Sunday, May 31, 2009

First week on the job

So I started both my Iowa Outdoors Magazine internship this week and my Meredith internship. I like them both a lot so far. I have to say I like the Iowa Outdoors one more just because the magazine is awesome and I'm really interested in the topic - outdoorsy types of stuff like plants and animals and hiking trails and things. At Meredith I work for MIM - Meredith Integrated Marketing - which basically does a bunch of custom publications for a variety of clients like Carnival Cruise Lines, State Farm, Pepsi, Jeep, and so on. I like it because it's magazines and advertising kind of rolled into one and I've had an interest in advertising lately.

This week at IOM, I did a lot of copy editing. Which I don't mind at all. I really love copy editing. We're working on the September/October issue right now, which will be out in late August. It's cool because I'll be around to see the production of this issue from start to finish. Anyway, whenever stories come in, I get to copy edit them. It's awesome. I even got to write a couple of things this week. I got to write a short story about the proper way to mulch and I worked on a feature we have called "But Why?" where little kids submit questions about nature and we research the answer. I researched the answer to "where do bugs go in the winter?" I really enjoy doing stuff like that, I find. I like the research part because I'm learning a lot about something I'm interested in and I get to write about it. It's very cool. Sadly, this internship doesn't pay.

At Meredith I've been doing a lot of research, mostly. My boss is giving a presentation about Meredith and social media, so she had me spend all day on Twitter looking at tweets from Meredith publications like Ladies Home Journal, Parents, Fitness, and so on. That was kind of cool. Right now I'm working on something for State Farm. I was given a story outline of all the stories that will be in the new issue of "Good Neighbor" magazine, and I'm researching information for the writers to use when they actually write the stories.

It's cool to be working for both a small magazine and a big publishing company at the same time. I'm definitely experiencing both ends of the spectrum, which is nice. Variety is a good thing.

I work both these jobs Monday through Friday. I do mornings at IOM and afternoons at Meredith and that's working out nicely. Between the two I have a pretty standard 8-5 workday. I listen to the traffic report on my way to work and worry about things like rush hour and all that...

Wouldn't you know it? I'm a working stiff now.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Old Habits

Yesterday I was driving home from the hardware store. Without even realizing it (obviously), I passed right by my new apartment complex, drove all the way to campus, pulled into the Drake West Village lot, pulled out my keys, and freaked out because I thought I lost my entrance fob. I panicked and searched my purse, my pockets, and my car looking for it. Ten minutes later, I realized I was also missing my apartment key and my mailbox key.

Thinking that this can obviously not be a coincidence, I slowly came to the realization that I don't live at Drake West Village anymore. I then proceeded to drive ten minutes back in the direction I came from to go home... as in the place I live now... feeling like an idiot the entire way.

And now I decided to share it with the internet. Good plan.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Year in review

So, junior year is over (ah!!! I'm a senior now!) which means it's time for my annual Year in Review blog post. Generally speaking, I hate it when people toot their own horn, but I pretty much can't help it. I'm proud of myself.

Let's hit the highlights, shall we?

I ended this semester with a 3.8 GPA

I scored three internships for the summer - one at Iowa Outdoors Magazine, one at Meredith, and one with an organization called A Course in Miracles which involves a lot of facebooking

I was elected president of APO

I earned the Drake Service Award at the annual Leaders and Luminaries ceremony

I completed over 150 hours of community service

I was awarded the Distinguished Service Key for APO along with the Leadership and Service awards

I was the photo editor of the Times Delphic

I leased an apartment

I threw a holiday party for little kids and their families

I wrote for Drake Mag Online

SO, yeah... I'm pretty pleased with how junior year went. I'm looking forward to senior year. It'll be weird, though - being a senior, I mean. There's something oddly comforting about knowing that there are people above you. Like being a sophomore and a junior is nice because you just float around in the middle. And now I'm a senior. CRAZY!

Apartment update..

So, I've been living full-time in my apartment for about a week now. I started sleeping in my bed and everything. I've been spending the night here for about three weeks and I was sleeping on the couch most of that time.

The apartment is good. It is, I promise. I'm having a little bit of a rough time at the moment because I haven't started work yet and there isn't anybody around really. So I've been literally by myself for the past week. For a day or two it was nice, but it got really old really fast and now I'm just bored and lonely.

But soon work will start and all that will change... yay, I think.

Anyway, back to the apartment. I've decided to share with you a list of things to consider when apartment hunting. These are things, of course, I thought of AFTER signing the lease and moving in. It's not a bad apartment; I've just learned a lot so far.

1. It might be worth asking if the apartment you're touring has had any major recent maintenance issues. For instance, a leaking roof. My apartment has a leaky roof and I'd bet you a million dollars it had a leaky roof a month ago, too. They told us that when we moved in. "Here are you keys, and by the way you have a leaky roof but we've fixed it. You still might want to put a bucket down or something." We had SO much rain over the next two weeks. And, yes, we put a bucket down. And, yes, the roof did leak. And, yes, I did report it. And, yes, they fixed it. Twice. So far (literally six repairs later) the roof seems to be holding up. But it's still a source of concern.

