of her like I do (keep in mind, these 'people' I am referring to are my parents) is only going to be intensified by 5000% with a child. And with that, I know I can not possibly be ready for that for at least another 10 years. I don't care if by that point I have been married for several years and we feel that there is a gaping hole that needs to be filled in the form of a child, we'll just adopt a puppy until I reach that point.

That Thing That I Always Wanted to Do

You know how when you sit and think about things that you want to do and wonder why you never actually get around to doing them, even though they are (usually) pretty doable? No? Just me then? Ok.

Well, this is a bit of a problem for me. So much so, that I end up doing nothing at all that I aspire to want to eventually and/or be good at doing, because I do not set aside a few hours a week (or even less in some cases) to work towards said thing. Instead, I look at the daunting task ahead of me and then kick myself a year or so later because I knew that if I had just started on it a little bit a year ago (or two years ago or a few months ago...you get the idea), then I would have conquering said task. Things that are completely within my grasp and that I know that I can completely accomplish because there is nothing blocking the way like the need for a ridiculous amount of money or waiting for some blind luck that will help me get to it. These things become "that thing that I always wanted to do."

You would think that getting past the blockade of needing money and fear of asking my parents for me to do something that they may not be happy about and then jetting off to Europe for a month, would have ended all of this, but it hasn't. The funny thing is that if I am put on the spot at anytime about listing things that I have always wanted to do, I would come up blank (except for the traveling thing because I feel like that is practically a given with me). Recently though, I have been dwelling on a few of those and, the most shocking part is coming up, I have been taking steps towards achieving them.

I know, right? It's crazy!

For the past few weeks, I have been consistently running. Sure, it has not been as many times as I would like, but 2-3 times a week is a lot more often that the average of once ever 2-3 weeks. I think the fact that I am allowing myself to get into it more gradually is much more useful in getting myself back into that habit, and eventually to a marathon, than trying to just throw myself hardcore into it. I also set a bit of running schedule to follow for a few months, so the structure is helping too.

Another thing that I have always wanted to do is to work on my Arabic so that I can become fully fluent. This is one of them that I am constantly kicking myself for because I know that it will not take that much time and effort from me and I would be fluent in a matter of months. Today, I started working in an Arabic textbook and have set myself up a bit of a practice schedule. Again, it isn't as grueling as things I have planned out in the past, but this is the sort of thing that doesn't need intense overload sessions, just consistent small sessions until I reach that level of fluency.

The last thing I am currently working towards is working for some sort of fandom website. I had a chance at that a few years ago when I worked for the Wizrocklopedia, but I sort of blew it. I didn't stay consistent with it and I even had a chance to step in and save the whole thing and I didn't. Now, I am trying my hand at becoming a guest type contributor for LeakyNews. They are looking for a lot of people to fill in their new rewatch segment of the site. I think it is the perfect opportunity for me to start contributing to an online platform that I admire. I know that there is a chance that I may not move on beyond just the rewatch part, but it is something that I am going to try to do. I am planning to write about 30 Rock. So, if anything, I know I will be having a lot of fun doing it. And that's all that matters in the end, right?

What to do Next

Last week, I was accepted into the MBA program at the university where I live. People seem to be excited for me. I'm not. At least, I wasn't at first. Technically, I still am not but it isn't the same sort of lack of excitement.

I know that I am at a bit of crossroads in my life where I am not 100% sure what I want to do (although there are a few options that I am considering and really wanting to pursue), I know that I do not want to be stuck living at home for another two years, with a strong likelihood that it will be more than that. I do not have much of an interest in business and from endless job hunting, I have gathered that degrees have become practically meaningless in the job market. In fact, they have become a deterrent as there have been several positions that I have interviewed for and the person interviewing me shared concerns about me leaving for another position because I have a degree, or that I may be 'bored' with the position. It's incredibly frustrating.

Then, I started to think about what I could do back on a college campus. I can apply for internships that require college credit, because I am back in college. I can work while obtaining the degree, because they are all night courses and I can tell the person interviewing me that I have to stay for at least two years, and that's no guarantee with anyone else they are hiring. I can work on creating things that can be distributed and seen by other people. I can work for the school paper or radio station instead of trying to claw for those jobs in the 'real world' so that I can get some experience. I can study abroad like I always wanted to in undergrad, or at least do an exchange with another school in the US and land an internship in New York or Chicago. If anything, I could even just do this whole MBA thing for a year, land a job, and say goodbye to it with absolutely no qualms. I even looked over the curriculum and it seems like there is a stronger likelihood of becoming bored than becoming stressed over the workload.

Plus, things never work out the way people intend them to. Maybe this is a way for me to do everything I thought to doing in undergrad but didn't due to not knowing about it, being to scared to try, or just not having enough time. If anything, my GPA will be much higher and it will be seemingly more impressive because it's grad school which apparently is some sort of big deal. As long as I eventually reach the same final point, is it really going to matter how I got there?

Checking in and Changing Pace

I've disappeared for a bit there, partly because I was trying to focus my writing energy on other things and partly because my computer is getting worse at being a computer. But, I thought that I should check in a month after a lot of blogging just for the sake of checking in.

The thing is that I do't always feel that I have something that I want to say in long form blog type form, or at least, I don't feel like it is something that I would want to say here. But, at the same time, I sort of want to keep this going, maybe not as often as I would like and certainly not in the format that I thought it would be in at first.

I used to always think too much about the length of a specific blog post or what sort of topic that it should cover and how often that should be. I guess, to an extent, I wanted to be able to write something on regular basis to prove to myself that I can do it and if I were ever to try to get a job that had something to do with writing, I could  point to this blog and say "hey I can write about something almost everyday if I need to!"

But when I look back on a lot of my posts, well they aren't exactly the greatest and I think that is because I was pushing it a little too much. I want my posts to come more naturally and I think that will come with consistency but not a forceful one. I also think I stick with one simple format with my posts. Sure, this is not going to be as random as my Tumblr or as short as my Twitter, but I think changing things up a bit will be better for this blog and for me.

I am going to try to add more pictures here and give explanations to go along with them. Maybe through in some creative writing every once in a while instead of some semi-emo posts. Or maybe I'll just make posts of lists because I make lists for just about everything else. I mean, who even knows at this point?

Forgetfulness and Quitting

As you can see, I have not blogged for the past three days. Initially, this was not on purpose. I completely forgot about blogging on Friday. I had a topic ready for that day (I was going to gush over Justin Timberlake's new album, because, well, it's fantastic) and I had planned a potential time slot to write it. Then, I got distracted by the news and my cousins being over and it completely got pushed out of mind. I actually had the time to write it a few times, but it was not on my mind at all, until I was about to go to sleep at 2:30 am. I was lying in bed and it popped in my head that I forgot to write up a blog post. Oops.

I had forgotten to write a blog post before though, so it wasn't that big of a deal. Then, the next day I just had absolutely no desire to write anything. It was the same sort of feeling that I had on Thursday, but I decided to just not even try with anything else, especially since I had not posted the day before, so I kept with the trend. I felt very blah this weekend in general. I had zero motivation to do anything And it isn't as if I have a lot of strenuous things to do, but I was just sapped in terms of motivation to do anything that would require any sort of effort whatsoever. 

I find that I have gotten this feeling much more often than I did when I was in school, which is odd because I was an extreme slacker and procrastinator when I was in school. Even when I set myself up a schedule or a to-do list to follow, it does not strike that same sort of feeling to actually do something. And since this feeling keeps popping up, it is not very easy for me to officially declare that I am "quitting" BEDA. 

The main reason that I started BEDA was so I could make myself get into the habit of constantly writing again, even if it is about nothing really or (as seen in the subject matter of many posts) the same thing again and again. I think that I have reached the point where I can write something easily if I need to, but not in the form of a blog post each day. I have an unfinished short story that I want to actually finish. I have ideas for other stories and sketches that I want to write. I have recently had a bit of breakthrough with how to format the writing for a novella that I toyed with a few years back. Basically, this half-assed attempt at BEDA did actually help because I have been writing more often and it got some of my creative juices going. 

With that, I am not going to completely abandon my blog. I will keep writing in it, just not at the frequency of each day but, definitely at a frequency that is more than once or twice a month. I know that I could keep blogging everyday along with working on other writing projects, but I feel that I can come up with much more quality, and certainly much more polished, posts if I do not make blogging an everyday thing. 

