Expertise & experience

I was told throughout middle school, high school, and college that it's important to be a well-rounded person. Apparently, this doesn't matter at all in the real world of job hunting. No one gives a damn if you have a million skills unless you are proficient at one. And what makes one proficient, i.e. an expert? According to my job searching, the answer is experience. The problem is, how am I supposed to get experience if no one will hire me?! Ugh.

Again, job searching provides an answer: Do an internship.
However, I've not yet found an internship that will pay enough for me to scrape by on student loans/life expenses. Most internships do not pay at all.

Thus I am led back to the conclusion that I need a job to pay for a car so I can get to and have an internship which will lead to a big girl, high paying job. At least that's the plan.

On a side note, my mom says that most people simply call themselves experts, and therefore they are. Wouldn't that be nice? I don't know if I can do that. Or get away with it.

Cliche day

"Life's full of surprises."

"You learn something every day."

Both cliches are true, though not always in a good way. I've discovered two important things about myself in the past two days. Unfortunately I didn't feel like yelling "Eureka!" when I realized them.

First of all, I realized that although I've always been a confident person, comfortable with myself in body and mind, my recently declining confidence is directly connected with my unemployed status. It's taken a while for this to kick in because I haven't been completely inactive over the past several months. In fact, I've kept myself busy with hobbies, housework and volunteering. But my self-confidence is definitely feeling bruised now that I've become restless. Part of this is the job hunt. Job hunting is really, really depressing. I know this is a generally known fact, but you don't truly know this unless you experience it. My problems with job hunting is 1.) lack of experience, and 2.) lack of transportation. And transportation is directly caused by lack of funds. Moolah. Dinero. It's a viscous cycle.

This leads to my second unwelcome revelation. I have pride. Who knew? And this pride is getting in my way. Isn't that horrible? It's certainly horribly frustrating for me. The issue that brought this up is desperation. The one thing in like I really dislike is desperation. It makes people do horrible things and make really bad decisions. That and I've witnessed desperate people being taken advantage of by greedy and uncaring people/corporations. I cant' stand that. To me, desperation equals misery. One thing I've always told myself is that I don't what to be one of the masses "...living lives of quiet desperation," as Thoreau wrote. 

In total, I realized last night that although I have a relative that could help me get a job, doing so would feel like desperation, and at the moment I was too damn proud to call my relative to ask for help. Of course, it didn't help that I'd been in a foul mood most of the day. And even worse, I still feel like that a bit. Hopefully this bought of pride will pass me by soon. What with student loans, I really cannot afford pride. On the other hand, I can't seem to round up a lot of enthusiasm for a job at a grocery store.

A self-assessment list

I think the new title of this blog is quite appropriate for my life right now. I feel like a Jack of all trades, master of none. The "master of some" part is just wishful thinking at the moment... I think... maybe?

I don't think I have expertise in anything. Sure, in the past I thought I did, but that's an illusion most teens have. I've grown out of that a while ago. That and I've not focused on increasing this one area of expertise in five years. Yeah. That's a long time for things to happen and change, especially in the romance book industry.

So, now I'm going to make a list of skills, just for myself, to decipher with what I've got to work.

• Bilingual (English and Spanish).... although I'd say I'm fairly proficient, but there's still lots more to learn
• Some ability to read, write and speak Japanese
• Proofreading skills
• Creative writing skills
• Academic writing skills
• Customer service (4 years experience)
• Ability to type 75-80 words per minute
• Through knowledge of Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe Photoshop, the Internet, and Microsoft OS
• I can:
• cook & bake
• knit and sew, including tailoring clothes
• draw
• sing & give beginner's singing lessons
• fold origami
• swim and teach beginner's swimming lessons (2 years experience)
• I have:
• published 2 short stories in my college magazine
• written, photographed, and published the content for my church's website
• joined Lambda Iota Tau, the national honors society for English majors and minors
• attended the 2006 RWA national conference
• led 2 major clubs/organizations while in college for several years
• tutored for college-level Spanish courses
• studied abroad in Costa Rica for 1 semester (4 months)
• helped build houses with Habitat for Humanity
• cleaned up damage to the Gulf Coast in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina
• graduated from high school with honors
• graduated from college with a bachelor's degree and with honors
• spent thousands of hours volunteering through multiple organizations
• built two large, custom bookcases from scratch 
• I know :
• a lot about the romance publishing industry
• creative writing: non-fiction, fiction, and poetry to some extent
• literature
• Japanese culture
• anime
• photo editing
• how to research
• dog training & care
• dog breeds
• computer maintenance

The prodigal daughter returns

For starters, I'm a self-proclaimed prodigal daughter. Why? I like the idea of positive thinking. And it implies potential, much like the new title of this blog. I've decided to revamp this a bit and use it for myself again, instead of my one-hit-wonder journalism class.

