Only 363 days until next Christmas

Christmas ended too quickly, but I had such a nice day and I got a whole bunch of wonderful presents. My mom woke me up way too early so for the first half of the morning I was pretty much sleeping anyway. My family gathered around the light up palm trees and had a champagne breakfast, which made me even sleepier. As a family gift, the first present we opened was annual passes to Disneyland, which is a tradition for the last few years, but ours expired 7 months ago and my mom has been saving up ever since. They're incredibly expensive but my family doesn't really go on big vacations ever so it's kind of our treat to ourselves and we usually make good use of them by going a lot throughout the year. We actually decided to go yesterday for a few hours which was fun but it turned out to be one of the busiest days of the year and the park was actually closed to any more people except we already had passes so we got in. We were eating lunch in the tomorrowland cafe when we had to be evacuated because of a fire in the kitchen.

As for my other presents, I got the thing I had been wanting since I took photography last year and now I have! The Canon Rebel digital camera! It's incredible, really. It has all the features of a manual camera without having to go and develop the film, but you can set aperature and shutter speed and apply colored filters and toners to your shot and can play with the contrast, all in camera and then see the result in a matter of seconds on the screen. I also got some filters like UV protection and to cut out the fogginess in landscape shots.



It's not in yet, but as part of my gifts we ordered a large scale printer that can print 13 x 19 inch paper. Ok, I'm sure it sounds lame to most people, but for the last few years, if I've wanted to print any project that's larger than 8x10 I've had to run to kinkos and deal with hours of frustration at the hands of the incompetent and overcharging employees there. It's not fun. So now I can just do it in my room! It's really going to help with design this year.



My brother got me the 1st season Friends dvd and my parents got me a chia pet. I have no idea what was going through their mind with that one, but I suppose everyone has to get a chia at some point or other. I think everyone liked the gifts I got them and, all in all, it was another wonderful Christmas.

Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport

Christmas is right around the corner and, as is tradition, my mom puts together Christmas at our house in a nonconventional way. Instead of a Christmas tree, we opted for this.



I was taking a peek at all the gifts under the tree and instead of having all the presents say "from Mom and Dad" or something, my mom creatively thinks of random people who give us gifts. For instance, I spotted this gift.



If you can't read that it says "To Sarah, from Peter Jensen...he's dead but not forgotten"

And even though everyone in our family are democratics and probably on the white house's shit list, all partisan debates were put aside for the holidays because Dick Cheney gave my dad a present.

Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?

I haven't written in a few days because when I'm at home I feel like I'm in a different world. I hardly have my cell phone with me and I'm never around the computer to check email or update things. My first week of break was delightful. My parents both took a few days off of work and since we didn't want to leave our dog in a shitty kennel,we decided not to do a big trip anywhere and instead opt for little day trips. So over the course of the last 5 days I've been running all over southern california. The first day we went to Universal City walk, ate at hardrock cafe and saw Chronicles of Narnia. I liked the set design very much in the movie, but having not read the books I had nothing to compare it to. The next day my dad and I went to LACMA and I got to see the exhibit comparing Pisarro and Cezanne, but I don't really care for impressionism all that much. Then we all drove for an overnight trip to the mountains and went to Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear. The lake was such a wonderful break because we spend a few hours sitting in the cafe and reading and drinking tea. It was my perfect afternoon. The coffee shop has gigantic glass windows so you can look out at the lake and we were there right at sunset. Before coming back to valencia, we got to hike around the woods up there and feed the ducks in the lake. Our dog, Mushka, was left in his cage and had peed and pooped all over that area while we were gone. He's getting pretty unmanagable and unannoying with all the knawing on fingers and toes, and whining for hours in the middle of the night. We're hoping that he calms down soon.

Yesterday we got up really early in the morning to help set up the Santa Clarita Homeless shelter which is opening tomorrow and wasn't even put together yet. It was very disorganized with the lady in charge having no idea how to deligate and then my brother and Dan Howell having to unscrew the door to get a fridge through it and then screwing the door back on upside down. In the end when we left, it seemed like things were starting to come together. We'll be cooking some dinners this winter for the shelter which I'm looking forward to.

Tonight I got to see my girls! In celebration of Brigitte's birthday, Tasha, Cait, Brigitte and I went to a tapas bar in hollywood. It was a nice reunion seeing as Tasha just came back from being in England since September and Caitlyn I hardly get to see even though she's just in Berkeley. I can't even remember the last time we were all together. Of course, all of them have boyfriends so I felt a little out of place in the conversation half the time, but it's great to catch up and have things be exactly as they were before everyone went away. The tapas bar had surprisingly good food and it was a byob place and they didn't card when we brought a bottle of wine. I can't wait for the next 2 months to go by so I can be 21 already. It's felt like an eternity.

The Christmas palm trees went up in our living room today and all the presents are underneath it. It's really starting to feel like the holidays.

Three Things

Finals are over. I survived. Out of all my semesters though, this finals period wasn't all that bad. The only real challenge was french, but i was so happy to be done with it forever that whatever grade I got on the final won't be bad because I'll know I won't have to take French next semester. Yesterday was my last typography class and we went to this huge printing factory and had a tour. Everything's so technical and they had a bunch of machines that could chop your hand off or your hair could get stuck in so I didn't want to touch anything. We went also to get the book we've been working on designing for the last few weeks cut. They stuck in this machine with a massive knife and it chopped through the book in less than a second. My book looks so cool and professional! I won't have it back for a few weeks, but I'll post a picture on here when I do. I think when I get it back I'm going to take it to Barnes and Noble, stick it on the shelf with all the other books and take a picture.

I'm heading home today and I'm so in need of this break! I'm going to sit around for the first few days and watch lots of Law and Orde SVU, dozens of movies, knit scarves and work on design. Oh and catch up on reading. Right now I'm reading Notes from A Small Island by Bill Bryson, which I'm sure I've talked about before, but it's about this guy who travels around England and writes about his adventures. The whole book is funny, but there's an exerpt from a part I just read the other day that I especially like.

"The way I see it, there are three reasons never to be unhappy. First, you were born. This in itself is a remarkable achievement. Did you know that each time your father ejaculated (and frankly he did it quite a lot) he produced roughly 25 million spermatozoa--enough to repopulate Britain every two days or so? For you to have been born, not only did you have to be among the few batches of sperm that had even a theoretical chance of prsperomg--in itself quite a long shot--but you then had to win a race against 24,999,999 or so other wriggling contenders. Being born was easily the most remarkable achievement of your whole life. And think: You could have just as easily been a flatworm.

Second, you are alive. For the tiniest moment in the span of eternity you have the miraculous privilege to exist. For endless aeons you did not. Soon you will cease to be once more. That you are able to sit here right now in this one never-to-be-repeated moment, reading this book, eating bonbons, dreaming about hot sex with that scrumptious person from accounts, speculatively sniffing your armpits, doing whatever you are doing--just existing--is really wondrous beyound belief.

Thirst, you have plenty to eat, you live in a time of peace, and "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree" will never be number one again. If you bear these things in mind, you will never be truly unhappy--though in fairness I must point out that if you find yourself alone in West-super-Mare on a rainy Tuesday evening, you may come close"

good luck to everyone who isn't done with finals yet. I feel your pain

80% of the final exam will be based on the one lecture you missed and the one book you didn't read.

I've been having an eventful week here at school. In fact, since it's the last week of classes and finals coming up next week, I think I've had ever second scheduled since getting back from Thanksgiving. I've mainly just been running around trying to finish up projects. The nice thing about being an art major is that you're usually done before everyone else, but your final projects are always due earlier too. In my Tuesday design class, the creative director for the Gap came in to talk. It was a really good experience. He's pretty young, 32, and was talking all about how he got started and gave tons of suggestions. He oversees all the creative design of the stores, how they'll look inside, all the window graphics, the branding, and packaging design. It's nice to see the transition from underclassman having to take all these random drawing and sculpture classes to upperclassman and being more focused and exposed to professionals in the design industry. It gets me really excited about starting. I'm learning about more and more outlets for designers. I could go into entertainment design and do movie posters, websites, motion graphics, packaging, magazine design, advertising art direction, or publishing and design for book covers. Here's a shot of our collaborative self promotion project we just completed. I was working with a group of 4 and our goal was to creat an effective way to promote and market each individual's design style in a functional way. We chose to do this set of 4 coasters with a vellum package. Sorry for the shitty quality of the picture, I was sloppy, it looks much better in person.





It's also interesting, 3 years into college, to see the different paths all my friends are taking. It's weird, everyone in high school was relatively the same and studied the same things, but now everyone is getting into their majors and going in totally different directions, but each person's specialty is really interesting.

Tonight I went to the bonfire for the upcoming game against UCLA. I always like going to the bonfire each year, but this year was by far the best. My brother came out and I had a late class but rushed over after we got out and caught most everything b/c it was running late. They had fireworks that they shot off from the parking garage and then after the rally, Jimmy Eat World performed. I was pretty far back from the stage, but it was fun to see a live concert for free. I'm exhausted though after running around all day and all I want to do is curl up under the covers.

