Just under a week until rest and relaxation are the only things on my TO DO list.

And what do I plan for my blissful 10 days away (because, yes I even plan for my time off)?

• NOT reading or watching the news.  Spending time in Southwest Virginia is literally like going into a very nice, cozy cave where the “real world” doesn’t exist.  A nuclear bomb could go off and I wouldn’t know.
• Bowling, biking, tennis-ing, running. Lots of -ing will be happening.  Not to mention, sleepING.
• MakING my first eva gingerbread house.
• DrinkING lots of vino and watchING many films, including Sherlock Holmes, Nine, Avatar.  Good releases this year.
• Cozying up with my gato, dos poodles and novio by the fire.
• CookING and bakING.
• WritING.
• Avoiding work email and phone calls like I avoid being in the same room as children…with gusto.

My lord that’s a lot of -ing stuff.  I may just stick with sleepING.  Also, reading the above, you might presume that I am about 8 years old.  And how far from the truth you would be.  Re-juveniles unite!

Today was surreal.

Looking over the resumes of interns to interview for this position next semester… I felt something that I never would’ve imagined. Pangs of jealousy. These bright-eyed interns will come in, terrified during the interview, lost amidst the seemingly-endless hustle and bustle of the news room during the first couple of weeks, and then, before they know it, everything will click. They will feel at home. They will be competent. They will change. They will learn so much, and will make what I hope will be lasting friendships with the people in the newsroom. Then, it what seems like a blink of an eye, it will be over. It will pass by right when they get their footing, and then sent out into the world again, in hopes of forging their own way.

Before this started, I never would’ve dreamed that this is the way I would feel today. With the semester coming to a close, and consequently, this blog seeing its final days, I think I must look at this as the end of one chapter, and the beginning of a whole new one. A chapter entitled “What Happens Next”.

To end, I think it is appropriate to quote from the book that my mother read to me after every graduation, K through 12.  The legendary Dr. Seuss can say it much better than I ever could:

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

You’ll look up and down streets. Look’em over with care. About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.” With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you’re too smart to go down a not-so-good street.

And you may not find any you’ll want to go down. In that case, of course, you’ll head straight out of town. It’s opener there in the wide open air.

Out there things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsy as you.

And when things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew. Just go right along. You’ll start happening too.

Oh! The Places You’ll Go!

You’ll be on your way up!
You’ll be seeing great sights!
You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights.

You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed. You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead. Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Except when you don’t.
Because, sometimes, you won’t.

I’m sorry to say so but, sadly, it’s true that Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you.

You can get all hung up in a prickle-ly perch. And your gang will fly on. You’ll be left in a Lurch.

You’ll come down from the Lurch with an unpleasant bump. And the chances are, then, that you’ll be in a Slump.

And when you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked. Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked. A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin! Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in? How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And if you go in, should you turn left or right…or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite? Or go around back and sneak in from behind? Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find, for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

The Waiting Place…for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting.

No! That’s not for you!
Somehow you’ll escape all that waiting and staying. You’ll find the bright places where Boom Bands are playing. With banner flip-flapping, once more you’ll ride high! Ready for anything under the sky. Ready because you’re that kind of a guy!

Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all. Fame! You’ll be famous as famous can be, with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.

Except when they don’t. Because, sometimes, they won’t.

I’m afraid that some times you’ll play lonely games too. Games you can’t win ‘cause you’ll play against you.

All Alone!
Whether you like it or not, Alone will be something you’ll be quite a lot.

And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants. There are some, down the road between hither and yon, that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.

But on you will go though the weather be foul. On you will go though your enemies prowl. On you will go though the Hakken-Kraks howl. Onward up many a frightening creek, though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak. On and on you will hike. And I know you’ll hike far and face up to your problems whatever they are.

You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)

Kid, you’ll move mountains!
So…be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ale Van Allen O’Shea, you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!

~Dr. Seuss

Until tomorrow,

Your Blogger,

Deanna Gillen

This past Friday, I was given the incredible opportunity to participate in one of the timeless traditions here at 30 Rock, the NBC Sing-a-long.  Taking 2 hours worth of takes, it was totally worth it, for I got to see my fellow co-workers here at WNBC in a whole new light. Plus, the 50 or so times we say “We wish you a Merry Christmas” really put me in the holiday mood!