I've never cared much for blogging, doing it myself or reading other people's blogs. In the past, I only used it as a way to vent to friends, i.e. the only other people who knew of my blog to read it. You know, back in the day before Facebook and Twitter, but slightly after Youtube. I'll probably think of this much in the same way, simply because I don't know what audience to expect, or to even expect one at all. But who knows? This is the big wide world web. Anything can (and often does) happen.

Therefore according to my explained usage, and as evidence by my tangent above demonstrates, this will largely be an informal blog where I put down my musings, findings, epiphanies, commentary, and likely a few rants along the way.

So, here I go.

A lot of shit has hit the fan since I last blogged. I'm not going to get into it because it's family drama. However some good has happened too. I graduated from college (Bachelor's in English with minors in Creative Writing, Spanish and Japanese). Hurray! And now I have student loans to pay... with no job as of yet. Boo! Hence, I'm currently stuck in that limbo of the unemployed college grad looking for purpose outside of the familiar womb of academia. And no, I already decided not to chicken out and fry the rest of my brain cells with graduate school. Perhaps that will come up again later or, perhaps I already wrote about that subject in this blog long ago. I shall have to get back to you on that. Or maybe you don't give a damn so I'll skip it all together. To be continued...

In the meanwhile, I'll think of other subjects to write about at a more appropriate our of the day/night. I really should get to bed... even though I'm wide awake. Damn coffee.

I almost forgot to mention that for Christmas, I received an eReader. <=)
It's spiffy. Me likes.

I still love print books above all else, but it's nice to have the eReader too. I just hope eReaders don't take over the book industry, which they probably will. T_T

I'm back!

Here I am. I have not forsasken you, dear blog. I've just been on winter break. =D hehee

It's the beginning of a new semester, full of fun, study, club events, stress.... I'm not going to think about it too much... ruins the new-ness of it all.
Classes I am taking this semester:
-Fiction workshop!
-British Victorian Literature
-History of the English Language!
-HARRY POTTER SEMINAR!!!
-stupid career and self-development class that I put off until the last possible moment
-2nd half quadmester, writing about films

I'm hoping to get more accomplished in the fiction workshop than just talking like we did on the first day. --__-- there's this one annoying lady that talks all the time in class. I'd say she almost talks more than our professor. Not good. I'm really liking the sound of my History of the English Language class, especially the social uses of language and the etymology. <3  The Harry Potter seminar is made of win. Enough said. Big class too - 30 students.

So just as a warning, I'll probably be blogging a lot about Harry Potter this semester. >=)

A Christmas poem, in Spanglish

Well, so much for sticking to blogging every day. lol. I guess I shouldn't have expected so much from myself, especially since it's currently finals week. This here post is simply a short procrastination on important study time/ homework.

In other news, I have a cute poem I want to share. It's a version of 'Twas the Night before Christmas, but it's written in Spanglish - i.e. English and Spanish.


TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the casa,
Not a creature was stirring – ¡Caramba! ¿Que pasa?
Los niños were all tucked away in their camas,
Some in long underwear, some in pajamas.
While hanging the stockings with mucho cuidado
In hopes that old Santa would feel obligado
To bring all children, both buenos and malos,
A nice batch of dulces and other regalos.
Outside in the yard there arose such a grito
That I jumped to my feet like a frightened cabrito.
I ran to the window and looked out afuera,
And who in the world do you think that it era?
Saint Nick in a sleigh and a big red sombrero
Came dashing along like a crazy bombero.
And pulling his sleigh instead of venados
Were eight little burros approaching volados.
I watched as they came and this quaint little hombre
Was shouting and whistling and calling by nombre:
Ay Pancho, ay Pepe, ay Cuco, ay Beto,
Ay Chato, ay Chopo, Macuco, y Nieto!
Then standing erect with his hands on his pecho
He flew to the top of our very own techo.
With his round little belly like a bowl of jalea
He struggled to squeeze down our old chimenea.
He filled all the stockings with lovely regalos
For none of the niños had been very malos.
Then chuckling aloud, seeming very contento,
He turned like a flash and was gone like the viento.
And I heard him exclaim, and this is verdad,
Merry Christmas to all, and ¡Feliz Navidad!

