TheLeong.com

Just a real quick update, even though no one is going to be able to read this for another week or so. ENOM.com, some domain registrar, has officially stolen my domain name, aleong.com. I forgot to renew it (or something), and they yanked it up the moment they could. They expected me to pay $160 + $29.95 to get it back. Yeah right. So sometime in the next few days, I will be starting a new domain name. I don’t know what it will be yet.

I still should probably write something about Thanksgiving, then one about my trip to Minneapolis and Target Corp. last weekend. For now, I just got home from 2 classes, and I’m getting ready to crash and nap hard. I didn’t sleep at all last night, getting the office ready for the ribbon cutting ceremony. Things weren’t exactly as we had planned, but it was great either way. Everyone today realized that IUSTV rules. So yeah, I was pretty much dead, but the adrenaline kept me going. Until class at 1. I had to present our Altoids project, so I was somewhat awake for that, but otherwise I was a zombie.

Sleep time now. I’ll have the website back up sometime soon, when you will be able to read this!

I know my domain name hasn’t been re-registered yet (why is it taking so long, Supreme Server.com??), I figured I’d write a quick entry. You can all read it when my website actually works again. I took Alicia’s advice and pretty much didn’t do any IUSTV stuff all day. In fact, to recover from the past week (or two), I didn’t do anything all day. I slept in until around 1PM, surfed the internet for hours, watched some TV, ate an entire Pizza Express Big Ten in two sittings, took a nap, and didn’t even leave my apartment except about an hour ago to take out some trash and get some books out of my car. I have a big group project I need to work on before I meet with my group at 10AM tomorrow. This may very well be the first all-nighter for schoolwork on a Saturday night ever.

So yeah, my idea. I’m going to make a sort of promotional video-type thing, showing behind-the-scenes type stuff at IUSTV. Working title is Inside IUSTV. I’m going to start with (a pilot, in a sense) the new Read studios Open House, and just pretty much show it off to everyone in a 22 minute special. Originally when I was thinking to myself about this (lying on the futon and watching Fresh Prince), it was just going to be a one-shot video, giving a tour of the new digs, interviewing people, etc. Then I realized that everything I wanted to put in it and do, such as interview every Exec and Producer, every show host/anchor, etc, would take way too long to make an attention-holding show. SO, I decided, I am going to do this first one and see how it goes, and if it works well, I will do one for a bunch of other shows. I figure I can put these out every month at the least, possibly more. I will take care of most of it myself, but will definitely get other people to help me out. This will give me a good chance to show off the station, get more (hopefully) people to want to work at IUSTV, and also take care of my editing bug that hasn’t been satisfied in months.

With all the other stuff I’m doing, if I can put out a show monthly or bi-weekly at the station, maybe others will wake up and say “Why can Anthony do it pretty much by himself, but our team of 15 can’t?” Not wanting to sound arrogant, but I think I can do it. And yes I realize this might be easier to make then, say, an episode of Unlocked, it will be fun and that’s the main reason I want to make it. I can take, for example, a DVD of the Inside IUSTV: Open House at Read, home over winter break (yes, I am planning on getting it done by then), and show it off to people at home. I’ll start planning this soon, but for now I have to work on this marketing project for class…

So this has been a pretty busy weekend. As an example, I left this morning for the new studio at around 1:00PM. I just got back not too long ago, just a bit after 1:00AM. Today, however, take out about 3 hours for an M415 group meeting and also White Castle dinner. Pretty much this entire week I’ve been doing a LOT of IUSTV type work, making phone calls and doing e-mails to get us moved in to the new studio. We got the keys and started moving, and it’s been busy ever since. Friday morning I woke up early to meet with RPS movers who were helping us move a lot of the big furniture and stuff from Ashton to Read. After (and kinda during) that, I had an Exec meeting, then went to an interview, then had a meeting with the Read residence manager. Then we were in the studio from about 7PM to 1AM pulling microphone cables from the studio to the control room.

Saturday was about 2 to 10PM, this time figuring out our lighting system and hanging the dimmers to plug lights into. This involved a lot of ladder and scaffolding work. Brian almost broke his toe. He didn’t though. That was about the entire day, and I went home to sleep for almost a good 12 hours. This entire week has been nuts, so it was warranted. I also, on a random note, watched some “new” Saturday Night Live, and the show has definitely gone down the tubes. Not really worth watching anymore.

Today (Sunday), I was in there from about 1PM to 3PM, then 5PM to 1AM. We finished hanging up all the lights in the studio (about 31), and it’s a lot harder than it sounds at first. But the lighting is pretty much done; we just have to add diffusion paper and label them sometime later this week.

From here on (and I know you’re curious), things will just fall into place. When the ethernet and phone jacks are finished, probably tomorrow, we will start building the cubicles in the office and also then the control room. When the ethernet jacks are actually activated (turned on), we’ll enter the final stages and move all our computers over to Read. After that, we wait on the fiber optic stuff so that we can broadcast from Read, and also sometime soon, broadcast through Insight to BCATS (off-campus channel 3). Then we’ll be in the big leagues. Sometime in there (and hopefully in the next week or so), we’ll be building a news desk, and finishing the Hoosier Date? set. It’s going to be a very busy next few weeks.

Also of note is that over the past few weeks, I’ve become less and less worried about the future of IUSTV. There will be someone around next year to take the reigns, and I think that the organization will do fine. Getting this new studio situated, and getting our broadcast off-campus, that’s a bit tougher (and more immediate) for me.

