more summertime talk.
Posted: 06/10/2011 Filed under: atlanta pride, blogging, drawing, exploring, personal interests, urban exploration Leave a comment »“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”
Technically, the college is closed on Fridays to give staff a four-day work week, but I enjoy coming in anyway, if a little later than my usual 8:30 start time. I have the entire library to myself (er, minus the motion detectors that have yet to go off … knock on wood) and can play the new Bon Iver as loudly as I like, even if some of it sounds an awful lot like elevator music.
I’ve been considering summertime — specifically, summertime in Atlanta, and how I’d like to make this one really fantastic; the declaration everyone seems to make around Memorial Day. I prefer “summer resolutions” to New Year’s; something about the end of the school year and the beginning of festival/tomato season gets me itching to change something about myself/my routine. New Year’s Day just feels like another day, albeit with a more legitimate headache.
Summer 2011, at least so far, has meant coming home from work, running, scheming while running, sketching and coming up with new ideas. It’s too hot to be anything but creative. Anyway, I’m writing and drawing more. My significant other gave me a Bedazzler for my 22nd birthday, and a year.5 later, it has yet to find the right victim. Perhaps my summer will be categorized by a bedazzled Snuggie and a few full notebooks. And worn-down running shoes. (No rompers or feather extensions, please and thank you.)
(image links to my Flickr.)
My favorite summer in Atlanta was the one following my year in France. I lived in a pre-fab Peoplestown duplex with several boys (one of whom has an art show this weekend at MINT Gallery), worked at a coffeeshop, and half-heartedly worked on my senior thesis. I met a lot of new, interesting people outside of my college friendset, learned to love burritos (RIP La Casita), and took the best set of pictures in my collection. That summer tasted like cheap beer and black beans, smelled like hot garbage, sounded like Bone Awl, and felt unimaginably sweaty. It was a good, free summer, punctuated by nights at Eyedrum or the now-defunct East Atlanta Social Club (no judging). So, uh, not my most intellectual summer, but a fine one all the same.
This year, I’m ready to hit the ground running:
(image links to source.)
I discovered this image through The Finer Things, a stationery blog I follow. I think all of these goals are more feasible for Atlanta Summer 2011. Particularly if one of those to-do items involves a Chocolate Sea Salt popsicle from the indomitable King of Pops. I’m also determined to get my paws on one of Hector Santiago‘s tofu burritos, go to a laser show, and find a pool to swim in. One that is not made up of my own sweat.
Anyway, this is all to say that I’m optimistic about the season upon us. I’ve also been putting some thought into moving this site’s content over to my Tumblr for streamlining purposes. At least if I’m not working for a little while, it should keep me busy …
vegan week: getting the scoop on vegan mayo.
Posted: 06/02/2011 Filed under: becoming a real adult | Tags: food, healthy experimentation, vegan week 2 Comments »So this may be embarrassing, but I’ve been thinking about pizza a lot lately, and I’m well into my vegan week experiment. While it hasn’t really been difficult to stay away from animal-derived ingredients (I was vegetarian for several years until I gave into omnivorism before graduation, so it wasn’t too dramatic of a dietary shift), my brain is wired to focus on the one thing I can’t really have. Obviously, I know you can make vegan pizza, that’s not the point. It didn’t really help that my dear and darling boyfriend scarfed down his decidedly not vegan pizza leftovers right under my nose last night. Love is a battlefield.
Anyway, on Memorial Day my friend Neil and I cooked up some vegan things on his grill. Tempeh, onions, squash and zucchini on toasted buns with veganaise; all of it was a lot tastier than you’d probably imagine. Mostly, I’m glad to report that vegan mayonnaise is actually quite nice — perhaps even preferable to regular mayo, and is way healthier (duh). I bought my own Nayonaise (a different brand than what I had at Neil’s, but essentially the same taste) at Sevananda, the local healthy food co-op in Little 5 Points.
