mercy mercy me.

i walk through a seaworld every morning on the way to work. it goes under the caltrain tracks and spits me out at the station where i catch a shuttle to work. it's almost pitch black at the deepest part of the tunnel, and the walls are painted aqua blue with creatures warped and faded by the time that has passed since their last art endowment. cockeyed octopi and mermaids and submarine captains stare back at you in the dark, and your feet on the dead leaves make a crunchy sound that echoes through the length of the world. i can see how it would be scary to a four year-old.

so every morning at 9:25 a.m. a group of about ten preschool children scream at the top of their lungs the whole way. they start at the mouth, backlit by california sunlight, and descend into the blue, flailing their arms and legs like little shrimp until they reach the other side. their caregiver follows close behind, looking embarrassed and tired. poor woman, i'm sure it stopped being cute a long time ago. i kind of understand where they're coming from.

i find it ironic that i'm learning more about life, actual life, in the first months out than i ever learned at a Top 5 university. our school had a lot of great things going for it, but unless you want to go into finance i don't think it can boast teaching "life skills" or even just "how not to get fucked skills."

as i'm sure you know, making a living is hard. if it's not the long hours, it's the thankless hours, and if it's not thankless hours then it's something else. i was always under the impression that loving your work was a matter of picking the right field; declaring the right major is supposed to translate into the right life for you, complete with designer coffee tables and dessert with every meal. but now i believe that if you can love a job, then it comes more from somewhere internal than from anything intrinsically enchanting about turning over most of your waking hours to a third party that doesn't sleep with you or call you pretty.

i'm practicing the secret. everything will be fine.

*manda

raunchy european stuff

Hi guys,

First of all, I'm glad everyone's posting! I check it every time I come online... Boo on everyone leaving the bay, although I know it makes sense for everyone and their lives and becoming grown-ups and bla bla bla. I'm just selfish. Also Jules, I went to go see Harry Potter, too, while I was in Paris. I think everyone thought I was crazy because I was sitting by myself and overreacting to everything. I was just really happy that everything was in English - all I can say in French is hello, thank you, where's the bathroom, and i'm sorry I don't speak french, do you speak english? sigh.

So, I decided I'm going to post on here all of the stuff I don't really want to post on my blog that all of my relatives read - like going to dyke bars and stuff like that. I have a couple of good stories I'll tell later, but for now I wanted to post this picture that I thought at least those of you who lived in EBF would appreciate. It was in the Sex Museum in Barcelona, and I'm pretty sure it was titled "EBF Boys during a Dinnertime Discussion"

bye to the bay

Health insurance woes, makes my eye twitch. I'm still trying to figure out if I would be able to cover Hammad if I needed to--if I count as "staff" then yes, but if I'm just a "student," then I would need to be legally married...i.e. no. Thankfully he just got a job! He is going to work for the American Bar Association's Rule of Law Initiative... if you follow that link I understand one of his duties will be making a better website.

I'm moving to DC on the 14th of August. Hammad, his brother, another friend, and I signed a lease for a townhouse near Gallaudet University/Union Station kind of north of Capitol Hill. For a Georgetown student it might not be the absolute Ideal location (distance-wise), but the price is right and, well, we'll see when I've seen it! Everyone else in the group has been out on location looking at houses, so I'm actually pretty out of the loop as far as that is concerned. It's worth it though to have a place "ready" when I get in. Hammad and I have been in different places for 8 months now, with less than two weeks visit time the whole way through.
So it will be good to see him again, to say the least.

I leave Stanford for good for good on Saturday. The institute has been a good chance to wean myself off slowly. My Lyman sublet was fun, now I'm crashing on someone's floor (the couch already has a crasher) until Saturday.

I hope people are reading this! Well, love~~~ :-)

Long post about life.

I miss Lauren. And while I think she absolutely made the right decision and think she will be very happy in Wilmington, I really just want to go start a riot at Dreamworks. I'll visit you though Lo!

So, I've been doing this whole working / adult thing, which was all great until I realized that my health insurance ends at the end of August. This realization along with watching the movie Sicko (everyone should go see it!) made me start to panic. Obviously no insurance company is going to cover "that girl who had a stroke at the ripe age of 19" cause they want to make bank off your insurance policy, not pay up for your month and a half hospital stay. And Stanford, in its continuing effort to take as much money from me as possible, wants to keep me on the marketing team (it was supposed to be temporary until October) like permanently. BUT, they "can't" make me a permanent employee until September 2008 at the earliest. Translation: "one of the biggest costs to us is providing benefits to our employees, so stay, but don't expect us to compensate you." That's a big no. Which I haven't told my boss yet because I need the job until I line something else up. In the meantime, Christina is going to put me on her health insurance plan like the loving girlfriend that she is, and I am looking for a new job, which was the original plan anyway and am going to start studying for the LSAT soonish. You heard right my friends. Law school is back in the picture. But I won't be one of those corporate lawyers making money for the man. I promise. I want to help poor people and children and all the other people who don't count in America.

Ah America. Seriously guys, see Sicko. I cried through half of it, but mostly it just made me really angry. All these other countries are much more civilized than America regardless of what we're supposed to believe. I actually really missed England. Ok, I will temporarily step off my soap box now.

