It's amazing how time flies when you're having fun. Or busy.
This blog has been left dormant for a number of reasons, most of which I will not go into on this forum. What I will focus on, however, is directly related to the New York life.
I just feel busier.
That's not a revolutionary thought. My new job is more consuming, both in time and mental energy. But I had a similarly demanding job in Boston and didn't feel as harried or exhausted when I came home. Similar job, similar commute, similar amount of sleep, so what's the difference? It must be New York.
The hubub of New York isn't just infectious, it's an unavoidable, overbearing burden for anyone who steps on the train platform at 7:30 in the morning. The crushing pack mentality, the evil eyes when you want that middle seat, the jostling trains (the delayed trains)-- all of that leaves you tired even before you get into the city.
Once you're there, the sights and smells and overzealous taxi cabs overwhelm the senses far more then in other cities. I remember when I would get off the train in North Station, I would go out and look onto the Greenway; I could actually see more than 50 feet ahead of me. Maybe that's it; maybe its the sense of confinement that midtown Manhattan and its skyscrapers and scaffolding and street vendors that make the body grow weary.
That confinement becomes worse when you get in the office. No one wants to go out into Times Square to fight with the picture snapping tourists and flyer-distributors to grab a sandwich. So you stay in, except on the rare occasion you need to run downstairs to Duane Reade for some gum or chocolate.
And then it's the same process on the way home, the bump and grind of people like me cutting it too close to get to the train. We all pile into the same car and fall over each other for the 35 minute ride home.
All of that leaves you exhausted at 7:30 or 8 when you finally get in the door and have to rustle up a meal and dispense with the daily household activities before crashing for the night. While there is likely a half-hour or so around that I waste away in front of the TV or organizing the pantry, I often value that mindless decompression over intellectual stimulation at the end of a long day.
It's going to be a real uphill climb when I start going back to school.
New Yorkers find a way, though, to fit it all in -- maybe it's sleeping a little less or eating a little more take-out. I just haven't found that secret Gotham City serum yet.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Wake me up when August ends
They don't call it the Dog Days of Summer for nothing.
To be sure, there have been some great aspects to this month. When the first day is spent getting to know your new colleagues, and getting in a laugh or two over a beer or two (or three...) it can't be all for naught. But boy, has it been close.
This blog is not for complaining, though; it's for funny and interesting stories about life in the big city. And here goes the ridiculous joke that is my life this month.
It starts with a phone call three weeks ago. As the clock ticks mercilessly toward deadline, instinct kicks in and I tend to pick up a ringing telephone without much thought. This time it wasn't a source, however, but John, asking me how my day is going and the usual niceties. I didn't have time for niceties.
"What's going on, I'm working on something for deadline," I quipped.
"Oh well I got a call from incident command down in Louisiana. They have a job for me down there, an evidence custodial position. I'd leave Wednesday night for two weeks."
"Wednesday as in two days from now?" I felt a little blindsided. It takes some emotional preparation to have John away for more than a few days at a time.
"Yeah, is that OK."
"I guess so."
What else was I going to say? No? He had wanted to go so very badly so I let him go and prepared to fend for myself for two weeks.
The first week didn't go so bad considering the short notice and the fact that we only spoke a few minutes a day. Work would keep me more than busy, as vacations wrapped up and I wrote for almost every edition. Come home late, throw something in the oven, go for a run, eat while watching baseball, shower and bed. It was a little stressful, and sleep didn't come easy, but I survived.
The sleeping issue, though, grew worse and that's when a series of events that would make the back half of the month slog by passed. Just a few days after John left, I went to a friend's birthday party that involved drinking carafe's of boxed white wine, trips to sweaty hipster clubs and smoky hookah bars, two gin and tonics that ripped apart my stomach and a 3am cab ride/LIRR ride home. No sleep there. The next night was an action-packed one with my mother, of all people, and a short sleep then too.
The week stumbled and bumbled along, long days supplemented by ready-to-eat meals and restless nights. And then came the adventure that would be the weekend.
(Here is where I would through a sidebar, if we were in newspaper-land. It deserves its own blog.)
After working late and gathering enough food to feed an army via trips to three separate grocery stores, I crashed out Friday night. The next thing you know, it was 4:30 am and time for me to get on the road. Destination: Saratoga.
