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It’s been a pretty good past few days. Thursday I woke up at the crack of dawn (which is 7:30AM for me), to prepare for the IUSTV Advisory Board meeting. Got that all taken care of, and we have a bunch of Panera bagels for the meeting as well. Getting together all this stuff to present to the faculty and staff advisors, including an “annual summary” of goals and accomplishments, really made me realize how much has gotten done this year. Having all the current and incoming execs there, and a lot of the staff, it was good. I’m pretty proud. Also, Panera asiago cheese bagels taste like gourmet Cheez-Its.

Came back from the advisory board meeting with a bunch of leftover bagels, and took a nap for a while before my classes (yes, I am still actually taking classes). Did all that, and went to the office for a bit. Then it was the big night: the IUSTV Banquet. This year’s was a big change from last year’s; instead of a decent sized room at the Union, we went to the Mayfield’s Ballroom/MCL Cafeteria over on the west side of town. Until the day prior, when I went to go check the place out when Kaylyn and Jenny were setting things up, I had never stepped foot in the place. It was much much nicer than I would have imagined. When I heard “cafeteria,” I just thought of an old persons restaurant with some buffet lines and such, like an Old Country Buffet. Quite the contrary. The ballroom was really a nice ballroom, and it was many times nicer than the Union’s rooms. Also, you wouldn’t expect this, but pretty much every employee at the place was a hot chick. I would have expected old ladies. The actual banquet was really nice as well; the dinner was buffet style fried chicken, which was maybe a little messier than you would want for a somewhat formal event like this, but it was really good either way. Sean said there must have been a black woman cooking in the back, so I guess that means it’s not just me who thought it was good eatin. Also, I was luckily warned of the walnuts in the green beans, otherwise I would have probably taken a bite and had an allergy attack, which might have put a damper on the evening. Especially if I would have died, haha. But seriously, who puts walnuts in green beans??

People made some short speeches, and I did as well. I probably should have planned out a longer, more appropriate speech, but I don’t think anyone really would have wanted to listen to that. I did realize (and say) that if I wouldn’t have joined IUSTV, I wouldn’t have met most of the people who were at the banquet. Who knows what I would be up to if it weren’t for all of this. Brian also gave me a shout out, and I got some applause, so that was nice. This is kinda what it must feel like to retire, I guess. All in all, the banquet was awesome, and Kaylyn (my office assistant/exec director apprentice) did a good job of pulling something together that I never could have. Girls are better at party planning anyway I guess (not to be stereotypical).

Huge afterparty at Kyle’s house that night. It was probably one of the best parties all year, ranking right up there with the A-Team Halloween Reunion (a different kind of awesomeness though). Had so many IUSTV people at the party, it was great. To be honest, it might have been the last time I will see a lot of people, so that was another reason for everyone to party down. Wow I sound like an old man there. Anyway, although we didn’t make it to our goal of staying up until McDonald’s breakfast time, I was out there until around 3:30AM, when I came home and promptly fell asleep until the afternoon. The next day, I woke up and goofed around at home until a class discussion I went to. On my way back from campus, got a phone call from Rob at Aeon, and I called him back when I got home. I knew that I had the job, since I talked to him on Monday. I was just waiting on the placement information. And that’s what he was calling about.

So they found me a placement in Chiba prefecture. Ichihara City, which is not all that far away from Makuhari or Ichikawa, where I spent last summer and the fall before on my many adventures. Ichihara is a bit more suburban/industrial/smaller than what I was ideally looking for, but hey it sounds like a pretty darn good offer. It’s an Aeon school that has both adults and younger students. It’s about 40% business professionals, 30% college and high school students, 5% housewives, and 25% younger kids. The station nearest my Aeon branch school would be Goi station (五井) on the Uchibo line. Now, according to Ekitan, my handy-dandy guide to the mess that is the Japanese transit system, Goi station is about an hour train ride from Myoden (where I lived last year), and Tokyo Station itself. About 30 minutes to good old Kaihim-Makuhari. Ichihara/Goi is a little further south than the area I know and love, but I think this might be about as close as I can get with a somewhat random job placement that these companies all do. Also, Goi is about 5 stops away from Kisarazu city, the hometown of Kishidan!!!! That there might be enough reason to go. Here’s a map to help you (and me) understand where Goi station is.

