Stuff and Things

so, another week of not much is coming to a close. things are much calmer this academic year. around this time last year, the whole chicken-with-its-head-cut-off adage would fit right about here. nowadays, i'm actually sleeping in most days and then enjoying long, lazy mornings sipping coffee and reading the online papers. all that will likely change in the coming weeks as i begin my pseudo internship, which is really the second part to my new TAship i mentioned in the last entry. i'll be working for a USC-sponsored agency that provides training to mid-career journos. unfortunately, it doesn't look like i'll be doing much journalism there, just assisting -- gofer stuff.

school is school. turned in two papers last week, have a midterm next week and must grade a bunch of papers this weekend. everything's pretty fucking boring on this end. well, there was one strange thing that happened last night. maybe it's worth mentioning.

i went to one of pablo's business school mixers last night (side note: these party animals seem to have about five a week, crazy business kids) and the most bizarre accident took place. pablo was standing around talking to some people when one of his classmates heard a joke that must have been pretty damn funny because he doubled over laughing and somehow smashed his head against pablo's wine glass. the glass shattered in pabs' hand and the guy's head started gushing blood. pabs comes outside to find me and he's covered in blood and red wine, which was a startling sight on its own. the ambulance shows up in a matter of minutes (rare in hollywood) and paramedics begin to bandage this guy's head. there were no hard feelings, and the guy didn't seem too pained or upset by the incident. it didn't really ruin our night either -- all us kids still kept getting soused and even made an unsuccessful fast food run at 2 a.m. when the bar closed. we woke up late this morning. pabs missed his class and morning meeting.

also, i'm supposed to be in spain right now and i really wish i were. my most favorite couple in the world, juan and kiana, are getting married right outside of madrid this weekend. pabs and i were going to attend, planned on it, but the demands of school and work made it an impossibility. i feel horrible about it, guilty, sad. but, of course, they were very understanding when we broke the news to them. i'm also pretty bummed that i'm missing the party, because knowing these guys, it's gonna be better than good. in their honor, here's a photo:

The Only Stupid Question Is the One Not Asked

it's amazing what you can get out of life just by asking for it. just the other week, i walked into the student services office at my school and asked to be hooked up with one of those super lucrative and highly coveted TA positions. well, none were available, already assigned for the semester and so forth. but a week later, one opened up and i got the call. half of the position has me TAing a class (not doing any actual teaching, though, just grading papers). the class is on entertainment PR, an area i know nothing about. the other half is working 10 hours a week at an organization for journalists. and this is one phat deal, too, as in all my tuition paid for this academic year and a monthly stipend. and all i had to do was ask (well, i sorta begged). if only everything were that easy.

i'll also still keep my once-a-month gig at CFQ. although they agreed to give me more hours, i was never actually needed more than once a month, so provided i have the time, i'll still be going in to copy edit their issues right before they're sent to the printer. this takes about a week, and often includes weekends. so nowadays i have plenty of work (school and other) to keep me occupied.

the bad news is that the chicky i wanted to chair my thesis committee can't make the time this year, so i'm on the hunt for another professor to suffer through it with me. i think i'm set on a topic, but i'll share it at a later date, once things with my committee are finalized.

and in other news, i've updated millatimes.com a bit more, but am far from finishing it. i just wish i knew flash and dreamweaver, photoshop, illustrator -- all that crap. it's just taking so fucking long to do anything because i don't know the software all that well. something that takes three simple keystrokes to do will take me 15 minutes of trial-and-error fiddling. the 'dreamweaver for dummies' book i have could help if i weren't too stubborn to use it. but i have all the photos from my trip all sized correctly and ready to go, i just need to organize them in a way that makes sense. i also have my map of europe done. it took me all friggin weekend to do. eventually, each city title will link to a photo slide show. eventually.

Dig My New Blog

endless thanks go to germy, who kindly archived my blog for me and helped move everything over to this new format. finally, an archive! sorry for the dial-upers who had to wait eons until the page loaded, i know it took a while. this main page will hold the 10 last entries and will now include titles.

of course, i've done no other work on my website, but the weekend was more full than i thought. i finally got a much-needed haircut and dye-job saturday and spent much of the afternoon installing shelves in the hall closet. they're pretty precariously done -- a real amateur job, like a strong wind will just topple the whole thing. but at least i have a place to store my bedding, towels and maxi-pads.

this morning i interviewed two candidates running in the recall race for governor of the great state of california. (no, i couldn't get billboard hag angelyne after all. she turned out to be a typical LA flake. bitch.) these guys are proprietors of ButtMonkey Beer, and intend to use their candidacies for shameless promotion of their product. it was ridiculous, just like everything else surrounding this whole recall business, which is why i wanted to interview them.

in other news, my dog's boyfriend max has been staying with us all weekend. see 6/02/03 entry. it's not too bad having two dogs around, the adjustment has been minimal. and they can be so cute together, cuddling at night on their doggy blanket and slurping from the same water dish during the day. yesterday i caught them snoozing on the floor, juice's head resting on max's neck. makes me wanna have another furry baby.

