I’m going to American next fall.

I thought a lot about the decision and talked to a lot people about it. What it came down to was money, programs offered, and location.

AU ended up better than Ithaca for all of them. Two doctors offered me a private apartment free of rent in exchange for driving their two girls to after school activities. I’m not going to elaborate on the details here, but it’s an amazing deal. AU’s International Relations program is pretty solid. Foreign Policy magazine recently ranked undergraduate IR programs. AU’s program was ranked number 11 in the country. Cornell was ranked number 16 and Brown was ranked number 17. I know accolades and rankings are arbitrary and most of the time bullshit. And I’m nowhere implying that AU is a better school than the ivies, but the IR program is well respected. I really love the town of Ithaca—the community, scenery, cafes, activism, etc. But I’ve been in DC a lot this summer and it just feels right for me. Not to mention access to awesome shows all the time and easy transportation to other cities.

I’m going to miss a lot of friends at Ithaca: G-dun, J, Chut, Kaitlyn, Lawrence, Thom, Rose, Andy, Taryn, Hannah, Tamar, Meg—all right, I can’t even begin to make a list. I’m gonna miss so many people! I’m convinced that the publications at AU will not match The Ithacan and Buzzsaw. So that’s another loss. Shit, man, Ithaca was awesome. I don’t know what I’m going to do without Professor Moon, J-hop, Prannay, and a bunch of other awesome IC faculty. I can go on forever praising and reminiscing about IC, but I’ll leave it at this: I left for a lot of reasons, most of which I’m not gonna whine about here, but I’m definitely planning on visiting IC in the Fall. So I’ll see all you Bombers soon. Don’t worry.

Here are some things professors/faculty told me when I asked them about transferring to AU:

Scully: “Now, my sister went to American U. and liked it... but didn't love it… My advice: Stay at Ithaca College.”

Mead Loop: “What kind of journalism do you want to do? If the answer is political j then you should explore AU.”

A. Moon: “With journalism grad school a lot depends on your portfolio, and you don't need a prestigious school to put that together.”

Marty Brownstien: “AU ain't Yale. In fact, I see it as too much like IC for real comfort.”

Pranay: “This is great news!” A lot of my friends are down there working
and they love DC. I speak for the coordinating committee when I say that your work was
very much appreciated last year!”

A very generous lawyer who is a friend of the family is going to help me change my name. Finally. Robert Smith will soon no longer be me. New name: Robert Bestider Allyn. So, yeah, I’ll soon be Bobby Allyn.

Barbara (the classically trained pianist from Spain who is living with me in Baltimore) has played Rachmaninov's piano concerto number 2 so many times that it rings incessantly through my head when I sleep.

Taking Action for Animals Conference the next 4 days.

Two weeks I'm back in Pennsylvania.

Two weeks after that I move to DC.

It's Not All That Bad

Tip of the day: Don’t buy cell phones off of sketchy taxi drivers, buy them off of even sketchier b-more “cell phone dealers.”

The cell phone I bought off of the taxi driver broke. I knew when I bought it that it was a piece of shit. Oh well. So I went on Craig’s list and found another verizon cell phone for sale. I met the guy in Baltimore City and we made the deal. Before I got in my car the guy says, “hey, my man. Let me show you something.” He opened the trunk of his car and there sat a huge duffle bag full of cell phone and chargers. I was impressed. I asked him how he’d acquired such a stockpile of mobile phones, and he replied with, “that’s what I do. I’m a cell phone dealer.” The cell phone seems pretty nice (probably stolen) and came with cool ring tones including “rapper’s delight” and “it’s gettin’ hot in herre.” I’m pretty excited about getting phone calls.

My boss offered me to stay two extra weeks paid. I’m not sure if I’m going to or not. I might just stay one extra week. So, I’ll be home August 3.

I really don’t mind working in an office. I mean, I don’t know if I’d want to be stuck in an office my entire life, but it’s kind of cool. All my co-workers are pretty cool, too—so cool that I’m going to list a cool fact about each of them.

Charles- founder of VRG and the Vegetarian Journal, he’s been involved in the movement for over 25 years. He wears big black puppy vans every day, but he doesn’t skateboard, I asked him.

Debra- co-founder of VRG, she got her masters in IR from Georgetown and now edits the Vegetarian Journal (obviously a very domestic publication).

