BU in Los Angeles – The One with the Arrival

Hello there, fellow BUers! How’s the weather?

Okay, now that that’s out of my system, un-ironic greetings from the Boston University in Los Angeles home base! I hope that this will be more than your average semester-abroad blog. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved living vicariously through the Tumblrs and WordPresses of my friends all over the globe over the past four years, but the BU in LA program is something a bit different.

Most of us are Film/Television students here on our last semester of college and are chomping at the bit to get big-people jobs in the swankiest business on the planet. So, I have one main goal in keeping up weekly with posts about life in the City of Angels. Firstly, mucho props to Quad editor Lauren Hockenson for coming up with the idea in the first place. Secondly, I’ll try not to bore you with my riveting tales of celebrity sightings and your typical “I went here.”

*Side note: I was at a bar with Ke$ha last weekend. She’s just as gross as you would think she is.

I want to provide a comprehensive look at what it’s like to go from the frigid East Coast to work on the permanent move out to Tinsel Town with the help of BU.

And, my soon-to-be Constant Readers (maybe? hopefully?….Bueller?)  don’t be shy about letting me know what you’d like to hear more of! Whether you’re interested in coming out to Los Angeles yourself someday or not…well…it’s very strange here. I’m sure I’ll have plenty to talk about. Every week I’m going to have a new theme, everything from work life, to social life to West Coast life, and I PROMISE to keep my smug weather-related comments to myself. Mostly.

Without further ado, I’d like to close out this week with a few observations I’ve made during my first few weeks in Los Angeles:

1. Just because your GPS says it’s a thing does NOT mean it’s a thing. Thanks, Garmin, for taking me to what my little New England-ly brain thinks was probably Compton.

2. When you do something stupid in said ghetto, dudes will call you a stupid Beverly Hills chick. No matter how hard you cry and protest that you’re actually from New Jersey, they totally don’t care. Oh, and also don’t cry. It won’t help.

3. I may have hit a parked car while going the wrong way down an (UNMARKED!!!) parking lot. So what? Wanna fight about it?

4. Before we leave the topic of traffic: WOW people here drive like mad men. And not in the sexy Don Draper way.

5. In-N-Out Burger sort of is all it’s cracked up to be. And don’t make the same mistake I did. It is a chain, there is more than one of them. I’m sorry, Californians! I was under the impression that it was just the one that Walter, Donny and The Dude went to. Thanks for nothing, Coens.

6. I don’t think I’ll ever understand how this whole television time-zone thing is going to work. This will be a problem during hockey playoffs.

7. In all seriousness, the BU program so far seems amazing. They’re doing a pretty good job making sure we real-world-challenged film and television kids get our lives and internships together. Kudos so far, Bill Linsman.

8. Last one, I promise. Go to the Getty Museum. Holy crap, it has a view of the Pacific like nothing I can even describe. Also, the Pacific is cold and I’m really disillusioned about it. My life is like, so hard. (Just kidding.)

Thank you, soon-to-be-hopeful-maybe Constant Readers, for checking in, and I’ll see you soon!