I guess, in this case, quitting a self imposed challenge was the right thing to do. 

A Mixture of Feelings and Some Pictures

I am feeling a sense of nostalgia mixed with a longing for future adventures and a current change. Because of the mixture of said feelings, it is difficult to put words together that make sense right now. I originally was going to post some pictures to make up for not having any words (a picture is worth a thousand words, right?), but it was taking quite some time and I didn't want to have this post go on and on.

I think I will post a few at a time though depending on how I feel. Mostly some artistic ones that I may put on Tumblr too one day and then everyone will think I am an amazing photographer when really, I was just lucky with the shot. I have three from London that are probably my favorite, because they either look like something that a professional photographer would try to capture or it just gives off this sort of presence (at least to me it does). Anyway, here they are!

I especially feel like that last one looks like something from a postcard, but maybe that is just me.

Becoming a Full Time Vegetarian

Lately, I have been considering becoming a full time vegetarian. I am already a vegan for part of the year and a pescetarian for another part of the year. Whenever I lived alone when I was away at school, I would sometimes become an accidental vegetarian because it is more expensive and tricky to prepare when all you have is a refrigerator and microwave. So, I know that it is possible to go without meat for a while.

There are a lot of benefits to becoming a vegetarian (or at least a pescetarian). It is a (usually) much healthier diet. It would motivate me to become more creative with what I eat and how I prepare it. There is the moral and ethical viewpoint about unnecessarily killing animals and the greenhouse gases that cattle cause that I would know that I am no longer contributing to. And, as mentioned above, it is a lot cheaper when you don't have to buy meat. Essentially, if I ever live on my own, this would be the perfect diet for me in that I would not end up blaming my mom's cooking for keeping me from being a vegetarian and I would be trying to save money anyway.

I don't think I could go all out vegan, at least not for the whole year, for one reason: cheese. I've tried vegan cheese and it does not taste like regular cheese. I enjoy cheese too much to give up the real thing full time. I honestly think I could be a vegan plus regular cheese easily. Well, not easily easily, but I know that there could be a point in my life where that is a possibility and I won't feel the desire to break that or that my dietary choices are suddenly too difficult to live with. Although, I may start off as a pescetarian though, so that I could ease into the process. Also, I love shrimp and it will take me a while before I can say good bye to it forever.

I do not know when exactly I would start this. It would be difficult while I am living at home or if I happen to be living with roommates that are not vegetarian and/or understanding of it. I have semi-started a few times but, I think I want to set an actual time point that I would start and then transition into it. I am hoping to have a job and/or start a graduate program (uuugh) by the fall. I keep imagining myself living on my own and in a large city, so if those are the circumstances that arise, I think I would be able to accomplish it much more easily. Whether that does happen or not, I think I want to start my transition this fall. I will slowly get off of meat (if I am not mostly off of it by that point) until I am a pescetarian for a few months and then eventually (and by eventually, I mean within a year or so), I will be a vegetarian.

So here's looking at you fall 2014! I will be a full time vegetarian by the time I see you!

The Insight of Comedians

I have always found that comedians (at least the good ones) have the best reactions to tragedies or horrific circumstances. It is not because they are able to make light of the situation and make fun of it so easily, because they usually don't so soon after an event, but because they are brutally honest with their feelings on the matter. Last night, I watched the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson the way I do almost every night. I had not watched any other late night show yesterday (most were on reruns anyway) so this was my first glimpse at what a comedian with a show was going to do with the Boston bombings.

Craig Ferguson opened the show very honestly and even though he threw in a little joke playing off the audience, he was a bit somber, but not in a depressing way. I feel like some of the things he said were what was on a lot of people's minds when they first heard about it. He said something along the lines of "Is anyone else sick of this shit?" And I don't think there is anyone who would disagree with that. The show went on after the mellow opening and even though he mentioned it with his guests (Rob Lowe and Larry King who were both fantastic) he stayed very honest and it felt like they were honest about it too. But, the show was also hilarious. I mean, I usually find this show very funny, but I felt myself laughing more than usual. Maybe it was because the feelings of the day were so horrible that this was such a welcome change.

There were also a lot of reactions floating around the internet yesterday and the one that stuck out the most and was probably the best, at least I think so, was one made by Patton Oswalt, who also happens to be a comedian. His post was incredibly honest and a lot more hopeful than you would expect if you follow his style of comedy. And then, I was thinking back to the shootings and Newtown and how the best reaction to it was an article by The Onion which summarized the reactions of so many people that I was astounded that it was possible for it to be put in words like that.

It takes a lot to be a successful comedian, or success at comedy or satire as The Onion. It takes an incredibly intelligent type of person to make an audience laugh with you instead of at you and to continually have something funny to say whether it is one person or a group of writers providing for one person. I think this is the reason why comedians tend to have such great insight on such horrible things. Many of them have had a lot of bad things that happened in their personal lives (Craig Ferguson is an example of that) and that is why they are able to face something like this so honestly and not attempt to hide behind their normal style of humor or empty rhetoric.

They think of the impact that their words have on others. They know that many people look to them for a relief or for a moment to forget about their hectic lives and they (usually) do not abuse that by trying to pry on their vulnerability. I've always had a great deal of respect for those they are in the comedy world and it is things like this that make my admiration for them grow even more.

Thoughts on the Boston Bombings

Today, a little before 4 pm, a bomb went off around the finish line of the Boston Marathon. It's been all over the internet and the news, so there really is no reason for me to actually go into details about that. I do want to talk about my reaction to not just the event itself, but to other people's reactions, and how my reactions kept changing over the course of just six hours.

I heard (saw actually) the news when I was scrolling through Twitter after waking up from a nap. Strangely enough, it seems that I fell asleep just as the news was hitting Twitter. There was a lot of confusion and people jumping to conclusions, which did not help the situation at all. But more importantly, there were a lot of tweets of people sending their thoughts and prayer to the people of Boston and countless retweets of the numbers for people to locate loved ones or to contact the authorities about any information they may have. It was nice to see that there was good being spread via the internet when there was so much misinformation floating around. In fact, there was a report later on during the day saying how sharing that information helped many people get in touch or track down their love ones in the area, since cell service was either overloaded or cut off at certain points.

Which, by the way, the cell service was cut off because the police were concerned people were detonating bombs over their cell phones. When I read that, it made me so angry that my face hurt. People are desperately trying to get in contact with their loved ones and they can't, because there are horrible people in the world who take a piece of technology that is meant to help people stay in touch and give them peace of mind and then use it for evil. But then I saw that people and local cafes were opening their WiFi up to strangers, so that they could get in contact with their loved ones causing me to have some of my faith restored in humanity.

As you can see, my feelings kept going up and down throughout the day seeing the information as it came in. And this is with not watching the news throughout all of this. I learned a long time ago to completely ignore the 24 hour news cable channels during something like this, because I feel that all they do is perpetuate panic and do not (more so than usual) differentiate with their opinions and what the facts of the situation are. Then again, I am on the internet following what is happening, which can be even worse.

Even with the stories of runners of the marathon runners running straight from the race to the hospital to give blood and the countless people who ran towards the explosion to help, it was all still too sad to think about. Running a marathon is one of those great human accomplishments and it was the Boston marathon, meaning these people had probably trained for years to get their time down so they could qualify to run in it. This should have been one of the best days of their lives and instead it was a terrible day, and for some it may have been one of the worst days. The fact that there are runners who lost one of their legs was just too much for me.

Then there was the perspective of this whole thing. So many people were concerned about friends and family when they heard about the bombing, including a friend of mine on Twitter who mentioned how she can't believe how there are people in the world that live with that feeling every day. There is chaos in their countries and they never know when it is safe to go about their lives because some horrible person may set off a bomb. Or they may live in a bad neighborhood and that every time they hear a distant gunshot, they worry it may have been a loved one.

I am so fortunate and so happy that I do not have feeling on a regular basis, or ever really. I know that I should not have this feeling of a loss of faith in humanity because this sort of thing brings into perspective how horrible this sort of this is and unfortunately, how frequent something like this happens. I know there are more good people in the world than there are bad, but it's hard to believe that when I think about the world. I hope that the people of Boston, and people all over the country and the world that experience this sort of thing all the time, will heal in time and that humanity as a whole continues to grow stronger until this sort of thing is something that is only discussed in the history books.

