Hi there! Welcome to my blog! I love, love, love talking about all things metaphysics, writing, and blogging. My hope is that you leave here feeling much better than when you came. It's great to see you!
I’D LOVE TO…
On this very last day of January 2013, my blogger business cards have arrived. I’d hate to call them ‘business cards’ because they just aren’t. They’re more something to give to people when they say, ‘Oh you have a blog? What’s it called?’
I created that little light bulb logo in Paint. In about 2 minutes. I knew I wanted some kind of light bulb there, signifying ‘ideas’, because essentially I have a lot of ideas that I’d like to put to use, and since I’m just starting out with a lot to learn, (an apprentice entrepreneur of sorts), and I haven’t designed any kind of logo for this blog, I thought it sort of suited it (and me) perfectly. Maybe I’ll have someone perfect it down the line, but for now, I like it. Eventually I’ll have to sort of make this blog match up to the design in the card, but that’s my goal when I can either hire a designer, or learn to do it myself. Both of which take far more time than these business cards took to get made. So this is where I’m at for now.
Bailey said he couldn’t tell what it was, but that’s not the point. I’m not advertising it all over the net. It’s just my little thing, my piece, signifying my little place in the world. (Or maybe I’m in denial because I have 250 business cards sitting in front of me. But I think it looks like a goddamn light bulb. And a colorful one at that.)
As for tonight’s post, I’d like to give a little celebratory nod towards January. The first month of 2013 is over, and it was filled with good things. I worked out all of 5 times (maybe not such a good thing), but I applied to business school, so that trumps all. It’s my biggest accomplishment of 2013 so far. Also in January? This blog post marks the 10th blog post of the month–that’s the most blog posts I’ve ever posted in a single month! I mean, ever. Like, of all time. Go ahead, skim the archives. My max before this was eight, and even eight is a lot. That’s twice a week! Well I’ve upped the anty. Now I’ve got something to work towards. My goal for next month is 11, but let’s not get excited. You might get sick of me.
I’m still reading New Self, New World. You know, that book I’ve been reading since November. But I’m really comin’ to the end of that thing. 180 pages left! My goal is to be done with it in 2 weeks. The text is not something to read quickly. The font is sort of small and the book is the size of a small dictionary. 10 pages in, and you’re ready for a nap. But it’s a beautiful book, and I will be sad when it is over.
So to end this month I’d like to say, hey, thanks January. You weren’t so bad to have around. I’ll see you next year, and hopefully we can be in business school together in 2014.
And is that February I see, peeking out from under the bed? I’ll deal with you in the morning.
Well, an e-book, and it’s going to be about my experience applying to business school, but it’s a book none-the-less.
Tonight was the best night ever. I worked out, did some work in my coding class, a bunch of blog maintenance, and wrote two pages in said e-book about business school. Why is it the best night ever? Because I am not working on my applications to business school. Because those are done. And now I get to spend my nights how I want.
And I get it, the verdict isn’t in. I don’t know if I’m accepted yet, but I think I have some valuable information to share with business school applicants anyway. Whether or not I get accepted will definitely have some major impact on this book, and whether people will even want to read it, but applying to business school took up such a significant chunk of my life, I wouldn’t be Monique if I didn’t decide to write the whole thing down and throw in little bits and pieces here and there about what kind of person it’s turned me into.
Essentially the e-book is going to be about a chick (moi), who read a book about applying to business school, and her experience implementing the good stuff that business school book told her to implement. You know how there are so many leadership books out there you could fill a small kingdom? My book is going to be about my experience actually doing what those leadership books tell you to do. More specifically, actually applying to business school after reading Your MBA Game Plan (a book on applying to business school).
It will by no means be a serious book, but a useful, and might I add helpful one, for anyone considering business school. On topof everything? It’s going to be free. Yup, free. The catch? It’s only going to be available to readers who subscribe to my blog. Thank God subscribing is easy and free. (See upper right hand corner).
But that’s all down the line, in a few months. Not only do I have to beautify (and finish) this book, but I’ll have to implement the functionality on my blog to deliver the e-book directly to your inbox after you’ve subscribed. There’s lots of little things I want to do, but maybe after I finish this book I will hire a developer to help me out. Actually, there’s really no maybe about it. That’s kind of a must.
As for my current subscribers! You lucky readers, you! I will be sending you an email the moment I have it ready for you to download, and you will be able to read it at your leisure (preferably with a glass of Merlot and some dark chocolate, as those themes permeate the book, and recur throughout).
See you tomorrow. We’ll see what that will bring.
You’d think an eventful blog post would happen tonight because I’ve had my business school interview plus a full weekend to myself after about a year of business school admissions processes. This weekend, however, I’m not ashamed to say, was not eventful. It kind of sucked.
