It’s too late now, since I already have a degree and absolutely no desire to head back to school, but I thought it would be fun to see if I was on track when I settled on Information Technology as my major.

Here are my results from the College Major quiz. It appears that I was pretty much on target.

You are a Conventional Personality Type!

Conventional people are fond of history and they like to observe holidays. They are traditional and they like to know exactly what is expected of them in every situation. They are practical and very structured.

Conventional people might be good at math, but they may not want to work with numbers a lot. They can usually fit in to any group, but they don’t necessarily want to lead all the time. They are not too interested in talking about feelings or deep relationships.

Possible degree programs: Teaching, History, Nursing, Accounting, Computers, Finance, Real Estate, Insurance, Research, Business.

I think my perfect job would be teaching computers to elementary school kids. Unfortunately, I need a teaching degree for that, and as I mentioned, I don’t foresee going back to college for that. Actually, my perfect job is “stay-at-home mom,” but we’ll see if the economy will allow that to happen.

A video shoot was penciled in on my work calendar for today to obtain more B-roll footage for our video project. Despite yesterday’s storm that barreled through the state, we decided to take a chance and hit the road anyway, despite the drizzles and the dark clouds. We headed for the north shore, hitting variable weather, with hopeful spots of sun at times, only to be greeted by a sudden change in weather bringing light rain off-and-on. Not terrible, but not so good for the camera equipment. I would probably want to do another day of shooting, just so we can actually get some nice beach scenes where the water doesn’t look so gray. If you look closely, you can even see raindrops falling on the tourists eating shave ice.

Since it’s been so long since my last video log, I decided to create a vlog entry with some of the footage obtained during today’s short 3-hour jaunt to Haleiwa. Enjoy!

Donna’s eye view

Although Murphy’s Law was in full force as we attempted to shoot footage for our video project at work, it was an absolutely wonderful day. We went on the road and hit various locations in search of the best background with the least amount of ambient noise. Unfortunately, unpredictable weather made it difficult, at best, to find a suitable location and we ended up driving to Makapuu, through the Windward side, to Sand Island and finally to Kakaako where we did the bulk of the shooting. How often can an office grunt like me get out, ride around the island with a camera and get paid? Not often enough.

Factors like wind, planes flying overhead (two locations were in a direct flight path of the airport), noisy cars, and homeless people fighting in a park made the shoot a challenge. (Although the altercation was not physical, the verbal shots were pretty intense with F-words and screaming, which made it pretty tense for several minutes.)

Our “talent” was very accommodating and understanding, a genuinely nice person whom I had a wonderful time talking to as we drove 70+ miles around the island in search of a good spot.

It’s going to be pretty interesting when it’s time to start editing (next week). I hope the footage is decent. And, on another note, Derek’s “reflecto-thingy” (lite disc reflector) was a life saver!

All in all, it was an awesome day of “work.” If only this were my real job instead of just a special project! I could definitely get used to this.

Day 30 of 30

I worked on a training video all day (still struggling with the fuzzy title screens - frustrating!), then went straight into continuing client work. So, that pretty much makes about 14 straight hours of work, meals eaten while basking in the glow of my 24″ iMac. Not healthy.

Now I’m just totally fried and computer’d out. I just want to lie in front of the TV and watch episodes of Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” on my DVR and dream about being someplace far, far away.

Speaking of dreams, I have been dreaming about work every night for the past several days. Or, should I say “nightmaring?” As if it’s not bad enough having to be at work 45+ hours per week, but experiencing the same scenarios and frustrations while I’m supposed to be resting is simply ridiculous. I’ve been told that dreaming about work is typically not a good thing. I intentionally refrain from too much discussion about work, as it’s never a safe topic to be writing about on the Internet. Think: Dooce. So, I’ll leave it at that. (But then again, if I got dooced, I could collect unemployment and have a chance at Internet infamy and stardom! Nah, probably not since there is only one Dooce and although my dog is cuter, I couldn’t hold a candle to her hilariously well-written rants and observations about life.)

I’m hoping for pleasant dreams of vacationing in Japan or some such. Perhaps the large (!) Andes Mint Shake that Hubby bought me from Jack in the Box will help whisk me away into the land of sugar plum fairies and sweet dreams.

Day 14 of 30

I knew there’d be an entry like this sooner or later. I spent the entire evening completing the newsletter project for my client after coming home from a full day of work at my “real job.” It’s 11:00 p.m., 30 minutes past my ideal bedtime and my eyeballs are on fire, so you can imagine that I’m eager to take care of my NaBloPoMo obligation quickly and hit the sack.

I’m posting this because my friend Clifford was nice enough to e-mail it to me tonight and it made me giggle to think about it.

The photo you see above is an embarrassing testimony to the strange and unusual things that fall under “all other duties as assigned” in my ever-expanding job description. I rallied the leadership team to learn a short portion of an Okinawan eisa taiko routine as the opening of our year-end conference. Although I was a bit skeptical about whether people would jump on the bandwagon at first, it certainly came together at the end to produce the result we wanted, which was rounds of laughter and a happy audience. Oh, the things I do all in the name of “work.”

Good times.

Day 8 of 30

Unanswered questions pending on the client gives me a reprieve from the newsletter deadline. It looks like finalizing the newsletter will have to wait another day. This client is so accommodating and easy to work with, I wish I had 20 more like her. If I did, I would seriously quit my day job and just concentrate on desktop publishing, web updates, and video editing services. Now that would certainly be a dream come true. Who doesn’t dream about being their own boss?

In fact, I’m bouncing around ideas to start expanding my client list again. It seems fortuitous that this client asked me if I wanted to place a blurb in the current newsletter advertising my services. I just may take her up on the offer.

Day 6 of 30

Ugh. I just lost an entire post and now I’m too tired and unmotivated to recreate it. I guess I’ll have to save my “bloom where you’re planted” entry for another day.

I’m starting on my client’s quarterly newsletter layout this weekend. Deadline to press: Wednesday, November 7. Oy! Needless to say, I was a little preoccupied with other projects last weekend to even think about starting this one, so now I’m scrambling. It appears that a restful weekend is not in store for at least another week. Thankfully, next weekend is a 3-dayer. Hallelujah for holidays!

Sorry, tangent. Back to the newsletter.

This is a low-budget project for a non-profit group; so, spending $500 on Adobe Pagemaker to create the layout for a quarterly newsletter is completely out of the question. So, for the past several years, I’ve been doing the newsletter in Microsoft Publisher. As I’m trying to migrate everything to my Mac, this newsletter is the last remnant of “need for PC” in my blood. If I can find a suitable (cheap) solution on the Mac, there will be no need to hold on to the PC (now Hubby’s primary computer) and maybe we can upgrade him to a Macbook instead. Perhaps iWork’s Pages will be just the app I’m looking for. Of course, the learning curve is going to slow me down, but I’m hoping the end result will be worth it.

I’m still very much a Mac newbie, only one year old in the cult of Mac. My Twitter friends have been so gracious to help me along and guide me into the way of enlightenment. Many mahalos to Kimonostereo and rsuenaga. And, thanks to zztype for helping me discover that I actually had InDesign (Pagemaker’s replacement) installed on my Mac with the Adobe CS Suite. (Doh!) The kindness of people so willing to lend a hand just blows me away! You guys are the best!

Now that I’ve completed my NaBloPoMo obligation for the day, I can start on the newsletter. Oh, joy.

Day 2 of 30