Narcisisissisicism

(An image from my last film: a mummy with pumpkins)

Hi guys.

Update? To be sure.

This semester I started film production courses on black and white 16 mm, which has been crazy--so far I've had two people get shot in my films and three people fire guns (well, one was a Revolutionary War reenactor). They bleed chocolate syrup blood. Violence for violence's sake? Anyway, I get to film with this awesome camera:

--->

It runs like clockwork. You just wind it.

I'm also co-chair of the Film Majors' Committee and I'm on the exec board of the Vassar Filmmakers, a student group, blah blah...last year, a group of my friends and I made a documentary on a clockmaker and were finalists at the International Documentary Challenge! We went to the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto, which was saweet. Blah blah.

I also did set design for the drama department this semester--we did Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire." I built a fantastic suspended ceiling that hung ominously above their heads like a wrought-iron cage.

I've somewhat figured out what I want to do with my life, though it seems frivolous, and I still need to come to terms with that: I'm perhaps going to grad school for interior design. It'd be nice to have a day job, with a firm. Besides that, I want to go into production design for film, and perhaps set design for theater. I like creating the world of a story, the look of a film. I think in things. Props. Dressing. Different chairs have different meanings.

Ok, my sister is here for Thanksgiving and I'm going to bed.

Update!

peacegrace

love from s'pore

Hey guys!

It’s been a while. Hope you all got my invite on Facebook. In the spirit of not being hypocritical, here’s my extremely self-centered update on life. I encourage all of you to post equally narcissistic updates because I really want to hear about how things are going!

• Since TASP… Okay, so I’m trying to remember all the weird things I did at TASP and think about whether or not I’ve changed since then. Falling asleep on random couches – YES, I still do this. My favorite sleeping locations include ergonomic chairs in the library and Starbucks armchairs. Plush fetish – YES, this still applies. Although I’ve moved from frogs to quirkier subjects, like plush tofu, ninjas, and robots. However, I do not: keep my hair bundled in a clip, wear skirts all the time, sulk on staircases (okay, maybe sometimes).

• Nunnians I last sighted: JOSH came to visit last year, and he stayed at my highrise apartment! It was pretty awesome, even though I was going a little crazy with schoolwork that week (sorry about that Josh!). We did cool things, like walk aimlessly around campus and eat yummy falafel at a Middle Eastern restaurant. Freshman year, Diya visited me during spring break (which was a lovely departure from my emo loneliness on campus) and we gossiped and had tons of fun. You guys should totally follow Diya + Josh’s example and visit me in Philly 

• Latest update: Singapore! I’m wrapping up my semester at Singapore Management University, and like everyone else, you’re probably wondering: why Singapore? I wanted to be at a good university in an English-speaking Asian country… so this was pretty much the best deal! SMU also has a partnership with my university, so it’s easier to transfer credits. I’ve enjoyed my time here so far (beautiful country, amazing food), but I miss my friends back home, so I’m ready to head back to the trash-lined streets of Philadelphia. I’ll be back on Monday (November 30) and will have too much spare time on my hands, so if any of you East Coasters want to meet up, let me know!

• School and stuff: After observing the Blackberry-wielding, stock quote-checking population of my school, I’ve grown increasingly cynical about all things finance and banking. So I’m opting for a dual concentration in Marketing and Operations & Information Management. Taking some cool classes on branding, advertising, consumer behavior, and the like. On the operations side, I’m learning about emerging technologies and how they’re changing the business landscape. Not going to lie; it’s pretty thrilling. Although maybe only to business nerds like myself.

• On campus… After reading about all the cool stuff Aida’s doing, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am overall a pretty lame, uninteresting person. Sadness. Anyway, at Penn I’ve involved in the Wharton Dean’s Advisory Board – which is this council of students that implement academic initiatives. Sounds boring, I know. But it’s actually my #1 thing on campus, and I’ve gotten to know some of my dearest friends through the organization. I’m also involved in Social Impact Consulting, which is a group that does pro bono consulting for Philadelphia non-profits. It’s a great, rewarding experience – and you get to work in teams so it can be a lot of fun. Aside from all that, I’ve done volunteer projects for Ashoka (organization that funds social entrepreneurs around the world) since January – including social media stuff, marketing stuff, donorship stuff, and most recently I interviewed an Ashoka Fellow here in Singapore! You guys can read about it on this blog; the title is “Making Toilets Sexy,” haha. It’s about using product design to improve global sanitation. Other on-campus hobbies include eating Chipotle burritos and “suicide” hot wings, hanging out with friends, taking photos of random-but-interesting objects, and frolicking.

