Uncategorized – Page 115 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

LTUE 2009

Wow. Life, the Universe, and Everything 2009 is over, and it’s hard to believe that only three days have passed. It feels as if this symposium has been going on for a week, and that’s a good thing. Friday and Saturday, I spent practically every waking moment in the Wilk, the student center where the symposium was held. By the end, I think some of the professionals there were starting to recognize me and strike up conversations with me instead of the other way around. Kind of interesting. Way fun. Loads and loads of helpful advice and information to process. I’ll be lucky if I can soak it all in before the end of the year.

I’m glad to say I was able to open up and talk with a lot of people these past few days–in fact, I got a chance to talk with just about everyone who was on a panel that I’d attended. It was fun to shake their hands, compliment them on what they said, and strike up a conversation around that. It was surprisingly non-threatening, to be honest. I definitely feel more prepared for World Fantasy 2009 now–definitely.

By far, my favorite part of the convention was Tracy Hickman’s main address. It was titled Creative Reading 201, and it was all about how the reader and the writer are both collaborators in the creative experience, something that’s fascinated me for a long time. The implications of this simple fact are tremendous. First of all, it means that a story does not come to life until it is read. Anyone can get published, especially with the technology today, but all of those words are empty symbols until someone takes the time to read it. Second, it means that the spirit speaks to us in the white spaces between the lines. Just as people with different needs take the unique message they need from the scriptures through the power of the holy spirit, so each work of fiction speaks differently to us. Finally, all of this means that stories change as we change, even as they inevitably change us. As we grow, the stories that touched us the most simultaneously grow with us even as they help us to become better people.

Tracy Hickman then shared an incredible story about a book signing he and collaborator Margaret Weis had recently at a veteran’s home. A man in a wheelchair came up to them with an extremely tattered copy of one of their earlier works, about a knight who sacrifices his life in battle to save the order, even though all of his fellow knights in the order look down on him as less than a true knight. This wounded soldier then told them that this tattered book had traveled with him in his pocket throughout his military career, through parajumps, underwater operations, and into war theaters like Afghanistan. While fighting in Afghanistan, this soldier was shot in the lower back. As he went down, his first thought was “what would the knight in Tracy’s book do?” He saw the Taliban forces setting up a mortar on the opposite ridge, and in spite of his wounds and the risk to his life, he took down the enemy and saved twelve of his fellow soldiers fighting in that battle. The soldier then presented his purple heart and bronze star to Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, for writing the story that inspired him to be a hero.

Sometimes, as I’m sludging away with my writing and wondering what I’m going to do in 2010 when I finally graduate, I wonder if I’m somehow being lazy. I worry that I’m somehow being irresponsible by not going into some other profession, some kind of respectable 9 to 5 job in an office, the kind of thing that everyone else goes into. I wonder if I’ll ultimately become some kind of a parasite on society, trying to make it big as a writer. In the worst moments, I worry that even if I make it big, I’ll still be some kind of parasite, not really producing anything respectable or useful. After all, fiction is entertainment, especially in genre fiction–don’t we have enough of that already?

Then I remember the impact that one good book can have on people–the way it changes us, the way it opens our eyes and helps us to become better people than we were before we picked up the book. Then I realize: what could possibly be more respectable than telling good, honest, life-changing stories? And then, as I think about it a little more, I realize that that 9 to 5 office job isn’t what I think it is. I realize that I’m not slacking off by trying to be something more than a cog in the corporate machine, producing widgets.

If I strive to tell the truth as a storyteller, and to write the kinds of stories that truly inspire people to do marvelous things and become better people, what greater career is there than that? Teaching, I suppose, comes close to having a similar impact, as well as some kinds of therapy work. Certainly there are other careers that have tremendous opportunities to sacrifice and have a meaningful impact on one’s fellow men. However, my talent is in writing and telling in stories–and it’s a talent that I cannot suppress, from which I cannot escape. So long as I live, I will always tell stories–it’s just hardwired into who I am. Certainly I can use this talent to serve my fellow men in a way that is both respectable and meaningful. And really, for me personally, what else could be better?

