Here’s What I’m Working on RIGHT NOW (Spring Edition)

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Hey all—this week has me caught in the middle of a mad cluster of deadlines, events, and a bunch of other things happening at once (lame…).  April’s also the start of the new school year in Japan, and the start of cherry blossom season, so I’ve been trying to make time for a bit of hanami as well…

With that in mind, here’s a rundown of what I’ve been spending my time on lately.  Some of it, like the TEFL class, have strict deadlines I don’t want to fuck around with, but most everything else is self-motivated as I try to get caught up after losing a lot of time in 2018.

In no particular order, I’ve been Continue reading »

Do People Cheer For Your Achievements, or Your Actual Art?

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This post is going to split some hairs.

Near the end of my time in grad school I got an academic paper on James Welch’s novel Fools Crow published in a literary journal, which was a first for me and a super big deal.  It also seemed worth celebrating to some extent, so I wrote a quick blurb (“Ian Rogers’s paper, Language as Immersion: The Blackfoot Mode of Experience in James Welch’s Fools Crow, was published in…” etc.) to send to the English department newsletter, then didn’t think much about it.

I remember missing that month’s newsletter amidst a pile of other emails, but I knew it had come out when people started stopping me after class, in the hallway, and even sending me messages to congratulate me on my paper.  It felt pretty good (not going to lie here), but after a while I started realizing that Continue reading »

Which Do You Value: Your Time or Your Money?

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In the original Legend of Zelda on NES, one of the dungeons holds an old man who refuses to let you pass unless you either give him 50 rupees (which can take a while to get) or one of your heart containers.  Fittingly, in the game’s terse narration, his caption reads “LEAVE YOUR LIFE OR MONEY.”

I remember finding this as a kid and thinking pretty hard about it—you could always get more rupees in the game by killing enemies, so paying the money seemed like the better option.  But, if you were short on cash and a really good player, could you potentially save some enemy-farming time by giving up the heart container?

I never seriously gave up the heart, but I always thought about it Continue reading »

Don’t Just Say “I’m Too Busy”

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I’ll try to keep this one brief, since I’ve got stuff to do today.

I don’t like saying “I’m too busy” when someone invites me to something or asks me for a favor.  It feels like a copout—because in a lot of ways, it is.

If have a chance to pick up a new editing job or write something or even just go out for drinks with friends, I try to think about the other things I’m currently juggling in comparison to this new opportunity.  Do I really want to do this new thing, or would I rather focus on what I’m already working on? Continue reading »

I Paid Off ALL My Student Loans!!!* (with an asterisk)

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Happy New Year everybody—I’m feeling rejuvenated after my vacation and ready to take on a whole new set of challenges for 2019.  Hope you’re feeling the same way.

I also reached a big, BIG milestone, as implied by the title: last month, after making my first wire transfer of money back from Japan, I paid off the very last $3,400 of my very last student loan.  At 5.8%, that final loan was costing me $16 bucks a month in interest, but moreso than the monthly savings is knowing that I’m now COMPLETELY FREE OF INTEREST-ACCUMULATING DEBT, which just feels all kinds of awesome.

It was hard to describe the feeling of pure freedom I experienced when I clicked Send on that last payment, Continue reading »

Here’s What I’m Working On Right Now

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A lot’s changed in the past six months—the most glaring thing being that I LIVE IN JAPAN NOW so my routine’s changed a lot from what I was used to back in the States.

On a grander scale, though, the landscape of how I’m spending my time and which goals I’m pursuing is also different—not because my goals have changed, but because I’ve made some decent progress in the past few months in crossing bigger projects off my To-Do list, and that feels pretty good.

So without further ado, here’s an up-to-date list of which goals I’m pursuing right now, in approximate order of importance: Continue reading »

Guest Reflection – 3 New Developments a Day

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So two weeks ago I posted about making good use of your time and the challenges that go along with it, which a lot of folks seemed to appreciate.  (A sign that maybe we’re all struggling with the same problems??)

One of those folks happened to be my old board-game playing cohort Darryl Parker, web designer and self-employed entrepreneur who opened up Schoodac’s coffee shop in my hometown of Warner, New Hampshire back in 2015.  He wrote some wise words down in the depths of the comments section about how he manages his time, and I found it way too thought-provoking not to share as its own post: Continue reading »

Why I Blog About My Shortcomings

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A few weeks back I was talking to a friend about this blog, and he summed up the entire thing like this:

“It seems like you’re always talking about some problem you’re going through, and how as soon as you’ve dealt with it you’re FINALLY going to get some work done for serious this time.”

As usual I’m exaggerating, but his point was basically the same: I often sound like a procrastinator who’s vowing to finally get down to work as soon as the latest distraction is out of the way.  Especially in the wake of my last post about kicking bad habits in Japan, I’ve been thinking: have I fallen into a pattern of letting one distraction after another interfere with my work?

Here’s an even crazier thought: have I fallen into a pattern of blogging about these same distractions so that everybody can see how inefficient and easily distracted I am?

To supplement my point, here’s a list of distractions and difficulties I’ve written about since I started this blog: Continue reading »

Does Your Job Make You Censor Yourself?

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  • Have you ever wanted to post online about something you were involved in but were afraid of how your job would react?
  • Have you ever kept a creative project secret from your coworkers even if you could openly talk about it with everyone else?
  • Do you worry that some aspect of your life outside of work clashes with your at-work persona in ways that could potentially cause a BIG problem?

All of these are feelings I’ve dealt with, and they’re a big deal. Continue reading »

Last Post in America! (For a While, Anyway)

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It’s been a CRAZY few weeks since July started and I realized I had LESS THAN A MONTH before Japan to pack up my entire apartment and finish the novel and cancel all my utilities AND finish up a bunch of miscellaneous writing projects AND bring my Japanese up to par—so yeah, I’ve been pretty busy.

Having so much to do has partly been good, since it’s kept me insanely focused most days and pushed me to get more done…though the downside is that it’s also causing me a lot of stress and led to a lot of mad scrambling as I second-guess myself about what needs to be done and in which order.

So with a week before my flight, here’s a report card-style progress report of Continue reading »

My Weeklong Return to Online Test-Grading and Why It Still SUCKS

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So last week I briefly mentioned that I’d signed on to a week (five and a half days, to be exact) at my old Secret Work-From-Home Day Job grading standardized test essays.  The chance to pick up extra hours arrived conveniently in my inbox six or so weeks ago because I’m still on the company’s mailing list, and at the time I figured, what the hell—I could always use the extra cash, and a week of test-grading wouldn’t set me too far behind, right?

*Cue ominous music here* Continue reading »

Self-Pacing and Breaks are REALLY Important

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This is one of those entries where I talk about something that happened to me, then relate it to a larger phenomenon so that you, the reader, can have something to reflect on too.  Here’s the story:

Yesterday I vowed to finish retyping the edits to the fourth draft of my novel, which I’d been working on slowly over the past two weeks but wanted to finish ASAP in line with my self-imposed deadline of finishing the fifth draft by July 1st.  However, accomplishing this mighty goal involved me typing out 140 pages worth of edits (give or take) in the 7 hours I’d set aside.

The math worked out to about 20 pages per hour.  Challenge accepted. Continue reading »