The Landmark Forum: Part 1

this has to be the most expensive blog entry i’ve ever written. its monetary cost is approximately $420, which doesn’t include the $3 a day parking, plus the cost of all meals, snacks and drinks i consumed while attending The Landmark Forum, a three-day seminar that promises to transform the lives of its attendees in profound, permanent and meaningful ways. i could insert a snarky joke here about how i should have spent that money on laser hair removal instead, but i’m actually glad i attended the Forum because it did do me a lot of good.

Landmark Education has been around for a long time. its history is sordid, with associations to a creepy self-help movement of the ’70s known as est and a founder who, by all accounts, seems like a major douchebag. i spent many hours reading accounts of the Forum by people who attended it, learning the lesson plans and understanding the process so i knew what to expect during the three 13-hour days i would spend in a conference room near LAX with 75 other people during a holiday weekend.

i’m very glad i did that research (thank you, journalism degree), because it made me very skeptical of the process; it made me promise myself that i would think critically about all the material Landmark put in front of me over the three days, that i would examine it thoroughly before deciding whether i agreed enough to incorporate its lessons into my life and way of thinking. this certainly colored my experience of the Forum, as i didn’t go into it fully open-minded, resolving instead to heed my questioning, skeptical self the entire time, but that research — and i know this sounds dramatic — probably saved my life.

Landmark has long been called a cult by many of its critics, an accusation that has its merits, primarily because Landmark’s many “graduates” are super enthusiastic about it, to the point of being annoying. i’ve had a few friends go through the course as well, none of whom were particularly annoying, but all of whom were indeed very enthusiastic. Landmark engenders this kind of enthusiasm among its graduates because its methodology is very powerful.

graduates are encouraged to recruit friends and family to take the Forum, to volunteer at its centers making phone calls (always unpaid), to commit to taking more classes (there are more than 60), and subscribe to an ideology that is full of strange lingo and catch phrases such as “what you don’t know you don’t know” and “running rackets” and “the vicious circle.” the language is very ritualized, where you learn to say things a certain way, and the ideology is nothing short of a religious dogma that must be adopted without question. there is no room for interpretation, examination or disagreement.

Landmark’s way is to tell you how to think, and they do it so effectively that, before long, you forget that you ever once knew how to think for yourself. having said this, i want to go on record and say that i do NOT think Landmark is a cult because it doesn’t encourage participants to become isolated and break off ties with friends and family the way traditional cults do. instead, it encourages everyone to join. it’s not really shrouded in mystery either. anyone can sign up and take courses (though the Forum is always the first course).

i had heard rumors about minders following participants into the bathroom, taking their car keys and locking the doors during the Forum, but i did not see any of this. we were free to come and go as we pleased. i never felt trapped, nor was i tied to a chair with an interrogation light shining in my face. but i definitely felt a lot of pressure to conform, to accept everything i was told without reservation, to transform and submit and obey, and to toss aside my long-standing ways of thinking and replace them with Landmark’s dogma. this is brainwashing, and Landmark does it well.

despite how that sounds, some of their techniques were extremely helpful. i did learn a lot about myself and examined both my good and bad habits — and the events that likely shaped them. i learned how to think about situations differently and emerged from my three days of instruction feeling incredibly motivated. to that end, it was definitely money well spent. i took away several valuable lessons about life and possibility from my Landmark experience, but the majority of the coursework i left behind, because while i don’t think that Landmark is a cult, i do think it is very, very cultish. it is also very powerful.

so what happens at the Landmark Forum?

part two to be published soon.

Dorking Out

whooooo! new colors for the new year! ok, i’m a little late at the update as it’s february already, and i’m super overdue for a blog redesign, having kept the same template since this blog’s inception in 2003, but hopefully this color switcheroo will mark the start a new yearly trend. (does it look ok? not too bright nor dull?)

what inspired the change? glad you asked! let me tell you about this nifty class i took on web development, courtesy of Learning Tree International (and my employer’s dime). i spent last week in glorious Costa Mesa, shacked up in the (shit hole) Days Inn for four nights, with days spent at the nearby Radisson Hotel where i learned all about what it takes to build a web site from the ground up.

and holy shit, it’s complicated — like really, really complicated. i spent the week lost in a fog of acronyms and applications, hearing such terms as PHP, Perl, JSP, applet, ASP, SQL, XML and CSS. and to think i took the class to learn basic HTML, which we did only on the first day. i thought being a copy editor would up my aptitude for learning this stuff, as i’m already ridiculously detail-oriented, but this kicked my ass. apparently, it’s not as easy to spot errors in code as it is in copy.

i’m trying to learn it, though it is a new and foreign language. one time in class, it took me ten minutes to realize the instructor had switched topics to database management and SQL, which he kept pronouncing as “sequel,” causing me to scour course notes in search of the prequel to his sequel until the phonetics of it finally dawned on me. but i wasn’t entirely without my successes. i did learn much useful HTML, including:

• how to create buttons:


• how to make text bigger and smaller


• how to create checkboxes: <-- Check me!


• how to color text


• how to create text fields:


• how to create radio buttons: Love it! Hate it!



• how

  to

  create

  tables



• how to create horizontal rules:



---

check me out! it’s like that day i learned how to use the advanced formatting features in Word. so invigorating. in any case, i definitely intend to continue learning HTML and CSS through additional classes, books and programs. i got a long way to go before i’m fully dorked out and can truly develop a web site from the ground up, but the class has made for a lovely start.

