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.  

Another "I'm Happy It's The Weekend" Post

I'm happy it's the weekend.  Very happy.  

And so I posted a picture that makes me happy, and it will probably make claire send me a very stern text message.  I love her!

I have a feature due sunday. I'm doing it on the field hockey goalie, because I really had nothing to write about, and I decided, "I like goalies!"  Also, the players straight up asked me not to do an article about the coach.  Really.  So the goalie it is.  I did my interview with her today, and she was a tough one.  Getting info was a bit like pulling teeth, but I kind of enjoyed the challenge.  It was good for me.  I really had to dig for any, well, emotion I guess.  

Anyway, tonight is "Urban Cowboy" night at IC AfterDark, which essentially means there is a lot of free food and a mechanical bull to ride.  It is nasty outside tonight, so we shall see whether we venture out into the disgustingess that is the weather and go to it.  By we, I mean my dormmates and I.  

Apple Fest.  Caramel apples in dorm kitchen.  Cheez-Its from my parents (and a Darrell Green jersey!)

I think it's going to be a nice one.  

Let's Try Some Vloging!

So with the MacBook it's very easy to take videos.  I showed a little bit of my room and talked about my day.  I was inspired by Aida and now I just want to do it all the time.  Let's see how this works!

So yeah.  Exciting, right?  It's only about 5 minutes.