Prepping for Buffalo

So right now I'm taking a small break from stuffing wool socks and spandex-y things into my suitcase, to say nothing very interesting at all. 

Yesterday I went to (and covered) the Tom Wolfe lecture.  He was pretty interesting, white suit and wing-tipped shoes and all.  He said a lot of things about journalism that I liked.  He made the point that a good fiction writer has to be a good reporter.  He said young writers are often told to "write what they know," and so they write a very good first novel, using up about all 20 years or so of their knowledge.  He said the problem, then, is the second book.  He said writers often make the mistake in thinking that a good story is 95% talent and 5% content.  In reality, there is no substitute for good content.  You have to be willing to do the reporting, to be forced into alien situations.  

I liked that.  

I think my article came out well.  One nice thing is that my mens swimming and diving preview actually got pushed back until next issue, so my deadline was extended.  Yay!  

I'm so excited to go to an actual house!  

I can't wait for the GAME! 

Oh and I just had to mention the stupidest headline I've ever seen.  It was on people.com.  Oh yes, I go there. I am not ashamed.  Anyway, it was:

"Marion Jones: Giving Medals Back 'Tarnished' Olympic Memories"

DUH

Really? REALLY? 

On a happier note, there's only a few hours until Buffalo!

Maybe I Should Learn to Adapt to the Weather

Today it snowed. And rained.  Then it snowed again.  Then it rained again.  Then it snowed and the wind blew like crazy.  Pretty much every time I left a building, it felt like I was on a boat in The Deadliest Catch.  

I am learning how to dress correctly quickly. Meaning, I actually have to dress in response to the weather.  Also, my "winter jacket" is really a shell that I actually have to LAYER something under.  Note I have had this jacket since the eight grade. You would think I would have figured this out by now.  No. For many years I have survived by spending most of my winter days running from the car to a heated building, in the very mild state of Maryland.  

Today was so busy! I had a pretty useless meeting with my advisor who pretty much said, "Well, you look pretty set. You obviously have a handle on things. Good luck with registration!" So it's pretty much a free-for-all.  Then I pretty much ran from the Park school to the library, trying to not die in the horrific weather, to the library.  It was quite the trek.  There, I met with friend KM and we solidified our awesome plans and prep for our debate Friday, in which we will defend Title IX against those who say it hurts males.  We are going to win so crucially.  

Then, I headed to a meeting where I got information about becoming a "Dean's Host," which is pretty much like a Park Tour guide, but you also attend special admissions sessions and host prospective Parkies throughout the year.  There's a long training session, but I really want to do it.  One of the requirements is that you have to be totally obsessed with the Park School.  I qualify.  You also have to have stories to tell about your involvement in classes and extracurriculars, and that some people have to wait for sophomore year to have enough. I've got plenty already.  Seriously, it's crazy what I've been able to do this year already.  

I then went straight to Political Communications class, which is getting really repetitive.  The election is only a week away!  I can hardly bear it.  I've been absorbing every piece of election coverage I could find for almost two years now.  What will it come to? What will I be able to tell my children (if that ever happens) about when I tell them about my first election? 

I came back to the dorm and my friend SW and I thawed out with cups of tea.  I then scurried back out into the cold with friend AP, who is from Ithaca, both her parents work here, and she still thought the weather was horrific today.  Justified! Mass media class makes me want to smack myself repeatedly with several textbooks, but I survived.  We have an exam on election day. WHAT? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FOCUS ON THAT? I'll manage, but I'll be bitter and angry about having to.  

We had an extra Inquirer shoot at 8, and I got to work floor manager because we didn't have tapes for this one, because there were only a few clips and they would work it in later with FinalCut Pro.  Basically as floormanager I relayed directions in studio from producer Nick (whom the parents and Amma and Papa met while visiting) to host Greg.  It wasn't all that hard, but I certainly felt important.  

I've gotten a bunch of work done tonight, and I'm quite proud.  I'm making it through this week! It's supposed to snow, not even rain, tomorrow.  YAY! 

One Really Bad Blog Post

Here is what I am thinking:

1. I like not finishing my political communications paper, even though I'm only 1 paragraph away.

2. I like the Redskins. A lot. I also love Clinton Portis, who said about matching O.J. Simpson's record of having five consecutive games with over 120 rushing yards:

"It's great company. That's about the only time you can say O.J. Simpson is great company."

