So I know I haven't posted in a while (I can't believe it's been a month!) but things have been so busy and crazy that I just haven't had the time. So here is a quick recap of what's happened the last month.
First off Internships: I had already had an internship when I came out here, and had been applying to find another one, got a second internship doing development for a production company that does mostly non scripted stuff (things you'd find on animal planet, discovery channel, history channel) but the week after I started my second internship, the first one said that they didn't have the work to keep me on and had to let me go (strangely I was ok with this). But at least I had the other one, so I went back on the look for a second internship again, and then at the begining of the month was finally able to secure a second internship at a production company that does a lot a sketch comedy stuff. I'll be mostly working in post-production will will hopefully get to do some production work too. All in all I'm really happy with the internships I have, although they keep me uber busy.
Next LA trips/adventures: So the last thing I blogged about was the Price Is Right taping that we went to. Since then I've gone to a LA Kings game (they played the Calgary Flames and lost 1-0), Explored LA's Natural History Museum, spending an unhealthy amount of time in the gems and minerals exhibit for anyone who is not a science major, spent about 15 hours in Disneyland :) and having the time of my life with some of the most amazing people I have met out here, and going to the Griffith Observatory with some really fun girls, and getting to see Jupiter!!! (again I think I should have been a science major)
Bad Days and Realizations: But as is life not everything that happens can be "good" but everything can be taken as a learning experience. This past week has really been rough, my laptop fried and it took longer than I would have liked for the technicians to realize what the actual problem was, but after getting over the initial shock, and a decent amount of time playing phone tag between myself, my parents (mainly my dad), and my brother, I got a new computer. However this experience really taught me a lot. For one thing it forced me to bring God and my faith back into perspective, which I admit I had been pushing to the side in order to focus on my internships (both the searching and the work) as well as all the experiences and activities that I had been given the opportunity to be a part of. But I was able to devote much more time this past week than I think I have since I've been out here (that is if you don't count going to church every sunday). It gave me the time to read the book "Redeeming Love", a book I highly recommend to EVERYONE who has not read it, which I had been trying to read since I've been out here, but actually I was actually recommended the book last semester by many people more than once. Loosing my computer though also made me realize how dependent not only students and professionals are to technology, but really the entire American Culture is, as well as how "comfortable" we as a society have become. When you think about it were is our focus? What are the handful of things that if taken away would cause us to actually panic? But I guess my most important question is WHY? Why do we put those things first? When did our need for stuff and our ability to keep ourselves busy become more important that spending time in silence and with one another?
All in all I am having an wonderful semester and am so in awe of everything that I'm getting the opportunity to do and can not believe how blessed I am to able to learn so much about not only the media industry in general, but also about our culture, the history of media, LA, and the western US in general, as well as learning more about myself and other people.
I know this was a long time coming and I'm going to really try to keep up with it for the rest of the time that I'm out here.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Whirlwind Adventures
The last few days have been a complete whirlwind of fun and I haven't had the opportunity to write about all until now.
The week it self was good, I've gotten into a routine that's almost 100% set just need to square away a few more things but I'm pretty happy with the way its looking. Saturday a group of friends and I went to the Santa Monica Peer and spent the whole day just sitting on the beach and wandering the peer. It took about an hour or so for the realization to hit me that I was sitting at the beach on the first weekend in February! I am no longer on the east coast. I spent most of the day hanging out with my group of girl friends, although we did hang out with some of our guy friends who had come. The one part of the day that really sticks out to me though is talking with my friend Dylan, who is also from Jersey, and just talking about the similarities and differences between the beaches in California and those at the Shore.
Sunday was fun went to church, came back and than hung out with a group of friends and watched the Super Bowl. Now I'm not the biggest sports fan out there, I'm actually not even really a sports fan. I know enough about sports to be able to watch them, know what's going on and to talk about them, I just don't care who's playing. The Superbowl and the World Series however I will watch and will end up rooting for a team, however I do not choose a team until the very end. On Sunday I did end up rooting for the Giants but I didn't realize I wanted them to win until the 4th quarter had started.... Either way Sunday was still fun.
Now Yesterday was one of the best day's I have had out here!! I, along with 24 other IC students went to watch a taping of The Price Is Right!!!! It was SOOOOOOOOOOOO much fun and one of the guys in our group was actually chosen to be a contestant!!!! Unfortunatly I can not tell you anything more than that because of a confidentiality agreement we had to sign, but I will tell you that the studio is so much smaller than I would have thought, no idea how they get the the car's to fit on there. But after the taping a group of friends that had also gone to the taping went to In-and-Out burger, overall the fries are horrible, the burger was good though and whatever sauce they put on the burger I need to get the recipe for. After eating we came back, I ran and got changed to get to an interview for an Internship. The interview went well and hopefully looks promising. But after the Interview I met up with a few a friends at YogurtLand for free yogurt day. The perfect way to end one of the best day's I've had since coming out here!
