career Archives - Beka Watts

March 29, 2018

Hinterland, Six Months In: It’s been real

I realize this is a controversial thing to say during the first days of spring in a northern climate… but we got about 10 inches of snow last week—our biggest snowfall all winter—and I loved every bit of it. I grew up in upstate NY, people. I love snow like Floridians love sunshine. It’s the part of my DNA that quietly weeps through the handful of “snow storms” we get every year in central Pennsylvania.

So the next day, when the snow was still stunning and the skies were blue and the sun was shining, Jenny and I decided to … Continue reading

March 8, 2018

Fact checking

I’ve been doing this Hinterland thing for five months now. (Let’s all mark our calendars for the inevitable breakdown that will occur when we arrive at the six month mark and I freak out about not achieving every goal I’ve ever had in life. It’ll be fun!) Whenever I run into someone who knows a bit about what I’m up to these days, they ask, “So, are you enjoying that?” And to almost everyone, I offer the same response: “Kind of!”

I’m not jumping up and down about it. I’m not walking around in sackcloth and ashes. I’m in … Continue reading

February 19, 2018

Quieting the question factory

Remember when I proclaimed February as the month of Fear/Worry/Robotic Shoulder Tension? I thought I was going to write about the solutions—things like yoga and prayer and walking more than 2,000 steps a day. But as it turns out, I’m going to start by writing about one of the problems.

Surprisingly, one of the problems is writing.

Sometimes writing feels like being on Oprah when she gives away the cars and the vacations and the elixirs that make you look 18 again. But most other times, writing feels like running a self-indulgent marathon. In the Sahara. In a parka.

And … Continue reading

December 17, 2017

Hinterland, Week Eleven: A few pros and cons

If you’ve ever wondered what it might look like to quit your job, throw caution to the wind, and race into the great unknown… good news! I can tell you all about it, or at least as much as I know from 2.5 months in. Which, let’s be honest, is not a lot… but it’s still something! And hopefully that something is helpful if you’re considering whether or not to embark upon your own version of Hinterland in 2018.

Let’s start with the cons:

DEATH AND TAXES
- And by that I mean… health insurance and taxes. Picking my health insurance

September 28, 2017

Hinterland

One night in July when it was stupid hot out, our neighbor invited us to jump in her pool. “Jumping in a pool” rarely sounds like a good idea to me, even if it is still 90 degrees at 8 o’clock at night, but it sounded like one of those quintessential summer things people should do. Night swim: check.

Except instead of jumping in the pool, I stepped into the shallow end and thought about how cold the water felt. I then reevaluated and doubted the decision to be a Person Who Takes A Night Swim every slow step of … Continue reading

July 4, 2017

Independence Day

I’m the slowest learner ever. Ever.

Because literally—down to the same exact Friends references!—I just started writing the 2017 variation of this post I wrote three and a half years ago.

In it, my younger self concluded:

I desire to live a big, adventurous, meaningful life and capture all of it’s beauty in words and pictures. Not for a magazine or a corporation. Not on the side while I pursue “real jobs.” But to live life full-time and write it all down in the hope of encouraging someone else along the way. My dream is now, and

September 22, 2014

Dear Victoria: An open letter to career confused creatives

Victoria and I met through the wonder that is blogging and social media. Please consider this a PSA that you should also meet Victoria through blogging and social media. Her blog, Vicstorya, is awesome, as are her Twitter and Instagram feeds.

Recently, in an exchange longer than 140 characters, she asked one of my favorite Frequently Asked Questions:

What was your major? And what exactly is your job/how did you get there/how do I best go about having your life in a few years?

Oh, Victoria.

She had no way of knowing that she would receive a dissertation in … Continue reading

June 30, 2014

Redesigned

If you are looking at this site on its Internet home as opposed to your inbox or a feed reader, you may notice that the winds of change have blown once again. It’s everyone’s favorite time of year: the annual blog redesign!

I’ve been blogging for about 6 years. I’ve had more than 6 blogs. I’ve changed blogs as I’ve changed directions, which is to say I’ve changed blogs frequently. It sounds like a bad thing (and it is if you don’t like to annoy people/Google), but it really wasn’t. It was true to what my life looked like at … Continue reading

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