‘Tis the season to be jolly!

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/station/community/NBC-New-Yorks-Annual-Sing-A-Long-in-Photos-78634342.html

Yes, I titled this post “Christmas.”  Not “holidays.” I was raised Christian and I’m gonna talk about how I feel about Christmas so the whole PC/not PC conversation doesn’t exist in this space.  Plus, if I’m not mistaken, people are wearying of the whole, say it but don’t say it, thing.  So there!

Now that I’ve made the excuses…

Whenever people start talking about Thanksgiving, I start panicking. It means Christmas is near and my credit card is about to reach volcanic temperatures.  Not that I typically overspend.  My plastic is  just not used to such a work out compared to the rest of the year.  The reason for my panic?  I put serious pressures on myself to come up with thoughtful, meaningful and useful gifts for my family and friends outside the wish lists they put together.  My deal is that buying stuff from someone’s gimme list strikes me as lazy.  You don’t have to think about it.  You just hit the store or click the BUY button.  This attitude complicates my Christmas shopping since I have to balance the “thoughtful” gifts with the ones my family and friends are expecting.  The need for creatively managing budget against two types of gift lists is enough to make my digestive system and sleep cycle rebel against me. Not to mention my ability to generate gift ideas that are budget-friendly, meaningful and useful rapidly diminishes as Christmas creeps ever closely. Stress makes my brain shut down.  Damn cortisol hormones.

Despite the madness that is budgets and lists and brainstorming, the commercial inventors that created the Christmas we all know now were at least nice enough to know that pretty lights and trees and wreaths and yummy food helps make the season more bearable.  And time off.  Yea, let’s not forget that most of us get some time away during Christmas.

This is my love letter to you, Christmas.  Keep on keeping on.

A discovery of a picture of Gabe in Vanity Fair leads to his debut on the debrief!

-For our capping project, we did a joint blog and named it Now What? The Tale of Two Soon-to-be College Students in Search of Jobs After Graduation.
-Our main focus was to write interesting posts about our weekly lives that expressed our woes in the issues of internships, graduate school applications, and classes.
-In our quest, we were able to take something special away from it and learned a few of life’s lessons as well.

-Before we were able to coin the idea for our blog, we made a list of possible proposals.
-This included blogs about weird stories that occur in the news like the lady who called the police at Mcdonalds because they were out of mcnuggets.
-We also thought about doing a satire piece on world news as well as an entertainment based blog that could be compared to perezhilton.com.
-I even thought of an idea to do a series of children’s books about my pug travelling to different places, but eventually we decided that what better idea was there than a blog about our lives and our worries about the future.

-So, we started to think about what we really wanted to write about and share with the world and our peers.
-What came out of this project was something that we would have never expected.
-Our blog is based on both of our lives, which detail the struggle of two college seniors in their quest to find a full-time job after graduation.
-In the blog, we told both of our stories, one of a journalism student struggling to find a job as every facet of her field (i.e. newspapers, magazines, etc.) start to crumble,
-and the other of a former journalism student moving over to the education realm in hopes of having a better chance of getting a job post-graduation.
-The intended audience is college-aged students, like yourselves, all of whom would be interested in our blog because they are sure to be facing the same obstacles that we will be discussing.
-Also, in our posts we provided advice for students and talked about what we would have done “if we knew then what we know now.”
-Furthermore, we used multi-media elements, such as pictures and videos to detail our quest for a job post-graduation, while also utilizing the latest medium our major has to offer; new media, also known as blogging.

-In order to obtain an audience, we had to utilize every college student’s favorite bookmark on their computers; facebook.
-We created an interesting marketing campaign by making a page on facebook and inviting hundreds of friends to follow our blog.
-We generated 123 “fans” who were told exactly when we posted new items to our blog.
-Each time this occurred, a post appeared on their homepages.
-We also used our statuses and the newest obsession in social networking, twitter, to gain more readers.
-Additionally, we made flyers that advertised our blog and handed them out to students on campus.

-And the result of this advertising campaign? People actually started reading this.
-In fact, on the very first day we made our facebook page, we received 139 hits!
-We usually average around 50 hits once we generate new posts.
-Within 3 months we got a total of 1900 hits.
-Not only were people reading our posts, but they were also commenting.
-We actually received almost 100 comments from readers.

