My Blah Blah Blah DissertationOn My Living Arrangement: I'm a Louisiana transplant that lives in San Antonio, Texas and have realized that its my new Kenner, in that, I'm comfortable, centered, and no one's gonna be showing up at my door unannounced.I'm 28 years old and I'm prepping to begin work on that Masters of Divinity. That old cliche that says, "If you do what you love as your job or career, then you'll never work a day in your life," is largely true for me. To learn about me is definitely to understand my outlook on work. I decided to go back to school last August and was involved in a pretty bad car accident on the first day of class. Since then, I've felt like I was being suppressed for the past year only to be shot out of a cannon. I just completed that undergrad program and feel exactly the way I thought I'd feel when I stood in the registration line at LSU back in 1998. So with moderate student loans, as Jesus said on the cross: "It is finished."On Bread-Winning: I represent Sony VAIO, and after going on my umpteenth job interview with the intent to one-up my current position, I've realized a couple things. God knows my heart.There isn't a better form of labor in the actual city of San Antonio for me. What I do to earn my daily bread is to prepare people and funnel their feedback to my client. I train for two separate weeks each year in San Diego on VAIO's product and their messaging for the marketplace. I am equipped with everything Sony makes relevant to my task, and then the baton is passed to me when I hit the ground in my market of San Antonio, Austin, El Paso, and the border cities of Laredo, McAllen, and Corpus Christi.When He said "my yoke is easy and my burden is light," my job must have been in mind. I migrated from the retail food chain shortly after an elder retail manager told me that retail work takes years off your life. I didn't know why, but I didn't need to hang around long enough to have the proverb fulfilled. I don't hold retail store keys to open or close the store. I don't hire or fire part-time college students who slack or thirty or forty somethings that have lost their drive. I don't count down registers or sign forms when the money is short. I didn't sign up for forty hours, only to find myself putting in fifty or sixty. For four years now, I have been more than gainfully employed to go into retail stores and spread the Gospel of Sony VAIO. I am permitted to set my own schedule to call on the most influential stores that offer my product to the public and I train the staff on how VAIO's are different from the competition and gather feedback from customers to affect future builds, sort of like an intercessor. I don't physically see my boss except for two or three days a year. We communicate through conference calls on a daily/weekly basis, sorta like knee-mail. I don't get graded if a person buys or turns their nose up. As Nate Dogg once said, "you betta see Trojan about yo' baby." I get graded on effectively communicating the message. My man Dante shared with me two years before I became the steward that "its about the message, not the messenger." I built provision for myself and my vision on that.On Romance and Reading Me: I went to visit this girl I met online and she told me that though we were having a good time, I was difficult to read, like 'do you like me'. I asked her what could a person buy or resolve with a 12 ounce can of 'LIKE' these days? I thought about what Rev. Juvenile once said, "Women don't wait for me or no man but they might stop here; for a little while so I'ma enjoy her company if I could; and if she's about slow dancing and such, then I ain't hatin' its all good..." I don't know what he meant by that because we know what holding hands leads to, but its no secret that I enjoy enjoyment while enjoyment is there, but feeling good doesn't make me feel ALIVE and that's what I expect in a partner. The minister L Edwards once said, "She is my perfect partner because she has my part in her." That's wzup. My part is about feeling fulfilled in what I do and with those whom I am in fellowship with. My mentor used to tell me that happiness is subject to what's happening around it. Like, if you win a million dollars you are happy until your ex boyfriend or estranged father tells you they won 1.5 million. I always considered striving for sustaining high-spirits over clinging to one who brings happiness, and being understood/accepted/appreciated (in that order) over being in love (with someone who just does...) as more enduring core values.I feel ALIVE when I'm doing rather than discussing. I enjoy exercising, learning secondary and tertiary languages through these Rosetta Stone modules, and hitting up old cd/record stores and experiencing the groups and sounds that influenced my parents generation to procreate. That's deep. I love watching movies but I shun the expectation from chick-flicks. Why would a girl suggest a movie to make her scared or feel touchy feely and then count on me to catch her when she falls backwards? I'd rather she go pleasure herself and call me when she's washed her hands. Like Rev. Common once said, 