My goal for the weekend is to write the first draft of a screenplay about a man who is unable to leave his apartment; every time he walks out the door he reappears inside.
I’ve begun writing the treatment, but have gotten stuck when introducing the sciencey friend of the protagonist. I’m going to go grab a few ingredients and make breakfast. Hopefully the answer to my conundrum will arrive soon. I’m on a deadline. :)
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/node/45630
The picture that is emerging of Romney’s campaign is really interesting to me. This man thought that he had victory in the bag, but he based his actions on flawed data and incorrect assumptions.
This is why it’s important to view things accurately. Romney has been a winner for so long that he couldn’t conceive of a way to lose. This proved to be a fatal assumption.
I don’t have much happening this weekend, so I’m going to attempt to write a short script about a guy trapped in his apartment. Whenever he leaves, he’s redeposited inside, and time resets.
via Reddit
When I graduated from UNCW in May, the overriding feeling was one of relief. It had taken me ten years longer than my peers, but finally I had a Bachelor’s degree in a field that really interested me. When I was 18, I had underestimated how essential a college degree was to finding success in the world. It never made sense to me to get into so much debt and spend years paying it back.
It still doesn’t. It seems exploitative and unfair. However, as I discovered the hard way, a four-year degree is absolutely essential to landing a decent job. It doesn’t even matter if the degree is in the same field as the job. It’s crazy.
So I have a decent job, but it’s not enough. With the money I make, it will take me decades to pay off this school debt. That’s not even taking into account the time it will take to pay off my car. I need to make more money. My options are somewhat limited.
1. Side Jobs
This would be an attractive option if I already had a healthy client base and could charge a pretty penny. I can build up a client base doing videography or web development, but this will take time and distract me from focusing on things that are important to me, like creating films. I’d have to pay taxes on whatever I make, and based on past experience, when all is said and done I wouldn’t be making much of a profit. All the time and energy put into these side projects would be wasted if it didn’t help me to achieve my goal.
2. Make More Money At My Job
I just got this job. I doubt I’d be eligible for a raise for at least a year. Even if I do get that hypothetical raise, it would likely not be large enough to help me pay this debt down any sooner. It would help me to pay it down slightly faster…but in order to get this debt taken care of, I need a lot of money. I need to multiply my income rather than slightly add to it.
This leads me to…
3. Rob a bank
Ha! Just kidding. I’ve no desire to commit felonies.
3. Getting an MBA
Obtaining a Master’s Degree is the fastest way to increase my value to an employer. UNC Charlotte has an MBA program, and I’ve been thinking about enrolling in it, off and on, since moving to the area. The price is pretty affordable. I’ve always had an interest in business, and I think that and MBA, combined with my passion for film would put me in the position to make a lot more money. It would also help me to gain the knowledge I need to start my own business someday.
I’ve been pondering the idea, but within the past day or two, things have firmed up. My current plan is to study for the GMAT, apply to the MBA program in the spring, and enroll in the summer. I want to try working full time and being a full time student (3 classes per semester), but I’ll adjust course if I can’t handle it.
If I begin in summer 2013, I should be able to graduate in the spring of 2015. Out of all the options available, I think that this is the fastest route to the financial independence I’m looking for. Yes, it means more debt, but I think it’s going to be a great value.
Time to start studying. :)
It has been several years since I last maintained a blog. Life got in the way. Where to begin?
After a series of stressful retail jobs, I bit the bullet in 2008 and enrolled in the Computer Science program at UNC Charlotte. In 2009, I dropped out so that I could move to California and get involved in the film industry.
That plan didn’t exactly pan out. I eventually decided to go back to school in 2010 and chose to transfer to UNC Wilmington to study film. The idea was that I would prepare myself for a job in the film industry by learning as much as possible about the process of filmmaking. I gained a ton of theoretical knowledge but sadly was not able to get as much hands-on training as I was hoping.
I graduated in May of 2012 but was unable to land a job in the Wilmington film industry. Most of the reason for this boils down to the fact that I didn’t have any transportation and this hindered my ability to network while in school. I missed out on the chance to get involved with some really cool projects filming in the area like Iron Man 3 and the TV show Revolution. It’s impossible to know how things would have turned out had I had my own transportation, but I do know that it was a major problem for me during my two years in Wilmington.
After graduation, I was able to land a job as a PHP programmer with a company in Wilmington called The Gig Bureau. A few months later I received a pretty lucrative offer from a company in Charlotte and accepted a position with them, also as a PHP programmer.
I’ve been back in the Charlotte area since the end of August, and my life is radically different than it was six months ago. I have my own apartment. I have a car. My social life is looking up.
I have been in survival mode for such a long time; able to focus only on getting what I need in order to get by. Now, for the first time in quite a long time, I can dedicate some thought toward the future.
There are some exciting things on the horizon, and I’ll be talking about them here within the next few days.
Stay tuned…
