You can't have it all.

Where to begin. So much has happened in the last 5 months. I love New Zealand. My career is really taking off here. Of course I have had my moments when I was scared about money, friends, drinking too much, the American stereotype, missing home, missing family and friends, finding a place to live, and pretty much everything you can worry about. This is the biggest step I have ever taken in my life, so of course there is a lot of hurting, scariness and of course growing.

I have committed at least 3 years to living here. This will be a good step for my maturity, depth of meaning in my life, understanding of the value of money, understanding of the value of friends and family, etc.

This country is a beautiful place. People are friendly and I think since the country is so small, there is more of a sense of brotherhood. However, I am finding that even though people are friendly, it doesn't mean that they want to be my friend. I suppose you could say the same for a lot of cultures, so this is not the fault of NZ.

I have made 3 really good friends since I have been here. I have made several other friends, but none of which I call on when I am having a bad day. The hard part is that all 3 of my friends are transplants. Holland, France and Canada. This month I will be losing 2/3 of those people. One of which is my boyfriend.

Oh yeah, I finally want to tell someone significant that I've fallen in love with them and they're leaving in 4 weeks. Awesome timing. I never thought that I would meet someone who gets me, respects me, is intelligent and makes me laugh and who I find so attractive inside and out. I am so pissed that our relationship doesn't have more time to grow here. Of course, there is the possibility of a long distance relationship (which I swore I would never have). But I don't want to put stress on him and myself to keep in touch while we are both leading our busy lives thousands of miles apart. I have enough pen pals at the moment. I just feel like part of it will be, out of sight, out of mind" and we will slowly forget how incredible we are for each other.

I love him. I haven't said it yet. I am kinda waiting for him to say it, since I am afraid it will hurt too much if he doesn't say it back. That, and I want it to be said at the right moment because this is the first time I think I will truly mean it in the way they talk about it in the movies. Right now, at this moment, I can see sharing my life with him. I want to do so many things with him, simply cause my life is better lived with him than without him. He likes me for qualities that I want to be liked for and when I am having a bad day, just being near him lifts my mood exponentially. It's just so effortless being with him, and yet I think he makes me a better person without even trying. Fuck.

Hopefully my busy career/education will keep me busy enough so that I won't have time for loneliness. Get this, I just got a job teaching criminology to over 150 people starting the end of February. I have never taken a criminology course before, but I taught Soc of crime and deviance. I haven't read any of the course work yet, but I think it will be fine. I love getting up and performing in front of people, so I am sure I will make it work and they will love me. It will be nice to finally have somewhat of an income. Along with that, I am working on a research assistantship in the pharmacy department about the awareness and opinions of direct to consumer genetic testing in NZ. It is a pretty rad project which will get me published, so that's pretty neat. Oh, and of course, I am applying for my PhD here. Hopefully by next week I will have my application submitted. I am pretty sure the Soc department is pretty gung-ho to have me here, so that will be cool. I want to do it on consumer controlled medication due to Direct to consumer advertisement of pharmaceuticals and the vast amounts of medical information on the web. I wanna look at the discourse of diagnosis and ultimately the shift of doctor-patient relations. I hope they like my idea, if not, I hope they accept me anyway, cause PhD ideas are always changing anyway.

Woah this is becoming longer than anticipated. But, I feel a little better. Perhaps I should get on with writing in here more regularly.

Cheers!

A 22 Page Rough Draft.

Since my mind has been so clear, I have been working very well. I think it has something to do with not understanding the language here. Normally, when I overhear people's conversations it allows me to put them in a box, in one way or another and things get boring because of that, because you are able to assume what other people are thinking. I guess that's why reading minds would be a boring superpower because after a while you would be able to predict everything people were about to say. At first, I have to say, I was scared because I can barely read or understand the world around me, but now I have come to find peace in it.

Anyway, this fresh state of mind has allowed me to work on my article what I want to try to get published. I am writing about pharmaceutical direct to consumer ads on the internet. I am looking at the direct and indirect ways of marketing and comparing internet ads to the previous forms of television and print. I will also be looking at these advertisements with regards to gender, age and race and who is most commonly targeted. I will also be looking at the medicalization, or recent surge of made up illness, and the designer drugs that are allowing this pill-popping craze to take over America and New Zealand. So far I have a 22 pg rough draft. It is nowhere near done, but it is nice to know that I am on the path.

