Thursday, February 28, 2013

The College Forty: Part 2

Let me get straight to the point: I didn't meet my goal by my birthday.
But the good news is that I've been eating healthier in general (aside from the delicious homemade cake-type desserts that I'm obligated to consume every night to prevent spoilage) and have been consistently eating less and healthier for lunch than the dinner-sized portions of unhealthy crap that I used to.
Instead of my weight hovering around 173, it now hovers around 170. I wouldn't be so quick to say that I've lost three pounds since a person's weight can fluctuate around two pounds a day, but the way I'm looking at it is that I stopped gaining weight and perhaps lost a minimal amount as well.

What I haven't been doing is exercising. Let's face it, it's winter and I just want to stay warm inside all day (also I had a nasty cold for a week or so). It's just harder to convince myself to get out to the fitness room when it's freezing outside and the pathway to the fitness room is covered in snow and ice.
Yes I could be doing exercises inside as well. Unfortunately it turns out I'm quite lazy.

My plan for the future is simple: keep working at it and trying new things until I find what sticks and what works.

I take full responsibility for this, I really do. I just like to look on the bright side of things.
-Ryan

Friday, February 15, 2013

Advertising Myself

The future is fast approaching, and it is still a completely blank canvas.

I've got less than a semester left of college before I graduate. This is the first time in my life that I've seen a dramatic change in my life approaching and had absolutely no clue what it will look like. I loose my job when I graduate (it's an on-campus job for students) and I've got to find a new and affordable place to live somewhere around my hometown.
I finally started working on my résumé, and I've been encouraged by a professor to use it not as a professional document that informs the reader of my background, but instead as a platform for which I can advertise myself, thus showing off my advertising skills.
It's incredibly fun to bend the facts and claim that my job flipping burgers has everything to do with preparing me for the world of advertising, and it feels good that a person who knows the industry like the back of her hand is assuring me that it's a great way to stand out.
But still it's hard to get my hopes up knowing that, even if I managed to get an interview lined up, I don't have a portfolio ready to present. I'm taking a portfolio-building class this semester, but the fact is that I need my portfolio to be finished and fantastic right now, not at the end of the semester when I'll need a job already secured.

Luckily, as you all know, advertising/copywriting is simply a subcategory of my larger interest and skill: writing. I've created a second résumé, a more serious one, that I can use to apply for jobs in the field of writing. It also feels good to know that I can, in a sense, fall back on my minor of writing for other jobs, but I never want my advertising major to go to waste, either.

It's complicated.

I'm both worried and reassured. I'm both excited and nervous.
All I can do is my best. All I can do is work hard to make this happen. To make my life happen.

Please, give me a job.
-Ryan