pathetic excuse for a life log

- Rescue Ampeg gear and sell it
- Sell Bontempi air organ
- Sell a bunch of old, rarely listened-to CDs at Zia
- Open new bank account
- Attempt once again to contact the IRS about missing tax refund
- Clean room
- Buy plane ticket to Denver
- Pack for next two months

With -$150 dollars in the bank, obviously I need to gather as much money as possible before I leave.

OMG. Now I'm really hyped. I was just checking out the schedule of events the week I'm going to be in Denver and I'M EXCITED. Reclaim the Streets party?? Critical Mass??? Anti-capitalist marches??? Dead Prez and Rage Against the Machine concerts?????

I'M SO THERE.

I just realized that I'll be in Denver during the DNC. Sweet. Maybe I'll get to party with the Recreate 68 people or have a Stephen Colbert sighting.

I better get my camera geared up.

I forgot to mention that I'm scared as hell that I have to get ready for the rest of my life in three days.

Got a call this morning from WFP. Change of plans: The people in the Vegas office I was supposed to train with next week will be at meetings, so they want to send me to Denver on Monday for about a week before shipping me off to who-knows-where on Sept. 1 when a session of classroom-style training begins. When I leave next Monday, there is no telling when I'll be back to Vegas. I may or may not be assigned to work in Nevada for the election. If not, right after the election I start my new job where I'll be moving to either Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, or California. I won't find out about where until November (fingers crossed for the east coast), but I'm leaving Las Vegas for a long, long time.

Yes, I got a position with the PIRG, but not the fellowship. I'm going to be a campus organizer for the next year, and it's actually super sweet and progressive. I'll be organizing college students and training them to be radical activists. Well, "radical" isn't exactly in the job description, but I'm going to throw in some SDS ideology. Mwahaha. Revolution, here we come.

I think it's a little hilarious how there is so much hoopla in the media about China's "deceptive" practices during the Olympics' opening ceremony. What? That cute little girl was lip synching? Those kids representing the 60-something different cultures of China are actually from the same culture? That 16-year-old gymnast is actually 14???

Oh, come on, like that doesn't happen in American entertainment all the time. It wouldn't be a big deal if the mainstream news weren't so quick to jump at any opportunity to point fingers at the "villain" over the most inane details. Sure, China isn't so innocent over some of their more questionable civil liberties practices, but why then aren't we hearing more about the Free Tibet activists being deported or the cover up of the deaths of a couple of American tourists from two weeks ago?

I'm leaving Vegas in three weeks. I interviewed last week for a Fellowship position with the US PIRG, and they were so impressed and so excited with my interview, they wanted to offer me a position with Work for Progress that I could start right away while they finalize their decision for the long-term position.

So for now, until the election, I will be hardcore canvassing and educating the public on pertinent election issues, mobilizing volunteers, and getting people to vote. For the next month, I will be going through some intense training around the country, and then they will locate me in a major "battle ground state" until Nov. 7. There is a chance that I will end up back in Vegas after my training, but there is just as much of a chance that I will be placed somewhere else. It is non-partisan campaigning, but all issue based. My work alone will supposedly generate 2,700 voters for this election. If I do get the position with the US PIRG (which I better if they were so darn "impressed" to want to offer me something immediately), then that will start right after the election.

I don't know where I will be going or staying or how I will get there or for how long, but it looks like I'm embarking on one big adventure.

Hulu started adding Food Network shows, but none of the ones I care about. Hopefully that will change soon. (Ace of Cakes! Iron Chef!)

Posting random thoughts online feels more gratifying than talking to myself like a child playing alone in her room.

I am appalled at my behavior from a couple of years ago. Who was that?!

I have a headache. And I'm miserable.

Fucking fuck fuck. Ugh.

It's frustrating. When I think about my future, I see a big, black hole at the end of August. Well, I guess that's what most people see when they look into their future because not everyone is psychic, but I'm sure at this point, people already have ideas of things they're going to be doing in September or October or the end of the year. They have jobs they plan on working at or shows they're thinking about going to. I can't even get that far. I don't know where I'm going to live in September, whether it be here or another city. It's all hanging in the air at the end of this week, after the Big L.A. Interview.