Saturday went relatively well, considering the early start and losing $40 at the track. But once again no sleep. At this point I'm getting pretty tired, but I had to make it through my sister-in-law's baby shower and then the long, arduous trip home.
Suffice to say it poured all day. A three hour tour turned into a six hour odyssey in the pouring rain and nasty traffic. I spilled an entire cup of coffee on myself and my white blazer. Bringing stuff into the house was a challenge in the river that became my street.
I cried. Twice.
And when my month couldn't have gotten any worse, the LIRR caught on fire and 1/3 the trains were canceled for the week. The latter event's impact on my psyche doesn't need explanation if you have ever lived in a major metropolitan area.
But the good news is Wednesday is September 1. John is back, the sun is shining and maybe the fall will be a little less frenetic.
To be sure, there have been some great aspects to this month. When the first day is spent getting to know your new colleagues, and getting in a laugh or two over a beer or two (or three...) it can't be all for naught. But boy, has it been close.
This blog is not for complaining, though; it's for funny and interesting stories about life in the big city. And here goes the ridiculous joke that is my life this month.
It starts with a phone call three weeks ago. As the clock ticks mercilessly toward deadline, instinct kicks in and I tend to pick up a ringing telephone without much thought. This time it wasn't a source, however, but John, asking me how my day is going and the usual niceties. I didn't have time for niceties.
"What's going on, I'm working on something for deadline," I quipped.
"Oh well I got a call from incident command down in Louisiana. They have a job for me down there, an evidence custodial position. I'd leave Wednesday night for two weeks."
"Wednesday as in two days from now?" I felt a little blindsided. It takes some emotional preparation to have John away for more than a few days at a time.
"Yeah, is that OK."
"I guess so."
What else was I going to say? No? He had wanted to go so very badly so I let him go and prepared to fend for myself for two weeks.
The first week didn't go so bad considering the short notice and the fact that we only spoke a few minutes a day. Work would keep me more than busy, as vacations wrapped up and I wrote for almost every edition. Come home late, throw something in the oven, go for a run, eat while watching baseball, shower and bed. It was a little stressful, and sleep didn't come easy, but I survived.
The sleeping issue, though, grew worse and that's when a series of events that would make the back half of the month slog by passed. Just a few days after John left, I went to a friend's birthday party that involved drinking carafe's of boxed white wine, trips to sweaty hipster clubs and smoky hookah bars, two gin and tonics that ripped apart my stomach and a 3am cab ride/LIRR ride home. No sleep there. The next night was an action-packed one with my mother, of all people, and a short sleep then too.
The week stumbled and bumbled along, long days supplemented by ready-to-eat meals and restless nights. And then came the adventure that would be the weekend.
(Here is where I would through a sidebar, if we were in newspaper-land. It deserves its own blog.)
After working late and gathering enough food to feed an army via trips to three separate grocery stores, I crashed out Friday night. The next thing you know, it was 4:30 am and time for me to get on the road. Destination: Saratoga.
Saturday went relatively well, considering the early start and losing $40 at the track. But once again no sleep. At this point I'm getting pretty tired, but I had to make it through my sister-in-law's baby shower and then the long, arduous trip home.
Suffice to say it poured all day. A three hour tour turned into a six hour odyssey in the pouring rain and nasty traffic. I spilled an entire cup of coffee on myself and my white blazer. Bringing stuff into the house was a challenge in the river that became my street.
I cried. Twice.
And when my month couldn't have gotten any worse, the LIRR caught on fire and 1/3 the trains were canceled for the week. The latter event's impact on my psyche doesn't need explanation if you have ever lived in a major metropolitan area.
But the good news is Wednesday is September 1. John is back, the sun is shining and maybe the fall will be a little less frenetic.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Mental Gymnastics
To be a good reporter you need to know a little bit about a lot of things and a lot about nothing. But as I've learned recently, even learning that little bit can be a mind boggling experience.
I'll admit it -- part of the appeal of taking this job was the cachet of being a financial reporter in the world's biggest financial center. Yes, business in general and finance in particular can be difficult to understand and boil down into 750 words of prose, but hey, how much harder can it be than turning tech into plain English?
That was before I knew what plain English meant in SEC regulatory parlance.
