Summer in California | Adulting 101

Also known as the electrifying and impassioned sequel to Winter in California. Just kidding, I hate sequels.

I'm trying this new thing called adding memes to my posts. Thoughts?

But anyway, the summer of 2017 is the summer of adulting. It's the summer of living in a subleased apartment, providing food for myself (and failing so far), doing my own laundry, paying my own bills, depositing my own checks, working a part-time job, having a 10-6 internship, commuting to said internship, and many, many more fun activities. I use fun sarcastically, if you couldn't tell. Because yes, real life is tough.

According to the impeccably accurate Urban Dictionary, "adulting" is a term used exclusively by "immature 20-somethings" who are "proud of themselves for paying a bill" and "adult less than 50% of the time." Not gonna lie, this is accurate. You see, I will be 21 years old in less than two weeks, and I don't feel like an adult. I'm not an adult. I can't cook anything besides pasta and I can't iron my own clothes. I don't even own an iron. I own a steamer, and the last time I used that, I melted my closet door . And yes, I know that is nothing to be proud of.

And you know what else I know? That from now on, this is my reality. My reality is the process of shifting from adulting to becoming, you know, an actual adult. And it's terrifying in every sense of the word. And I would love to stop this process somehow, but I can't. It's normal, everyone goes through it, and since this is just how life is, I might as well go with the flow.

And step number one is recognizing that summer is no longer about freedom. It's no longer about frolicking on the beach without a care in the world and dancing around at music festivals wearing standard white girl flower crowns. I mean, yes, there's time for that, too. But there's also the w-word. No, not waffles. Work. But waffles do sound great right now.

This summer, I've started working. Three days a week, I work a 4-hour phone shift at the University Events front desk. It's not too bad, as I spend most of it reading books on Kindle and writing blog posts such as this one right now. I've also been cart trained, meaning that I get to drive around campus in a golf cart and feel very important. Oh, and did I mention that I get paid for it?

The other two days I spend interning at a small production company in West Hollywood. My commute is about an hour and I take two metro lines and a bus, which is no fun, but at least it makes me nostalgic of the good old days when I used public transportation every day and Uber was just a Twitter app for BlackBerries. Also, I get to work on a fancy production lot in a really nice area, and the company produces exactly the type of content I'm interested in: character-driven independent films.  The job itself, well... It's the typical intern job of book and script coverage, answering phones, and coloring in the scratches on old desks.

But you know, there are two ways to look at everything. Yes, I'm an unpaid intern in a tiny office an hour away from where I live, and yes, my job is boring to say the least. But, at the same time, as I was drinking my coffee at Starbucks before work the other day, I looked out the window and saw the Hollywood sign stretch out in front of me. I saw all the palm trees lining the streets. And as I confidently walked over to the production lot, with my coffee in one hand and laptop in the other, looking just like the professional I am not, I realized something. I've made it. I've made it. I'm working in the film industry. I'm working in Hollywood (OK to be fair, West Hollywood. And half of the Hollywood sign was hidden behind a palm tree, but minor details). I persevered against the odds, I've proven that I could make it, I've accomplished what I wanted, I did it all on my own, and now here I am.

And as shitty as adulting is, it's great.

***

I just thought that would be a prosaic end to the adulting chapter, but if you're curious as to what else I have planned for this summer, here's a brief list:

1) Going on a road trip to Big Sur with my best friend Emily!
2) Going to California Adventure for my 21st birthday!
3) Going to a rooftop/Cinespia film screening!
4) Visiting the ucla (SUCKS) campus, just for fun.
5) Getting a California driving license (I've really been putting this off, haven't I?)

So yeah, it's not a long list, but it is what it is. I'll also be summer RAing for high school kids, which I'm beyond excited for! I already miss being an RA like crazy. Plus, I'll get to live in a dorm for six weeks, which I believe will just be enough to have the dorm experience but also survive without major trauma.

Spring 2017: Breakdown of My Classes at USC

Back at it again with the class schedule, isn't that right? I know, me posting one of these is the only thing consistent about this blog. But according to my blog statistics, class descriptions are some of my most popular posts, so there you have it! So, if you're still interested in what classes I took this spring for my fake film major at USC, keep reading.

