(Statue at Biblical Art Museum, D3OL 2023)

I think it has been about 11 weeks since I last posted a blog and a lot has happened in between that time. I didn’t think I’d be the type to get overwhelmed but with all the obligations I put on myself, it was only a matter of time. A full time internship, a part-time job, and 3 summer classes at a time. It is no wonder most of my personal plans fell through. Thankfully, I am self-aware and know that something like this is an issue I need to deal with, especially since new things in my life are beginning to form. I want to use this post as an update of my whereabouts and what I have been up to in Dallas.

First off, I don’t think I could have even made it back to Houston if it weren’t for this kind samaritan. So, before the day I was meant to leave, I take my vehicle to the dealership like the responsible vehicle owner I am. When I drop off my car, they say it is going to take “48-72 hours”. Why are they going to hold my car hostage for 6 days! I had no mode of transportation in one of THEE most car-dependent cities. Fast forward to when I get the car back, these people want to quote me $2,600. When they told me that over the phone, I gave them the longest silence because what are we saying? It wouldn’t have been wise to get it done there anyways because if something went wrong, I would have to come back and have them fix it. I tell them to fix them to fix the engine mounts and give me back my car. Fast-forward to the day i’m meant to leave, I pack my car and set off at 7:30 AM.

I already knew my battery was weak, so if I stopped the car, I would either need another jump or to switch it out for a new one. I decide to head to an car part shop and see about swapping my battery. It is important to note that until this moment, the shop attendees were the ones swapping my batteries for me. This shop had 2 women and I was not about to ask them to switch my battery out for me. I decide I want to try to be a man and change it myself. So, I buy the battery and ask to borrow their toolkit. When I open the hood to swap the battery, why do I see that my battery terminal (the metal contacts that connect to the car battery) is completely corroded. Like the car dealership just conveniently left that detail out. Moving forward, when I try to loosen the terminal with a wrench, it just bends. Now obviously this isn’t how it should function, so I ask a stranger if this is how it is meant to be. He is going to say no, takes the wrench, and snaps the terminal off. Now, I am looking at this man like 🧍. 

I’m thinking there is no way I’m not about to be stuck here. He then says we have to swap the terminals to get it to work and we’ll need specific tools to do the job. Tools that he has. So he says he is going to go home and get them. I am thinking to myself, “I am real life stranded.” I only have God to thank because he actually came back with the tools. Thats how we spend the next 2 1 ⁄ 2 hours unsheathing the copper wires, putting on a new housing, and crimping the housing to the wires. I never felt so high value in my life and we were able to successfully fix the battery. Of course, I had to send him $150 because I believe in paying for people’s time. If it wasn’t for him, probably wouldn’t have been able to experience the new opportunities that may have the potential to open more doors in the future, so thank you Patrick. I truly appreciate you helping me out that day.

Part: The Internship

I can say that the internship is going alright. About midway, there were a bit of rumors spreading about how there was a possible hiring freeze. I am going to be 100% honest, I was defeated. Like I was putting up with my cohort getting cc’d on emails meant for another cohort, or receiving school like assignments to assess our performance, but now you mean to tell me it may not serve to get me a return offer. I was shaking my head. However, I did use the time to pivot into other tech skills I wanted to learn, like the web framework React.

During my time in Dallas, I realized that I am too quick to place my available time into other endeavors. Now. What do I mean by this? Whenever I am able to identify that I am not occupied with something, I look for things that could occupy me. Maybe this was good the first few times this happened, but this type of behavior is unsustainable, and it leads me to becoming burnt out. Remember when I said that I was working a full-time internship, a part time job, and summer classes?

Not sure why, but an opening for a leadership position opened up for an organization in my specific college and I took it. The thing is, I don’t necessarily need more leadership experience. I like to think my resume is pretty stacked with previous experience. Furthermore, because of my history with piling on responsibility on responsibility, I was never able to properly give my best in any situation, and this usually resulted in mediocre performance. I have communicated to them that I would be occupied for most of the summer, just hoping things will be able to work out.

Part: Business

When I say I pile a lot of things onto myself, I truly mean it. Back in December 2022, I officially started a photography business and to my standard, it is going alright for the amount of attention I am giving it. However, I want that to change. I want to expand my services and work to bring businesses value. I can acknowledge there are certain deficits in my knowledge, but necessary work is being done to fill those gaps. This Thursday, I have a client that is looking to get some photo/video work done and I am excited to try the new tactics I have learned. If I want to achieve the vision I have, then I have to do extraordinary actions.

An example would be me trying to obtain another job after some of the obligations I am doing, complete. This job is in audio engineering and it pays pretty decently. They are giving good hours and the responsibilities are aligned with what I want to do in the future. The problem is that some of the hours they are proposing conflict with the part time job I have. I want to do both because I can use the funds to further support my business endeavors and it is a great time for me to gain this type of experience.

