'neath the stars

And all that jazz...

2011-03-21T01:26:00.004-04:00

Yesterday there was no blog, because I was so physically and mentally exhausted that there was really nothing to say except this: Texas is a big ass state. So big that we drove for 12 hours and still didn't make it all the way across. We passed through hundreds of miles of desert, with gas stations and towns a couple hours apart. There was no relief from the sun beating in the car windows and no where to go but forward. We finally reached civilization (San Antonio) around dinner time and thought we'd relax with a nice dinner on the famed downtown river walk. We were wrong. That place was more hoppin' than Cancun on spring break, and after almost an hour of searching for a parking space, we were so frustrated, tired, and hungry that we headed out of town toward Houston. When we finally reached my aunt Martha's house in Houston last night, it was like seeing an oasis in the middle of the desert. Actually now that you think about it, that's actually what it was to us. We had a great time visiting into the wee hours of the morning and even had a mini-birthday party for my cousin John who celebrated his 25th bday on St. Patty's day. This morning, Martha fixed the most incredible breakfast that would rival any B&B out there. And - drum roll -I had my first serving of grits in over 4 months! Reunited and it feels so gooooood...

After some much appreciated (and needed) hospitality, we headed back on the 10 (which I actually switched to calling I-10 about halfway through Texas...NOOO!) toward New Orleans. FYI: New Orleans is the greatest city in the world. I've been here several times over the years and every time it just gets better and better. This is my dad's first time in NOLA, so it's been fun getting lost together and showing him this beautiful city.

I will never forget tonight. Ever. We took the trolley to the French Quarter (we are staying in the garden district) and walked around for a while to get our bearings. We then headed to Deanie's Seafood at the suggestion of Ms. Carolyn, my go-to New Orleans expert. Let me tell you - KILLER seafood and delicious drinks. Dad ordered some insane bloody mary that came with green bean, potato, and shrimp garnish. Now that's Cajun. While wandering down Bourbon Street, me with a daiquiri in hand, dad with wide eyes and a buzz, we stumbled upon Preservation Hall - one of the all-time famous jazz joints. We got there just in time to hear the last set and experienced some of the best live music I have ever heard. Preservation Hall is said to offer some of the world's last "pure musical experiences" and after spending an hour there, I must say it was nothing short of pure magic. If you enjoy live music, you know that feeling during a great concert when you think: "I could listen to this song forever." That's how it was in this small dimly lit room with some of the most talented musicians I've ever been witness to. In that moment, I felt total joy.

Tomorrow morning we will have some delicious beignets at Cafe Du Monde before heading east once again, and tomorrow night our journey will end back home in Georgia. This road trip feels shorter and less climatic than before, but no less significant. I am traveling toward another exciting chapter and trying to enjoy the highs and lows as they come. Life right now is like a great jazz tune that could take an unexpected, brilliant turn at any moment. And I can't help but think -- I could listen to this song forever.

Typing with one eye open

2011-03-19T03:25:00.001-04:00

These last two days have been nothing but a blur. This will be brief because I'm currently only typing with one eye open.

The move went off without a hitch. Dad was a rockstar (as usual) and we got packed up and headed out of LA around 2:30. The car was ridiculously full again, despite the 5 boxes I mailed home last week, and with the addition of my dog Gally the ride is a little more uncomfortable than I remember. Two hours later and we were already itching to get out of the road at our first stop, Palm Springs. We had a great dinner with my Grandma and got a good night sleep in preparation for our first big driving day.

Today we drove 4 hours to Phoenix, had a great lunch with my aunt and cousins, and continued driving through Arizona, New Mexico, and finally to Texas. We are stopping in El Paso for the night... completely ready for some shut eye.

This trip is drastically different from the last one, in some good ways and some bad. I think I went through every emotion possible today: excited, mad, happy, carsick, sad, quiet, chatty, and finally content. Transitions are tough, messy, exciting, and confusing. I'm just trying to work through whatever feelings come my way and enjoy this trip for what it is, not try to make it like last time.

We are about a stone's throw away from Mexico, so I'm hoping for some bomb huevos rancheros tomorrow morning before an entire day driving through Texas. We're hoping to make it to Houston tomorrow so that we'll be on target to reach New Orleans mid-day on Sunday with a little time to sight-see/pig out on beignets. Signing off until tomorrow.

Life is full of lists

2011-03-17T03:22:00.002-04:00

Anyone who has ever moved knows that lists are crucial to success. I've gone a little overboard lately, with such an intense to do list that I literally had to schedule "take a shower" and "walk the dog" in between runs to the post office, salvation army, and the endlessssssssss packing. Now I find myself on the eve of moving day, with a million thoughts and feelings running through my mind. I don't feel insightful, nostalgic, happy, or sad - instead I feel EVERYTHING! And it's hard to sort through everything. Therefore, I am going to be super type-A and end my LA life with more lists.

on my last night in LA i feel:

- tired

- excited for a new chapter in life

- sad to leave a place i've grown to love

- stoked to see my dad tomorrow

- nervous about working at a new place

- excited to work at a new place

- like my arms and legs might fall off from lifting so much

- damn, this air mattress is uncomfortable

top 10 things i will miss about LA:

1. incredibly perfect sunny days

2. Venice skate park on the beach

3. the lingo - mellow out, narly, stoked, totally, super, rad - all very efficient adjectives

4. neon tank tops

5. food trucks!

6. millionaires who look like they're homeless but drive a Ferrari

7. Ferrari's

8. farmer's markets

9. Saturday bike rides along the beach

10. Sunday brunch, and the delicious morning cocktails that accompany this delightful meal.

top 10 things i will NOT miss about LA:

1. traffic

2. lindsay lohan

3. traffic

4. the fact that running an errand takes 2 hours, no matter where you have to go

5. traffic

6. the monstrous wad of cash it takes to fill up the gas tank

7. traffic

8. street cleaning days!! i mean really, what IS that?!

9. traffic

10. rush hour all day every day

and with that, i must go to sleep. have to get up early to pick up dad from LAX tomorrow morning. we are packing up and heading to Palm Springs for a pitstop with grandma. will report more tomorrow. let the adventure begin!

The End of an Era

2011-03-12T01:26:00.006-05:00

Tonight as I drove home from babysitting two adorable kids who have grown near and dear to my heart for the last time, I found myself making a few different turns and did not end up at home. Instead I drove to the Venice Canals, a great hidden spot in LA that few non-Angelenos know about. It was the same exact spot I drove to a year ago with Grace. We parked our car near a bridge, hopped out, and explored the waterways and pedestrian bridges with our video camera in tow. We were on an adventure and wanted to chronicle what we found. That night was just a small adventure inside of a much larger one. We were new interns at TOMS, new residents of LA, new to this crazy chapter in our lives, new to a friendship that would transform both of us. Whether we were happy or sad, everything was exciting because it was new - every turn in the road, every emotion we felt, every laugh we shared.

A year later I found myself on that same bridge, looking out at the canal, noticing every light that reflected on the water. I noticed every palm tree that swayed in the wind. But I didn't feel excited. Because this time I was alone and it was not new. This time it was not a beginning but an end. This chapter in my life is almost complete. In 5 days I will pick my dad up from the airport, we will pack my car once again, and we will drive. But this time we will drive east.

I'm not good at change, endings, or goodbyes. I know this and will eventually have to think of a way to deal with it other than driving around town feeling nostalgic day and night. But for now, nostalgia will have to do. Nothing but good has come from this chapter. TOMS and LA have changed my life for the better. And I hope (actually I know) one day I'll be back. But that doesn't make it any easier to say goodbye to the people and places I have grown to love. I suppose this is the curse of being 23. On a constant journey, faced with endless decisions to make, with never enough time for the pit stops. Even when I do come back to the west coast some day, it will be a different pit stop, and it will most certainly be different. So I think it's important to take the time to appreciate each and every moment of the last 15 months, each person who has walked in and out of my life, and each lesson I've learned. It's time to bundle all of that up and pack it in the car with me as I continue down the road.

I am really excited to go home, to see my family and old friends, and begin the next chapter of my life and career. But when I arrive, I will not be the same person that left over a year ago. I've struggled a little internally with the thought that returning to Georgia might mean I'm throwing away everything I've worked so hard for here in LA, that going back might make me "back to normal." But tonight as I looked out on the water I realized something: I'm not normal. And after the last few years I've had, I'll never be normal again. That feeling, that revelation that I had, it all the sudden made me feel strong and powerful again. There's no way to lose everything I've gained here even if I tried to. Sure, I may not be able to bike to the Pacific or eat delicious food from a truck every weekend, but I have been changed for the better. With every year that passes, I am learning and growing, and although I've had quite a few ups and downs, so many that sometimes I feel dizzy, I mostly just feel proud. Because those ups and downs are life, and although I may have experienced a few setbacks here and there, if anything's for sure it's that I'm living the hell out of my life. And I'm pretty sure that's the biggest accomplishment anyone can hope to achieve.

So now I enjoy the last few days of west coast life. I will bike to the beach every day, eat as much good food as I can, and enjoy every second of the view. And then on Thursday I'll give my dad a gigantic hug hello, get back in the car (no doubt with a few tears in my eyes), and continue on the road toward the next adventure waiting for me.

I'll be sure to blog from the road again as our last cross country road trip was certainly a trip I'll NEVER forget. And pretty soon I'll be working in Atlanta - a city very unlike LA in that I have a deep history with it, although I've never actually lived there. It's where I had my surgeries, where I was in love, where my heart broke, where I sat in hours upon hours of traffic, and where I met my niece for the first time. But this time it will be new and fresh just like LA was when I first arrived. Because this time it is the destination, and this time it is mine.

I will end with this quote that I find beautifully inspiring. I try to live my life this way, and I think it's important for everyone to try to make themselves uncomfortable too:

"You were not born to play small. You were not given the gift of life to simply survive your way through life and then die with your dreams unfulfilled. That does not have to be your reality. You can create your own reality, but you gotta make your inner resolve stronger than your life circumstances. Choose in every moment to step outside your comfort zone, to trust just a little bit more and to express yourself. There is a risk in opening up, but the real risk is staying comfortable."

Long time, No blog

2011-01-30T20:02:00.005-05:00

"The Journey is the Destination."

This is a quote from the journals of Dan Eldon, a photo-journalist with a fascination for capturing humanity, specifically in Africa during a time of tumultuous politics and civil unrest. He had a desire to learn about the world and a desire to change things, and at the young age of 22 his quest was ended prematurely when he was stoned to death by an angry mob in Somalia. Despite his tragic death, Dan left a legacy through his journals; a legacy that will continue to affect lives, inspire change, and bring hope. Dan's journals are the inspiration for the spring line of TOMS, which is why I've been thinking a lot about him lately. And his motto: The Journey is the Destination.

This reminds me a lot of a blog post I was writing one year ago while traveling out to California on the journey of a lifetime. I was referring to the cross-country journey I was experiencing with my dad. Little did I know- my journey was so much bigger than the 3,000 mile roadtrip I took last January.

There are many journeys one takes in a lifetime. Whether it's a journey lasting a few hours, weeks, months, or even years, we are constantly faced with decisions. Right or Left. Yes or No. To get out of bed, or not. I wish these were the only decisions I've been faced with. But there are decisions much harder and much scarier than deciding if you will turn right or left. There are certain fears one has in life that are unimaginable. And then, in the blink of an eye, or the ring of a phone, the un-imaginable becomes the must-imaginable. And the journey takes a course so scary and so painful that you can't prepare yourself for, one that no seatbelt can protect you from. And even when you think that the hardest decisions are in front of you, there are only a few that really matter. You must decide to believe in hope. You must have faith. And you must trust in the journey.

I have this quote posted on my Facebook profile, and just recently saw it again. I actually forgot it was there. And now I can't get it out of my head:

Life is a series of experiences,
each one of which makes us bigger,
even though it is hard to realize this.
For the world was built to develop
character, and we must learn that
the setbacks and griefs which we endure
help us in our marching onward.
-Henry Ford

For me, February is the hardest month of the year. It is for many people back home, because we are reminded of how fast so many of our worlds can be turned upside down. It will mark the third year that has passed since our friends were taken from us. We'll never forget, but we must march onward. We must trust in our journey and we must have faith in the road ahead.

To learn more about the incredible life of Dan Eldon, go here: http://www.daneldon.org/site/

Home

2010-07-05T23:00:00.004-04:00

The humidity covers you like a blanket the moment you step out of the sliding glass doors at Hartsfield International. This airport sends a rush of excitement through your body. The "Fly Delta" sign you saw as your plane touched down on the runway caused a smile to form from ear to ear and you can't believe you're back in the South. You wait outside of the baggage claim and wait for her familiar black CRV to appear among the organized chaos. Just as you remember that she bought a new car during the 5 months you were gone, you spot her in a shiny new Ford. The new car is not the only addition to her life, and when your sister emerges to help you with your bag, you smile and blink back tears at the sight of her 6 month belly bump - yes, she's ACTUALLY pregnant with your future niece. You ride through the early evening with your favorite person in the world, chit chatting about the flight (uneventful), if you already ate dinner (yes), and what you think of her pregnant belly (not as big as you expected). The downtown Atlanta sights are familiar - Turner Field, the golden domed Capital building, The Varsity Drive In - yet, in that moment you feel as if you're seeing them for the first time. As you drive up to the house your sister shares with your (sort of) new brother in law, you feel content, relaxed, happy.
You feel home.

A few days later and you're driving up the South Carolina coast with your cousin, windows down, music blaring, singing at the top of your lungs. The two of you chew bubble gum, drink Starbucks, smoke a cig (or two), and laugh till it hurts, all for old-times sake. As you cross the causeway onto Pawleys Island, driving past cattails in the marsh and breathing in the salty air, you remember how good this place makes you feel. You drive up to "Sand Castle," a yellow-ish beach house perched on stilts overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The "Sand Castle" will be your residence for the next week, and little do you know that it will, in fact, become a castle full of sand brought in by your 24 family members also staying inside. That first dinner time is of epic proportions - heaps of spaghetti with sauce and meatballs made by your grandfather - "Pop." He used the venison sausage his best friend "Porkchop" brought him on his last visit to Charleston. The air rings with screaming and yelling and laughter at an almost intolerable decibel - a noise so loud you are sure it can only achieved by your family, who gets together just twice a year. You smile, enjoying every moment that you are with them. Then you pipe right in, attempting to yell louder than all of them so they'll hear what you have to say.
You feel home.

You turn the key, walk in, and breathe deeply. No matter how long you've been gone, it always smells the same. You walk up the stairs, drop your bags as you've done several times at other places in the last 10 days, but this time tears fill your eyes as you spy the familiar, fluffy bed in the corner and the bulletin board that has the same pictures it did the day you graduated high school. You look at the pictures in the frames lining your bookcase - it seems like they were taken in a different lifetime. But they weren't, and the emotion from the past 5 years suddenly comes flooding back, but you don't mind, because sometimes pain feels good. You lay on the bed and sink into it, literally becoming one. You don't get up for a while. You walk your dog, Emily, who is almost as old as you are. It is nighttime - the air is thick and the stars are bright. The crickets sing their songs and the neighbors wave hello from their front porches. You smile and, of course, enthusiastically wave back. You appreciate the simplicity of a nighttime walk through the neighborhood. You get back to the house and call your mom who is admirably spending 4 weeks down in Florida getting a Master's degree. This house isn't the same without her puttering around in the next room, but you are proud of her. You look at the clock and realize that dad will be home from rehearsal soon. He will, no doubt, be excited to chat over a midnight snack. You close your eyes for a minute and curl into the couch pillow. You miss this.
You are home.

Hello, My Name is Sarah

2010-06-05T15:30:00.006-04:00

Wowsas... it's been quite a long time since I've posted. I am constantly thinking of things in my head I should write down, but apparently I never actually make it to a piece of paper or a computer, seeing as my journal and blog are empty since the beginning of April. It is kind of fitting that the last time I checked in was right around One Day Without Shoes. Because to be honest, that is when my life went from comfortable chaos to complete whirlwind.

RECAP:

Bc of the amazing success of ODWS, things at work really started picking up. I was trusted with a lot more responsibilities, which was totally fine by me. The interns were also in charge of the TOMS 4th Birthday initiative at the beginning of May, where we developed a campaign to challenge people to do One for One acts of kindness. We filmed a viral video to ask people to participate and it got almost 10,000 views! So awesome! Besides our international campaign (no big deal), we hosted a birthday party picnic in a local park for TOMS HQ. It was sooo much fun and was, in my opinion, the moment when we all realized that we were not "just interns," but in fact an integral part of the TOMS family. Check out the recap video:

It will make you smile when you see how amazingly eccentric, hilarious, and awesome everyone who works at TOMS is. This video makes me smile. And these people have made me smile every day for 5 months. Which is why I'm a little misty eyed as I write this, and why I was more than a little misty eyed yesterday on my last day of work.

Like all great things do, the TOMS internship ended for me yesterday after 134 of the best days of my life. I met some amazing people who became my family (including 10 strangers who will forever be my schminterns for life), had incredible experiences that would not have been possible anywhere else, and learned more about myself than I ever expected. I ended my internship on a total high note, having 4 great meetings yesterday with people whom I have come to love and respect, and having finished my work knowing that I gave it my all. I feel so proud of what I accomplished at TOMS, and no matter what happens, that is all I ever really wanted. And in my opinion, that is all that really matters. Doing good work and meeting good people and knowing that at the end of the day, you left nothing unsaid, left nothing undone - except for maybe a couple of small projects, sorry Caitlin! :), and left feeling damn good about how you spent this time in your life.

So what's next? I get this question 1,637,872 times a day and you have no idea how thrilled I would be if I actually knew the answer. So here's what I do know about "what's next"...

- Tonight, I will be going with my roommates (who are now officially my west coast family) to the Braves/Dodgers game at Dodger Stadium. Cannot think of any better way to spend my first weekend of unemployment.

- Monday, I will continue to look for jobs in L.A. I'm in a really great place in my life right now, and I'm not ready to leave. So yes, I am staying out on the west coast. Maybe through the summer, maybe through Christmas, maybe through the year 2014. Stay tuned.

- This summer, I will continue to write for the FYI magazine back home and hopefully babysit as many precious, over-privileged babies as possible in the hopes of being able to pay the bills. I will be visiting Augusta/Atlanta/Charleston the end of June, beginning of July, so if any of you back home feel like helping me ring in the 23rd bday on July 1, you know my number ;)

- I will continue to bug my TOMS family since they are just that, my family. Maybe I'll end up back there (still my #1 dream), or maybe I won't. But either way, this experience has changed me for the better and I am forever grateful to everyone in that Santa Monica warehouse.

So I believe that is all that I have to report. When I know more, so will you. If you know of any positions available in Marketing/Communications/Social Media/anything that pays $$, my personal email is sewalpert@gmail.com and I promise to give you a gigantic hug for any leads you may have. I'll give you a gigantic hug anyway, but a job lead would be nice. Thanks to all for the words of encouragement the last few weeks. While I am sad, I remain very optimistic. I have faith that a lot of great things are in store. I wanted to share a quote from an email my dad sent me yesterday. He has a way of knowing just when I need a pep talk and sending an amazingly encouraging email my way. Yesterday's "you're awesome" email was so great, I shared with my fellow intern David, and this quote both got us through what could have been a super depressing day:

"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like." — Laozi

Well said, Laozi, well said.

Until later-

NO SHOES!

2010-04-18T02:46:00.006-04:00

Just got back from another Saturday night at the roller derby. It was awesome once again. Was in a sleepy mood and came home to an empty house - not counting my furry bud Gally who never fails to greet me at the door. This week was weird; I was not on my game. Coming off such a high from last week's One Day Without Shoes (which was a SMASHING success) I think caused for an uncharacteristic low. Mushy brain, low energy, high emotions did not a productive intern make. But after sleeping til noon today and thoroughly enjoying my morning, afternoon, and evening, I am beginning to feel like myself again. Instead of marinating in my poopy week, I will recap from the week before which felt like a crazy rollercoaster ride that left all of us with a taste of victory in our mouths.

Mom came into town on Tuesday (4/6) and brought with her Gally, my amazingly cute, mischievous dog. Mom and Gally have a way of making my life way more fun and colorful when they're around, so I was overjoyed to see them. Wednesday was Grace's birthday AKA the day before One Day Without Shoes. Everyone was insanely busy, but I wanted to make sure we still celebrated as best we could. I got all the interns and her managers in on a surprise lunch party at work that day. Mom brought Thai food and Amanda (another intern who I LOVEEE) helped me decorate with balloons and streamers. The land lady was a little pissed that we decided to celebrate without letting her know (we were just eating lunch!), but otherwise the party was a success! Grace was (kind of) surprised and we all feasted on Thai food and cupcakes. It was a perfect break from the craziness at the office!! That night Ede took Grace, Julia, and I out to dinner at Nobu. No big deal. We saw Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Dean Cain, and Jeff Goldblum. No big deal. It's not like I care about celebrities at ALL. (If you can't sense the sarcasm then uh... just stop reading and go to bed). We actually had a better table than Dean Cain + wife AND Jeff Goldblum + his kinda slutty looking date. But Zac and Vanessa had us beat. I didn't mind. He was so close that Grace took a picture of me and he is ALL UP IN the background. Best. Birthday. Ever.... And it wasn't even mine!

Thursday began like any other day... NOT! We woke up at 5:00 am (which wasn't easy thanks to the late night at Nobu) and headed to HQ to meet the other interns. We headed out to the Venice Beach boardwalk by 6:30 am. It was so beautiful and peaceful. It's times like that that really make we wish I wasn't such a lazy bum every other day, because it was so nice to just feel the quiet stillness of the early morning. It was not quiet or still for long. We got to work chalking the side walk, setting up our installation, hanging footprints on clothes-lines, and the end result was awesome. We had a TON of people show up to walk with us, including one guy I talked to for a while who was a barefoot survivor from Belize. He showed me the scars he had from growing up barefoot and told me how inspired he was with TOMS and our mission. It makes you realize what a real impact we are having.

My barefeet hanging out the window on the drive from the beach back to HQ

And talk about real impact... my manager Caitlin and I were giddy the rest of the day with all the social media responses we got!!! We had posts by DEMI MOORE, the JONAS BROTHERS, Demi Lovato, Jordin Sparks, Rachel Zoe, Matisyahu, Kristen Bell, and if I kept listing them it would go on for a while. And oh yeah... Demi Moore talked about us on Jay Leno. BIG DEAL! That day we were also featured on the Today Show. And if you look in the front row in the staff meeting, you can see yours truly wearing a bright pink dress. Here are the two clips:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

TODAY SHOW!

DEMI MOORE AND JAY LENO TAKE THEIR SHOES OFF!! So awesome. Not gonna lie started crying when I saw it.

Moving on, not only was I so incredibly proud of the celebrity support we got, but the support from my friends and family as well. I was getting texts all day from ya'll and it seriously warmed my heart to know that my loved ones were supporting TOMS all over the country. Here are some of my fave texts I got from ya'll on One Day Without Shoes.

Whitney went barefoot to class in the rain in Athens

After attending our HQ walk in Venice, Mom and Gally went shopping in L.A. barefoot!

Katherine walked to work and stayed barefoot all day in VERMONT!

My dad enjoyed the view in Savannah with his barefeet

Carolyn went barefoot in Cincinnati!

Jade studied at the SLC barefoot in Athens

All there is to say is THANK YOU to everyone who stood behind us and was brave enough to go barefoot. These pictures are just a taste of what we accomplished. To read our official One Day recap, click here.

To read my intern blog about our experience, click here.

To read the incredible blog post Kat Maund wrote about One Day, click here.

With that, I must end this thing. I could keep writing, but I would much rather curl up with my pup and fall asleep. Hope all is well wherever you are... and keep in touch!!!! I feel out of the loop... I guess being on the west coast can do that to ya.

Much love

- S

Listen

2010-04-04T02:01:00.003-04:00

It is 11 pm and I am at my Grandmother's house in Palm Springs. My aunt and uncle are here, as well as my cousins Wyatt (5) and Walker (3). Everyone is asleep and it is quiet. And for the first time today, I realize I am listening. Truly listening to every noise. If you have a large or loud family (I am beyond lucky to have BOTH-- no i'm not being sarcastic i love it), you get pretty good at selective hearing. Sometimes too good. And now, it is quiet, and I can listen.

The clock is ticking. The dishwasher is running. The dryer is rumbling. A tiny, barely there fly is buzzing. My face. Grey's Anatomy is quietly on in the background, just loud enough for me to know which characters are talking but not loud enough for me to hear what they're saying. The keyboard is pretty loud as I type. Probably because I have a PC not a Mac. And then I hear that generic shuffling noise that as a kid you think is a burgler or monster but in actuality is just the cat or the air conditioning. I'm choosing to ignore it. I am too tired to deal with burglers and monsters.

I've been working on an article I've been writing about TOMS as a "Company Who Cares" for FYI magazine and my brain feels like spaghetti. So I'm writing osmething else. Something mindless, meaningless, and probably of no interest to anyone at all. Myself included. But I'm a firm believer that when your fingers start typing, you should let them.

Work is great. I have been struggling in all of my writing, both for TOMS and for myelf, to describe how it makes me feel. And I can't. One Day Without Shoes is coming up and it is (insert mystery word here). Chaotic, pandamonium, nuts, crazy, those are all words with a negatitive connotation. So those wont work. Exhilirating, mind-boggling, incredible, those are what I like to call "cop-out" words. Words writers use when they can't think of another word to convey what emotion they feel. So lately I've been using a lot of cop-outs, a lot of awesome's and amazing's, and while those all ring true, they are not THE word that describes the atmosphere of TOMS. Or my experience at TOMS. When I come up with THE word, I'll be sure to let everyone know. Or maybe I won't. Either way, sometimes I wonder if there even is a word that can describe it. Maybe that's what makes TOMS so special. I'm halfway through this internship (noooooooo!) and I am already a different person than when I started it. A spark, passion, drive, whatever as been ignited in me, and I finally feel... content. I know I am where I am supposed to be right now. And even when I'm in the midst of a really annoying case of writer's block, content is pretty damn good.