John- is having a vegan marriage today. He got his fiancée an eco-friendly recycled platinum ring.

Sjona- charges her phone in a flamboyantly pink fluffy high heel charger. It’s cool.

Jeanie- is always buying/making me new vegan food to keep me motivated.

Keryl- almost didn’t run the Ted Leo piece because she thought the picture his publicist sent me was “too creepy”.

Mark- told a caller yesterday during Call-a-Dietitian Day that “eating raw walnuts is basically like smoking a cigarette.” He cites something about the walnuts being easily perishable and turning rancid? I don’t know.

Jeane- has three Masters degrees and served in the Peace Corps for three years. If you ever write her e-mail she’ll have to send the response as an attachment; she has trouble with brevity.

I’m going to a Taking Action for Animals conference in DC the 28-30. I think I’m going to see Pelican while I’m in DC.

So, Where am I going to school next year? Yeah, I don’t know. I’m still waiting for a FA package from AU.

I don't know why I'm updating this thing so much. Maybe because I'm in a city by myself and don't really talk to friends that often. I'm probably going to delete this when I get back from Baltimore. Am I really that self-important that I have to share my life with the internet?

Decemberists tonight with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Enough said.

Sick From Baltimore

I'm sick. No work today.

Coming into this internship I thought I'd have a lot of extra money. I was planning to buy a digital camera, an ipod, etc. I guess I forgot about $500 rent every month, credit card bills, gas, food, and groceries. I'm broke.

I found a verizon cell phone on craig's list. The guy selling it is a taxi driver and is going to meet me today. So once again, I have no contacts. This is the fourth phone of this year; I really hope I don't have a fifth.

The Campus Progress conferences earlier this week were awesome. I met a lot of good contacts, and met some really impressive student journalists.

I got into the IR program at AU and they took all of my credits. I'm going to be making some important decisions soon.

Shows & Address

Here are some shows I'm going to this summer (so far):

FRENCH KICKS- 6/15 @ Rock n Roll Hotel in DC

VOXTROT-7/12 @ Ottobar in Baltimore

THE DECEMBERISTS W/ Baltimore Symphony Orchestra- 7/14 @ Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD
( I got really awesome seats--in the front secton. They cost almost $100. I don't care, though. The Decemberists with an orchestra? Well worth it.

If anyone wants/tried to send something to me, this is my REAL address (I had an incorrect one--fixed it now--on a previous post). The old address is some doctor's office. I'm going to check there for a week or so to see if anything came for me. haha.

My Baltimore Address:
514 Woodlawn Rd.
Baltimore, MD 21210

Week 1

My city trips never seem to fall short of absolutely crazy.

BookExpo highlights:

-I got a bunch of free unreleased books.

-I met people in the publishing industry from around the nation, maybe world, probably universe.

-I talked to an editor of The Nation and she gave me a hat and her card...hopefully she'll remember me when I apply for an internship.

-I missed Stephen Colbert's book signing. They stopped letting people in line five minutes after it opened. Instead, I creeped him for a half hour while he signed books and said the most ridiculous things to a bunch of book nerds. Then I covertly stalked him and his entourage around the Expo until he was escorted into his car.



I went to Animal Collective's free show Friday night at the South Side Seaport. I met Taryn and her friend Doug. I ended up running into Alex, Coz, Hannah, Jake, and Peto; Ithaca was definitely representing. I was more excited to see friends than Animal Collective. I never got into them and seeing them live wasn't very convincing.

Saturday night I went to a party with Jess, Lindsey, Nikki, and a few others near Williamsburg. It was what I expected: packed party with the Brooklyn assortment of hipsters. I met some cool people, though. Notably, Britney and Matt from Bushwick. They live in this awesome warehouse complex where all the apartments are spacious and have incredible views of the Brooklyn skyline. Britney helped me out a lot in the city.

I was scheduled to leave the city Sunday, but I bought a ticket to go home a day later because Mother Mother were playing in Brooklyn. To make an exceedingly epic story short, I got on the train with my backpack stuffed with clothes and a laptop, and a tote bag full of books, got confusedly lost, found my way, realized I left my cellphone on the C train, then somehow made it to Union Hall. This is the...wait, 3rd time this year I've lost my phone? I don't get it. I wasn't stressed about it, though. I figured I'd never see it again, but I didn't want it to put a damper my Mother Mother experience.


