Caught between a ham sandwich

So my day consisted of moving my every earthly possession down from North Atlanta into Mid-Atlanta and then into this fine establishment:



PLEASE NOTE THE VERBAL CUE.

You will note that it is on the 4th floor. What you cannot see is that there are no elevators in that building.

Now, granted, I was spared from the heaviest of lifting. Those were Man Challenges (tm) reserved for two other individuals. But I will nevertheless now lapse into a coma that will not end... for about 6 hours.

And then more moving.

Survive the foretold aftermath

The odds begin to look even worse.

Right now the only thing that affirms my belief that this war won't happen is the fact that it's an election year. To declare another wholly unnecessary and unjustified (at least to the American people) war would be the GOP shooting itself in the proverbial Republican foot. Or maybe this would be part of a calculated strategy, engineered as a truly divisive campaign topic, as a method of skirting the important domestic issues at hand, and as a method of exploiting fear for votes on November 2nd.

Either way, I pray for the youth of Iran and for development of the world that a brave American soul receives one of the expansion posts in Iran.

My dreams of a traineeship in the United Arab Emirates are looking more daunting and more tantalizing by the minute.

Please pray for Mojo

So I realized that I haven't made a new post in over a week now, so in the next 20 minutes for before I have to run out the door and haul tail to class, I'm going to pound one out.

I've learned not to try to think about the future too much. In all fairness, it's unavoidable to an extent, but there's a fine line between sage planning and overwrought fretting.

It always begins with my professional prospects and my outlook thereof. I've narrowed my career of choice down to a neighborhood but am still clueless as to which house I should move into. And this neighborhood is pretty frickin' huge. With an INTA degree, I could go into a vast variety of fields. I could go to business school next and do international consulting. I could go into law school and work for NGOs and transnational organizations. I could continue my studies into INTA/IR graduate school and go into academia. I could attempt to enter the foreign service and go globetrotting with the state department. And the list goes on and on. And where does AIESEC fit into all of this? Sometimes I see myself being the prodigal alumnus, continually giving back by way of Mike Flood and Peter Stewart. And then other times, I can't wait to get out and let the new generation find their path. And the problem, I think, lies in my inability to reconcile the two into a suitable compromise.

And then this bleeds into the growing panic of "how will I stay sane and happy?"

I've been stricken with a serious case of the "grass is greener". When I lived at home in a small town, I dreamed of the fast paced life in the big city. And now that I'm here, I'm becoming sentimental for the comfortable ease of the small town. Not to mention, these have all be in the South East US. What about New England? What about the west coast? Hell, what about other countries? I've spent ample time in Canada, western Europe, China, and had a taste of Morocco. They all have their quirks and their special qualities. Different cultures, different ways of life, different perceptions of day to day goings-on. And this isn't even factoring in specific neighborhoods and regions. And what's the most unsettling is that I'm probably going to have little to no control over where I'm placed.

And then this bleeds into the growing panic of "what about my romantic life?"

It's disturbing how rational I've become. I haven't had a real crush in well over a year. Why? Because every time one rears its head, I analyze it until I can find something unrealistic about it. I always find something that tells me "this will never work, don't even try." Sometimes, I look back on those and think "yeah, that was a good call." And then sometimes, I think "jeez, am I sabotaging myself?" And the fact that I can say that about even one of them throws them all into doubt. I can't say for certain whether I've actually met anyone in the past couple of years that I've legitimately liked anyone. Have I, against all odds and logic, turned myself into a bitter asexual?

And then this bleeds into the growing panic of my mortality.

My parents had me at 24. That's two years older than I am right now. To me, my parents look old, even though they're only in their 40s. When I think about children, I feel it both ways. I know that to have any in the near future would be wholly unfeasible and unreasonable, but I know that to have them much later would result in a very strained parenthood. It's the perennial dilemma for our generation. Do you put your career first, or your potential children? If I were to do the jetsetting international thing, there would be no room for children in that. The lack of stability would create maladjusted teenagers. And then when I'm older, how can I expect to play soccer with my child when I'm hobbling around at age 50+? And then there's the issue of grandchildren. I want to be around to see them. But if I don't see myself living past 70, would it even be possible? And speaking of mortality, I know I have an expiration date. I don't know when that is, but I know that it lurks in the haze of inevitability. How am I going to maximize my time here on this Earth so I don't look back and say, "What a waste."

And then this makes me think about what I'm going to do with my life as far as my career and general work, which only further throws me into this vicious cycle.