3. I like that all my Bills AND Jets fans friends are wickedly jealous of me. 

4. I don't like that I haven't been posting as often.

5. I am kind of split on the fact that my parents brought me a giant box of goldfish, and it sits conveniently near my desk right at hand level...a little TOO convenient...

6. I like that I have a meeting with my crazy advisor tomorrow morning. 

7. I like doing laundry. Ish.

8. I don't like that my conscience is telling me to get back to work.  

Conscience wins!

Rainy Saturday

Let's start this off by saying I'm heading to my LAST field hockey game in less than an hour.  It is pouring rain. 

This should be funnnnn.

I didn't end up updating again yesterday because I got distracted by the fact that it was Friday!  I made cookies, watched a movie, and made collages with my dormmates, because it was raining and there was no way we were leaving.  

We watched Jesus Christ Superstar, which I was pretty skeptical about to start with, but it was pretty awesome. My friend Michele kept having to explain to me what was happening, and at one point, she exclaimed, "ABBY seriously, didn't you ever go to VBS?!"  VBS, apparently, stands for Vacation Bible School.  In fact, I did once attend it, but the only thing I really remember from that is the time when an older girl told Claire and me if we ate the black watermelon seeds a watermelon would grow in our stomachs.  This probably explains why I seriously had no idea who anyone was in this musical.  Except Jesus.  I could pick him out of a crowd.  Andrew Lloyd Weber is awesome. I really enjoyed watching it.  

This weekend and following week will be crazy.  Many papers are due and there are tons of things to get done before I leave on Friday.  Luckily, the next crazy week ends with a trip to an actual home with an actual bathroom in which the sink and the toilet are in the same area.  There's also this little thing called the Bills and Jets game that will go along with my trip. 

I really really don't want to go sit in the rain. 

On the plus side, I am totally growing as a person because I just killed a giant bug that was flying around my room.  But after I screamed and threw my binder at it, I had to get my friend C to come and take it away.  She's so nice.  I'm getting there. Someday I will be able to remove the bugs I kill.  

The end.  Good post, right? 

One Beat Ends, Another Begins

Okay, so my winter beat has been assigned.  Drum roll please...

Men's swimming and diving!

So that should be fun, and they only have like 4 home meets, on Saturdays.  So it should be a lighter load than field hockey was.  They are also swimming RPI this year.  

I have more to report, but not enough time to do so, so expect another update later! 

Big Winds and One Freaky Weather Forecast

Just about everyone on campus, including the really manly football players (okay, and the not-so-manly ones too) let out a really loud shriek every time they exited a building.  The winds were crazy, and it made low forties feel like it was a wet February night.  It is October.  It is supposed to snow lightly tonight.  

WHAT. 

My horror is so great that I am unable to inflect a question mark on that sentence.  Even non-verbally.  Imagine my eyes growing very wide, and staying that way for about 5 minutes.  There we have it.  That's how I feel.  Of course I know I signed up for this. That won't stop me from whining about it.  My feelings about the weather in Ithaca kind of compare to those of a former-Bush supporter.  But I don't think I screwed up that royally.  It's not really a screw up at all.  It's just cold.  And I'm just bitter that I can't wear flip flops. That's all.  

Today not much happened except I tripped on the crazy tiles outside of Textor Hall and pretty much ate concrete.  Luckily there was only like 2 other people because my class had gotten out early.  Still, I tore the knee of a pair of jeans a little, and that damages the glamorous aesthetic I have been maintaining throughout this college experience.  Sarcasm!  

Oh, except today I VOTED (!) for the first time ever in a general election.  I sent in my absentee ballot after doing some reading and filling everything out.  So that's settled.  I've officially participated in the democratic process!  

Some of my friends and I went to watch the Ithaca Idol competition today after dinner, and it was very entertaining. Ithaca's got a lot of music, voice majors, so there were some great acts.  There were some not so great ones too.  That made it so much better.  But of course everyone was very nice.  

Tomorrow? Nothing dramatic, just classes. 

My 18th Birthday So Far!

It's only noon and it has already been a fabulous birthday. 

I woke up to a door covered in birthday wishes, and got immediately attacked with birthday hugs while I was rubbing sleep out of my eyes and trudging to the bathroom.  My e-mail, facebook, and text inbox has been flooded with love!  It sounds cheesy, but amazing.  

