Looking over mad years worth of photographs/ Pictures of some places I ain't never going back/
Some people I used to love, why I ain't show them that?
...It's starting to get clear, I got to go and grab
To y'all it's a shame but life is what we know it as
Waiting, navigating the plot, without plans
In the car, it's hard to read as a clock with no hands
-The Roots, "Clock With No Hands"
Every now and then a bit of insomnia catches. Perhaps this most recent occurrence is due to sleeping too much; 10+hours of day, recovering sick or not, is not healthy. Also, I notice that I have trouble sleeping whenever my internal monologue is talking a bit too quickly. I can never turn off this monologue, but it talks at different rates. Sometimes slow, sometimes quick. I'm not sure what triggers the speed of such talk. I also seem to have an internal dialogue, hypothetical conversations with friends, acquaintances, whomever. These occur randomly.
Currently I'm reading What Should I Do With My Life? by Po Bronson. I picked it up in at pretty good used-book store in Virginia-Highlands, forget the name. Anyways, I figured, Hey! I don't really know the answer to this question! I'll read this book. I thought it would be some crappy self-help pseudo-psychological crap, but it's really quite good. His writing style is simple and direct, and he interviews and tells the stories of many, many people. It's almost a modern version of Stud's Working. But while Terkel used the experiences of many people to tie together a similar story, Bronson extends life into something more diffuse, more diverse, more complex. I find it interesting just to merely read about other people's lives; mundane, routine, some would say boring. I've always been fascinated with non-fiction; this has turned me into someone who knows all assortments of random trivia, but really isn't very well read, when it comes to literature. It's very hard for me to become interested in stories and events that have not occurred, however, as opposed to merely being interested in facts, figures, and the trivial nature of history. I'm more interested in stories told and stories true; the truth is stranger than fiction, no?
And yet I am reading this book because I do want to read about others so as to relate to my own life. Yes, I have a fascination and want for knowledge just for the sake of knowledge, but also to use that and apply those experiences to my own life, if possible. The more I think about it, and the more my internal monologue (whomever is truly speaking--the subconscious? On psychology I am no expert) speaks, the more I realize what my strengths are. I have always been a very mediocre student in an academic setting. Sometimes a switch would seem to be turned on, however, whenever I had an interesting class, teacher, subject, topic; this might last as long I had that teacher, as long as a particular unit was being taught, or possibly as short as working on a research paper. I have intense passion that is, more often then rarely let out, but let out only at select times and instances. Certain subjects. Certain activities. Certain people.
So I realize what I seem to be good at: researching and writing. I don't have much experience with journalism, and my experience with it has only been a flirtation. In high school a good friend said that she was somewhat jealous of me because I knew what I wanted to do with my life. Ha! Now she is the focused one, it seems, in graduate school at Oxford. I was intent at Journalism, and Mizzou was the school for it. Yet something was pulling me away, that I wouldn't get that good of an education there, so at the very last minute (i.e. right before the May 1 deadline) I decided upon this school I had never visited, Oxford College of Emory University. Why? Not sure, it sounded interesting, it was small, and seemed like a good opportunity for a well-rounded education. Four years later, I departed Emory with no clearer sense of purpose or goal, and was an even worse student in college than in high school. Yet I am do not regret my decision, even not including the many friendships made; I thoroughly enjoyed my rather wide academic experience, from struggling in Political Science 101, what with reading Political Philosophy that I had only brief experience with in high school, and here I was freshman year of college thrown right into Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and friends. Then there as remedial math (100C) the same semester, statistics the following fall; both difficult (for me), both failures (literally); I felt like shit at having to repeat classes, something I had not ever experienced before (well, seldom experienced before). Then came joys; I loved all of my poli sci classes at Oxford and most of them at Emory; I found most of my Jewish Studies fascinating, especially one on Maimonides, the smartest Jew ever; I loved a seminar on The Crusades (though an upper-level history seminar was a bit overwhelming); a course on the European Union opened wide the world and learned of globalization; and wrapping up college was 60s music--the final research paper I ever wrote was on The Band, my favorite music group, ever (thanks, dad).
Yes, but what does this all mean? So I think I'm good and researching stuff and writing about it, yet I'm pretty terrible when it comes to academics. Graduate school will probably never happen, and if it does I would need at least 5 years experience in ____. Journalism seems the best option, yet I've never truly been committed to it; the Wheel seemed more of a hobby than what editors and more serious writers there took it as, a a job and stepping stone to a career. In two years, I wrote 38 articles, not that many for a twice-weekly publication, but still a decent number of clips that I don't have a problem at all when a job calls for "writing samples" or if it's seemingly serious about journalism, "clips." My dream job, I think, is still NPR; I have fondness for radio, from high school (radio speaking--news on speech team and helping to run the school radio station) and from the brief experience I had with it in college. There is a certain idealism I can't describe well with radio, especially with NPR, that doesn't exist with large TV networks or with newspapers run by corporate entities, beholden to the dollar. Some would call this liberal BS, but unlike many libs, I have no problem with the almighty dollar, I just have a respect that a part of journalism should exist that is not bound to it.
Gah. Off-topic again. Back to the point...So, how do I get a career? Not a job---a career. Eventually, I'll have to move away to a strange city, I suppose. Lose some friends, keep correspondence with others, form new friendships. Hopefully love enters the picture somewhere, but I won't count on it. It seems that I finally really beginning to unpack after college. It's taken awhile, but I'm ready now.