The past two weeks have been a sisyphean challenge to understand the mundane and archane aspects of mutual fund technology and operations and turn it into something readers, and editors for that matter, can appreciate. It also requires a slight re-working of 24 years of right-brain thinking. There was a reason why I didn't take AP Calculus in high school.
Sitting at my desk fretting over blinking red track changes and the specter of angry quants and their prickly handlers dissecting every word, I had flashbacks to starting at the BBJ. Alone, nervous/neurotic, and without a clue what I was walking into, those first few weeks (or months) of a new beat are not necessarily indicative of future performance. But it's cold comfort when you write a clunker of a story.
Unlike prior experiences, though, I have some confidence that I'll find my way around this totally foreign environment. It's going to take some time and lots of mental gymnastics, but as a great professor once said "It doesn't matter if you're covering the president or the Red Sox, reporting is reporting. It's the same skill sets."
I'll admit it -- part of the appeal of taking this job was the cachet of being a financial reporter in the world's biggest financial center. Yes, business in general and finance in particular can be difficult to understand and boil down into 750 words of prose, but hey, how much harder can it be than turning tech into plain English?
That was before I knew what plain English meant in SEC regulatory parlance.
The past two weeks have been a sisyphean challenge to understand the mundane and archane aspects of mutual fund technology and operations and turn it into something readers, and editors for that matter, can appreciate. It also requires a slight re-working of 24 years of right-brain thinking. There was a reason why I didn't take AP Calculus in high school.
Sitting at my desk fretting over blinking red track changes and the specter of angry quants and their prickly handlers dissecting every word, I had flashbacks to starting at the BBJ. Alone, nervous/neurotic, and without a clue what I was walking into, those first few weeks (or months) of a new beat are not necessarily indicative of future performance. But it's cold comfort when you write a clunker of a story.
Unlike prior experiences, though, I have some confidence that I'll find my way around this totally foreign environment. It's going to take some time and lots of mental gymnastics, but as a great professor once said "It doesn't matter if you're covering the president or the Red Sox, reporting is reporting. It's the same skill sets."
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Allergic to Change
Another big life change, another bad cold.
I started feeling hoarse at the end of day two of the new job as I was scrounging looking for just one more source for my first story. Breathing heavy, pounding the keyboards while the clock ticked away, I knew this scratchy throat wasn't going to end well.
A week later, it hasn't.
I don't quite understand why every new situation I put myself in, a job, an apartment, whatever, eventually results in me curled up in bed hugging a box of tissues, or worse. It started with every September after starting school, with colds mixing with a nasty reaction to ragweed to make for a miserable first few weeks in class.
When I got to college, the annual fall cold turned into a September and January phenomenon. There I always assumed it had to do with the barracks-style living situation, sharing utensils and bathing facilities. The germaphobe that I was, I would clean and Purel to my little heart's desire to no avail. It totally ruined the usual first weekend of school revelry.
It wasn't until I entered the working world that it came to me that my occasional illnesses were more than just new people and their diseases. A few weeks after starting at the BBJ, I was just cranking -- long hours of constant reading, reporting and writing mixed with a spartan apartment and severely budget-conscious diet. (In fact, I remember my editor making fun of me sitting at my desk to a lunch of tuna fish and crackers with a Diet Coke.) Add in a long-distance relationship, it was a trying beginning to adulthood.
A few weeks later, I came down with a vicious cold. But unlike school where I could sleep in late or take long afternoon naps, there was nothing to do but drag on with this illness alone and under pressure to perform. So, miserably, I did.
Flash forward to today, or to be specific, last night, when after nearly a week of sneezing and coughing I came down with a gastrointestinal attack of epic proportion. I went back and forth all night from the bedroom to the bathroom to the couch trying to find a comfortable position and a spot to ponder my options for the morning. Would it look bad if I called in sick? Would it be a sign of weakness?
By 7am I didn't care about appearances or pride. I hadn't slept and would be in no position to be chasing down people who don't have a clue who I to talk about topics I don't yet fully understand. I also still felt wicked sick. So I succumbed to the stress and called in.
I guess the real question is whether its possible to avoid getting sick by reducing stress or whether it's just my body protesting change. I can't avoid change, so I guess the best option is to pound the vitamin C beforehand.
