Arse is the new Blog

Bah SO MUCH WORK

Ok so last week I was worried that I wasn’t going to have a lot to do this summer… then Monday rolls around.  So much to do!  I love it.

First, though… this weekend.

Friday night the crew went out to this Italian place in Soho for dinner — it was really good and like Sunny Seagold told us, extremely fairly priced.

Saturday I went the the MET with Matt and Kristi, and it was so cool!  I really like Greek and Roman art, as I took a class about it last year.  There was also this crazy exhibit on Francis Bacon, and for those that don’t know his art, it looks a little bit like this.

After roaming around for quite a bit, we went to this Chinese restaurant by Columbia that serves free wine with every entree (Franzia boxed wine, but free makes it taste great).  We met up with Matt’s friends from Rector to explore Bleecker street and find a cool bar to go to.

Problem was, we didn’t exactly know where we were going.  We were trying to meet up with another group, and the directions were not making sense.  So we walked around in our 3 inch heels for at least an hour before going anywhere.  We lost a few along the way who couldn’t walk anymore.

Sunday was an extremely relaxing day.  I went with some of the girls to Central park and layed out in this field called Sheep’s Meadow.

It’s basically like a beach without any water or sand.

On Sunday night, we stayed in and watched the movie the Changeling, which made almost everybody cry.  Aside from it being extremely depressing, it was a damn good movie, and I would reccomend it.

Now to work on Monday.

I got to design a spread for the magazine!  I ran into the art director and talked to him about InDesign a little, and he told me to bring my laptop from now on so I can design for him.  Yay!  It was fun designing again.

And then the writing assignments started coming.  A lot of them.  With deadlines.

Reminds me of newspapers, and makes me really excited!

Last night we had this ASME alumni and intern reception down by Times Square.  It was pretty cool — lots of free food and delicious guacamole (which I can eat with just a spoon).

My new favorite thing, however: dual degree programs.  I didn’t realize the existed until yesterday.  I was already interested in Law School, but I just found out that Columbia offers a dual degree in Law and Journalism… so in 3 and a half years I could earn a J.D. in law and a masters in journalism.  I know other schools have this too, so I will continue to investigate.

Rain, rain, go away

Sad.  It has been raining a lot since I got to NY, and it’s a little bit dreary.  Ironically, it has rained more in my first week in New York than it did the entire summer I was in London last year.  And I thought it was supposed to rain a lot over there!

Last night was pretty fun.  After work, I went home and went to the gym, then met up with Matt at his friend Mike’s house to watch the basketball game.  I don’t LOVE watching basketball, but since I haven’t watched it for like 3 weeks I can tolerate a game or two.

And I had New York Pizza.  I can’t even explain how big a slice is here.

(I did not take this picture… I found it on the internet.  The pizza I ate last night was much tastier-looking.)

Work has been pretty interesting.  They’re closing the magazine nowish so everybody is really stressed out and doesn’t have a ton for me to do right now.  So I am just reading, reading, reading every back issue I can get my hands on.

My friends interning at Meredith magazines get this thing called “summer Fridays”, which is code for you get to leave at 2 p.m. on Fridays instead of 6 p.m.  I wonder if Popsci does anything similar… hmmmmm…

Good news!  I have increased the fan base on our facebook page to 439 from 192 so far.  I wanted to have 1,000 by today, but maybe that was aiming a little bit high.  I’ll continue to update and invite people as much as I can, but we’re off to a good start.

After work today I think we’re going to try to go to a blues club or something.  I was surprised to find out that many of the ASME girls are not yet 21, so we’re trying to figure out stuff to do that everybody can participate in.  Any ideas?  I dunno NY that well, so we’ll see what we can find.

I'm starting to get bad at updating :(

I’m trying!  I’m sorry.

Work has been pretty slow the past few days — I’ve been making edits to the story I got to write on Monday.  Which I never explained!  Let me tell you what I get to write about here at PopSci.

I was handed this photograph:

Cute, right?

Ok well the story goes:  These are mites.  They live on Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches and feed on the saliva and other organic materials that get stuck on the roach.  By doing so, the mites are eliminating the materials that cause mold growth on thee cockroaches.  This indirectly reduces the allergens, and makes for a less sneezy handler!