I went to the basement of Union Hall where they held the show. The doors were locked and bands were doing sound checks. The show was +21 and I obviously didn't have ID. I was hoping I could hang out outside and at least hear Mother Mother through the walls. I was down for that. After a few minutes, three girls showed up. I talked to them about being underage and hating it. I had a book expo bag with me and one of the girls not with the other two, a nice vegan girl from New Paltz, asked me if I went to the expo. She apparently is doing an internship in the city and also went to the expo. I explained to her my desperate underage situation and I could tell she kind of felt bad...she then told me she's on the Mother Mother guest list, she knows their promoter, and that she'd try to get me in for free. It worked. I got into the show for free--they never carded me.

Mother Mother were one of the most explosive and energetic bands I've ever seen live. Their ill variations and flawless improv during transitions and bridges were so well done. Ryan, the singer/guitar player, had such a charismatic stage presence, and he shredded Mother Mother songs with his classically trained chops. Debra and Molly had intoxicating and powerful voices that synced perfected together, not to mention how endearingly attractive they were in person. There wasn't a second of the show I was disappointed; I hyped them up a lot, and they still shattered my expectations. This band is going to blow up. They were mentioned in a Newsweek article last week! Canadians just know how to kill it.

Oh yeah, about my cell phone...a girl found it on the train and called my dad. She returned it to a station in Brooklyn and I think Nikki is going to pick it up and send it to me. I got lucky this time.

I'm at work now kind of on "a break." I'm the only non-vegan in the office. I'm horribly discriminated against...just kidding. But after doing research and being around reassuring vegan doctors and supporters, I'm most likely going to convert. I'll miss cheesecake, but I'm sure there's an awesome vegan recipe somewhere in our books or online.

Well, until something else exciting happens to me, I'm out.

Summer in Baltimore

My Baltimore Address:
514 Woodlawn Rd.
Baltimore, MD 21210




I had a tour of the office today. I have my own computer/office area/mail box--for the next six weeks at least. I’ll be doing research, writing articles, and random organizational stuff. The Vegetarian Journal has about 25,000 subscribers; in the magazine scheme of things, that’s not very many, but it's definitely a bigger readership than the 2,000 or less who read the Ithacan and Buzzsaw at Ithaca. I work everyday 9-5 with a lunch whenever. My pay comes in large sporadic sums. I got my first $500 stipend today…I wonder how long it’ll last. Charles gave me every book VRG published (15 vegan/vegetarian book) along with academic journals, children’s pamphlets, and issues of the latest Vegetarian Journal. I then got a lengthy history of the Vegetarian Resource Group followed by a verbose overview of the book and publishing industry, this was the crux: everyone who works in the industry are scums.


The place I'm staying at is really nice. It's in a section of Baltimore called Roland Park. It's pretty classy. There are two other people staying in the house with me: a girl from Elizabethtown who is doing an internship at John Hopkins and a teacher who is temporarily working in an all boys school in Baltimore. Anne Kern, the woman who owns the house, is a really friendly, laid-back artsy vegetarian who went to Art School and now just does artsy things. The boy whose room I'm staying in is a Politics/Writing major at New School in Manhattan and now, according to Anne, he is "fighting fires in Arizona to pay off student loans." His room is pretty nice. The best part: the spacious walk-on balcony connected to his room overlooking the development. The girl from Elizabethtown, the teacher, and Anne are all extremely friendly. I'm glad I got hooked up with this place.


Tomorrow I'm off to NYC for BookExpo 2007 in Manhattan. I'll be staying at Nikki’s place in Brooklyn for the weekend. Lindsey, Jess, and Taryn are coming out to the city to visit, too! I'm going to try hard to kiss some book publishers' and agents' asses and search for Stephen Colbert, of course. All right, I'm off to explore what this city has to offer.

Write to me or come visit me. I have a couch and a huge floor. You're welcome to stay here!

