Inside My Head Podcast number 102

All of the music on today’s episode comes from Deuce Management.

Music by:

* Spaceship Days , with a song called “Stick On Stars”

* Trip to Dover , with a song called “Solar System”. That link is to their MySpace page. You can also find Trip to Dover on their official website.

* Rachel Rabin , with a song called “Spaceship On the Moon”. That link is to her MySpace page. Check out her official website.

* Whitestar , with a song called “Reaction”. That is their Myspace page. Find them on their official website.

Today’s Haiku of Frustration is called “Oops”. It’s about something stupid I did, and is exclusive to this episode of Inside My Head. You won’t find it anywhere else online!

Want more haiku? Check out Heckava Haiku by Robert Gasperson. I highly recommend it!

Somewhere in this episode you will hear the “Horns of Importance”. You will have to listen to the show to discover why.

Featured Promo:
* The App A Day Podcast

Where’s Jen?
Not sick of my voice yet? Here is where you can hear a little bit more of it in these other fine podcasts:

* Erk Pod number 238
“Welcome to Twenty Ten (Or Two Thousand Ten). This episode went up January 5, 2010.
Erk played a “Peanut of the Week” bumper that Shawn created. My voice is mixed in with his at the end. (This gets played twice!)

* Erk Pod number 240
“Wacky Wacky Erk” This episode went up January 19, 2010
Erk played a feedback haiku that I wrote and recorded exclusively for his shows. Three times!

* All Things Azeroth number 177
“It Goes On and On My Friends”
This show went up January 22, 2010
My voice is in: the intro, the news bumper, and a voice mail Shawn and I recorded and sent out to wish the show a Happy Three Year Anniversary. I also did a Back to Basics segment about my first fan email. You can also hear a song I created for All Things Azeroth called “Murloc Rock”.

* Erk Pod number 242
“Powered by Phantom Power Media”
This show went up January 26, 2010
Erk played my feedback haiku twice! You can hear me speak Spanish for his segment called “The Plane is About to Crash and That’s Ok”.

* All Things Azeroth number 178
“Emails, Emails, Emails”
This show went up January 28, 2010
You can hear my voice in the intro and the news bumper. I did a Back to Basics segment about the Shaman class that appears at the end of the show.

* Blast from the Past Podcast number 51
“Feedback VIII”
This show went up January 29, 2010
Erk and Judy played the feedback haiku I created for them.

And now…. here is today’s episode of Inside My Head. Enjoy!

Got an interesting coupon recently. Baja Fresh is, for those unfamiliar, a mexican food chain that exists out here in California. I’ve no idea where else you can find one. They, like several other fast food places, have been sending out various coupons to entice customers to come to their fast food restaurant, instead of some other one.

Anyhow, recently go this coupon from Baja Fresh that says :
“$5.00 off any purchase of $10.00 or more”

In order to use this coupon, you have to go online, to www.bajafresh.com, and join their club. It is extremely easy to do, and almost instantly, you get a code. Write the code on the coupon, and bring it with you when you go to Baja Fresh. Easy! Oh, and of course, you have to use it before the expiration date. It expires February 15, 2010. There is one in town, so this will work. Just like that, cheap eats!

All of that was very straight forward and simple. The form I filled out when I joined their club asked for my email address, and I gave them one I use for that sort of thing. Will I get any interesting coupons from Baja Fresh in my email? Do they give you free food on your birthday like some Hometown Buffet does, when you join the club? I’ve no idea.

I will let you know what I get, if anything.

Finally reached level 50!

Inside My Head Podcast number 101

This show is all about “the ugliest band in the world”, The Muggs!

In addition to telling you all about this awesome band, I play several of the songs off their newest EP “On With the Show”:
* Slow Curve
* On With the Show
* Down Below
* Get It On
* Somewhere Down the Line
* Just Another Fool

Want to get yourself a shiny belt buckle like the one seen above? Go here. The Muggs have a wide selection of shirts for both men and women, and you can pick up a copy of their EP “On With the Show”, or their first EP “The Muggs” right there. They even have vinyl!

