San Francisco, I love you, but I’m headed to New York today! It’s going to be a great trip. I can’t wait to see all my friends from last summer. And that includes Union Square. Oh, Union Square, how I’ve missed you.
I’ll be spending the first few days hanging out with the rest of the cast from Beauty and the Geek. Watch us on the WPIX morning news this Wednesday! My schedule says I’ll be on at 7:40 am. We don’t have a venue for Wednesday evening yet. Any suggestions?
Some people say you haven’t made it until you’ve played Carnegie Hall. I say you haven’t made it until you’ve got a crazy stalker girl. Hi, Lauren.
Flex those networking muscles
Ankur from season 2 is a friend of mine, in my department at Berkeley. (Apparently there’s something about the electrical engineering department at Berkeley that the casting team really likes.) I went to a party at his house last spring where I met Cher and Wes. They were working with the casting team at the time, thought I was interesting, invited me to an interview the next day, and the rest is history!
Meet people in person
Yeah, I know Beauty and the Geek had this open casting call thing where you could send in a video of yourself showing off your glorious geekiness. But I don’t think more than one or two of the guys actually took that route. Nate, for example, was randomly discovered while handing out flyers on campus, Mario was at a comic book convention, and I just ran into some people at a party.
Offer something unique
When I was asked why I wanted to be on the show, I was honest. I told my interviewer that after after going years without a date, I’d gotten fed up and spent the past six months focusing on improving my social skills. What better way to put my personal growth to the test than on national TV?
Evidently no other applicant took that approach.
And finally, wear your underwear over your clothes.
I’m not saying it’ll help, but it can’t hurt!
Life is a journey. I feel like I’ve been traveling through the woods, and some time ago I passed a fork in the road. At the time, the paths didn’t look that different, so I just picked one, the one that seemed a little easier.
I was comfortable for a while, but the further I took that path, the darker and narrower it got. When I finally stopped moving forward and just looked around instead, I couldn’t deny any longer that I was on the wrong path. And it was too late to go back.
Just recently, I gathered the willpower to bust through the woods to the other path. The trees are greener, the air is fresher, and the path is wide open. And even though I don’t know where my new path leads, I know it’s the right one.
I mentioned in my post yesterday that as zany as the cast seems so far, you ain’t seen nothing yet. It’s a shame that so much of the first episode was devoted to the logistics of the season and the competitions because the social interaction in the house bordered on ridiculous.
It’s not that the girls are dumb; most of them are just used to a lifestyle where there’s no motivation for them to know anything about the world. Why exert yourself and learn something if you’re already getting everything you want because of your looks? I want to say that the beauties are out of touch with reality, but all things considered, maybe it’s the geeks who don’t understand how the world works.
As for the guys, none of us were doomed from birth to a life of social ineptitude and isolation. Most of us simply placed a low priority on socializing. I know I did. Especially since beginning my Ph.D. at Berkeley, every minute of every day was about getting your research, or your paper, or your homework set done. Any time spent socializing was time that could have been more effectively used improving your research.
For my professors, that was fine. I see them in their offices at 11:00 on a Saturday night because there is genuinely no other place they would rather be. They love doing research. That wasn’t true for me. But I had to be surrounded by girls with a polar opposite worldview to really make me see it.
To me, the essence of Beauty and the Geek is a reexamination of your priorities. There’s more to life than looks, or books. What’s important to you? What do you need to accomplish to ensure your future happiness? And perhaps the hardest question of all: Are your current priorities moving you toward those goals?
