Looking around, jumping in

I'm still waiting to see how one internship application shakes out. But in the meantime I need to be doing something to get me moving forward. 

I'm at a place right now that doing a project for someone else or for a cause motivates me a little more than if I'm doing projects for myself. I'm in a static place in my personal life and that's spilling into my self-assigned projects. 

I heard about a freelancing opportunity near my hometown. A local paper needs photographers to help cover graduations and maybe freelance after that. I made contact with the photo editor and am supposed to speak with him tomorrow. 

I'm nervous and excited. I hope they can use me.

Waiting, hoping...

I applied to this amazing opportunity and am waiting for a yes/no.

It requires many steps and after advancing through two I was getting a little hopeful but now that I haven't heard anything in a while it's sending me back through waves of desperate hopefulness and overwhelming hopelessness...

I know that sounds really dramatic. I just want to make the people who helped me get to where I am proud, you know? So many friends and mentors ask how it's going or what I've applied to and they're genuinely interested. When I get that first gig I have a lot of phone calls and emails to send.

I guess it's just that I have been out of school for a couple of months and the job search has been a little bleak. I have a laundry list of reasons why I want to go out and work - but I also want to show that all the effort and time people gave me wasn't wasted. 

So while I'm waiting for this decision, I'm trying to keep my mind occupied. I edited and delivered a few photos to someone I photographed last year, finally looked at my sister's graduation stuff, and am slowly working through any other work I've been avoiding. 

Coming home to a full schedule

The last six or seven weeks have been pretty busy and not very productive on the job search front. I went through the entire test and interview process for a position at Los Angeles City College, took a video seminar, flew to Pittsburgh, flew to Phoenix, and tomorrow I'll be coming back from eight or nine days in Hawaii.

All of these places sound like vacation - some of it was I guess... I got to unplug my brain for a while - but I had a purpose for each event. 

Now that we're headed home, my sister Sophie and I will tackle fitting three people in a two-person home that already has enough stuff for five. I'm hoping all this productive energy will transfer into photographic projects. 

I'm going to PhotoCon LA next weekend and I'm hoping to be inspired from some of the photographers' speeches and advice. 

My "full schedule" when I'm home is applying to jobs and internships, preparing for the future, and bettering myself. All the "adult" things. I want to start from square one and make sure that whenever I do start my first steps I'm starting off on the right foot. 

All the work and practice I'm doing or could be doing is not going to do me any good if I'm going to trip out of the gate.