I'm not sure why I feel the need to share this, but I went through the list of random quotes and subtly updated it so every quote that appears actually reflects my current agnostic Republitarian belief system. It's not like some of the other quotes weren't good, but I don't want to misrepresent myself.
Just in case anyone cares.
This is basically an update to the previous post, but just to create the illusion that I'm blogging more...
An example of what I was talking about with the Obama thing: On my way to the subway station in the morning, I pass by a bunch of people selling various items on the street (most of it is probably stolen, but that's not relevant to the post), including clothing.
An item for sale at one such location is a t-shirt with some overblown slogan on the front (something about dreaming for change). The slogan acts as a horizontal line between a picture of Barack Obama and a picture of Martin Luther King, Jr.
See what I mean? My instincts tell me it's real and this person/shirt manufacturer has just been swept up in Obama's Pied Piperesque campaign (seriously, comparing Obama to King is on the same level as comparing Bush to Hitler), but on the other hand, doesn't it seem like almost a perfect way to point out the Obamaniacs' disturbing obsession with hopehopechangechangeohbythewayobamaisblack?
Help me out here.
Getting away from terrible punctuation, there's something I want to touch on briefly (I'm still spending most of my days at work typing). It's been bugging me for a while, and I want to see if anyone else has the same problem.
Basically, my issue is this: I can't seem to tell who genuinely supports Barack Obama for president and who is just making fun of his supporters.
I'm totally serious. Every time I see some exaggerated reference to "hope we can believe in" or an image of Obama as some sort of messianic golden god or some shit, I have to analyze every possible aspect of it in an attempt to figure out whether it's a show of support or just a parody of Obama's whole hopechangehopechange noise machine.
Am I alone here? Do I just need to pay more attention to current events, or has Obama become that much of a self-parody of touchy-feely, bleeding heart liberalism that there really is no difference?
Either way, what a great election this is going to be. You can vote for a smooth-talking Democrat with no ideas, or you can vote for a smooth-talking Democrat...with...
...no...
...ideas.
Shit.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGHBLBLBLBLBLBL!!!!!!!!!!
FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU STRAIGHT TO HELL!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(NOTE: If you're looking at that picture and wondering what the problem is, please get the fuck off of my site and never come back. Thanks.)
Is it possible to get sucked into a black hole of frustration? If so, I fear for my life.
Another day of interning, another six hours of typing.
Fun fact: When you transcribe interviews, you begin to realize just how much actual human speech differs from dialogue. For one thing, people say "you know" a lot. Like...a whole lot. I eventually copied the phrase "you know" to the clipboard, and now I can just hit cmd+v every time it comes up. Don't you wish you were as smart as me?
That being said, I still don't feel like typing a whole lot more thanks to this. Maybe I'll make a big post tomorrow.
In the meantime, I'd like to share something I found somewhat funny. On the way to campus for dinner, I pass a GNC-type health store (it may actually be a GNC; I don't remember) with windows overlooking a corner of the sidewalk. As I was coming around this corner today, I looked inside and noticed a big bottle of a product called "UP YOUR MASS."
The thing that's funny is that one side of the label was facing slightly away from me, so for a second, it looked like it said "UP YOUR ASS." I should get a picture if it's still there next week.
On a related note, there's also a sign on my way to work advertising "amazing classes," but someone ripped off the C and the L in "classes." I should also get a picture of that. Why not?
Aaaaaand...on a note somewhat related to that, I've noticed lately that the word "amazing" is horribly overused, and I've decided to stop using it entirely for a few weeks, just to see what happens.
Anyway...I might post a Name that iTune later, but I need to rest now.
Still transcribing, so still no big post. Instead, check out this sign I saw at work today which is both hilarious and depressing:
Quotation marks are not used for emphasis, you dipshits.
There are more examples of this blatant misuse around the building, but I can't get pictures of them quite as easily.
Remember this post?