I also just found out tonight when I talked to my dad that a family friend died this week. His name was Doug and it was the least expected death I could imagine. He went to my church and was somewhere visiting family with his wife when he had a sudden heart attack and died. He seemed pretty healthy too. It really freaked me out to think about it. He was always really nice to me and it makes me really nervous about my parent's health and stuff. I guess it reminds you to appreciate and love your family because something like this could happen any time. I don't know how I'll deal with that.

You're a wizard Harry

It always seems that when there’s a vacation or a break from school coming up, the days in between you and that break seem to stretch on forever. I’m going home tomorrow afternoon, but I’m guessing today will be the longest day ever.

The other night I went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire with a bunch of girls from the house. It's lucky that our college colors are the same colors as Gryffindor so we all wore our USC scarves that can easily double as Harry Potter scarves. The crowd was so tame for a midnight opening show. We got there around 10:15 thinking we'd be beat out and there'd already be a huge line formed, but there wasn't a line. People were already in the theater but it was only half full so we got pretty good seats. We spent the time playing trivia games and hanging out. I know that all the people who are devout harry potter fans are going to knock the movie for all the things that it left out, but overall I enjoyed the movie a lot. It didn’t bother me as much as the 3rd one. I thought the special effects and animation were well done and they fit in most of the important stuff. My favorite scenes are when they have something going on in the great hall. In this movie, they were having the Yule Ball and all these ice sculptures were everywhere and snow was falling. Let’s face it, I just want to become a wizard and go to Hogwarts myself.

I had a rather unsuccessful invite last Friday. I ended up going with a few girls in the house because all the sororities were having invites that night, which made finding a date even harder and we were too burned out to bother. I wish I had tried though because going with a group of girls…not so fun. Also, I was getting sick so I spent most of the night sitting outside at one of the tables on the patio sneezing.

I downloaded a trial version of Adobe After Effects, which is one of the professional software programs used to create lettering animation so probably most movie intros you see where it has cool effects with the cast names is created with After Effects. I am seriously considering buying it before I graduate and Final Cut Pro, which is $299 at the bookstore at the student rate. That’s really good considering it usually about $1200 for Final Cut Pro Studio. If I practice at that, I might be able to eventually get a job at The Cimarron Group or somewhere like it, which does almost all the movie trailers created.
I registered for classes a while back, but yesterday decided to take advantage of the fact that you can take 18 units for the same cost as 16, so I added a 2 unit class just for fun that I’ll probably take for pass/fail. I'll be doing a lot of studio type classes so I feel like I'll have a really productive semester. So here’s my finalized list of what I am taking in the spring and I couldn’t be more excited:


*Advanced Design Projects (4 units) Advanced information design within a flexible curriculum. Emphasis on team-oriented projects.

* The World of Visual Effects (2 units)- Introduction to the expanding field of visual effects; topics include magic lanterns shows, stop-motion fantasies and animation combination films employing the latest digital technologies

*Printmaking (4) Introductory course in various printmaking techniques; necessary skills and inherent expressive qualities of different printmaking methods are explored.

*Advertising Design and Production (4, Sp) Production of advertising materials; emphasis on the creation and design of advertising elements.

* Writing 340 (4 units)- topics involved with arts and humanities

Harry Potter tonight

I'll be the first to admit that I have an obsession with the fictional characters of Harry Potter. This being the case, I'm going to see the opening of the Goblet of Fire tonight at midnight with other equally obsessed girls in my sorority. I'm so excited! I'll write more tomorrow about what I thought.

A bunch of design babble

Ok so I updated my design that I posted yesterday because I slept on the idea and I didn't like it as much as I did yesterday. So I changed it to this new design. I think that it's more sophisticated and more reflective of my work over the course of the semester. It's still really simplistic, but I think it would be inviting for someone to open up the book and look closer. I'll probably bind the book with thick twine material. I'll post the final outcome soon.



In the meantime I finished tweaking my coaster design. The assignment is to design a collaborative self promotion with a group of 4 classmates and represent the different people in the group as individual designers but also as a cohesive group. My group decided to make a set of coasters with an intro coaster with contact info and then 4 coasters designed by each individual. We wanted to do it with a quirky edge to show that we are a fun group. Each coaster has a picture of the person and a saying. We're going to try to seal them and glue them to corkscrew on the back so that they function as real coasters but who knows how that'll turn out. Mine is kinda goofy because I'm smiling like an idiot, I have totally the wrong boxing form and as my roommate says "It doesn't look like I could beat up anyone." I tried to make it so that one could hold it from any orientation and it would still function and make sense. This may go through more changes too so I'll post the whole project when it's done with the other coasters too.

So one of my projects before the end of the semester is to create a process book, which is a book that has all of our designs from this semester along with our notes and how we went about creating the designs. I've been thinking about making something like this the cover with my name in the middle and a snipet of each design from the semester in the flower petal and printing it on a thick paper bag material. It's really simplistic and almost childlike, but I think I like it like that. What do you think?

This city is a point upon a map of fog

As the semester winds to a close, I couldn't be happier for winter break. I don't know how people in the working world manage to work every week year round and not get burned out. I guess I should savor these breaks now because I'm going to be one of those working people soon enough.

So I skipped the weekender trip that I usually have such a wonderful time on each year. This year, the school decided to ration tickets and I didn't win the lottery, so I wouldn't have gotten to go to the game anyway. I was thinking I might drive up anyway and bum around San Francisco and Berkeley, but I realized typography class doesn't end until 5 on Fridays so it would've been pointless to leave that late. I think my typography teacher would have personally shown up at my apartment and handed me a big red F if I skipped another class. Instead I decided to take the much needed mental break and go home. On Friday evening on a whim, I stopped by the grove and decided to have dinner at the Farmer's Market. What an interesting place it is. I decided to have dinner at a crepe stand which turned out to be delicious and I sat next to an old women who had a shopping cart filled with hundreds of plastic bags. I wondered what they were for. I think it may be the perfect spot for people watching. All in all, I'm not that sad I missed the weekender. A separate weekend trip somewhere may be in the works though. I kind of want to take a trip by myself somewhere. Just hop on a train or something. I will be heading to New York in April though which I'm super excited about. I'm going to New York City to visit Jess and see the city, and then probably up to New Haven to check out Yale and visit Lexi.

I had a very spinster-like weekend, but it's just what I needed to relax and clear my head. I saw the new Pride and Prejudice which I didn't have very high expectations for because it's my favorite book and I thought it would be hard to squeeze into 2 hours. I liked the movie overall, but I was right. It felt like everything was being really rushed and they brushed over some really big parts in the story like Mr. Wickham and Elizabeth's relationship and Mr. Collins, but it's as good as it could've been to fit in that timeframe. The 1996 miniseries with Colin Firth is at least 5 hours. They did a great job in this version creating the image of the Bennets as a really poor family with pigs and geese walking through their house. Some of the scenes were done much more romantically than the original which was appealing but really unbelievable. At one point, Kiera Knightly is taking a walk at like 5 AM and Mr. Darcy just happens to be taking a walk in the same place at that time. Kiera Knightly was ok, but not as good as the previous Pride and Prejudice, but Matthew Macfayden was a great Mr. Darcy. So good looking! I read one article that liked the movie but referred to Kiera Knightly as "a long necked Winona Ryder" and later "elongated Winona." To complete the spinster image I got the urge to take up knitting. Megan knits so she said she'll show me how. I'll probably get fed up with it within an hour and give it up.

I think I'm just at a weird age. I'll be 21 in 3 months and so I really want to go out to nice clubs, bars and restaurants for a more relaxed time with friends and having a drink or two but I cant quite go yet. Right now, I find myself over going out to any kind of frat party or under 21 party because most of the guys there are 18 and it's a lot crazier feel. Much more drinking and people passing out in the street. It's a craziness I think I could do without.

I think I found out what my parents got me for Christmas. I feel really guilty now. My dad let it slip when I was talking about this design software I wanted that they may have already gotten me a present and so I started in with my annoying habit of naming everything they possible could've gotten and looking for a reaction. I mentioned this one and he flinched. If I do get this though I'll be sooo happy. I have a digital camera now, but I can't get the kind of pictures I want with just the one setting. The fine arts club is going on a "Sketch Crawl" which means taking a bus around LA this weekend to draw or photograph anything we see.

Pumpkins scream in the dead of night

I think I'm getting old. This is Halloween weekend and homecoming and there were about 1,000 possibly fun places to be each night, and I got completely worn out before I hit saturday evening. I ended up staying in my room last night watching episodes of Arrested Development with my roommate and drinking tea. Friday night we had a Halloween/Homecoming party with Kappa Sigma, who we were paired with for homecoming. Each year I end up thinking about a costume I want to wear for the following Halloween and the whole year I was thinking I might be a harlequin. It's a ballerina type thing with black and white costume and i was thinking how cool it would be to get really into it and whip out the ol' pointe shoes and dye one white and one black. Of course, I wake up two days before the halloween party realizing that I haven't put together a costume and I ended up being a plain old fairy and joined the ranks of the billion other girls who were also fairies.

