Well, life is shaking right now. It’s kind of hard to explain properly, but here’s it in a short. I am having a faster, stronger, more aggressive sequence of good and bad days. The good days seem wonderful, and the bad days seem awful. My mature mind can see it’s possibly not so much to either side, and more toward the center, but at the exact moment, it’s hard.

My Architecture school, like many, is installed in an architecturally relevant building. In my exact case, it’s a somewhat famous building designed by one of the founders of my school. And if you know which college I am talking about, oh, I’m sure you also know the building. It has it’s beautiful moments and it’s charms, but I have to say the design was incredibly incompetent in terms of being something other than a giant sculpture.

Usually a well designed building will be a pleasure to live in. It will never be on the extremes on discomfort, the soup will never be too hot, or too cold. The bed will never be too big or too smell. My school is not a well designed building. It’s too damn hot in the summer, and too damn cold in the winter. It’s ridiculous, but it manages to always increase the discomfort. As we come closer to the winter, I think I am getting pneumonia simply by spending way too much time in a building that is several degrees colder inside, than it is outside. If you’re familiar with Terry Pratchet’s work, the name of the inventor Bloody Stupid Johnson comes to mind.

And yes, I think I am slowly developing pneumonia, as it’s increasingly harder to breathe, and I am coughing like crazy all the time, way more when inside, and if this keeps up, I’m up for a doctor visit this weekend.

So, that makes me cranky. Yesterday I wrote a hand-written letter to a friend, that I did think several times today if I shouldn’t just tear it and rewrite, but to be honest, all letters are snapshots of moments, and all I can do is write a better one, or send a cautionary Email maybe.

But as you can see, college life still dominates my life. I’m getting a bit tired of having others depend so much on me. I forgot how dominant I can be on a work environment and how much I hate it. But people think I have a way of making things work, and making people work, and organizing the flow of work so that it just flows and everyone is happy working. Everyone but me. For once I’d love to just sit down and do my work. Of course, as soon as a problem came up next time, I’d be up and trying to fix it. Who am I kidding? I love helping, and that’s my doom. Also, I have a hard time seeing people having trouble sorting something I might be of assistance.

But it’s tiresome when it stops being simply something that happens, and I look around and people don’t move unless I tell them to. That also doesn’t make any good for my submissive side, mind you. I miss being bossed around. I miss being owned. I miss feeling owned. I am loved and I feel loved, but those are not quite the same.

So, there are good days, and bad days, and for the time being, I am managing and doing my best. Sometimes it’s hard to get out of bed and just go on and drive to college. Yesterday, I could barely keep myself awake on the drive home. But here goes one thing I learned, as Matisse would say, when Willpower fails, you have to trust sheer stubbornness. Because Willpower can only take you so far.

I am indeed learning a lot. So, for those of you I love dearly, but hasn’t been having enough time to touch base as often as I used to, I love you all, and I am doing my best, and life is looking up, even if right now I positioned myself at the base of a very long mountain, and am trying to climb.

I bet the view from over there will be great as soon as I get there, but of course I’ll complain if a pigeon decides to crap on my forehead while I’m busy holding to the rockface on my way up

Much love,

Jessica

Classes were supposed to have started start this week, but they didn’t. I went there, but was informed it’s freshmen week. Yes, I had already been told that, the first week didn’t have any classes, it was spent on “team building” exercises, let’s call it for the lack of a better term, between freshmen and veteran students. They’re actually very cruel pranks. It’s a bunch of humiliating rites of passage involving your body being coated in slime, painted, having the faculty name written in your forehead, made to beg for money on traffic lights when they go red, to pay for booze. Getting drunk. That sort of thing.

With maybe the honorable exception of the last item, it’s not for me, really. I spent the week home cleaning it and getting it ready for next week’s activities, so I don’t have to spend all saturday next saturday cleaning. But you’d be surprised how dirty a home facing a highway and with two active cats can get in a week. Or how high maintenance a kitchen without a dishwasher is if you actually cook a lot. And I do.

