I'm Pretty Sure SI Loves Me

Okay, so because of the stupid mail system here, my Sports Illustrated is always a little outdated. Seeing as I picked up the draft preview....yesterday. 

I don't mind that much. But I'm pretty sure Sports Illustrated keeps a close monitor on my stress levels, and that's why they publish ads on the opening page like this strategically around exam season. 

Win. 

I don't care if everyone at my school hates the Patriots with the very fiber of their being or if he's married to a super model or if he has an illegitimate child. Every feminist inclination I have tells me NO NO NO NO. 

But I still maintain that Tom Brady is the most physically attractive human being on the planet.  And that makes me happy. 

Thank you, Sports Illustrated advertising department. I appreciate your concern for my well-being.

Hey! Honesty

This evening I was running on the treadmill, with all the enthusiasm with which I usually run on the treadmill (meaning, none) and as I was sprinting towards the end of my mile I spotted something out of the corner of my eye. An erg, also known as a type of rowing machine. I hopped off the treadmill and did some of my lifting, still eyeing that foreign contraption. 

Finally, I decided, what the heck. All the crew kids are at practice right now, there's no one who could possibly make fun of my weakness and/or lack of skill. Claire can make fun of me after the fact. 

So I hopped on, strapped my feet in, and tried it out. I employed all the technique I could remember from our sculling class, so as not to paralyze myself and/or destroy my knees for good.  It was a good workout.  I liked the combination of cardio and strength.  In that way it reminded me of swimming, in the way my mind drifts as the minutes tick by. It was fun. 

Then, I struggled for like 2 minutes trying to figure out how to UNstrap my feet from the erg. I kind of ended up trying to wiggle my feet out of it while pulling like crazy. It was graceful. I told myself no one saw.

But here's the thing. I got up from my desk chair a few minutes ago and began to hop down the stairs. 

Ow.

OW

OW OW OW

MY THIGHS

NOT COOL

So there's my most recent run-in with rowing. 

Otherwise, I'm finishing up classes. I had my last official journalism research class today, which felt strangely sad. Even though I still have the 20 pager looming over my head, I was sad to see it end. 

With said 20-pager, I've been writing a lot about blogging, and how much it means to people.  How blogging is helping people through disease and daily life.  Sure, I love blogging. But I'm not sure that's as much about therapy for me as it is about self-centeredness. Mainly blogging helps me organize my thoughts.  Putting failure and success into blog posts makes it all manageable and palatable. A deadline looms less darkly when it's being complained about on the Internet. 

There's no cause to my blog.  I'm not a mother, a cancer patient, an activist, or a personality.  I wonder what I'm contributing. I'm a college student. While I talk about laundry and getting my feet stuck in ergs, other bloggers are providing insight into the fabric of humanity. 

I'm not sure what I'm getting at here, but I think it's that I'm accepting that things don't always have to matter.  I can write just to write. I can write to assure my family members and friends that I actually haven't disappeared off the face of the earth.  

That being said, I can also write to procrastinate. And if I look deeply inside myself, and at the minimized windows on my computer screen, I can tell that that's exactly what I'm doing. 

Hey! Honesty. 

The Tables Have Turned

For many many months, I was sometimes chided for not being able to handle real winter very well. 

Well NOW, it's 85 degrees on Ithaca's South Hill, and the tables have turned.

Ohohohoooohhh yes. People are whining incessantly about the heat, and now it's MY turn to say "Suck it up, wimps! This ain't hot!"

Well, it's kind of hot. But despite my Scandinavian heritage I am far better acclimated to warmer, ridiculously humid climates. I should have gone to college in the Amazon, but instead I chose Western New York.  

Anyway, this weekend was quite eventful. On Friday a bunch of my friends and I attended the last Ithacapella concert.  As usual, it was mind blowing. I felt like I was at a Backstreet Boys concert circa 1998, because of all the light effects and shrieks. Also, it was 75 degrees and sunny, so everyone grabbed towels and blankets and camped out in front of the dorms. I settled down with a crazy short Robert B. Parker novel that a friend lent me, and Charles Derber's proposal for the restructuring of the global economic system. Guess which one got read.

Please don't give me the benefit of the doubt. I have a weakness for trashy crime novels and sarcastic heroes. It's genetic. 

