This page contains all entries posted to Manufactured Environments in May 2000.

SHORT & SWEET

Posted by Daniel Stout on Fri 26 May 2000 at 12:00 PM

Well, okay, I’m back. Yeah, I spent the past week traveling the midwest. It was okay, but it felt good to drop back into the danielstout.com style.

I’ve been firming up my summer reading list and “Infinite Jest” has made the list. Seems like a summer book but I’m hoping to be mildly surprised.

After a week away I had several hundred emails to go through. Wasn’t too exciting mostly, but there were a few bright points.

So here’s a shout-out to my regular readers! Thanks for staying with me. I’ve been working on the new issue of fish. It should be arriving in a couple of weeks.

I think I’m in a pretty interesting mood tonight because I’ve been writing short paragraphs all evening. It must be the weather. I’m feeling good and kind of free. Did I mention I’m nearly done with my master’s degree? Yeah. That’s good. I’m doing the job search thing and the fish have been biting so to speak.

I’m listening to “Lost on Despair” right now. It’s the first “despair” mix tape I recorded. That was about 2 years ago. Now there are 5 despair tapes, and I’m feeling ready to move on to something else. The whole despair series is available for $44.13 — just email me & I’ll set you up with them. Hell, if I’m in a good mood I’ll throw in a tape of recordings from my radio show on KRUI 89.7 FM this past year.

Anyway things are real chill in town here. The students have mostly headed out for brighter pastures and the remaining are scrounging by on $9-an-hour. As for me, I’m in that beautiful transitional period — it’s like there’s a fog around the yard each morning which dissolves with the day — that strange, curious period between a master’s degree and the real world.

No Comments Yet »

Moving On

Posted by Daniel Stout on Mon 15 May 2000 at 12:00 PM

I’ve been preparing material for the next issue of fish. It’s coming along nicely though the time has come to throw out the drag net of submissions & see what we bring in. It’s been a busy time. I finished the coursework for my master’s degree. We’ll see what happens next!

This week I’ll be doing the job search with intensity. I’m ready to put my chops on the line & see what’s out there. Anyway I’ve been on the lookout far & wide for what’s available. Seems like a good time to be heading out into the post-real world. I’ve already been out there, in the so-called real world, and it was okay for a bit. And now I’ve been working on my master’s the past two years and that was a tremendously great experience. So here I am at another juncture in my life. I love change and this is a good one to get my hands around.

It was fun talking to all the undergrads who stopped by to say bye. They’re graduating and entering the world for the first time. It’s a weird transition and more than a few of them are planning on staying around Iowa City till their leases run out August 1, as they tend to do in this town, and then *after a couple months off* will they enter gainful employment. Iowa’s the kind of place that people leave after getting a degree and many of the ones I’ve talked to are heading for the coasts. The ones who head west tend to be concerned about money and marijuana and the ones who head east have careers in mind. It’s an interesting dichotomy.

Well I think it’s time to head down to the Java House and finish reading Kundera’s “Immortality.” I’ve rather enjoyed it as most of his books are enjoyable. I did pick up a copy of David F. Wallace’s “Infinite Jest” the other day. Found a good deal on it — a hard cover copy for $8. Not bad considering they charge $18 for the paperback. Books are so expensive. Thankfully the library in town is quite good.

No Comments Yet »

This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Validation: XHTML 1.0 Strict • CSS 2.1 • Atom 1.0