And now, I'm tired. So... goodnight.

Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere.

Aprils Foooooooooools

2010-04-02T01:53:00.003-04:00

Today always reminds me of being really young and pulling some stupid prank on your pal, and then you let out a really loud, annoying "APRIL FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLS!" For some reason, it is a requirement to yell and draw out that second word every time. And for some reason, I am writing about it. In the delirious, foggy few hours between work days when I get to relax and let my brain go mushy, I came across the video of the pretty epic April Fools prank some of the TOMS staff pulled on Blake the other day. I was there to witness it all go down, but had no idea they were filming, so it's pretty funny to watch it back. Especially since I was behind the shoebox wall (notice my cameo where I'm trying to sneak a peek) so I only heard the entire situation. Check it out... our Chief Shoe Giver was totally April-fooled.

Hope you pulled some good ones today!

People Watching

2010-03-31T01:16:00.005-04:00

Ok ok... so I've been really bad about keeping up with this. Problem is, when your job is to blog, facebook, myspace, tweet, all day (don't even start... there's actually a ton of strategy/research/metrics involved), it becomes harder to get excited to go home and blog about all of your blogging, facebooking, tweeting, I think you get it. So, I'm not gonna talk about TOMS, since I pretty much already live and breathe it. Shameless plug: if you are interested in my totally awesome and amazing internship at TOMS, here's my totally awesome TOMS blog: http://www.toms.com/blog/blog/37

Life in L.A. has been a constant roller coaster. I think I'm as settled as I'm going to get until this internship is over, and I'm more than OK with that. I have given up trying to be totally put together, caught up, and in order all the time, because otherwise I would always be behind. And that's not a fun or exciting place to be. Still have a few things to check off my to-do list, but a relaxing Easter weekend with the fam in Palm Springs should be the perfect time to knock that stuff out. I have been so busy with work and we are all basically consumed with "One Day Without Shoes," which takes places next THURSDAY APRIL 8TH!! (fine... i know i said i wouldn't talk about work, but remember the whole live/breathe it thing? can't really help it... whoa i am SO turning into my dad...) After One Day Without Shoes, there will be a little breathing room, but not much since the interns are in charge of the preparations for TOMS 4th birthday on May 5th. But then again, a little breathing room would be pretty boring after such a crazy few months!

These past few days have been especially great, which I'm guessing is a contributing factor to this awful cold/allergy attack that caused me to stay home sick today :( Feeling better though, thanks to a magical vitamin cocktail from Whole Foods. Whew! On Saturday, Allie and I went to watch the LA Roller Derby Girls at an all-star bout (apparently that's what a game/match in roller derby world is called). Wow.. talk about sensory overload. It was by far the most strange/incredibly awesome outing I've taken in LA thus far (although the roller blading dance party on the beach is still a close second). Talk about a different world, an entire subculture, I never even knew existed. I mean, I've seen trailers for that movie "Whip It," but I never gave much thought to Roller Derby besides that. These girls were total and complete badasses! The bout was between the L.A. Ri-ettes and Team Legit, and the girls had some pretty sweet names. Some of my faves included Haught Wheels, Long Island Lolita, Titty Titty Bang Bang, and Laguna Beyatch, just to name a few...

I am a total sports fanatic and after Allie explained the gist of what was going on, I was so into it. GO TEAM LEGIT! NICE BLOCK, TITTY TITTY BANG BANG! You know those moments where you just stop and think, "where the hell am I?" I have been having a lot of those lately, and the roller derby was certainly no exception. There were tons of crazy characters just like at any sporting event, some dressed just like you or me, and some with bright wigs, crazy outfits, fairy wings, tu-tu's, face paint, and more. There was hot pink and flashing lights everywhere you looked. And all of this took place in a big, gigantic warehouse. With a truck outside selling corndogs and tamales. Gotta love it...

Sunday night, Grace, Julia, Grace's two friends visiting from Connecticut, and I drove over to Eddie's house for dinner. He lives about 45 minutes away in a beautiful canyon with horse trails and a perfect view. Recap: Eddie is a family friend of Grace's who has so kindly taken us under his wing since our arrival on the west coast. It was a night I'll never forget; one of those awesome evenings where you're laughing so hard and enjoying yourself so much that when you leave the room for a second you think to yourself "I always want to remember how I feel at this exact moment." All the stress/emotions melted away and we were just a group of friends enjoying each other's company with good food and good wine. When Grace and I walked out to the car to get our laundry, we were stopped in our tracks by the gorgeous full moon and intoxicating smell of the flowers growing all around. We looked at each other and decided to stop and stand there in silence for 10 seconds, just to enjoy this peaceful place. I got so excited to hear frogs and crickets and nothing else. That is something that I definitely took for granted at home. The peace. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE it here, but you have to search a little bit to find peace in L.A, unlike Augusta or Charleston where it is right out your back door. After a delicious dinner of scallops, kale, and brown rice, Eddie's nephew Bosa sat down at the grand piano and proceeded to serenade us with songs he had just written for his album, which of course moved most of us to tears. Bosa made it to Hollywood week in American Idol this season and has stayed out here to try and make a career out of singing. Lemme tell ya... he's got what it takes!

Last night was another gathering complete with a different yet equally charismatic cast of characters. Grandma Susan and Sandy were in town to go to Passover Seder at Sandy's cousins house and invited me to come along. Everyone was really nice, loud, and at times a little inappropriate, and it made me feel JUST like I was back home with my family :) People at work always comment on my loud voice, and I constantly defend myself by telling them I come from a big family where you have to shout to be heard. Around this group, however, I felt like a quiet little mouse compared to everyone else. I think I was starting to come down with my cold, so I didn't say much, but it was another one of those experiences where you just sit back and observe what's going on. People watch, if you will. I swear, I always laugh when something crazy happens and think, "When I write a book about my life, THIS is going in." Well- last night was no different, and I took plenty of mental notes. Although I think this family was so quirky they could have their own 3 act play. I'll have to add that to the never-ending to do list ;)

As I sit here in the darkness reflecting and listening to some tunes, I really do feel more appreciative than ever. I try and make it a habit of reminding myself of home and life before this whole experience, because it is really easy to feel kind of caught up and lost. There can be a pretty big disconnect between this life and my life at home if I let it, because really the two have hardly any similarities. Nothing out here reminds me of home in any way, and with life so crazy and busy sometimes, it is really important for me to stop and breathe. I can see how they say people let L.A. get to their heads; not that I'm partying or becoming some snob, I actually live a way tamer life here than I did in Athens, but it is just a place so unique and different that it is up to the individual to stay true to themselves and remember who they really are at the end of the day. I still have the same sadness, doubts, or worries that I had at home, but I feel like I'm growing into a person who is becoming better equipped to deal with it all.

On that note, I'm going to crawl into bed and read the latest People magazine (some things will NEVER change!) and get ready for another full day of work tomorrow. Not to mention, my MOM is coming to visit me in exactly ONE WEEKKKKK, and she's bringing my dog Gally, so I am beyond excited. Hope everyone is having an awesome week, and please, don't rub it in that ya'll get to go to the Masters. I'm already completely and insanely jealous that I don't get to go this year to witness the return of the Tiger!!

Ok, until later-
S

A Day Without Shoes... could you do it?

2010-03-22T20:34:00.002-04:00

As you know, I've been interning at TOMS for about 2 months now. Our biggest initiative in my time here has been the 3rd annual "One Day Without Shoes." What is it? Simply put, a day without shoes. On April 8th, TOMS is challenging people across the world to go a day, an hour, ten minutes, whatever they can, completely barefoot. Now you're probably thinking, "Why would a SHOE COMPANY encourage folks to go BAREFOOT?" Easy. TOMS is not just a shoe company; TOMS is a movement, an advocate for change. We want to raise awareness for the MILLIONS of children around the world who go every day without the luxury of something as simple as shoes.

Why Shoes?
Fact #1: In some developing nations, many children must walk for miles to school, clean water, and to seek medical help
Fact #2: Cuts and sores on feet can lead to infection
Fact #3: Often, children cannot attend school barefoot
Fact #4: In Ethiopia, approximately one million people are suffering from Podoconiosis, a debilitating and disfiguring disease caused by walking barefoot in volcanic soil
Fact #5: Podoconiosis is 100% preventable with basic foot hygiene and wearing shoes

April 8th is not about selling shoes. It is a day of recognition, of awareness, for those children who are hindered on a daily basis because they do not have something as simple as a pair of shoes. Get involved in something bigger than yourself. I'm going barefoot on April 8th. Will you?

To find a barefoot event in your area, go to www.OneDayWithoutShoes.com and enter your zip code. If there isn't already an event, host one! There is an online toolkit with plenty of materials to get the ball rolling.

Welcome to the Twilight Zone

2010-02-27T23:26:00.003-05:00

OMGahh I have got to get better about writing in here. Mainly because I've been so tired/busy/lazy that I have stopped writing in my journal and this blog is my sole reference for this ridiculously crazy time in my life. So TOMS has been great as usual... but since that alone would take me a million years to catch you up on, here are the links to my two latest intern blog posts:

http://www.tomsshoesblog.com/http:/www.tomsshoesblog.com/who-are-we

http://www.tomsshoesblog.com/http:/www.tomsshoesblog.com/getting-our-hands-dirty

Life is still insanely busy, but I don't think I'd have it any other way. I am slowly trying to get into some sort of routine after a hectic couple of weeks at work and the 2nd anniversary of J's death last weekend. But in the words of Albert Einstein, "Life is like riding a bicycle. In order to keep your balance, you must keep moving."

Today was one of those ridiculous, totally surreal, and completely hilarious Saturdays. Grace and I drove over to Korea-town to visit Chris, a friend of hers who is in town doing some stand-up comedy gigs and trying to make connections. So where is Korea-town, you might ask? Um... we still have no clue. Thanks to the trusty GPS, we ended up somewhere near-ish downtown after doing a couple of circles around a couple of blocks. We finally found Chris and decided we should all go get some authentic Korean BBQ (which is everywhere in LA and oh so tasty...) from an authentic Korean restaurant. When we plugged "Korean BBQ" into the GPS it gave us a variety of choices, so in an attempt to be fair/random/who knows why, Grace decided to go with the third choice, Nahm Sam. We noticed that our surroundings were getting less and less sketchy and we even started to see some college age kids walking around. Wow, Korea-town isn't so bad... We found a parking spot and headed into what we thought to be a shopping center housing a secretly amazing local Korean spot. All of the sudden, we arrived at the address for Nahm Sam and just stood there looking at the sign in front of us, "International Food Court at University Village." We walked inside to see a giant, hand-painted sign that read, "WELCOME BACK, TROJANS!" Yes, the GPS had taken us to the USC dining hall. The dining hall. We were in hysterics, because this was not exactly the authentic cuisine we were looking for. So much for picking the third choice on the list of Korean establishments. Back to the drawing board.

I revoked Grace's right to choose the restaurant and decided we would go to the first selection on the GPS list of Korean restaurants. After a few more missed turns and around the block manuevers, we arrived at what was quite possibly the sketchiest ethnic food establishment in existence. We were pumped. We walked in through what was possibly the kitchen and were immediately greeted by a sweet hostess. Since we were the only non-Koreans in the whole place (and the place was full), we figured we had chosen a good place. The sights and smells were overwhelming. There was some kind of contraption in the middle of each table that resembled a cross between a hot plate and a wok. And on everyone else's table, there were just giant slabs of raw meat. We had poked fun at all the signs with raw beef on them while we were driving through the streets of Korea-town, but it was definitely no joke. We opened the menu and were greeted with the picture of a cow divided into 10 sections, color coded according to...errr... anatomy? What were we supposed to do, order the light blue cut of meat? On the other page there were no prices, no descriptions, nothing except several pictures of more raw meat. The waitress came and asked us what we wanted. We shrugged our shoulders, pointed at some stuff, and that was that. All of the sudden, we were bombarded with about 8 or 10 side dishes, none of which we recognized. There were some potato-ey looking things (that I stupidly mistook for cinnamon baked apples... note to self: we're not in Georgia anymore), a macaroni/carrot/sour cream concoction, some other thingies that looked like dryer sheets, some spicy cabbage, and a big bowl of romaine lettuce. This was seriously the coolest place EVER. Of course, we had no clue what to do with any of it and, of course, we were seated in the middle of the restaurant, where everyone could stare at us and enjoy our dumbfounded/highly amused facial expressions.

As we tested out the wok-type contraption in the center of our table with the potato-looking side dish, the waitress rolled out a cart of raw meat, as if on cue. Along with the meat came some tongs and a pair of gigantic scissors. Yes, scissors. OK? What now? Apparently we would have to work for our beef. So we started frying up the beef using the tongs, only the beef was not really cooking, and everyone else's wok-thing seemed to be sizzlin'. Well, maybe we should use the scissors for something? They must be there for a reason. I must interject right now to say that through this entire charade, we were loving every minute and laughing so hard it was kind of hard to move. Outside it was raining cats and dogs, and inside we were thoroughly enjoying whatever it was we were attempting to cook/eat. Eventually, noting our struggles, the waitress came over and showed us what to do. She cut that meat like a champ and turned our wok ON, which aided with the whole, ya know, cooking process. Eventually we were cookin' (no pun intended... ok yes it was) and feasted on beef, shrimp, and some other... stuff. Who knows what it was, and to be honest, who cares? It was the experience that mattered. We asked for the bill and anxiously awaited the total amount, since none of us had actually checked to see how much this bountiful feast of beef would actually cost. The damage wasn't too terrible, but let's just say I'll be eating a Stouffers frozen dinner tonight for supper. If anything at all... but then again, you can't put a price on a true adventure.

We left the restaraunt feeling full, satisfied, and slightly disoriented. Our clothes smelled of meat and our eyes were glazed over. We yearned for some kind of familiar reminder to make us feel normal again. And just like that, we drove by Pinkberry, our favorite frozen yogurt chain. SCORE!

Now, I am pecking at my laptop, sitting by the fire in my sweats, watching "Armageddon" (one of my alltime favorite movies), and flipping to the Olympics on commercial breaks. Life is good.

Almost Famous

2010-02-20T02:35:00.002-05:00

Watch all the way until the end!! You just might recognize someone...

For more information on One Day Without Shoes, check out our official site at:

www.onedaywithoutshoes.com

YAYYYYYYYYY! Big things are happening at TOMS :) Headed to bed so I can get up early to head to Palm Springs in the morning. Happy Friday everyone.

-S

2010-02-18T01:04:00.003-05:00

Well, it has been too long. The past week or so has been super busy and I have not really had much time or energy to spare. February is half over and I've gotta say I have no idea where the hell it went. I realized I never posted my latest intern blog, so here's the link before I forget...
http://www.tomsshoesblog.com/http:/www.tomsshoesblog.com/family-time-2

Work is still great. In fact, it has been getting better and better with every day. Last time I posted I was experiencing a little "first job frustration," but I have finally begun to hit more of a stride and am able to knock work out more quickly and efficiently. We have so much exciting stuff coming up at TOMS too... our brand new website which the whole online department has been busting their asses on is going to launch very soon, the new Spring collection is going to be released in March, we have One Day Without Shoes on April 8 (MARK YOUR CALENDARS!), and then we have TOMS 4th Birthday on May 5!! The interns have been charged with helping to plan and coordinate what we will do for the birthday celebrations and we have already had a couple of meetings to start fleshing out our ideas. I can't say just what we have up our sleeves, but I can say that it is gonna be BIG and EXCITING so get ready :)

Also, for those of you who don't know what "One Day Without Shoes" is, it is just that: a day where we challenge people to go a minute, an hour, a day, or whatever they can without shoes in order to raise awareness for the millions of children around the world who go every day shoeless. This day is near and dear to my heart because it is how my TOMS story began. Last spring when people weren't wearing shoes in class, I asked someone what was going on with all the barefoot people. They told me about the TOMS movement and right then the course of my life was changed. I immediately went home (barefoot) and looked them up on the internet, and that was history. So here I am today, interning for this incredible company and hopefully making a difference in the world, all because of a few barefoot people in Athens, GA. Our event website will be launching soon so I will be sure to post a link. I even make a cameo in the video :)

Tonight we went to happy hour with a lot of other employees at work. It was so fun to just kind of chill, have a beer, and get to know some people I haven't even met yet. We went to Busby's, the bar we went to after the intern potluck, so it was cool going back. I felt a little more like I live here saying "Oh yeah I've been there!" It has a big bar area and then an arcade in the back and I definitely dominated in some skee-ball. I also shot hoops with Eric, another fellow UGA grad, and was not as bad as I thought I'd be.

So without being too chatty and boring, things are going well. Better than well, they are GREAT! I've been pretty uneasy about next Monday (2/22) though. It will mark the second anniversary of Jared's death. In some ways it feels like another lifetime... in other ways it feels like it was yesterday. I am going to go visit my Grandma in Palm Springs and have a little low key family time. I think that will be best... I had thought about just staying home and being by myself but I think it will be better to have some good ole Granny lovin :) And I took off on Monday so that I could relax by the pool and have some nice quiet time instead of going to work and being totally upset and inefficient. It will be a good time to just reflect and remember. Ms. Carolyn brought me back some Cincinatti Chili mix from her last trip up to Ohio, so I'm gonna make a big batch of chili for dinner that night. It will be tough being away from all of them. The McLean/Inscho clan as become a second family to me. I love them so much and am forever grateful to them for taking me under their wing. The spirit of Jared lives on in all of us and it is so nice to have people who will always be there to remember.

Well that is all the rambling I'm goign to do for tonight. I'll update on here as soon as the new TOMS site is up as well as the One Day event page. Hope everyone is doing well... send me some updates!!!!!
Until later-
S

Press on

2010-02-06T16:03:00.002-05:00

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”
Calvin Coolidge

This was the body of an e-mail I got from my dad last night... it always seems like he knows how I'm feeling, even when I haven't talked to him in days. Have been feeling a little deflated the last few days... don't know if it's because of lack of sleep, a new schedule, or still getting adjusted to L.A, but my confidence level has taken a bit of a dip. I am not used to not having the answer, not knowing what I'm doing, and not feeling like I kick ass at my job (whether it is school, work, etc). When I was mentally preparing for my Social Media internship, I literally had NO idea how in depth and scientific it could actually be. I have always been really into writing, Facebook, blogging, Twitter, so I thought I'd immediately be awesome and blow my boss away. It has qiuckly become apparent that I am not in college anymore, I can't get away with being unprepared, and that people aren't automatically gonna think I'm awesome just bc I am an OK writer. The professional world is entirely new to me, and although TOMS is very laid back and casual, it did not get to be a wildly successful company by people casually going about their day. People at TOMS work their asses off, and as I said before, have built an incredible company out of nothing. And so, after a week of screwing up spreadsheet after spreadsheet, I WILL be one of them. I have to research, write, and work harder than I ever have before, because I know I am the person for this job, but lately have not really proven that to anyone, including to myself. I don't mean for this to sound down or depressing, but rather as a realization of the differences between my previous world and my current one.

I LOVE my job at TOMS, and everyday I get so excited to go into work. I am so incredibly lucky to have a chance to work at such an innovative company, and I just really want to make sure that I make the most out of every opportunity that comes my way. I told Caroline that I was really interested in events and PR and she said she would definitely let me know about opportunities to go along with the Sales/Retail teams for different TOMS. It would essentially be volunteer hours because it's not in my department, but it would be so worth it to learn how these things work outside of TOMS HQ. I think this kind of down week was just what I needed to give me a swift kick in the behind and jumpstart me for the next 4 months, and believe it or not, I am more excited than ever to get started next week and prove how awesome I can be :)

My favorite line from the quote above really says it all. I have been playing it over and over in my head lately: Persistance and determination alone are omnipotent.
Omnipotent. That's a powerful word.

On a lighter note... here is the latest TOMS HQ Update... it's a spotlight on our office manager, Travis. Just one of the many reasons why TOMS is so great. Enjoy!

Pursuit of Happiness

2010-02-03T22:51:00.002-05:00

We have been jamming to this song at the TOMS office lately... I'm lovin it...(warning: the video is stupid)

New Intern Blog on TOMS site!

2010-02-02T22:09:00.002-05:00

Hey ya'll... no real updates since last time, but I thought I would share my latest TOMS intern blog post with ya'll. Here's the link:

http://www.tomsshoesblog.com/http:/www.tomsshoesblog.com/work-hard-play-hard

You can also subscribe on the site if you want...It'll look good for yours truly to have more subscribers :):)

Let me know what ya'll think!!

A Whole New World

2010-01-31T19:54:00.006-05:00

Hello on this lovely Sunday afternoon. I apologize for slacking a bit with the blog posts lately... this whole working schedule takes a little getting used to. I don't actually have that much to update ya'll on... but I'll try to make it interesting.

This was officially my first full week of work! It was pretty great... every day they pretty much had to kick us out at the end of the day and we were always excited for the next morning. We were laughing and thinking... wow this is not normal to like going to work so much. We had our first two "intern lunches" on Tuesday and Thursday. This will be a weekly thing where we have lunch with one of the managers and they can tell us all ab their lives, both at TOMS and not. The other nice thing about those is that since we are "working through lunch" we get to leave at 5 instead of 6. Although both days they literally had to kick us out at about 5:40 because we were finishing our work/weren't ready to leave. Seriously it's ridic. My first official "intern blog" post was also posted this week!! It is VERY exciting since I was on the official TOMS blog within my first week! It is goign to be a weekly thing, so be sure to stay tuned!! Here is the link in case you want to check it out:

http://www.tomsshoesblog.com/http:/www.tomsshoesblog.com/the-starting-line

This Friday was "Fun Friday," a monthly tradition at TOMS. On the last Friday of every month, we close up shop early at 4:00 and do a fun activity together as an office. In the past they have done pumpking carving, potluck, or gingerbread houses. This month was bowling, so we all headed down the street to the bowling alley for a little action. It was cool to hang w/ everyone in a non-office environment. Although the office is incredibly laid back, everyone who works at TOMS works their ass off. It is such a young company with a young staff; I am still in awe of how successful it has become in such a short time!! (For those of you who don't know, TOMS started in 2006 and was run out of Blake's apartment) Everyone who works there takes an incredible amount of pride in the work they do, and it most definitely shows.

After bowling, some of the interns went out to a cool bar in Venice. Finally we got a chance to laugh and unwind together. Since we don't all live together, it is taking a little longer to get chances to do that. LA is so big that we can all work at the same place, yet live up to an hour apart! We had a blast though and will definitely have a few new inside jokes come Monday :)
This weekend was super low-key... and much needed! Although we had been looking forward to work all week, I was definitely grateful for a break. Saturday was mainly just spent organizing the apartment/my room. I FINALLY FINALLY got all of my bags unpacked and found a bunch of stuff that I thought I have left. Although I'm still missing some stuff that I thought I packed, but who knows if that stuff actually made it in the car in the last minute packing frenzy. Last night, Grace and I went to the Santa Monica Pier with two of her friends from here, Ofam and Bosa. (For those of you who are American Idol fanatics, Bosa was out here because he made it to "Hollywood" from the Boston auditions... They did a story on him, too... his mom was the lady with the gigantic African hat) It was sooo fun... I felt like I was in middle school again. We did the bumper cars and roller coaster and stuffed our face with Churros. Then we went out to the end of the pier and just kind of sat quietly, looking out at the water and taking in the beautiful lights of LA... home. (That is still weird to say by the way...)

Today, I went hiking in Runyon Canyon with my roomies Grace and Julia, as well as our intern coordinator, Caroline. It was supposed to be one of our "intern hangouts," but it turns out the three of us were the only ones able to go. Runyon is up in Hollywood so it was cool to see a new area of town. The hike was killer, for me atleast, because it was up the side of a mountain. The end was completely worth it though, and we were treated to views of the entire city, as well as the famous Hollywood sign. Definitely an excellent way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

This next week should be just as exciting at TOMS:
- Monday is the first "Green Team" meeting. The Green Team is headed by my friend Krysten (who is also friends w/ Kat Maund... small world!), and the goal is to make the TOMS office a more eco-friendly place. I dont exactly know what that means yet, but I signed up as a chance to meet some more people at work, so I'll let ya'll know how it goes. Should be fun :)
- Wednesday we start our "intern class project" at the office. We haven't been told what the project is because it's a big secret, but we have been promised that it will be a chance to "leave our footprints at TOMS..." Again, I'll be sure to keep ya'll updated!
- On Friday my roommates and I are going to have a party for the other interns after work. Since we don't live together, it is hard to get everyone to agree to do stuff after work. Everyone either has plans or has to make a long commute back home, so we made everyone plan in advance to stay and hang out together on Friday. It should be fun and a good way to get to know each other just a little better :)

That is about all of the updates I have for now. Still haven't gotten really homesick yet, but feeling a little nostalgic lately. January definitely flew by, and February is not exactly a fun month for me. The 2nd anniversary of Jared's death is coming up on Feb 22, so it will be a tough few weeks ahead, especially since everyone who knew and loved Jared will be on the other side of the country from me. I am thinking of taking the day off and doing something for myself, or possibly driving up to Carmel for the weekend to visit Ashleigh. She didn't know Jared, but she knew me then, and I think it would be nice to be around someone who truly knows me inside and out. I am trying not to get too down about it, and instead just think of our happy memories, listen to our favorite music, and think about how to continue moving forward.

The other day when I was feeling especially down about the upcoming milestone in February, I found this quote and it really made me think about my life and where I'm at right now. Right after, I started going through my roadtrip pics and noticed the one below. I originally took the picture because it had one of the old route 66 signs on it, but when I realized what it was, I couldn't help but cry. Sometimes life sends unexpected gifts our way...

The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours - it is an amazing journey- and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins.