Another cool thing about today, along with the impending cake party later tonight in my dorm, is that I was invited to be a guest on the "Bomber Nation" podcast.  For the first time I'm being interviewed, about the field hockey team.  Hey guys, I'm an expert analyst!  I'm the Adam Schefter of Bomber field hockey, minus the grating arrogance (maybe)!  So I'm taping that around 7:30 tonight with the host.  

The Redskins won as a birthday present to me, I'm sure.  The Cowboys also lost, to put icing on the cake.  LOVE IT!

Updates today are to be expected, so you can check back later!

*Maybe Chris Cooley was inspired by my haiku about last week's game, because he wrote a limerick on his blog about yesterday's game.  Great minds think (relatively) alike!

7:00 p.m.  I got the biggest cake ever delivered to my door with a balloon attached!  THEN my amazingly nice roomie made me a birthday cake! I'm heading to my interview soon but I'm mad happy right now.  I'll try to take pictures, if I remember. Oh and I also got lovely cards in the mail from my Uncle Judd, Michelle, and Grandma! Today has been so great. 

There's a cake party at 9 in the kitchen, we're going to try to demolish both cakes!

Rensselaer Adventure

It was one amazing fall break.  Let's go through it, shall we?  

I got up at 9 Thursday morning, showered and scurried over to the dining hall to stuff my face before my epic journey around the great state of New York.  I had a swim bag full of clothes, my iPod, and a book for the bus ride(s).  The cab I had arranged for was even a little bit early.  At first I was a bit confused because they sent a giant van to get me, maybe expecting more than one girl and a single bag.  They grabbed some other kid a minute later and we finally departed the IC campus.  It was gray and rainy, but I still loved winding through the town I'm still not too familiar with and staring at all the leaves and houses.  I enjoy looking at houses now.  They are like inviting dorms with their own bathrooms.  

Of course the bus station was in a slightly shift area, but I am from Wheaton, so I was largely unfazed because it was about 11:30 in the morning.  The bus station seemed to be built about 500 years ago, seriously, because everything was wooden and their bathroom stalls were obviously made for midgets.  It turned out that the bus I was taking to Albany required me to change buses in Binghamton with an hour layover.  At that point, I didn't even care.  The fact that I had a ticket in my hand and a definite time of departure was enough for me.  I waited for about 45 minutes and the Trailways bus rolled up.  I hopped on, and it was a pretty nice bus! Now perks, but it was clean and I had a seat all to myself.  I stared out the window for the two hours to Binghamton.  I ooohed and ahhhhed at all the leaves.  I'm good at entertaining myself.  

The Binghamton station was fine.  I entertained myself for the hour with vending machine and watching the CNN they had playing.  I considered trying out the "Deer Hunter Version IX" video game, but I wasn't in the mood for shooting crudely-animated deer at that moment.  

My next bus was probably constructed while The Partridge Family was all the rage.  That's all I'm saying.  This bus made a few more stops at the most random SUNYs in the world, most of which I had never heard of.  Finally I got off at Albany at the sketchiest station ever, and grabbed the first cab I found.  The guy wasn't exactly sure where RPI was (I know, WHAT?!) so it ended up costing me like 30 bucks.  Claire's lovely friends found me in the Union and took me to dinner.  They were a really awesome bunch.  Then, Claire came back from crew and I was ridiculously happy.  I went with her to meet some of her crew friends, who were pretty hilarious.  

It was so much fun reconnecting with Claire, I even ended up going with her to chemistry the next morning.  I played on her laptop and marveled at the 320 person lecture hall.  Claire snuck me into dining hall #3 (we never paid for a meal for me!) and we had lunch.  I wasn't too keen on sitting through biology, so I wandered around campus and headed back to her dorm, where mom and dad met me!  They came bearing many gifts including CHIPOTLE.  Oh yes, we have the most amazing parents in the world, ones who would buy burritos for their children and refrigerate them while they crossed multiple state lines.  We went shopping, watched Claire be honored with the Rensselaer medal (during which I established that yes, her school was awesome, but my acapella groups were better).  We then went out to dinner and ate even more good food, and enjoyed all being together again.  Mom, Dad, and I said goodbye to Claire and hopped in the car to return to Ithaca.  

