I found this yesterday while browsing on the web in the early hours of the morning, a new found freedom I’ve discovered since my departure from the cubicle. It was made by General Electric during WWII and from what I understand, is considered a propaganda war poster.

The message for me, is about no regrets – a theme I’ve always try to keep constant in my life, but one that got away from me for a while. It’s what 2011 should be about though, for a lot of people and me.

So, with that in mind, I thought I’d start adhering to the theme three weeks early by doing something that has been years in the making: in less than a week, I’ll by flying off to Armenia, a country that I’ve not only written endlessly about, but one that an incredible group of people that I’ve come to grow so fond of call home and one, that as an Armenian, I have called home, from thousands of miles away. When I get over the initial shock, I’ll write more about it all either here or there, but for now, the only thing I can say is that I finally feel like I’m living.

In January, I saw a Francis Bacon exhibition in Dublin. Everything about that day was perfect, at least now when I look back it was, from the mushroom soup in the museum’s cafe, to the damp weather that was just the right amount of cold and the visual feast of Bacon’s life work that was in front of me to savor.

The day I had in Dublin is exactly what Lou Reed is referring to when he sings “Perfect Day.”

I hadn’t experienced euphoria like that for a while. The last time it happened before Dublin, I had been in Barcelona. It was humid. We took a walk in the afternoon to Las Rambla, the Sunset Blvd. equivalent to this Spanish city. La Boqueria, a large public market was our first stop. When you first walk in, there are so many colors, so many edible, beautiful things that you don’t know what to do with yourself. It is impossible to come out of there without buying something, anything, just so you can take a piece of the beauty along with you. We bought a bag of by-the-pound candy, full of strawberry belts and raspberry hearts and headed to the dock. It was humid and the smell of salt was floating in the air. We sat on concrete steps, a bag full of edible joy next to us and watched the waves and seagulls dance together.

It was a moment frozen in time, just like Dublin. It was a perfect day, not because I was traveling, or even because I was feeding my sweet tooth, but because above all things, that day symbolized contentment. I wanted no more, or no less. I was ok just being.

And unexpectedly, it happened again today, even though I wasn’t soaking up life in a European city thousands of miles away from home.

We drove through Echo Park and ended up in Silver Lake. It was too late to get any work done for my story and after  a stressful week,  all I wanted to do was have dinner and a cup of tea and only worry about the next two or three hours instead o the next two or three years.

A vegan pizza and chai soy latte later, we climbed up the windy streets to find the car. And then it happened. Everything was beautiful. The streets were quiet, the sky had almost sucked the sun dry and there was just enough light to see the murals on the wall. The air was flowered by the smell of fresh laundry. I couldn’t stop sniffing. It felt ok to breathe again, even though this particular moment’s euphoria only lasted a few minutes.

It was ok.

I needed that moment more than I ever have before. At a time when I’m faced with uncertainty, with decision-making that will impact my life, I needed a few minutes of bliss. I can’t stop thinking about the novel that changed my views on life, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” I wish I could know the impact of the decisions I’m about to make. I wish I knew what I will be faced with. But I don’t.

“We can never know what we want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.”

We can never know says Milan Kundera. This idea rings truer today than it ever has before. So much so, that I really feel its unbearable quality under my skin. I need more beautiful moments, one every few years just isn’t enough. I need happiness and contentment. I need to make a few life-altering decisions, I just wish I knew what they would lead to.

I know I’m not the first by any means to declare that there should more hours in the day. In fact, I’m probably the last. But oh how I need those hours. Just a few more. Maybe three or four more. I need them desperately. You see, there is so much I want to do and need to do and not enough time to do them in. The only thing that gets accomplished on a day to day basis is driving to work, working and driving back home, followed by a rapid draining of energy and me lying on the couch, tired and listless, even before I get a chance to do just one thing I had marked on my mental to-do list. Before I know it, it’s 12:30 a.m., and just as my energy is starting to come back, I have to go to sleep so that I have enough strength to repeat this routine all over again.