Until later-
S

I can see clearly now the rain is gone

2010-01-23T21:35:00.004-05:00

Hey ya'll!! (I am making a point of playing up my southern accent/use of the word "ya'll" as to not forget where I came from)... It is Saturday evening and Grace and I are watching "Titanic" (one of my favorite movies of ALL TIME) in our lovely living room with the electric fireplace on, although now that the rain has stopped it's getting a little toasty in here. I am finding myself with a little down time in which I am not unbearably tired, so I am going to attempt to catch you all up on the last four days of my life as briefly as possible. I really do believe ya'll are gonna get a kick out of this post... so enjoy :)

"But I won't cry for yesterday. There's an ordinary world some how I have to find. And as I try to make my way to the ordinary world, I will survive."

Ok, ok, here goes with the cheesy quotes again, but I'm starting to really like some of them, and I kind of feel like they are applicable to my life right now. So... I left you with dad's and my teary goodbye at the airport. I got back in the car, surrounding by cars and noise and rain and madness, and started to sob. It became a little too real for a second. But I am always one to look for signs, and at that moment when I was thinking, "What in the hell did I just do?", a Britney Spears song came on the radio! Now most of you are probably like ok?! But those of you who know the (not so) secret teeney-bopper in me know that Britney is one of my all time faves, AND in my self-proclaimed "LA theme song," the lyrics explain that she was homesick and then a Britney song came on. SOOO lame, yes I know. And I'm sure if my sister is reading this she is rolling her eyes (love you pisty :):) buttt whatever works, right? My spirits were raised and I drove over to USC to pick up my cousin Catherine, who is a freshman there (she's mom's oldest sister Martha's daughter aka Lauren's younger sis). We drove back over to my side of town, had lunch at one of my new favorite neighborhood haunts, Literatti, and then came back to hang at my apartment.

Grace, Cathy, and I waited around for our our third roommate, Julia, to arrive from Nebraska. We all met and I knew instantly that we all had a great connection and were going to have a great semester. We ran some quick errands and wanted to get back in time for dinner, because Grace's dad's friend Eddie, a very nice very successful corporate lawyer in Beverly Hills, told us that he wanted to take all of us out to dinner. I was plannign on dropping Cathy back at USC because I didn't want to assume or be rude, but they called telling us to hurry it up at Target, so I told Cathy she was stuck with us for dinner. Eddie asked if we liked sushi and of course we all said YES! and the 7 of us (Grace, me, Grace's dad, Eddie, Catherine, Julia, Nken [Julia's friend who drove w/ her]) headed toward the Pacific Coast Highway. Eddie never told us where we were going, but as we began the drive up to Malibu I began to get an idea. Sure enough, we pull up to NOBU (for those not in know, a very famous, celeb-ridden restaurant) and I got soooo excited! Cathy and I laughed when we got out of the car, because it was kind of hilarious that she had gotten "stuck" going to Nobu w/ us. I whispered to Grace, "OMG LOOK OUT FOR CELEBS THEYRE ALWAYS HERE!", and before I could even finish my sentence we walked into the restaurant, and in the MIDDLE of the room was a round table of about 10 people, one of whom was none other than Kelsey Grammar. So I added, "and oh yeah there's Frasier." It was so funny because we were like... wow we didn't even have to try?! The dinner was wonderful. We were laughing, eating, drinking, and all going to the bathroom more than necessary so we could get a closer look at Frasier. He looked so... normal.

Thursday was the big day. We reported for our first day of work at TOMS! We were all feeling really excited until we pulled into the parking lot and all felt like we were on the verge of vomiting. We had been wondering all along when/if we would get to meet Blake, the founder and "face" of TOMS, who is pretty much like a celebrity in the minds of all TOMS lovers. We were talking about that as we were looking for a space, and just then saw the funniest looking man getting out of his car. He was wearing bright green sweat pants, a worn out sweater, and one of those eskimo looking hats that covers your ears. We all laughed and thought, "Who is that dude??! I know they said the office was casual but that is a new level of..." then we all stopped. OMG THAT'S BLAKE! As we were laughing/freaking out about seeing the man himself, I completely quit paying attention to the moving vehicle that I was operating and came within about an inch of hitting my new boss' car. Luckily he had his back to us and couldn't see...

The first day was pretty great. We just had orientation for most of the day, where we sat in the back and each manager came in and described our departments. I am the Social Media intern so I work in the Online Marketing department, and we had a department meeting at the end of the day to get us caught up. I really think the job is going to be awesome. We have intern lunches every Tuesday and Thursday, where we all eat lunch with one of the managers and learn about how they got where they are. We have "intern hangouts" once a week too, where we all do something fun as a group. And then there are company wide "Fun Fridays" on the last Friday of every month, where we all do a fun activity together. For example, in November they had potluck Thanksgiving, December was gingerbread house decorating, etc. PLUS they are taking the interns on a trip to Disneyland at the end of the semester. Things could definitely be worse :) After work was the first "intern hangout" at a Mexican restaurant in Santa Monica called El Chollo. SOOOO GOOOD! I can't wait to go back.

Yesterday we started the day with a staff meeting where we were introduced to the entire TOMS family. We all had to stand in the front and Blake welcomed us and gave us a good intern "pep talk." He basically said that this company is successful because of the great interns they've had and that we were all valued, and that they were beyond excited that we were there and wanted us to succeed. I think it all gave us a little peace of mind after information overload from the day before. We all introduced ourselves, said where we were from, and how we heard of TOMS. When I said I graduated from UGA I heard a "Go Dawgs" from the crowd... and I was like AH YAY! Everyone at TOMS is so genuinely nice and intelligent and cool. I'm lucky. The rest of the day was training with my manager Caitlin. I thought I knew about social media, but I seriously had no idea how many elements are actually involved. It was a long day yesterday and we didn't end up getting home until about 7:00, so it was a really low key Friday night. We just hung out around the apartment, cleaned up a little, and called it an early night.

Today was fantastic. We woke up to beautiful SUNSHINE! FINALLYYYYY after 6 days of rain it was sunny. Everything looked different in the sunshine even. Grace and I noticed things on the street we had never noticed before. It was so funny we were walking and one of us said, "WHOA there are palm trees on this street?!" We hopped on our bikes and rode the short 10 minute bikeride to the Brentwood Country Mart. It's the coolest shopping center in what looks like a barn. Even the doors to the stores are kind of like stable doors. There's a big courtyard in the middle with a bunch of food, so we got some delicious grub to refuel. We got home in the late afternoon and cleaned up the apartment and watched "Titanic," which is what I was doing at the beginning of this post.

Actually, a couple paragraphs ago we left to go down to the Third Street Promenade to shop around and eat dinner. It was such a fun day... the sun really does work wonders. The plan for tomorrow is to go to the Hollywood Farmers Market early with some more TOMS people and then hit the Santa Monica flea market in the afternoon. Both are supposed to be really awesome so I can't wait! Then tomorrow night I think we are going to hear a couple of the guys from TOMS play at a pub down the street from us.

So this weekend has been good, sunny, and restful so far. I am now going to end this post so that I can get in the bed, because I cannot seem to get caught up on my sleep, no matter how hard I try. Will write more soon!
Until then-
S

Every end is a new beginning

2010-01-22T00:13:00.002-05:00

So... as you may have noticed, I have not been able to muster enough energy to post anything the last few days. Life has been a pretty amazing blur since I wrote last Sunday night. Our roadtrip came to an end, and after a pretty exhausting 5 days, dad and I drove into LA feeling pretty emotional. Sad that we had reached our final destination, but excited for what this milestone actually meant. Here is a recap of our final days on the road:

January 18, 2010 - Day FOUR of Sarah's cross-country road trip to California

I woke up to a dark room. I could hear dad tossing and turning restlessly in the other bed. "What's wrong?" "Nothing, can't sleep." We both tried to go back to sleep, but decided since we were here, at the Grand Canyon, we would get up at watch the sunrise. As we walked outside, we were greeted with a minor setback. That is, if you call 8 inches of snow minor. It had begun to snow overnight, and by 6:30 am there was already EIGHT inches of snow. We tried to make our way to teh lodge, but spent about 45 minutes spinning out and fishtailing in the parking lot. When we finally got over there, it had gone from dark to a light grey outside, and we went inside just to check things out. Dad asked the lady at the desk, "Will there be a sunrise this morning?" "Yes," she replied, "There will be a sunrise this morning. But not one that any of us will see." We kind of laughed and got some hearty Grand Canyon breakfast, waiting for our 9 am tour. When we checked in with the tour guide he gave us a puzzled look. "Well, I can take you up there, but I just want to warn you. The Canyon is non-visible. Can't see a thing. But you can stil ride up there." I just rolled my eyes... there is no way that the GRAND CANYON is "non-visible." It is visible from space... it's not possible to be non-visible. Nevertheless, we got our money back and decided to just check it out for ourselves. I must say... it was completely non-visible. HA! I was so wrong and VERY glad we had gotten our 50 bucks back. We stood in the same place we had stood the day before, but where the majestic canyon once was, was now just a white cloudy wall. There was nothing there! I couldn't see more than 10 feet in front of me, even when I was standing on the EDGE of the Grand Canyon. Sooo weird. So we had a cup of coffee and got out of there before the snow got any worse. We were both disappointed that we didn't get more time to see the actual scenery, but decided it was the perfect excuse to go back and spend even longer there!

We got on the road to Phoenix and had a very snowy first half of the trip. People were swerving all over the roads, fishtailing out of control and spinning out on the shoulders. Even an 18-wheeler had run off the road... a little nerve wracking. Dad and I stopped for gas in Flagstaff and I got out just to take in the beautiful snow. Although it was a pain to drive through, it was absolutely beautiful to see the snow falling so heavily. I've seriously never seen it snow so hard in my life, even when we got our infamous 8 inches in Athen last year. Incredible. We made it to Phoenix and met up with my aunt Jill and cousins Haley and Tyler. We hung out at a McDonalds for a couple hours and had a great time laughing, chatting, and catching up. Dad and I then got back in the car for a four hour stretch to Palm Springs, anxious to cross over what would be our last state line into California. As we drove through the desert we witnessed what would be our last driving sunset, and both rode in silence as we realized that the trip actually would end, and we would actually have to both move on to life ourside of our little cocoon, also known as my white Mazda (who was quite the trooper, I might add). When we crossed the Colorado river and into California, I started crying, of course, feeling all the emotions that have been building over the last 5 years. As per our ritual, we took a picture of the state sign, but this time we got out and took pictures of it, proud of our almost 3000 mile accomplishment. We got to Palm Springs around dinner time and had the MOST amazing dinner with Grandma Susan and Sandy. We stayed at her house Monday night and joked that it was by far the best hotel of the trip.

We got up bright and early Tuesday morning so that we could be in LA and meet the girl who we were renting from by 10 am. The drive to LA started out nice, but ended up as a rainy mess. However, the gross rain did not dampen our excitement. We met back up with Grace and took a tour of our new home. It's incredible. It's sooo big and spacious! And it's in the Brentwood neighborhood, which is a really cute, low-key part of town. Grace has her own room, and I am sharing a room with Julia, another intern from Germany. The move-in was pretty easy considering we each just had one car full of stuff. We ran errands the rest of the day, buying essentials, including a lovely single bed where I will be relaxing for the next 5 months. So far, all my junk is still piled on top of it, so I have been bunking either at my Grandma's condo or in Grace's California King sized bed. On dad's last night we went to dinner at my aunt Robin's house in Venice. I am pretty stoked to have so much family on this coast! It will definitely make the transition a little easier. Dad and I headed up to Gma's condo in Santa Monica for the night and sat for a long time on the balcony, looking at the ocean and the lights of Malibu. It was then that everything hit me and I kind of lost it. I still get kind of choked up thinking about it... at that moment I realized one chapter of my life had officially closed, and another was just beginning. I am never good with change, good or bad, so facing reality was a bit of a struggle. The journey had been one big adrenaline rush (I had barely slept at ALL), and when we finally slowed down everything else caught up. Dad left the next day, and after a very teary goodbye (on my end of course), I got in the car and drove away, merging onto the LA Freeway into what I knew would be some of the most exciting and scary moments of my life thus far.

I am going to stop there, because my time since that goodbye at the airport has also been quite eventful, and I want to have more time to write about it. I will say that today was my first official day at TOMS and I absolutely LOVED IT! I feel soooo lucky to be a part of such a cool company, and still am kind of incredulous as to how I scored such a sweet job. Today still felt pretty surreal, but tomorrow after our all-staff meeting I think it will feel a little more easy. I felt like a kid in a candy shop today watching everyone work on all things TOMS-related. Tomorrow we will meet and be introduced to the entire staff of TOMS, including Blake himself! I can't wait. Everyone today referred to us as "part of the family." Because TOMS is in fact a family, and all the people we met today seemed genuinely excited that we were the newest members.

Will update tomorrow with all things LA! Now going to relax by my gas fireplace in my cute little apartment and watch the rain keep pouring down in what was once apparently sunny Southern California. Until then!
-S

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.

2010-01-18T01:22:00.002-05:00

January 17, 2010 - Day THREE of Sarah's cross country road trip to California

Do you ever feel like you are dreaming, even though you know you are awake? I am at a loss for words as to how to best describe my day, other than to tell you that the whole thing felt like a dream. With that being said, I currently do not know what day it is or what time zone I am in, and this means that delirium has officially set it. So this post will be as brief as possible.

We woke up in Albequerque, NM with a single mission: Get to the Grand Canyon as fast as possible. We loaded up at the FREE BREAKFAST BUFFET (I got to pick the motel thank goodness) and of course I snuck as much food out in my purse as I could. We were determined not to stop except for gas so the 6 hour drive to the Canyon did not last any longer than it needed to. The drive was fantastic... all desert and sand and mountains and rocks. And talk about "wide open spaces"... we went through stretches of road where it was just desert as far as the eye could see. The mountains were in the distance and the train tracks ran parallel to the highway, and oftentimes a train would chug up beside us and dad and I would race them. I felt like I was in a movie. We stopped at a Dairy Queen/Indian Reservation Shop for gas (what a combo), and dad surprised me by getting me a really cool ring. It is kind of southwestern looking with a big green agass (sp?) stone. Soooo pretty :) I will think of Dairy Queen every time I wear it... hehe

As we approached the Grand Canyon, the snow replaced what was once sandy desert. It was BEAUTIFUL! We even drove by a gigantic frozen lake. Never seen that before... Soon after the frozen lake came something even MORE exciting... a road sign that read: "Los Angeles - 487 miles"... WE ARE ON THE SIGN, BABY!!! I took a picture because it was just too cool. Apparently I am moving to L.A.

Getting to the Canyon was surreal. It sounds cheesy, but that is one hole in the ground that will take your breath away. Dad and I walked up to the edge and just looked on in silence taking it all in. It was actually emotional in a way. We were here.

I cannot properly describe the Grand Canyon to you, so I'm not really going to try. Incredible, massive, majestic, other worldly. It looks like a miracle. I took a million pictures, but just got frustrated because they do not do it justice. The only way to know is to GO. If you have a bucket list, add the Grand Canyon to the top. I've seen a lot of cool things, but this far surpasses all definitions of "cool."

We just walked around the village this afternoon and hiked around the South rim. Tomorrow morning we are taking a guided tour, so we will get to see more of it and actually know what we are looking at. Can't wait!! Also tonight, I texted my future LA roomie Grace, who is also driving across the country but departed from Connecticut, to ask where in the country she was on such a fine afternoon. She replied, "I'm in New Mexico! We are headed to the Grand Canyon for the night!" You are kidding me. Sometimes life is funny. So Grace, me, and our dads had a delicious dinner at the El Tovar Lodge. Grace and her dad are absolutely fantastic. She and I are a lot alike, and I feel like we have pretty similar personalities. Our dads hit it off as well, and since her dad also produces shows and concerts, they were chatting the entire night. It was meant to be! I'd definitely say we all left feeling incredibly happy and excited.

Tomorrow we want to get up early to enjoy some early morning Canyon time and coffee in the lodge before our 9 am tour. Then off to Phoenix around noon to visit my aunt and cousins for a little, and then finally we will cross into the state of California for the last leg of our journey. Tomorrow night we will stay in Palm Springs with Gma, and then on to LA early Tuesday to move in. As I reflect over the last few days, I definitely feel sad that our journey is coming to an end. There is something so incredibly comforting about riding in the car with your dad, with nowhere to go but forward. I have anticipated this journey for some time now, but never had any clue what it would mean to experience it. I am exhausted, excited, sad, anxious, scared, and curious all at the same time. I feel like I'm... dreaming.

And with that, I AM OFF TO BED. Next post will be from CALI!
Goodnight to all-
S

Too often we are so preoccupied with the destination, we forget the journey.

2010-01-17T03:01:00.004-05:00

January 16, 2010 - Day TWO of Sarah's cross country road trip to California

"The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep."

-Robert Frost

Normally, I think quoting poetry is corny and cliche, but never before have 3 short lines rung so true. The journey continues. Today was a monstrous driving day. We woke up in Conway, Arkansas and drove a little over 1000 miles to Albequerque, New Mexico, were I am currently curled up in a much cozier Residence Inn, fighting my heavy eyelids and mushy brain. I have no idea why, but sitting stationary in a car for 15 hours really takes it out of you. AHHH! Nonetheless, today was pretty fantastic and I don't want to forget, so I shall recap before a (hopefully) glorious slumber. Dude... so tired...

Since our luxurious accomodations at the Days Inn were such a bargain, their free "breakfast" unfortunately only consisted of glazed doughnuts, fruit loops, bagels, english muffins, a bowl of questionable fruit, and cranberry juice cocktail. I kid you not. There was not even real juice. Why am I rambling about breakfast? I'm getting there. We venture across the street to the local Conway, Arkansas Starbucks (yes, it does exist) to get some grub before beginning the big day. The people were nice enough and we got breakfast huevo rancheros to eat. Dad complained that they did not come with salsa as they were supposed to, and while I normally would have been embarassed by this, I was really too tired to care. The ladies informed him that unfortunately the breakfast was pre-packaged and there was no salsa available. He sat back down and in an instant we both had a bad attitude. All of the sudden, a smiley "barista" shows up at our table with a cup of salsa. "Here's some salsa, sir. I made it myself and brought it in for my lunch today. But you're welcome to some of it." We both just looked at her for a moment, in disbelief that a stranger could really be nice enough to share her own homemade salsa with a complaining customer. We decided right then that maybe Starbucks isn't some evil corporation taking over metropolitan (and not to metropolitan in this case) areas, and instead is just a coffee shop with every day decent human beings as employees. So this is my plug... next time you are in Conway, AR, GO TO THE STARBUCKS! (don't pretend like you don't already plan on hitting up Conway next time you're on I-40)

Dad and I talked after that about how wrong you can be about people sometimes, and how so often we rush and make assumptions that are totally and completely wrong. As we crossed into Oklahoma, the drive became more and more scenic. I have never considered Oklahoma to be anything except a state that takes up space, but I must say it has some beautiful scenery. Totally flat, with farmlands stretched as far as the eye can see. I was so shocked at my misconception, and realized that once again I had jumped to conclusions about something that I knew nothing about. So dad and I decided our theme for this trip would be "Enjoy the Journey." Yes, we have our eyes on the prize (Grand Canyon then L.A.), but why should we rush this chance to take in as much of the drive as we can, instead of assuming it's going to be plain and boring? Yes, we are on a time crunch, but there are still ways to enjoy the journey without rushing to the destination. So, to save time, here are some of the highlights of today's "journey":

- Oklahoma City: Shortly after our revelation, we passed through Oklahoma City. We decided that instead of some stupid fast food chain, we would go eat somewhere unique. We went to Bourbon Street Cafe where they are supposedly known for having the best Cajun food around. We dined on crawfish etouffe, chicken with andouille sausage, and fried alligator tail. YUM! Afterwards we went to a famous candy store (the name of course went right out of my head) and got two rather large bags of sweets. wahoooo!

- OIL! : The drive got even more beautiful once we left Oklahoma City. We passed large stretches of farms and fields, and at one point passed a working oil rig. I immediately yearned for James Dean in "Giant." It made me happy. I have never been to Oklahoma before, so all of this scenery is really new to me, and so even this seemingly boring stuff was just so freakin cool

- Kicks. Route 66. : We started seeing roadside signs for Route 66 attractions, but after scouring the map could NOT find where the actual road was. We knew it was nearby because it obviously follows the same cross country route as I-40, but it was no where to be found. I was determined to get some kicks on Route 66. So we pulled off to a gas station and asked where it was. She looked at us and smiled. "You're on Route 66 sweetheart! I-40 picks up the Route 66 a ways back, and you've been driving on it for some time now." I felt excited and like a dumbass at the same time. She said the old road was the road that was going along next to us on the interstate; a road that I thought was just a frontage road. We pulled over to the old Route 66 and snapped a picture and then got on our way. We had several hundred miles left.

- "Jesus Christ is Lord, not a a curse word" : Yes, you read correctly. As we drove through Amarillo, TX, we straight up passed the Jesus Christ Gas Station. No, it did not just have a sign or two about Jesus. It was a JESUS GAS STATION. It was called, "Jesus Christ Gas Station"... every pump had a Bible Verse. Every possible surface was painted with "inspirational" messages preaching against abortion and gay marriage. I wish I had seen it sooner so that I could have pulled off and taken a picture, and of course pumped some Jesus Christ gas. But time was of the essence, and plus dad was scared he would have to hide in the car ;)

- Big Texan Steak House- (I would just like to interject that it is now Sunday, Jan 17... driving in the car and using mobile internet card... fancy!) Amarillo, Texas was somewhat of a circus clown. Exhibit A: Jesus Christ gas station. Exhibit B: Big Texan Steak House. This place seriously looked like an attraction at the country fair. Attached was the Big Texan Steak Motel, which was a motel set up to look like an old western town. There is really no possible way to describe it, so I will post pictures in a later post. The Big Texan Steak House is apparently a national Route 66 landmark. It is basically a Texas-themed Chuckie Cheese, except these people take it seriously. The hostesses were wearing cowboy hats, boots, and chaps, along with a little sheriff star name tag. The place was PACKED, and we were told it would be an hour wait, so we decided just to look around and leave. There were several games located around the place... a shooting game (of course), slot machines (with game tokens as the payout, since gambling for money is a sin), and various other cowboy themed games. There was also a Route 66 gift shop with every possible trinket you could ever imagine. On a whim we asked if we could sit at the bar, and the bartender (who had a feather in his cowboy hat, rodeo style) assured us we could. And so, dad and I enjoyed an incredible steak dinner at the Big Texan Steak House. Afterward we took pictures with the gigantic cow statues outside, and laughed at the "free Big Texan limo"... an old Cadillac with a long horn hood ornament that shuttled the Big Texan ooglers from their nearby cowboy themed motels to this ostentatious oasis of flashing lights, cowboy boots, and an abundance of beef. Definitely an experience that we will remember for years to come.
PS: Cutest memory of the evening... when the hard ass cowboy bartender asked us what we wanted to drink and dad replied "Just water, man. I'm drivin..." Hehehehe I guess even dad's want to feel like manly cowboys sometimes too...

The drive from Amarillo to Albequerque was rather uneventful. In fact, too uneventful. We became a little delirious and played a rather intense game of "Who am I?" Dad had me completely stumped when he was William Shatner as well as when he was our family friend Michael Berger. I stumped him when I was Sasha Obama (yeah you love it lol)... surprisingly, when I was Adolf Hitler, he guessed it within 6 questions. I think we were just too much on the same level by then... I was for sure that I had him. When we stopped for gas at a truck stop, they had ball caps for sale, including a Georgia Bulldogs hat. Even though I have more than enough UGA paraphenalia, I was tempted to buy it just to say I bought a GA hat in New Mexico. I resisted, but it did make me smile and miss all of you back home.

While I am missing home, I can not think of anywhere else I'd rather be, or anyone else I'd rather be with. Dad and I really are having the times of our lives, and have spent 1000+ miles laughing, sharing stories, and just hanging out in a way that we never have before. Right now we are speeding past beautiful mesa's (I actually DID learn something in geography) and sandy deserts, and I am really enjoying this different landscape. We hope to arrive at the Grand Canyon this afternoon and will enjoy another day of adventure time with Steve and Sarah.

OK computer is dying. Until tomorrow-
S

Day One is Done.

2010-01-16T02:13:00.003-05:00

January 15, 2010-- Day One of Sarah's cross country road trip to California.

It's in the books, folks. After a hectic morning of packing, errand running, and turning around TWICE to make sure the door was locked (thanks dad), 14 hours of driving, 5 states, 4 suitcases, 3 pit stops, 2 diet cokes, and 1 crazy hotel receptionist, we have decided to call it a night.

I just wanted to write a quick entry here, both to update ya'll and help myself remember the days of this trip, since I am sure they will begin to run together very quickly. I am currently sitting in a lovely room at the Days Inn in the middle of Arkansas. Conway to be exact. It smells like cheap laundry detergent and looks like it is straight out of the seventies. Seriously, it's from a different decade. The light in the room makes everything that dingy, yellowish tint, and the bedspreads are some maroon and teal paisley disaster. We tried for the Hampton Inn (I'm not gonna lie I wanted that free hot breakfast), but unfortunately they were full, so we resorted to the Delightful Days Inn and the classy continental breakfast. I like to think of it as the TRUE road trip experience. Here goes...

This morning we got up early, yet still managed to get on the road 3 hours later than we had hoped for. My car is a lot smaller than I imagined when I was packing last night, so after my 4 suitcases of clothes were in, there was about enough room for a desk lamp. Oops... so I did a little rearranging and parted with some of my stuff, and dad and I wedged ourselves into the seats and began the journey. My car is so stuffed it cannot fit one more thing. I'm not kidding you, not one more thing. I went in to grab a book and came back to the car and there was not even a place to put the book. I tried to squeeze it behind the head-rest of the passenger seat but it just kept falling on us the whole drive. Grrreat.

