I'm in Berkeley California

It's been quite a while since I last visited this blog...I think I decided to stop blogging because I didn't want to share so much of myself with the world at large. I have once again come to that realization, but now it's in relation to Facebook.

I just went back and re-read my blog posts from the stage of life when I was living in Austin, TX - and I find it fascinating how my way of thinking has matured so much since I wrote all of those blog posts. I'm stil totally in line with a lot of the underarching themes of those blog posts...but I can hear my younger voice and it's cool to notice the growth. I even think the same when I look at the headline quote I chose "if you don't know where you are going..." I still like the quote, so I will keep it. But I definitely am a bit more clear on where I am going, and have every intention of choosing roads more deliberately.

Now that I have moved to Berkeley, CA, my biggest focus is to try to live in the moment, to see things as they are according to the clarity of communication between my heart and mind, and to eliminate the influence that my ego has over the decisions I make and the way I project myself to the world. Yes, a tall order! But I've been fascinated by the idea of Ohm (symbol above)...arriving upon a state of conciousness that eliminates the barrier of the ego and emerges as 'truyia' or your true self. This fascination began in the 24 hour Starbucks in Old Town, Chicago, when a random friend I met there explained the meaning of the symbol to me on the back of a napkin. It just so happened this was at that time of my life I was preparing to go to India for the summer, and also months before the big move to Austin was going to take place.

Now, here I am preparing to go abroad for my first trip to Europe in a few weeks, and thinking about states of consciousness again.

I love traveling because it's always going to wake you up to a new state of consciousness when you are placed in a foreign enviornment, outside of what you experience day to day. So I would like to go into this trip, fully aware that I have every intention to experience it moment by moment, fully present. I think I can do that.

I also just moved to Berkeley and just turned 25. So, I'm consciously entering into a stage of life filled with strong intention. To understand why I take each action I take, and how it relates as an expression of what I want to manifest.

I'm about to make a radical decision to help with this awarenss process...which I will share in the coming days.

Halley's Comet

My friend Alberto shared this with me. Pictures are worth a thousand words. What it makes me think about is the vastness of the universe, how small we are when placed in the context of ions and ions of existence, and most importantly - how fast life can pass us by. So embrace every moment you have, you've only got one life...make the most of it!

I've been Austinized

Yes, I must admit - I am falling in love with this city. But people...do NOT move here!! (we want to keep it this way forever!) Yup - that's the love of the local attitude here, and it works. Check out one of the reasons why below...and also see some friends in their rockin Chili cook-off!!

My life mission

I'm taking this marketing plan class @ NYU this summer, and last week we talked about mission statements. Our assignment this week was to write up a life mission statement. I'm sure it will change over time, but here is what I came up with today!


My mission for life is to continually keep an open and optimistic mind, learn something from each new life experience, always try my best, try to leave an impression on each person I meet, respect mankind, strive for a sense of balance, give back to those who have given to me, avoid mediocrity, seek new and exciting challenges, continually grow and expand my network, find a person to spend the rest of my life with, find a place where I want to settle down, own a profitable business or have a successful career which will finance my life endeavors, experience and understand true happiness from my perspective, and help others when I can.


That's one long run-on sentence.

Conquering the Big Apple

It’s only so often that I am inspired to write something worthwhile on this blog. Life is always a trip – but not always worth writing about. In fact, this past week has been one long crappy trip. I had a bunch of my possessions stolen from my storage locker, I broke a sideview mirror on my car by backing into a pole, and I injured a muscle in my leg during Yoga. My mom always told me bad things happen in threes, and then there’s also another one of her life proverb: “the sky is always darkest before the dawn.” I love that quote because it’s a physical truth - and you can’t really deny it. Plus it never fails to apply to my life. Before I left for Austin – we had a bedbug problem in the Chicago apartment, and I couldn’t stand one more night sleeping there with the psychological pain that I was itching every night I laid down for bed. When I arrived in Austin, sure enough a stream of wonderful happenings occurred in my life. And once again, The Sky is always darkest before the dawn is re-occuring. I arrived here in the East Village of New York City just yesterday, after one of the worst weeks of my life, and I fell in love with this town.