I started feeling hoarse at the end of day two of the new job as I was scrounging looking for just one more source for my first story. Breathing heavy, pounding the keyboards while the clock ticked away, I knew this scratchy throat wasn't going to end well.
A week later, it hasn't.
I don't quite understand why every new situation I put myself in, a job, an apartment, whatever, eventually results in me curled up in bed hugging a box of tissues, or worse. It started with every September after starting school, with colds mixing with a nasty reaction to ragweed to make for a miserable first few weeks in class.
When I got to college, the annual fall cold turned into a September and January phenomenon. There I always assumed it had to do with the barracks-style living situation, sharing utensils and bathing facilities. The germaphobe that I was, I would clean and Purel to my little heart's desire to no avail. It totally ruined the usual first weekend of school revelry.
It wasn't until I entered the working world that it came to me that my occasional illnesses were more than just new people and their diseases. A few weeks after starting at the BBJ, I was just cranking -- long hours of constant reading, reporting and writing mixed with a spartan apartment and severely budget-conscious diet. (In fact, I remember my editor making fun of me sitting at my desk to a lunch of tuna fish and crackers with a Diet Coke.) Add in a long-distance relationship, it was a trying beginning to adulthood.
A few weeks later, I came down with a vicious cold. But unlike school where I could sleep in late or take long afternoon naps, there was nothing to do but drag on with this illness alone and under pressure to perform. So, miserably, I did.
Flash forward to today, or to be specific, last night, when after nearly a week of sneezing and coughing I came down with a gastrointestinal attack of epic proportion. I went back and forth all night from the bedroom to the bathroom to the couch trying to find a comfortable position and a spot to ponder my options for the morning. Would it look bad if I called in sick? Would it be a sign of weakness?
By 7am I didn't care about appearances or pride. I hadn't slept and would be in no position to be chasing down people who don't have a clue who I to talk about topics I don't yet fully understand. I also still felt wicked sick. So I succumbed to the stress and called in.
I guess the real question is whether its possible to avoid getting sick by reducing stress or whether it's just my body protesting change. I can't avoid change, so I guess the best option is to pound the vitamin C beforehand.
Monday, July 26, 2010
New-sroom
When you work 10 hours your first day, and don't mind it, you know maybe you've found the right job.
That's how I felt on my first day at Ignites, a Financial Times news service dedicated to the mutual fund industry. Never covering financial services before, I expected a steep learning curve and that's what I'm getting: acronyms I've never heard, players and sources I need to meet. And a daily format too.
Yet I got a real thrill over brain overload, and even the nervous feeling of whether I'll make the 4:30 deadline. It's always hard when you don't know who you need to call, much less what you should be writing about, so the pressure to produce is tough.
But there's nothing like being back in the newsroom -- the smell of coffee, the sound of clacking keyboards, the eclectic (and eccentric) personalities. I genuinely feel at home, a haven where I can be my crazy, cynical, weird self. We'll see if the good feelings last.
For now, though, I'm exhausted. Time for bed so I can get up early, go for a run and be in early in the AM.
That's how I felt on my first day at Ignites, a Financial Times news service dedicated to the mutual fund industry. Never covering financial services before, I expected a steep learning curve and that's what I'm getting: acronyms I've never heard, players and sources I need to meet. And a daily format too.
Yet I got a real thrill over brain overload, and even the nervous feeling of whether I'll make the 4:30 deadline. It's always hard when you don't know who you need to call, much less what you should be writing about, so the pressure to produce is tough.
But there's nothing like being back in the newsroom -- the smell of coffee, the sound of clacking keyboards, the eclectic (and eccentric) personalities. I genuinely feel at home, a haven where I can be my crazy, cynical, weird self. We'll see if the good feelings last.
For now, though, I'm exhausted. Time for bed so I can get up early, go for a run and be in early in the AM.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
You don't know who you are 'til you know where you came from
I went home, so to speak, last weekend, and it felt strangely good.
No, not Albany (although we did grab breakfast at the Latham 76 Diner on the way back home) but to a little place called Buckton, N.Y.
My cousin had invited my siblings and I up to her wedding in Massena on Saturday, and as she was my first partner in crime -- gossiping about our other cousin our age and having midnight rendezvous in the shower at my grandparent's house -- I couldn't turn down the opportunity to be there. Yet it also was an opportunity to share with John a little bit about the side of the family he knows little about, and the side I tend to gloss over in the construction of my identity.