We got through Atlanta with no problems and stopped in Aniston, Alabama for a quick barbeque lunch. We continued through Birmingham and took Highway 78 into Mississippi and eventually into Tennessee. Once we got to Memphis we caught I-40 which took us into Arkansas. Once we crossed the border into Arkansas, dad and I stopped at an Applebees for dinner. We decided that the people definitely had a different "look" here than back home. Let's just say... it was one, giant cliche Southern stereotype. However, it was kind of fun because they had the Atlanta-Phoenix basketball game on... As we were paying the check we noticed that the score was close, so we stuck around to see the finish. In the last SECOND of the game, the Hawks came from behind with a 3-pointer and won. We had some fun cheering with the local Arkansasians (who were all apparently Hawks fans) before heading on the last couple hours of the day. To stay on our route we needed to get to Little Rock today (we got about 30 mins past), Albequerque tomorrow, Grand Canyon on Sunday, Palm Springs on Monday, and finally...L.A. on Tuesday morning :):)

I have already witnessed so many eccentric people on this trip. From our friendly, chatty waitress at Sonny's barbeque to the crazy characters at Applebees, it is so much fun to just observe what is going on around me. Tonight, as we were deliriously checking into the fabulous motel, the desk clerk was just chatting away, obviously bored from a lack of interaction. She fumbled her words and quickly apologized, "Sorry I'm a mess tonight, it's my first day back. I had surgery." So of course, dad replied, "Oh no! Well I hope you are feeling better." To which the dainty little clerk with the bad haircut replied, "Oh yes, thank you. I had a full hysterectomy." Pause...

Had I not been in such a pissy mood, I would have laughed hysterically in her face and then felt really bad afterward. Instead I just stared at her in disbelief of what she had just said and curiously awaited my dad's response. I wished so bad I could see his face, but being the seasoned actor that he is, he just whipped out his Visa and said "Ahhh."

Gotta love Conway, Arkansas.
-S

New Year. New Job. New Blog.

2010-01-15T01:19:00.002-05:00

Hello all! It has been quite a while since I last posted a blog. I was trying to keep it up in Athens, but my life was kind of uneventful and repetitive for a few months (which was quite nice after the rather chaotic summer), so I felt like any sort of update would just be boring and/or self-indulgent? That's not the correct word, but you get my point. Nothing blog-worthy was happening. My how things have changed...

Here's a recap of the end of 2009:
- Finished up at the University of Georgia. Graduated Cum Laude and did the parents proud :) And myself for that matter... I have no idea how I dealt with all the crap I've dealt with in the last 4 and 1/2 years without dropping out, atleast for a semester, but somehow I managed to chug on through, and with decent grades at that.
- Graduated with lots of friends and family to cheer me on and came home to Augusta where I have enjoyed a low-key but wonderful Hanukah/Christmas/New Year season
- And oh yeah... got a job. In L.A... and I leave tomorrow.

OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH! Freaking out a little... here's the scoop. I applied for an internship this summer with a company called TOMS Shoes. For every pair of shoes they sell, they will donate a pair to a child in need. You may have seen them featured on an AT&T commerical; that is usually what rings a bell with most people. Anyway, I heard about them through a friend who had applied for the internship over the summer, and then last spring they hosted a national "Day Without Shoes." TOMS challenged everyone to go an entire day without shoes, at work, school, or wherever, in order to feel just a small bit of what those children feel. It does not even compare to their conditions, but it does raise awareness for the importance of shoes as a daily need. I thought that was such a cool idea and looked them up online and, on a whim, applied for this internship. I never really considered it to be a real possibility though, since they got well over 3000 applicants. Yes, three thousand.

I heard back in the fall and kept in contact with the intern coordinator. In the meantime, I was also in a Graphics Design class where we had to choose a client to make our materials for, so I chose TOMS in the hopes that I could send them some of my finished work in order to showcase my abilities. Well, I guess they were impressed, because at the end of November they started a series of phone interviews, and I found out just last week that I had been chosen as one of eleven interns for Spring 2010. Wow.

I have the Social Media position, so I will be helping with all the Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Youtube, etc accounts, and I'm assuming with the blogs as well. I know... pretty perfect. The program goes through the end of May, and after that who knows. There is a possibility to get hired on, but there is also a possibility that there will be no positions available. However, they've assured us that they always let interns know of job openings at other places first, and no matter what this is gonna be a kick-ass addition to my resume. The office is in lovely Santa Monica, and I will be living with 2 other interns in a cute little apartment in the Brentwood area. It has kind of been mayhem trying to organize a cross-country move in 7 days, but with six hours before we are set to head out, I'm starting to calm down.

After doing 5 months in Italy and 1 and 1/2 months in France (not to mention a little French surgery/hospital stay), I KNOW I can do this. And I've done the whole freak-out-the-night-before thing, and I know that it will get done, we will get in the car an hour late, I will forget something, and it will not be the end of the world. As far as living in L.A. goes, I am actually more nervous to live there than I was to live in Europe. I would feel much more at ease if I was going back to Florence tomorrow and chillin with the Italians for a few months. But L.A. just seems so... intimidating... and I feel ridiculous even saying this, but I hope I fit in! I go every year just about, so it's not like I don't know what to expect, but living in a place is something entirely different than visiting family there. I have a great support system out there already though. My Grandma Susan and Aunt Robin are there to coach me through all of the L.A. eccentricities, and I have a host of other family members and friends who are there and ready to show me around. Not to mention ASHLEIGH ANDERSON (formerly Reibert :):), my roommate in Italy and one of the best friends I could ever ask for, lives up in Carmel, only a short 6 hour drive away. I can't believe we will actually get to DRIVE to see each other instead of flying once a year.

Tomorrow (Friday Jan 15), well actually later today since it's almost 2 am, dad and I will pack up my little Mazda and begin the drive out west. Our tentative plan is to get to Little Rock, AR or maybe even beyond that. Our goal for Saturday is to get as far as Albequerque, NM and then Sunday we will drive the 5 or 6 hours over to the Grand Canyon. We will spend Sunday evening and Monday morning there and drive on to Phoenix Monday afternoon, where we will have lunch with my dad's sister Jill and my cousins Haley and Tyler. Then we will drive on to Palm Springs that evening and stay overnight with my Grandma Susan at her house. Then Tuesday morning, we will get up and drive two hours through the desert to our final destination: Los Angeles! Dad will help me get settled and then fly back home Wednesday afternoon. I am not sure where on the route I will have internet, but I promise to update ya'll as much as I can on our progress! And if you have Facebook, check that for updates and pics of the cross-country adventure :) I'm so excited for the drive actually; I've never taken such a long road-trip before.

Anyway, just wanted to send an update to all of you who are interested in the latest goings-on with me. I will definitely keep this blog up-to-date with all of my L.A. adventures!! And I hope that you all will keep me up-to-date with what's going on with you as well. Also, for those of you who e-mail, my e-mail address has changed to: sewalpert@gmail.com

If you want to check out the company I'm working for, here is their website:
www.tomsshoes.com
I am genuinely excited to begin this job and to work for a company with such an earnest mission. I really believe in what they are trying to achieve, and I can't wait to be a part of something that truly does some good in the world, while still using the advertising/communication skills I learned and grew to love in school.

Hope the new year (and new decade!) has treated everyone well so far. Will write more soon.

Signing off from Georgia-
S

"I have to keep breathing, because tomorrow the Sun will rise, and who knows what the tide will bring..."

2009-09-27T22:52:00.002-04:00

As many of you know, on February 22, 2008 I lost my boyfriend of three and a half years and my best friend in the entire world, Jared Mclean, to suicide, after what we assume to be a struggle with depression and/or mental illness. Jared was kind, hilarious, gentle, generous, adventurous, and he loved his family and friends whole-heartedly until the day that he passed away. I have struggled for 19 long months with this loss. Now more than ever, I want to do something in his memory to honor the beautiful but short life he lived, as well as help others who may be suffering in silence, just like he did.

Before I lost Jared, I worked at a facility called Nuçi's Space here in Athens. Nuçi’s Space is a non-profit health and music resource center in Athens, GA. The aim of the organization is to prevent suicide by providing obstacle free treatment for musicians suffering from depression and other such disorders as well as to assist in the emotional, physical and professional well-being of musicians. In 1996, 22-year old musician and UGA student Nuçi Phillips committed suicide after a battle with depression, and his family decided that instead of simply asking why, they were going to take action. The result of the Phillips family’s commitment to preventing suicide in the music community is Nuçi’s Space, the center they created and built as a commitment to helping others and preventing tragedy. Those who know Jared know that his love of music was part of his core, and that is another reason why this cause has continued to stay near and dear to my heart.

I was an intern as well as President of the Nuçi’s Space Student Organization, so I was very involved in every aspect of the mission. When I lost Jared, I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me and I abandoned all of my positions at Nuçi’s Space, and have not been back. At the time, I couldn't face the responsibilities that I been managing on a daily basis. I felt like a hypocrite even walking in the building. Since then, it has essentially been fear that has kept me from going back, until now.

Every year, Nuçi’s Space holds the Nuçi’s Space S.P.A.C.E. Race, a 5K Run/Walk to benefit the mission of Nuçi’s Space. I was going to do it last year and then ultimately chickened out because I still wasn't ready to face everything. This year I am feeling really excited to get a team together and raise some money for this cause. I want to extend an invitation to any who are able to come and join TEAM JARED and run/walk with us on October 24th. Student registration is $20 and Standard registration is $25. I am planning on getting us all tie-dyed TEAM JARED t-shirts (if you knew him, you know how appropriate tie-dye is!) so that we can honor him on the big day. If you are interested in joining us, please e-mail back and let me know so that I can get you registered!!!

For those who live out of town or are unable to attend, I ask for your support to not only honor the life of Jared Mclean, but also so that Nuçi’s Space will be able to provide more programs and services to those individuals who need help the most. Over 33,000 people die by suicide each year, leaving their friends and family members to ask why. To date, Nuçi’s Space has helped over 620 people receive counseling assistance and has helped countless others by providing other types of support. This success was made possible, in part, through the support of people like you. Donations are tax-deductible and will help ensure that Nuçi’s Space can continue its mission of preventing suicide. Checks can be written payable to: Nuçi’s Space. I must turn in all contributions by October 19, 2009 to allow for accurate and timely processing of pledges. If you would like to mail me your contribution, please send to:

Sarah Walpert
100 Stone Mill Run #37
Athens, GA 30605

I have set our team fundraising goal at $300, but really any amount counts and whatever contribution that we can give is meaningful and helpful. Thank you in advance for joining me in supporting Nuçi’s Space and raising awareness about mental illness and suicide.In addition to the monetary support that we raise, I especially hope that some of you that live within driving distance will be able to join us for the run/walk. Right now, TEAM JARED consists of me, my mom, and my cousin/roommate Lauren Robinson, and while the 3 of us are definitely enough to honor Jared, I hope that more of you will be able to join in this celebration of life.

If you have more questions, please feel free to call me at 706-414-2254, or check out the website at http://www.nuci.org/spacerace.Thank you again for considering this cause, and for being such a support system to me through this last year and a half. I want to thank those of you who have reached out and helped make this horrible tragedy just a little easier to cope with.
I am glad to now finally have the chance to make something good out of something that caused so much hurt and pain, and I know that Jared is beaming with pride in heaven at all of our efforts.

I hope this entry finds you well, and I look forward to hearing from some of you. Again, my e-mail entry is sarahw87@uga.edu and phone number is 706-414-2254. Have a wonderful day!
Love-Sarah
PS: If you feel so inclined to copy and paste this message and e-mail it out to people you feel would either join us or support our cause, please feel free! I want to spread Jared's story and the mission of Nuçi’s Space to as many people as possible, as well as to share my journey with anyone who has suffered something similar to this, if I may provide even a little bit of comfort or support. So please... e-mail away! I am forever grateful for whatever you choose to do. Thanks!

Organized Chaos

2009-09-17T15:26:00.005-04:00

Hey ya'll!
So, I am writing this entry from a completely darkened room. Before you freak out, it is only because of the raging headache that has plagued me for almost a week now. Last Thursday, I woke up with what I thought was the swine flu, only to be reassured that it was just a really ridiculous cold (THANK GOD!!!). Stayed in bed almost the entire weekend (with a minor break on Saturday coinciding with the GA game!) to try and get rid of it. Have been popping Vitamin C pills like it's my job and have in fact felt much better, but the cough/headache has decided to stick around. So, I have now resorted to darkness and bags of frozen lima beans on my forehead. It seems to be doing the trick at the moment, but I would like to do something with my day that does not include a bag of frozen veggies, so if any of you have any other suggestions (besides Dayquil, which I am already taking) then I would just love to hear from you! It's the kind of headache that is now radiating from my eyesockets... I don't often get them like this so that is why I am kind of at a loss when it comes to treating them.

Despite the yucky sickness and the upcoming holiday which will forever be difficult to get through (September 23... Jared's birthday), things have otherwise been ok! I have made an executive decision to STOP freaking out about graduation and STOP being wildly depressed about this chapter in my life coming to a close. My life as a whole is all over the place, so instead of trying to tackle it all I am going to tackle bits at a time. Since my biggest fear has been life after December 18th, I decided to deal with that first. After doing some researching online and really evaluating my interests, I have decided that what I am MOST interested in in this advertising/PR industry is Event Planning! I have always enjoyed planning parties and making them unique and special according to the occasion, and I really enjoy working with people and clients, so I am actually really excited at the prospect of doing that like a living. I have a couple of family members with contacts that they are going to give my information to, but I also want to but it out in the blogoverse that I am looking for an entry-level position in the event planning/PR/promotion field!! I am proficient in several computer/graphics programs, have several years of leadership experience in various school activities as well as at a non-profit organization, AND I am an enthusiastic and hard-working person with an eagerness to learn about this industry. And I am more than willing to relocate if that's what it takes. If any of you have ANY contacts whatsoever, I would be forever grateful if you could pass my name/number/or email address along, or you could send me their contact information and I could take it from there. Well, that's my weekly self-promotion stunt, so hope you enjoyed it ;)

I have also been working with Crystal who has a fabulous job in Fashion Public Relations up in NYC to develop a plan for myself. Right now I am working on perfecting my resume/cover letter writing skills and just kind of feeling out the job situation both online and through friends and family. I have also made an appointment with the career center to talk to our consultant at UGA for job-hunting tips and also information on job listings sent to her from companies all over the country. They also offer a mock-interview program which I definitely plan on doing before I go for real interviews; they conduct it like an actual job interview from start to finish (proper dress is even required!) and then at the end they give you notes and recommendations. Hopefully I can get in atleast two of those so I can see where I improved and still need work. I'm also hoping it will alleviate the "first interview jitters" when I go in for the real thing, since I will already have experienced something close to it. Late October is when I will start applying for things and hopefully will be able to go for some interviews in November/December. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I really want to work for a few years before going back to school, because while I really do love school, I am just sooo ready for something different.

AND- I have been soooo depressed about leaving college behind, but I was also pleasantly reminded that college has also been the most trying, difficult, heartbreaking 5 years of my life. While it represents a really wonderful time, it also represents a really painful time, and I think that I will be ok to move past that. Sometimes, I get really scared at the thought of moving past it, because I have become comfortable in my misery. But-- life MUST go on and I do NOT want to feel this way forever, so I just have to force myself to take a few (baby) steps in a new direction. Plus, it is absolutely what Jared wanted. I would be doing a disservice to him by marinating in my own sadness. It makes me feel a little better knowing that I can honor him with a part of my new life-- by using my experiences these past 2 years to help myself and to help others. Just by tackling all of these issues in my head the past week has been a huge relief to me. And while my life still feels chaotic and messy, atleast it is slowly becoming ORGANIZED CHAOS!

I came home to Augusta Tuesday night because my great-uncle, Fletcher, passed away last week and I attended his funeral in Charlotte, NC yesterday. He was my Grandma Anne's sister Libbus' husband of 44 years and he was a very special person in all of our lives. We had the common bond of both having Crohn's Disease, and throughout the years we always have offered support and advice to each other, despite our 48 year age difference. He was on Remicade, a treatment I was also on in high school. It consists of monthly IV infusions in which you must go to a doctor's office and sit for a very long 3 hours. I switched from Remicade to Humira (where I gave myself weekly shots) back in 2006, right before I left for my semester in Italy. I was going to have to make a monthly journey to a hospital in Rome for the infusion, and since I wasn't doing too hot anyway, my doctor and I thought it would be best for me to switch to a drug that I could give to myself. Fletcher had great results from Remicade though, and we always chatted about the disease, life, etc whenever we saw each other. Fletcher was always a comfort and an inspiration in my life, because while he has dealt with Crohn's for many more years than I, he still faced his disease with a gentle optimism that I always admired. We were always talking about new drugs and treatments that we thought would for sure cure us, and we'd laugh at the fact that two people so different in age are reduced to the same exact treatment for our chronic illness. Like I said, it was this common hardship that connected us more than just a great-uncle/niece relationship, and I always looked forward to family events to see Fletcher, my giant teddy bear. Fletcher had lung cancer years ago that resulted from a life-long smoking habit, but was treated successfully for it and was considered to be "Cancer-Free." He stopped smoking and began living a healthier lifestyle, but a few months ago the cancer returned in his bones and quickly metasticized to his lungs and colon. He was gone quicker than any of us imagined, but spent his last weeks in the comfort of his own home in Charlotte, surrounded by his loved ones. I never got a chance to say goodbye, but I know that he is in a much better place looking over us all at this very moment. Whenever I am sick with Crohn's I will think of Fletcher and the strength that he had, and hopefully will be able to mimic his courage and his attitude. Rest in Peace, Sweet Fletcher.

On the agenda for the next few days will be to tackle some more school work from the summer (I have 3 incompletes still left), do some painting, get some rest, and maybe even go see a movie or two. I just needed a few days to mentally and physically press the "reset" button on my body, and get recharged and refueled for the coming months. I also plan to spend some time with Ms. Carolyn and celebrate and remember the life of our beloved Jared. He would be 23 on September 23rd, and instead of wallowing in sadness or pain I really want to spend these next few days being positive and honoring the beautiful life that he lived. Spending time with Ms. Carolyn does a body good! Talk about role models... she is a pillar of strength, dignity, and grace, and I am in awe of her every day courage and positivity. Whenever I really feel down or like I just don't know how to go on, I think of her or I'll call her or if I'm lucky enough to be in Augusta will spend time with her, and she always reminds me of the importance of living life and honoring what Jared held so dear to him. I am now a firm believer that beautiful things can come from the most ugliest experiences, because since Jared's death our relationship has grown and flourished, and now I can't imagine life without her! She is like a second mom to me, but also just a friend and confidant who I would trust the world with. I am so lucky to have found such an amazing extended family in the Inscho/McLean bunch and I am very excited that we will be part of each others lives forever now. I once read a quote that while family is the one in which you were born into, it is also the people you choose to love, and by that definition I will always consider them my family!

On that note, I must take my son (Gally) for a walk and stop wasting the day on the computer. Writing (and a boost from the Dayquil I'm sure) has subdued my headache for a while, so I'm going to take advantage of it while I can. Hope this finds everyone happy and healthy... for those of you who might like to contact me with a job lead (or just to say hi and fill me in on YOUR life!), my number is (706) 414-2254 and my email address is sarahw87@uga.edu OR sewalpert@gmail.com. Love to all and hope to hear what everyone is up to! Will write again soon... I promise to be better about the updates!

Love-
S

On the Road Again...

2009-08-29T19:20:00.003-04:00

HIII! Hope this finds everyone having a great day, night, or whatever time. My sweet friend Ashleigh reminded me that I have not written in a week or so, probably leaving you all to believe that I am wallowing in a world of despair and sadness. I really apologize if my last post alarmed anyone. It really was just me venting and trying to make sense out of something that really made none. Things have been much better though, and that is definitely some good news to report!

Just to recap: Last weekend we all went down to Harbor Island to celebrate mom's 50th (well... 49th forever...) birthday!! We had so much fun that she would not even be mad to see that I posted her age on here; she's already telling everyone and totally owning it! Thank goodness... we were all worried beautiful Betts might not be able to handle such a daunting number, but of course she's doing it all like a pro, and she's actually excited in the process! It's not a bad number at all, I think. You're old enough that you have a nice, comfortable life with some money, a nice house, a family and lots of memories, but you're young enough that you're not walking with a cane, and you've got lots of time left to travel, run marathons, welcome grandkids, try new things, blah blah. And maybe they'll even marry me off and get rid of me in the next 50 years!! Not likely though... dad's too good of a cook for me to leave home for too long before stumbling right back with an empty tummy :):) So anyway, we all got to the beach Friday night at about 10 pm after driving through the most intense thunderstorm ever! We had to stop driving at one point because the rain was coming down so hard, and then the roads started to flood! For about 15 minutes there was probably a foot of water on the road. Thank goodness for dad's clunker or we would have been in some trouble.

We all just sat around Friday night talking about what we were going to do on Saturday since we knew it was going to rain all day. When we woke up, however, we were pleasantly surprised by the beautiful sunshine and 85 degree weather!! We kept waiting and waiting for it to rain, but we totally lucked out and had a full day of sun. We also lucked out that there was a Harry Potter marathon on that evening, so that this family of geeks could actually all agree on something to watch! We had a late dinner at a local seafood restaurant about 20 miles down the road (there is nothing on Harbor Island). We were all dressed in cute, casual clothes and walked in only to be greeted by smirks and stares. To put it lightly, we were severely overdressed and we pretty much stuck out like a sore thumb. Whatev... we had a good time and the food was delish! Mom racked up on the presents too. Kate and Michael got her a coupon good for a photo organizing system for all of mom's hard copy pictures. We have hundreds upon hundreds of pictures thrown in boxes out in the garage, of which Kate and Michael will organize, scan, and then save to different flash drives. Then they'll create a whole storage system with the hard copies and their corresponding flash drives. So, if mom wants to find pictures from Kate's 13th birthday party or my high school graduation, she knows exactly how to find it in both print and digital form. It will be a monstrous job, but one that MAJORLY needs to be done. I thought it was a very recession-chic present. They totally showed me up. I, instead, chose to stimulate the economy, and got mom a really funky skirt from Arden B (a VERY cool store in Atlanta), and also a matching necklace from The Swank (a swanky boutique in Augusta). I also got her a little makeup bag with the quote "Don't hate me because I'm fabulous!" on it. I thought it was oh-so-mom! Dad got her some beautiful necklaces from Artists Row in Downtown Augusta, some smelly good candles, and a killer brown leather bag! I am sooo proud... he actually picked it out all by himself and it's actually genuinely awesome. On Sunday we stayed until about 4 pm and had a nice time out on the beach again.

It was hard to go back to school after such a fun, relaxing weekend. Monday, I went to Atlanta to have another PET and CT scan done. As most of you know, I am trying to go on a new medicine that comes with more risks than normal, so they just want to make sure that my lymphnodes, etc have healed from the episode in April. Anyway, the tests went well and I go back to the oncologist next week to get the results. After that I will go back to my two GI's, Dr. Cohen and the new guy Dr. Wolf, to try and get something started. Things are not bad, but they're not good either, and I am walking a fine line right now. It is my LAST semester in college and I am just PRAYING desperately that I can make it through this semester with no major blips. You know what they say... fifth times a charm ;)

Speaking of, school is getting better and better. I'm actually really pleased with all of my classes and all of my teachers. For those who are interested, I'm taking: Advertising campaigns (the final ad class where you present to a panel at the end of the semester), Graphic Design, Creative Writing, Sociology of Gender, and Sociology of Culture. All of them are actually really interesting in their own right and I can honestly say I don't have any "dud" classes or teachers this time around! We'll see how it goes...

I've been panicking a little each week at the thought of the real world approaching a second at a time. I'm gonna drag myself over to the career center for the first time in my college career to see if they can live up to their lofty name. Find me a career, people! If anyone out there in the blogosphere knows of any job offerings in PR, promotions, event planning, entertainment, advertising, marketing, telecommunications, public affairs, or really ANYTHING, my email address is sarahw87@uga.edu, I'm smart and charming, and would be perfect for said job.

I would also like to take this moment to write Rest in Peace, Senator Teddy Kennedy. Politics aside, hopefully all can agree that he was a brilliant man who fought a hard fight for a better nation. It is partly because of him that I am able to receive such a high caliber of health care, and hopefully his fight will continue on so that I may be able to receive healthcare in the future. For those of you who don't realize, I will be off of my parents' health insurance as of this December, and am distressed to the max about what will happen next, thanks to pre-existing condition clauses. Teddy was fighting for people like me, and I pray he has left a legacy that will keep on fighting for those of us with chronic illnesses. People blast healthcare policies because they can; because it doesn't affect them and they don't want to pay for other people to "mooch" off of the government. The majority of people suffering, however, are people like me, who have managed their diseases rather quietly (or sometimes not so quietly) and for some reason have their insurance taken away (in my case because of my college graduation), therefore leaving them to face some very daunting life decisions, usually ending up in a mountain of debt and medical bills. I just hope people are fully abreast of what happens regarding healthcare in the coming months, because it will directly affect many of us suffering in silence. OK, end of lecture.

WELL- I was hoping as I typed that I would come up with something interesting or crazyyy or just something kooky that I could write about. But... I got nothin. I just really wanted to make sure you all knew things were ok and looking up actually!... because I heard from many concerned readers last week who I want to reassure that I'm ok :) I probably should never have posted that... it was more like a journal entry, but times are happy and times are sad, and to portray my life from only one angle would just be a lie. K so I think I am off to Zaxbys for a delicious Zen Sensation Zalad. Sooo yum.

Hope everyone has a great rest of the weekend!!! Enjoy summer while it's still here... I plan on wearing hot pink every day for the next 14 days. What are everyone's plans for labor day?? I lovvveee feedback and you all have been pretty slack about it lately! Does anyone still read this? Miss and love to all!
Til next time-
S

Happiness is an Inside Job

2009-08-19T21:11:00.004-04:00

Today is hard.