High on High School

my high school was a funny place. it was this sort of experimental magnet school, grades 4th-12th, where "gifted" kids were mixed in with average retards in the hope that the former would somehow elevate the latter. though a lofty goal, kids were kept segregated in either remedial, normal or honors classes, so the mixing stayed minimal. well over half the student body was nonwhite and bussed in from all over los angeles. it was a public school -- never a fee to attend -- but the waiting list was long and admission was awarded through a lottery system. so we had a mini melting pot of races, socioeconomic backgrounds, IQ levels and ages. it probably sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it worked out well.

i began that school in the 6th grade, attended it seven years and graduated from it three times before finally leaving. when i left i had been there longer than most of the administrators. imagine my surprise when i began UCLA in fall 1994 and found myself as the little fish in big pond when i had been just the opposite for so long. in any case, high school wasn't that traumatic. i did all the stuff one is supposed to do -- cram for exams, play hooky, smoke pot, attend prom, lose my virginity (the week before prom!), sign yearbooks, pass notes in class and so forth. normal american stuff.

my graduating class must have been around 130 kids, and we all knew each other. there was a real sense of unity among us, the Eccentrics of 1994. they say college is the time when you make your friends for life, but i'm more tight with my high-school peeps. after all, we went through all our 'growing pains' together, saw each other through the awkward 'wonder years,' went through divorces, custody battles and pep rallies together. they are my true homies and the loyalty runs deep.

so with this in mind, i had been looking forward to my 10-year reunion. we had all kept tabs on each other somewhat through the years, so it was less a curiousity of what everyone was up to now and more about getting people together in the same room. in a nutshell: It was great, really great. that school spirit was palpable, with everyone seeming genuinely pleased to see one another, hug and catch up. what's interesting is that people looked damn good. all the girls must have gone on a reunion crash diet or something, cus they were looking hot. and the boys -- thinning hair and all -- looked beefier in a good way; all the skinny stragglers had finally hit puberty.

the food tasted yummy, the wine glasses seemed to refill themselves, and the party felt right. to see photos of smiling fools you don't know (unless you're my high-school homey), click here, click here! although we did plenty of mingling, parts of the evening felt cliquish -- just like high school. during dinner, there was a black table, latino table, russian table, honors kids table and an everyone else table. i'm only bummed more people didn't turn out. and i'm bummed i didn't get to stay longer. i found out the next day that someone had rented a hotel room nearby, where i'm sure people played seven minutes in heaven.

i bailed out at about 11pm to attend the birthday party of one juanito de la plancha. (happy birthday, juancho.) but yes, overall it was a blast, and i can't wait until the next one.

I've Done Gone and Gradumacated

yippee!!!!!!! today was the big day, big big big. the culmination of two years' hard work. all the blood, sweat and tears that have stained my mouse pad over the stress that was graduate school finally paid off, and i feel fabulous. light as a feather, free as a bird, happy as a clam and every other positive-spun cliche you can think of. i could barely sleep last night in anticipation of today, and when that alarm went off i popped out of bed alert, electric, excited. the day moved pretty quickly, and parts of it felt surreal. i went to lunch after the ceremony with my parents and aunt, and could barely focus on what was being said. i just kept looking up at the cloudless sky; i felt like it was mine today. just kept looking up and over to the horizon, wanted to see what's behind it. that's where i'm headed.

i know by monday the best stuff will likely have waned and the realization that i'm just unemployed and 20K in the hole will start to sink in. and i know that ultimately this fancy degree means nothing. it's up to me to make my life work and i don't need a degree to do it. all i need is to steady my drive and work toward a goal. it's been crystallizing. these past few weeks have made miracles happen. all the tumult of the first half of the year suddenly seems justified. it's molded me, bringing me to this point where i'm on my own, in total control and incredibly lucid. i get it now. and the second half will be mine to mold. and the one thing i'll never do again is doubt my instincts, for they are my compass.

in other news, today marks my one-year anniversary as a blogger with blogspot.com. and this here is my 100th post. funny, a year ago today i was preparing for my big summer in europe, my grand internship with voice of america in london. oddly, i wouldn't want to go back there and switch places with today. having graduated feels better, less uncertain in some strange way.

and thank you, kind friends and strangers who've been sticking it out, reading this shit for the past year, laughing at me, with me as i embarass myself time and again in this public space. i promise to offer you more entertainment at my expense -- with all this new time on my hands, i'm sure to while some of it away here. and yes, with all this new time, if you find yourself in need of a copyeditor, a drinking buddy, an activities partner, whatever, just drop me a line. i'll be happy to oblige. and now if you'll excuse me, i'm going to have a beer while reveling in the fact that i have NOTHING to do.

booyah!

Bizzy Bee

figured i should update this thing after receiving a delightfully pestering call from germ wondering where the hell i was. so i'm updating just to say i have no time to update lately. walked into that end-of-term shit storm and have found myself with too much work, not enough time and in a perpetual state of grumpy. left to accomplish are two big stories, a handful of columns, busy work from my assigned internship and freelance copy editing for my job. i'm also broke. my two big stories are interesting, however -- one on gay cops in the LAPD, the other on the women's movement. but i haven't finished the reporting for either and am running into problems with both. graduation is may 14, tick tock, tick tock.

the dating has also had to take a backseat and will resume post-May 14. last few dates i had were OK overall, no great greek tragedies. one guy was totally cool, very funny and a fabulous conversationalist. too bad he was also GAY, though i don't think he's aware of that (yet). another guy wasn't too bad, had a moderately enjoyable evening. might see him again, might not, i'm pretty indifferent to the outcome of that one. but the good news is that we have a live one, kids. i've seen O. -- the guy from a zillion dates back -- about 4 or 5 times now. he's in the mix, in rotation, and this makes us quite happy. he's very talented.

that's about it for now. i'll certainly update again before graduation, and then after graduation, i'll probably need to sleep for three days straight. and then, yeah, guess i'll have to find a job.