The week it self was good, I've gotten into a routine that's almost 100% set just need to square away a few more things but I'm pretty happy with the way its looking. Saturday a group of friends and I went to the Santa Monica Peer and spent the whole day just sitting on the beach and wandering the peer. It took about an hour or so for the realization to hit me that I was sitting at the beach on the first weekend in February! I am no longer on the east coast. I spent most of the day hanging out with my group of girl friends, although we did hang out with some of our guy friends who had come. The one part of the day that really sticks out to me though is talking with my friend Dylan, who is also from Jersey, and just talking about the similarities and differences between the beaches in California and those at the Shore.
Sunday was fun went to church, came back and than hung out with a group of friends and watched the Super Bowl. Now I'm not the biggest sports fan out there, I'm actually not even really a sports fan. I know enough about sports to be able to watch them, know what's going on and to talk about them, I just don't care who's playing. The Superbowl and the World Series however I will watch and will end up rooting for a team, however I do not choose a team until the very end. On Sunday I did end up rooting for the Giants but I didn't realize I wanted them to win until the 4th quarter had started.... Either way Sunday was still fun.
Now Yesterday was one of the best day's I have had out here!! I, along with 24 other IC students went to watch a taping of The Price Is Right!!!! It was SOOOOOOOOOOOO much fun and one of the guys in our group was actually chosen to be a contestant!!!! Unfortunatly I can not tell you anything more than that because of a confidentiality agreement we had to sign, but I will tell you that the studio is so much smaller than I would have thought, no idea how they get the the car's to fit on there. But after the taping a group of friends that had also gone to the taping went to In-and-Out burger, overall the fries are horrible, the burger was good though and whatever sauce they put on the burger I need to get the recipe for. After eating we came back, I ran and got changed to get to an interview for an Internship. The interview went well and hopefully looks promising. But after the Interview I met up with a few a friends at YogurtLand for free yogurt day. The perfect way to end one of the best day's I've had since coming out here!
Monday, January 30, 2012
Wekend Recap
So on Saturday ICLA went to Orlando Studios. Unlike the one in Florida the one out here doesn't have that many rides but it has a ton of shows and demonstrations. We all met up outside the Park between 9:45 and 10am. After we got our tickets from Jon (one of the ICLA heads) we headed into the park and to the Universal Studios Tour. At the enterance to the tour there is a large photo screen of the Hollywood sign and as per tradition we took a group photo to add to the wall in the Pendleton Center. When we got to the tour they had us get on tour carts (they looked like large golf carts) and they took us around the different sets, we saw the desperate housewives houses, jaws, king kong, their "New York" street (which is just large buildings that can be found in any city), the mummy set, Jurassic Park and we actually were able to go into a sound stage, the one we went into was a subway/train set up. They also showed us how they did some of the effects from Fast and the Furrious (how they get cars to fly away after an explosion). The tour was really interesting with some really iconic movie sets and pieces.
After the tour Jon left and we had the entire day to explore the park. I ended up hanging with Jenna, Jackie, Alyssa and Colleen the entire day. Our first stop we decided would be the House of Horrors, a haunted house that was really well done. After that and being scared out of our mind we decided to go to the Shrek 3D show, and it was actually really cute. After the show we realized we were all really hungry so we decided to have lunch.
After lunch the girls and I decided we wanted to take in some more shows. And being that we were right next to the stage for the Animals show we went to that. They showed us how they trained the Animals that you see in Movies and how they get them to act like the directors want. During the opening of the show Colleen, Alyssa and I commented on how easily mesmerized we were just watching the animals (dogs, cats, birds, rats/mice, a chicken, a pig, and a monkey) run across the stage. After the show we had some time to kill before the Special Effects show so we went over to the Simpsons ride, which was actually quite fun. From there we went over to the Special Effects show where they showed us different ways you can make things on camera seem real. We also learned the difference between something being "old" and something being "classic" After the show we decided to hit the one area of the park we hadn't hit yet, the Jurassic Park and Mummy rides. When we got over to that part of the park, the Mummy ride was temporally closed due to "technical difficulties" so we decided we would hit the Jurassic park ride and see what the status of the ride was once we were done. Now Jurassic Park is a water ride, and at this point it was getting late, the sun was going down, and a chill was setting in, not the best time to go on a splash ride, but we did anyways, and came out pretty dry. Jurassic Park didn't take as long as we had expected it to and when we got out the Mummy was still closed so we decided to hit the Simpsons ride again. After we got out of the Simpsons, not as good the second time, the Mummy was open so we went back over. After standing in line for what seemed like ever we finally got on, and it was actually really good, although shorter than we would have liked.
At this point we had hit everything we wanted and the park was going to close in about half and hour so we left the park and hit City Walk. City Walk, although not part of the park has a ton of restaurants, shops, and events (we passed a band at one end and a dance off competition at the other) the girls and I decided to stop at subway and get subs to eat back at the apartments, but we wanted to make sure we hit YogurtLand (the frozen yogurt shop, think Coldstone with frozen yogurt instead of ice cream but so much better).