I’ve never written about science before, and it is pretty gross and interesting.

I’m still working a lot on our facebook and twitter pages, so if you have yet to join, DO SO! DO IT NOWWWW!

I’ve been sampling lots of New York food at night.  I eat breakfast at home and bring my lunch, so I don’t feel too bad about eating dinner out every night.  So far I’ve had Thai, Mexican, Spanish, Hot Dogs, Pizza…. etc.  I love food!

Tonight after work I think I am going to go work out before dinner.  I might be watching the nba playoffs afterward.  Gotta get my game face on.  Which looks like this:

Yay sports.

First day at PopSci!

Ah what a busy few days it’s been!!

On Saturday I got up early and got over to Wicked.  We were applying to win $20 seats in a lottery.  I took statistics last semester, and after counting the number of people in line and computer our odds, I decided it would be a better bet to try for a different musical (I ended up being right, btw.  And just for the record, our odds were less than .001 percent… and if I learned anything in statistics, it was that anything less than 5 percent was serioudly unlikely.)

So we went and bought tickets to the 8:00 showing of Shrek!

Yeah.  This guy actually looked this silly.

To kill time before the show, we walked over to Central Park and had lunch.  Call me crazy, but I seriously love hot dogs.  Especially NYC hotdogs.

After lunch, we came back to the dorms, freshened up, then went back over to Broadway to catch the musical, which was hilarious.

Sunday I went to the grocery store then up to the Columbia dorms to meet up with Matt and help him get settled in.  We went to the Seinfeld restaurant!!!!

As Matt promised, it looked nothing like it on the inside.  But the presence of the place was awesome… and the food wasn’t bad either!

We explored Times Square for a while and then settled on a Thai place near Columbia for dinner.

AND then work started.

I love my job so far!  I got to work half an hour before I think I was supposed to, but it gave me time to read some more science magazines.

After my editor picked me up from the lobby, I sat down at my computer, and was immediately handed an assignment.  Which was AWESOME!  I have heard horror stories from interns stating that they don’t get any work, they sort mail, etc… but I get a writing assignment before I even get settled.  Don’t get my wrong - it was pretty much a glorified caption - but I was happy to be interviewing and writing again.

After that was done, I was surfing our Web site and realized that we had a facebook page… which only had 170 members and had been updated over a month ago.  So I went to the online editor and asked if it would be alright for me to take it over.  She was thrilled that I asked.  I worked on the page for hours and hours… most of that time spent inviting every single facebook friend I have to become a fan (sorry if that was annoying… BUT PLEASE JOIN!)  I really hope to have 1,000 fans by Friday.

I’m also hoping to revamp the twitter page a little bit — bring it up to speed.  Any other ideas for social networking sites?  Facebook and twitter are both pretty big, and the only ones I can think of at the moment.  If you have ideas, please email me at naavon@gmail.com.  It would be much appreciated.

The thing about work is… nobody takes a lunch break.  I ate my pb&j at my desk while I read science news.  It was a very informative lunch, to say the least.  So work is from 9:30-6:00, with no real lunch break.  But I am okay with this, as long as I can do facebook PopSci for half the day :)

After work I grabbed dinner with Matt at this random little diner that was fake French.  The menu was snarky and ironic, but the food was yummmz.

I went the the gym with my friend Tara, and then I walked to Pinkberry with a few girls from the dorm. And now I am uber sleepy.

I’m excited to go to work tomorrow!  I love journalism, and magazines, and getting paid to work at magazines.  It’s quite a different experience.

PopSci, Time Square, BBQ, Leno

Today was our last day of orientation at ASME.  We had a panel of former ASME interns come in and talk to us about turning our internships into jobs… or getting jobs at all.

It really made me reconsider law school.  I mean… I want to go.  I’ve been planning and preparing for it all.  But being in the city and being surrounded by journalists and people who love magazines makes me want to live this life.  I love writing and editing.  And I love New York.  I’ll have to see the kinds of contacts I make while I am here and then reevaluate the whole law school thing.

I got to tour the Popular Science building with Martha Harbison, the Senior Associate Editor.  I didn’t realize that the people who work there are about half journalists turned science writers and half scientists turned journalists.  Martha was a scientist/researcher and decided that she was passionate about it to write about it.  It was very empowering… and it reminded me why I got into journalism in the first place.