Yeah...turns out the correct answer was "B," if tonight was any indication. I wonder if they realize that the acoustics of the suite are such that the corner leading to my bathroom actually amplifies sounds from the common room...
It seems I'm up to at least three readers again. Not bad considering how much time off I took. I guess that means I should continue the Intern Chronicles, etc., but once again, I spent an entire day transcribing an interview (21 pages so far, and I still have to do another 33 minutes of it), and I'd kind of like to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome, so no long posts until I switch over to some other duty.
Believe me, it'll be worth the wait. I've got some great stories to tell, including the tale of the finger crushing Frenchman, and the reason Panavision can go to hell. Until then, I may throw up a quick "Name that iTune" or something. And you can use this as an open thread if you want.
Once again, as soon as my job consists of something other than typing for six hours straight, I'll get caught up on the stories. Stay tuned...
I'd like to write a big, detailed post about the last couple weeks of my internship, since I kind of stopped updating for a while, but I spent the entire day transcribing an interview (which took about 17 single-spaced pages) and don't particularly feel like typing a whole lot more for the next few hours. I will write something soon, though.
I think.
P.S.: HOLY FUCK, IT'S FUCKING HOT OUTSIDE.
At least one of the following fun facts about one of my roommates is true:
A) At about 3 AM, he decided to watch porn in the common room with the volume loud enough to be heard through a closed door at the other end of the suite.
B) The girl who has been following him around all weekend is very bad at being quiet during sex.
I'm leaning toward the first one, but who knows around here?
Incidentally, the reason I could hear this is because my shower decided that the only necessary water temperatures are "scalding hot" and "holy fucking shit it's melting my flesh," so I had to keep turning it off every 30 seconds to avoid a fiery death.
Now it's 4:30, and I have to get up for work at 8:30. WOOOOOOO!
...That's the word I'd use to describe my social life (or lack thereof).
Seriously, fuck this shit. It's 11:30 on a Saturday night in fucking Manhattan, and I'm sitting alone in my room with the door closed. One of my roommates is in the common room watching TV with a friend of his who I haven't met, and the other two are out somewhere.
I have no idea what to do.
The CD of five years ago (the one who started this blog partially because it was easier than communicating in person with anyone) would've loved this. I had no desire for a social life back then, and most of my half-assed attempts were pretty much based on expectation rather than actually wanting friends.
Now, however...this fucking blows. I want to do things and meet people, but I don't know what to do. I spent the last couple years looking back on all the opportunities I missed and realizing that if I was placed in those situations now, I'd know exactly how to handle them. Part of the reason I did this NYU internship thing was because I thought it would give me one last chance to make up for those missed opportunities before moving on to the "real world."
Nope. I'm right back where I started. I know exactly how to make friends with people I've just met who are new to the area like me and don't know each other. I would probably have a decent chance of making friends in a classroom situation as well, since I actually started doing that during the last semester of college.
But what's this? All of a sudden, I'm living with people who have been here all summer and already know each other, and that means they already have their own individual social networks and plans. I don't want to be a dick and just barge in on them. "Hey, I've been lurking in the shadows all week, and I know you're with a friend, but can I hang out?" Or is that okay to do? I have no idea. I never even had a reason to know this until now.
In addition, I spend my weekdays surrounded by people who are, on average, at least a decade older than me. The only person close to my age is the other intern, and I never get to talk to her because they're always sending her out on runs, and when she is in the office, we don't work together on anything.
Fuck. This. Shit. Can I just have one chance to actually use skills I've learned before I'm required to learn new skills? That's all I ask. It's been like this my whole life. I spend years being clueless about something, and by the time I finally figure it out, it's too late, and I'm right back to being clueless about something else.
I'm tired of being lonely. So fucking tired...
So, I fulfilled a lifelong dream tonight.
Yep. I finally did something I've been wanting to do for almost ten years...