This is what a harlequin looks like minus the weird goth fairy thing going on:



This is what I ended up as:



The halloween party was fun and then Saturday I went to the Wash. St vs. USC game. My brother and 3 of his friends came along which was nice, but way too early in the morning. I always enjoy when my family comes down for the games. In fact, next weekend my entire family is coming to Stanford. My dad has never been to a game and he really liked going at the University of Colorado so I think he'll have fun. I discovered that Mamosas may just be the perfect morning game drink if you're wanting to drink before the game but don't like beer or want to get trashed by drinking jack and coke. eww. Even though I drenched myself in SPF 45 before the game, I still came home with a bad sunburn. How does that happen? After the game there was an 80s party to go to but I was too tired and decided to be a hermit for the evening instead.

I missed out on a lot of things that I like to do for Halloween though. Being my favorite holiday, I love to go to a pumpkin patch and pick out pumpkins and carve them and bake the seeds. Skipped it this year. I also like to watch at least two halloween movies...haven't done that yet, but I might pop in Nightmare Before Christmas later. I had plans to go to Knotts Scary Farms but I got really busy this year, which probably wasn't the worst thing since I'm terrified of haunted houses and I don't know why I subject myself to them every year. I usually help out at the Halloween carnival for kids on the adpi lawn, but i had class so i couldn't do that. I think we're at the middle age where you can't really do the halloween stuff you enjoyed as a kid until you have kids, so for now it's all about parties and wearing the most scandalous costumes possible. So all in all, Halloween passes without much ado and I guess I'll be looking forward to Christmas.

I found I could say things with color I couldn't say any other way...things I had no words for

Perhaps the thing I love most about being a design major is that when midterm time roles around, it's never a chore in that class. There aren't hours of cramming and studying in the library. Sure, I've got french and bio and other academic classes I've got to cram for so it's not all fun and games, but design midterms, even if we have to write an essay, always make me happy. For my design class this semester, I have to write an essay about some articles we were supposed to read. The first was about creativity and what methods we employ to inspire creativity. We also have to talk about the state of today's design awareness and how that hinders the ability of today's designers to create effective work. Isn't that quite possibly the easiest midterm you've heard of? I think that's how you know you've chosen the right major...when even something that's supposed to be tedious and overwhelming makes you excited. As I was reading this article about the process of design and creativity, I saw a paragraph that made me so excited that i get to be a designer. It said:

"It begins with deep digging. You're the excavator. Archaeologist. Explorer. You peek under the mundane to find the magical. Others can sit at desks and study demographics. You sit at Starbucks and study people. Others search archives. You search antique shops. You haul up buckets of data and information, but you're mining for insights. You don't just want ages, genders and zip codes. You want to know about their theme songs, water-fountain gossip and favorite hangouts. You don't just want to hear about personality sets. You want to know what makes them laugh, cry and scream. You stop, look and listen. You explore."


I have an academic advisement this thursday with my very scary and intimidating advisor. I like to go in with the classes I want to take already picked out so that I can get in and out of her office quickly without her biting my head off. Here's what I think I'm going to take in the spring.
*Writing 340
*Printmaking 1
*Advertising Design and Production
*Advanced Design Topics
*Digital Tools for Design

From fun to midterms

I'm avoiding studying for my french midterm with anything and everything that will distract me for a few minutes. I don't know how my week has come to this. Last week was so amazing. On Wednesday I went to see the Kirov ballet perform Sleeping Beauty at the Dorothy Chandler and it was incredible. The costumes and scenery were phenomenal and all the dancers looked really really Russian. A lot of the crowd was Russian too. Almost everyone I walked by during the intermission had a thick Russian accent. I felt displaced. The whole night was wonderful, the only down side was that our seats were in the highest balcony and I'm terrified of heights. The walk up to our seats was miserable because the walls in the lobby are covered with mirror from top to floor which gave me an even worse sense of vertigo and I ended up having to take the elevator when the rest of my house walked up the stairs without a problem. Having our seats that far above the stage freaked me out and once again images of me falling over the railing and plummeting to my death kept racing through my mind, but once I was seated for a few minutes things got better and I was able to enjoy the ballet. What a beautiful show.

This Saturday night after we kicked some Arizona ass in football, I headed to the Franz Ferdinand concert with Brigitte, Connor and Scott. We were late, but I don't think we missed anything with the opening bands. One guy in the opening band had an amazing Gandalf beard. It was out of control. I dont even know what band it was, all I could think about was his excessive amount of facial hair. I ordered a coffee at the food stand, but found a piece of onion in my drink...too gross. The theater wasn't even full because they had roped off the entire back two sections so it felt like a small concert even with a band as big as Franz Ferdinand. I had a great time. They played a lot of songs from their first album which I was glad about and their scottish accents and floppy hair were too adorable. Here are some pictures.



The view from our seats



Our attempts to concoct a new facebook picture for me by using Connor's recently purchased Franz Ferdinand poster as a background failed miserably, but at least we had a good laugh.

I would rather dance as a ballerina, though faultily, than as a flawless clown

It's been a long time since I've updated, but my life has mainly consisted of running to class and working on projects so you didn't miss anything. I had my sorority semiformal invite on Friday night and it turned out to be a lot of fun. Especially when I think about how bad it could have been. This time, I had a hard time finding anyone who was free that night, so after asking like 5 people, I gave in and asked one of the girls in my house, Lauren, to set me up. I hate blind dates more than anything. Not only do I clam up with people I don't know well, but what if they aren't nice or don't like to dance? Lots of things could have gone wrong. But luckily, everything worked out for the best. I went with the roommate of Lauren's boyfriend who was very nice and we had a good time. The venue was this club on Melrose, but it reminded me kind of a warehouse. It was next to a furniture store that specialized in rugs and a psychic with one of those neon signs outside that you always see at psychics. I ended up taking off my shoes right when we got there, which I do at every invite. It was pretty hot inside, so we both agreed not to dance all that much. Overall, it was a pretty laid back invite and I'm just happy that it worked out as well as it did. I would post pictures from the night, but I didn't like the way any of them came out, so use your imagination.

This week is going to be so much fun. Tonight I'm going to the ballet! I'm going to see the Kirov Ballet perform Sleeping Beauty and I couldn't be more excited. Last December, I bought tickets for my family to go up to San Francisco to see The Nutcracker so when my sorority mentioned that we were going to Sleeping Beauty, I was over the moon. Ballet used to be such a huge part of my life when I was younger, it's weird to think about it now. And I get to dress up. Whenever I go somewhere like a ballet or a nice concert, I always think about that scene from Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts goes to the opera. I'll talk more about how it was in my next post. This Saturday, my brother and one of his friends are coming out here to USC for the football game against Arizona. The game starts at 12:30 so I'm guessing it will be pretty hot in the stadium and I'll probably get sunburned. After the game, I'm going straight to a Franz Ferdinand concert at the Greek Theater. Connor got tickets presale or something and it's going to be amazing. I haven't been to a concert in a while and the Greek is really pretty. So my week is definitely looking up.

Other than that, I just finished my latest design project that's due tomorrow. We had to create an editorial layout that might appear in a magazine about a product or a person, so i decided to do mine on the band, The Shins. College is such a great time because generally I get to pick the subjects of my projects, but I know that when I get out of school, I'll probably be stuck doing advertisements for soap or something ridiculous like that. So here's what I came up with. You probably cant see the text, or the details, but you get the general idea.

Sometimes the zodiac freaks me out

I don't even buy into the whole astrology thing, but I'm always amazed at how similar I am to the description of an Aquarius. A lot of times with horoscopes and fortunes, they use general statements so that they seem to apply to everyone, but I dunno, this is pretty in depth and right on the money for most things.

AQUARIUS AND RELATIONSHIPS

Your Aquarius lover will be a wonderful and engaging friend. Aquarius can be (when he or she decides to kick up their heels) a wildly exciting, fun, and exhilarating partner when it comes to a special "wild night out on the town" or when doing something of an original, bizarre, and/or unexpected nature. But taking long romantic walks under the moonlight, quietly sipping wine, and holding hands while engrossed in intimate conversation during candlelit dinners? No, I don't think so.

It's best that Aquarius' lover understands upfront that Aquarius, barring other factors in the chart, tends not to be comfortable in close, intimate, and personal one to one settings and/or - for that matter - "relationships." Personal relationships and "intimacy" have a tendency to get "emotionally messy," and Aquarius is extremely awkward when it comes to experiencing anything that even vaguely smells of "emotionally messy." Aquarius enjoys keeping things light and easy. Aquarius may likely view any displays of emotion as being weakness in character. In particular, Aquarius is normally aghast at any public displays of sentimental emotion and/or feeling. Therefore, Aquarius is not generally recommended as someone who you will want to seek out for emotional support and/or to have a good cry on the their shoulder.

