Things seems to be moving so slowly in my little world. Perhaps this is my desire to speed through these next few weeks and to suddenly find myself with a job, a furnished room, and a John David.

After the first full night of sleep all week, I woke up this morning and went to the career fair at Columbia. Lots of booths, books, and resumes. Though only a few companies really had what I am looking for, I feel good about the contacts I made. I'm excited to work in a cool office and join a team.

Funny story:
As I was walking down the street from Columbia in pursuit of a bagel, a woman along the sidewalk asked me, "Is that a University of Georgia bag?" It turns out this woman went to UGA many years ago. Even more, she moved to New York to work in publishing and for many years worked for Scholastic. We talked very briefly about what I was doing in New York, about Columbia, about the job search. Then she said she would pass my name along, and I gave her my resume. Very strange; I hope I wasn't too forward.

Funny how connections happen out of the blue.

Alright, I don't have much more to say. Another early morning tomorrow (up by 7AM three days in a row--unheard of), an interview/meeting, and a formal reception. I have set things in motion, and now there's a moment of anxious hope that everything lines up right.

It is a rainy day in Brooklyn, and I am sitting in my room wondering anxiously what I should be doing. I finished my program at Columbia on Friday. We had a final banquet and received one of these suckers:

Hooray-ya-yay
The last 48 hours have pretty difficult. I had to be out of the Columbia dorms by 10AM on Saturday, but I didn't end up packing until a few hours before that deadline. Foolish perhaps, but I cleaned up, sorted everything, and was out just in time. I shared a cab with a friend and headed to Brooklyn. I dropped off my things, took a shower, and began walking toward the mall in order to get an air mattress. The Atlantic Center mall is located five blocks from my house. I didn't realize this until yesterday, and I am so thankful for the convenience. Other residents of Brooklyn, however, are not so thankful. It is another recent development that people think are marring the city's character. In fact, I am living right next to one of Brooklyn's most ambitious building projects in history, the Brooklyn Arena and Gehry complex:
I live on Vanderbilt and Dean, directly on the lower right corner of the map. Most of Brooklyn's buildings are about 4 stories, with a few going up to no more than 10 stories. Imagine, then, this in the middle of the Brooklyn Brownstones:




We shall see how that works out.

Anyway, got my mattress, carried it home, and then took the subway back to Manhattan to see Rachael and Shannon:

I realize that these photos are sideways, but I'm not motivated enough to alter them in photoshop, so just tilt your head. We hung out in Union Square Park, walked through a farmers market, and ended up in Madison Square Park. After lying on the grass and talking, we took the subway to Brooklyn, visited my apartment, and ate a great meal at a local cafe.
After Shannon left, Rachael and I bought some ice cream and watched tv. We soon realized that my apartment is extremely hot. My roommate has a small cooler in her room to battle the heat. Smart, very smart.

I slept with a spray bottle and periodically sprayed myself while we listened to the Saturday night racket outside my windows. It was awful. The first thing Rachael and I did in the morning was walk to the mall and purchase an air conditioner:
You see it here nestled in my window hard at work. A very long ordeal, however, was involved to get it to this place. I didn't realize how hard it is to carry a full window-sized air conditioner. Very heavy to lug five blocks. Then it started to pour outside. This was a low moment. After several anxious moments of lugging an air conditioner along the street while cabs sped past, we finally hailed a cab and got home. Tough day.

Things are getting better, though. My room is wonderfully cool. Rachael and I had a nice meal before we parted. I bought groceries and talked to my parents and John David. I took a nice nap and a hot shower. Now I am thinking of tomorrow: a cool interview, fresh laundered clothes, and a clean room. I'm looking forward to it.

Hey Everyone,

This blog has been a void for quite awhile. I haven't had the time to fully process everything that has happened in the last few weeks. Perhaps after some time I will begin to formulate some anecdotes for y'all.

We have just finished the magazine portion of the course, which was a refreshing change from books but nonetheless stressful. I was the art director in the men's magazine group. We created JACK, a hip road trip magazine that melded the content of a travel magazine with the attitude of a men's magazine. I had to create a logo, two covers, a feature spread, and a table of contents. Click the links below to download my work.

http://philos.myweb.uga.edu/featurespread.pdf
http://philos.myweb.uga.edu/NEW%20COVER%20SAMPLE%20-%20DESERT.pdf
http://philos.myweb.uga.edu/NEW%20SAMPLE%20-%20CRUDE.pdf
http://philos.myweb.uga.edu/TABLE%20OF%20CONTENTS.pdf

On my computer, you can see the frame lines in the pdfs. Let's ignore those, shall we?

I found a sublet for August in Prospect Heights in Brooklyn. hooray.
I haven't found a job yet. sad.

I've been reading an oral history of New York covering the years between 1890 to WWII. The book is divided into chapters that each focus on a distinct neighborhood. I finished the Lower East Side the other day. Pretty intense place in its day. Gang wars. Murders. Rampant thieving. Egg creams. All very interesting except for the extended section on pickles, herring, and potatoes, which seems to have been the primary diet of most people. Right now I'm reading about the Upper East Side, which was, in contrast with the LES, one of the most wealthy areas. Carriages. Balls. Registries. Calling cards. All very surreal.

New York has this strange place in American culture. There is this pressure to not be a tourist, to be a New Yorker, and real New Yorkers are so proud of their connection to this city. And yet, most families who immigrated to the US up until WWII probably lived in New York. I just found out that my great great grandfather and his family owned a rare book store in Bryant Park. New York was the passage through which people entered a completely new world, and this has really made New York the cultural center it is. Everyone can point back to it somehow. I suppose this is fairly obvious, but I am just now understanding what that really means.

Well, I'm off now. More posts to come, I promise.

Busy and frustrating day. I did email back and forth with Kathy Griffin's agent, though, which is cool. Tired, tired, tired.