I gathered some back issues and learned a lot more about the magazine… and asked a LOT of questions.  I really, really want to  stand out to these people.  In the last three days I have learned that if you don’t stand out, you won’t make it in this economy.  I have to do everything humanly possible to try to impress.

After touring the offices, I returned back to NYU and met up with some of the other girls for dinner.  We took the subway down to Time Square, which is HUGE and OVERWHELMING and BRIGHT.  We were going to try this place called Dallas Barbeque, which I’ve actually had before.  We never thought we were going to get a table… but we were seated (all eight of us) within two minutes of walking in the building.  Food came 15 minutes later.  It was delectable.

After, we returned back to the dorm to kick back, relax, and watch the last Leno show.  It was so much fun just hanging out with the girls and getting to know eachother.  I know it sounds cheesy, but they all remind me of different people back home and the IDS crowd.  I think journalists are all inherently the same, regardless of what niche they are interested in.

Anyway, tomorrow is going to be amazing.  We’re going to see the Wicked matinee!!!!!  AHHHHHHHHHHH.

Every person who reads this blog should know by now that I am incredibly obsessed with Wicked.  This will be the 5th time I’ve seen it (twice in London, once in Chicago, once in LA).  We’re going three hours early in hopes of getting seriously cheap tickets.  Even so, we’re students and we’re going to the matinee, so we will be seeing it pretty reasonably.

After Wicked, I’m going to go rock climbing!  At the University gym, they have a rock climbing wall that is free to use for those living in the NYU dorm.  I’m super excited… I haven’t been since high school (and at that time I was pole vaulting and lifting weights).  I doubt I’ll be any good at it.

Remember… Defy Gravity!  Duh.

Rainy days in the city

Today began at 9 a.m. again… which was fine.  I got up, got ready, walked downstairs to Dunkin Donuts (that’s right, Dunkin Donuts is IN MY DORM) and got a coffee.  I enjoyed that for a while then met up with some of the other interns to go to that ASME building.

It was misting again all day today.  It didn’t even make a difference to carry an umbrella… it was coming from all sides.

There were some really amazing speakers today… and yesterday.  The highlights so far have been:

Mariette DiChristina - Executive Editor of Scientific American
Nina Link - President and CEO of the Magazine Publishers of America
Cindi Leive - Editor-in-chief of Glamour
George Pitts - Badass photo editor (seriously… this guy knows EVERY celebrity)
Amid Capeci - Former Art Director for Newsweek

We had lunch at the ASME buildings, and it was delicious, delicious pizza!  This was my first New York pizza since I’ve been here, and it was fantastic.

After our day at ASME was done, me and a few of the girls went to this little hole-in-the-wall comedy club.  Funny story: So we get there, and a ton of people are sitting around chatting over PBR (no joke).  We go to pay, and there’s a sign up list.  Just as we’re about to jot down our names, we realized that this was a sign up list for performing improv.  This was an improv show… and we were only one step away from being called up on stage.

Whomp.

But it was a cool night.  It was only $5 for like four hours of funny entertainment (and only $1 PBRs).

I’m in an apartment style dorm with two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a family room.  I share a bedroom with another ASME intern, and the other two girls who were sharing the other bedroom moved out today!  They went up to the 11th floor because they said they couldn’t sleep with the sound from the street right outside the window, as we are only on the 3rd floor.

I am hoping this means we will not get new roommates, and I will get my own room… my own closet… GAH.  It would be absolutely perfect.

Tomorrow I get to eat lunch with my editor!  I’ll let y’all know how it goes.

AHHH busy

Hey guys, sorry it’s been a while.  It has been a crazy past week.  I was in Chile (where it got SUPER busy), and now I’m in New York City, EVEN MORE BUSY.

I will summarize the last few days of my trip to Santiago, Chile, in photos.

We visited CNN Chile, which started broadcasting in December 2008.

AHH LLAMA!!!!!  On the way to Valparaiso, we got to stop and feed this cutie patootie llama.

This is the coast city of Valparaiso.  It was a lot like what I thought Santiago was going to be.  Santiago is a lot more European — Valparaiso is built on a huge mountain with winding roads and very colorful houses:

We then rode about twenty minutes over to Vina del Mar, another coast city. We saw the most beautiful sunset there.

