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.

Hop in the flip-top baby

My dad used to tell me that I'd enjoy the luxury of a nap when I got older. I thought he was crazy. I wanted to run around, play, watch cartoons. You didn't know what you were missing when you slept and so I'd wake up at 6 am on weekends and bounce around with manic energy when my parents told me to take a nap. Nowadays, I don't know if it's because I've got more of a handle on the world and I know that I'm not missing anything when I sleep, but all I've wanted to do lately is take naps. I've been a little sleep deprived lately because it's pre-finals week, which is even worse than the real week for art majors. I dont have as many final tests, but I sure have a lot of final critiques and projects due.

My photography critique is tomorrow and with only 4 out of the 10 large scale prints I need to present, I'm running extremely behind. I had a fiasco with the evil USC bookstore. Normally, I never have any problems with them. Yes, they are grossly overpriced, but I get what I need and it works for me. I bought a pack of photo paper from them the other day and when I printed on it, everything came out foggy. I figured I had accidentally exposed the paper and went to buy another pack from the bookstore. The same thing happened! I told my teacher and the department chair and they pointed out that the paper I bought was a over a year passed its prosessing date. My photo teacher ended up going to the bookstore and making a fuss, and they are giving me my money back...but I lost 2 full lab days of work I couldve been doing, so now I'm screwed. The student art show date for submissions was last thursday and I had been wanting to submit this graphic design thing I'd been working on all year, but with all the crazy final projects, i didnt have time to finish it. i guess there's always next year.

Not all the craziness has been school stuff. I had my sorority invite on Friday night. I'm usually lucky enough to find a date at the last minute. This time I brought my brother's friend John who is this super nice French Canadian guy. The theme was Vintage Hollywood, which was free for people to interpret. I decided to do a 1950's housewife look and John dressed up as a greaser. I looked like a little girl in my ensemble (for cait). But some people ranged from formal dresses to togas to pirates. I went with a big group to dinner at Bistangos which is this cheap hole in the wall place on Figueroa. Some people went to pre-party after dinner, but I'm happy to say that John and I didn't drink. He was uncomfortable with the drinking, and I've been trying not to drink much at all recently. I don't know why, I've just been very nervous about doing it and now I've got summer coming up where i won't drink at all.

The invite was at this bar/restaurant called Pinot, on sunset blvd. It was cute. It had an outside dance floor with white twinkle lights everywhere. They also had couches for people to lounge on and tables for groups to take dance breaks at. It was a very small environment, but fun. Usually, I'm on the dancefloor most of the night, but this time I got to hang out with my sorority sisters and their dates more, which was a nice change. After the dance, 6 of us went to Mel's diner which is quickly becoming my favorite post-invite spots b/c it's open 24 hours and has delicious milkshakes. Also, the craziest people show up there. I saw a woman wearing a giant mad hatter type hat with a stuffed animal white tiger on it and LCD lights blinking all over it. And later on, this girl in her 20s was so wasted that she fell right out of her booth seat and landed sprawled out on the floor. Good times. Got back to the apartment at 4 am.

Here are a few pictures:


Dinner at Bistangos. Everyone looks so cute.


My big sis Sara, her date, me and John taking a break from the dancing


John, me, Kristen and her date doing the diamond. I look like a Stepford wife.


Girl Pirates! Arg.


Mel's Diner and the delicious milkshakes

Summertime and the livin is easy

School's over. So that's weird. I'm faced with summer in three weeks or so, but not any kind of summer that I've known before. This is the "grown up" summer. I'll be living in an apartment at USC for the summertime, working 4 days a week or so at my internship, driving all over the place. It's going to feel very foreign to me. And so now, as I'm faced with a new experience this summer, I find myself being more nostalgic than ever. Everything seems like an old summer memory. Early summers spent playing in the sprinklers in the hot summer and smelling the fresh cut grass and selling lemonade for 10 cents a cup with my brother in the park. Later teenage summers spent going to the movies, eating lunches at Fatburger, and going to AMPM with jessica.

Most of my news tends to be sorority news lately, because that's what my schedule has been jam packed with. On Friday, we had Row Cup which was our house's big philanthropy event. I was a captain for the delts. We went over to wake them up and slowly they trickled over to our lawn where we were having the event. It was human foosball which was pretty funny because the guys had to get strapped in to play like real foosball characters and a lot of them got so into it that they were kicking the soccer ball at people's faces and crotches. Ouch. A few times throughout the day, the big bouncy castle that they played in deflated and collapsed on the players. There were slip and slides set up on the lawn too which made me even more nostalgic for a time when playing outside all day was the only thing on my mind. I think they even fixed the dangerous metal spikes we used to use to stick the slip and slide into the ground. Many injuries from this contraption.


The bouncy castle collapsing around my team


my row cup team


Slip and Slide!

I have my "Vintage Hollywood" theme dance coming up this friday. I'm looking forward to it because I have a dress all ready. I've got a whole Donna Reed 1950s look going on. I think I'm going to watch Grease to prepare. The guy I'm bringing has never been to an event like this because he doesn't go to a big school, so it could either be really fun or not so fun if it turns out he doesn't like it and then I'd feel bad. More update on that after Friday.