Solo Excursion #2

Today I went out by myself to Shadaa. I went to this coffee house called insomnia, got some lunch and tried to get started on my applications. I decided that I will be applying to 6 programs. 6 is my lucky number, and applying to more than that would seem like too much to me. If i get into one program i have a 50% chance of moving to California and a 50% chance of staying in NY. I also have 2/6 chance of doing a media studies program instead of a sociology one. This is the stats if all programs are equally likely. Who really knows. I ordered curry chicken for lunch and the chicken had a lot of bones that were unfamiliar to me. I wonder what part of the chicken my meal was made of. Anyway, after finally buying a face mask for the unruly smog conditions, I took a train to the Taipei 101 building (aka the tallest building in the world). I went to this amazing book store eslite and found the tao te ching, which I had been meaning to get since I got here. I also did some other research and decided that if I get into a media studies program, I want to do my dissertation on Facebook and privacy in the age of the internet, and the changing cultural values brought about by celebritism. Now I must get ice cream and water and take ambien with Cres. <3

Cutting a 13 Track Album

Yesterday I recorded in my bedroom for 7+ hours. I wrote a new song, learned a new song and finished up an old one. I titled the CD 'Naked Friday' cause its just a bunch of rough copies for Kim and Lauren to practice with.

After having to file a noise complaint against the church across the street, I went over to Carrie's. She just got back from PA. We went to sweet ups and then R bar. We got caught in a downpour in between. Later on, I beat it and went to Sam's house warming right by McKibbin. I could never live there, its like a dorm building with rowdier students and higher ceilings. The apt next to Sam's got robbed and ransacked last night. Fuck that shit. It made me happy to be 5 blocks west of there (not even).

I got into some really interesting sociological discussions with some strangers last night. I got the feeling that (hopefully) that will be what my classes will be like to teach. Once again, though I guess I get boring when at parties and have the same conversation with everyone. I am good with one on one, then my conversations have a purpose and lead to something more profound. I hate having to feel like I have to start at square one with everyone, it is a lot of work. Just an observation.

Purpose

This morning I awoke at 7am to find out that I didn't have work. That started the day on a good note.

I was really productive on the last paper I am writing. One more day and I should be done.

I went to that meeting for Media Justice Fund/May First to represent paper tiger. I was introduced as 'the newest tiger'. It was really cool to brainstorm and be sort of non hierarchical with people working toward a common cause. My new 'boss' is really sweet and really allows for creativity. This is a sort of outlet where I can be creative, in a way and learn a lot from a variety of different people who are educated and worldly. I am really excited about volunteering/interning/networking/making a difference in the world.

I have just recently gotten this burst of confidence, where I realize that this is a big city and you gotta make yourself stand out in one way or another in order to get ahead in any way.

I think I am gonna make a video about the overmedication of America. Muahaha

The World of Social Media

So, since my obsession with Paper Tiger and other social justice media companies, I have entered into this whole world of figuring out what different non profit organizations do, and what they stand for. It is a world I never knew existed, but am so glad to have entered. Now that I am researching for internships or part time jobs, I have thrust myself into this world of non profit organizations. I must say, it feels good.

Last night, I went to talk to the woman, sort of in charge of paper tiger. She told me about the internship position that may be available. It is still tentative, because there is someone who may be staying the summer who originally said they were going to leave the country, so I don't know if I have that yet. However, regardless, I have chosen to be a collective member. This is sort of like a volunteer, but it is with a group of people who are interested in the same sort of social justice that I am, who I can really learn a lot from. I am thrilled to sort of be out in the business world. Even though I have barely begun this non profit adventure, I feel like I have already learned a lot about myself and how I come off in the business setting.

What I really love about Paper Tiger is that they have meetings once a week, and they are totally non hierarchical. It sort of feels like doing a group project for a class, where everyone is interested and wants to contribute information. My new pseudo-boss told us about a meeting tonight about the trajectory of social justice video's on the internet. It seems like a really important topic to me, especially since I just finished a paper about the trajectory of the public sphere with use of the internet for one of my classes.

