Wednesday, December 8, 2010

My Sudden Realization

I have been in limbo ever since my last post 10 months ago. My last update was so positive. It read like I had direction and goals that I was striving to reach. The truth is, perception rarely reflects reality. I wrote that in an attempt to motivate myself. Unfortunately for me, it didn’t work. I have all these aspiration I wish to reach and all these ideas I wish to try, but unfortunately, I am my own worst enemy. I overwhelm myself to the point of sloth. I over-think everything and come to the eventual conclusion that, whatever the goal de jour is, I cannot achieve it without some sort of miracle. And then I make the worst decision; I wait for the miracle to happen.


I am not one for making excuses. I feel that we all have the power to change our own lives into whatever we see fit. However, after much soul searching, I can trace my demise back to two incidents. Let us, for a moment, flash back to the year 2000. I was in high school. I was skating along, not taking myself seriously and doing the bare minimum to get by. Much like I am today. I cannot remember what the catalyst was, but something changed in me and all of a sudden I became an over-achiever. I put in the time and effort to take more challenging classes and boost my GPA, because I knew I wanted to go to college. Don’t ask me why I did, because frankly, I don’t know. Fast forward to 2002 when I got the notice from UCI that I had been accepted to matriculate there in the fall. Elation boosted me into over-drive, and I began to do everything in my power to make the finances work. And, to my eventual surprise, they did.

September 2002.

I was proudly moved into the Oakenshield dorms at UCI. I had said my last goodbyes to my family, and found myself staring blankly across the room at my new roommate, Adam Dorn. With my mind and body still shifted into over-drive, I set my sights anew. In order to make the finances work, I knew that I needed a job, and so that became my new purpose in life. In a matter of weeks, I was shaking hands with my new boss, Steve Speers, and agreeing to start work that next Monday. Though I was still driven to do my best, I found myself shifting down into neutral. I fell into a routine of work, school, study, and sleep. Four long, sometimes difficult but mostly fun years later, I was looking down from the stage at my graduation, facing the rest of my life. That was the first time in quite a lot of years that I felt scared of what lay before me.

I had a degree from a prestigious University and, what I thought at the time to be, a very bright future. I knew that it was time to take inventory and make a new plan. I was full of energy and felt like I could take on the world. In no time I had the next 10 years figured out. I said goodbye to all of my college friends, packed all my stuff into storage, and headed out on a month long vacation with my family. I was secure in the knowledge that, after taking a sabbatical, I had a plan.

September 1 2006.

Vacation was over and my lease was signed. All of my personal belongings had been rescued from the cold blackness of a storage shed and were sitting in the backs of three vehicles on their way to my new life in LA. I had taken theater courses in college and found a love for acting. So, like many young, naïve people, I decided to make a go of it. Without a moments hesitation I moved all of my stuff into a small studio apartment and again said goodbye to my family. I quickly found employment and was just three days away from starting my training when the first incident occurred.

Just nine days into my life in L.A., I was robbed at gun-point, 3 blocks from my apartment, in the clear brightness of mid-day, on a residential street, by 4 young thugs. All they got off me was my cell phone, but my foundation was rocked and I finally knew what it meant to be shaken to the bone. I feared every noise and cursed every person who did nothing while incidents like these happen in their own neighborhoods. I immediately went online to contact my parents and the very next day there was a U-Haul truck in front of my 10 day old apartment and all my belongings, many of which had still not been unpacked, were loaded into the back. All of my savings were wiped out in that incident, since I had signed a one-year lease and I had to cover the monthly fee on the apartment until they could re-rent it. I was forced to do the one thing that I swore I would never do, I moved back home.

My dad and I agreed on a payment plan of $100 a week to live at home and he, out of the “goodness” of his heart, allowed me to postpone payments with 0% interest until I was gainfully employed. Well, I didn’t get my first paycheck from my new job as a server at CPK until December, so that meant that I had 11 weeks of rent that I owed my dad on top of my current payments. When you have other bills to pay on server wages, a $1,100 debt took about 2 ½ years to pay off. My motivation was shot and my drive was shifted to park. I became withdrawn and unsure. I stopped setting real goals because I was afraid. I didn’t know it at the time of course, but I have recently come to that realization.