I watched the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks live. They were almost all visible from the common room of my suite. Being on the 26th floor of a building two blocks from the East River has its advantages.
The smoke obscured the fireworks from one of the barges, and there was a building in front of the barge closest to us, but still...holy fuck, what a show.
Also, after the display, I did the opposite of what the old CD would've done and stuck around watching TV/movies with my suitemates and their friends. We watched some of Independence Day, hence the post title, and a couple other things.
A quick tip: If you want to lighten the mood during Independence Day (assuming other people are already going MST3K on the thing), say "Oh, shit! They have virus protection!" during the scene where Jeff Goldblum's character connects his laptop the the alien mothership. It worked for me, at least.
Of course, they're all out at a party now, and I'm still here, but since I don't expect them to just magically invite me to something they were planning to go to before I showed up, I'm not taking it as a sign of failure. At least I didn't make an idiot of myself like I normally seem to in these situations. I still have to learn to keep my damn mouth shut sometimes, but I'd say I'm making progress.
The fact that I'm 23 years old and I'm still analyzing my social performance to this degree says a lot about my life up to this point...but hey, it's never to late to improve yourself, right?
...Right?
This post is a little later than the usual daily post because I basically passed out at my desk a little while after I got home.
Let me begin by saying...
Anyway...
Let's go through another exciting day of internship.
Once again, awkwardness took center stage for much of the day, starting with my not being aware of how to get into the building where I work for the third day in a row. As I finally know now, you show your pass to the security guard, he unlocks the turnstile, and then you go through to the elevators.
Where was I when this information was being given out, and why didn't I pick it up on Tuesday or Wednesday?
Actually, if I can go on a tangent for a second, I've had several embarrassing moments involving doors this week. Of course, there's the aforementioned security guard thing, and the fact that I got locked out of my suite twice last weekend. In addition, I wanted to talk to E the other day, but when I pushed on the door, it didn't move, so I figured it was locked and knocked. She proceeded to slide it open from the side.
Oh.
There's also the fact that I got locked out of my company's office for about half an hour this morning and had to wander around the building until someone came by.
But getting away from that...
The first couple hours of the day consisted of me sitting on a couch in the office and reading the news on my cell phone while I waited for someone to give me some sort of a job. Good times. I actually ended up taking a lunch break before there was even anything to take a break from. The afternoon, however, was another story...
You see, the office is being rearranged a bit, and a ton of stuff had to be moved around today. Naturally, the higher-ups like CO1 and DP have more important things to do, so they're relying on the interns whenever possible. The problem is that I2 weighs about 80 pounds, so anything that required physical exertion was pretty much my responsibility.
The following is a list of things I lifted and/or moved this afternoon:
- Hard drives
- TV Monitors
- Computer monitors
- Disk drives
- Film canisters
- Books
- DV tapes
- Computer speakers
- Desks
- A box of video game consoles and accessories
- A fax machine
- Printers
- A drill
- Empty cardboard boxes
- A bed
Let me elaborate on that last one. CO1 lives near the office and needed a bed moved a little because he's having company over or something, so he actually brought me and DP over to his apartment after work to help him out. I also had to carry the aforementioned box of video game stuff all the way out there.
I can't believe I'm not getting paid for this.*
My other major task today was making copies of a bunch of documents. This eventually led to...
Wait for it...
...An awkward moment! WOOOOOOO!
The copier had two methods of copying: The normal "lay the paper down on a pane of glass" version, and a fax machine type option where the paper goes through and a copy comes out the side. Of course, I only knew about the second one until I was shown how to open up the top of the machine after I tried to feed a folded, multi-page document through it.
I hate living with the feeling that everyone around me secretly thinks I'm retarded and is only being nice to me because they feel sorry for me.
Now, let's talk about idiosyncrasies. As a writer, one thing I consider myself pretty good at doing is noticing certain phrases that people repeat, whether they realize it or not.