When I tell people about how I've been living like a loser lately--sleeping in all morning and staying up all night while doing nothing but reading in between--some share their envy over my lifestyle. No! It's terrible! I'm tired of the uncertainty. Sure, it was fun for the first couple of weeks, but now I almost feel like I'm wasting away. Almost. At least I'm doing a lot of reading. Oh, and there's that other thing where I'm helping to organize an entire conference this weekend to teach people about economic discrimination and why people should get involved in grassroots activism. :)

1. If I were endowed with a superpower, it would be the ability to absorb the contents of a book by touching the cover, as if I instantaneously read and retained all the information. Knowledge is power, people.

2. Damn. I missed the National Hip Hop Political Convention last week. That sounded like fun.

I've spent all day staring at admissions and requirements for top ten international affairs grad programs, and I've decided a few things today:

1. To find a sweet job in a field relatable to why I would want to even go to grad school for IA (something somewhere like U.S. PIRG, ACLU, HRW, Fund for Public Interest, etc.)

2. Keep studying for the GRE and LSAT, maybe take it this year, but not apply for grad school until next fall. I figure if I accomplish task #1, I should build my work experience for at least two years. Everything on my resume up until now has only lasted a matter of months. I need something solid, plus it would probably be a good idea to try to save money if I intend to be overly ambitious and apply to a top ten program like at Georgetown, John Hopkins, or Columbia.

3. To become proficient in a second language in the meantime. Every program I've looked at requires passing a language proficiency exam before earning the degree. Some programs require that you're already proficient in a second language before applying. Since I have about two years, I think I'm going to try to learn French (one of the working languages of the UN Secretariat) and Tagalog (because I should).

I didn't get the internship.

Time to start looking for a job.

Because I am currently unemployed, I find myself spending almost all of my time looking at stupid blogs and watching TV on Hulu. I need to...

A) Get a job
B) Find a new hobby

Well, A is kind of contingent on what news may happen by the end of the week (and really, I can't bring myself to apply at a food service/retail store or someplace lame as hell when I really could use the money now). I do have a stack of books to read and standardized grad school entrance tests to study for, but I've been thinking of all the new things I would like to learn in my spare time. I used to be crafty as a child; I don't see why I couldn't learn something new, such as...

- knitting/crocheting (I used to eons ago!)
- building/maintaining a bike
- using a sewing machine/making clothes
- how to properly use Photoshop/Illustrator
- gardening (and growing my own produce)
- speaking French/Tagalog/Spanish/Italian
- cooking something other than my trademark nutritional yeast pasta
- ballroom dancing

I'm no artist, so painting is out, and it seems like everyone is a photographer these days (it's gotten out of hand). I could start by getting out of bed before noon every morning. I've fallen into that sort of pattern.

It wasn't as hard as I thought. Just your basic "tell me about yourself" and "what do you hope to gain from this position" sort of thing. I tried my best. Now I guess I just have to wait. She said there were a few more people she had to interview (ugh).

And I had stayed up all night trying to catch up on my DN!s and read as many press releases on HMR to figure out his policies. Dangalang.

I am starting to go CRAZY waiting to hear back about this D.C. thing. I've been kind of worried that I didn't get it because it's been so long since they said they were going to make their decision, but then, I'm holding out hope because it was only a week ago that my key recommender told me that she was still playing phone tag with the internship coordinator to ask her about when she is making her final decision. Team M!

In my impatience to figure out the rest of my life, I had three nightmares, in a row, last night. The first one I dreamt that I got the internship and was excitedly telling everyone who had been waiting to hear the news. But in that dream I was aware that it was a dream, so I tried to wake myself to find out for real only to wake up into Dreamworld 2. In that one, I found out that I didn't get the internship, and in fact, lost it to this young, ditzy blonde pregnant girl who did Web broadcast news in her bedroom on the weekends but otherwise didn't have any media or political experience. I felt appalled and remember thinking, "I lost to her???"

