This blog is about to have its nine year anniversary, so I figured I should dust it off and say hello.

I started blogging as a middle school student on Diaryland and Livejournal. I moved to WordPress sometime during college and never looked back.

This blog has gone through several iterations over the years.

I wrote longer posts during my freshman year that eventually tapered off into picture posts with vague captions. My junior and senior year were all about applying to grad school, then law school.

My blog really took off during law school and received a couple thousand hits a day. As with many law school blogs, things slowed down significantly after I started working in the real world.

Part of the silence around here is laziness. There’s also some paranoia from the lack of anonymity that my social networks afford.

Maybe I’m just too old to gush about my date-of-the-moment or lack thereof online.

That seemed okay during college, but it feels a little sad now that everyone’s getting married…

So what is going on with Jansen?

Well! I moved into a loft in downtown St. Paul and got an annoying yuppie dog.

He’s a chiweenie and his name is Gunter.

I’ve also started working an insane amount of hours. Something clicked last winter and I found myself on the radar of several recruiters and freelance networks.

I now work 30-60 hours a week in addition to my full-time job.

This means I’m usually up at 4 or 5am and working late into the night. I’ve actually gotten so many gigs that I had to pull my portfolio. I’m to the point where my gigs come from recommendations, and it’s awesome.

The downside to working so much is that it takes a toll on my social and dating life. I’ve forgone dates just to get sleep and sometimes feel like almost imprisoned in my loft because of the amount of work I need to get done.

Part of the reason I work so much is that freelance work is inherently unpredictable.

I feel bad saying no to anything because all of my work can dry up randomly tomorrow. Then I would just be left with one full-time salary. (Heaven forbid!)

There are, of course, some perks, like being able to jaunt off to Chicago for pride weekend on a few hours’ notice.

One odd thing that I have noticed since graduating law school is that some social dynamics have changed.

Some guys who couldn’t be bothered with me back when I first moved to Minnesota now think I’m socially acceptable because they’ve heard what I do for work through the grapevine. I’m amused and annoyed at the same time.

In all, it’s kind of a strange life I’ve crafted for myself here, but I think the neurotic straight-A high school student that I once was would approve.