Monday, June 21, 2010

Looking for a bridge over flooded waters...

Sometimes I feel like I am living in a world where I am constantly standing in flooded waters. Why is it that everything always seems so over done, so many times repeated?

Maybe it is the universe that I'm choosing to immerse myself in right now, but it seems to me like the creative arts job market is becoming more and more popular with each passing day.  There is no such thing as being arts-minded or inclined anymore. Both print and online resources make any skill accesible to anyone willing to put in the research time and work effort. With a promotion of expressing your personality so evident--from blogging, to Facebook profiles, to Twitter and all the way down to personalized desktop backgrounds and cell phone skins--the pressure is on for everyone to stand out, in their own unique creative way. What does this mean? For one thing, a world with a lot less black and white (which, for a colour junkie like me, seems like not such a bad thing). But on the other hand, it also makes jumping into the world of writing seem beyond daunting....making me feel too old while also making me feel too young...like a naiive little girl with too many questions to ask and not enough answers to give.

Learning the ropes of a new field is both exciting, for a curious mind, yet exhausting, for the mind of a self-diagnosed sufferer of ADD. So much information is available at our finger tips...but what do we do with it? What is important enough for us to absorb, and what should we let trickle out our opposite ear? What may be new and exciting and world changing for me, may be old news to the rest of the world. How do I make myself interesting to read while supplying information that is both knowledgable and relevant for both educated and uneducated minds in my particular field of interest?

By the same token, this is not the case for arts careers only. I think about professional fields like law, medicine and teaching especially, where the extra schooling replaces the unpaid internships but still does not gaurentee you a secure job position once you've been handed your diploma. Gone are the days when education put you a step ahead. Here are the days of doubled student loans courtesy of unemployment and brutal interest rates.

So as I begin my journey, I look for inspiration in everything and everyone. Recent advice from several people has always been the same: write, write write and do some reading and write some more. I am particularly reminded of my good friends LC and EC, and my mom, who have given up so much of their time in devotion to the passion for their future. LC, with her countless volunteer hours spent in classrooms, with high school teams, in the basements of churches teaching catecism classes, and so much more I'm sure I'm unaware of. And EC with her absurdly impressive writing resume which I am both envious and so very proud of. And of course, my mom, who miraculously managed to work full time, go back to get her BA, go to teacher's college, and still always manage to have lunches made, dinner ready and clothes ironed for us on a daily basis. What has this landed them, you ask? An acceptance letter from every teacher's college school of choice, a brand new career as editorial assistant at a Rogers magazine, and a career title change from underappreciated office manager to many student's (at many different schools) supply teacher of choice. And so I will try to emulate their success with their same persistance and perservance.  And despite my recent lack of effort on the blogging part, I will write until my fingers bleed and my laptop battery dies.

2 comments:

  1. liana! i'm so excited for you! thank so you much for mentioning, i am honoured to be a part of this blog post :) EC = LVS' cheerleader for life

    ReplyDelete
  2. awwwww, i LOVE this one!!! even though you didn't mention me :( what about me and my calling-in-sick for work and skipping school, ALL so i could go to the gym and then come home and do other things i like doing more than...work? is that* not admirable as well? you're right: this world really is* a tough cookie to crack ;)

    ReplyDelete