It doesn’t mean that it isn’t scary. However, thanks to LTUE this year, I feel that I’ve learned a lot that can help me break in and make it. Whether it was something said in one of the panels or just the experience of attending, it was a truly awesome experience for an aspiring writer like myself.

As far as the files, I’ll post links to the audio files from the conference after I get them uploaded. I should be able to do that sometime within the next 24 to 48 hours, so look out for that.

Axis by Robert Charles Wilson

Wow. Wow. WOW. This book was good!

I could try to explain the plot of the story to you, but that would ruin the first book of the series, Spin, which I sincerely belive is one of the best science fiction novels I’ve ever read. To do that would be a crime against humanity. You have got to read the first book, it is so good!

The main character, Elise, is trying to find out what happened to her father. He disappeared back when she was a little girl, leaving behind his family for no apparent reason. He was a scientist involved in studying the Hypotheticals, a mysterious, unseen alien thing that had dramatically altered the course of history nearly a generation ago, for purposes completely unknown.

Her obsession to find out what happened to her father destroys her first marriage and into a new relationship with Turk, an honest drifter. When a strange, alien ash falls from the sky and secret government agencies chase the two of them for information about a mysterious woman known as Sulean Moi, Turk and Elise find themselves getting wrapped up in a secretive, almost cult-like movement to communicate with the Hypotheticals. The leader is a mad scientist who will let nothing stand in his way–not even respect for basic humanity.

This book was amazing. I read the last fifty pages at 3:00 am, and at the end of every chapter I jumped up and shouted, wide eyed, “what?!” “holy cow!” and “oh my gosh!” The characters were real and genuine, the human drama was believable and engaging, the alien-ness of the universe was both thrilling, humbling, and awe-inspiring, and the tension was deliciously thick, right up to the very last words on the last page. This is a book worth reading (though you really should read Spin first–everything else will make a lot more sense if you do). Robert Charles Wilson is one of my favorite authors.

This book reminded me quite a bit of Arthur C. Clarke–not in terms of character and human drama (Robert Charles Wilson is light years better than Clarke in those areas), but in terms of thematic elements. Clarke’s fiction was always examing transcendence and the ultimate destiny of mankind. His aliens were more gods than men, and he viewed godhood as the destiny of man. Robert Charles Wilson deals with a lot of the same themes and questions. What is the ultimate end of evolution? What does transcendence look and feel like? Is the universe ruled by a mindless process, or a process that has a mind and a purpose?

Robert Charles Wilson’s prose is amazing. He gives just enough detail to make you feel that you’re there in his world, and just enough abstraction to let you work out the rest of the details until you feel that you’ve known his characters for a long, long time. He builds up the tension until you can’t put the book down, and when he releases it you find yourself stepping through a door into another world, full of meaning and significance, full of new wonders and new stories of its own. It’s amazing.

You really owe it to yourself to pick up something by this author. I would strongly suggest starting with Spin, but once you’ve read that book, you’ve got to read this book. It is amazing.

Voyager in Night by C. J. Cherryh

Rafe, Jullian, and Paul are young friends trying to make their way in the universe with nothing but a junk ship on the frontiers of settled space. Rafe and Jullian are brother-sister, and Paul is Jullian’s husband. Despite all the risks, they have high hopes for their life together on the Lindy as they go out for months at a time on asteroid mining expeditions.

All of that changes, however, when an unidentified object leaves jumpspace and heads on a collision course with their ship. Before they know what’s happening, the object captures them and heads for deep space.

The human voyagers find themselves in a bizarre world where the boundaries between physical reality and virtual reality are blurred, and the very essence of humanity can be recorded, copied, duplicated, and even synthesized with other human and alien templates. As they fall deeper and deeper into an intership conflict that has come to a crest after a hundred thousand years, they find that their unique personalities and relationships with each other hold the key to their salvation…and their hidden secrets, their destruction.