Stuff and Things

• i saw "daredevil" last night and it was soooo bad -- i almost couldn't finish it. has ben affleck made a good movie since "good will hunting"? i also saw "frida," which i really liked. i was very impressed with ms. salamander hayek and the direction of the film, both of which were top notch. tonight we're seeing "gangs of new york," provided pablo finishes his memo-writing assignment and drags himself and me away from the computer.


• speaking of my pabs, he did some weird sleepwalking the other night. i awoke at about 5 am to find him pulling his shirts out of the closet. when i jokingly asked him whether he was leaving me, he mumbled something unintelligible before doing his tony soprano "fuggetaboutit" (complete with hand animation) and hopping back into bed.


• i had dinner last week with a group of 10 other chicks from my program. we went to this restaurant, where we were the loudest, largest and most obnoxious group there. if i saw us, i would have hated us. but being part of us wasn't too bad. it was nice to catch up on our summers, gripe about professors and exchange beauty secrets.


• pablo is super duper excited about school, like, really very excited. i haven't seen him this excited since he met me. it's great and i'm happy for him and all that shit, but now he's assuming the role of absentee boyfriend, which leaves me as the neglected girlfriend tugging at his sleeve for a morsel of attention. our roles were reversed last year. funny how you morph into each other in this relationship business.


• i'm going to try and update millatimes.com this week, including adding a photo gallery of this summer's trip to europe. i hope to get it up and running in about a week.

hello to my two readers, my cousins Gitella and Roman Himmer. well, gitella is my cousin, though she's more like a sister, and roman is her husband, though he's more like a cousin. but yes, hello to the only two people who have responded that they're still reading this shit. and i just want to say that "gitella" is a great name, i've always thought so. i don't believe any one else on the planet has that name. if i remember the story correctly, i think my aunt bella was stuck between the names "gita" and "ella" for her baby girl and just decided to merge them into one super name. hence, we have the superhuman gitella, who really is super in many ways. i may complain about the demands of my putrid little existence, but my supercousin is a devoted mom, wife, student and employee all at the same time, and i've never heard a whiny peep come out of her adorable, freckled face. i often wonder how she remains so kind, gentle and grounded, instead of turning into a prozac-popping neurotic soccer mom like so many others in her position, but then again she is the lone redhead martian in the family and i think that's equipped her with superpowers.

that's about all, really. not much going on with me lately. still trying to nail down my work situation, which currently does not provide me with enough hours or money to pay my rent. i'm trying to hustle now to find an incredibly lucrative, low-effort position. preferably one that i can do from home with eyes half shut and mind elsewhere. no luck yet.

school is school, and if my first week is any indication, this year will be a hell of lot easier than the last. it certainly couldn't be much harder. i was put through the academic ringer last year, so i'm looking forward to taking it easy, being able to sleep in some mornings. for my interview-a-candidate-running-for-governor assignment, i'm trying to get LA billboard queen angelyne, whose campaign motto is something like "we've had brown and gray. now it's time for pink!" enough said.

so i had my first day of class today. it was like any other first day: syllabi, outlining course goals, telling a little about yourself -- the usual. i wish i were more excited about my classes, but i'm worried they might end up disappointing me, especially my magazine editing class. it seems like it would have lots of potential, but the syllabus is packed with busywork and the professor appears to be a comatose lecturer. there's nothing worse than having to sit through a semester in any school with a teacher who doesn't exude excitement about the subject matter. i remember having the greatest biology professor in college who got me as excited as she was about all the fascinating stuff mitochondria could do. and i also remember being bored beyond interest by the egotistical, wannabe artist who taught the african-american art history class i took in college.

my investigative reporting class seems much more promising. i really like the prof, despite his use of the socratic method of calling on students by name to answer his questions. "so, ms. goldenberg, you're covering the justice department for the LA Times and the official you're interviewing leaves the room for a few minutes to use the restroom. do you rifle through the papers on his desk?"

my first assignment in that class requires that i interview one of the candidates running for california governor. with 134 people on the ballot, i hope to find one who will speak to me. tomorrow night i have my media law class, which should introduce me to the wonderful world of libel. i actually need to drop one of the three classes because of a financial aid glitch that won't allow me to take more units than i can pay for, or rather, than my stafford loans will pay for.

my final class consists of an unscheduled two units that count toward my thesis project. any ideas of what i should do? i really want it to be fun and challenging, something significant that i would be happy to devote a whole academic year to, something that will make me rich and famous. ok, maybe not famous, but rich. and thin too.

