Snowmageddon Strikes

 

 

Perspective

I walked home from the Metro last night and saw this written in the leftover snow. I almost walked away but had to turn around and take a photo. It said love, but sadly, the "e" has been lost. Pretty beautiful message though, huh?

It got me thinking about being aware of things that are going on around you. If you don't look up from your phone (I am very guilty of that) or snap out of your post-work reverie (also very guilty of that) you might miss a beautiful message etched in snow or kind words from someone you don't even know.

I'd love to know who wrote this and why. Were they just struck by the need to express their love? Did they write it for someone else or was it just for them?

Either way, thank you, anonymous love scribbler, you made me smile.

I found a cockroach in my coffee cup this morning.

Fortunately, it was dead, but unfortunately, it has put me off beverages for a while. On a day when I could really use caffeine, too. Where is the love, world?

Update: Went to Starbucks because I refuse to use the sullied and dreaded cup, yet still needed to consume caffeine. While I was there, I opened the door for a homeless woman, she said "bless you" while a man on his phone yelled into it "people are assholes"

Life is what you make it.  

Brain hurts today...

...Too much thinking! Do you know your brain burns about 30% of your total caloric consumption?

Wish I could turn it off sometimes. I feel like as I've gotten older, I only have more thoughts humming around in my head. Add that to now having cell phones, IM, e-mail, Facebook - it's a miracle we don't all have ADD. I'm not entirely convinced I don't.

The problem with worrying about the future right now is that I'm agonizing about stuff over which I literally have no control. This is so typical Beth behavior. Instead of focusing only on the things I can control and trying to do the best possible job I can on those, I'm obsessing over minutiae that are out of my hands.

I gotta focus, and stop stressing out. I'll never be Type-A, but it seems like I'm adopting one of their anxiety disorders.

Hi 2010!

2010 has started off a bit rocky for me (yes, I am aware it's already the end of January). Not particularly in a bad way, just stressful and full of anxiety. I've been trying to make the right choices for myself, and I don't really know what those are, which certainly complicates the situation.

I went through a life crisis last summer and really began to question the direction I had chosen for myself. I chose to pursue a career that excited me, but didn't necessarily play to my strengths. I'm a great photographer (and super modest, too!), but I'm not the best.

I'm also not someone who needs to take photographs (if you're a professional photographer or photojournalist or someone in any creative field, you'll understand what I mean). I could be just a great photographer and be successful at it, if I needed to take photos. I don't.

The fact that I knew I could live with photography as just a hobby was reason enough for me to leave the field. The photography world is just too competitive and limited in resources these days for someone who can live with taking pictures as a hobby.

I'm also not someone who thrives in situations where you're likely to work odd hours, have no long-term job security, and almost constantly have to move. I know people who do thrive in those conditions (hello Kat Duncan!), and I know I'm not one of them.

The minute I decided to leave photography I started panicking.

I thought photojournalism was the career for me - and I was wrong. I had sunk grad school tuition into that decision (no I am not in debt, thank G-d for merit based scholarships and my ability to kick ass on standardized tests) and had decided to turn away from it.

It literally shook my confidence in myself to the core.

I've had so many thoughts running through my head, like, if I didn't like photojournalism once it became challenging, does that make me a failure and a quitter? My heart knows that's not true, and that I made the right decision for me, but go ahead and try to explain that to my head. What about: will I ever really like any career I chose? What if I'm just habitually lazy and find ways not to like work? How am I almost 25 and still don't seem to completely know myself?

On top of all of that buzzing around in my brain, I realized I had figured out all these things I didn't like, but not all of the things I did. Which is what I've been working on for the past, oh, six months.

I know I like:

• A schedule that doesn't change significantly from week to week
  
• Time off on the weekends to see my friends and recharge (two things that often occur concurrently for me!). I'm definitely someone who eventually needs to recharge and refocus every so often.
  