GAH! Please see title and comply.

The unfortunate hindsight

First things first...

Video is going to kill me. The whole "we only have 4 video editing computers on campus" doesn't help either, nor does the "you're not allowed to wait for a computer to open up, go away" rule. Seriously, do I really look suspicious as an Asian student with an Old Navy messenger bag and Lenscrafters glasses, fumbling around with his battered iPod nano?

Whatever. Serves me right for putting it off until now, I guess. I should have known that Sunday is a popular time for people to work on things, even if the upcoming week is dead week.

At least the end is in sight. I've figured out the intricacies of Final Cut Pro and its companion programs to the point where I think it's just a matter of sitting down and putting it all together. No more of this "staring blankly at the mac screen" bullshit.


And another note on hindsight...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
M.I.A. will be signing copies of her new record “Kala” at the following locations:

MIAMI, FL
10/29 @ 6:30pm
UNCLE SAMS
1141 WASHINGTON AVE

ATLANTA, GA
10/31 @ 6:30pm
CRIMINAL RECORDS
466 MORELAND AVE

DALLAS, TX
11/4 @ 4pm
GOOD RECORDS
1808 LOWER GREENVILLE AVE

SAN DIEGO, CA
11/11 @ 4pm
LOU’S
434 NORTH COAST HIGHWAY 101
ENCINITAS, CA

SEATTLE, WA
11/16 @ 6pm
EASY STREET
20 MERCER STREET
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just shoot me. Right now. The concert was on the same day too. This is what I get for not paying attention.

But for now, off to scavenge for a video editing computer to the tune of Boyz.

Of lunar proportions

So I realized that I'm probably going to be doing a lot of crossposting of pictures. Between this blog, the LC blog, and facebook, my pictures will probably get uploaded at a minimum of two times. I personally don't give a damn, but some people might deem it fit to label me as redundant. Oh well.

Tuesday evening marked the very last meeting with our Board of Advisors for the year. Below is the end of the evening, minus Bryan and Sean, our photographers.


What a snazzy crowd. It's almost hard to believe that I was a part of this for a year.

You might notice Missy in the crowd. The rest of the LC is having a dinner meeting with her and Andrew Martin later tonight, location to be announced. That should be nice.

This banquet video is going to kill me. I've gone to the library every day this week to try to get my hands on those multimedia computers. Every single time, they've been occupied. I'm going back on Saturday with Sean, and if they're still as occupied as ever, I may have to choke a bitch. No joke.

I tried again last night, hoping there'd be less of a crowd late at night. No such luck, Katie came along and we resigned ourselves to the office.

This was taken at 3am. Katie had failed to be productive with her studying, thanks to our call with Sean about random banquet items, but luckily I had managed to get a bunch of finance work out of the way despite my inability to be productive on the video. Give and take, I suppose. But all in all, it was good times.

I booked my tickets to Canada! On December 30th, I shall be in Montreal celebrating Canada's 50th anniversary with Emily and Johanna!

And the week rolls on!

Managing all fronts

More video work today. I should have gone to see RHA though. And now it's 6 a.m. This is me:


I'll get over it though.

I convinced myself earlier tonight that I had had a creative breakthrough, and that inspiration was beating down my door like a fat man at Wendy's. I sat down at my computer and enthusiastically pounded out what I believed was a genius storyboard and accompanying soundtrack. And then I realized... I had really done nothing at all. Without any actual pictures to work with, I had just restructured my original plans into exactly what they used to be with only minor changes, and I was left with the same number of songs that I had coming in. Luckily, however, even though there isn't much in the way of tangible results to be extracted from my six hour foray into insomnia, I think I have a better idea overall of how I want to do this.


Now I'm left with the overarching problem of how to pull this off... like, literally. I still need to figure out the video editting programs and stuff.


And since my sleep schedule is now completely in the toilet, I get to spend the next two days in a total stupor. So much to do today (I love how sometimes, the term "today" applies to two days) and Friday. I hope I haven't rendered myself completely useless.


Well, until next time, here's a preview from the banquet video. Outtake from Katie's reel.

Brace for impact

RoKS preparation is essentially complete.

The budget seems stable and in the black.

Now it's just a matter of time...

More than myself

So a lot of things have happened since I last posted. And I have good news and bad news of many, many varieties. So I'll do this in a very schizophrenic way: I'll say something good, and then something bad.

