So Pleased

As I have mentioned, I am the president of the Film Production Coalition at UCSC.  This title also makes me the executive producer of the feature length film for the year.  We are making a 50ish page comedy with some mystery and horror mixed in.  We have shot two weekends and I am so pleased with our progress this far!  We are nearly one fifth of the way through our script already and many of the complicated special effects shots are already completed.  Props to the crew, the officers, and production team of The Paranormals.  Thank you for all your hard work and we are off to a great start!  Here are some stills from our locations this past Sunday.

Keep your eye out for information about the completed project in the spring.

When projects go this well right from the start, it really gives me an extra dose of enthusiasm for film making and the arts.  What awakens your passion?  Tell me how you see things.

I have a thyroid

Ok so I don't actually have a thyroid, but I did find a super cute little pin version of my removed organ at the pharmacy on campus that really made me smile.  It now occupies the lapel of my jacket.

Apparently created by a former student with anatomical and artistic inclinations, there was a whole series of internal organs, including the very cheerful thyroid.  It's called "I heart guts" and is most definitely now on my list of favorite things.  http://iheartguts.com/  With my insanely busy schedule ( I am taking a mini-break from writing a mock NSF grant to write this) it is really important to find things that can carry you through.

I will have classes until 5:45, then probably spend several hours in the library, then finally go home to eat.  While this sounds very dull and time consuming, there is an upside: my class and library time will be spent with one of my best friends and my boyfriend.  Things like sharing the torture of film screenings really make it easier to survive the often boring movies.  Now I can add sharing my super cute thyroid with them to the list of upsides for my day.

Life can get monotonous and finding joy in things is the most important way to, not only enjoy life more, but appreciate every experience you have.

Tell me how you see it!  What simple thing made you happy today?

A Fond Reunion

Today I was on the way from work to class and stopped by the express store on campus to get a snack.  I ran into my favorite snack food ever.

I have never been a natural food fiend so let me explain: In November of last year I was diagnosed with metastasized thyroid cancer.  The treatment was a surgery, which I underwent in December, and a radioactive Iodide treatment, which I underwent during spring break.  My holidays were so much fun :-).  

Anyway, before I could consume the Radioactive Iodide, I had to starve my system of Iodide so that absorption would be maximized.  Here is a short list of things that have Iodide in them:
-Milk
-Processed anything
-Egg yolks
-Red dye
This in itself shouldn't be a problem, unless you actually read labels...then pretty much everything is off limits, except food you make yourself from scratch with fresh everything.  Ideally, I would cook for myself, but as I was not only changing my diet, but studying for finals, as well as, being deprived my thyroid pill (part of the treatment prep, it makes you insanely tired to not have your thyroid hormones fyi), I was in no condition to cook 3 meals a day.

About a week into my special diet, I was getting pretty tired of the limited food items I could have.  My hormones were also funny, as previously mentioned, so I was extremely near to a nervous breakdown trying to find snack foods in between classes on campus.  I wondered into the express store with no hope of finding food I could eat, only to stumble upon Larabar and steaz sodas.  I read the label...and I could ACTUALLY READ EVERYTHING ON THE LABELS!!!!!!!!!!!!  I was allowed to eat all the ingredients because they were all natural with no Iodide.  They were really yummy too and came in flavors like blueberry muffin and coconut creme pie.  I was overjoyed and stocked up immediately.  In my food deprived delirium though, I completely forgot about these magic healthy foods existed once I was done with my diet, until I found them again.  I will endlessly recommend these brands to anyone!  Here are links to their webpages, please visit.
http://www.larabar.com/
http://www.steaz.com/
Santa Cruz being so alternative actually came in handy!  Hurray for vegan hippies!

Do you know of any alternative brands that actually taste good and are good for you?  Let me know, I am certainly open to trying suggestions.

Today I just had to roll my eyes...

Here's the background: I currently hold two part time jobs, while working at a college office on campus, my coworker (who is at least 40, but I'm not sure specifically how much over 40) started complaining to me about how hard it is to do her job.
I listened to her whine about helping 6 people at once and not being able to go to the mailroom for hours at a time, but honestly, I can't relate.

I started working at 14 as an office assistant; pulling files and helping customers is what I do.  Yes, at the start of the quarter groups of students come in for their ID sticker.  It is in no way overwhelming.  They form a line usually and when they don't they still wait in an orderly fashion to be helped.  Sometimes you must answer phones as you are giving students their stickers.  Overall, it really is not a super demanding job.  So to endure a grown woman 2-3 times my age complaining about basic office duties...I just had to roll my eyes.  This is not high stress and if she thinks it is...I honestly don't know of a job that is less stressful.  Maybe she should be a starving artist.  :-)

To be fair, my first job involved pulling files, helping people pay their accounts and bringing dogs to customers...sometimes at the same time.  So perhaps I can just deal with "normal offices" better than most.  Who knows.

As always, feel free to tell me how you see it!

My First Post

                 Hello to anyone who happens to stumble onto my blog!  My cousin has been blogging for a few years now and I find its a nice way to keep up with someone when you can't see them often.  So with that in mind, I decided to take a stab at letting people know what's going on in my life.  Currently, I am Executive Producer of a film at UCSC in addition to a full time course load and two part time jobs.  Needless to say I'm busy.  I enjoy everything that is going on in my life though and would probably be insanely bored if I wasn't this busy all the time.
              
So now that you know what's new in my life, I'll get to the point of my blog: entertaining and exciting things that happen in my busy life.

             One interesting thing that I encountered this weekend was an insanely bad party (after a full day of filming I decided since I didn't have to get up early for work the next day that I would go, hang out for a bit, and maybe provide rides to campus if the need arose)...and it wasn't that the people throwing the party weren't awesome.  The problem was all the freshmen, who were testing their drinking limits.  Part of the problem was that half of them were just completely letting themselves go; these kids were letting the alcohol effect them more than it actually did.  Running around bumping into walls and yelling as loud as they could.  The worst though, was girl I will call "Bertha".  Bertha was a freshman who showed up so drunk that she could not put food in her mouth and was trying to grab drinks from people and take them to her friends who were waiting outside to crash the party.  She didn't make it outside though...and spilled the drink all over the floor.  Then didn't clean up the large amount of alcohol.  She was far from the only one out of control drunk too.  She stood out in the fact that she led the barrage of freshman crashers who were not known by anyone throwing the party.  I ran into one of the hosts who was mouthing WTF, WTF over and over again, I definitely felt that way too.  I don't think I'm getting too old for parties, but I definitely felt out of place when wild 18 year old after 18 year old showed up and I very quickly decided that this was not the place for me to be.  I helped a friend, who was quite sloshed when I showed up, drink some water and sober up a bit, then gave him and several other friends a ride home so that they didn't have to witness anymore of the disaster zone.  To the renters: I'm so sorry chaos descended on your house like that and I hope nothing dramatic happened after we left.  And that is the bad party, as I saw it.

Tell me how you see it!  I am excited to communicate with people.