Sunday, I got up early, went to church, and no I have not chosen a church yet I'm still church hopping to see whats here. But the church I went to was really nice and close enough to walk to on a nice day. Later in the day I met up with a small group of ICLA kids and went to play laser lag. We did fairly well the first time but the second time we got beat out by a stupid little kid, he was probably 10/12 ish who cheated and just picked a person on a different team to follow around the whole time and shoot. But in the end we had fun and that's all that really matters.
Corinne
After the tour Jon left and we had the entire day to explore the park. I ended up hanging with Jenna, Jackie, Alyssa and Colleen the entire day. Our first stop we decided would be the House of Horrors, a haunted house that was really well done. After that and being scared out of our mind we decided to go to the Shrek 3D show, and it was actually really cute. After the show we realized we were all really hungry so we decided to have lunch.
After lunch the girls and I decided we wanted to take in some more shows. And being that we were right next to the stage for the Animals show we went to that. They showed us how they trained the Animals that you see in Movies and how they get them to act like the directors want. During the opening of the show Colleen, Alyssa and I commented on how easily mesmerized we were just watching the animals (dogs, cats, birds, rats/mice, a chicken, a pig, and a monkey) run across the stage. After the show we had some time to kill before the Special Effects show so we went over to the Simpsons ride, which was actually quite fun. From there we went over to the Special Effects show where they showed us different ways you can make things on camera seem real. We also learned the difference between something being "old" and something being "classic" After the show we decided to hit the one area of the park we hadn't hit yet, the Jurassic Park and Mummy rides. When we got over to that part of the park, the Mummy ride was temporally closed due to "technical difficulties" so we decided we would hit the Jurassic park ride and see what the status of the ride was once we were done. Now Jurassic Park is a water ride, and at this point it was getting late, the sun was going down, and a chill was setting in, not the best time to go on a splash ride, but we did anyways, and came out pretty dry. Jurassic Park didn't take as long as we had expected it to and when we got out the Mummy was still closed so we decided to hit the Simpsons ride again. After we got out of the Simpsons, not as good the second time, the Mummy was open so we went back over. After standing in line for what seemed like ever we finally got on, and it was actually really good, although shorter than we would have liked.
At this point we had hit everything we wanted and the park was going to close in about half and hour so we left the park and hit City Walk. City Walk, although not part of the park has a ton of restaurants, shops, and events (we passed a band at one end and a dance off competition at the other) the girls and I decided to stop at subway and get subs to eat back at the apartments, but we wanted to make sure we hit YogurtLand (the frozen yogurt shop, think Coldstone with frozen yogurt instead of ice cream but so much better).
Sunday, I got up early, went to church, and no I have not chosen a church yet I'm still church hopping to see whats here. But the church I went to was really nice and close enough to walk to on a nice day. Later in the day I met up with a small group of ICLA kids and went to play laser lag. We did fairly well the first time but the second time we got beat out by a stupid little kid, he was probably 10/12 ish who cheated and just picked a person on a different team to follow around the whole time and shoot. But in the end we had fun and that's all that really matters.
Corinne
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Late Night Thoughts
There's something about the night sky that really allows me to put things in perspective in ways that nothing/no one else really can. Even though I am in LA, a major US city, it is still possible to the moon and some stars, no where near as bright or as many as I can when I'm home or at IC but still there's something about it that just so calming, peaceful and makes everything that's happened throughout the day seem so trivial and unimportant.
I am currently sitting outside on the little balcony of my apartment, and realizing that there is almost no way I would be doing this at IC at this time of night. But I'm not at IC I'm in LA, nearly 3,000 miles away on the other side of the country. God has me out here for a reason, he has something for me to do, something for me to learn either about myself, people around me, the media industry... who knows! But I'm here and that's the important thing.
At times though being in LA doesn't seem real. Although I've been out here for about 2 1/2 weeks, I still sort of feel like I'm on vacation, that at some point I'll either wake up back home in NJ a week before having to head back to Ithaca for the Spring Semester, and this whole thing will have been a dream, or the ICLA group that I'm out here with will all get on a plane and head back to IC and everything that happened out here was just a test, and everything will go back to how it would be if we hadn't come out here.
A part of me will be home sick the entire time that I'm out here, in part because I'm not with all of my friends at IC, but a bigger part of my current homesicknes, I think, is due to Internship drama, I currently only have one on Thursday and Friday, and Classes on Tuesday, so I still have all Monday and Wednesday free and am trying to get another Internship for those two days.
I know that everything will work out in the end, it always does, God has a plan especially when we can't see it or figure out what exactly it is. But whatever the reason I'm here I'll figure it out at some point. But until then I guess I just have to muddle along and take things day by day.
Lost, Confused and Day-dreaming
Corinne
I am currently sitting outside on the little balcony of my apartment, and realizing that there is almost no way I would be doing this at IC at this time of night. But I'm not at IC I'm in LA, nearly 3,000 miles away on the other side of the country. God has me out here for a reason, he has something for me to do, something for me to learn either about myself, people around me, the media industry... who knows! But I'm here and that's the important thing.
