Um, yeah. So, As per the last post – not only did my 2 interviews go well, but… I got the internship!! Hurrah. I will start working for the PUSH Institute in late January. PURE excitement.

Awesomeness pt 2: On wednesday, I am getting a new tattoo!! FUCK, I am excited. A little nervous, I have been warned this one is going to HURT (and to take medication before hand). And, as always, it is a little disconcerting to get something permanently inked into your skin, but I am confident (I think). It will be on my side/rib cage, and approximatly 9 inches in length (we measured).
It is going to be a dogwood branch and flower (with bud/leaf accents). Some color to accent. Dogwood is significant because I was born in BC, where it is the provincial flower (yeah, a tree is the provincial flower).

so, that’s my story and I am sticking to it! WAH!

yes, the state i am in has caused me to actually morph into your jewish mother. surprise.

anyway, i am sort of floating in this rather comfortable area of always needing to do a million things and perpetually worrying about a) whether i will have a place to work at an internship next semester and b) whether i will have a place to hang m proverbial hat when not working/playing in nyc. it is a weird, difficult process to try and find housing when you can’t visit the place in question and are not sure who exactly is a murderer, weirdo, or scam artist (or c, all of the above!). also, it’s funny to recognize that everyone i contact on craigslist or similar seems to have the same concerns about me.

today, in t-minus 2.35 hours, i have an interview for an internship with harpers magazine which i REALLY want. REALLY REALLY REALLY BAD. unfortunately, they may not see that as the most convincing reason for hiring me. must sound intellectual and capable.

yesterday emma and evan and i had drawing class and….it was bearable! what, you say? how can this be? the answer: we looked at pretty timmy, then we got to leave the premises. what could be better.

art posts shall be coming relatively soon…you should be able to tell i have finished my work for the semester when i start posting something other than the token “i’m so stressed i could pee all the time” entry. but i have been doing some art that i like. perhaps anxiety agrees with me.

love,

katie

ps. i signed this because it was funny. not because i sign things regularly. except for the panties that always seem to be thrown at me when i walk around, accompanied by screams of adulation.

As some of you may already know I went to Tokyo Disneyland yesterday. I am not really a big Disneyland kind of guy but I was curious about the experience and it was definitely better than just hanging out around my hometown. First of all, if you were to remove the Japanese people from Tokyo Disney and replace them with Americans, there would be almost no way you could tell you were in Japan. English is the primary written language, with tiny Japanese subtitles, although all the people speak Japanese of course. There was only 1 Japanese restaurant! I was actually disappointed how little was different. It felt exactly like the American Disney with a few notable exceptions.

The biggest difference was the how wide the streets were. Up until 3 years ago Tokyo Disneyland was the number 1 most visited theme park in the world, with Toko Disneysea being number 2 (Together they make up Tokyo Disney, but we only had time for Tokyo Disneyland). The park planners knew that it would be super crowded so it has the widest streets of any Disneypark. Luckily, it was a wednesday and we got there early so we never had to wait more than 40 minutes for a ride and that was buzz lightyear. I also think the rides are run faster here because they want to move more people through. Maybe I am crazy, and it has been a long time since I have been to disneyworld, but I actually had a hard time taking in everything on the rides.

Also, another difference is that in Japan, is the existance of Disneysea. While I didn’t make it there they make it a point to not have any characters (besides the traditional disney ones, like mickey, minnie, donald, pluto and goofy) overlap in the parks. That is to say since there is a Aladdin section in Disneysea, there is no Aladdin anywhere in Disneyland. Disneysea is more of a date spot and you can drink alchohol there while Disneyland is dry. Disneysea is also nautical themed (obviously) with each different world (e.g. The Aladdin World) being a different port. I think you can take ships between the ports, but you don’t have too.

Minor differences are:

Stitch from “Lilo and Stitch” is by far the most popular character. People literally would run after him and moms would swarm him shove their kids near him and snap pictures. However you could never get a picture  with just you and stitch, that is how crazy popular he is. They don’t like the movie though, just the look of Stitch. I bet Stitch is another character that is able to transcend the Disneyland/Disneysea demarkcation

You don’t get splashed on splash mountain, it is seen as uncomfortable to be wet wearing clothes, and rude to make your guests uncomfortable. Ergo, no splash.

The Haunted Mansion had made decked out in a Nightmare before Christmas theme for the holidays. They totally changed the whole ride and it was super awesome. I never really liked Nightmare before Christmas as a kid, but i like the look of Tim Burton’s stop motion and it translated amazingly well to the anamatronics of the ride.

I dunno that is all I can think of right now… I am sure there is more, maybe I will edit this later.