The second incident (or, the final nail in my proverbial coffin)

About six months later I found some of my old spark and decided that, since the L.A. thing didn’t work out, I was going to go to my fall back of being a police officer. I became my old self again and thought my prospects were great. After all, I had a degree in Criminology, I had no record, and my roommate from college, Adam Dorn (who had the same major as me) was accepted to the San Jose PD. Unfortunately hope turned to despair as agency after agency rejected my application. My life was shattered once again and I again turned inward. Two failures in a row were too much for me to handle.

Since these two incidents, I have done absolutely nothing with myself. Sure, I talk a good game about this prospect or that idea, but I have no conviction behind it. They are empty words, devoid of truth or meaning.

Here I am, at the end of 2010, and I have nothing to show for my previous 4 years of life. Just like the catalyst from 2000, I have come to self-awareness tonight. I use to think that I could handle everything, but now I realize that the thing I felt I am in control over is actually controlling me. I need to find my old spark. I need to not fear the unknown. I need to not hesitate from the uncertain. I need to find direction once again and take my life down a new path before this current one destroys me completely.

I don’t know if anyone is going to read this, but I had to get my thoughts out in the open so that I could analyze them. After doing so, I have come to the following decision: My priorities are going to shift and I am going to find my confidence once again. I don’t know where this path will lead me, but one thing is for certain, it has to be better than where I am now. I am not making any promises; I am merely putting my life on notice that things are going to change.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Headshots

It has been a while since I posted last because there has been nothing to post about until now. I just got finished with a two hour session with a photographer, shooting photos for a good headshot. I decided to take the acting rout for now, since I am still young and have little real-world responsibilities. I now face the exciting, yet arduous task of sorting through 166 photos to find the one or two that are just right. I will post the photo(s) when they are cleaned up and ready for public viewing. I had a lot of fun with the photographer. He came up with some good ideas that I had not thought of, and for the most part, they worked.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Christmas Spirit

Hello and Merry Christmas to all. I hope I don’t get in trouble for saying that. I say that because the spirit of the holiday season has escaped us all. It use to be that neighborhoods would decorate for Christmas, people would wish each other Merry Christmas in passing, and the spirit of the season would shine though. Here we are, less than 5 days away from Christmas, and it might as well be March. There is no Christmas spirit anymore. It has been sucked away and replaced by nothingness.


Why is it that we have “events” such as “Black Friday” designed to herald in the Christmas season, so heavily advertised in the papers, exploited by every merchant, and bastardized to simply turn a profit for the stores; and yet I could get in trouble for wishing someone a Merry Christmas? It seems like if you are in it to make a buck, you are allowed to exploit the “feeling” of Christmas. But if you are generally moved to wish someone a good one, then you face the danger of confrontation.

And it isn’t just the whole silencing of Christmas wishes to another that has reduced a once joyous time of the year, when people acted half way decent to one another, to a mere date on a calendar. It is the societal perception of Christmas. People become greedy, frustrated, withdrawn husks of human emotion whose drive in this time of year is to find the best bargain instead of focusing their energies on spreading good will and cheer. And unfortunately, it seems to be more and more the case that people are in it simply for themselves. The mentality now is if you buy someone a present, you expect that person to buy you an equally good gift. Come Christmas day, you open your gift and, instead of being moved by the fact that that person loves you enough to want to give you a small token of appreciation, you judge whether or not this person will be worth your time and money next year.

Just go to any department store or mall and look around at your fellow man and you will find sad, lonely, wretches scouring the shelves for the specific item that their relations and friends asked for. There is, no longer, the spark of Christmas cheer inspiring an individual to find a gift for their intended simply by the memory of the person they are shopping for. Gift giving, in it’s most basic form, is a way of demonstrating to another that you appreciate them and love them enough that you wanted to find them the perfect symbol of respect for all they do for you throughout the year. The sour Christmas mood has tainted this once selfless act and transformed it into an obligation.