The Bionic Woman

been incredibly, ridiculously, painfully swamped with schoolwork all week. have had little time for much else. had to move some dates to next week, and have no time to create a grandiose blog entry right now. so instead i'm posting a personal essay i wrote for my magazine writing class. the question is: where to submit the sucker? i need more clips! if you have an idea, please email me or leave a comment. ok, enough procrastinating -- back to focusing on the hellish assignments and looming deadlines. here's the piece.

The Bionic Woman

If there’s one thing I know with certainty, nothing is more humbling than an extended hospital stay. I had never been a patient before, nor did I understand what infirmity truly meant, but when I woke up screaming in the recovery room of UCLA Medical Center, the old adage that things will never be the same finally rang true.

I was reborn, but instead of delivering a smack to the ass, the doctor seemed to have taken a sledgehammer to my spine. And I was in pain — an all-consuming, paralyzing, suffocating pain to which no words could do justice.

I felt like the main character in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, the man who wakes up as a giant cockroach one morning, confused, disoriented and utterly frightened, thinking the “nonsense” would end after a few more hours sleep. Maybe I was also in the middle of a bad dream. The nurse would surely tell me, and here she comes now, running to my bedside with a morphine-filled syringe, which she deposits into my IV, making me fall back into myself with a whimper — my tentacles twitching in the distance as the room fades to black.

*****

I have had scoliosis for as long as I can remember. The doctors assured my parents and I that it was nothing, that I’d grow out of it, but I grew into it instead, reaching a 42-degree curvature by the time of surgery. If untreated, the doctor said it would worsen a degree a year, eventually turning me into a hunchback and causing my torso to concave, my organs to puncture under their own pressure. Corrective surgery would have to be performed eventually.

“Better to do it now when you’re young and resilient,” the doctor assured me. “You’ll be up and walking around in a few days.” Sounded simple enough.

So on June 29, 1998 — three days after my 22nd birthday and one week after I graduated from college — I became a patient. The surgeon took his scalpel and made a 13-inch incision down my spine. Five hours, three titanium rods and countless stitches later, his work was done, and I awoke screaming in the hospital, two inches taller.

*****

I spent the first two days completely bedridden, immobile, while the severed nerves in my back went hog wild, causing nonstop spasms as they tried to reconnect. I was too drugged to feel any pain. I was cogent, however, vacillating between a strange state of euphoria and terror. I couldn’t lift my head or arms or legs. The hospital bed felt like a slab of concrete and pillows were verboten, as I had to keep my body completely flat, my spine in perfect alignment. Only my toes and fingers could move. Tubes extended from the veins in my arms and from other, less likely places—a catheter to collect urine, a suction tube inserted into my back to shoot out the excess blood congregating near my spine. I was a human pincushion, or perhaps a voodoo doll.

And then there was the drip. Oh, yes. The trusty morphine drip that quickly became my best friend during the ordeal. My nimble fingers only had to press a lever for a few drops of that magical salve to be released into my IV. Just a few drops to release me from my physical self, thrusting me into the faraway recesses of my mind, where I could be a mermaid traversing through oceans, swimming among dolphins, or maybe a dove soaring through the air, the wind caressing my feathers, my wings in perfect alignment. How I loved the drip (and how I screamed when, on the fourth day, they took it away, mumbling something about addiction).

On the morning of the third day, a physical therapist arrived to teach me how to slip on my back brace and sit up. The dreaded back brace — a cross between a corset and straitjacket — was a hard plastic contraption extending from my shoulders to hips. The first time he flipped me onto my side, I roared, ripping out the tube in my back and spilling blood all over the bedsheets. He pressed onward with the lesson, teaching me the flip technique, and how, with the help of the bedrail, to drop my legs to the floor while pulling my torso upright with my arms. We practiced the move several times more, with my eyes as leaky faucets, the snot dribbling off my chin and onto my knees, which I saw for the first time in days.

In the afternoon, he returned to teach me how to walk. The mere sight of him standing in the doorway made me shake uncontrollably, my body already conditioned to fear all he represented, that miserable motion he intended to reacquaint me with just when I was starting to get accustomed to lying still. But the doctor said something about blood clots in my legs if I didn’t begin to move around, and here was this strange man holding a walker, ready to submerge me in a pain that made my body thunder, made my muscles contract in a lame attempt at flight. He approaches me, and I vomit all over myself.

*****

We did have that walking lesson eventually, and it did indeed suck, especially when he took me to the stairwell and taught me how to tackle uneven ground. Though with time, I began to look forward to his visits, as it gave me a chance to feel semi-normal again, even a bit productive. And when he pushed the walker aside, his outstretched arms beckoning me to advance, I took my first baby steps as an adult and smiled my first true smile in days.

Back in my hospital room, I often fought for control of the one mounted television with my middle-aged roommate, in for a gall bladder problem, who complained incessantly that the nurses didn’t pay her enough attention. She needed more painkillers, she said. “That’s too bad,” I would smile, as I activated my drip, drip, drip…

Every four hours, a nurse would come by with iron pills. Every eight hours, one would come to draw blood to make sure my body absorbed the iron. And once a day, an irritatingly cheery nurse would come by to administer the suppository, always offering a round of applause when it worked.
Also coming by were good friends, none of whom I particularly cared to see in my current state. But there they were, each day someone new, hovering over me, trying to act normal while I tried not to seem so invalid. They couldn’t hide their alarm, the shock that would register on their faces when they first saw me lying there — 15 pounds lighter, my natural pallor even more deathly, my lips bluish, my long brown hair tangled in knots, the tubes reaching everywhere, the urine bag casually hanging over the foot of the bed.

Most would stay for only half an hour, as I shooed them out the door, envying the way they so effortlessly walked through it. Others would want to hang out and joke around — just like old times — often toying with my drip until the morphine knocked me out, sometimes within minutes of their arrival.