So, it’s a saturday again, and I have to clean the house one last time, and hopefully, keep it clean for next week. Also, some time and money was spent on the notebook. It’s a late 2009 MacBook Pro. The 13″ 2.53 Core2 Duo model. On Lion, it was running hot pretty much all the time. I sent it for cleaning, and have it back after a couple of days offline. Then spent yesterday downgrading to Snow Leopard, manually ( meaning, sans Time Machine… after the 10.7.3 update it won’t let you downgrade from Lion to Snow Leopard… just as a friend informed me the new iCloud won’t work well on Snow Leopard as means to push you into Lion… I smell something fishy, to be honest ). For a while, it was still running hot, but right now it’s temperature is coming back to normal.I figured it was dirty, and dirt prevents cooling. Also, this model was designed for Snow Leopard, maybe Lion is a bit too heavy for it.

That’s the last boring couple of weeks in a short. No fetish news. No photography news. Not even college news. At least some minor progress was done on the family side of things and I have some hope of making life work again. Considering all I faced, all the tears and pain over the last couple of years, I’m happy for some boring, calm and hopeful moments.

Let’s hope this is a productive week. Now I’m going off to clean the bathroom and the kitchen, and start putting this home back in a clean state of existence. Will touch base again soon. And I hope, back on allowing myself to dream of a better and more fulfilling future.

This post is the first I write on my new status of not being a photographer anymore. At least, no longer a professional photographer, no longer trying to make my living out of it. Officially, out of that job. It’s been cooking the whole week. I think a short introduction is in order.

By the end of 2010, I was still struggling as a photographer to get a consistent flow of paid assignments. I still strongly feel the most important tool of any freelance photographer is a good networking, not really good photography. Magazine work, for example, would require a fast thinker that can provide top quality images in a very short notice and with very little time. In practice, that’s bullshit, it doesn’t happen. Usually you have photographers who get labelled as slow working ones, who produce high quality imagery, and many ones who can provide good enough photos in a short notice. And that’s key. Good enough. In short notice, without much time to think over the assignment, study the subject, create beforehand, it’s all down to improvisation and inspiration. And sometimes, a huge baggage of references to copy. The end result, as anything like that, is sometimes good, sometimes bad, and usually, just good enough.

The reality of the business is, takes a long time to build a proper business network. Takes a while to get a reliable flow of work that could keep you afloat. You need that to even dare try advertisement work. Because it also needs you to build a network of business contacts. And takes time to get in. And, like any trend or network based careers, one bad word at the one exact second with the one wrong person can destroy an opportunity. It’s dancing on eggs every single day. Every job is your last job. You did great, doesn’t mean you’ll be called again. You did badly, also doesn’t meant it’s the last time they’ll call you. Depends on many factors, one of them, how you are perceived. As I grow older, age urged me for a resolution. And at the same time, I feel photography as I learned, is being crushed by technical advances.

Also by 2010, I felt I needed to improve. Become better, in many aspects. I saw I lacked many of the knowledge that fellow photographers outside Brazil learned in college, but the Panamericana School of Arts is incredibly lacking on curriculum. You will, depending on the teacher, learn how to handle the camera. And by your own effort, could also develop your eye and sensitivity. But by all means, it’s shit compared to any real art school, and it’s not even a graduate school. It’s only good if you want to know how to handle the camera, and on a practical level, and that’s it. Something I didn’t know when I signed up. I also was looking for something fast and without fuzz and it was perfect. Seemed perfect. Only downside, you’ll leave it’s doors a craftsman of photography. Like a good craftsman, you’ll be able to yield your camera as a carpenter may yield a chisel, and create intricate tasteful carvings on the chair you’re also building. But you will not be formed an artist. There is very little depth to understand what you’re doing in any level past the emotional raw one.

As the world moves on, very few people want or will pay for a hand crafted chair with intricate handmade carvings. People want mass produced chairs that are cheap and you can sit on right away. People want to pick things from a shelve. Only the really good craftsmen still sell handcrafted chairs, and I knew I wasn’t one of them. I wasn’t the very best. And I wanted to become the very best. I started looking by my birthday in 2010, for a college curriculum that could add to what I was as a photographer.