I have an automatic aversion to a dry sandwich. As a quick side note: I’m not into non-baguette-y bread, and the thought of eating dry sandwich slices grosses me out (unlike one of my exes, who would just eat slices of wheat bread out of the bag; for clarification, this is not totally one of the reasons it didn’t work out). With all this in mind, I went home for lunch yesterday to put Nayonaise to the test.
First of all, the cold, questionably goopy truth about Nayonaise v. Mayonnaise is that, surprise! “Fake” mayonnaise is nutritionally superior, without sacrificing taste. How the numbers break down for Nayonaise (the specific brand, FYI):
Now, let’s compare that to generic Kroger-brand mayonnaise (generally, I prefer Hellmann’s mayo, but I am a poor 23-year old who would rather spend the extra 2 bucks on cheap wine):
I think it should be noted here that I am in no way a health nut. Prior to this week (and my most recent obsession with working out), I would say that I ate more unhealthy food than otherwise. Look, as I’ve said before, I could legitimately eat pizza every day, have been known to eat (and enjoy) scrapple at my favorite hometown diner, and have a particular fondness for that beacon of horribly processed dinner concoctions and sodium paradise, Tuna Helper (I just found that blog by Googling “tuna helper unhealthy,” and the entry sums up my own childhood experience with, and subsequent continuous craving for, The Helper). Anyway, all of that is to say that my appreciation of vegan mayo has very little to do with its comparative health benefits. What matters to me, and probably to anyone looking to switch from omnivorism to veganism (however briefly), is the taste factor. In that regard, my transition from normal fatty mayo to its healthier step-sibling has been nearly seamless. I may even stick with it, post-experiment, to the inevitable delight of my arteries.
So, yesterday’s sandwich, to paint a clearer picture of a practical application of Nayonaise: the mayo spread on two slices of wheat bread, with some garlic hummus mixed on one slice; a few slices of Tofurky ham; lots of organic baby spinach and tomato slices; a few baby portabella mushrooms. A word about Tofurky, if you’ve never had it: it is seriously so good. Even when I was eating meat, I preferred Tofurky over the questionable “real” lunch meat options — the taste is deceptively similar to the “real” stuff. To further illustrate my point, I once made my very vegetarian-unfriendly grandmother a “turkey” sandwich using Tofurky. She didn’t even notice that it wasn’t real meat; instead, she remarked that the sandwich was particularly tasty. I rest my case.
In other news, my habit of working out is going surprisingly well. I can now run 2 miles, bike 8, and lift heavyish things all in one workout, without wanting to crumple in a pathetic, sweaty, gasping mass. Progress is progress. The only problem with working out, and particularly being a vegan exerciser, is how hungry I become. As a previously unhealthy person, I am trying not to counteract my exercise with eating ALL OF THE THINGS (which I want to do after being so physically productive). Anyway, I’m still trying to work around that one, and figure out interesting, healthy snacks that satiate. To be continued …
Anyway, perhaps more vegan blogging tomorrow. I haven’t really gotten around to fulfilling the point of my vegan week mission, which was to cook new things and jumpstart a new way of looking at food, but I have gotten a little better at chopping an onion. My goal is to make a vegan shepherd’s pie by the end of the weekend, much to the eye-rolling chagrin of my omnivorous significant other. When that happens, I’ll post the recipe and anecdotal evidence that I made something more complicated than black beans and yellow rice. And successfully avoided the non-vegan pizza craving.
digital summit atlanta, thinking about work, and summertime.
Posted: 05/26/2011 Filed under: agnes scott, becoming a real adult, personal interests Leave a comment »A year ago I graduated from college, and had moved into a new house in Kirkwood. I’m pretty impressed by how quickly May seems to have passed. This particular May, a year to (almost) the date of the early stages of student loan repayment panic, I’m living vicariously through two of my new roommates who’ve just finished school. My contract for the Digital Fellowship is nearly up, and it’s about time for me to leave the Agnes Scott nest. I’m two parts scared and relieved. What else is new.
a scene from the new balcony porch, shortly after moving in.
