Gentle Moroccan sirocco

Huzzah! My new blog layout is here! Like a veritable Dr. Frankenstein, I have breathed life into this behemoth of azure and periwinkle! Which, by the way, is best viewed at a 1152x864 resolution.

Zaps and such:

The background photo is actually from Maddie, and is a view overlooking one of the bays of Rabat, Morocco. Isn't it gorgeous?

I totally (and shamelessly) cannabalized the code for this from Dan Rubin, who I assume works for blogger or something. The original template was called Thisaway (Blue). Whoever you are, Dan, I owe you one!


... I guess that's it.

I'm not actually done yet, I have some layout changes to make (once I figure out how the hell to do it... I hate CSS). But yay the bulk of it is done!

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!

My makeshift safari

Went out on the town last night with Gina. Ran into Sumeet, Saie, Nick, and Naya. Good times.

However, being in such a provincial town as G'ville made me really appreciate the AIESEC way of life. I couldn't wait to get back to Atlanta.

But! Some interesting things I ran into that night.



Guess who. And it was handcrafted too. We ended up at Saie's friend's apartment watching Superbad, and this was right next to their front door.




I feel like I could create a lawlcat caption to go with that. This was at the next house we went to. The guys there got a kitten and let it run around on their couches. The above pic is the result of kitty exploration.

Choke it down

Black Friday, y'all!

So I went to set up camp outside the mall this morning at 4am with my girl Gina. They had their yearly Black Friday give-away at 6am. When we got there, there were only about 20 people waiting already. However, as we sat there and chatted away about nothing in particular, the bodies just started to pour in like little kids to the sound of video games. By the time 6am rolled around, the people behind us were pushing into the glass double doors like we were waiting in a Soviet line for bread. I, however, got the last laugh, when I yanked away a bag and it contained a $50 "shopping spree"... basically a fancy name for a nameless credit card with a $50 line of credit.

Hells yeah.

I immediately yanked that heavenly piece of plastic from the receptionist's hand at Customer Service and hightailed it to Express. They had a sale going: 20% off everything in the store, and an additional $20 off all jeans. So what did that net me?

Factoring in the $50 from my depleted gift card, I basically spent about $25 on two pairs of really, really nice jeans. Tag price? $59.95 each.

I freakin' win. The tiny little consumer whore inside of me nearly died from the orgasmic bliss.

Afterwards, we wandered around and had some overpriced pretzels, but it was ok because we had BOGO coupons for them in our bags. And then it was off to Best Buy!

God forbid Best Buy actually has some nice deals in their damn sales. But check this shit out:

7.5MP Fujifilms digital camera. Retail price: $179.99.
What did I pay? $89.99.

I'm not even going to comment on the greatness of that find. And I didn't even get there until 9am. The doors opened at 6am.

And finally, a little @ news to validate my prior raving. The LC nomadlife address is finally up! Links to the right. Soon, it will be chock full of precious tidbits and testaments to our greatness.

In other news, I finished Cat's Eye. Full review coming soon.

Millions of photos incoming later from my brand spankin' new cammie.

A spaghetti bomb

My attempts to work on the banquet video from home have been foiled. If you've not yet had the torturous pleasure of trying to browse through a clusterfuck of facebook photo albums whilst on a dial-up internet connection, save yourself the hassle and just spring for the noose.

On that note, my trip home has been about as predictable as can be. It's too close to the holiday season, so my eldest of friends are separated into two categories. They're either 1) spending that time with family, or 2) living it up on the dubious Gainesville club scene. Obviously, there's not much I can do about #1, and I'm just not pretty enough (or loose in the pants enough) to go after #2. Fortunately, Black Friday will provide some necessary distraction. I don't even care if I don't buy anything, though my cumulative lack of holiday shopping indicates that I should plan on it.

So what am I doing until then? A lot of reading.

I brought down my self-assembled Atwood anthology, knowing that I would lack theftable internet and cable television. The included novels are as follows: Oryx and Crake, Cat's Eye, The Robber Bride, and The Edible Woman. In a matter of about 24 hours, I've managed to plow my way through Oryx and Crake and about 300 pages of Cat's Eye. Meanwhile I'm reminded of my high school english teacher who used to brag about being able to put away one of these books every night, and considering her advertised bed time, that means she read them from cover to cover in about 2 hours. 3 hours tops. I need to work on my reading velocity. Speed? Whatever.

