So, remember a while back when I was posting about Chris Hardwick and the RL-RPG thing? No? Not surprised. It has been ages since I have posted about it. I haven't stopped working on it, but I really haven't been talking about it much either. One of the goals I set for myself was to write and learn how to perform as a storyteller. I have spent a lot of time listening to other storytellers and analyzing their styles. I have worked on writing out several stories. Now I have decided to move on to the next step. I have contacted Kevin Allison from the Risk! Podcast to negotiate one-on-one sessions. The price isn't too bad. I have decided I can afford 2 sessions a month. That will give me time to polish between sessions. Now that I have started the processes, I am a tad freaked out. This shit just wandered into real territory. I will be investing money into getting better at it. Someone else will be listening to my story and telling me what they think. I can no longer hide safely behind my computer, wondering if I could have been or what I could have done. I will have to shove myself out of my comfort zone, out of the little self-coddling cacoon of safety I created for myself while I was feeling it out. I will have to put aside my feelings of self doubt. I will have to stop fearing the possibility I will fail hard, and know that when I fail hard I will have someone to help keep me from failing so hard the next time. it is scary and exciting all at the same time.

I miss the stage. I used to love performing. I still feel at home just standing on a stage. When standing on a stage, my instinct is not to go "oh my god, people are looking at me" but to go "I need to do something". For too long I have let fear take over that rush I get when I am actually on stage. That self doubt that crept in there when I was dealing with abusive situations and difficult people has made it hard to get back to a place where a stage is a stage, and what matters is the performance, not the person. Performing is fun. It is a huge adrenaline rush. Yes, for me performing is a selfish thing. I like to give people a good show, but the rush you get when you have been practicing hard, and the performance is going well, and there is good energy coming from the audience, and you feel it and it feeds your energy, and you finish with a huge applause and this symbiotic energy that doesn't go away for hours, sometimes days. It is the best kind of high. It was the kind of high I thrived on in high school.

Wow. Time passes quickly sometimes. I have spent so much time trying to find an income of ANY type and trying to reorganize my life that I I totally lost track of time. It is Friday already. Sheesh. I have done nothing regarding stop motion. I have done nothing regarding crafty things. However, I do have a more solid plan, which I suppose is good. Below is a sketch of my plan. I am putting it here mainly so I have it down somewhere public so I feel more inclined to hold myself accountable, but also so those who want to can egg me on. If you don't care, feel free to skip the rest of this post.

EXCEPT - Before you leave take a minute to go to the Douglas Adams Tribute Video Contest and give me a vote or two. Only 2 more days until the contest is over, then I will post it in my video section. Now you can go. :)

Writing: My goal is to get better at writing and to get something good enough to publish. In order to do that, I need to be writing every day. I need to put myself out there. I need someone to tell me when I am on target, but be gentle with me when I am not. My previous experiences with writer's groups have not been pleasant. So instead, I have signed up with YMI Doing This. My goal is to have something post worthy every Friday. As I just decided this yesterday, I have nothing to put there yet. That will be next Friday's goal. Every time I spend an hour writing on something I am giving myself 2 experience points. An additional 1o XP will be awarded every time I actually post something. Every 500 points I will raise an experience level. So right now I am a Level One Writer. I am not counting writing blog posts or writing scripts. This is strictly writing to be read.

Fitness: Let's face it...I need to lose weight. A lot of it. I am so out of shape it is sad. I have never been skinny, but the last 5 years I have had at least one major physical disaster a year (sometimes 2), which has precluded me from exercise. It feels like I just get to the point where I CAN do stuff again when I injure myself again. I hate exercising in the traditional sense. It is boring. Gym workouts? It is hard to find the motivation for those. I do have a pedal thingy I bought myself last year, thinking I was going to use it and haven't. I LOVE to go hiking and canoeing and repelling and other things like that. Those all take money and transportation, neither of which I have at the moment.  So my fitness goal is to ride the pedal thingy for an hour a day and walk at least 2 miles a day.  I used to think nothing of walking 7 miles to get to class. Now that I have a phone that allows me to play mp3's, I can load up on podcasts, audio books and music. That should make both more endurable for me. I am giving myself 2 experience points for every day I do the pedal thingy and 2 points for every mile I walk in one go. For every pound I lose I am giving myself 10 XP.

My diet isn't that bad. I eat lots of fresh fruits and veggies, mainly because I like them. I don't like the taste of salt, so most snack foods are out. I drink 32-64 oz of water a day. The worst I do is coffee, tea, and Taco Bell. Taco Bell isn't even that bad. I get their $2 meal, which includes a chicken burrito and a soda and a bag of Doritos that usually gets stored for when I don't have grocery money. I have to walk 1/2 a mile to get there and 1/2 a mile back, so I figure if I don't do it too often (usually once or twice a week) I am ok. So right now I am a Level One Fitness.

Creativity: One of the goals I have is to be creative with other creative people. I don't get out much. I can't afford to go anywhere, even by bus. I get so isolated it hurts at times. I forget the the surge of adrenaline I get when one of my ideas sparks someone else's imagination, and visa versa, when planning something fun to create and what to do with it. One of my problems is I feel like a creative fraud. I am a creative person, but I am not as creative as some people. Which will always be the case. There is always someone more WHATEVER than you. So my goal is to connect with someone creatively every day. I have bookmarked several blogs and message boards on which I can interact with others like me, even though I can't get anywhere. I award myself 1 xp for each blog response, and 1 xp for each message board interaction. If I actually create something with someone else, I will award myself 10 XP. So I am Level One Creative right now.