No, but really, what else is new? Other than the overwhelmingly exciting fact of applying to a million zillion jobs in my field, I won something on the Internet for the first time in my life — a ticket to the Digital Summit conference, generously donated by the Social Media Club of Atlanta. I’d really meant to write a post about this when I had a free moment, but … that was before I’d remembered the million zillion things I had to do for my current job. The two days I was at the conference were Layoff Judgment Days at work, anyway; 16 staff members were laid off from the College. Cheerful. I don’t really want to get started on that.
So, my Summit experience, in a 3-part nutshell:
- Live-tweeting conference presentations involves a lot of hand-eye coordination that, frankly, I wasn’t quite conditioned to handle (not that I consider this an egregious hole in my education, real talk). I’ve never seen so many people tweeting and texting and tablet note-taking in my life; it was surreal. I’m also fairly certain I pissed off all of my real-life friends who follow me on Twitter — look. I was just trying to fit in, okaaaay?
- If you have a public speaking schtick, which is basically cramming in as many curse words into an hour-long engagement as you can muster, people will think you are a brilliant, edgy speaker. Oh. Okay. Additionally, while listening to the speaker in question, I was reminded of my high school theatre experience — not to be unkind, but TALKING LOUDER isn’t acting, it’s just talking louder. Ahem …
- I wouldn’t consider myself a shy person, but I don’t have much experience with the Small Talk Olympics. The Summit sort of threw me into the boxing ring in terms of asserting myself and introducing myself/my work to a totally new group of people, which was scary and awesome at the same time. I learned more from the brief, speed-datingesque conversations I initiated with people over the coffee stations than I did in the actual presentations. Huh. Having spent more than an adequate amount of time in the higher education circle, the way I explained my Fellowship was WAY different than how I’d explained it at the FYE conference in February; even disparate from how I explained it to my parents’ friends over winter break. As someone who struggles with brevity — written as well as verbal — talking about my job to marketing professionals really made me polish my 30-second elevator speech.
So, I also wanted to address something I’ve been struggling with since the Digital Summit. I had a genuinely great time at the conference, mostly for the networking aspect and actually being in the middle of a digital media conference. I’m not sure if I should blame this on my natural cynicism, or critical thinking skills, but I can’t walk away from something like this without a little bit of criticism. This may speak to the nature of the marketing profession, but it didn’t seem to me that others were the same way. In one instance, I was on the verge of an interesting conversation about the “people as products” dialogue that was being thrown around a lot (an uncomfortable amount, from a personal standpoint) with a lady close to my age, but it seemed like she wanted to back away from saying anything remotely negative about the presentations. That’s irresponsible conferencing, in my opinion. Isn’t the point of listening to presentations forming your own opinions? Even if they are dissenting opinions? Like, you can appreciate and understand something, and even like it, but at the same time point out its flaws? (You know, as you do with your alma mater.) Another story for another time, I guess.
On to the next: it’s summer, duh. I’m only at the Bat Cave for another month, which means a lot of blogging and training material development and not a lot else, since nobody’s really on campus. AND THEN… I finally accepted my post-DDF job, at the Georgia Center for Nonprofits. I’ll be doing Online Marketing through the Americorps Vista program, which is going to be challenging and fun and crazy all at once (I can already tell). Since my ASC contract finishes June 30, and the GCN job won’t begin until late July, I even get vacation time. I just… I can’t even.
I will go from this:
to THIS:
So, uh, I’m pretty excited about it.
I’ve also started running. This is normal for about 99% of the people I know, but I have always been really anti-normal exercise. Now, I’m kind of into it — but people who are really into running I think are masochists at heart. I’m not going to tell you how pitifully slow I am, but it’s progress, right?
