writing – Page 9 – Anthony Otero

Be Thankful

I feel like as I grow older I get more sentimental about life. I wonder if that is just the nature of getting older. Is it that, at this point in my life, I have things to look back on and wonder if I could have done things better? Perhaps I should be thankful that things are not as bad as they could be. But, seeing how the holiday season has arrived, my thoughts are always focused toward reflection.

This week has been so very interesting in both breadth and scope. I have often talked about me being on the precipice of something great but I have not been able to take that leap of faith. There always seems to be that one thing that keeps popping up that I need to take care of before I can continue on my journey. That thing is never the same thing, it is always that one thing that blocks my path; another obstacle that stands in the way.

However, it is those obstacles that keep me humble in who I am as a man. I am thankful for all those people in my life that I never seem to say thank you to. The people who constantly check up on me to make sure that I am doing ok or that I am even still alive. I know that there are many people in this world that are not blessed with the amount of people who seem to care.

I am so thankful for being able to get through this particular year with roommates that have been able to pay rent and while that may sound a little funny, I have had to use that money to repair many things around the house that seemed to malfunctioned or just straight broken down. I think someone in heaven is looking out for me because had I not had those people living with me, I am not sure I would have been able to survive last month alone.

As I sit here and type this I can say that right now I am generally scared. I am not sure what to do at this point in my life. Well, that is not entirely true, I do know what to do, I am just afraid that I will fail. Sarah Lawrence College has such a beautiful campus. I was so amazed about how there are so many places within that college that would enable me to get my work done. It just makes think about what will happen if I get in…but then what if I don’t. Either way, I have to just be thankful that I even have that opportunity to apply.

Somewhere through this I have been listening to Kanye West’s Album all week, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and I have become so addicted to it. The beats, the lyrics, the vibe, has been so trance like for me that, during this time of reflection, it make me think about my goals and more importantly, the fact that the only person who is going to take care of me is me.

“Lost in the World” – Kanye West

Then there is my love life, a subject I rarely talk about because it is a complicated as…well as complicated as women. I guess I should be grateful for what is and what is not happening in this portion of my life. I do feel that everything happens for a reason. I know that there are people in this world who are utterly alone with no sign of comfort or human touch. I am thankful that I have not gotten to the point of bitterness toward the world. I have come to notice that unhappy people in this world tend to be people who have no one to love them. It is at this point that I want to say that I am very thankful for my dog, Rocky, for showing me what unconditional love means (I thank my dad too…but I talk about him all the time…lol).

I also want to be thankful for those people who wish me to fail and not succeed. Those people who think I am worthless and those who have held me back over the years. They have provided endless amounts of motivation for me. I do know my shortcomings, but I also know that I can do anything I put my mind to. It is these people in my life that end up feeding into my fears as well adding fuel to my fire. People who will anonymously comment on a certain blog post to bring up a long dead issue from the past that will ultimately give me more motivation to be a better man. Thank you.

Thanksgiving to me is not just about the food or the family, it is about reflection. It is about all things that I should be thinking about before Christmas. I remember going through this last year, in which it seemed that just about every post I did in December was one of reflection. I have to chuckle because I am not sure I have just limited that reflection to just the winter time.

Most of all, I want to thank all of you for reading this blog. I was never sure where I was going with this sight. I wanted it to be solely about about my soul. I think you have seen me at my highest and at my lowest. While I have been on the straight and narrow with my writings, I know that there is a side of this Gemini heart that you have not seen. Perhaps I am not comfortable in sharing it with the world because quite frankly some of the things that I write scare me. In either case, I am grateful for the comments I get on my Facebook page. It is good to interact. I do not call anyone a fan, I would rather call you a reader. Thank you.

In the end…I want to thank that one person who manages to make me smile everyday.

my life, my passion, writing

Passionate Dreamer

At this moment, I do not want to get to a point where I have nothing to talk about so I will just write about what is currently on my mind and see where it takes me. To be honest, this blog is titled “Inside My Head” and it would be nice if I actually did that from time to time.

I am such an emotional person that sometimes, it is hard to focus on certain subjects. Right now, I feel a certain way about the type of work I do. I am passionate about students and that is one reason why I have stayed where I am. The passion for this runs so deep that I find myself getting infuriated by those who do not share a certain amount of passion for the education of students. While I am not on the academic side yet, I do feel that student affairs provides students with education outside the classroom.

I feel that this type of work is very rewarding and I feel that I have sacrificed large amounts of my life for students. It comes with the territory and that does not bother me. However, I believe a great deal of that sacrifice was part of ending my marriage. It becomes difficult to work with people who forget why we work at a University.

