Thursday, January 31, 2008

Being Single

I am being stalked by the married, by the engaged, by frivolous would-be brides if only they could find a man. Is it just me, or is it everywhere these days?

Marriage is a beautiful thing, this I cannot deny. And this is not to suggest by any means that I don't want to be married one day. Please... of course I do. Who wouldn't want to find that kind of committed relationship with the person who makes you whole? Everybody wants that... mostly.

But just because I'm 19 doesn't mean I should have a ring on my finger just yet. All too often I’ve seen my friends fret over finding 'the one' in college. Sometimes I can't help but wonder if that's why they came (in which case I would have suggested they checked our female:male ratio first). They’re only sophomores for goodness sakes, there’s still time. But just the thought that these young, beautiful girls already feel that they’re destined to be man-less and alone for the rest of their lives is insane.

I’m single, and my world isn’t coming to an end. Imagine that. I’m single and I’m still here. That is not to say I haven’t had my fair share of crushes (probably more than my fair share if we’re being honest) along the way. I most certainly have. I’ve chased the uncatchable with no luck. Heck, I’ve chased the catchable with even less luck. My problem was that I didn’t have standards. Well, I had them I suppose, they were just low.

But this is how we learn, isn’t it? I learned the hard way not to pretend to be someone I’m not just to attract male attention. Who wants to be in a relationship that was essentially based on lies, anyway? Not me. On top of which dating for the sake of dating doesn’t appeal to me at all. I’m looking for a special connection with someone, but at the same time, I’m not going to put my life on hold to look for it.

As far as marriage is concerned, like I said, I’d love to have that kind of relationship with someone. My parents have been together for almost 22 years and I’ve observed them and have come to understand that the most successful of all relationships are based on love, compromise and trust – and that’s exactly what they have.. and consequently, what I need to find before I marry.

But it seems to me that these days some girls aren’t looking for marriages at all. They’re looking for the dress, the flowers, the band, the balloons, the gifs, the groom that makes the bridesmaids jealous.. they want a wedding. Which bothers me. To me the wedding is only the ceremonial inception of a lifetime together with the one person that fills every inch of your soul with joy.

Alas, for now I’m single. And Valentines’ Day is approaching. Oh no! Not Valentines’ Day! The most miserable day of the year for the single, and the most awkward for the dating. I’m not bitter about it. I’m not the type to sit around and sob because I didn’t get flowers, but I’m not going to stuff my face with chocolates as I watch romantic comedy after romantic comedy and lament about how much I hate men. So this is my life as a single girl. And I don’t mind it.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Does Size Really Matter?

You're darn right it does.

Big is good. I love big. There's something really awesome about big. It all seems very thrilling and exciting. But I'd have to go with small. Small is better. Small is personal. Small is perfect. There's something more comfortable about small that you don't get with big. Small isn't as overwhelming.

I'm sorry, did I raise your eyebrows a bit?

Campuses, kids. Campuses.

I was tempted by the larger public schools at first. I was. I wanted to go to Mizzou sooo badly, I can't even tell you. But I'm glad I didn't and I'll tell you why.

First of all, Drake's campus is small. Seriously. It's little. It's not squished or anything, but I can make it from one side of campus to the other in probably one and a half songs on my iPod. Places like Iowa State, Mizzou, Colorado State, and University of Nebraska literally need busses to shuttle students from one part of campus to another. A shuttle. And I've heard from people that it takes more than half an hour to walk if you don't feel like taking the shuttle. That's just a little insane.

Especially in the Midwest.

Have you been to the Midwest? Have you experienced winter here? It's rough going anywhere on campus and Drake's small... i can't imagine walking anywhere at U of I. Or wherever. The smaller the campus, the better off your exposed skin is. Plus, all too often I've woken up ten minutes before class is supposed to start and still got there early. You can't top that.

Plus, Drake's enrollment is small. Small, small. Including graduate students, we're at around 5,300ish and undergrad population is just over 3,000. The biggest class I have ever been in didn't even have 50 kids in it.. and that was psychology, a class that most everybody has to take. My biggest class this semester is an English class with 20 kids in it. They're never that big. I guess it's a popular one to take. Usually I have around 12 kids in class. The last journalism class I was in had 7. I love having tiny classes. Granted, it's always very obvious when I didn't do the homework or the reading. but participating in class isn't scary and the teachers know your name and you get all this attention and help when you need it. You feel like a student, not just a number.

