Retrospective
I'm looking back at the years of my blog here. I started out with indecisiveness and I didn't make much progress and still haven't. I considered going to med school but abandoned that idea. I thought about transferring to USC to get my bachelors in film and television writing but they only accept transfers once a year and I was so close to finishing my BA (in English) at UW that I'll be in my last quarter by the time the next transfer cycle comes around. So, I thought I might as well finish my BA and go to grad school, possibly for film studies (at UC Berkeley or UMich or UT Austin) or possibly for a masters in counseling or maybe midwifery...As you can see the indecision problem is still alive and well.
I don't want leave Seattle. I've lived here all my life, my family is here, my friends are here, I love the rain (I need the rain), Seattle is home. UT Austin has a great program in Radio, Television and Film studies though and I think I could like living in Austin. It's a great town, but way too hot especially in the summer and Ann Arbor, which also has a great Film and Television program, has the same problem with heat (plus humidity). Berkeley would be great climate wise and I have family there but I don't know that I want to commit to the fully academic route (a PhD in film studies from Berkeley really only qualifies me to teach film studies). Austin and Michigan at least have more technical programs (that teach writing, directing and production in addition to theory) but they're in Austin and Michigan and then I'd almost certainly have to move to LA to actually work. Boston University has a summer program for graduate students (in screenwriting) which I suspect wouldn't teach me anything that the UW extension program didn't already teach me but would certainly give me better connections for finding a job, but again I'd have to move to LA for that.
"We'll die with our options open" seemed really funny and appropriate when I started blogging but the indecision is starting to wear on me. I feel like I should have my mind made up by now. I mean, I thought the idea was that you spend your 20s fumbling around exploring and "finding yourself" and then once you reach 30 you sort of have it figured out. I don't have much time left if that's the case. I could claim that I have an excuse. I spent most of my 20s (age 19-26) being domestic. So, I kind of stunted my growth at age 19 and now I'm 7 or 8 years behind. However, I think the truth may be that I'm just indecisive by nature and will never be able to shake it.
As long as I'm doing a retrospective let me give a few updates. First of all the state of American cycling is shaky. Floyd Landis won the Tour and then tested positive for synthetic testosterone. His defense is actually a lot more convincing than I thought it would be. I know it was the same lab that leaked erroneous drug test results on Lance Armstrong to the press and I agreed that they should have been dropped by the UCI after that (when and independent investigation recommended it), but the Landis results seemed pretty solid to me. Sure, it didn't make any sense that all his tests before that one and all the ones after it would be clean since synthetic androgens are only performance enhancing over time, but I believed that he was guilty. After looking at some of the defense evidence (which they made available online) I'm kind of coming around. Doping is rampant in sports these days and, some people say, especially in cycling but I'm really trying not to get cynical about it. I believe Landis is innocent and I've always believed Tyler Hamilton was innocent but if they're not I still have Z (Dave Zabriskie) to route for. Hopefully he'll keep the sport alive here (in the US).
The PR monkeys at EMP are still totally laying down on the job. Nothing new to report there. The political spin doctors still aren't able to put the focus on things that the administration is doing right, but to be fair to the spin doctors the things that the administration is doing right are even fewer now than they were two years ago. At least I assume they are even fewer now because I'm not finding them even in the depths of the local news section of the paper anymore.
Television just keeps on getting better. This year there are a bunch of great new shows on. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip holds a special place in my heart because I'm an Aaron Sorkin super fan (and I have a little crush on Matthew Perry). The Nine, Brother's and Sisters, Standoff, Heroes and Six Degrees are all pretty excellent as well. I'm also enjoying The Class, Men in Trees and Shark, but I'm finding not a lot of people agree with me on those ones. There are also a ton of great returning shows. Veronica Mars and Gilmore Girls are on back to back now thanks to the merger of UPN and the WB into the new CW network. Lost is back and just as bizarre. Grey's Anatomy, Desperate housewives, Bones, How I Met Your Mother, My Name is Earl, and The Office are all back and I hear that Scrubs and The Loop will both be back as well sometime around mid-season. It's a really great time to be a television connoisseur.