At times though being in LA doesn't seem real. Although I've been out here for about 2 1/2 weeks, I still sort of feel like I'm on vacation, that at some point I'll either wake up back home in NJ a week before having to head back to Ithaca for the Spring Semester, and this whole thing will have been a dream, or the ICLA group that I'm out here with will all get on a plane and head back to IC and everything that happened out here was just a test, and everything will go back to how it would be if we hadn't come out here.
A part of me will be home sick the entire time that I'm out here, in part because I'm not with all of my friends at IC, but a bigger part of my current homesicknes, I think, is due to Internship drama, I currently only have one on Thursday and Friday, and Classes on Tuesday, so I still have all Monday and Wednesday free and am trying to get another Internship for those two days.
I know that everything will work out in the end, it always does, God has a plan especially when we can't see it or figure out what exactly it is. But whatever the reason I'm here I'll figure it out at some point. But until then I guess I just have to muddle along and take things day by day.
Lost, Confused and Day-dreaming
Corinne
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Rain, Rain, Why are you not Snow!
I really don't like rain. I mean don't get me wrong, it's beautiful and calming and reassuring and needed, a lot like God has been to me in this past week, but whenever it rains, everything just stops, you can't really do anything. Today the ICLA group was suppose to go to Universal, take a tour of the studios and than spend the rest of the day at the park just having fun. But because of the Rain today, the outing got postponed to next weekend. Now if this rain was snow that would be a different story. Although the outing would have still been canceled you could at least go out and play in the snow, building snowmen, sledding, having snow ball fights, etc. but with rain you can't. I know I should be grateful for the rain, especially when Ithaca and the North East are getting hit by a bad snow storm, but a part of me still wants the snow, it would at least give me a little bit of winter normalcy, being so far away from most of my friends this semester, some of which are abroad, doing internships, taking a semester at a different school, but yet still more are going back to IC to start classes on Monday, and realizing how terribly I miss them.
On to other news though, I finished my first week of Interning!! YEA! So a little background on my internship. I am interning at a small post-production company called Paper Gun. The people I am working with are incredibly nice and the work is fun. Right now we're working on a music video for some YouTube singers and everything was shot on a green screen so that we can replace the entire background with graphics and images. So for the past two days, I'm only interning at PG on Thursdays and Fridays, I've been working on that, audio syncing (which is where you check and make sure that people's mouths line up with what they're saying/singing) and drawing. Now I'm not that great at drawing but with the help of the internet I've figured out how to draw all the different parts of an explosion. Smoke is actually really hard to draw because it doesn't have a defined shape, Fire is fun to draw and after a few tries I was able to get it down, but the part that was really easy to draw were the flying rocks and debris. But that's really all i've done so far, I know it'll pick up once we get busier.
Happy, Frustrated, and a Little Homesick
Corinne
On to other news though, I finished my first week of Interning!! YEA! So a little background on my internship. I am interning at a small post-production company called Paper Gun. The people I am working with are incredibly nice and the work is fun. Right now we're working on a music video for some YouTube singers and everything was shot on a green screen so that we can replace the entire background with graphics and images. So for the past two days, I'm only interning at PG on Thursdays and Fridays, I've been working on that, audio syncing (which is where you check and make sure that people's mouths line up with what they're saying/singing) and drawing. Now I'm not that great at drawing but with the help of the internet I've figured out how to draw all the different parts of an explosion. Smoke is actually really hard to draw because it doesn't have a defined shape, Fire is fun to draw and after a few tries I was able to get it down, but the part that was really easy to draw were the flying rocks and debris. But that's really all i've done so far, I know it'll pick up once we get busier.
Happy, Frustrated, and a Little Homesick
Corinne
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Wow I've been out here this long already????
Ok so first off I have no idea why I'm dong this but I am so here goes nothing...
So as many of you know I'm am spending the semester out in Los Angeles CA with the Ithaca College LA Program. For those of you who don't know what that is i'll try to explain what it is as best I can. So the Ithaca College Park School of Communications has a satellite campus in LA because we have far too many alumni and a ton work out here. Every semester Park sends about 80ish students out here. We are given housing in the Oakwood Toluca Hills Apartments on the border of Hollywood and Burbank. All students (and yes we are registered as full time students) are required to take 2 classes at the Pendleton Center down the street and must have one or two credited Internships.
Ok so now that you know sort of what I'm doing here's a recap of what's happened so far. So I flew out to LA from New Jersey, my home state (yes I'm a Jersey Girl, how many of you does that actually surprise? I really want to know) on Saturday January 7th at 7am. There were 7 other IC students on the flight, some of which was spent sleeping. After we landed and got our bags we headed over to the apartments to check in, get our keys, and sign some papers that said we'd be good neighbors, keep the noise down, not have any "parties" and yada yada ya... Finally after all that we were given our room assignments (the actual building and room number we were gong to live in) and keys and the flight went our separate ways. When I finally got to the room it was mid afternoon. I was the first one of my roommates to arrive (although Sam, Lauren and Anissa got here not long after) so I decided to look around before they got here. The apartments is actually REALLY nice and it will be a long time until I live in as nice a place as this again. I probably should take some pictures of the apartment and post them...maybe I'll do that this weekend, we'll see.