• Looking forward… Will be flying back to Philly on Monday (November 30) and spending 3 weeks reconnecting with people, exploring the city, consuming coffee, getting ready for internship recruiting, working on some random projects, and other fun things. If any of you guys want to meet up, please let me know!

Nunnian Love,
Mindy

P.S. New ways to keep in touch (recently started poking my head into different social media channels):

Twitter! (twitter.com/yaycaffeine)
Blog! (yaycaffeine.wordpress.com)

Hola hola

Ho snap!

Major update time. :) Greetings to everyone from Brown! I'll make this a bullet-list because...well, I really like those. So on we go!

• Finally decided on my major...and it's Comparative Literature with a focus on translation! I'm still declared as International Relations, though, so I should, er, go change that. :D Huzzah. Oh, and I'm taking a class on medieval poets this semester and we mentioned the Lais of Marie de France. My heart did a little flip 'cause I remembered our TASP. ^_^

• I'm part of a co-ed frat: Zeta Delta Xi. What? A frat? Right. In fact, I'm Corresponding Secretary and one of the two Pledgemasters this semester. In short, this means I deal with alumni and that I'm in charge of organizing the entire pledging process, which is...intense. Actually, Zete seems similar to TASP in a lot of ways, which is pretty cool.
  

• Currently Head Chair of the Brown Queer Alliance. My involvement in all things queer has been varied, but now I've simultaneously stepped it up and stepped down--I'm not involved in as many subgroups (the QA is technically an umbrella-group), but the ones I'm in, I work hard for (and being Head Chair is not a piece of cake). Currently I'm going nuts with bringing Sister Spit: The Next Generation to Brown, as well as Alix Olson, that amazing spoken word poet (who was slated to come a week ago, but she got sick and we're trying to reschedule for sometime in December). Lots of lovely things are going on and I'm excited about 'em. :) Also stressed, but hey.
  

• I'm also getting really involved in the kink/BDSM/non-Brown-queer world, so I'm currently organizing KFA Providence ("an ad-hoc informational unconference on sexuality for anyone and everyone"), trying to go to workshops, presentations, and conferences as often as my schedule permits, and just...being active in "the communities" in general. I also helped contact colleges to advertise for the Transcending Boundaries Conference (which I sadly can't attend due to pledging duties), a con "for bisexual/pansexual, trans/genderqueer, intersex and polyamorous people and our allies," so that was cool. It's really fun and I love meeting new people. These are personal interests, so they get me out of the Brown bubble and it's something I'm doing for myself, which is really exciting. I'm just very passionate about kink, education, outreach, and making dialogues about sexual health and pleasure more available and visible.

• Trying to blog more and make worthwhile posts for the interwebz, so I write my own stuff here and there you can find links to my other online haunts, including a collaborative blog about gender/feminism with students from Vassar, Wesleyan, and a few other places. If you're into stalking me, you can always check out my DailyBooth account (which I mainly set up to keep up with a friend who's taking a year off, but still).
  

• Speaking of sex and blogs and things...my goal is to start up a sex mag at Brown next semester (since this semester I just don't have the time) in the style of Vassar's "Squirm" and Harvard's "H-Bomb." Any name ideas are always welcome. :)
  

• In Telluride news, I applied for factotumship this year (last year I also applied, but didn't get an interview) and I'm headed to Ithaca in November for my interview. :) I think Martin also got one? And Joy Liu--from another '06 TASP--also got one (she goes to Brown!). So basically I'm super super excited and I hope that I can get to work as a factotum. :) Wish me luck! (Also, let's talk about how unfortunate it is that we only have THREE TASPs this year!)
  