So, in my two years here I haven't gotten any more decisive, spin hasn't gotten any more focused or more convincing and American cycling keeps taking hits. I'm still optimistic, but I think that's even more ingrained in my nature than indecision.
I don't want leave Seattle. I've lived here all my life, my family is here, my friends are here, I love the rain (I need the rain), Seattle is home. UT Austin has a great program in Radio, Television and Film studies though and I think I could like living in Austin. It's a great town, but way too hot especially in the summer and Ann Arbor, which also has a great Film and Television program, has the same problem with heat (plus humidity). Berkeley would be great climate wise and I have family there but I don't know that I want to commit to the fully academic route (a PhD in film studies from Berkeley really only qualifies me to teach film studies). Austin and Michigan at least have more technical programs (that teach writing, directing and production in addition to theory) but they're in Austin and Michigan and then I'd almost certainly have to move to LA to actually work. Boston University has a summer program for graduate students (in screenwriting) which I suspect wouldn't teach me anything that the UW extension program didn't already teach me but would certainly give me better connections for finding a job, but again I'd have to move to LA for that.
"We'll die with our options open" seemed really funny and appropriate when I started blogging but the indecision is starting to wear on me. I feel like I should have my mind made up by now. I mean, I thought the idea was that you spend your 20s fumbling around exploring and "finding yourself" and then once you reach 30 you sort of have it figured out. I don't have much time left if that's the case. I could claim that I have an excuse. I spent most of my 20s (age 19-26) being domestic. So, I kind of stunted my growth at age 19 and now I'm 7 or 8 years behind. However, I think the truth may be that I'm just indecisive by nature and will never be able to shake it.
As long as I'm doing a retrospective let me give a few updates. First of all the state of American cycling is shaky. Floyd Landis won the Tour and then tested positive for synthetic testosterone. His defense is actually a lot more convincing than I thought it would be. I know it was the same lab that leaked erroneous drug test results on Lance Armstrong to the press and I agreed that they should have been dropped by the UCI after that (when and independent investigation recommended it), but the Landis results seemed pretty solid to me. Sure, it didn't make any sense that all his tests before that one and all the ones after it would be clean since synthetic androgens are only performance enhancing over time, but I believed that he was guilty. After looking at some of the defense evidence (which they made available online) I'm kind of coming around. Doping is rampant in sports these days and, some people say, especially in cycling but I'm really trying not to get cynical about it. I believe Landis is innocent and I've always believed Tyler Hamilton was innocent but if they're not I still have Z (Dave Zabriskie) to route for. Hopefully he'll keep the sport alive here (in the US).
The PR monkeys at EMP are still totally laying down on the job. Nothing new to report there. The political spin doctors still aren't able to put the focus on things that the administration is doing right, but to be fair to the spin doctors the things that the administration is doing right are even fewer now than they were two years ago. At least I assume they are even fewer now because I'm not finding them even in the depths of the local news section of the paper anymore.
Television just keeps on getting better. This year there are a bunch of great new shows on. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip holds a special place in my heart because I'm an Aaron Sorkin super fan (and I have a little crush on Matthew Perry). The Nine, Brother's and Sisters, Standoff, Heroes and Six Degrees are all pretty excellent as well. I'm also enjoying The Class, Men in Trees and Shark, but I'm finding not a lot of people agree with me on those ones. There are also a ton of great returning shows. Veronica Mars and Gilmore Girls are on back to back now thanks to the merger of UPN and the WB into the new CW network. Lost is back and just as bizarre. Grey's Anatomy, Desperate housewives, Bones, How I Met Your Mother, My Name is Earl, and The Office are all back and I hear that Scrubs and The Loop will both be back as well sometime around mid-season. It's a really great time to be a television connoisseur.
So, in my two years here I haven't gotten any more decisive, spin hasn't gotten any more focused or more convincing and American cycling keeps taking hits. I'm still optimistic, but I think that's even more ingrained in my nature than indecision.
posted by Beth at
9:07 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home