Meet Ups, Long Talks, and Dwelling on What Could Have Been

I keep coming up with the titles for my blog posts without actually writing, or even really fully thinking out what all I am going got say. I don't know why, but I have more fun with the titles and the ones that I come up with seem catchy and/or promising of a great post to follow. I should look into seeing if I could get a job doing that (speaking of jobs, I'm filling out applications as I write this...yay).

I met up with two friends from high school that I had not talked to in a while and we had lunch and talked. It was nice to be able to chat with friends outside of messages via Facebook or the occasional text. The conversation went from light to a bit heavy, as I feel tends to happen when friends are talking. It is nice to know that I have people that as willing to hear me complain, although it does not stop the feeling that I should truly have nothing to complain about seeing as I am essentially a spoiled brat. All the same, it is a nice feeling knowing that it is there even if I am not going to use it.

One of the things that always comes to my mind when I talk with friends from high school, is the 'what if' scenarios. I know it does not help anything thinking of what could have been, but my mind still wanders there. The thing that I usually think about in terms of "what ifs" is my mentality in high school and into my early college career. I was so focused on one thing that I thought I wanted to do. I had thought about other things, but I never thought they could be something I could seriously do. I often think, what if I had a much more open mind about what I wanted to do with my life when I was just a teenager? Of course, the positive side of it is that I would be doing something right now, even if it isn't anything that I terribly enjoyed.

The negative, is that I would be where I am right now. Out of college and unemployed. Yes. I think that I am at the most negative possible situation right now in terms of career/future choices/decisions/positions/whatever it may be.

Perhaps I am being a little over dramatic, but seeing as almost every post this month (and really the past year) has made some sort of mention to having a job, getting a job, or figuring out my future, well it is obviously something that is on my mind. And since I do not have anything else to distract me like work or school, it has, unfortunately, taken over all of my thoughts and, obviously, this blog.

It makes me sad that I am so wrapped up in thinking about getting a job and feeling a bit worthless because I do not have one so much that it is almost all that I am blogging about. I wanted to do BEDA so that I could write thoughtful blog posts and to stretch my writing muscles, so that I eventually could actually write something worth reading. Sure, I sort of need something to be an outlet for this kind of thing, but I don't need it to take over and if it is going to take over, it needs to not be in ranty blog form every time. So, starting with tomorrow's post, I will be moving on to talking about other things. I will dedicate a bit more time and definitely more thought into these posts and hopefully, something will come of it.

Unexpected Things and Skipped Days

I skipped blogging yesterday. Oops. I didn't mean for it to happen. Things just got out of hand and went on a lot longer than I thought it would, so I ended up not blogging yesterday. I guess I technically could have posted something at around 1 am, but I decided against it. So, I guess that means that I failed BEDA? I made it a whole 11 days before failing, so that's a good thing right? I mean, why am I even bothering to continue blogging now since I skipped a day, it's over. It can't be called BEDA anymore because there wasn't a  blog yesterday and that means there was not something posted everyday in April.

Not exactly.

I feel lately that I have been trying to find any excuse to fail at anything and everything that I do. It's this feeling of worthlessnes that I guess comes with being an unemployed college graduate and it wants to just bleed into everything else that I do. If I mess up something once, well then I guess it is something else that I have failed at, just like not being able to find a job. Perhaps it's silly, but I think I like the idea of not being able to accomplish anything at all. That way, when I do something right, I will even surprise myself by it.

I actually thought about skipping today and tomorrow too and calling it my 'weekend off' (a weekend off from what exactly, I don't know). Instead, I will stick with a short post that had a lot of potential and a title that leads you on to think that there will be something more.

The GRE

I took the GRE today. I got back from it less than two hours ago, so you know, it's all still fresh on my mind. It wasn't too bad. I knew that before going into the test though. The material I reviewed and the practice tests that I had taken were not too bad so I figured the actual test would not be all too bad either. I sat down and took the test straight through without any breaks. The whole thing from when I walked into the test room until I left took 4 hours. It really did not feel that long. Maybe it was because I did not feel as stressed about it or because I know that there would be plenty of other opportunities to take it before I would seriously consider going to grad school, but it sort of just breezed by. I only ran out of time on the first math section (which was all my fault pacing wise), but other than that I did not feel rushed. In fact, I had a lot of time left over on the last verbal and math sections. So, there was a good feeling all around while I was taking it.

One of the good things about the GRE is that immediately after you complete the test, you get a tentative score. It may not be the exact one that comes in two weeks, but I am sure that it is close, if not slightly lower than the actual score. It's nice to know a score right away, because then I don't have to sit and wonder what it might be. And even if I did have to wait, 10-15 days is not that long to wait. Most other standardized tests make you wait 4-6 weeks. The GRE just wins on all fronts. I don't know why i ever even bothered with the MCAT or considered the LSAT. GRE all the way.

Speaking of scores, I think I did alright. Most of the score comparison things online and stats from grad schools are based on the old GRE scoring, so I can't really compare anything. I didn't even really have a goal score in mind when I was taking the exam (which I think is probably another reason why I did not feel stressed about it). Funny story about how the scoring has changed...I didn't realize that the scoring had changed when I first started studying for the test. Before I really started doing any real studying, I took a free online practice exam offered by Princeton Review. It felt pretty easy as I was taking it and I felt like I was going to score a decent score. When it was over, it gave me the scores of 149 and 150. In my mind, I thought the scoring was still out of 800 and I thought that I must be a whole lot dumber than I could have imagined and that I would have to hard core study. Then, I saw that the scoring was different and it is out of 170 now. It turns out I was only a little dumb instead of really dumb, which is a nice feeling to have.

At the end of the test, you also get to send your score to four schools for free. I had not really put much thought into which schools to send it to right away, plus I have no idea if the score I just looked at was a good score or a bad one. I don't exactly want to send a low score to my top choice grad school (which honestly, I don't know what that is right now)and I don't want to send the same grad school 14 test results if I end up retaking the GRE. So, I went with the obvious of UTC because it's here in Chattanooga, Louisville because I know they have a bioethics program and it's a state school, Wake Forest because I was on the school's website last night, and NYU because why not? If any of those schools decide to send me some information by the mail or offer me money or something by receiving my GRE scores, I will take as a sign as to a) not worry about retaking the GRE and b) probably go to that school (especially if they are offering me money).

But, even with all this, my priority is still to find a job and one that I would potentially like. Maybe some places of employment will be impressed by my GRE scores?

Blogging vs. Vlogging

This is an argument that I often have in whether I should blog something or vlog it. Before the start of this month, I thought of doing VEDA instead of BEDA or possibly both of them this month (obviously BEDA won out). I am not particularly good at either one and they both concern things that I want to get better at—writing and general video making/editing—and that I cannot improve upon without practice.

I ended up choosing blogging over vlogging for this month, because I had a month where I posted a lot of videos and I already make myself try to make and edit videos on a somewhat regular basis. That is not the case when it comes to writing. I do try to write with consistency, but since I did not have a scenario where I had to write every single day, I did not get into the habit of doing it. So personally, blogging this month was the best choice for me.

But, blogging has not been the trend lately. I remember that I originally signed up for Blogspot so I could follow certain people on here because they blogged consistently and they almost always participated in BEDA, both the April and August versions. Several of them have moved onto blogging on their own websites, but more have stopped blogging with consistency (or at all) whether on this service or another. More people are video blogging, or vlogging than are blogging. Maybe they feel that it is easier. I know that I find it easier to turn on the camera on my phone, talk for a minute or two, and then do a direct upload to YouTube.

Is there more significance to posting a blog than a vlog? Are people more likely to watch a 3 minute long video than read 600 words? Is it a better way to express yourself by having body language and tone inflection included in what you are saying?

Perhaps it is easier to get your point across by speaking than sitting down and writing about it, but I think that gives more weight to blogging than vlogging. I think that when you sit down to write something, you find yourself thinking much more deeply about the subject that you are writing about because you do not have the advantages of things like tone inflection and body language. It takes more time to find the right words to describe what you are thinking and in turn, you find yourself practicing the craft of writing more so that those things come across easier in the future.

I am not necessarily saying that vlogging is easier than blogging. I know that many vloggers script or partially script what they are going to say in their videos and of course there are many versions of the same thing being said over and over, sometimes in different ways sometimes in the exact same way until the right version comes out and it is edited together. It can take just as long, or even longer, to get the right vlog. I just feel that because you cannot put your face or physical voice on something that you write, it can be more of a challenge to convey what you want.