-Earlier this summer, a movie came out titled Julie & Julia, which was about a woman who was blogging about how she plans to cook her way through beloved chef Julia Child’s cookbook.
-During our blogging, we seemed to encounter the same pitfalls Julie faced, wondering if we too had an audience.
-At one point in the movie Julie asks desperately if anyone was even reading her blog, in which her sole reader, her mother, replied yes.
-Here is a clip from the movie where Julie is about to give up.
-This fall I interned in broadcast journalism, at WNBC News Channel 4 at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
-I got an inside look of what it takes to produce a news broadcast, while simultaneously interning underneath Senior Correspondent Gabe Pressman.
-At NBC, I am given the incredible opportunity to discover how a story “has legs”, so to speak, and can evolve from a tiny blurb to a major story.
-Furthermore, working with a cameraman, I am responsible for editing film, writing scripts, and turning the raw footage into segments for the 7 o’clock news.
-An incredible experience, yes, I blogged in order to give students a first-hand look into the fast-paced world of journalism.
-Also, this blog detailed my job search, at NBC and beyond, in hopes of finding a job post graduation!

-For the Fall semester, I interned for a total of ten weeks at Cablevision News in Wappingers Falls, NY.
-It was there that I was able to have a first hand look at the production of a broadcast news program, as well as the research and development of how news stories are found and created.
-While working for Cablevision News, I blogged about certain aspects of my internship in order to tell college students of my adventures in journalism.
-Although I will be heading off to grad school for teaching next fall, I decided to keep my internship for the experience.

-At first, our blogs were written in a more diary-style.
-They were written about things that happened to us that we found to be interesting and “blog worthy.”\
-But later we evolved into actually explaining our feelings about the pressures of our internships and lives in general.
-We were able to shy away from the diary-style and focus on making this blog sort of a how to guide in surviving college and gaining employment.

-Some conflicts arose that we gained a lot of our focus in our posts.
-These include applying for graduate school, which I achieved a couple of weeks ago, even though my deadlines are not until April.
-In my posts I explained my need to get this over with, and I am glad that those applications are done.
-For me it was studying for the GREs and LSATs that got to me. It was also difficult to juggle school and our internships while trying to have a social life.
-For me, I realized that Graduate School wasn’t my immediate path.
-While working at NBC, I fell in love with the company, and as such, applied for the page program.
-I have already had my first round of interviews.

-This is an excerpt from one of my last blogs which explains what I got from my internship and this experience.
-As I walked out of the studio after a long, hard working day, I turned around and took one last look at the Cablevision building.
-It was in that instant that I recalled all the times I spent leaving this place aggravated, annoyed, and with thoughts of quitting.
-But I did not quit, I finished my internship and learned a few things from my experience. I have learned that I need a job with a definite schedule and actual tasks to do.
-My internship has ultimately taught me that this job is not for me and solidifies my choice in becoming an English teacher.
-In a shocking turn of events, my internship has given me all I ever wanted; to know that I am making the right choice.
-So, thank you Cablevision News, for making me realize what I didn’t want and allowing me to see what I did.
-Unlike my fellow blogger, Jason, who ended his internship at Cablevison on Wednesday, with no intention of ever pursuing a career in the business, I have found that my internship has strengthened not only my desire, but need, to pursue a career in broadcast journalism.
-It is with that knowledge that I applied to the page program, and have already made it through the first couple rounds of interviews.
-Hopefully I will be able to make this dream a reality.

Last night I had one of the best nights I’ve had at NBC all semester.  There was an air of excitement around the studio, as the crowds formed outside to watch the 77th annual Christmas Tree Lighting. During the hustle and bustle, I learned that Gabe’s former intern, who is now the VP of Marketing for the Miss Universe Pageant, was upstairs in the SNL studio, and I was invited to go upstairs and meet her.  When I got to go up to SNL on the ninth floor, and meet a former intern of Gabe’s, I was also fortunate enough to meet Miss Universe, and Miss Teen USA, as they prepared for the festivities outside. The night came to an end when I met two of my housemates, Emily and Moira, who also intern in the city, to watch the end of the festivities outside in the crowd.

Coming off the heels of such an amazing night, I couldn’t dream that something could possibly ruin such an amazing week. Oh how wrong I was!

