I wrote a 45-page thesis about Bollywood and Indian terrorist movies. Over the course of my college career I became a pro at churning out a 5-page book analysis in under an hour every week. But who knew that writing sensationalistic bios of thirteen teenagers in Brooklyn would be so difficult?

I've been trying to do this since 4:30 yesterday afternoon and haven't even managed to complete ONE as yet. Granted, it's a nice breather from editing 24/7, but I definitely did not think that it was going to be this hard to take high school drama and shape it into viable plot points.

Add to this the fact that I really cannot concentrate today for personal reasons, and we have a two-hour assignment that's probably going to take me all day.

I wish these bios would just write themselves so that I could tackle the next beast: THE POWERPOINT PRESENTATION.

This may just be me, but if I were writing in to be considered for anything -- a job, a show, an academic program, whatever -- I would want to make the best possible first impression -- that is, literate, intelligent, and capable of writing a short, coherent email to someone.

Apparently 95% of the under-18 set doesn't feel the same way.

You would think that after working on casting shows for almost 5 or 6 months (putting together all the different projects for which I've had to find people), I would eventually have gotten used to the fact that most kids can't differentiate between Internet-speak and proper writing. But I haven't. Every time I get an email in the casting box that says "OMG u shud pick me bc i luv MTV and theres so much DRAMAAAAAA at my skool!!!!1!!" my first instinct is to trash it.

Of course, I can't do that, because then our options would be drastically limited, and we only have 4 more weeks to cast this show. But I just want to make these kids realize that it's not okay to write in abbreviations and Net shorthand to someone they don't know -- especially someone they are trying to impress. Usually it works the other way around.

Maybe I'm just an insane grammar Nazi, but if you can't run your shit through the spellcheck before sending it out, then I don't know if I even want to consider you. OMG WTF LOL.

(Oh and PS, kiddies: Don't try to tell me how to change the show until you see firsthand how much it takes for any idea to get through the development process here. There is a reason that we decided on the location we're using and not your little town in the middle of nowhere.)

These posters appeared all over our office between 4 and 6 PM today. At first I got really excited but then I realized that if this were to happen, and MTV were to revert back to what it once was, my entire department would probably be out of a job.

Last night I went to see The Hold Steady -- only my favorite band EVER right now -- in Prospect Park with Sloan. And now I'm pretty much never going to go to a concert again if it's not them, because it was seriously the best live show I've ever seen.

( ybor city is tres speedy but they throw such killer parties. )

Best. Concert. EVER. They're coming back to the city in September and I cannot wait.

One last thing: keep your calendars free on Saturday, August 25 from 1 to 7 PM EDT for the True Life Marathon on MTV -- the project I've been working on for the past month. It's the first time something I've worked on this closely has aired and I'm super proud of my contribution to it. So watch it!

I feel like all my posts lately have been of the "I AM ALIVE" variety.

Having said that...

I AM ALIVE. I also am 23 and have long, eye-covering, hipster bangs now. I've just been super busy at work and my mother is staying with me in my teeny tiny studio until the beginning of July, so that leaves very little time for me to update.

Without going into too much detail, things are going well and I'm cautiously optimistic about the future; and for those of you who are curious about what I'm doing now that the pilot's been completed (and are my Facebook friends), you can mosey on over to my Notes section.

Until next time!

It's been a really tough winter and beginning of 2007. I've been writing about most of it in locked entries because a lot of it I just don't feel like discussing with everyone. I fell into a huge post-grad slump where I missed Columbia desperately and wanted more than anything to go back to that simpler time. I felt hugely dissatisfied and totally caged in by both my work life and my social life. I didn't leave my apartment for most of January through March, usually claiming that it was because of the bitterly cold weather, but more often than not, I just didn't want to talk to or see anyone. I turned down invitations to go out one after one because I just couldn't handle seeing happy people. It sounds awful, but I was in such a self-pitying state of mind that, while I was glad to hear about my friends' successes at work or new relationships, it always triggered a "why not me" reflex that I desperately wanted to avoid.

But then the cliche of March "going in like a lion and coming out like a lamb" really did happen to me, for the first time in my life. What started as a continuation of the worst month by far that I had experienced post-college (February SUCKED, and that's all I really feel like saying for now) ended with a kind of rebirth -- a rebirth of my career aspirations, my social life, and my generally good demeanor and satisfaction with life as it is. I took a new job in the department where I used to intern at MTV, which I absolutely love so far, and I have a pretty solid understanding of how I want my career to progress, from growth within the department to grad school to what I eventually want to focus on.

As for personal matters -- nothing's really changed, nothing major has happened, but I think my more positive outlook on my work experience is rubbing off on everything else. It makes sense, because as someone who gets very personally involved in her job, if things aren't going well in that area I'll tend to be down about the rest of my life. I've been told that that's not a good way to operate, that I should learn to leave my work at the office, but I don't necessarily want "who I am" and "what I do" to be mutually exclusive. And I saw that happening for a while, and it scared me -- enough to want to make a change, and to follow through on it. For a while I didn't feel any passion for what I was doing during three-fourths of my time, and at the end of the day I just couldn't handle that. At the end of the day, I had to do what was best for me.

I have more stories, about Indian matrimonial websites and my parents' outlook on dating suddenly making a total 180 and fiascos with trying to edit Muse's thesis presentation in my spare time and all of my friends suddenly deciding to leave the city -- but that's too many words for one post. So I'll be back, in a lot less than four months -- but right now, the delightful weather and lunch beckon. May flowers, here I come.

I spent this weekend back in 1991, when we were silly and mischeivous and spent our time at parties spying on the grownups from the stairwell. Until they caught us, of course.



I feel so trapped in the cage of my own routine. I need something to come along and shake things up, now.

Also: Watch MTV's True Life: I'm Jealous of My Sibling on Oct. 31 (yes, I realize it's Halloween) at 10pm to see my first on-screen credit on a TV show. Oh yeah, and the show's pretty awesome too.