I also agreed to volunteer for this healthcare thing. Since I am also working on and interested in direct to consumer pharmaceutical advertisements, AND I saw this particular group of activists called 'Healthcare Now' at the protest I surveyed, I feel like it would be interesting to help out with the videotaping of those kinds of things.

Ok. Enough about me.

N.Y.YOU.

Today I went to a conference at NYU about sociology/social science careers outside the academy. All in all, it was a really inspirational gathering. They had a few people on the panel with careers that I would gladly accept as a supplement to my original ideal career as a professor. I mean, I don't need to be a full time faculty member at a university to achieve my life goal. I can adjunct and get a federal, marketing, non-profit org, etc. job and actually make more money than I would teaching. The keynote speaker was actually the head of the economics dept. at Columbia. I picked up on a lot of interesting and useful advice at this conference. One thing that was especially ego-boosting was that I didn't feel as inferior as I usually feel at Columbia. I met people who were there from other disciplines at NYU and the New School; but I felt as if this particular conference was geared toward sociology students.

During the event, they had an impressive array of cakes and goodies, and afterward there were several wines as well as a cornucopia of hors devors and samiches to choose from. I arrived to the post-conference reception room, being one of the first ones there. I quickly asked where the bathroom was, and wandered around aimlessly, trying not to look at anyone directly in the eye for fear of blundering my speech and sounding like an idiot. I guess I am weird with confidence when I feel alone. Even though I just heard numerous great speeches on how I should be confident with my career trajectory and bust into the business world with a positive networking attitude, I find myself awkward with making conversation with academic strangers. When I am at a bar, it's a different story, because I am not expected to be witty and knowledgeable about theory and names of methods and thinkers.

Before I could count to 30, I was acknowledged by two strangers. Both of whom were cute and academic looking. They weren't ins where I could make conversation, so I opted out. But I guess it gave me more confidence to feel like I fit in a bit more. I then approached the woman who introduced the speakers and made the closing remarks at the conference. She was an older woman with a short gray buzz cut and kick-ass style. She was bubbly and personable and a wonderful speaker. I told her that I appreciated her inspirational words as we were the first two to approach the wine table. We then parted ways, I got some food and sat down.

Shortly after I sat down awkwardly, eating my sandwich alone, a good looking stranger approached my table and asked if he could join me. I quickly obliged him. We got to talking. He (Blair) goes to the New School for Poly Sci and is a PhD student. We sat talking and eating for 20 minutes or so. The conversation widened and we started talking about less professional topics. He's a Pisces and is from Seattle and also lives in Brooklyn.Two other students entered our social space and we all made pleasant conversation. The event went rather well.

Upon leaving, my new friend and I wound up going in the same direction. We kept talking and he said he was going to stop at a great book store in the area which is independently owned and donates part of its profits to aids research. I am all about supporting independent book stores, so I quickly decided to accompany him. At the book store, we perused a bit and then met back up for some more conversation. It was funny, of the two books he had decided to purchase, I had read one and partially read the other. Anyway, I was increasingly becoming more and more intrigued with this cool new person I just met.

He then mentioned going to another book store in the area to search for a book. I told him I would go under the circumstance that he would accompany me to Angels and Kings to pick up my credit card. He agreed. The second book store was pretty sweet. The bar had my credit card (yay!) We continued to walk and talk and I told him that I had to go to a bridal shower tomorrow and I had no idea what to get the girl. I proposed we go to a sex shop. Eventually, after wandering around the lower east side, we found our dingy hole-in-the-wall sex shop. What an interesting first night of hanging out with someone. We came full circle, both with walking around and going through interesting places; starting at a conference, going to book shops, a bar, a sex shop...you get what I mean.

I am really excited to hang out with him again. He seems to be precisely what I am looking for right now. I am not planning our future together in my mind, like some crazy person or anything (haha like what I did on valentines day). I just don't doubt that he will call and we will hang out again, and I am pretty sure I liked hanging out with him for a bunch of reasons.

I am a happy panda.