business poetry: orientation, the first three days

    certain Powerpoints were caused to occur:
    Harvard -- the Merage of the East! (or so the dean says
    and he seems like he knows)


    I love the smell of new laptop
    endless parade of faculty and staff
    bursting with faith in us
    bonfires
    pizza
    beer and naps when we needed them most
    a ropes course when I needed it least
    sunburnsunburn hey, pain au chocolat sunburnsunburn
    so many boys in crisp blue shirts
    and iPhone cameras to document them
    anxieties trumped by good cheer and caffeine
    unlike USC film school, we are handed an alumni database, complete
    with pictures
    and telephone numbers


    !


    As I said: faith
    in us
    enough to move our local mountains
    but I may need a little more
    to make it through statistics
    yikes
    I am but a filmmaker
    with star stickers on her nametag
    and a head full of errands
    but
    I have finished reading our brick of a course reader
    just in time for tomorrow
    and I took lots of good notes in my best cursive
    because I am neurotic
    My group members strike me as reliable
    and quick
    and forgiving
    and we might not kill each other for a while yet.


    I have faith.

d-day, h-hour, o-orientation

    It's amazing how difficult it is to post when you have tons of reading, and projects to work on, and film screenings to attend, and fabulous people to hang out with. Yihal.

    But no matter: onward and upward to orientation, which starts this morning! I suspect this may be the last time this year that I will ever wear eyeshadow. In the meantime, I will try not to panic that my new, required laptop hasn't arrived yet; the entire admin has assured me that Neolithic-era notetaking equipment (paper, pen, absence of Twitter) will be perfectly A-OK for the next two weeks of orientation.

    Breathing in through the nose, out through the mouth.

    Bonus: free breakfast!

The Pink Floydness of Tustin

    Is it just me, or does this Tustin blimp hangar look like a Pink Floyd album cover?

   

    True, it's in nearby Tustin and not Irvine, but I shall still claim it as part of my new stomping grounds. I believe the technical term for this structure is "wicked rad".

    That is all.

The Magic of Irbhinn

    Plagiarized from an email I just sent:

    I just learned from Wikipedia that William Wallace's fate was influenced by a temporary truce between the Scots and the English in -- wait for it -- Irvine, Scotland. According to Wikipedia, Irvine is from the Gaelic "Irbhinn", and folks like Robert Burns, Poe, Nobel, and Napoleon hung out there; Nobel even had a factory in town. And if you're a fan of Atlas Shrugged (which I am), there really was a John Galt, and he hung out in the original Irvine as well, plus his novel The Member has political corruption as its central theme, just like Atlas Shrugged. I don't know about you, but I find all of this fascinating. This is why Wikipedia is very, very dangerous for me. It's amazing that I ever get any work done.

    And I just had two Christian guys -- Jehovah's Witnesses? Mormons? I should've looked more closely at their nametags -- come to my door a couple of minutes ago. I'd always heard about such things happening, but I'd never had it happen to me! Isn't that crazy? I now feel complete as an American adult, somehow. I politely sent them on their way, rather than reducing them to fisticuffs; maybe I should have rock/paper/scissored them for their immortal souls.

    As for the Orange Curtain, let me know when you want to hit Little Saigon -- or if you want to go to the BCD Tofu House, which is down the street from me. Also down the street from me, but in the opposite direction, is Blizzard Entertainment, which always impresses the WoW fans. WHOO IRVINE. Or should I say WHOO IRBHINN? Nah, that would be idiotic. I'm sure glad I didn't say it, aren't you?

    Can you tell I'm desperately procrastinating doing my reading? :)

your camera for a free lunch?

    Anybody have a DVX-100 and two lavalier mics I can borrow on Thursday? For free? Erik and I are putting together a website o' social media fun and need to shoot thirty seconds of ourselves blathering.

MBA fashion

    I had to go back and forth with the Merage admin about using the Merage logo on t-shirts I've designed for our program. Turns out that I can't use the logo, but my idea should be fine, just as long as nobody makes the mistake of wearing my design in a formal setting. Who would wear a t-shirt in a formal setting, anyway? Huh.

    Once I finalize the t-shirt design, I'll post a CafePress link to it here.

bringing BarCamp to Irvine?

    In the spirit of BarCamp, I'd like to set up a monthly PubCamp at the Anthill Pub & Grille on campus. I still need to email the general manager about the details, but he seemed open to hosting it. Any ideas for organizing and publicizing this?