thegirlnomadic

Feb 14 2012

And Now…An Open Letter to My Alma Mater

Dear Pepperdine University,

Hey girl, how are you? I hope you’re keeping yourself out of trouble up in Malibu. How’s the weather? Have you skived off convo because it’s shaping up to be one of those epic beach followed by Malibu Yo’ kind of days? I bet it is, you live in paradise, Pepperdine – you know Harvard and all them other Ivy League schools are jealous of your $20,000 palm trees and Tom Cruise running your track in the morning. Yahweh knows (I learned that in Religion 101 thanks to you, Pepperdine) I miss waking up in the mornings and seeing that big ol’ Pacific Ocean waving at me from across PCH. You are the school kids from Texas dream about.

But girl, we need to talk.

The internets and my friends still walking your gently heated flagstone, fountain adorned sidewalks are telling me that you aren’t being very fair to everyone. I thought you were better than that, girl. But apparently you’ve turned into the Regina George of Southern California universities. And in a world of Gretchen Weiners State Schools and Karen Smith Community Colleges, people need a leader who isn’t a frigid bitch. Why can’t you be more like Lindsay Lohan’s character Cady? I mean this is before all the cocaine and endless partying – but let’s face it, you have that problem too sometimes Pepperdine.

But hey, that’s cool – college is all about experimenting and making mistakes and finding out who you are all while being surrounded by a community that will help you grow personally and intellectually.

Oh…you’re only letting a choice group of people doing that, Pepperdine? Girl, please, I thought you were cool with your rock painting and Jamba Juice and inability to pick a cool sports mascot; I never realized that at the crux of the matter you’re just a Grinch waiting for your heart to grow three sizes.

I mean really, denying students the right to meet under a recognized club to discuss homosexuality and basically any kind of sexual orientation for that matter just kind of blows. And I’m not talking about the kind of blow that has you Board of Regents clutching your pearls up on your guided thrones. I mean, did you even go to this school? I’m pretty sure these students aren’t going to discuss which condom is best for ‘her pleasure,’ or whether or not it’s acceptable for two boys to make out during Celebration Chapel on Friday (PDA is PDA. No one enjoys it gay, straight, whatever the heck else). They’re going for support – to try to not feel so alone as they grapple with who they are and the issue of coming out to family and friends. I think that’s brave as fuck. And who are you, Pepperdine, girl, to deny them that comfort when in your Affirmation Statement you claim ‘that the quality of student life is a valid concern of the university?’

In the words of Seth Meyers and Amy Poheler – ‘REALLY?!’

Girl, you are supposed to be at the forefront of Christian schools – the religion you stand behind requires everybody to love everyone else, and treat others the way you’d like to be treated. And Jesus himself has said that he hates hypocrites (Thanks Religion 201). So congratulations – you’ve pissed off your student body, faculty, alumni, and your Lord and Savior, you know the majority of the people who make up your hilly, palm tree encrusted campus with the continued disapproval of a Gay-Straight Alliance on campus .

I know it’s scary. You stand the risk of pissing off a lot of people who give you money to make sure those $20,000 palm trees stay nicely trimmed and the shuttle buses continue to run old people to matinees on the weekend at Smothers. But I went to study in Malibu for a reason, girl. I believe in you, the students believe in you, the faculty, and alumni believe in you, too. We believe that you’ll get the stick out of your butt and make that change. That’s why we’re fighting this – because we believe, girl.

If you were a fairy (the Tinkerbell kind, not the ones that run around WeHo) we’d be clapping our asses off because we fucking believe!

So take that leap off the CCB stairs, Pepperdine, and rest assured we will leap with you and be there to catch you at the bottom.

Love you girl,

Amanda – Class of 2009

Tagged An Open Letter, Gay Rights, GSA, LBGTQ, Pepperdine, pepperdine university, Reach OUT, University, Why am I so ridiculous?