Don’t mistake me. Life is beautiful, but I won’t ignore the ugly parts. Perhaps that’s what makes it so beautiful to begin with.
I don’t want to talk about my business school interview, because then I’d have to relive it, and I don’t ever, ever want to relive it. After it was over I crawled into bed for two hours tossing and turning, not sure how to feel. I wasn’t tired, but exhausted. I couldn’t sleep, but I didn’t want to move ever again. I ended up getting up later to eat some grapes, drink a glass of wine, and read. After about 2 hours of that, I watched about 4 hours of Weeds, ate Subway, and went to my cousin’s birthday party. It ended around 430am, so this morning I was out of it.
On the whole though, I must say I have had quite the beautiful Sunday. I’m not feeling so great emotionally but I have done nothing but read and relaxed today. This morning after I got my coffee, I drove straight to the beach without reason. I pulled over on PCH, stared at the waves, and watched the planes intersect with contrails in the sky. The birds let the wind carry them over the sea, and the sun sat idly through it all. It was peaceful, and it warmed me.
When I got home I read for a few minutes before dosing off again till about 245pm. When I woke, I straightened up my room, showered, and read some more. For the words I didn’t understand in the book I’m reading (i.e. aegis, valence), I looked them up in the actual dictionary rather than online or on my phone. It felt so nice to run my fingers over the pages, and see all the words bunched together before me. I dove my nose into the smell. And the heaviness of that dictionary matched the heaviness in my heart, leaving me feeling balanced.
Tonight I’m going to go see Silver Linings Playbook with a friend. There’s something about seeing a movie on a Sunday night that uplifts me. It’s like no Sunday, you will not get the better of me just because your sister (Monday) wants to sneeze in my face. It’s almost as exciting as going out drinking on a Friday night. Makes me feel like I’m starting the week off on an eventful note.
Although this week, I wish I could sleep at the beach all day and read by a warm fire all night.
I’ve been listening to Florence and the Machine all weekend. Her voice gets me like no other, and when her soul speaks, it speaks directly into mine. The song below is her collaboration with Calvin Harris, so it speaks to the pop culture crowd, but the lyrics are exactly where I’m at right now. It’s called ‘Sweet Nothing’. Cause sometimes that’s all people give you, and there’s really nothing sweet about it, which makes this song…well, sweet.
The world?
It’s fucking confusing. I mean it’s perplexing as fuck. (I would say F-bombs end there but I’m not making any promises).
And by that I mean, every day I am continually and consistently being influenced by everything around me, and when I can feel something influencing me, I take a step back and I think hmph. How does this one event I just attended, how does this book I just read, or how does this TED talk I just watched, influence my current perspective of the world?
And I come up blank. I come up confused, because it’s almost too big to wrap my head around. I get frustrated because my brain starts chugging away and bells start whistling and buttons start pushing like it’s some damn factory machine trying to make sense of every single aspect of aforementioned influences. And I hate it.
I find that I’m always trying to re-evaluate how I’m supposed to ‘be’. I watch a TED talk on vulnerability? Maybe I should be more vulnerable. I attend a UCLA mixer and see a ton of students dressed in ties and pencil skirts going on about their entrepreneurial ventures? Maybe I should dress in pencil skirts and talk more about my entrepreneurial ventures. Hell, I see a chick in cute glasses? Maybe I should get some glasses too.
But how about we go ahead and take a page out of Philip Shepherd’s book and eliminate the ‘should’s’ shall we? How about we tap into our own sense of ‘vulnerability’ by just being. Or, as Brene Brown says, by being enough. Imagine that? Imagine being enough for the world and the people in it. What a chill place to be.
The point of this blog post is not to preach. The point of this post is to say that I am entering a stage in my life, every day that I breathe, where I am learning to let the world perplex me, where I am learning to let the great exhale of the earth wash over me, and forever keep me in a state of awe and confusion, because life is a mystery after all, and we’re not supposed to Sherlock Holmes the shit out of it.
I am going to watch a TED talk, let it influence me, and not worry about how it’s making me feel and how it will alter my perspective somehow on the way I think the world works. I am going to let it move me without any mental calculation. Who am I, but a dust spec, slowly breathing in the dust created by other specs of dust, and mutating into a different dust spec because of it. We’re always in some state of mutation, changing in some form or another based on things that influence us, and tonight, the whole reason I am writing, is because this dust spec has been mutated and influenced by this.
For those of you who worked today, aren’t you glad it’s over? It was hot out today, so on one hand I kind of wished I had spent the day in an air conditioned office. But on the other hand, nahhhhh.
The rest of my three day weekend went swimmingly. I had a blast on Saturday night at Echi Sushi in West Hollywood, and later at Birds, a bar in Hollywood. I bumped into a friend of mine at the bar, who was randomly celebrating someone else’s birthday, and the place was packed to the brim with talking bodies. I had about five coronas with lime and I left the place happy and warm.