The next day, we traveled back toward the Andes to go to a winery.  We tasted six different kinds of wine and I actually learned what kind of wine goes with what kind of food.  I also bought two bottles — only $6 each!

That was about it!  The winery was our last full day, then we explored and shopped a bit on our last day.  We flew overnight and landed back in Indy on Saturday at about 1:30 p.m.

I relaxed for a while on Saturday, thinking that my flight to New York wasn’t until Wednesday.

WRONG.

After hyperventalating for like 20 minutes… I decided I needed to start packing and running errands.  So I did that for two straight days.

Then I came to New York!  And here I am.  I got here yesterday and have been unpacking and meeting people like crazy.

We had our first day of ASME orientation today.  For those that don’t know, ASME is the American Society of Magazine Editors.  I will be interning at popular science.

The city is wonderful… I feel really grown-up walking around here in high heels and dress clothing… taking the subway… grocery shopping (which is a crazy, crazy experience, but surprising inexpensive!).  All of the people I’ve met so far are wonderful.

We’ve got another full day of intern activities, and I will try to continue updating REGULARLY! :)

Chilean newspapers and college students

Disclaimer: I wrote this post for the journalism school’s Web site… so it is pretty toned down and boring.  Not enough time for more detial, but I’ll try to write more tomorrow.

Today started bright and early with a bus trip out to El Mercurio, Chile’s oldest newspaper.  It started in the 1800s in Valparaiso, a port city slightly smaller than Santiago.  After many years, the main edition started printing out of Santiago, with many other chains of the paper throughout Chile.

We sat down to chat with the former editor of El Mercurio.  He talked to us about how the newspaper is adapting to online and things they are changing to boost readership and money.  He said prior to 2001, the circulation was only increasing by less than 1 percent every year.  After they changed to their new design and format on September 12, 2001, the readership has been increasing by much more each year.

Ironically, El Mercurio had been working on a new format for over a year, which they planned to debut on September 12, 2001.  However, big news broke over in American, and the front page was covered with a picture of the World Trade Center.  Since that day, El Mercurio has been sticking with the design.

We toured the grounds of El Mercurio, which occupies over 100 acres.  We were told that it is prime real estate, and they might be moving in a few years.  However, it is extremely costly to build new printing presses.

After the tour of the printing plant, the group traveled over to Universidad Catolica to eat lunch and interact with some Chilean college students.  We paired up and attempted to speak to eachother.  Topics ranged from journalism, to Barack Obama, to the Chilean education system, to perceptions of Americans and Chileans. 

Speaking with the students from Chile gave us a perspective we have been missing thus far.  While we studied Chile and Latin America over the course of 8 weeks, these students had very real experiences and insights into why Chile is the way it is.  After completing a research paper about Michelle Bachelet and the Chilean election in 2004, it was interesting to see what the students thought about her and how she runs the country.

We spent the rest of the day exploring Chile, especially Bella Vista, a bohemain area in town. 

Tomorrow we are visting CNN and Paula magazine.  It will be interesting to see how the Chilean CNN differs from the American CNN, and how Paula magazine differs from the inserts El Mercurio includes in their newspaper everyday.

Ridin up the Andes

It has been a BUSY few days.

Yesterday we drove up into the Andes and saw some beautiful mountains and rivers.  This river was actually two rivers converging: one from the volcanic mountain (the brown one) and the other just a normal stream (the blue one).

It was about an hour and a half bus trip away from our hotel.  We stopped at an abandoned train tunnel - pitch black and 10 minutes of darkness.  We all kept taking pictures throughout the tunnel so the flashes would light the way.

After leaving the tunnel, we drove over to this place for outdoor adventures.  It was probably the best experience of my life.  We had this incredible Chilean meal (their salsa is out of this world).  Then I went ziplining.

For those that do not know what that is — there was a cable extending from one side of a canyon to the other… thousands of feet above the river… and about 1,000 feet across.  You harness in and enjoy the ride!  It was probably the closest to flying that I will ever be.

The next part was the best.  When I think about Chile, I’ve always pictured horsebackriding in the Andes.  Which is what I actually got to do.