There’s only 1 other foreign teacher at the branch, 2 full time Japanese, and 3 part time Japanese. Seems like a pretty small joint, but that might not be too bad. And since the school is at Goi station, I’m assuming I’d be living pretty close to there. If I lived a bit more in the Makuhari/Tokyo direction, that would be perfect. I have until about Wednesday to call them and give them my decision. Not a lot of time. But still, I think this sounds pretty good. The pay isn’t as much as the Sears job, but since pretty much everyone and their brother is telling me to avoid a cubicle job and get out and explore the world, I think Aeon sounds pretty good. I’m going up with Brian tomorrow to Chicago, since we’re interviewing with Nova on Monday morning. I’m pretty sure I’m just going to tell them straight, “if you guys can get me a placement in Tokyo and tell me by Wednesday, you can hire me. If not, I’m going with Aeon.” Sounds kind of asshole-ish, I know, but it’s the truth. I’m pretty much hoping that will give me some bargaining power. If not, then I wouldn’t be able to wait around for their answer anyway. Aeon demands my answer soon!

So what do you people think? I could either go with Aeon and go to Japan, with a pretty sweet placement, try to find a different job, go with Sears and work in a Chicago cubicle job, or I could just be homeless and jobless (that really isn’t an option). Right now I’m leaning towards doing Aeon. Hmmm… This is a pretty big decision.

If I end up going with Aeon, I wouldn’t have to depart until September 7, so I would also need to figure out what I’d be doing between graduation on May 6 and that. I have my apartment lease in Bloomington until the end of July, so I’d likely stay here and do something, maybe work in a restaurant again while helping out IUSTV. We’ll see. This post is already obscenely long, so I’m going to end it here. I have a few other minor weekend reports to write about, like the party I went to where I made smalltalk with a girl about the Crayola Crayons 128 pack with built-in sharpener, but I’ll have to save those for another day. I’m tired, and need to sleep so I can drive to Chicago in the morning/early afternoon.

I have no idea where the last 2 weeks have gone. It seems like I’ve been doing all sorts of stuff, and even during the week I don’t know what day of the week it is or how long it’s been. Some IUSTV stuff has been stressful, but overall things have been going great. It just seems like time is going by mega fast. Maybe it’s just because the semester (and college) is pretty much over? I also keep meaning to play/beat Kingdom Hearts II, but haven’t gotten around to it. And I’ve had it before anyone else in the US, since I downloaded the Japanese version back in December. Ah well, at least I’ve been filling up my lazy time by watching Curb and Lost a lot.

I’m going to be out of town a lot during April. This coming weekend, from around Saturday to Monday, I’m going to Chicago with Brian and possibly Nick to interview with NOVA, another English school in Japan. Speaking of that, I haven’t heard from AEON yet, although I was supposed to have a response by last Friday. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. If I was to be rejected, I was supposed to get a letter in the postal mail. Haven’t gotten that yet, thank goodness. If I got in, I was supposed to hear via phone. Haven’t gotten that yet either. Ah well; I guess I’ll just wait and see. I really do hope I get in, right now that sounds like it would be my number 1 choice of what to do next year. After Chicago, I’m back in Bloomington for about 2 days, until Wednesday, when I leave with Pat for Las Vegas. We’re going to the National Association of Broadcasters Conference (NAB), which sounds like it’s going to be awesome (and also it’s in Vegas). I’m actually only going to be able to go for a few days, which is before the bulk of the conference starts. I’m excited though because I’ll at least get to go to 2 days of seminars, about how to use stuff like After Effects, Flash, and Maya. Wow I sound like a nerd. I will be in Las Vegas, and the Journalism school is paying for all of it, since it’s kind of related to the J499 Independent Study we’re doing. How do I find all these things for myself??