(Below: My street, entrance to my apartment)

I haven’t felt such a passion for a long time. Austin is filled with simple joys in life - sunny days, beautiful trails, smiling people, and a sense of contentment that is very difficult to find in many other places in this world. Yet, New York City fills me up with a different sense of joy. A joy which I find from the crowded streets of wonder. I wonder where each person I see comes from and where they are going? I wonder if their ancestors traveled thousands of miles across seas hundreds of years ago to settle here in the land of freedom. I wonder if that child zooming by on his tiny sized neon bike has parents at home worried about if he is getting lost in the streets of New York City. I wonder if that that old lady struggling to cross the street with her cane has lived to see this city transform through generations of evolution? I wonder how many of these strangers are having a meeting today which will impact the rest of their lives? And then I also wonder where the nearest yoga studio is so I can take shelter from the craziness that the bustling streets of this city bring to the world that is now mine.

(Below just a few shots of all the people watching)

I wonder and I wander. The streets of East Village. It has been an amazing past 24 hours. I sit here in B cup – a coffee shop with free wi-fi only blocks from my home on E. 3rd Street and Avenue B. The day is winding down, the sky is getting darker, and I am reflecting on all that I took in on this day. My journey began with a destination – Laughing Lotus. A yoga studio recommended to me by my Austin friend Wendy who lived in NYC for many years. I knew I had to get to 16th Street and 6th Avenue, I just didn’t know how I was going to get there. Since this area is mostly a grid, I figured I would venture out and find my way. On the way to Laughing Lotus – my first stop was for a warm coffee. The day turned out to be a bit cooler than I would have imagined. A brisk fifty five degree windy NYC day…nothing like the 95 degree days I had been living back in Austin. I had a choice between Starbucks and MUD coffee: gourmet coffee made in an orange truck parked on the street. Can you guess which I chose? The barista was a bit hung over, but he was really friendly, and he told me that he has an ‘agreement’ with the cops to let him park his coffee shop on the busy street. Free coffee for illegal parking and soliciting. Works for New York City!

(Below: MUD coffee, Laughing Lotus Yoga)

I walked and drank my coffee, trying to balance my yoga mat in my backpack which didn’t zip all the way, and hold my camera on my other wrist so I could snap a photo here and there. The wind had no mercy for a poor girl with all her belongings and hands full, before I could even sneeze from the smoggy air which I felt drifting into my nose, a few drips of coffee had made their way onto the white DePaul hoodie I was wearing. Oh city life…walking down the streets trying to stay warm and balance all of your belongings without bumping into someone or stepping in a puddle, it never fails that your coffee is going to spill. But that stain was reason for me to later stop into OldNavy and buy the zip-up hoodie I had been wanting for a while.

I finally got to the yoga studio, and it was just what I had imagined. The class I took was somewhat difficult, but I was able to breathe out all of the negativity from this past week, and breathe in the life that New York was offering me. When I left Laughing Lotus, I felt relaxed and excited all at once – a feeling of balance which is necessarily difficult to accomplish. Usually one feeling or the other takes over. So I figure this is going to be my quest for the next two months. I figure the newness and endless possibility will keep me excited, but can I add that into an equation with my job, taking a business class at NYU, living in very small headquarters, not having another shoulder to lean on, and still come out with a sense of equilibrium?

Having my possessions stolen last week made me more aware that at any moment everything you have can be wiped away in a split second by an unfortunate fateful occurrence. Which is why you have to make the most of this life, and squeeze every ounce of enjoyment from it that you can. And that is what I have come to New York City for!

I can already feel another dawn breaking :)

Oh...and how in the world can one avacado cost $2.50?!! Looks like no avacado on my sandwiches for a couple of months.

(Below: B Cup Coffee- Where I wrote this entry, and where you will probably find me spending much of time for the next 2 months)

The New UM Album

The new Umphrey's McGee album rocks!