Sunday morning I got up bright and early for a mass specially dedicated to remembering my dad’s mom, who passed away a few years ago. Afterwards the family and I ate at Denny’s and I went home to nap for about two hours before waking up to work a bit on my e-book. It’s going to be about my experience applying to business school. I figure, anyone applying to business school needs as much help as they can get, and having been down that road, I hope to be of some help to future candidates.
Because I woke up early on both Saturday and Sunday, I was able to sleep in on Monday, and sleep I did–till about noon. Then Bailey and I went traversing about downtown L.A., where I snapped a dozen or so pictures of mannequin butts, paintings, and window displays. Also this random picture of a fake cow.
It was deathly hot. I was wearing Uggs, a jacket, and a scarf in the heat, because I am notorious for saying “I’m cold” in almost every type of weather. We ended up arguing about the appropriate use of the word “appalled”, and had a really tasty lunch at Cole’s (since 1908).
Home of the French dip, in case you didn’t know.
Then I came home and chilled a bit, and saw that scary movie Mama with a couple of gal pals. It was indeed a bizarre movie, but well done. It scared the shit out of me. And that’s two movies I’ve seen in one weekend, which is rare for me, but I love seeing movies, so this year I am going to be all about that. There are a few I’m really excited to see, like that new one with Rooney Mara I can’t remember the name of, and the new Eli Roth movie, (one I also can’t remember the name of).
To end this post, I’d say I had a pretty effing decent weekend, and the rest of the week will be spent preparing for my interview with UCLA this Saturday, and trying to get in my Insanity workouts (my calves have been out of commission for two days–I’m trying to summon the strength to continue).
I wish my knees were cured so I could run again. Also, tonight I had my first Hottie Toddie, I think that’s how you spell it. It’s a warm, bourbon drink that supposedly is good when you’re starting to feel ill in the throat region, and unfortunately for me, and everyone who comes within a five foot radius of me…I’m starting to feel ill in the throat region.
Either way, cheers to the week. Let’s get it started.
(Videos by VAN. Watching these videos gives me a few cents,
and a few cents are always welcome.)
Or the roses, perhaps.
The world, as you know, circles on, and the people in it circle with it.
A few things of note; one, I’m taking an HTML & CSS class that’s teaching me a ton. Now that I’m finished with my business school applications, I’m left to do with my free time as I please. Of course, next week will be solely dedicated to prepping for my UCLA interview (next Saturday, 1/26, 10:30am). It’s always some random thing, isn’t it?
But back to the class. It’ s cool! I found it via Skillshare, an amazing website (one of many) which allows you to take online classes for cheap ($20 or less), and participate in a few workshops and such for free. I’m fairly behind in the course, with work and working out this flabby bod and all, but it’s a ‘learn at your own pace’ kind of class, and I can watch as many of the video lectures as I want, whenever I want, wherever I want, and however I want–meaning I watch a little bit, notate a little, get a snack, and repeat.
Second thing of note! Through the wonderful resource that is HARO, my blog + my outrageous passion for blogging is going to be featured as a case study in an upcoming book about SEO and blogging by Jackie Bourke. The specifics of the book, I’m not sure of. I don’t know when it will be released, or whether it will be in e-book format or in the form of an actual book (only time will tell), but either way, Ms. Bourke said she loved the way I express myself, and sent me a few questions to answer about the blog to be used as a case study. Kinda cool!
In other news, THREE DAY WEEKEND. I saw Django Unchained last night (bloody, but good–Inglorious Basterds was better–DiCaprio was a delicious villain) and also lost my debit card. It all started with the life-size bowling pin below.
Before the movie Bailey and I went to Lucky Strike because said fine bowling pin coaxed us in with $2 well drink specials. Somehow, when I went to order us a second round of drinks and signed my tab…my debit card got lost. You like the way I said that? Placing the blame on the debit card? Bailey says I can’t be left alone.
This morning I took a couple of friends out for helping me out with a video project for my business school applications. We went for mimosas at Cabo Cantina, and holy shit was it a beautiful day. Not to mention, a beautiful view.
Afterwards I came home, napped out from the mimosas, did some laundry, and wrote an article on Examiner about this picture book that’s going to be released in February as a kind of visual companion to that horribly depressing and delightful novel Angela’s Ashes. You’ve heard of it?
So now I’m going to go sweat myself into a puddle with this Insanity workout before stuffing my face later tonight with booze and sushi. HAPPY THREE DAY WEEKEND! God bless the media covering the inauguration this Monday and of course, good ole’ MLK.
1/14/2013 – a day that will forever remain engraved in my skull, as the day I applied to business school – two of them in fact.
It was sometime in the spring of 2011 that I decided I wanted to go to business school. It was a lethargic and depressing time, as it was only a few months after my dad passed away, but it was a time none the less, and I didn’t have the energy to do anything about it.
