#NerdsUnite: Gettin 'er done

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Eric. He is a MAASSTTEERRR social dynamics expert that will be talking about his experiences in the field from both an expert, and experience perspective. He's not just saying "this is how to get the girl" he's here to share his actual life stories and lessons learned from them. I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT ERIC !!</editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @Redolpho

In the 7 Habits of Highly Effective people by Steven Covey, Steven talks about the path to interdependence. Interdependence is the state of a reciprocal relation between interdependent entities or mutuality. This is a three stage process; dependence, independence and interdependence, respectively.

Previously I had lived a life of dependence. I thought that I was independent or maybe even interdependent but really I was looking to others to tell me what to do and how to do it. Although the path to true independence isn’t achieved in a mere two weeks I have started making everyday decisions to move myself in that direction. I ask people for help less and look to myself for solutions more often. It has already made such a drastic difference and I’m very grateful that I had that epiphany. My energy has changed 180 degrees and that’s what’s most important. I’m not dragging myself to work anymore. I wake up stoked for my life. My creativity is functioning in a completely different way.

In the last two weeks I finally launched my social media company with my partner and the launch party was off the chain. Business since then has been great and if you look at the picture below you can see that my smile is genuine. I’m so excited to take our company to the next stage.

As far as the hostel goes, things have been pretty good. The work is hard and the hours are weird. In the last two weeks I’ve worked two 24 hour shifts between my company launch and my shifts at the hostel. Most nights I get somewhere between 3 and 5 hours of sleep but I guess that was to be expected. The perpetual jet lag is tough but I’m working through it.

My newest challenge is trying to budget time for a social life. As a creative individual I know the importance of distancing yourself from your work. I’m trying very hard to carve out time but there is a certain guilt that you feel as an entrepreneur when you are not working. You constantly feel as though you should be moving your company forward. On the other hand my spiritual contentment is precious and I know the consequences of starving it. I have felt the undertow of depression and have been making a conscious effort to just get out every week or so, even if just for an hour or two.

In other news I have found a real confidence in my expertise as a social dynamics coach.The students results have been significant. They’re going on multiple dates and I’ve had the chance to see them outside of our workshops and you can see the new sense of confidence that they have. Watching them grow so much as people has been so inspiring. Workshop #2 is coming up where we’ll talk about the intricacies of moving from hello to romance and I can’t wait to watch them take the next step in their journey.

Thanks again to everybody that has been so supportive over the last month. My personal growth has impressed me and your support has been paramount. I’m so grateful!

L’chiam! (to life)

#thatisall

If you’d like to share your stories please feel free to tweet me at @redolpho or email me at eric dot rudolph dot carrillo at gmail dot com

#NerdsUnite: Big lights, big city, and a journey into confidence

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's Jordan Friedman

Hi folks.  I’m Jordan, and I’m excited to be sharing my side of the Nerd World to you all. 

I’m kind of a youngin’ here at just 22 years old; I’m originally from upstate New York and went to college there, however I moved to New York City in August of 2011 to pursue my career full-time. What is this career? I’m a freelance theatre director. What does this actually entail, some might ask? It’s interesting to explain. For whatever show I may be directing, I am in charge of getting the actors to understand the story of the script that they are working on, to make sure that their acting and movements help to convey the story in a vision that I feel best tells all of the elements of said story, and to make sure that the effort in the rehearsal room is understood and felt by the audience. I also will work with designers to make sure that the lights, set, sound, and costumes play their own key role in the play or musical, and that all of these elements work well together. It can be challenging at times but I find that this is the one thing that I have done that leaves me one-hundred percent fulfilled and confident that this is what I should be doing, so I continue to do it.

I’ve considered myself a nerd ever since the idea of being a nerd was introduced to me, and I’ve always partaken in nerdy things. From getting my first exposure to AOL when I was 9 (Does it say I’m old if I remember the days when they had those CDs for free hours), to my days of playing Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh when I was younger, to talking about one of my favorite topics, game shows (It goes so far that one of the more active communities I’m a part of is the viewing audience of a British game show). It’s a part of me I don’t think is going away any time soon.

So now that you know who I am, let me tell you a bit of what I’ll be blogging about.

