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.  

Let's Talk About Today

So today my alarm went off, and this was my exact response: "GurrRRGhhh!"  Then, I began my lovely day by dousing myself in water in the handicap shower.  This thing is an amazing discovery. It is actually a normal sized shower, and does not make you feel like you are in a capsule being preserved solely for research purposes for future generations.  You can actually move around without fretting that you will get some fungus.  Really.  The shower is usually busy, because people usually have to worship it in the morning because of its amazingness, but I snagged it!

Then I had breakfast with friend KM, who had me fill him in on the absolute fabulousness of the Redskins.  Or maybe I just kind of forced it on him.  He didn't get too jealous, because he is a Jets fan.  I did manage to sneak in a few snide remarks about the Jets' throwback jerseys though.  Here's one thing about going to Ithaca: I don't think I ever had a conversation about or even referencing the Jets until I came here.  I kind of ignored their existence.  Then, I came to New York. Now I pretend that I didn't grow up thinking that Jets fans were lame.  Thank you father, you have taught me the ways of football fan-dom well.  

In journalism we had another quiz and I rocked it.  My confidence was boosted because I got one of the bonus questions right:

Which NFL team fired their head coach today?

It's the Rams, which I hadn't actually heard that morning, but I made an educated guess because I am awesome.  

My journalism professor is a sports fanatic.  And a Raiders fan. So, I expect another question like that soon.  

Then, I had sports management and my teacher spent a lot of time making fun of the Mets.  I don't understand baseball at all.  No one I know, except for my uncle, really follows baseball.  In D.C there are a few fake Red Sox fans, a few former Yankees fans, some middle-age Orioles fans, and absolutely no Nationals fans.  At least, this is what I observed in a high school setting. 

APPARENTLY in New York they care about baseball.  Again, who knew? 

In cultural anthropology I thought a lot about how I wanted to sleep for the rest of the day.  I also considered the differences between race and ethnicity.  PARTY!

Then, I headed down to the Ithacan office, where I worked out the kinks in my article with my editor Cory.  It actually turned out pretty well, despite it being cursed and all.  THEN, he told me that I have earned the title of staff writer!  No more "contributing writer" for me!  I'm mad excited. Love it!

The weather is awful.  It was about 53 degrees today.  No more flip flop weather.  Or, knowing me, I may try to push it a few more days...

YAYYY

THE REDSKINS WON!

THE COWBOYS ARE NO LONGER UNDEFEATED!

Oh yeah, but guess who are still undefeated? That's right, the Bills.  

What is awesome is that they were actually playing the Redskins game up here because it's the Giants' conference.  So I actually watched most of it.  I stayed home from water polo, mainly because my deadline was 7 p.m.  

So even though my feature was cursed, it turned out fine, and I guess I got some good karma.  I wore my Darrell Green jersey today, and then the Redskins beat the number one team in the league.  

I love life.  

I still have Gridiron at 8 and some work to do.  But that's totally fine because WE WON!

YAY!

A Rainy Lazy Saturday

Boothroyd Hall is kind of infested with a cold right now. Everyone up and down the hallway has a sore throat and the sniffles.  I woke up this morning and ugghhh.  I let the Inquirer know I wouldn't be at filming, which was fine, and snuggled back under the covers.  After a few more hours of sleep, I felt much better.  A bunch of my friends who are also feeling under the weather and I headed down to brunch and drank hot cups of tea and ate fruit and muffins.  It was a nice contrast to the drizzly, chilly weather outside.  

In Ithaca, I think the weather is either fantastic or dismal.  For some reason, most of the weekends are icky.  Oh well.  Yesterday was loads of fun.  After class my friend K and I rearranged my side of the room, and it makes the room feeling even bigger.  I really love the way it's set up now. My friends K, L and I also ordered Mediterranean food and I had a pita that had random stuff it in with chicken.  I'm not sure what it was, but it was tasty.  You can really get anything delivered in Ithaca.  All kinds of stuff.   Later, almost all of us headed over to the IC After Dark party, where I got to ride a mechanical bull, and we all learned to line dance.  So much fun.  

Today, some homework, an update on the field hockey away game (PLEASE WIN) and a bit of relaxing.