Dying of Pleasure

Guys, I am so effing pleased I could die.

Where to begin?

1. La Brea Parks is AMAZING!

a. Warm as hell, in a pleasant way. I think today was 78 degrees! Jealous? You should be!

b. Basically it's a little community, almost like a college campus. The BU people are all spread out (fine), but there are actually families here!

c. My building is next to, in my opinion, the easiest landmark to spot within the community. What is this landmark? A little park! In the middle is a huge, beautiful fountain surrounded by palm trees. There is also, from what I can tell, a little tiny outdoor cafe that is lit with Christmas lights. Palm trees everywhere and little kids playing on the grass! I'll put up pictures later but it's dark now. I need to clarify that this is a tiny little park, which is so quaint and nice I could die.

d. There are MANY of these little areas. There is an entire other area with a fountain. There is definitely another area with a cafe and tables and chairs. It's like (/ absolutely IS) a little gated community. And the people don't seem like snobbish gated people. Just regular citizens, all incredibly pleasant. Plus there are little patrol guys who say hi when you pass them. In addition, there is a work out area and an outdoor pool all at my disposal. AND allegedly there is a little area where old people play chess outside! I LOOOOVE that! PLUUUS I can park in front of my building for 30 minutes (to unload groceries) AND I have my very own parking spot in a garage.

2. The area is brilliant!

a. The parks are right down the street from a Trader Joe's AND a regular grocery store. There is also a farmers market nearby and definitely a Good Will in the vicinity.

b. We're RIGHT near Hollywood. I can't see the sign from my window, but if there were no buildings around, I bet I could. We went to the Chinese Theater yesterday and saw the star walk and the hand prints!

c. There are beaches everywhere! Yesterday we went to Venice beach, which was BEAUTIFUL!! Seriously. Plus it was awesome. It was like the boardwalk but for young adults instead of pre-teens. Bongs everywhere. Right down the street (I do have to drive but... who cares?)

3. My apartment is AMAZING!!

a. The living area is ENORMOUS! There is a full sized table and a couch and two chairs (not ugly, part wood couches. Big comfy couches). Plus a desk and a billion feet of completely empty space. AND a coffee table! I've never lived anywhere with this much space, including my actual home! Not to mention one wall is completely window overlooking our little fountain!

b. The bedroom is ENORMOUS. Walk in closet. I have two dressers but I can only fill the smaller one. The view is amazing and we have two full bathrooms for the three of us. Plus it has air conditioning!

c. Wireless. Enough said.

d. The kitchen... oh god the kitchen! New! Huge refrigerator. Tons of cabinet space. Any equipment I would ever need to cook with. The trash can is even hidden in a little closet! I also have, brace yourself, a DISH WASHER!! And a toaster! And a drying rack. Obviously a microwave (I no longer have to decide if I want chicken 3 hours in advance). There is even a little basket for fruit (which I have! Local oranges, a mango, a pineapple, regular apples, avocados (not a fruit but whatevs)).

e. DVR. AAAHHH!!!

f. I guess these things aren't as exciting as the first ones, but they also gave me a towel and washcloth, sheets, a comforter, pillows. We have a vacuum and an iron and ironing board. The entire place is lit with lamps so it's very attractive. Even the floor is some sort of wood paneling (great acoustics in the living room). We even have real glasses and china plates, along with all the cooking things. I could just die. DIE!

4. The people!

a. There are only about 40 BU students in the program. And the program has people from many majors so I assume only about 10 are TV. Amongst them are my favorite girl from my writing classes that I mentioned previously and a boy that I really loved from OCS.

b. My roommates are great! I spent at least 20 minutes talking to one of them about TV shows (which I realize comes with the territory, but awesome!) ... and some other things. But she owns tons of shows and we only overlap on Arrested Development! How I Met Your Mother, here I come! I spent a lot of time with my other roommate, with whom I'm sharing a room. We even went grocery shopping together and have decided to embark on a guacamole project. When we saw the avocados, I mentioned that I didn't know how to make guacamole, kind of hoping that the woman picking out avocados next to us would jump in a tell us how. SHE DID! Miracle.

c. We had a little Chinese buffet dinner (delicious) during which we mingled. I spent some of my time talking to a girl about celebrity babies and I spent some more time listening to another girl describe her disappointment when she went around all of the celebrity haunts that she could think of. Did I mention that they filmed The Hills at La Brea Parks (where I live)?! Crazy! Although to be fair, I don't think you'd ever guess that because the people I've seen do NOT seem to be wealthy. Allegedly there are some really shmancy places in here, although I haven't really seen them. The point is, these are my people. At the dinner, which was at a fairly little place because we're such a small group, they even packed up the leftovers into little cartons and we could just take them as we left! How considerate! Plus they had valet parking! Although we pretty much all walked... but it did not seem like a place that would have valet so I was really tickled.

5. The program.

I really will probably be able to comment more on this tomorrow after our all-day orientation, but right now I will just say that it seems VEEERY laid back. While one of my roommates has already secured three internships, my other one only has one interview (just like me). It seems a lot of people were on the latter side of the boat and the program people were VERY relaxed about this, simply shrugging and saying "don't worry, you'll be fine." Great.

I am also SOO glad my mother came. She was SOOO cheerful the MOMENT we left. She pretty much never got annoyed at all. Plus she was SOOOOO excited to see the Hollywood sign and the beach. I thought she was going to wet her pants. It was so nice to see her so relaxed and happy. Also, she took me grocery shopping and for the first time I got to be the supplier of all of the extra stuff like hand soap and toilet paper. I felt so cared for, which I didn't really get to experience at all while I was going away to Boston.

Just to mention, in Arizona we stopped at a little street fair market thing which was AMAZING! I got a copper ring for $8 (that was actually at a store and it turned my finger green, which is a little annoying... but the ring is still nice). I also got a bracelet with about... 8 jade turtles on it which only cost me $1.50! Insane! And I got a little necklace on which was a figurine of the Declaration of Independence and a feather pen and "1776" on it, which I thought was hilarious. $2! Also, when we were around the Chinese theater, I got a deck of playing cards that had a different celebrity mug shot and a brief description on each card. I could die.

I think my next post will be mostly pictures of these things. You really have to see all of these things to believe them.

I'm SO HAPPY!!

(Sorry for the excess caps and exclamation points, particularly the latter which can really be annoying sometimes.)