Things are going pretty good for me right now. My job is quite fun, and my coworkers are sweeties. I think a lot of my female managers have taken me on as a little brother figure because I already have two nicknames “Samadeus” and “Samson” (one manager constantly yells Samson! whenever I am working.) The paycheck is quite nice as well, and will get even better because I am getting espresso trained soon which means a RAISE!!

However, I sometimes wonder if I am working too much, since I have now started to call my girlfriend after drinks that we serve. Such as “my little swiss berry latte” or “mah little half-caf vanilla nut.”

As for next semester I am thinking about taking a basic drawing class, and a class on graphic novels where we read a bunch of them, and then make one. Not very impressive to mcadets (who can have actual comic art majors), I am sure, but it’d be a huge change of pace for me. Furthermore, I might be completely finished with my english major after this next semester.

Things I am looking forward to:
Tim’s 21st bday partay
Me and the GFs 1 year anniversary
Brock’s New Years Party
X-mas

Since I feel as though I am losing some of my punk cred as I grow older, the only music I am going to be asking for for x-mas is old school punk albums.

Also, question to Joel-
If I am trying to post a pic that is enormous, how do I upload it so it has a thumbnail that people can click on for an enlargement, so I don’t fill up the entire shamby homepage?

END COMMUNIQUE

I haven’t really, though I’m sure I could if I ever learned to read.

I’m looking forward to break, more than I though I ever would anticipate such things.  I follow in Joel’s, Sam’s, Carrie and Steve’s footsteps and transform from a post-teen wonder into a bippity-boppity twenty something this week.  I’m eagerly anticipating it, as for the first time in a long time, I think that the birthday will actually “feel right” if you will.  Years past, birthdays came and went, certainly with an air of anticipation upon them, but feeling kinda just like another day.

I don’t believe this specific day of womb-removal (I was a 10 month c-section, ha!) will be anything super momentous, but I do feel that in this last year I’ve changed quite a bit.  More so than past years.  I’ve made a lot of changes in my life.  And for once, I think that a B-day is timed well enough to feel like some proverbial portal, both closing my ties to the old Tim, who is still very much apart of me, and this magical new Tim who can now facilitate parties with booze and whine about how old he is.

Ooooh, I’m going to open up a bottle of wine and thusly whine about accute joint pain and complaining about those lousy liberals and whippersnapper teenagers.  OH BOY! LIFE here I come!

my tea

Originally uploaded by furny.

ok kids. today i had a DELICIOUS day. seriously delicious. Breakfast was fairly normal but tasty with some maple and brown sugar shredded wheat cereal. I am a big cereal fan, so any cereal is good cereal.

then, for lunch, there was a special Monday edition of the CSS Friday luncheon that has become a little tradition. We (being Joel and Johnathon) grabbed Evan and went to Bubble Delight (which is now actually called something else, I think, but I can’t remember) and had their tasty and cheapy vegitarian buffet! YES! Mock duck everywhere, cream cheese wontons falling from the sky. They have my favorite cream cheese wontons I have ever had. Munch munch munch. tasty. They’re the nicest people ever, too.

I had an afternoon mix of tea and pumkin latte powder, pictured here. That’s my most favorite mug there, that is. It’s so effing cute! PINK PLAID.

Dinner, however, was the big event. During Thanksgiving (which was tasty as well) my grandma gave me some of her Everyday Food magazines that she was going to throw away. Yes, perhaps you have heard of this lovely magazine that is under Martha Stewart’s crafty belt. It’s small and very nicely designed and full of recipes. DELICIOUS recipes. So tonight Evan and I took a trip to Lunds and bought everything I needed to make BUTTER HERB SPAGHETTI. Yum. It used whole wheat pasta, which I had never experienced before! It was very good, and I pretty much made everything. I am not usually a cook, so I was proud of myself.

Tonight I will prepare something else from the magazine for breakfast tomorrow that involves oats and pears and grapes. YUM.

Enough about food!

Except I really don’t know what else to talk about! I guess classes are going okay (except for drawing 2, but we knew that already).. and I finished all I’m going to be able to finish for the art sale today (please buy my stuff) and I’m totally ready for Christmas (please buy me stuff!). I got a tiny white tree at Target because this is my first real apartment, and I figured I should decorate it for Christmas. Honestly, I am not a religious person, but Christmas is more of a family thing than, say, a jesus thing to me. I lurv it. I also turn 21 (like this post!) three days after christmas, HURRAH.

okay, enough. Someone teach me how to hide some of the post, please. I’m afraid this will be too long..