Feb 06 2012

Tales from the Working Girl

So the poll is officially closed

It should have been closed the past two weeks, but I got lazy/busy/indifferent and didn’t actually do the updating I thought I would. This, unfortunately, is a habit (much to the chagrin of my personal journal), but it is a habit I am trying to break for the sake of this website, but I digress…

I started this Jump Start Project to instill a positive change in my life and to try to go out and do things and not be anxious about doing them. The funny thing is, change has bitch slapped me in the face and is trying to point me in the right direction. I felt like Pocahontas asking Old Mother Willow for advice before I realized that I was getting advice from a talking tree. Now, I’ve got the compass to guide me and sadly it isn’t to a strapping English explorer by the name of John Smith, but to a bunch of old people in a hot ass desert, hoping for a last shred of dignity before they kick the bucket.

And I’m sure you’re asking, “What in the fresh hell is this girl talking about? She is mental!” Yes. Yes, I am. But let me actually explain my shitty metaphors.

“So what has Lady Change served you with?”

Well, for starters, I am now employed! I was starting to feel like a faulty machine and was waiting for my recall from the manufacturer any day now. But I was out of the LA daily grind and back in the Stockholm Syndrome arms of my parents in Arizona for about two weeks when I was called in to interview for an administrative assistant position at a hospice facility here in Scottsdale. I was expecting the same turnaround I would expect at an LA interview:

1) Apply

2) Wait three weeks

3) Schedule an interview

4) Wait another week

5) Interview

6) Wait four days

7) Second interview

8) Never hear back again because you didn’t get employed.

So if I were still in the land of fruits and nuts, I would still be waiting to hear back from this office.

Instead, I went in on a Monday, applied and interviewed in the same day, got a call with the job offer the next day, and started work that Friday.

Amazing! Is this how the world really works? I don’t know; I’ve only been working in it for just over a week.

It’s also the real world because let’s face it, this isn’t my dream job, it’s not even the field I really want to be in, but it’s a job all the same and I’m making money, gaining experience, and actually feel like I’m making a difference in real people’s lives. My apologies to Detectives Benson, Stabler and the rest of the force at SVU in New York – I cannot be your daily cheerleader anymore because I work 40 hours a week.

My first day, however, was riddled with anxiety and me just being a neurotic basket case. ‘Why am I doing this job when I know I’m just going to leave in the future? What happens if I hate it? What happens if I get stuck here for the next five years? What happens if I (gasp) actually like it?’

This wasn’t what I had planned in the slightest. I was going to come back to Phoenix to help settle my grandma’s estate and to make sure my mum wasn’t ready to throw herself off a bridge and into moving traffic and to be the buffer between my parents living just the two of them on their own. Maybe a grand total of a month…maybe do a couple of student films or shows while in Phoenix to buff up the acting resume so I can actually land film auditions in LA. But what ended up happening is me staying until I’m ready to move on to the next thing.

I am your modern day, working girl, Mary Poppins.

I want to go back to LA, I want to be close to my friends again and actually leave the house before I get sucked in by my glorious flat screen television. I want to be able to go to bluegrass jam sessions at my fiddle teacher’s house where I will sound like absolute shit, but I don’t care. But I want to go there when I’m ready again and when I know I won’t easily fall back into the same old routine I found myself in. The only structure I had was 43 minute episodes of Law & Order and a 20 minute schedule of Family Guy or South Park.

So I’m giving myself until the end of May.

Plenty of time to get into a ‘good space’ as my father calls it, maybe get some films and shows under my belt, and save up enough money so when I make my eventual move back to LA I can do it on my own dime. I’ll be visiting a lot (first return to Los Angeles is for the fantastic and always a good time, Gallifrey!) so those trips will give me a pretty good gauge of how well I’m doing until my inevitable, permanent return.

Stay tuned for another post in a couple of days where I pick where in the hell I’ll be traveling. to. I pray it’s somewhere cheap…like Flagstaff or something. But knowing my luck, my fate will want me to head off to Antarctica to hang out with the penguins and Morgan Freeman.