I am a fan of both vlogging and blogging. They are both the same, in that they are an excellent way to convey your thoughts or feelings on a topic yet different because they allow for two different sets of skills to be used and practiced. I find them both just as important as the other and I want to continue doing both with some sort of consistency. But, for now, I think I will work on my writing.  

Spring has Sprung! Finally...

Spring is here and it feels permanent this time around! The weather is always crazy and unpredictable in east Tennessee (except for late May through early September when it is always HOT) but it seems that this year the weather was even more insane and that spring did not want to stick around. It was warm and spring like for a week about a month ago, and then it got cold again, then it warmed up for a day and then it was cold again. The weather was insane, even by East Tennessee standards. The worst part was that I would get my hopes up about the nice weather, only for it to be dashed away by the sudden cold and dreary weather. Thanks Obama.

But now, that is all behind us. It is now officially spring. I waited a week before declaring it because as I said before, the weather can change at any moment and I didn't want to jinx it. It has been warm and spring like for over a week now. I have my window open in my room and on Saturday, I properly shaved my legs! Not like just a little part so that I can pull off a specific thing that I am wearing, but like all the way so I can wear shorts and stuff. Speaking of shorts, I am wearing shorts now! It's so exciting. I really like wearing shorts, especially when I am at home (mostly because home shorts are stretchy and comfy).

I am a bit worried about my nose starting to get runny again because of the weather and pollen in the air, but I think it may be a lack of fresh air that was causing that before, so I should be good (hopefully). I have not really enjoyed any springtime activities yet. I have not been running for a while (due to being sick and then having to prep for the GRE) and since Easter has not come for me yet (possible future post explaining this), I haven't done anything else mildly spring like outdoors. Maybe I should go buy a kite and try to fly it in the yard or something this weekend. That way, I can celebrate both spring and being done with the GRE. I go hard with my celebrations.

I am so excited about it now permanently being spring now that I don't even care about the downsides of warm weather like all of the bugs, constantly shaving my legs because I want to wear shorts or a dress, being sweaty, and not being able to hide any fat rolls with layers of clothes. It's a bit weird because I never really think of spring when I think of my favorite season or type of weather. I think the fact that I have been mostly indoors for the past few months when I was so used to go outside all the time to get to class or anywhere else I needed to be, has made me appreciate being outside more. Speaking of which, I need to find some sort of responsibility or obligation that will get me out of the house so that I have a constant excuse to leave and go outside a bit in between said obligation and heading home.

Anyway, I am off now to take another practice GRE and stare longingly out the window at the beautiful weather.

Taking a Break from Facebook

It seems that I may have a running theme concerning social media when to comes to this blog. It's not really a surprise. I am part of the millennial generation. I have had internet access since I was four and I own a smart phone. So, not talking about the internet and social networking would be like ignoring (more than) half of my life.

I like the idea of constantly being connected to information. I can check the news from my bed in the morning. I can check my email at any time so I don't have to miss out on something important. I can Google anything that comes to my mind that I want to know the answer to. What I don't like is the constant feeling that I have that I should be checking my social networking sites because I might "miss" something. FOMO as the kids call it these days. Obviously, this isn't true. Sure, people communicate incessantly through social media, particularly Facebook, but if there is something that happens online, it will still be there several hours, days, and weeks later. And if it is removed for some reason, someone will have gotten a screen shot of it.

But, I still get that urge to just check on everything every few hours. Maybe it's out of habit from when I was in school and if I were bored in class, then I would check Facebook or scroll through Twitter. If I was working on an essay or homework assignment, I would watch YouTube videos to break up the work time. Now, I don't have class to go to or assignments to do, so my time spent on those sites increased because, well there's nothing else in between them.

I began to notice this when there would be days that I spent about 90% of my time online, whether it was Tumblr or Twitter or YouTube, I was spending too much time on them. I needed to stop spending all of my time on there when there are other things that I could be doing that probably would be a (slightly) better use of my time. So, I started to cut back. I don't obsessively check Twitter, I don't watch as much YouTube, and I limit Tumblr to once every few days.

The one problem that remains is...Facebook. I mean, it is such a problem that while writing this post, I have checked Facebook about 3 times. I tried to cut it down to checking it once a day, but that doesn't work. I have it on my phone and even when I removed it from my home page, I still scroll through my apps to get to it. I thought about originally cutting out all social media to one day a week, because usually when I go to check any of them, I immediately find myself on Facebook. Obviously, that would not work seeing as a blog is a form of social media, plus I shouldn't punish everything else because of Facebook. I like occasionally looking through GIFs on Tumblr. Live tweeting shows or sporting events is a lot of fun. I find more entertainment on YouTube than on television.

But, with Facebook, there does not seem to be anything that I get out of it other than occasionally reconnecting with a friend. All I get out of it, is a lot of time wasted. So, I am going to try to take a break from Facebook. I am only going to check it once a week. If I "miss" something, well then I miss it. Oh well. I am hoping this declaration on my blog will keep me in check. Either way, I am sure I'll have an update on this endeavor in a few weeks.

One Week Checkpoint

I made through one week of BEDA without skipping a day. Hooray! I've already passed the usual three day point where I normally quit on things and I don't feel like I have already run out of things to blog about. Some of the posts have been lengthy and slightly ranty and some have been short and sweet, which helps with the actual likelihoods of the postings. Of course, this mentality can all change in the next few days, but right now, I am feeling good about BEDA, which in turn makes me feel good about myself.

I feel that I am accomplishing something, even though it is something rather small and insignificant. This sense of accomplishment has started to tumble into other things. For example, I have wanted to make a quilt out of a lot of my t-shirts ever since I say a picture of a t-shirt quilt online. I own a ridiculous amount of t-shirts and I don't want to get rid of them because many of them are from events in college and high school and even some from middle school. The past few days I have looked up ways to actually make a t-shirt quilt and today I bought some stabilizing material and I have picked out the first batch of t-shirts. I am going to start cutting today so hopefully I will have it done before it starts to get cold in October (I'm giving myself plenty of time on this little project).

I know it is silly that doing something like this makes me want to do other things that I have been putting off, but I guess it's how I work. I either can do a lot of things at one time, or do nothing productive at all. I am hoping that this stroke of productivity will somehow turn into some luck with the job hunting situation. Oh, who am I kidding? Nothing can help that. Well, I guess I could build a time machine and tell my past self to make sure to do an internship or two in anything anywhere ever. Honestly, I may just have more luck building a time machine than actually finding a job. I guess I'll start working on that.

I like how this post took a turn for the negative real quick.

Anyway, with the success thus far of BEDA and this nice feeling of accomplishment that it has, I am going to start giving myself weekly goals/challenges to keep myself feeling productive. I always try to set monthly goals for myself, but I tend to fall short of them. A week is much more mentally manageable and with things changing every week, it will (somewhat) keep me on my toes. I don't think I am going to really give myself a challenge for this upcoming week (other than properly starting on the quilt thing) because I have the GRE on Thursday (wooo I am soooooo excited about that -__-).

After that though, there will be no excuses. A new challenge every week! If anything, the challenges will be something that I can blog about once BEDA is done, whether I actually meet them or not (I'll meet them).

Finding Stucture

I have always liked the idea have having little to no structure, so that I can accomplish the things that I always wanted to on my own time and because I do not like the notion of doing the same thing every single day and falling into that sort of boring monotony. It's one of the reason why I liked college a lot more than high school and it's why I like the notion of traveling without having a strict schedule. But, with both of those examples, there was some structure there. I had to fit things around my class schedule and when I travel I have a list of things I want to do or see with (unfortunately) a limited time frame.

Right now, I have almost no structure whatsoever. I try to give myself a to do list or a schedule to follow but because there really is nothing that is "required" that I have to do, I don't usually end up following the little structure for myself. If I set aside 2 hours to write, I am going to spend half of the time on Tumblr or Facebook. I did the same thing when I was in school and I had to write a paper for a class. With the paper though, I had to finish it at some point or another. With my own writing, I don't have to finish it if I don't want to.

Writing is the easiest thing to draw a comparison to since there is an exact comparison. But, it applies to almost everything else I do. During the semesters where I had plenty of extracurricular obligations and I had assignments and papers due (as opposed to tests because again, when I am let on my own to do something like study weeks in advance, it does not happen), I would not only complete of those things but I found the time to do other things like occasionally work out or go to the movies. I don't know how I managed it but I think it was because I was forced to create my own structure that I was able to do everything that I needed to do and more.