You know how they say that sometimes we all have bad days? Well mine has come. It started out fine. Got up early for a few appointments, went to class, etc. And then it came from nowhere like a thunderstorm at the beach (i know, i know, awesome analogy)... This sense of sadness and helplessness and anxiety about life. Yesterday it seemed like I had all the answers and then today those answers kicked my ass. Tears welled up and started falling out of my eyes. I tried to make them stop but they wouldn't; I didn't even KNOW I had that many in me. Needless to say, this went on for many hours. Still right now, the sprinklers have been turning on and off sporatically. Why am I crying? Because of everything... it's like it all hit me. Everything. Like an avalanche falling on my head. I long to have my best friend back, who went to be with God last February. Why I want him back, I do not know, since he is in the greatest place of all time right now. I want those months in the hospital back. The months of recovery. The setbacks. The classes I missed. I have been to class for three days now and I feel so out of place. I know I know, it is pretty normal to have one last "victory lap" semester at college. But it just doesn't fit.

And thus, my dilemma. I dont feel like I belong in college. I don't feel like I belong in the real world. I DEFINITELY don't feel like I belong at home (love you mom and dad), but at times I dont feel like I belong on my own. So... where do I belong? Where do I go?

I was telling this all to my good friend Kirsten, who had some pretty good insight. "Happiness is an inside job, my friend. It's a decision, not a place." Damn she is smart. For a long time now I have been going places to find happiness and have surely discovered that if you are not happy in Augusta, you will not be happy in Charleston, NYC, California, Italy, Amsterdam, Germany, Austria, England, or France. Trust me, I tried. Not to say those trips weren't profoundly meaningful and important to me, but they are not a solution to a problem that has only one solution: Pray. Turn to God. Ask for help. I've been trying this on my own for too long now and it's just not working.

So I told Kirsten that it's easier said than done. "God and me haven't seen eye to eye lately. He took something from me and I'm mad at Him. Why didn't He help (best friend's name here) when he needed it? Why didn't He help me when I needed it?" And in true Kirsten form, this is what she said:

"Its like that stupid joke where the town is flooding and theres this man on his roof
and he isn't evacuating b/c he says God is coming to save him.
So the water keeps rising and this couple comes by in a truck and begs him to get down and come, but he says no b/c God is going to save him.
Then the water is up to the windows and a family comes with a boat and tries to get him,
but he refuses again.
Finally the water is up to his neck and a helicopter flys over to rescue him
and he still says he won't go, b/c he trusts God and god is coming to save him.
Well... he dies.
When he gets to heaven he is like'God...i trusted in you...why didn't you save me?'
And God says "...dude i sent you a truck, a boat, AND a helicopter!"

I'm not gonna lie, I managed my first laugh of the day. Even when we think we are drowning, He is there. I'll never know what went on last February, but I must accept that God did what he could and said friend is enjoying all the wonderful perks of paradise as I type away. So my goal for tomorrow is to decide. Decide to enjoy breakfast. Decide to introduce myself to my professors after class. Decide to wear something bright and happy. And maybe, just maybe, decide to haul my fat butt to the bookstore so that I can start the semester off right.

Yes I know we all have bad days, and lately I've actually had a lot less. It's so easy to get caught up in the sorrow that you forget the blessings happening each day.

TODAY'S BLESSING (besides Kirsten's genius):
I spoke to Becca in China tonight! It was 8 pm Aug 19th here and 8 am Aug 20th there. She told me that tomorrow is much cooler than today, so I will take her word on it ;) I'm Skyping (calling via computer) her tomorrow at 9 am (my time) to see how her DAY was. While I am sleeping (hopefully) she will be exploring her town and meeting her fellow program friends. She said they are staying in a hostel an hour outside of Beijing for their teacher certification for a week, and then she will move into the city. It was funny, we had both just gotten out of the shower and were talking to each other on Skype both with wet hair at opposite times of the day. Well I guess it's only funny to me but whatever. (By the way...Skype= internet program where you can call other people on their computers and video chat, no matter where you are in the world, for completely free. highly recommend it!) I can't wait to hear all about her adventures. I will share with ya'll since that is the only exotic locale I'll be involved with for a while. I dunno, downtown Athens can be PRETTY exotic on gamedays ;)

Hope everybody had a better August 19th than I did. And remember what Becca said, August 20th is gonna rock!

Love to all-
S

A New Start

2009-08-19T00:08:00.003-04:00

Hey ya'll! It feels so good to be up at running again. I have been feeling really emotional the past few days, and I've spent a lot of time just thinking about life in general. One of my favorite quotes is by the great Henry Ford. He said:

Life is a series of experiences,
each one of which makes us bigger,
even though it is hard to realize this.
For the world was built to develop character
and we must learn that the set backs and griefs which we endure
help us in our marching onward.

This quote is close to my heart for a number of reasons. Those of you close to me know quite a few of my "setbacks"... hell, many of you probably witnessed one or two. At times I honestly felt like giving up. At other times I thought there was no way in hell I would make it out with any sense of sanity. There have been moments when I have looked into the mirror, and not recognized who I saw. Times have been tough, that is no secret. And despite having moments of weakness, I have always believed that deep down everything happens for a distinct reason. Sure it sounds corny, but there is some reason my life has gone the way it has. Despite the sadness, I've experienced some INCREDIBLE journeys these past two years and met some ridiculously awesome people, which are all reasons to believe that I am on a path somewhere great. I am not glad to have gone through some of those things, but I am glad of the person that I am because of them. Someone more aware of this world andthe importance of relationships with the people in it. Someone who respects greatness and kindness and believes she is in fact deserving of some respect as well.

So that being said, here I am, in my bed in Athens typing away with my dog cuddled by my side. I am here finishing up my last semester of college (which is still just way too weird to even think about!). I beat myself up a lot for being too passive, too sensitive, too lazy, etc, but tonight I am proud of myself. I try to look back on these past two years in a positive way, but still all I see are tears. But I am still standing (well right now lying down) and I am not going anywhere. All I can do is use the lessons I've learned along the way, along with a newfound confidence after achieving what I thought was impossible in Cannes, and keep putting one foot in front of the other. I have hope for the future, and for the FIRST time in a long time, I can say I am wholeheartedly excited for what's to come. Sure there are days I want to wallow in the past, but everyone has those and they will get lesser with time. But my legs are strong and I will keep marching onward, just as Henry Ford said.

This has all been weighing me down for quite some time. The fact that I am ready to take a step forward instead of backward is a HUGE deal to me, and I feel my old self slowly creeping back inside. Thanks to all of my friends and my family who have stood by me. It becomes so clear who your true friends are when you are faced with adversity time and time again. I only hope that I can be as good a friend to ya'll as ya'll have been to me.

SOOO let's get to the happy stuff; the first week of school has been really good! I moved in with my cousin on Saturday and things are going swimmingly! I have been trying to unpack and spruce things up with only minimal success. It's looking better though and by the end of this week this place wil be lookin fantastic! We got a fun new red couch which brightens up the whole place :)

This weekend me, my sister, my bro-in-law, mom, and dad, will be headed to Harbor Island to celebrate MOM'S FABULOUS FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY! I can't believe such a beautiful mommy is 50, but she totally owns it. She is still the funnest person I know and she is my #1 FAVORITE person to hang out with. I totally lucked out ;) Can't wait for the family to get together. We went to this same beachhouse 2 years ago and it rained the ENTIRE time we were there; we literally couldn't even walk outside! It as actually kinda fun playing board games and watching movies though. Hoping for better weather this time.

Also coming up is football season (WAHOO) and my friend Ashleigh's wedding in Monterrey, California. Ash was my roomie when I spent a semester in Italy and we became really close. Since then we have had sort of a "long distance relationship" but we love each other enough that it works :):). I am lucky enough to be a bridesmaid, so Icannot wait. She has so many fun activities planned I am counting down the DAYS til I get there! (49 to be exact!)

Well that's it from me... hopefully I wasn't too depressing. Gotta get up early for a quick checkup and then must run errands before class at 11. Hopefully I wont be dragging! Anyway it feels good to be back, and thanks to all of you who motivated me to get back to writing! Talk to you soon
-S

Summer Summed Up in 10 Photos

2009-08-18T22:22:00.020-04:00

Hello all!! Well, so much has happened since I returned from France, that it would be too impossibly long to catch everyone up on the rest of my summer. So here are some pictures to sum it up... Went to the Palm Springs Film Festival end of June and visited my Grandmom in Cali, then went on a family beach trip at Folly Beach, celebrated my 22nd birthday, had some good times day AND night with my amazing friends, relaxed at home with the family (and the dog, duh), caught a few Braves games in ATL, house-sat in Augusta (A LOT!), saw one of my best friends, Becca, off to China where she will teach English for a YEAR (she is my hero but she broke my heart by leaving), and finally making the move back to Athens. It has definitely been quite a ride; I was in non-stop motion and pain for the first half of the summer, and now I am in no pain and no motion... ha! I can't decide which one I prefer more.

Life is getting back to normal; well I guess you could call it normal. Haven't been in Athens since March when my health started declining, parents came to help, and I was ushered to different hospitals, only to get out with one week to prepare for France. Then immediately upon my return, my Grandma Norma passed, I flew to California, then to Charleston, and finally to Augusta, where I stayed put for most of the rest, with a few side trips in there. So I guess it's kind of hard to define "normal" at the moment. But things are good and I feel so lucky to have had so many incredible experiences this summer. I hope everyone else had an equally wonderful and relaxing few months full of summertime smiles, lots of laughter, and a few extra freckles. Enjoy the pics!
-S

REWIND: New France Pics

2009-06-25T04:03:00.003-04:00

Hey ya'll! Tooooo tired to write about today it's 1 am here in Cali, 4 am back home); but get excited bc I'll do an even better job of summing up the festival tomorrow AND I'll include pics of Palm Springs and the film festival thus far. For now...

I just created an album online of more of my France pictures. It took me approximately 2 hours so I would LOVE it if you checked them out, since it was kind of a p a i n s t a k i n g process. Let me know what you think, and if it will let you please comment!
Here's the link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2187151&id=21306443&l=ce5973defc

Enjoy! Love ya'll and promise to write more tomorrow...
-S

Missin my pooch

2009-06-24T03:12:00.005-04:00

Hey ya'll!! So I had a very nice day... slept in, laid out in the 110 degree heat, swam some laps, and went to the opening ceremonies of the Palm Springs Short Film Festival! It was great... I don't know much about short films at all since all we focused on in Cannes was feature films, so it took a little getting used to. But I did enjoy many of them. Some were just bizarre (an animated one about a guy who plucks other peoples eyelashes to make a wish?!) and others looked like they were made by film students (choppy editing... ugh), but MOST were very enjoyable (one of my favorites was only 4 minutes long about a guy who died from drinking expired milk... soooo clever!). Can't wait to see some more tomorrow and get back into the festival groove. It was so interesting to just people-watch and observe the different folks that came out to the festival. I definitely felt a little out of place at first considering every other person in the line was over the age of 65, but once we got into the theater the age ranges were a little more evened out lol. Apparently they had let a group in early to let them get out of the heat. There were sooo many caricatures present though! For example, the leather-skinned woman wearing tight, hot pink clothes that accentuated every cosmetically enhanced asset on her orange body; the girl with the dreads and baggy jeans who probably had a joint in her pocket; a plethora of old men with gray hair and Hawaiian shirts; the young locals with their bleach blonde hair, casual tank tops, and of course flip flops; the "film enthusiast" with dark hair and dark rimmed glasses, intentionally mis-matched clothes and black tights, despite the heat; it was quite entertaining to see such a motley crue of people all come together to see these films. I guess in Cannes there were just SO MANY PEOPLE you never really noticed all the different types of people who all have a passion for films, but in Palm Springs it is a much smaller scale and everything stands out just a little bit more. I have to admit I felt kind of awkward in my girly sundress and cutesy white and silver flats, but once you are mocked by people on a nightly basis while begging for premiere tickets, you eventualy develop a tough skin. Plus, I thought I looked damn good! Unfortunately, there was an absence of any creature who even remotely resembled a cute 20-something year old guy. (sigh)

There was an after party at Wangs Chinese Restaurant, but it wasn't much of an "after party" in the sense of the word. Mainly just old people chit chatting while I went around stuffing the hors d'oeurves into my mouth. We sat and talked to some ladies about which shorts we liked and disliked, and I gave them a quick rundown of what all went on at the Cannes Film Festival. I just LOVE pretending like I am a big deal who actually knows what she's talking about...

Anyway... that's pretty much all. Fun day but nothing too terribly noteworthy. What is noteworthy however?? The sad and pathetic fact that I REALLYYYY MISS MY DOG! These last couple of months are the longest I've ever been away from him and I just hate it. He is always a constant source of cheeriness for me, even when he does deficate in undesirable places. So anyway, I put a pic of my bff Gally at the top so you all can see how freakin awesome he is. That's all for now...will write more tomorrow!!

-S

Say it ain't so?!?

2009-06-22T20:49:00.002-04:00

I signed on to write a new post since I had some free time, but then realized I don't have anything particularly interesting to write about myself. What is far MORE interesting is all of the celebrity gossip that I just caught myself up on. So, for those of you who do not read gossip blogs, tabloids, or watch entertainment television, I will post a quick summary of all the excitement since I KNOWWW you all are secretly interested...

Interesting Tidbits:
#1- Jon and Kate Gosselin of the TLC show "Jon and Kate + 8" just filed for divorce after 10 years of marriage..... NOOOO! I am officially never getting married. My faith in the institution has been broken by Jon and Kate and their 8 stupid kids. Thanks a lot.
#2- In honor of her 55th birthday, Oprah Winfrey is hosting a 3 day birthday party in Barcelona followed by a 10 day Mediterranean cruise for her 1700 employees and their families, all expenses paid.... my mom is turning 50 this August and I was thinking of hosting a barbeque, but now I'm thinking maybe I should step it up a bit?
#3- Kevin Federline (also affectionately known as K-Fed) owes $20,000 in back taxes to the IRS. I don't really have any commentary for this one; the guy's just an idiot.
#4- Matthew McConaughey's baby mama is pregnant with their 2nd child...wasn't their first kid just born?? Matthew must have had a few months off in between filming romantic comedies with Kate Hudson
#5- After accepting the proposal from her longtime boyfriend Ryan O'Neal, Farrah Fawcett was just admitted back into the hospital. She has been battling cancer for years and it's said that she is "not doing well." Stay Strong, Farrah!

OK that is all for my celeb updates, it just seemed to be an extremely eventful day. Sometimes I sign on to the gossip sites and there is nothing on it except like "Britney Spears seen walking her dog."

In the real world, Gma Susan and I had a very eventful day. We got massages this morning and afterwards my massage therapist pulled me into an office to tell me that she is very concerned with how tense and I am and senses that I must have had a traumatic childhood. Unless she is referring to the time my sister convinced me that I was born a boy, then I have no idea what she was talking about LOL. Sorry lady, but my childhood was pretty great. She also said that I have had good years recently and senses no trauma in the last 5 years. Those of you who know me are laughing along with me right now. Moving onnnn, got a mani/pedi followed by lunch and frozen yogurt, and then we ran some errands to the grocery store, etc. Now I'm pooped from my day of strenuous activity and am sprawled out on the peach couch in the peach kitchen. I love this house... it is all so California and it always smells like fresh fruit and roses. Every time I come in and take a breath a rush of memories come flying back of all the great times had here over the years. Every time I'm back it feels like nothing has changed; the mountains are still in the backyard, the pool is still the perfect temperature, and the roses are always in bloom. And of course there is always a furry kitty to curl up with and enjoy it all. I haven't been to the Palm Springs house in years, almost a decade, and I forgot how much I loved it here.

I will post pictures soon!! I have just been enjoying all my lazy times that I haven't felt like doing it. Tonight we will do dinner and then see "The Proposal" with Sandra Bullock... I'm so excited to see a silly chick flick. Perfect ending to an exhausting day of relaxing.
Talk to you soon!
-S

Finally able to breathe...

2009-06-21T17:20:00.014-04:00

This is about the last time I was able to relax! In Avignon, France last month...

Soooo I am FINALLY updating this stupid ole thing. FINALLY caught up on my sleep. FINALLY finding myself with some free time. And FINALLY able to breathe again... Today I find myself in the comfortable sunroom in my Grandma Susan's house in Palm Springs, CA. You're prob rolling your eyes right now and I kind of am too thinking of all the beautiful locales I have been only 6 weeks into my summer, but it has been quite a rocky few weeks and I am sooo grateful to be sitting here with nothing to do. If you've read my previous posts you'll know that my dad's mother, my Grandma Norma, died. It was not a surprise, she has been sick since she was 30 years young. She has outlived many people in my life who I would have never expected and lived a very full life, and now she is finally at peace and free of the pain that has plagued her for so long. It was very sad for all of us, but it was especially sad for me to see my parents going through such a hard time. Life doesn't stop at even the toughest of times, and their tired eyes are proof of that. After the services I went back to Charleston to spend some time with my mom's parents (Gmom Anne and Pop) and give my mom and dad a little time to themselves, considering Grandma Norma's funeral was on their 24th wedding anniversary. I also saw my friends from CofC and it was a nice little getaway. Then one afternoon while lying on the beach with one of my bff's Becca, I got an email from Delta confirming my itinerary to Palm Springs leaving on Saturday. Say whaaaaa? I had talked back and forth with Gma Susan about coming out to the PAlm SPrings film festival thi week, but it was looking rather bleak and I didn't want to get my hopes up bc I really did not need any more disappointment. But, as usual, Gma S worked her magic and 3 days later, here I am!

I was really worried about the timing of everything, considering Friday my mom had major surgery and I was due to depart at 6 am on Saturday morning. Mom's surgery went well and i was there off and on all day on Friday. In the morning she was especially out of it and in a LOT of pain, which was quite upsetting. But by evening time she was back to her old self and we were chatting until about 9 pm. I decorated her room with Get Well posters and pictures of me, Kate, Michael, and Robert Pattinson (ha sorry dad). I got her lots of colorful balloons to cheer her up and to make her think of me while I was gone all week. Yes, I was feeling guilty for leaving her after the surgery, but as many of you know my mom is a saint and insisted that it was my job to go and enjoy myself. The stress of things had really gotten to me and my stomach was constantly in knots, not to mention I couldn't eat hardly anything. All of us knew I needed a few days away from it all to recoop. After leaving the hospital at about 9 on Friday night I went home to BEGIN to pack for my trip. It was especially tricky because after my week in Cali I am flying directly into Charleston for our annual beach trip on Folly with my mom's family. Yes, it is a beach trip. However, 30 people + 1 house does NOT = relaxation. Soooo I was up until 2 am organizing and categorizing which clothes I was going to pack. My dad sighed about 37 times as he watched from the bed as his daughter made stacks of casual shirts, cute shirts, pool shirts, casual shorts, cute shorts, going-out pants, beach flip flops, day time flip flops, night time flip flops, etc. You get the idea, and for those of you rolling your eyes right now I would just like you to know that my packing method is extremely effective :):) Once sorting every possible "take" item into these different categories, you take your top 2 or 3 from each one which makes for a well rounded wardrobe while away from home. So THERE! hahahahaha it's ok... I am completely aware that I sound ridiculous. This packing method, while compeltely ingenius, only allowed for about 90 minutes of sleeping time before I had to get up at 4:30 am on Saturday.

Flights yesterday went well, and I made it here in record time, although my phone and luggage did not. Luggage arrived yesterday evening, and phone is en route and should arrive by Tuesday. I am having a bit of separation anxiety from my beloved Blackberry, but after all of the trauma from the past few weeks, somehow I know I'll survive. Had dinner last night with Sandy's cousin Suzanne and her partner Robin (not to be confused with my aunt Robin!) It was the first time I'd ever met either of them but I felt like I'd known them for YEARS! Suzanne is a Student Life Coordinater at UCLA and Robin is a masseuse in LA. They are SO nice and cool and just emit the most easy-going laid back vibe ever. It was like being around them instantly made me at ease after a LONG day of traveling. And the love between them was so palpable and sweet. I think they told me they have been together almost 10 years (brain is having a fart at the moment)... they are completely a testament to true love. Today I slept util 12:30 pm PACIFIC TIME... so needless to say I was desperately deprived of some precious Zzzzz's. I woke up this morning/afternoon feeling rested for the first time in who knows how long. I also woke up this morning with nothing to do for the first time in who knows how long. Two of the greatest feelings I've felt in who knows how long. So from now until Tuesday evening, I will be vegging out with my Gma Su and Sandy. Me and Gma intend on spending some hard-core girl time together, including some pool time, some much needed massages, pedi's, shopping, lunching, you know the drill. Then TUesday, the festival begins, and I cannot WAIT to feel the energy of a festival again. Even though I am so glad for some free time, I can already feel a little itch to get right back into festival- mode. Since this festival is comprised of all short films and NO badges, just tickets, it will be a little more relaxed and a little less intense, which is the just the combination I need right now. I think the whole "begging for tickets" process comes with atLEAST a 9 month recovery period.

So, right now as I sit here lounging with Clancy and Sammy (two of Gma's kitty cats) , I am perfectly happy and content. Well not perfectly happy, because in order to be PERFECTLY happy Phil Michelson would have to be on top of the leader board in the US Open. But I'm pretty darn close. I promise to keep up with this more frequently now that the chaos is behind me. I am hoping that this week will provide for many blog-worthy moments. Until then, I will be by the pool, hoping I dont scare off the birdies with my pasty white skin.

SAMMY, Gma Susan's Oci-Cat, is bred to look like a wild Ocelot, but is quite the sweetheart.

Went swimming this afternoon and laid out in the dessert sun. It was so delish, granted it was 5:00 pm and the main heat of the day had passed. Also saw the movie "Easy Virtue" tonight starring Jessica Biel. It was a pretty good movie. I'd give it 3.5 stars out of 5. Very light and not a whole lot of meaning. The content had me thinking it would tie up with a very poignant or intelligent ending but no such luck. The all-star cast (also consisting of Colin Firth and Kristen Scott Thomas) brought the characters to life which allowed for a very enjoyable movie. A little long, but that has been the trend thes days. OMG I am totally reverting back to my movie critiquing mindset from Cannes!! HAAA love it. On tap for tomorrow are some massages and pedis, and then who knows? My back has been twisted in knots since my hospitalization in May, so I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to tomorrow. I don't even care that I'm bragging... wahoo! I have only had 2 other massages in my life and they are actually a good non-medicinal treatment for Crohn's, so I'm hoping that it'll take some of this stress/tension/pain away. ANYWAY, what has everyone else been up to? Love to hear from you at sarahw87@uga.edu.

Miss and love ya'll!

-S

GO PHIL!

Feels like I'm walking in quick sand...

2009-06-17T00:57:00.003-04:00

Norma S. Walpert

March 26, 1922- June 11, 2009

Hello all-

For those of you who still bother to check this... I apologize for not updating. The day after my return from France, my sweet Grandma Norma passed away. She was at the VA Hospital and has been suffering for some time now. Her heart just gave out and she was tired. I was lucky to get one final visit in with her and told her a little about France while holding her hand and rubbing her legs. An hour after I left, she passed. Needless to say I have been crazy busy helping my parents with the arrangements. Services were yesterday and they were very nice, although I feel like life is one big blur at the moment. I just feel totally numb. I came back to Charleston last night; rode with my Gmom and Pop to get away for a few days. Not really helping, still just as sad/numb/anxious/depressed and not sure how to fix it. Probably a combination of lack of sleep + grief + frustration + lots of other random junk. ANyway I just want to thank all of you who have been so wonderful to my family. All of the food our way has been great and really needed since we have literally been too busy to even think about cooking, and the prayers have definitely made a difference. I will write soon, lots more coming up this summer.

Mom is having a hysterectomy at University Hospital this Friday. Please say a prayer for her!! After that is our always exciting family beach trip to Folly. I will write soon. Thank again for everything.

-S

The last few days...

2009-06-12T01:53:00.000-04:00

Thursday, June 11
Things have been insane since I last posted an entry... and as I look back on everything, it all seems like a surrealistic blur. I will start from where I left you on Monday, running to the train. Sophie and I took the train to Antibes to walk around the walled city one last time and also to visit the renowned Picasso museum. It was a PERFECT day! The sky was bright blue, the sea was sparkling, and the temperature was an ideal 80 degrees and breezy. We had a great time, took lots of pictures of the harbor, had some gelato (my first of many "goodbye gelatos"), and headed through the cobblestone streets to the Picasso museum that overlooks the water. After almost getting hit by TWO cars (I was under the impression that cars were not allowed in a walled city -> impression was WRONG) we made it to the beautiful stone building. And then, after taking several pics in front of the museum, beside the museum, next to the picture of picasso on the wall of the museum, we come across a giant sign that said "OPEN EVERY DAY EXCEPT MONDAY." Ok seriously?? I had completely forgot that museums and the like are closed on MONDAY instead of SUNDAY. We had purposely not come on Sunday because we wanted to see the market and the museum and we knew they would be closed, just like every other establishment on this continent. That was a poor choice. So we pouted for about 5 seconds and moved on, exploring all of the little back alley ways and getting as lost as we could for the next hour until our train came to take us to the next destination.

Since I had yet to be to Nice, I continued east. Sophie had to meet up with her dad and a family friend back in Juan Les Pins, so they headed back. Nice was not really that nice. It was pretty but it was also crowded and kind of dirty. I went shopping along the main drag for about an hour and then headed outta there. Again, all the museums and everything were closed bc it was Monday so there was not a lot to do, plus I had left my guidebook back home.