I’m not a fan of routines. That’s probably the reason why I’m so passionate about journalism, a profession that is the antithesis to following the same mundane and redundant lines of life on a daily basis. This is also why I’m not as organized as I’d like to be, which is just a nice way of calling myself messy. Yes, this is why. This is why I promised myself as a teenager that I never want to be employed anywhere that reminds me of “Office Space,” this is why cubicles scare me and make me really uncomfortable, even though I’m in one all day, this is why I never wear the same thing to bed twice in a row. This is why you’ll hear the faint sound of crunching and find Henry eating at 11:30 p.m. at night. My disdain for routines obviously translates well and is probably horrible for dog training.

Routine, derived from French, means “usual course of action, beaten path” as defined by the “Online Etymology Dictionary” by Douglas Harper.

People love routines. Even if they don’t, they’re necessary to function in life, or so we’re told. Exercise routines, morning routines, routines for children, routine medical procedures, a comedian’s routine. They’re everywhere, and it’s been made pretty clear that without them you fail.

Think about the time you spent in school. All those years, while you might have learned something about history, science, music and English, were really meant to instill routines in you, so that you’re prepared for your potential career. The way you’re required to be in class at a certain time, the seating arrangements, the grades you receive, the bell ringing to let you know class is over. Sure, school might be about acquiring knowledge, but it’s also mostly about acquiring routines that are meant to prove useful later in life.

Anyway, I’m not sure where exactly I was going with this schpeel, other than to say that I’m tired of the routines in my life that are keeping me from doing things I’m passionate about. I’m tired of the wasted hours on the road and my inability to pursue projects that have been lingering in the back of my mind. I’m tired of being tired. I hate complaining about not having enough time. I wrote a quote here a while back by H. Jackson Brown, Jr. that went “Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”

It’s so true. I shouldn’t say I don’t have enough time. If the aforementioned few aspired to greatness, I can too, with the same amount of time as they had. Then again, Mother Teresa, Hellen Keller or da Vinci never experienced the wrath of Los Angeles traffic in the mornings and evenings. That quote should be revised to “Don’t say you don’t have enough time, unless you spend more than two hours in traffic. In that case, I give you free reign to complain.”

Thanks H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

I read an article in the New York Times Magazine this past week by Lisa Belkin about the price of college tuition, and if paying more is necessarily worth it. “Does a $50,000 a year education really buy a better life than a $12,000 a year education? Or does it buy a fancier sticker for the car?” asked Belkin. She also goes on to say that “an online survey of 2,500 users on the website meritaid.com, found that 57 percent of [high school] seniors are looking at ‘less prestigious’ schools because they cost less.”

When I was in my senior year of high school and deciding to apply to college like every other student my age, I only really had one school in mind, and that’s the school I graduated from with a degree in Journalism. It was a California State University school, where I paid no more than $6,000 a year ( in fact, I think it was less than that) for four years. While others were in a race to get their applications in to UCLA, USC and out of state schools, I already chosen the school which I believed had the best journalism program in the vicinity. And I was right.

I believe a great majority of the people who applied to the brand name schools, only did so for that reason: name recognition. They weren’t thinking about the cost, or if the school had what they were looking for, they and I’m sure a number of parents, figured a bachelor’s degree from UCLA equaled a lifetime of health, wealth and happiness.

I had only one thing to say to that philosophy: It’s not the school, it’s you. The letters “U,” “C,” “L,” and “A” do not make you better educated, smarter or a better person. You make yourself better. You bring the fight, the passion, the willingness to learn. You create your own opportunities, not the prestige behind a school’s name that does not come with anything substantially better than the state school you choose to go to, except a hefty price tag that makes no sense.

The only thing that might be worth your time at a brand name school is the networking opportunities that you might have available to you. You’ve heard the saying “It’s not what you know, but who you know.” Well if that’s the case for these schools, then they’re nothing more than an elite club that values a social network over education.

