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I turned 23 today (okay, yesterday…it’s currently 2:15am and I am a little drunk). I can’t help but stop and think about how much has changed in a year. I think when you are young you probably say that every year, but this past year has seriously been one of the best of my life. A lot of shit has gone down, but when I think about the main events of year 22 it wasn’t the stressfest all-nighters I pulled to finish my last semester, it wasn’t the emotional breakdowns of personal issues, it wasn’t the financial troubles this year has brought me… It was: friends and the experiences I’ve shared with them. Friends are the best. They help get you through those rough spots, they keep you on your toes, they help you up when you’re down and your family isn’t there for you, they are awesome. And I have made SO many new friends in the past year and strengthened the bonds of friendship between so many others. I am blessed to have such people in my life.

Some major things have happened this year – I graduated college. BIG step into the game of life. I got a decent LOCAL job doing something I love. Another big step. I have grown so much in my personal ideas and beliefs – that’s always good. I think I have finally shaken the bonds that held me down in my childhood. Not that I have anything against anyone in my family, but religion is NOT my cup of tea. I have my own spirituality and beliefs on what is “out there,” but I have decided organized religion is nothing but a brooding ground for insecure people to find something to help them through rough spots. If it works for them – great. But I for one think LOVE and UNDERSTANDING is what gets me through the rough times, and those two qualities are definitely lacking in churches today. But enough ranting on my hatred of church.

I think the most important lesson I have learned in the past year is how to experience truly great things just by being myself. We all have our insecurities, but I think it’s important to change the bad in our lives and to hold onto the good in our lives. And every day I have tried to work toward that goal. I can only hope that year 23 is half as good as 22.

I recently started taking melatonin (a dietary supplement) to help fight my acid reflux problems (I’ve tried Prilosec or whatever and it just makes me vomit). The problem is, its main function is a sleep aid (melatonin is the hormone your brain creates to keep you asleep through the night). While it seems to be working wonders with my acid reflux problems, it’s also seriously affecting my sleeping patterns. The first night I took it, I grew very tired within 30 minutes and had to go to bed. While I didn’t feel groggy the next day as with some sleeping medications I’ve taken, something seemed a little off. Almost like I was stuck in phase of sleep, except I was wide awake. Hard to explain. Anyway, the following night I didn’t arrive home until around 4:00am and decided to take it anyway. I didn’t wake up until noon. This is fine, except that I did have plans that morning and I slept through them. You would think this might have given me an idea not to take it anymore, but I did some research on it and a website recommended taking it five hours before I planned on going to bed. So last night, I took it around 6:00pm. I was out like a log by 6:30pm and I did not wake up until about 8:30am this morning. Needless to say, I’ve given up on melatonin.

…to try to blog (at least) once a week. We’ll see how long this lasts. I think writing is good for the soul, good for creativity, and good for relieving stress. So here’s to an increase in online journaling!

I’ve recently been incredibly busy with my job. For the past couple months I’ve been working my first full-time, Monday-Friday day job. I’ve quickly decided that Mondays suck and I’m not a big fan of Wednesdays either. But things are going well. I’m editing a documentary with my friend Ashli and we’ve been working hard to get it done in time for a film festival submission date next month. We started editing in mid-August. We had roughly 80-100 hours of footage to condense to a 2-hour film. Not an easy task in the least bit. And I’ve only edited scripted material in the past, so what we’re doing is similar to sculpture. We’ve got this huge block of clay and we’re carving and molding it into something that makes sense, is informative and interesting, and hopefully is somewhat entertaining. Anyway, we’ve boiled everything down to roughly 4 hours, and now we’re going through cutting out more and more to try to hit 2 hours. We should be done sometime in January. And then…I’m out of a job. Nothing like job security when it comes to my career choice!

I’ve also taken on the role of producer on my friend Bryan’s short film, Apollo. We’ll be shooting it in February. I’ve never produced anything outside of a television project in school, so it is new and exciting. I think producing is definitely one of the most stressful roles in filmmaking. I’m managing a crew of about 25 people. I’m very excited for this project and I think it will be a good challenge and hopefully I’ll learn a lot from the experience. It will definitely help me once I get to Los Angeles.

I’m also working as Unit Publicist and Assistant Editor on my friend Rachel’s short film, Nothing Rhymes With Orange (also shooting in February), and I’m also working as Editor on my friend Dave’s short film, Gib (still in production). And I still work at The Moxie (although I’ve decreased my schedule to one or two nights a month) and I’m still DJing with my friend Dave now and then. So yeah – CRAZY BUSY!

I still plan on moving to Los Angeles next year. When I got the opportunity to work on a local, feature-length documentary, I could not pass it up, so I pushed my move to next year. Plus, my financial state is nowhere near good enough to make that kind of a move right now. I’ve got a lot of friends already living out there and I hope to join them next summer. I think it was probably good too that I waited because of the strike. After the WGA strike ends (probably in February or March), the SGA and DGA will most likely go on strike in the spring when their contracts expire, so once all this madness settles down, I assume film and television production will shoot through the roof and job opportunities will be abound. I’m hoping so anyway. By the way – I support the WGA 100% in their strike. A lot of people don’t realize that writers don’t get paid nearly as much as they should be paid, and they work their butts off to keep us all entertained week to week, so we should all get behind them and support their cause.