This is a list of their upcoming shows.

Find The Muggs online at The Muggs official website, or visit their MySpace page.

You may have noticed a distinct lack of writing appearing on the Between Gigs blog as of late. There is a good reason for that. No, I haven’t been too sick to write, (although those that know me well can see where that might have been the case). No, my computer didn’t wash away in the tremendous amount of rain we have been experiencing in California in the past few weeks. I have been safe, dry, connected to the internet, and (relatively) healthy.

You might remember this blog post from not too long ago, where I mentioned that I’d sent off a resume and some writing samples to not one, but two different potential freelance writing jobs. Each of them, at that time, had sent me an email to acknowledge that they received what I sent, and that they would get back to me.

I joked that “someday” I’d hear from them, not really expecting to. Like everyone else who is unemployed right now, I have sent countless resumes and applications to a wide variety of potential jobs that I never hear from ever again. I’ll never know what happened to those jobs. There will never be a reason given as to why they decided not to hire me. It’s all in a maddening “limbo” of non-information.

Perhaps I’ve become jaded, but I’m at the point now where I completely believe that it’s best to assume I didn’t get the job, whatever the job may be, than to think I had a chance, only to become disappointed later, when I finally figure out that this employer never intended on calling me back. This is especially true for jobs that I actually want to do. How heartbreaking would it be if I let myself believe that “someday” one of the freelance writing jobs would get back to me, and I waited and waited and waited…. and they never did?

To my surprise and amazement, one of the two freelance writing jobs I had applied for did keep their word, and get back to me. I couldn’t believe it. I figured I must have been dreaming, but there, on my computer screen, was an email saying I’d been hired. I can now happily say that I am a freelance writer. For the moment, this is true.

Now, before you get overly excited, let me explain a bit about the job. It has an endpoint, which is coming up soon. I knew this when I applied for the job, so that is perfectly acceptable. I am writing non-fiction articles about a variety of topics they select for some projects they are working on. The pay is nicer than anything else I have earned as a writer. Keep in mind, this is my first gig. This is not a “Quit your day job and hire an agent” type job. One has to start somewhere, however, and this particular “somewhere” is a great place to be.

Most of my time lately has been spent happily writing little articles for this particular company to use in their projects. I’m enjoying it immensely. I’ve been “in the zone”, writing words, for a large part of this week, and continually amazed that I’ve been hired to be a writer. I’m extremely happy.

I am still learning how to juggle the rest of my obligations around the writing. This blog, for example, got pretty much ignored, and I intend to find a way to prevent that from happening. I’ve got a bunch of other little projects that I do every week that so far, I’ve managed to keep up with. Things are sliding into place.

There is one thing that I keep thinking about. Let’s pretend that I never lost my job as a paraeducator, and that I was working there all this time. The Between Gigs blog never would have existed. I wouldn’t have been looking for work, so I probably would have missed the want ads I found about employers seeking writers.

If, by random chance, I did happen to see the ad that got me the gig I am doing right now, there wouldn’t have been a way for me to take it. I would have been spending full time hours at school, and would have been too mentally exhausted after school to put in the kind of effort required for me do the writing they hired me for. It just wouldn’t have been possible to put in the time and effort I would need to write as well as I can when it’s my only focus. It would have taken longer, and, since this job has a predetermined endpoint, having a job as a paraeducator may very well have cost me the job as a writer. I’d much rather be a writer.

When I lost my job as a paraeducator, with no warning, and for no given reason, I couldn’t imagine why on earth that happened to me. One can argue that things don’t always happen for a reason, they just happen. Religious folks might say that God always has a reason, we just don’t always get to know what it is. Whatever the case may be, it feels to me like there was a reason why I needed to be unemployed right now after all. It’s “someday”.