I have also been struggling with several poems that I have swirling in my head right now. I have written five unfinished poems that are just staring at me from my notebook. They are all about love, of course. Although, one of them seems to be about the absence of love.

I am trying to figure out why I am struggling with this. I know that there are things that I am dealing with personally that I will equate to a chess game. Each move I make is to set up the next move and it must be planned with such precision that the wrong move could lead to the wrong kind of checkmate. The funny thing about this is that I am not all that great at chess, although I do know how to play.

I also have this growing fear in the back of my heart. I am trying to do so many things that failing is becoming less of an option. The job market is so bad that I have been turned off by it. I have to fight myself just to apply for a job. Which is why school is looking so good to me. I am not afraid of school nor the work. I have a small fear that I may not get in, but I think jitters like that are normal. I am just thinking about the next move.

Leaving Syracuse will be harder than leaving NYC because I will be leaving a career that I have enjoyed but, I think that now it is the time to chase a dream. I will have to, once again, go out on a limb and do this. I have learned so much this year about myself and what I will do to make myself happy, which also means taking risks. So, with the end of this year coming I will be taking one of possibly many leaps of faith in hopes that I will be rewarded in the end.

Masters Degree, my life, writing

The Future

I need to use this blog as a sounding board. I know that I have talked about what my future career goals in the past and I have always said that I wanted to get a Master’s degree. When thinking about this in the past I have though about what made sense.

I first thought, years ago, that the best route for me was a Master’s in Business Administration. At the time it made sense. I wanted to pave the way for me being a VP of some college and I felt that this route would round me out as a professional. I would be able to understand the world from a business sense. I went so far as to take a graduate level Economics course. Through this class, I realized once again how much I hate the corporate world and math. It was a hard class that I took with my busy work schedule and I still passed with a hard earned B+.

I knew this was something that I did not want to do. So I had to rethink my strategy and think about what it is I really want to do. That is when I started thinking about Higher Education. I know from experience that this particular field does not have many people of color. I am one of few Latinos in any capacity in administration at Syracuse University.

There is a particular area of study that SU has that is very similar to Higher Education called Cultural Foundations of Education. I find this area to be very enlightening. I loved the two course that I took so much that I was able to get A’s in both. I opened myself to a new world in which lead me to create this blog in the first place. However, I felt like there was something was missing. I knew that there was this feeling growing inside of me that makes me not want to stay here, particular after the break up of my marriage.

I knew then, as I know now, that I am done with the Syracuse point of view on things. I know that I need to move on to other places in order to truly be rounded out. So, I have been on this job search for more than a year without any real bites. To be honest, most places are looking for a Master’s degree and I not willing to stay here and pursue that. So that leaves me with finding a job and then go to grad school part time or just cash in all my chips and go back to school full time.

During my job search, I came across a small school in Bronxville, NY called Sarah Lawrence. I have had a few people tell me how awesome this school is because they have Master’s courses in Writing. I applied for a job that I did not hear back from and I just kept this school in the back of my mind…until about 3 weeks ago when I was walking through a graduate school fair that I was working. A lady from Sarah Lawrence College was there and we started talking.

She talked about how great the school was and how I really need to think about attending an open house to see the campus. I filled out a card and took some paperwork on the school. I read it when I got home and really started to ponder if this was something that not only could I do, but is this what I really wanted. I have to admit I feel that my writing is missing something that I cannot quite put my finger on. Maybe, I needed formal training from people who have done what I aspire to do.

I put this thought on the back burner because I had a LBC Challenge to write, I had Homecoming at SU to work, and I had a speech to give. Friday, I finally get the official Sarah Lawrence packet in the mail. I opened it with such excitement. There was a letter addressed to me and all this information on how to apply. More importantly, the open house is November 11th. Ugh, it is a Thursday, which is going to be an issue. So I put it down because I figured that I will just get back to it eventually.

This weekend was when all thoughts came into my head that I just need to write down because I do not want to forget this. A Masters in Writing could mean that I can still be in Higher Education. I could teach a writing courses, perhaps at another university or college! I had even thought about how I could teach Blog Writing and have classes just on how to communicate one’s feelings and put them on a blank slate. Perhaps I could teach a course on Cultural Writing on how one can express culture through writing…

I thought about this and I had to just stop and look around. What if this is what I was meant to do? What if this what I have been looking for? It just feels so right to me. I would still do the public speaking thing, the blog writing, the poetry, and the short stories, but to totally submerge myself into writing and help students realize that this is something that they could do is just priceless.

I just need to apply. Now.