After my brief stop in Nice, I headed back for one last stroll through Cannes. I walked along the route we walked every day from the train station to the Majestic Hotel to get our dailies. The guards were gone and in their place were sweaty construction workers. Then I walked down to the Carlton to use their immaculate bathrooms one last time hehe. The guards were still there, but I walked right on by like I knew the place. I did... kind of... Walked back along the Croissette to the naked Grand Lumiere Theater and the Palais, and felt a pang of nostalgia and also just sadness that it was all really over. Everyone had parted ways, the carpet had been rolled up, and annoying fanny-pack toting tourists were lining the concrete steps of the Lumiere taking cheesy pictures. All I could think of was how those people didn't know what it felt like to walk up those very same steps surrounded by snapping photographers and thousands of onlookers and cameras, with the red carpet beneath my brand new BCBG heels. I know what it feels like now, and that feeling will always be one of my favorite memories, one of my favorite experiences in my WHOLE life. Those steps changed me, and as I thought of that, I turned and walked back toward the train, wanting to remember those steps for what they were to me, not the cheesy photo op that they were to those other people. I bought my final souvenirs, stopped by my fave Cannes gelato shop for another "final gelato," and hopped the train back for the final time to JLP. As I got off on the platform at Juan Les Pins, I knew this would be the final time I heard those crazy train station chimes. It would be the final time I walked by the beggar woman, the fresh fruit stand, and the disgusting smelly seafood market on the way back from the station.
Sophie and I had a great last dinner at La Bamba and I splurged and got an appetizer (french onion soup!!), grilled steak, AND some delish creme brulee to finish it all off.

The cab came promptly at 6:55 am the next morning and I groaned as I realized my parents had just gone to BED, and I would be awake from now until they were ready for dinner the next day. My flight left out of London so I had to take one of those cheapie airlines from Nice to get up there. I took these a lot when I was studying in Italy to get around for short trips with a backpack bc while the fares are cheap, they get you with the random taxes and the luggage. I was only allowed 20 kg TOTAL for my two bags. Then they charged per kilogram after that. They were so rude and it was completely ridiculous. So in addition to my bargain 50 euro plane ticket, I had to pay an additional 150 euro in luggage charges!!! IF IN EUROPE, NEVER EVER EVER FLY EASYJET! I will never give them my business again. Other than that the flights were relatively smooth. I got wheelchair service in London again, so it was super easy. British Airways = wonderful, wonderful, WONDERFUL. I give them my highest recommendation for those of you who are looking to take a trip soon.

Wanna know something funny? Remember in one of my very first posts talking about the flight over to London and how I saw R&B singer Akon on my flight?? Well as I'm sitting in the London airport, look who comes strutting around the corner but AKON and his goofy looking entourage. I could not believe it!!! It wasn't like I was over there for a clear cut number of days or weeks. I left on a Friday and came back on a random Tuesday. More than 4 weeks but less than 5 weeks. 37 days. Weird. At baggage claim in Atlanta I told my wheelchair pusher man (not sure exactly what they are called??) to wheel me over next to him and we'd act like we had no clue who he was and def. didn't care. Well I could only hold out for so long before I started snapping pics with my phone and one of the guys in his entourage caught me. He smiles at me and next thing I know he's chatting with Akon and then Akon walks right over to me and says "hi!" I was just trying to play it cool and I said, "So Akon, I normally wouldn't bother you or anything but you were on my flight TO london way back in May and I just thought it was really crazy how we were on the same flight back too." He actually thought it was equally cool and was sooo nice. THEN, seeing as how I had lost all my dignity begging for tickets in Cannes, I pulled out my bright orange Kodak disposable camera to get a picture with him, since my digital one wouldn't charge in France, so in case you were wondering why there haven't been anymore pics it's because I documented the second half of the film on lovely disposable cameras which will soon be developed and uploaded!

Sooo... a perfect ending to a perfect trip. It ended like it started. In a room, in a wheelchair, sitting next to Akon. The reunion with my family has been completely fabulous. Stayed with my sister and bro-in-law Kate and Michael when I got to Atlanta on Tuesday, and then mom came to get me one Wednesday. We made a quick stop by my surgeons who gave me a clean bill of health and lifted all post-op restrictions! YAY! Then we did some shopping (duh) and went to a Brave's game that evening, as I was ready to immerse myself in American culture again immediately. It was also an attempt to fight the jetlag, but was only partly successful consider I fell asleep sitting in my chair in the 7th inning. I have basically been sleeping since I got home. I do not consider time of day or sunshine or darkness. I am just trying to catch up on all the sleep I've lost over the past 37 days. Figuring out what time zone I am in will come later.

Well I want to thank everyone so much for following along with me on this incredible ride and keeping in touch. You all helped me through some really tough times just by your littles replies and emails. You also gave great advice and it was so much fun for me to share this life-changing experience with you! I am going to continue to update this blog throughout the summer, just as something to do, but also because it gives me a chance to reflect as well as to work on my writing. So please feel free to keep following along and keeping in touch! I have heard from several of you that blog reading has been a welcome respite from the monotonous work day, and this makes me oh so happy.

So I love you all very much and again I can not thank you enough for your love. What does everyone else have on tap for the summer? I'd love to hear some of ya'lls stories as well.
Love from 547 Crystal Creek East in Martinez, GA,
-S

My heart hurts

2009-06-08T06:32:00.002-04:00

My heart physically hurts. After careful deliberation, numerous panic attacks, and a cold that won't quit, I have decided to end my trip early and return tomorrow. I was planning on staying and doing London and Barcelona and come home next week, but my body is worn out and I really think I should end this life changing experience on a high instead of wearing myself into the ground and end up miserable. Even though I know this is the right thing to do, I am heartbroken to leave Europe which kind of feels like a second home after three stints in three years. Today is my last day and I am about to hop a train to Antibes, Cannes, and Nice for some last minute site seeing and shopping. Once I return I will spend a few days in Atlanta with family and then the weekend in Charleston decompressing and recooping with a little home cooking from Grandmom and Pop and a little loving from my College of Charleston buddies. I am ecstatic to see everyone and can only hope that life brings me back to this beautiful place again sometime soon. I will write more later but the train comes in 7 minutes so I gotta run (literally!). Will write again soon.
With love and a heavy heart-
S

Reminiscing on the good ole' days...

2009-06-05T21:55:00.006-04:00

The program is over, suitcases are shut, and time is officially up. As I lay awake at 4 am in disbelief that this is really the end, I can't help but think back to the first day of the festival and smile. We were bright, squeaky, fresh cinephiles. We had just picked up our badges. We had no idea of what was in store. No idea that in 4 short weeks we would leave a completely different person than who we were when we arrived...

I will NOT say "goodbye"... only "see you later"

2009-06-05T21:33:00.002-04:00

Written on Thursday, June 4, 2009

I have had so much to say all night and now that I’m sitting here staring at a computer screen my head goes blank. I’ll start with this… I can’t believe it’s almost over. This experience that has consumed my entire life for exactly four weeks to the day (and even longer if you count the days spent preparing for it… ehem in the hospital?!) is about to be over in 48 short hours. This thing I have looked forward to since last year when I read my dad the description of the program from the internet and he muttered a sarcastic “yeah right wouldn’t we all love to go to the south of France for the summer”… It is almost over. We have discussed our last movie reviews, dined on our last plates of French food as a group, and toasted one last time to this brief moment in our lives that will forever live on in our memories. Friendships have been made, sparks have flown, and lives have changed. In a way it seems like I just stepped onto that plane in Atlanta, tears in my eyes as I realized that I had made it. 12 hours later I was in a foreign country and had no idea what I had gotten myself into…seriously...no idea…seeing as I ended up in the hospital after fifteen days. Tonight at the “Farewell Dinner” (which consisted of roast chicken, boiled eggs, fruit, and a GIANT serving bowl of mayonnaise?!) people laughed at hilarious memories made over the last month, cried at the thought of leaving, and breathed a little deeper knowing that we had made it through what would be one of the most trying, scary, and exhilarating times in our life.

The Cannes Film Festival is a freaking carnival. The stars are dressed up in costumes, photographers run around like monkeys, and the white tents in the International Village complete the picture with tiny little people visiting each one to see what it has to offer. Mesmerized tourists walk around with cameras around their sun burnt necks snapping pictures of anyone who is wearing formal wear. Cars are jammed along the Croissette, chauffeuring the "big wigs" around who think they matter more than the rest of us who take the train. If I have learned anything from my 2 weeks at Cannes it is that these people are just people like you and me. They may have a fancy outfit on loan or guards surrounding them, but their feet will hurt, their mascara will run, and some of them might actually have to get up during a movie to go and pee. By the end of the festival I had no discretion as far as who I would go up and talk to. I found that some of these fearless moments turned into my favorite memories, like the time I asked a random blonde “Hey can I be your date to the premiere?” and he said “Sure honey” and ushered me right past the guards that had been denying me entrance all night. The fact that he turned out to be an executive at a distribution company in L.A. was also a nice bonus. Did I mention his five friends met us on the red carpet? I mean really it doesn’t get much better than that. Except for maaaaybe the time I went over and said, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Pitt, I really enjoy your body of work” ………. ok you caught me yeah RIGHT! But he did look amazing from 25 feet away. <> Even though I had to miss the last 3 days of the festival due to an unfortunate staph infection that just HAD to find its way into my open wound, I will always remember how those nine days at the Cannes Film Festival changed my life.

Besides the overall festival that was incredible, I must give credit where credit is due, because it was also the people here that made my experience just what it was. I will start with my sweet friend Sophie because I have spent many hours with her crying and venting about life in general, as well as laughing at nothing at all. We realized rather early on that we had both been through some trying times in recent years and kind of connected by sharing stories and crying on each other’s shoulders. Well, mainly I was crying on her shoulder, but crying was involved nonetheless HA! She is actually the professor’s daughter and comes every year to Cannes, in addition to attending the Sundance Film Fest, Roger Ebert Film Fest, etc. while gallivanting along with her showbizzing parents. Sound familiar? I told her I wish my dad picked the cooler industry of film instead of live theater but, oh well I guess. She is a very cool person and at times I don’t know how I would have made it without her! AND she goes to UGA so I have already invited her over for dinner in Athens like…every night.

Another amazing and fabulous award goes to Anna, the program coordinator. Without her we would have been running around like chickens with our heads cut off (instead of just chickens which are what we probably looked like). She was kind enough to escort me to all of my doctors visits both here in Juan Les Pins and in Cannes, and even agreed to sleep next to me on my first night in the hospital in France (on a stretcher!!) with a lonely sheet and pillow after I called her at 6:00 pm to tell her I was too scared. I don’t know of anyone else who could have handled this incredibly chaotic job with a smile on her face like Anna did, and I look forward to keeping in touch with her and her just-as-fun boyfriend Dan in the future. (Anna I’m really only saying this nice stuff in case you ever leave your coordinator position and need a replacement. Holler at your girl. JUST KIDDINGGG! But really I’m not…) The teachers Nate and Jennifer were just as wonderful and taught me a lot about film, writing, and how I fit into this whole industry, and for that knowledge I will be eternally grateful.

I could not have asked for better young people to share this journey with. The 24 other students who ventured into the craziness next to me have become people that I love and respect more than I ever knew possible. So thank you-

Melanie: for being a sweetie and putting up with my OCD cleanliness in the hotel room
Bryce: for never failing to make me smile
Chris: for always walking around without a shirt on (whatever girls you know it’s true)
George: for providing hilarious commentary in any situation
Melissa: for listening to me rant or rave… and for doing it too ;)
Lindsey: for the constant sunshine you brought to the room
Elisa: for being my buddy from the very first day
Amy: for laughing with me when no one else is laughing
Angela: for your sassy wit and smokin’ style J… AND for being my ghetto dance partner
Nahall: for being so loveable and easy to be around. and always being up for GELATO!
Jonathan: for being so genuine. and for always providing the entertainment
Luke: for calling me your “little buddy”
Irina: for being up for anything!
Madison: for providing me with some fabulous new fashion tips
Cara: for standing your ground and always being yourself
Mimi: for being the “shy” one who everyone always wants to hang out with
Erin: for being a wonderful new friend to me and for being the SWEETEST person ever
Morgan: for your crazy sense of humor and for your refusal to take shit from anyone
Jemma: for being totally adventurous. And for inspiring me to copy your incredible style!
Michelle: for being one of the most genuine people I know… you are one amazing chick.
Tessa: for being so inspiring without ever being overbearing. and for being SO kind and sweet!
Garrett: for being such a loveable, huggable guy.
Catherine: for being so down to earth and mellow… you always make me feel calm and comfortable in any situation!
Cory: for being such a nice guy with a crazy passion for soccer!!!

You people have stood by me, supported me, listened to me, and loved me. You have made me a better person and I cannot WAIT to hang out next semester in Athens (especially at our
back-to-school pool party and reunion tailgate!). Andddd if I’m going all mushy and mentioning all my new buddies, I must mention an oldie but a goodie, Jason, who taught me that at the end of the day, no matter what happens, I’m gonna be alright. He arrived in France JUST in time for my wound to get infected and I was admitted to the hospital two days into his visit (I secretly blame the whole mess on him.) But, like a true friend he hung out in the hospital room with me, watching American sitcoms dubbed over in French and translating to the nurse that I would love another baguette. I owe a lot of my sanity (or maybe my lack thereof) to his two week visit. And if anyone knows any publishers out there, he writes some pretty great children’s books that can be quite entertaining when one is waiting an hour for a train to come.

My time in France has not been all fantastic, but instead was a mixture of breathtaking highs and sad, sometimes frightening lows. They are coming to a close right now, but will always be in my memory. We are supposed to write “advice papers” to students for next year and an hour ago I was actually sitting down to write it, but instead this is what my heart told my fingers to type. The funny thing is that no paper in this world can prepare a student for this journey. Cannes is so chaotic, unpredictable, inconsistent, and ridiculously incredible that even a festival veteran can never be fully prepared. Tonight, advice is not what was on my mind, but instead gratitude towards the people with me, to my parents, to you all, to the doctors, and to anyone else who helped me get here. I repeated many times in texts and emails to both friends and family that this is “THE BEST THING I’VE EVER DONE IN MY WHOLE LIFE!” and it is so completely true. Not only did I experience something sooooo exciting, meet beautiful people, and experience living in France for a month, but I learned a lot about myself. I realized that working in the entertainment industry is what I have a passion for and what I was meant to do. I’ll stop there because I know my parents probably have great big smiles on their faces, and that is just an incredibly annoying thought. (Hey - I may have learned a lot but I’m still a sarcastic 21- almost 22- year old who thinks her parents are embarrassing.) Maybe someday soon I’ll head out to L.A. or NY and start begging for work, maybe I’ll go back to school, or maybe I won’t. After living through these past few months and dealing with health problem after problem and still making it at the festival, I truly understand that anything is possible. (Despite the French people’s affection for telling us that anything and everything we try to do is “not possible.” – This is their way of saying stop bugging me, HELL NO, or shut the fuck up!)

And now I will wrap this up and go upstairs to cook some pasta since the chicken and boiled egg combo just didn’t do it for me at dinner. And really, is there any better way to wrap up a blog post than by saying “fuck” just because I’m 21 and I can J?? I think not. On tap for tomorrow is a free day, so I will be going to Grasse – the perfume capital of the world – and then heading back to JLP for one last beach day with the gang. I love and miss all of you so much. Thanks for the replies you have sent to these posts… it really does mean so much to know that people read and enjoy hearing about my experience.

Talk to you soon-
S

Dance Break!

2009-06-03T06:37:00.002-04:00

Here is an "arty pic" taken by Chris. I was taking a little dance break in the lobby while writing my reviews...

Review for "Precious"

2009-06-03T06:32:00.002-04:00

This is the review I wrote on the film "Precious." It was one of the best movies I've ever seen!

“Precious” Nears Perfection

A strong script, talented actors and a story that needs to be told are the ingredients to a perfect film, and with all of these aspects under its belt Precious works wonders. The presence of so many unsettling and unsympathetic characters in the film makes it easy for the audience to quickly become engrossed in this gut-wrenching story of a struggling, bullied teenager. However, the impeccable cast does a brilliant job in their portrayals of such characters, causing the movie-goer to quickly connect and empathize with the characters and their situations instead of judging by the outside alone.

Lee Daniels’ “Precious,” depicts Clarice Precious Jones (Gabourey Sidibe), a 16-year-old illiterate, overweight, black girl who is still stuck in middle school and has been impregnated by her own father for the second time. Precious lives with her abusive, jealous mother Mary (Mo’Nique), in a house where yelling, hitting, and flying insults and objects are all just part of the daily routine. Mo’Nique plays the part fiercely and manages to do so by hardly ever getting off the couch. Whilst living off welfare and faking a job hunt, Mary leaves the family with barely enough money to put food on the table.

Things start looking up for Precious when she gets transferred to an alternative school and meets her new teacher Blu Rain (Paula Patton) who introduces Precious to the world of writing. Precious’ new found way of expressing herself changes the dynamic of the film in a natural and positive way. The audience begins to learn more about Precious directly through her journals and we can begin to see the intelligent mind that lies underneath her tough skin. Precious writes powerful lines like, “My whole family is less than dumb, just black grease to be wiped away. I wish I were dead,” when the thought of her cruel mother enters her mind.

Daniels’ adds an important layer to Precious’ character – the world of fantasy. When situations become too difficult for her to bear, and this happens quite often, she envisions herself not in the moment, but how she wishes to be seen. After her father has beaten her over the head and is proceeding to throw her onto the bed and rape her, she fantasizes herself all dressed up, in a room where the spotlight is only on her. She is happy and content. It’s an escape, an idea of something, anything better than what she has now. Fantasy is the only way she knows how to cope with the truly horrific circumstances in which she must face on a daily basis. Her imagination shows a much needed depth to the character that helps give a glimpse of hope to this sad and poignant story.

I found myself holding back tears several times during this film. One of the most memorable scenes is when Precious resorts to stealing a bucket of fried chicken from a diner and is runs down the street stuffing piece after piece into her mouth. In this beautiful scene cinematographer Andrew Dunn captures her large body, a body that would usually seem unapproachable or even disgusting, and illustrates Precious not as a fat person eating fried food, but as a hurting young girl, desperate for love. This film left me feeling stuck and lost in this young girl’s life. I was constantly on her side and constantly pulling for her to succeed. Sidibe’s touching portrayal made us see that underneath all the toughness and rage is a vulnerable soul who is, dare I say it, absolutely precious.

Remarkable acting all-around in addition to a beautiful script morph this film from being a sad story about a girl with a horrible life in the Harlem slums into a heart-wrenching testament to inner strength and unconditional love. From the main players to the smaller roles, a few played by popular musicians Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz, each and every actor individually shines, but they all jell together to form an incredibly impressive ensemble. Mariah Carey plays her part incognito, as a social worker with no makeup and a subdued, yet strong willed personality. Lenny Kravitz hangs up his ripped jeans to play a nurse who loves Precious from the start and undoubtedly wants her to succeed.

Even though Oprah’s name is in the credits along with Carey’s and Kravitz’s, marketing this film could be difficult with its controversial storyline. Hopefully though this film will be picked up, if this happens I have no doubt that like its main character Precious, it will stand its ground. “Precious” speaks for itself in a fresh way that films today should do much more often. It grabs the audience with a character driven story and makes the viewer fend for themselves with no unnecessary help from the filmmakers. And although the content is hard to handle, the filmmaking from the casting to the editing is indeed a treat to watch. The film managed to leave me feeling uplifted and hopeful, despite content that all pointed to the contrary. “Precious” is a film that will make you appreciate the art of movie making, and will make you want to call up your loved ones on the way home.

Directed by Lee Daniels; Cast is Gabourey Sidibe, Lenny Kravitz, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey. Running time 104 minutes. No rating.

Anti-Christ Review

2009-06-03T06:29:00.003-04:00

The following is the review I wrote on the movie "Anti-christ":

How’s this for a Monday? A child falling to his death, full frontal nudity and a passionate opening shower scene, talking wolves, and spewing blood: all before noon. If this is how you like to start off your week, then Danish director Lars von Trier has something special in store. “Antichrist” is just the latest film von Trier has tucked under his controversial belt, and he makes sure that no one leaves the theater with the notion that he has softened with age. The film is visually captivating, but aside from the aesthetically pleasing photography, “Antichrist” is a bloody mess of disconnected storylines, religious symbols, and literary references. Combine this with an atrocious screen-play and two respectable actors who are trying their damndest to save the movie, and what you are left with is indeed a cinematic train wreck.

It all begins with a self-indulgent albeit beautiful opening scene in slow-motion and black and white featuring a couple (Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg) making passionate love. In the first three minutes, I had already seen more of Dafoe and Gainsbourg than I’d ever hoped to. As this is taking place, you see their precious toddler escape his crib and walk toward an open window. I watched every parent’s nightmare take place before my eyes, as their little boy fell to his death. This moment was definitely hard to watch, but the pretentious montage of soft-core porn that I had just witnessed prevented me from feeling any genuine emotion towards this tragic event.

Overcome with grief, the couple is desperate to face their fears and start the healing process. They decide to recoil to Eden, their ironically named cabin in the woods, to begin to gain their life back. It is at this point that the screen changes to color and the film is divided into chapters including pain, grief, and despair.

Their trek through the woods to Eden is the first of many bizarre and senseless scenes that give way to the notion of nature being an innate source of evil. I would love to elaborate as to where von Trier is headed with this concept, but in all honesty, the theory never connects to any sort of meaning or explanation by the end of the movie, and I am left scratching my head. Captivating dialogue such as, “The ground is burning.” “No, the ground is not burning,” garners presumably unwanted chuckles from the audience. Dafoe’s character makes a pyramid chart of his wife’s fears in hopes of cracking the case and dutifully carries it in his pocket at all times. It remains unclear what purpose this insightful, scientific folded up piece of paper holds, besides a few more opportunities for melodrama as Dafoe scribbles more psycho-babble before stuffing it away again. Another disconnected revelation of his comes when he finds out that his wife was in Eden with her son doing her thesis on the evil nature of women.

One thing that’s for certain in this twisted “story” is that the wife has some sort of carnal, sexual obsession and at any moment will strip naked and mount her husband. I use quotations because I am hesitant to even suggest that “Antichrist” has a story. The random, outrageous, and disgraceful images throughout the film are merely used for shock value as opposed to any sort of plot advancement. By proposing that these instances of mangled talking animals, gruesome violence, and a wife’s senseless destruction of both her and her husband’s genitalia are relevant or symbolic in any way, von Trier has successfully defined himself as a pompous filmmaker who has abused his own power and tarnished not only the horror genre, but the entire film industry.
I was sure that despite the film’s catastrophic script, veteran actor Willem Dafoe could still manage a strong performance amongst the pile of garbage that is “Antichrist.” Once again, I was utterly disappointed. I did not once connect to the characters and my lack of empathy toward either of them only furthered my aversion toward the film. Dafoe and Gainsbourg both portrayed their characters as unlikeable, illogical, unrelatable, and at times mentally fucked up. Gainsbourg’s win for ‘Best Actress’ at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival came as an utter shock to me, considering she spent the majority of her screen time masturbating, screwing Dafoe, or wandering the woods in a nonsensical rage.

Despite its complete failure to deliver meaningful characters or a significant storyline, “Antichrist” is visually interesting and has stylized photography sequences that when removed from the context of the horrific subject matter are out of the ordinary in an appealing way. This is in no way meant to be mistaken as a redeeming quality to the film, as I believe there aren’t any. However, it is a tiny reprieve from the otherwise completely appalling elements that combine to create “Antichrist.”

This film is bound to fail at the box office. The subject matter is too offensive and crude to be considered arthouse, not to mention the film is a complete insult to the horror genre, and it will prove to be a total catastrophe if there is any attempt at a mainstream theatrical release due to all of the graphic visuals and lack of a plot.

Even if von Triers does view “Antichrist” as the “most important film of my career,” he cannot forget that intriguing subject matter and likeable characters (especially when there are only two) are integral to any movie, no matter how provocative or controversial it is trying to be. Without these fundamental components, all that’s left is a room full of confused movie-goers who don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or boo. Von Triers’ fans are sure to turn out for this pivotal film, but in the absence of any intense connection or emotion for the film-maker, stay far, far away.

Directed and Screenplay by Lars von Trier; Producer Meta Louise Foldager; Cinematography
by Anthony Dod Mantle; Edited by Enders Refn; Production Design Karl Juliusson. Running time 104 minutes. No rating.

Tired Tuesday

2009-06-03T06:19:00.004-04:00

Breakfast! Chocolate Eclairs... mmmm

Cute window in Antibes

Jason and Me exploring the harbor in Antibes

Beach in Antibes... you can see the snow-capped Alps in the background!

Written Tuesday, June 2, 2009
It is Tuesday and I am tired. I don’t where it came from… but it feels like I got hit by a ton of tired bricks. The last few days haven’t been eventful or crazy at all. I can feel the weight of the last four weeks catching up to me. My mom and I have been talking a lot lately about when I will return. There are several options I have prepared for myself and have no idea which one to pick. Scenario #1: This Saturday when the program ends I will travel with Sophie to her friend’s house in the French countryside. We will stay until Monday and drive back to JLP. I would take a flight up to London and fly out on Tuesday, June 9. Scenario #2: We come back to JLP and on Tuesday I fly to Budapest, Hungary to stay with my cousin Lauren who is studying abroad there. Stay there until Friday, June 12 when I will fly to Barcelona to meet up with Jason and Nahall. Stay in Barcelona until Monday, June 15 when I would fly to London. Fly home Tuesday, June 16. Scenario #3: After Barcelona, fly to Scotland with Jason. Stay there until the 19th when I would go to Oxford to meet my roomie from UGA. I reserved a hostel in Oxford months ago when I was healthy as a horse. Fly home out of London on Monday, June 22 which is when I was originally scheduled to return. Lately I’ve been thinking that Scenario #2 that includes Budapest and Barcelona is the best option. But for tonight I have strongly been considering Scenario #1. I am tired and I’m wondering if I’ve pushed it enough. I hate missing out on places that are so close and that I know would be amazing. But I just wonder when it will stop being fun and start being too much. I am going to sleep on it; give it one, maybe two more nights of thought. If anyone has any words of wisdom I would love to hear. I have had a few personal blows in the last few days and am feeling pretty low right now.

