Life Update and Advice

I really hate that I’m writing the obligatory “I’m Not Dead!” post – but I’m going to.

I haven’t updated for a long time.  But as they say, Who is worse shod than a shoe makers wife?  Not that I am shoemaker with a wife.  Or a shoe maker or wife, period – but you know what I mean.  I’ve been spending so much time working with computers – writing a well-thought out blog post is pretty much the last thing I want to do.

But here we are.

I graduated college in December, and shortly after began working as an online advertising coordinator for a publishing company.  How I happened upon such a sweet gig, I couldn’t tell you -  maybe dumb luck or the always-deadly combination of optimistim and persistence, but either way I feel very lucky.  Lucky not only that I got a job right out of college, but also a job in my field, and most importantly – a job that I love.

Yes, I realize it’s entirely possible that one of my bosses or co-workers could find this post (hi!) but I swear i’m not just saying that I like my job because of that possibility.  I really do.  Seriously – I look forward to going to work.  I feel good about promoting a product that’s doing the world some good, utilize skills I learned in school, and  I Love my coworkers (ok, that last one really was just in case they read this).

All work and no play make Mindy a dull girl – and make her blog posts pretty dull as well.  Since graduating college I’ve had less free time, but now I spend my free time doing things I really like.   I think because in college I didn’t appreciate free-time as much as I do now that I work 9 – 7ish, Monday through Friday.  So Saturdays and Sundays are to be enjoyed to the max.  In the last few months, my friend Sean and I have been doing alot of exploring and adventuring around Connecticut.  Vineyards, Hiking, Kayaking – so on.  Mostly in support of his latest and greatest blog, The Connecticut Weekender.

It’s interesting – now that I’m insanely busy, I fill every minute of my limited free time with awesome things to do.  I’m enjoying life more now.  Make sense?

I’ve been more consistent about updating my tumblr blog.   I treat it more like a combination between my shared items on google reader & twitter updates.  Not as well thought out (not that this post is particularly well thought out), and more sporadic.

I think I’ll end this post with a few life recommendations, based on anecdotal evidence.

- Singing in your car during the morning commute is generally embarassing; however, singing along during the evening commute is great and will put you in a great mood.

- Listening to music as you work will make you happier.   Use Pandora to listen to music you like, and find new music without even trying.  Here’s a link to mine if you’re into it.

- Twitter, much like any social networking tool, becomes cooler the more time to put in to it.

That’s it.  I’ll try update more often, but I make no promises.

eight years and going strong

I spent some time today going through my desk drawers throwing things out that I don’t need anymore, and I stumbled upon an old flash drive.  I put it in to see what was on it, and it was my old online journal which I had downloaded when the service shut down (teenopendiary.com – RIP).  Reading through it, I realized a few things:

1.  All teenagers are ridiculously self-absorbed.

2.  I don’t think I ever really liked the guy I crushed on through the entirety of high school.

3.  It makes perfect sense that I became an Advertising major, the signs were everywhere:

• “I wish all my projects were group projects.”
• “I hate that I can’t draw anything.  Oh well, at least I know what I would draw.”
• “The presentation was so fun!”

4.  I’ve always been a nerd.

5. When I moved to New Haven, Connecticut from Sydney, Australia – the transition was much easier than I thought it would be.

6.  My mother has consistently given me really good advice.

I kept that first journal for three years, then moved over to another service, then blogger, then WordPress and now WordPress & Tumblr (which I’ve been updating more often than this blog).  So, technically I’ve been “blogging” since 2000.   I don’t think when I was fourteen I even knew what blogging was, but it’s so great to have this running track record of my life and thoughts between the ages of fourteen and twenty two.

I absolutely neglected blogging (and sleeping) during finals week, but now that it’s over I’ll be writing more frequently and enjoying having a little time off.

Pretty psyched.

But you probably need them to read

At the beginning of the semester, my computer battery & adaptor boycotted my continuing education and stopped working. 

I haven’t been without my own computer since I was eighteen years old.  So, naturally – this threw me off quite a bit.  The whole idea of productivity came into play as I’d have to squeeze in all my work into certain blocks of time where my schedule overlapped with the schedule of the computer lab on campus.  I had to make the most of the few hours I’d have available to work at a computer, so I basically had to figure out ways to streamline my ridiculous amounts of work into a set time frame.  What this meant was hand writing outlines, organizing all my research to make it more manageable, and adding the english-to-spanish bot on my gtalk (Shhh).    

Even though I didn’t like it at the time, it was probably a good thing. See, I’m starting to see physical side effects from spending so much time on computers.  My eyesight isn’t what it used to be,  and my wrists hurt – especially my right one.  Unfortunately, the whole advertising-major & working in web-development thing really makes life without a computer next to impossible, but cutting back is definitely possible.   

I haven’t updated my blog for a while on account of this – both not having a computer available to me, not having time to do it, or really even feeling the need to.  Every now and then I think I should, and make a mental note – I’ve even gone so far as to write a few drafts that I got to sleepy to finish.    Even now, it’s 1am, and I have to go to the gym tomorrow morning before class.   

At least I’ve been updating my twitter?

writing to communicate

A few weeks ago, I got the best piece of writing advice I’ve heard in a long time:

“You’re not writing to impress, you’re writing to communicate.”

It was an off-hand comment made by one of my professors to my class about the way we should be writing our assignment. I don’t think it occured to anybody else how brilliant a thing it was to say; but evidently, I thought it was a great piece of advice and it has stuck with me. (As have alot of things this particular professor has taught me over the past year.)

It seems like such an obvious thing to say, “you’re writing to communicate.”

Well, duh.

But i’ve found that so many people my age have ingrained in their minds that they have to write a certain way – To use a certain tone and scholarly words and follow certain formats in order to sound smart. But if it’s at the expense of the clairty of your message- what’s the point? Who cares how smart you sound if nobody has any idea what you’re talking about?

Personally, whenever I’m writing something I aim to be as straightforward and concise as possible. 

It’s a big part of why I love this exchange that happens in lectures:

Student: How long does this paper have to be?

Professor: As long as it needs to be.

My thinking is, unless someone is reading your work for pleasure, you don’t want to drown them in literary cliches thinking it will impress them into thinking what you’ve written is worth reading.  There’s a huge difference in the language used to write something for clairty, or technical writing and writing something for artistic expression, or more creative writing.  And too few people make this distinction.  I’m sure everybody has had experiences with these people.  People who make their writing so overly-fancy-sounding thinking it’s impressive, when in reality the reader is tilting their head and needs a second opinion to figure out exactly what they’re reading, feel free to share. I would, in fact I have a great example, but that’s enough out of me.

So, something to keep in mind or disregard:

You’re not writing to impress. You’re writing to communicate.

the awkward first post

Hello World,

I have no idea what to talk about, which isn’t exactly a great set-up to encourage you to keep reading, but really, what constitutes first-post material?  What did you write about? I feel like there should be some sort of introduction thing involved in this, but most people who read this know where i’m coming from anyway.  And for those who don’t, they’ll find out as I write more. 

 I’ve used livejournal for the past year or so, but I always treated it as more of a blog than a “journal” per-se because I don’t think posting deepdarksecrets on the internet is a good idea.  Even if you make it private or friends only.  The people who you allow to read your privatedeepdarksecrets should be people you’d talk to about your problems anyway.  It just complicates things.  So this was a big motivation in moving to wordpress.   Also, my friend Sean Henri has a glorious blog and I want to be just like him when I grow up.  So does Holly Patrick.

 I think that’s all for now.  More to come over the next few days as I get used to the in’s and out’s of this newfangled wordpress contraption.