Over the last few months I've jotted a few quick notes here with the intention of posting, only to be diverted at a critical moment by something shiny. In the interests of murdering e-trees, here's a senseless text dump from San Francisco.
Just writing this to blow off steam, try that whole writing-as-therapy thing. Life is great, which is sort of the problem. I love this city, love the people I meet and the things they talk about doing. None of my courses are particularly interesting this semester, but neither are any terribly difficult; where I spent last semester cranking out a number of papers and working on weekly stories, this time around most of my professors require little beyond a satisfactory showing on the midterm and final exam. I can't really find a real job because I'm only available Saturday, Sunday and afternoons on Friday, but to be honest I don't mind not having to work another entry-level position.
Unfortunately this schedule leaves me a lot of free time in the evenings, but no disposable income to blow and not many friends close enough (personally or geographically) to annex on a regular basis. To fill it I volunteered to work both with a tiny (crappy) gaming fansite and at Spot Us, a recent startup experiment in crowdfunding public journalism. One was just to give me a regular deadline and consider writing regularly about one of my hobbies, the other was (quite honestly) to get involved with some local journalists and try to pad out my resume and network a bit (times are tough.) Given the nature of these two commitments, it's essentially impossible for me to have truly free time; even if I've no homework to complete, reading to do or assignments to shoot there's an ever-present need for content at these outlets that constantly tugs plaintively at my train of thought, looking up at my superego with those big blue eyes that promise everything if I can just churn out one. More. Post.
You know what I'm finding? I really don't want to write about video games for a living. In fact, I doubt I'd like to commit to writing about any of my hobbies for money. I mean, on the surface the concept sounds great; get a game (or movie, book, cookie etc.) in the mail, crack open the package and enjoy it, then write my impressions up 1-2 weeks later and get paid to do it. The perfect crime, you say? Perhaps, but it seems my nagging doubts about turning a fun, diversionary pastime into work were entirely well-founded; having to sit and critically analyze something pretty much dest- oh forget about it. You know what I mean, because you don't get paid to do fun things: you get paid to do interesting things, important things, necessary things. I don't mean to imply your work isn't fun, only that you choose to do something else in your off hours to celebrate the fact that you aren't working. I imagine there's two enlighted ways to go about this whole happy life thing: either integrate your work and play into a lifestyle and enjoy living the dream (I'm thinking journalist, celebrity, police officer etc.) or practice very strict delineation between work and play and leave work at the office. I don't want to spend any significant portion of my existence living the "enthusiast press" lifestyle, so I guess it's strict work/play boundaries for me. That or marry Oprah.
Which is ultimately why I'm really stressed; life isn't going fast enough. I know about stopping to enjoy the moment, savoring what you're doing at any one time because you'll never get it back. I dunno if all my gushing praise for the City by the Bay has left you doubting my commitment to savoring the fruits of providence, but I think you can safely consider these succulent morsels satisfactorily savored. But no matter how great it is to be here, I'm just not getting enough accomplished; school will be great (once this semester finishes) because I'll be up another nineteen units, but at this point my schoolwork really doesn't require much effort so I'm left scrabbling desperately for accolades in the dust of my own mediocrity. I've wasted the last five years of my life, I can't afford to blow anything else.
Born in Oakland, CA, Alex quickly found a city voted “Best Weather in the U.S.” by Rand McNally too milquetoast for his toddler tastes and set out to see the world. After living in hellholes from Leeds to New Jersey, young Alexander wisely reconsidered his youthful arrogance and enrolled at college in San Francisco while he still could.
A Journalism major, he quickly discovered that training for a dying profession left plenty of free time for extra-curricular activities like pub crawling and recreational drug use. Too poor for drugs and too weepy when drunk, Alex fell back on gaming as a reliable vice. Born in a city that spawned the likes of MC Hammer and Bruce Lee, Alex stands on the shoulders of giants. In his copious free time he hopes to master acoustic guitar, buy a motorcycle and take up the mantle of wandering minstrel as a thinly-veiled excuse to fight crime.
EDIT: Oh, and I took the link to this page off my Twitter feed. Because quite frankly, it's embarassing. Like home movies.
SON OF EDIT: Also, I'm running a 12k in May. Weep for my hamstrings.
ET TU, EDIT?: As long as I'm here, hit me up on Facebook or on Twitter. I'm in the Internet, we should hang out.