That's about it for now, I feel? I really wish to see y'all again. I was gonna try to organize a reunion this past summer, but then I failed at life. So yeah. :) Hopefully we'll keep in touch somehow, even if it's via random blog posts every 10 years.

Cheers, everyone! Feel free to drop me a note anytime!

Dispatch from NYC

Hello everyone!

Since I'm still subscribed to this blog, Johes's recent post showed up one morning in my inbox and was welcomed as much as a bacon /egg / toast breakfast. That is to say, very much. I won't put the time into restoring some of the things that have since broken with the blog (mainly just the missing header), but the subscribe feature is still working and I strongly encourage you to contact those with whom you are still in touch and get them to subscribe too. Posts may not come very often, but I for one, enjoy these random updates. Do it for the children.

Onto updates from NYC...

I am now a junior (whoa!) Biomedical Engineering student at Columbia University with a minor in computer science. While I enjoy the subject greatly, it does involve a rather daunting amount of work. Unlike Johes, I actually have pretty girls in my engineering classes, something I'm thankful for since computer science isn't exactly known for its female/male ratio. On a side note, I'm now dating a redhead art history major, I wonder how that happened. I'm still premed, but am considering other options much more seriously than I ever have since middle school. I guess I'll post back in a couple years letting you guys know what I ended up doing ;-).

At Columbia, we have a volunteer student ambulance corps. It provides free transport and care to Columbia students and affiliates 24/7. I got EMT-B certified last semester and since then, the corps has consumed way too many hours of my life. I'm getting promoted next Monday (hopefully) and I'll finally be able to finally drive that ambulance around with lights and sirens. I'm terribly excited. It's an interesting experience driving a two ton ambulance through city streets. Very different from my minivan back in Ohio. Interestingly enough, "Sir, calm down" is something I now say on a regular bases.

I'm still running that webdesign company from back in the day. It's gone though a couple changes, but it's still moving along. I won't link to the company site since I'm rapidly making some changes, but www.cuems.org is a project I'm working on now. It's not 100% complete, but it's definitely mostly there.

If any of you guys will be around the East coast, I highly recommend popping in to visit the city. You're very much welcome to crash at my place and I can show you around a most excellent city. I hope you guys are doing well. Seriously. I'm not giving up hope that I'll see at least one or two of you guys sometime in the future. It is my sincere wish that you continue to do delightfully at life.

Take care,
Gawwy

From Far Away

Hey all,

This blog seems to have slowly faded away. I randomly stumbled across it while I was updating my Picasa account. It's weird. TASP seemed like such an important part of my life and now I can't even recall all your faces without going on Facebook. I can't tell if that means it really wasn't that integral to my development or if it just has become one of those many things about myself that I don't even need to think about anymore.

Anyways, on with the updates.

I'm now a junior at Stanford majoring in Electrical Engineering and minoring in Comparative Literature. Don't worry, I actually enjoy Electrical Engineering. When I first came to Stanford, I refused to even consider it as a possibility, but I guess stuff happens sometimes. CompLit is, of course, wonderful. Part of the reason is that I actually see girls in my classes, unlike EE courses. It's just nice being able to look at something pretty while I'm stuck inside on a beautiful spring day.

Aside from from my academics, I play Taiko (Japanese-style ensemble drumming) as a part of Stanford Taiko and I love it. Beats and rhythms are taking over my hands and mouth. We got to go to Thailand for a two week tour where we got to play everyday, see a beautiful country, and ride elephants. It made me happy.

Right now, I'm studying abroad in Berlin. The city is amazing and the people are friendly. Thankfully, they almost all speak English because my German is terrible. One of my favorite parts of the city is the subway system. It goes everywhere and runs all night on the weekends. I've met some great people by just picking up conversation on the train.

For all of you, we probably won't see each other again. So good luck with the rest of your lives, I hope they all turn out beautifully.

Johes

Summertime once again

Hello, everyone.

Well, since it is officially summer, I figured I would post something to the blog. I've actually just started taking a course through the Yale Summer Session, so more realistically, this post is a way to procrastinate on my reading. Anyway, I'm studying abroad in Dubrovnik, Croatia right now, which is an amazingly beautiful city, but the weather is very, very warm, even for Dubrovnik. I've started having to put on sunscreen twice a day, but it's worth it to be able to go out and explore the Old City. Eventually, I will upload my pictures to facebook or something, but for right now, you'll just have to take my word for it.