In the process, I've downed countless bottles of Crystal Light Raspberry and crammed an entire tin of Planter's Cashews down my neck. I feel like a fatty.

The title is homage to some crazy bitch in Cat's Eye who threw a paper bag filled with cooked spaghetti and meat sauce onto her boyfriend and his mistress. Obviously, hilarity ensued.


More updates from the homefront later in the week!

Some damage control

Note to self: I should not be allowed to be anywhere near a keyboard while intoxicated. Especially when I think I'm being hilarious.

Oh well.

One of the tamer shots from last night (what the fuck am I doing with my left arm):

Selfish goals abound

1. I managed to make a complete fool of myself tonight. Pictures to follow.

2. I'm going to be single again. How will I ever pick up the pieces and carry on? How will I ever get over him and be myself again?

Goddamn you and your mail order bride...

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.

Those tired eyes

So I start the banquet video tomorrow. One emotion springs to mind:

Taken a few years ago on the way back from Crescent Beach. The epitome of road rage, at least for me.

It's not that I'm angry about this, per se. It's more of a sense of "what the hell am I doing" and general anxiety. I don't know a thing about video editting. I don't know how to splice in music, I don't know how to transition from one clip to the next, hell I don't even know what program I should be using.

I'm glad I have a general idea of how I want to do it, at least... my artistic vision, if you will. In reality, it really is a rip-off of the AIESEC Canada video, but of course, given my historic obsession with reality shows and teenage angst movies, I think my version is going to end up as a weird combination of a music video and The Real World. I'm not sure if that should worry me or not.

I really want to be able to post more pictures here... and not have to rely on my cell to do it. This blog feels incomplete and generally boring without visual aids. I've been looking for a new camera for awhile now, but I have yet to bite the bullet and actually buy one. Oh well. Until then, I'll have to rely on old pictures from the dusty archives...

Captivated by light

I know this has nothing to do with AIESEC. But how can you resist pandas?!

Just look at that face. If that doesn't break your heart, you're probably an asshole.

Shalom, pallid traveler

It didn't occur to me until tonight that the AIESEC GT landscape could be completely different next spring.

It's somewhat of a bittersweet vision. Of course, there's the newer members of the present blossoming into full fledged AIESECers, and the fresh crop of newies that always reaffirms everyone's vision of what AIESEC really is.

And then there's the everpresent absence: those who have left for traineeships but their presence lingers like a sweet summer scent... and those who have moved on in life and won't ever return, gone but not forgotten.

I never realized how attached to certain people I had become. There's no other way to put it. Once all those people are gone, if I'm still around, I don't know if it'd be the same. For the first time, I understand why people return from really long traineeships and have a hard time reintegrating into their LC. Everyone they knew is gone... the LC had changed on them. True to form, home had disappeared and left an alien, yet friendly replacement.

I guess that's just the nature of things. But it's still unsettling to think about.

The eleventh hour

Ironically enough, right?

RoKS just ended. Quite easily the most amazing conference experience I've had in the U.S. since I joined AIESEC. Props to the entire OC for their hard work. On top of that, my virgin faci experience was really good, although somewhat hectic. The session for which I was of primary responsibility ended up being a hit, and my other two sessions went incrediby well, mostly due to the amazing creature known as Maddie; I played TA to her professor. The learning experience was priceless, and I already know that it's not over. Faci roles have a real future in my @ life. On top of that, I've never felt a greater sense of regional cohesion than I have at this moment. It's truly inspiring.

And then I come back, and boom. I manage to light the fires on several burning bridges within an hour. In my head, I'm trying to go through where everything went wrong. I'm resigned to the fact that much of it may be ultimately my fault, though I know that all of it isn't.

Times like these make me question my plans, if I need to take a step back and move away from the LC, if I should let things run their course, if I've lost perspective and need to let things lie... in short, get away like Tiffany.