I woke up in a stuporous panic feeling super bummed, but I was too tired to get up for the day, so I rolled over and fell back asleep. This time, I dreamt that I did get the internship, and someone was showing me my application with scores and comments from the committee. They said they were looking for someone with consistency in their documents, which was something I worried about since my letter of recommendation lauded my involvement in domestic violence activism while my work samples are from UCIR (lacking the Spanish media articles even though I mentioned it in my cover letter and resume). Minutiae, sure, but I know for a fact that one of my former PR professors is on the committee, and he's a stickler for that sort of thing.

When I told Jesse about it (still in dreamworld), he looked really apprehensive and said that it was "awkward" that I was moving to the east coast the same time as him. It made me sad and I tried to defend that we would be in completely different states.

Finally, my phone ringing in reality got me out of bed. I was going crazy in my sleep and feared that if I went back to Dreamland, I would fall back into the annoying Groundhog Day cycle.

I immediately signed on to my e-mail and sent a quick note to my voucher if she had heard any word. She got back to me a minute later saying that I'm in the semi-finals and asked if I had been contacted by anyone from Reid's office yet. I hadn't until just a minute ago when I checked my e-mail and received a request by his Nevada Deputy Press Secretary asking to meet with her tomorrow.

AGH! I'm almost in freak-out mode. My mind has been going through all the things I have to get done tonight to even feel somewhat prepared: throw together my portfolio, read Reid's autobio I just got a copy of yesterday, and go through all of his policies on his Web site in case the thing that will propitiate them to put me in the position is proving exactly how politically savvy I am. Maybe I don't necessarily have to do all of those things, but if the competition really is that tight, then I'm in to win.

::fingers crossed::

Juawana + MT from Shelby on Vimeo.

Thanks for the vid, Shelby.

I'm supposed to find out today! Or tomorrow! I'm so nervous about it. The anticipation is killer.

Things are looking good for the D.C. internship with several strong endorsements and committee members being favorable past professors. I have my fingers crossed, but something told me that my outlook is good. So, if all goes according to plan...

- Get lame summer job (last retail/customer service job of my life, I swear!) to fundraise for moving expenses
- Maybe move my stuff with Jesse when he moves east
- Become roommates with Lowell
- Start new life

If I don't happen to get to move to D.C. (sad face)...

- Stay in Vegas
- Find full-time job
- Continue on

Exciting times! The rest of my life will be determined by next Wednesday.

I. Am. TERRIFIED.

Current things I felt like sharing...

Reading: The Alderson Story: My Life as a Political Prisoner by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

Listening: Old AmAnSet

Guilty Pleasure: Twilight

Doing: Cleaning my room

Done: Turned in my internship app

About to do: Go to LP practice

Hoping: That I'll get to move to D.C. this fall

Wishing: To get away from my financial woes

Trying: To catch up with the news and my "to do" list

Thinking: "What's next?"

Feeling: Hot and thirsty

Wanting: A hair cut

Hating: Advertising

Liking: Relaxing at home all day

Loving: My soft pillow

A note passed between Mary and I:

Me: I'm going to die tonight. I have 4 essays due tomorrow.

Mary: Oh! I'm really sorry! I wish I could help you, hey - you have work at what time today? Do you have lessons? Well, maybe when we're both done today, I could help you out, I'm really good at essays - what are they on?

Me: History. I have to work 6-9 p.m. I have violin 3:30-4:15 but no piano because it conflicted. So I have pretty much an hour and 1/2 before work and until 6 a.m. after.

Mary: Oh :( I really wish I could help you out :( Anyways, hey after today (maybe) me & you are going to be the only two members of our little "clique" who've been on dates :)

( Let's do the time warp! )

GAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!