*My Theatrical Excursions

Considering my career is in theatre as well as it being my main passion, many of my blogs will be about my pursuits as a theatre director.  At present I am attempting to not only direct, but also independently produce a show that I really want to put up. Blogs like these share my experiences first hand so you get to see things as I’m seeing them, learning lessons as I’m learning them, and getting a view of theatre directly from an artist pursuing it. I also at some point will blog why this was not necessarily the career choice people initially expected of me, and how that’s fueled my fire to do it even further and confirm that directing theatre has become not just a career, but my passion. (I won’t say too much here because it probably will need its own blog post)

*My Quest To Improve My Confidence

One of the main reasons I’m blogging specifically for this site is that I find that I provide a voice on a subject that I believe many of my fellow nerds have had to struggle with at one point or another, and that is confidence. This is something I’ve had issues with all of my life and something that has given me great anxiety over the years. These issues, to various degrees, have affected my education, finding jobs, my dating life (…really lack there of but we’ll ignore that) and more. Ever since I’ve moved to New York, it’s been a goal of mine to attempt to improve it and get to the point where I consider myself to be a confident person. I’ll be blogging about these attempts, what has worked for me and how someone can grow confidence. Note that with these blogs I don’t claim to be a renowned expert on the subject, but someone who’s tried many tactics and is willing to share what has and hasn’t worked for me personally.

*Various New York City Adventures

Here’s the thing with New York City if you’ve never been there. No matter who you are, there’s always something enjoyable for you to do in this city. I’ll blog about things I’ve enjoyed doing in this new home of mine, things that have taken me out of my comfort zone, and other aspects of the New York City life that are worth sharing. Plus, with all of the stories of Los Angeles on this blog, there’s got to be some New York based stories to even out the coasts a bit.

*Miscellany

I’m one of those people that if there’s something that I really want to discuss, I’ll talk about it. I might blog about something that I’ve never blogged about before and may never blog again, but if it’s something that I can write a passionate blog about and feel a need to, I’ll do it. I might also share fun past stories that you all can laugh at now, and I’ll probably laugh at when I’m drunk and in my thirties.

So that’s my first blog here at TNTML, hope you enjoyed it and I didn’t just metaphorically do a Clint Eastwood at the RNC. If you’d like, you can follow me on Twitter at the link below, as well as look at my own blog site,  “A Director Blogs” where I post daily blogs about the theatre I’m working on. Until then,

Stay nerdy my friends.

 -Jordan

#nerdsunite

Follw him on Twitter at @jordanbfriedman!

A Director Blogs:  adirectorblogs.blogspot.com

#TCDisrupt: I just got a free pink mustache ride from @lyft

Hi friends, 

It is I ... Jen ... and I'm in SAN FRAN FREAKING CISCO!!!!! 

I feel so .... charged!!! I love love love exploring new cities and getting to play. 

Why am I in SF you may ask? 

For #TCDisrupt silly goose. See, my twitter buds over at @andesbeat reached out to me asking to cover the conference for them. They're ALLLLLL the way in Chile and couldn't afford the ticket so instead of incurring the costs they picked up my bus ticket and BOOM! here I be!! 

I'm super honored at the offer and look!! I have a fancy pants press badge .... 

I feel SO freaking fancy pants. 

Anywho, AndesBeat got me here, and til Wednesday I'm crashing with my buddy @brokeassstuart (could you ASK for a better host of this city, btw!! The man IS SF!!) but last week I had tweeted out about getting around in general. See, the times that I've been in SF before I had a car from Ford. Now, I am sans car. 

To my absolute absolute absolute delight, I had not one, not two, not three, but FOUR services reach out to me offering to take care of transportation. 

The first one was a really cool service called LYFT. 

It's an app that you download on your phone and it calculates your GPS and with two quick clicks sends a driver to you! (mine came in less than 5 minutes!!)

I had an AMAZING time last night with Igor, and I'll tell you all more about it in my wrap up. 

Gotta jet now though, I have some nerdy talking to do. 

Dudes, can I tell you how RAD it is being a female at tech conferences?? For really reals reals, NO LINES IN THE LADIES ROOM!!!! 

Happiest. Camper. Ever. 

Many blessings to you guys, and if anyone is at the conference and wants to meet up feel free to tweet me: @JenFriel

#nerdsunite

Very very very special thanks to AndesBeat for the sponsorship.

AndesBeat is a cultural game-changer movement that fosters the 'very' early stage growth of startups in Latin America. Check 'em out over yonder!! 

