Yeah, I forgot about this one — it was filmed at least a year ago. That’s when I didn’t wear glasses (and was rounder?). It’s kind of weird to hear myself talk on video…
Anyhow, this was filmed for the purpose of showing incoming students or potential students the kinds of opportunities available at CU. I’m not so sure why they followed lil’ ol’ me around, but it was a fun experience, and I hope they like their video.
Last week marked two years since I moved back to the U.S. from Uppsala, Sweden. I climbed on a plane on 20 June 2007 to go to Dublin for two days before flying into Chicago for a week with the family, ultimately landing back in Denver, CO on 29 June 2007.
I think about life in Sweden almost daily. If I had the opportunity — that is, the visa for a job and a job that can pay my bills — then I’d probably be back there in an instant. After all, part of the reason I pretty much abandoned my desire to go to law school was because I could see myself living in Sweden again, and law school (and paying for law school) takes the kind of time and effort that would keep me from being able to return anytime soon.
Once in a while, I dream about life in Uppsala. I have one particular recurring dream that I happen to enjoy: I’m in Storatorget in Uppsala, walking through the Åhléns, telling myself that I can will myself to step out of my dream and onto the streets in an instant, just for a quick visit. I wind my way through the shops and the streets and find myself unable to will myself there, knowing that my time is limited and I’ve only got hours or even minutes before I wake up in my bed back in Colorado.
When I first saw trailers of Up in the theaters, I knew right away that Pixar would have a hit. What I didn’t realize is that the film would be more of a tear-jerker than a comedy fest; Up seemed much more in-tune to the heartstrings than the funny bone, drawing more subtle humor than outright laughs in a story that deals with some of life’s more heart-wrenching situations.
Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner) is an elderly man whose life had been filled with dreams of adventure alongside his childhood sweetheart Ellie. When Ellie passes away and their biggest dream – living atop Paradise Falls – is never realized, Carl is left clinging to the house he shared with Ellie as it quickly becomes surrounded by large urban developments.
Carl soon feels like everybody is pestering him, including a young Wilderness Scout named Russell (voiced by Jordan Nagai) who is seeking his “Assisting the Elderly” merit badge. When Carl is faced with a court order to leave his home for a retirement community, he decides to fill thousands of balloons with helium and escape to Paradise Falls — taking his house, and incidentally Russell, with him.
Carl and Russell soon embark on an exciting, and sometimes scary, adventure as they encounter a talking dog named Dug, a rare bird they dub “Kevin,” and the once-great explorer Charles Muntz (voiced by Christopher Plummer), who is still searching for the species that single-handedly ruined his career.
Prior to seeing the film, it had not crossed my mind that the back story would be the real gem of the movie, despite somewhat obvious signs: an older, grumpy man as the protagonist (he has a whole life story to tell!) and an unlikely sidekick in an awkward, young boy seeking out his final merit badge (where are his parents?). The two seemed to be an odd pairing at first, but they would later complement one another as their journey took them from Carl’s over-developed neighborhood to the vast jungles of South America. “It’s just like America,” chirps Russell, “Only south!”
It’s no secret that Pixar is an industry leader in animation, and their large team (as honored in the lengthy credits) solidified its position as a leader not only with this feature, but also with the customary short film shown before the feature. “Partly Cloudy,” an amusing short portraying the weary relationship between a storm cloud that creates dangerous packages and his dedicated delivery stork, is heartwarming and funny — but it also displays the incredible talent of Pixar’s animators, giving clouds more dimension (literally and figuratively) than ever before.
I’m sitting here in the Leeds School of Business amongst a sea of people with various kinds of educational backgrounds, talents, and interests who are all here to build a startup from concept to launch before the end of the weekend. It’s called Startup Weekend, and Boulder is where it all began; it’s currently hosting its third Startup Weekend, but there have been over 50 of its kind worldwide (and there are six going on this weekend alone!).
I’ve learned a lot about Startup Weekend, despite this being my first time doing it; Andrew Hyde, my first Boulder tech connection, founded it a few years ago and has seen it take off since then. It’s great to have it back in Boulder, and I am thrilled that I finally have a chance to partake in this opportunity.
Last night, roughly 50 participants met each other, socialized over pizza and soda, and began to pitch any ideas — or rather, come up with any problems that can be solved. Although most people decided to pass on coming up with a problem, we did come up with this rough list of problems:
So far, each and every idea has pulled in a lot of interest, and most everyone has found something they really want to work on. We’ll be updating at http://startupweekend.com/boulder3 and I will be posting my blogposts here as well.
Ignite Boulder has become one of the most entertaining and popular tech events here in town. But it’s no longer the big tech-scene secret it was the first few times around; I actually heard people talking about it on Pearl Street the night before (“See you tomorrow! Goin’ to Ignite?” Hells yeah!”).
After attending Ignite Boulder 2 and Ignite Boulder 3, I had submitted a topic that was accepted for presentation: “Confessions of a NiteRide Driver” (name altered just slightly to protect the innocent). By the end of the voting, I’d made it to 3rd place. All this talk about wanting to present and thinking I could present would finally be challenged — could I present in front of almost two hundred people?
On top of that, it ended up being far more than two hundred people. Despite the inability to bring beer into the venue, organizer Andrew Hyde decided that a large venue where we could include more people was more important than being able to have beer. Instead, we had a pre-party at The b.side Lounge and secured some sweet deals for sushi afterwards, and held Ignite at the 475 (more or less)-capacity Chem 140 lecture hall on the CU campus. Suddenly it really became a test of my nerves.