When you have that one 50 minute class on a Friday.

CHEM 205 | Chemical Forensics

This was my Physical Sciences GE and the last GE I'll ever take in my life, taken Pass/No Pass. It was a pretty simple yet interesting class, in which we talked about blood forensics, ballistics, fibers, time of death, toxicology and the different types of evidence, amongst other things. There was a lab each week and three midterms, and I did really well on all of them without studying too much, which pretty much proves how easy this class really was. Apparently the professor is one of the toughest ones in the Chemistry department and is known for his impossible tests, but he just asked us stuff like "Do you like turtles?" and curved the class to a B+ so he probably didn't take the whole thing too seriously either.

Grade Received: Pass

CORE 104 | Thematic Option Honors Program | Change and the Future: Church, Sex and State

Let me just put this out there: I loved my professor, and the subject material we covered is so important in today's society. That said, I don't think I learned as much in this class as I could have. We discussed the relationship between marriage and private property, marriage and religion, and non-normative marriage, to name a few things, and watched films such Carol, American Beauty and Brokeback Mountain. I also got to listen to some pretty interesting presentations and write a bunch of controversial papers (always loved those). So no, this was not a bad class at all. But, and I'm sure this is my fault as well for not doing the majority of the readings, although it was fun and easy, I feel like this class had very little substance. It had a lot of potential, don't get me wrong, but I felt like it was a little too broad and informal. Though at this point I'm not sure if it's even the class itself that didn't work, or it's all on me. So I'll keep thinking about that.

Grade Received: A

CTCS 192 | Race, Class and Gender in American Film

This has probably been the best film class I've ever taken at USC. Super short lectures with the Notorious PhD, very interesting readings, great screenings, and a TA who was just cooler and smarter than I or anyone else will ever be. I mean, first of all, she had blue hair. In class, we watched classics like The Godfather Parts I & II (The Godfather III doesn't exist, I hear), Do the Right Thing and Rocky, as well as films such as Boogie Nights (10/10 would recommend), Django Unchained and The Virgin Suicides. We talked a ton about the American Dream and the male gaze and read an article about the Oedipal complex and phallocentrism, so I definitely learned some things in there that I'll never forget. I also wrote a paper on Brooklyn (2015), liminality and the American Dream, so I got to do research on all the things I'm passionate about, which is always a plus.

Grade Received: A

CTPR 290 | Cinematic Communication

I made a bunch of terrible films that no one liked. Okay, that's a lie, my documentary turned out pretty good. I also spent an entire week trying to get location permits to film at a park downtown, which was an absolute disaster and I realized that hate paperwork, so I never want to be a location manager, that's for sure. That film was also supposed to be my masterpiece and my mom spent a fortune shipping me a wedding dress from Europe, I spent forever writing and rewriting and gathering props, and I even cast professional SAG actors in it. Needless to say, it all went wrong, our camera malfunctioned earlier that week, my crew wasn't confirmed until almost the day of, they tried to steal our equipment in Echo Park, and I'm still too embarrassed to show my actors the finished film. It didn't help that my entire class hated it. Apparently the rubber band on the wedding bouquet gave away how the whole thing was fake. Sure. Our last project turned out pretty good, though, so let me know if you want to see it.

ALSO: Please don't share the links to the films. There are copyright and other legal reasons.

Grade Received: A

CTWR 321 | Intro to Hour-Long TV Writing

I was going to say that this was my favorite class of the semester and that loved my professor, but she gave me an A- after promising us that we would all get As, so I'm little conflicted right now. We basically had to watch a lot of TV pilots (Breaking Bad, The Handmaid's Tale, Six Feet Under, Mad Men, UnReal (which I hated), This is Us, to name a few) and then talk about them. Yes, that's right, our homework was literally watching Netflix and Hulu. Our main goal of the semester, though, was to write a spec script (so an original episode for an existing show) for Stranger Things as a class. We each had a writing partner and were given scenes to write and rewrite over the weekend, and then in the end we put it all together into one big script. It was a really fun process and working with a partner is definitely something I'd do again. But then I got an A- so I'm not sure what to think anymore.