We basically ran from the zipline to the corral, where we mounted some Chilean horses - cabellos - and rode up the Andes mountains.  It got colder and colder as we climbed, but the view was prettier every minute, although it was pretty foggy up high.  We climbed all the way to the top of a plateau, which took about an hour and a half.  We were followed by like 3 dogs (stray dogs :) !!) and and walked along a farm on top of the plateau.  Down the mountain was the fun part.  On the way up, it was less of a trail and more of a ton of rocks.  The horses had some issues getting up the steep mountain, and on the way down, it was hard for them to get down without trotting, which was extremely bouncy.  I had shorts on since I didn’t know we would be riding horses, and the inside of my calfs are a bit cut up becuase of it.  It was 100% worth it, though.

After we got done riding, we rode back to the hotel and changed for dinner.  The girls and I went to an Argentinian Barbeque… which was incredible. The food here is fresh and inexpensive.  We shared a bottle of wine, two steaks, a huge salad, a huge bowl of guacamole, and a bowl of rice.  Then we went clubbing.

Which was actually pretty interesting.  I haven’t heard spanish club music before, but it’s a lot of remixes of American music mixed with Spanish music.

We got back from the club and passed out for the night.

This morning and afternoon we went on a scavenger hunt around Santiago.  We had to take pictures of about 20 different things on a list.  And we had to do it in mixed groups of 3.  Our group didn’t have anybody who could really speak spanish… so that was forced on me.  And I definitely can’t speak spanish.  But I tried!  And succeeded for the most part.  I was able to ask people if we could take photos of them, and explain why we needed the photos.  I was also able to order lunch for everybody.  I’m PRETTY impressed by myself right now.

We have to turn in our photos now, so I gotta run.  But I will try to update later and add lots of photos from the past few days.

Ciao!

Muy cansada en dia dos.

Last night we went to this place called Los Buenos Muchachos.  It was a restaurant/showroom/dance.  So fun.  We started with an appetizer of surprisingly good raw fish, then moved on to barbequed salmon and a plate of fruit for dessert.  All of the food in Chile is so fresh… and wonderful. 

The best part of the night was after the show, when the band started playing dancing music.  Our entire class (including the professor) jumped to the dance floor to bailar.  A surprising twist, however.

A 45-year-old man approached me, held out his hand and said, “Bailar conmigo?”

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm ok! 

The whole class surrounded me and this man as we danced.  I’m about as good at dancing as I am at speaking Spanish, but I tried not to think about that and enjoyed myself.  The class and I formed a conga line and all of the natives joined in as well.  It was muy divertido.

Also, the women’s bathroom had the neatest wallpaper.  I might do my bathroom like this someday:

Today was much different than yesterday.  We started off at Universidad Catolica, the only school outside of the United States to have an accredited journalism program.  We visited the students and their beautiful campus.

Aside from hearing a lecture about a new Chilean transparency law (which sounded a lot like FOIA to me), we got to meet a very famous person.

Yeah.  Awesome.

The girls and I walked down to El Mercado Central, the main fish market in Santiago.  It was basically how you would expect a fish market to be… extremely smelly, with smelly men yelling at your to buy their fish.  We finally settled at a restaurant called Donde Augusto, and met a very nice little man named Luis.  He got us a prime table.  I had the seabass (which was BOMB).

Next we walked over to one of the main fruit markets.  Everything is so cheap and fresh!  I got 1 kilo of strawberries for like 75 cents.  And they are wonderful.   There were policemen in the market who kept telling us to keep our cameras tied around our wrists and watch our purses.  Made me feel a little bit more safe.

The girls and I walked through a very touristy area with tons of cheap shops.  I got a few pretty necklaces and a few gifts for some friends. 

After about 5 hours of walking, we were all very tired and hungry.  We went to a pub for dinner, where I ordered an Italiano, which is a hot dog covered in avocado, tomato, and mayo.

We found this cute little wine restaurant a block from our hotel and all shared a bottle and a few different desserts.  Flan was my favorite, but there were some other great things as well.

Tomorrow we’re going to the Andes!  It’s going to be an all day trip… hopefully we’ll get to see a bit of Argentina  as well. 

Oh well.  Yo soy cansada… Buenos noches!