Come one come all.

mijnwoorden @ 2008-03-07T01:57:00

2008-03-07T07:03:38Z

I'm going to look at three new places tomorrow.

Two in Brooklyn, one in Manhattan. The first one is a room in an apartment share with a lesbian couple. Kinda in a *mildly* shady neighborhood, but the rent is cheap and they seem cool. The second is a loft in Bed-Stuy...what once was just a few years ago the scariest neighborhood in NYC but is now becoming increasingly gentrified and artsty. The potential roommate sounds cool here too and there is enough space to bring my marimba here...

And the third...the place in Manhattan. I want this place so hardcore bad. First of all, it's in Manhattan, and Manhattan rent is OUTRAGEOUS and this neighborhood (Washington Heights) is one of the last few reasonably-priced neighborhoods to live. The area used to be extremely dangerous, right up there with Bed-Stuy and Harlem, but much like Harlem, is now becoming a very hip area in which to live. Coincidentally, Fort Tryon Park is a few blocks away and I love love LOVE the Cloisters! I really really like this area a lot actually, it's really pretty. It's only a matter of time before it's discovered and every hipster in the 5 boroughs is trying to get a place. There are gorgeous views of the Hudson and George Washington Bridge.

Anyway, chatted with one of the potential roommates tonight, he's super cool; a DJ, travels a lot, all in all, it's a very relaxed, chill roommate environment. The place has wood floors I'm told, I can't wait to see! All I want is a cool neighborhood and wood floors! Obviously good roommates are must too! Soooo tomorrow evening, can't wait to go!

a little of this, a little of that, a little what-have-you

2008-01-06T20:32:11Z

I've been on hiatus for awhile. Essentially, I'm working in NYC, staying in an airline crash pad with mostly pilots. I don't have a permanent place of residence at the moment; I mostly live out of my suitcase. I love NYC though and I hope to have an actual residence within a few months. Housing is so expensive in NYC and I'm always out traveling anyway so the crash pad is fine for now. I consider myself a resident of the city. Moving on...

After several months of being a fat-ass, I have renewed my interest in diet and exercise. Basically, I've been eating like a fat girl and it has taken its toll on my body...in the form of 10 pounds. I'm told that I really don't look much different, albeit just not as many bones sticking out of chest. I can tell however; the fact that a pair of my pants that were falling off my ass in March are now nearly impossible to get into with all the fat on my hips. I'm a ridiculous 115 lbs. That's unacceptable really. I don't *think* I look that large, and people are always saying 'ooh you're so tiny blah blah' but still. The scale doesn't lie. The fat on my chin isn't lying either.

Anyway, Stackers and a renewed interest will change all of this. I just did some exercises with weights and my legs feel awesome. Things must change asap....

In other news, I watched the debates last night and it only served to further my support of Clinton. I'm not an Obama-hater, I just feel that Clinton has the leadership skills and experience that we need in a candidate. Edwards and Obama are both great though, so we are lucky to have strong candidates competing for Democratic nomination. Anyway, Hillary was on her a-game last night...

Next item: I have a cold. Much thanks to the SFO-based flight attendant who shared her illness when we were flying New Year's eve. My crew and I had afternoon drinks at the hotel bar and the next day this girl was ill and she had lost her voice. Two days later I woke with a sore throat. Not cool. Benadryl isn't working.

I'm on vacation actually. Chilling with the Oklahomies. The weather is perfect here, 70 degrees. I love it.

Domicile update!!

2007-06-20T02:20:24Z

Okay, so last night I received an email from United stating that they had space available for their August training classes. I opted to change training classes from July 30th which would base me out of IAD to join an August 27th class that would place me in the JFK based domicile.

I think I made a good long-term decision (even though it will affect my seniority) to change because JFK seems like much better domicile than IAD. A big positive aspect for me is that I won't need a car in NY whereas in DC I would have needed to drive so I'm super excited about switching my training class to August! The waiting sucks however, because I'm ready to start!

United Airlines!

2007-06-02T15:55:58Z

I had my second interview today at United in Chicago and I was given the flight attendant job on a conditional basis! It's conditional only because they still have to run background checks, check references and get the results back from my drug testing. Provided all is well (as it should be), I will start 7 weeks training in Chicago July 30.

I've already been assigned my domicile, I will be in D.C. working out of Dulles, Reagan and Baltimore-Washington airports and I'll get to go on flights to Europe regularly!!