Almost everyone has their own go-to word/phrase, and especially in recent months, I seem to have developed a talent for focusing on them. For example, mine is "seriously." I use it on the blog, I use it in real life, and I use it way more than I should. I've also recently become fond of the phrase "or some shit." It's very versatile.
The classic example of this tendency is Quentin Tarantino and his stupefying overuse of "okay" and "all right." David Blaine is another great example: "Watch. Watch. Look. Look."
You see this tendency a lot in sports, since athletes give so many interviews. For example, Ty Conklin, backup goaltender for the Pittsburgh Penguins Detroit Red Wings, says "certainly" all the time. Marian Hossa, right winger for the Penguins fuck free agency fuck Ritch Winter Red Wings, constantly says "to tell you the truth" (which, thanks to his accent, sounds like "t'tell you de troo"). And, as the fine folks at WDVE have pointed out, Mario Lemieux is a fan of "obviously" and "especially."
Another example: I remember watching a show on MSNBC a while back where some Middle-Eastern diplomat was being interviewed, and he used the phrase "as a matter of fact" in just about every sentence. The host even referenced something the diplomat had said and displayed the quote on the screen, and it included "as a matter of fact." Kind of funny.
Even in literature, this can happen. I read a lot of Nelson DeMille books in the last year, and I noticed that, especially in his earlier works, characters who observe someone or something always "regard [him/her/it] a moment." It got to the point where I had to stop reading and put the book down for a second every time I came across that phrase because it made every narrator sound the same.
Everyone has a go-to word/phrase. Today, I found out that CO1's is the phrase that I used for this post's title. I must have heard that three dozen times today. Late in the day, for example, he gave me a script to read, but I never got past the first page...
CD: (sits down to read script)
CO1: Hey, before you get too far into that, could you do me a favor?
CD: Sure.
CO1: Could you [insert request here]?
CD: No problem.
CO1: Thanks, buddy.
CD: (does the requested task, goes to sit down again)
CO1: Actually, could you do me another favor?
CD: Sure.
CO1: Thanks, buddy.
Repeat ad nauseum until 4:30.
After a while, I wanted to answer with "no problem, chief," but I also want to finish this internship at the time it's scheduled to end, so...yeah.
That was a really long explanation of something that could've been boiled down to "this guy says this thing a lot" or some shit.
Seriously.
*NOTE: I do not dislike this internship; I am simply trying to make light of the less interesting parts of it. Thank you.*
Let me start by saying that certain readers who are fans of a certain Western Conference NHL team should keep their thoughts on the signing of a certain Slovakian sniper to themselves.
Anyway.
Not a whole lot to write about today. The only people around were me, PC, E, CO1, and another intern ("I2") who I didn't even get to properly meet until the end of the day.
Incidentally, as should be expected by now, that meeting led to a slightly awkward moment. I started up a conversation with her while we were waiting for an elevator, and the door opened a few seconds later, revealing that a couple other people were already inside. I guess we both decided that it would be bad elevator etiquette to keep talking in the presence of others or something, because we just kind of stared forward silently until we got to the ground floor, then finished the conversation when the doors opened.
I'm really starting to think that if I look up "awkward" in the dictionary, the illustration will be a picture of me trying to have a normal conversation.
On a somewhat related note, I'm getting tired of having to explain to people why I have a college degree, yet I'm taking an internship for a university program. You have to start somewhere.
I seem to have gone off on a tangent. Let's get back to my duties for today.
Basically, my job was to surf the Internet and find interesting tidbits of information on various topics so E can insert them into a TV show the studio is producing. Once again, I can't go into specifics, unfortunately.
Also, I...oh, wait, that was all I did today. Five hours of research. Wooo. I guess it's better than sweeping up the floors.
The most interesting part of the day, honestly, was when I got lost attempting to walk home. I got out of the subway station and went in the direction that I thought led back to my dorm, but it turns out that I went the opposite direction and ended up walking in circles for about 20 minutes attempting to find a street I recognized.