But I don’t use pot. I don’t like drugs. Pure art schools in São Paulo are, sorry, mostly excuses for kids to go get high. And what’s the life of a visual artist? It’s depending on people thinking you’re hip and new and buy your art because it’s of good taste to have in your walls. It’s a trend-based market, and would not help solve my problem. I would just evade from one universe in which you need a dense networking work to be able to make money, into a bigger one, that included the first one, but on top of networking there was also trending. You can feast one day and starve the next. Then, I remembered Arnaldo Pappalardo, one of the very best photographers I know, is an architect. I started looking at the curriculum, and more and more it made sense that perhaps Architecture and Photography could be things that go hand in hand. I have also always loved architecture, and I have a new passion about green building and technology, since we have been wanting to build our first home around that envelope.

On the other hand technology will change photography as a business. The photographer will continue to exist as painters do today, and the commercial side of it will be absorbed as “Still Photography”, and become a portion of the tools of the trade of the Cinematographer. Or videomaker. Or any label you want to toss here for someone skilled and prepared and with know how to work a video camera. Which is also a good carpenter, who learned how to use powertools and more complex machines. Who may also someday, be subdued by technology, except when it comes to film as an artform.

I think the death of commercial photography will be the day magazines are no longer printed on paper. The requirements, from now on, will be more and more to, in the same commercial assignment, provide high quality stills from the printed media, and on the same mood and language, high quality professional videos for web, digital magazines and, why not, TV. The hardware is making it possible, the SLR is becoming a high end digital video camera. Limited, yes, but that’s only a matter of time. Photographers who don’t make the leap into full fledged filmmakers are walking to the tar pits. Those who do, are walking the path of ever constant investments in more expensive software, equipment, training, practice, time spent on each assignment, on an ever shrinking budget. The budget will shrink simply out of basic logic. Every leap in technology that made it more affordable filled the market with more people trying, and in consequence, more competition, some good, which lowered the overall price. Not every assignment requires masterpieces, they require “Good Enough” material. More and more the margins to stay ahead of the game are slimming. It’s not just that it’s hard, it’s that for now, the evolutionary curve in terms of cost x profit for the next 20 years seem really bleak, unless for those who can figure out some way of dodging it, which will be the next leap in business success in the field.

But I was still on the “find work not to starve” part of the market. And that’s never a good place to be at. By the end of 2010, I decided to give myself 2011 to become a full fledged professional photographer. 2011 would tell me if it would be worth to still pursue photography seriously as means of supporting myself. At the same time, I would prepare for the admission exams into architecture school, as by the time I had decided to study as an architect in 2010, it was too late to take the exams that year.

That is how 2011 was spent. Studying and looking for gigs as a photographer. And I nailed one, in a big food magazine. One past it’s prime, still trying to become an important one again, and after working there for a whole year, I can say, it never will again. The problems it carries are far from the press room and right in the heart of the publishing company. Everyone works in fear, because of the higher ranking professionals that pretty much decides everything with a thumbs up or down, and nothing gets done without their decision, and people there don’t manage to grasp a logic on the inner workings of that mastermind. So, evolution doesn’t take place, as everyone plays safe. And any place everyone plays safe, can be at best, a very mediocre place. Usually, it sucks and remains below average. My experience there in restaurants was, after saying I shot for them, hear “But aren’t they in complete decadence?” or a very shocked “is that magazine still running?”. I got worried when one reporter implicitly said something on the lines of “don’t expect to be paid frequently”. Yes, they still owe me money. I’m still working on getting that sorted over next week, but if I can’t, whatever, won’t die from it. I guess that’s 2011 in a short. I managed to get into a place I wanted and it was nothing like I hoped it would be. The fear of doing something wrong, because nobody knew what they wanted, references were confusing and mixed, lacking of a food stylist in important shoots, and so on, tossed my work in mediocrity as well. What I did was good on it’s best, so so on it’s worst, and I wasn’t happy or proud. The one photo I did as a form of “This is what I want, this is what I like, and screw what they think” they published crediting someone else. Oh well, so be it.