Flipping through the New York Times at my desk this morning, I came across a story that stopped me dead in my track. On the cover of the business times was an article entitled “A Clandestine Courtship”, which detailed the secret meeting that eventually led to the deal announced today, that GE sold the majority share over to Comcast, resulting in a 51 to 49 percent ownership of NBC Universal.

I was terrified. Over the past 4 months, I have come to think of NBC as my home. I have grown to love all of my co-workers, and hope to one day join this team at WNBC permanently. What would this mean for NBC? Would they all lose their jobs during the integration process? Would the page program me eliminated? What would this mean for the company as a whole?

With questions flooding my mind, and consequently, flooding the page as I write this, I was comforted to learn that there would be an in house town hall meeting, in which Jeff Zucker, CEO if NBC, would meet with the NBC Universal community, along with GE CEO Jeff Immelt, and the three new players from Comcast, Ralph Roberts, CEO, Brian Roberts, Chief Executive, and Steve Burke, C.O.O. I immediately switched to the in house channel, to watch the proceedings go down.Broadcast is changing, Cable is changing, and if you don’t keep moving, you may get lost in the shuffle. That is what I drew from the town hall meeting. Alleviating my concerns, albeit mildly, I learned that there was very little overlap between the Cable Company and NBC Universal, and very few jobs will get lost in the shuffle. The overall message that permeated throughout the town hall meeting was NBC got better today… I really hope they are right.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/business/media/03nbc.html?_r=1&ref=business

My Boss, Gabe Pressman, recalling my favorite story of his… “Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Clause”

Walking down fifth avenue this morning, I could not help but get in the Christmas spirit! Watching the families examine the window displays outside of Lord and Taylor and Saks, I felt pangs for my own family, wishing that I could be home to celebrate the season with them…. but who am I kidding, I’ll see them soon enough.

I am too excited to feel anything but, for tonight is the night I have been waiting for all semester. It is the 77th annual Christmas Tree Lighting at 30 Rock… and I have the best seat in the house!

WATCH

 

Growing up in New Jersey, I watched the annual Christmas Tree Lighting with my family every year, and always wished that I would one day get the opportunity to see it first hand. Never did I ever believe that I would be able to see it from my desk in Studio 7E! (I apologize for being giddy, this is very big for me)

In attendance tonight will be Shakira, Alicia Keys, and (drum roll please)… Barry Manilow! As a self-proclaimed fanilow… this is most definitely a dream come true!

Though the weather outside is supposed to be frightful, inside it is most definitely delightful, but I’ll be sure to wear my interning clothes inside out and backwards (metaphorically of course) in hopes of turning the projected forecast from rain to snow!

Stay Tuned… I’ll be here all night! : )

wah today really ROCKED although there was some annoyance cos of certain people GEEZ. some people are really totally oblivious to everything and dont care. so pissed. but i wont let some people get me down today was AWESOME thanks to BERNICE, DEANNA and HELU YAY srsly it was so FUN HAHA!

firstly, we dined at this awesome gourmet place and ate

SALAD MADE ON THE SPOT

KOREAN GRILLED BEEF

PRAWN AND SCALLOP PASTA COS THEY RAN OUT OF LOBSTER

SCALLOPS supposed to be half dozen but they gave us a MOUNTAIN!!

guess how much the scallops cost?

THREE FRIKKIN BUCKS! but sorry, restaurant’s closed till next year call me if you wna try it hehehe.

CHEESECAKE

mango crepe something haha

we spotted a monitor lizard in the canal!

GIGANTIC KINDER BUENO MY FAV

srsly look at her horribly too large boobs and ahem n*pples

deanna and bernice (:

find happiness within

ended off the day with marble slab creamery which rocks shitbangs. best ice cream in the world!

byebye people!

another day of shopping tmr

Florence + the Machine – Cosmic Love and Kiss with a Fist.

For some random reason (which is becoming the mantra of my life), I was thinking about some of the stupid things I’ve said over the years.  There have been some doozies, make no mistake.  But I’m quite proud of this little bit of drivel from waaaay back when, typed out during an IM chat with a friend.

“Well, crannies sounds like grannies and you know how I feel about old people, so I stay away from crannies…they might have grannies in them. Nooks have crooks, but crooks can be hot…like George Clooney in Out of Sight.” — Deanna Decker on waffles.