The next day Amma and Pappa joined us for a tour of the gorgeous Ithaca campus, and they got to see the TV studio I work in.  We found another awesome restaurant, had lunch, and took in a little local culture at the friends of the library book sale.  It's so cool having Papa and Amma so close.  I'll be visiting them for the Buffalo game in just two weeks!  Afterwards, Mom, Dad and I paid 6 bucks to explore gorge trail, which we found out was kind of like the stairmaster from hell.  It was fun and pretty, even so.  We were all pretty tired, and like the enthusiastic explorers we are, we decided our next activity was lying on Mom and Dad's hotel bed with cheeseburgers watching the Penn State football game.  It was bliss.  

This morning we ate at the Ithaca Bakery and drove around lake Cayuga.  Mom and Dad then came and tricked out my room, giving me enough food to last me for years, lowering my bed, setting up my printer, mounting my mirror, trimming my bangs, and pretty much setting me up for life.  It's SO nice to have parents take care of you.  

The best part?  I'm reenergized to return to classes and studies, my room is awesome, and it's only a month until Thanksgiving break.  I miss my dormmates.  I want them to come back!  

Anyway, this was the longest post ever.  For an amazingly perfect break. 

So Close to Fall Break

Today was extremely boring.  Classes? Ugghhh.  I did just get back from filming a segment with the Inquirer crew, on which I got to work audio. The journalism major is learning some television tricks!  Last night I caught the game with some guys from my sports management class in a dorm that was closer to mine.  I watched cheerily as the Giants imploded.  A bunch of the fans left the room, and friend KM was like, "Okay, celebrate fast!" I'm not a closeted Redskins fan, but there were a lot of angry Giants fans in the room and we all know they can be dangerous.  

I got a 96% on my Sport Management exam.  YESSSSS

I also made a video today.  We'll see if it works! I'm so happy it's almost break!

I Did It!

What an absolutely absurd day.  Three exams.  Four hours.  Loads of studying, mind melting.  BUT I AM DONE! Let's run through it, shall we? It's not painful, because I'm all finished and can sit back a relax a bit, or daydream about not getting lost on the way to RPI on Thursday. 

I went to IC Square in the morning with my journalism notes, knowing I was prepared but intending to refresh my memory on significant court cases.  Sportscenter was on.  I had to maneuver myself away.  I got a coffee, bagel, and a banana.  Breakfast of champions, yes.  The journalism test was long. Lots of AP Style questions.  I think it went fine.  There were no choruses of angels following the test, but it was fine.  

I went and picked up a "grab and go" lunch and headed back to my dorm for an hour more of review on sports management and cultural anthropology.  I absorbed.  I contemplated shoving everything off my desk and learning via osmosis.  I chose to look at lecture notes instead. 

The sports management test was relatively short, I finished pretty early, and I was perfectly prepared.  I hope I'm not jinxing anything here.  Anyway, there was a back page where Professor Farrell said we could write how we felt about the class, or anything we wanted.  I wrote a haiku. I hope I get extra points. Which I doubt, because its relevance is questionable For your lovely enjoyment, here it is:

We lost to the Rams

Clinton Portis costumes are

not so good-looking

Deep, right?  I wrote it in 2 minutes.  Art. Expect more in the future.

Cultural anthropology was grueling, but again I was pretty well prepared.  Except, my professor is kind of torturous.  At the very beginning, he said, "I have graded your papers, and set them on this front table.  They are arranged from A to E across the table." This was totally stressful because it was a big paper, and all I could think about (as was his intention) was how everyone can tell your grade by where you get your paper.  Mean.  College.  Luckily, I finished my essays, trotted up to the front (I really had to pee. Trotting was necessary), turned them in, and found my paper.  95, baby! Right up front! So yay.  I ran to the bathroom, and as I did so my brain officially turned to mush.  

Now? A little reading.  A lot of being happy I have no more exams.  

Today I am Studying

First off, I've changed the template of the blog because I wanted it to lighten up a little. The blues were just a little too dark for me.  I like this one much better.

Yesterday I didn't get as much studying done as I would've liked.  This was mainly because I was ridiculously busy.  I ran from an Inquirer taping to a field hockey game (they won! 4-0!), to the gym, to not doing work, to an IC Voicestream concert (oh yes, IC has a million acapella groups. This one is co-ed, and awesome. They did a cover of Coldplay's Viva la Vida and it was amazing), to my computer to type up my game coverage.  I got some studying done after.  

