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Jul. 16th, 2004 11:39 amSo, life update. I have a lot of hard choices ahead of me: do I plan to move to New York when my lease is up in November? do I want to apply to work for grassroots campaigns, which lets up in November? or do I want to stay in the area? would it be worth it to work for grassroots campaigns and then reembark on the job search in november? if I want to stay in the area, do I want to stay in this apartment? what would it mean if I got one of those jobs with a lot of traveling and I got a car? If I make a decision, I know I can still back out of it and change, it's just that I'd like to get it right the first time around so I can concentrate on building my social life.
This past week has effectively been about procrastinating against those hard choices by reading lots of Lois McMaster Bujold's Mile Vorkosigan saga. I've read them at a rate of about one and a half per day. They're exceedingly addictive. Bujold's plot strategy is to always ask herself how things could get worse and then have her main character think their way out of said situation, so the joy in reading the books is to see how the plot escalates and then how Vorkosigan extricates himself from each situation. Vorkosigan is a strategic genius. Two good things have come out of this: one, I've been asking myself how Mile Vorkosigan would strategize my job search and two, if I continue reading them at this pace, I'll be done with the saga by this time next week.
I've also been periodically trying to teach myself to type. It's a job-getting skill. It's exceedingly frustrating because of, well, the reason I can't touch type in the first place, dyslexia, and because I've grown so used to the hunt and peck method that I'm much faster doing that.
I've recently rented three movies that I'd recommend. One was I am trying to break your heart, a documentary about the making of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot which made me want to go listen to more Wilco. The next is Camp, a movie about a bunch of kids at a musical theater camp. Even though the subplots about the individual campers were unconvincing and most of the acting was atrocious, the musical numbers were great and the overall theme about finding a place where you can pursue your passions struck at my heartstrings. Not a theme I could ever relate to. The last, Anything Else, I watched last night. It's a Woody Allen movie, but a Woody Allen movie where Allen himself, thankfully, doesn't play the romantic lead. Instead he plays a paranoid, idiosyncratic mentor to the protagonist. Christina Ricci does a great turn as the girlfriend of the protagonist. It's a Woody Allen movie, with the feel of a Woody Allen movie, so don't rent it if you don't like Woody Allen movies, but otherwise, it's a nice, entertaining fluffball of a movie.
This past week has effectively been about procrastinating against those hard choices by reading lots of Lois McMaster Bujold's Mile Vorkosigan saga. I've read them at a rate of about one and a half per day. They're exceedingly addictive. Bujold's plot strategy is to always ask herself how things could get worse and then have her main character think their way out of said situation, so the joy in reading the books is to see how the plot escalates and then how Vorkosigan extricates himself from each situation. Vorkosigan is a strategic genius. Two good things have come out of this: one, I've been asking myself how Mile Vorkosigan would strategize my job search and two, if I continue reading them at this pace, I'll be done with the saga by this time next week.
I've also been periodically trying to teach myself to type. It's a job-getting skill. It's exceedingly frustrating because of, well, the reason I can't touch type in the first place, dyslexia, and because I've grown so used to the hunt and peck method that I'm much faster doing that.
I've recently rented three movies that I'd recommend. One was I am trying to break your heart, a documentary about the making of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot which made me want to go listen to more Wilco. The next is Camp, a movie about a bunch of kids at a musical theater camp. Even though the subplots about the individual campers were unconvincing and most of the acting was atrocious, the musical numbers were great and the overall theme about finding a place where you can pursue your passions struck at my heartstrings. Not a theme I could ever relate to. The last, Anything Else, I watched last night. It's a Woody Allen movie, but a Woody Allen movie where Allen himself, thankfully, doesn't play the romantic lead. Instead he plays a paranoid, idiosyncratic mentor to the protagonist. Christina Ricci does a great turn as the girlfriend of the protagonist. It's a Woody Allen movie, with the feel of a Woody Allen movie, so don't rent it if you don't like Woody Allen movies, but otherwise, it's a nice, entertaining fluffball of a movie.