This book was BIZARRE. Strangest sci fi novel I’ve read, and those of you who know me will know what that means! I’m left with the impression that it was a deep book, but I can’t exactly tell you how or why. Perhaps it’s because of the alien-ness of the alien, and the profound way that it impacted the characters and cut to the very core of who each of them were. Perhaps it’s because of the questions it raised about the nature of reality and how we define ourselves as human beings. This book touched on some deep issues in ways that I found quite disturbing.

The greatest strength of this book would have to be the way it penetrated these issues. Its greatest weakness grew out of that–the book was just incredibly confusing. I felt really disoriented when I was reading it. I never knew who or what the aliens were, what their motivation was, where the humans really were, what was really happening to them, or, at the climax, how…well, how things played out at the climax. Very confusing, even if it was fascinating.

At the same time, the confusion of their situation also helped the story to be very believable. I really hate reading about your stereotypical aliens–the guys who walk, talk, and act like humans, but have a different mask or hairstyle or something. These aliens felt like the real thing. They were bizarre, scary, had unbelievable technology, and, well, were just very alien. There was hardly anything about them that had any kind of reference to the way we, as human beings, see the world.

I almost wonder if this book has some cyberpunk undertones. I dunno…obviously, with the far future setting, it doesn’t fit into the cyberpunk genre. However, the idea of replicating human beings through a super computer raises some very interesting existential questions. Also, the fact that the aliens seem to inhabit a virtual world of the ship computer raises some interesting questions about how a cyber-existence warps our own ideas of consciousness.

It was a very well written piece, in a very interesting universe, with some moderately interesting characters and a bizarre, disturbing situation. At the same time, it’s definitely not for everyone. If you’re not the kind of person who reads much sci fi, you’re probably not going to appreciate this book. If, however, you enjoy the bizarre and disturbing, this is a book you will probably enjoy.

Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds

Bella and Svetlana have both struggled hard to break into leadership positions in DeepShaft, an interstellar mining company that pushes comets to mining platforms back near Earth. Bella is the second in command of the Rockhopper, and Sveta is one of the chief engineers. Both women are the best of friends.

While conducting an operation on the edge of the solar system, however, Janus, one of the moons of Saturn, breaks out of its orbit and quickly accelerates out towards Spica, a distant star. As the ice falls away from the small moon, observers realize that Janus is actually some kind of alien spacecraft. Due to its unusually high rate of acceleration, nobody at Earth can scramble a mission fast enough to intercept the alien structure. Only the Rockhopper stands a chance of intercepting the craft.

As if the dangers and unknowns of making first contact with an alien race were not enough, this surprise mission comes at a very difficult time for the crew. The captain, Jim Christholm, has just been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and command falls to Bella. A ruthless company auditor shadows Bella, seeking to undermine her authority and discredit her through playing dirty in company politics. When Sveta discovers a corporate cover-up that may cost everyone their lives, Bella has to make some difficult leadership decisions that may threaten their friendship. And when they do reach the alien structure, rifts arise among the crew, raising the chances of mutiny and even murder.

Pushing Ice is a recent novel, published in 2005. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Alastair Reynolds, both from my roommates and from friends last year in English 318. My roommate Colby said that one of Reynold’s books gave him nightmares when he was reading it out in a cabin in the woods. After reading Pushing Ice, I can definitely say that Reynolds can put together some gripping, thrilling, page turning stories.

I enjoyed Pushing Ice quite a bit, but I think that the first half was considerably better than the second half. It took me a while to figure out all the characters, but when I did, I was immediately drawn to them and their conflicts with each other. Like Crichton, Reynolds can write some truly dispicable corporate bad guys–the kind of people you just want to meet in real life and beat the crap out of them. Slimeballs.

He also writes some very interesting, complex, and believable protagonists. The thing that hooked me, that made me stay up late reading hundreds of pages at a time, was the conflict between the characters. He created some people that I really came to care about, and a disastrous character conflict that I had to see resolved.