As often as my brother, sister and I came down to Staten Island to visit my mother's family, we visited my father's relatives with equal frequency. In fact, we might have spent more time "up north" as we called it, at least around the holidays, since it was my dad's preferred hunting and fishing grounds and my grandmother could make a mean Thanksgiving or Easter dinner.
But my grandparents both died 14 years ago, and the house was left to go to the bank. My parents split up two years later and those hunting and fishing trips were mostly solo adventures. Yet the dirt roads and farmhouses of St. Lawrence county still hold a place in my memory of carefree, video game-less days picking blackberries as the birds chirped in my grandfather's milk-jug feeders.
Yet as I grew older, those childhood memories -- and family heritage in general -- became a bit of a joke. It's partially related to the perceived state of affairs in the North Country; stagnant, overwhelmingly undereducated, drug-riddled, poor, forgotten. There are no bragging rights that go with saying your father slept in the same bed with his two brothers in a tiny house on 40 acres of land sold in pieces to pay the bills. Not like saying your mother grew up with Son of Sam, the 1977 blackout and Studio 54 in the city (although Staten Island has its checkered past as well.)
But if I was taking the 7 hour drive all the way to Massena to go to a wedding, one which I would encounter relatives I hadn't seen in probably a decade, I had to go and walk the roads my dad sledded down, drive past dairy farms my great uncles and cousins owned, and embrace the lifestyle that so shaped my father -- and in a smaller way me.
So in deciding where to stay for the wedding, we eschewed the generic hotel/motels in Massena and decided to stay in a quaint bed and breakfast in the little town of Brasher Falls. I didn't remember much about Brasher in my childhood trips up north, except that my dad went to school there and that it wasn't far from the old farmstead as well as the reception site. It was a beautiful old house within eyeshot of the roaring St. Regis River, and it happened to be across the street from a little Irish Pub that was the site of the St. Lawrence High School Class of 1970 Reunion. Over breakfast of waffles, I learned that the tatooed man from Texas staying in the room across the house was attending the reunion, and even remembered my father and his older brothers and sisters.
The wedding was beautiful and the next day we met up with my family one last time for brunch, and as we were saying goodbye my father handed me a box. It was filled with fishing flies, ones we were supposed to use if John wanted to go trout fishing in Nicholville, my father's revered fishing spot up north. This was the opportunity to go to Buckton, see the old house, and then drive down the road to where the St. Regis flowed under the highway. We got in the car with Buckton as our first stop.
Calling it a hamlet is generous, as it doesn't exactly have it's own government or even a sign recognizing it's existence. It has a road and a cemetery where my grandparents are buried and a lot of farmland both in use and long fallow. We nearly drove past it on first blush, before I saw the little street sign -- yes they have street signs -- indicating Buckton Rd.
I had forgotten how far down the road the house was, and how little there was to see getting there. Of course there was no cell phone service but there were no gas stations or police stations or even houses within eyeshot of each other. But after rumbling up and down the little molehills, I could see a large white farmhouse with a pool in the back and a little dirt road with the unmistakable name.
.jpg)
As you might have guessed from my previous statements, the large farmhouse wasn't my grandparents but my great uncle Reg, who died a few years ago. The Noblett homestead was at the end of the dirt road, tucked in behind Uncle Reg's with a clear shot to "the meadow" where my father deer hunted and us kids weren't allowed to play in.
I didn't take a photo of the old house, partially because I didn't want to freak out the owners and partially because it looked nothing like what I remembered. Obviously they put a lot of money into the old house because it now had a porch, metal instead of wood siding, double-paned windows and various other accouterments. The last big upgrade I remember was when my parents and aunts and uncles ponied up for a oil furnace so my dad didn't have to spend a week every fall chopping wood for the boiler.
But despite the changes, just seeing that little house and the green street sign filled me with a sense of shared history and purpose with the farmers and truckers and correctional officers that call this sparse area home. I can move all around the country, but as far as I know there is only one Noblett Rd. and it's up there in Buckton. It may not be my home, but it's home for my family just like Italy or Ireland or Norway may be home for other families. Except I vividly remember this one.
No, not Albany (although we did grab breakfast at the Latham 76 Diner on the way back home) but to a little place called Buckton, N.Y.