Music: I love to sing and play music. I used to perform it all the time. I never had stage fright growing up. It was a foreign concept to me. Now that I have had a few really bad life experiences behind me and my confidence in myself is shot it plagues me. Sometimes to the point of wanting to crawl under my bed and live there for the rest of my life. But I love to sing and perform. I want to do that again. I took voice lessons for a while, and I was starting to get over it. It has been over a year now since i last had the opportunity to perform in public, and I am almost back to square one. My goal with music is to write, arrange and perform again. So for every hour I spend practicing I get 1 XP, every hour I spend writing music I get 1 XP, and every hour I spend arranging I get 1 XP. It may seem low, but doing it and doing it a lot is the only thing that is going to make it better. If I get too many points for doing something small I will do it less. So in a way it is a motivator. I hope, anyway. Then my goal is to record 1 song a week on my computer and post it here. I will give myself 10 XP for every song I record and 10 XP for every one I post. Ok, so Level One Bard.

Storytelling: Ever since I was a little kid I have always been into storytelling. When I was little, I remember sitting with my sister, best friend and her sister telling stories ab out the worst babysitter in the world that we used to have. Well, we didn't, it was all made up, but I loved seeing the looks on their faces when I was telling about how I escaped her evil punishments by climbing into the attic (which me never had) and acrobatting from beam to beam. The more I told those stories, the more elaborate they became. And the more believable they became. It was FUN. I used to love to tell stories to anyone who would listen. I never did get to the point of performing though. As an adult, my interest in storytelling has been rekindled, thanks to things like Kevin Allison's Risk! podcast. I have found I prefer stories that are true ( or mostly true), or at least told as if the story happened to the storyteller. Though traditional Fairytale/folk story storytelling is ok too, I prefer it when it is more of a first person POV. I want to get to a point where I can do this professionally. So I set goals for myself. Every day I am going to spend time on one story. Not writing it, yet, but listening to others tell them. I will take that story and assess it. Did I like it? Why or why not? Was it the way it was presented, or the words that were being used? For every story I listen to I will give myself 1 XP, and every completed written evaluation I will give myself 5 XP. When I get to the writing part, I will give myself 10 XP for completed written story, 10 XP for recording it and posting it, and 20 XP if I perform it. So Level One Storyteller.

Technology: So the last category (I PROMISE) is technology. I just graduated with my Computer Networking Degree. and yet, as I don't really use it every day I feel like I don't know jack shit. Also, as I haven't ever done any job in the technology field, I am not getting any offers for jobs using my degree. So my goal is to spend 1 hour every day reviewing technology. I will choose a concept I have already learned and review it, I will check tech blogs and see what is new, I will test myself to see if I remember stuff I already learned in school. I will also write about it, as regurgitation is the best way to solidify things. So 1 XP for every hour of review, plus 1 XP for every 30 minutes spent on blogs and news sites and 1 XP for every piece I write on technology. And 10 XP if I  publish it here or on YMI. So Level One Technonerd.

I suppose I could create a structure for my employment search, but I am having a hard time doing that. there really isn't anything measurable as far as results for that. Either people want to hire me or they don't. No amount of exertion is going to change their minds. I can set a goal of at least 5 applications a day (which I do) and time searching, but I feel like that would be setting myself up for failure. With all the other categories I will be able to see myself getting better. With employment, either it happens or it don't. It is more likely to happen if I do those things, but the outcome is completely out of my control. I can easily see myself getting depressed and sullen if I keep track of how much I have failed in getting a job. Employment is a major goal for me but it will have to be something I just do, not something I measure. For my sanity's sake.

From time to time I will post my scores. I am working on making a graphic that illustrates my XP points and levels in each category. If I get it done today I will post it here as an edit.

Thanks for stickin with me on this LONG and BORING post. :)

EDIT: So here is my lame ass attempt at making a graphic for my progress. I have never made one in GIMP before, and after several hours of not getting what I want decided this one is good enough. Maybe by next XP update I will have a better one.

Wow. Setting up the RL-RPG is not as easy as I thought it would be. I know what I want, but the goals I have are not conducive to the format presented. I have spent the last couple of days trying to figure it out. I mainly just need to figure a way to word it so that I can attach mini-goals so I can set up an XP system. Par example, one of my goals is to become gainfully employed. How exactly does one create steps that are measurable? All I can do is what I have been doing, namely throwing my resume and applications around until someone decides to call me back. Despite what they tell you, contacting companies you want to work for even if they don't have any jobs posted is totally not ok. I have temped in many HR offices. It bugs the shit out of them. They don't have time to do their normal jobs AND answer 400 calls from people begging to be employed. It is right up there with applying for a job you are obviously not even close to being qualified to do. And if you happen to catch them on a bad day, they might just remember your name and the irritation you caused and it might effect employment possibilities with them in the future.

But I ramble. :)

I haven't done much to forward the progress of the next video. The past couple of days has been consumed by the RL-RPG and trying to find a job. I walked to the grocery store and got some much needed fresh vegetables. I feel a lot better and less hungry now.

OK, before I go back to job hunting, just a reminder that there are ONLY 4 DAYS LEFT IN THE Douglas Adams Video Tribute Contest. Yup, this thing is almost over. And now there are 11 videos up there, so it is even more important to throw a few more votes my way. Then I will stop bugging everyone around me. Unless I win (or heaven forbid place 2nd or 3rd). Then I will be saying "Hey everybody! This video won a contest!!" And I'll be shoving the actual video in people's faces instead of the link to the contest. But I promise not to be mean about it.