I don’t mean to depress anyone, so instead of wallowing any further into this post I will give you all a recap of my last few days. Sunday was a day of rest after a big weekend. I slept in until NOON (ahhhh how I’ve missed those days) and filled my time with a whole lot of beautiful nothing. After working on s more of my review writing (watch out Roger Ebert!), I went into Cannes with Nahall in the late afternoon to do some souvenir shopping. Oh. My. Gosh. It was SOOOOO depressing. It was deserted and gloomy. There were no more Cannes Film Festival banners. The red carpet was gone. Replacing it was some fake imposter carpet in front of the Palais where swarms of cheesy, fanny-pack toting American tourists were posing. Ha! I will forever be a Cannes Film Festival snob JJ No fake red-carpet posing for me! I bought my souvenirs, bought gelato (duh), and got out of there. The tourists were fighting over the last of the festival t-shirts. It was so irritating because you knew they hadn’t even been in town 2 weeks ago when the festival was actually going on. Whatevvvv. Got back to my cute little apartment in cute little Juan Les Pins and enjoyed my semi-local status.

Monday was my return to class!! It was great… I enjoyed it so much. First, was review writing. We discussed a few of the films and people were selected to read reviews on it, and then we discussed their reviews. I didn’t read because I hadn’t seen either movie. Then was telecommunications class. First we talked about the industry, how to break into it, how to get into films, etc. We talked about movies that we absolutely hated and got our assignment that is due on Thursday (last day of class). We are to create a marketing campaign for a film that we absolutely hated. My film is “Anti-christ”… the Willem Dafoe movie that was a complete waste of my life. I will post my review on it so you can see what I thought about it. My teacher loved the review, so I’m really excited to work on this project. Then we split into groups and had to come up with a movie premise in 15 minutes. Then we had to role play and pretend we are pitching this idea to a studio in a meeting. Our teacher changed her personality for every group to see how we would react and see if we could role with it. Her characters were: normal person (which my group got thankfully), the fake nice person, the screamer, the exec who falls asleep in your face, the one who says they “love” everything and then tell you you have to change it all. It was SO funny to see how everyone reacted.

Today in class I was chosen to read two of my reviews. I will post one of them so you can also see how I write a positive review, since most of the reviews I have written have been positive ones. I had to leave at the lunch break and go back to the hospital in Cannes for my follow-up with the doctor. He took out the stitches and said everything looks great and I’m in the clear! YAY! After that I hung around the apt, did some laundry, and took a nap. Jason and I went to Antibes this evening because I hadn’t made it over there yet. It is such a great little town with a lot of character. It reminded me of some of the towns I saw in Italy when I lived there. Had a great dinner, walked around and looked at the GIGANTIC yachts (apparently Madoff kept his yacht here), and then headed back to JLP. And now I’m here, procrastinating, and wallowing. Guess now I have written everything there is to write. I miss you all and love you all and would love to hear from you. Talk to you soon.
-S

This Train is NO GOOD

2009-05-31T13:17:00.012-04:00

Pics in Avignon!

Written on Saturday May 30, 2009

Hello, Hello! Just got back from a 3 hour train ride and I am exhausted. It is so weird how traveling makes you tired. All you are doing is sitting in the train/plane/car and somehow it completely drains you of all of your energy. Strange. ANYWAY… I have had a really fun couple of days, which were much needed after my week of boring, lonely bed rest.

On Thursday I was determined to go back to classes, even though I woke up feeling a little queasy. I woke up late (what’s new) and was rushing and accidentally took my meds on an empty stomach, ran to the café to grab a coffee and croissant, and walked quickly in the humid weather toward the classroom at the Best Western while my gracious roomie Melanie carried my stuff. I was feeling ok at first, but then got overheated in the rooftop classroom (heat rises, remember?) and had to run downstairs bc I knew I was going to be sick. I was sooo bummed bc I really wanted to be in class and hear what had been going on for the week, but everyone quickly decided I should go home immediately even though I totally felt better after puking. Oh well. Went home ,rested, and then went to the grocery store to buy food for the potluck dinner we all decided to have. It was such a cute idea and it turned out great!! Melanie and I had it in our room bc it’s big and has a nice balcony. I was really impressed with the dishes people made. I made two types of pasta: tagliatelle with pesto sauce and penne with cream sauce; so that way everybody could have a little bit of both. Other people brought a big salad, brie/crackers/jam, spaghetti and meat sauce, thai veggies, fruit salad, bruschetta, lobster risotto (my fave!), homemade salsa, and ice cream sundae stuff for dessert. There was more but I can’t remember, and since we were the hostesses we got all the leftovers… WAHOO!

Annoying Occurrence of the Day: my camera charger won’t charge my battery bc of the freaky voltage or something over here, and even though I have a converter it still will not work. I am going to the camera shop on Monday to look for a charger but from Thursday until then I have been forced to rely on good ole’ Kodak disposable cameras… can we say embarrassing???!!!

We didn’t have class on Friday bc they wanted us to have a weekend to travel on our own, so Melanie, Erin, and I went into Monte Carlo for the day. It was about a 45 minute train ride and it was absolutely GORGEOUS! The whole ride was along the coast and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect. For those of you who don’t know (I didn’t…), Monte Carlo is in Monaco which is its own country, but Monte Carlo is the only city in the country, so you can walk across the entire country in a couple of hours. Don’t really understand why the country of Monaco is necessary, so if anyone knows the reasoning behind that I am very curious. So anyway, everything in MC is beautiful, especially the train station. It is high on a cliff and as soon as you walk out of it you have an incredible view of the crystal blue sea and the cliffs and mansions and colorful flowers and fancy cars. I would also like to point out that the drivers of MC are absolutely psycho and probably think that they are participants in the Grand Prix; I really don’t think they would blink an eye if they ran you over, unless it was to scream at you for being too close to them. We walked around the town for a while window shopping and exploring cool back streets. The whole city/country is on a cliff of some sorts, so making one turn could take you down 50 stairs to the next street. We made our way to the Monte Carlo Grand Royale Casino and of COURSE had to go in. It was absolutely amazing. There were cars I’ve never even seen before parked out front. Bentleys, Mercedes, Porsche, Ferrarris, and other random brands I’ve never heard of but I’m sure they cost a pretty Euro penny. Following the routine of my life, my first stop was the bathroom. It was so beautiful I forgot which room I was in!! There was gold leaf on the wall, beautiful mosaics on the floors, ornate wooden doors to the stalls, and murals painted on the ceiling. Best. Bathroom. Ever. (I know some of you out there really appreciate nice bathrooms like I do hehe) I played 5 euro in slots and won 20 euro but then didn’t know how to cash out and pushed the wrong button and lost it all. Oh well. I can see how it gets addicting though bc Erin had to grab my hand before I could feed another 10 into the machine. We then walked down to the water and strolled along the promenade until we got to the public beach. It was soooo pretty with all of the mega yachts not too far off the coast and the beautiful blue water, so we changed into our suits, grabbed some ice cream (duh), and walked down to the water. The beach was not made of sand but of tiny pebbles, so it was kind of painful to walk on and even more painful to lay on considering none of us had towels. We spread out all our clothes to lie down on and that was enough to take the sting away. Deeefinitely saw some topless babes and some hardcore Speedos on the men, since there was a sign that said “No Swim Trunks Allowed!” I also saw quite a few girls who could have put a razor to GOOD USE. I always thought that hairiness was a French stereotype. Well I can confirm that stereotype it is not. We lay on the beach for about an hour and took a cab back to the train station to head back to JLP.
Travel Day #1 = Success!

Today(Saturday), we decided to take a longer trip to Avignon in the Provence region of France. Our friend Sophie was there with her dad (Dr. Kohn- our teacher… the one who thinks I’m a writing genius hehe) , so we thought it would be fun to go see her and rescue her from the grownups. We had kind of a difficult time getting there… when we were trying to buy our tickets the guy at the counter had gotten into an argument with a customer right in front of me, so they were having words with each other and it got pretty heated. THESE are the times when I reallyyyy wish I knew French ;) It was me, Angela, Amy, and Nahall, and by the time we all got our tickets the train had arrived. We jumped on, only to be promptly kicked out of our seats bc we didn’t realize seats were assigned. When we went to our assigned seats after about 20 minutes of stealing other people’s seats, there were people occupying all of them. After a few “Huh?” and “I DON’T SPEAK FRENCH” phrases were exchanged, we realized that we were on the wrong train. I almost had a heart attack, bc this is the first time in all of my traveling in Europe that I had done this! Such a rookie mistake… I couldn’t believe it! It wasn’t too terrible though; we got off at the next stop and caught the right train after a while. The ride was beautiful (albeit noisy since French people don’t seem to mind when their kids scream at the top of their freakin’ lungs… funny how the French dogs are way more disciplined than the children) until we all of the sudden stopped in a random town. Turns out some man on a few cars back had a HEART ATTACK and had to be taken off the train and seen by paramedics. We were stopped for about 20 minutes before starting up again. I was beginning to wonder if God really didn’t want us to go to Avignon. Then I found a raspberry tart in my purse that I wrapped up and threw in there yesterday and had forgotten about it. My faith was restored. Made it to Avignon by noon and met Sophie for lunch in that cute square with the Carousel and Opera Hall (for those of you who’ve been there.) We all got the “plat du jour,” which today consisted of Filet Mignon and sautéed potatoes all for 9 euro. SCORE! We saw the big church and Palais where the Pope lived centuries ago, and walked in the beaaaautiful gardens for a while, which was my favorite part. The city itself was just so cute and beautiful. It is an old walled city, so everything had a story behind it. Because it was a Saturday, the streets were buzzing and there were lots of musicians, street performers, jewelry stands, etc. to enjoy. We spent the rest of the day shopping and headed back around 7 for an uneventful ride home (thank God.)

The train ride was about 3 hours, so I am ready to hit the sack. Tomorrow (Sunday) I have reserved for writing my 2 final film reviews on “LymeLife” (Martin Scorcese movie) and “Dogtooth” (prob. my fave movie not shown in the Grand Lumiere). Then it will be laundry time for a while, and I’ll probably head into Cannes again to do some souvenir shopping. We wanted to wait until the hoopla died down before buying our Festival merchandise, bc now everyone has left town and it will all be on SaLe! But tomorrow will definitely be low-key considering in the last 2 days I used just about every ounce of energy that I have been storing up over this past week. Sorry this was so long, but it was a fun and exciting weekend! I’m so glad it went off smoothly and I didn’t run into ANY health problems… YAY! This is our last week with the program and we are all getting sad and tired. It seems physically impossible for 3 weeks to have passed, but somehow they have and we must cherish every second left. Hope all is well back home… I’d love to hear what’s going on with all of ya’ll! And thanks again for being such a fabulous audience :)

Lots of Love-
Sarah

New Pics

2009-05-27T13:45:00.004-04:00

Hi guys! Nothing blog worthy has happened since my last post (thank you bed rest) but I did put another album of pictures online, so I thought I'd share. Just follow this link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2182445&id=21306443&l=ed7f32e623

These are from my last few days at the festival, INCLUDING the red carpet pics from "Inglourious Basterds" where I had sooo many celebrity sightings. Enjoy and be sure to comment on the ones you like!!

Time to go watch more "Friends" on DVD... going to class tomorrow... YAY! Talk to you soon.
Lots and lots of love, hugs, etc...
-S

bed rest totally sucks...

2009-05-26T17:39:00.003-04:00

Pretty girl pics!

Recognize her??

Soooo I definitely feel like i am about to jump out of my skin right now. I have been ordered to stay on "bed rest" until atleast tomorrow (wednesday) with only a few breaks to walk and get some food (or um... gelato?) and fresh air. I must tell you that whoever came up with the concept of bed rest is sick and twisted. It's completely awesome for about the first 5 hours. Doing nothing but dozing at my own leisure, watching "Friends" DVD's, doing some reading and witing, and then uh... you slowly begin to run out of things to do. I start to know (and recite outloud in a British accent) all of the stories on the BBC channel on TV --it's the only English speaking channel here in Juan Les Pins... which means the only channel I watch duh. I reread all of the trade mags from the Festival and my heart breaks just a little bit more as I realize Cannes is over. All of the other students are in class from 11-4 and for the first time in my history as a student do I find myself truly YEARNING to be there too. HA! Well, one more day of this nonsense and then hopefully I will be more able to participate and join the gang.

A French nurse has been coming by my apartment every day to clean my wound and change the dressing. Oh let me tell you... those who are squeamish about gross cuts and blood/infection/pus... be glad you are not me. Luckily I think all of the above are extremely cool and look forward to her coming every day. Whatever... Kate instilled in me many, many years ago that I am a freak; it is a quality I now embrace. Today she removed the blue wire that was lacing through the drainage holes so that they can begin to heal. That was sooooo unfun, but I could immediately feel the pain level decrease once it was gone. So yay!

Tommorrow will hopefully be better than Monday and today. I am going to skip out on classes again but work on my reviews from home. Then I will join the group as we screen a movie made by Paul Cox about a camp of lepers in the middle east. He was one of the guest speakers we met with in Cannes, so I'm really excited to check out his work. Then a couple of the students decided it would be fun to put togetehr a pot-luck supper with whoever wants to join and I was also just informed that will be held in my room because I have the most "bomb-ass view"... and yes... hate to say it but I do :) I am more than happy to have it my room since I have missed hanging out with the group since my hospitalization. Now that the festival is over and I'm not in class i have barely seen anyone and I feel a little off the radar. Can't wait to hang with all my new buddies tomorrow. I am going to cook Chicken Pesto Pasta I think. I was just asked to bring a pasta entree so if anyone has recipe ideas please send them to sarahw87@uga.edu!!! I'm very open to suggestions.

My friend Jason from C of C has been in town the past week staying with me in Juan. He bought a one way ticket to Europe and has been here since April traveling around with different friends and family. It has been absolutely fantastic to have him around, especially during some really difficult times. Not to mention he fit in with everyone within like 5 minutes of arriving and not only me but all 25 of us are sad that he is leaving tomorrow. But he is going to stay with his cousins just a train stop away in Golfe Juan so hopefully this won't be the last I see of him. I felt so bad at first that he got here and I promptly got sick... but he has been such a wonderful friend helping me through all of it, not to mention TRANSLATING through all of it as well. Since none of the docs or nurses spoke English at the hospital, he and Anna (our completely amazing gift from God program coordinator) basically took my life into their hands. Although Jason is heading out tomorrow, I am excited to see another bestie from C of C, Erika! She has been traveling around Europe for 2 weeks as a graduation present and is stopping by the south of France to have a little reunion time :) We wil hopefully also make it to Cinque Terre in Italy together in the beginning of June, granted my healing continues to head in the right direction.

Well that is all for now... must go finish some more film reviews. Hopefully soon I'll post some of them up here so you guys can see just what we are producing over here in "class" hehe. Just got another picture album up online complete with BRAD AND ANGIE pics as well as some more gorgeous Cannes shots. Check them out by clicking on the following link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2182445&id=21306443&l=ed7f32e623

Hope to hear from you soon. Love you all so much... ya'll are the best blog readers ev!
-s

Slowly but Surely

2009-05-24T15:36:00.003-04:00

Bonjour!
So I am home from the hospital and recovering nicely in the comfort of my beachfront apartment in Juan Les Pins. Thanks to all who have been so wonderful and supportive and made me feel so loved from across the world. The incision is already looking better and the pain is getting better as well. The nurse came by tonight for the first time to change the dressing and I got to take a look at it... there are 4 holes where the stuff drains from and then wire laced through it to keep the holes open. Sorry to be kind graphic but it's pretty disgusting. And way painful. Thank goodness for my pain meds I brought from home because the French seem to think that Tylenol cures all. And it definitely does not cure wire laced through your belly.

The closing ceremonies in Cannes were tonight and I am a little bummed that I'm missing them. I'm trying to look on the bright side however. My mom pointed out to me that atleast I'm still in FRANCE which is so so true. And the next 2 weeks are all abotu relaxing and exploring and a little learning in there too hehe.

So this post is kind of short but I wanted to leave ya'll with some links to check out. The first is to a story on the UGA website about the program. I am on the front row of the pic in the pink shirt, jeans, and sunglasses. The last three are to my online photo albums, so you can see all of the amazing pics that I've been taking while I've been here. The blog only lets me post 5 at a time, so to get the real feel for the experience I'm having you should definitely check out the pics. Well I'm off to get gelato!! Talk to you soon
-S

Story about the Cannes program on UGA website
http://www.grady.uga.edu/resources.php?al1=Resources&al2=Grady%20News&page=news2.inc.php%7CID=961

The next few links are to my online albums of my trip:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2180053&id=21306443&l=4fa0b0aa1d

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2180274&id=21306443&l=98f8f88a59

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2179392&id=21306443&l=de80eeed77 (these were taken on my Blackberry... the camera is amazing!)

OK... that's all for tonight. Hope to hear from you all soon!!!
Lots and lots of love-
S

Highs and Lows

2009-05-23T13:48:00.003-04:00

May 22, 2009 - Friday
So… as you might have noticed I have been absent from the blog world recently. These past few days have been just what the title of this entry implies… a collections of highs and lows. Had a couple of the most exciting moments of my life and a couple of the scariest. Here’s a recap:

Monday (5/18) - The beginning of a very busy 3 days! Starting Monday we got our temporary 3 day market badges, which grant us access to all of theaters and most of the screenings at the Festival through Wednesday. We went into Cannes at 9 am to pick them up and we were all pretty amped to start seeing films and exploring the market (which was previously off limits) immediately. The premiere film that night was “Anti-Christ” starring Willem Dafoe, but there was an early screening at 11:30 am that many of us wanted to see. Even though it was during the day, we still had to beg for tickets because it was in the Grand Lumiere (red carpet= must beg) but it was super easy and within 15 minutes all of us had tickets. Now you would think that we would sense how eager people were to get rid of their tickets and take that as some sort of sign, but no, we were hell bent on seeing another movie in the Lumiere. It’s an official competition piece at Cannes, it stars Willem Dafoe, it’s a thriller… how can it NOT be good?? Can I please just tell you how this was absolutely without a doubt the worst movie I’ve ever seen in my entire life? During the first 10 minutes I knew I was going to hate it, but I still wanted to give good ol’ Willem a chance. No go. It was unnecessarily gory, graphic, and just weird. If it comes to the States, do not waste your life going to see it. After that lovely start to my day, we went back over to Hotel Victoria for another guest speaker. Today we heard Dwayne Birge, critic from the Hollywood Reporter, talk about his career in the industry. It was very interesting to hear his story and about all of the people who have influenced him throughout the years. After that, Morgan and I ran over to the Palais to meet with the people from a production company to ask about getting into a screening of their movie that evening. It was called “Lymelife” and it is the latest by my old buddy Martin Scorcese. We have found that if you go to the company’s booth before the screening and schmooze, they will recognize you at the door and be more likely to let you in. They told us no prob and so we went to enjoy a relaxing lunch at Café Roma (a restaurant in Cannes which quickly became one of our faves!) before heading back to the theater. We got into the screening without a hitch, even though it was supposed to be for buyers only! Wahoo!! Guess my schmoozing abilities have increased since being over here. After that a group of about 8 of us went to the Cinema de Plage, which is a section of beach where they have chairs set up and a big screen over the water. We listened to a Blue’s band play and then watched a little bit of a David Bowie concert that they were screening before heading back to JLP

Tuesday (5/19): Went into Cannes for a 12:00 screening of “Precious,” a market film that has been getting tons of buzz over here. It features smaller roles played by Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz who were both surprisingly great!! It is the story about a teenage girl who is pregnant with her 2nd child who is 16 and has not made it past the 6th grade. And the father of her children is her own father, who raped her twice. She decides to attend an alternative school and move out of her home and away from her abusive parents and ends up making something out of her life. Despite the heavy subject matter, the film was surprisingly uplifting and I would say that it is one of my favorite films I’ve seen here. After that we all met at the Palais to attend the Master Class featuring the Dardan Brothers (sp?). I had not been feeling well since Sunday so I ended up leaving halfway through the class. My incision had started to hurt more and more and was looking quite red, so I thought it was a good idea to go see a doctor. I went that evening and he gave me antibiotics and a topical treatment to put on it. That night a couple of us went back into Cannes to try and catch a screening of “I Love You, Phillip Morris” starring Jim Carrey, but it was full before we even got to the door. We decided that since we were in Cannes and dressed cute we’d splurge a little and have a nice dinner, and that we did. (PS- we considered splurging and eating at the Carlton, a fabulous hotel here in Cannes. however, after one glance at the menu we changed our minds. a bowl of gaspacho = 29 euro... no thanks)

Wednesday (5/20): Today was the day. There was a ton of stuff I wanted to do during our last day with market badges, not to mention the premiere of “Inglourious Basterds” starring BRADLEY PITT premiered at 7:00 pm. First, went to the 11:45 am screening of British film “Looking for Eric,” which is one of the top contenders for the Palme D’Or this year. I was soooo excited to see it and of course promptly fell asleep during the opening credits. I woke up an hour later realizing what happened and so for the rest of the movie I had no clue what was going on. SOOOO irritating! After that was over I stayed in that same theater to catch a screening of a Greek film called “Dogtooth” which is about a family where the parents do not let the kids leave the house… ever. They do the craziest things like teach them incorrect meanings to words (ex: one kid asked another kid to “please pass the telephone” and they pass the salt) and scare them with incorrect facts of life (“the cat is the deadliest most evil creature on this earth”... this prompted the eldest to kill the kitty cat with scissors and gloat at how brave he was. i did not watch. this was the only part of the movie i severely disliked. sorry gma susan.). It was really, really weird… but for some reason I loved it! I have seen some really freakin weird movies at this Festival, but I thought this movie was so well-done and completely fascinating. Another one of my faves at Cannes. After that I walked around the International Market with Chris for a while checking out all of the booths from the different countries, and then we strolled along the docks to check out the infamous yachts. As we were turning to leave we heard someone call our names, and when we turned around there was our professor relaxing on one of the yachts! He told us to come aboard so, duh, we did. We were immediately greeted with complimentary champagne (don’t worry I only had a sip, mom) and were led to the top deck. Apparently, it was the Kodak yacht and our teacher had a meeting there that afternoon. We stayed for about half an hour and met some really cool people. I could have stayed all night but we had to go to the Majestic Hotel to get changed (in their swanky bathrooms of course) so we could beg for tickets for the big premiere. No one was having any luck (except for Erin of course, who I told you before has a magical way of attracting tickets) and then at the last minute someone gave me one! I rushed over to the gate, only to get rejected because I didn’t have the right badge. I was panicked and was trying every lie in the book to try and get in. I knew the only way for me to get in with my kind of badge was to be someone’s date who had a market badge. Just as they were closing the gate, a group of guys with market badges walked by and I said “Hey can I be your date?” and one of them said “Um yeah” and I got through!!! Once we got past the first guard we had to wait in line to get onto the red carpet, and at about 5 people in front of us they pulled the velvet rope to stop the line. The celebs had started to arrive and they didn’t want us on the red carpet at the same time as them because they didn’t want us in the pics with them. I was not the least bit sad, because I had the BEST view of everyone!! It was seriously the most surreal moment of my life as I watched celebrity after celebrity walk past me. Just a few of the people I saw included Robert Pattinson (ahhhh!), Sharon Stone, Mike Myers, Quentin Tarrantino, Diane Kruger, Ryan Reynolds, Paris Hilton (who showed up fashionably late of course), and the king and queen in the flesh… BRANGELINA!!!! (for those of you who are celebrity nick-name challenged…. that would be Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie). All of them were stunning and looked exactly the same in person as they do on the screen. I felt like I was watching TMZ or something, except I was actually there! After all the stars were in we got to see the movie, finally, and it was surprisingly good. It was a little too long, running almost 3 hours, and some of the scenes dragged on as well. I fell asleep during one scene and 20 minutes later woke up to find that they were all still around the conversation having the same conversation! I’m not a huge Tarrantino fan but I still really enjoyed myself.

Thursday (5/21): FINALLY a much needed day off. Everyone in our group agreed that after such an eventful 3 days, we would stay in Juan les Pins and rest. However, my scar had started to hurt more and more to the point where it was almost unbearable just to bend over. I had so much adrenaline driving me onward the past three days that the moment I stopped to rest I realized that I was in fact in excruciating pain, not to mention the incision that had been healing so nicely was now completely red and swollen. I burst into tears as I thought of what this could mean, but begrudgingly agreed to let Anna (the program coordinator) call the doctor back again and have him make a house call to our residence. When he looked at it he said that it looked much worse than when I had seen him on Tuesday and that I needed to either go to the hospital here in France to get it drained or go home to the States to have it dealt with. Of course that is the last thing I wanted to do, so I agreed to go to the French hospital to have the doctor take a look at it. The new doctor said it is definitely an infection, but he wanted to do a CT scan to make sure it wasn’t an infection deep in the abdominal cavity, which would require more extensive surgery. So, I was admitted to the hospital and that was that. Yesterday was so overwhelming and frustrating, as none of the nurses at the hospital speak any English whatsoever. I had Anna with me who speaks French, so she was able to do most of the translating, but I still was so upset at what was happening. I have been having such an incredible time but no doubt have been pushing myself a little too hard. I guess I should have stopped to take some time and evaluate where I was in my healing process, but I was having such a wonderful time that I didn’t want to stop and miss anything. The CT wasn’t scheduled until today (Friday) so yesterday I was hooked up to an IV and they hit me hard with antibiotics. I had about 4 doses yesterday and I’ve had about 6 today. They seem to be working because it looks a lot better, but the high dose is making me really queasy.

Friday (5/22): And so, here we are. I am laying in my little bed in a quaint hospital in Cannes watching “The Nanny” on T.V. dubbed over in French. For some reason the French can’t quite get Fran Drescher’s accent just right. I had the CT scan earlier today and it showed no signs of a deep infection, which is really good news. The doctor said that all he would have to do was open the wound back up a tiny bit superficially to let all of the nasty gunk in there drain out. He said I would be ok to go home tomorrow as long as I change the bandage daily and keep the incision area clean and out of the sun. So thankfully, I will not be gracing you all with my presence just yet!! Today is my 2 week anniversary in France, and I am definitely not ready to be coming home any time soon.