'the present is a gift, and I just wanna be.'The thing is, I have always felt like I was being prepared through my successes and failures in order to give an account of my stewardship, both in a spiritual-Judgment Day sense, but also to a person who opens their life to me. It is amazing the difference it makes when you can walk alongside someone that is confident because they are prepared. Even if they are prepared to subject themselves to accept a failure from being caught unprepared. This is what Jesus spoke about in comparing the wise man who build his house on a rock and the foolish man who build it next to the sea. I've met many smart girls but have learned that the difference is made with a wise woman.On How Being Prepared Has Prepared Me: (In being prepared for a type of Christian ministry, my work experience representing VAIO is sort of like the last frontier.) The first thing we know about Sony is that it tends to cost more than any other brand, and secondly, everyone has a Sony wish-list. I see how God protects me and my feelings long enough to get the lesson (again, for the sake of being able to communicate the lesson others). When folks post me up on the course of my job and try to rattle my cage about what's wrong with Sony or how a Sony product has failed them in the past, I facetiously let them know my last name isn't "Sony". I don't make em, I just get paid to make folks aware of what Sony's contributions are. I have relatives who inquire about laptops, "because you do work for Sony..." only to, in an attempt to spite me or affect my paycheck assuming I work on commissions or stocks, buy other brands in bulk. This is a limb on my humor tree.On How Knowing My History and Path Has Enhanced My Future: I was a terribly precocious child. I would ride alongside my mom or dad and see people jogging or turn down side streets as we kept straight and I would wonder where they were headed. It wasn't like I would trade my family or existence to be them or to know about their lives; I just wondered and imagined. Well my current job satisfies that interest. Since Katrina overturned the checkerboard of my life in New Orleans, I have been able to travel to Seattle (Starbucks tastes in Seattle the way Popeye's tastes on St Charles), San Diego (La Jolla is pronounced La Hoya not La Jolla), Los Angeles (Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles is in fact, the shiznit), New Orleans for Essence (Maze altered my expectation of live concerts), Vegas (its like living in a theme park where people who play parts forget their acting), and Salt Lake City (I learned a minivan is called a mormon assault vehicle). I am amused when stopping by roadside restaurants in the south and getting that " we don't sell no n*gga pie" look (from the movie "Life") look from chefs and waitresses. I respect people that show hatred to my face over those who will work with and make small talk but would not live near or experience day to day living with you. I didn't grow up in the 60's when that sort of thing was more obvious and frequent, so to have a type of labor that allows me to go and see for myself is enlightening and sobering. I've earned so many frequent flier miles that my job will effectively paid for an upcoming trip to New York, Hawaii, and Denver, again. This sort of a perk transcends a job, but contributes to the wholeness of my lifestyle.On How My Stewardship Has Galvanized My Hobbies: Another side of me that has been developed because of my continued stewardship are my hobbies of video and digital photography. I have been mulling over various names to identify my hobby as a photographer/videographer. I'm thinking about "Through God's Eye Photography". If an effectively captured image can crop out all the noise and distractions in the background and pull the viewer's attention to the beauty, the innocence, or the vulnerabilities in the subject, then I think that's why God gives a cameraman his tool. When "professional" photographers or videographers see me at play, there's that whole macho thing that takes place. I've learned to pull out the tiger's teeth and use the confrontation as a lesson to learn various ways to wrestle out my head while the person gnaws on my neck. In this way, they walk away feeling justified and I walk away feeling ALIVE. God has shield my heart, feelings, ego, etc for the matter and placed them high above the floodwaters of what a goal/award driven person thinks. My interest has been to acquire the tools that professionals use with the intent of capturing an displaying common people in uncommon ways. When I give someone a picture or video of themselves and they delight with how silly or serious they look on media, I feel good about the time and training I spent to be able to do it. I don't do it for profit, to the degree that when a person offers money to me, I cringe and liken myself to that dude in the New Testament that sought to purchase the gifts of the Spirit. I'm very well provided for by my employer, the use of my gifts is primarily for the personal experience I get from giving. That's wzup.
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