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Tag: jobs

a year of real jobs

One year ago, I spent this whole weekend in San Francisco visiting a friend of mine that I hadn’t seen in a year or two. We went touring all throughout the city, seeing a lot of great sites as well as enjoying some wine up in Sonoma County. I also went through some mess on my last day there.

My car got towed the moment I arrived in the city. So I spent the following Tuesday paying the city whatever cash I had and walking around town or riding on the bus to various locations just to claim my car. What a total waste of time and such a crappy way to end my beautiful stay in that city. Luckily, I’ve been back again to reclaim my love.

The day after my return from the bay area, I began my brand new job as a Website Content Manager, which was disguised as Front End Web Designer. I spent the next 9 months of my life working for the man before finding another job doing actual Front End Web Designer work. And I’ve been there 3 months and counting.

It’s weird that I’ve lived 27 years and I’m only one year into working full-time. Most of my peers back in Texas or around the country have had many full-time jobs since they graduated college at around 22-24. It just took me longer. And for good reason.

I moved out to LA just over 2 years ago to find work. Houston had nothing there for me and I was at the end of the line trying to find anything worth my time. LA, however, wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. The opportunities I thought I had quickly dissolved and I was back to square one quickly. This time, however, I had a part-time job at Magic Mountain and some freelance gigs which I took for granted.

I’ve battled laziness all of my life. I enjoy the moments where I’m doing absolutely nothing. It’s easy, it’s relaxing, and I don’t have to think about anything. But this has severly kept me from doing the things I really ought to be doing.

I love traveling.
I love music.
I love photography.
I love performing.
I love producing.
I love desiging.
I love technology.

I had a year and a half to get any step of my career going, something that involved any of the above. And through all that time I wasted, nothing happened because I made excuses and went back “home” for weeks on end. I don’t regret all the traveling I’ve done. I just regret the actions I never took when I was here. And it’s my own fault.

If this past year of working two full-time jobs has taught me anything about myself, it’s that I deserve to spend my time doing the things which I love. All of the above, and much more. I am an ambitious person, one with dreams and desires. And I hope that I can accomplish living a life full of passion. Not for anyone but myself. Day in and day out should be spent smiling and enjoying life in everything you do. And if people accuse me of lacking focus, it’s because I want more from my life than most people.

I’m not going to settle because I plan to live. In the meantime, I’ll continue what I am doing and figure out my next moves.

here’s why

If you had asked me a year ago whether or not this would be what I’d be doing, I would have laughed in your face. I would have called you crazy and dismissed your question as just plain silly. Yet, I face the facts. I am here, I am applying myself, I am super busy.

I have two jobs, one at my internship and the other at Six Flags. I haven’t yet directly mentioned the theme park for reasons of censorship, but I feel comfortable enough now. It keeps me so busy lately and I feel like most of my free time is spent preparing for it or winding down from it. This weekend is my first weekend free to myself in over a month and it feels really good so far.

My job at the park is with the Batman show. I am a stage technician and I am in charge of helping the actors with their costumes as well as cleaning and preparing props and the stage for shows. It’s a physically intensive job and very good for me in that sense because I am so lazy about working out. As much as I don’t enjoy the low pay, I know this job is benefiting me physically. It also puts me in a social situation of working with lots of people, which I’m not used to being that I’ve been working with computers for so long.

During the show, I have such responsibilities as changing Batman costumes, Batgirl costumes, and starting some vehicles. There are so many different little things going on but I’d rather not bore you with the details.

As enjoyable as this summer job is, I am hoping that sooner than later I can find something suitable for me in the music field. My internship isn’t going to guarantee me a job, only experience. So I now begin my journey of establishing another source of income designing web pages as well as trying to continue to network with people in the industry. Being in it for yourself is very difficult when you don’t know many people, and being shy on top of all of that hinders my chances. I hope I learn how to make it happen soon because I am so ready to continue with this chapter of my life. It’s exciting, there’s much potential and I can’t wait to see what happens next!