Your Aquarius lover is normally not going to be a "touchie," "feelie," "snugglely" partner. Aquarius is associated with the element of air - and, as such, Aquarius may not be completely in touch and comfortable with his or her body. Aquarius may even turn on and turn off his or her sexuality like a light switch.

It's fascinating to me, that each year, we celebrate love and lovers on February the 14th while the Sun is traveling through the Zodiacal Sign of Aquarius. Down through the centuries, Valentine's Day has progressively grown more and more associated with the friendship qualities of Aquarian love. Your Aquarius lover is, in fact, the most comfortable with friendship love. Aquarius tends to generate a friendly, people-oriented mental energy. Unconventional, friendly, unpredictable and innovative are all characteristics of your Aquarius lover. Aquarius thrives on being unique, original, may even be considered a wee bit eccentric.

Aquarius values humanity as a whole and enjoys living in a world of detached intellect and ideals. Aquarius values life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Aquarian energy (at its best) is channeled through creative theoretical constructs which can be used for the purpose of bringing about the greater social good. In plain simple language that means Aquarius shines best when reaching out for their high and lofty ideals. Your Aquarius approaches the world with a sense of cold hard logic and reason - and everything (everyone, including you) is open to his or her analysis.

Shadow: Aquarius can become the prototype of the "mad scientist" who becomes so consumed with and bent on creating something new and original, that he or she refuses to look at the consequences involved. In the pursuit of his/her ideals, Aquarius may remain blind to the Pandora box of deadly plagues that's about to be opened. The further temptation of Aquarius is the tendency to become the archetypal "Iceman" of the Zodiac. Aquarian love can then become icy, cold detachment and total isolation... with the "Iceman" forever escaping into the safety of his/her own high ivory tower of intellect and lofty ideals. The detachment of your Aquarius lover then becomes a safe tower where no one can ever again touch (and hurt) the "Iceman"...

Lions and tigers and flesh eating zombies

Seeing as I am procrastinating in every way possible to avoid doing homework today, updating the blog seems like a good idea. I woke up at the crack of dawn this morning (around 7am) because Brigitte was filming a zombie horror movie and half her crew didn't show up and she needed help. So I met up with my roommate from last year, Nana, and this year's roommate, Michelle, and drove to some undisclosed location in North Hollywood. It was the strangest place! It was basically an abandoned warehouse. A total eyesore. When I went inside, it reminded me of the type of place that would be haunted and the ghost would lure you away from your group and you'd get lost in one of the many rooms full of junk and slowly go insane. Then the house would eat you. I'm sorry to say my major contribution for the morning was a coffee run for the group because everyone was sitting around waiting for people to finish makeup, but luckily I brought my camera and was able to get over my fear of the ghosts long enough to wander around taking pictures. There was a cat that lived there that only had one eye! The other eye was missing and fur had grown over it. I'm an animal lover, but I think it added to the spookiness of the place.

Here are some of my favorite from today:


The outside of the warehouse...we should've run away at the site of it


A smokestack outside the building


A courtyard area outside. I wonder how sturdy those beams are.


There could've been serial killers hiding behind those bins.




I didn't check where this staircase led

golden slumbers

I think I've made my bed too comfortable. Over the summer, I was having a hard time sleeping because, as all college students know, the beds they give you in campus owned apartments aren't the best quality. My back was hurting and the mattress was really stiff and would creak whenever I'd move around and my apartment registered about 105 degrees so sleeping comfortably was pretty much impossible. This year in Troy East, however, I got a little smarter. I just bought this extra fluffy mattress pad to go over the mattress that is about 2 inches thick and filled with feathers. It's the best purchase I've made in college besides that cart that lets me carry groceries and other things. But I was still boiling because the fall weather hasn't kicked in and I'm on the side of the apartment that gets the most sun. I went and got new sheets that are made of that jersey material and are extremely soft. Now I can sleep with a sheet instead of a heavy blanket. My bed is amazing now! I never want to get out of it. I've actually slept through one of my morning classes which I never do because it was just too comfy to get up and go to class. I think it might have magic powers that convince me that I can sleep that extra 1/2 hour because, who needs to shower or do homework? I just took a 2 hour nap. So either my bed is just too good now or I have mono because i want to sleep constantly. I think this is just a precursor though to when i graduate and get an apartment and get a queen or full size. I can live with a cardboard box as my dining room table as long as I have a really nice bed.

graphic design is all i think about

This is semester is going to be one of graphic design 24-7. I can tell after my first week of classes. For Design III, we had to come up with a local site to redesign or remarket. I choose the philosophy courtyard on campus because I've always enjoyed it. The architecture is beautiful with tons of archways, a central fountain, and is one of the spots on campus that resembles a traditional east coast school. So for this project i decided to turn it into a classy, romantic lounge/dining area/club. Think: Blue Bayou, but not in a theme park. I think that the fountain should be either a chocolate fountain or should have champagne or something crazy. This weekend alone I have to come up with 3 comprehensive computer sketches for the look of the brochure that I have to make for it and I havent started any of it. I'm excited about it though. I'm using the idea of hanging lanterns of different colors as a focal point against the night sky. I'll post some pictures here after I finish designing it. Here's what I'm working with.







Typography is going to kill me this semester. On friday, I spent 2 hours looking at letterforms and talking about serifs vs. sans serif and what they are typically used for. The class is filled with fellow type dorks like me so I think I've found my element.

I found out that our semi-formal dance at ADPi is coming up on September 30th. I'm glad I found it out now because it takes me so long to find someone to bring. And even after I know who I want to ask, it'll take me two weeks to actually get around to asking them. I get shy about it. The girls in the house always have a lot of friends and will set me up if I can't find anyone to go, but I don't want to do that. I don't really have anyone in mind so if youre a guy and would like to go, let me know and save me the trouble of finding someone.

My voice is gone now...i sound like a mouse

If you've been wondering if I dropped off the face of the earth this week, I pretty much did. I had to be back at school two weeks early for sorority rush school, which has been pretty much running my entire life the last few weeks. The first week of school is sorority recruitment time so I got super busy. It’s kind of a strange thing to explain. This year, we had 750 girls rushing…the biggest year ever. So for two weeks before school, I spent 12 hours everyday at the house working on getting everything together. Lots of it was fun though. I wasn’t allowed to move into my apartment until the 17th so for 5 days I ended up sleeping on my friend’s floor who was in RA training. All the football players were staying on our floor and some of those guys are so big. This one football play, who looked like a linebacker, picked up my bike for me and put it in the elevator with one hand. I can’t even convey what a strange thing this whole week is, but through this process it somehow magically works out that girls end up in the houses best suited for them. Unfortunately, I was working on it for so many hours a day that I got a really bad cold and ended up being sick throughout the actual rush week. I also completely lost my voice from all the screaming. We ended up with about 60 new girls who joined....we have an insanely big house now.I was assigned a little sis, one of the girls I had during the preference ceremony (you’re paired one on one with girls). Big sisters in the house are assigned to kinda make the new girl feel comfortable and let her know how things go in the house so it’s less overwhelming. Unfortunately, she didn’t show up to Bid Night. so now I don’t have one so I was kinda depressed all throughout bid night. But the party was still fun. We had a pirate theme! And we had casino games set up with dealers, music blaring from big speakers, a place where we could actually make hologram keychains from pictures we could take, and food and sodas.The new girls seem really cool and nice and it’s a great feeling to know that all the screaming you did during rush school paid off with an awesome new pledge class. But yeah, that definitely took over my life this month. Now that it’s all over, it’s kind of nice to have my life back.



I got very little sleep during the process, so I have been spending the past two days trying to catch up on all my schoolwork and sleep. I’m taking 18 units, which is 5 classes. My classes seem pretty interesting this semester. My favorites so far are my design class and typography class because they are for my major. I’m taking my science class, Humans and their Environment, for pass/fail credit because we are allowed to do that for one class, so I think that’ll make it pretty easy. French class is hard this semester. I have an Irish teacher and I’m having a hard time understanding what he’s saying with his accent, but it’s getting better now that I have more time to focus on it. I’m also taking Advertising Copy write, but as long as I don’t have to spend the entire semester redesigning the Snapple campaign like I had to do in my last advertising class, then I’m happy. Junior year, I can already tell, is going to be very hectic.

I'm looking forward to being home this weekend and relaxing.

Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and as sweet as love

Real quick update since it's after midnight on a rush school night and I'm falling asleep as I type. I'm back at school for recruitment things, so if i missed seeing you in Valencia, I'm sorry and I hope that we can visit soon. Come and visit me after the 27th if you are around. Rush school is a strange time. I feel like I'm living in a vortex where I don't really keep track of days or times. Like today, I had no idea that it was saturday until I talked to my dad on the phone tonight. I don't really talk to anyone either, not because I don't want to. I just don't have any free time. Brigitte called to ask if I wanted to go clubbing and images of me falling asleep on the dancefloor came to mind. I'm having fun being back and seeing everyone, though I wish I could live in my apartment. We're allowed to move in on the 17th so until then I'm homeless. Luckily, my suitemate from freshman year, Angie, is in RA training in one of the dorms and she's nice enough to let me crash in her room until I can go to my apartment. I can't believe she's an RA already, it feels like we were just moving into Parkside as freshmen. I hate this feeling of being unsettled and living out of a suitcase. I've pretty much taken over her room. Rush things usually run from 9am to 9pm each day and there's a lot involved. I'm not going to go into detail right now, but I'm very busy during the day and come home exhausted. I miss my multiple cups of really delicious coffee a day and caffeine in general because I could definitely use some. Today, I resorted to drinking the instant coffee at the house that had some coffee grinds floating in it and then i poured a shitload of that dry creamer on top. I've hit a new low which is probably a sign that I should never try any form of drugs because I'd be addicted in a heartbeat. I think my voice will be gone before the time actual rush starts in a week.

I'm looking forward to the time a few weeks into the semester when you get into the swing of your classes but you're not so burned out as you are at the end of the semester. I just noticed that I have to buy about $200 worth of books which is depressing. I know some people get charged in the $400 range, but $200 is still a lot to swallow for books that I probably will realize later that I never needed to purchase.

Our sorority president just announced that she got engaged last night! She had been with her boyfriend for a long time, but I can't imagine being a senior in college and being engaged. By the same time frame, that would be next year for me. But that's probably because I don't date very much. Personally I probably will get married on the older side, but I was so happy for her that I almost started crying and I think she'll be really happy.

I think there was something else I was going to say, but my blowup mattress bed is about a foot away and I'm going to roll off my chair and onto it now, so goodnight.

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Thursday, August 04, 2005

What the fuck?

I just had the strangest dream and I know I'll forget it if I don't write it down. The first part of the dream was where my mom, brother, Dad (who was Dennis Quaid. Why werent any other family members turned into random celebrities?) and I were walking through the park near my house. We stopped at the public restroom and my mom got the sense that something was hidden in the grate in the ceiling so she climbs up there to look and found a set of keys. We leave the bathroom kind of puzzled, but a few seconds later, an enraged gorilla burst from the bushes, barreled across the lawn towards us, and told us that they were his keys and demanded them back. He had committed a bank robbery and the keys were to a locker at the airport where the gorilla had stashed the money. Suddenly, a whole fleet of cops burst from the bushes as well with their riot shields and guns and surrounded us and the gorilla. We all started to fight. We wanted to cops to get the gorilla before he could hurt us. The gorilla got out a box cutting knife and attacked my dad/Dennis Quaid. The cops ended up winning in the end though and we were all pretty much unhurt.

Then I went off to college, which was not at USC but was set in the backwoods of what looked like Oregon or Washington. I met up with some people I actually knew from USC including this attractive guy in my advertising class, the Rock, Jack White from the White Stripes. We are on a quest to go and chop down a large tree. We waded through a river and my oceanography professor shows up just standing in the middle of the river with those large boots you wear when youre fishing. He was waving at us all friendly-like. Then a giant wave comes out of nowhere and washes everyone away except me, my oceanography professor, Jack White and the gorilla from the beginning of the dream. We had all been smart enough to grab onto rocks. In the end, Jack White and I get married in the woods and my professor resides over the ceremony as priest. The gorilla has disappeared again and this is when I wake up.

Go analyze that one...

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans

I've been really attracted to these all-black webpages lately which for a graphic designer is probably not a good thing. They look very sleek and elegant though, dont they? I suppose I should be more creative. I still don't know html as well as I'd like, but once I do, I'll change the header colors and maybe the font color. Does anybody know how to do that? Kris? Dreamweaver has spoiled me and saved me the effort of learning html for myself.

Tomorrow is my last day of oceanography and amidst studying for my final, I'm in the process of packing everything back up into bins to move to Valencia for about a week. Maybe it's because of this physical upheaval and maybe not, but the last few days I've had a growing feeling of anxiety. I feel like I'm crawling out of my skin. I have a to-do list about a mile long and it seems like nothing is being crossed off and time is going too fast and not fast enough at the same time. I feel like I've been frittering. I forgot to wish 3 friends happy birthday this month until a few days after the fact. There are about a million changes I'd like to make to the ADPi website before rush, but it's only two weeks away so I can't possibly get it all done and I'm feeling kind of guilty about that. Lots of people look at it and they get a judgement of it and if it's not good then it's my fault but I don't have time to fix it. I'm letting down everyone in the house if it's not perfect. I can't compete with the other houses who hired professional designers and it's putting extra pressure on me. And in the meantime, I'm focusing so much of my efforts on this project that any other projects have pretty much been put on hold which makes me feel worse. My week in Valencia will be spent seeing friends who are there, working on graphic design for adpi and for my own art webpage, and sorting through the 20 or so boxes that are piled high in our family's living room trying to consolidate the things I'm bringing for fall term into about 5 boxes. Simplicity seems like the way to go. I think this week off will be good for me.

I think my family senses that I'm about to lose it and have a mental breakdown because on Monday my dad came out to USC and took me to dinner in Santa Monica because he thought I was having a "bad day" and today my mom came out and we went to lunch at this little cafe I never knew existed on 29th street. As much as I'd like to crawl under my covers and not come out until Spring, fall semester is inevitably approaching. But with it comes friends, football games, dinners, cooler weather, and new experiences. I think the skin crawling thing will stop soon.

The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high-road that leads him to England

I went today to visit my exroommate Nana who now lives in an apartment in North Hollywood. I hadn't seen her since she graduated because she was gallivanting around the world (England, Scotland, Thailand, and Australia) on her post-graduation trip. We went to get pizza and she showed me all her pictures from her trip. I told her how jealous I was that she got to travel all those places AND study abroad for a whole semester. The fine arts major at USC is huge and I can't spare the time to study abroad and I cant study abroad during the summer b/c I need to intern to stay competitive with the job market. She said to me "Well, why don't you intern abroad?" At the time this sounded a little far fetched but when I got home I went online and actually found that there are places that are like the office of overseas study, only instead of studying abroad they help hook you up with places to intern. You have to find housing, food, and flights on your own, but they get you in touch with businesses there where you could intern. So not only could I graduate on time, but I could get the experience of interning in a foreign city. They even offered graphic and web design internships. After this year's Sony internship fiasco, there's no way I'm going for an internship at a big company. The program usually lasts 8 weeks so that would be the perfect amount of time to be away. European design is done pretty differently depending on what countries you go to, so to be able to intern somewhere out there would be amazing. I would probably choose to do it here in Edinburgh or in London, although living in Edinburgh is sure to be cheaper.





Anyways, it's just a thought now, but besides the extra money to live abroad rather than at home for 2 months, it seems to allow me everything I could want for next summer. I'll look into it more and see if it would be a good idea.

Anyone want to come with?

Down here all the fish is happy

I've spent the last week studying these guys in my oceanography class.





I really hate fish. I used to keep an aquarium with small tropical fish when I was in grade school. I started hating the sight of fish when I looked into the tank unexpectedly and saw a dead fish floating in front of my eyes. Since then, I dont even really like looking at the live ones. I'll admit, the ones that glow neon yellow and blue and that you see in the large fish tank in Caesar's Palace are cool, but I hate staring at fish eyes looking back at me...gives me the creeps. But thanks to this class, I've learned a lot more about fish than I could ever want to know and more about the types or organisms and pollutants in shoreline water so that I'll probably not look at the beach with the same mystery anymore...or readiness to jump right in. Our class took our field trip (i havent had a field trip since I was little) on Thursday and we went to the Cabrillo Aquarium. My favorite part was poking the sea creatures in the tide pool, and watching the jelly fish float around under a black light. All in all, the class turned out to be pretty interesting, but I'm still glad that it's almost over.

Our new puppy is home! It's the cutest tiniest thing. The drive up to Sacremento was the longest I couldve imagined and we arrived there at 2 am, but it was all worth it to pick up the dog and save him the trauma of being shipped to us in a crate. He's a very smart, well behaved dog and already seems to be getting the hang of potty training. His bark sounds like a squeek toy, but he doesn't bark much. He's friendly and if anyone is in the area and would like to visit, you're more than welcome.



As a last fling before my season pass ran out, I went to Disneyland with Jessica and Amy. We had a great time running around taking ridiculous pictures. I also got to ride Space Mountain for the first time since it reopened, and I was really happy with it. I actually can't remember very well what it was like before so I can't really compare, but I think the improvements were good and they didn't completely change the concept which I was worried about.

Invention is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple

I used to update much more frequently, but with the bulk of oceanography trivia that is swirling in my brain, there's not much room for any other activity. My class only has 2 1/2 weeks left. It's amazing how quickly it went. What is even more amazing is that I have been calling housing office to get my internet fixed for the entire time I've been here, and realizing I only have a matter of a few weeks left, I've given up and have resorted to sharing Megan's the entire time. I got my grades back on my first midterm. I got a B. He asked a lot questions about specific currents and percentages. I'm not happy considering this is the only class I have to study for so I shouldve done better, but hopefully I'll do better on the next one.

