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.