*****

Though it felt like eons, I had only been hospitalized for six days. The doctor said my recovery was on track, even calling me “feisty.” In any case, I would be released to my parents’ house, where I would convalesce for one week before moving back into my Hollywood apartment with my boyfriend and roommate.

The doctor’s orders were explicit and strict: Out of bed I had to wear my back brace at all times; I had to continue taking iron pills, and never with dairy products; I could take up to 12 extra-strength Vicodin a day, as needed, for pain; a physical therapist would visit me three times a week; I could neither sit nor stand for more than half an hour at a time; when I sat, my thighs had to be parallel to the floor, my knees bent at no more than 90 degrees; I could only sleep on flat, even surfaces; I should always use my special high chair for toilet visits; bowel movements should occur once a day, and if they didn’t, they needed to be induced. Thank you very much. Come back in two weeks for a checkup.

My parents lived in a three-story townhouse near the beach — lots of stairs. All three bedrooms were on the top floor. The ride to their house, situated less than 10 miles from the hospital, was torture. My mother’s low-to-the-ground Saab seemed to hit every pothole in Los Angeles, with my back absorbing the shock. By the time we pulled into the driveway, I was a blubbering mess, barely able to breathe, my back brace tightened to Elizabethan corset proportions.

I awkwardly made my way out of the car and loosened the Velcro straps on my brace. Pain shot up and down my backside, from my brain stem to hamstrings to heals. I gripped the banister tightly and began to ascend the three flights of stairs to my temporary bedroom, my face red with agony, my gritted teeth emitting small yelps each time I pulled myself up a stair. The effects of the morphine and anesthesia, the doctor warned, would now be waning, leaving me feeling queasy, uneasy. The new name of the game became pain management.

But how could I manage this? It seemed hopeless. Without morphine offering me solace, I had to confront the full monty of the pain, the realization that everything would indeed be different. This reality hit me with a heavy hand as I made my way into the bedroom, my sobs uncontrollable, the pain unbearable, and collapsed carefully onto the bed.

I looked over at my father — a former sergeant in the Soviet army, my pillar of strength whom I always admired for his composure and kindness — and noticed his own tears.

“Why are you crying?” I asked.
“Because you’re my baby, and it hurts to see you in so much pain.”

*****

I did indeed spend the next few weeks in a great deal of pain, the kind of which I had never conjured up in even my worst nightmares. The kind that almost makes one faint from its unabashed intensity. The kind that you would wish on your worst enemies, if you really, really hated them.

And it wasn’t a localized pain relegated strictly to my spine. It began there and spread — much like an orgasm — to my fingertips, to the tips of my toes. But it was far from an orgasm; it sat at exactly the opposite end of the pleasure-pain continuum. It was sometimes shooting, always chronic and often induced a great amount of sweat, which was exacerbated by the bulky brace and Los Angeles’ sweltering summer. It was July, after all.

But perhaps even more demoralizing than the pain was the helplessness clouding each day, the horrifying truth that I now had minimal control over everything in my environment. Dishes slipped out of my hands, as I was too weak to lift even a few ounces. The slightest effort exhausted me, forcing the need for a nap. Anything I dropped on the floor stayed there until someone else picked it up. Now the once über-independent girl who got her drivers license on the morning of her 16th birthday couldn’t even tie her shoelaces.

Making matters worse was the dawning realization that I had outgrown my college boyfriend, whom I had been so attached to. And we had just moved in together following our college graduations, talking of a shared life. I had accepted his engagement ring, a solid gold band inlaid with tiny diamonds and rubies, but we were just kids then. We were still kids now, both 22, college graduates with the world on a string, knowing that it was worth exploring, knowing that we could never be enough for each other for the rest of our lives. Now all I needed him to be was my nurse, a role he reluctantly filled, lacing up my sneakers each morning before he headed to work, while I gently sobbed, and removing them each night, also as I sobbed.

Adjusting to these foreign realities seemed unfeasible, and I began to sink into a depression. For the first time since kindergarten, I found myself without a school term to look forward to. School, which I always excelled at, was my old faithful, and the thought of existing without it made me anxious. No cushy job with great prospects awaited me, either. Only murkiness lay ahead, and I could discern no outlines of a future.

I felt too self-conscious to leave the house in my brace, given that I could only wear oversized T-shirts to disguise it, making me look like a broad-backed football player. The doctor forbade me to drive, as I couldn’t look over my shoulder to check my blind spot. And I couldn’t work — my need for physical therapy and constant naps would intrude on any preset schedule.

I avoided the phone calls and visits of my kind friends, whose carefree and painless lives made me sick. I confided in no one, related to no one. Nothing at all seemed to give me pleasure. Having to get out of bed each day annoyed me. So I isolated myself, sitting at home for months, passively reading random books, crying my eyes out and trying to dream up a new life. All the while I kept sinking, sinking into an ever-deepening well of self-pity and uncertainty. The back operation marked only the first into a multitude of changes plaguing that summer, rendering me physically, mentally and emotionally unrecognizable to myself. Finally, I sank so deep that, one day, I had nowhere to look but up.

Because although I hadn’t acknowledged it, my back had been healing — ahead of schedule, the doctor said. The pain began to subside. My mobility improved, and with it came greater productivity and more self-confidence. Routinely, I woke up one day expecting to waste it away crying and found that I had run out of tears. It was that simple, as if a light switch had been flipped off. The misery had run its course, taking me to the edge of myself — where nothing made sense and my head was a scrambled mess — before lifting me up to show me that it could be survived.