But the apartment is completely furnished, has 2 bedrooms (comfortably fitting 2 people per room), 2 baths (each with a toilet, shower, sink/counter and mirror), and a common room (which connects to a balcony) containing the kitchen (with a stove/oven, microwave, fridge, sink/decent amount of counter space and ton of cabnets and drawers) living room (with 2 couches, entertainment center (but no electronics or TV) coffee table, and desk and chair) and a kitchen table and chairs. The bedrooms are as i noted before are fairly large. Sam and Lauren's room (the smaller of the two) has 2 beds, a night table, and a large dresser and two nice size closets. Mine and Anissa's room, while having 2 beds, and a large dresser, has a large walk in closet and 2 end tables, so although the rooms are a little different their more or less the same. Also I should mention that each room connects to its own bathroom.
OK so this is where things got interesting, so Sam had a friend who was out in LA last semester and she didn't want to ship all of her stuff (pots and pans, towels, cleaning supplies, siverware/cookware, plates and bowls and cups...90% of the stuff was for the kitchen...hangers and a tv) so we decided to buy it from her for cheep. But when everyone got here we realized that all the stuff was down at the school in boxes, and there was too much to carry back/we didn't want to break the tv, and that we wouldn't have a car of our own (Sam, Anissa, and Lauren were renting a car) until Monday, although it was Saturday it was too late to get it and it wasn't open on Sunday, so one of Sam's friends who already had his car, volunteered to bring us to Target to get the few things we needed and while we were there we all agreed that since none of us had eaten much all day to stop and eat at a burger place close by.
After we got back from Target, we started to unpack as best we could and after the girls went out to a friends apartment to hang out, I was too tired and decided to relax for a bit and then went to bed.
Sunday morning the girls and I were looking though the folders and papers that we had been given the day before with helpful tips on living in LA and at the apartments, the rules of the apartments, and some information about the IC program and orientation which started on Tuesday, we saw that the Oakwoods provided a complimentary Sunday brunch from 11-Noon and decided to go. The brunch was nice, they had coffee, tea, hot chocolate, water, apple and orange juice, donuts and bagels, it was nice to see a few friends from IC that were also here and to meet a few new people. While a Brunch the group I was eating with decided that we wanted to explore Hollywood and we had all agreed to meet up and go downtown around 2pm.
So after we met up and got on the bus to go downtown, another large group they seemed to be high school/college aged kids also got on and we chatted on our way down. Now to make this story make sense, the group that had decided to go downtown was made of Me, Alyssa W, Alyssa O, Colleen, Alexis, Stacey and Christina and Jenna, Now we were all sitting together near the back and the guy sitting in front of us was from the large group that got on when we did. So we decided to be nice and friendly and strike up a conversation. Well the second he opened his mouth all of our brains started to melt for he was Australian and was in LA with his performance group till the end of January, he introduced himself as Jessie and we introduced ourselves, they had been in NYC for a few weeks before this. Well as we were talking we tried to explain American Geography, for he asked us where we were from, so we told him the states we were from and he understood a little bit (mostly because we were from NY, NJ, Connecticut, Virgina (right outside DC), and PA, which he sort of understood then we told him we went to Ithaca in New York and he thought we meant the City, so we tried to explain that there was more to NY than just the city witch was interesting, but we then changed the topic to school and why we were out in LA, and that discussion was worse than trying to explain US geography to him, because half the time we didn't know what we were saying. Well when we realized that we had to get off at the next stop he asked us all to Facebook friend him, the bus stopped and we all got off and went our separate ways.
After this interesting bus ride the girls and I walked up and down the walk of fame pointing out the people we recognized and taking pictures, after a bit we decided to stop and have lunch someplace but as we walked we realized that every third shop was a NY style pizza shop and couldn't find anything else but pizza, so we chose one at random and went in. The pizza was ok, not really NY but... it was cheep and we were hungry. After lunch we continued walking and went over to the Kodak and Chinese Theater, after we were done there we had to catch the bus to go back to the apartments.
So we caught the bus and at the next stop after we get on who do you think gets on... The Australian Performance Group from before, now we were sitting in the front and Jessie decided to sit behind us and we started taking again, this time about shops and clothes and food and prices and what not. Now right before we got to the apartments we noticed that about a block away there was a white van with signs on it saying "1 hour massage" and parked right behind it was a trailer. Why we hadn't noticed this before who knows but it creeped us girls out. When we got off the bus to go back to the apartments Jessie asked what buildings we were staying, we told him the buildings, he wasn't sure where they were so we said goodby and walked away. At this point Alyssa O pointed out that had he been American we wouldn't have said half the things we did, but whatever none of us friended him on facebook and we haven't seen him again so alls well for now, and we all agreed to try to never be that stupid again.
