Picking up from yesterday –
August: Joined the board of the L.A. chapter of Mensa. On tumblr and instagram.
September: Started my classes at Harvard Extension, although ultimately I ended up dropping them – which we will definitely talk about soon. In fact, let’s talk about it tomorrow. On tumblr and instagram. (I know the gif on tumblr isn’t anything to write home about… But I must admit, for some reason, I kind of like it…)
October: This was a fun month. I learned a fair bit about running in costume, and I had a great time dressing up as the incomparable, fabulous Wendy Davis. On tumblr and instagram. (I know I didn’t hit the mark exactly for how I wanted the costume to look. But go look at those side by side pictures on tumblr… It really didn’t turn out so bad looking back on it!)
October bonus: Saw Erick McCormack in concert. He was phenomenal! (Then I hugged him after the show.) On tumblr and instagram.
November: While working as an assistant editor, I got to do my first professional edit – approved by a real television network and everything On tumblr and instagram. (I sort of like that gif I made on tumblr. :-P)
December: The main thing in that month was getting to spend time with my dad (and learning that Oklahoma City is incredibly dope)! On tumblr and instagram. Only person liked that photo on instagram… I’m hypothesizing it’s because people just recently saw a bunch of pictures of that trip… or maybe I didn’t make it “instagrammy” enough with filters and such.
December bonus: I went ahead and added not being able to have kids, ’cause it just really excites me. Also, I thought I had some nice photos for that, and instagram is a visual medium. It’s only on instagram, because tumblr was always a day behind (since I decided to start it a day later). (Also, I didn’t have any video/gifs for that. So, not having that extra day on tumblr worked out.
I got a little filter crazy with this one on instagram, because you know, it’s instagram! Looking at it now, I think the photo on the left side turned out cool-looking with the filters. (I believe this is my first photo with 2 filters!) But the photo on the right has a different filter underneath, making it reddish. I don’t know how I feel about that, really… But overall I think the photos still look well together and that my intense happiness still shows through in the second one.
So, what did I learn from my year in review?
For one thing, perhaps it is not the very best idea to do something in a visual medium if really only half of your things are visual. (Although, I gotta say, looking at all my posts together side-by-side right now, I really want to congratulate myself on the use of filters in that last photo. It does look cooler, different, and more instagrammy (in a cool way) than I think all my other photos… So maybe anything can be in a visual medium if you do it right. Who knows?
Also, this year was so much more about work than I either would’ve liked to have admitted or possibly even realized otherwise. One month was basically defined by me getting into the union. One was defined by my first professional edit. Really. Those were the only things I could come up with for those months. So, there’s that…
I guess the moral of the story is perhaps I need to live a little more. I think you can kind of tell when I went back to work, because my life got so much more boring… I think you can easily work and still have fun. Heck, I was actually working when I met Cory Booker (which was a very cool event). I was working when I went to OKC, and when I dressed up as Wendy Davis. So, work doesn’t always preclude fun…
I dunno. I guess there’s just always a balance that kind of needs to be struck between work, dream work (like writing musicals), and living an interesting life. And since I did it by month, it’s easier to see where that balance gets sort of wonky…
I think the moral of the story is be more interesting (and work more on the dream work – that’s more important than being interesting)…. Though as long as I always take time to work on dream work, it is important to keep living. Just ask Jason Michael Snow in his new interview I saw today.
More focus on dream work. Less focus on day job. More overall interestingness, I think are the takeaways. Let’s hit 2014 hard!