My cousin had invited my siblings and I up to her wedding in Massena on Saturday, and as she was my first partner in crime -- gossiping about our other cousin our age and having midnight rendezvous in the shower at my grandparent's house -- I couldn't turn down the opportunity to be there. Yet it also was an opportunity to share with John a little bit about the side of the family he knows little about, and the side I tend to gloss over in the construction of my identity.
As often as my brother, sister and I came down to Staten Island to visit my mother's family, we visited my father's relatives with equal frequency. In fact, we might have spent more time "up north" as we called it, at least around the holidays, since it was my dad's preferred hunting and fishing grounds and my grandmother could make a mean Thanksgiving or Easter dinner.
But my grandparents both died 14 years ago, and the house was left to go to the bank. My parents split up two years later and those hunting and fishing trips were mostly solo adventures. Yet the dirt roads and farmhouses of St. Lawrence county still hold a place in my memory of carefree, video game-less days picking blackberries as the birds chirped in my grandfather's milk-jug feeders.
Yet as I grew older, those childhood memories -- and family heritage in general -- became a bit of a joke. It's partially related to the perceived state of affairs in the North Country; stagnant, overwhelmingly undereducated, drug-riddled, poor, forgotten. There are no bragging rights that go with saying your father slept in the same bed with his two brothers in a tiny house on 40 acres of land sold in pieces to pay the bills. Not like saying your mother grew up with Son of Sam, the 1977 blackout and Studio 54 in the city (although Staten Island has its checkered past as well.)
But if I was taking the 7 hour drive all the way to Massena to go to a wedding, one which I would encounter relatives I hadn't seen in probably a decade, I had to go and walk the roads my dad sledded down, drive past dairy farms my great uncles and cousins owned, and embrace the lifestyle that so shaped my father -- and in a smaller way me.
So in deciding where to stay for the wedding, we eschewed the generic hotel/motels in Massena and decided to stay in a quaint bed and breakfast in the little town of Brasher Falls. I didn't remember much about Brasher in my childhood trips up north, except that my dad went to school there and that it wasn't far from the old farmstead as well as the reception site. It was a beautiful old house within eyeshot of the roaring St. Regis River, and it happened to be across the street from a little Irish Pub that was the site of the St. Lawrence High School Class of 1970 Reunion. Over breakfast of waffles, I learned that the tatooed man from Texas staying in the room across the house was attending the reunion, and even remembered my father and his older brothers and sisters.
The wedding was beautiful and the next day we met up with my family one last time for brunch, and as we were saying goodbye my father handed me a box. It was filled with fishing flies, ones we were supposed to use if John wanted to go trout fishing in Nicholville, my father's revered fishing spot up north. This was the opportunity to go to Buckton, see the old house, and then drive down the road to where the St. Regis flowed under the highway. We got in the car with Buckton as our first stop.
Calling it a hamlet is generous, as it doesn't exactly have it's own government or even a sign recognizing it's existence. It has a road and a cemetery where my grandparents are buried and a lot of farmland both in use and long fallow. We nearly drove past it on first blush, before I saw the little street sign -- yes they have street signs -- indicating Buckton Rd.
I had forgotten how far down the road the house was, and how little there was to see getting there. Of course there was no cell phone service but there were no gas stations or police stations or even houses within eyeshot of each other. But after rumbling up and down the little molehills, I could see a large white farmhouse with a pool in the back and a little dirt road with the unmistakable name.
.jpg)
As you might have guessed from my previous statements, the large farmhouse wasn't my grandparents but my great uncle Reg, who died a few years ago. The Noblett homestead was at the end of the dirt road, tucked in behind Uncle Reg's with a clear shot to "the meadow" where my father deer hunted and us kids weren't allowed to play in.
I didn't take a photo of the old house, partially because I didn't want to freak out the owners and partially because it looked nothing like what I remembered. Obviously they put a lot of money into the old house because it now had a porch, metal instead of wood siding, double-paned windows and various other accouterments. The last big upgrade I remember was when my parents and aunts and uncles ponied up for a oil furnace so my dad didn't have to spend a week every fall chopping wood for the boiler.