The first half of the book is set in a rich, complex, and highly believable near-future universe. The Rockhopper was a fascinating spaceship, and the dynamics of the crew were also believable and interesting. The political situation back on Earth, the company politics of DeepShaft, and everything else all rang true. I could feel like I was actually there, and that really drew me in.

Around the middle of the second half, however, things started to break down a little. Once the aliens made their appearance and the humans started coming into contact with alien technologies, I felt that the believability started to fall apart–not because I have to have an explanation for everything, but because it felt that Reynolds started doing some handwaving. He’d throw in new alien cultures and technologies so quickly that I started to lose a handle on what was going on. I found it harder to believe that I was actually there because the “there” was changing so much.

Also, I feel that towards the very end, he started to rely too much on cheap cliches. Some of the alien cultures, especially in the last hundred pages, sounded like something out of Ascendency or Star Control II. What began as a compelling, believable story of human-alien contact became another cliche space opera where all the alien civilizations were too monolithic, too similar in terms of technological capabilities, too human-like in their underlying worldviews and interactions with each other, and too…stereotypically alien. Too shallow, not enough depth.

I don’t think this is due to a lack of skill on Reynold’s part, however–probably more a lack of time. I think he spent so much time on the first half of the book that he was rushed during the second half. He’s definitely a very powerful, very capable writer of science fiction. I would like to try out his other works–the ones that he’s better known for. And, despite my misgivings about the book, I would still recommend it to friends of mine who love good science fiction.

I’m being responsible (for once)

I’ve got this history paper due on Thursday. It’s the big research paper for the semester, and it counts for a large portion of the final grade. Because the deadline is coming up, it’s really pressing on my mind right now.

Earlier in the semester, we had smaller assignments related to the paper–for example, we had to get our preliminary bibliography together, write a preliminary outline, etc. I…pretty much did the bare minimum on all of those. Yeah. Didn’t do so well.

So for this final paper, I decided to finish it early, so that I could bring it in to the FHSS Writing Lab where I work and have one of my coworkers help me with it. That means, of course, that I can’t wait until the night it’s due to write it (which is pretty much how I’ve done every other paper of my college career). I need to be responsible and get it done early.

I woke up today thinking “crap, I’ve got a paper I’ve got to write.” I decided that I’d sit down and write the whole d*** thing today after dinner. I had the urge to play Genghis Khan II, but I resisted it and went to the library. I worked really hard–I only spent about 25% to 35% of my time there chatting with friends and engaging in avoidance activity. It was tough.

I started out hating the paper, but once I had a thesis and an outline, I started to really get into it. History is kind of like storytelling, and I like storytelling. When I figured out how to insert footnotes on Word 2007, I started to get the urge to just insert a ton of them everywhere because it’s so cool. Gamila was chatting with me, and when she mentioned something from her Latin class, I said “hey, you could be the Franks and I could be the Saracens–after all, Saladin’s given name was Yusuf!” (my paper is on the crusades–can you tell?)

The coolest thing was that when I came back to the apartment, I just felt so FREEEEEEEE! I mean, yeah, the paper is still due on Thursday, and yeah, there is still a ton of work that I have to do for it, but it’s half done, and the rest is easy! I’m even starting to really enjoy this subject. I can’t wait to tell the story of Reynauld de Chatillon and all the things he did to piss off Saladin! That guy was so smug, sitting in his castle in Kerak. He even defied the orders of the king in Jerusalem to break the truce between the Franks and the Saracens! If it wasn’t for that, perhaps the Battle of Hattin would never have happened–perhaps the Kingdom of Jerusalem would have survived. Who knows?

So, yeah, I was responsible tonight…and dangit! It’s 1:45 am and I haven’t written at all for today! I would crank out a couple hundred words before going to bed, but I’ve got to get up at freaking 7am…holy cow, it’s going to kill me.

But yeah, I’m just really happy to have that burden at least partially lifted from me. Being responsible can have its perks–I should try it more often.