The time came for a paradigm shift, and my newfound clarity was acute. I was human; I would die one day. Simple, obvious stuff, but to a 22-year-old who believed in forever, this epiphany was tantamount to having a religious vision. Suddenly, my mortality became a concrete fact rather than some far-removed concept to be saved for later. I would die one day, so I better make these days count without blindly assuming that my good health would always remain good and that my relationships would always last.

Acknowledging my own mortality made me immortal in a way by freeing me from all self-imposed limitations. By understanding the meaning of death, I understood the meaning of life. Time was precious, and I needed to use mine wisely. I felt like a 50-year-old who’s had a heart attack, rebounding with a renewed zest for life and appreciation of the little things. But I felt luckier — I was younger, stronger, healthier, and I had more time not to waste.

Oddly, the first place my new attitude took me to was the hair salon. The time had come to cut my long, brown, wavy locks, which I always wore down to conceal the curvature in my spine. My self-consciousness gone, I could gift myself the above-the-shoulder hairdo I wanted for nearly 10 years. Chop, chop, and I had a new look befitting my new life. Most people I knew hated my new haircut, but I didn’t give a damn. This was my show now.

Step two involved imagining a goal I could work toward. My options seemed limited only by my imagination and credit cards. Never had I known such freedom of choice, and it both terrified and invigorated me. After bandying about numerous ideas, I settled on moving to San Francisco, leaving the boyfriend behind, in search of a new life. I even set the date: one day after Thanksgiving 1998. Finally I had something to look forward to. Things were indeed looking up, and I knew I would never take my life for granted again. I would find the pearl in my oyster and keep mining the ocean floor for more.

Even my back brace, which I resented for all its limitations, I began to regard as my cocoon. And when the doctor said it was safe to go without it at the four-month mark, I emerged a butterfly — taller, stronger, freer, ready for flight, my wings in perfect alignment.

*****

Six years have passed since the surgery. I have made a full recovery and continue to keep my spine healthy with regular yoga. The three titanium rods I will take to my grave, and no, I don’t set off the alarm when I pass through metal detectors at airports. (Titanium is actually an alloy, not a metal.) I have even made peace with the 13-inch scar symmetrically dividing my back, seeing it as a divine souvenir of the bittersweet summer that defined the rest of my life. It’s my brand of survival, a roadmap to remind me that life’s valleys can often prove far more valuable than its peaks.

Working Girl

the good and bad news is that i'm swamped with work -- schoolwork, that is. and of course i'm behind in everything. i've already asked for extensions on two papers, neither of which i have started and both of which were due this week. i need to play catch up in a major way very quickly.

so i'm imploring you, dear readers, to help me on yet another assignment i need to complete. this is fairly basic stuff -- i just need three story ideas. that's it. they're for my "comp exam," which is basically a 1,500-word news story i need to write for the school to show them that they taught me something in two years. it's in lieu of a proper thesis, it's on a pass/fail basis, and i need to submit three ideas by friday, one of which they will choose and give me two weeks to complete. help a sistah out by shooting me an email with some ideas (very easy, very basic stuff, please) of stories that you'd like to see reported. let's keep it local, as i'm obviously unable to travel to washington to report on bush and his wishes for an unconstitutional constitutional amendment.

send emails to: milla666@aol.com (sorry, too lazy to hyperlink) and thanks for playing.

The (Last) First Week of Classes

ah, nice to be all done with my school week on a wednesday and through until next tuesday, as monday is MLK day. how did it go, you ask? well, nothing unusual -- standard passing out of syllabi, professor introducing himself (yes, all men this semester), outlining course goals and setting expectations. here's the rundown:

Column Writing: i wish i can say more about this one, but the prof was out with the flu on day one and had a sub step in and show a documentary during class. the doc's subject: the prof himself, the venerable norman corwin. ok, this guy is the shit, amazing writer, really more of a poet than a journalist, but he's 93. no joke, that's his real age. i've been waking up each morning afraid i'll see his obituary in the LA Times. i mean, having the flu at 93 is a big deal, no? for my own selfish sake, i hope not, because i don't want to miss out on this guy's eminence. the class requires me to produce plenty of columns, but i rather enjoy writing personal essays and this blog is kinda like a column to me, so it should be fun.

Magazine Writing: finally, a class on magazines -- you know, the arena i'll likely enter after graduation. i'm so sick of daily news. this class better be good, because the school has a lot of making up to do. prof seems cool, heard he's lax with deadlines, very nice and approachable guy. just need to produce two lengthy pieces for this class, one of which is a personal essay. so again, outlook good.

Publications Design & Technology: this one will teach me how to use adobe's in design 2.0 and photoshop 7.0 and a little of quark. useful, engaging, easy. that's how all should be with this class, though i've heard it's really a lot of busy work. there's a final design project of my choosing, so i hope to create a snazzy portfolio to showcase my work in. bad news is that the class is full of undergrads and the only other annenberg grad student is the most annoying girl in my program.

other than that, the class i'm the TA for has to do with sports. it's something like "sports, business and society." (big yawn) but whatever. usc is still footing the entire bill for me this semester and giving me a monthly stipend. i'm also gonna continue copy editing for those wacky dorks in culver city and keep trying to pick up clips. and maybe i'll pick up an internship somewhere, if i can make the time and if it's really worthwhile.