I am extremely tired now.

mijnwoorden @ 2007-05-06T14:14:00

2007-05-06T19:46:54Z

First step to the future...I graduated yesterday with a degree in Applied Sociology: option in Environment, Population and Resource Allocation, minor in a Geography (and eventually music since I only need one class to finish that).

.
With percussionists
\
percussionists again...Mike with his 'Cobra' drumline hat.

Mike and I waiting around...

Members of WEP '06 (Wind Ensemble percussion) sans Kenny

Nathan and I

Nathan, me and Mike

White-washed photo of WEP '06...Kenny, Nathan, me, Mike, we are leaving! :(

Guest speaker: chief justice of Rhode Island Supreme Court

Academia

Huge College of Arts and Sciences

Alexis and I, my personal favourite photo.....

Teach for America

2007-03-22T21:22:41Z

So, I applied for a Recruitment Associate position with Teach for America yesterday, and I received an email this morning from the organization for me to set up a phone interview next week!
I'm so excited, seriously because if I get this job, I will get to live in a real city, think, Chicago or New York!

I also posted my resume on monster.com yesterday and I already had an email from a company in Lincoln, NE as well.

Maybe I won't have to live in a cardboard box after all!

Wish me luck, I'm so excited!!

mijnwoorden @ 2007-02-11T20:37:00

2007-02-12T02:39:28Z

I tried to bake a cake today for my boyfriend, kind of a nice Valentine's thing. It failed miserably.

But that's okay, I just need some practice, soon Martha Stewart will be jealous of my abilities.

mijnwoorden @ 2006-12-28T15:05:00

2006-12-28T21:10:42Z

I am now back in Stillwater.

I brought my marimba to school yesterday, because I miss playing and while I still have keys to the Seretean, I rarely go there anymore, and it will be nice to have something to play on late at night when I get bored. Moreover, I am extremely proud of myself because I carried all the pieces into my building (some of them were quite large) and put it together all by myself! I feel so self-sufficient!

Here is a photo that showcases my superior mechanical skills ;).......

Quachita Mountains

2006-11-25T02:46:22Z

Steve and I traveled to the Quachita Mountains in SE Oklahoma for Thankgiving with my psycho family. Overall, it went well and this morning we decided to be uber-redneck and rode an ATV up to the top of a mountain. Now, understand that this Oklahoma, and our mountains aren't as impressive as others, but it's still a nice area. It was also nice to see how my parents are spending my inheritance...

view from highway

scenic view

Quachita National Forest

my parents cabin, one mile from the national forest. It looks small, but outside looks are deceiving. It has three large bedrooms, one of which is a huge loft, full kitchen, living area, breakfast nook and outdoor stone patio. It's really nice, and I do hope that someday it becomes mine...

Kiamichi River in my parents backyard

mijnwoorden @ 2006-05-27T03:07:00

2006-05-27T08:07:18Z

Japan part II. This is going to be difficult because I'm already forgetting some of the great details of my trip.

So, if my memory serves me correctly, the day after visiting the fish market, Buddhist temple, and mall near Tokyo bay, we woke early and had a wonderful breakfast upstairs on the 33rd floor Brise Verte restaurant. Oh, I nearly forgot. The night before, the percussionists, Dr. Popiel and Jamie the grad student and I all went to Brise Verte to have drinks. At night the restaurant turns into the Skybar and I have to say, my 2,400 yen Mai Tai was well worth the money due to the great view of the city and conversation with my pals.

So anyway, morning= great breakfast. Seriously, our hotel was ridiculously modern and swanky. And that breakfast was great. I became very addicted to pineapple in Japan. It was a mainstay of every meal. So, then we, the members of the Wind Ensemble walked to a nearby train station, took a subway to a main hub within the metro and then boarded a bullet train (the Shinkansen) to Hamamatsu. The train ride was great, and I sat by one of the WEP members Kenny and we had a very long conversation on life in general. It was really great actually, and its been awhile since I've had a really in-depth conversation with someone in awhile.

