I just signed up for a professional studies course at NYU. It’s one of those intensive course where you go for eight hours straight every Saturday. So… a quick summary:

a) no more sleeping late on Saturday mornings.
b) I have to learn to take classes again.
c) if work doesn’t reimburse for tuition like they’re supposed to, I’m screwed.
d) holy crap.

So for this project at work I kinda need to know what teen girls are all about. What they do, who they talk about, what they’re into, etc. Since I’ve never been a girl, and at this point in my life I’m far from being a teenager, I decided to subscribe to some teen girl magazines. It made more sense getting subs, since for the price of a couple of issues you can get twelve or so. In the past couple of weeks I’ve finally started receiving my mags. The contents haven’t been too suprising for the most part – a lot of fashion tips, personality quizzes, blurbs on Orlando Bloom and Chad Michael Murray, blah, blah, blah. What has been interesting though, are the articles and letters to the editor where “real” girls chime in. Of course there are the evil girl letters. One I read this afternoon (I think from CosmoGirl) featured a girl who ended up going to the movie with someone she didn’t really like. First off… if you don’t like them, just say no, but of course this girl didn’t stand up for herself. Anywho… she’s at the movie, she can’t stand the guy so she excuses herself to the restroom, except she actually just leaves. WTF? Gotta watch out for that one. No more dating sixteen year olds for me. Hopefully when girls grow up to become thirty-something women they don’t have the same techniques for dealing with less-than-fun dates. Not that I have any thirty-somethings going to movies with me. No, I see films alone. Speaking of which, I saw “AVP” and “Collateral” this weekend. The former was okay, nothing special – a dumb, summer, action film. The later however, was great. If you’re in NYC – go see it at Empire 25 and if they still have the option, go see it in the digital theater (13?) – great screen and of course the print is flawless (technically it’s not a print I guess).

Here’s an interesting side note to that whole subscribing to teen girl mags thing. A few weeks before I ordered the subscriptions, I ordered some surplus US Army cargo pants and a flashlight from an online Army surplus store. I just love the actual old-school olive drab, ripstop trousers – so comfortable. And the flashlight – well I needed one for my “Go Bag” at work (the ones they provided sucked). Anyhow, since I ordered some surplus materials, I’ve gotten on some weird, vaguely right-wing mailing lists. So the other day when I go to pick up my mail at the Post Office, the guy hands me a stack of teen girls mags, a spy store catalog (featuring hidden cameras on the cover), a gun supplies catalog, and a catalog for ordering cigars. I’m really suprised I haven’t been visited by the FBI or local law enforcement yet…