Saturday, I went with my future roommate and her awesome family to see the musical Rent in Rochester.  Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal reprised the roles they originated, and I swear I cried the entire show because of the awesomeness of it all. The original cast recording is a staple on my iPod, and suddenly here were two of them singing less that 20 feet in front of me. They sounded better in person. On the way there we also stopped at an outlet mall. I was excited mainly because I saw people beyond the college and professor age-range, which is something you kind of forget exists while at college. AND I actually bought something. 

So it was, essentially, the perfect weekend. It felt like the calm before the storm of finals. 

I can't believe it's the last week of classes. Unbelievable. 

Blog Fail

For the sake of updating, here's a few snippets of my life. Because you totally want them. 

1. Morning

Short Story Professor: For next class, we're reading Margaret Atwood's Happy Endings.

Me: I LOVE MARGARET ATWOOD!

Professor: (sigh) Why does that not surprise me?

(His reaction was probably influenced by the fact that I'd spent a lot of the class calling his beloved, much-lauded Guy de Maupassant a boring anti-feminist.) 

2. Afternoon

No dialogue, because I spent hours writing silly academic writing stuff, like:

"With patriotic zeal, country musicians have claimed governmental rhetoric as their own and, perhaps unintentionally, upheld moral flaws in international policy for the sake of appealing to the current mood of a growing and profitable demographic."

I officially turn every class into Global Studies. I have a problem.

3. Later afternoon. 

Claire on phone: They are building a Chipotle near my school.

Me: I now have a concrete reason to visit.

4. Evening. 

In the radio station. 

Friend L: My local news story is a "dog bites local man" story. Eff my life.

Now, I'm off to my last Ithacan meeting of the year. How sad. (Ish)

I Honestly Have Nothing to Write About

Fingers crossed, I am finally finished with the crew article FROM HELL.

Seriously, finishing this article was like killing a cockroach. Everytime I thought I was finally finished and done with the Ithacan for the year, I'd get a call about SOMETHING. Whether they'd like a quote another type of source, or that source actually didn't work because they'd written for the Ithacan before, or there's another question about a training technique, etc. I seriously wanted to scream. Or throw a grocery-store I-didn't-have-my-nap-today toddler tantrum. 

The good part is that I think the article turned out really well. One of my favorites, actually. 

I just hope to God I don't get some phone call tonight, saying the computers blew up or something and I have to re-write. 

It could happen. 

The real reason I'm writing this post is because there is no way I can focus on my academic writing paper for more than 10 minutes at a time. It is mind-numbingly dull. I am starting to think that I have a talent for turning interesting things boring. Really. I start with the idea about the homogenization of country music following the September 11th attacks, and all of a sudden I'm writing about the industry's linear progression within the "massification" theory. 

And all I wanted to do was write about what a tool Toby Keith is. I mean, seriously. "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue?" Let's take a look, shall we?

"Oh, justice will be served and the battle will rage:

This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage.
An' you'll be sorry that you messed with the U.S. of A.
'Cos we'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way."

So, basically, he's embarrassing. 

But even grand (profitable) displays of ignorant, war-mongering idiocy can't keep my attention. 

I am going to go work now. Really. 

Claire's Regatta

Saturday morning we had a little Paulson family gathering at Claire's crew regatta in Owego, NY. Amma and Pappa came and picked me up, and we drove past many cows, a few chickens, and many farms to get there. 

The day was beautiful. The parents brought a huge spread of food for the rowers and families. This was good, because we were there for approximately nine million hours. Luckily, we had those comfy camping chairs, so I curled up in one and soaked up the rare gift of sunlight and warmth. 

I felt a little strange being at an athletic event without my tape recorder. 

But I think the only way to really explain how nice the day was is through pictures.

I think this one is awesome. AND it's candid!

I'm Well On My Way to Spending My Whole Life in Park

This morning, at 7 a.m. the whole sophomore class (and me) rushed to register for next semester's classes. Now, I don't know how it used to be, but now we do it online, and it takes a lot of frantic clicking and praying the website doesn't jam up. 

But I was lucky, and got all the classes I needed on the FIRST TRY!

So here's my lovely course line-up for fall 2009:

News Writing and Reporting I (Get my hands on some CAMERAS!)

Ethical Issues in Mass Communication (with Loop AGAIN)

U.S. Politics (wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee)

Political Justice (PUMPED for this one!)

History of U.S. Mass Media (In this class, I will probably want to sleep.)

So I'm ready. It's going to be one insanely packed semester. Luckily, three of my classes are in the Park school, and my dorm is approximately 100 feet from it. Win.

After winning at registration I dragged myself over to breakfast and class. In Short Story my Professor described Isaac Babel, who I had never heard of before reading his story, as "the rock star of Jewish Soviet literature."