The gorgeous australian boys who were staying in my apartment have left. It was nice to have them around because of the accents, the politeness, and the rugged good looks...and the fact that they slept in boxers on the couches. But it's also nice to have my apartment back to wander around in a groggy daze in my pajamas and not worry about looking hideous in front of anyone.

Oh, and to Monica if you're reading, i just wanted to let you know that I've been swamped with school stuff, but I'll be sending something really soon.

well that's a shame

So I recently took the Jung personality test wondering how random questions could fit together to categorize your personality and character, but I was surprised with what it said about mine. My mom and brother also took it and it seemed right on for them. It said my mom was charismatic and always open to help people without asking for many things in return which she does cuz she's a nurse, and then it said my brother was a performer type who wasn't as interested in academics but always had a good joke or story to tell. Mine, I'm not as happy with. haha

INTROVERTED INTUITIVE THINKING JUDGING

To outsiders, INTJs may appear to project an aura of "definiteness", of self-confidence. This self-confidence, sometimes mistaken for simple arrogance by the less decisive, is actually of a very specific rather than a general nature; its source lies in the specialized knowledge systems that most INTJs start building at an early age. When it comes to their own areas of expertise -- and INTJs can have several -- they will be able to tell you almost immediately whether or not they can help you, and if so, how. INTJs know what they know, and perhaps still more importantly, they know what they don't know.

INTJs are perfectionists, with a seemingly endless capacity for improving upon anything that takes their interest. What prevents them from becoming chronically bogged down in this pursuit of perfection is the pragmatism so characteristic of the type: INTJs apply (often ruthlessly) the criterion "Does it work?" to everything from their own research efforts to the prevailing social norms. This in turn produces an unusual independence of mind, freeing the INTJ from the constraints of authority, convention, or sentiment for its own sake.

Personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, can be the INTJ's Achilles heel. While they are capable of caring deeply for others (usually a select few), and are willing to spend a great deal of time and effort on a relationship, the knowledge and self-confidence that make them so successful in other areas can suddenly abandon or mislead them in interpersonal situations.

This happens in part because many INTJs do not readily grasp the social rituals; for instance, they tend to have little patience and less understanding of such things as small talk and flirtation (which most types consider half the fun of a relationship). To complicate matters, INTJs are usually extremely private people, and can often be naturally impassive as well, which makes them easy to misread and misunderstand. Perhaps the most fundamental problem, however, is that INTJs really want people to make sense. :-) This sometimes results in a peculiar naivete', paralleling that of many Fs -- only instead of expecting inexhaustible affection and empathy from a romantic relationship, the INTJ will expect inexhaustible reasonability and directness.

"Why is it that we get stuck with 'old maid' and 'spinster' and men get to be 'bachelors' and 'playboys'?" -Miranda, Sex and the City

I was discussing this concept with my mom the other day and my fear that I'd graduate college, only work with 40 year old men and never meet an interesting guy my own age. It started out normal enough and then our conversation turned ridiculous, as it usually tends to do when you put the two of us in a room together.

jumpingzebra13 (11:53:01 PM): spinster miser...miser spinster...
PrityLittlePixie (11:53:18 PM): me living in an apartment with 20 cats
jumpingzebra13 (11:53:33 PM): 20 fucking cats!
jumpingzebra13 (11:54:12 PM): just think though...if they all curl up around you when you go to sleep, you'll never need to buy a comforter.
jumpingzebra13 (11:54:43 PM): does it matter that the cat dander gets wadded up in your nose and you can't breathe?
jumpingzebra13 (11:55:10 PM): does it matter that the litter box needs to be cleaned every half hour or so?
jumpingzebra13 (11:55:45 PM): nah....better to get 20 teacup poodles instead
PrityLittlePixie (11:56:06 PM): me, sitting in my apartment in my bathrobe doing graphic design on my computer in the dark, 20 cats around me, my eyes watering because im freaking allergic, and the only male contact i get will be the pizza delivery guy coming to the door and eying me strangely as i pay him for my 5 pizzas...which i will then eat
jumpingzebra13 (11:56:50 PM): you ain't gonna eat 5 pizzas....cats will get to them first
PrityLittlePixie (11:58:09 PM): and ill drink curdled milk
jumpingzebra13 (11:59:53 PM): you know what they say bout rotten milk? it turns into acid rain
PrityLittlePixie (12:00:09 AM): who says that?
jumpingzebra13 (12:00:16 AM): "they"
jumpingzebra13 (12:00:31 AM): the bush advisors silly


somehow, this is what came of that train of thought:

jumpingzebra13 (12:03:48 AM): nah...the pandas are communists
jumpingzebra13 (12:04:58 AM): shit girl....everyone knows the pandas work as cheap labor
jumpingzebra13 (12:05:12 AM): in the sweat shops no less
jumpingzebra13 (12:06:43 AM): come on now...they don't sew the buttons on....they glue them on with bubblegum
PrityLittlePixie (12:07:25 AM): do they chew the bubblegum themselves?
jumpingzebra13 (12:08:30 AM): you see....that's where the polar bears come in. they're really "bi-polar" and their other self chews the gum and then ships it to communist china where the pandas are.