2. Do you feel like a giant in your bathroom? I recently discovered that yes, I do in fact feel like a giant in my bathroom. The toilet is WAY low to the ground, I need the gymnastic ability of Shawn Johnson to wash my hair in the shower because the shower head is low, and I'm pretty sure the sink doesn't even come up to my waist. Yeah, think about it.

3. Appliances. If they look like Fred and Wilma could have used them, that's not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, as long as they're kept well appliances can last a long time. However, if your oven is so old that it doesn't come with features like a clock, timer, a fancy mechanism to let you know when it's preheated, and emits a strange natural gas smell when you turn it on despite the fact it's electric.... well, those are all things to consider. We also have a big pool of water in the bottom of our refrigerator and have NO IDEA why.

4. Central Air. Roomie and I were going back and forth between this apartment and another one we found that's very VERY similar. This one has central air. That one does not. At first I didn't think it'd be that big of a deal. Surprise, it kind of is. Iowa = central air. Remember that.

5. Management. I honestly think that the complex manager sold this place for us. She was REALLY nice and REALLY helpful and answered all of my dumb "I'm new to this whole apartment thing" types of questions. Roomie and I were not so fond of the other management people at the other place. The fact is you'll have to deal with management staff a lot and it's best to find people you're comfortable talking to and aren't intimidated by.

6. Which way do your windows face? All I'm sayin' is that in the evening, when I'm most likely to be hanging out watching TV, I get the nice, BRIGHT evening sun right into my living room windows. I fell asleep on the couch the other day and have the sunburn to prove it.

7. Kitchen. Can you dance in the kitchen? Wait... maybe that's only important to me. Moving on...

8. Cabinets. I have odd cabinets. I can't fit a box of cereal in them. They're oddly shaped or something. The cabinets, I mean. Not the cereal boxes. Do they have adjustable shelves? I would kill for adjustable shelves. Look for it.

9. Balcony. If you want a balcony DON'T COMPROMISE! I compromised and, again, I like the new place, but the balcony thing still gets to me sometimes.

10. Noise factor. I was standing in my kitchen talking to my roommate who was playing in the bathroom and she couldn't hear me. Whoa. Kind of awesome. DWV's walls are made of cardboard. Really CHEAP cardboard. Someone could sneeze on the fifth floor and I'd hear them.

11. Slanted walls. I walked into our new apartment and I saw that some of its walls are slanted. Like instead of being at 90 degrees and parallel with the floor, they're like at 70 degrees and slope upward. I thought this was cool and interesting and I instantly fell in love with it. Reality? It's a novelty. The excitement wore off rapidly when I realized that my room has two slanted walls, and one wall that's entirely a closet. What does this mean? I means I only have one wall on which it's easy to hang things. And I'm a big fan of hanging things.

12. Water pressure. Yeah, um, you might want to turn on the faucet or something when you check out a potential new place. Otherwise you're in for a year of soapy hair.

Live and learn, eh?

Graduation

Last weekend was graduation. I had never seen a Drake graduation before. Freshman year I bolted well before graduation and last year I was an RA and shutting down the dorm I lived in and couldn't go. So I was excited. Especially because I knew so many people graduating. I tend to get attached to the class ahead of me. Which sucks, by the way.

Anyway, i was excited to see everybody graduate. Drake has several different ceremonies. There's one for law school, one for pharmacy, one for undergrads, one for doctorate people... yeah, kind of a lot.

The first ceremony I went to was the pharmacy hooding ceremony. I don't really know why they're called "hoods." They aren't hoods. They're like... sashes or something that go on their graduation robes. It's hard to explain. I'll post a picture.


Here's what it is from the back. The inside, I think, has your school colors so Drake's are olive green and fuzzy on the outside, and blue and white and silky on the inside.


Ok, so the tan thing around his neck is the front of his hood. Depending on what you get your degree in, your hood is a different color. The pharmacy hoods are actually olive green.

So that's what a hood is. You're already more informed than I was a couple of months ago. And that's what the entire ceremony was. All 130+ pharmacy students receiving their fancy green hoods. The next day, they had the doctoral graduation ceremony where they actually received their degrees.

I also went to the undergraduate ceremony. As you can imagine, there are kind of... a lot of them. A heck of a lot more than 130. There were like 700 of them.

I have never seen anything so efficient in my life. They got all 700+ undergrads on and off the stage in two hours. My graduation ceremony in high school took that long and we graduated less than 400. I was SO impressed.

Drake graduation happens in the Knapp Center which is great for those who are prone to sunburning and hate sunscreen like me. But kind of sucky for those who love to take pictures... like me. It took me at least until the M's to figure out the right settings on my camera. But it all worked out. I got some nice pictures of a few friends graduating.

I kind of love graduations. I particularly love the processional and recessional. I love graduation music. It's just so awesome and there are the tympanis and all sorts of cool things. It's very exciting. I love it. But as much as I enjoyed myself, I couldn't help but freak out kind of a little bit. Firstly, of course, because I have some friends who are leaving. And also because that means I'm, like, a senior now.

How the HECK did that happen?

see? hoods.
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