I did not manage to have both my feet solid and stand up as a professional photographer. I was not, by the end of 2011, someone who could support myself as a professional photographer or hope to achieve that someday. At the same time, the more I looked into architecture, the more I liked it. I took the admission exams and I made it. I didn’t feel I would, I was scared like hell, I was feeling I flunked, but I made it.Yes, I’m very afraid of starting over again aged 36. But I still fooled myself thinking I could work as a photographer during college. Peter Parker style. Peter tried. He never graduated in college and became a low-pay photographer for life. This week, I noticed if I tried the same, I would risk the same. I saw the curriculum. To work, I would need to skip classes to meet assignments, even if occasional. I would be screwing the future to stay faithful to the past. That didn’t make sense.

And, costs me around US$240 a month to keep my business running. Without taxes. That’s the base cost of hosting a photography site, and paying a charted accountant to take care of my business papers, which is a legal requirement. Over an year, that alone adds up to US$2880. Over the five years of college, US$14400. That, without making a penny. Just to keep it open, for any “what if” reason. That, without taking into consideration books, photoshoots, gear. The new 5DMk3 is coming out, and I would love it as an upgrade. What for?

Last year was the year I made the most as a photographer, but with late payments and interests, investments in software and new gear, gasoline and legal paperwork, plus the fixed cost of a charted accountant and hosting, I spent more than I made as a photographer.

It just doesn’t make sense. People closer to me know damn well what I can do with US$15K. And that’s just from cutting fixed costs that are simply useless if I’m not with a decent flow of work. A flow of work I have been trying to achieve for the last 4 years and failed. Yes, I’m closer and closer to making it, but right now, close is not good enough, and also, for how long?

Yesterday, I phoned my accountant asking him to bill me the costs to close down my company. With that move, I will be unable to send invoices. After all the HELL I had last year to have it fixed to be able to ship invoices and costs, I am closing it down. That was normal, I didn’t really feel it.

Today. Today I shut down my site. I closed my online portfolio. I almost cried. Taking my online portfolio down is when it dawned on me the size of the step I was taking. Those closer to me know very well the full dimension of this.

But now I will focus on architecture school, that’s where the future lies, I learned a lot on these years being screwed as a photographer, mistakes I do not plan to repeat on architecture, and I won’t stop being a photographer. But I will stop wasting time seeking it as a career. At least, for now. And closing down my portfolio was the last bridge to blow, not to keep dragging this ridiculous and unjustified cost around. As a friend suggested a while ago, it’s about time I stopped peeing in my own pockets.

One step away from the crossroad taken. Page turned.It’s done.

First of all, who takes a small three or four year old girl out in a friday night at 1am? I woke up with one screaming on the next door neighbor’s door, which is, right below our window. Meaning, I heard it. Then, images of my poorly resolved answers at the exams are plaguing me. It not only sucks one question out of four very important ones was nulled because of a bitch who complained she got it wrong because she missed the explanation by going to the toilet when she wasn’t allowed to. Actually, it’s because someone wrote it wrong in paper, and it needed a complementary explanation on the day, and finally, since that was not on paper, they decided to veto it, screwing me. But that only happens because I got the remaining questions wrong, and the one I got right got removed from the whole test because of the typing mistake that left “equals the height of” out.

Or the question in biology in which I may have forgotten one arrow. Or the question also in biology in which I got the full answer correct, but might have mischecked the correct option for the chemical reaction involved with photosinthesis with actual celular respiration during the krebs cycle. Things you do when you have to rush all questions to get the 16 answers done in 4 hours, each one very hard to do. That gives me 15 minutes per question tho, hardly an excuse to get it wrong, even being a written test.

I got perfect scores in History, Geography and Chemistry, on the generic multiple choice exams. I did 75 out of 100, which is not bad. The second part, I did well in portuguese language, in the generic knowledge exams, and in the specific knowledge exams. But then, I guess many of the candidates did too. And I think I got screwed on the specific talent exams. Which alone, are worth 1/3 the whole total final grade.I would be much calmer, if it was worth the same as the other exams. But 1/3 is a lot. That also means, if I did good in my 2D and 3D exams, I’m as good as in. But am I? When all comes down to this, how good am I?