The good news is:
I'm going to have more free time outside of classes to devote to writing here, doing stuff for AIESEC, etc.
The bad news is:
I had to drop down to 9 credit hours.

I really feel bad about this. I was planning to pull this all-nighter tonight to finish all the work and reading and papers I had to do for tomorrow, plus prepare for the board of advisors meeting tomorrow which I have to do tonight because I plan on sleeping tomorrow morning and afternoon. I finished my ethics paper (thank GOD) and saw that I had seven hours to do my empirical methods paper, which I thought would be sufficient. It's only 1000 words, afterall. But then I get started on it... and I realize there's no way in holy hell that I'm going to be able to pull it off. And I don't even have an excuse for it. It was all just very bad time management. I could retreat into the explanations of having too much to do... but look at everyone else on the EB that's taking classes. Hell, look at Amy and Arcadiy and Tiffany (Ms. 21 hours... ugh). The worst part of it all is that I already had dropped a class earlier this week... my Vietnam War class. There was just way too much reading for it... over 100 pages each week. It was a really great class too.

I ended up dropping Empirical Methods too, if that wasn't obvious already. I really hope I'm not starting a trend of biting off more than I can chew. With any luck, I'll get into the groove of balancing academics and extracurriculars by the end of the semester... I've never had to do that, ever. In high school I glided through classes without doing any substancial work and just doing the bare minimum for projects, and ended up getting A's/B's and somehow managing to get my IB diploma. I hadn't participated in very many intensive outside activities either, until senior year when I sank myself into robotics as a worthless cheerleader. And then my first two years at tech were basically repeats of high school... gliding through core classes and focusing on the hard ones *cough*bullshitphysics*cough* and not giving any heed to student orgs. And then this past fall... Katie pulls me into AIESEC. That semester went well, but only because I didn't really do much of anything substancial within the organization. I was a warm body.

But this semester? Rip took off, and I felt the need to be important. This is the year that we're supposed to boom. As Tiffany said, "Last year we did all the talking. This year? It's y'alls job to do all the doing." And it's been a culture that is very good for the organization... but very bad for me in terms of what I can handle. I took up this huge role and at the same time took for granted the amount of time I'd have to invest in it. And of course, I had registered for the same number of hours that I usually take. In hindsight, I haven't even been that busy with @ in general either... like I said, it was all bad time management. Combined, all the work I had at the beginning of this semester probably would've added up to about 21 credit hours worth of work. Something like that is entirely feasible, of course, but it's not something I'm used to. I don't have the work ethic for that yet. I get things done, but I get them done at a 15 credit hour pace. And where did that leave me? Doing my AIESEC obligations and scrambling to get my academic obligations met. And now I'm down 2 classes.

But enough of that emo belly-aching. I don't regret any of it. In fact, I think it's a good thing that I've been thrust into this headfirst. It's been a great wake-up call.


More good news: I'm going to Morocco!
More bad news: I'm not going to Wales.

Pretty simple there. I'll get over the Wales thing... eventually. ;)

Good news: my Global Business Environment project group is finally coming together.
Bad news: I have no fucking idea what our product is or what it does.

This is one of the classes that I refused to drop, along with ethics. It's only taught once a year so I'd have to wait until next Spring if I wanted to take it again. I have huge expectations for how this class is going to turn out. It already feels like the culminating research paper in this class could be something to stick onto a resume in of itself, like the policy brief I wrote last semester for Foreign Policy. Hooray for being well-rounded...

Good news: RoKS is finally starting to come together.
Bad news: I need to stop bringing up things that aren't official.

I brought it up earlier this week that I thought I'd get as much as half of the conference paid for by these two foundations. Now I'm not so sure. I sent in the revised budget to both of them on Monday night, and I haven't heard back from them yet. This is after having a less than 12 hour response time on every other correspondence. I'm really dreading that email where they say they're not interested or can't help us based on what they can and cannot pay for. And I'm dreading the next LTM and next OC conference call even more. It really sucks to have to say "Sorry guys, we're not getting that money anymore..." In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have brought it up at LTM this past Sunday, but I was so certain that we'd get it at the time. Like 90%. I've been so wrapped up this week that I still haven't made the calls to Papa John's and Einstein's/Publix either like I planned for this week. I'm becoming such a failure as an OCVP Finance. But the week's not over yet... there's still time.


I need to learn the extent to which I can kick myself and have it be constructive, and at which point it becomes overly self-deprecating and just emo.