This is the first time that I have traveled outside the U.S./Canada, and I have to say, I have enjoyed it immensely so far. I went to London beforehand, and the area where I was (Bayswater) was great. There were people there from all over the world, and I even got to speak Czech to a couple women (of course, it turned out they were Polish, but that's beside the point).

Anyway, that's about it for what I've done this summer, but I'd love to hear what everyone else is doing. And if any of you happen to be in Croatia between now and August 2nd, you should stop by Dubrovnik and see me (and the Old City, which really is fantastic).

If you're British and loyal, you might enjoy...

(royal marine?) ME! ^_^ To piggyback off Grace's post: HEY FOLKS! ^_^

Brown is still fabulous. Spring is making lots of magnolia and cherry tree bloom and bringing gorgeous days of people out on the Main Green. The weather was warm for a week or so, which I was semi-annoyed with, but now it's chilly again. Right now it's in the 50's. I like colder weather. :)

Summer plans are still undefined. I'm going back home, possibly to work and possibly to travel at some point--either somewhere in South America or the U.S., so we'll see how that goes. Right now I'm just procrastinating like a mofo. I have 2 response papers overdue and I should DO them and put them in my TA's box, but I just...don't want to. XD I'll get them done tonight, probably. I also have a buttload of papers and finals and work...but...I'll do it. Eventually.

Anyway, I'm still undecided about my major, though I've narrowed it down to Gender & Sexuality Studies, American Civilization, and/or Anthropology.

Today I saw Paul Huang from UT Austin/Deep Springs and another Deep Springer called Jesse. We talked about life, love, sexuality, Deep Springs, Don, food, and random shit over delicious food from a Thai restaurant called Spice. It was good times. I also saw Nick Rosenbaum a few weeks ago, for his Spring Break. I have a class with Joy Liu...and...that's more or less my Telluride fix here. OH. I also spent some time with Hayley Kossek (an amazing TASSer/now TASPer) when she came to visit Brown with her mom.

As far as living next year, I'll be in a co-ed fraternity full of awesome, hilarious, attractive people. ;) It's going to be exciting. I'll be in room 203, which is nice. Oh, and I have recently developed a huge crush on one of my fellow pledges (i.e. people who are gonna pledge during Fall and be official "brothers" in the Spring term), so wish me luck. Nothing will probably happen, haha, but oh well.

Well, with all that said, I'm off to go to the fraternity with a friend so she can watch some Grey's Anatomy and I can just chill there with people. More to come later. Post, people! I wanna hear about your lives! <3

Love,

Aida!

HALLO

Hello, children! It's Grace.
And it's spring/summer outside today, but I am inside dreaming on computer screens. Life is surreal. Today (4/20) is a bad day to have had admitted students' day. I'm straight edge, so I'm not participating in "the holiday" (Passover, of course, pfft) but I'm still affected by the carnival atmosphere. This weekend was full of night hyperexcitement and some kind of strange streetlight beery magic that I only shared tangentially. Strangers sat beside me in the mist on cold benches and laughed.

The rest of the week won't be like this. The rest of the week will be filled with the solidity of handheld drills and wordreference.com translations and films for taking notes. So I'll write you kids, you who are now strangers to me, on the weekend, while I'm still asleep.

I'm doing well here. Summer came really quickly, and that helped. Everyone stays outside for hours on end these days, lying half-naked in the sun, juggling on the lawn. I shaved my head over spring break, but it's already growing out, so I'm simply a lot cooler these days. (Physically.) I'm close to declaring as a film major. I've got my schedule worked out for the rest of my career here, basically. I still waver, though, between wanting to stay here, transfer to a different school, and drop out completely. What can I say? Some days I just want to go live in the country.

As for the future, my sister and I are going to Iceland for a month this summer to work on organic farms. I'm also going to do everything I've always wanted to do. A rigid schedule of classical guitar, jewelry-making and screenplay-writing. And hopefully a garden.

Life is good, right? Do you guys still read this?
love,
grace