Destiny

A couple of weeks ago, we started learning about the Seljuk Turks in History 240 (History of the Middle East to 1800). This band of rugged, horse-riding nomads went from mercenary warriors of some Persian dynasty to the de facto rulers of nearly half the Muslim world. In an era when radical Shi’ism swept across North Africa and the Levant, and people thought the rise of the Fatimid Empire marked the end of the world, the Seljuks, self-appointed defenders of Sunnism headed the Fatimid conquest at Baghdad and pushed them back to Egypt. Fascinating stuff!

Then we learned about the Mongol invasion and the sack of Baghdad in 1258, when the world really DID end from the point of view of the Arabs, and I knew that Central Asia would never be boring to me again.

The Turks and the Mongols were both nomadic peoples who lived on the steppes of Central Asia–basically, an enormous stretch of grassland like the prairie in the American Midwest. These guys lived in camps, with their cattle and horses, and looked down on the thought of settling down in cities and living a civilized, sedentary life. To them, the nomadic life meant freedom–the people of the cities were voluntary slaves and beneath the hardy nomads.

Genghis Khan, born Temujin (“Genghis Khan” is a title that basically means “ruler of the world”), united the Mongol tribes and built the largest empire the world had ever seen. Bigger than Alexander’s Hellenist Empire, bigger than the Roman Empire, bigger than the Babylonians, Assyrians, Sassanians, Umayyids, or Abassids. The Mongol Empire was BIG–it stretched from Korea to the Black Sea! If it weren’t for the Mameluks (one of the few Arab kingdoms that wasn’t mismanaging itself to death), the Mongols might have swept North Africa and the Mediterranean!

The coolest part of the story was the religious justification behind Genghis Khan’s ruthless, bloodthirsty conquest. When Temujin was a young boy, the shaman of his tribe told him that the great sky god Tengri had given Temujin the world. By conquering millions of people, massacring hundreds of cities, and building an empire of blood, death, and fire, Genghis Khan was only fulfilling his destiny!

For the last few weeks, I’ve been practically obsessed with all this history. It’s fascinating! Like reading a really good novel–except it’s real life! Orson Scott Card often says that anyone interested in becoming a writer should study history instead of English in college, and I can see what he means.

All this stuff I’ve been learning about the Mongols has given me dozens of story ideas, many of which I plan on including in my current novel, Hero in Exile. I’ll write a separate post to explain it all, but basically it involves the Mongol Empire in space. Just like the Mongols considered themselves the only free people in the midst of sedentary urban dwellers, so the Hamejis in my novel (a spacefaring people who live entirely in their spaceships) consider themselves free in comparison with the billions of people living under continent sized domes across nearly a hundred settled planets. Just as the sky god Tengri gave Temujin the world, so the god of the epistellar jovian in the Hameji home system has given them the universe. It is their destiny to take and rule it by blood and fire. Bwahahaha!

(photos taken from Genghis Khan II by Koei, a 90s DOS game)

A slow spot

This last week has been somewhat frustrating. Started it off well, with good progress in my story, but early on in the week, all kinds of assignments started piling onto me–stuff that I should have seen coming, but have been putting off ’til the last minute (as usual). It didn’t help that I just discovered Genghis Khan II, a really awesome old DOS game. :p

So, between juggling homework, struggling not to get addicted to this new game, and dealing with exhaustion in general, it’s been a pretty slow week.

The upside, though, is that I’ve had lots of time to think about the universe of Hero in Exile. I’ve got some REALLY awesome ideas for the world, stuff that’s inspired by Heinlein’s Citizen of the Galaxy and the rise of the Mongol Empire. History 240 is one of my favorite classes this semester–it gives me so many good story ideas!

As a result, I can hardly wait to get to the really good parts of my novel. I just wish I didn’t have so much school to worry about. Grr…

There is a lot that I want to blog about, but I need to get my sleep tonight. Take home test due tomorrow for PLSC 201, and I want to get it finished before work at 10 am (yeah right…).

He remembered me!

Ok, so it’s 1:40 am right now and I have to be up at 7:00, so this is going to be short.