I've finally decided to clean out my room and throw away as much as I could. Digging around through old boxes and papers that were stashed away in the back of my closet has been a complete time warp. Pictures from 8th grade orchestra. Notes passed between friends in high school. Comics and sketches I drew when I was 15. Articles I wrote for the school paper. My high school boyfriend's report card from his junior year??

I've decided to quit being a pack rat, but that's proving to be hard as I keep distracting myself from the task at hand by reading through everything and debating which artifacts from my life I really wanted to throw away... Besides, where would I keep it? In a newer box to once again be stashed in the back of my closet? Maybe I should just throw it all away. I'm probably never going to look at it again.

Or maybe I should make scrapbooks! I have way too much free time on my hands.

So much freedom! I don't know where to start. So many books to read and events to organize and shows to play and junk in my room/computer files/car to sort through. I suppose I could start by sending out my resume and looking for a full-time career woman job with benefits. My mom wants me to go to the dentist and get my eyes checked before my coverage under her insurance runs out (or before they find out I graduated).

Should I make a to-do list? I also feel like I need to make myself a regular weekly schedule so I don't rot away doing nothing this summer... right? Oh god, why is this hard? Maybe I should go pull out my copy of Kicking and Screaming, the old Noah Baumbach post-college freakout film from the mid-90s. I could probably relate.

It feels a little bizarre. Like I just opened some daunting 1000-page book to read. Hopefully it won't be long before I get into the new story.

I did it! Yay!

MY LAST DAY AS A UNLV UNDERGRAD!

Five long years in the making! But I still have two major finals tonight and one major group research paper (that I've been stuck doing all the work for) due at midnight. Ugh. So close, yet so farrrr...

No straight As for me this semester. Got my last test back in Operations Management (bleh) and I have barely a B in the class. There was the option of taking the final to average it into my grade, but even if I got a 100%, the best I would get in the class is still a B. So I'm done with that one, my most hated class. Ugh. I probably could've done better if I cared to come to class and studied, but there's something about planting the seeds in business students to value profits and costs over unethical labor practices that just doesn't do it for me.

I've become addicted to watching T.V. on the Internet. Until now, I've gone a very, very long time not watching T.V. Throughout my childhood, that was all I did. I had a T.V. in my room that was constantly on while I puttered around doing whatever. When I got older, I remember some nights when I was about to go to bed and realized that I couldn't remember the last time I turned on the T.V. I liked it. These days I would flip to the Food Network or try to see if What Not to Wear was on every once in a while, but it wasn't excessive.

Now, thanks to the networks reclaiming the free online distribution of their shows, I've starting to watch as much T.V. as I used to when I was, say, 13. I find myself gravitating mostly towards comedies. Haven't watched stuff like Lost yet, even though every episode is up right now on abc.com.

Shows I've hooked on to thanks to the 'net:
- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
- Project Runway, season 4
- The Office
- Samantha Who?
- Arrested Development
- Ugly Betty
- How I Met Your Mother (although, this one is a bit harder to find full eps, but it's only a matter of time)

I feel like I've been flaking out and half-heartedly doing everything lately. My mind has been all over the place and I can't find somewhere to just sit down every day and just focus.

Maybe I'm spreading myself too thin? I've already started studying for the GRE and that's probably the last thing I need to be thinking about right now.

1. Find a job.
2. Move away.
3. Start new life.

OK, so, it's April. I graduate in about one month. I have absolutely no clue what I'm going to do after July when I get back from the LP summer tour. I'm kinda freaking out and petrified that my first job out of college will be at Starbucks (no offense to my coffee slave friends) because I will be BROKE and possibly desperate.

Thank god my internship boss actually tries to provide advice and act like a mentor. I wasn't even thinking about applying for anything until the end of the summer, but he encouraged me to start applying now because real grown-up jobs take about four or more months in the application/hiring process.

Things to do this summer:

Read way more

Play way more violin/piano/bass

Focus on UCIR

Study for GRE and LSAT (maybe take both in August?)