“I got my salad too big. I am already bored eating it.” — Deanna Decker on lunch.

In reading these over, I sound like I have about two brain cells bouncing around in my head with scant else.  But they make me laugh; the stupidity of these little sarcastic gems that I lovingly call “Deanna Logic”. So HA!  I can laugh at myself and that’s all that should count. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries.

All weekend, I was a wreck. I was feverously prepping for my interview with Alyssa, the head of the Page Program, that took place this morning.  What if she didn’t like me, what if I didnt make a good impression… the what if’s were plaguing my all night long, hence the coffee addiction haze that I am in while writing this current post.

Leaving my desk at Studio 7E at 945 for the 14th floor, I made my way down to the west bank elevators and went up… here goes nothing.

Entering the studio, I saw a room full of pages, working diligantly at their desks, frazzled yet.. empowered. They were doing what so many young people like myself would kill for the opportunity to do. Oh how I want to be frazzled!

Turning the corner, I immediately meet Alyssa, who greets me with a warm smile. I realize then and there that I was nervous for nothing! After having a long conversation with here about her experience with the program, the ins and outs of what will be expected, and where the interview process will go from here, I know this is what I want.

“Alyssa… may I be honest with you?”

“Of course,” she says, with a slight bit of hesitation.

“I know this is what I want to do. I know that NBC is it, where I belong, and I know that I want to be a page.”

It may have been a bit blunt for the first meeting, but I could not contain the words in my mouth. It was the truth.

“Great”, she said, to my suprise and delight. “I’ll definitely be putting your name at the top of the list for the next round of interviews.”

Leaving her office, for this first time in my young career, I felt a feeling that I have never felt before. Confidence. While my other interviews I had left always feeling uneasy, I had a very good feeling about this one.  I have a very strong feeling that becoming a page is my path…. and I’m definitely going to take it!

If we can’t find jobs come graduation, this is always an option….

http://www.news3insider.com/finance/google-hiring-you.html

Funny thing happened on the way to Strawberry Fields a few weeks ago. My friends and I stumbled across a $20 bill just laying on the path in the middle of Central Park.  And though all four of us saw it and commented on how weird it was to see $20 just there for the taking (since most things that find themselves stranded from their original owner tend to get claimed rather quickly by the scavenging hoards), we stepped around it and kept walking.  As did the other two groups of people who were behind us.  Why didn’t anyone snap the little sucker up?  I know why I didn’t.  The universe tends to balance me out pretty quickly if I do something naughty and I didn’t want to risk a tree branch falling on my gourd just to even out that I’d “stolen” (aka “not earned”) $20.  Also, I had suspicions that someone may have planted the bill a la some hidden camera, prankster show.  Jumping out to accuse the poor soul who actually picked up the cash of stealing or something.  But maybe I’ve seen too many cartoons…

I can’t imagine waking up every day dreading going to work. That is my one, and possibly only, goal that I intend to pursue for the rest of your life. Do what you love, or don’t bother doing it at all.

This may seem limiting, but I have seen first hand how debilitating it can be to work at a job you can’t stand. This past week, I stayed with my sister up at her apartment in Murray Hill. She graduated from Boston College in 2006 with a double major in English and Secondary Education. Instead of going into Teaching, which she had intended to do all along, she somehow fell into a career in Publishing, and has yet to escape it ever since.

Currently, she works an obscene amount of hours, from 7am to midnight, everyday, as a sales associate for a major Publishing Company. She works tirelessly, with no compensation for overtime, and is still falling behind in her numbers. All this would not matter if she loved her job, but she does not. She is currently looking for teaching positions around the city.

I managed to get her to go out on a “school night” last night, where she really opened up to me about how hard her job really is.

“Deanna…” she warned me “If you ever take any advice of mine take this; Do what you love to do, because life is too short to be this miserable.”

I never knew how hard she worked until I saw first-hand this week. I could not imagine being “worked to the bone” like that. I realize that I’ve been spoiled here at NBC. I wake up every morning excited to go to work. I love my job, I love my boss, and I really honestly can say that I love working here. Every day is more exciting than the last, and unlike most interns, I really feel appreciated for the work that I do.

Unlike my fellow blogger, Jason, who ended his internship at Cablevison on Wednesday, with no intention of ever pursuing a career in the business, I have found that my internship has strengthened not only my desire, but need, to make NBC my permanent home.