This whole hospital stay in a foreign country has been pretty scary, especially since no one here at all speaks English. Sometimes it is so frustrating I just want to cry, like last night when I hadn’t eaten my dinner yet and they came in and took my food away from me because they thought I didn’t want it, even though I was trying to explain to them that I wanted to wait a little bit to eat because I was feeling queasy. So I went with no dinner last night. But things have gotten a little better and I’m learning to adapt. Atleast I get out of here tomorrow and I can get back to my beachside apartment to recoop! Tomorrow is the last day of movies at the Festival and then Sunday night is the closing ceremonies, so it looks like Cannes is over for me, but atleast I went out with a bang. I am after all, the only one who got pictures of Brad that close. I will not be able to post this until tomorrow (Saturday), but I wanted to go ahead and update ya’ll so that you wouldn’t start to worry. I will be sure and update ya’ll on how the procedure goes and how the recovery is coming as well. Our classes start on Monday, and while I am really really sad the festival is over, it will be nice to have a couple of relaxing weeks in Juan les Pins with the gang.

Hope you all are doing well and taking better care of yourself than I have been the past couple of weeks… Hope to hear from you soon! Love ya’ll!!!
-S

Groovy Baby

2009-05-17T16:01:00.003-04:00

Irina, Sophie, Raven, and Me inside the Grand Lumiere theater before screening "Taking Woodstock!"

Raven, Sophie, Me, Irina, and Erin on the red carpet on our way into "Taking Woodstock"

Some of the kids from our program... we all walked the carpet as a group last night. Sooo much fun!

Waiting in line to get on the red carpet, with our tickets in our hot little hands!

Erin and me on the train into Cannes, making signs to beg for tickets: "Un billet pour TAKING WOODSTOCK, sil vous plait!"

Hello blog readers!

I never know how to start out a blog entry. Should I just begin with my thoughts or greet my readers? I don't even know if there are any readers beyond my immediate family, but just in case, I decided to greet you this time. Well, I'm sitting in the hotel lobby enjoying a quiet evening before the busy week ahead. I have had a pretty lowkey weekend here in France; I saw only 1 movie and went to 2 speaker meetings. Yesterday I slept in and then went into Cannes around noon for our first speaker meeting. We met with Swedish producers John and Carl (didn't write down their last names) who produced the vampire movie "Let the Right One In." A lot of people in our group are huge fans, but I've never even heard of it. They were very eccentric, interesting guys (John wore bright red Ray-Ban wayfarer sunglasses during his whole talk which happened to match his tight, bright red bell-bottom pants) who had some cool insight into the industry. Their movie was adapted from a novel by the same name (I think), and they told us how the whole process of making it and distributing it worked. They are currently working on a "remake" as they called it, but it is really just a new movie based on the same story that is geared toward an American audience. Many of our students were disappointed to hear this, because this means that a lot of the eccentricities that made the film so interesting in the first place will most likely be taken out so that the movie will be more appealing to the mainstream. It will also take place in the U.S. instead of Sweden. Their movie has been referred to a lot in the press recently amidst the whole vampire sensation that has swept through the industry, and I asked them if it was a lot of pressure to make a movie based on a book rather than just an original screenplay because of the fans that you must keep in mind. He said that it is not harder just different, but that it is actually easiest to make a good movie out of a bad book, which was not the case here.

After the talk I went with Sophie, Anna, and Raven to a cute little French cafe for lunch. I had already eaten a panini earlier, so I enjoyed some custardy dessert with raspberries on top for lunch, which I believe to be perfectly accepable when dining at a sidewalk bistro in France. Sorry, Dr. Cohen... Then some of us came back to Juan les Pins to hang out, because the premiere wasn't until 10:00 last night and we were all pretty pooped from casually hanging out with Martin Scorcese the day before (yeah I'm not gonna let that one go just yet.) I successfully did LAUNDRY in a French laundromat, which I was really proud of myself for. And, I did not shrink anything and all articles of clothing remained their original colors. Around 8:00 pm we went back into Cannes to begin the begging ritual all over again, this time for the premiere of Ang Lee's "Taking Woodstock," a film we all REALLLLLYYYY wanted to get into. Me and my two friends, Erin and Sophie, have formed a sort of "alliance" when begging, which really worked out to my advantage last night. I tried a few different locations including my top secret super spot from the day before, but nothing was working. I got harassed more than ever and people were just downright nasty at some times. Pointing, laughing, taking pictures of me, pretending to grab me, acting like I was a prostitute, etc. I started to get so fed up and was walking over to the other side of the street to tell Sophie that I was ready to go and to screw the premiere when Erinbear, my little angel, called me and said she had some extras because she just happened to meet some guy from Focus Films (the distributer for the movie...SCORE!) and he gave her 3 tickets! In addition to the one she had already been given by someone else 10 minutes earlier. I don't know how she does it but she seriously has the magic touch when it comes to begging for tickets. Sophie had succeeded in getting a ticket too, so Erin helped me and a few other girls in the program out and we all worked the red carpet together! This was definitely my favorite walk so far, because it was about 10 of us all together and the music and energy was all just electric. So we strutted along to the Grateful Dead tunes and headed into the Grand Lumiere for the third time in four days. Pretty incredible. The movie was wonderful in my opinion. I liked it more than most in our group I think, but I was reallyyyyy wanting to like it, so that might have had something to do with it. It was very Ang Lee-esque, meaning lots of beautiful photography, wide scenic shots, and some very poignant moments between characters. (Oh. My. God. I sound like my parents. HELP.) But it was a little too neat and tidy for a movie about Woodstock, and many of the characters and storylines weren't as developed as I would have liked, but overall the movie was a treat for anyone who has a remote interest in anything related to Woodstock. Last night I got home and started catching up on reading some of my trade magazines and wrote a little in my journal, and all of the sudden it was 4 a.m.

Thank God we didn't have to do anything this morning, because next thing I knew I opened my eyes and it was noon. We had another speaker meeting today with film-maker Paul Cox, who has made a bunch of movies that I forgot to write down as well. He had some great insight into the art of film-making and cautioned us all, "Film is the most beautiful gift we've been given in our time, but it the mot delicate and most abused gift on Earth." He told us that we have a responsibility to the industry to keep things fresh and new- "invent life- don't imitate it" he said. He also said, "Please don't make shit films... you know, like 3/4 of the movies screening at this damned festival." Some people in our group liked him, others didn't, but what I took from it was just to make sure you create something that matters and capture the essence of beauty, and to always use your own voice. Never stop learning more, because when you know the rules, you know how to break boundaries. And be sure you are remembered for creating something beautiful. And just to be sure that you matter. So anyway, I really liked him, but he started preaching Anarchy for a while and that's when he lost me.

After the speaker, I wanted to head back to JLP for the day because I was feeling exhausted from my night of no sleep. Plus, we all get temporary market badges starting tomorrow (Monday) that last through Wednesday. In the caste system of Cannes Film Festival badges, market badges are the highest. The badges we currently have are the lowest of the low, and the guards are so inconsistent that it is really hard to plan out your day and see the movies you really want to see. PLus, we aren't even allowed in all of the theaters, which can make it even MORE difficult and frustrating. But starting tomorrow, things should be a lot easier and we should (operative word there is SHOULD) be allowed into any of the daytime screenings that we want. We will still have to beg for premiere tickets because everyone has to have a ticket to get into the Grand Lumiere, but hopefully we'll be able to catch up on a lot of the screenings that we've missed the past couple of days!

So tonight has been all about cleaning, homework, skyping with mom, dad, and Gally, and blogging. Gonna do some reading and go to bed early, because we are going into Cannes tomorrow at 9 am to pick up our badges! We also have a speaker meeting tomorrow at 2:00 with a critic from The Hollywood Reporter, so that should be really cool. Hope everyone is doing well. I appreciate all of the comments and emails... keep them coming! You have nooo idea how much they keep me going. This whole experience is by far the most incredible thing I've ever done, but it's also the most draining, and there's nothing better than an email to pop up on the blackberry after a run-in with a mean French guard!!! So anyway, just as a reminder, email address is sarahw87@uga.edu hehe... love you all so much. Thank you for being so loving and supporting of me, not only with this trip, but with everything relating to my health, etc.

Hugs from France!!

-S

Navigating through the Madness

2009-05-16T11:26:00.004-04:00

Luke and me at the red carpet premiere of "Bright Star"... workin it!

Thanks to all my fans... you're fabulous.

Girls enjoying hors d'oeuvres at the dedication ceremony with Roger Ebert and Martin Scorcese!

Martin Scorcese and Roger Ebert

Lindsey and me on the train into Cannes on first day of the Festival

Friday May 15, 2009
Just spent forever going through the coveted Film Festival guide looking up potential movies to see for the next few days. After 2 full days of the festival, I am beginning to figure it all out (emphasis on BEGINNING). Basically, our badges are a nice way of saying, “You’re not important at ALL and if we don’t feel like letting you into this movie we won’t. Good day.” Yesterday was sooo frustrating! We all came here thinking that if we have a badge we can see whatever we want, but we have quickly learned that that is not the case. Our rank of badge (Cinephile) is the lowest of the low, so there are a lot of theaters we are not even allowed into unless we have an “invitation,” which we must either hold signs up for or make contacts with higher up people who can help us out, and if we don’t need an invitation we have to wait until right before the movie to see how many empty seats are left before they decide if they want to let us in or not. And it is sooo inconsistent, so a guard at one market screening might let you in no questions asked, and at another screening you could have a ticket and they will STILL turn you away! I think we are all beginning to let it roll off our backs a little easier after 2 days of it, but it all started out pretty discouraging.

Yesterday (Thursday) a group of us wanted to see “Cluster,” a documentary about a Welsh cult. We weren’t even allowed into the building where you go to request tickets, so that was of course a problem. Then we randomly saw people handing out fliers for it outside, and when I went up to ask them about it he said “Oh yeah I made the movie I can get you in come back in an hour.” So we were allllll excited, gave him our business cards, and came back in an hour. He then told us he could only give us 3 tickets (there were 6 in our little group) because the theater was too small. So we sadly had to tell 3 of our friends they couldn’t come in, and then when we got into the theater it was ¾ of the way empty!!! Literally, in a 40 person theater there had to be ATLEAST 25 empty seats. And the documentary wasn’t even that good. It was way too long and really repetitive. After that debacle, another girl and I went off to try and get into another market screening called “2:22” (it had Val Kilmer in it, so we figured it was a little more legit) and had a much easier time. We gave the director our business cards, schmoozed a little, and were let in at the last minute because of a few empty seats. However, 2 and ½ hours later with no end in sight, Elisa and I couldn’t take the awfulness anymore and left. It started as some heist movie that ripped off Oceans 11 (from the character development right down to the Claire-de-lune background music) and by the time we left it had something to do with a cocaine deal gone awry. So, yesterday= not so great.

I got a lot of rest last night because I was determined for today to be better. We were invited to a small private ceremony honoring Roger Ebert in the American Pavilion back in the international market area. (Side note: our professor here and Roger Ebert were BFF’s and roommates in college; that is how we have so many connections) We were told a very popular director would be coming to dedicate the little pavilion area to him. So as I’m standing there with my canapé, taking a pic of Roger, in walks none other than Martin Scorcese, a mere 2 feet away from me. “Hiya Roger!” he says as he brushes past me to give his old friend a hug. Ummmm… that was the closest I’ve come to peeing my pants in a really, really long time. So needless to say I had a very cool morning hanging with Roger and Martin.

In the afternoon a group of us saw “Humpday,” a movie about 2 straight men who decide to make a gay porn just to prove how macho they really are. It’s been getting a lot of buzz over here and it was a packed house in a very small theater. Lucky for us the guard didn’t take a very close glance at our badges and we just walked right in! It was good, for the most part. Kind of bizarre, but really funny. Then tonight we begged for tickets for the premiere of “Bright Star” directed by Jane Campion (also did “The Piano”) and staring Abbie Cornish (best known for breaking up the marriage of Ryan Phillipe and Reese Witherspoon… and yes ladies… Ryan was in the house tonight!) I lucked out and got a ticket pretty quickly, so my friend Luke and I walked the red carpet together and went to the premiere. We got some great pics of us waving to all of our fans… will try and upload them ASAP! The movie wasn’t so fabulous. Very Jane Austin-ey. Wayyyy too long. And the main characters lacked any kind of chemistry or passion. But the photography was beautiful and I was glad that I was there, despite the fact that Luke and I slept through about half of it. HA!

On the walk to the train station I shoved a post-premiere nutella and banana crepe down the hatch, only to find out that the trains were on strike and wouldn’t be running for the rest of the evening. SOOOO we had to squish in cabs and shell out the hefty fee. Too bad I had spent most of my cash on that damned crepe. But it was oh so delicious ;)
Tomorrow we have a meeting with some producers at noon at the Grand Hotel, and then after that I am hoping to see “Crazy on the Outside” starring Tim Allen in the afternoon. I saw him on Leno a few weeks back talking about it and it sounds hilarious. Tomorrow’s premiere is “Taking Woodstock” by Ang Lee, and we all want to go SOOO BAD! I have a secret begging spot that I have not shared with the rest of the group though, so maybe I’ll luck out tomorrow like I did today. I’m not getting my hopes up though, because this is one of the most anticipated premieres of the whole festival.

Well that’s it for now! Again, sorry to be so behind on the updates/pictures. The internet here is soooo unreliable. But my email is free on my blackberry so if you ever just want to shoot me a quick hello I would love to hear from you at sarahw87@uga.edu. I will get it on my phone and can reply instantly to you! It is kind of my new way of texting since it is free internationally, so I would love to email chat with anyone who has the time. It is exhausting running around seeing all these movies, and I never realized how exhausting it is to run around and then on top of it see BAD movies. Oh well, plenty more of the festival to go! So anyway, emails make me happy. Email me lots!
Au revoir for now! Talk to you soon.
Love- S

fighting a losing battle... with the internet

2009-05-15T06:30:00.003-04:00

I apologize to all that this is coming a few days late. The internet situation is sooo sketchy over here.... so I have been unable to post to my blog and send ya'll an update! I wrote the following blog post on Wednesday night on my computer... but have been unable to post it until now because the stupid internet is so finicky. But just so you know, everything below is referring to Wednesday, May 13. Will try and do a new update tonight! Miss ya'll!!

Wednesday, May 13:

I can honestly say I feel like I’ve gone a little out of my mind today. In a good way though, don’t worry mom! Just being in this setting, experiencing the Festival, taking everything in… it is honestly so hard to believe it is real! This may sound corny/cheesy/etc or whatever, but I am enjoying myself so much that I can’t even remember the last time I felt this way. I have had such an eventful day and night that as I lay in bed right now the room seems to be spinning!

So this morning we woke up bright and early (8:30 am… ew) to go into Cannes as a group to pick up our badges. We waited in line for about an hour, but when you are waiting waterfront on the French Riviera… who’s counting? After that we walked over to the Majestic hotel (it truly lives up to it’s name… majestic!) to pick up our trade magazines for the day and take a look around. With our festival badges we are granted access to the big deal hotels too, which include the Majestic, the Carlton, and the Grand Hotel. (Fun Fact: My Grandpa Ed used to bring clients to these hotels years ago on business trips… and now I’m gallivanting through their lobbies during the Film Festival!! I like feeling like he is here with me, checking out all of the incredible stuff I’m doing…I know he would be super proud) After lunch in the park (a ham and brie sandwich… so very French ooh lala) a bunch of us came back to Juan-les-Pins to relax before the big night. I kept with my daily gelato ritual before heading back into Cannes with the group. We were greeted by a madhouse of people everywhere. I think all of us were feeling like the little kids who had just lost our parents in the grocery store. The word “chaotic” is a severe understatement. Then we spread out around the Palais and began to beg for tickets. We all just had little signs that said, “1 invitation pour “UP” sil vous plais” … I called Mateo and we had plans to meet up because he said he had tickets, but then he stopped returning my phone calls… guess he was not as legit as I thought. Oh well! It was harder to beg than I thought and no one gave me a ticket so I started to panic. But then at the last minute one of the girls in our group had gotten 3 extras and she handed me one and literally pushed me onto the red carpet. It took me a minute to regroup and comprehend where I was. We were then rushed up the carpet to make way for the celebs (the only ones I recognized were Robin Wright Penn, Tilda Swinson?, and Elizabeth Adams) and we took our seats. The opening ceremonies were in French so that wasn’t really exciting, but the movie “Up” was fantastic! I really really loved it, and the 3D was so cool. It was kind of hilarious to see everyone dressed up in their black tie attire wearing 3D glasses. The theater was huge and the screen obviously was too. We were in the last 10 rows of this gigantic theater and still had perfect seats. Afterward everyone clapped and the Festival was underway. We met up with a bunch of other people from our group that had gotten in and headed over to the Majestic to pick up trade mags for the next day. On the way I was talking on my blackberry and 2 photographers started following me down the street taking my picture!! I am not kidding you they probably got like 15 shots of me… I was just laughing and kept walking and acting like I didn’t care, but inside it was probably one of the top 10 coolest things to ever happen to me! HA!

So that is my story for today. Incredible start to the Festival. Can’t believe we have 2 weeks of this!!!! Tomorrow will be a full day of movies and then we are gonna try again for the premiere tomorrow night, so I will let ya’ll know how it goes! Miss you all so much..
Love-
S

Picture Situation...

2009-05-12T17:50:00.003-04:00

So I am still figuring out how to use this blogging website, and I'm not quite sure how to post more than one picture at a time. If anyone has experience with blogspot.com will you let me know?? I know a bunch of you are bugging me for pictures... so until I figure it out I'm going to leave you the link to my online photo album via Facebook. Don't worry... you don't have to be a member of Facebook to look at them! Just copy and paste the link into the box at the top and it will lead you to my private photo album. Should be very easy for all of you (this means you too, Grandmom!) haha... Let me know if you have any problems!

Here is the link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2180053&id=21306443&l=4fa0b0aa1d

The Calm Before the Storm...

2009-05-12T15:54:00.003-04:00

Hello all! So I officially had the BEST day... things in France just keep getting better and better :) The weather here is absolutely PERFECT! It just seem like the longer I am here the more beautiful it becomes. And despite all the jokes about the "smelly" French... I must say it smells soooo good here haha! There are flowers everywhere and when you walk outside you can't help but smell the sweet perfume. It is kind of annoying how great it is. So let me fill you in on the past couple of days...

Yesterday was our orientation for school. We have a rooftop classroom at the top of the Best Western Juan-les-Pins hotel (officially the nicest Best Western I have ever seen). We just went over more program logistics and met the teachers, leaders, etc. Then we had some free time which I used to organize my super cute beach front apartment, and then we headed back over to the Best Western for a little welcome reception, which included some delicious pastries, quiche, other flaky things that I have no clue what they were, and the most random drink selection I have ever seen. The choices were red wine, orange juice, and Coke. That's it. No water, tea, or anything... Weird. Everybody hung out and I think we all really started to bond. We went around the group deciding who looked like which different celebs so that we could pretend to cause some commotion at the Festival. I was wearing my hair down and curly and got voted as the group Kate Hudson. I was very excited for this nomination, although I'm not sure I totally agree. I'll take it!

Today was the first day of class, so we trekked back to the Best Western for the day. I am taking "Film Review" and also "Film Marketing and Research".... definitely 2 of the coolest classes ever! We had to review a film before we got here, and of course I was sooo stressed out about it because of my hospitalization, etc and I hadn't done it or prepared for it at all. I did it once I got to France and sent it to the professor a week late, asking him to have mercy on me. Well today in class we broke into groups and everyone read everyone's reviews and had to choose one that epitomized what a great film review was. Not to brag or anything, but um, they picked MINE! :):):) I'm not gonna lie it felt kind of great. Oh and the review was on Twilight which I have seen about a million times, so it wasn't that hard to review.

In Film Marketing we learned all about how the market at Cannes works; who is there to buy, sell, barter, etc. Our teacher is actually trying to sell one of her own films here as well. She is an award winning film maker and has a wonderful short film she is trying to license to a distributer here at the Festival, so we are all really excited for her. She and our other teacher Dr. Kohn have a lot of friends here in Cannes (Dr. Kohn and Roger Ebert were college roommates) so they were telling us all about who we were going to get to have seminars with. She told us Ang (as in Ang Lee...) agreed to stop by and talk to us this week, at which point my jaw hit the floor. Wow, life is really cool right now.

Tonight, a few girls and I took the train over to Cannes to check out all of the set-up going on. It was such a rush to be in the middle of all of it. We all squealed a little bit as we watched them setting up the red carpet. I still have to pinch myself at times to remind myself that this is real. Many of you know in addition to loving films that I am more than a little obsessed with celebrities, so to be at the Cannes Film Festival is genuinely a dream come true. After dinner, I wanted to come back to Juan-les-Pins a little earlier than the other girls so I headed back to the train station to make the trip back (no worries... it is only a stop away). I struck up a conversation with 2 nice looking French guys who just were asking me where I was from, why I was here, the usual. I was kind of steering away from them until I spotted their official Cannes Market Gift Bags. The only people that have these are the accredited film makers, distributers, and other really important people. The only reason I knew this was because our teacher had just shown us one in class earlier today! So naturally I instantly became a little more friendly, only to find out that this guy was one of the Festival Planners. Nice. He asked me if we had tickets to the opening premiere tomorrow (which we do not), and he promptly gave me his number and told me to call him tomorrow and he would give me some, since he had never seen anyone with "such beautiful blue eyes as me"... hehehe. SOOOO you can bet that I will be giving my new friend Mateo a call tomorrow.

So the plan for tomorrow is to go into Cannes about 9 am, pick up our badges, and do a quick walking tour to get our bearings. Since the opening ceremonies aren't until tomorrow night, I'll prob come back to JLP and relax before the big premiere, since I am still struggling to keep up with everyone after the surgery and all. Then we will all head back over to Cannes in our black-tie attire to "beg for tickets" for the premiere. We have Cinephile badges which are the lowest of the low on the badge totum pole, so in order to walk the red carpet we have to have a ticket in addition to our badge. The custom at Cannes is for the Cinephiles to dress in their finest and stand outside the Grand Palais theatre with signs that say "1 invitation sil vous plais" and anyone with extra tickets will give them to you. Imagine Washington Road during Master's Week, except we will be dressed in dresses and tuxes and you don't have to pay. Just good ole' fashioned give aways! And people always have extra tickets, because usually companies will get more than they need, or they won't want to go to the premiere at all that night. There are 2 red carpet premiere's each night: a 7:30 and a 10:00... the 7:30 is the one with all the celebs but both are black-tie. If we don't end up getting tickets we are still able to see all the movies at various day screenings throughout the Festival, but of course it's much more fun to canoodle with the rich and famous. Tomorrow's opening premiere is the animated film "Up!" It is the first time an animated film will open the festival, so we are all really excited to see how it turns out.

Well, this has officially taken forEVER to write, but there was just too much to catch ya'll up on! I'll try to be a little more punctual with the updates. And I think I figured out how to put pictures on here... so hopefully you'll be able to see some of the greatness that I'm talking about! Leave me comments if you can... I miss you all and want to hear what you're up to!

Sending love from France!!

-S

Bonjour from Juan les Pins!!

2009-05-10T10:50:00.002-04:00

Bonjour!
I am currently sitting in an incredibly humid, foul smelling internet cafe to post this, despite the no less than perfect weather outside. Our apartment building is having difficulties with the internet, so until that gets fixed I must resort to the tried and true pay-by-the hour method. So after weeks of uncertainty with my health and 24 hours of traveling... I'M HEREEEE! And let me tell you, it is pretty freakin fabulous. I was really nervous about how I was going to do with all of the plane travel, layovers, baggage, etc, and right before I arrived at the airport my Grandma Susan, who is quite the travel veteran, called and suggested that I ask to be transported by wheelchair for all of my connections. That was single handedly the best decision I have made in quite a long time. I told them all about my surgery and was promptly whisked away in a wheelchair, past the lines, right through security, and onto the plane. Now usually I would have gotten to board the plane first, but in Atlanta I was asked to step aside so R&B singer Akon and his posse could board first. HA it was perfect. My first celebrity sighting and I hadn't even left GA! The rest of my flights were great and then in between all I had to do was plop down in the chair and get pushed where I needed to go. I highly recommend this wheelchair method of travel to anyone who is suffering from an "ailment"... it was awesome.

I finally got to my home for the next 4 weeks, Juan les Pins, at about 4 pm yesterday and immediately fell in love. It is the quintiscential (sp?) little French beachside town. I have a great little studio apartment with a BALCONY!! (we were the only people in the program to get one thank you very much) and a super sweet roommate, Melanie, who I know from previous volunteer work back in Athens. Last night, a couple of girls and I walked down and had dinner on the beach with our toes in the sand. I gotta say, this is by far the best setting I have ever recovered from surgery in. Today I spent most of my day napping and organizing, and now I am exploring the town to try and buy some essentials (toilet paper, pillow, towel, ice cream). We have a pretty open schedule until Wednesday when the Festival de Cannes is officially underway! So anyway, not a very exciting update, but I did want you all to know that I got here safely and comfortably and that I am already having a great time. Keep me updated on everything going back home!! We all know it doesn't take long for the homesick bug to set in with me. Talk to you soon.

-S

Nervous jitters...

2009-05-08T01:34:00.003-04:00

Hello future blog readers! Just wanted to send a note out on the night before my journey to the other side of the world and welcome you to my adventure! I will be updating this blog as a way to keep in contact with loved ones back home to keep ya'll informed on all of the crazy shenanigans I will be partaking in over the next 6 weeks. Please feel free to leave comments and messages... I don't want to be too out of the loop with your lives either! Must go finish packing and puttering around for now... T-Minus 20 hours til takeoff!
-S