Gimme a freakin break.

In other news, my very manish, drill sergeant of a Taebo instructor played The Fray's "How To Save a Life" during the wrapping-it-up, stretching portion of class today. Mind you the rest of the class is like a hip hop club gone crazy.

Spring has Sprung

Came home from my internship today and dusted off my bike, filled the tires with air, sprayed the bike chain with WD40 (seemed like a good idea at the time), found the combination to the lock and off I went! Today was a beautiful day for an afternoon bike ride! I saw Yoda, the neighborhood kitty, outside and was tempted to drop him in my basket but thought better of it.
Days like these make me sad that I'll be leaving L.A. in 8 short weeks. I found a place to stay in New York, for the summer anyway, and I could not be more excited. For an extremely reasonable price, I'm going to sleep on Shannon's futon in her apartment in the East Village! This primo location will allow me to walk to Pommes Frites on a daily basis. Next to the Upper West Side, the East Village is one of my favorite neighborhoods in New York. Living in the middle of it all, well, need I go on?

I realized today that I've been going to my internship for four weeks now and have not taken advantage of my location. The Rose Garden is next door so I ambled over and took more pictures of roses than necessary. This is possibly the best one. I think they're called "Sentimental" roses.




Like I said, it was a beautiful L.A. day.

And finally, I read an article in Wes's Theme magazine about Jen Chung, cofounder of the blog Gothamist. She is my hero because she turned her love of New York into a lucrative business. This was her list of favorite blogs about New York:

Apartment Therapy
Slice NY (as in pizza)
Curbed
Brownstoner
Mid Town Lunch
And of course, one of my favorites that she didn't mention New York Daily Photo.

In a Nutshell

Today:

• re-learned how to juggle, first oranges then tennis balls, next up: knives and kittens

Yesterday:

• saw Rumer Willis aka Bruce and Demi's oldest daughter at the Marc by Marc Jacobs store on Melrose, she is not as unattractive in person and seemed quite amiable, apparantly she is Marc's "intern", also spent some quality time ogling the $500 handbag I'm going to buy if I win the book collecting contest, keeping fingers crossed

• also introduced the roommates to the joys/sorrows of My So-Called Life, I cannot wait for the make-out boiler room scene with Jordan Catalano

Day Before Yesterday:

• ate at Baby Blues BBQ, devoured Memphis-style Ribs, Baby Backs, Beef Brisket, baked beans, mashed sweet potatoes, collard greens, mac n' cheese and washed it down with Sweet Tea and pecan pie! (yeah right I don't eat meat anymore...)

• also laughed my butt off over "Ya gotta git yoself some mah-bull cahlums"

• also giggled like a school girl while watching new love Shia LaBeouf in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, not only can Shia clap (see previous post) but he can chew gum and smirk at the same time, now that's what I call sexy (and yes, he's still only 20)

Day Before Yesterday but the Day Before That:

• giggled like a school girl with my hands over my face while watching Disturbia starring who else but Shia LaBeouf, Shia definitely made the movie, Wes says Shia has range as an actor...

License to Ho

I got the first of my HPV vaccines today. For those of you who don't know, HPV is the abbreviation for human papillomavirus, of which there are more than 100 types. Certain types such as HPV Types 16 and 18 cause abnormal cervical cells and cervical cancer. HPV Types 6 and 11 can cause genital warts. And no I did not get the vaccine because I've been busy hoing around (trust me, it's the exact opposite). I decided to get it so I can start hoing around. Just kidding. But seriously, I couldn't ignore the facts, which are:

-genital HPV affects both women and men
-anyone who has any kind of sexual activity involving genital contact can get HPV - intercourse isn't necessary
-many people who have HPV may not show signs or symptoms, so they can pass the virus on without even knowing it
-the CDC estimates that 80% of women will have had gential HPV by age 50

Plus I read an article in my Jane magainze about a girl who died from cervical cancer who was only 28.

So basically the vaccine I got today was Gardasil made by Merck which protects against HPV Types 16, 18, 6, and 11. Gardasil is very expensive and you have to get the vaccine in three stages (today, then in two months, then four months after that). It's about $130 per shot and I don't even think most insurances offer/cover it. Plus it's only really effective for girls ages 9-26. The student health center at UCLA just got the vaccine seven months ago and RN lady told me the girls have been coming in droves to get it. Luckily, I met my insurance deductible when I had toe surgery so it's not that expensive for me. I don't want to be the voice of reason so you can also read more about HPV on the CDC site. And if you insist, you can also read the wiki entry on it.