So the next day, Monday, Lauren and the rest of my apartment went out to get the car early that morning and by the time I woke up had already left, saying they'd be back with the stuff from the school, and we could officially unpack and go grocery shopping. After we got back from shopping and everything was all nicely put away, we decided to go over to the pool for a little while (yes there is a pool, actually there are 2 one on either end of the the property, its a pretty big property, and there are also 2 hot tubs one by each pool, like I said before it is a VERY NICE complex)
So the next day, Tuesday, we had day one of Orientation, all of the IC students met up in one of the Event room/Lounges and again we were told all the rules and expectation of the Program and Apartments as well as the fact that we are not only Interns we are IC interns and should protect the reputation the the school has, yada yada ya... after Jon and the Steves (Ginsberg and Tropiano) the heads of the ICLA program, the head of Oakwood service and Oakwood Chef of Security spoke we were given lunch, which consisted of multiple kinds of sandwiches and either water or soda. After lunch we all went down to the Pendleton Center for a tour, to get our pictures taken for ID purposes, and so Jon and the Steves could explain the class and internship aspect/paper work that we are required to do while we are out here.
So after we were done at the Pendleton center I walked back with some of the guys I knew, who live in the building next to mine. Now after I came back Sam and the girls came back and said that they were going out (if you haven't gotten the drift yet my roommates like to party)
Next day, Wednesday, the ICLA took those of us who wanted to go for a hike up to the Hollywood sign, we spent most of the afternoon hiking and everyone had a blast, a though hike is really a guided path, there is really very little way you can get lost unless you go off the trail. So Alyssa W, Jenna, Jackie and Colleen (referred to from this point on as the girls from R, because their sharing an apartment) and I took our time up at the top and on the way down we came across a wild peacock, we were all sort of stunned and amazed that he was there, mostly because we didn't know where they lived in the wild, we knew we'd come across a coyote at some point because they live in the hills around LA, but not a peacock.
But anyways that was the end of that day, and I don't really remember what happened the following thursday or friday, I don't really think I did much those few days, just work on securing a second internship, hanging out at pendleton and relaxing by the pool.
Saturday however, a group of IC kids decided to go downtown and walk the hollywood strip and see the Wax Museum. So I went down with the girls from R, Quina and Stacey, and we had a blast! There's not really much to say other than there are three floors of celebrities made of wax. The only thing that I feel is worthwhile saying is that they are all a lot shorter than I though, most of them weren't that much taller than I was and I'm 5'4.
Ok so now here's where the really fun/you get extremely jealous stuff comes in...
Sunday was the Golden Globe Awards, and I you don't know what that is why am I friends with you again? But anyways because all of the IC kids out here are Park majors everyone wanted to go and see if we could crash/be in the bleachers/something so we all went over to Beverly Hills and to the Beverly Hilton Hotel and guess what???? They let the group I was with, and I think all of the IC kids that went, GOT IN!!!!!!! I was able to get a few good photos of people, but the quality sucks because we were so fare away, but whatever I was there!! It was one of the Best Days I have had in a long time and I'm so thankful for that experience!
So that was the weekend and then we hit Monday, MLK day which I completely forgot about until a few days before so Sam, Lauren, Anissa and I went grocery shopping and that was about it, I was able to realx and begin worrying about stuff. Like classes, which started the next day. So yes technically I'm only taking 2 classes Electronic Media Criticism and Government and Media, and yes they only meet one day a week (for 3 hours) but still its the first day of classes. But classes seem like they'll be fun. Tropiano teaches Media Crit, and that will more than likely be my favorite class, because for half of our class we watch TV and critique it. Government and Media however may be a little bit more difficult just because its a night class and its a really dense subject, but I'll get though it.
and now on to Wednesday, I had an Interview for an Internship at Good Worldwide, their slogan/target audience is "For People Who Give a Damn" its actually really cool check out their website here. I really hope that I get it because it would be amazing to be able to work with people who are trying to open peoples eyes to whats around us and whats really happening.
It is now Thursday and I really should get some sleep because I start my Internship at Paper Gun, a small indy post-production company here in LA, so I'm praying that everything goes well with that, but I know that I am not alone in anything I do and I need to just remember that everyday.
I'll update this when I can/when something exciting happens.
Nervous, Excited, and Never Alone
Corinne
So as many of you know I'm am spending the semester out in Los Angeles CA with the Ithaca College LA Program. For those of you who don't know what that is i'll try to explain what it is as best I can. So the Ithaca College Park School of Communications has a satellite campus in LA because we have far too many alumni and a ton work out here. Every semester Park sends about 80ish students out here. We are given housing in the Oakwood Toluca Hills Apartments on the border of Hollywood and Burbank. All students (and yes we are registered as full time students) are required to take 2 classes at the Pendleton Center down the street and must have one or two credited Internships.