Next Month I'll be Kickin' with Colbert

I just found out the first event of my internship. It's the Book Expo 2007 in NYC. The Vegetarian Journal has a booth at the event and I'm going to be in the industry section tabling for The Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG). The best part of this event is the ridiculously iconic cast of speakers. Check out this description:

The former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Dr. Alan Greenspan, will kick off BookExpo America's author events in a unique and special way by appearing as BEA's Conference Keynote Speaker on Friday, June 1 at 11am. Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, comedian Stephen Colbert, novelist Khaled Hosseini and Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus will be among the other many notable personalities who will be speaking at BEA this year. The other speakers who will be participating in BEA's Special Events programming are Alan Alda, Paulo Coelho, Paul Krugman, Ian McEwan, Rosie O'Donnell, Alice Sebold, Lisa See, Russell Simmons, and many more! Other events include Author Breakfast and Luncheons, as well as Speed Dating with Children's Authors.

It's a 3-day event and I'm not sure where I'm staying yet. A few IC kids from the city said I could stay with them, but I still have to iron out the details.

I'm going to see Colbert in person. This is pretty awesome. Seeing The Decemberists and Stephen Colbert in a two month period is pretty overwhelming for me. There's probably going to be a lot of people at this Expo, but maybe he'll come hang out in the closed Industry section and him and I can kick back and talk about how George W. is not a great President but The Greatest President.

I scheduled my classes today. I'm taking two Politics classes, two Journalism, and Arabic. Basically this means I want to work for Al Jazeera and have O'Reilly start a campaign against me.

Lost Cell Phone...Again

So as some of you know, I lost my cell phone before winter break. Last week a friend of mine gave me his old phone for free--I was pretty pumped about it. Today killed all my excitement.

I had an RA interview ar 3 o'clock and an interview at the Sciencenter at 4 o' clock. I got out of the RA interview at 3:45, then literally ran to the Park School and caught the bus to the Commons. I got to the Commons at exactly 4. I hurridly ran around Ithaca trying to find the Sciencenter. I called Greg because I left the directions in my dorm. He told me where to go and I found the street. I called him back when I was on the street to verify the address. As soon as I got off the phone with Greg I bolted down the street. I got the Sciencenter--which is, for those of you who don't know, a learning center for children that has hands-on science programs and workshops, Bill Nye The Science Guy chills there sometimes, no joke--and had my interview. I went to check the time on my phone when I realized my phone wasn't in my jacket. I then went up and down the street for over an hour in the frigid cold looking for my phone, my efforts were fruitless. I got on the bus back to campus and tried to make the best out of the situation. I mean, at least I don't have to ignore calls now. Not like I have to do that a lot the way it is, I'm a dick, I know.

I get back to my dorm and J comes out of his room and says, "hey, Bobby, did you lose your phone?" I said, uh, yeah, how the hell did you know that? "I called it and some lady said her 8-year-old son's friend was bragging about how lucky he was for finding a cell phone, she took it off him. I'm going to pick it up tomorrow. I'm going to strap the phone to my fucking body from now on.


Life is good otherwise. I went to DC for a protest a few weeks ago and I'll hopefully be going to Milwaukee in March for a Amnesty Internaional Conference. I'm going to be in Baltimore all summer working for the Vegetarian Journal. Check them out!

http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/about.htm


Tomorrow is the Amnesty party, should be a lot of fun. I hope I go to sleep tonight; I have so much work ahead of me. I'm not complaining, though. Everyone has work, it's college.


LLLAAAATTAAA!!!!!@#$%!~!

Attention Mac Users:

Don't change the name of your directory, it'll scare the shit out of you. I thought i lost all my music/files/settings when really I just changed my Directory name. wow.

Another thing that really sucks is this:

PLEASE NOTE:

*ALL 5 ARCADE FIRE SHOWS ARE SOLD OUT*
TICKETS ARE NON-TRANSFERABLE. The ticket purchaser must enter
the venue. Copies of ID, Credit Card or Confirmation email
WILL NOT be accepted for entry. Only complete parties will be
admitted. No exceptions. Please DO NOT buy tickets on eBay,
Craig's List, etc. YOU WILL NOT BE ADMITTED!

I should have gotten up at 9. shit.

Fall Break

I forgot the password to my blogspot because I only update like once a semester, maybe I'll remember this one. I also lost my cell phone in Ithaca, which makes my life annoyingly difficult.

Fall semester went really well; I liked all my classes and I had a lot of good experiences. Next semester is going to be a lot more challenging. I'm taking more credits and more difficult classes but I'm sure it will be equally as fun. I'm skipping all the details about classes, friends, parties, activities, crazy happenings, clubs, etc. I'll keep it simple and say (again) that college is awesome.