speaking of thin, i've been on the atkins diet for the past few weeks and i've dropped some pounds. when i was sitting on the beach in portugal in a baby blue swimsuit, i looked down and realized that there was simply too much of me. and given that i love to eat and hate to exercise, atkins seemed like the right choice. besides, i naturally love meat, fish, cheese, salads and vegetables, so giving up them carbs wasn't too difficult (though i do yearn for the occasional scone).

now if i could just shake the pesky cold that's overrun what's left of my flabby body. i feel like there's a warm icicle lodged up my nostril and it's just melting away by drip, drip, drip. pabs is kindly picking up some nyquil for me at the corner store, as i've had trouble falling asleep the past few nights due to the congestion.

ok, i guess that's about it for now. these entries always end up being much longer than i intended. is anyone still reading this shit? i feel like everyone dropped off after the end of my travels. please email me if you still are.

well, here i am in my new apartment with my DSL all hooked up and ready to reconnect me with the cyberworld and i have nothing to post. it sucks because i know that not too long ago, my life was quite interesting, if i may say so myself. but now, with all the traveling done and the impending school year ready to turn me into a stressed-out busybody under constant deadline pressure (again!), i'm morphing into a whiny, boring brat (which is probably what i've always been).

the official first day of school is today, but i don't have class until tomorrow, so i'm sitting at home today, trying to ward off a cold and figure out where my classes are tomorrow and where i can get some shelves built for the hallway closet. i know, fun friggin stuff. it seems like just a few weeks ago i was meandering the streets of prague, eating goulash and looking up at all the pretty buildings around me. oh wait, it was just a few weeks ago.

ok, ok, enough complaining. i know i truly have little to bitch about. this blog will get better, i promise. it will now record all the trials, tribulations and angst of an L.A.-based graduate student in journalism. sounds promising, eh?

alright, i'm still around, trying to get back into the swing of things and shit. DSL for my new place should be on this monday, and i can barely wait. i'm actually sitting in an internet cafe in hollywood right now. i'd much rather be in my new home writing this, and once i get up and running i'm sure i'll be doing a bunch more updating. i still need to put all my vacation photos up here and do some work on millatimes.com, including updating my resume and adding the clips from voice of america.

the last few days have been spent fixing up my new place, which is starting to look more and more like a home. just a few boxes left. i like the place a lot and the building is nice and old -- from the hollywood of the 1920s. it actually reminds me a lot of san francisco. it's a brick building with fire escapes and lots of charm. the whole area is full of them, and most have regal names, like the commodore, monecito, fonteroy, even one named chateau des fleures. mine is more modestly named palm court, presumably for the palm tree in the courtyard. the building is pretty nice and all my (60!) new neighbors seem alright, and the area... well, that's another story. it certainly isn't as nice as the last neighborhood i lived in, the one in west hollywood at beverly and fairfax. nope, no more of that hollywood-lite living, this new place is in Hollywood with a capital H, right in the belly of the beast. my new closest cross streets are hollywood and highland. but me and pabs chose the area because we're sharing one car to cut costs and it's walking distance to the metro. there's actually a train that comes pretty close to USC, which is convenient since both of us are USC students (pabs is beginning the MBA program this fall). it's a much more flavorful area, euphemistically named (by the homeowners just north of me) "whitley heights." there's more traffic and less parking. but it'll do for now -- at least for the next two years.

still here, yes now in LA, just having been blogging much lately. one reason is that i have no internet access at my parents' house, not even dial-up, so my online time has been cut drastically. another reason is that my days are no longer all that interesting. i'm back at the mundane stuff, trying to carve out a new routine. it sucks, and i've been depressed about it, and i don't want to just fill up this space with complaints about how lousy i have it, when, admittedly, it's not all that lousy. i'm trying to look on the bright side and all that jazz, but the bright side consists of memories of my trip, which are quickly being replaced by items on my "to do" list.

the good news is that in one short week, it looks like i may have found a job and an apartment. never thought it could be so easy. i went into the office of a place i used to edit for just a few days out of the month and asked, "what are the chances of me being able to work here on a more regular basis?" my new bossman said, "yeah, ok." and voila, i am now the part-time copy editor for this illustrious company, publisher of two magazines, CFQ, known to genre dorks everywhere, and Femme Fatales, also a favorite among genre dorks. i, of course, know next to nothing about sci-fi, but i'm learning real fast.

the apartment thingy was also pretty sudden. after viewing dump after dump, pablo and i stepped into a gorgeous (and HUGE!) place that i instantly fell in love with. hardwood floors, lots of light, plenty of storage, perfectly located, full of character, well-kept, etc. only problem was that it was beyond our budget and there was no parking. but hell, we took it anyway. we move in next week.

so things are looking up, i suppose.

back in hell-lay. aaaaaagh.