The last few weeks have been marked by finishing the ADPi website I have been working on for a long while. It's nothing amazing, but through all the frustrations of html and things that shouldve worked but didnt, I've learned a lot about creating web pages. So now I'm starting to work on my own personal site to use as a digital portfolio of any graphic design work I might want to show. I'm kind of excited about it because you aren't tied down to a group image or what you think the most people will like or respond to. My personal site can be designed however I want. You can check out the ADPi site at www-scf.usc.edu/~adpi

I'm going all the way up to Sacramento this Thursday and Friday to pick up the new puppy. We're finally getting one! We were originally going for a beige colored one, but they had a picture up of a scruffy little black one with a white patch on its chest and I fell in love. I figured the color doesn't really matter, he'll still be lovable and cuddly. So he'll be around this weekend if anyone wants to visit him.

Right now, I'm looking at some postcards I have from various places: the victorian houses in San Francisco, a pumpkin patch in Half Moon Bay, Redwood trees, a light house and the fog. I'm thinking about how much I want to be in San Francisco. I really think that after college it'll be time for a move. Maybe I'll apply for jobs in san francisco area. It's close enough so that I can still see my family too. Won't be for a while, guess I'll have to be content with the sound of police sirens in LA for now.

Los Angeles is 72 suburbs in search of a city

I moved into my new summer apartment on Monday. The apartment itself is noticeably more crappy compared to my normal campus apartment, but there are only 4 of us there so it seems spacious enough. There is this horrific tiles from the 1970's in a mustard yellow and dingy orange decorative pattern and dark green couches. Whoever designed the apartment had no sense of color theory. But there is amazing shower pressure so I'm going to take as many showers as I can. Megan is in the other room and there are two roommates who I just met. They seem nice enough, but everyone tends to be around the apartment at different times. In fact, two of the three nights I was there, my roommate Amanda didn't even sleep in the room which will be nice if it continues because then it's practically a single. The elevator is one of the slowest known to man, but I'm not in a hurry. Summer session is actually quite pleasant. I'm enjoying being back in a city atmosphere.

I started class this Wednesday and was surprised at how it sucked less than I had expected. The classroom is in the geology building which is, in my opinion, one of the prettier buildings on campus. It is made of large stones, old wood floors, and detailed carved archways. I even found a secret courtyard. Well, it's probably not a secret, I just hadn't seen it before. The class only has about 20-25 students, and the teacher is this really friendly older man. I'm not much of a science person, but I think I made the right choice by taking oceanography and not something like physics or chemistry. The class has only been 2 hours a day so far but will get longer next week because we start a lab.

The rest of my free time I spent wandering campus. I just started "A Confederacy of Dunces," hearing it was a good book from some friends, so I get coffee and sit on campus and read. And since campus is practically devoid of students, it's really nice. Although they have orientation every week for the new students coming in. You can tell they are new because they have to walk around with big yellow nametags and sit in circles doing ice breaker games with an orientation advisor. It really was an annoying time...orientation. I discovered that a bunch of ADPi girls are living here this summer so I stopped by to say hi to them and they told me about how they found a lost dog and named it "Grandpa". We took it for a walk but halfway there Grandpa started hyperventilating and deciding it had overexerted itself one of the girls had to pick it up and carry it home.

I went to Sonia's, my ex-roommate, wedding the other night. It was just the reception and was at this Chinese restaurant in Monterey Park, but it was such a strange feeling to see someone I had lived with all year in a different setting and all decked out in her bride gear. I'll miss having her around the apartment this year.

I'm back spending the 4th of July weekend with my family and anticipating our usual traditions on Monday. I'll talk about that next time.

Poodle puppies and magic spells

I was sitting with my mom drinking coffee this morning and we were exchanging the weird dreams we had last night. She was telling my about her dream where we had a litter of baby poodles. My mom, being a nurse, doesn't have a problem sharing the gross details and functions of the body, so in her dream the poodle puppies got constipated and were going to die. Skip all the following gross details she included, she was able to help the puppies and her dream ended with many happy poodles jumping up and down with joy.

My dream was more boring, but was still pretty strange. In my dream, I went to the movies with my friends. Which I actually did last night to see Batman so that's probably where it came from. In the dream, my friends introduced me to this guy who they thought I'd hit it off with. I did and we went on a date and everything was good. Then I find out that the guy is actually an 80 year old man who had taken a magic potion to become 20 years old. I was mad because he deceived me and I had just been on a date with an 80 year old disguised as a 20 year old and that was the end. Maybe I should see a shrink. Or my mom should.

I feel like a bat in a cave lately. One of the lightbulbs in my room burned out and I've been too lazy to go to the hardware store and pick up a new one, so it's especially dark in here. Plus, with summer school starting in less than two weeks, I'm starting to feel the pressure to get all my shit together before fall. I have to get the ADPi website up and running, but it's not as easy as it seems. I made picture slideshows with music, but the music was copyrighted so I've been emailing back and forth with ASCAP about internet licensing and it's been a pain in the ass. After finally figuring all that out, I now need to finish up and polish the look of the website and go through all the things involved with getting a USC based server. I have to track down our sorority advisor's signature and then drive down to USC to turn it in personally to ISD computer services. As if all that's not bad enough, once I post it, I'll actually have to show people in my house the final product. I'm worried some people aren't going to like the look of it, think it's unprofessional, or something.

Also, I'm running the unitarian group on campus next fall so I created a website which only seems to run on MACs. But if you have a mac, the site is www.angelfire.com/un/uscunitarians.

I'm going to a wedding next week! I'm so excited, it's only my second wedding ever. This time, my roommate Sonia is getting married. She's actually 25 so it's not like she's my age, but it's a strange feeling to see friends of mine getting married. Her fiancee is in his 30's. It's freaky enough to think I'm a junior in college now, let alone soon going to more friends' weddings. What is a good wedding gift? I have no idea. Maybe a clock? A blender? Leave me a comment if you have a good idea for a wedding present that isn't too expensive. I think my roommates Megan and Brigitte and I are all getting together to get a gift for her.

Pirate houses

Time seems to be in a standstill right now. I love that feeling when you lose track of the date or what day of the week it is because you aren't run by a class schedule. This week is a lot different from last week though. Last week, everyone was home and I was having a great time visiting. This week, however, almost everyone left...including my family. My brother's girlfriend and her family took him on an all expenses paid vacation to Florida where they will be for 2 weeks. Man, what a deal. He's been calling us from Florida and telling us about all the things he's doing there. Wild Animal Park, Disneyworld, MGM, Epcot. Plus, for half the trip they are staying in this old house that used to be a hideout for pirates back when there used to be pirates. Matt says there are a bunch of willows and bayou type landscaping and looks like a scene straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean. Last summer, one of Matt's friends invited him to 2 weeks in Hawaii. He really lucks out with that stuff. To top things off, my dad is in Las Vegas for the week for a trade show.

So it's just me and my mom here. We decided instead of just sitting around the house like 2 bumps on a log and waiting for my time to go back to USC, we are going to plan out the week with a fun activity each day. On Tuesday, we went to the gym in the morning and then saw the movie Crash in the afternoon. We both decided that we wanted to be healthier and so we've been heading to the YMCA almost every day to use the bikes, weights, and ellipticals. My mom lost 4 pounds, I lost nothing...but so it goes. I dont really have to lose weight anyway. We follow the gym with a big salad for lunch. This has been going on for a few weeks and I am already starting to feel really good. I'm so happy my mom is doing it too. Then yesterday, we drove to Carpinteria in the evening. I'd much rather go in the evening to eat dinner and then catch the sun going down on the beach. This way, there aren't as many people out which is always nice.

Today we are going to the Natural History Museum with Amy which is right across from USC and then tomorrow we are working out and then going to Disneyland. I like going there because they have the rose garden outside and an exhibit on light and motion. I want to head to MOCA sometime soon. This way, I'm not getting bored at all, and summer school will start before I know it.

carnival of desserts...I'm gonna get real fat

Summer is starting to pick up a bit. This is the week that many of my friends are home so I've been having a good time visiting with them. Unfortunately, by monday most people will have gone to summer school or are out of town. The other day Lexi and I went on a grand adventure to Mel's Diner. For some reason we couldn't find the Sunset strip and ended up on an hour long detour towards Malibu. Yesterday I went down to UCLA to visit connor, scott and stephen who are still at school. They were having a Carnival of Desserts where they had all these booths set up and were giving away all sorts of desserts. We waited in line for a caramel apple, but they ran out before we could get to the front of the line. I think I'm a little too obsessed with caramel apples for me own good, but it is definitely my favorite dessert. So instead I got a cotton candy with its sugary goodness. After the carnival thing, we all decided to go see Star Wars. This was my first time going to the movies since early March. It's amazing. It's gotten so expensive that I only go when there's something I really want to see and there just hasn't been anything to peak my interest lately. I'm glad I went to see Star Wars though. I liked it better than the other two prequels and I still believe that Hayden Christensen is very cute, even if his acting is pretty flat. My only regret is that I decided to break in my new shoes the day I was going to ucla. Their campus is so huge and spread out and we walked a bunch. My feet hurt, but they feel fine today and I think the shoes are sufficiently broken in now.

