Lauren Unscripted

So July has been an extremely busy month for me, actually the past 4 months have been pretty crazy now that I think about it. I honestly feel like I haven’t had time to step back and realize everything that has been happening. It has been like working three full-time jobs with my paying job, my “recreational” job (as my parents refer to it), and probably the most important job, looking for a new job.

I’ve realized living in Southern California again for the past year, and visiting all of my friends still in the bay area how much I really want to be up there working and living. It’s not that I don’t love the sunny weather and vibe of Orange County, but every time I head out for a quick weekend trip to San Francisco (which has been more of a detriment to my bank account than I’d care to admit) I again realize how much I love the city and the lifestyle it provides to those who live there.

For those who’ve been following my life, I had an interview in Mountain View with a great company called Tiny Prints. They are a start-up company in the online stationery business. I love the quality of their products and the effort they put into them, but more than anything they have an incredible appreciation for their employees and I could really tell that everyone was happy to be at work. It made me realize how much I value that in a work environment.

When you think about spending 40 hours or more of you life each week somewhere, you really want it to be something that you enjoy, something that is fulfilling, and something that keeps you learning. I would love to join their team as a Site Manager and start the career phase of my life in the bay area, however if it doesn’t fit this time, I know there is something else waiting. With each experience I have I feel like I learn a little bit more about myself. One of the greatest parts about this often awkward phase somewhere between student and grown-up is the act of growing. Like the quote says, “Happiness is a journey, not a destination.”

This turned out to be a little more reflective than I thought it would be, but reflection seems to be a common theme among my friends right now. People going through break-ups, big moves, major adjustments, culture shock, and altogether life changing experiences. It is often hard to know how choices affect our lives especially when they are major ones. In the end you have to take a step back and be grateful for all you have and trust that you will end up where you are supposed to when you are meant to.

I recently got two of my best friends into blogging. The three of us were roommates while we studied abroad in Rome. And despite being on opposite sides of the world all pursuing different passions we have managed to remain close. Chiara just graduated from UCLA and was crazy brave to head back to Rome by herself, with nowhere to live, and start an internship with the Associated Press. Follow the adventure of her life and read her incredibly well written insights on politics and Italian Culture on The Clarity Post (Chiara means clarity in Italian).

Lauren, who we more commonly refer to as Valdez (since we were both Laurens living together), just graduated from Cal and is pursing her passions in architecture and solving global poverty. This is one girl who I can say without a doubt, will change the world. She has crazy stories about meeting Al Gore and Bill Clinton, and working in South America. She’s currently working on a sustainable project for an island in French Polynesia and is ready to up and leave to move to Bolivia afterwards to continue a project she started there last year. I just helped her get a site started and you can follow her adventure at LaurenVeronica.com.

Phew, if you aren’t exhausted by now, I present a video of my recent San Franciscan adventure:

PS. I just got my new Mac Book Pro and had fun playing around with the new iMovie making this video. Forgive that I didn’t have much video to work with, but I’m heading to San Diego this weekend and still have lots of video from a recent trip to Vegas which will surely be posted soon! Check back for that :)

So the night has finally come and I’m trying to contain myself. After brainstorming, and designing, and reading forums and articles, and watching lynda.com tutorials for months, Live! From the Future’s website is launching! I feel like I have learned so much in this process (a lot through trial and error) but hey, I’ve said it before, the best way to learn is by doing. So we’ve done it!

Stuart and I are excited to go Live with livefromthefuture.com! Every week I’ll be updating the home page with a new highlight video about what you missed from the live episode of the show. We also just got approved for an iTunes podcast which I think is uber-cool, so giddy. The new website will basically be the home base for the show. You can read about what and who is coming up on the next show and what happened in case you missed a past episode.

Check it out, subscribe, sign up for emails, comment, let us know what you think!

The cast & crew will also be blogging as we can. My blog, Behind the Show with Lauren, is all about what goes on behind the scenes. As the producer I’m always taking pictures and video. I always found behind the scenes stuff to be really interesting, so hopefully it will be a peek into what doesn’t make it on the live show.

I also post regularly to our 12Seconds.tv account and share my pictures on flickr.

Here is a short commercial I put together for the show and The Stream (our network):

You can find all clips on our brand-spanking-new YouTube Channel!

I’ve been so busy working, looking for jobs, working on the show, & trying to stay sane that I haven’t blogged in too long! Last week we started trying out some new stuff which we are going to call Rooftalk. We scouted out a great location on the roof of the studio we tape in. So after the show on Tuesdays we sneak up there for some fun laid-back interviews. None of it would be possible without Lawrence, the talented filmmaker behind The Indian Maiden, who happily hauls out his lights and camera to capture some cool stuff!

I set down my laptop and camera for a few minutes so that Stuart could interview me. We chatted about how I got into new media and what I think about it’s future, my future, and the show. Watching myself talk, I realize how many times I say “like” and “just”! Grrr gotta break those bad habits.

Check out Live! From the Future weekly on Tuesdays at 8pm on TheStream.TV. We are off for the next 2 weeks but will be back new and improved in widescreen after the break! We’ve also been working diligently on a new website which I will be super excited to unveil soon!

I recently linked a 12Seconds.tv account to my twitter account. For those of you who don’t know, with 12Seconds, you create, you guessed it, 12 second videos! They have all sorts of challenges and contests and cool things you can do with your precious 12 seconds. I haven’t used it that much yet (I admit it would be a lot more fun if I had an iPhone instead of my ghetto 5 year old phone), but from what I can tell it has a lot of potential! We’ve even got a 12Seconds account for Live! From the Future, where I’ll be posting the show…in 12 seconds.

Getting back to the upcoming holiday…I got the 12Seconds newsletter today and heard about “The Boob Fund Challenge.” Take a second and let your imagination wander with that one.

OK, the actual fund is a great Mother’s Day project started by Dude to Dad. His wife, Amy, recently gave birth to their first child and will be celebrating her first Mother’s Day as a mother herself. Amy’s mother, Vicki, was diagnosed with breast cancer while pregnant. She refused to give up her child to save herself, and after fighting the disease for a year after Amy was born, Vicki passed away.

Listen to Hugh’s Story:

As a tribute, he’s started the campaign for “The Bood Fund” to raise $30,000 for breast cancer research, $1000 for every year of Amy’s life. He’s using social media to make the cause a reality and wants to get Ellen Degeneres’ attention.

Share your Mom’s story in 12Seconds and tweet it back to @theellenshow! It’s really simple, here’s mine:
@theellenshow Mrs. Dude’s Boob Fundraiser – My Mom’s Story on 12seconds.tv

When we bought the tickets to see Britney back in like November, April seemed so far away. And then it was here. Unfortunately my friends Claudia and Jeannie couldn’t make it down from San Francisco, so it ended up being just Natalie and I. We got decked out, or Britney-fied I guess you could say. Though I’m not really sure we were fully Britney-fied, seeing how we were wearing more than a diamond studded bra and hot pants. But we did our best. Oh, and if you were wondering, I had to ditch the shiny spandex for a pink dress (it was like 90 degrees)!

As expected the Honda Center was full of screaming girls probably ranging between 16 and 25 years old. I imagine a similar demographic to the Spice Girls’ concert. If nothing else it was an entertaining circus. I apologize in advance for the inability of my camera to zoom well. On second thought I don’t think it was the camera’s fault, it was the fact that we were a mile away from the stage.

On with the Circus!