Hermitism and My Diva Moment

(yes, that's a real word. i thought it might be "hermitude," but i looked it up and the noun form is indeed "hermitism." now onward with the entry.)

haven't felt much like doing much of anything lately. maybe it's the change in the weather, which, granted, is minimal compared to worldwide standards but huge if you've spent most of your life in sunny hell-lay. temperature's down, clouds are up. i generally like that scenario, especially when i can be at home with warm socks on and a cup of cocoa, staring out the window as the puddles fill up. maybe that explains the apathy and why i haven't been too interested in the rest of the world lately. friends, school, work, family -- no, thank you. i just want to sleep in and be left alone.

the good news is i can do just that, as the semester is finally winding down, leaving me with just two papers to write and a shitload of ones to grade for my TAship. that, i think i can manage before year's end. then comes next semester, the final semester.

the bad news is i'll have to take one more class than i thought i would if i want to graduate on time. this is because i dropped my thesis and need to make up the units. why, you ask? well, i thought i would try to 'push the envelope,' as they say (sorry for the cliche, but it's apt here), by doing a lengthy broadcast piece on the straight men who do gay porn. yes, the very fascinating gay-for-pay phenomenon that runs through the porn industry. chicks do it all the time, why not guys? i think most people would be surprised to learn that about a third of the guys who do gay porn are straight. i was gonna take that into an exploration of the vast divide that separates sex and sexuality. they're not the same thing. it was going to be educational. stellar idea, i thought.

the faculty disagreed. but wow, some of the looks that crossed their (old, white man) faces were priceless. they gave me every excuse: "it's not the topic itself, it's that it's not 'newsy' enough"; "how do you think this will further your professional goals?"; "what's the real purpose of doing something like this?" and so on. it was an ordeal. there were some heated debates. but in the end, i'm still the lowly student and they have all the power. they insisted i choose something else, but i said if i couldn't do what i really wanted, then i wouldn't do anything at all. so i had my little diva moment and that was that.

i'm not really surprised by the school's resistance, just a little disappointed. if anything, it justs proves their hypocrisy. college can be a pretty liberal place, but only if you want to focus on welfare reform or the three-strikes law in california (two topics of my friends' theses). but start talking about sodomy, and whoa, sister, slow down! i understand, though. it's their school -- they make the rules. but it's my fucking money.

yet in all honesty, i'm a bit relieved that it didn't work out, because it would have been a shitload of work and i was already way behind schedule. it's november already. by now i would have had to turn in my outline. so instead of all that, i'll need to take an extra class. i'm trying to find an easy one.

Friday at the Journalism Job Fair

i should have trusted my instincts and not gone at all, as it was a complete wash for me. i talked to maybe three or four recruiters, all of whom i reluctantly (and rather unsuccessfully) tried to sell myself to. i just can't play the i'm-great-and-this-is-why game that job fairs require. but it's really more than that. it's the fact that i just don't want to do daily news, and the fair featured folks from the fresno bee and bakersfield californian and a bunch of other no-name dailies from podunk towns.

i did visit the LA Times booth and that was a complete disaster. the chick actually handed me back my resume. fuck, lady, couldn't ya just humor me? i've never had my resume handed back to me at a job fair. she was nice about it, though, saying i should keep my resume and clips and apply for the times' summer internship for next year, as if i would forget to include them then. i asked whether that would ultimately help get me a job at the times. she said it was unlikely. if i really wanted to work at the times, i would have to go to those podunk towns and write kick-ass stories for those no-name dailies while earning a slew of awards in the process. after several years of this, i could apply at the times and we could talk.

now, i'm not sure that i believe in an afterlife, so the thought of suffering for years as a general assignment reporter writing obituaries and covering city council meetings and fires in some backwoods shithole for the chance to possibly, maybe, perhaps write for the los angeles times one day (which i've already done, by the way) just doesn't sound appealing. call me crazy. the lady gently reminded me that journalists end their careers at the times, not begin them, and that we all have to pay our dues.

yes, granted. i never expected to walk into a cushy job as a features reporter at the times straight out of graduate school, and if it were worth it to me, i might sit in that shithole writing obituaries, but that's just not my bag, and if this job fair did nothing else, it helped me to realize that. i don't want to work for a daily. that's the bottom line. i don't like working in a pressure cooker, having to crank out story after story under daily deadline pressure. i wouldn't want to have to compete with my peers for the big "get." i'd much rather have the time to set aside a piece and come back to it a little later. i don't want to have to start everything i write with the inverted pyramid, answering the who, what, when, where, how and why in the first graph. maybe i'd rather begin with a quote or an anecdote or some imagery. daily news is great to read, but it sucks to write, and i don't have it in me to try. i wish i did. no, on second thought, i guess i really don't.

i sometimes wonder whether i should have taken the opportunity to study magazine journalism at NYU when i had the chance. USC's program is really geared toward newspaper reporting, and it really tries to convince you that you should be too (undoubtedly so you can go out a win a pulitzer to honor the school). but i like magazines -- they're like little illustrated books, self-contained and portable, and the ink doesn't rub off on your fingers. that's way more my bag. radio's not bad either. but a newspaperwoman i shall never be. and that's just fine with me.

now, i don't expect to walk into a cushy job as a features writer for Newsweek either, but for that opportunity, i just might spend years slaving away at smaller publications until i got the chance. and i wouldn't have to move to fresno to do it. i'm already writing for NoHo LA and will have a cover story coming out for them in the coming weeks. it's a small start to what will hopefully become a very long and fruitful love affair with the magazine world. it's still journalism and it's a much better fit for me. ok, now i know that. case closed.