Tagged Arizona, benson, california, employment, job, law&order, los angeles, making dem dolla billz, mary poppins, Scottsdale, stabler, svu

Jan 14 2012

Chilling in the 480

Ah Arizona – the desert, the flatness, the increase in Mexican language billboards – how I have missed you so.At least I thought I missed Arizona, but when I sat back in my family’s kitchen and flipped through my contacts to see who I could call, I suddenly realized that it would have been a good idea to just stay put in California.It’s not that I don’t like my family; they’re great (most of the time) or that I don’t love my friends that decided to stay put in the 602/480/623. It’s just that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that there really isn’t anything for you to do in Phoenix unless you’re a tween (Desert Ridge anyone?) or above the age of 70.

Sure Scottsdale is great, there are some good malls, but all we’ve got going for us here is a bunch of rocks and dirt. Oh and the Phoenix Suns, by far the best team in the NBA. I don’t care what any of you say. We have a slam dunkin’ Gorilla for a mascot. And Nash.

I now realize that the only reason why I put up with Arizona for as long as I did was because I had great friends who kept me sane and because none of my relatives who lived outside of P-town seemed interesting or were appealing to live with.

It’s hot here, you have to use up a tank of gas to get to anywhere worth mentioning, and the average college or recent graduate person’s idea of fun is getting drunk at whatever ASU student’s hovel will have you, or going out into the middle of nowhere to have a bonfire and get, surprise, drunk.

Granted I am not your average college person or recent graduate. My idea of a good time is trying to find if Gammage is offering any Broadway tours while I’m in town, and going to get coffee with my ridiculously amazing friends who don’t live over two hours away.

Sad to say, Gammage is empty at the moment and most of my friends who live within a 50 mile radius of my house are too busy with school or boyfriends, or reasonably paying jobs to take time off.

I will also add that being back in Arizona makes me bitch about being in Arizona.

But there’s a 60/40 chance that I’ll be moving back to Arizona for the majority of my time in the coming months so I need to learn to like it/love it. Because I refuse to sit around in LA again for weeks at a time waiting to hear back from places I’ve applied to/hear from interviews I’ve been on that they’ve gone with someone else yet again. While that could very well happen here in Arizona, at least I have a built in parent support system.

So I better start looking through my high school contacts still in my phone again.

Watch out old high school chums – I’m coming for you.

Tagged 2012, Arizona, high school, moving, Phoenix, Phoenix Suns, Scottsdale

Jan 10 2012

1 Comment

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The Jump-Start Project

I’ve got a secret that isn’t really a secret.

I am a twenty-five year old woman-girl-child who has a daily struggle with depression.

It first started my last year at university – my parents noticed a decline in my mental health around Christmas. They said I had depression, I told them that it was because I was in a new house after a tumultuous move, and the fact that I was four months away from graduation and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life upon graduation. But I placated them and went to see our family physician who gave me some anti-depressants.

I didn’t take them.

At the end of my four years at school, I got accepted and went away to London for a year to study abroad. My parents came to see me at the end of the year – I was a changed person. I was happy, healthy, willing to go out and do things, had copious amounts of friends and people who looked out for me. They thought it was because I was away from damaging personalities – I knew it was because I was in a place that I loved with (basically) my whole being. I didn’t take my pills once that entire year.

In August of 2010, I moved back to the States and that’s when, I suppose, it began to spiral out of control again. I started taking my pills – they didn’t work, even after months of use. I called my doctor and he gave me a new prescription for a different anti-depressant/anti-anxiety pill. From May of 2011 up until November of that year I was on my pills and I felt horrible. It didn’t seem to work.

So I stopped taking them.

But, from moving back to the States until now, I have the most overwhelming desire to just sit on the couch and watch every single episode of Law & Order: SVU (I’m on season eight right now – go me!) and watch the movements of the sun from my apartment window. The thought of going out and doing things or achieving things doesn’t necessarily scare me or freak me out, it just doesn’t interest me. I literally have no motivation to go out and live my life.