The other thing that has been consuming my life as of late is:
HARRY POTTER. The movie was awesome. I wore a witch's hat and felt no shame. I was one of the only ones in costume though. On opening night too. Pretty lame people. This Friday / Saturday at midnight I will be welcoming the final book, in costume again. I want to read it immediately, but I am not ready for it to be over. Perhaps I sound a tad too dramatic to be talking about Harry Potter, but in all seriousness, it will be pretty sad when I'm all done reading.

I really miss my nephews and hope I can make time to go see them soon. Tyson is getting funnier and more adorable as time goes on. He is going into 4th grade next month, and Homestead is doing a backpack drive in which Christina volunteered to buy school supplies for a boy somewhere in the grade range of 2-5, so she asked me to get some advice from Tyson. I call him up and tell him what's up, and his response is: "if he is going to be in 4th grade, don't get the backpacks with cartoons on them. 4th graders don't do that." Wow, since when did 4th graders become too cool for cartoons? We all know that I would happily sport a Batman backpack at the "mature" age of 21. And he mailed me a letter a couple of weeks ago asking me if I knew about Asian rhinos. He included print outs from the internet with information about them in case I didn't. Really, how cute is that?

There isn't too much else going on with me. I am looking forward to the dish re-opening, and I hope Nicole Richie isn't actually pregnant.

A New Direction

Okay, so there have been some recent developments that I would like to share. Three weeks ago I had every intention and all the confidence in the world that I would be back in the Bay Area, if not at least California to begin this next phase of my life. Unfortunately, my life had something else in mind. Yesterday I found out that the Production Asst. positions at Dreamworks had been filled with internal hires. I knew this was a possibility, if not a probability, but still thought I had a chance anyway. While they are still keeping me in mind for a general PA position, it looks like a long shot because they are interviewing an internal person first. So, with this news I have started to reevaluate where my life should go from here. It came down to two choices: Endeavor Talent Agency in LA or Wilmington, NC. I've chosen the latter. I weighed the pros and cons of each and decided I had to be honest with myself. Could I be happy living in a city where half the time I'm driving in my car developing road rage and the other half working 12 + hrs. a day for $8.50 learning how to kiss butt, sort mail, and schmooze? I hate traffic. I'm not an angry person and don't want to be. I'm not a schmoozer, and don't really care to become one. And I can't really afford to live in CA making a buck over minimum wage right now. Despite all of these cons, it was still a difficult decision. A part of me is terrified to start my career in NC. It can be a vacuum. A Hoover or Eureka. Not a puny $20 Dust Buster from Target. I escaped once to come to Stanford. Can I do it again? I'm not entirely positive. But right now, I have to risk it. I need the experience and I need to make more contacts if I want to make a good enough living. Then, the hardest part about deciding to relocate to Wilmington is all of you. To think I don't know when I will see you all again is a hard reality to swallow. When I thought I'd be in CA, I knew at least I would see some of you every now and then. Hopefully, this will give y'all an extra incentive to come visit NC. I'll be located right at some of the most beautiful beaches in the country. There are beach bars, museums, sweet tea, and Bojangles is always nearby. Of course I will try to call often and you all will never be far from my mind.

I know I told you all that I would be back, and who knows I might be back by next year. This is the best decision for me right now, and I know I will have all of y'all's support.


Oh, and before I forget: Poop on Dreamworks! Haha, J/K!

Fire burn and cauldron bubble

Yes, can we talk about what a great idea the water cooler remains? And now that we’re grown-ups the title has so much more meaning. It’s like a non-gender-segregated siblinghood of the traveling skorts. Remember skorts?

After a crazy commencement week, I am finally resting at home. Before I left California my aunt in Stockton threw a huge party to celebrate my graduation, complete with rented tables, tons of deliciously unhealthy food, and a bounce house for the kids. You read that right, a bounce house. It was really fun (despite the kids), especially since I don’t get to see my Bay Area family that often, but between the sad Stanford goodbyes and the moving away and the driving around it also left me EXHAUSTED. I’m sure everyone reading this can relate. Well, maybe not to the bounce house part because that’s just awesome me, but to the exhaustion.

So currently I’m at home in Texas, boiling (hence the Shakespeare reference) and hanging out with my mom. She has dial-up now, so I can email all I want as long as I don’t block the phone line for too long. Haha, 20th century bliss! 18th century, bite me. I’m excited to come back PA so I can finally live in my new apartment with Nora/Dina (and stop paying empty rent). My lab manager job officially starts August 6th, and I’m beginning to think this whole “adult” thing looks good on me. Except yesterday I asked my mom if I should start saving for retirement and she literally laughed in my face. Oh, and the only bad thing about the job is that I’m already facing some awkward-turtle conversations before I’ve even started, like about the two-week full-time UNPAID training period before the official start date. In the words of Dr. Reed from the hit sitcom Scrubs which I watch a million episodes of every day while in Houston (highly recommended), “What the frick!?” Two weeks without pay. Um, no.

It’s great to see happy posts coming from all of you. Lauren, you are amazing. Good luck, Happy Birthday, and congratulations on a fantastic application of the phrase “poop on them.”

*manda