I fly out of Vegas on Saturday morning to go up to Vancouver, where I’m working for my parents at the GaAs Mantech International Semiconductor Conference. How in the world did this happen, you ask? My mom runs the conference management, so I was able to get in and help work the registration table. I get paid, and they also pay for all my expenses to get up there. Works for me. I’ll be there until Friday the 28th, which is the end of dead week back at IU. So all in all, I’m going to be out of town about a total of 2 weeks this whole month. Awesome. I’m missing the last week and a half of classes (I’ve already taken care of that; I’m not really missing that much), and also Little 5. But still, free trips to Vegas and Vancouver (even though it IS in Canada), is a deal that I can’t pass up. Again, how do I find these things for myself??

The IUSTV Banquet is this Thursday, and I’m pumped (but not prepared) for it. This will pretty much be the end of the semester for IUSTV, so the banquet and the huge after party are going to be a lot of fun. It will honestly probably be the last time I ever see a lot of these people. I think I’m going to give a short speech at the banquet, which will be fun I guess. The new execs are training quite nicely; we had a retreat with them this past Saturday, and I’m excited to see IUSTV a year from now after they get to work and improve on stuff. I think they’re going to do an awesome job. They won’t have to deal with moving over to a new building, which in all honesty killed about 2 months of my work this year.

No clue what I’m doing this summer yet. I guess a lot of it depends on what job I end up getting and taking. Ideally, I will go to Japan sometime in July or August and start working there (AEON?). That would mean I have May through July to stay in Bloomington, get slowly packed up and ready to move on in life, and also possibly find a part time job while I’m here. I’ll still be doing some IUSTV work (like purchasing and tweaking the studio), but I’ll have so much free time regardless, I feel like I should have 1 last fun experience of working somewhere. I’m thinking a video rental place, the mall, or back to a restaurant. We’ll see.

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while, but I got really….busy (OK fine, just lazy). Anyway, IUSTV has been working on finding the successors to the exec board for the past few weeks. It’s actually been a bit longer than that, but we just recently got to the application/interview/selection stage. It’s been an interesting part of the whole year. We did my successor first, this was the week before break. Just Thursday and Friday we did for the other 3 open positions. Interviewing people for something like this is really weird. Giving an interview is a lot different than actually being interviewed. I feel like this whole process has been pretty formal, and rightfully so; I can’t just hand off IUSTV to anybody. It has to be a very detailed, complicated process. After deciding on my replacement first, of course I had to let the candidates know the results. I’m a very straight to the point guy, especially with these IUSTV business situations. Nothing usually bothers me, and I don’t really have any problems doing any of this. However, actually figuring out how to tell someone they’ve been not selected or selected for something that you can tell really means a lot to them is harder than I would have thought. It didn’t seem like this last year, when we were picking new execs. I think maybe I realized that I won’t be around next year at all, and this really is a huge decision. Either way, I suppose I actually felt nervous having to make these announcements. It’s hard to describe the feeling.

Making up questions and my now world-famous “what would you do” scenarios is also harder than I would have thought. I tried to think of the situations that I’ve been in over the past three years that have really been a pain in the ass, and relate that to a quick question. I need to see how these possible execs will react, how they think, and what their style is. Some of them sound really stupid, but I didn’t write a single scenario that didn’t have at least 2 or 3 key points that the applicants needed to grasp. Some interviewees did a really good job, and gave good answers. Some didn’t.

It’s also very difficult to interview people for these positions, since the whole situation is very different from what any of us are used to. Nearly every single person who we interviewed, I’ve known for at least most of this year, and having a panel of 5 or more interviewers (myself included) shooting questions to applicants one at a time in a huge fancy board room in the Union is quite formal when compared to just hanging around the office getting TV made. Very intimidating, I’m sure that’s what a lot of the interviewees thought. We were in suits, the room was huge and fancy, and a lot was on the line. It would have been a lot easier if we were interviewing people we had never met before, because at least it wouldn’t seem so odd to be in such a formal situation. Someone you know very well as a friend/co-worker can automatically freak out when put into this situation. It’s even intimidating for the interviewers, and we’re the ones who are supposed to be in charge.