That is a title I fear I will never earn. 

I'm also not so sure the competition was all that intense. Stalin kind of wiped it out.

Anyway, I then headed to Global Studies, where we learned about how the World Trade Organization does stupid things rather frequently and agricultural workers are probably never going to form an effective international union. See what my early liberal arts education is bringing me? WISDOM!

I then plopped my butt down in the pub with a tape recorder and a chai latte and interviewed two of the varsity coxswains. 

No one could have told me that this is what college would be like. 

Let's Do This Updating Thing!

It's Tuesday. I'm writing, which means I did actually end up surviving yesterday. Impressive. 

This weekend was pretty awesome. Saturday I rolled out of bed and booked it down to the inlet with my editor to grab some reactions at the crew meet. It was unbelievably windy. So much so that I had a hell of a time transcribing my interviews because of the insane howl of the wind dominating the tape. Not so fun. 

It was the last home crew meet of the year, however, which meant that the seniors all had to jump in the so-freezing-cold-it-snowed-this-week water. The women's coach pulled out a motor boat and hovered near them to make sure no one...well, died. It was a sight to see. 

Later, my future roomie A picked me up, because her family awesomely offered to take me in this weekend for Easter festivities. It was just nice to be in an actual house. We laid on the couch, watched movies, played Rock Band, and ate amazing food for the weekend. Sunday I EVEN WENT TO CHURCH with them. For those that know me, this is a rare occurrence. It was cute. The church even had a pre-service breakfast that included their tradition of ice cream rolled in corn flakes with cut strawberries on top. It may sound strange, but it was AMAZING. 

Yesterday...I just did. It was long. One of my assigned short stories that I had to read for homework was 22 pages long. I wasted a lot of energy whining about it. Then I discovered that my Global Studies reading was 108 pages long. Really. I realized this at 10:30 last night.

Good thing I plan ahead and have superior time management skills. 

This morning I had class that was wayyyy too early, and an interview at 11 that went very well. 

Now, I'm in the midst of a post-lunch haze. But at least I feel productive!

I Love Holidays and Other Things That Cancel My Classes

My 8 a.m. class was cancelled today because of Passover. My professor said, "I know you're all terribly disappointed, but my religion tells me I'm not supposed to work on Thursday. So, sleep more." 

Fine with me. 

So I did sleep. But the cancellation also allowed me to stay up for all hours last doing non-productive things, like talking to my sister on the phone about absolutely nothing for an extended period of time. Whenever we talk it feels like nothing has changed whatsoever, and it's like we're chatting and whining across the dining room table like we always did. Sometimes I don't know how not seeing her everyday became normal. 

Yesterday I pretty much ruled at life. Having crashed and burned on my first journalism research exam, I was eagerly (read: nervously) awaiting the results of my second exam. I aced it. I got out of class early to come back and find I'd received an internship offer at the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press. I accepted it.

Read: I'll ACTUALLY BE DOING SOMETHING THIS SUMMER. 

I was beginning to get worried. I really had no plans. This internship seems perfect. The office hours are minimal. I'll be doing a bunch of work from home. However, that frees me up to do things like babysit, give swim lessons, and sit on my butt in 80+ degree weather. 

Success. 

Today in Global Studies we were given scenarios in groups that cast us as exiled political leaders charged with starting our home nation over after it's independence was announced and its colonial occupier was quickly withdrawing. 

Let me tell you, there is nothing more fun to do at 9 a.m than argue with classmates about the dangers of transition-dictatorships and about how to utilize natural resources in balancing imports and exports and creating sustainable industry. Sometimes it bugs me that there are no right answers. It was also frustrating to find that most of our suggestions had been tried...and had failed.

In short, I am SO GLAD that I'm declaring my second major, even though I had to spend an hour of my life reading about NAFTA and APEC last night. These things can be forgiven. 

There is actually sun today. 

Win.

Snow. Really.

Honestly, I knew Ithaca would be cold. I survived the winter months. I bought a stupid hat. I actually wore gloves when I wasn't even going skiing. I wore scarves as something other than an accessory. I stopped wearing flip flops in October. I even considered the possibility of wearing a sweater.

But now it is April. And it snowed ALLLLLLL DAYYYYY.

Not fair. Uncool. 

At the risk of sounding uncouth and immature, let me just say:

Screw this. I JUST WANT SUMMER.

I know that most of the high schools are just starting spring break, and that they have many, many weeks left of absolutely monotonous and sleep-depriving teenage torture, and that I shouldn't complain. But hey, I DID that. 