#NerdsUnite: The secret life of a veterinary technician

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Lindsay. She and I met ... well, somewhere in the social space. I think we might have started talking through this site directly, then through facebook - maybe ... I'm not sure. But she's awesome. I talk to her on twitter almost every day, and she's really rad and TOTALLY a big huge animal lover. Like crazy huge!! In these series of posts she will be talking about her life and random adventures with sometimes more than two legged creatures. I guess there's only one more thing left to say ... HIT IT LINDSAY!!</editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @TheCraftafarian

Life has been on an upward trend for us lately.  David has been working more hours at his new job and just interviewed for a promotion there, we will find out in the next few days. I know he's qualified for the position and he really deserves it. He works so hard! That would mean full time, full benefits, and a raise! This new job although he's not making as much or working nearly as many hours (but at least he gets paid for EVERY hour he works) is leagues better than his old one. I'm actually getting to have days off with him and he's not exhausted and grumpy all the time from being unappreciated, overworked, and cheated out of overtime. This job actually has management that thanks him and makes sure the entire staff takes break/eats. They do mealtime per shift and always have food for the staff if they choose to eat it. Sounds pretty nice!

As I told you guys last week we have our internet back! YES. Although apparently they reset our wifi network name and password to a default or something and we don't know the login information. That's next on the to-do list, it's such a hassle to call customer service. At least we have internet when we plug in via Ethernet to the modem-router-thing. I'm serious, it's not your regular modem and router combo. It's this all in one box that Brighthouse has with their super crazy fast "lightning" internet. Once we got that back I started getting caught up on my blog/website stuff. I'm redesigning (I guess that's what you call it) the look. I just tweak a little bit at a time. Usually I learn as I go, it's an interesting and time consuming process. I'm trying to make it more organized, more appealing to the eye, yet professional-ish. Bah, I'm just doing what I want, whatever. Hehe :)

Thanks to family and friends (and social media, yay!) I've sold a few items from my Etsy shop (http://www.etsy.com/shop/craftafarian). I can't wait until I can find some time to create some more things to add to the shop. I want to add some crocheted items, maybe some stuff for pets (cat nip toys, etc) and David suggested adding some jewelry made with old or foreign coins after they are polished up. I thought that was pretty cool. The money from the sales has been a great help lately--plus a portion of it goes to local pet rescue: Faith, Hope and Love Rescue Inc. This rescue has been helping my clinic find homes for our foster kittens by alternating weeks at their featured adoptable spot at the local pet store.  In fact, one of the kittens I fostered at my apartment for a few weeks was adopted this week. It was bittersweet as I was kind of sad but also happy that she finally found a home. I hope they bring her to our clinic to get spayed so we can see her again.

School has been going really well. I'm attending San Juan College's Veterinary Technology distance learning program aka online. I'm only taking one class and its just the first few weeks but I'm really enjoying it. I've been trying to be very diligent about studying. The tests and quizzes are timed so even if you wanted to try to look up the answers you really don't have time.  One class in process, 29 left to go until I've completed the AAS in Veterinary Technology and I will have been educated enough to take the national exam. Good times.

Once we get but on track will all the bills, get David's school and other stuff situated, get my cat's surgery, then we should be saving for hopefully a house. *happy dance* Yay, future.

<3

Lindsay

#nerdsunite

Click here to follow Lindsay on Twitter!

#OpenLetter: They call it love, love, love

I keep writing out the first sentence of this post, and then immediately deleting it. I've been sitting here now for about 20 minutes and I just keep writing and deleting, writing and deleting. Instead of hiding that fact though, I decided to instead allow it to breathe in the creative process. 

How very Zen. 

Sigh, I can't help it - I am very very very much in love. I've been in love actually for almost two months. It was COMPLETELY accidental, and COMPLETELY unexpected but I can't help it and if I don't admit it I am going to go mad. 

I'm actually fascinated by this btw, because men are REALLY picking up on it. In TWENTY SEVEN YEARS on this planet I have never EVER been approached by so many men. At parties, walking down the street - every.where.i.go. I look exactly the same, haven't changed hair, makeup, nothing - the only thing that changed was my energy vibration. I have this ... openness ... that I don't think I've ever experienced before. (Even my shaman picked up on it.) This person came into my life in an EXTREMELY unexpected way yet I know because of him I am literally a changed person. 

He knew it immediately when we met. He LITERALLY got down on his knees and said he had to know me. FTR, a grown fucking man getting down on his knees is a VERY powerful thing to experience as a woman. ESPECIALLY since it was in the middle of a party!!! 

Our first date was extremely extravagent, but my most favorite part was when we actually just got to talking at Caesars palace right before our flight. 

We bonded after that, and he even fell asleep on my shoulder on the way back. 

I never do that, he admitted. 

I smiled for the entire cab ride back to Hollywood. 