By tomorrow sometime, we will decide and announce the other 3 execs, and thus we will have a complete board for next year. Training has already sort of started for my apprentice/successor, but I think the real learning and training will start once the entire board is there. They will be working as a team. We have to pass on everything we know, because there’s not going to be as much of a chance next year for us to help or give advice. I might not even be in the country. This post is pretty irrelevant to everyone (except the 10 people or so who have been involved in this with me), but it’s pretty major to me nonetheless. This is the first step in sending IUSTV down a path of awesomeness for the next few years. I really think that this year has been a huge transitional year; next year will finally be a time to get growing and expanding without having to worry about getting basic things (like a working office or studio) in place. The “next generation” has everything in place for them, they just have to run with it. I’m a little jealous. Possibly more important than all the work I’ve done this year (including getting our new office figured out, and getting our broadcast off-campus on CATS, which starts Friday March 31), is getting these new execs trained. It really is one of my final contributions to the organization.

Ah, spring break has finally arrived. What am I doing, you ask? Traveling to some exotic locale? Going on an exciting vacation to a foreign land? Battling a giant crab monster with an electric guitar? No, none of the above. I’m in GhostTown Bloomington, doing the same thing I do pretty much all the time. It’s not that bad; at least I have a week off from classes (which means only 2 days off, since I don’t actually have class that often anyway). Nonetheless, I think this week “off” will give me time to relax, get caught up on stuff, and just be even lazier than usual (if that is even possible).

Sunday through Tuesday, I will likely be waking up very late, and then working at the office for a few hours a day. Me and AP are going to rebuild the VT3 machine, straighten out some studio stuff, and just do general maintainence. I also have some more footwork to do for this supposedly upcoming “Real to Reel” film competition, which seems like it might be a bigger pain in the butt than I had ever imagined. However, if we pull it off, it will be awesome. And no, Red Bull’s marketing strategy still doesn’t make sense to me. But oh well. Sometime around Wednesday to Friday, I’ll be going up to Chicago for an interview with AEON, one of the English schools in Japan. The more I think about it, working in Japan is more and more tempting. We’ll see how that goes. Nova interview is in Indy at the beginning of April as well.

If I have time, I also wanted to go back home to St. Louis for a day or two. Don’t know if I’ll actually have time to do that actually, but we’ll see. Other than that, I don’t have many other goals to accomplish over spring break. I’m almost already done with News Radio season 3 (yes, I actually purchased ANOTHER real DVD box set, I can’t believe it myself). Considering how much I watched the first News Radio box set though, I figured it would be worth it. This show is amazing, one of the funniest ever. And season 3 has the Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor episode, which was a very very pleasant surprise. Gazizza, my dilznoofuses. I also plan on finally finishing Kingdom Hearts II, playing a bunch of SNES puzzle games, and if I miraculously have even more video game time than I expected, I want to play FF8 or Super Mario RPG again. I also borrowed the first season of Lost from Kyle, which everyone keeps telling me I will love and get addicted to. We shall see.

I’ll be posting a few times over break, I’m sure. Maybe I’ll try to think like Nick and write a really deep entry about something. Likely it will just be boring crap from my daily routine like this one. Either way, you will all read it when you get back from Florida, California, or wherever else you bastards went for spring break.

First off, I don’t mean to confuse anyone, but NO, the title of this blog does not imply some kind of depressed mood, metaphor, or anything of the sorts. Sorry to all you emo cut-yourself dye-your-hair-black and cry-while-listening-to-whiny-music readers out there (I doubt I have any), but no this blog post is actually about glass.

So back in the old IUSTV Ashton office, there were these really old photo/poster frames with generic art and a few of weird sports themed pictures. These photos hung on the walls for absolutely no reason but to provide generic decoration. When we moved to Read, I took these poster frames with us, with the intention of replacing the generic crappy art inside with IUSTV-related decorations. Actually getting these to Read and hung up on the conference room wall took until about the end of February. You could definitely say this was not a project high on my priority list. Finally, mid to late February, I decided it would be time to print out some photos or posters on the library’s plotter for use in these photo frames. I grabbed one of the frames to measure it, etc and PROBLEM #1: these aren’t your regular poster frames, that can be opened and have the picture swapped out with ease like I was expecting. No, these are apparently custom made frames, that are screwed together with all sorts of doodads and whatnots, making them a huge pain in the butt to open and replace. So I left the 1 half-disassembled frame in my cubicle, where it sat for many weeks.