So, we get to Hamamatsu, check in to our hotel, the Meitetsu, which is still very nice, but a bit of a letdown compared to Tokyo Park Tower. ah well. We still have the high-tech toilets which is nice. We have an hour or so to kill and then off to a rehearsal across the street at ACT city concert hall. The venue was extremely nice and if you have checked out my photo site, you will find a photo of the hall as taken from the stage. I developed a mini-crush on our Japanese stage manager. He was probably pretty old, but since he's Japanese, didn't look that way. Nonetheless, he looked A LOT like Iron Chef Sakai (my favourite) and he was so helpful and nice (though he spoke little to no English) that I couldn't help but tell him 'Arigato Gozaimas' about a billion times. He was cute.

However, the problem with the stage was that the percussion area was built up higher than the area for the rest of the band. This caused many problems, but the ever-helpful Japanese set to work adding on to the stage. At one point I turned around to see a row of Japanese stage crew members all posed at the stage with hammers and it was seriously like a scene out of a movie. These people are so incredibly efficient it's really insane. They were taking notes of where all the percussion equipment was placed and they made sure to have everything set up for us, mallet stands and all when we came to the next rehearsal. They were incredibly helpful and nice. Props to my stage manager (whose name I unfortunately do not know)!

Enough on that. After our rehearsal we went to the hotel and had a buffet dinner of traditional Japanese food. It was great and I became very addicted to dining on raw sobe noodles with soy sauce. (which by the way is totally different there). The food is so much healthier and fresher and it really is great. I then went to bed because I was dying for sleep.

Next day, wonderful Japanese breakfast and then we loaded the bus to visit the Yamaha factory. I could talk about this wonderful company for hours, but in the interests of time, I will just say that our tour was great, Yamaha employees are great, and I fully support the Yamaha corporation's business practices. These employees are paid well, they love their job (many of them are musicians) and they are all offered music lessons and opportunities to play in the Yamaha employee band. Also, Yamaha doesn't fire their employees, but rather if a worker slacks off or continues poor performances, the company merely moves them to a lower position and they won't be promoted. I think that is really great, and when touring the facilities it was obvious that the workers really enjoyed their jobs. The precision that goes into creating these instruments is incredible and these people take a lot of pride in their work. I really enjoyed touring the facilities.

We then left the Yamaha Toyo-Oka plant and went back to Hamamatsu for lunch and another rehearsal. Then, dinner and I went shopping with Patrick Quinn and Chris Reed. That was a lot of fun, though it rained hardcore and we were soaked. Also, many of the shops closed early that evening, but we did stumbled across a very strange shop that sold clothing for strippers. There was a very tacky American flag dress that I found humourous. That was a fun evening.

The next day, I went shopping again with Patrick and this time we brought along the grad student Jamie. We visited a really awesome vintage shop where I scored Glenn a purple velvet jacket for about 6000 yen and then we hit up some small local clothing shops. Clothing is very expensive in Japan, yet is is so awesome and unique. Patrick scored a super awesome pair of pants for the equivalent of about 150 dollars, but honestly, they looked ridiculously awesome. Japanese clothing rules, seriously. There is no shitty clothing in Japan, everything is already 2-3 years ahead of American styles. So that was our morning.

We later had our concert, which was great, and we took photos with our stage crew that worked so dilegently to set up all our equipment and make sure we had enough space on the built up stage part, so that we didn't fall off. I was sad to leave my Iron Chef Sakai look-alike but we shook his hand, (I smiled a lot, and arigato-ed profusely) and in the photo he is giving the peace sign. I unfortunately don't have the photo on my camera, but one of the percussion pals does and that will be treasured. man, our Japanese pals were awesome.

So, the next day, we packed up, hit up the Shinkansen for Kyoto and this time I rode next to both Kenny and Nathan. We catnapped most of the way and then checked into the Kyoto Kokusai Hotel.

Part III to come.

mijnwoorden @ 2006-05-24T20:15:00

2006-05-25T02:00:28Z

I am back from Japan.

Where to start really? I have so much to say. Basically the plane ride to Tokyo was about 14 hours and I sat by my pal Ryan and a quite friendly Vietnamese woman. The Vietnamese woman had lived in Houston for 20 years and was going to visit her family and grandchildren in Vietname for the first time in those 20 years. She was super cool and we shared things. I gave her my sushi; she gave me her bread roll. pals for life, yo'.

Anyway. We land in Tokyo and meet our tour guides, Miyo and Junco (not sure if Junco is spelled correctly, she didn't wear a name tag). They were super cool. Miyo was the guide for my bus, but unfortunately she was only with us for half of the tour because she had already resigned and her last day was during our tour. We drove around Tokyo a bit, saw the city and she informed us that Tokyo consists of 24 prefectors, each with a population of about 8 million each. I can't even fathom that amount of people packed into such an area.

