"Bing bong."

I started an entry with the typical "I've been here for a week and here are my thoughts because I'm so much more original than the rest of the world blah blah blah Emerson pretention/East Coast condescending...ness" but then deleted it because today was the first day of real LA life and slightly more interesting than the rest of my time here.

I started my internship at Sony Pictures Television, working in the Talent/Casting department. I was a little late because of the seven hundred million red lights I encountered and also because I had to make four or so U-turns. The woman I'm interning for was fine with it, especially because the morning had started off slowly. I have my own cubicle and phone, which I couldn't use because it was connected to someone else's line. SPT has only been in the current building for about a week, and everything (and everyone) is still being situated. So I couldn't answer my phone, but I got to make copies of sides for auditions, read a couple of pilot scripts, watch a few pilot episodes, and sit in on a general. One of the women in my department reminds me of Rachel's boss at Ralph Lauren on Friends---the one who thinks Rachel slept with Ralph Lauren. Very New York, kind of sassy, doesn't shake hands. Her assistant is in the cubicle next to me and one of his bottom drawers is filled with candy.

I left early today to make it back to Burbank in time for class and had to make another million U-turns, and instead of the usual "turn right here....bing bong" noises the GPS makes, it decided to just yell at me to make a U-turn. No warning or indication that I was going the wrong way, just "make a U-turn. Make a U-turn." Stupid bitch. I managed to get to class early and apparently just missed having to deal with an angry parking attendant (Amy and Erica had an encounter with him and they arrived maybe 10 minutes after I did, at most). The professor is wonderful; knows the industry, has an interesting life story and career path, loves teaching, and is serious about the class but is also relaxed and nice at the same time. She's already my second favorite Emerson teacher.

We had a break halfway through (the class runs from 7 to 10:30 pm) and Erica, Amy, Katie G and I ran to Starbucks because I needed food and three of us needed coffee. Sidenote: the no jaywalking rule sucks. Just plain sucks. I'm used to sprinting across the street but can't because I don't want to be fined. We booked it back to the Emerson building and all the doors were locked. We went around the entire building and not one of them was open. And all of us left our syllabi in the classroom and couldn't call the professor to help us. So we started calling all of the other students in the class, but obviously no one picked up because their phones were off because class had started again. Katie thought she had Devon's cell phone number but really had her house number and accidentally called Devon's mom. We contemplated throwing something at the window to try to get someone's attention but then decided against it. Our reaction for the first ten minutes was "ha, this is our first project, trying to network our way back into the building." Five minutes later, we were tempted to break in. Fifteen or so minutes after that, and after calling/texting everyone in the class and some people who weren't in the class, someone (thank Jesus) picked up his phone and let us inside. We got a recap of what we'd missed and class continued, but damn.