Fun stuff.
Also, if I may vent for a second about something that came to mind during this period of wandering: Fuck cigarettes, and fuck the assholes who insist on smoking them in public. Seriously. If I ran up to a smoker and poked him in the eye, he'd get pissed off. And yet, smokers can expel hot ash into the air, some of which landed directly in my eyes, and it's their "right" to do so.
Fuck. You. Eat a fucking shotgun; It's a quicker, less painful method of suicide.
I think I need to take a break.
I don't know if I'm going to continue using that title (maybe I'll just make it a category), but it sounds pretty cool for now, right?
RIGHT???
Anyway, I just had the most interesting day in a long time. As has been the norm lately, let's go through the day.
My morning started around 8 when I got out of bed feeling extremely shitty. Luckily, I felt better as I woke up, so...possible crisis averted. I actually managed to leave the building around 9, giving myself an hour to make a trip that was projected to take around 35 minutes.
The first step of the journey was to locate the subway station and find the proper train to take me close to my destination. This was surprisingly uneventful, and I managed to locate the right train and get out at the proper stop.
The subway provided another example of the focused nature of New York. The car was packed, and yet, it was almost silent. Another thought: In some way, I think the fact that everyone stumbles for a second if they're standing up when the subway starts to move, regardless of their social status or place in life, brings us all together.
Does that even make sense?
Due to the number of long posts lately, I'm going to continue in the extended entry. Read on if you want to join me for a day of slightly awkward confusion.
The first real adventure of the day happened when I realized that I didn't know the exact location of my internship site when I got within a block of it. I think I wandered around for about ten minutes before locating it, but I still managed to get inside and get to the main office by 10:00.
Bored yet? Read on.
Before I start, let's establish a standard for these posts. As I said earlier, I'm not going to reveal where I'm working, and I also don't want to give away too many specifics, since some astute reader with too much free time could probably start putting facts together and find out where I am. I'd rather not take that risk.
Therefore, I'm going to be giving code names to everyone I deal with. Frankly, this will probably be more confusing for me than it is for you readers, since I'll have to remember which name corresponds to which person, while you'll just have to remember the names I give you.
Now that that's cleared up...
The first person I met was the production coordinator ("PC" from now on), who is also acting as my supervisor for this internship. The main project going on right now is a documentary (again, that's as specific as I'm going to get for now), and I was immediately informed that I was going to join a crew going out to shoot an interview.
The term "crash course" was invented with this type of situation in mind.
So, I went back outside, and after introducing me to the director of photography ("DP") and the co-owner of the company ("CO1"), PC gave me the key to the van and told me to wait in there while they went back in the building and finalized the arrangements.
So, I waited...and waited...and waited...and waited...and waited...for about half an hour in this fucking van with no idea what was going on. It was about 90 degrees outside today, and it was sunny, so you can imagine my discomfort. I tried to deal with this by drinking from a 1 pint bottle of water that I had gotten inside, but this wasn't exactly fun.
Finally, after I got out of the van and stood on the sidewalk for a few minutes, PC came back and told me that they couldn't get permission to shoot at the planned location, so they were doing the interview in the building.
Great.
So, we went back inside and proceeded to a big room with a bunch of dirt and props of some sort on the floor. It looked like the backstage area of a high school auditorium. And, according to to PC and CO1, it was all garbage.
Let's pause to summarize. My first duty as an intern was to guard a hot van for half an hour. My second duty was...
Wait for it...
Wait for it...
Aaaaaand...now!
...Cleaning up all the stuff on the floor!
WOOOOOOOOOOO! I LOVE THIS BUSINESS!
Of course, I expected it would be something like this, so don't take my sarcasm as a sign that I was really pissed off. I just think it's kind of a funny scenario.
Anyway, I spent the next few minutes wandering around the room with a pushbroom and dustpan and sweeping up dust, pins, and beads that were scattered all over the place.