 I found the poem on  ( http://rpodle6.wordpress.com/2007/12/24/a-christmas-poem-spanglish/ ), which was copied from The Cuernavaca Outlook, December 4, 1998.

Turning point?

Is this the dawn of a new age for literature? It's the holiday season, the time for giving and receiving gifts. On the front page of Amazon.com, the Kindle ebook reader has been discounted down to $139 and is advertised as the "#1 Bestselling, #1 Most-Wished-For, #1 Most Gifted Product on Amazon".

Prices are down, purchases are up. Even with the economy in a such a sad state, people want the newest, coolest electronic gadget for Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanza/Festivus (for the rest of us). And I've talked to a few pro-print books people who are caving to the temptation and convenience of carrying around dozens, hundreds, over a thousand books on one compact screen.

*sigh* Times are changing fast indeed.

How much of a geek are you?

You know your a super geeky English major when.... you have a favorite literary critic. XD

That's pretty bad, no? But seriously, I think Jack Zipes is brilliant. I read some of his books for a research paper I wrote about the story of Rapunzel last year. Zipes has some wonderful feminist theory about fairy tales, and I agree with his assessment that fairy tales have a huge social impact (which I'd love to research further).

Although he's now retired, Dr. Zipes used to be a Professor of German (not surprising) and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota.

I was reminded of Jack Zipes because 1.) I watched Disney's Tangled  and 2.) I found an article written by him in a book about Utopian and Dystopian literature I was reading as research for my Margaret Atwood seminar class. So cool!

His books are on my Christmas list, such as this one here, humorously titled Don't Bet on the Prince. And Fairy Tale as Myth/ Myth as Fairy Tale. Most importantly, someday I want to buy The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm which has been translated anew by Zipes. <3

I actually never read any of the Brothers Grimm versions. I had a book by Hans Christian Anderson as a kid, which was really cool too.

If you weren't certain I am a super geek English major, you can be now. 

I literally squeed when I saw this photo. That's Jack Zipes on the left & Neil Gaiman on the right.

So, now that I've proven my geekiness, this post is done </bow out>.

Semester Ends

The end of semester is upon us. Hooray! Although my journalism class has finished and I'm no longer required to keep daily updates on this blog, I will still write in it. I have my other blog that I use to communicate with friends, so I don't know how much of this content will be transferred over to there. *shrug* For the time being though, I'll stick around here. =)

Who knows. Maybe someone will actually read this blog besides me. lol

Let down thy hair

I saw the new Disney princess movie, Tangled, this past weekend. It was really cute. I loved it almost as much as The Princess and the Frog. Since Tangled is the story of Rapunzel, I was curious about the non-Disney fairy tale behind it. It seems that the Brothers Grimm wrote down a version. I say wrote down instead of created, because they recorded a bunch of fairy tales and then picked and chose their ideas of the best combinations of similar versions to publish.
(Eek! Bad tanget. Back to the doghouse with you.)

Ahem. Anyway, in the Disney version, Rapunzel's hair has magical healing powers, provoked by a song/incantation. In the Brothers Grimm version, the hair wasn't anything special besides that it was long. And in  fact, the ending was very different (I won't give away the Disney one because I hate spoilers).

Here's how Wikipedia explains it:

        Together they [Rapunzel & the prince] planned a means of escape, wherein he would come each night (thus avoiding the enchantress who visited her by day), and bring her silk, which Rapunzel would gradually weave into a ladder. Before the plan came to fruition, however, Rapunzel foolishly gave the prince away. In the first edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales, Rapunzel innocently says that her dress is getting tight around her belly; in subsequent editions, she asks the witch (in a moment of forgetfulness) why it was easier for her to draw him up than her. In anger, Dame Gothel cut short Rapunzel's braided hair and cast her out into the wilderness to fend for herself. When the prince called that night, the enchantress let the severed braids down to haul him up. To his horror, he found himself staring at the witch instead of Rapunzel, who was nowhere to be found. When she told him in anger that he would never see Rapunzel again, he leapt from the tower in despair and was blinded by the thorns below. In another version, the witch pushes him and he falls on the thorns, thus becoming blind.
         For months he wandered through the wastelands of the country. One day, while Rapunzel sang as she fetched water, the prince heard Rapunzel's voice again, and they were reunited. When they fell into each others' arms, her tears immediately restored his sight. In another variation, it is said that Rapunzel eventually gave birth to two boys (in some variations, a girl and a boy). The prince leads her to his kingdom, where they lived happily ever after. In another version of the story, the ending reveals that the witch untied Rapunzel's braid after the prince leapt from the tower, but it slipped from her hands and landed below the tower. This left the witch trapped in the tower.