Grade Received: A- (sadness, utter disappointment, and feelings of betrayal #drama)

What the future holds: 

CTCS 403 | Studies in National and Regional Media: Refugee and Migrant Cinemas (taking it with the professor I had for 'Shot on Location,' 100% a topic I'm interested in, very excited)

CTCS 473 | Film and Media Theory (a dreaded Critical Studies class, a lot of work apparently, major requirement)

CTWR 415A | Advanced Writing (taking it with my CTWR 321 professor, supposed to be a continuation of Intro to Screenwriting, will probably get an A-)

CTWR 416 | Motion Picture Script Analysis (watching films and analyzing scripts, apparently a lot of fun)

LAW 402 | Psychology and Law (for my Forensics minor, deals with stuff like witness credibility, false confessions and cults, seems interesting yet intimidating)

SOWK 350 | Adolescent Gang Intervention (for Forensics, the only Social Work class for undergrads, apparently a popular class, very hands-on)

Big Girls Do Cry: On Why It's Okay to Be Vulnerable

"What are your strengths and weaknesses?" Standard interview question, isn't it? And sure enough, you can probably gather some strengths, but with the weaknesses, it gets a little more tricky. You have to be careful not to give yourself a backhanded compliment ("I'm such a perfectionist" *giggles*) and point out an actual area of improvement, but you also have to make sure you mention something you can actually improve upon ("I'm late to work every morning, but it's okay, I set a lot of alarms now." Yeah, sure.) So yes, you really need to reflect upon that one, but hey, if you think about it, there's a kind of strength in knowing your weaknesses. And sometimes, you can even turn your weaknesses into strengths. 

Where am I going with all this? Well, I like to think that I know my weaknesses pretty well. I'm a major drama queen. I like to justify it by saying I'm a writer who is all about conflict for storytelling purposes, but that's heaps of crap. I'm also way too impulsive and oversensitive. My freshman year at USC, I tore up my name on my RA's bulletin board, ironically one that was about emotion control, because I felt that I had been put in an uncomfortable situation because of it. Was I overreacting? Most certainly. But I'll also be the first to admit that I spent a great portion of that year crying on my bathroom carpet at 3 AM, partly due to that entire chain of events. Was that overreacting? Maybe. But I couldn't help it, and not for a moment was I proud of it. It wasn't great. It wasn't great at all, which is why last summer, I decided to cut back on the tears.

And this is where it gets important. Here's the deal with crying: it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's an emotional release that stops you from doing potentially worse things, things that I will not get into in this post. But it's not necessarily a good thing either.  My second semester, I'd created this great theory of being a "happy mess," which was complete and utter BS, and was essentially just me forcing myself not to cry instead of, y'know, dealing with the problem at its core. But since I was to be an RA my sophomore year, there was no room for the mess part. I thought about it a lot over the summer, and I figured that as a peer leader, I'd have to be strong, confident, happy and, well, basically have my life together. There was to be no time for tears and emotional breakdowns, which is why my motto soon became "RAs Don't Cry." You know, like Big Girls Don't Cry. "Happiness is a choice" they say, and although I'm pretty sure that is not true at all, I tried to convince myself that it was. All throughout RA training, I would force myself not to cry (except for that one exercise that literally had 200 people crying), and when I did (on move-in day, a situation related to the year before), I hated myself for it. Nevertheless, for a little while, I seemed to be doing okay, with no major emotional outbursts. That is, until that one day in band camp when I decided I couldn't be in Silks any longer.

That's when the façade began to crumble. RAs do cry. RAs are people, and people cry all the time. Being in a leadership position doesn't mean you're no longer a person. Yes, this job requires a great deal of emotional strength, but we are by no means superhuman--and nor should we be. Holding up an illusion of perfection, after all, can be equally destructive. Leaders are role models whom people inadvertently compare themselves to, so yes, we should project a positive image, but pretending to be faultless is simply lying. It's lying that can make people feel inferior or insecure, and lying that prompts people to believe we won't understand their problems and will judge their life choices. Yes, trust me, I've been there, that's how it works. So it's okay for leaders to be vulnerable, as it is for any other person to be vulnerable. 

