November 28, 2007 in Random Because you're my friend and I care about you, I think this is something you might enjoy.
Or this.
Enjoy the full collection here.
You're quite welcome.
(oops, their bandwidth is tapped, but the videos are also up on YouTube).
November 25, 2007 in Lists I Made, Personal I remember the last time I uttered the phrase "I want to do x when I grow up" (where x=something amazing). I was in my 20s and out of college, working in a job that fit within my broadcasting degree options. By most accounts, I was already successful. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I felt ridiculous.
Except that I've never really felt like a grownup. Maybe that's because the older we get, the more we feel we have to achieve in order to not be stagnant. In terms of success, the sky's the limit, so I'll always have a long way to go.
I'm also a very different person than I was at 18, when choosing a major had more to do with a creative, engaging course load and less to do with how I might spend the rest of my life. I was on financial aid in college, so money was this exotic thing I didn't have and didn't really obsess over. I also never considered that the rather limiting television market would made it hard for me to just live anywhere, especially since I was graduating into a top market already (at the time, San Francisco ranked #5, behind New York, LA, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Dallas/Ft. Worth has since pushed us to #6). Did I want to move to one of the top 4 markets once I exhausted my options in San Francisco? I had no idea. I was just happy to be out of Sebastopol. Of course, now that the video landscape is changing so rapidly, I have a whole new set of rules to consider.
I think lots of people go through a similar "what does it all mean" period around the time they hit 30, which is right about when you have to stop claiming that you aren't a grownup yet. It's not that I don't like my career or that I feel unfulfilled, it's more of a "wow, I could have been a veterinarian" type of wistfulness. Sure, I could still do that, but I probably won't. Mentally I've missed my window.
But then I think about my dad, who, as a result of never getting a college degreee, suffered through a string of crappy jobs throughout my childhood. Eventually he couldn't take it anymore, so at age 45 he went back to school. And graduated with honors. And then became an elementary school teacher and really really loved his job. I'm sure he wished that he had taken the plunge 20 years earlier, but at least he was finally happy. In that sense, it's never too late.
Personally, I don't fantasize about teaching fractions to fourth graders, but there are a few careers I wouldn't mind pursuing somewhere down the road, such as:
What about you? Kind of a fun exercise.
November 20, 2007 in Video Thanks, dooce. (Probably NSFW, unless of course you work at an internet startup)
Sometimes when I've run out of other things to do, I comb through my Google Analytics stats. Which are consistently both eye-opening and confounding.
For example, anyone who types in "sarah lane", "sara lane", "shara lane", and various forms of "xp hacks" will eventually reach this blog. But in the past 30 days, a modest number of surfers also found me using the following specific search terms:
I'd attempt to make sense of it all, but where's the fun in that? Oh, and in case you were wondering, Jennifer Schwalbach Smith is director Kevin Smith's wife. Which explains so much.
November 19, 2007 in Food and Drink In an effort to pinpoint why I'm so itchy and low-energy lately, I'm embarking on a crusade against wheat. That's right, no wheat for two weeks, because according to what I've read on the internet, consuming wheat and skin allergies go hand in hand for a lot of folks.
If that doesn't prove helpful, I'm going to cut out all gluten (which is found in almost everything, including the wheat-free rye bread I bought at Whole Foods yesterday). At which point I'm going to cry and cry, because as I see it, life isn't worth living unless you can devour a pot of angel hair pasta in bed during reruns of The Sopranos on A&E.
If I come up empty at the end of those four weeks, I'm going to be out of ideas, and probably very bitter.
Oh, and this experiment will not go into effect until after Thursday evening. I mean come on, I'm already a vegetarian. Without stuffing and pumpkin pie, it would be a dark day indeed.