I’m also starting a week of veganism on Sunday, and hopefully Neil and I will be able to have a vegan barbecue for Memorial Day. I think I’m going to dedicate next week’s blog posts to what I’m making. I’m armed with his copy of Vegan Planet, and I really like cooking and other feminine stuff (that’s a joke, by the way), so I think it’ll be a fun experiment. The worst that’ll happen is that I’ll become too healthy. Honestly, now I live in Decatur proper with my significant other, run every day, veganize my diet and think about starting a garden and am about to work for a nonprofit — WHO HAVE I BECOME?
social networks have I known …
Posted: 05/12/2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »If you’re tech news-obsessed like yours truly, you’ve probably heard about Friendster deleting all of its users’ info at the end of this month. If we’re being honest/unfriendly, reading about Friendster’s demise in 2011 is kind of like finding a really old, mildewy pair of jeans in the back of your closet. Er, perhaps alongside that collection of white belts and “artfully” distressed thrift store shirts (and to further the metaphor of a 2002 ‘scene kid,’ let’s imagine them as skinny jeans, rolled up a single time). Not like I had any of those; ahem.
So, anyway, I logged into my long-untouched Friendster account and experienced a little secondhand embarrassment. For myself. I created my Friendster account in ’03, after some prodding by a friend (full disclosure: he wanted a “testimonial” from a female so he would look interesting and desirable to all the cool hipster ladies of the Internet; do with that what you will); looking at my Friendster info now, I have to say that I may have been a lot cooler at 14 than I am at 23. This is a startling revelation.
Rule No. 1 for a Teenage Internet Hipster: Take Yourself As Seriously As Possible.
In all honesty, I’m not too concerned about Friendster deleting my data. I don’t have anything spicy or too embarrassing up there (ha-ha, I saved the good stuff for my LiveJournal), just a fairly accurate display of pseudo-intellectualism. Friendster engagement does reflect the first real major step in social networking as we now know it. I’m going to try not to make too many more sweeping generalizations about Generation Y/Millenial/Me/Narcissistic and the digital world and blah blah blah, but it is true that I’ve grown up “with” the Internet. I’ve had an online identity, to one degree or another, since I was about 12, using AOL and posting diligently to music message boards.
My friends and I were really into Geocities and Angelfire and all sorts of site-building hosts that, in retrospect, were really rudimentary and full of glittery cat GIFs. But it’s the experience that counts, right? I also remember learning super-basic design skills on Expage. I probably created around 10 different Expage sites, and was practically religious about writing the HTML code by hand so I’d remember it for later. Even though by current standards, my parents really should have been on their A game for parental controls (after all, there are few things more dangerous than an insatiably curious, precocious tween with Internet access); if they’d been more diligent, I probably wouldn’t be confidently cresting the social media wave like I am now. Pats on the back all around!
I certainly didn’t think about it this way at the time, but it’s kind of interesting to think of being a pre-teen and being so involved in digital community-building. I actually made some really good friends over the Internet; which, naturally, has become a less weird thing over time. Some of whom, in the manner of Kevin Bacon, I shared very few degrees of separation. (e.g., Dani: a girl from Omaha I talked about music with over AIM/the aforementioned AOL message board; who auditioned at some of the same theatre conservatory schools as I did in the pre-college days; who ended up at University of Southern California and became a good acquaintance of one of my best friends from home, Andrew, who was incidentally an Acting major at USC; who startled me with a phone call during my first year of college to inform me that he had met Dani, My Internet Friend. Kevin Bacon has nothing on this.)
Tumblr has also been an excellent way of “meeting” folks, not to mention the people I’ve met at conferences thanks to Twitter. The progression of more complex, community-based platforms has been nothing but intuitive for me, even if my digital footprint makes me roll my eyes at times. Speaking of Tumblr, I came across this timeline on my feed the other day, which speaks to a lot of the stuff I just talked about (the image links to source):
I’ve been batting around the idea of having some friends write guest posts on my Fellowship blog about their experiences “growing up” with online communication, but I suppose it will all depend on who’s willing and able. The topic of digital communities is endlessly fascinating to me! I like thinking about Twitter as an exercise in linguistics and brevity (the latter clearly being something I struggle with); Tumblr as a means of cycling information in a dynamic, quantifiable way; Svpply/Pinterest (et al) as a potentially SUPER effective model for online consumerism.