Non-IUSTV-wise, job interviews have been slowing, and so has my interest in doing any kind of work related to business or the positions that I’ve been interviewing for. I hate to say it, but the more I think about it, I don’t know if I’ll be able to live with myself working at a desk job or a sales job next year after graduation. JET is looking more and more tempting every day. With the IUSTV work that I’ve been doing the past few weeks, I completely see why Kieran took a few months “off” to go work and live in Scotland. I don’t know if I’ll be able to just go straight to a real job. Tokyo (or Japan) seems very inviting. Heck, TV might be good also. More on that some other time.

It’s finally started. The construction in the new IUSTV Read office is done, and we’re beginning to move our stuff from Ashton to Read. We got the keys Wednesday afternoon. The next few weeks are going to be hectic and a pain in the ass, but once we’re done, it’s going to be AWESOME.

I’ve had a very relaxing weekend. After playing Budokai 3 for hours yesterday, doing minimal IUSTV work, and sitting at my apartment for the past five hours either watching TV, playing video games, or internet-ing, I seriously thought that I had nothing to do tomorrow. I don’t have class until 2:30 tomorrow, don’t have any interviews in the morning, nothing. Totally free evening and day.

WRONG.

I just discovered that the term paper I thought was due on Wednesday is, instead, due TOMORROW by 4PM. I’ll be able to finish it no problem, but I won’t be sleeping much tonight and I’m not going to be a happy camper tomorrow evening. It’s funny (kinda), because I’m looking over the directions right now and on the page my Prof labeled “THE MOST COMMON MISTAKES,” number one is “Procrastination – attempting to research and prepare the paper over a long weekend – the paper will show it, and it will effect your grade.” Haha, time to introduce him to the world of Anthony Leong papers. I’m not doing this over the weekend anyway. 頑張るぞ。

I know everyone’s dying to hear what I’ve been up to, so here goes. My mind doesn’t really work in sequential order, so I’ll just go my category and/or topic.

Computer 復活
I got my computer back, but I had to buy a new HD and a new video card. I got that all set up, and after about a day or two of reinstalling Windows (3 times), going through the Registry, copying files, etc, I’m back up and running. The new HD’s name is Musashi, so that’s what the computer is now called. Kojiro is still alive (I guess it still works), and it’s in there as a secondary hard drive. I’d never installed a hard drive and/or done the whole setting slave/master kinda thing, but it was easy as hell. I felt accomplished. I have just about every program, etc that I need back on my computer, and even finally installed Firefox. The only thing I can think of that I lost in this whole ordeal (uh, aside from repair and new parts cost) was my AIM Away Messages. That, I can deal with.

就職活動Start
I’ve kind of started looking for jobs. This is pretty tough when I have no clue at all what exactly I want to do after I graduate in May. I’ve used the business school’s UCSO system to get some interviews and stuff like that, but I honestly don’t know if I even want to do sales or marketing. Advertising, I could handle. I’m wanting to work in TV more and more, but who knows if that’s easy to get into. A job in Japan would be nice also, but I don’t know if I want to live there for more than a few years. I might just end up doing JET or some other kind of program to go to Japan.
I had my first interview on Thursday morning…it was with Cook Urological. They’re looking for a Product Manager in Tokyo that will pretty much cover all of Japan. Only thing is, the job’s pretty demanding Nihongo-wise, and I’d have to live in Japan for a long time. Also, I don’t know if I want to sell stuff that people shove into their penises. In other news, I interview with General Mills on Monday for a sales-type of position, and I’m going to Boston at the end of the month for the Japanese job fair. Hopefully there will be some companies looking for Americans with only medium-level Japanese.

IUSTV stuff
Been pretty busy lately, although with exactly what, I don’t know. The office in Read isn’t going to be done until the end of the month, which is a huge pain in the butt. Oh well. 仕方ない。 Aside from the delay in new office space, pretty much everything is going great. All the teams are working, doing stuff, and being good. A few roadbumps have been handled, and I think by next week everyone will be doing something. Now that I don’t have to worry about micro-managing everything (each Exec can manage their team pretty well, and I just keep up with them), I can go on to doing more administrative stuff. Although I am really really considering Producing a new show myself. We’ll see if I have time. That’s what I came here for in the first place, right? To make TV. I’ve been thinking of trying to create the best show ever, maybe by the time I die I can do that.

忙しい Week だった
I think it’s been because I just passed the 1/3 mark of the semester, but I had at least 1 test a week for the past 2 or 3 weeks. On top of that, I’ve been somewhat busy (I don’t know exactly with what), doing assignments and other kinds of stuff. For this entire past week, pretty much, my schedule has looked like this:
12 noon: wake up in a rush, finish some work that I didn’t do
2PM-6PM: classes of some kind
6PM-11PM: go to IUSTV for meetings or goofing off
11PM-6AM: go home, either work on stuff or watch TV/use computer
6AM-12 noon: wake up in a daze and rush, repeat
One of my biggest problems, I’ve realized, is going to IUSTV. There are times when I actually have meetings to either lead or listen in on, but sometimes I’m there for no reason and end up staying the entire night. I need to cut back on this…

Everything has seemed so busy over the past few weeks, and I don’t know when it’s gonna ease up. I’m going to try and make things better for myself this week, otherwise I’m going to die from exhaustion. I’m tired of waking up and having to rush or panic to do something. I need to get myself re-organized this weekend, particularly for job interviews, the Boston trip, and partially for the Halloween Party/A-Team Reunion. Life is good, just busy. Maybe that’s good. I’m starting to see why Kieran wanted to go to Scotland for a year to relax after graduating. JET might not be difficult or perfect, but maybe I should do it just to take things easy in Japan for a year or two…