"So this is the new year ... And I don't feel any different."

I’ve been listening to a lot of Death Cab lately, I just burned the missing albums from my collection off of my friend’s computer. The lyrical mastery has been an inspiration as I’m dealing with a strong case of writer’s block. More of an all-around creative block, I guess. I waste entire days if I’m not working. I’m constantly waiting for something. Waiting for some kind of promotion to happen at one of my jobs (Yeah, I had to take on a second job to pay the bills) so I can cut back down to one. Waiting to hear about more openings at the Peace Corps next quarter. Waiting to find someone or something that will help me fall out of love with the one woman I can’t get out of my head. Just waiting.

So what should I do? That’s rhetorical, of course. No one but me can answer that. There are steps I can take to move forward with some of the situations I’m in. I could start applying for higher-paying, career-oriented jobs. But I’d feel guilty working somewhere for a few months, getting all that training done, and then just peacing out – pun intended.

When Ampersand was completed, I got it copyrighted and then began showing it around to people, most of whom had never read a screenplay in their lives. The reaction was positive, but I have a feeling that some of that had to do with the fact that we were friends and that they had never realized how into my writing I was, so they may have not wanted to hurt my feelings. I would love to find someone completely open and honest and just a little judgmental to read it and let me know if I’ve really got what it takes. Last night, I was at a film lecture series, and one of the speakers was a screenwriter who switched to novels because it was easier to get a book optioned for a film than it was to get a script made into a movie flat-out. This was an idea that Jenna and I were kicking around when I started my presentation preparations, and I’ve recently reconsidered this stance as a pretty good idea. Maybe that’ll be a project for this year; adapting it into book form. That seems like a novel idea.

I’m looking for a tutoring position so I can apply for education positions in the Peace Corps as well as business ones when they open up. I was slightly saddened to learn that out of all the regions I can apply to, only two of them have strict language requirements and you need to have a grasp of near-fluency of the native tongue in order to be considered for placement there. One of them is Western Africa, which requires French fluency, and the other is South America, my dream placement, which asks for Spanish. I took four years of French in high school and can barely remembers how to ask the time, so me mastering Espanòl any time soon to the level of proficiency they want doesn’t seem too likely. My second choice was India, but I discovered today that it’s been inactive since 1976 as far as the Peace Corps goes, so that’s out, too. Oh well, two more places I’ll have to visit on my own before I die. Maybe if I go to China I can visit India on a weekend excursion.

As the last six months have unfolded, I’ve been living an interesting life: starting and ending new jobs; making new friends and reconnecting with old ones; falling in love and forgetting old flames. It hasn’t been the easiest road to go down, but I made it to the end of 2008, and I’m ready to start on the next trail, lovingly referred to as 2009. I got a text message at 1 a.m. on New Year’s that said “To 2009 … the year we finally get it right?” My response was simply, “Let’s hope so.”