Yesterday was the release party for Brandon Sanderson’s newest book, Hero of Ages. I had to go to work from three to four, but while walking through the bookstore on my way there, I saw a handful of cosplaying fans sitting merrily in a short line (maybe five or ten people) in front of the table covered in Brandon’s books. I thought to myself, Ok, I don’t have to worry too much about the line being that long when I get off at 4:00.

Well, I arrived, and the line had already snaked its way around a couple of bookshelves. That was ok, though. I expected a wait. Sat down in my spot and read a little from Tales from the Thousand and One Nights.

Fantasy fans can be really interesting, quirky people. There was this girl in line just a few spaces ahead of me who talked the whole time about just about anything fantasy related. It was really funny and entertaining. The conversation in that part of the line was really interesting and engaging, even for those of us who were just listening in. One of the people behind me mentioned later, “you can tell she’ll be a writer because of the way she talks.”

The guy behind me struck up a conversation by asking what I was reading (I had also pulled out the Qur’an to get some reading in for my history class), and I found out that he’d come all the way from his work in Salt Lake to get the book. That was surprising, considering that he hadn’t even read Mistborn 1 yet.

Neither had the guy right in front of me. He was an energetic freshman who pulled out his computer and wrote in his fantasy novel for a while. I gave him the Quark writing group email (quarkwritinggroup@gmail.com, if you happen to be an interested BYU student) and we spent a good long time talking about various sci fi and fantasy books that we had read.

Brandon showed up, and the line started moving. It was pretty slow, but that was ok because we’d all prettymuch broken the ice and were chatting it up the whole way there. I saw a bunch of random people I knew, which was really fun. “Fantasy brings us together!”

So then, I got there at the desk where Brandon was signing the books. He looked a little stressed up there, but he also seemed to be having a good time. I wanted to know if he’d recognize me from his class last year–after all, he’s a busy man, especially now with Mistborn 3, Alcatraz 3, and the final Wheel of Time book.

But he did! He saw my name on the sticky note and said “Joe! How’s it going?” We chatted for a bit, and he asked how my novel was coming along! I said it was coming along well, that it had been rejected once and he was like “yeah, of course that’s going to happen,” so I said I was working on it, as well as a new one, and that I was looking forward to his class in the winter.

He signed my book “For Joe–keep writing!” I was number 79. Took a picture with him, and now it’s my Facebook profile picture. It’ll be up there for a while!

Letter to the Daily Universe

My roommate Matt wrote this awesome letter to The Daily Universe last year (scroll down to the heading “Message for Sisters” to read his letter), and garnered some incredibly hilarious responses from the BYU community. He struck a tightly strung chord in this community, something that everyone here at BYU spends a lot of time thinking about: dating.

Well, I figured that I have something I’d like to say on this subject, so earlier this week I drafted a letter of my own. I haven’t actually looked at the submission guidelines for letters to the editor, so I’ll probably have to shorten this quite a bit, but I wanted to post the full version here in case anyone’s interested. Enjoy!

When girls complain that they don’t get asked out on dates, we are quick to find fault with the guys and slow find fault with the girls.I believe this is a mistake.While it is true that a lot of the stinging criticism leveled at the guys is true and valid, there are many things that the girls do to turn off potential admirers.With regards to that, here are five general principles for dating that I believe every girl at BYU should know and follow:

1.Everyone is worth a first date.

Of all of Elder Oak’s dating counsel, the point we ignore the most is that a first date is not a big deal.Relax.Have fun.Give it a chance.How do you know that it can’t work out?And even if it probably won’t, at least it’s a great learning opportunity.No one is too far beneath you for a first date.

2.If you turn down a first or second date, no matter the excuse, it says “I’m not interested in dating you.”

Ambiguity is more painful than rejection.Even if your excuse is legitimate, guys will assume the worst.They may ask you out again, after some time, but they will be much slower to do so.On the other hand, if you want to communicate disinterest, turning down a second date is the polite way to do it.

3.If a guy asks you on a date and the time does not work for you, the way to say no without communicating complete lack of interest is to suggest an alternative time and activity.

