Sunday, February 28, 2010

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.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
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... 

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

getting ready to start an e-learning course next wednesday...


a couple of weeks ago i started browsing around and found a Portuguese e-learning company that has various classes on various subjects. and i found a few classes that look quite appealing to me. on one hand, there isn't much "utility" in most of those classes, when it comes to "professional" utility. on the other hand, on a personal level, those classes include various subjects that interest me, some of them that i was always interested in learning.
and part of me would really like to "get away" from the other things/subjects i've worked professionally before. i was getting tired before i quit my job, anyway, so maybe that was a sign that something needed to change. and when i started reading the «Artist's Way» and browsing the books' online forum, i began to think that maybe i really need to change my path, maybe take the next route, diverge a little from the "original" path. because, in reality, i don't have a career, so i don't have to keep doing the same things over and over and over, do i?


i've signed up for two courses on that E-Learning website, one starting this month and the other in March. i was kinda afraid at first, because the course that seemed to be most useful at this moment, «Entrepreneurship and Business Creation» was one of the more expensive ones from my choices. but after an online chat with an old close friend, he said he didn't think the price was that much expensive, considering the advantages of learning online and all that. so i took the courage and signed-up!
i didn't catch the first "season" of the classes, but a new course is starting again this next Wednesday, i have already managed to paid for it and now i'm allowed to attend the classes as soon as they start.
i hope i do well in this course and that i'm able to finish it with good grades or whatever they call it on e-learning.
after this class, i was thinking about taking their «Introduction to Psychology» course, because i'm quite interested in Psychology, i like to read and learn stuff about it. although, again, it's a totally different study subject from my highschool and "post-highschool" studies and from the various jobs/trainings i had, always connected to graphic design, desktop publishing, photography and such...
(after way too much googling for a suitable pic, here's this)


at the beginning, i had some doubts on how i was going to tell my parents that i was getting into an e-learning class, and how they were going to "accept" it. to me it felt weird, because it seemed like for the first time in years, i had made a decision of my own, without consulting, or at least, informing them first. i delayed the topic for a few days and then "introduced" it in a conversation, and they took it alright. the funny thing is that none of them ever asked if i was planning to pay for the classes myself, given the fact that i've been unemployed for over 2 months now, and that my bank account's money doesn't grow on trees.
i find it "funny" how people try and avoid talking about things that they're not interested in talking, or getting into a discussion about it. the money i spend on my "extras" always comes up when they decide to pick a fight with me after i get something from the mailman... But this time, there wasn't a word about me spending money to pay for these classes.

it's sad that when i try to understand my parents and why they act the way they do, i can only come to a conclusion that hypocrisy as become part of their "values system". i don't remember being taught that. or maybe they've been like this all their life and i was just too stoopid to learn it (fortunately for me?) or too blind to see it (unfortunately for me).

Friday, February 5, 2010

it's been over two months but...

... i'm still unemployed, yey. to tell the truth, it's not like i've been trying 100% to do my best at looking for jobs, but daily seeing pointless jobs ads can be a little too overwhelming. and i end up not "going the extra mile".
then, suddenly, someone [dad] had this idea that i should take a Photography course.
about 4 years ago, when i first started working/training on photography, i had told him i would like to take classes on that, because i like photography and would like to be better at it etc etc. but my "request" was shrugged off as being unimportant or making no sense. then i worked in the real world of photographers and studios and printing lab; this was my life for the last 3 years or so. and now that this ended, is when daddy remembers that i could make good use of professional photography classes. well, f~cking duuhh!
at first i was so angry at his suggestion, that i sort of pretended to be interested in his idea and even browsed the internet for local schools were they have those classes. most of them are way to expensive, at least, to my point of view! actually, he hasn't even mentioned who is supposed to pay for such classes. obviously i'll have decision power over taking those classes or not, if i'm the one to pay for them.

at first, i even thought that maybe if i let some time go by, he will end up forgetting the idea... and probably move on to the next thing to nag me about. but then i started browsing around and found a portuguese E-Learning company that has various classes on various subjects. and i found a few classes that look quite appealing to me. on one hand, there isn't much "utility" in most of those classes, when it comes to professional utility. on the other hand, on a personal level, those classes include various subjects that interest me, some that i was always interested in learning.
and part of me would really like to "get away" from the other things/subjects i've worked professionally before. i was getting tired before i quit my job, anyway, so maybe that was a sign that something needed to change. and when i started reading the «Artist's Way» and browsing the books' online forum, i began to think that maybe i really need to change my path, maybe take the next route, diverge a little from the "original" path.
because, in reality, i don't have a career, so i don't have to keep doing the same things over and over and over, do i?

now, the funny thing happened tonight, as i went online on msn to chat with an old friend who's coming to town this weekend. he's a photographer, go figure... After almost 30 years, he decided to change and follow a new and different path: he went to take a professional Photography course, for over one year. and while doing this, he discovered what he wanted to do. i was really happy for him, when he told me his story, over a year ago. and tonight, i started telling him a bit about what my (messed up) life is like right now, and since he was on photography, i told about my dad's "suggestion" to take classes on Photography, my feelings about the issue, etc. then i was looking at some of his photography works, from his time in the course and now as a freelance.
and now i'm so sure that i don't want to take, at least, some photography classes.
i never stopped liking (loving?) Art Photography, i was just tired of all the amateur photos i saw everyday. i was tired of doing the same things at the lab over and over again, without much room for innovation or improvement. it's true that i learned something almost everyday, whether it was on how to handle costumers, schedule deliveries, schedule my own time of work. and sometimes i would learn a bit more on how to correct or frame some more complex photos. all this thanks to my co-worker and mentor, to whom i'll always be grateful.
but it came to a point when that was not enough.
my brain needs new things, every now and then, if not frequently. i like learning new things, on the subjects that interest me, of course. if it's something i wasn't interested before, i will hardly like or even feel motivated enough to go learn it. and by now, at the age of 31 [gosh, i feel old!], i think i now well what are the things that interest me and the ones that don't.

i've signed up for two courses on that E-Learning website. i was kinda afraid at first, because the course that seemed to be most useful at this moment, «Entrepreneurship and Business Creation» was one of the more expensive ones from my choices. but after that talk with my friend, he didn't think the price was that much expensive, considering the advantages of learning online and all that. so i took the courage and signup. though this class is starting a bit earlier than what i'd expected (right next week), i'm still thinking of how am i going to tell my parents about it. it's weird, because it seems like, for the first time in years, i've made a decision of my own, without consulting, or at least, inform them. either way, i always have the chance to give up on taking that class, because i haven't payed for it yet.
the other course, is «Tourism and Cultural Heritage», but it starts near the end of the month, so i've got plenty of time to change my mind. i had chosen this class first because it was one of the "not so" expensive ones and i wanted to try something more "simple" to see if i could succeed on a E-Learning course. it's a bit of a silly idea though, because this course's program isn't that "simple", even if it has some subjects that interest me, it makes me wonder if it's really worth spending my money on it...

what i know for sure is that my mind is still messed-up at this moment. to much to think about, too many decisions to make, somethings to let go of and some other that i must take in.
discipline, commitment, hope, strength, all these and maybe more will be needed if i wanna accomplish anything in the very near future. where do i go to get these, who do i turn to?...