Right now I'm stuck underneath a pile of papers that won't write themselves and that have due dates fast approaching.  I have so much to do but no will to do it. I can't concentrate. I just can't.  

But I know I'll manage. I always get things done in the end. It's just that my high procrastination tendencies are making my productivity and sleep levels suffer. I have to change that. 

I eagerly wait my future post in which I will whine about wanting to return to school. I'm extremely impressed with all my (all,what, 5 of them?) readers. You guys put up with absurd amounts of whine plus the occasional self-indulgent and melodramatic reflection. 

I'm trying to think of anything relatively interesting to relate. You know, about college. Since that's supposed to be what this blog is about. 

I can't. So I decided to take a picture with my fake chicken. Because I'm not even that talented at procrastination. And we matched. 

Further proof that I'm adorable AND ladylike.

I think we look alike.

Oh, and that in the background? That's totally not my light. It's a spaceship. A chicken spaceship.

Ithaca Today...Yesterday

It felt like I was living in some alternate universe yesterday. 

It was so cool and so tiring, and almost transformative for me. 

Yesterday morning, as the Deans Hosts grouped before the tidal wave of work and activities of the Park accepted students day and overnight, our supervisor had a treat for us. The eight or so of us got to hang out and chat with Sal Paolantonio for an hour and a half. It was SO COOL. I was also thanking Papa, because it was thanks to him that I'd read Paolantonio's book over winter break. Two of his daughter's went (or go) to Ithaca, and were both Park students. One is a senior now.

He gave us fascinating advice all wrapped up in these amazing stories. His biggest emphasis was on the power of hand-written thank you notes. It's because of these that Michael Strahan wouldn't speak to any reporters after winning the Super Bowl until he talked to Sal, and said, "I want to speak to Sal because that's the first thank you note I've ever received." Those notes are also how people like Andy Reid will call him first if something's happening. Like that time when he was at an IC parent's weekend and he gets a call from Reid saying he's suspending Terrell Owens for the season, and Park students helped him shoot live shots from campus to break the story on ESPN. 

IT WAS SO COOL. 

He gave a marketing communications major the names of people to contact, with his reference, to get connected in the PR department at places like Jacksonville and with the Giants. 

And the best part? 

After the talk, I went up, nervously, and asked him if I could possibly get his card. And he said:

"You know what, you win! I was hoping someone was actually listening and would ask me."

I only freaked out on the inside. 

So now, here I am, with Sal Paolantonio's card sitting on my desk. I'm going to write him an thank you note. 

From there on, I helped direct students and answer questions in Park for an hour, then hosted a journalism student question and answer session. Then, I picked up my prospective students for the night. A ton of the girls on the floor were also hosting students. We took them down to dinner and down to VIC's Battle of the Bands.  We also made a pit stop at this small intimate coffee shop called...Starbucks. It was delicious. 

I think we convinced a lot of students yesterday.  That's where I made my decision, exactly a year ago. The same event. It was such a surreal day. It required a lot of work and quite a bit of self-reflection. It was cool to look at how far I've come from sitting nervously in a discussion section a year ago, confused and terrified, to a college girl finishing up her second semester and finally figuring out the right path to take. 

Sports journalism will have to stay as an option. I mean, now that I have an ESPN national correspondent's cell phone number, and he knows my name. 

I guess this is college. It's way crazier than I expected, that's for sure.

Who knew?

Catching Up

Obviously I have been totally slacking on this "blogging" thing I do. 

A lot of that is because of how much work I have and how many activities I do.  But it's also because since I'm trying to get my application for my double major approved, I've been running around from building to building getting a million signatures and sorting through the bureaucratic process of the registrar's office. 

So while that's totally not fun, I am SO PUMPED for my second major and am almost there with the approvals. I need one more signature, and then I turn it into the Humanities and Sciences Dean and wait. However, Dr. Soyinka-Airewele, my Global Studies professor, agreed to be my advisor. Which is awesome. 

I had a group presentation today in that class (entitled "Going Home to Afghanistan: Displacement and the Politics of Return"), and it went well. The only bad part was I had to stand in front of the class for a whole hour and a half.  It is not fun when you really have to sneeze but can't for approximately 60 of those 90s minutes. I may or may not have looked like a crazy person. 

Oh, and today I got a graduate school pamphlet in the mail from Georgetown. Already. REALLY?

I am so not ready for that process again. Give me a year. Or two.