An Education

"An Education" is the 2009 movie that made the adorable Carey Mulligan a star.

As it's a most convenient categorization, the film is a "coming-of-age" story about a 16-year-old girl who gets swept off her feet by an older man. She's raised in a strict household where her father has impressed upon her that getting accepted to Oxford is the reason she's alive. But seeing the value in that education gets harder when this charming older man takes her places she's always wanted to see and teaches her things she's always dreamed of experiencing.

But the film left me with two things:

1. At one point, Carey's character argues with the headmistress of her school. She asks her to justify why she should get an education in order to obtain some hard, boring job when she can just marry  Prince Charming and keep enjoying her taste of the good life?

"It's not enough to educate us anymore; you've got to tell us why you're doing it...It's an argument worth rehearsing. Someone else might want to know the point of it all one day."

The movie's set a few decades earlier, but clearly, a lot of people are having similar doubts today. When things went awry, as those sorts of situations tend to do, she again decides that getting an education will be the key to reaching her dreams:

 "The life I want, I see there is no shortcut," she said.

 Yeah, I don't know if I agree with that statement. If George Clooney pulled up right now I'd jump on the back of that motorcycle. No introductions necessary.

2. I enjoyed the movie a lot, partly because I found myself surprised at the way things unfolded. Actually, it was just what you'd expect: The man had a wife and family all along. So here's where I tell on myself: If this had been a Tyler Perry movie, I would have suspected that all along. "I knew it!"  I would've said. So why didn't I find that plot turn cliche in this movie? Hmmmm....

New (old) Music

Because all "new" music is old to someone, apparently.

If you've ever shopped at the retailer that employs me, you should know we play some pretty kick-a$$ music. This song is among them, I think. I had to stop what I was doing to go in the backroom and look at the digital playlist box-thingy that shows the title and artist. I'm weird; I've worked there nearly two years off and on. I literally hear the same songs every day and I'm not tired of them yet. How is that possible?

This one has a beat that just...OK, let's say you're talking to someone. And then you just start bobbing your head. You don't know the words; don't really care what they are, you just find your head nodding and it does this every time you hear it. So you finally go, "what is that?" That's what happened here.

Enjoy "Lady Luck" by Jamie Woon. Who? Yea, I've never heard of him, either.

I'm Failing

at this post every day challenge. Turns out I don't like many of the posts over at the Wordpress page. But the only thing I want to share today is how FREAKIN excited I am that I am going to see Miguel in concert tomorrow night!

You don't understand. I'm going to be thee nicest person tomorrow at work. He BET not play me like he did that night (about a year ago) when he was at this club up here and I paid $25 and he sang ONE song. If he does that tomorrow, I bet Imma catch him in the alley.

A Month Out

Hard to believe that I actually left my job an entire month ago already. How's it going?

Overall, I feel good. The act of not physically going into an office 5 days a week feels good. But then I realize, um...rent is due in like 28 days. That's what I've been most concerned about. Faith is easy to "have" when you don't really need it. But the level of worry I wrestle with every other day says there might be a faith deficit going on here.

I had an interview for a great position in my field...but it left too many unanswered questions, I guess, so I turned it down. I've had two other interviews for some shaky, unstable "we might have hours, we might not - you might hate it here actually and we understand if you do" gigs as well. I even got hired for a second part-time job, for a huge retailer that I won't name, but who allegedly needed immediate help in advance of the holiday season. But their instructions - after wasting a day of my life in training - were to go online and see if hours are available to be picked up....so far, none have been.

But the much better news is that I have started freelancing for my former employer! And on a personal level, I went natural Sept. 16. If you don't think going from almost shoulder-length hair to a step above a buzzcut is a big deal...you must be a man. 

I've started a new blog as well, one that focuses on positivity, which is what I'm trying to exude these days. Check it out: OfPeople.wordpress.com

Describe a Dream You've Had More Than Once

Topic #265 via WordPress:
Describe a dream you’ve had more than once.
Everyone has a dream, or nightmare, they’ve had more than once. Either write a post describing one, or explaining why you think it you’ve had the dream multiple times.
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Let me say first off: The dream I've had most often is not uncommon. But the fact that I have it almost every night may be.

My alarm is set for 6 a.m. I usually wake up before it tells me to, no matter what time I fell asleep the previous night. If I go back to sleep in that small window, without fail, I have a nightmare. And it usually consists of me being chased. I mean, I am on the run like a character in a major motion picture. There are recurring settings. Some are familiar, such as the house I grew up in. I never see his face, but the black and red striped Freddie Kruegger sweater and black hat are on the man chasing me here. Sometimes I make it out he back or side door and into the parking lot of the church behind the house. I never make it much farther...

For the most part, though, I don't know if these are places I've been before or will be, but no matter how many times I run and hide around the same buildings, houses, parks, etc. I know that I never get away.

How morbid is that? How do you die every night???


I found some random web site that offered this analysis:

There are hundreds of reasons that result in dreams of being chased, the major ones seem to be painful memories, troubled marriages, unpleasant experiences, difficult relationships, stifling working environments, unreasonable employers, financial problems, health issues, anxiety, depression and fear.
 ....Dreams of being chased by a person or unseen entity represent a personal attack against you due to jealousy, envy and a personal hidden agenda.

Do you have any other analysis?

Post a Day Challenge

I recently got an email about National Novel Writing Month, which is a challenge to actually write a novel in the month of November. I don't plan on writing a novel - yet -  but in order to get everyone ready, WordPress has been hosting a Post A Day Challenge.

Yes, I know I'm using Blogger, but I'm going to challenge myself to write a post a day using the prompts they post daily over here. I've been aching to get back to writing creatively...not the by-the-numbers journalism stuff I'd been doing professionally. Back during freshman year I had an amazing creative writing class where the professor gave the class assignments to write specific scenes, or just to free-write for a set amount of time.  Those were great exercises, and by doing a little a day you begin to flex that muscle and sometimes you see you're not as bad as you thought...Or maybe one of the prompts will trigger that novel within. The discipline of having to do something daily (or weekly) is another benefit, plus you don't have to worry about writer's bloc, since they have plenty of ideas to get you started.

So, anyway, if you want to take the challenge, sign up right here.

Happy Writing!