I have the same position at work with people who graduated from so-called “better” schools. They’re no more better than me because of their education. I paid less then half of what they paid, had amazing professors who actually had real-life journalism experience and I even was a reporter for a local paper while I was still going to school. They paid to learn theories, rub shoulders with inflated egos and have a social network at their disposal.

Now, a year and a half after I’ve graduated, as I get ready to apply to schools in order to get my Master’s degree, I am faced with a dilemma. In fact, I’m faced with many dilemmas. I have looked at journalism schools across the country and beyond. The best I’ve found, that suit my needs and desires come in the form of Columbia University, New York University and Northwestern University. I haven’t thoroughly looked at their fees, because I’m already stressing out about GRE scores, letters of recommendations and clips – one more thing would just take me over the edge. I am sure all of them are in the $20 to 30,000 range or more. Going to Columbia would be a dream of mine, but they only offer a Master of Arts to candidates to have a considerable amount of experience in the field. I’m guessing that means five or more years. That’s discouraging. Their Master of Science program is good, but I think it would be more or less repeating what I already know. I don’t know if I can literally afford to do that. NYU and Northwestern look amazing to me right now as well. Their programs are great and everything I’m looking for.

I want to go to these schools not because of their name, but because of the incredible programs they offer. But what if I don’t get in? What if I’m not good enough? Why does my ability have to be measured by some test scores and transcripts? Why does anyone’s? I know I’m good enough. I have the passion in me. But what if I don’t have the scores? What then? What if I don’t have enough experience yet to apply to a graduate school of journalism? Why does that even matter? What do I do if I don’t get accepted? Do I choose a safety school? Do I banish the thought of not getting accepted out of my head? And what if I do? How do I pay for it? Where do I live? How do I pay to live?

There are just so many questions that I, nor anyone else does not have answers to. The truth is, I’m scared. I think that’s normal. Some of the best things I’ve done in my life have been preceded by fear. Like when I traveled thousands of miles to Barcelona to meet my boyfriend, or when I spent an entire night with a magician at The Magic Castle whom I had only met a day before hand to get a story and write an article, or when I interviewed at a position where I felt slightly belittled, although I stood my ground. I came home thinking, it was the worst interview ever and I was for sure not going to get the job because they were not impressed. I ended up getting it, but didn’t take it, due to the fact that I wasn’t quite interested in the arrogance and unpleasant environment I foresaw myself working with and in.

Oh, it’s not just the test, or the essays or the Master’s degree. It’s life. Thrust into the world, after school, is difficult. This is the real test. It’s all a test.

Yes, that’s really me. Don’t laugh.

Right now, I want to write about the presidential debate that commenced just a few hours ago. I want to write about how Joe the Plumber has replaced Joe Six Pack and how I was waiting for the sharpie that McCain was rocking back and forth in his hands to explode and how he did not even address the violent-laced insults McCain “supporters” have been hurling at Obama for the last few weeks. Most of all, I want to take those people who even dared to utter the words “Kill him,” “Terrorist,” “Traitor,” or “Off with his head,” dump them all on an island, and drown them with their own ignorance. The world and the gene pool does not need people like that.

That’s what I’d like to write about. I want to get a piece of the pie, like the commentators as CNN, the writers and bloggers at the NY Times and other media outlets have been doing.

Except, I’m tired. I’m really tired. I’m the kind of tired where you feel your eyeballs in their sockets. That’s never a good sign. I’m tired not only because I feel like I’m getting sick and thus have been taking Emergen-C (does this stuff even work?), advil and wearing big sweaters to counteract my chills that are multiplying, but because I stayed at work longer than usual today, a lot longer than usual, and I am suffering the consequences of staring at a computer screen for more than seven consecutive hours. Then when I come home, I subject myself to it again by getting on my own computer. I just with there were more than 24 hours in a day.

Goodnight, internet.