This blog is about my quest for balance. I worked my ass off for six years to get through college on my own, and I finally graduated about 8 months ago. I now have a BFA in Technical Theatre and Production (my specialty is set design) and I'm about $15,000 in debt. I live in beautiful New York City, one of the most expensive cities in the world. To pay my bills and my ridiculous rent each month, I wait tables, usually 12-14 hours a day, three days a week, at a really crappy sports bar. Then I have four whole days off for myself and my freelance design work. When my work is light, I exercise and eat right. I call my friends and family and even sometimes see them. My house is clean. When I am working on a design project, everything gets put on hold. I don't have time to go grocery shopping, tweeze my eyebrows, or call my mom. I won't go to the gym for weeks at a time and my house turns into a danger zone.
I love theatre and I love set design, but I hate the imbalance it brings to my life. And my resolution this year is to find a way to fix it. This plan originally consisted of taking time off from design for a month and regiment my schedule so I could stick to it once I began to take work again. Of course, two opportunities came around that I couldn't pass up, and I open another show in just over a month.
I'd like to use this blog as a daily check-in on my resolution. It will also serve as a reminder for me to take time for myself each day.
My resolution also consists of taking the time to slowly but surely improve some technical skills of mine, such as working in Vectorworks 2D and 3D, Photoshop and Illustrator, web design, freehand drawing, and digital photography. My sister introduced me to a blog craze that requires you to post one picture per day for an entire year, and I thought it would be the perfect format for my blog of resolutions.
Her blog 2010 in the House of Bean, usually consists of photos and maybe a quick caption. I'm going to take a different route and combine my photos with tales of my road to balance. Here's to happiness in 2010!!
