Most everyone else is comfortable starting over in the New Year. Of course, I have to wait until it's late April to really get a move on because I've always been at a pace slower than everyone else.
On the bright side, I think I've found a career path that I won't regret pursuing, even if it means going back to school (which I swore I would never do when I graduated university). And of course, it turns out that I'm actually pretty excited to be going back to school again, even if it's not a graduate program I'm enrolled into.
I'm about one and three fourths of a month into an unpaid internship at an editorial company out in downtown Los Angeles. The people are kind and fun to work with, I've been getting more acquainted with the streets and highways of LA - and not to mention the restaurants (thank you, yelp!), but the best part is, even when I work from an angle which I love (writing), I have come to realize that the entertainment business is definitely not for someone like me.
For one, as glamorous as Hollywood had sounded when I was growing up, the reality is that Hollywood is just a hodgepodge of gossip and a rat race to try and stay ahead with the latest trends. It's fun when it's not my job, when I'm just perusing through a magazine in Ralph's but when I have to be the one to research up outfits and hang-out spots and contacts for agents, I can't imagine a worse way to spend my time. Doing this kind of job for forty years and allowing my youth to seep away in the meantime and having nothing meaningful to show for my life when I'm nearing my death? No thanks.
Two, Hollywood has definitely struck me as the industry where you need to be actively social, and actively brown-nosing. Ain't nobody got time for that, unless you like this kind of thing. And as my brother said to me recently, "I think you're the last person among the people I know who would be into kissing ass." And sure, you might think, well, everyone has to kiss ass when they start, and then as they progress into a higher position, it'll die out. Not in the entertainment industry. Everyone is so entangled with connections and the need to stay on top and relevant that it's impossible to get away from it. And ironically enough, I had this epiphany while I was interviewing for two public relations firms. They were both horrible in their own way, but definitely eye-opening and worth the forty-minute, traffic-infested drive. Public relations, basically covering up for big-names and politicians whenever scandals break out, manipulating the media (in the way that I hate) to cast them in the best light possible.
Three, as a Communications major, I will be the first to admit that at first glance, the major seems useless. But there is so much I can do with it that I will never ever concede quietly whenever someone scoffs at my degree choice. Communication is the heart of human interaction, of society, of relationships, of the best things in life that are not things, of the fascinating mysteries of foreign languages, of culture, of history, of future, of the present. I stand behind this statement because I went from being lukewarm about my major into realizing the subtle but crucial importance it has to every aspect of our society, to people. So, like most other things, it can be a weapon of manipulation (see rant above) or used for good. And I'd like to try and use it for as much good as I can.
Life is always so shaky. And I'm trying to learn to see it in a good way.