One awesome development? It's looking like I'll be heading to RPI on Thursday to impose upon Claire's hospitality during my fall break.  It'll be a short visit, leaving Friday night, but it's nice that there will be a little family-reunion before Thanksgiving. Yay! Let's hope I can master this bus thing. I have only a middling faith in my ability to handle public transportation at long distances. I hope I won't have to transfer, which, according to the website, is a possibility.  

I'm sure there will be a very detailed account of my journey across the state.  Today will  be books, food, and Gridiron later.  Maybe a little football. Just a little. 

I Recognize That I Have Been Shirking My Blogging Duties

I also recognize that other than the revelation that I don't hate doing laundry, not too much has been going on.  

Well, I may as well ramble extensively anyway.  I just sent in my field hockey recap, which I didn't mind doing, because THEY WON. That always helps.  A lot.  Never mind that the team, SUNY Morrisville (yeah, I'd never heard of it either. How many are there?!) was a considered a junior college team until 2006.  We will ignore that fact.  We won brilliantly, 4-2.  It should have been 4-1, but she put in all the non-starters at the very end to give them a chance (nice!) and it...ended badly.  Oh well.  Maybe I will try to cover women's tennis next year or something.  They're SO good.  

It only drizzled a little during the game, enough to get me all frizzy and my notebook a little more sad looking and crinkly.  Never mind that it was gorgeous and sunny and NOT windy, drizzling and cold until I got to the game.  Let's not think about that.  

I aced my journalism quiz again, even without my failure to gain extra credit through my limited knowledge of baseball.  YAY ME.  Now I must absorb media law and formative libel court cases allllll weekend for my midterm monday.  Oh wait. I have 3 midterms, ALL on monday.  So this weekend will involve little merriment.  So media law, financial and league formation, management structures, finance, marketing strategies, cultural linguistics, essentialized identity, and theories on evolution shall crowd my brain these next few days. 

Speaking of sports marketing (oh yes, it was buried in that last terribly-formed sentence), I love that class even though it is finance week.  Because this is what you get in ANY Annemarie Farrell (and yes, I do write notes along with all the funny things she says.):

"The Perfectly Competitive Market does NOT EXIST! We take entire classes in business about something that...it's like unicorns and mothers in Disney movies, it does NOT EXIST!"

"And here we have Adam Smith's concept of the economy's 'invisible hand,'  Doesn't that phrase creep you out a little? Invisible hand. It's like that Clay Aiken song where he wants to be invisible and watch you in your room. THAT'S creepy, not romantic. That's disgusting.  Oh yes. I did just go from macroeconomics to Clay Aiken in 10 seconds flat."  

And then, you realize, you have to read about economic impact analysis for an hour or so, and you remember why you are not a sports management major.  

Today I also wrote a paper about what's good and bad about most teenagers getting their political news from comedy news like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, if there's any value for the audience at all.  

We all know what I argued.  I love political communication.  I love everything about covering politics, even if most of what we discuss in class is how badly it's done by the mainstream media.  We watched the documentary The War Room about Bill Clinton's campaign.  It was really interesting to see how they actively engaged the media, how the campaign managers pounced on every opportunity to work the press.  Both candidates did it.  Fascinating.  It's something I knew went on, but to see it in action was interesting.  I also think James Carville is a crazy person.  But a really cool crazy person.  

See? I can fill up a lot of space while talking about nothing.  It's a talent. 

The Sun is Back!

I'm pretty much relieved that the sun has remembered that Ithaca exists.  Now I have the luxury of actually being able to sense time passing throughout the day!

It's all windy and fall-like today, which is something I get way excited about.  I took another journalism quiz today, and the extra credit questions did not go my way this time.  One of them? What is Babe Ruth's real name?  REALLY? I had no clue.  I had to reiterate my point that I had only recently discovered, upon my arrival in New York, that people actually care about baseball. I requested that we stick to special football questions.  I don't know if this will actually happen, because Professor Loop is a Raiders fan, and I'm pretty sure football is a sore subject in general for him right now.  

Yesterday at the Gridiron Report everyone was super excited because we got these awesome new lights that are totally professional and are not boiling hot.  We always had problems because our host Lee sweats like my Dad does while working in Otis while under those old lights, and he'd have to mop himself during breaks.  We got these new ones for the permanent set, and the problem was largely solved.  Also, we established that Syracuse would be totally jealous.  Based on the lighting I saw on one of their shows, which was terrible, they are SO jealous right now.  Yay IC-TV and increased funding!

