Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

It’s time again for the Sundance Film Festival, where I’ll be volunteering for the third year in a row. This year, I’m going to make sure that I take better advantage of my benefits, i.e. see more movies and spend more time in Park City.

I had no idea what I was getting into when I filled out my first volunteer form back at the close of 2007. It was a stressful time for me personally; a time when I felt isolated and beat down by things that were beyond my control. After two years of living in Utah, I had very few local friends and distancing relationships with old friends. It’s hard to be a left-leaning, non-religious, well-balanced late-twenty-something in the heart of strenuously quirky Mormon Country!

I didn’t blog about it because it was too personal, but it got to a point where I knew I needed to do something. I needed to do something for me. To help get me to a point where I could say that I was enjoying life and not just plodding through it, feeling victimized by all the things that were being thrown at me. The Sundance Film Festival had been on my mental To-Experience checklist since we moved to Utah, and I made the conscious decision to stop dicking around already and start doing.

The future becomes the past so quickly.

Volunteering turned out to be a fantastic decision. I had a blast, and wasn’t sorry at all about sleeping less and even taking a day (was it two?) off work. It rejuvenated my creativity and enabled me to meet a rainbow of people, some of whom I’m still in touch with at least on a Facebook-friends level. It was a great distraction from my stress-points at the time. It tickled my spirit for adventure. It helped me understand that whatever twists and turns are thrown my way, a small step toward living a richer life can go a long way.

Yes, dear Internet, I am still alive. I just turned in my last project of the fall semester. At this time I would like to quote the first line of Neil Gaiman’s blog post from today:

How the hell did it get to be December the 18th? Ohhh. All the links I meant to post. Arghh.

Links, words, pictures, regrets, promises, poetry, brain-fizzling recounts of my days. These and more are on the list of things I should have blogged about during the last couple months. But didn’t. I’m sort of braindead right now, and probably shouldn’t be blogging, but lack of sleep and/or food with nutritional value is affecting my judgment. (Sorry, she says, in a cute little Canadian accent.)

I’m not going to do a 3.5 month hiatus justice in one post, so here’s the Cliff Notes version:

• 19 credit hours at UVU that kicked my butt
• Filled my brain with useful skills in Flash, ActionScript, Flex Builder, Advanced Photoshop, Audacity, how to file a formal complaint with the department head about a horrid class, how to get an A- in a class you almost dropped because you were failing two weeks into it
• Subsequently made my brain squishy by playing stupid Farmville and watching most of seasons 1&2 of Babylon 5 for the first time
• Took up subversive embroidery
• Turned 30
• Watched Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 for the first time
• Blog broke
• Blog restored with a little miracle (named Ben)
• Freelance work picked up (triple fuckin’ YAY)
• Created 3 different working(-ish) website mockups for innergeek.us that I mostly hate now
• Saw one movie in the theater since August (Zombieland)

There are some good things on the list, like learning SKILLZ and moving closer to finishing a second degree (in Teh Inernets, in case you were wondering). And lots of stuff I feel guilty about doing instead of blogging or generally being a useful human being. I mean, I couldn’t even keep up my Twittering. That’s saying something.

Anyway. If you haven’t already given up on me, thank you. You are the bee’s knees. (WhateverTF that means.) I plan to get my shit together over the next two weeks. I’m not traveling for the holidays unless you count Avoiding The Mall Entirely as I drive out for groceries and such. That’s not even possible, though, because I intend to catch at least one movie in the theater which is unavoidably located by the Mall. Crap. Will re-evaluate this scenario later.

Happy 8th night of Hanukkah to my Jewish friends, and Happy Your-Upcoming-Winter-Holiday-Here to everyone else. I hope to interact with you more now that I’m done with the Fall of 2009 that is suddenly and thankfully over.