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Cherry_Vanilla
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Name: Evelyn
Country: United States
State: Massachusetts
Metro: Boston
Birthday: 5/24/1983
Gender: Female
Interests: I love to sit down with a nice fat newspaper or magazine with snacks in hand.
Expertise: Analyzing everything to smithereens.
Hey, check out my Bosnia xanga- http://www.xanga.com/avantura.
GO ON MISSIONS!!!
Occupation: Student
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  gemstar524
Member Since:
8/31/2002
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| Paul, the Apostle of Apple.
(aka I love my dad)
Normally, I treat my dad's near obsession with all things Apple somewhat begrudgingly and/or bemusedly, but this made me want to advertise to the whole world (and by this I mean, my xanga audience) for its sheer cuteness and resourcefulness.
Email from my pops:
Hi guys,
Guess what, the editor at Business Week asks where my daughter is and I
mentioned Mimi is in Columbia's J school, the lady said - have her call
me when she graduates...Here is her phone number and eMail address,
keep it -
(contact info of BW editor here).
Love, Dad -- I love my dad. Steve Jobs, donate the man some stock. Please. | | |
| Stunning Photojournalism...
(Chinese military doing anti-terrorism exercises for the Olympics)
from Boston Globe's excellent photoblog.
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| Field Trips
I took the Bolt Bus down to NYC today (I recommend it!) to get things squared away at Columbia, since I'm missing all of orientation in August. I was supposed to get my ID, press pass, and get a few other logistical details figured out. Why it would take a 2 day orientation to do this stuff is beyond me. But I was pretty excited to get my press pass-- maybe I could exploit it before school started. 
With exactly 4 hours in NYC to spend, I groggily proceeded from Penn Station to the 1 train to the J-school, navigating through the hive of people that is Manhattan.
Meeting with the student services coordinator, we first head up to get a contract signed for technology usage. The people at the tech desk apparently have no prior knowledge that I was coming (even though I arranged this visit about a month ahead). The guy with the contract is out today. Could I come back tomorrow? No, I could not come back tomorrow. Not to worry, the coordinator says. I can do this quickly on my first day in August.
Then we head to the ID center. Yay! Press pass time. I'd been told to send my passport pic a week in advance in order to expedite the process. When we tell the ID people this, they brush it off. "It's probably sitting in a stack in the mail room. Did you notify us that she'd (me) be coming?" Yes. Yes they were notified. Yes, I sent it. But no press pass has been made. No ID either. But I could take an ID pic now, with my bus bedhead hair. Stop being vain, I tell myself. Could I come in tomorrow to get my press pass and get my ID activated? No, I cannot come in tomorrow, I say.
At least I have something to show for now; I get the ID to add to my growing stack of university ID cards. I'm
trying to accumulate as many as possible so I can trade them a la
Pokemon.
At least I can get my computer account activated though right? No. There's some bug in the computers they haven't fixed yet. I'll have to do it some other time. Could I come in tomorrow? No, I cannot come in tomorrow. This is the first time, I think, incompetence has almost made me cry.
I'm cranky. I haven't eaten. I think the look on my face probably could kill small animals. Dramatics tend to rear its ugly head in times like these. I try very hard not to envision my term bill figure as a number for a bounty on the head of whoever is in charge of J-school administration.
The coordinator says I can get all this stuff done when I come in on my first day of school. Actually, I could have gotten this all done on the first day. Hmm. Good to know now.
Oh well. I have a lot more time to kill so I wander to where I'll be living in the fall. It's a coed dormitory by the river. This lifts my spirits (the river part, not the coed part). The Hudson is no Charles, but it'll do. 
It's been a disappointing day, overall. I call the 'rents to whine. They say something about how at the end of the day nobody cares about you except yourself, God, and your parents. Hmm. I think that's supposed to be comforting, haha.
Then I step into a cleverly named sandwich shop (It's called Subs-conscious. Haha.) and have a quite yummy BBQ chicken sandwich while I do some work I've brought with me. Britney's "Oops I Did It Again" comes on over the radio. Hits the spot. Amazing what food + productivity + bubblegum pop will do for your spirits.
On the bus back to Boston, in an exhaustion-induced semi-trance, I wonder why I'm doing this next year. I usually count myself as a pretty rational person when it comes to career, life stage, etc, with at least a penchant for stability, security, and responsibility. (Yes. I know my divinity school degree says otherwise. Hit me with something else.) And this journalism school business feels like it's going against all of the above. It feels like one huge glorious probably very awesome albeit extremely expensive and totally irrational field trip with absolutely no future security. Field trips are for little kids.