It is with that knowledge that I will embark on my meeting with the Program Coordinator of the Page Program Monday morning. Hopefully, I will be able to make that dream become a reality!

My junior and senior years of college were by far the best years, quite possibly of my life. Well, I hope the last part of that isn’t true, I hope I didn’t peak at 21. I went to college at SUNY Oswego, working toward a useless degree. The reason why these two years were the best was because of a place called Lonis Hall.

In Lonis there were only single rooms. To live there one needed to be a juinor, senior or grad student. You got a double bed and a full size refrigerator. It was kind’ve like a studio apartment.

Within a few weeks of moving in I met someone who would become one of my best friends, Rebecca. She lived in the floor above me, but eventually moved right down the hall. Across the hall from me lived Deanna. She was a year ahead of me. She also became a very good friend.

Our senior year there lived in our hallway seven of us girls: two Rebeccas, Karen, Erica, me, Deanna, and another girl whose name I cannot remember. (And that is going to drive me crazy.) We were a fairly bitchy set and when a new RA moved in that actually expected us to follow rules we were unfriendly. I remember the seven of us standing up againt the walls, silently, as she pounded (my god, she couldnt have weighed more than 90 lbs but it was like a goddam elephant) to her room. And then there was Stacey who went after a guy Deanna was seeing and then a guy that I was interested in seeing.

We called ourselves Kappa Kappa Chino and we all had a name that we posted on our door. I think mine was Irish Cream. Deanna’s was French Vanilla. Erica was Mocha. Karen also had a chocolate-y name, but I don’t remember that either. The seven of us never socialized as a group outside of that hallway, but damn, if we couldn’t make a stranger feel unwelcome.

I remember one time the new RA stopped in Rebecca’s room about something, I dont remember what, and saw that she had stolen a couch from the lobby and put it in her room. She got all huffy and insisted that Rebecca put it back. Now, no one ever sits in the lounge, especially in a building full of anti-social upperclasspeople, but rules were made to be enforced and dammit, she was going to enforce them. So Rebecca got me to help her move it and as we moved it the other Kappa Kappa Chino sisters gathered in the hall to heckle this RA.

Another guy that Deanna was “dating” would occasionally stop by and he decided that he wanted to be a member of Kappa Kappa Chino. We told him he could be Sanka if he took of his clothes and walked around the third floor. Official sororities arent the only ones that can haze! Needless to say, no male ever joined our organization.

The thing with college dorms is that a group of strangers are chosen at random to live together. It is a reality show without the cameras. And Lonis gave me this opportunity to meet people that I normally would not have met, let alone form a sisterhood with. Three girls from downstate, two from Albany, one from Utica and one from a small town; two black girls,a Jewish girls, three WASPs and a hispanic girl; one married girl; loners and girls that were never alone; we all came together that year, if only for a couple of minutes a week and saw a different background, a different point of view, a different history, and we took each others sides and learned and laughed and took our revenge on an RA that had no interest in seeing another story. This, Lonis, is where I started to learn about life, taught by these sisters, some of whose names I can’t remember, some of whom I haven’t seen since May 16, 1998, but a bond that I will always remember.

“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.” -Tuesday’s with Moorie

Today I went out on a lunch date with Gabe. For the first time since  my first official day at work, we had not gone out for lunch just the two of us.  I was very excited to pick Gabe’s brain outside of the office, and really get to have a one-on-one conversation with Gabe on everything and anything.

At 85, Gabe Pressman is without a doubt the most seasoned reporter in New York City, and arguably, one of the best. I feel like the luckiest intern in the world, to be able to call him my boss.

   Sitting down in Cucina&Co. in the basement of Rockefellar Plaza, eating a $17 dollar salad, I couldn’t help but wonder what the future had in store for me. Here was Gabe, survivor of Prostate Cancer, Grandfather of 8, father of five, and still happier than ever to come into work every day.

   To be able to spend your entire life, doing what it is you love to do, I can not think of any great accomplishment. As the quote above demonstrates, Gabe was able to do just that. Live a life with purpose, contribute to the community, all the while doing what it is he loves to do. I can only wish that one day I too will have the opportunity to live out my dream, like Gabe has.