The Only Stupid Question Is the One Not Asked

it's amazing what you can get out of life just by asking for it. just the other week, i walked into the student services office at my school and asked to be hooked up with one of those super lucrative and highly coveted TA positions. well, none were available, already assigned for the semester and so forth. but a week later, one opened up and i got the call. half of the position has me TAing a class (not doing any actual teaching, though, just grading papers). the class is on entertainment PR, an area i know nothing about. the other half is working 10 hours a week at an organization for journalists. and this is one phat deal, too, as in all my tuition paid for this academic year and a monthly stipend. and all i had to do was ask (well, i sorta begged). if only everything were that easy.

i'll also still keep my once-a-month gig at CFQ. although they agreed to give me more hours, i was never actually needed more than once a month, so provided i have the time, i'll still be going in to copy edit their issues right before they're sent to the printer. this takes about a week, and often includes weekends. so nowadays i have plenty of work (school and other) to keep me occupied.

the bad news is that the chicky i wanted to chair my thesis committee can't make the time this year, so i'm on the hunt for another professor to suffer through it with me. i think i'm set on a topic, but i'll share it at a later date, once things with my committee are finalized.

and in other news, i've updated millatimes.com a bit more, but am far from finishing it. i just wish i knew flash and dreamweaver, photoshop, illustrator -- all that crap. it's just taking so fucking long to do anything because i don't know the software all that well. something that takes three simple keystrokes to do will take me 15 minutes of trial-and-error fiddling. the 'dreamweaver for dummies' book i have could help if i weren't too stubborn to use it. but i have all the photos from my trip all sized correctly and ready to go, i just need to organize them in a way that makes sense. i also have my map of europe done. it took me all friggin weekend to do. eventually, each city title will link to a photo slide show. eventually.

Dig My New Blog

endless thanks go to germy, who kindly archived my blog for me and helped move everything over to this new format. finally, an archive! sorry for the dial-upers who had to wait eons until the page loaded, i know it took a while. this main page will hold the 10 last entries and will now include titles.

of course, i've done no other work on my website, but the weekend was more full than i thought. i finally got a much-needed haircut and dye-job saturday and spent much of the afternoon installing shelves in the hall closet. they're pretty precariously done -- a real amateur job, like a strong wind will just topple the whole thing. but at least i have a place to store my bedding, towels and maxi-pads.

this morning i interviewed two candidates running in the recall race for governor of the great state of california. (no, i couldn't get billboard hag angelyne after all. she turned out to be a typical LA flake. bitch.) these guys are proprietors of ButtMonkey Beer, and intend to use their candidacies for shameless promotion of their product. it was ridiculous, just like everything else surrounding this whole recall business, which is why i wanted to interview them.

in other news, my dog's boyfriend max has been staying with us all weekend. see 6/02/03 entry. it's not too bad having two dogs around, the adjustment has been minimal. and they can be so cute together, cuddling at night on their doggy blanket and slurping from the same water dish during the day. yesterday i caught them snoozing on the floor, juice's head resting on max's neck. makes me wanna have another furry baby.

hello to my two readers, my cousins Gitella and Roman Himmer. well, gitella is my cousin, though she's more like a sister, and roman is her husband, though he's more like a cousin. but yes, hello to the only two people who have responded that they're still reading this shit. and i just want to say that "gitella" is a great name, i've always thought so. i don't believe any one else on the planet has that name. if i remember the story correctly, i think my aunt bella was stuck between the names "gita" and "ella" for her baby girl and just decided to merge them into one super name. hence, we have the superhuman gitella, who really is super in many ways. i may complain about the demands of my putrid little existence, but my supercousin is a devoted mom, wife, student and employee all at the same time, and i've never heard a whiny peep come out of her adorable, freckled face. i often wonder how she remains so kind, gentle and grounded, instead of turning into a prozac-popping neurotic soccer mom like so many others in her position, but then again she is the lone redhead martian in the family and i think that's equipped her with superpowers.

that's about all, really. not much going on with me lately. still trying to nail down my work situation, which currently does not provide me with enough hours or money to pay my rent. i'm trying to hustle now to find an incredibly lucrative, low-effort position. preferably one that i can do from home with eyes half shut and mind elsewhere. no luck yet.

school is school, and if my first week is any indication, this year will be a hell of lot easier than the last. it certainly couldn't be much harder. i was put through the academic ringer last year, so i'm looking forward to taking it easy, being able to sleep in some mornings. for my interview-a-candidate-running-for-governor assignment, i'm trying to get LA billboard queen angelyne, whose campaign motto is something like "we've had brown and gray. now it's time for pink!" enough said.

so i had my first day of class today. it was like any other first day: syllabi, outlining course goals, telling a little about yourself -- the usual. i wish i were more excited about my classes, but i'm worried they might end up disappointing me, especially my magazine editing class. it seems like it would have lots of potential, but the syllabus is packed with busywork and the professor appears to be a comatose lecturer. there's nothing worse than having to sit through a semester in any school with a teacher who doesn't exude excitement about the subject matter. i remember having the greatest biology professor in college who got me as excited as she was about all the fascinating stuff mitochondria could do. and i also remember being bored beyond interest by the egotistical, wannabe artist who taught the african-american art history class i took in college.

my investigative reporting class seems much more promising. i really like the prof, despite his use of the socratic method of calling on students by name to answer his questions. "so, ms. goldenberg, you're covering the justice department for the LA Times and the official you're interviewing leaves the room for a few minutes to use the restroom. do you rifle through the papers on his desk?"

my first assignment in that class requires that i interview one of the candidates running for california governor. with 134 people on the ballot, i hope to find one who will speak to me. tomorrow night i have my media law class, which should introduce me to the wonderful world of libel. i actually need to drop one of the three classes because of a financial aid glitch that won't allow me to take more units than i can pay for, or rather, than my stafford loans will pay for.

my final class consists of an unscheduled two units that count toward my thesis project. any ideas of what i should do? i really want it to be fun and challenging, something significant that i would be happy to devote a whole academic year to, something that will make me rich and famous. ok, maybe not famous, but rich. and thin too.

speaking of thin, i've been on the atkins diet for the past few weeks and i've dropped some pounds. when i was sitting on the beach in portugal in a baby blue swimsuit, i looked down and realized that there was simply too much of me. and given that i love to eat and hate to exercise, atkins seemed like the right choice. besides, i naturally love meat, fish, cheese, salads and vegetables, so giving up them carbs wasn't too difficult (though i do yearn for the occasional scone).