I've got some scattered pictures lying on my bedroom floor

I've been obsessed with photography lately. I'm getting wrapped up in my final project which I've created so that I don't have to travel off campus and drive all over LA this time to get the prints I want. I decided to do an examination of my sorority and a reflection on my self in visual diary format. I want to do a myth versus reality thing and also a study on identity. What identity is needed? In this day and age, do you really need to fit a mold to be accepted? These are all things I hope to explore and in the end I hope to tie it into a good final project. I'm struggling a bit with connecting my ideas with actual visual markers, but I figure I'm just going to go to the house every night this week for activities and shoot as many rolls as I can and I'll probably find some prints I like. In the process, I'm becoming a lot like that guy from American Beauty with his video camera...not exactly a role I want to take on. People are always wondering why I'm taking their picture. It's a fine line between staged and real emotion and it's interesting to see what people will do when they know they're in front of the camera even when they are trying to be laid back and unposed (straighten up, put on a nervous smile, keep glancing at the camera). People are more than happy to pose usually, but keep asking me for direction and I don't know what to tell them. If you have any good input or ideas, let me know cuz I'm fumbling a bit with this one.

Being in photography has introduced me to a lot of new artists from the past few decades that are really interesting. I was looking through a book of Robert Frank pictures in his "America" series which are so amazing and fundamental, but he had gotten Jack Kerouac to write some quotes I think are interesting.

"A picture that should have been blown up and hung in the street of Little Rock showing love under the sky and in the womb of our universe the mother--and the loveliest picture ever made, the urinals that women never see, the shoeshine going on in sad eternity." --Kerouac

As far as inspiration for my upcoming project, I found an artist named Nikki Lee. I actually knew about her last year but I just bought her book this week. It's called "Projects" where she spent months studying and preparing a certain social group and then infiltrated it to see if she could be accepted or find common empathy. There was the Punk project, the Ohio Project, the tourist project, the Stripper project, the schoolgirl project, the senior citizen project, the yuppie project etc. Very cool stuff. Obviously I don't have the capacity to dress up and seek out social groups and I'm not going to become a stripper for this project, but hopefully will keep in mind that idea of identity. She says:

"People call me a chameleon--it's a cliche and people are too lazy to invent new words, but I forgive them. Changing myself is part of my identity. That's never changed. I'm just playing with forms of changing. My work is really simple, actually. I wanted to make evidence. I always feel like I have a lot of different characters inside and I was curious to understand these things. I wanted to see some sort of evidence that I could be all those different things." -nikki lee, projects

Songfest

Now that Songfest is over, I'm back to the realm of the living. I think I literally spent a week only going from class to the house for songfest stuff until the wee hours of the morning and I was only at my apartment to sleep for a few hours at night. It was all worth it though because the preparation that went into it really helped us put together a good show. A bunch of the kids from Troy Camp were there and we raised a total of $14,000 for the camp so I was very thrilled. On Friday afternoon my mom, brother, and my brother's friend John came to USC and we went to lunch at El Cholo. My mom was worried about being late so she wanted me to wear my costume to lunch so that she could just drop me off, but seeing as my costume included a pair of purple striped pants, pigtails, and a bunch of drawn on stitches, I declined. The actual show went really well. I had a lot of friends in the audience and the other girls from our house came out and cheered really loud. Although I have to admit, the Kappa Alpha Psi guys were the show stoppers. They did an incredible step dance to "Candy Shop" and threw candy out into the crowd. Before the show when we were walking to the auditorium, the guys serenaded us!! It was excellent. I haven't met a better bunch of guys here at USC and they're one of my favorite fraternities now. In the end, our group didn't win first place, but we did win "Best Singing"...something that surprised me because we focused a lot more on choreography and dancing than singing. In fact, our motto was to basically sacrifice any kind of notes to shout the words at the audience because the auditorium had horrible acoustics. But for a group that hasn't done Songfest in many years, I'm so pleased with winning anything at all and we got some wonderful publicity from the Daily Trojan and people around campus. I can't wait for next year's Songfest. The Kappas are already talking about new step moves. Here are some pictures from Friday.










It's getting to be that time again. Time to start thinking about finding a date for my last invite of the year. Senior sendoff's on April 22nd and the theme is "Vintage Hollywood." Finding an outfit was the easy part. I'm doing a kind of early 50's donna reed look with a puffy crenaline dress, bulky cosmetic jewelry, teased hair and everything. So if you're a boy, like to dance, and would like to save me the hassle of finding a date please tell me.

In other news, I had my photography critique on the project I did juxtaposing the Catholic and unitarian services I attended and I got a fairly good response, but not as good as the one I did on consumerism/excess. I'll have to step it up for our final project due at the end of april.


I want a puppy.