Since I have nothing to work around, I find it much more difficult to create my own structure. I want to be able to do the things that I put on my weekly to do list but without a looming deadline or limited amount of time to get it done, it is much easier to go down the rabbit hole of the internet or to marathon some show on Netflix. Perhaps it is my fault for not having the self discipline to be (somewhat) productive on my own time, but I see it as a way of detecting my own flaws. I thrive when I have deadlines, but not an exact structure in needing to reach said deadline. I do not think that I would be successful purely as a free lancer or working without having any sort of deadline. I hate a rigid structure but I do need some of it.

Basically, the point of this blog is if I don't find a job soon, I may become a permanent bum. Or you know, I'll just enroll into a class or two at the local community college.

Some of my Favorite Books

Since I sort of indirectly talked a but about some of my favorite shows in yesterday's post so I figured I should write about some of my favorite books today. I haven't exactly thought this through so the end product is going to be interesting.

The most obvious book, or really series, that is my favorite is Harry Potter. I think I've posted several blogs revolving around the topic of Harry Potter. I've seen several of the movies at midnight. I went to the midnight releases of Goblet of Fire and Deathly Hallows. I went to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter the year that it opened. There's more, but I don't want to turn this into another one of those blog posts where I only talk about the Harry Potter series. So, I will end with this. My favorite of the series is Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and this series have been n my favorite books list for over 13 years making it the winner of the book that has been on the list the longest.

These next few books that I am going to mention all have a few things in common for me. I read them my senior year of high school, because I had an amazing English teacher that year that made really appreciate literature, and I keep wanting to reread them but have not had the opportunity to do so. Mother Night introduced me to Kurt Vonnegut and sort of blew my mind in terms of how identify themselves. I mentally refer back to it often when I think of the way people try to 'find themselves' or 'change themselves' when really there are so many things that could possibly be manipulating the way you present yourself to the world and the real you is hanging out inside trying to burst out, but can't. One Hundred Years of Solitude introduced me to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. To be honest, if I tried to read this book on my own senior year of high school, I would have been really confused. Fortunately, that was not the case and now I am trying to get through as many of his books as possible. Crime and Punishment is one of those books that I did not think that I would like that much, but I really liked it while I was reading it and not in the sense that 'this is a piece of important literature and I appreciate all of the things that this reveals' but in the sense of 'omg dis boook iz gud.' One day I will get around to rereading all of them.

These next few books do not really fall into a certain category so I am just going to name them off.

I read The Great Gatsby during junior year of high school along with every other American in the school system. I remember being a bit irritated with it when I read it then. My English teacher just kept going on an on about the symbolism of things and its significance and I was 16 and did not care. about two years later I picked it up again to reread it and I loved it. I understood why my English teacher was overloading us with looking for symbolism because there is so much of it in that book. It's actually one of the best books to teach  how to properly read literature and how to find meaning in writing.

To Kill a Mockingbird is another one of those high school books that every American child ends up reading for school...except I didn't get to. There was a changing of the guard with some English teachers when I was at my high school and somehow that book got lost in the changing. The point is, I read it on my own during summer break in college. I absolutely loved it and I think if I would have read it while in high school, I may have made the decision to try to become a civil rights lawyer in a vain attempt to be Atticus Finch.

I go back and forth on The Count of Monte Cristo. I read it eight years ago and even though I loved it, I feel like that is too long ago for me to still consider it a favorite because, like many of my other favorites, I have not had the chance to reread.

Onto much more recent books, as in I have read and/or reread them within the last to years.

The Hunger Games Trilogy is probably one of my favorites that may fade away in a few years, but I am fine with that. I am not as obsessive with it as other things but the messages conveyed in the trilogy really get to me and even if they do not stay as my favorites, I know that the message in them will. Catching Fire is my favorite even though it seems like it is everyone else's least favorite.

Freaknomics is one of those books that I thought would be interesting but I did not think would cause me to want to use something like economics as a way to look at the world. I know that economics is important but using that sort of thinking to apply it to everything. It is interesting...and something that I will never be smart enough to do myself so I will enjoy seeing the results and effects of it from a far.

These next two books sort of go along with my post yesterday of comedic writing. America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction. I love political satire and I love comedy that requires you to be a bit educated about things for you to understand. I quite like history and having a book that is a satire of American history, well it's great. It's written by Jon Stewart and The Daily Show writers so what's not to love? Bossypants is the most recent of all of these books to make it onto the favorites list. I read it about a month ago and I absolutely loved it. I am obsessed with Tina Fey and even though there were a lot of things in it that I already knew about her, she wrote everything in such a funny yet inspiring way that it made me want to be as good as her and cry at the same time because I know that I will never get to that point.

I am sure that I have forgotten some books and I know for certain that I am leaving some out because this post is already too long, but these are the very top tier and I may just have a part two later this month. Now, I am off to read some books.

Mad Men and Other Recent Obsessions

I tend to go through phases of obsessions. There are the things that remain constant (like Harry Potter) and things that will spike at certain points and then level out later on. I can never know at the beginning of an obsession (or that obsessive level/fandom feeling) whether it will taper off in a few weeks or months, or if it will last with me for years and years to come. One thing is for certain, at the time of the obsession, it feels like  said obsession has always been a part of my life. This is especially true if it is an obsession that gets revived (this will have more details later in the blog).

For now though, I have become (somewhat) obsessed with the TV show Mad Men. It is one of those shows that I was told by a million and half people that it is a great show and that I should watch it. It was one of the first things that I put in my Netflix Instant Queue (speaking of obsessions, I could probably ramble on about how Netflix is awesome for hours) and about a week and a half ago, I started to watch it. I originally thought I would be able to watch all of the episodes before the new season began, but I think it is unlikely that I will be able to fit five seasons into two and half weeks. At least, that is what I thought at the beginning. At the rate I have been going (aided by being sick and just wanting to sit around and do nothing all day because of it), it does seem that I will be caught up before the new season premieres next Sunday.

Whoops.

But, the speed in which I watch a particular television program is not the only indication that I have hit obsessive levels with something (although it is a good hint). I have started obsessing over the look of the characters and appreciating the history of the 1960s more so than before because of this show. I have googled so many public figures mentioned on the show just to get the timelines and the public feeling that should surround that time portrayed in the show. It makes me see that even though we try to claim that 'times have changed' there are a lot of things, truly too many things, that remain the same. I don't know if there was some influence from the show or if it is just the cyclical nature of some fashions but a lot of the dresses and the pants cuts are resurfacing and of course, I keep thinking that I would look great wearing that same sort of clothing. I am wrong though because it only looks good on the show because the actresses would probably look good wearing a sack.

This show has triggered another obsession that has been floating towards the top of the normal obsessions and that is the idea of moving to New York City. Obviously, the show is set in the 60s and the city is not like that now, but I think the excitement that surrounds New York is still there now, at least it is for me. The idea of moving to New York is one of those obsessions that has gotten revived recently like I mentioned at the beginning of the blog. It has come from a combination of things. The Europe trip made me realize how much I love public transportation, constantly set in New York, and this feeling of wanting to do something exciting in a place that is exciting all lead to New York City.

I realize that it is not entirely realistic for me to move to New York unless I land a job, which I have been trying to do. But the New York thing has started to become intertwined with another obsession of mine that has been revived lately (and has lasted a surprisingly long time this time around) and that is the obsession with sitcoms and good comedic writing. I remember starting to watch late night television when I was about 10 or 11 years old. I regularly watched Saturday Night Live and stand up specials throughout high schools. Like any good college student, I watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report religiously throughout college (and into my post school/unemployed life).

This past year, I started watched a series of sitcoms starting with 30 Rock, followed by Park and Recreation and recently The Mindy Project and Community. These shows all have such strong writing and most of them are written, created, produced, and starring a female role (it's ok that you're different Community, you're still meta and quirky enough for me to love). I have watched sitcoms for a long time but the combination of these four, well really the first three, with all of the other comedic writing that I intake through other sitcoms (like I am keeping up with 6 sitcoms at the moment, it's a little ridiculous), political satire, and late night shows, I am seriously considering working solely on my writing and finding my way on to a show (or a web series, anything really) and write for a living.

