Nobody Likes You When You're 23 ...

... at least that's what Blink 182 said. But what did they know, anyways?

But seriously, holy reality-checks, Batman, today I am 23. Who would've thought I'd have made it this far? And stuck with only a somewhat lame pop-punk song to represent my new age, whereas in the late teen years I had cool tunes like "18 And Life" by Skid Row or "Nineteen" by Thin Lizzy to proudly play upon the arrival of September the 28th. Haha oh well, guess ya can't win 'em all.

Let's reflect a bit, shall we? Last year at this time I was at home in Connecticut - I had completed my summer interning at Conan O'Brien, which was great, but soon found myself back in Bloomfield with no idea what to do next, which was not so great. Things were really seeming to hit a post-collegiate rock bottom, as I went from being in NYC, on my own, where I had a chance to hang out with a lot of my BU friends - Eryka, Aksel, Kirsten, Bre, Kate, and was working everyday with cool, smart, funny people - to suddenly being at home again with little to look forward to each day except for the opportunity to catch up on my videogame playing. And while I kept telling myself that I was going to get back to NYC as soon as I could, I had no idea how that could be possible, as I had no money, no job, and no real contacts except for the people at Conan, where they weren't hiring - or at least not hiring me. So basically all my big plans to make it in entertainment were fading quickly and I soon found myself applying for all kinds of crappy jobs at the behest of my parents. So yeah, one year ago was not so great.

It took a little while, but things finally started to pick up. I got a call from the Conan offices saying they wanted me to come back as a PA and help them m0ve offices. While the pay was barely enough to buy lunch each day, I eagerly accepted, and took the slightly drastic step of staying with an aunt I had who lived outside of NYC who I had never met or spoken to before that time. It turned out that the whole thing went pretty well, and it was one more chance to be in NYC and work at Conan, which was cool. Of course that was only a temporary gig until the move was completed about a month later, and after that I was almost back at square one, still with no idea of what I was going to do next. There were some slight rays of hope, as I began to go on a series of interviews in CT and NYC, a few of which for for some really cool jobs, none of which I got, of course. But hey, as I talked about in one of my first ever blog entries, during this time in the late fall and early winter I got to venture inside the hallowed halls of Nickelodeon, WWE, DC Comics, and ESPN for interviews, which was kind of cool in and of itself, especially DC, which I still smile at when I think of some of the big names I got to meet during that interview. But other than those few sparks of possibility, things were still looking kind of grim. My last bastion of hope was the NBC Page Program, which I had applied to back in July, but as seems to be typical, I had still not heard a word from months later. From what I had heard while at Conan, I wasn't sure if I even wanted to do the page program at first. But at that point, as my brother went to college for his freshman year and most of my friends were out of the state or country, the page program was looking pretty good.

Finally things started to happen, and I got the call to interview for both the page programs nearby in NYC and far away in LA. The LA one kind of took me by surprise, because while I had sort of thought about going out to LA I don't think I ever seriously considered it, mostly because I had no idea how I could move out there without a job, and conversely how I could get a job there while living in Connecticut. So suddenly I found myself flying out to LA, staying at a motel near the Burbank airport, and rushing off to interviews with NBC, Disney, Warner Brothers, and a few others, as I had hurridly tried to arrange as many interviews as I could once I decided that I was going to make the trip to interview at NBC. The trip seemed to go well (and it was also the subject of one of my early blog entries ...), but it was all just so much to take in that I had no idea what to make of it all. I didn't know what my chances were of getting into the page program, and the other interviews didn't give me that much faith that they'd lead to an actual job. Meanwhile, I was going back and forth to NYC, doing interviews there, including for the page program. In the midst of all the chaos, when I was kind of doubting that the page program was going to come through and about ready to start applying to Staples or Borders, I got accepted, out of nowhere into the LA page program, and the craziest part was that all of a sudden I had two weeks to figure out whether I was even going to do it. And once I decided to do it ... well, then I had less than two weeks to figure out my big move from Bloomfield, CT to Los Angeles, CA. Suffice to say, it was a lot to think about.

So here I am, and here I've been since late January when I started as an NBC page. Pretty unbelievable if you ask me. And now I'm celebrating my first birthday as a Californian, pretty far away from most of my family and my college friends. So even though there's been ups and downs, even though I can't get seem to get an assignment, and even though tommorow brings the prospect of working at Carson Daly all day until 9 pm ... on my friggin' birthday - that still beats the heck out of where I was this time last year, the specifics of which I honestly don't even remember, probably because it was too boring and nondescript to even recount. Sure, I was in nice and safe CT with my family, far from fault lines and the worst traffic of all time. But at least now I'm somewhat on a path towards where I think I may want to be.

Which I guess is not all that bad for 23.