Mantis

SxSW interactivities

So I'm finally getting around to journaling about my experience at SxSW. It all started about a month ago when my boss Chris called me to tell me that he was going to be out of town and that he was giving me his badge. The moment I said "cool!" on the phone, I had no idea what that cool really meant. All I knew was badge, conference, festival, Austin...I was going!

When I started looking through the schedule I was overwhelmed. There were tons of panels, speakers, events that were about social media, technology, business, communication, art, self expression, and parties! I thought I was going there to learn...little did I know that the party listings I was looking at were only one fraction of the endless number of parties that were being thrown at just about every bar in Austin. This is the one time of year when Austin comes alive to the max!


When I first arrived at the Austin Convention Center (pictured above) on Friday afternoon to attend some panels, I realized...these things are kind of boring. It's a bunch of people boasting about themselves and promoting their latest book or business venture. I also realized that I needed a GPS just get around the building! The ceilings were tall, the elevators only went to certain floors, and if you wanted to get from floor one to floor four, you had to take the escalator to floor three, walk to the other side of the building, go outside to the stairwell, then walk up to four. I must have walked over ten miles this weekend with all the navigating.

I learned on day one of SxSW Interactive that it's not really about seeing the speakers, it's about the people you meet and the conversations you take part in. So from Saturday on...I roamed around, talked to people about what to see, and hung out in lounges where I ate popcorn and people came up to talk to me because they were drawn to the red coolness of the Vivienne Tam mini netbook that I was using. (below is me typing on my VT mini)

I would have to say the best panel I went to was thanks to Peter Shankman, founder of HARO (help a reporter out). We first talked about how the press release is DEAD. I'm so glad that someone had reaffirmed my feeling from about a year ago when I was interning at a PR firm in Chicago and felt that drafting a press release was like conducting some kind of imaginary magic show where you wave a wand and everyone believes what they hear. All you had to do was use some new and exciting adjectives to make something boring into something exciting. I think there are much more valuable ways to use a great writing talent, and bloggers are finding that out all over the world. So, the idea is...why write twelve paragraphs fluffing up some idea, when you could say it all in 140 charactors on Twitter? Okay, this is an exaggeration, but really, it's time for the facade to end, and the excitement to begin. And Peter Shankman is one man who knows how to make things exciting.

I can't even begin to express how enthusiastic he was about what people had to say. For those of you who are new to twitter, you can watch this short clip from the Today Show and find out: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/29772038#29756189
But anyways, everyone has their laptops out, they are on twitter, and they are writing their thoughts about what people on the panel are saying as the presentation is going on, and Shankman is up on the stage, reading everyone's tweets and responding to them. A live silent conversation (silent conversation - is that an oxymoron??) was going on while a live presentation was going on above that, and they were simultaneously adding to the substance of the whole thing. It was just insanity. The point is, the insanity of social media has just begun, but it is fun, it is real (you can't ignore it) and it's not about rainbows and butterflies, it's reality happening in realtime, and people all around the world are talking about it 24/7. If you are not in the conversation, then people won't know who you are, and you will be competing with all the folks who are part of the conversation and are saying meaningful things and have listeners all over the globe. I could go on a long time about the ups and downs of all of this, but I want to get back to my story....(pic above of me and Shankman, PR and social media experts)

Some other elements of the story include being part of a video, meeting some awesomely passionate people, going to the ER, and chauffeuring friends around Austin.

My story ends on a Tuesday night, when I met up with a friend who is a music blogger. His text to me read: "I'm on the corner of 5th and congress with sandwiches and sparks on me. what u doing?" So I met up with him, drank a Sparks (combo of energy drink and beer) and got to see some shows that night. It was a totally different crowd Tuesday night. Out with the geeks, in with the hipsters. SxSW interactive was all the cool geeks, and SxSW music brings in all of the music loving hipsters. (See below picture. That's how my brain felt at the end of five days of technology talk surrounded by TypeA personalities, mixed with creative awesomeness, and a dash of margaritas and beer...in no particular order)

All in all, I came away with some great conversations, hopefully some good business contacts, a field trip, and some lessons about social media and where we might be headed.