The next post will probably see me returning to my 14-year old self, if only because I am currently in the throes of an existential crisis and feel the urge to revisit the days before student loans and being a grown-up. Deal with it.
(is it just me, or is there something vaguely terrifying about this video?)
on nests, and leaving them.
Posted: 05/05/2011 Filed under: agnes scott, becoming a real adult, blogging, personal interests Leave a comment »So, it’s May. In Atlanta, the magnolias are blooming, the pollen is blocking visibility on my windshield, and it’s almost too hot outside for a cardigan sweater. May also means that people are graduating, renewing or finishing their leases, and things are just … well, changing. This isn’t exactly ground-breaking information, but it seems particularly poignant to me at the moment: I’m on the job hunt.
This time last year, I was a lot less panicked than I should have been, in retrospect. For whatever reason, I wasn’t too worried about WHAT WOULD BECOME OF ME after graduation. This attitude is actually really not like me at all. Usually, I’m a typical Capricorn who needs her five-year plan itemized to the letter, so not having a post-grad plan should have thrown me into a state of apoplexy. Maybe it was thesis completion-related complacency, maybe it was the lull of a newly-signed lease with my friends, or maybe it was just the pollen. In any event, I wasn’t too concerned about what the immediate future would bring. Given that, I guess it was just really good timing that I was offered the Digital Design Fellowship at Agnes Scott, a year-long commitment to full-time employment that would allow me to do what I love (Internet things) on a regular salary, with full benefits. I had a month between graduation and working to go home to Florida and hang out with my horse, my mom, and my dog; basically, to chill out from 4 years of Agnes Scott. It was nice to go to the beach, and relax on porches with my friends until 4 AM like in high school, but it was especially nice to go to work. To start my life as an adult, with a cool job and all the bragging rights that went along with it.
I mention all of this because I was reading the year’s final issue of the Agnes Scott Profile, and got a little misty for the first time since … well, since ever. My fellowship ends officially on June 30, and I’ll be leaving the ASC nest soon enough. I never had a chance to feel nostalgic for my college since I transitioned straight into working for it, and the prospect of applying elsewhere has been both a kind of relief and terror. My current goal is to apply to a job a day, in social and digital media, and hope that something sticks. Hurry up and wait. This, I imagine, should have been my experience last year.
I’ve had a recent bit of luck on the application front, at least; I’ve received one formal offer that I’ve reluctantly had to turn down. Part of me is slightly wistful that I’d known what I wanted to go into my first (even my sophomore) year of college, or that I’d had an opportunity to major in Marketing/Communications like so many of these jobs require. More of me wishes I knew if I wanted to go to graduate school; if so, what I’d want to study. I suppose this is a reiteration of my post about the quarter-life crisis, or at least a lament that everyone else seems to know what their future holds, why can’t I? I know I’d like to continue working in higher education, implementing social media strategy, but I’d also like to work in an actual agency. I know I’m marketable; I can do things, and I learn quickly, but this job search feels a lot like throwing glitter into the wind.
So, what now? More hurry up and wait. Endless submissions of qualifications, of which I seem to have either too many or not enough. Attempts to finish this year’s work, knowing there’s no chance of continuing that programming into another year. It’s not so much empty desperation that I’m feeling, more like being at the end of a single-lane road without a map. It’s time to find the way out of the nest, and my little wings aren’t sure if they’re ready.
Anyway, it’s a lot of listening to Dirty Beaches and trying to find a happy medium, or at least some kind of interesting employment. Figuring out ways to make myself competitive amongst 2011 graduates who have Communications degrees and all the connections inherent. Potentially having a very long vacation. My inner Capricorn is having a field day with this uncertainty.
So if you’d like to hire me for something, do let me know. I can navigate the hell out of WordPress, tell you if your design needs work, theorize about microblogging until the cows come home. Develop your digital strategy, talk about metrics, wax poetic about Google Apps and show you how to maximize your Tumblr. Just please, give me a purpose and a paycheck.
