“What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.” – Samuel Johnson
Paul Delos Santos
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Homepage: http://www.thedelosdiaries.com/
Posts by Paul Delos Santos
You’re on your own
Aug 14th
My smirk has faded into sadness and anguish. I’m 23 with a midlife crisis. I’m 23 armed with nothing but a broken heart and dream. It’s as if I wasn’t meant to be with people. Eventually, I’ll just grow to accept that the one thing I truly want will never come. And accept that my destiny is meant for an unforgiving sadness. Maybe I’m meant to be miserable. Maybe I’m going to fail.
I wish this was the movies. Because now the pretty girl would enter my life. And she would be played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Yes. I’m a dork.
Thought
Aug 5th
When the thought of nobody caring comes, I care. When things aren’t going great, I’ll stay and wait. When help is needed, I’ll give it. All those things come without asking. All things I give without second thought.
But in this world, I don’t have anyone who would do that for me. I always have to ask. Well fuck that. I’m tired of being generous. Tired of nobody caring. Tired of people taking it for granted. If you don’t want it, don’t accept it and tell me to stop.
I’m done. I really am.
“I keep practicing saying goodbye to you.”
Jul 28th
I’m better than you. I’m happier than you. I’m more determined than you. I’ve known you for so long but your true character revealed itself to me. You’re a coward. You have no confidence. You have no discipline. You have no work ethic. You don’t take responsibility for your actions. It’s always someone elses fault.
You’re pathetic. You don’t even deserve me to say goodbye to you.
More Late Night Thoughts
Jul 13th
It’s 3:30 a.m. and I’m watching Hitch. I just finished a poker session, which went terrible. I don’t know what’s distracting me. It’s as if the balance I’m so accustomed to is hurting me. My work performance is fine I believe, but my emotions, which have been bottled up for so long are coming out and I can’t plug it back. It’s like the things I’ve worked hard to move forward from are starting to come back and haunt me. I’m looking back at the past and some parts of it, I can find a way to talk about it. Others I have no connection. It’s not just one conflict that I am dealing with.
I feel that I’m falling into this sinkhole and I can’t find footing. It’s this cycle and I just want to smash it. I really do.
Fine isn’t good enough anymore. I must do what I need to do.
Late night thoughts
Jul 6th
My gift and my curse is once again causing me strife. Its nothing I cannot handle but this curse really bothers me when it starts affecting other people.
Thoughts
Jun 25th
If there’s ever a time I have to be strong now is the time. I have to rise above and focus at my task at hand.
Tryin’ to fight the moment, but I figure I better own it. … Take the challenge and run, before my time is done.
4 a.m.
May 10th
It’s 4 a.m. and I can’t sleep. So many thoughts on my head. Life, money and a whole lot of other things that I’m bottling inside. It’s pretty disturbing, frustrating and just down right pathetic. I tend to do this nowadays: let something eat at me until A) I move on or B) I crack and do something stupid. Some things I’m ready to crack, others I’m trying to move on. I’ll keep wishing, while making decisions that won’t hurt me.
Just a quickie
May 4th
I have so many things to say. Some things better left unsaid. Others need to said. It’s a matter of finding the courage to say what needs to be and let go of what doesn’t. I’ve been listening to Airplanes by B.o.B, I could use a wish right now. Until, I say what I need to say, it’ll eat at me.
Storytellers – Kevin Rudolf “I Made It”
Apr 22nd
Song is ridiculously catchy in its own right, but it’s a great song and I don’t know too many songs that get me sooo hyped up. But for the most part, it’s a pretty straightforward song about how to overcome obstacles to accomplish a dream.
For me, the song is my reminder that I’ve made it pretty far from where I consider the officially beginning of my dreams — sophomore year of high school.
