The Present and The Future

Bit of an update on my life.

Still recovering from mono, I guess. I feel a lot better. My spleen barely seems to act up at all these days, so I'm taking that as a sign that my liver is probably getting better too. My blood test from a couple weeks back said I was getting better but still had a little ways to go. I have another test next Wednesday and I'm pretty sure things will be back to normal by then, although with my luck my liver will have exploded by then. The reason I'm tired these days is because I don't sleep enough, not because of virus.

I really really miss beer.

This semester is ridiculous, but mostly in a good way. My Digital Editing class is turning out to be about as demanding as I expected (strenuously), but it's still been a bit of shock while everything is getting thrown in my face. We only meet once a week for 4 hours, so naturally we have 3 times as much stuff to do outside of class. TV Production is the one where I'm just making a movie. This only meets once a week as well, but the teacher only holds class for about 2 hours. Needless to say, I'm learning a lot about self-scheduling and time management this Fall, something I've never been particularly stellar at. On top of those two monsters I have 20+ hours a week at the Bux and my Spanish Seminar class which is a huge snore but is about to get much tougher when the Prof finally starts assigning real work. All it's been so far is extremely difficult 18th and 19th century Argentine literature, which I haven't bothered to waste my time on since we go over it all in class anyway.

Anyway, despite having a mind-boggling amount to do, I'm really happy to be doing it all. This is definitely shaping up to be my favorite semester academically at this school. It'll be nice to finish up on a sweeter note.

I've been giving a lot more serious consideration to moving to England after I graduate. There's lots of good reasons to do it, and especially so soon after I finish with school. The plan would basically be to hang around MA for a year saving up as much cash as possible while applying for a 2-year work visa in the UK. I'd get over and try to get my feet on the ground with the intentions of working for either the BBC or iTV (preferably the former). If things are looking pretty good approaching the 2 year mark, I'd probably start to seek citizenship. Dual-citizenship would be ideal, although the U.S. gov't can be pretty crotchety about that. Still, I hear it's not impossible to get. If everything goes sour or I just straight up don't like where I'm at I can always head back to the U.S. after my visa is up and start again from the ground up.

I've come to the conclusion that I wanna try to do something ambitious with the education I've been lucky enough to have, and to do so I'm pretty much forced to move to a major city. Although I've never been to LA, everything I've heard about it tells me it's one of the last places on earth I'd like to live. I already know I'm not into NYC, although it's a lot more of a palatable idea than LA. Then there is London. Also not my number one favorite place in the world, but it does have its upsides; namely, the BBC is based out of it. The BBC is a company I've admired since I first learned of its existence and it also happens to be friggen gigantic. They have positions in absolutely every possible area of television and beyond. I feel like as a major media corporation, the BBC still has a formidable semblance of moral integrity, something almost every major American network has been unapologetically shedding for the last 15+ years (or never pretending to have in the first place). As a result, it seems like a great company to aspire to work for. It's well established, would offer a fairly secure job environment, and wouldn't make me feel like I'm selling my soul to make a living. It is, of course, an insanely competitive company to get a job at, but I don't think it's impossible for me to get my foot in. Also, some of my professors know former students that work there and in other spots in London in media, so I can get some hookups right off the bat.

I could stay in Boston and probably get by alright doing things I enjoy, but why not aim high off the bat? It's the best time in my life to make a huge step, and if things go badly, I won't be falling very far. Trying to do something like this when I'm 30 would be a much bigger risk and a much bigger set of hurdles to overcome. If I am back in 2 years where I started, I know I won't be totally up shit creek as I've already formulated about 5 different backup plans (some more desirable than others) on how to put food in my mouth.

It's a lot to think about, especially while I'm just trying to get through the semester, but I think it's a good direction to head in.