If you have an honest scheduling conflict but are interested in dating him, do this and you erase the painful ambiguity that makes him reluctant to ask you out again.Besides, it is polite and very classy.

4.Backing out of a date at the last minute not only says “don’t date me,” it is inconceivably rude and extremely unattractive.

Guys step up to the plate by taking the initiative; girls step up to the plate by following through.If you are guilty of backing out after saying yes, you have absolutely no right to complain that guys don’t ask you out enough.Quite frankly, you are getting what you asked for.

If something genuinely does come up and you must cancel at the last minute, remember principle three.Show by your actions that you are not flaking out just because you got cold feet.

5.If you rudely turn down one guy, others will hear about it.

Guys are not as aloof as you think.We have our social networks and we talk with our friends about our dating experiences just as much as you do.Keep that in mind when someone out of left field asks you out.The word gets around.

Please know that I don’t mean to blame the girls at BYU for not getting asked out.Too many guys at this university aren’t man enough to step up to the plate.At the same time, the girls are not beyond the need for repentance.I’ve found, in my experience, that these five principles work, and I sincerely believe that if every girl in this university followed them, not only would we all date more, but we would all have a lot more fun.

New job!

This past week I just started a new job at BYU. I’m a writing advisor for the FHSS (Family of Home and Social Sciences) writing lab. It’s GREAT! I help students work on their papers and work on their writing skills, and I really love it.

How I got this job is an interesting story. Honestly, it was really just a series of flukes that ended up working beautifully. I was just in the right time at the right place and fell into it.

It began when I went to the BYU Bookstore to talk with my old boss in the stockroom and figure out all the paperwork for getting rehired. I’d talked with him at the end of the winter semester, and he knew my schedule and had told me that everything was fine for me to work in the fall–we just had to fill out the paperwork and go through the formalities.

Well…long story short, when we finally got into the rehiring interview and I told him that I could only work MWF, his face dropped and he gave me a card with a number on it to call and check on my job application the next day. He said that he wasn’t sure if they had a place for me because I couldn’t work TTh, but that he’d try.

It wasn’t hard to see, though, that I wasn’t going to get rehired.

Here’s a funny thing. I tend to get really worked up and angry over little things, like slow drivers or computers that don’t work or paperwork that I didn’t know I had to fill out. But when it comes to major things–like my old boss dropping the ball, leaving me without a job–I’m really mellow about it. Even though I needed money and didn’t know what I’d do without a job, I figured that this had happened for a reason and that everything would work out in the end.

It did. I was walking through the Wilk on my way home one day and decided to check the job boards. I skipped over all the custodial and dining jobs (those are dead ends anyways) and looked at the academic ones.

Usually when I look at these jobs, I feel that I’m much too underqualified. However, as I was skimming over them, my eye fell on the ad for being a writing advisor. I love writing, so I decided to read a little more closely. To my surprise, as I read over the qualifications, I found that I met almost all of them.

I picked up an application, selected some writing samples, and wrote a cover letter. I was a little bit worried because I spent so much time talking about my experience as Quark writing VP, since that’s a non-academic setting, but that ended up being one of my most attractive selling points. When they asked me what my greatest weakness was, I said “procrastination,” but then I was able to turn around and say “but I set a goal to write a novel last year and achieved it” through consistent, daily writing. Even though the advisor position is for academic writing only, my experiences with creative writing made me look surprisingly attractive.

The thing that sealed me the job was my schedule. They needed MWF and practically all my classes are TTh. So not only were they excited because of my qualifications, they were excited because I was available when they needed it. Getting the job wasn’t that hard from there.

So now I’m a writing advisor, and I LOVE it! I sit around the lab, chatting and hanging out with all the other cool people who work there, and every once and a while an MFHD or Psychology major comes in with a paper and we look over it. Good people, low-stress work environment, work that I actually love doing, really good pay for an on-campus job, and best of all, it’s the kind of job that looks REALLY good on a resume. This has got to be the best job I’ve landed since I came here at BYU. I’m so happy and thankful that things worked out the way they did!