Deciding is Always So Hard

I have been thinking, as of course I always am, about What I Am Doing With My Life. I've applied for a few jobs: language analyst for the NSA, which would mean moving to maryland; and Staff Services Analyst (a position that encompasses many different jobs) with the state of California, which would mean staying in San Bernardino County. And as ever I am on the horns of dilemma. I am fucking loving being back in the circus. Like, it's the thing that was missing from my life the last 5 or whatever years while I was in college. So even though I am no great fan of Redlands, I am starting to feel like I would be willing to stay just to do circus for the rest of time. However, if I stay in Redlands, working for the state, doubtless I would not be doing language-based work, which I also put a lot of value in. I feel like I'm stuck asking myself "What's more important: The life of the mind? Or the physical arts that I take so much joy from?"

In some ways, I might feel comfortable staying put. I have proven to myself over the last year that I can maintain my studies even without school. On the other hand, I had barely touched my unicycle over the last three years when I was busy wtih school and work. And I know that it was upsetting me to not be doing anything circus-y. So I'm asking myself, if I were to move to Maryland, would I be able to keep it up? Would I be satisfied enough doing Arabic and whatever for the government? Would I be more satisfied doing a job like that than whatever job I could get with the state of California while staying here in the circus. Because in the end aren't all desk jobs still just desk jobs and maybe it wouldn't matter anyway?

At the moment, I kind of feel like whichever one calls me back first is the one that I'll go with. And I really think that right now, I'm leaning towards staying in Redlands. I just know it's going to be a hard to feel 100% right in any decision.

Enough speculation, let's talk about what's awesome! In my ongoing quest to expand my repitoire of unicycle-based jump rope tricks, I got my friend Tanner involved for some two person tricks yesterday. We tried jumping side by side with each of us turning one side of the rope, which I think went pretty well. More sweet ass unicycle tricks to come. And eventually I'm going to make a damn video, but it's so hard to remember.

Goals for 2010

I am aware that there are still two weeks left for 2009, but I am pretty ready to put this year behind me and I already have thoughts about next year. I am going to refer to my intentions for next year as "goals" rather than "resolutions" because when people set resolutions, they tend to not be serious, and New Year's resolutions have the connotation of something that you don't actually do. Without further ado, my goals for 2010. (oh-ten? twenty ten? ten? one-oh? How will we call this year?)

• Arabic. I need to keep up on what I already know plus I want to work on reading faster and learning more words for reading the news. This will probably mean reading several books, keeping up on the news and possibly memorizing all the words in "1000 words of media arabic"
• Spanish. Generally keeping up on it, and I want to expand my vocabulary.
• Farsi. If I feel like I'm keeping up on my Arabic and Spanish, I need to get that party started again.
  
• Juggling. By the end of the year, I intend to be able to juggle 5 balls. Maybe more. Like 7.
• Unicycling. Firstly, get my skills back up to where they were. After that, work on wheel walking and expand my jump roping into double dutch, assuming I can get some competent assistants.
  
• Reading. I think I'm going to set my goal at 50 books again for this year, since that seems like the amount I can read without reading to the exclusion of other activities (I'll post how this year's reading has gone soon). Also, 4 books in Arabic, 6 in Spanish and I'm not going to make any genre specific numbers because I never know which way my reading tastes will go over the year.
  
• Apply to grad school. Even if I'm not totally sure I want to go, I at least need to get in some apps so I have the option. This would be applying to start fall 2011.
  
• Get a real job. Seriously, I need a proper job.
  

What It Is

So I've been in California sunshine-land for a week now, which is pretty weird since it seems like I've done kind of a lot for it just being a week. One of the first things I did was paint my room; it's now a honeydew green sort of color. I have been meaning to take a picture, but I have to do it at night, otherwise my room is backlit like so much amateur photography.

I went to circus practice all week and I was surprised by the number of people who remembered me. Juggling has been the most fun so far, but I've also been to teeterboard, which has been overrun by young people. When I was in teeterboard, it was mostly adults, so I don't really know what happened, but it's one of many things letting me know that I am now old (in circus at least). Also, the kids in teeterboard keep texting and shit between turns, which I find objectionable. You can't tell me texting is more interesting than fucking teeterboard. I've also been showing up to cradle, but have so far been unable to do much. I lack the strength to even climb up to the damn thing, so I've mostly just been spotting.

On Friday I went to a cake decorating class. It's a four week class, but this first one was pretty boring. It had an infomercial-like quality to it, since you have to get all of your own decorating tools. This explained why it was so cheap to sign up for the class (only $22!). Naturally, I decided that I should just go all out and I bought the biggest, most absurd cake decorating kit I could find. So now I have about 18 tips, a number of bags, spatulas and more fondant tools than I know what to do with, but I figure now I'm set for a lifetime of decorating. For each of the other 3 classes, it's a bring-your-own-cake (BYOC) affair. You have to bring your own icing as well. Fortunately, I fucking love baking cakes, and have already picked out a bunch of recipies I want to do. I think this week I'll be starting with a sour cream poppy seed cake with white chocolate buttercream. I'll hopefully post a picture of it one I decorate it.

Being unemployed as I am, I've been reading a lot. This week I read The Magicians by Lev Grossman, which is about a 17 year old boy who ends up going to a 5 year magic college and then he and his friends find the secret to travelling between worlds and end up in Narnia Fillory. I read a few reviews about it after the fact and there seems to be some contention about whether Grossman was lampooning the genre or what. I, however, doubt that is was necessarily satirical. At this point, it's basically impossible to write a fantasy book without taking some cues from current fantasy lit, so I think he's just providing a nod to the exisiting works. I'd also argue that it's a more adult take on some of those themes. I just started reading Lost Boy by Brent Jeffs, to feed my voyeuristic obsession with the FLDS. I have like 5 books on my Amazon wishlist that are FLDS memoirs, and I'm not really sure why it's so fascinating, but it is.