The most important question is if I gave my best. The answer is no. I did a few mistakes from being nervous, and lack of attention. Overconfidence maybe. At every moment I felt, and still feel, my life is on the line here, way more than the kids could. Because they have their whole lives ahead of us, and I lived some of that “Whole Life Ahead of you” already. I don’t feel old. But I know I’m closer to 60 than they are. Then I was when I was their age.

During the drawing exams, one of the teachers looked very puzzled at me. Was it my drawing sucked so badly? Or was it that I am 36? I don’t know how to read that. On those two last exams, the drawing ones, I did give my best. Put my heart out there. Who I am. What I am about. Like in photography, when I do so, I like what I did the most, but I am more and more afraid of what will happen. Because… because I’m open for criticism.

So, what if I don’t make it in?

The last year was a waste. All the money spent in preparing, wasted money. All the drawing implements, inks, papers, rulers, pencils, will only make sense, if I fail, if I try again. If I don’t make it it, I will try again, why not? But what of 2012 then?

I said I was gonna be on vacations for the next weeks. Today is the 21^st. The results come out in exactly 14 days. So, is it better to start mourning my bad results now? I really don’t know. Some small part of me says I made it in. But let’s face it. It’s the hardest architecture exam in Brazil. Possibly in South America. It’s also the best architecture school in Brazil. Not so sure about the whole of Latin America because of Mexico and Chile that may have better ones or at least at the same level. People don’t give up positions. There’s one list of names, and that’s the final list of names. Even if two months later, when classes start, there’s a history of around 30 people giving up and switching to other universities, because they think it’s just too hard and too demanding ( true, just check over the first and second semester, the number of internal spots for transfer available – made available because first and second semester students drop out ). Yeah, I actually did visit the page to check out if it would be fruitful to take a second option if one is made available and apply for internal transfer into architecture.

I’m doing a very poor job of keeping myself away from worries. Even if I can keep myself distracted and busy during the day with minor jobs, at night I’m alone with myself in an empty room and we gotta talk, and this exam is center to everything I can handle now. Because, there’s also the stuff I cannot handle right now, because it’s not up to me.

Funny thing is, I think I did better than I expected this year. But I know I’m an expert on fooling myself, I always look at glasses as half full with more water than there’s actually in there. Even if it’s late to worry, the die are cast, and now I really have to wait and see… I can’t stop feeling split between “I could have made it”, and “I think I made it”. And Susie saying she’s bloody sure I made it isn’t helping. I love her confidence on me, but increases the feeling of letting everyone down if I don’t.

I honestly wish I could just freeze myself and wake up in two weeks to see my name on that list. Or not. But then, celebrate or mourne for something real.

As 2011 slides away, I just felt like sharing this bit of a chat I just had with a hobby photographer, obsessed with gear. They all are, aren’t they? Despite reminding the poor soul that I do shot for a living, and I know what I’m talking about, he insisted on the gear chat. Then I said, true, I spend more money on know how and software than in gear. That came to him as a shock. He got the sword out of the stone, with the very old “True Photographer” chant. Oh, come on, you all heard it every now and then.

“I am a bit old fashion I like nailing the shoot once and not do post processing or I feel like I am killign the soul of the picture”

He never shot film. Even tho, that’s usually something someone from film would say. So, I just said:

When photography came out, portraitists were saying that photography killed portraits, and if you didn’t use real paints and a real canvas, you were not a real portraitist. Then, photography became commonplace and painting became a hobby.

Next, film rolls started showing around… cameras became lighter, and easier to carry. Those who shot on older cameras, said “If you don’t make your own emulsion, your own mixture, and your own plates, you’re not a real photographer, you’re missing in the alchemy of the thing”. But store bough film became commonplace, and making your own emulsion became a hobby.

Later on, there was color film… and Cartier Bresson cursed the beast… many black and white photographers said composition on color killed the depth and strength of raw black and white, and those who shot color, were not real photographers.

