Windows

My office has no windows, which stinks, so I moved my office hours to the library for the day. While you would assume that staring out at a rainy day watching flip-flop wearers scramble to a secure, dry area wouldn't be more amusing than no window at all, but you'd be wrong. I know what time of day it is, what the weather is outside, and my productivity is way up! I call that a win all around. T-minus 25 hours until Thanksgiving bliss. Then just one week until the end of the semester. Where did it go? I ALWAYS say this, but next semester will be better. Here's hoping.

Is it Thanksgiving yet?

Work has been absolutely ridiculous lately. It has become a massive wad of politics, so bad that people forget to care about each other and be nice. I received four assignments yesterday due by the end of the week. This is more than a month after a policy was put in place that people had to come to me two weeks in advance with projects. Needless to say I cannot wait for Thanksgiving when everyone leaves and no one can send me assignments.

Today I have a date with a paper due tomorrow, but after that I have an assignment to redesign the WWPNews (my choosing) which I'm actually excited about doing. Color me geeky but it's a lot of fun and I've only done 2 out of 8 pages needed so far. Here's a link to their current pages. I'll upload some of my redesigned ones when I'm completed.

I also have a paper to write for my History of Rock and Roll class. The topic I chose was the role of lyrics in the folk revival. I thought the folk revival was one of the most interesting musical waves that we looked through. The end of the semester is difficult though. While you would assume that these two papers are the final, they are in fact in addition to a final exam and another final essay. That's just mean.

I also have a video project to work on but I got all of my video at the event I covered the Open Mic Night on Friday night. Now I just have to figure out how to edit in Final Cut Pro! That's one thing I'll never catch on to, broadcast journalism.

There's good news, I guess. I'll graduate eventually and won't have to deal with the SG anymore. This weekend is the Sugarloaf Craft fair which I'm excited about as well. Hopefully I will have found a form of stress relief by then.

Wishing everyone a peaceful mid-week!

Learn Something Everyday

This is a cool site I just stumbled upon. It's call Learn Something Everyday:
http://www.learnsomethingeveryday.co.uk/

Enjoy!

A Piece of My Heart

What a weekend! On Friday I went out to dinner with Gabi and Mandi at Murasaki, a local sushi place. Then I went to Union Jacks with Terence and his roommate for a night of dancing. That was so much fun!

Saturday I had to do a review for The Eagle of a play called "A Piece of My Heart" I'll post a link on Thursday when the article runs in the paper but for now, here's a YouTube video talking about the play.


It was a great performance and I can't wait for my review to be published. I didn't learn that much about Vietnam in school and "A Piece of My Heart" is base off of 26 of 1,500 interviews conducted of women who served in Vietnam as nurses, civilian humanitarians, and intelligence officers. I'm happy I went. I'm also writing a review of a comedy CD, Greg Giraldo. I didn't think he was funny, he was actually really offensive, but it's hard to write that in 600 words. Seeing as I just did it in a sentence. "Don't listen to him. He's offensive not funny." There, I finished my review. 

Today I woke up late and wrote my reviews and then, since it was a BEAUTIFUL day, Terence and I went to Mattie Stepanek's peace park. I heard about Mattie when I saw his mother, Jeni, on the news the other night. Her son suffered from a rare form of muscular dystrophy, dysautonomic mitochrondrial myopathy from which he died before his 14th birthday. His mother has just written a memoir about Mattie which is why she was on the news, but her son was astounding. Mattie published poems of peace and advocated on Capitol Hill for peace. Mattie had two other siblings who died from the same disease, and at the age of three, he learned to cope with the death of his brother through poetry. He published five books of poems, some of which were New York Times best sellers!

Mattie and his family live in Rockville, MD. After his death they created a park in his name where a statue of him is in addition to football fields, tennis courts, basketball courts, a massive playground, a dog park, and more. On benches scattered around the park quotes from his poems are posted. It was a fantastic experience not only to see his mother talk about Mattie on the news last week, but to go to the park and see how much the community he lives in still loves him.

I ordered his books through the consortium from school so I'll be sure to share some poems when I read them hopefully next week.

After that Terence and I went to Mi Ranchero (which I'll review on Yelp later) a Mexican restaurant we have wanted to go to since he lived there. It was fantastic. Now I'm winding down the night, posting photos, writing articles, getting ready for the week and getting ready to watch the Eagles game.

Wishing everyone a great week!

It's a Michael Buble and Rachael Ray kind of a day

Wednesdays are my day off but I have this awful habit of making plans on that day, since I have nothing else going on. I played hooky on Monday and skipped work so now I'm making up my hours . . .  on Wednesday. BUT I just came from having my senior portraits taken ((AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)). They weren't that bad. The photographer was this lovely woman who laughed at my jokes when usually it's an awkward man who is incapable of smiling. So overall, a good experience. We'll see what kind of ugly mug I'm making in these photos when the proofs go to the house.

I started off my morning amazingly. I realized, while ironing my clothes for maybe the first time, that it was 10:17am and Rachael Ray was on. That show is my secret television indulgence. Today she had Michael Buble on, whose new CD Crazy Love came out on October 9th. Today, as I tuned in, a pregnant woman was professing her families love for his music with her husband. She was saying "the kids run around our house singing your songs and we listen to you all the time. We just love you." Her husband was oddly quiet but what else is he supposed to do when his wife is professing their love to someone else. She told Michael Buble that they were expecting their third child and they sing his songs to the baby all the time and Michael said, "Well, can I sing to the baby?" and the woman absolutely exploded. And of course, I did too. He got down on one knee as her husband pulled out a video camera and Michael Buble sang "I just haven't met you yet" to the baby. It was the cutest thing in the history of television. I love him.

The video below isn't of Michael Buble on Rachael Ray today, but it's his appearance on her show a year ago. As soon as today's show is posted online I'll share because it's just too cute to miss!




Another CD I'm really excited for is John Mayer's Battle Studies coming out on November 17th. I love the new single "Who Says"  and from some of the previews of his CD leaked on YouTube it sounds like it's going to be a great album. 

I also spoke with my grandma today when I called my mom to tell her my great senior portrait success story. That just made me super excited for Thanksgiving madness!

Happy Wednesday!!