The first time someone told me that I should do some sort of political satire was when I was in a friend's dorm room in college and she thought that I had enough political awareness and sarcasm that I could do something like The Colbert Report. At the time, I thought that it was something awesome that I could do but it was unrealistic so I should not seriously consider it. I wish I could go back in time and slap 18 year old me. But, I can't dwell on the past. So for now, I will continue to write comedically or otherwise. Maybe I will take a few writing classes in the future or maybe I won't. One thing is for sure, I am never going to think that something is 'unrealistic' for the future, because that is the sort of thinking that can hold me back.

Being Sick Sucks

This isn't exactly a profound or ground breaking statement. I don't think anyone particularly enjoys being sick, but I feel that some people are more used to it than others. I am not used to it. I never get sick and by 'never' I mean I only get sick maybe once every two or three years. I will occasionally get the sniffles or cramp up but I am not really 'sick.'

This past weekend, I got sick. I am not sure what it is exactly whether it's the flu or something else, but it is still lingering four days later. That's another thing, when I do get sick it tends to last two, maybe three days, tops. This one won't go away. I know four days is not an incredibly long time and I have gotten better, but it is still irritating to feel completely worn out when I have just been sitting in bed all day or not being able to breath properly because I keep coughing.

It has put a damper on my newly formed running schedule, but it has done wonders for my Netflix watching (a season and a half of Mad Men in 4 days). So, I guess there is an upside to being sick, sort of.

The worst part is that now that I am in the getting better but not quite there yet stage, I am afraid to do anything that will make me worse so I stay at home trying my best not to stress myself out over anything.

Easier said than done.

I am taking the GRE on April 11 and I studying/preparing for it. I am getting worried that I might still be a bit sick when I take it which means that I won't 100% be there for the test and I really do not want to retake it. I am still applying to jobs and even though I have had very few bites in terms of interviews, it would be my luck that I would still be a bit sick and am called for an interview somewhere, especially if it is someplace that would require me to do a bit of travelling.

Then again, it's good that I am getting really sick now and getting it out of my system (I won't be expecting another serious bought like this for at least two more years) when I am unemployed and out of school. It is unlikely that I something will happen within the next few days that will either make me worse or that will be negatively impacted by me being sick. Who knows? Maybe just as I get fully better, other things will look up as well.

Until then, I'll keep guzzling NyQuil and drinking a ridiculous amount of orange juice.

The Perfect Blog Length

I've always wondered what the "perfect length" is for a blog post.

I thought about leaving this post at that and posting it in an (feeble) attempt to be funny. Then, I thought that would not work because it's more of a tweet or a Tumblr post at most, not really a blog post. That still does not answer how long it should be, just that it can't be that short.

I know that the perfect length is not too long like a few of my posts where I ramble on and on. I mean, if I as the writer feel that it is too long when I read it back, then it is most definitely too long.

Should it be word length? 500 words? 800 words? What if all of the words are really short so then it looks like it is a short post when really it is 1000 words long? Which leads me to the formatting...is that the deciding factor on making ti the perfect length? Is it two pages scrolls? Three? None at all? And if it depends on the scroll then shouldn't a set up the dimensions of my blog to be wider or thinner to fit to that standard?

Can't
         I
           just
                 type
                        like
                             this
                                  to
                                     fill
                                         up
                                             the
                                                  space
                                                           of
                                                               each
                                                                       post?

Ok, probably not that last option (although it does look pretty cool).

There probably is not a perfect length or a blog post. I thought that the post I wrote yesterday was too short and I thought the one I wrote before that was just a little bit too long. Maybe it's the school environment requirements of 'Write at least 5 pages' or 'Express your opinion in 3-4 paragraphs' that makes me think that there should be some sort of rule set up for a blog post. But, this is the internet and not an assignment for a class. It's likely no one will ever look at this and I certainly will not be receiving a grade for it...so why worry about the length?

There is no length that is too long or too short or too crazy looking. There are only my thoughts/topics I feel like blogging about/things I pull out of thin air because I am trying to complete BEDA.

They are all still blog posts.

And Here We...Go

It's the first day of April, which means it's time to blog every day, or BEDA.

Does anyone even do BEDA anymore? I feel like the vlogging cousin of BEDA, VEDA, has become much more popular lately. And if people even are blogging, well they certainly don't seem to be doing it here. I think that in the past, I would have seen this as discouraging. However, lately I have been trying to see the benefits of doing things just to do them, especially when it comes to writing. I have missed out on so many years of just writing, because there were things on my mind or writing something silly because I felt that it was a bit of a stress relief and I felt that there would be no point to it.

And maybe there still isn't much of a point to it. But, I have found lately that I thrive too well in environments where there is some sort of deadline (like the due date of a research paper) than when I say I will do something as much as possible each day. Maybe 18 years of school have programmed me to that point. Either way, it is something that I feel that I need to break out of and I am going to start it with making sure that I blog about something every day. So far, I have kept with actually blogging with semi-consistency. I mean, I have more blog posts up for the year 2013 than from all of 2012.

I am worried that three days in I will run out of things to write about, or that half way through I will give into the pessimism and just stop all together. Usually, that would stop me from even trying to start this endeavor in the first place (except that it isn't really an endeavor as it is just sitting at my computer for a little while everyday and typing away but, whatever). At least, this time I am starting which is more than I can say for my attempts of the past.

Hopefully, this sets the tone for me in other aspects of my life. Of course, I say that about anything that I do and then it turns out that I just revert back to what I was doing before. Maybe that will be the case with this. In fact, it is very likely that once I am finished with BEDA that I will blog about once every few months until the end of the year. There is that small chance that I will keep on blogging, or more importantly keep on writing in any medium, everyday, which is something that I would like to do. Maybe it is silly, or even a bit pathetic, that I need something like BEDA to get me to write every day, but if it could work out for me, why shouldn't I at least give it a shot?

Obsessing over Hypotheticals

I feel that I may have blogged about this before. Or at least mentioned it in some sort of writing and/or video. This is because it is something that often comes to mind. It isn't just the obsessing over hypothetical situations (and often times having them slip into elaborate fantasies), but spending the time being angry at myself for thinking so much over hypotheticals and essentially wasting a lot my time. You would think that picking up a minor in philosophy would stop me from thinking that just thinking about things is a waste of time.

I think that I get angry because many of the hypotheticals that I draw up in my mind are things that I can actually accomplish if I set aside some time or really focus on them, but I don't always do that. Even worse, I sometime feel like I can't do anything with these things in my head.

Recently though, I have thought up of ways to make my obsessions over hypothetical situations become something a bit more useful, or at least become something that I can see in front of me. I have always thought that if I wanted to do something, I would have to do it big. I want to write, so I should start writing a novel. I want to get in shape, so I should start exercising for 2 hours everyday and run a marathon in a few months. At least, that is what the sitting and dwelling on hypothetical situations does to me. I spend so much time in my own head that these scenarios which were very reasonable at the beginning, are suddenly incredibly ridiculous.

But now, every time that something does become reasonable, or even better fantastical, I am writing it down and turning it into a series of short stories or a series of obsessive ranting that I may turn into something a comedic down the road. So, that part of problem is solved.

The other bit of backlash that has come to me from thinking a bit highly about myself in terms of the job market. I was so certain that I would be able to land some sort of job within a few weeks of applying, that I waiting until mid-December to start applying. I was afraid of the "hypothetical situation" of getting  job in the summer and not being able to go to LeakyCon or, later on, not being able to go to Europe. Clearly, I was foolish. If I receive a job offer tomorrow, that would bring the end of a full three months of job hunting. If I had started it in June then I would have received a job in September according to this timeline. I know now that I can not change the past and all I can really do is keep going. But, even with all of the rejections/no replies at all, I am still hesitant to apply to a job in retail because if I got a "real job" then I would have to quit it and that could be any day now!

Today, I slammed the door on that notion. I applied to a job as a sales associate. Something I should have done at the beginning to tide me over until I started to get real job offers. It would be nice if I got a job offer within the next week, but realistically it may not be for another three months and it I would like to get some money and get out of the house for something other than the occasional run.

I am hoping these actions will help me break out of living inside my mind and not have hypothetical situations paralyze me from doing something with myself.

Side note: I probably won't be blogging anymore until next month because I am going to try to do BEDA for the first time ever. Wish me luck.