In the meantime I've been reading a lot and have wanted to bolster my portfolio seeing as I have this month off. I'm really in need of a slide projector to do this cool art project, so if anyone has one I can borrow, please let me know!! I guess I've been rejuvinated by the idea that I may need to put together a portfolio if I continue on with school, or even if not then I'll need one for interviews. I think I've figured out my grad school dilemma. What I am going to do is apply to all the grad schools I'd want to attend, then I'll hear back in March, then if I get a scholarship or if it's somewhere I can't pass up I might go, and if not then I still have plenty of time to find a good job. The only thing lost if the application fee, and that's worth spending I think.

This is one of the graphic design pieces I've been working on this week. It's a 360 panorama of my freshman dormroom which I am painstakingly illustrating in photoshop. It's driving me crazy now, but I think it'll be worth it and look nice when it's done. It's not complete yet, obviously. I'm not sure what size it'll appear as here.

I'm going to quit and join the circus

Now that it's summer time and I've settled into the routine of doing nothing, inevitably all I can think about is school. Well not school exactly, but what I'd like to do as far as school in the future. So when I entered into undergrad I had decided that the job I want to get doesn't require a graduate degree and is based mainly on what kind of design you can do and the portfolio you have. In the back of my head I know that. Going to grad school would be adding on two extra year's tuition for a job that I probably could get with a bachelor's. I kind of want to go though. It dawned on me that I only have two years of undergrad left until graduation and going into the real world and it scares the crap out of me. All of my friends will be going to grad school so I would be the first one out working. Places like this and this keep going through my head. It doesn't help that the other day I mentioned to my mom that it would be really cool to go on to grad school and she said easily "Sure, go for it." I don't think she realized what kind of financial committment that is though. The tuition money, however, is a really big consideration that I dont think I could handle, especially for a degree which might not even be important. I can't put myself into a $40,000 debt just on the whim that I want to continue school. I think this will take more research than just a pro and con list so here's the plan. I want to be able to teach graphic design in a good university one day (not high school!) so I'll have a chat with my design teachers next fall and see what they did and if they went on to get a master's or if they just established themselves in the field. I'm also going to check with my graphic design friends and see what they're planning to do. I also have contact info for some students who just went through the Yale MFA program so I may email them and get their thoughts. Can there really be an academic side to graphic design that merits going on to school or is it something you just pick up along the way? I guess this will take a lot more time to figure out, and I know no one really cares because everyone else has their own schooling crisis but it helps for me to get it all out.

I was so confident about what I wanted. What happened? I read an article in Time magazine a few weeks ago called "Meet the Twixters" which I think contributed to my grad school freak out. It was about this new generation between youth and adulthood where people are not growing up as fast as they did 30 years ago. The article posed the question "What are they waiting for? Who are these permanent adolescents, these twentysomething Peter Pans? And why can't they grow up?" Maybe unnecessarily, but it sent me into a bit of a quarter life crisis. I come home a lot. I'm close with my family. I don't date all that much and am nowhere near having a serious boyfriend. Very soon I'll be graduating and entering into a mundane world of cubicles and scenes from Office Space. Deadlines! The article went on to talk about how "In the past, people moved from childhood to adolescence and from adolescence to adulthood, but today there is a new, intermediate phase along the way. The years from 18 until 25 and even beyond have become a distinct and separate life stage, a strange, transitional never-never land between adolescence and adulthood in which people stall for a few extra years, putting off the iron cage of adult responsibility that constantly threatens to crash down on them. They're betwixt and between. You could call them twixters." They were mentioning that this one guy went to school for 6 years and came out with a degree in cognitive science and couldn't find a job so he had to become a waiter. Is that going to be me?

I guess the meltdown is a little dramatic and not warranted because things seem to have a way of working out, but it's something to be thinking about over the next year and something probably a lot of people have to think about.

Dream of silver screen quotations

I was driving around the other night with no destination in mind when I got a call from my mom at work saying that it was a really slow night at the hospital and if I wanted to come in for a few hours to visit it would be a good night for that. So I headed to the hospital and went to the nursery. I spent a few hours feeding newborns and hanging out with my mom. Then around 2 am the lady who was in labor gave birth and I got to be in the room and observe it! Sure, we told the patient I was a nursing student, but she didn't mind that I was there. Plus, I think when it's your 3rd kid you could care less who is there. So i was standing quietly in the corner trying to stay out of the way and be invisible when one of the nurses asked me to come over and help her. I did and she said "Here, hold the patient's other leg back because we don't have enough people to do it." So I did! I was freaking out because I didnt want to screw up. The doctor had just come in from home and the labor had progressed so fast that he didn't even had time to change so he was wearing a polo shirt and a floppy hat and had barely gotten his scrub boots on. He was a little intimidating. So i got to see the birth right up close. The chord was wrapped around the kid's neck too so the doctor had to cut it and the kid had to be put on the bag that they do to babies who have trouble breathing. It was scary, but kind of what I expected a birth to look like. Painful! I'm not looking forward to going through labor and having babies in the future, but I don't think seeing what it looks like with stop me. Anyway, it was very interesting.

Yesterday, my family and I met my roommate Nana in Chinatown to celebrate her graduation. She's going on a month long trip to England, around europe, thailand, and to australia. Lucky girl. I think that would be a really fun thing to do after graduation. Except I would probably go to England, Ireland, Scotland and then around Europe rather than Thailand or australia. I guess I better start saving now. haha.

I've been home for a while now and have soaked up about as much relaxation as I can handle. I'm usually a busy person and I like it. But I'm in the mood for a drive down the coast to Santa Barbara. Maybe when more people come home and it warms up, it'll be time for a beach trip.

I'm a charlotte now

Congratulations! You are Charlotte.


Which Sex and the City Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

So I've transitioned from being Miranda to being Charlotte. It's fitting seeing as my attitudes about things have changed over the year.

Oh, HAPPY BIRTHDAY KRIS! You can officially say that you're in your 20's...scary thought. I hope you had a fun birthday.


In other news, I went on a bike ride this morning with my dad. I am so out of shape! We rode down the bike path by the wash. After getting a mouth full of bugs, it got really hot outside and on the way back I started to get really dizzy. This continued and then I started to feel a little sick so we headed home. I fainted a few times in high school due to either being too hot, dehydrated, or not eating well so I know the signs so I sat down for a few minutes and all was well. I'm feeling much better now, but I think I'm gonna start hitting the gym (with air conditioning) more often this summer to get into shape. Especially when summer school starts and I have the frustration of sitting through 6 hours of oceanography a day to work out.

There's a boy i think is interesting...I haven't liked anyone since february or so, but I'm tired of pursuing things with people so if this happens then I'll be happy, but if not I'm fine as well and I won't have to be embarassed because I acted retarded pursuing a relationship that was one-sided. No big thing. In the meantime, lots of swing dancing.

I think I've got my hands full with leading this unitarian group at usc next year. Each new student gets mailed a brochure about the various groups on campus and then they can go online and check which ones theyre interested in learning about. I got an email from the reverend at the office of religious life saying that they'll start receiving web based inquiries about various groups starting in June. They'll forward me the contact info of people who checked my section or anything having to do with unitarianism and then I'll have to respond to them with information about meetings, information, etc. Scary! My fall schedule is going to be so hectic, especially at the beginning of the year with sorority stuff, so looks like I should start pretty soon putting together meeting times, places, and programming so I don't have to do it later. I have a lot of good ideas though about different meetings. Eeeek, I really want the group to do well, i guess I'll just see how it goes.

In other things, I finally finished moving out yesterday. Yep, it only took me 3 days. It wasn't a smart idea to go there yesterday either since it was the official move out day and apparently nobody started doing anything until yesterday so students were running around crazy trying to get everything done. We squeezed about 20 people into the elevator too. And then I had a hard time getting everything to fit into what we lovingly call "Big Red", my mom's tiny little red Ford Fiesta and I smacked my head really hard on the door trying to cram my bike in. But i made it! Congrats to Nana who is graduating and boldly going out into the real world. I can't believe I'm already a junior.

Absolutely nothing else going on. I think I'll go back to sleep. Dang, I'm boring.

Summer is officially here

I'm at home for "summer" which is about a month and will be heading back to school on June 27th to start summer school. Everything worked out. I was able to rearrange my summer housing contract to start later, registered to take Oceanography this summer which i needed to get done at some point, and am pretty happy to have this month off to relax. I'm not the happiest at the way things worked out, but I suppose things could've been worse and I'm still going to be getting a lot done. Bring on the 105 degree temperatures, ugh.

