(no subject)
Semi-laid up in bed with one of the many illnesses contracted from working with children, I allowed myself to become sucked into the abyss of the internet, eventually leading me to the question of what comes up when you search for yourself online. Pretty much nothing is the answer for me, excepting a blog I had to write for a literacy class two summers ago and this livejournal, aka massive artifact of my past floating around like some kind of untouched asteroid in the vacuum of space. Even though everyone has moved on to friendster, then myspace, then facebook, and maybe some niche area like linkedin or goodreads, no longer able to justify such levels of exposure a public thing like an internet diary propels, the draw to write came right back to me, three years after the last time I looked at this thing.
And whoa, how uncool and unprofessional to have this unlocked document of my inner and outer self from age 15 onwards. So much worse than an embarrassing facebook picture or link to some minor immaturity on a website. Yet, I don't want to take it down or lock the front door. Maybe it's kind of a giddy gambling feeling, allowing cringeworthy remnants to exist.
A brief followup to 2008:
That job was horrible and abandoned quickly in order to work for an art school doing admin stuff giving me a cushy if unchallenging life until I was laid off right before I started going to school full time at Berkeley. I moved to Oakland into a dark studio for my first foray into truly independent living, worked hard at school and various social work related volunteer gigs (working with kids and with homeless people), had surgery finally, moved into my palatial current apartment with my girlfriend, had a professionally transformative summer internship at glide doing HIV prevention, graduated from Berkeley, began working with developmentally disabled youth, and applied to MSW programs. I work 50 hours a week split between one job with an autistic 9-year old in Alameda and another as an afterschool teacher with developmentally disabled students (ages 6-22). I'm still totally broke. In a few weeks I'll end my 7-year relationship with the Bay Area and move back to Northampton to start grad school at Smith, with my first year's field work placement in Los Angeles. I'll be turning 26 this summer, an official adult with thinning hair and student loan debt, maybe a calmer and less insecure version of myself, but with no real suppositions of having figured it all out. My professional and academic experiences have bettered me, made me stronger, sharper, braver, more capable of withstanding, and more generous and loving towards myself and others. I have become more interested in alone time and find socializing has happily become divorced from fear-of-missing-out. I still have many flaws and I am not always happy, healthy, or wise. Yet, all in all, these three years have been enormously positive and I'm glad to no longer be in that newly single, underemployed, anxiety-ridden place of 2008. Thanks, Livejournal, for the reminder.
And whoa, how uncool and unprofessional to have this unlocked document of my inner and outer self from age 15 onwards. So much worse than an embarrassing facebook picture or link to some minor immaturity on a website. Yet, I don't want to take it down or lock the front door. Maybe it's kind of a giddy gambling feeling, allowing cringeworthy remnants to exist.
A brief followup to 2008:
That job was horrible and abandoned quickly in order to work for an art school doing admin stuff giving me a cushy if unchallenging life until I was laid off right before I started going to school full time at Berkeley. I moved to Oakland into a dark studio for my first foray into truly independent living, worked hard at school and various social work related volunteer gigs (working with kids and with homeless people), had surgery finally, moved into my palatial current apartment with my girlfriend, had a professionally transformative summer internship at glide doing HIV prevention, graduated from Berkeley, began working with developmentally disabled youth, and applied to MSW programs. I work 50 hours a week split between one job with an autistic 9-year old in Alameda and another as an afterschool teacher with developmentally disabled students (ages 6-22). I'm still totally broke. In a few weeks I'll end my 7-year relationship with the Bay Area and move back to Northampton to start grad school at Smith, with my first year's field work placement in Los Angeles. I'll be turning 26 this summer, an official adult with thinning hair and student loan debt, maybe a calmer and less insecure version of myself, but with no real suppositions of having figured it all out. My professional and academic experiences have bettered me, made me stronger, sharper, braver, more capable of withstanding, and more generous and loving towards myself and others. I have become more interested in alone time and find socializing has happily become divorced from fear-of-missing-out. I still have many flaws and I am not always happy, healthy, or wise. Yet, all in all, these three years have been enormously positive and I'm glad to no longer be in that newly single, underemployed, anxiety-ridden place of 2008. Thanks, Livejournal, for the reminder.