Right now, it has just been a balancing act right now but I know that long term, I need to focus on bringing in the right amount of money in. If we are being honest, that’s what all of this is about. Majority of us do things that will bring us the most amount of money. The more and more I think about it, the more it makes sense that one cannot truly become financially secure if they are constantly trading their time for money. 

I know what may be said in response to this, “Well if you think about it, you are always trading time for money.” You would be correct but I am talking about a different way of attaining financial stability. When you look at a job, the amount of money you can make is proportional to the amount of value your position brings to the business. Don’t forget that in our capitalistic society, businesses are always looking to make the most amount of money while using the least amount of money to do so.

When you combine these together, one is usually getting underpaid for the amount of work/value to bring to the business. Even though it is “guaranteed” the worker will always be paid less than the actual value they bring in. Now when you look at owners, they bring in alot more money. When they sleep, they make money. When they are on vacation, the owner is making money. They are able to experience this because they own the means of production, or in other words, they own “equity”. This is why it is common to hear that starting your own business is the only way to gain that type of freedom and to a certain extent, they are not wrong. 

Part: Personal

Over the summer, I have really been interested in the idea of becoming a better person. The way I have been doing so involves a mixture of passive and active methods. Historically, I have always leaned towards the passive methods. These things include reading books that would mold me into living the life I want to live or watching content of similar topics. As I am now, I operate as if I know everything. Like I am certain of what is to come. While that has helped me in the past, it has contributed to me having a narrow mindset. I wish to expand this more and for this reason, I began to pick up on philosophy. Now, let’s relax. I’m not going to start saying “One must imagine Sisyphus driving to work” or something like that. I believe I would be a better person to be around if I studied the teachings of the past/present thinkers. 

 In addition to that, I decided that I need to be more serious about being a better person. This is why the first active method I am doing is hiring a life coach. It made sense for me to purchase services from a life coach because that person having more life experience than me would know what to do and can also keep me accountable whilst I work towards that goal.

On top of me hiring the services of a life coach, I always began making progress towards revamping my wardrobe. I have realized that a certain level in life can only be attained when one looks the part. Which is why, a conscious decision is being made to dress more mature. This includes leaving the shorts and the slippers at home, and finding attire that will produce results. The main goal is to be taken more seriously. I cannot begin to think of the opportunities I missed because I was not in the proper attire. The goal is to add versatile pieces that can be mixed and matched with each other. One thing I am keeping in mind is that fashion is meant to be an extension of a person’s character. It wouldn’t serve me if I were to dress just like everyone else for the sake of lo0king cool. What I wear needs to be a physical representation of who I am as a person and I am ready to go on that journey.

With the amount of developments I have within my professional and personal life, I cannot leave out the progress I am making in my creative life as well. I have recently been hearing great things about this book called ‘The Artist’s Way’. They’re talking about if you don’t want to make serious progress with your art, don’t read this book. After I hear this, I am sold. I take my butt down to Barnes & Nobles and buy the book. Now, I haven’t read the book yet because I know I will not have to dedicate quality focus time to this aspect of my life. Honestly, my end goal is to be able to make anything I want without experiencing any sort of obstacles.

One day, whilst I was at work, I stumbled upon an IG post that was an application to be a radio host for my school’s radio. This was something I was both interested and scared to do. What I was thinking at that time was, since I had experience podcasting, the skills would seamlessly transfer to the radio. Fam, that was not the case at all. I send in my application and I get my interview time a few days later. Me thinking radio and podcasting are the same thing. I don’t prepare as much as I usually do. When it becomes my turn, the realization that performing live is completely different than recording sets in. I start thinking to myself, “I have never performed live a day in my life.”

Due to this realization, I bombed the interview. However, that embarrassing L got me inspired to start recording again. Now, the inspiration didn’t turn into consistent episodes, but I did start brainstorming ideas for some audio projects. While I am working on those projects, I have restarted my old podcast called “oh.dlogs”. I interviewed my friend Faith and briefly interviewed her future co-host Rain. The episode is rough around the edges, but I had to improvise because I forgot to bring two mics. In the future, I’ll be bringing my other friends on and ask them questions on subjects they feel strongly about.

As I wrap up this recap post, I’ll leave a link to my podcast towards the bottom of this post. In the past, I would hide this from the public because of how I felt about the quality, but now I can’t expect success if I am not willing to be in the public eye.

The song recommendation for this blog post has been my favorite song this summer. I have been listening to the released version for about 2 years, but just this year, the original version was released. I have been in love with it ever since. It contains an interpolation of Brittany Spears’ ‘…Baby One More Time’. Please enjoy JPEGMAFIA’s ‘Thot’s Prayer – OG Mix’