now if i could just shake the pesky cold that's overrun what's left of my flabby body. i feel like there's a warm icicle lodged up my nostril and it's just melting away by drip, drip, drip. pabs is kindly picking up some nyquil for me at the corner store, as i've had trouble falling asleep the past few nights due to the congestion.

ok, i guess that's about it for now. these entries always end up being much longer than i intended. is anyone still reading this shit? i feel like everyone dropped off after the end of my travels. please email me if you still are.

it's weird to not have to be paying rent on the first of the month. it's june, hooray! june truly is the funnest month of the year. it's when the weather improves, when school ends and it's the month of my birth. nothing but good days ahead in june. and i take back what i said about the weather being nice in london. i've just ducked into an internet cafe because rain came pissing down on the city without warning. i, of course, am without an umbrella and wearing a tank top because it's been so damn humid today. i only hope the paper towels i bought for my flat don't get soaked. i don't have much to report since yesterday. spent a calm evening out in a pub last night with the roomies and the strange finnish boy again.

so i've decided to post what i promised to put on here earlier: the rundown of my roomies. this log will probably be of most interest to my roomies, whom i know have been secretly wishing i would write it already so they can see what i truly think of them. (don't lie, bitches, i know you've been checking out my web shit.) ok, here's goes.

THE SETUP: five girls in a 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom flat. you can imagine how difficult coordinating bathroom time is in the mornings. i'm in the 3-person bedroom and in the 3-person bathroom (bit unfair, eh?). we've got three broadcast journalism majors, two print ones. (i'm print.) we've also got a little mouse running around the flat, checking out the garbage. i saw him last night and could swear that he gave me the finger as he ran up the cupboard. we've named him "mickey." so of us five girls, there are three alpha bitches who generally insist on having things their way. surprisingly, they have made the necessary compromises to ensure that household relations remain harmonious.

THE PLAYERS
Melissa G
nicknames: meli gonzo, smelly meli, gonzo face, spicy spice, spanish spice, booty, hootchie
attributes: 27-year-old meli is a sensitive virgo alpha bitch broadcast major who serves as the epicenter of almost everything that goes down in the house. she's full of spanish pride and talks nonstop. she's convinced that all british men are ugly and will argue this point into the ground. meli's traveling wardrobe is immense, so she is under strict house orders to never wear a single garment of clothing twice, though she cheats by repeating "basics." she can often be found lounging around the house in pajamas with cherries on them.
sayings: "let's discuss this," "i think he likes me," "whaaaat?" "are you from spain?"

Alice S
nicknames: als, alsi, als pals, posh spice, chinese girl
attributes: 23-year-old als is a leo alpha bitch broadcast major with a bad attitude that belies her kind korean face. her and meli must have already visited half the clubs in london in search of men to buy them drinks (though alsi doesn't drink). she's looking to marry a british rock star with good teeth, nice shoes, nice hands and a nice watch. she can often be found arguing with meli over where to go, what to do and the attractiveness of british men.
sayings: "i'm not chinese," "it was sick," "whatever"

Ya-Lei Y
nicknames: baby spice, hawaiian blossom, girlie girl
attributes: 25-year-old ya-lei is an easygoing broadcast major with a wonderful boyfriend who surprised her by showing up saturday morning to scoop her away to a london hotel for a romantic getaway weekend, complete with massages. she's known for eating a lot of fruit and being compulsively clean, which means showering up to four times a day and washing her sheets if she finds a hair on them she suspects is not hers.
sayings: "ewww, he touched my back," "i could live off peanut butter and jelly sandwiches," "i'm hungry"

Tania V
nicknames: scary spice, queen T
attributes: 26-year-old tania is a cultured yalie who generally likes to take her time doing and saying things, though she can get ready in about five minutes. she's a foodie who likes to cook, take weekend trips and practice foreign languages. she's probably the most quiet and shrewd member in the household and acts as a balancing force to the rest of us yappers.
sayings: "shut up"

Me
nicknames: mama, mama milla, china doll, ginger spice, mills, millhouse
attributes: anyone who knows me can rest assured that i'm still a 26-year-old alpha bitch who provides a cynical running commentary on everything that's going on around me. i have a tendency to believe that i'm pretty damn funny, so i crack jokes when i can and they sometimes get laughs. i'm probably the messiest person in the house, so i try to make up for it by cooking my roomies meals and glorifying them on my blog.
sayings: "to know me is to love me"

signing off. the rain's finally letting up.

ok, now that i have a forum, i can't think of one damn thing to say. i can't imagine that strangers would be reading this, but just in case they are, perhaps i should begin with an introduction. hi there, my name is milla. i live in los angeles, am a 26-year-old student/writer/editor. tomorrow is a big day for me as i'm heading to london for six weeks to embark on an internship with voice of america, an organization owned by a government i can't stand right now. i'm going to try not to let that ruin the experience, however. it's supposed to be an impartial news agency and i imagine i'll be responsible for some of the news that comes out of that place, so wish me luck.

this blog will serve as a way for me to record my adventures in europe this summer. i would have created it from my personal web site, www.millatimes.com, but blogger.com (which is proving to be quite a nifty little helper) allows for web-based updating, no dreamweaver necessary, so this is far more convenient, though i'll likely move all this crap to my site in the end. can i say "fuck" here? i guess so, i just did. i'm trying not to worry that my mom will be reading this (hi mom!), as i don't want to censor myself.

friends, please bookmark this page and check back often for updates on what i'm hoping will be the best summer vacation of my life. strangers and enemies, feel free to do the same. send kind regards to milla666@aol.com and stay tuned.