Another Starting Point

An all too familiar routine. I am up again at 3 am after a long morning, noon, night, and ultra early morning of searching for the missing pieces that will make the puzzling vision of my life a whole picture. Yesterday, I made one minute step (or rather just began to lift my leg) towards the direction of a glamorized perspective I have created of my future. In many ways it was more like a step backwards, however, the different direction I feel I need to survive none the less.

By now I am sure you are curious what I did, or not, considering how uneventful and subsequently uninteresting my life has been up until this point. I don't mind sharing regardless. I essentially walked some steps I have walked before by applying to the JC I graduated from a whole 7 years ago (WOW) although this time I have a better objective in mind rather than simply going to take classes that will allow me to be eligible to play ball and eventually get a bachelors degree in something some day.

Despite the event I refer to as "the devastation" (not referencing that Jersey Shore atrocity with what would make for an awesome alias btw), I have found that what doesn't kill me, often makes me really mad in addition to possibly stronger (but who really knows anyways when all I can think about is how the thing that didn't kill me just shouldn't have happened at all).

So this is what happened...A few months ago I spent an awesomely tumultuous trip to Europe with my Mum. It was filled with emotional ups and downs as well as an actual roller coaster for kicks. During these 8 days my mom and I found ourselves walking the thin line (hold up...Sidebar: watching Miami Vice and shaking my head at this most ridiculous gun fight on the planet...did he really think his gun was going to stop the other bullets? *smh* where was I...oh yes) we found ourselves walking the thin line between love and hate's bff, misunderstanding.

On our trip we did what travelers do. We got lost. We got excited when we found our way. We argued in frustration. We hugged in reconciliation. We repeated ourselves in English to the English (apparently each of our versions of the same language is difficult for the other to understand). We said "parlez vous anglais?" to the French. And we took pictures. Lots of them.

Fortunately we had lots of ways to take pictures as well. My mom had her cell phone that surprisingly took some Conde Nast worthy shots (if you know her, you've seen them), and in addition to my phone I was loaded down with a dated digital Kodak camera and my bros Phoenix P-5000, a wonderful little 35 mm that I thought I had a clue how to use and found that I needed quite a few more clues to use it properly. I planned to imprision those memories one way or another.

Long story short, I had an old Kodak 35mm hand-me-down camera from my grandfather that I used to take some note worthy pics at my friends' weddings several years ago after which I deemed myself pro quality and the camera deemed itself dysfunctional. I soon found out that my bros camera was quite different from my slighly archaic one and I didn't even know how to load the dang thing. At one point I caught myself thinking I needed to change the film after merely clicking the camera at and around the Changing of the Guards and Buckingham Palace for about an hour. That was pretty sad, but the true devastation came on our last day in London.

After yahoo chatting with my bro and figuring out how to load the camera, I encountered "the devastation." On our last full day in London my mom and I decided to spend our remaining hours there in a super charged site seeing frenzy before we hopped on a train to Paris the next day. Our blood pumping kept us from freezing as we scavenger hunted various notable locations. We took pictures of Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, ourselves in Red Phone Booths and Double Decker buses, the spectacular Tower Bridge (once we found out that was what we wanted to see rather than the far less than spectacular London Bridge), Marble Arch, and of course what I would consider Ozwald Boatang's "Suit Gallery" on Savile Row.

After Tower Bridge my freezing fingers attempted to wind the film up to replace it with a new roll. As I wound I heard a repetitive clicking noise and felt the tension increase with every turn. I felt it wasn't right and when the film and confetti like bits sprung out of the camera when I opened it I found that it wasn't right at all. I wanted to cry, but instead I took the opportune moment to bite the head off of the store associate that told me I couldn't take pictures of the items in the store my mom had led me into (if it were YSL or Hermes or something along those lines I would understand the concern with the camera and all, but I am pretty well-versed in fashion labels and I had never heard of the ones in that store). With my film in shambles and devastation on my face, I looked at the mess in my hands, then at her, and after shooting her and deflating her audacity with the darts from my eyes I proceeded to ask her if at that moment it looked like I was taking pictures!

I eventually pardoned my anger with myself as I looked at the mediocre quality of the pics my dated digital camera had taken with my mom (camera's fault, not hers), and merely perused my memory for images of the pictures that would have been. I got back on the horse after another enlightening yahoo chat. I loaded the camera, took some pics, and unloaded the camera properly several times. I haven't used the camera since the trip, but I intend to use it a whole lot more. Almost took a picture of a beautiful cloud yesterday but the batteries were dead.

As of late my Career Catch of the Day iiiiissss (drum roll please....) Renowned Photo Artist. Not sure how long this will take to manifest or how, but I applied to De Anza College for a second time yesterday so I can take a photo class over the summer. I believe becoming this will suit the life I want to live. I am fully aware that none of my ideal choices are positively lucrative pursuits, but I haven't gotten to the point of wanting to compromise my belief in my place in a non corporate niche yet. I have visited the idea many times (even randomly took half of a computer programming class at one point), however the very idea of it makes my stomach turn a few degrees. My only hope is that after a few degrees I'll finally figure out exactly where I belong.

When has extra education ever hurt anyways...I take that back, those student loans are a bit painful :o/