Time Keeps On Slippin'

Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the future!  But seriously, it's just flying by!  I haven't forgotten about my blog or abandoned you guys - I just find that I blink and it's suddenly a new day!  The week began with a couple really fun classes.  In my Development of Film & TV class, we finally started talking about TV.  It had been entirely film up to this point in time, so the discussion on TV was refreshing.  We applied our knowledge on story structure to the format of TV.  It was all interesting!  We also talked about movies at the very beginning of the class, so I got to let out my excitement about SpongeBob!  We finished class by talking about what makes a good ending, and we used "Little Miss Sunshine" as an example.  I must say, I enjoyed the ending!  After that class let out, I joined some friends and we walked to the Dog Haus.  I tell you, I love living close to that place!  The food is so good it's almost criminal!  After we walked back to the UTLA center, it was time for How Hollywood Works.  We had a cool guest speaker for the first half of class.  She's done quite a bit and had a lot of success!  I loved her talk!  However, after the break was when the true fun began!  We talked about salaries in Hollywood for a bunch of different jobs!  Just for me, the professor looked up information on game show hosts!  He found that a host of a syndicated game show makes $25,000 a week, and it's $75,000 for a network primetime show!  Then there's game show hosts like Alex Trebek, who makes $10 million a year!  Yes, please!  In any case, a lot of the jobs seemed to have pretty good salaries.  After the classes were out, I walked home.  I made myself some dinner, and I probably just hung out and relaxed.  It's hard to remember that far back!  It's kind of a blur, but I do know that Monday is one of my best days for free time.  On Tuesday, I had to get myself to Karga Seven.  There are now only 2 UTLA interns at Karga Seven, and the other one works on Wednesdays and Thursdays.  I really hope I can get that GSN internship!  I made my way there in the morning and spent the whole day in postproduction.  It was pretty neat because I got to watch an upcoming episode of a tornado show about the one that hit Washington, Illinois!  I had one big assignment that took up the whole day.  On my way home, I got stalled a bit.  The lovely L.A. transportation system decided that the subway should be off schedule for a change!  You'd think it wouldn't come late because it doesn't have to deal with traffic and it's all pretty automatic, but I guess you can't assume that!  I missed the first bus at Hollywood & Vine that I wanted to take, so I went to Starbucks and did a little work on my computer.  After I got home, I made myself some dinner.  For the rest of the night, I did homework and went to the hot tub.  Too bad it was barely warmer than typical room temperature!  Usually it's pretty nice.  On Wednesday, I got up and watched a little GSN before going over to Glassman.  It was a relaxing, laid-back kind of day!  I really enjoy what I'm doing there, and I'm not giving up that internship for anything!  I also finally got around to having my internship agreement signed.  Those are due on Monday, so I had no choice.  After I came home and had a quick dinner, I was off to New Media & Emerging Entertainment.  We had the greatest guest speaker I've ever had the privilege of listening to!  I thought the lady in How Hollywood Works was great, but she had nothing on this guy!  He's done tons of work with Disney in animation and developing rides!  He was the director of "The Brave Little Toaster", and he did a lot of other animation work earlier in his career.  More recently, he has developed designs for Disney World rides and interactive experiences.  He's getting into some crazy ways of storytelling, and he has an incredible vision for the field of virtual reality!  He seems like a genius!  Once he was done talking, we discussed the requirements for our final project and then got out of class early.  Thursday was a particularly fun day.  It started off normally with some work at Karga Seven, but it got more interesting when I was at lunch.  One of my roommates was wondering if anyone wanted to go to the Clippers vs. Spurs game because he had to buy tickets in pairs.  I saw that they weren't too expensive, and I've never been to an NBA game before, so I decided to go for it!  The price went up a few times before we got the tickets, but I was okay with that.  Thankfully, the other intern who gives me a ride on Thursdays was also going to the game with one of her friends!  After the work day was over, we went to Hollywood & Vine together.  Our little group of 4 met up and took the subway and the expo line over to the Staples Center.  It's a really big, cool-looking place!  We got there over an hour in advance, so we had plenty of time to get dinner and find our seats.  I was excited to watch an NBA game, and I was going for the Spurs all the way!  I root for them because I'm a fan of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, etc.  The whole team is great, and I love how they beat the Heat in the championship last year!  Once the game got started, it was a whole lot of fun!  The game was pretty close and intense all the way through.  It was definitely worth the money!  Sadly, the Spurs ended up losing 119-115.  It's just awesome to see a basketball game with scores that high anyway!  All 4 of us were a little sad - the other 3 are from Texas, and they're all Spurs fans.  After we got ourselves home, I chilled for a while and then went to bed.  This morning was a little unfortunate.  I had been getting a ride to the subway station on Friday mornings for the past couple weeks, but the roommate who gave me those rides no longer has an internship on Fridays.  My other carless roommate and I left for the bus stop together (I had to take a bus to the subway station), but the L.A. bus system decided to be early this time!  Naturally, it was 1 minute early when it should have been 1 minute late!  We were stranded for an hour because the 222 buses are hard to come by.  We hung out in the UTLA center for a while and then caught the next bus.  I made it all the way to Karga Seven as fast as I could, but I was still about 45 minutes late.  It's nice that they're so relaxed there!  I just got right to work, and everything was fine!  Once I was done, I ate some lunch and then set off for home.  I got on the subway just fine, but the buses continued to be frustrating!  The Oscars are on Sunday, so everything is nuts on Hollywood Boulevard!  There was supposed to be a bus at 3:29, and I got to the stop at 3:21.  After 30 or 40 minutes, people started to get very impatient.  A lot of people were calling the Metro phone number.  I tried too, but I got nothing.  Some people actually gave up and walked over to another stop!  I saw that the next bus was supposed to arrive at 4:18.  Close to that point in time, people started calling again.  That's when I learned that some people who wanted the 2:30 bus were still waiting!  2 times in a row, the bus just never showed up!  When we were calling around 4:18, the people on the other end said they didn't know where the bus was!  That's outrageous!  I was just about to ask a roommate to pick me up when the bus arrived at 4:34!  I waited almost an hour and 15 minutes for that bus!  Can the Oscars please be over now?  I'm pretty much shutting myself in the apartment this weekend!  After I FINALLY got home, I made dinner and then went over to the UTLA center again.  They were doing a private screening of a movie coming out later this year.  It's called "Run the Tide".  I really enjoyed it, and I want to see it when it hits theaters!  I love the perks we get as Hollywood Semester students!  Since then, I've just been chilling.  This weekend should be full of work and fun.  I've never actually sat down to watch the Oscars before, so I'll try to find a good party if I have the time!