Ok so now that you know sort of what I'm doing here's a recap of what's happened so far. So I flew out to LA from New Jersey, my home state (yes I'm a Jersey Girl, how many of you does that actually surprise? I really want to know) on Saturday January 7th at 7am. There were 7 other IC students on the flight, some of which was spent sleeping. After we landed and got our bags we headed over to the apartments to check in, get our keys, and sign some papers that said we'd be good neighbors, keep the noise down, not have any "parties" and yada yada ya... Finally after all that we were given our room assignments (the actual building and room number we were gong to live in) and keys and the flight went our separate ways. When I finally got to the room it was mid afternoon. I was the first one of my roommates to arrive (although Sam, Lauren and Anissa got here not long after) so I decided to look around before they got here. The apartments is actually REALLY nice and it will be a long time until I live in as nice a place as this again. I probably should take some pictures of the apartment and post them...maybe I'll do that this weekend, we'll see.
But the apartment is completely furnished, has 2 bedrooms (comfortably fitting 2 people per room), 2 baths (each with a toilet, shower, sink/counter and mirror), and a common room (which connects to a balcony) containing the kitchen (with a stove/oven, microwave, fridge, sink/decent amount of counter space and ton of cabnets and drawers) living room (with 2 couches, entertainment center (but no electronics or TV) coffee table, and desk and chair) and a kitchen table and chairs. The bedrooms are as i noted before are fairly large. Sam and Lauren's room (the smaller of the two) has 2 beds, a night table, and a large dresser and two nice size closets. Mine and Anissa's room, while having 2 beds, and a large dresser, has a large walk in closet and 2 end tables, so although the rooms are a little different their more or less the same. Also I should mention that each room connects to its own bathroom.
OK so this is where things got interesting, so Sam had a friend who was out in LA last semester and she didn't want to ship all of her stuff (pots and pans, towels, cleaning supplies, siverware/cookware, plates and bowls and cups...90% of the stuff was for the kitchen...hangers and a tv) so we decided to buy it from her for cheep. But when everyone got here we realized that all the stuff was down at the school in boxes, and there was too much to carry back/we didn't want to break the tv, and that we wouldn't have a car of our own (Sam, Anissa, and Lauren were renting a car) until Monday, although it was Saturday it was too late to get it and it wasn't open on Sunday, so one of Sam's friends who already had his car, volunteered to bring us to Target to get the few things we needed and while we were there we all agreed that since none of us had eaten much all day to stop and eat at a burger place close by.
After we got back from Target, we started to unpack as best we could and after the girls went out to a friends apartment to hang out, I was too tired and decided to relax for a bit and then went to bed.
Sunday morning the girls and I were looking though the folders and papers that we had been given the day before with helpful tips on living in LA and at the apartments, the rules of the apartments, and some information about the IC program and orientation which started on Tuesday, we saw that the Oakwoods provided a complimentary Sunday brunch from 11-Noon and decided to go. The brunch was nice, they had coffee, tea, hot chocolate, water, apple and orange juice, donuts and bagels, it was nice to see a few friends from IC that were also here and to meet a few new people. While a Brunch the group I was eating with decided that we wanted to explore Hollywood and we had all agreed to meet up and go downtown around 2pm.
So after we met up and got on the bus to go downtown, another large group they seemed to be high school/college aged kids also got on and we chatted on our way down. Now to make this story make sense, the group that had decided to go downtown was made of Me, Alyssa W, Alyssa O, Colleen, Alexis, Stacey and Christina and Jenna, Now we were all sitting together near the back and the guy sitting in front of us was from the large group that got on when we did. So we decided to be nice and friendly and strike up a conversation. Well the second he opened his mouth all of our brains started to melt for he was Australian and was in LA with his performance group till the end of January, he introduced himself as Jessie and we introduced ourselves, they had been in NYC for a few weeks before this. Well as we were talking we tried to explain American Geography, for he asked us where we were from, so we told him the states we were from and he understood a little bit (mostly because we were from NY, NJ, Connecticut, Virgina (right outside DC), and PA, which he sort of understood then we told him we went to Ithaca in New York and he thought we meant the City, so we tried to explain that there was more to NY than just the city witch was interesting, but we then changed the topic to school and why we were out in LA, and that discussion was worse than trying to explain US geography to him, because half the time we didn't know what we were saying. Well when we realized that we had to get off at the next stop he asked us all to Facebook friend him, the bus stopped and we all got off and went our separate ways.
After this interesting bus ride the girls and I walked up and down the walk of fame pointing out the people we recognized and taking pictures, after a bit we decided to stop and have lunch someplace but as we walked we realized that every third shop was a NY style pizza shop and couldn't find anything else but pizza, so we chose one at random and went in. The pizza was ok, not really NY but... it was cheep and we were hungry. After lunch we continued walking and went over to the Kodak and Chinese Theater, after we were done there we had to catch the bus to go back to the apartments.
