life as understood

Watching professional tennis is difficult for me, but not for the same reason as most. I love every minute of the sport itself. It's difficult for me to watch simply because, in a freak statistical anomaly, whatever player I'm cheering for in any given match ends up winning only about 15% of the time.

It's ridiculous. Some sort of weird combination of Murphy's law and my propensity to cheer for underdogs. Either way, I was beginning to draft this in my head while watching the fifth set of Robin Soderling vs. Fernando Gonzalez in the French Open semifinal just now. I was cheering for the Swede, largely due to his Cinderella dethroning of Nadal in the fourth round. (Anytime Federer or Nadal lose, the world grows a little bit lighter.) Anyway, Soderling won the first two sets, lost the third and fourth, and of course called the trainer over because he was developing blisters. Quite often when a player I support is winning, sudden injuries are the "diabolus ex machina" that hose me (and them) in the end.

But today, my guy won. He came back from being down 4-1 in the fifth and took five straight games to advance to the final. I don't even care about Soderling himself that much, and he'll face Federer in the final, which means the fun will likely be short-lived, but today, he won, and he'll be better for it.

Once in a while, I win too.

Frequent readers of this blog will note the recent trend, beginning a month ago, of posts related to my English degree and subsequent lack of employment. Well, my friends, I'm elated to report that I now have a job. The Office of Public Relations here at the university is paying me to write. And what's more, they're paying me more than double what I was paid at my previous job in the English Department. In fact, they're paying me more than I've ever dreamed of being paid while living in the state of Utah, and to do something I love.

I haven't even really started yet, and I'm teeming with excitement. Who knew you could actually make money through writing? Most of the English faculty sure told me I wouldn't be able to, at least not self-respectingly. I've always believed as they've lectured, that creative writing and a steady income are, and probably should be, mutually exclusive. But it seems that is not always the case. This particular job of mine is temporary, far from a career or a hindrance on grad school, but it's certainly opening doors to future jobs and possible careers in similar fields.

So, this isn't the most well-crafted or thoughtful or tightly-written prose of mine, but it is born out of sheer happiness, and that seems like a good enough reason to write. I don't think I've ever really been proud of a job before--at least not like this--and I thought I should share it. This is, after all, essentially a personal blog, and I can write about what I want. And I write: Study what you love. My degree of glory is now paying off in more ways than one.