Then, labs became popular, and the true old school ones said if you don’t develop and enlarge your own film, you’re not a true photographer. But labs became popular, and National Geographic award winning photographers developed with the aid of machines.

Then, digital came along, and those who didn’t shoot film, were not real photographers. But digital became commonplace, and there is very little film stock still left to be acquired and used. It’s now a hobby.

And now, you see full blown digital photographers saying if you touch your photo for post processing you kill the soul of your photo. Which is a lie. And is crap.

Let’s split post processing in two areas here.You have touching up, and actual post processing. And you have covering up the mess you did while shooting. The first is a very creative process, that can or not be envisioned before the photoshoot, during the photoshoot, or even after. It doesn’t matter. The second, is the result of sloppy photography practices.

Just be true to yourself, what matters is the end image, the end result, as you intended. As raw and pure as you intended. Or as digitally processed as you intended. But it has to speak what you wanted it to say.

Never hind behind mantras written by other people who are also trying to hide away behind silly statements, to protect a status they know they haven’t earned.

Happy 2012!

I was very happy to receive today the news of the update of Anna Rose’s steaming hot Ponygirl site, KinkyPonygirl.com. If you haven’t checked it, I just linked some of the hottest images up there, it’s the total rubber imprisionment of Anna and friends, in the hands of her loving and very dominant husband, and other special guests

So, I hope you like it as much as I do, and pay her a visit today

i am me.

calm me.

loving me.

horny me.

desperate me.

sad me.

hopeful me.

HOPEFUL ME.

i am made of stronger stuff than i could ever conceive i am.

i am made of the dust of stars, and the love of a god and a goddess.

i am the creation of years of living, and loving, and learning, and failing.

my mistakes… are so shameful and so terrible.

and i hope i learned the most from every single one of them.

my steps on the right direction, i hope out-weight the first manyfold.

i will succeed simply for my lack of understand how hard i failed.

please. please. please my Father and Mother, give me strength. hope. love.

and the capacity to constantly strive for a better, happier life.

i think i deserve it.

don’t you?

cheers.

Hello everyone If you like my stories, and mostly the ones here on LatexDollHouse ( as opposed to the highly sci-fi content of the RubberMansion stories ), I have just opened a new site, so this place can go back to being just a blog, and the stories can be centered in a single place.

The new site, since it’s going for now to roam mostly on Das Gummihaus and other similar stories, and also, because you must have noticed I have an ongoing theme on wanting, desiring, NEEDING to live in a rubber household ( hey, RubberMANSION, LatexdollHOUSE, and now Das GummiHAUS ), the new site is named after that series, and can be found at the new address, http://www.dasgummihaus.com/ :)

Hope you will all enjoy the change and update your bookmarks. This week there possibly won’t be anything new, but there will be new stories ( even if not necessarily always from the Das Gummihaus series, but sometimes supporting stories, spin offs, or even new tales, but more down to earth ones ) every week. I will try my best to have it posted by friday, but if life gets too hard, saturday in the worst case scenario.

Hope you will all enjoy the change

Have a great day, regardless of where you are in the world,

Jessica

PS: Did I mention Das Gummihaus will also have guest galleries? The first one will be the ÜBERHOT Anna Rose from Alterpic

One of these days, I will simply blow up… it isn’t today. I guess it’s a better day to cry, than any other day. Maybe blow the sadness away… before the exams… and… sigh…

I’m here at home washing the dishes, still very bored sexually, but happy the life is moving on. Like my grandmother used to say “Vão-se os anéis, ficam os dedos” ( “Off with the rings,  so you can keep your fingers!” ). She knew what she was talking about, she didn’t have one of her breasts due to cancer. I never really knew which one, considering the word “cancer” was forbidden in my family, the mere mention of it was enough to cause my uncle to threaten me with his fist shaking in the air. Yeah, I’m not from that kind of stock, but my relatives did have that sort of moments. Focus on what’s important, even if it costs what’s pleasureful. But I’ll add something, “so I can work to buy new rings”. Conquering back what’s being delayed is important, because I cannot handle life if I recognize in everything around me something more than a simple delay.