The original story came from the story of Rudaba in an ancient Iranian book called Shahnameh, written by Ferdowsi around 1000 AD. Some elements of the fairy tale might also have originally been based upon the legends about Saint Barbara, who was said to have been locked in a tower by her father.

I would like to read the actual Brothers Grimm version and the story or Rudaba sometime. =D

Dream writer

Some people find their muse while sitting on the john. I generally have a good time brainstorming while showering or right when I wake up. Sometimes, I even get story ideas from dreams. This is not uncommon. In fact, I'd say that most writers of fiction (perhaps even poetry or creative non-fiction) are hit with inspiration from dreams. The other day, I had a good story idea and mentioned it to one of my roommates--coincidentally, it was the roommate that isn't a writer. She thought the idea was cool, but teased me about it coming from a dream, saying that I was like Stephanie Meyer. Ugh.

I suppose many writers would take that as a major insult. I can't deny it didn't ruffle my feathers a little.

Of course, I quickly rectified her thinking in explaining how frequently dreams inspire writers. And then she explained her reaction because when she was interested in the Twilight series and watched interviews of Stephanie Meyer online, she said that all the interviewers mentioned how Meyer saw the entire series as a dream(s). Honestly, I think it was stupid that so many people were astounded by that. But there it is. Big deal.

Marginality II

Going off yesterday's post, in my Margaret Atwood class on Tuesday there was one student's used textbook that had a lot of writing in the margins. Lots and lots. It was the stupidest marginality I've ever seen. Hilarious. The previous owner of the book wrote multiple times that she thought the author (Atwood) was crazy (hehehe) and she (feminine handwriting) also did not get any of Atwood's humor (sad indeed). AND she did not understand that the chapter headings on each page was not part of the text itself... even multiple pages later she kept pointing out and questioning the title of the chapter on each page not fitting into the text below.
lol! supreme stupidity.

Which led me to an interesting story idea I'd like to experiment with sometime.
The concept of the invisible pen-pal has already been explored, but this would have a twist.
    I would write about a book (either completely made up or some classical fiction book) that has a lot of writing in the margins and lots of room to look for marginality in the text. This book would be found by someone who would write back to the comments written in the margins... mostly arguing with the marginal writing, me thinks.

Then, I could relate the goings on in the book and with the arguing margin-writers with the person's life. Better yet, wouldn't it be so interesting if the first writer did not like the book (or certain passages) so much that they crossed out/ marked out with marker/ covered to make room for their own writing of the book? That would be so neat!

I'll have to save that idea to work on another day. I think that would be an interesting novel to write. =D

Marginality

Lately, one of my English professors has been talking about marginality pertaining to what's in the margins of the book, i.e. what's insinuated or alludes to something else that is not expressly mentioned in the text... Or what we write in the margins of the book.

It might surprise some people that even though I'm an English major, I hate writing in books. Or at least I did... I still prefer not to if I can help it. Strange, I know.
"Hi. My name is Lindy. And I have a problem."
Audience: "Hi, Lindy."

I've always been one of the OCD book people where I want to keep the book in the best, most pristine condition possible. No dog ears. No underlining, God forbid highlighting, circling or words written in my book. Most especially, no bent covers and Never break the spin ("or I break you neck" I'd joke with friends who borrow my books).

Unfortunately I've learned that I pretty much have to write in book for school. For a few years I tried not to, but it's too inconvenient. How am I supposed to take a timed exam of 3 short essays and 2 long essays without points marked in the book to help me find quotes?! Let me tell you, it was very difficult.

There is another, non-book-punishing way to go about this, but.... that's a lot of sticky notes. A lot. And, if they fall out of my books in my backpack or wherever - screwed. So, there you have it. I'm getting better at it each semester, making myself underline quotes and key points to help me study. It's handy, but I think it will still be a long, long while before I'd ever mark up one of my personal, leisure reading books. One, they are awesome overall. Two, do not want my pages marked up. Three, there are so many cool parts that I'd run out of pens.