Friday, January 25, 2008

1 down... 15 to go

So, the first week of school is over. Only 15 left until summer!

No, I'm not counting down... yet.

So far I'm not worried about classes. Some are obviously more work than others, but nothing seems completely unmanagable as of yet.

Let's see what I have this semester...

I have J66 - Media Responsibility Over Time. It's actually not as boring as it sounds. Yet, anyway. It sounds like we'll be studying the journalistic aspect of things like the Civil Rights Movement. It should be interensting. I'm looking forward to it. There's some reading involved and a couple of papers and a research project, but even that has mini-deadlines as to discourage procrastination.

There's E66 - American Multicultural Literature. Believe it or not, it's hard to discuss "multicultural" literature without first defining "multicultural," which, apparently, is a fairly broad term. The books we're reading seem to be about people struggling between two cultures - typically the one of their parents and American. There's a lot of writing in this one and a LOT of reflection and its' all very structured. It was actually a bit of a shock to see how structured it was. Which is kind of strange since when I got here I thought it was odd how UNstructured classes were. It's hard to go back. Otherwise, it's a discussion-based course sooo... we'll see if I can come up with something that sounds intelligent.

I have PHYS 001 - Physical Science. Great, but it depends on what you're looking for. It seems like an easy A type of class. Especially if you've been in science before... like in the third grade. The professor is funny and there's a huge poster of the table of elements so when I'm bored I can brush up on my noble gasses. The class is only 50 minutes twice a week, but it comes with a 2 hour lab... which is a little brutal. I haven't quite decided on how that will go just yet.

E168 - Storytelling as a Social Practice. I haven't decided on this one just yet. It seems really deep or something... maybe "deep" isn't the right word. Still... it requires some serious cognative work there. Not really a class about telling stories. More of a class about WHY we tell stories. This one will be challenging... although, I must admit... English classes always sound more intimidating than they turn out to be. The first day is frightening and the syllabus has big words, but it's usually nothing to freak out about. You just have to give it a chance.

Oh! J119 - Magazines in American Society. Sounds awesome so far. I had the same professor last semester so it's nice to know what I can expect from her end. We actually have this huge project where we have to ultimately create a magazine. We get to design it and everything. I'm really excited about it. It's also really exciting to have another major-specific course. It seems like a lot of work, but fun work.

Well, that's it. 16 credits this semester. I'm not too put of so far, let's hope it stays that way. We shall see... week two is right around the corner.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Internship Time

There comes a time in every college student's life where they start looking for their little window of opportunity to jump through in order to enter their chosen profession. This is what we like to call the internship hunt.

Now, it's not easy, the internship hunt. And it's not always fun. But it's exciting, don't you think? Just the thought of maybe working at an actual magazine over the summer is just amazing... and, of course, frightening beyond alllll reason. Maybe by-lines are out of the question but, getting coffee for the by-liners is good enough for me.

So far, I've only applied for one internship, and will be applying for a few more in the upcomminig week. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for something at the big magazine publishing company in Des Moines called Meredith Publishing. They do a little publication called Better Homes and Gardens... maybe you've heard of it. They do that, all the Better Homes and Gardens spin-offs and about a million other magazines. A lot of Drake students get internships and jobs with them after graduation, but it's still very competitive. They also have an office in New York, so if I'm accepted into the internship program I might be sent out there. I'd rather stay in Des Moines, but you have to take what you can get.

Generally speaking college students usually get the big internships the summers of their junior and senior years, but you can start working towards getting one now. The most important thing is to start building your resume. Or at least keep a running list of activities, jobs and honors from high school. All of those things are especially important on your first resume at least... when you don't have much (if any) professional experience to speak of.

Plus, if you're a journalism major (or plan on being one), keep your clips from your high school newspaper and make copies of your pages from your yearbook. Portfolios are important. People want to be able to see what you can do. You can write about what kind of design programs you can use on your resume and them prove it to them by bringing in some design samples. Visuals never hurt. Some people may ask you for those things, some might not, but having it is always best.