And that concludes Nina's public health service annoucement for the day.

Shia Claps, Will Claps, Avril Claps, We All Clap!

I'm back! Oh how I've missed my blogging time. The monster that was my portfolio is now over and thanks to Crystal, not only is it filled with juicy intellectual content but it's aesthetically pleasing as well. Gill Sans font, easy to read layout, and pretty mint green and brown boxes for page numbers. I'm even tempted to put the pdf online so everyone can gawk.

Like I was saying, Shia LaBeouf likes to clap. He likes to clap strongly. Did anyone see him on SNL this weekend? That boy is Sofa King hot. That boy is Sofa King hot and only 20. He's also a fellow Gemini and I never met a Gemini I didn't like. But yeah, Shia would not stop clapping when he was on SNL and me and Crystal could not get enough. Watching Disturbia is at the top of my to-do-list as well as renting A Guide to Recongnizing Your Saints.

You know who else likes to clap is Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness. That movie is intense. I refused to watch it when it was in theaters because it looked too sad so when Crystal rented it this weekend, I was surprised at how easily I was sucked in. I can honestly say I enjoyed it and Will Smith's clapping at the end was the best clapping I've ever seen. Very heartfelt.

As for Avril. Her new single encourages lots of clapping vis a vis Tony Basil's "Mickey" or Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl". In the words of the NY Times: "Most of Ms. Lavigne’s new songs are up-tempo, with punk power chords atop pep-rally beats and rhymes that are more like cheerleader chants than hip-hop; who knew Toni Basil’s “Mickey” would spawn a school of pop?"

Now everyone commence clapping for me because I finished my portfolio!!!

What portfolio?

Barack Obama + Halle Berry

Said this to Wes while watching Letterman:

"Hey, Barack plus Halle make one Black person on Letterman tonight."

Me, lowbrow? Never...

Nina the Politico

Today was the first day of my management theory class. This is a required class which means I should have taken it last year with everyone else but I felt my time was better spent taking an elective. I also have a natural aversion towards anything with the word "management" in the title and was trying my hardest to put it off. I automatically equate "management" with "incompetence" (ironically, this might make me an excellent candidate for a management position, see prior post below). I've had good managers but I have yet to find good management. Believe me, there's a difference. So I was pleasantly surprised when I found myself actually paying attention in class and looking forward to learning about the four different types of organizational frameworks.

Of course, I spoke to soon. After a highly amusing video on bias and perspective, the professor made us take a quiz to determine our management style. To my chagrin, I was placed in the "political" group. Boy was I pissed. If we were going strictly by scores, I should have been in the "human resources" group where the "central task of management is to develop a good fit between people and organizations". And I liked that. Happy people make good workers.

But we weren't going by scores. We were going by percentiles. F' that. Percentiles remind me of standardized testing and that's total bullshit too. So anyway, we had to sit around in our groups and talk about why our way was the best way. I tried making a joke about Jack being a good leader on Lost because he knows how to "mobilize the resources needed to advocate and fight for the unit's or the organization's goals and objectives". Instead of laughs, I got some dirty looks or was completely ignored. Humph. So I stopped paying attention and tried to recount my score.

I wonder if there's a laissez faire management theory. Management would intervene as little as possible in the affairs of their workers. I could definitely get on board that.

My biggest, most greatest, most absolute fear is that people will find out how completely incompetent I really am. Hopefully, those people, the ones that matter anyway, aren't reading this right now. I seriously make some sort of mistake every single damn day. And it's the little, avoidable things that really tick me off. Today, for example, I:

-wrote a check out to SAA instead of SLA
-spilled yogurt on myself
-printed the wrong box labels at work

Am I being too hard on myself? Maybe. Everyone makes mistakes right? To err is human. Bullshit. I really don't think it's that difficult to avoid making mistakes. I just want to go one entire day completely fault free. Maybe tomorrow will be that day.

Why I Can't Wait For July

June 29 (close enough): Live Free or Die Hard
July 4: Transformers (why is Shia LaBeouf not legal yet?)
July 13: Harry Potter (minus the full frontal creepiness)
July 21: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (last time when book #6 came out, I stayed up all night to read it and then of course, broke into tears at the end)
July 27: The Simpsons Movie

And of course, I will be doing all of this in the unbearable hotness that is summertime in NEW YORK!!! YEA!!!