Last night, I got ambitious and said to myself “It’s time to finally do those photo frames.” So I go to the library late at night, and print out some nifty black and white IUSTV photos for use in these frames. Easy enough. I kind of miss working/goofing off in the library late at night. This afternoon, I go to start taking apart these stupid custom photo frames, which involved 8 small screws, 4 frame edges, many tension pieces (which hold the photo in place), and a huge sheet of glass. Problem #2: when you take the edges of the frame apart, the tension pieces fly out all over the place. These are curved pieces of metal, and I swear I could have lost an eye. I took care of two of these photo frame lobotomies, and took a break to get some cheap food at Kilroy’s. I came back, and later in the evening after a meeting, I decided to finish up. That’s when the biggest problems started popping up. After dismantling one of the next frames, I lift up the art and glass piece to lign up my replacement photo. And oh great. Problem #3 (and the worst of all): the glass has a huge crack in it. It wasn’t there when I started dismantling it, but yeah, it was pretty much useless now. This happened yet again, meaning I ruined 2 huge pieces of glass. GREAT. I was able to finish poster number 3, which meant I only had one left.

My last photo poster was also in the last frame I had, after breaking two of them. Now since I had originally measured and cut these posters to fit certain frames and never even thought about the glass cracking on me, of course the poster and this last frame don’t fit. For those keeping track (I think I stole that line from Nick’s blog), this is Problem #4. Vertically it was fine, but horizontally there was about 3 inches on each side that I didn’t have picture for. OK, so instead of having white edges blaringly standing out next to a black poster, I decided after a few minutes of searching for a solution that I would have to either use a black marker to color in the edges, or a black garbage bag. Either way was going to be way ghetto, but this was getting frustrating and I really didn’t want to have to re-print a newly sized poster for this stupid frame. While in the storage room getting a trash bag, I stumbled upon some black gaffer tape, and there was a much better solution. I used that, and it was looking fine. I replaced the poster, and assembled the last frame back together. I look at it, and of course it’s not right. Problem #5: the last poster was wrinkled or something, and looked really bad. GREAT. I take off one of the edges so that I can adjust the poster, and PROBLEM FREAKING #6: I hear the screech and scratch of glass. Yes, that’s right folks, I ruined the very last frame I had, meaning that there are 3 complete posters framed and hanging on the wall in the conference room, and there is one blank space now. Frustrated and tired, I hauled my shards of glass to the dumpster, cursing under my breath. I figure I’m going to just get the last one custom framed at the Hobby Lobby and eat the cost. It’s going to be like $20 or $30 probably, but hey, I guess I got 3 of them for free.

Thank goodness I didn’t chop a finger off on broken glass or something. Lessons learned today: custom photo frames are ridiculously hard to use, glass is finicky and should be replaced everywhere by plastic, and a delicate craftsman I am not.

It might not seem like it, but I usually try to avoid doing completely IUSTV blog entries. There are a bunch of reasons for this, mainly that I think it’s boring for everyone else reading (all 3 of you), and even more boring for someone who’s not in IUSTV or doesn’t go to IU. This time, however, I am making an exception and writing completely about IUSTV related stuff. Feel free to stop reading now if you want, it won’t hurt my feelings.

Around the middle of spring semester LAST year, I had doubts about whether or not I would take over as the head of IUSTV. I had been with the organization pretty much since operations started (the news pilot), and most people assumed I would step up and take over for Kieran. I did, of course, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to take over at the beginning, with reasons being the massive time commitment, wanting to focus on getting better grades, and the thought of possibly staying on either as Programming Director or just as a show Producer/creator, just to name a few. I wasn’t even completely sure if I was going to stay actively involved with IUSTV, because let’s face it, I dedicated a good chunk of my time to doing IUSTV related things and more free time seemed very tempting. Another reason in the back of my mind was probably the whole “following up a legend” situation, since it’s hard for someone to follow up the Godfather and builder of an empire like IUSTV. You’re bound to be compared and measured against your predecessor.