Around this time, I met a rather interesting character. He's a camera operator or something (I think he does other stuff too), and I will refer to him as "FYF."
By the way, I'm capitalizing that for consistency, but in my head, I've been pronouncing it as "Fiff." You can do the same if you want.
You may be wondering where this name comes from. Basically, he's a friendly guy, but it's kind of a "fuck you" friendly. FYF.
Don't you wish you were as creative as me?
FYF is the kind of guy who will ask you a question about yourself, then make fun of your answer regardless of what you say. He also responds sarcastically to just about everything. At the same time, he's not really a dick or anything. Just..."'fuck you' friendly." I'm sure everyone has met someone like this.
For example, at one point, I realized I didn't know his name, so I said something like, "by the way, I don't think I got your name yet."
His response (not verbatim): "Yeah, because I didn't give it to you. Where would you have gotten my name if I didn't give it to you?"
It sounds really rude, but he was kind of laughing/smiling as he said it. On the other side of things, he told me where to find the editing room when I mentioned that I was interested in post-production, and he asked me to pitch (for you non-industry types, "pitch" means "describe in a way that makes the listener want to produce it") the three scripts I've written. People like that are hard to read.
Anyway, after I had finished sweeping and headed to the bathroom to deal with the consequences of the pint of water I drank while sitting in the van, I returned to find that I was walking into the middle of an interview.
Have I mentioned my tendency to create awkward situations lately?
Luckily, they just kept going, and FYF had me monitor the sound so he could focus on framing the shot.
I really, really wish I could go into detail about what the interviewee talked about, because it was one of the more interesting things I've heard recently, but again, I'm leaving out those kinds of things. Let's just say that he's acting as something of an iconoclastic music historian for this film.
Shit, even that seems like too much info, but I'll take my chances...this time.
After the interview, there was some downtime, and I decided to try and find some food. After another awkward situation involving walking into a place I wasn't supposed to be, I learned that there was a cafeteria downstairs. When I went back to the interview room to get some money, FYF informed me that it would really help if I came back there to watch the equipment so he could take a break.
Are you seeing a pattern in my duties here?
I got some food and came back up, and FYF had me sit in front of the camera while I ate so he could adjust the shot. Another exchange that took place during this time:
FYF: What'd you get me for lunch?
CD (somewhat sarcastic): Uhh...a bag of air.
FYF (dripping with sarcasm): Oooooooh, you're funny.
I genuinely can't tell if this guy likes me or hates me.
The rest of the day consisted of wandering around waiting for the next interview to start. Eventually, it became clear that I was going to have to leave before the interview, since I still had some business to take care of on campus. I did meet the editor ("E") and have a brief conversation with another employee who admits that even he isn't sure what his job title is. Because of this, his name will be "WTF."
This code name thing is going to get really annoying.
Anyway, I managed to once again find my way to the subway (after going the wrong way for about four blocks) and make it to campus and, subsequently, my room.
I'm in a really weird mental zone right now. On one hand, if you read that description of my day, it probably seems like it sucked. However, I'm in the best mood I've been in for a long time, and on the way home, I actually found myself smiling for no particular reason.
I think you'd have to know me in real life to understand how utterly bizarre that is.
In any case, I hope this is a sign that I'm on the right track, and the next few days will probably be better now that I've figured out my basic position within this production.
Incidentally, don't expect every post about the internship to be this long. I just had to establish the setting and characters so I can focus only on the interesting parts from now on.
I am a writer, after all.
I'll end the post with an observation from the past few days: Authority figures (even people whose job is to sit behind a desk and stamp forms) who obviously speak English as a second language or have some sort of heavy foreign accent tend to get pissed off at me much faster when I don't know exactly what I'm doing than native, American-English speakers. I'm not sure if this is a failure on my part or theirs, but it's kind of interesting.
I'm out of things to say.
I think I figured out how I'm going to get to work.