You see, I’m not really a public speaker. I get pretty nervous in front of that many people. I’m much better at interacting with people in small groups or separately. I rush a lot in front of too many people (as it started out when I presented at Ignite).
Before the presentation, I took some hints from my friend Ben, who had himself presented in the previous Ignite. He advised me to practice with a stopwatch, allow time for laughter, and follow a script. I kept to those guidelines for the most part; I decided to work on a script from an open-ended viewpoint, that is, to have a general list of things to say but figure out the best way to fit it into five minutes by using a script. I went over my script a few times, at least hitting some of the most important parts, but not adhering to it perfectly — my goal was to just know the material well enough to spout it off without hesitation.
So the countdown begins: one month. Oh gosh.
One month until I graduate. Or at least I’m supposed to. Sometimes I don’t know if I should be optimistic and truly believe I will, or be realistic and expect something remotely cataclysmic to come along and destroy this opportunity for me to finally get out of school. I’m leaning towards optimism, however.
My to-do list looks a bit like this:
I’ve also got to make sure I’ve read just about everything for class and that I can ace the finals (just so there is no chance of failing the entire class). That includes prepping for one of my exams with pre-selected essay questions (and thankfully I’m averaging a 90 in this class), but I think I will do just fine in that class.
This comes out to somewhere around 50 to 65 pages in the next month, not including the exams themselves.
I can do it, right? What is that, 15 pages, more or less, a week?
I think I can do it. In fact, I know I can do it. I’m going to be optimistic this time. If I keep to this schedule, then one paper and some studying is all I’ll have to do after the 29th, and that ‘ll be a relief.
I honestly can’t believe I’ve made it this far. This month, more than many of the other crunchtimes and agonizing, month-long, panic-inducing stretches I’ve experienced in the last six years (this’ll be #10, not including week-long study sessions for a different format of classes in Sweden).
If you think all of this stress caused by school alone is a lot, don’t forget that I’ve also got to worry about employment; I’ve also got to find myself a source of income and a good start to my career. That’s a whole ‘nutha story, and an entirely different train of thought right now (that deserves a blog post on its own!).
All right, another new series for you all — except this one might not have a limit (like the series about where I work does). I guess that makes the “Where I Work” series a mini-series, and this — just a series? Anyways…
I have a running list of things that I really think people should read, see, or hear, and I always mean to post about some of the latest ones on my blog, but I often don’t get around to it. So here you go, for your Monday morning, some things that I think you must read, see, or hear:
MUST READ
MUST SEE
MUST HEAR
This might be something fun to do weekly. We’ll see. I can be lazy about things like this, but I’m trying to write more and more often (really in hopes that my efforts will bleed on over to the schoolwork and freelance stuff I should be doing instead of merely blogging). Hope you enjoy some of my picks this week, and I look forward to writing another post like it!
Lately I’ve been thinking about leaving.
Tonight was especially bad. I had a big blowup with the waiter boy (I thought this was over a while ago?!!), and to top it all off, I’m so stressed about money that I nursed a nosebleed for a good hour before I could go swing dancing. I really didn’t need that kind of stress tonight, and like I tend to do during times like this, I started to think about what it would be like to get out of here.
It’s funny that once I think I’ve actually gotten used to things here in Boulder, spats with (ex)boyfriends and money issues and overall happiness issues start popping up, giving rise to yet another of the many plots I’ve created that involve moving away.
There are plenty of reasons I should leave Boulder. Sometimes I feel like I don’t belong. Other times I just think it would be easier to find a job elsewhere. And even more miserably, dating doesn’t come easy in this town. (Ironically, two ex-boyfriends — whom I unfortunately see all over the place in this little berg — actually live in Denver now, but they work up here enough to run into me all the time.)
Sometimes, as I’m falling asleep, I have this incredible fantasy that being the new girl somewhere would bring all these great new things to me, like a decent guy or a new place to hang out with new people, and maybe I’d be happier. I’ll wake up the next day and realize that it’s kind of a naïve hope.
I have great friends here. I have people I care about and people who care about me. But something is missing, and I’m not quite sure what it is; the closest I’ve gotten to knowing is thinking that maybe I will have a better chance at everything elsewhere, and that I don’t get my fair chance here. But that might be giving myself too much credit. Jeez, I don’t know. Maybe I do just need to get out of here.
It would be a good time to get out; I need to find a job, and I need to pay my student loans. It might be easier to move for a job than have to wait for one. But I’m not sure I’d be able to get out so soon. The lease at this house runs out in August, but honestly — my heart belongs in this town. In this neighborhood. I can’t seem to believe that maybe I’m lying to myself about it.
Or maybe I’m just getting anxious because I am graduating soon and there are a lot of decisions to make. Even though I know just the things that would make me happy — you see, I set my heart on things and it’s tough to let go when those things don’t happen — I don’t see those things as happening. I don’t see that one person back in my life, I don’t see my name on that one desk in that one office, and I don’t see being able to live in that one place in that one neighborhood. This process of graduating and moving into a new stage of life is going to take the kind of flexibility and tolerance for a lack of stability that I have never before faced, but it’s going to have to happen at some point.
I’m hoping that Boulder will still be the place for me a few weeks into May. But I know that, up until then, I’ll get that pang to get out of here. For now, I might just have to ignore it. And maybe it’ll fade away by then.