...It's starting to get clear, I got to go and grab
To y'all it's a shame but life is what we know it as
Waiting, navigating the plot, without plans
In the car, it's hard to read as a clock with no hands
-The Roots, "Clock With No Hands"
Every now and then a bit of insomnia catches. Perhaps this most recent occurrence is due to sleeping too much; 10+hours of day, recovering sick or not, is not healthy. Also, I notice that I have trouble sleeping whenever my internal monologue is talking a bit too quickly. I can never turn off this monologue, but it talks at different rates. Sometimes slow, sometimes quick. I'm not sure what triggers the speed of such talk. I also seem to have an internal dialogue, hypothetical conversations with friends, acquaintances, whomever. These occur randomly.
Currently I'm reading What Should I Do With My Life? by Po Bronson. I picked it up in at pretty good used-book store in Virginia-Highlands, forget the name. Anyways, I figured, Hey! I don't really know the answer to this question! I'll read this book. I thought it would be some crappy self-help pseudo-psychological crap, but it's really quite good. His writing style is simple and direct, and he interviews and tells the stories of many, many people. It's almost a modern version of Stud's Working. But while Terkel used the experiences of many people to tie together a similar story, Bronson extends life into something more diffuse, more diverse, more complex. I find it interesting just to merely read about other people's lives; mundane, routine, some would say boring. I've always been fascinated with non-fiction; this has turned me into someone who knows all assortments of random trivia, but really isn't very well read, when it comes to literature. It's very hard for me to become interested in stories and events that have not occurred, however, as opposed to merely being interested in facts, figures, and the trivial nature of history. I'm more interested in stories told and stories true; the truth is stranger than fiction, no?
And yet I am reading this book because I do want to read about others so as to relate to my own life. Yes, I have a fascination and want for knowledge just for the sake of knowledge, but also to use that and apply those experiences to my own life, if possible. The more I think about it, and the more my internal monologue (whomever is truly speaking--the subconscious? On psychology I am no expert) speaks, the more I realize what my strengths are. I have always been a very mediocre student in an academic setting. Sometimes a switch would seem to be turned on, however, whenever I had an interesting class, teacher, subject, topic; this might last as long I had that teacher, as long as a particular unit was being taught, or possibly as short as working on a research paper. I have intense passion that is, more often then rarely let out, but let out only at select times and instances. Certain subjects. Certain activities. Certain people.
So I realize what I seem to be good at: researching and writing. I don't have much experience with journalism, and my experience with it has only been a flirtation. In high school a good friend said that she was somewhat jealous of me because I knew what I wanted to do with my life. Ha! Now she is the focused one, it seems, in graduate school at Oxford. I was intent at Journalism, and Mizzou was the school for it. Yet something was pulling me away, that I wouldn't get that good of an education there, so at the very last minute (i.e. right before the May 1 deadline) I decided upon this school I had never visited, Oxford College of Emory University. Why? Not sure, it sounded interesting, it was small, and seemed like a good opportunity for a well-rounded education. Four years later, I departed Emory with no clearer sense of purpose or goal, and was an even worse student in college than in high school. Yet I am do not regret my decision, even not including the many friendships made; I thoroughly enjoyed my rather wide academic experience, from struggling in Political Science 101, what with reading Political Philosophy that I had only brief experience with in high school, and here I was freshman year of college thrown right into Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and friends. Then there as remedial math (100C) the same semester, statistics the following fall; both difficult (for me), both failures (literally); I felt like shit at having to repeat classes, something I had not ever experienced before (well, seldom experienced before). Then came joys; I loved all of my poli sci classes at Oxford and most of them at Emory; I found most of my Jewish Studies fascinating, especially one on Maimonides, the smartest Jew ever; I loved a seminar on The Crusades (though an upper-level history seminar was a bit overwhelming); a course on the European Union opened wide the world and learned of globalization; and wrapping up college was 60s music--the final research paper I ever wrote was on The Band, my favorite music group, ever (thanks, dad).
Yes, but what does this all mean? So I think I'm good and researching stuff and writing about it, yet I'm pretty terrible when it comes to academics. Graduate school will probably never happen, and if it does I would need at least 5 years experience in ____. Journalism seems the best option, yet I've never truly been committed to it; the Wheel seemed more of a hobby than what editors and more serious writers there took it as, a a job and stepping stone to a career. In two years, I wrote 38 articles, not that many for a twice-weekly publication, but still a decent number of clips that I don't have a problem at all when a job calls for "writing samples" or if it's seemingly serious about journalism, "clips." My dream job, I think, is still NPR; I have fondness for radio, from high school (radio speaking--news on speech team and helping to run the school radio station) and from the brief experience I had with it in college. There is a certain idealism I can't describe well with radio, especially with NPR, that doesn't exist with large TV networks or with newspapers run by corporate entities, beholden to the dollar. Some would call this liberal BS, but unlike many libs, I have no problem with the almighty dollar, I just have a respect that a part of journalism should exist that is not bound to it.
Gah. Off-topic again. Back to the point...So, how do I get a career? Not a job---a career. Eventually, I'll have to move away to a strange city, I suppose. Lose some friends, keep correspondence with others, form new friendships. Hopefully love enters the picture somewhere, but I won't count on it. It seems that I finally really beginning to unpack after college. It's taken awhile, but I'm ready now.