30 Before 30

I originally thought about making this a video, but then I thought that it felt more like a blog post because I found myself rambling in my mind when I thought about it. Plus, I wanted to explain a few of the things and compare it with what I thought I wanted to do when I when I was a little younger.  So, here is my list of 30 things I want to do before I am 30.

1. Live in another state for at least a year. 
2. Live in a foreign country for at least 6 months. 
3. Find a job/career/position that I am actually happy with.
4. Visit a total of 20 countries.
5. Read all the books that I own.
6. Run a marathon.
7. Become fluent in two other languages.
8. Travel to the west coast. 
9. Revisit Egypt. 
10. Contribute to either a book that is published or a TV show script that gets aired. 
11. Go SCUBA diving. 
12. Learn how to surf. 
13. Go skiing. 
14. Go ice skating. 
15. Meet J.K. Rowling. 
16. Watch a MLB game in 5 different stadiums. 
17. Go to the Olympics
18. Go to the World Cup. 
19. Hike the Lord of the Rings trail in New Zealand. 
20. Meet the President.
21. See the Northern Lights. 
22. Take a road trip across America. 
23. Watch every Oscar winner for Best Picture. 
24. Have awesome abs/a six pack (even if it's for a day). 
25. Go see Saturday night Live live. 
26. Meet Tina Fey.
27. Be Tina Fey (this one might be tricky). 
28. Be part of and/or create a viral video. 
29. Go to the San Diego Comic Con. 
30. See The Starry Night

Many of my goals involved traveling of some sort. In fact, 15 of the 30 would require me to travel to another place for the thing to happen. I realize that they probably will not all happen because traveling requires money and I do not quite know how much income I will have in the next seven years, but I like to have them as something to look forward to. Of course, there are a few things that I will attempt to prioritize before I get too old, such as hiking in New Zealand, because I don't think I would be up to doing some of these things when I am 50. 

Still, I feel that this is a list that will not really change between now and when I turn 30, which is a big change from 5 years ago. I did not quite make a list like this when I was 18 years old and just starting college, but I remember the way I thought then and I am pretty sure my list would have looked something like: 1. Be a doctor. 2. Be married. 3. Travel a lot. I am not completely discounting becoming a doctor, I just know that if I do go down that path, I don't want it to be during my 20s. There is now way that I will be married by the time I am 30. The traveling part is the same though. Although, it does not seem realistic with those other two goals as they would take up all of my time that it would be almost impossible to travel often until I was much older. 

It feels strange when I think back on 18 year old me. A lot of things have happened to me over the past year, but I never felt myself change from day to day. And I think that is the biggest thing about changing as a person. You don't really wake up one morning and say, "gee I've changed a lot since yesterday." A lot of times, I feel like I am not progressing in anyway. I am not learning or improving myself because I do not see a difference from on day to the next. Obviously, that is not an accurate way to measure myself as I can see a huge difference over the course of several years. 

So maybe my list will change before I turn 30. Or maybe it won't. There's no way to know for sure and I think that's a good thing. 

Overwhelming Frustration

I had originally wanted to post about setting long term goals, a "30 before 30" if you will. But then, something happened yesterday that made me change my mind and I decided that I really needed to write about something else. Something that has been culminating for months and yesterday it became very obvious to me how much of a strain it had put on me. It is the feeling of overwhelming frustration.

I have been applying to jobs for the past three months. Now, I know there are people that have looked for a lot longer and maybe three months is not that long. But, I had thought that I would have found a job by now that was decent. And if I had not found a job well, maybe I would have been called in for a few interviews. I have now applied to a total of one hundred jobs. I have had two interviews. One claimed that they will call me in for another interview, but never did and the other was a sales job that I thought was going to be a digital marketing job, but it wasn't. I was offered that job, but I didn't take it because it did not interest me in the least bit. And it was commission based pay. (Of course, in hindsight seeing that I have had nothing, maybe I should have taken it and just kept applying to jobs).

So I have had a lot of free time. I only spend about 3 or 4 hours applying to jobs, typing up cover letters, or figuring out the best way to enter field and that is not always everyday. I figured that I should work on some things that I felt like I did not have enough time to do before. I can work on my Spanish, I can finally write more, I'll put a dent in my books that I own and have not read yet, I can spend more time making videos and learning more about editing, and I will most definitely be able to run more so I can run a half marathon or maybe even a marathon this year. It's going to be great! I will definitely make the most of my time and after a while, I would have other skills that I can put on my resume or maybe a writing portfolio. Something to show that I wasn't just sitting around!

At least, that is how I felt at the beginning (as in about two months ago). But the frustration of not even getting call backs from the jobs I was applying to started to seep into everything else. When I sat down to write, I started to feel that what I was doing is useless. I would read over what I had written, think that it was crap, try to rewrite it to be less crappy, and fail. I stopped trying to write, even a little bit, everyday. I did not feel like my Spanish was getting much better and not that it would matter because there was no way I was going to become fluent within a few months of practicing and refreshing my memory unless I moved to a Spanish speaking country. I stopped caring to improve it. I was still making and posting videos on YouTube though, but even that was starting to feel useless. All I have to edit is Windows Movie Maker. There is only so much to learn from editing on that terrible excuse of a video editing program. But, I can't afford to purchase Adobe Premiere until I got a job that would give me money. I even was beginning to be bored with what I was reading, which is probably the greatest indication that not finding a job was really getting to me.

But, I was trying not to let it get to me. I mean I am a middle class college graduate not able to find a job, but it is not too bad because I am able to live with my parents. I have nothing that I should truly be complaining about. Why complain? Why even be frustrated? I am just being a brat. A lazy brat at that.

Not quite.

Then, a string of events over the past two days caused for the last few bits of straws to break the proverbial camel's back. My aunt and uncle had been visiting here for the past month and two days ago, we took them to the airport to head back to Egypt. There was some trouble at the check-in counter. The woman working tried to say that their names did not match (which they did) because it was not the same last name, but all of the names listed on the passport was on the ticket, there was just one less on the ticket because naming in Egypt (and many other countries I am sure) is different that in it here (shocker). Then, she said that my uncle's passport had expired because it said 1-9-2013. My dad was a bit taken aback. I think he somewhat panicked that my uncle's passport had expired while he was here. So I jump in with a "No no no! That means 1 September 2013." I was a bit angry at that. I understand that most people in the United States do not know or realize that the dates in every other country are that way, but when you work at an airport where everything there, including American passports are dated that way, you should know better.

Then, she gave us a 1-800 number to call to redo their reservation because a flight delay would cause them to miss their connecting flight. There were a few people behind us in line so, at the time, it was understandable. Then ten minutes into the (hour long) phone call, her line cleared up. And I was stuck on the phone giving information for someone to place a reservation for a another flight. Something that lady should have done. It pissed me off. Not really that she was a crappy employee, but that I essentially did her job right then and there, reading the dates for her and finding flight reservations. She has a job! She is incompetent and has terrible costumer service, but she has a job and I do not. It felt like a personal insult that she has a job and she is terrible at it and I do not when I would be excellent at it.

The next morning I went back to the airport to drop them off. Due to my dad's paranoia, I had to wait until everything was done with them. So I sat in the airport for an extra, unnecessary hour. I know it is not that big of a deal, but I had to wake up earlier than usual and the airport now reminded me of my apparent lack of something, because I could not get a job but an incompetent person can.

Finally, I got home. I had this great idea for a video and I was going to record and edit it and it was going to be hilarious and it didn't matter if it didn't get a lot of views because I would think it was hilarious and that is what matters. Then my camera fell over while I was trying to set it up. At first, I thought it was not broken because it was working. I gave a sigh of relief. Then, I tried to turn it off...and it wouldn't. The lens was bent and I hadn't noticed the first time. I tried to push it into place and it didn't work.

So I screamed for about 10 minutes straight and hit a door. Then I stopped screaming and started crying. I cried for about 20 minutes. It was terrible. I kept saying random thing out loud about giving up and not wanting to do anything anymore. This was obviously an overreaction to a camera breaking. It was not even really obvious if it was permanent because my dad hadn't looked at it and he is good with fixing electronic devices. And even if it couldn't be fixed, I had my iPad that I used to use to make videos. I had a phone that has a 720p front facing camera.

It wasn't about the camera.

I was trying my hardest not to be frustrated or not to complain about my situation, because I did not feel that it was a situation that warranted complaints that I did not realize how frustrated I was with myself and my lack of success with looking for work. It became obvious in the moments when I was done crying. It is not that I felt sorry for myself. I was just feeling an overwhelming amount of frustration that was captured by the the moment of my camera breaking when I was recording a video.

