Top Favorites

At LLR I started a Clip-of-the-Day sort of thing where I post a clip on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites of one our animation studios' newest things that I like.

Yesterday I was really loving this one from Framestore:
Volkswagen Polo 'Dog'








and today's clip from LAIKA:
M&M's Taste

You have to go to the top, click on Reels, then Show Reel, then in the top Right you will see a Blue M&M. Click on it. It's too funny.

Let me know what you think. I've got a couple lined up in my mind for next weeks clips...

Swimming.

So far working at Liz Laine Reps has been really freeing. Literally. Today I got let out three hours early due to a phone and Internet problem. But, even if I was still there it would be great. Working in an environment with just a few others around truly affords the hard to come by visibility that's really difficult to access in a big corporate environment. Already I've been able to meet the creative team from DDB Chicago and have scheduled screenings and trips to other advertising agencies, along with introducing myself to our roster of animators and directors. Really I'm just jumping into the thick of it and hoping I won't make a mess of things, but actually will exceed expectation.

And, it's helpful to check in with friends, too, who are diving deeply into their chosen life-for-the-moment. Here's a quote from Paul's blog that he practically never posts on, hence the title of the post: "I haven't Posted Since my Birthday."

"nothing else that needs to be said except life is predictable but at the same time full of surprises. i am learning to give all i can in the situation that i am in, and when it is over, i can move forward knowing that i did what i was supposed to do."

We Should All Be Jacks

Periodically I am vain and re-read my past posts. I think I like to check in with myself to make sure I'm not just the sounding board. However, I feel like I have been. In reading the post "Compiling the List of Yesteryear" I left the list with the possibility of gaining a position with Teach For America (TFA) and/or going to Graduate or Law School, slash getting a job.

In another previous post I mentioned that I had gotten my heart broken by various jobs and interviewees at not being selected to work at their organization, company or publication. Unfortunately for both me and TFA (yeah, I said it), I did not get the position to be the Public Affairs Coordinator. Though I would have killed at it, apparently I wasn't a "right fit." Upon asking how I could have strengthened my position or what I was missing or what they wanted and I somehow didn't deliver, they said, "No comment." This, I fear, has become a regular response from the dumper in these short-lived relationships. I've never really been privy to being in little week to month-long relationships, so I a. didn't realize I had been dumped and b. definitely didn't know how to react. My natural response was to ask why, and I guess it makes sense why they don't want to relive their thought-process. I'm convinced that for every job I didn't get over the last year, I am, indeed, the one that got away.

But, alas, I digress — going back to past posts.

I would like to say that in everything I have ever written on this blog I am and will continue to be 100 percent candid. This has, I think, gotten me in trouble, hence making the blog private. For your eyes only. The trouble with being so truthful though, is you see my direct stream of conscience. In re-reading posts I am afraid that I sound like a flake. Bouncing from idea to idea, grad to law to advertising to PR and public service to this, that and the other thing, somehow landing in a cubicle amidst the mayhem — I'm sorry.

It should also be noted that I view myself as a Jack of All Trades, as narcissistic as that may sound, which is why I jump around. I think it's an exceedingly good thing to jump around though. At this time in most of our young lives, we don't have real obligation, we don't have real needs, we just need a roof, a blanket, some food and livelihood, when it comes down to it. So, I suppose, I encourage you to re-read who you thought you were going to be last year, re-think who you are now, and make a list of all the things you want to do. (Maybe even make an outline with roman numerals, and the works.)

What's scared me most in the last few months was the fact that I thought in order to live, to do what I wanted to do, I had to compromise somewhere along the way. Eventually that may be the case, but right now, no way. It may seem like we don't have the luxury of choice, but friends, that's all we have here, and it's awesome. The thought I had constantly rotating in my mind if I didn't quit my job was, if I die tomorrow it will say somewhere in my obit that I worked in a cubicle (maybe not verbatim, I hope), but it definitely wouldn't say I was pursuing my passion — and I couldn't, then and can't now, live with that.

So, I close now by saying I still have real goals and real hopes and real things I'm pursuing, but they will change, and I will too. Graduate school or law school, living abroad, traveling often, making and donating money, giving my time, owning my life, and walking with my friends and God, learning from experience, and watching in excited anticipation for the world to throw unexpected things my way, but might be just the ticket at that very moment. I can't wait for the next exciting thing to happen, and right now I am hopeful that I'm walking more in its direct path, rather than darting left and right.

Wisdom & Working

"They weren't born like that, you know. The self-made millionaires, the now-famous who started with nothing...They learned the skills that brought them to the top, then they practiced, and through practice they changed their behavior — and their behavior made them different people; wholly different. You can be different too — any way you want to be..."

-originally from paragon-athletics

I read this in an e-mail a good friend sent to me about a month ago. Since then I have tacked it up in a cubicle, carried it around as a bookmark (in my Personal History book) and read it nearly a hundred times. It helps me.

The thing is, I've realized that through keeping an on-going list of all the books I've read this year that my most enjoyable have all been either autobiographies or biographies. Even the fiction works I've read all fall into a sort of realistic fiction where something reads as if it could have happened. But, what's more important is that it's through seeing my enjoyment in reading real-life stories that I've come to want to live a life worthy of recounting (slash I've always wanted that, just affirmation). It seems unfortunate to me that many people lead lives that (perhaps I unfairly judge) seem mundane to me. There's a sort of rhythm to life I've noticed as evidence in taking the Chicago Metra train to work every day. People sit in the same spots, wear the same self-given or office-given uniform and talk about their lives by the copy machine, how their significant other is being difficult, how they wish they could take off the afternoon, skip out early on a whim and go on a trip to Lake Geneva. I never wanted the pinnacle of my day to be leaving work.

See, I figure if you're going to be somewhere for 40 to 60 hours per week, you should like it. Maybe that's a development akin to recent years of easy-living for the under 30s, but I don't care. Why shouldn't you like your life away from and at the workplace? It seems a bizarre notion that every day, in order to be productive, has to be recounted in an excel spreadsheet with a regimen that looks, feels and is exactly the same.

Fortunately for me, I've been able to surround myself with people that have higher hopes, and more so, expectations than that — and even still the ability to carry out those passions. Thankfully after sending out an e-mail letting friends know I was leaving behind Cubicle City for some fresh air, I didn't receive any "Are you insane?" messages back. That's just a testament to good friends, good character and like-mindedness, that unfortunately many aren't accustomed to.

History (see autobiographies and biographies) has time-and-again proved that real success doesn't come from sitting on the sidelines. Waiting out the big dogs. Or sitting in a cubicle waiting for someone to give you the go-ahead. I don't want to keep my head down and act natural. There's something to be said for biding your time, but there's also something to be said for knowing what you want, and knowing what you don't want. And if you can be decisive, then be that.