As a side note: can you imagine how weird and different things would have been if I HAD decided to stay on only as programming director, or a producer? What if I had quit IUSTV altogether? If my life were a sitcom, this would be a great special episode.

A year later, I can say that I made one of the best decisions for myself ever by becoming Executive Director, and I’m pretty happy with the advancements, growth, and progress that I’ve been able to lead over the past year. IUSTV has moved into a brand new office, grown staff size to over 300, doubled our programming lineup, and made huge movements in establishing ourselves as part of IU and Bloomington (off-campus broadcasts aren’t far away). As I said this morning in an interview about IUSTV for Bill and Ashley Thoms’ class project, even if I never end up working in TV, this has been one of the greatest experiences I could have ever hoped to have while at college.

Although things have been going pretty great, I think one of the biggest challenges that I and the other execs are going to face between now and the end of the semester is finding our successors. Right now, it’s impossible for me to say exactly who will compose the Exec board next Fall. I suppose that I should feel really nervous about this, but it just seems like something that will fall into place. I know some people are REALLY nervous about this. A week ago, I was worried about who would apply for/become Programming Director. I’m not anymore. I’m not worried really about the other exec positions either. The only one that is a bit up in the air is my successor, the one who will become Executive Director of IUSTV.

The big difference this time around compared to last year is having a pool of obvious successors. Even though going from last year to now was a big transition because Kieran was leaving and all, it honestly was somewhat obvious who would be taking over as execs: there was a very strong group of rising seniors to take over the organization at this time last year. We don’t have that at all this year. I suppose that again, I was maybe the most obvious person to rise up last year. I’ve had to say several times over the past few weeks that in many ways, I was the “heir to IUSTV.” I really don’t mean to sound full of myself, but for the three years before this, I was kind of trained in most aspects of IUSTV. The jump for me to become Executive Director was not a shock at all. For MY replacement, however, the one I’m looking for at the moment, there is no one “obvious” to make the jump. This is the big difference, and also what is worrying a lot of people. People don’t like surprises.

What if I were to take someone with very little experience, and spend the next 2 months molding and training them to take on my responsibilities and duties? I think I can do it, and it will probably happen (it kind of has to). If anything, there will be a lot of things to teach and pass on, since right now there are a lot of things that only I know how to do. This isn’t really technical things; everyone knows how to edit, everyone knows how to send out a mass e-mail, and anyone can sort applications into teams. I guess there are a good number of things that I do right now that no one else does simply because I’ve BEEN HERE for the past 3 years to do it. Hopefully with training, I can have my successor ready to deal with all the stuff that comes up all the time. IUSTV e-mails alone probably eat up an hour or so of my daily routine.

I’m starting to ramble now, but that’s OK. Applications for my position were due today, and I received only 2. I can’t say I’m horribly surprised by this. I’ve been trying to work and implement this Executive Succession Plan since January, and I think it’s done a decent job of finding exec applicants for next year. At least, it found some good applicants for the other exec positions. I never tried dealing with, I suppose, preparing people for the seemingly exponential jump from “average 1 or 2 day a week IUSTV staff member” to “Anthony is in the office every day of the week.” Maybe that’s why we have applicants for all the exec positions except mine. In a way, that’s true I guess, although I wish it didn’t seem that way to everyone. True, I have dedicated maybe the majority of my time (certainly more than I spend on academics) to IUSTV. I don’t get paid for this. I don’t get paid for any other job because I don’t have time. I honestly don’t know why I bother with this all sometimes, except for “the love of the game.” I love what I do at IUSTV, and it’s hard to replicate this kind of dedication without having 3 years of prerequisite IUSTV work to lead up to it.

Again, I guess the most difficult and important thing for me to do this year as Executive Director is find my replacement. That’s the moral and point of this post. It will be different than last year, which isn’t neccesarily a bad thing. Give me a few weeks and I’ll have my apprentice selected. Then training will begin.

There was no target audience in mind for this blog post. Most of it was probably just for myself to read back later on and say “wow, that’s what I was thinking before so-and-so became my successor.” Comments would be great, you know, especially if you took the time to read all this chickenscratch.