Conventioning

I just returned from Washington DC where I spent three days at a student media conference. This is the third year I've been to this conference, (different location every time) and while I'm never really excited to go, I always end up getting valuable insights in spite of myself. This year I was particularly reluctant. For once it was being held in a city I actually wanted to visit (haven't been to DC since I was 12) but I was a bit burned out on the conference itself, and hated leaving home, going away from my fiance. I realize that's a bit pathetic, but there it is.

Since I was pissy about being there, and had attended the majority of sessions in various incarnations over the last two years, I concentrated entirely on topics that interested me personally, instead of those that related to the Vindicator. I'm glad; first I attended a couple sessions on writing for magazines that I think were really helpful (we'll see whether anything comes of it long term). I also went to several web sessions that sort of inspired me. In particular, there were two sessions on blogging that made me sit up and listen.

I should mention at this point that over the last few years I've been putting together a weird collection of skills for a job that I didn't think existed, but I guessed would exist sometime in the next couple of years. From the University of Notre Dame I have a BFA in studio art, which isn't really useful at all, but it does mean I spent four years training an artistic eye and I did manage to scrape a class in multimedia: web design. Once I came to Cleveland I landed a student position as a web assistant which was really more of an education than the class. At about the time I started my MFA program I switched jobs, starting work for the Vindicator. So basically when I graduate I'll have an artistic eye, limited web skills, creative writing, and editing skills. I'll also have a year of work experience as a web... person, and three years experience editing. Even if it is all student work. I've been keeping an eye out, waiting for jobs like... web content editor or something to show up.

Of course it didn't occur to me that that's almost exactly what a blogger is. Or that people are actually starting to pay bloggers and that I expect this will become more standard in the future. The trouble is I don't bother to update my blog all that often. And I KNOW there's no one reading this. However, I expect if the one changes, the other may follow, so here's my promise: from now on, with the exception of emergencies or other unforeseeable obstacles, I will update this blog at least once a day. Sometime this winter I'm going to get rid of (most of) this template and replace it with my own web design, hopefully increasing my technical skills in the process. In about a week I'm hoping that Matt (fiance) and I can get some extra shelves for my art desk built. Once I've got the table cleared off and have space, I'll start posting a sketch/drawing a day as well. So if you are reading, come back! I'll start being interesting any day now.
As far as a theme, I have in my head what this blog is going to do, but it's a little hard to describe. This is going to be an idea blog. I'm loosely calling it "living in space" because it will be about living, in small spaces, in relationships, or in my head. I'll post many of the weird ass ideas I get that have no practical application in reality. Come back here tomorrow and you may read about things such as dragon mating, hunting elephants with range rovers and building cat furniture.