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... and so it returns.

5/20/2021

Overcast day on the downside of the year+ long pandemic, and I am just finishing dinner with my wife. We are cozy in our living room, listening to music and I am here quietly resurrecting an aspect of my life that used to bring me a lot of joy, a lot of useful catharsis, and a sense of leveling of the world around me.

Welcome to the return of the Utopian Home Presence blog.

When we last left off…
In those last days of my original blog, I was foolishly arguing with a former friend in a petty and childish argument that, at the time, I was entirely engaged. I realized that this was not what I wanted to do anymore, and decided to end the blog after a successful 14 year run. Simple as that.

In the years since I retired the blog, I still get folks asking when I would return to doing another one. Since social media has risen to fill that need, I really hadn’t thought about seriously returning. I have several social media accounts, but I don’t use them as I should because I find them to be very much like stuttering when telling a story. They tell micro events, but little else. Oh, I DO like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc, but I do not feel the satisfaction in their telling a story as a blog does.

So here I am, making sense of the world as it is in 2021.

Pandemic-A-Go-Go
First off, i am fully vaccinated now, which makes me very relieved. I've spent most of the pandemic in the house due to the lack of full-time employment. I have been doing some freelance out of the house and (most recently) part time teaching UI/UX design at the Creative Center.

I really loved teaching the second and third year students about web development and UI/UX design, and i was hoping that this would be my future. Unfortunately, thanks to COVID-19 closing down the high schools from which the Creative Center recruits from, the Creative Center is now closing down their doors.

I am unemployed once again. Ugh.

The thing is, I was not told about the closure when I signed my contract. I only learned about it two weeks before i was to begin teaching. To say i was pissed was an understatement. However, i am a professional, so I followed through with my promise.

In regards to the Creative Center, i only taught there for six months. On my first day there, the faculty had to give the bad news to the students, and the emotion in the voices of the staff ... well, it spoke volumes. There were people who had been working there for the entirety of the 30 years the college had been there. There were very few dry eyes when we left the theater after the announcement.

After that, i felt so selfish to be so upset. Here i was, upset that i was going to be out of work in six months while there were people here who have been invested in this amazing school for many, many years, who are now seeing it end.

The thing is, my time there was SO AMAZING that i would never trade it for anything! Great people who went out of their way to make things good the students and for me.

I am going to miss the Creative Center. It's reputation for excellence is legendary in this area. Many of my artists in the Artist Jam went there and used to rave about being there. It's a huge loss to our area and it's culture.



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