summer summer summer

Hiiii guys! I was rereading everybody's blogs today at work (Facebook is blocked. I get bored) so I thought I would give you all an update on my life and summer. It's not particularly crazy but here ya go. Right now I'm laying down on my bed which is Spencer's guest room futon. It's super comfy but the room is always warm. My stuff is strewn everywhere - I've realized, no matter what, I'm always a messy person. It can't be contained. I'm sorry world (and Thielmann household). I try to keep it in contained piles...but I can't. I'm watching old episodes of The Office in the background and wearing one of Spencer's old giant tshirts from when he worked at the park. Spencer's asleep which is probably what I should be doing but after working all day I get too antsy to go to bed early. So here's a basic rundown of my day. I wake up around 6:20, dick around on the internet while I try to pull myself out of bed, eventually get up, put clothes on and look at my puffy tired face in the mirror. I eat breakfast with Spencer and hang out with his mom. I take tea with me and Spencer drives me to the train station on his way to work. I catch the train in New Brunswick which is about a ten minute drive from Spencer's house. On the train I drink my tea and read Game of Thrones and sometimes listen to music. It's a nice way to start my morning without a lot of pressure and some guaranteed time to myself to read. I'm also working my way through the Song of Ice & Fire books which is so much fun (I'm on the last book right now!). I take the train to Newark (in New Jersey) and transfer to the Path train (which is sort of like a subway that goes in to Jersey) which takes me to the World Trade Center stop in Manhatten. Earlier in the summer I was working two different jobs. Thursdays and Fridays I worked for a production company in Soho called kNow which made international human rights documentaries.

Here's the trailer for one of the films I helped with: https://vimeo.com/28705424

I worked on mostly grant writing - which is filling out grant applications to fund films. kNow (pronounced "know" - world's dumbest name) was kinda cool. The people were nice and the work was sort of interesting but I wouldn't ever want to make documentaries so I got sort of bored. It was also a lot of people I wasn't particularly interested in getting to know. They were nice but sort of vacant in a New York artsy way. Since they were such a small production company they couldn't afford to pay me. I thought this would be fine but I had a couple financial problems that I wasn't expecting. My parents partially owned the emergency vet clinic (with a ton of other vets) in Des Moines and the stock sold last year which is the only way my family can afford for me to go to NYU. This registered on my financial aid this year and this made it look like my parents had a much higher income than they actually have - and I didn't qualify for work study. Besides the fact that this is total bullshit and I am still way below the median income at NYU, it wouldn't usually matter since the on-campus jobs at NYU usually don't require that you are work study. Plus if you don't get work study you can just get one of many jobs in NYC, but in Florence you MUST have work study to work on campus and it's illegal to work on a student visa in Italy. This made things really different for me in Italy so I decided after a month to quit kNow. I had learned a lot in the few weeks but I didn't think staying there would benefit me anymore. I ended up quitting kNow - which was fine because my boss was really nice and understood completely. This is my first week of working full time at Trinity, my other job. Trinity is a large church in Manhatten downtown next to the World Trade Center site. For reference - they find the treasure here in National Treasure.

This is what I look at everyday - http://www.gothereguide.com/Images/USA/NY/Trinity_Church_new_york.jpg I work in the archives department for Trinity which is really interesting. I found the job on an NYU career site and saw that it was a paid internship which was good enough for me. The archives department is really chill. It's a musty old room with lots of old books. I look through original documents (right now I'm on 1836) of burial records at the various churches and churchyards owned by Trinity and double check and add some information to the computer archives & Trinity's website. It's really cool getting to handle old documents and the information is interesting. Right now I'm adding in cause of death to all the old records and there's some really fascinating things like cause of death as "insanity" or "visitation from God." The 1800s were interesting times. Lots of babies died.

At work I'm allowed to listen to headphones so I've been listening to a lot of books on tape. I've been listening to The Magicians. I eat my lunch either in a big breakroom on the 2nd floor or outside in the churchyard - which is really pretty.

 Churchyard - http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluenyc/3564773765/

I sit in the yard and either read or listen to fantasy books and eat my lunch from home. It's this weird little bubble where it feels like I'm living in my own fantasy world. It's really nice in a way that sort of makes me feel like a little kid - but at the same time so happy. I've missed just living in my own little world sometimes. I like to think about how I'll remember this summer as my summer of living in a bunch of different fantasy worlds in the Trinity Churchyard. I like my coworkers a lot. They're super funny and they mostly talk about movies all day. I'm still really shy around them so I sort of just seem insane and awkward because I'm always staring at them and laughing along silently. Talking to people is hard. On the way home I usually run to the train station. I read more or, when I'm tired, listen to my books on tape and try to find a seat by myself to zone off staring out the window. Spencer picks me up from the station and drives me home (he gets home like a half an hour before me). We make dinner - usually something frozen or quesadillas and we watch tv and hang out. We've been watching a lot of Arrested Development. It's so fun coming home and hanging out at night - but it sucks because I'm so tired by the time I get home that it feels like I'm just going to sleep as soon as I get home. Working is hard. This all just makes me hope to god that some day someone will pay me to write. Weekends are fun - but I'm usually exhausted during them. Spencer and I watch a lot of movies. We hang out with his friends a lot - mostly Neil, Eric and Dave. We drink some and play a lot of board games - like the Game of Thrones board game which is amazing! I'm also learning to play D&D which is just complicated right now and potentially fun. We go to see a lot of movies - I can get discounted tickets through work at Trinity which is nice. We're going to see The Dark Knight Rises this weekend and I'm sooo excited. :D That's all I can really think of right now. I'm getting really excited for Italy. I got a new backpack and a camera (ok ok I know I was just complaining about making no money but a camera was really important as a film major and I am sick of not having pictures of anybody and I'm going abroad - I had to!!). Also I've been drooling over these boots that are on sale and you should all convince me to buy them (my shoes keep falling apart!!). But also yeah Italy is going to be fantastic. I'm still trying to work out a schedule where I have one different class from Spencer. I'm really worried about being annoyed about some dumb stuff because I don't take enough time for myself - but that's such a good problem to have. Everything else is going so well. Anyway - that's all I've got for now. Please comment away because comments are fun. Bye bye!