My Cultural Anthropology class was cancelled today, which is completely awesome.  I have to attend a speaker for my seminar class tonight.  Maybe I will be able to nap today.  That would be amazing.  I have yet to take a nap during college, but so many of my peers speak highly of them.  Chances are I will spend possible napping time actually doing work. Go figure. 

How 'bout them Redskins?

I've Decided I'm Not Busy

I've gone two days without blog posting, mainly because I've just been running around either doing work or having quite a bit of fun. 

Here's the quick rundown, because very soon, I'm off running again!

1.) Yesterday I played pick-up basketball at the gym and surprise! I played very well.  It was a blast.

2.) Also yesterday I experienced the magic of a Wii.  I also shrieked a lot while playing.  

3.) The website of the Ithacan has not been updated with the newest issue including my feature because of technical difficulties.  It is pretty much dead right now. 

4.) The sun finally did return, to some extent. 

5.) It's actually October, my favorite month.

6.) I don't understand baseball.  I do understand that there are quite a few unhappy Mets fans who despise the Phillies. 

7.) There are suddenly many Phillies jerseys around campus. 

8.) I had the longest Inquirer shoot ever today, but I learned how to work a field camera and work tape op! Yay! 

Even with the Bomber football bye-week, I still have a Gridiron re-cap show to do tomorrow. Luckily, everything goes on a break during fall break.  Can't wait!

Business/Busy-ness

This morning I rolled out of bed ready to attack this day!  I was fully alert while taking lecture notes on the intricacies of media law!  I celebrated World Vegetarian Day largely because IC goes crazy for it! I even ate hummus!  I went to political communication and did nothing worth remarking on! 

In sports management today we did the craziest things, because we're learning about marketing. It's really fascinating.  We had to use some techniques we'd learned and apply them to some situations she'd given us. Mine?  I had to create a marketing and advertising campaign for a new women's pudding wrestling league in the feminist hotspot of Berkeley, California.  Really.  I had to include promotional tactics, giveaways, ads, the locations of ads, my target audience, and I also had to include methods of preventing protests that my info sheet said were already brewing.  Crazy, right?  Other people had challenges like marketing a NHL team for Honolulu, or Childrens Ultimate Fighting.  Really.  I love college.  

Oh, and really, I've been studying Nike campaigns, and they are fascinating.  The most interesting part?  The are horrifyingly terrible at marketing to women.  That "If You Let Me Play..." campaign?  Disgusting.  

Anyway, in cultural anthropology my professor kept lecturing about data collection in fieldwork and also about how awesome he is.  

Then, I shoved some EasyMac down my throat and booked it to the field hockey field, stuffing my sensible raincoat in my bag just in case.  THANK GOD.  It was like being at the John Mayer concert this summer, meaning there would have been puddles in my pants if I hadn't had that raincoat, minus 20 degrees.  I better not get sick.  It was disgusting, but THEY WON!!! The most annoying part was that I had trouble taking notes without soaking my notebook, and I fidgeted with covering it with my body while I scrawled, but it was useless.  I just used my recorder, which held up in the torrential downpour, in my interviews.  Oh, but hilariously horrible?  My goalie, who I did the feature on, did not play.  Really.  I just did a profile on the back-up goalie.   

In real life, this would probably require the article being killed.  Not so in college world, where in these features we have to pretend nothing is terribly wrong with our sports teams.  We can report on anything about professors or other scandal, but sports?  Everything is pretty much dandy.  Or we make it that way.  It's twisted.  

So I got soaked.  Then had dinner.  Oh.  Good news: I totally rocked my Mass Media test, which is 20% of my grade.  An A for Abby!  Also, we wrote up these AP style stories for a quiz in journalism, and Professor Loop said mine was the strongest in the class.  The only reason I did so well with this is because I'd done these run-down articles like 20 times with field hockey away games!  Otherwise, I would've had no clue.  So the Ithacan just got me my A+.  Work pays off sometimes, which is nice.  

Finally, I would just like to reiterate that I ate both hummus and easymac today.  I swear I am not turning into my sister.  I just respect her choices in food consumption.