That’s where you come in.

Family, Friends, Internet Strangers: I am asking you to help me jump start my life.

I’m not asking for donations, I’m not asking for advice, I simply need a click from your mouse or track pad. That’s it.

Below is a poll of things that I’ve always wanted to do, but don’t have the courage or motivation to go out and get it.

I know this seems strange, but those who know me, know how much I like to do things for other people, and help others. I know that if I have people counting on me to do one of the activities below, I will have more incentive to do it. And who knows, maybe some of you have wanted to try these things too.

I’ll leave the poll open for two weeks. After the two weeks, I’ll need a few days to compose myself (ie. figure out what the hell I’ve gotten myself int0) and then I’ll go out, do, record the chosen activity, and report it here.

I know this is a silly if not weird ass thing to request – but, then again, when have I ever been normal?

Tagged 2012, Jump-Start Project, life, living, poll

Jan 03 2012

1 Comment

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New Year, New Resolutions, Yet I Can’t Get Out of Bed.

People go on and on and on about New Year’s Resolutions. I feel like I need to start working on what my resolution will be at least a month in advance from December 31st. It’s mainly because I don’t want to jump on the ‘Oh I’m going to try to work out more and get in shape,’ band wagon because let’s face it, that’s kind of like saying you’re going to call your annoying coworker back, or text that weird guy you met at a party who now won’t leave you alone; you say you’re going to do it, and yet the phone stays in your pocket unsullied. You don’t want to do it, but you feel like you have to.

Which is why this year is going to be different.

I mean I do want to get back into shape. I am by no means fat – I am actually a skinny bitch (no, really. Some girl was sitting next to me at an open job interview waiting to be called back and I saw her mention to her friend via text that she was sitting next to a ‘skinny bitch.’ My first though “Oh, I’m skinny?”) – but it kind of sucks that I can’t ride my bicycle through Venice and Santa Monica without feeling like my legs are going to pop off of my body.

But I want to have some kind of resolution that actually interests me and presents a challenge. Granted, I will probably want to get back into shape and all that stuff when my metabolism goes out the window (I can feel the clock counting down. Why must I be in my mid twenties? Why?), but right now I’m kind of thinking, why bother?

I was out to dinner with my friend and her boyfriend on New Year’s and was presented with the ridiculous question of what my resolution would be.

I could have responded several ways:

1. Actually hold down a job for longer than two weeks. (It is seriously getting ridiculous now, but that’s something that is really out of my hands. Why make a resolution to get a job when I have to put the ball in someone else’s court?)

2. Finally land myself a boyfriend. (This is also getting ridiculous now. But again, I can go out there and try to grab those boys until the cows come home, it will only brand me a skank or a desperate, sad loser. Everyone says it’s supposed to happen ~organically~ I say they’re full of shit. But that’s probably why the boyfriend has remained an elusive white stag).

3. Take out the Kardashians.

4. Work out more. Get a Victoria’s Secret model body and laugh at everyone. (Sorry, but I hate spending twenty minutes in a gym let alone two hours a day for five days a week. I enjoy eating shitty food and good food too. I tried to be anorexic once, I lasted six hours).

Instead of responding with one of the above four standard resolutions, I came up with this little gem that makes me sound like a pretentious asshole:

Find a way to exert myself every day. Whether that be through physical exertion (working out, taking a walk, bike ride, ~~an entire day of sex~~) or mental/creative exertion (writing, reading, practicing the fiddle, plotting ways to take over the world).

Friend and her boyfriend looked at me, looked at each other and then responded almost in the same voice (they’re scary like that. I hope that never happens to me)…

“That sounds like a lot of work.”

But isn’t that what resolutions are supposed to be?

I could say my resolution would be to get off the couch more which would mean have frequent trips off the couch and into the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, whatever. But I can only stand and watch TV for so long.

Shit. I guess next time I should just say, ‘work out more.’

Tagged exercise, gym, humor, new blog, New Years, Resolution, Resolutions