Wednesday, October 25, 2006

stupid

I'm feeling pretty stupid at work lately. Like right now. And the only thing I can do to combat this stupidity is to stare blankly at the document I'm supposed to be writing -- or blog.

I'm going to grad school online to get a masters degree in instructional design. What's that you ask? I didn't know until I came into this training department. Basically, an instructional designer develops training (courses) that are optimized for learning.

Why am I doing this? Well, I was hired in the training department to do administrative stuff. Pretty boring. I quickly branched out to teach myself how to use Flash and other tools that were used for developing training courses. I also watched what the instructional designers were doing and thought "Hey, I can do that". And in a moment of spontaneity, I enrolled in an online program to get my masters. It was a good thing, too because the workload had slowed and my manager needed to cut some staff. I stayed because I was able to expand my skill set.

So now I'm doing project management work for the development of a course for the SOX-404 Compliance Process. There has been a huge turnover in the people assigned to my project, so when I lost one of the instructional designers, I volunteered to write one of the sections of the course.

At the time I thought it was a brilliant idea. I would be applying exactly what I was learning in my grad school courses. But the real world rarely mirrors what is taught in school.

The content of the course I'm writing is dull. Financial information always is. I've lost the initial excitement and now I feel stuck. A new instructional designer joined the team last week and she is young, pretty and really knows her stuff. She is grasping the content and knows the route she wants to take to develop interesting and successful material.

I sit staring at the computer going back and forth over using "but" or "however".

I hate my job. I need a new career. Maybe a face-painter at traveling circuses.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

l'optomist éternel

I took a much needed road trip to Montreal this weekend. I went with Josee, my now unemployed ex-coworker. She used to live there and was craving a get away. I had been there last year and wanted to go back and see it as a local.

I took off work on Friday and we did the 8 hour drive straight North in the pouring rain.

As I drove through the Adirondacks, the leaves were at their color peak. Even against a gray, dreary sky they popped.

"Wow! Look how beautiful the trees are!"

Josee never even looked up from her Marie Clare magazine. "Ugh. I've seen enough foilage in my lifetime."

Talk about being cynical.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

a plea for inspiration

It’s been months since I’ve written anything. Even my journal has been feeling neglected lately. I don’t know why I’ve stopped writing, but I feel guilty about it every time I see my journal sitting on the dining room table while I lay sloth-like on the couch watching tv.

I write to let out mixed emotions. I think that putting them on a page helps me to sort them out. I write so I can remember moments. I write so I can leave a history of my life to future generations. I write so my brain doesn’t rot.

But I keep finding excuses to not write. I have nothing important to say. I left my journal downstairs. I’d rather read another chapter of my book. Barry needs to be walked. House is on TV.

I write when I feel like my life is in some sort of emotional deluge; when I am romantically confused, financially troubled, spiritually empty. But right now I feel neither of these, and the moments where I should have written my thoughts down are gone. To try an recreate those moments just to put pen to paper would come out fake and impersonal.

I hope to find the inspiration to write again. My soul depends on it.