This New Years I went to New York City with some friends. I stayed at Danielle's suite at NYU. The weekend ended up being packed with craziness and fun times.

Ryan and I were walking around Manhattan Saturday night looking for something to do. I wanted to see Spoon at Webster Hall but it was sold out. I was trying to find someone with tickets to sell me for cheap. About to give up, a 30-something posh lady came up to me and offered me two tickets to the show. Apparently her husband loves Spoon but got really sick and couldn't make the show. She said she'd sell them to me for face value ($32/each). I'm really bad at making deals and had nothing else to do that night so I bought them. I missed the opening band but Spoon really impressed me--they're a great live band.

On New Years I decided to ditch my friends and venture into the city by myself. Mates of State were playing the Knitting Factory at 11:30; I got at the show around 10:45 and it was completely sold out. I stood outside for about 20 minutes looking for tickets and couldn't find anybody. So then I hung out by the ticket booth hoping that someone would magically have tickets for me. After about another half hour the security guard asked me what i was waiting for. I said I was just trying to find tickets. The guard then told me to go home because it sold out a while ago. I didn't go; I just kept hanging out by the ticket booth. It was 11:30 and I wasn't about to stay next to a ticket booth for New Years. I was on my way out when the guard yelled for me and gestured for me to come closer. The guard must've been in a New Years spirit because she stamped my hand and told me to get in the show. I squirmed my way to the front and celebrated New Years with Mates of State and three hundred other people. After the show I asked a guy outside--Michael from Manhattan--if i could use his phone to call a friend (tamar) to see where she was. He emphatically agreed and then talked to me about random Shakespeare and venerable Blues verses he really liked. I think Mike was a little drunk but he nevertheless helped me out a lot with directions. Tamar was on the Upper West Side at a friend's apartment. I somehow successfully found the apartment but it was locked. An old yuppie dude walked passed me and opened the door with a key and I followed him. He said, "What are you doing?" I just told him I was seeing my friend tamar. He said, "you're gonna have to have somebody ring you in" and then closed the second glass door behind him. There were about 100 different names to ring and I had no idea what the last name of tamar's friend was. I buzzed a bunch of random names and nobody replied. The elevator opened and two girls who looked like they were my age opened the glass door. I asked them if they knew tamar and then the girl said, "yeah, actually, I just came from the party...wait, are you Bobby?" So I got into the apartment and hung out with tamar and her friends for a few hours--really cool kids, by the way. I left the party at around 4:30 and took the subway back to uptown. Tamar wrote directions on a paper for me so it would be easy for me to get back. I got off where I was supposed to and transferred to where I thought I was supposed to, haha. I ended up going 20 blocks in the wrong direction. Eventually I got to my stop and was ready to go back to the dorm. It started to rain and I realized I forgot the address of the dorm. I literally ran around Manhattan asking random people where they thought it might be and (after an hour) found the dorm. I get to the dorm and the NYU guard would not sign me in because no students were with me. I didn't have a phone so they told me to use the pay phone across the street to call up to the suite to get someone to sign me in. I walked across the street in the rain and put a dollar in quarters into the phone and I got the machine: no answer. Searching my pockets for more change and getting wetter by the minute, I turn behind me and see two intimidating burly dudes beating the crap out of some poor skinny guy. I didn't think it would be good if I stood and gawked at them so I ran across the street to the dorm. The guard unsympathetically didn't care about my story and just told me that I’m "fucked" if I can't get someone to sign me in. After an hour of persuasion the guard agreed to coming with me to danielle's room and get her to sign me in. thirteen floors and five rings later I was signed in and miraculously safe and alive.


It's 2007, baby.

I got offered an internship in Baltimore for the Vegetarian Journal, I'm not sure yet if I'm gonna do it--how exciting can Baltimore be?

Visiting the city is always a fun time but I need my trees, trails, and open spaces.

Nothing else is new. I hope to spend the rest of break riding, running, and relaxing. I'm going to school a few days early for polar plunge (group community service). Too much has happened in the past three months, it's scary. I don't have the time nor the patience to write in this frequently. It’s 4:22… I need to sleep. I think my resolution this year is to accustom myself to more natural and regular sleeping patterns. I’ll star tomorrow night…