Apply for job (preferably where I make salary and not hourly)

Pay off debt accumulated through college

At least this takes me into August. After that... oh god, I don't know. I feel like I'm supposed to go out and change the world somehow, but I don't know where to start. Or how!

rain

hugs

dancing

good friends

sleep

Ugh, I dunno, I need to make myself stop feeling so miserable all the time. Blah.

Man, what I would give to eradicate certain people/things from my life.

I'm starting to realize that maybe the source of my recent misery is from the stress of dealing with those people/things. I repressed that idea for a while, having no clue why I would feel random spurts of depression, but now I think I know why. It feels pretty bad. It's getting to the point where I would rather become a recluse and hole up in my room watching movies or reading books all day (to the extreme, i.e. unhealthy).

What happened to me? I used to like everyone and everything. Now the thought of certain people/things are starting to turn me into this miserable, angry monster. I've never been so full of hate before, and I don't know how to get rid of it.

Wow, even writing this just now made me feel a little better. I need to find more ways to blow off steam. I don't want to end up hurting anyone.

The most productive thing I've done today was shower.

Back to laying around, doing nothing. At least I smell OK.

Back from tour. It was pretty fun. We finally played a show where I felt like people actually paid attention. They loved it! See what happens when you listen to the music?

I've been doing nothing in my room since then. I almost forgot that my birthday is next week.

Mini tour tomorrow with Action Cat. Should be hella fun. I really enjoy the music, and I'm having a blast playing with them. It really irks me, though, when friends rudely don't pay attention when we play. Ugh. At least the musicians we respect enjoy us.

I'm loving the new song we're working on. It's the closest to my personal taste. I have a few schemes up my sleeve for a new song I'd want us to work on, but I need to flesh it out first on some instruments before introducing it at practice.

Oh, and buy our new EP! I designed the layout (with Jade and Elidia on the illustrations).

Wow.

I have been up for two days straight addicted to season four of Project Runway and watched every episode on YouTube.

I have never seen it before. I have never really paid attention. But one night, I was browsing around on hulu.com and watched one clip and then another and another... and before you know it, it's Tuesday and I haven't showered or slept since Sunday morning. I look like a hot mess right now.

Christian Siriano is so adorable, omg. Haha.





And now, a shower.

My website is up! Go visit www.marvelwhat.com. This is my marketing/PR company. I've mostly done work with bands and progressive, non-profit events, but as soon as school is out, I'm looking into expanding into working with different types of artists and organizations. Oh, and maybe start charging for my services, haha.

On another note, I've decided that I need a vacation from my life. Or that I should become a recluse for a few days. I spent the entire day today almost entirely alone (probably the first in a long time), and I liked it. I need more days like these in my life. I've been feeling really high strung to where every little thing has started to annoy me (just like the movie!). Maybe I should go out of town for a little bit. Well, I'm going on tour this week, and that should be fun, but I would like to travel somewhere without having any obligations when I get there. I'm thinking either Reno so I can visit my dad again, Seattle just to check out the city and hang out with friends living there, or NYC because I felt so refreshed the last time I went there.

Now if only the time and money would magically materialize, then I'll be golden.

...working.

I have 20 minutes before I get kicked out of the Coffee Bean. I need a better after-hours office, but the Grind is too far and the 24-hour Starbucks charges for their wi-fi. :( They need to not do that!

My much-needed spring break hasn't started yet. I still have some homework I need to do and turn in online. And even when the school stuff is through (for now), I want to launch my website by tomorrow in conjunction with Action Cat's CD release (double woop!). For that to happen, though, a lot of work needs to be done.

I'm also bummed right now because I lost track of time and now it's too late to get Veggie Delight. I hadn't been there in months, but when I stopped by the other day before band practice, they made my food perfect and delicious. Now I'm craving it again. Dang. Maybe tomorrow.

'Til then... time to relocate.

Tomorrow morning begins my last semester at UNLV. Come May (if all goes well), I will have a B.A. in Journalism & Media Studies (concentration in Public Relations/Integrated Marketing Communications) and a B.S.B.A. in Marketing.

