A junior again?

Tomorrow I start my first* day as an authentic, entered-in-the-payroll-system, key-holding, alarm-code-knowing, junior editor**.
*fourth actual day at the office
**Position permanence TBD.

I'll be working on who-knows-what in a dark cave of a room from 8-4.
There's one lamp, no windows, and a really nice computer with a decent chair in front of it.
The walls are patchworked with that paradoxical sound-absorbing foam; squishy and harmless yet threateningly pointed (like a pundit? no? ok). Despite that, I'll keep the door almost closed so as not to disturb anyone with the repetition one often hears from an editing station as different cuts/graphics/effects are tried and tried again. This, along with my terrible posture, should quickly turn me into some kind of a freakish pasty hermit.

I'm happy to have this job, and to be starting it with the New Year, so in the future I can easily calculate how long I've been there. I'm still not saving any lives, but I am definitely more interested in the work and paid more appropriately.
As a bonus, I heard about it from the professor of that class I took, which validates the investment only if I work beyond the initial trial month, which will pay for less than 2/3 of the course cost.

Now I should look to upgrade my previous job so that I'm not working 80 hours for 60 hours' pay.

I have also shamelessly stolen a debt-o-meter and added it to the right of this page so you can all play along at home as I hack away at my debt. Half of it was accrued by living jobless for 9 months in NYC and taking several trips, the other half by getting certified as a film editor and taking the LSAT + a prep course.

Normally I'm not one for the New Year concept.
Aside from the fact that it's fun to count down from 10, and that Auld Lang Syne is a great song to sing in a group since nobody really knows all the words, there's never been anything altogether special about it. I'm sure I'm not alone in the feeling that 11:59pm December 31st is a whole lot like 12:01am January 1st.

That said, I did a lot of cleaning today, some reflection, and I've even made resolutions for the first time ever. Much of my life up to this point has been essentially walking away from shitty things in the past, only to look over my shoulder at them and run smack into some new shitty things.

So here's to looking where you're going, even if you don't know where the hell that is! Happy New Year =)

It is Finished

Nothing says The End like a nice plate of pasta!

Editing class is over, and....I'm not sure. I think I'll only be satisfied if I get a job within the next few weeks and am specifically told "We hired you over the other candidates - and despite your distinctly unprofessional appearance - primarily because you have a certificate from NYU."

I did author a pretty snazzy DVD of the crap I edited, though I think its menus may have turned out better than any of the samples linked within them. I might circulate a copy or two to prove that I took this course (or at least that I went to a lot of trouble to make it seem like I did).

Now, with Broadway still on strike and no class to wake up early for, it's time to relax and look for an editing job and maybe a Spanish class, and maybe even start writing a book. [Now accepting book deals from only the most reputable publishers.]

Weeks 1 and 2 of class went a little bit slow, but Week 3 started with Final Cut Pro, the program I'd actually like to use to edit. The hours are starting to take their toll...even though I elected to take this class, I'm forced to continue working in the meantime (who isn't?), and the 80 hrs a week I usually spend sleeping are now spent - gasp - out in the world =(

I was gradually pulled out of sleep yesterday morning (after missing my alarm) by a foreign stinging sensation on my arm. I finally opened my eyes and discovered a 2-inch long burn across the middle of my forearm, manifesting itself as a huge yellow blister. It took me a little while to wake up fully and to figure out that I'd fallen asleep with my laptop on top of me...

I can accept that the thing gets incredibly hot, even hot enough to burn someone, but to sleep through the melting of one's own flesh? Had no idea that was possible. Makes me wonder if I should get a dog or monkey assistant [assistant that is a monkey, not assistant to a monkey] to prevent such things from happening in the future. That or I could go to sleep the second I get home every night, but that would seem a terrible injustice. Not just to me, but to you, my loyal readers. So know that I risk life and limb to bring you this limited and questionably worthwhile information every couple weeks.

Days 1 and 2 of the editing class have been mixed. The instructor is a decent enough guy, and knows what he's talking about, but...not all have been blessed with the gift of teach.

He's been doing the equivalent of teaching someone the finer points of grammar without teaching them how to write the alphabet. Fortunately, there are 7 other people who do not share my bashfulness (let my biographers call this fierce independence) and get all my basic questions answered. One is from Spain, one from Israel, and one a former producer of reality TV who "got tired of lying to people, telling them they wouldn't look ridiculous on television."

Quibbles aside, I get plenty of hands-on practice! I'm worried that, while I'll have no problem picking up the technical skills involved, I may lack the specific types of creativity required for this particular art. I figure I'll give myself more than two days to figure that out.

One last note, and this is what really inspired me to write for you fine people this evening:
There was a guy on the subway who was a reading a comic book tucked into...a different comic book. I believe Superman was the verboten material, The Incredible Hulk the facade.

You are now enrolled in:
Editing Four-Week Intensive

Fubar

This Friday I should be celebrating having finally paid off the smaller of my two credit card balances, which was about 1/5 of my debt (1/15 if you count student loan (1/17 if you count debt to family (1/untold millions if you count debt that you normally wouldn't, like cost of clothes and diapers and food I incurred while growing, especially if adjusted for inflation)))

I haven't yet decided if I'll be celebrating by charging 3500 dollars to that just-cleared card to take a 4-week film editing intensive course at NYU, which would be thrilling in every sense except financially, in which sense it is just plain horrifying (runners up in my thesaurus hunt were "appalling" and "terrifying" - to me, horrifying has that throaty, yet wordless, sense of impending doom that seems to fit just right)

Leave a comment with your thoughts on the matter. [Yes, I do realize four days' notice for a blog that's updated every four weeks, if that, is short notice.]