Sunday the first set of exams took place. The theory behind breaking the admission exams in two batches, ( three in my case, since it’s architecture ) goes around the sheer number of people applying. Here we have 146.000 people seeking a position in this university. Around 22 per position for architecture, considering there are 150 positions, it’s around 3300 candidates for architecture alone. So, we take a first round just to trim the excess and reduce to something around 450 people on the second round. But I guess I’m safe, yesterday I scored around 67 correct answers in 90 questions, it’s the highest score I ever had in such trials ( so you know, the highest competition has always been for medicine, and the most crazy-hardened students – and last year it would have meant I was in for any career except Medicine and Medical Sciences – which are the historical hardest to get in careers – why? Because Brazilian parents raise us from the womb saying “You’re gonna be a doctor, RIGHT?” and so many give in to their parents ). Yeah, if I had a better preparation this year I guess I could have scored higher, but still, for someone who worked in and out of home, nursed someone who is sick, and also has to take care of a home as the wife, I think I did well, and I surely did better than a ton of kids who have no other worries in life than to study.

But, we won’t know until I get to the end of december, when official results come in.Funny enough, almost 10% of the people who should take the admission exams didn’t make it. They were simply no shows. Some didn’t get to the exam location in time, others simply decided not to go. Most had no idea on how to keep time and so on. I wonder seriously about this current generation, who seems to be totally unable to plan anything without that becoming a Facebook event, or a cell phone calendar pop up. Or plan ahead. It’s 14.600 people who simply forgot about an exam they are supposedly preparing to take since January. The single defining day of the whole year, and they missed it. I just can’t wrap my mind about it.

But seems I am growing up. Here, washing the dishes, came to me I didn’t panic, even if I did get nervous and a bit anxious, about this test, as I would have been in the past. I didn’t see it as the defining moment for me as a human being, but simply another step in a path I’m taking. Last friday was the “Black Friday” and our financial planning is in my hands. In the past, I’d be the one who is dangerous with a credit card in my hands. I still am, but I do know it now, and I know how hard it’s been to get paid. To make money. So, I don’t spend money as often as most people do, or most people assume I do. So, Xmas gifts are purchased, some will still be shipped, some have already been, most people didn’t get expensive stuff, the most expensive gifts being Susie’s as usual. And am doing the planning to get out of the red and move into the green for good.

And then we have the Black Friday. Since the Xmas gifts were acquired, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass for Black Friday. But Susie went bananas, constantly checking a lot of websites for things we cannot afford. Screaming for me to come running to check how much of a discount a notebook I already own, got on the FNAC website. Or showing me a serious of books, how cheap they were, when the whole discount was less than a dollar per book. So, insignificant. I also stepped down from replacing the microwave, which is a heavy piece of crap. All the food is cooked in the oven. The rice cooker makes and heats the rice. Everything else, is cooked on the stove or the oven, and that’s it. The usage of the microwave has been one of heating milk in the morning and making popcorn, and I do think US$300 is a lot to spend on making popcorns without having to clean a pan later. Because, the microwave ISN’T faster. The corn is also more expensive, because of the special packaging and so on.

Am I growing up? Learning to be mature about money, doing sensible choices, being emotionally stable about exams, in peace and balance about my future, and a bit sad about current things I can’t fix?

It’s hard sometimes. I wish I could be making more money, but with the third bad experience regarding publishers in a row, I’m really skeptical about my future as a professional photographer. So, all the more reason to give my best for the next batch of exams in January. I’ll give myself a couple of days to relax and unwind before going back to the books.

It seems the only thing I cannot keep at bay is my patience, as I would just like life to develop faster. But money is the fuel for the changes I need done, and for me, it’s a limited resource. So, I better use it wisely.

You all have a great day, am gonna finish cleaning the house, preparing dinner, and doing all those other things the students that compete with me for a position in architecture don’t have to worry about. Maybe that’s the answer to why I performed better than I expected so far… I do want this shit for real. It’s my key to a better future and I’m not letting go without a fight.