this is how i’m doing: in case you were wondering…

Can I just say, I absolutely LOVE working from home and working for myself.  I’m finding out that I’m not much of an 8-5 kind of guy.

Yesterday I decided to spend the day in Jacksonville being a photographer’s assistant for my buddy Jinx.  He had a gig shooting school photo’s for the pre-school at Central Baptist.  From this experience I confirmed two things:

1 - I really want to have kids some day.

2 - I don’t have the patience to be a pre-school teacher.

Honestly, it was like herding cats at times.  It takes a very special kind of person to deal with OTHER peoples kids all day.

I had a pretty good run earlier today — great weather for running!  Now I’ll proceed to spend the rest of the day buried in HTML and PHP and other acronyms that will hopefully keep me self-employed (while watching Discovery Channel).

Okay, so I’ve had a bit of a career crisis (bonus points for the alliteration) but I’ve got a new plan.

My career goals haven’t really changed — I still want to teach at the college level — but I’ve been re-evaluating how I’m going to get there.  My initial plan of working in higher ed. until I can earn my degree(s) just isn’t working out for me.  Also, I’ve had a shift in teaching interests which has me starting from scratch on choosing a master’s degree program.

I’ve decided to try my hand at freelancing full time.  I’m actually more at peace about this decision that I thought I would be.  I had an interview scheduled with Lon Morris College last Friday (which pretty much was a done deal) but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  I just couldn’t see myself taking a job that wasn’t going to get me to where I wanted to go.  Sure, it would have been a stable income, but people should LIKE what they do for a living, right?

So, Part 1 of my new plan is to focus on building up a client base and pile up some cash.  To supplement the unstable freelance income, I’ll be looking for a part-time job.

If Part 1 wasn’t exciting enough, Part 2 should be!  Over the past few months as I’ve been running, my fascination with health, exercise, and fitness has been rekindled and now I’ve become consumed by it.  I’ve often thought “It would be great to have a job where I could wear athletic clothes all the time; like a personal trainer.”  Well, I’m now at a point where that could become a reality!  There are a few gyms in the Tyler area that are looking to hire certified personal trainers, so I’ve begun looking into becoming certified.  I really like the Cooper Institute’s certification program and will probably go that route.

Now for Part 3.  I’ve started looking into graduate programs at the University of Texas at Tyler.  Specifically their M.Ed. in Health & Kinesiology.  Unfortunately, I’ll probably have to take some undergraduate leveling courses since my undergrad is in Speech Comm and I chose physics and astronomy as my two science courses.  I hated biology and chemistry in high school which is why I avoided them in college.  At that time I really didn’t care about cells and chemical reactions but now I can’t get enough — in the context of health and exercise of course ;-).

So there you have my 3 part plan.  I’m excited to see how all of this pans out!

Oh, and when you get some time, check out my latest web project — LIFE, Inc. — at www.lifeleading.com.

There comes a point in every young designer’s life when they finally get off their butt and put together their OWN site — That day is today (or like two days ago really) my friends.  www.pauljamesdd.com.  Tell your friends!  Preferably the ones with money

So today was a long run day with John.  We did not intend to run to Lake Ray Roberts.  We didn’t intend to run on the equestrian trail.  We also didn’t plan on spending 2 hours on this little adventure nor was it our idea to scare off a baby wild boar.  I wasn’t planning on spending the rest of the weekend recovering either.

We had a blast, but now I’m exhausted.  I’m really starting to dig the Greenbelt Corridor and it’s miles and miles of trails — it’s a welcome break from the asphalt and concrete that I usually see.  And getting to take a break sitting on the rocks at the south end of the lake was the icing on the cake.

At Starbucks working on some websites, sipping on some green tea.  It’s kind of like my second office — better than my actual office.  I should bring a name plate to put on my table.  Maybe bring a small plant and some other office nick-nacks.  Back to work — no blogging on “company time”

On a side note — this is how much of a geek I am.  I slept with my HR monitor on to see what my HR was while I slept — avg was 58!  I feel healthy

I’m in Tyler this weekend visiting my bro and spending time with my parents; they drove up to Tyler for Father’s day weekend.  Meeting with some folks at Lon Morris tomorrow to talk Website stuff again.  The more Web sites I do the more money I get and the more debt I can pay off which brings me closer to that goal of being a millionaire by the time I’m 50!

No running this weekend but I’ll be stepping it up again this week — 5k on Saturday!