P.S. Dog-eared pages = the devil. Why would you do that? Why?!?! ok, I'm done.

Disney Dystopia?

So, I haven't read many dystopias before, but I'm researching them for my paper. They are different than I thought. I thought that they would be the opposite of utopias. In many ways, they are, but they can easily cross over. Look at it this way, one man's paradise can be another's prison. Utopia, the perfect/ideal world, cannot be perfect for everyone. I also thought it interesting how one author wrote about Disneyworld as a high point of technology, the utopian ideology, the American dream, and simultaneously be the ideal carcereal society of consumer capitalism. Pretty freaky, if you think about it.

 Today is the last day of NaNoWriMo. I'm sure all the participants are busily tap-tap-tapping away at their keyboards to make the 50,000 word mark. My roommate has already finished off at about 51,000. Yay! Now comes the editing. Although, I don't know how much she'll edit/doctor this novel she's written, since she doesn't intend to publish it. *shrug*

Me, I'm busy typing away as well, working to finish a 15 page paper. Ugh. As Snowman/Jimmy from Oryx and Crake said, "God of Bullshit, fail me not."

HP update

Back to the Harry Potter conversation of last week, I forgot to mention some news. I've heard through the geek grapevine that Mrs. J.K. Rowling has enough material to write another 3 Harry Potter novels. I think that would be fabulous. My only concern then would be if she's planning to write about Harry, Ron, Ginny, Hermione, Malfoy, etc or if she would write about the next generation - their children that were shown in the (sadly poorly written) epilogue of the Deathly Hallows. Obviously, I would prefer the first option. <3
*yells* You got that, J.K. Rowling?! ..... K Thanx Bai.


P.S. If you have not yet seen the HP Deathly Hallows literal trailer, I highly suggest viewing it... right now.
Click here now because Blogger is stupid and will not allow me to embed videos that I do not have on my computer already!

Thanksgiving Poem

This is an old poem that I like to share around Thanksgiving.

The Turkey Shot Out of the OvenJack Prelutsky

The turkey shot out of the oven
and rocketed into the air,
it knocked every plate off the table
and partly demolished a chair.

It ricocheted into a corner
and burst with deafening boom,
then splattered all over the kitchen,
completely obscuring the room.

It stuck to the walls and the windows,
it totally coated the floor,
there was turkey attached to the ceiling,
where there'd never been turkey before.

It blanketed every appliance,
it smeared every saucer and bowl,
there wasn't a way I could stop it,
that turkey was out of control.

I scraped and I scrubbed with displeasure,
and thought with chagrin as I mopped,
that I'd never again stuff a turkey
with popcorn that hadn't been popped.

book chat

Last night after the excellent Words Against Hunger event, I got talking with some friends about the recent Harry Potter film that I saw yesterday. (btw, it was great) And then, somehow, we got onto the topic of Mr. Darcy in and the different film adaptations of Pride and Prejudice. Then we got back into the Harry Potter conversation and discussed whether or not Snape is really a bad guy/villain/evil person. I'm sure that will come up in the Harry Potter class I'm taking next semester. >=)  And then, we diverted again... to the Twilight series. XD I love how we (i.e. college students) are able to talk about both popular and cannon literature animatedly as truly intelligent critical conversation. <3!

Words Against Hunger

This Sunday on campus at the Moose Cafe, there will be an event held by the LIT Club, the Social Action Committee, and CAVA called "Words Against Hunger". It will be a fun event because it is a food drive as well as a concert (a local bluegrass band will be playing - The Woodtones) with readings in between songs. I hope a lot of people come to this event. *hint hint*

I'm supposed to either write something to read at the event or simply find something someone else wrote to read. The subject can be about hunger/starvation, homelessness, or any other social justice issue. It would be easiest to look up something someone else has written on the subject. I would. I need to keep telling myself that.

I've been contemplating writing on the subject of homelessness for the past few months, but it' hard to tackle the subject when it's a very possible future for me and my family. Everyone is in financial trouble with the economy, but one of my worries really is that my parents will loose the house. It's possible, probable, and scary. Even if I do finish some short essay or other on that, I don't think I'd be able to read it without crying in front of the entire audience. And that would be way too embarassing.

So, I need to find something someone else wrote. Fast.