I am excited to be writing tonight, as this is my 200th blog post! Frankly, I never thought I would make it so far as to have kept up on a blog for this long, and ever more excited to have a growing readership that includes my friends, former coworkers, political leaders, and other people. Tonight, as I write, I have come far from the person I was as a senior in college.
I am now a substitute teacher, though I remain vigilant in searching for a more permanent job in the political forum. To that end, in between lectures to elementary school students on the Constitution and helping my sister on math problems, I try to attend some events and functions around Arizona and get my name out there a little bit more. For example, today I was fortunate to have coffee (well, iced tea, really) with LD-22 Chairman Chad Heywood. He gave me some sound advice on "breaking back into" politics. (Because, as most of you know, after the debacle of an internship I ended up with in CD-1, I've had my name slightly tainted on paper.) The advice was to be more proactive in starting or running something that will show a level of competency in project organization. What I need to achieve that is an end goal and passion for some issue I believe in. Unfortunately, I haven't found that singular passion yet, unless it is the obtaining of knowledge.
Frankly, I would be just fine working the behind-the-scenes aspects of politics: research, policy analysis, constituent correspondence, or events staffing. I don't really enjoy coordinating speakers, gathering groups, or running the show. Don't get me wrong - I can do it, and I can usually do a pretty good job of it, but I am not passionate - or I suppose a more appropriate word would be "ambitious" - enough to want those types of responsibilities over other, more low-key ones.
I really don't know why it has to be so hard to find work doing those jobs. It really seems to me that in Arizona, if you don't do the grassroots part of politics, you get seriously overlooked. Even more so if you don't want to be a part of the indentured servitude that is implicit in the all-too-popular "internship" job. I'm the type of person who will do grassroots stuff for FUN - walking precincts, registering voters at fairs, and making phone calls (as my former volunteer coordinator friends will attest to) - but when it is made to be a prerequisite of finding work, it somehow loses its enjoyable qualities.
Maybe I'm just in the wrong line of work. I should just go back to school for a Master's in Library Science and settle into a quiet life of the stewardship and care of knowledge. Why haven't I so far? Well, to be honest, I know I have talents that could be of great use in the political world, and I'm not ready to exhaust my search for the right job in that arena yet - even though I'm fast losing optimism of finding a good fit.
But enough about jobs. 200 posts since my first one, the Arizona Diamondbacks have failed to secure a postseason berth in 2009, having one of the worst records in Major League Baseball this year. I don't really understand why, either. Sure, there have been injuries which have destroyed some of our talent, like Brandon Webb and Conor Jackson and Eric Byrnes, and year-long slumps to guys like Chris Young. The bullpen's been streaky, and starting pitching has at times been problematic, but even when everyone was healthy and people looked good, we've lost badly. It's just one of those seasons to completely forget. At least I kept up my goal: I have scored all but a handful of the DBacks' baseball games, and I have my scoresheets in a nice binder now. I will finish up the final few and attain my goal over the course of the postseason play.
200 posts later, I've discovered new hobbies and reclaimed old ones: geocaching, for example, is a new hobby that can be quite enjoyable. Who doesn't like hunting for buried treasure, unless it's 120-degrees outside? Even then, the occasional road trip up north to Flagstaff or to California or Payson has made the sport enjoyable even in the hot weather. An old hobby I've retaken up is that of baseball card collecting. Granted, I can't buy many packs of cards, but I've settled into a one-a-week groove to sate my appetite. And I've gotten some good pulls, too! Today I bought a pack of Allen & Ginter's 2009 cards and pulled a David Wright (Mets) mini-relic card with a swatch of his game-used batting gloves. Really cool design, too! I'll post pics of some of my faves sometime.
I guess that beings me to the future. I ask myself what it is I want to see in the coming hundred posts up to my 300th. Obviously, it will be nice to be able to blog about getting a job, which I hope I will have earned by that time. I hope in the next hundred posts, I will continue to be invited to events which I can then share on this venue and increase my readership. I hope that I will be able to regain my independence from home, and be able to get my first apartment, car, etc. I hope to see world events start to take shape to push our country onto a better path both fiscally and psychologically than we've been at for the last couple years. But most of all, I hope I can just keep writing honestly and candidly, and that people respect me for that, even though I know I go against the flow sometimes (especially politically within my own party).
I hope my readers will be around for the next hundred posts! Feel free to comment more, guys. I love hearing from you all.
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