country girl goes to the city...

...and gets her stuff stolen.

So it only took 3 weeks of being here to get robbed! :(

On Sunday we hiked to the Hollywood sign. We drove through a bunch of residential streets to get there, and then pulled off onto a little dirt road/side path to park, where the trail started. The neighborhood seemed like a pretty nice area, nothing sketchy about it. Soooo, for some reason I brought my purse, and realized that I didn't want to carry it during our 2-hour hike. So I set it on the floor of the front seat of my friend's rental car, and covered it with my sweatshirt. I took my phone with me, but left my wallet, iPod Touch, and camera in my purse. Uh oh.

When we got back to the car, we immediately saw that the window had been smashed, there was glass everywhere. We were stunned! Then my stomach dropped as I remembered that my purse was in there. I glanced in and saw it was gone :( As I stood there shocked, I saw a granola bar laying on the ground next to the car. I thought, hey, I had that in my purse. Then I saw my water bottle laying next to it, and my prescription glasses!! I was hoping they'd thrown out my ID or something else, but that was all they left. Hey, at least I don't have to get new glasses! I'm pretty much blind without them.

So that really sucked. I had to cancel my credit cards, we went to the police dept. to fill out a report, I have to get a new license and my parents had to wire me money. Thankfully I didn't have a lot of cash in my wallet. My friend had to get a new rental car, and he is still waiting to hear from them as to whether he has to pay for the window or not. I was really upset about the whole ordeal, and felt really stupid. But, I survived and at least everything is replaceable. Lesson learned- put everything in the trunk from now on!!! How was I supposed to know? Most of the time in T-burg I don't even think to lock my car doors. I'm likely to see more deer on my drive to town than cars...I've never had to worry about this stuff before. I will be much more careful.

In other news, I started my second internship. It is at dots! tv, a website dedicated to celebritiy: fashion, beauty, lifestyle, fitness and gossip. The site has photos, videos and a shopping section. It was created by the founder of E! Entertainment Television. The plan is for it to eventually become a television network. I got to write a little blurb about fashion during the awards season, which popped up on the main page for a few days. It says my name and everything! I pretty much got to pick any photo I wanted and write about the fashion trends that the star was wearing. Oh hey, another dream internship! The staff was really nice and fun :) They even took me out to lunch! I am enjoying both my internships. I have gotten to do lots of interviews with cool people at the magazine, but am not allowed to talk about it before the issue comes out. So you will all just have to subscribe :)

Also, we went to Universal Studios recently. We got to go on a tour of some tv/movie sets, and there were rides in the park.

I started work-study today. I'm doing 2 hours a week in the IC office, answering the phone and little stuff like that. I'm gettin paid $8/an hour, and hopefully upping my hours if possible. I need some ca$$$$$$$h.

That's all my news for now!

Love to the east coast,

Laura