Last month I posted about how damn TV shows affect how I feel about where I am destined professionally.
I am not someone who is very good at living in the moment, at enjoying what I have without worrying what will come next. Currently, I am taking a stab at fighting that instinct, backpacking through Europe without much in the way of plans or professional opportunities waiting.
Still, I think it’s worth making it clear to myself what it is I want.
By Christopher Wink | Oct 9, 2008 | WeDontSpeaktheLanguage.com
We meet Sander and Neek at the outskirts of Amsterdam’s Red Light District. Sean, his brother Brian, and I are on a bridge demarcating where the sex ends and the large, quiet residences begin. A small, sloping bridge over a small canal, 15-feet wide, on which covered bicycle taxis perch to take drunk tourists back to their hotels.
We’re deciding if one more walk through the alleyways glancing at half-naked women in their rented window brothel doorways would be one too many. Half-naked women tap on the glass under red fluorescent lighting – the most give and take you’ll ever have window shopping. They’ll sleep with you for a little money. This is one half of many people’s Amsterdam.
Sander and Neek walk by reminding us of the other half, shouting at us to ’smoke weed everday.”
Continue reading Weed and prostitutes: a conversation in Amsterdam
ChristopherWink.com was always meant to be my professional Web site, where I blogged about the interests and experiences that involve being a young journalist today. I decided I needed a place to display my more personal experiences, particularly pursuing My Life To Do List. I am announcing the soft launch of that site today.
When I was 13, I sat down in my bedroom of my parents’ home in rural northwest New Jersey and I composed a list of 26 things I had to do before I died.
From time to time, I have updated it, so that the list, now in the form of an Excel spreadsheet, is a more than 300-item syllabus for my life. It still governs the choices I make and experiences I want to have. It’s where my money goes and dreams lead.
Continue reading My Life To-do List: A Web site to chronicle my obsession
Backpacking Europe and podcasting at WeDontSpeaktheLanguage.com. But, keep checking ChristopherWink.com for regular posts and professional updates.
Currently I am abroad, video podcasting at WeDontSpeakTheLanguage.com: A video podcast and blog about traveling the world for the young and broke. Follow me there, but also continue to enjoy regular posts here at ChristopherWink.com about the plight of a young, aspiring journalist, which will appear below this reminder.
Continue reading We Don't Speak the Language: European Exploration
Today, my good friend Sean Blanda and I are departing for London. I mentioned this trip last month.
He and I are beginning an open-ended European backpacking adventure. We have no return ticket, no definite plans or destinations: just a month long, 10-stop itinerary on the way to Hungary and vague plans of reassesing our funds to get down to Greece and circling all the way back to Spain.
We’ll be blogging and video podcasting the trip together, but more on that next week when the official rollout comes.
Stay posted for that, but don’t worry, ChristopherWink.com will remain fresh and posted – I know you’re concerned.
God bless America and wish us luck. Lots of exciting news to come next week.
Updated: I have a longer list of books about Philadelphia with a good reputation here.
There is a lot of reading to be done about Philadelphia.
Let me show you the 10 books you have to read if you’re from, living in or going to the Philadelphia region, including a handful of which you should read regardless of geography.
Continue reading 10 books Philadelphians should have to read: The best Philly books
I don’t know.
It seems a bit like Associated Content, using lenses to create niche content on specific issues for free, promising traffic, noteriety and even potential advertising cash to users.
For the time being, I am subscribing to the same pathology that brought me to MySpace and other social media. Brand my name. So, Chris Wink has a Squidoo page now.
Continue reading Squidoo: What the hell is it and why am I on it
Four months ago I graduated from Temple University in Philadelphia.
I was honored enough to be named student commencement speaker. Read text of the speech here.
Only now have I gotten video of my speech online. Have a watch below.
I’ve been told relentlessly that The Wire is the best show that has been on TV in years. Aside from Slate magazine, I got that message no less than a dozen times from friend and journalist Chris Reber.
I watched the first episode for the first time yesterday and, instead, got caught up in reading about the background from creator and writer David Simon, a former reporter for the Baltimore Sun. He wrote a fascinating piece in a February issue of Esquire, focusing on his time and learning with the Sun – whose then editor, Bill Marrimow, now leads the ship at the Inquirer – to whom I recently offered advice.
Continue reading The Wire: Should I learn something from Season 5