I feel relieved when I get back to the familiar T station (NY subway... whew). It's such a relief to be able to breathe without feeling like you're taking in the someone else's Co2; to not have to push and shove from block to block. It's actually a really nice night, and I walk slowly through Harvard Yard, past Widener, where a few summer school kids still linger. Ahh. Fresh air.
And that's that. My 12 hour (8 spent on the road) day trip. Despite the snafus, walking through the Yard under a canopy of stars reminds me of privilege, blessing, calling, and all the other counterweights to complaining and tunnel vision.
While I have no answers, I am a very lucky and blessed person, through and through.
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| Close Encounters of Humankind.
Some things sacred and integral to human life don't make a whole lot of
sense. Occasionally I surmise that maybe somewhere, there's an alien
hovering around in a UFO, scratching its head, and wondering what the heck we're doing down here
and why we're doing it.
A few examples:
Rituals. the obvious. Graduation, weddings,
sports, funerals. Putting on certain pieces of clothing and
participating in strange activities (Throwing a mortarboard in the sky.
Tossing a bouquet. Chest-bumping. Painting faces. Chanting.) They have
no actual utility value, only the value we place on them.
Working. Especially in America. So let's get this straight. We work hard in school to get into good colleges. We get into
college and work hard to get a good job. We work hard (maybe a little
less so than before) at that job so we can make money, buy a place, and
eventually retire. So people spend their physical and mental prime
(20-40s) working long hours sitting at a desk during daylight, and just
generally becoming tired, occasionally listless, and often
dissatisfied. Then when you hit your 60s, you can finally retire and do
nothing. But too bad arthritis, osteoporosis, and other worse
conditions have settled in that will disable you from doing the things
you've always wanted to do during your younger days. If you aren't
Asian, you might get taken to a retirement home, where you waste away
playing bingo and watching TV.
At least in Europe, things make a little more sense. 30 hour work
weeks, siestas, and long summer vacations so you can actually enjoy
your life while you're still capable of doing so.
Drinking and drugs. An
alien might understand the enjoyment and "social lubrication" that
comes from consuming alcohol, but if you really think about it, it
doesn't make a whole lot of logical sense.
Consume (and pay for) multiple beverages. Do things you regret. Wake up feeling enormously uncomfortable. Repeat. Drugs: spend absurd amounts of money buying something that will make your health rapidly deteriorate, lose all your friends, and expose you to law enforcement and/or death.
Relationships. Two strangers meet. After a short or long time, they
decide to intertwine their lives, for the time being. They hold hands
(among other things, etc.), share the most intimate details of their lives, fight over
important (or... not so important) issues that take up a lot of time,
energy, and thinking. Then they have a pivotal conversation. From this
point on, the two people desist from all previous activities, and do
not or rarely talk to each other anymore, as if they are again, strangers.They repeat this cycle a few/ multiple
times in their lives (with different partners), accruing considerable residue that leads to less
productivity as a citizen and socio-emotional disorders. In some cases, they may even procreate and have offspring, but decide to part ways and repeat the cycle again.
Extreme sports and roller coasters. Jumping off cliffs and
airplanes, or sitting on a cart that shakes your innards up in your
body cavity like a salad shaker. Feel nauseous and/or terrified. Hit
physical body limits. Repeat.
Racism and ethnic violence. People hurt and kill each other over a difference in pigment of skin.
Pets. Take an animal and spend considerable chunks of money maintaining its health and well-being. Often, the animal is not even aesthetically pleasing. It suffers neglect at times. And almost always, it makes the human's habitation smell less than pleasant. It dies in 10-20 years. Emotional trauma. Repeat.
Of course, I partake in all these things (save for the drugs). It's probably for the better that my alien counterpart would never understand it. Stay in your own universe, E.T.
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| Work
At the office right now. Given up on my task, since there's nothing else I can do. I will blog more about my job later, but I have to say it's evoked some rather unexpected feelings. For one thing, this is the first time I've ever had to "manage" others. I have two researcher-writers I'm responsible for, currently in Costa Rica and Hawaii. Among other duties, each assoc. editor (me) or editor outlined their itineraries, is supposed to have weekly phone calls with their researchers, and should make sure everything is okay, physically and mentally.
Even though they're fine on their own (I mean, that's why they were hired, because they're independent, savvy people who can travel 50+ days alone), I still feel this I'm-not-doing-enough vibe. I don't know them particularly well, and I don't mean to overstate my role, but it feels like their whole summer's experience and to some extent- safety, sanity, and mental well-being re: their job is a direct result of how hard I work, how much I care for/about them, and how meticulously I do my job.
Takeaways: Being responsible for other people can be a far more potent motivator than getting things done, prestige, money, or praise.
It is a bizarre feeling indeed to know that other people rely on you. Is this a pale but real semblance of what it would feel like to be a pastor, a parent, or a caretaker?
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