I think.
Anyway, if I had to think of one word to describe today, it would be "ironic."
You see, I seem to keep ending up in situations that don't allow me to interact with others, despite the fact that I'm actually looking for social situations now rather than actively avoiding and/or running away from them like I did in the past.
Let's go through the day.
I started off by taking the NYU bus to campus, and it was eerily quiet most of the way. There were only about half a dozen people there, so that's kind of understandable. Still, I had already started noticing something: Everyone here seems to be preoccupied at all times with their own business. Whether they're talking on their cell phones, reading various materials, or whatever else it is people do, they don't seem really interested in anyone else.
Moving on...
The first order of business was to get my official ID card so I can get in and out of buildings. Kind of important. After walking around in circles for about 15 minutes, I finally found my way there, and there was a line from the card production area all the way to the door.
Those two are not in the same room, just to give you an idea of the congestion.
This is where things got interesting. I actually started looking around for someone to talk to, since it was obvious that I was going to be there for a while. After a couple minutes, another guy in line went all the way to the front to see how long it really was, and when he basically announced to everyone else that he could barely see where it ended, I made a casual comment in an attempt to start a conversation. We both kind of laughed about the ridiculousness of the line...and then he decided that he didn't want to wait and proceeded to leave.
Shit.
So, there I was once again, standing by myself with nobody to talk to. In front of me was a dude who had barely even moved since I had been there and didn't look like he wanted to even make eye contact with anyone else, and behind me was a dumpy high school girl who was watching/listening to something on an iPod and loudly snort-laughing every 30 seconds.
Again, I go into the situation actually looking to socialize, and one attempt doesn't go anywhere, leaving me in a situation with no other clear opportunities. Why couldn't I have been standing next to, say, a couple of cute girls who needed help finding their way back to the bus stop?
Just once, let me catch a break, universe.
After a very long time, I did manage to get to the front of the line, and the situation left me slightly pissed off, as you may be able to tell from the card photo:
(Fun fact: My hair looks weird because I forgot to use conditioner last night)
The next step of my day was to attend a class meeting for the internship course I'm technically enrolled in. I actually did manage to talk to the two other people who showed up early while we were waiting to get started, and I was thinking of possibly asking them if they were going somewhere to eat afterwards, but...oh, wait! I had to stay after the meeting to talk to the internship coordinator about getting my credits changed.
Shit. Again.
So, I ventured over to the student center food court and proceeded to sit by myself near the balcony eating a sandwich. Fun times. At one point, there was a girl (are you seeing a pattern in what's on my mind lately?) sitting a couple seats down eating by herself, and I guess I could've tried to start a conversation, but I have no idea what I would've said.
After that, I headed back to campus, again on a bus full of people either talking on cell phones or reading.
Let me reiterate once more: I used to actually try and create situations where I wouldn't have to talk to anyone, and I would try and find tables far away from other people when I ate so I wouldn't be bothered. Now, I actually want to socialize, and every time I try/plan to try something, it doesn't seem to work, and unlike the first weekend at Syracuse, for example, when orientation activities basically forced everyone to try to make friends, I've been thrust into a situation where everyone around me already has their own business and isn't particularly interested in anything else.
Wow, that was a long sentence.
An observation: One of the things that caused me some trouble in the past was that I tended to avoid eye contact and speak in a fast, kind of subdued tone so people couldn't understand me and/or thought I was trying to end the conversation. Also, the way I look in the above photo was the way I used to look all the time (except I was about 45 pounds fatter). I seem to still be slipping back into that persona occasionally, although I'm trying to exude more confidence. Interestingly, it's happening more around authority figures than my peers, while it used to be just the opposite.
I'm not sure what to think about that.
Oh, well. I start my internship in the morning. Maybe that will go more smoothly if I don't get lost in the subway system.
In closing: Somebody please be my fucking friend. Attractive, intelligent females, go to the front of the line.
Thank you.