So, we checked into our hotel, Tokyo Prince Park Tower, which was extremely modern and swank. Word on the street was that our rooms went for the yen equivalent of 500 dollars a night, but of course, we got a much better deal as a group. Everyone made such a spectacle over the toilets because they were high-tech and had seat warmers, and built in bidet and a 'spray' function. The rooms overlooked Tokyo Tower (which looks a lot like the Eiffel Tower) and really nice gardens within the city. That night some percussion pals and myself took the subway to Roppongi for dinner, however, this didn't work out so well because our pal Steve thought it would be super cool to dine at a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant which featured a Japanese only menu.

The staff spoke little English and so we used what little Japanese we knew, only to find out that the restaurant featured Italian food. My party wanted to eat only the most vile, craziest of seafood dishes so we had drinks and a seafood appetizer and got back on the metro, this time to Shibuya district.

Shibuya is the Tokyo version of Times Square, but...much larger and better. Just to clarify, everything in Japan is better. The city is ridiculously clean and the metro is void of garbage. This is interesting because it is difficult to find waste receptacles throughout the city, and they are non-existent in the metro. This is because the officials were concerned that bombs would be placed in the garbage bins. Thus....they are removed. And yet still, the city of Tokyo is nearly spotless.

Moving on... We settled on dinner at a place called Niju Maru (again, spelling may be a little off), and shoes were removed before dining. Someone ordered a strange meat sampler (the menu was in Japanese) so we had to just point at an item and guess its contents. The meat sampler contained something very strange that was like chicken kneebones on a stick. I wasn't brave enough to try them, but they were making a very crunchy digusting noise by everyone who was eating them. Very gross.

We saw many interesting shops, including a very strange sex toy shop that contained things that probably don't exist in the states. Um....moving on.

The next day consisted of rehearsals at a Tokyo high school (where we removed our shoes upon entry which was nice) and later that night back to Shibuya district and then drinks at the Skytower bar. 2600 yen for my Mai Tai. (approx. 26 US dollars). But the view of the city and the atmosphere were definitely worth it.

The next day I woke at 4:30 to visit a local fish market/fish auction with Miyo, our guide. People were bidding millions of yen on giant tuna that were placed on the concrete and sliced in select places for connosieurs to examine. Miyo planned on getting a giant tuna, but didn't bid on one this particular morning. Some of these fish cost the equivalent of 100,000 US dollars. These people are very serious about their seafood. The fish market was probably my favourite place to visit, though it wasn't a required group trip. Miyo planned on attending the auction by herself but invited anyone else who wanted to go along.

We later went to a Buddhist temple, performed a cleansing ritual, watched some monks chant prayers and also passed by an elementary school. The students were about 5-6 years of age and were practicing marching band. It was quite insane. Their lines were straight and they were very focused on their practice.

Later, we went to a mall along Tokyo bay and some of us rode the world's largest Ferris wheel. The views of the city were amazing to say the least. Later, another rehearsal and then relaxation.

A bit about Japanese society...

Extremely nice, and a very formal society. Everyone in Tokyo was dressed very well, and people could be seen in business suits at 11 o'clock at night. Very clean and not wasteful at all. Japan basically makes America look like shit. Tokyo is extremely modern and they have improved upon everything that America has. People are very healthy there and there are no fat people. There is an occasionally a chubby person, but no one is obese. Since I am short and fairly small, I fit in very well there, and didn't feel the need to obsess over weight at all. Food has little preservatives, so even 'unhealthy' food really isn't that bad. Everyone on the trip lost weight, and I felt really good being one of the few non-fat Americans on the trip. That and the fact that because of my hair, eyes, body type and clothing type, I fit in really well. Anyway, later on in the week, I was hit on by 3 Japanese business men at a bar in one night and so I had really good self-esteem on the trip.

The trip was great and I would love to live there for a few years. I will write tomorrow about visiting the Yamaha factory, the music convention and other things... Part II to come.

mijnwoorden @ 2005-11-18T23:13:00

2005-11-19T05:15:15Z

So I deleted my old journal (as most of you already know) because there was so much baggage attached to it and i am ready to start anew. So welcome all. I will actually try to update this on a psuedo-regular basis.

The vast majority of entries are friends only; comment to be added.