So we caught the bus and at the next stop after we get on who do you think gets on... The Australian Performance Group from before, now we were sitting in the front and Jessie decided to sit behind us and we started taking again, this time about shops and clothes and food and prices and what not. Now right before we got to the apartments we noticed that about a block away there was a white van with signs on it saying "1 hour massage" and parked right behind it was a trailer. Why we hadn't noticed this before who knows but it creeped us girls out. When we got off the bus to go back to the apartments Jessie asked what buildings we were staying, we told him the buildings, he wasn't sure where they were so we said goodby and walked away. At this point Alyssa O pointed out that had he been American we wouldn't have said half the things we did, but whatever none of us friended him on facebook and we haven't seen him again so alls well for now, and we all agreed to try to never be that stupid again.
So the next day, Monday, Lauren and the rest of my apartment went out to get the car early that morning and by the time I woke up had already left, saying they'd be back with the stuff from the school, and we could officially unpack and go grocery shopping. After we got back from shopping and everything was all nicely put away, we decided to go over to the pool for a little while (yes there is a pool, actually there are 2 one on either end of the the property, its a pretty big property, and there are also 2 hot tubs one by each pool, like I said before it is a VERY NICE complex)
So the next day, Tuesday, we had day one of Orientation, all of the IC students met up in one of the Event room/Lounges and again we were told all the rules and expectation of the Program and Apartments as well as the fact that we are not only Interns we are IC interns and should protect the reputation the the school has, yada yada ya... after Jon and the Steves (Ginsberg and Tropiano) the heads of the ICLA program, the head of Oakwood service and Oakwood Chef of Security spoke we were given lunch, which consisted of multiple kinds of sandwiches and either water or soda. After lunch we all went down to the Pendleton Center for a tour, to get our pictures taken for ID purposes, and so Jon and the Steves could explain the class and internship aspect/paper work that we are required to do while we are out here.
So after we were done at the Pendleton center I walked back with some of the guys I knew, who live in the building next to mine. Now after I came back Sam and the girls came back and said that they were going out (if you haven't gotten the drift yet my roommates like to party)
Next day, Wednesday, the ICLA took those of us who wanted to go for a hike up to the Hollywood sign, we spent most of the afternoon hiking and everyone had a blast, a though hike is really a guided path, there is really very little way you can get lost unless you go off the trail. So Alyssa W, Jenna, Jackie and Colleen (referred to from this point on as the girls from R, because their sharing an apartment) and I took our time up at the top and on the way down we came across a wild peacock, we were all sort of stunned and amazed that he was there, mostly because we didn't know where they lived in the wild, we knew we'd come across a coyote at some point because they live in the hills around LA, but not a peacock.
But anyways that was the end of that day, and I don't really remember what happened the following thursday or friday, I don't really think I did much those few days, just work on securing a second internship, hanging out at pendleton and relaxing by the pool.
Saturday however, a group of IC kids decided to go downtown and walk the hollywood strip and see the Wax Museum. So I went down with the girls from R, Quina and Stacey, and we had a blast! There's not really much to say other than there are three floors of celebrities made of wax. The only thing that I feel is worthwhile saying is that they are all a lot shorter than I though, most of them weren't that much taller than I was and I'm 5'4.
Ok so now here's where the really fun/you get extremely jealous stuff comes in...
Sunday was the Golden Globe Awards, and I you don't know what that is why am I friends with you again? But anyways because all of the IC kids out here are Park majors everyone wanted to go and see if we could crash/be in the bleachers/something so we all went over to Beverly Hills and to the Beverly Hilton Hotel and guess what???? They let the group I was with, and I think all of the IC kids that went, GOT IN!!!!!!! I was able to get a few good photos of people, but the quality sucks because we were so fare away, but whatever I was there!! It was one of the Best Days I have had in a long time and I'm so thankful for that experience!
So that was the weekend and then we hit Monday, MLK day which I completely forgot about until a few days before so Sam, Lauren, Anissa and I went grocery shopping and that was about it, I was able to realx and begin worrying about stuff. Like classes, which started the next day. So yes technically I'm only taking 2 classes Electronic Media Criticism and Government and Media, and yes they only meet one day a week (for 3 hours) but still its the first day of classes. But classes seem like they'll be fun. Tropiano teaches Media Crit, and that will more than likely be my favorite class, because for half of our class we watch TV and critique it. Government and Media however may be a little bit more difficult just because its a night class and its a really dense subject, but I'll get though it.
and now on to Wednesday, I had an Interview for an Internship at Good Worldwide, their slogan/target audience is "For People Who Give a Damn" its actually really cool check out their website here. I really hope that I get it because it would be amazing to be able to work with people who are trying to open peoples eyes to whats around us and whats really happening.
It is now Thursday and I really should get some sleep because I start my Internship at Paper Gun, a small indy post-production company here in LA, so I'm praying that everything goes well with that, but I know that I am not alone in anything I do and I need to just remember that everyday.
I'll update this when I can/when something exciting happens.
Nervous, Excited, and Never Alone
Corinne
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