Latino Heritage Month, The Printed Blog, writing

Some Ground Rules..

On the eve of Latino Heritage Month I wanted to lay out how things will go on this blog. With my recent partnership with the Printed Blog, I need to tell you that this big ass button on the right —————-> indicates that if you really like what I have written, then please place your vote for me. What this does is give me a chance to be featured in print. I have viewed this publication and I think this is a great thing to be a part of and I am really honored to be a part of it.

The next thing that I need to talk about is that I am working on a 30 Day Latino Blog Challenge. I am still developing it and will unveil it tomorrow. This is a challenge to me and to anyone out there who wants to really try to raise the bar higher when it comes to Latino Heritage Month. One of the things I really love to do is challenge myself so I am coming up with 30 topics.

This is not as easy as it seems. I honestly thought I was going to just coast through this. But I have spent about a week on this so far and I have to say that this should be very interesting for me because some of these things I do not normally talk about. But, I am all about personal exploration and cultural awareness. I plan on challenging myself creatively and intellectually.

When it comes down to it, I know that other blogs will highlight the obvious and same people and topics. I want to go a little broader and deeper. Quite frankly, I want to get personal, since that is what I am all about because my writing is personal. I take the time to share with all of you how I feel and how I live my life. So I owe it to myself to step out of my box.

Blogging, dreams, fate, my life, omens, the alchemist, writing

The Pursuit of My Dream

So the real question for me is…What is my dream? What is it that I wanted to do when I was a child? The only thing that I really wanted to do was write. As a kid, I used to create characters and superheros with elaborate histories and complex stories. This used to be my fantasy. I am not sure where it stopped. But, I was under the impression that comic book writers did not get paid much, so before college, that faded.

Let me mention again that when I was a child that I used write horror stories that involved my classmates. I would let them read it and listen to how amazed they were about how I used my imagination to scare everyone. Of course, as much as I tried to impress the girls that I liked, the guys I perceived to be better looking and less intellectual seemed to get all the attention in the end. So I stopped doing that.

In high school, I used to write sexually charged stories about women I met on the street. Many of them included teachers that have taught me.This is one tidbit of info I have never shared with anyone. I got to the point where I had a note book filled with chapters of, what I would consider now to be, smut. In the end, I felt ashamed that I was 15 and writing thinks about sex that I had no knowledge of. I ended up throwing out the book because I did not need my mother finding any of this.

Once I got to college and realized that I really should not be a History Major, I was looking to do something that I really wanted to do. So one of things I also thought about doing is being a screenplay writer or a play-write. So, in order to transfer to schools within Syracuse University I need to have a certain GPA and I needed to write a 5 minute script. My attempt was to join the school of Visual & Performing Arts because there was no way I was getting into the Newhouse School of Public Communications. So I wrote this script called “Call Your Mother” which was very emotional for me to write. It is about a son and his conflict between his divorced parents. Consequently, I didn’t get in due to my GPA and not the work.

I have actually kept that script. It is just sitting on my hard drive. I have tweaked it from time to time. I was thinking about adding to it, but I wrote it in such a way that is perfect the way it is…to me anyway. Poetry was never really on my mind. I didn’t care for it and I avoided classes about it. However, and again few people knew this, I loved hip hop in the 90’s so much that I used to write rhymes because I was so inspired (talk about lying to yourself)!

Finally, I became an English Major because it only made sense. I loved to write so much that I would correct other people’s papers. Even in high school I made some money doing this. Writing was the only thing that came naturally to me. I would often joke in my 20’s that I would write a book about my life because of some of the things that I have encountered. But, of course, when I graduated in 1996, all I hear is that English Majors do not make much money. So once again…I scraped this idea of being a writer of any kind.

In 1999, I found myself working in Corporate America and feeling very underutilized. The pay was great but I was bored. So I tinkered with the web and created a website. I posted pictures and just did dumb things, but it wasn’t until I read a blog from a woman, that ended up being a good friend of mine, that I began to understand what I blogging was. Her writing was such an inspiration that I had to get to know her. At that point, I create a blog and even had my own domain. (Currently she is re-branding her blog and if I am really lucky…she will guest blog *waving at Nakia*)

However, my writing was amateurish at best. I knew it then. I had nothing worth saying and it showed in the way I wrote. I would talk about my daily life in NYC and Subway stories and while they were funny, that wasn’t the person I was trying to present to the world. I would keep another version of the blog after I moved back to Syracuse on a site called Xanga, but I just wasn’t happy with it. I didn’t know how to find my voice and I didn’t know how to deal with writers block. However, every now and then I would write a blog entry on Myspace..so clearly, I could not let it die.