   Gabe recalled the stories of his past, interviews with Marilyn Monroe, JFK, other great icons in the past. I can only hope that when I look back, in the twilight of my life, can have done half of the amazing things that he has done.  He truely is one amazing guy… and I know, that looking back, I’ll value this internship for the rest of my life.

I really like when mi gato, Boo, stretches in her sleep and smushes her paws into her face.  It’s precious.

I also really like the super-nerds the History Channel finds to comment in its specials. They always seem to wear tweed and have facial hair that even 80’s enthusiasts would veto. The geek will inherit the earth.  Much respect.

I’m not talking the level of “the U.S. government faked the moon landing” and “the CIA killed JFK”…I’m talking about the every day little tricks that we, the masses, face and dismiss as “part of life” while the perpetrators of said tricks laugh at our puppet/cattle-esque stupidity. To wit…

The “door close” button in elevators.

Most lifts are now equipped with video cameras, feeding snippets of people’s vertical travels to some room, some where, filled with some random, faceless voyeur. And have you noticed that despite the presence of the “door close” button, whenever you actually push it, the mechanism that is meant to shut the metal doors sooner than would normally occur if you were to let the elevator be its little self, doesn’t work?  In fact, I’m convinced that pushing the “door close” button actually delays the response sought by mashing on that infuriating plastic circle.  It mocks us with its glow.  And what would be the point of a “door close” button that doesn’t close doors?  So that the random, faceless voyeur locked up in some room, some where can get a sickly pleasure out of seeing our frantic pushing of the “door close” button, vainly hoping to prevent the stampeding high-heeled and briefcased hoards from cramming into the tiny space with us. So that these evil elevator-feed watchers can see the frustration on our face when the doors don’t close… that they stay wide open for what seems like a century while the smelly dude with a loud voice and penchant for oversharing rushes in, saying he made it and offering thanks to you for pushing the “door open” button.  DAMMIT! Otis and Staley have sick, sick, sick senses of humor. 

The GPS-State Government-Oil Company theory

For many years, I happily sat in the front seat of our family’s car with various state maps in my lap.  Studying the lines, mile markers and symbols, I was the navigator.  There was something so satisfying about understanding map language and finding the best routes to our destination.  It was an achievement. It was brain exercise. It meant I got to sit in the front seat!  

Alas.  The enemy of human productivity arrived.  GPS. At last!  Technology from the ether could tell us in a passive aggressive voice to “make a U turn if possible” repeated to the point where even normal human beings panic and make very illegal road maneuvers just to get the bitch to shut up. I often chastise technology as making most of us incapable of even simple problem solving (how much do you panic when you lose your cell phone and can’t remember a single number to call for help? or miss appointments because you no longer keep those memories in your brain in favor of your Blackberry?).  But my beef with GPS goes beyond the fact that it dumbs us down.  My problem with GPS is that every time you use it, the mysterious lady in the sky tends to direct you to routes that oddly have many expensive tolls. She also seems to point you down roads that aren’t necessarily the fastest and most efficient to travel, extending your time in the car and burning more fuel than would have been needed had you decided to follow street signs and use paper maps. Put all these together and you find…GPS is in cahoots with individual States to increase their take at toll booths and with the oil companies and gas stations to rake in even more dough on the tanks of lost drivers!  I knew that GPS lady was evil…

NOTE: The above was written with sarcasm (if you couldn’t actually tell, I wanted to get that out of the way first).  I still think both are true… just not to the point where I’m going to start putting out newsletters asking people to boycott elevators and talk back to their GPS lady.  Well maybe I want people to talk back to the GPS bitch.  If only because I think arguing with a ghost voice is funny.

Tomorrow I will be turning 26. I don’t really have an opinion or feeling about reaching beyond the quarter-century mark. Getting older is something to look forward to.  As the theory goes, with age comes wisdom.  I’m happy to report that so far, I believe that adage applies to my life, however short it may be at this point. There are still a daunting number of things on my life list (and I would hope it’s always populated in the sense that it means I still have a lust for living). 

So what have I learned?  I think life is more about continuous learning than static “lessons learned.” To rephrase then: what am I learning?

