I began this blog exactly one year ago, and since then I have used it pretty much as I intended: sharing creative resources, anecdotes, embarrassing stories, and documenting events throughout the year.
It has been a good creative outlet for me and I'd like to find more ways this year to fuel my creative side. In the meantime, I'll continue to showcase my findings and fine embellishments on the blog. Hope you've enjoyed one year of "Letters From a Libra."
Based on data collected from Google Analytics, here are the top four posts viewed this year:
1. Why Do Women Go Crazy?
2. Poem By Mary Oliver
3. Hey, Jealousy (And More On Why Women Go Crazy)
4. Poetry Contest Winners Announced
I discovered Camzone when my family first moved to San Diego and I was still at college in Massachusetts. It plays live camera streams from places in San Diego. I used to look at it during snowstorms when I was holed up in my dorm room writing essays with freezing fingers. It provided me with a little virtual escape until my heart practically burst with jealousy thinking about my family sitting down by the pool in February, then it became more a form of virtual torture.
This time I chose to come back to the land of snow and ice, so I can't complain (just watch me try). I don't know if I'm looking at Camzone now more for escape, torture, nostalgia, or just to stalk the surfers you can occasionally catch a glimpse of in the water.
This is what it looks like in the frozen tundra outside my door in Massachusetts:
And courtesy of Camzone, this is what it looks like down at the sun-washed La Jolla Shores:
Maybe it's being around artists all day at work, but lately I've been having an overwhelming urge to create things. I consider myself a creative person, but I'm no artist. I have always enjoyed the less tangible "art" of writing but I find myself wanting to diversify...and not just wanting to, but feeling like a have to. I never thought I'd see such a quick decline of the printed word as I have in the past couple years. It's hard for me (and even harder as a relatively recent grad) to come across any jobs in the publishing industry that are not tech- or medical-related, and at that point, I feel like I might as well sell my creative soul to some big data entry corporation.
It's not that I want to become a painter or a sculptor, but I do want to be happy. I see a variety of people come into my office and what I've learned from them is that, really, anything you can think up is possible. I've seen a woman who is starting her own journal line inspired by her family relationships and her mother's artwork. I've seen two woman come in to discuss the outline of a cookbook featuring local recipes and artwork. I've seen watercolors painted by a famous chocolatier who started making candy in his basement and artwork in his spare time. While these people won't make the salary of a big CEO, they will feel better about what they do every day and be in charge of their own life and that's what I admire.
While browsing the "new book" section in the library a while ago, I came across a book titled, "Not Everyone Gets a Trophy," by Bruce Tulgan and I immediately knew what it was about: Me. Less specifically, it is about managing Generation Y. I have read articles about my generation (born between the mid 70's and 1990's), and how we were brought up to think that we are all "special." The title of the book made me laugh out loud because (and this is probably a typical Gen Y thing to say), it seemed like it was titled just for me!
See, when I was a kid, I tried all kinds of sports before my parents realized I didn't have a competitive bone in my body. I used to hide behind the tall girls during little kid track races so I wouldn't have to race against the fast kids; instead of hitting the tennis balls my instructor lobed at me, I ran away from them; and when I tried gymnastics, I stood on the springboard before the vault and cried. Then I cried even more when I found out I didn't qualify to get a trophy with one of those little gold eagles on it. I didn't think it was fair that just because I made (in my mind) a very smart decision not to launch myself over something 10x the size of myself at the time, I wasn't getting a trophy!
The next day, my dad came home with a present. I opened it and there was the little gold eagle and a female figure poised in a running stance on top of a platform reading, "Champion Daughter." At the time it could have read, "Champion Cry Baby" and I would have been just as thrilled to have gotten it. It was a very nice thing for my parents to do, even if it did perpetuate my Gen Y attitude that I was special even when I wasn't. But what the author of "Not Everyone Gets a Trophy," might not know is that while it's true not everyone get's a trophy in this world, everyone deserves a trophy for even the seemingly little things they do/are (like being a "champion daughter"). Spoken like a true Generation Y-er.
I began this blog exactly one year ago, and since then I have used it pretty much as I intended: sharing creative resources, anecdotes, embarrassing stories, and documenting events throughout the year. 