With a combined total of 30 hours of being in a car these past six days of break, I’m a little sick of driving. If it was one solid chunk of driving, say, 30 straight hours, like on a bus, then I probably wouldn’t be complaining as much because that would have been non-stop. THIS driving was spread out to 5 hours to Cedar Rapids on Tuesday, 10 (more like 13) hours to Detroit on Wednesday, 10 (probably 11) hours back to Cedar Rapids on Saturday, and 5 hours up to Mini-apples on Sunday. Not to say that I didn’t have fun other times, but most of my break was spent in the car. The rest of my break was pretty regular: I ate some turkey, watched some predator 2, watched my cousins play Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance (they are girls and one is in high school, the other in middle school), and went to a historical reinactment village.

In other news: school is three weeks from being over. RIDICULOUS! WHAT will become of me and my finals? WHEN will I be home over winter break!? WHAT ABOUT THE ART SALE!?

Stay tuned…

26 Days to go. Kindof crazy. I definitely feel my time in Japan is winding down. Three papers are the primary obstacle between me and finishing up here. One will be on Hoop Dreams, the other on Ugetsu, and the 3rd is undecided, but will probably be on a Modern Japanese intellectual. I hate to be too negative about my experience here because so many things were positive about it, but I have to say, the Japanese education system (at least post-secondary) is horrendous! I am at a top tier university and I would say that most of the students don’t care at all about school. Routinely talking/emailing during lectures, to the point where the teacher has to tell them to shut up maybe 4 times a lecture. Also they have to take attendance and usually after they take attendance half of the students walk out.

In other news, I have hurt my back. Not really sure how I did, but I am sure it has something to do with my terrible posture and I feel asleep on the couch in a rather awkward position. Anyways, at first it messed up my legs but now I just have a stiff back. It sort of sucks to get back problems when you aren’t 21 yet but hopefully it will get better and the next time i will hurt my back will be when I am at least 35.

The other day as I was coming home on my commute I started getting a little upset because I realized that Tokyo has become an important part of my life and it sort of bugged me that none of my friends and family could ever understand. I dunno I am sorting thinking about it as I am writing this, but it sort of upsets me that people from back home could never understand the spatial layout of my life right now. Even people like my dad who visited still has no reference point. I noticed it when I told Deedee I was going to go to the internet cafe, and as I was walking to it I just seemed strange that she had no idea where the internet cafe was in reference to my house, my school, the train stations etc. I was thinking about a way to bring back that spatial understanding to people in the States and realized I couldn’t.

In a related point I saw some of Chris Marker’s San Soleil, only about 15 minutes of it. It is a reflexive documentary about memories and dreams and travels. Sort of a movie equivalent of a collage with narration by a female reading what I presumed to be Marker’s autobiographical letters that he wrote around the time that he filmed that paticular scene. Anyways the point is that much of the movie takes place in Japan and the scenes I watched dealt with trying to share these memories that he was making in Japan. Anyways, kindof pointless musing but for obvious reasons it spoke to me. Anyone else seen that movie?

Finally, I noticed there has been a shake-up in the Shambot lineup. I think sometime in spring semester we should have a shambot mixer in Minneapolis and try to get all the members together for an epic party. What do you think? Oh pooples i realized that some of the shambotians will most likely be doing internships next semester, I dunno, still I think it should be done.

Bleh.  Ok, I have an interview in about an hour, but it is just an informational interview, nothing to serious.  Robin and I are going to coffee, and she is going to talk to me about what she does.  No big deal, right?  Yeah, but I still want to make a good impression.  More importantly, it is a test run, BECAUSE….

I have a REAL interview on Monday!!  BAHHBEH BHAAHH BA…. yeah, that is me freaking out (reverting to incoherant blabering).  On Monday, I meet with Cecily Sommers, entrepreneur, and founding director of PUSH Institute, a internationally recognized think tank.  And she wants to meet with me!  True dat.  I hear that she is something of a fashionista, keeping with the current trends (current trends in everything is what her company deals with, so I guess it is fitting).  Either way, I have to make a good impression simply by looks, as well as wow her with my immense brain power.  SHIT!  It is an internship I would give my left nut for (assuming I had one) so it better go well!

So, wish me luck, for both interviews.  If today goes well, I will feel better about Monday.  If Monday goes well, then my life may change (for the better).

Ok, I need to get in the car now, and drive! Drive! DRIVE! And, clearly, lay off the caffeine.

It’s that time again! What time you ask? Why it’s Tuesday! The most-class-filled day of the week for me! So I’m slacking off in class to upload some stuff I’m been doing in my Motion Graphics class. One video here, one after the break.