I’m learning to be more patient, learning to pick my battles better, learning to keep my mouth shut when it needs to stay shut, learning to notice and appreciate more the “small stuff” (the sky is clear today…I DO have another box of Zen left…someone said “thank you” when I held the door open for them…YAY), learning to open my mind more, learning to trust my gut instincts, learning that everything happens for a reason regardless of whether you understand those reasons, learning to hold judgement and just “let it be”, learning that you can’t force things, learning that you’ll never actually KNOW anything.  You’ll always be stumbling in the dark.  It’s how you handle it and adjust that makes life what it is.

I’m excited to see what I’ll be learning on the cusp of 27, universe willing.

Peace.

UPDATE: I’m also learning that tattoos are indeed painful but the aftercare is actually more annoying than many needles jabbing into your skin repeatedly.

When venting to a friend about the less-than-stellar day I was having, he responded by sending me this link. It made me laugh, and reassured me, that tomorrow really is only a day away. Enjoy!

This past weekend, attempting to unwind from another week in the life of a frantic college senior, I plopped down on the couch with some popcorn and watched “Life or Something Like it”.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, the movie is about a reporter, Angelina Jolie, as she makes her way to the top as an anchor. Lanie Kerrigan, (Jolie) interviews a psychic homeless man for a fluff piece about a football game’s score, and learns that her life has no meaning. If she does not change the path her life is going down, she will die… and thus sparks her rebirth as a better person.

Now, this may all seem quite trivial… why would you care about what movie I saw this past weekend, but I promise I have a point. After getting my “feet wet”, so to speak, I have learned that people like this do exist, that they get so absorbed with their jobs that they loose track of what is really important. We all are anxious and hopeful of landing the perfect job when we graduate… whether as a reporter, like Jolie’s character, fixing their make-up at their desks, and practicing their ever-so-perfect-non-regional-dialect; or pounding the pavements as a sales associate, desperately trying to make their numbers in order to hold on to that grueling job for one more day. Hearing the countless stories of graduates detailing their hardships, disappointments, and dead-end jobs that they have found themselves in once they leave this campus. I’m beginning to believe that perhaps our lives do not begin after college, but to the contrary, the end.

The end of shirking responsibilities, the end of all-nighters, the end of all the ups and downs that were our four years here at Marist college. If you are an underclassman, cherish them, because I promise you they will disappear before you know it. If you are a senior, have hope. Embrace the uncertainty of change. Remember, we are all in this boat together. America has gotten through many crises; it will get through this one too. We need to be comfortable with the fact that our first job (assuming we get one right away) will likely not be the dream job. Rather, it will be at starting point…a stepping stone along the way.

I yearn for the days when I would concern myself with things other than what the future has in store for me. This time last year, the only thing that would concern me would be how Sarah Palin got to be all over the media again like a bad rash. Now? Not even a passing thought… well, almost anyway.

Like many of us, I have dreams of landing the perfect job when I graduate. I also know, like many of us do, that that “dream job” may never become a reality. I could apply to graduate school, but I do not have “perfect” grades, and am sure I will not get a “perfect” GRE score. To be frank, I am perfectly satisfied being far from anything that resembles perfection, and would much prefer living my life for the moment, with coffee stains on yet another white shirt, and blissfully unaware of the economic crisis that we are about to jump head first into. Then again, that will never be a reality either.

Sitting around my living room this past weekend, I cannot help but recall what my friend Moira said. While discussing our futures, she said, ever so honestly, “Why would I go to grad school when I have absolutely no idea what I want to do with the rest of my life?”

It seems that so many of us, uncertain about what might happen to us after graduation this spring, we look at the prospect of grad school as a path to go down, to avoid living in our parents basement for the rest of our lives. At least, that’s what my logic for applying.

For many college seniors, indecision and uncertainty about the future typifies every facet of their lives.  With regard to what the future has in hold for me….I am no exception. In the course of this semester, I have toyed with the idea of taking the GREs, applying to grad school, taking the LSATs, applying to law school, applying for countless jobs and making tons of connections for various careers, when honestly… truth be told, I am more unsure of what I want to do then when I started here. With the days on the calendar flying by with unprecedented speeds, I must admit that when it comes to what I want for the future, I am completely in the dark.

Maybe Moira was right. Maybe, instead of obsessing about the future, I should redirect my focus to what’s right here, right now. Make the most of what’s left of our college careers, our internships, the friendships we have made; and most importantly, make the most of these next couple of months. Senior year only happens once… I have the whole rest of my life to worry about what I’m doing with it.