But despite the changes, just seeing that little house and the green street sign filled me with a sense of shared history and purpose with the farmers and truckers and correctional officers that call this sparse area home. I can move all around the country, but as far as I know there is only one Noblett Rd. and it's up there in Buckton. It may not be my home, but it's home for my family just like Italy or Ireland or Norway may be home for other families. Except I vividly remember this one.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Back in the Saddle
For the past two weeks I've avoided ESPN and its associated empire like the plague. Even though my beloved Braves are in 1st place and there is a quadrennial world sporting event going on in South Africa, I just could not hear one more word about Lebron James, the Knicks, the Heat or basketball in general.
I really don't like basketball, if you can tell.
You see, torturous decisions like Lebron's or Chris Bosh's rub me a little the wrong way. Aside from being disingenuous, they confuse the layperson on what the real issue is: money versus career aspirations. They know what their job is, to play sports at a high level, but how they want to feed their ego is a much more complex subject. Is it championships like Jordan, is it personal statistics like Kobe, is it being a cultural icon like Shaq? And how much money would it take to give up any or all of these? For Lebron it was about being with his buddies, and that so happened to be with Miami. Plain and simple, no need to discuss it at nauseum.
Mere mortals deal with these existential crises too. As most of you know, I took the opportunity when I left Boston for New York to try something completely different career-wise: nonprofit marketing. It was a bit of a push-pull situation; the world of journalism was starting to scare me and my particular situation was wearing me out, and the idea of working for a nonprofit in education had always tickled my fancy. I tried it and, for a number of reasons specific to the position and to marketing in general, I determined it wasn't for me.
So I came to a crossroads: do I jump ship now and go back to a career that, while mentally exhausting and not the most secure, I could say I was pretty good with or stick it out and try and find the right nonprofit gig for me. Complicating the matter was an offer to go back to reporting for a financial services trade pub-ish website, and the offer came sweetened with a substantial raise and sweet benefits.
I've never written about finance; my background is in technology. And I am a bit insecure about my rusty reporting skills diving into the sharktank of Wall Street execs. Yet the opportunity to go back and give it a shot, even if its something I am not innately fascinated by or comfortable with, was too much to pass up --- and I'll admit the few extra bucks made the decision a bit easier.
So I guess this is a long way of saying I'm diving right back into journalism, and I'm both nervous and excited about the new challenge. I just have to remember if I figured out technology with no engineering background or interest, I can do the same with finance. And if I'm successful, who knows where it might take me.
Oh, and Sportscenter's now allowed to be on my TV again.
I really don't like basketball, if you can tell.
You see, torturous decisions like Lebron's or Chris Bosh's rub me a little the wrong way. Aside from being disingenuous, they confuse the layperson on what the real issue is: money versus career aspirations. They know what their job is, to play sports at a high level, but how they want to feed their ego is a much more complex subject. Is it championships like Jordan, is it personal statistics like Kobe, is it being a cultural icon like Shaq? And how much money would it take to give up any or all of these? For Lebron it was about being with his buddies, and that so happened to be with Miami. Plain and simple, no need to discuss it at nauseum.
Mere mortals deal with these existential crises too. As most of you know, I took the opportunity when I left Boston for New York to try something completely different career-wise: nonprofit marketing. It was a bit of a push-pull situation; the world of journalism was starting to scare me and my particular situation was wearing me out, and the idea of working for a nonprofit in education had always tickled my fancy. I tried it and, for a number of reasons specific to the position and to marketing in general, I determined it wasn't for me.
So I came to a crossroads: do I jump ship now and go back to a career that, while mentally exhausting and not the most secure, I could say I was pretty good with or stick it out and try and find the right nonprofit gig for me. Complicating the matter was an offer to go back to reporting for a financial services trade pub-ish website, and the offer came sweetened with a substantial raise and sweet benefits.
I've never written about finance; my background is in technology. And I am a bit insecure about my rusty reporting skills diving into the sharktank of Wall Street execs. Yet the opportunity to go back and give it a shot, even if its something I am not innately fascinated by or comfortable with, was too much to pass up --- and I'll admit the few extra bucks made the decision a bit easier.
So I guess this is a long way of saying I'm diving right back into journalism, and I'm both nervous and excited about the new challenge. I just have to remember if I figured out technology with no engineering background or interest, I can do the same with finance. And if I'm successful, who knows where it might take me.
Oh, and Sportscenter's now allowed to be on my TV again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