I get a lot of questions about my choice of study, and generally I have a difficult time explaining exactly what it is that I will be doing, but I guess one way to explain "why" is that:

I refuse to take on the passive role of being a mere consumer of the media and feel that it is my responsibility to help ensure that truthful information is disseminated to the public. My college education has given me insight and made me mindful on how easily information is manipulated in our society, but it has also given me the tools needed to combat this.

Fight fire with fire, yeah?

I'm in the local community production of the Vagina Monologues this year, and I'm doing the "Lists" skit with Juawana and Hips.

Late Monday night we were sitting drunk in a booth at the Freakin' Frog trying to frantically memorize our lines before the first rehearsal the next day. It later turned out that we didn't have to have anything memorized until February, but we had fun nonetheless.

Our skit is kind of cheesey. It's the one where we ask each other what our vagina would wear or what it would say if it could talk, and we kept rewriting our parts to make it funnier...

"A slicker!"

"A slicker? What's that?"

"You know, like a rain slicker? It's a sort of rain coat."

"Why would your vagina wear a rain slicker?"

"Because it gets wet!"

LP is leaving tomorrow for an 8-day excursion around the west coast. I'm excited.

Also had an interesting New Year's. On NYE while we were out at a party, someone broke into JJ's house and my violin and Fender jazz bass got stolen among other instruments and important things. Sucks, but it's not a big deal; those things can be replaced. I only feel really bad because they got JJ's laptop with important files on it, so I've tried to do everything I can to help him try to find it. I've also found out from the experience that I have a lot of friends in town looking out for me.

It's Christmas Eve. I'm up late in my room watching Felicity and probably doing and feeling the exact same things I did a year ago today. Well, maybe not exact, but it feels like deja vu in a way. Family things have been going on, so I've been isolated from everyone for the past week. The household has been chaotic and interesting. My aunt from the Philippines who I haven't met before just got in tonight. My mom hasn't seen her in 14 years. My mom and all of her siblings probably haven't been together in the same room in at least 20 years.

This morning we had McAllister-family moment when everyone was in a rush to leave the house and I was running late in getting ready. I was supposed to just meet up with everyone else, only to find that my car was trapped in the garage behind my brother's stick-shift truck after everyone was long gone. Haha.

I got straight As! YESSSSS!!!!!

Kind of... come on MKT 472! That's the class with the insane marketing plan project I spent a billion hours on. Goddammit, I worked so effin' hard on that, I better get an A!

As for the rest... woohoo!

I can't stop looking at clothes online. I need to keep reading my boring textbook, goddammit.

At least my persistence has found me vegan-friendly shoes in all of the styles that I want.

It's First Friday. While most of my friends are downtown right now engaging in the monthly shenanigans, I'm holed up in my corner of the Grind trying to study for finals. I knew that if I had ended up sitting in a dark, smoky bar somewhere, I would've spent the entire time hating myself and wishing I were in a coffee shop with my textbooks and laptop. So here I am.

This semester went by super fast, but it was definitely my busiest. I don't think I've worked this hard in the last four and a half years of college. I've probably joined the ranks with the Asians who have been pounding Red Bulls on the fifth floor of the library since day one of each semester. Haha.

I'm going to be super relieved (and drunk) by the end of next week. A vacation is overdue.

I'm stoked on the new office my internship's company has moved into. Fuzzy IKEA chairs! Mini fridge! Lakeside view! Bottomless coffee! Free wi-fi! 24-hour access!

( See! )

When I was younger, I never thought I would like having an office job. I imagined an environment similar to Office Space: dreary cubicles, stuffy ties, endless number crunching, mind-numbing monotony... Then I realized that not every office is Inetech and there exists in the world more fun, interesting occupations that happen to involve desks. After many long nights cramped up in numerous coffee shops, I've come to appreciate having a nice, quiet area of my own that I could work at.

The last time I had my own office space was at the Rebel Yell four years ago. No more phones shaped like lips, but I think I may bring back the ladybug lamp. Haha.