In general, when I give a gift, it is usually something that I thought about. I think about what I know about the person, what I think that they do and don’t like, what sort of niche in their life I can fill, and then make my purchase. Sometimes the people love it and sometimes they don’t, but I know that I tried my best and hopefully that person recognizes the thought and message behind the gift. I don’t worry myself about whether the person will like the specific gift or not because I know that, even in this impersonal age we are living in, it is still the thought that counts. And that is the same reason that I don’t just take the easy way out and buy a gift card for everyone on my list. If they don’t like what I got them, then they can use the convenient gift receipt I include, go to the store, and return it for something else. There is, of course, the few exception, but in the interest of keeping this from getting too long, I will not go into specifics.

I have, out of sheer curiosity, asked a large number of people what is the one thing that they despise during Christmas and an overwhelming majority have cited the act of shopping for gifts as the most distasteful part. It isn’t because they don’t want to spend money; it is because they don’t like the lines, the pressure, the crowds, or (and this shocked me the most considering the time of year it is) the hype. When asked to clarify, these people told me that they find the holiday music annoying, the decorations distracting and gaudy, and the smiles received from the merchants selling them the wares as fake and tacky. Basically, most of the people I asked find that shopping and all the trimmings that go with it including the attempts to bring some semblance of holiday cheer, the worst parts of the Christmas season. Yet they suffer thorough it out of obligation instead of passion.

I want to feel joyful during this most celebrated month of the calendar, and yet that joy is getting harder and harder to find each year. So here I am, proudly wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, and doing so without fear of consequences. I hope you all find your personal joy this season and manage to dig deep and discover what Christmas really means to you.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Armored

Tonight was a decently busy night at work for a few hours. However, because they scheduled so many people on, I barely made any money. Since Kristina and i were off work by 9:30, We went next door to the AMC and watched Armored.

Though it was a fairly basic plot line with very little in the way of twists and turns, I still enjoyed watching it. Maybe it was because of the overarching theme of good VS evil, or maybe it was because there were some intense, nail biting action sequences, or maybe it was just because I have not been to the movies in over a month. Whatever the reason, it was fun to turn my mind off for an hour and a half.

Armored is not one of those movies that you are going to want to go out and purchase the moment it is released. In fact, I doubt you will ever find it in my expansive DVD collection unless it drops below $5. But, if you have a few bucks to spare and want to watch a fun movie, go see it. The interesting thing about it was that, in the entire cast of actors, there was only one female and she was an old lady from child services that saw about 2 minutes of screen time.

None of the men took their shirts off, there wasn't an overly annoying soundtrack, and the creative minds behind it did not throw in a bunch of little plot lines to distract you from the main idea. For these reasons, as well as a few others, I do not consider this to be a mainstream movie.

It wasn't trying to be something it isn't. It is a movie that knows it is not going to enter the awards circuit, or go down in cinema lore. It is, quite simply, a basic action flick that will keep your eyes focused on the screen and your brain safely tucked away in a blissful coma.

That is all for today. Until next time....

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

Welcome to my world

I had a decision to make today. I could either join the bandwagon and twitter, or I could start a blog. Since I hate the cutesy words "Twitter" and "Tweet", I decided to go with the method that sounds like some type of monster. Just saying "Blog" out loud brings to mind a dark green mound of mud and algae, covered in decomposing leaves and speckled with the droppings from a thousand birds.

So, without further ado, i would like to extend a hearty and sincere hello and welcome you into the twisting, turning maze that is my mind.

At some point in the next month or so, I am going to be in one of two places; on my way though the background and physicals of a police officer, or sending out headshots and auditioning for as many projects an un-accomplished actor can find. Either way, I decided that I will keep a running commentary on what is going on mixed with random posts about life, what I am thinking, or any other inane topics that enter my brain.

As for now, I am tired and wish to go to bed. So, until next time, have a good day.