How is it I just spent all of this time with this person, yet I am GENUINELY sad to be no longer by their side?? 

I push people away. 

I'm very very very good at it, in fact.

It's all still part of residual energy I have been working on from my youth but how can you blame the brain for having such powerful defense mechanisms to prevent hurt again. 

In a very literal sense, I can't handle being around people for that long without going a bit nutty. He intuitively picked up on it a few times asking if I wanted to listen to my music. This is a first, I thought. Men normally take it personally, this guy is allowing me to just be. 

This I like. 

I craved to be next to him for that entire next week, and by our second date I KNEW I was a goner. We were sitting on his couch and I vividly remember looking him in the eyes and having this overwhelming feeling that this was "different." For someone that literally makes a living dating, "different" is something I don't experience often. 

I knew I was not only into this guy but that I was genuinely falling in love. 

It freaked me out at first honestly, but his radical honest nature made it all the more easier. 

THEEENNNNN, shortly after our third date, he tried to end things. 

I remember sitting next to him at the bar as he started crying telling me we couldn't keep dating. 

That entire experience taught me the true meaning of the phrase "gut wrenching." 

That was such a horrible day.

I never spoke ill of him though, nor did I say anything in anger or resentment - I just kept asking, why? I obviously see from his side that us dating in any capacity makes ABSOLUTELY no sense. He is more than a decade older than me, very private - here I am 27 bright eyed and bushy tailed known around LA as being a man eater. 

He pushed me away, but I was still willing to accept it if it was truly what he wanted. I might not have understood why he was doing it, but I truly did love him and if he thought it was for the best, what else could I do? 

I was still at the end of the day super happy that I met him and super happy to have at least felt something like this in my life after desensitizing myself by serial dating. 

(Serial daters btw don't actually realize they are serial daters. You can't ever call a serial dater a serial dater.) 

I then had an insanely wild adventure in Vegas but had lunch with him an hour after I got back.

I remember waking up in the pool of my own puke, but knowing and I mean KNOOWWINNNGGG that I was going to do WHATEVER it took for me to get back to LA on time. 

I.

Had.

To

Keep.

My.

Lunch.

Meeting. 

He meant so much to me, and for him to take this time and talk to me - I knew it meant he still cared and that was all that mattered. 

Lunch was spectacular. 

I held his hand, and my body quivered. 

It wasn't a quiver of lust as has been with the majority of men I have been with - this was this ... comfort. This recognition of a home base. He's my charging station if you will. 

I still wasn't exactly sure though about what everything meant, but again, I was just willing to go with the flow not wanting to not have him in my life. 

We've been dating ever since and I've never felt something so intimate in my entire life. We still haven't had sex, yet I have actually stopped watching porn because I have a new kind of creative mojo. 

<tangent> I never got that before, btw. People would say how bad porn was and that there was nothing to it. I've always been like, DUDE, it's fucking PORN!!! How is this NOT amazing!!! Naked people! YAY!!! 

Yep, I get it now. </tangent> 

He does things to my body on such an intimate level. It's so so so powerful and visceral. 

I've been in love before, obvi, but this is the very first time that I'm comfortable and confident enough with my own self to not seek a label on it. 

I do not do not do not want to change him. He will always be a flirt and is a very expressive man in general. That attracts me to him, actually. 

Either way, I can't stop gushing about him and I can't stop thinking about him.

Dudes, I even drunk dialed him last night at his request. FTR, I never EVVEEERRRRR drunk dial. Not that I have anything to hide, I'm actually a very happy little drunk, but I get terribly embarrassed by it.

More of my guard has been let down, I thought. 

I used to think that people who wanted to be in relationships were weak. Why do you need another person? I would think. How is that not a sign of dependence?? I don't need anyone, ever! I can support myself spank you very much!! 

Because of this person I have actually learned it is the exact opposite. I was weak for never letting anyone in. The reason why I pushed people away was rooted in fear. This is love and on a very literal level, men are RESONATING with it!!!! 

Love is the meaning of everything. Funny how you can have it tattooed on your wrist and still forget. 

BUT FTR, yes I am still dating. I am being extremely genuine when I say that I am settling down soon. I am more than ready (even changing my number to negate the booty calls). If it's with this person, awesome sauce - if not awesome sauce!! Life is meant to be lived and people come along for a myriad of reasons. Gotta get all NSYNC and maintain "no strings being attached." 

There is so much beauty in genuine appreciation. 

So. So. Much. Beauty. 

#yaylife