But something happened in 2012. Something snapped inside of me, and while I intend to write an e-book one day about this whole experience, I’ll tell you now that it was an earth-shattering snap–The Snap Heard Around the World if you will, and I felt it deep inside the claws of my rib cage, and in whatever murky muck floats around beside the seaweed in my soul. I got the fuck motivated.
I bought an insanely expensive online study program to prepare for the GMAT, the test of all tests to get into business school. It was almost a year ago today that I did that. Thinking back on it…poor me. I had no bloody idea what the hell I was in for, and if you’re a potential business school applicant, unless you’re fucking serious about this, I’d go ahead and turn back now.
After months of studying, panicking, crying, and nightmaring about that dreadful test, I took it. Not once, but twice. So overall seven months of panicking, nightmaring, and so forth. Afterwards, I partied. I thought, hell, the worst of it is behind me, it’s all downhill from here!
I was a disgusting, grizzly, and horrible wrong. Those admissions essays damn near sucked the youth out of me through the pores of my very keyboard-typing finger tips. Why, you only have to look at my last blog entry to know I was starting to talk crazy, staring for hours at my little Christmas tree, blasting Les Miserables songs of faded dreams, and cursing the system. (I honestly don’t think my little tree recovered). I may be taking it to the extreme, but it’s honestly how I felt, and to take it back would be to take out the human in me, which might make for a delightful X-files episode, should they decide to bring back the series. (Cue x-files theme song).
Either way, my fellow humans, I want to say woah. Before hitting those ‘submit’ buttons tonight, I had to take a second to pause and reflect, and be grateful for every ounce of effort I injected into those applications, before leaving them in someone else’s hands. And if you think the weight was lifted straight off my shoulders after hitting ‘submit’, you’re absolutely mistaken. As I slowly sip this glass of celebratory Pinot Noir, I can’t help but still feel a horrific tightening all over my body from the stress and anxiety that kept me glued to my computer screen the past three hours, as I painstakingly poured over every aspect of those essays and applications, to make sure they were all perfect.
Again, I say woah. I just took one year out of my life to contribute to something grand. And in this moment, this very one that passes me by each second I type, getting in is the least of my worries. Getting in is…the end of this chapter, which after all this, feels like a sort of ‘okay, fine’. Because as Alan Watt’s says, one doesn’t make the end of the composition, the point of the composition (in music). People would pay to go to concerts to hear one crashing cord! Cause that’s the end!
I can say with every guttural, musical, whimsical feeling in my body, that I understand now what he means, for I feel such pride at having finally accomplished this feat, this “I’m applying to business school!” statement I made a year and a half ago to anyone who would lend an ear, that whether or not I get in is inconsequential. (Although, sure, it’d be pretty great cause yeah return on investment and all that).
I did it, God damn it. I did it. I applied to business school. You tell ’em if they ask.
This is the song I listened to the first night I decided I was going to business school 😉
I just cried for 15 minutes because I couldn’t put a stupid dollar amount in a box. It kept saying ERROR, ERROR every time I put in my salary amount in my online UCLA application. I tried it 5 different ways and got frustrated I threw off my headphones and wailed. I’m so tired.
I’m so tired of working on my business school applications, and that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t get in. It means I’m putting so much into it, I am questioning the whole reason I’m even going. Tonight I was working on my resume, and the entire week I have been working on my admissions essays. I sent them to an admissions consultant, and she gave me great feedback on them, but now I am so overwhelmed. I put everything I had into them, and now there’s more work to do. But it’s not just simple “fix this, fix that”, it’s like, I have to re-work the whole damn thing. Because my dreams, my dreams don’t tie into business school. THAT’S the problem.
I want to do artsy things, but I can’t just sit home and do that for the rest of my life. I have to sell them, and I have to get them manufactured. And I need a website. I need a team. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to run a business. That’s why I’m going! I don’t know how to be more specific about how business school ties into what I want to do with my little artsy business, I know that I need business school to learn how to do my little artsy business, but the specifics are what I’m going to learn when I get it in!
*cries*
And all of this makes me even wonder why I am working so hard. Why should I have to work so hard to get into a school and learn? There’s so much free knowledge out there, and all I want to do is learn it. I just want to go to school. I will get the money. I will pay you. Teach me. That’s all I’m asking. The fact that I want to PAY all this money for them to teach me, shows I’m serious, right? Why all these hoops, these rings of fire? I’m not training to be an EMT or a doctor, I just want to learn how to make a living doing the things I love, and love is really all it comes down to.
This process feels so forced and so…like I’m a cog in a machine.
My throat is itchy and my eyes are watery and my nose is stuffed and my abs are sore so they hurt when I cough or sneeze. I’m sick and tired. And giving up for tonight.
Just for tonight.