So, I went downstairs and sat on the couch and watched eight episodes of Community in a row. It worked wonders. I felt much better and it helped me release more of that frustration. I know it will not go away overnight. I don't even think it will go away the instant that I get a job either. I know that things like this blog post will help. I know throwing myself back into the extra things that I used to enjoy before getting frustrated with everything will help. I will not get frustrated with myself if I skip a day or two of job searching or work on my writing and then decide it is not worth pursuing. I will not get frustrated with myself if I take a day to watch Netflix all day. I know I cannot control what happens around me with employers not calling me in for interviews, but I can control how I react to it and that reaction does not need to be a sense of overwhelming frustration.

Well, maybe a little bit of frustration.

On Blogging and Tumblring and Tweeting

My life, and the lives of many people in my generation, is consumed by social media. But as an unemployed graduate, I have noticed that it is all that I do now. I may not always tweet things, but I scroll through Twitter several times a day. I recently started using Tumblr properly. I am constantly on YouTube. Even when I am doing something like reading or watching a TV show, I note it on Goodreads or GetGlue. Even now, when I am thinking about how much I use social media, I am using it by posting a blog about how much I use social media.

It is never ending.

The thing that makes me curious, is why I feel this desire to constantly chart what I am doing on the internet. Why can't I just read a book and not rate it on Goodreads? Why can't I go for a run without telling Twitter about it? I can't really speak for why other people do it, but I can say why I do it and I think a lot of people can relate to it.

For me, social media is a way that I can keep track of the things I am doing and it is a way I can express my hobbies. The fact that I can track how many books I read in a year, makes me read more books. Telling people via Twitter that I went running and getting replies from them gives me some extra motivation to keep running and to get to that half marathon goal. Attempting to blog on a regular basis encourages me to keep writing about anything and everything. Watching YouTube videos has made me start seriously editing and putting videos together. All the time I have spent on Tumblr has made me think about making GIFs (I haven't started this one yet, but I feel that I will soon).

It is hard to do something on your own time and when there are not hard set goals like a work deadline or a homework assignment that is due. Social media helps me track the goals I set up for myself. Not being in school and not having a job can make a person feel pretty worthless, at least that is how I am currently feeling. So, if I can have silly things like write every few days or edit a video every week, and I can actually track them, well that can help me get a few things done that I always wanted to do and avoid wallowing in my self pity.

Portraying Our Future

I watched Looper last night and I was intrigued by it. Sure the plot was great and the characters were well developed and I am in love with Joseph Gordon-Levitt so I am biased towards everything he is in, but that is not why I am still thinking about the movie a day later (and will probably be thinking about it for more days to come). The thing that got to me about Looper was how the movie portrayed the future.

The movie takes place 30 years in the future and shows scenes of 30 years in the future from that point when, supposedly, time travel has been invented. Unlike most movies that take place in the future, it did not glamorize the future. All of our modern problems were not suddenly solved and there was not any super ridiculous technology, except for the time traveling. And even with the time traveling, the technology was outlawed and only used by criminal organizations, which when you see how the criminals use time travel, you see why it would be outlawed. 

The future is not an oppressive dystopia either, which is the other popular way to portray the future. The future is very similar to our present. To me, that seems very realistic. Perhaps that seems like a pessimistic way to view the future, but it really isn't. I am not saying that people should not be hopeful for the future because I do not think that there is any other way to think of the future. The problem is when people think that just getting to the future will solve all of their problems. That is not the case. It is not the changes of the future that will solve the problems of humanity, it is the changes within us. And I really felt that was shown in Looper. There were technological changes and new things that were discovered, but there was still crime, there were still children growing up without parents, there were problems that came with it being the future. 

The decisions we make as individuals to help those around us and to stop the never ending cycle of the horrible things that happen to our fellow man is what will solve our problems, not super cures and flying cars. 

Just Writing

There always seems to be this notion that when a person is writing, there needs to be some sort of end result, or at the very least a goal that he/she is trying to reach. I often fall into that trap. I would only write if I knew exactly what I needed to accomplish, whether it is an essay for a class or another attempt at a novel during NaNoWriMo.

But like I said, it's a trap.

I essentially created this blog so I could avoid that notion. I could write when there is something that I want to write about but it does not necessarily fit into the parameters of a class essay or will ever be turned into a novel. But even with this blog, I would neglect it because I did not think that  I had anything that was worth writing. The idea that I originally had in mind was going no where so why even bother trying to make something of it? Is there a point to writing if there is no point to the writing?

I think so.

Getting your thoughts out there, even if it only going to be seen by you is important. If anything, by writing when there is no point to the writing, you will get better at it and then when you do sit down and want to write something, there will be a point. This is something I have tried to convince myself for the past few years. I feel like I am getting better at doing it. I am using this blog more often, I try to journal some things here and there, from my trips to very basic book reviews, and I even started a new Word Doc that is random writings and one liners that come to mind.

It's weird that I have to convince myself to write because I have always enjoyed writing. Even when it came to school, writing papers did not really bother me. I think that since I do not always have something write about that the writing itself will not matter. But why should I let it matter? Should I be my own road block for something that I enjoy and am occasionally good at doing because I set weird guidelines for myself?

It's funny because now that I look back on this post, I am trying to find a way to wrap it up and to get to some sort of point. The thing is, I don't think I have one because I'm just writing.

2013: The Year of Being Practical

I like setting goals for myself. I do not always fulfill them, but having those goals makes me feel like there is something I can do and then put a check mark beside it. I do not necessarily cause my goals to dictate my level of happiness, or at least, I try not to let them dictate my happiness. Last year, I reached only about a third of my goals, granted, I did set some ridiculous goals last year, but I still had an awesome year.

So I know that 2013 probably will not be as great as 2012, at least not in the same way. I feel like this year is going to be a much more practical year. It will still be exciting, but just a different type of excitement. With that in mind, here are my goals for the next 12(ish) months.

1. The 50 book challenge
2. Run a half marathon
3. Make 50 YouTube videos
4. Go to Playlist LIVE and LeakyCon
5. Become fluent in Spanish
6. The 100 movie challenge
7. Live in another city

There are a few exact repeats with the 50 book and 100 movie challenges and becoming fluent in Spanish. I completed the 50 book challenge last year but I not so much with those other two goals. I am going to avoid rewatching movies and TV shows so that I can complete the 100 movie challenge this year. As for the Spanish fluency, I already started with a basic conversation book I borrowed from the library and then after that I am going to go back over my textbooks from Spanish in college. Because I have been exposed to so much Spanish throughout the years, I think it is very reasonable that I can become fluent in it if I just apply myself a bit. 

I decided to cut a few goals down from last year with the marathon and convention going. Last year, I wanted to run a marathon even though my running level had plummeted the three previous years. I thought it would motivate me to run more. It worked for a little while and then I started looking at it as if it were an impossibility (even though it was not) so I decided it would be better this year of I aimed for a half marathon instead. It is more reasonable and it is a much more logical first step before I reach a goal of running a full marathon. The same thing with my con going. Last year, I was able to go to LeakyCon for the first time so this year I figured I should just one up it instead of trying to triple or quadruple the feat. 

I went the opposite direction with video making. Last year, I want to make 35 YouTube videos. I only made 20 videos, mostly due to being lazy, unmotivated, and making excuses for myself concerning my equipment (or lack thereof). This year, I do not have the equipment excuse. I bought a new camera and I have a new phone with a front facing camera so I can make videos anywhere and at anytime. However, I have hit a bit of a snag with my computer and not being able to edit, but I am hoping to get a new laptop soon because my current one is turning 6 in August. In other words, it is ancient.

Lastly, and most importantly, is my last goal for this year which is to live in a another city. This is something I have always wanted to do and I kind of did it when I was at UT but the fact that it was still in the same state and only and hour and a half away from home did not make it feel that way. I would like it to be a large city, mostly because I have fallen in love with being able to walk places and/or using the public transportation. I have recently expanded my job search to New York, DC/Baltimore, Chicago, and even Orlando and Miami. I am, of course, not ruling out landing a job in another country, but I am leaving that for a few months from now if I still have not found something that I like. 

And that is about it. Like I said, it is exciting in its own sense and it is most definitely challenging and I do like a good challenge.