28/B

Turning 28 and starting a dream job! Reflections and gratitude inside

Two things:

1. On Sunday, August 25th, I turn 28.

2. On Tuesday, August 27th, I begin as an Assistant Professor at Pratt teaching Technology B.

The last time I wrote to you all about my current situation, I was soliciting help landing a gig just like the one I’m about to begin. On my to-do list for today I included

which is such a funny thing to try to put on a checklist. I guess what I mean to do is take the time and space to look on the past year, so that’s what I’ll do. It’s so cliché to describe a year as having “highs and lows”, but 27 really gave me some of my most profound minimums and maximums.

Lows

• Getting laid off

• Getting the flu in January

• Spending months looking for jobs, and getting lots of rejections (and silences)

• IBS (at least I think that’s what it is. Luc thinks I should see a gastroenterologist)

Highs

• Getting laid off

• Landing a full-time job leading Product Design at a startup (I just hit 6 months there this week!)

• Landing an Assistant Professor job teaching my dream class. Technology B is a studio class in Pratt’s Communications Design MFA program, in which “Students will investigate technology trends within a historical context, in order to better understand and extrapolate emerging technology systems”. HELLO???

• Visiting Germany and Austria with my mom and Selina

• Facing how much shame I carry around every day, during a rainy dusk walk in Bregenz

• Visiting Busch Gardens in Williamsburg with my dad

• Breakfast in Pittsburgh with Lisa

• Realizing my professional competence and confidence

• Re-investing in 12+ year friendships with Maeher and Shishu

• Moving in with my boyfriend

• Jumping into and swimming in any body of water I can find

• Owning a hammock and using it often

• Reading Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune

• Listening to The Surfer off Vampire Weekend’s newest album while driving around LA with Lucas and his cousin

• Being shown around San Diego by Bridget, my RA friend from college

• Sitting in my friend Mina’s parents kitchen on a sunny winter south Jersey morning while she/we play piano

• Becoming really good friends with my ex-manager, Vanessa

• Deepening my friendship with Pat, who inspires me with his outlook on life, plants, and art

• Feeling secure in so many special friendships / chosen-family-ships

• Solo visits to Chicago’s Wormhole Coffee

• Cruising around Prospect Park on my skateboard

• Mentioning Braiding Sweetgrass in any semi-applicable conversation

• The smell of Pratt’s library, and its beautiful campus that almost moved me to tears of gratitude

I really do think I’m the luckiest man in the world.

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