Some internships pay and some don't. So far I've applied for only the ones that do pay since, if I do end up in Des Moines for the summer, I am going to have to eat somehow. Don't get me wrong, interns don't make a lot of money because what you really gain is the experience. And, you have to be careful and not be too picky. I applied for an internship at a woodworking magazine. Do I know a darn thing about woodworking? No. But, is it a magazine? Yes. Plus, I think the prospect for working on a magazine about a topic I know nothing about is kind of exciting. It's a chance to learn something.

I'll keep you posted on the hunt, and don't forget that you can do things now to help you later.

Spring Training

Don't be fooled... this isn't anything exciting like baseball spring training - it's RA spring training. I shouldn't suggest that it's not exciting in its own way, but let's just say that people don't come from all over to watch it happen. I don't even know if it's called spring training. If it were me, I'd call it winter training. Believe me, there's nothing spring-like out here. Maybe it is called winter training... I don't remember. That's not really the point, though.

The point is is that for the last week the RA staff has been going through a shortened version of our summer training to review some things for the new semester. The actual learning and re-learning of things was alright, but the best part had to be getting to be with the whole staff again. We don't do enough of that throughout the year. I don't even see my own staff that much with the execption of our meetings once a week.

Everybody was reunited and it was a lot of fun. The RAs from the first year halls got to reconnect with the RAs in the upperclass halls which was great because whe rarely see each other.

We ate as a staff and had fun as a staff and bonded as a staff. It was really nice to have that again. It was like the summer... only, you know, cold...

Each building had to put together a performance for RA Airband. We had to lip-synch to a song and do a dance or something. Carpenter decided to lip-synch to "one week" by the Bare Naked Ladies -- only sitting upside down on a couch with sunglasses on our chins to make it look like our mouths were actual people. We were laughing so hard we couldn't even lip-synch. Herriot Hall did the Thriller dance, the pottery scene from Ghost, and Ghostbusters. Crawford and Stalnaker worked together and did the Jackson 5's "ABC" which was hilarious. GK did "Anything you can do, I can do better" from Annie Get your Gun. Morehouse sang a really funny song called "Welcome to Our house." Jewett did a cross-dressing version of "Sk8er Boi." And Ross went the artistic route and performed a poem with some "ooh laa laas" in the backround. It was pretty funny. I have some pictures I stole from facebook that you can see.

It was nice to come back and have some time without having to worry about residents right away. But, I'm sure happy to have them back now. It's a little creepy being on the floor all alone. Plus, they're my girls and I love them. They drive me crazy some days, but I love them anyway.


Morehouse staff


haha, Carpenter staff


GK staff... yes, that's a guy wearing a dress


Ross staff


Crawford and Stalnaker staffs


Herriot Staff doing Thriller


Herriot staff doing Ghost


Jewett staff


the whole staff... together again

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Scintilating Saturday Night

This past Saturday was spent in a rather unusual way. First of all, my brother and I actually played a game... together. Second of all, it didn't revolve around video games.

Yep. The Wii idled on the shelf. The HD TV with it. The iPods weren't shoved into the ears of their respective owners. Cell phones were out of the room. The laptops were charging and the DVD players were still.

So how did we spend this Saturday evening? HOW? Cup Stacks.

Does anybody remember these things? They are basically plastic cups with holes in the bottoms of them so when you pull them apart, they don't stick to each other. The idea is that you stack them up in pyramid-type things and then take them down and the build them up again -- really quickly.

Check out this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSEuAH262TE&feature=related

So the point is to do "the cycle," which is what that kid is doing, as fast as you possibly can. Most of these Cup Stacking stars are elementary school-age which is appropriate since that's the age this "sport" is introduced.

Anyway, my brother and I still had our Cup Stacks and broke 'em out for old time's sake. We're not nearly as impressive as kids like that, but it was fun to do it again.

Eventually we got bored with it and decided to play some strange game loosely based on the idea of beer pong. We each set up our Cup Stacks face-up in a bowling pin formation and took turns throwing a balled up piece of paper, trying to land it in one of the cups furthest away from us.

It was fun. Fun enough to keep us entertained for a full hour. Plus, we found a use for some of that college mail that has been coming in huge volumes for Nick since his sophomore year. The thick glossy paper they used provided us with a nice paper ball to throw.
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