Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

so i came up with this post's title and it reminded me of David Bowie's song. that's the only reason why you're seeing this image here.
now that i think of it, i wouldn't mind listening to some David Bowie's but i think it would make me feel a little too nostalgic and i would end up feeling down, so better not!


there were a few changes this last week, although nothing really that BIG or of great importance in a person's life.

i changed this blog's name and the concept. why?
well, since my first (and only, if any! lol) zine ever is still cooking and will take a while to come out, i was starting to feel that it didn't make much sense to keep calling this my «My Zine Project 2009: the misadventures and perils of making a zine...». also, i hardly ever posted stuff about my perzine project, just a couple of random thoughts and bits. i mostly write about the things happening (or not) in my everyday boring life, so i might as well turn this into a more "personal" blog.
i'll keep writing about zines and books, about the stuff i get in the mail (though i now have the other blog to post specifically about zines i get in the mail), i'll share links about other websites and things i find interesting and worth sharing with you.

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there's a lot of multitasking going on in my life right now: 

- i'm taking e-learning classes on «Entrepreneurship and Business Creation» [blogged about here]. the first class was a bit more complex than what i thought, and that kinda got me down. not being able to read the whole class lesson because it started getting noisy around me didn't help much either. 

i finished the first chapter of the class and then had "homework" to do, which consists of writing about how and here i see myself & my life 15-20 years from now, what i would like to be doing in that future or what i would like to have accomplished. it's mostly writing about myself, my life goals and my plans (dreams?) for my future... and it freaked me out! the "homework" tasks are supposed to be posted in the course's private forum, so that the e-teacher can read them, and it can be discussed with her and other students taking the same class. for obvious reasons, i don't feel that much comfortable about posting my dreams and talk about myself and my life to a complete stranger(s). but i'll have to to it, one way or another, if i want to finish the course successfully and not regret the money i paid for it! 

at one point, i came to realize that i don't like to talk about my life and dreams/projects because i feel i will never succeed, and i also feel that one of my ideas for starting my own business may not be such a good idea after all, and i'll end up broke or something worse if i get myself into it. that is, if i ever get enough money to start it, anyway.

- i'm doing the TAW (aka The Artist's Way) book "lessons", and while i keep procrastinating on doing the Week 1 Tasks, i decided to continue reading the rest of the book, to get a general idea on the whole thing. i want (and need) to feel confident about this book, i want to believe that it will help me make (better) changes in my life.

- i've started a new blog, it's just another Zine Reviews blog!, no big deal, but i felt so excited when i first had the idea that i got down to work and put up the blog in a day. now i need to start writing about the zines i referred to on the first posts, otherwise it will make no sense to keep the blog online and go around advertising it out loud on Facebook or on the We Make Zines community.

- i'm sort of keeping a journal right now; i have been doing it for about a month now. 

it's part of the TAW's study: you have to write (at least) 3 pages of stream-of-consciousness longhand morning writing everyday, if possible just after waking up (in the morning, or in the afternoon, which is more my case), because it's the moment of the day when your brain isn't yet fully "active", the logic part of your brain (the dreaded left side of the brain). don't want to get into too many pointless details about this writing exercises, but if you're interested in learning more about this book, feel free to visit the official website and browse the official forums.

what i'm trying to explain is, with all this journaling-like that i've been doing, i've come up with some really intense texts. sometimes i start writing about something that's bugging me and end up writing about something else completely different. i always find this interesting and a little bizarre (in a good way).

- i've been replying more often to posts on the We Make Zines community. specially when it's a call for submissions - someone asking for contributors to a particular zine project. i wish i could reply to all the call for entries, i would like to be able to write more, to develop my writing style; to learn how to write fiction maybe? but, of course, not all the themes posted appeal to me, i don't always have something to say or a story to tell. and i can't draw or have photographic skills so that i can contribute with artwork, so i'm really stuck to writing and that's it.

* last year, i sent my first submission ever for a zine project; now i'm waiting for the printed results.
* i'm listed on a "worldwide" chain-zine project, and hopefully, i'll be getting to make my page around next month.
* i've edited one text for a collab zine about Mental Health, and i want to transcribe another text for the same project, just to keep my options open.
* i'm waiting to know the deadline for a collab zine about Relationship Violence so that i can send it my work.
these might look like some pretty touchy and/or heavy subjects to write about, but that's just the way it is... These are issues that are -or- were present in my life, and i've written about them, so i have experiences that i can share with others.

what i find harder for me about preparing stuff for a collab, is that most of my writings are handwritten, they're all spread around in various journals or notebooks, and i get a bit lazy when i have to transcribe them to electronic text versions. i usually find typos, small grammar mistakes and such, so it's a hard work typing it all into the computer. but that's mostly because i'm really lazy and i have a major tendency to procrastinate... Shame on me!

- these last couple of days, i've caught the shopping spree virus, again. i know i shouldn't be doing that, but i found new zines that look interesting and having the chance to buy them through their creators is something i really enjoy doing. i made one distro order, though, it was a new distro (to me) that i've never heard of in the USA and they had some zines that looked interesting and weren't expensive, so... it was hard to resist.

next week, i'll be getting zines i've ordered last weekend, so the next couple of weeks i think my mailman will be very busy ;-)

- this can't exactly be considered as something i am doing or have been doing, but it's something that's been on my To-Do lists for quite a while: i owe a letter to a female zinester in Canada (or is it Jamaica, now?), and i owe a trade to a Californian female zinester. i hate my procrastination habits, i'm ashamed of my laziness, really! girls, i apologize for this sad behavior of mine!

- last but not least, i'm still unemployed. like this is some really big news, really... I've stopped being so obsessed with spending my days reading the emails i get with job ads and browsing websites for job ads. but this hasn't stopped my from felling guilty, though. i just don't have the strength/courage/willpower/whatever to do that every day or to apply to every single "shitty" job ad i see. last time i applied to one of these, it ended up being a dead end, tricking people to buy things disguised under the name of "Telemarketing". now i don't mind getting a part-time job on a call-center or a help-desk, if only these replied to my applications...