Summer 2022 Updates: Maine and Script Writing

It’s now the end of August, and I’ve not followed through on any of the promises from my last update.

That’s partially due to a dramatic turn of events, which I’ll describe later. However, I also have to accept that I’m simply not suited to a life online.

First, my excuses.

Recent Happenings

I live in Maine now.

Some of you might know that I’ve been applying to PhD programs, so that I could continue studying wildlife films. It turns out that I got accepted to the Communications and Journalism program at the University of Maine.

While this was great news, it also meant I had a lot of logistics to work out.

For instance, the housing market in Maine is extremely competitive right now, because apparently everyone’s decided that freezing temperatures, obscene amounts of snow, and the odd moose attack make for great living conditions. Thus, to ensure that I wouldn’t be homeless, I moved to Maine early – in the beginning of June.

This was, by far, the roughest move I’ve ever made. Fortunately, after several weeks of chaos and thousands of lost dollars, I may have found a decent place to live.

Moving (twice, actually) consumed lots of my time and energy, but there was another development that kept me away from blogging.

Script Writing

I got a second job in May. This past winter, a producer from a company called Savvas contacted me. He was working on a video about archaeology, and he wanted to know if I’d be willing to talk about my experiences working with archaeologists.

I agreed, and during the interview another Savvas employee mentioned that they needed script writers. One thing led to another, and eventually I found myself writing scripts for science videos.

To go from watching and studying science-based videos, to helping to create them was an incredible experience.

Of course, working two jobs meant that blogging wasn’t going to happen. Even after I moved to Maine and left my ‘day job,’ handling one commitment while trying to fix the mess I’d put myself in was more than enough.

Despite my excuses, though, there’s one central reason why I don’t think I can keep blogging much longer: it just doesn’t fit.

Real Life > Social Media

I’m no longer able to live for the internet. Spending all of my free time in front of a computer, writing about nature instead of experiencing it, doesn’t fulfill me.

Furthermore, when I get the chance to go out and do things, I find it terribly distracting to have to think about how I’m going to write about them later. I’d rather just live my life, without worrying about taking photos, notes, or turning myself into a “brand.”

Now that I’m starting a PhD program, I need to be even more protective of my time. If I felt like blogging could help support me, then I’d find a way to make it work. But, the chances of that happening are slim.

Given all that I said above, I don’t know what’s going to happen with my online future. I haven’t launched a new website yet, thanks to a lack of time, and I’m not sure if I will.

I renewed my WordPress subscription this past May – despite saying I wasn’t going to – so this site will be up for another year. Since I literally bought myself another year, I’m going to hold off on making any big, internet-related decisions for now.

I need to focus on settling into my new PhD program, and after that I’ll decide what to do with this blog.

Thanks for bearing with me as I figure out how to move forward.