See I don’t live for glamour. I don’t care for fame. I’m in this for the love of the game. Funny how things can change, they didn’t believe then and now they’re calling my name. Now looked who cashed in…
I always got a lot of crap in high school about not living up to potential and all that pointless rhetoric they fed you in high school. That is my fault, however, to say that success is defined by who did well in those four years of life, never really hit me. And I was about proving the perception wrong. (For those who care, my GPA was 3.1 weighted and 2.7 raw, good enough for 211 out of 400+ in the class of 2004. My SAT score was less than 900, but my ACT score was relatively good at 29.) Then I also channeled a little bit of jealously to see all of my friend graduating in their white gowns as “honor graduates.” I put the chip on my shoulder and immediately went to work at becoming what I wanted to become — a sports writer.
I planned a course of action that allowed me to graduate in 3 1/2 years with a major and a minor. I rose to the position of sports editor by my third year for the student paper. But the satisfaction wasn’t only in getting those accomplishments done. The satisfaction is that I didn’t need anyone to keep pushing me forward. I wanted it bad enough and I wanted to take it away. The challenge went up and I found a way around it. Think of it as a fighter who gets stronger as the fight goes on. I noticed people around me struggling to keep themselves motivated, struggling to raise their desire levels. Struggling to find reason to come to school other than the lure of getting paid bank because a job paid well. Out of my group of high school friends, I can only think of one person that wanted it just as much, if not more, as I did and he’s in medical school and he’s going to make it.
My life isn’t about status or money unlike people. I’m in this business because I love it. The greatest feeling was walking across that stage and taking the bow that I wanted to take again. I made the Dean’s List three times during my time at UNLV and I was .5 percent away from securing straight A’s. I finished with a 3.47 GPA.
So what was different? Well, having people doubt me initially was one.
Then less than three months after I graduated, I found a job and started working in Utah — close to home in the field I wanted.
I still look up at the sky from time to time and I think to myself, I made it.
It can get better, but I made it.
Behind the Story — Softball Feature
Apr 17th
First off, let me say that I’m completely out of rhythm in my life. It really just seems disjointed. There is very little fluidity in what I do. It seems like I do something and then it fades away or I’ll do something and then I’ll burn out and then need another break from it. Either way, once I get into form again, I’m sure I’ll have better stuff.
But enough of that ranting, I’m going behind the story for the first time in the Delos Diaries. I’m going behind the story that I will say summed up my two years at The Spectrum.
If you haven’t read it already, I’d be surprised since I can’t stop talking about. But now, I don’t look at it in the same light as it was a good read. I now look at it from the perspective on what I could have done differently to make it better.
A changed element here. A different question there. A new approach. I don’t really know. But I know that story could have been 100 times better than I got, but I’ll accept the good things people have said about it.
But honestly, I don’t think I would have done a good job if I wasn’t as motivated as I was.
The photo we got was amazing. Great art to go with the story and it helped in an attempt to write to.
I probably spent a lot of time, thinking on what I was going to write and how I was going to write it. I don’t think I’ve taken that much time to write a feature. I’ve done features in two hours, but this one. I don’t know. I just took my time to weave it properly. Taking into account everything I’ve picked up about this girl from interviews, observations at practice to game memory.
It almost seemed like I had to really key in on what would be the best way to describe this person’s story, which is cliched in theory. I wrote out the bottom half of the story. Filling the bottom with the quotes and stuff that was going to be talked about in the story.
Then I had this left over quote I wanted to use, but now way of masterfully putting it in the space where it mattered. There was also a case of a missing lede. How often do I write a story before I write a lede? I’d say for every 10 stories I write, I’d write backwards two times and this was one of the times where I had to do it.
But nothing was coming to me. Nothing was “good enough” to lead off the story with a catchy, memorable start. I don’t remember what I did, but I just decided to start describing that day and soon it started to flow. By doing so I was able to weave that quote into the story and provide my best story in nearly two-years.
Why I thought it was great?
Like a pitcher, I threw everything I had at it. All of the elements I’ve developed in the two years, and it seems like the final project before the semester ends. Thing is, I just started my third year.
Looking back, there are a million ways I could change the story and do it over again. But then again, space constraints and other quirky things we talked about would have to be kept locked away to memory.
That’s the story behind “Burning up bases.”