• Setting goals and seeing them through - amazingly enough, no one ever taught me about the incredible effect that reaching your goals (even if they are small goals!) can have on your self-confidence
• A community. This is a bit of a difficult one to explain, but bear with me: as a photojournalist, I worked alone. Not only alone, but, out-on-assignment-face-always-behind-a-camera alone. Some people are good at this, and one photojournalist, Matt Stone, even told me his favorite part of photography was the exhilarating feeling of coming into a person's life for a moment and then leaving. That's not for me. And now I work in an office now, full of mostly lawyers, who also tend to sit in their offices by themselves. Sometimes I go to the kitchen just to find someone to talk to.... Yes, I am a dork.
  
• Not sitting in front of a computer all day (this is technically a dislike, whoops!). At my current job, I do mostly web based communications for a non-profit in DC. It's a great organization, and I really believe in their mission. However, most of what I do is write copy and edit videos on FinalCut, so I'm pretty much always on the computer, hence the sometimes leaving to go find people to talk to. I'm really lucky to have this job, and I generally like it but I cannot stand sitting 8 hours a day. I get more tired sitting that I do when I'm up and about. Also, this may be immature of me, but there are waaaaay too many distractions on the computer. Like blogging.
• Learning continuously. I have a voracious appetite for knowledge, and learning makes me happy. Knowing stuff makes me happy too. Maybe I am just a know-it-all :)
• On that note, I like working with smart, passionate people. I've found that photographers, with some notable exceptions (hi again Kat Duncan!) are single-track focused people. One of the reasons I shouldn't be a photographer is that photography is not my primary passion. Learning is. I'm more of a generalist (says my boyfriend) and I like to know a lot about a lot. I like meeting people who have completely different interests and/or backgrounds that I can learn from.
• Being pleasantly surprised. I'm a pretty optimistic person and when one good thing happens, I can be sustained by it for a while. Especially when it's a surprise - for example, one of my favorite things in the world is learning that my assumptions about people were wrong. I have a tendency to assume things about people before I know them (I am working on this!!), so I constantly learn from this experience.
• Self-reflecting. I don't do this enough, which is why I started blogging again. I used to believe blogging was somewhat an exercise in navel-gazing (teehee, I love that phrase). To an extent it is, but it can be a good extent. Especially when writing publicly keeps you accountable to write.
  
• Doing something that I believe in. Maybe it's because I'm still young and idealistic (read: naive) but I feel proud of myself when I'm working on something I believe in.
  

With all these things in mind, I've (pretty much) settled on a new career path, one that I think will satisfy me personally and professionally and play to my strengths. It's too early in the game to start talking about it much, and I don't want to jinx it! I'm hoping I can start said career in June but it may have to wait until next June, which will require patience, which I now know I don't have much of thanks to all this time spent reflecting.

But I am taking steps in the right direction! One of which is starting an economics class tonight - no the career I am going into is not economics. It's a long story. I'm weirdly excited about it, because it's something I have no knowledge of and have always wanted to understand better. I'm hoping I can keep my focus throughout the whole semester. In the past that's been a problem for me, especially when a class doesn't have much to do with anything (cough-highlevelanthropologycourses-cough), but I'm hoping this time will be different because the class directly impacts my future.

We shall see.

...Isn't that phrase so indicative of life in general?

State of the Union

“Rather than fight the same tired battles that have dominated Washington for decades, it’s time to try something new. Let’s try common sense – a novel concept.”

What's so amazing about really deep thoughts? -Tori Amos

Unfortunately, I don't post on here very often because I feel like I don't have enough deep thoughts to write about. Perhaps this is symptomatic of writing so much when I was young and burning out quickly? Or maybe it's because I tend not to analyze my life? Either way, I need to start writing again, if only to get the thoughts out of my head and onto paper (virtual paper?) so I can then figure out what the heck I'm actually thinking... Someone once said to me, "the unexamined life isn't worth living." I think I agree. Back on the blog train!