Graduation was quite a surreal feeling. The whole ceremony flew by in the blink of an eye, and just like that I was no longer a student, I was a full on grown up. Of course the celebration afterwards was more of one of a student rather than an “adult”, and that is definitely how it should be. I was trying to hold onto that “student” as long as I could, because my 4 years at Chapman University will be hard to top. Deep down, I knew post-grad life can be just as fun, and making money will fund the fun that will try to compete with the college years. Graduation was on a Sunday, and Monday morning I had to officially let go of the title “student”.

Sure, I could have elected to do graduate school, but 4 years of school was almost too much for me already. So I found myself finishing one of my biggest accomplishments in life and wondering what was next? As I would try to get myself to apply to jobs, I was too lost in the allure of trying to get the perfect gig. This led me to have a very fun month of May, filled with surfing and friends (and minimal job searching efforts). June hit and it was definitely time to get some funds rolling in, but as I know now finding a job is no easy task. I applied to plenty of positions, but no corporate opportunity would come my way. I started to worry. I would eventually luck into an awesome job mid June, traveling around Southern California merchandising sunglasses 2–3 days a week in surf shops. What a dream! I got to pick the days I work and also the time, so you can bet your bottom dollar I was surfing every day and having a blast traveling around seeing friends in between shop stops. Summer would deal Southern California many swells, and I would score some pristine conditions while others were at work. I would cling onto this position until Labor day, and this leads to where I am at now.

I started applying to jobs since September and have little success with only doing a couple interviews and lots of being left in the cold with no follow up responses to at least half of my applications. This was a tough pill to swallow any way you look at it. I started to worry again. In my experience in the job search, I realized most positions required experience. While I have worked since age 13, I have no corporate experience, which would harm my application every time. In interviews, I would explain how retail experience and directly serving the customer have taught me things no corporate experience could. While it might be biting me in the ass a little bit at the moment, I wouldn’t trade my work history for anything else.

So, as an effort to build some homemade “experience”, this idea was hatched. While my business experience must be done at a company, writing experience can be flexed through organic pieces and past works. I have been writing all throughout my schooling, and eventually would declare it my minor at Chapman. At first glance, I picked it because no other major really spoke to me and I knew I always had a little knack for writing, so I knew I could breeze through assignments and overall use it as a buffer to help out my GPA, as the Chapman Business School was not easy for me in any way. When I had taken my last class and completed my requirements for the writing and rhetoric minor, I had a newfound love for writing. The self expression and overall euphoric feeling of putting pen to paper (or in this day and age fingers to keys) is comparable to what I get when surfing or hitting the gym or hanging out with really enjoyable company. I was very happy I reluctantly chose it as my minor and also learned a ton and expanded my writing ability. I would like to thank all my teachers for this, as my writing professors were some of the most passionate instructors I had came across in my schooling.

So where is this all going? Essentially, this was a brief (maybe not depending on how much you are accustomed to reading at once) introduction as to what this blogs inception was all about. It will include new piece I will write to overall further my small writing portfolio and create a brand behind my writing technique. While I don’t have too much work from school I really regard highly, my senior year I got to enroll in a class where I got to guide the topic of what I would write about. If you have seen my profile photo or caught onto what I do with most of my spare time, I decided to write about surfing. I will conclude this post with a small chunk from a piece I wrote on how social media has severely effected surfing in a negative tone. While it may be difficult to pick up on all the slang in the writing, I think it has a clear tone on how social media has made surfing less personal than in the past.

“As well as a fragmented reality of we never really know if the waves are pumping unless we are there or know of some one in the area, we see a breaching of the private space involved in the sport of surfing. Surfing has always been an activity that in practice is somewhat private and just involves you and the ocean. Besides the people you tend to surf with and a couple people you can recognize by their face, it’s overall what seems to be a private space. However, we see increased posts of waves here and sandbars there that more and more people begin invading the private space. Now, when I surf I expect to have to interact with a stranger, which I don’t mind but sometimes just aren’t in the mood for.

With more people’s spaces being invaded, we see more people who do mind interacting with people they aren’t familiar with. We can refer to these people as “salty loc dogs.” These are older people and even some younger guys who just can’t stand new people surfing their spot. They typically tend to be loud and vocal about their dissatisfaction, and tend to act like they own the place. Here is a comical example featuring the late great Andy Irons being heckled for surfing a spot he wasn’t native to in a skit for a surf movie. (The irony is that usually the people who claim local status aren’t that good of surfers, and telling Andy not to surf a spot would be like telling Kobe you can’t shot on my court.)

Everyone needs to brag about how good of waves they scored. As a surfer, getting a good swell to surf is the ultimate challenge, and when you achieve this it is hard not to let others know. It wouldn’t be uncommon to see someone’s Instagram story perfect empty waves, and I am guilty of this as well. At first it seemed harmless, until the effects of the app really started changing the lineup.”

You can read the rest of it on HERE followed by clicking “The blog” off of the title bar. See you next time.