Home is nice. I guess I got out earlier than most people. I had my last final, Record Production Management, on Friday and kicked ass on it. It was only a 2 unit class, but with all the copyright jargon and laws I had to memorize, I was worried I wouldn't do well on it. I spent yesterday packing up all my apartment stuff and taking half of it to the storage unit. The storage place had this horrifying rickety freight elevator you had to take to get to the 8th floor. It was the kind that you manually operate and have to stop at exactly the level of your floor. I was worried I was gonna fall out and plummet to my death.

All my finals went pretty well I think. I got an A- on my French oral exam which is nice seeing as I bumbled my way through conjugating and it took me about 5 minutes to spit out a sentence. I guess they are pretty leniant with us. I think I'd get some strange looks if I went to France and actually tried to speak. I had to write 3 essays about postmodernism in art and various things for my Visual Culture Final. Even though I brought most of my stuff to storage, I have filled my living room with even more bins full of clothes and apartment objects. I don't know how I accumulated so much junk. I need to economize.

Not much is going on. I know it sounds boring, but this inbetween week when people are still finishing finals is such a nice rest. I will probably spend the next week or so laying around like a braindead blob, then when I snap out of it I'll work on seriously getting this sorority website done and online, organize some UU programming b/c apparently I'm leading this group at SC next year, and go out with friends (swing dancing anyone?).

Oh oh! I almost forgot. My family is getting a puppy. We found this breeder up near sacremento and we placed an order for either a creme or an apricot colored toy poodle. The litters are being born probably this week and then they stay with their moms for a few weeks, then we get to drive up and pick him up. He'll probably pee on me on the drive back. We're all really excited because since Taz died, we've really missed having a dog around. I think we might name him a strange russian name because I'm really tired of seeing dogs named "Fluffy" or "Butch". We're leaning towards Mouska (not sure on the spelling) which means something like "Little dear one". I always hate when people do the traditional poodle haircut with the puffs around the legs, we prefer to let the dog get as fluffy and unrecognizable as possible.

Who wants to go egg Sony Pictures with me?

I don't even know where to start to express how much I've been screwed over this week. I'm rarely an extremely angry person, but this event has warranted it. I'm very career oriented and there's a certain path I had hoped to follow throughout college so that I'd be really prepared when I graduated to get a job. Part of this plan was doing an internship my sophomore and junior summers. As I've written about and probably gushed to just about everyone, I was thrilled when I had an interview at Sony Pictures and was offered an internship for the summer. Subsequently, I made plans for summer housing, schooling, and various things so that I could work around an internship schedule. A call to Sony on Thursday pretty much screwed all that up. It's kind of a long story, so I guess I'll just start with the very beginning back in march.

FEB & MARCH
 
I submitted an application on line for an internship with Sony (as well as with some other companies).   I got a call a couple of weeks later from Mr. Jonathan Baker who asked me to come in for an interview, which I did.   During the interview, he said that I had an impressive resume and that I should "think it over" whether I wanted the internship and call him back the next day.   I called back the next day and was told that Mr. Baker was in a meeting. I left the message that I had thought it over and would like to accept the internship.  
 
Being nervous about whether Mr. Baker got the message, I called back twice the next week, each time being told Mr. Baker was in a meeting and would call me right back.  He did not call back.   The third time, the person had me hold, checked with Mr. Baker, and reported that he had indeed gotten my message and remembered me.    I asked if the lady could tell me how many days the intership involved, that I had to make plans for the summer.  I was told to call back another time.
 
During the rest of March, I called a few times.  Each time I was told that Mr. Baker was "in a meeting" and would call me right back. Each time I left a message that I had a question about the specifics of the internship I had been awarded.  He never called me back, ever.   This made me a little anxious about things.

EARLY APRIL

I called yet again. I was told, again, that Mr. Baker was "in a meeting".  Knowing from experience that he would not call me back, I explained to the lady that this week was my deadline for committing to summer housing and that I needed to get confirmation for sure whether I was hired.  The lady this time had me on hold for a long time and then came back on the line, said she had spoken to Mr. Baker and that he confirmed that, yes, Mr. Baker remembered me.  
 
I then asked how I would find out what days of the week I would need to be there.  Now that I would be living at school, if the internship were only 2 or 3 days a week, then I could sign up for a summer class.   The lady told me that there is a big project everyone is working on and to call back in 2 or 3 weeks.
 
During this week, I went ahead and committed to summer housing, found a roommate, jointly submitted roommate paperwork and put down a deposit.  The next week I got confirmation of the housing unit, and did all sorts of tasks associated with the situation such as renting a storage unit for items that wouldn't fit in my smaller summer unit.  That next week I also re-arranged my fall class schedule to leave open two days in which I could continue my internship through the fall, because Mr. Baker had said that was desirable.

Week of April 25th:
 
Apr 28th -- Per the directions I was told previously, I called "2 to 3 weeks later" to follow up on finding out which days I will be working.  I spoke with a secretary who said Mr. Baker was "in a meeting".  When I asked the question, the secretary said I didn't appear on her list of Interns, that I'm is not an intern for the summer.  She expressed no regret and simply said that if I wanted to apply again I should send her resume and the secretary would forward it on (not sure to whom).  I was devastated and crying like...all day.   I explained the history, that I had gotten confirmation and seemed to be confronted with an "I don't care" attitude.  
 
My dad was certain that there had simply been a misunderstanding and even though I didn't want him to call and make a fuss, he wanted to call.   He called in the afternoon, was told Mr. Baker was "in a meeting".   He told her he was sure there was some kind of miscommunication and the secretary told him that there was no miscommunication, that there is no internship for me and that I had never been told there was.   He said he wasn't sure whether I had explained that I had been led to beleive from Mr. Baker that I had the internship and had already arranged for housing as well as arranging her fall class schedule to leave open two days for interning there through the fall, which Mr. Baker had said was desired.   The secretary told him that I had indeed explained it, but that I shouldn't have arranged these things without getting a confirmation from HER, that she is the only one who can give confirmation.  She said that I should have known that the internship offers are made on a space-available basis (I have no idea how she would have known that) and that perhaps it was because not as many interns had left as they had expected.   But that she would have Mr. Baker call my dad "when he is out of his meeting". 
 
After not hearing back for 2 hours, he called back to see if Mr. Baker was out of his "meeting".  The secretary said he was still in his meeting.   He said that he should probably start documenting some of these phone calls and politely asked her for her last name.  She refused to give him her last name!   He asked for Mr. Baker's title and she refused to give him his title.   Then she said Mr. Baker will call him back some time.  He reminded her that she told him Mr. Baker would call him back today, after his meeting, and she said that he will call him when he wants to.  She then said she was very busy and had to go now. 
 
so my dad called the main desk again and asked for the person in charge of student internships. He explained the situation to her and she was very nice about it.  he told her it didn't seem like he was going to get a call back.  She said she would call Mr. Baker.  He told her that it seemed like the secretary was already touchy about it, but she said Mr. Baker would speak with her. 
 

Apr 29th, YESTERDAY -- Mr. Baker left a message with me for me to call him.   When I called him back he started yelling at me.  He said that unless someone from Human Resources called me, that I was not being offered an internship. Again, I would have no way of knowing this, and this is contrary to the first message she got which was that I was being offered the internship.  It's also contrary to the secretary's position that SHE was the only one who could give confimation.    He also said that unless I heard it from him directly that there was no offer, yet another story.   He then said he had to go but would "call me back".  I doubt he will, but it seems like at this point there is no reason to do so.

 
I got a call from Walt Disney Studios to interview for a summer internship.  Even though Disney has always been my dream company, I talked it over with my parents and we jointly decided that I had committed to Sony and it would be good for me.   I called them and thanked them, but said I had already accepted an internship with Sony.

Mr. Baker and the staff there had plenty of opportunity to tell me if there was perhaps a misunderstanding on my part. 
 
At this point, I think that even if the internship were offered today, that working there for Mr. Baker would not a possibility.  It would not be a good work environment being surround by, and working for, people who did this shit. 
 
This is not the way a reputable business is supposed to treat people.    Reputable people are supposed to return phone calls.  Reputable people don't leave someone until it's too late to take any other internship.  Reputable people don't refuse to give people their names or positions. Reputable people don't come up with the excuse that the internship candidate "should have known" that "only Jennifer" could confirm, or that "only Mr. Baker" could confirm, or that "only Human Resources" could confirm (each of these stories were told at various times during Apr 28th & 29th).  Reputable people, when faced with phone calls from someone who obviously thinks she had an intership, if she didn't have it, would let her know so that she doesn't fuck up her entire year.  Reputable people don't call and yell at the internship candidate for trying to contact Human Resources when they couldn't get through to Mr. Baker after hearing an assistant blow her off with apparent lack of concern.   


Sorry that was so long, but that's my story. I managed to switch my schedule so I can still take a summer school class and not everything is completely fucked, but the fact that it's too late to find another good internship and the waste of the amound of work I put into job hunting since January really sucks. Sony, eat shit and die.