And you know what, sometimes an RA should be vulnerable, because vulnerability makes us human.

It was a Thursday night in band camp, and I hated every second of it. And I know that you're not supposed to enjoy band camp, but this was different. I felt like an outsider. I felt like I didn't belong, a although feeling that haunts me every second of my life, for reasons we won't get into now, this time it was real. And feeling like I didn't belong terrified me. At the same time, I also felt incredibly guilty for what I saw as abandoning my residents. I felt selfish for doing something for my personal enjoyment when I signed up for a job that was all about being selfless and helping others. So on the Friday before classes started -- two days after my residents moved in and two days before the end of band camp -- I chose to quit marching band. I couldn't be the RA poster child and the Silks poster child at the same time, and couldn't be putting 100% into both things, as I knew that eventually, I would be letting an amazing group of people down. And since there wasn't exactly a choice to make there, I handed in my flag. 

Except, I didn't feel any better. I felt that I had failed, once again, I felt like a quitter for not persevering through band camp, and I was heartbroken over giving up spinning and abandoning the Silks. I felt empty, in a sense. That day, I went back to my apartment, opened my door, put some cupcakes on top of my condom bucket (lol) for my residents, and tried to be the super-RA I had always wanted to be. Except I was still in tears, and when my residents ran into me, a super-RA is probably the last thing they saw me as. And then an odd thing happened. "You know you can always talk to us if you're sad," one of them said. 

Those were my words, and I told him so. Those were my standard, exclusive RA words.

"But you're crying" he said. And then I told him how I quit band so I could be a better RA. I told him that I felt like I wasn't doing enough, and that I was abandoning them by doing something that isn't all that important. And so he responded, "yes, we need you now, because we've just moved in. And yes, we'll need you from time to time, but we won't need you all the time. You clearly love band, and we'd feel bad if you quit for us."

Needless to say, the next day I was back in band. (After a wonderful one-on-one with my section leader who essentially said that I'm letting the Silks down by leaving them. Band, she said, shouldn't be my number one priority, as it isn't hers either, and it should simply be something I do because I enjoy it. As long as I'm there and I do everything to the best of my abilities and circumstances, I'm good.) Most people just saw me quitting the band for 24 hours as one of my drama queen moments, and though it wasn't, I was okay with that. You know, sometimes you just need to distance yourself from something to realize how much it actually matters to you. I also discovered that by opening up to my residents -- and, perhaps, by crying in front of them -- I got a lot closer to them. They saw that I'm not just this idea of a person, that I'm more than my job and my position, and that I'm a person who actually has feelings and things she is passionate about. And I can confidently say that to this day, those two guys who saw my crying in my apartment are some of my residents that I'm closest to.

Of course, by no means am I saying that RAs should make crying in front of their residents a habit, or that we should in any way use our residents as emotional dumpsters. If anything, we're the emotional dumpsters in the RA-resident relationship. What I am saying, however, is that even if you're in a leadership position, it never hurts to show that you're human. We're all more than our position and job title. Just because we choose to pursue a job that is essentially about caring for people and acting as a role model, we don't always have to have everything in line. Plus, that also makes it really easy to burn out.

Personally, I'm terrified of people who appear perfect. They're intimidating, they seem unreal to me, and I for sure would not want to open up to them. I'd feel ashamed and self-conscious that I'm not as great as them, and what's more, I'd feel judged. I'd feel like a failure talking to a living proof of the fact that I'm doing life wrong. And yes, I know that's stupid and that nobody's perfect, Hannah Montana has taught me that, so I shouldn't be intimidated by people who seem to have everything together. But I am, and I know I'm not the only one. On the other hand, vulnerability is often misinterpreted as a weakness, when it really isn't one. I'm much more comfortable being vulnerable with someone who is vulnerable with me. As conflicting as it sounds, it requires courage to be vulnerable, there is strength in being vulnerable. You hear me?

Vulnerability is a strength. And that's all I have to say about that.