It wasn’t until January of 2009 that I started this blog and found my voice. Once again it was because I was inspired by a blog that a woman wrote (a different woman, *waving at Brooke* and I am friends with her too!). I had not written anything in 2008 and it showed. I wrote every day until May. Once I really stopped lying about my life and confronted my fears, is when this blog had really taken shape. Now, I manage 2 blogs, the other one being on tumblr for more creative work.

My dreams have shifted over the years and I still very much want to be an author. I also want to be a public speaker as well. There are obstacles in my way and they do slow me down. But after reading The Alchemist, I now know that those obstacles are objects that are placed in my way to make me appreciate my life and all the efforts it is currently taking for me to get where I need to be.

I still have that screenplay and I still have some short stories that I have written. There is also the poetry that seems to pour out of me. My dreams are very much to make an impact on this world. I love working with students and who knows where my Higher Education background will take me…but I do know that this profession pays the bills. Perhaps when I reach my dream…I will pay back all the karma I have spent just to get there.

drawing, sketching, writing

An Underdeveloped Talent

Yeah…it is me. -_-

Last night someone asked me to tell them something about me that they did not already know. After some thought, I admitted to her that I have a sketchbook. I actually have several of them. Drawing was something I used to do all the time. In fact, I used to draw as much as I write now.

Being such a fan of comic books when I was a kid, drawing was something I just loved to do. I think over the years I had gotten better and better. I was able to understand shapes and shading. I just had serious issues drawing women (which I have since overcome). However, I have stopped drawing seriously and concentrated on my writing. Truth be told, I never considered myself all that good with a pencil.

However, I will doodle pictures and objects in meetings. Some of my co-workers have looked at me and told me that they cannot believe that I drew a certain picture. I have even go so far as to sketch people during the meeting. I must say that I am productive at work it is just that sometimes I just need to keep my hands moving. While I do have a love for drawing, I really do not think I am all that good.

Something that I do not think I have admitted either was is the fact that when I was in high school I aspired to be a comic-book writer. I was so deep on this committal that I created hundreds of characters with stories behind them. I will not take the entire credit myself, I did have a good friend help me with many of the stories. I am not sure why I did not follow through with this. I think is was mostly that I did not know how one becomes a comic book writer. As a matter of fact, I still don’t.

I look back at it and many of the characters and stories were of Latino and African American characters. Sure, I had white people, but the world that I created was much more about realness of people of all backgrounds. So, even as a high school nerd I still had some sort of social consciousness in me. In either case, I look at how comics are being written and I am happy because I know that I would have written those books in a very similar way.

I do find interesting that I feel the need to express myself in some sort of way. I just find the use of words to be easier for me then to actually draw something. However, I did sketch the above photo this morning. It is supposed to be me and I know that I am off in a few place. It was a quick thing that I just did. I have to laugh because I took a picture of myself with my cell phone and then drew this. As, I am sketching myself I am looking at all my features. I start thinking: damn, I have a big nose…whoa my lips are kinda big….is my forehead that large?

I think I now know why I stopped drawing: I over analyze EVERYTHING! 🙂

Latinos, Students, Syracuse, work, writing

I am Stumped!

I have to admit I am stumped. I am not sure what to do with my life at this moment in time. I know what want. But, getting there is a something I am not sure about. I already know that my days in Syracuse are numbered as it is, but it is a matter of when.

Going into this semester I feel myself being excited to have the students back. I look forward to the many new challenges my job has to offer. The issue for me is that I think I have learned all I can learn and I need to move on. Now, with that said, I know that I need to prepare myself for any transition in my life, which is what grad school will do for me. Unfortunately, in order for me to truly move up in my field, I need to get a Master’s Degree.

There is something about this that doesn’t sit well with me. I am willing to put in the work. I am willing to learn about education and how we can improve it to benefit the Latino youth. What gets me is the amount of work I have put in up to this point. I love working for the University but I feel lost because of the lack of representation within the staff. This does frustrate me, but, when I look at the students that need my help, I seem to forget about all that.

What do I want to do? Well, I want to write a book. I just do not know how I get to the point of pitching this idea I have to someone who would be willing to give me a chance an publish it. This goes well beyond my aspirations of being a short story writer. I am just not sure if this is something I should do after I get my Masters, or before, or during.

I am also nervous because once I walk down this path, there is no going back. I love what I do now, but I feel the time may come to take chance on my abilities. I know that I eluded being on the “The Precipice of Solitude”, but I am also the brink of something better. I just cannot put my finger on it.