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I Love Shoes

2012-01-31T20:21:00.000-05:00

I love shoes. Given that I am a 25-year-old woman who grew up in the Sex & the City age, that is probably the most cliché thing I’ve ever written. However, I don’t love shoes because the clicking of high heels on a shopping mall floor makes me feel empowered and it’s not like couture pumps make me hand over my rent money. I love shoes simply because I spend a lot of time looking at them.

If you stare at something long enough, you start to feel very strongly about it, either negatively or positively. Try it. Stare at a random household object, like a spatula or a power outlet, for about 6 hours and you’ll definitely develop strong emotions toward it (or potentially toward me for suggesting you do this). In the case of shoes, I look at my own so often that life would be miserable if I hated them. So I love them. I don’t just sit in front of my closet and stare at my shoes for hours, I look at them quite often during the day while walking to my car, waiting for the elevator, sitting in a meeting, talking on the phone, ordering food at Subway. Why am I always looking down?

1) I am an introvert.

Don’t mistake this for shy. Introverts are not shy, they just prefer small groups of people they really like instead of large groups of strangers where they have to make small talk. Introverts are usually more intelligent and interesting. Think about some famous introverts—Beethoven, J.D. Salinger, Quasimodo—all captivating individuals. Now think of some famous extroverts—Katherine Heigl, The Situation, Donald Trump—all thin-haired dumb dumbs. Being an introvert is great until you are in a situation where you might run into people you know. Like work. Walking around the halls of the office is brutal. Typically, I’m walking with a purpose—I have somewhere to be and I don’t want to stop for small talk. However, walking the halls runs the risk of coming across a friendly, extroverted coworker who wants to stop and chat. That is why I look at my shoes. If I don’t make eye contact, you can’t initiate a conversation. If you recognize the top of my head because you’ve seen it so much and try to talk to me anyway, I will keep walking because looking down gives the impression of being deep in thought. I imagine people think, as I walk by “Wow, she must be wrestling with some deep emotions or solving a great world issue. It’s amazing how she can block the world out. What a beautiful mind. She’ll probably be a poet one day.”

2) I have poor eyesight

In 5^th grade, I had eye surgery to correct congenital cataracts. In addition to giving me synthetic lenses that make my eyes “glow” like a cat’s, this gave me better eyesight. Better, but not perfect. I still have to wear glasses, but this is a challenge in weather. When I walk outside, my head is always down and my eyes are pointed at my shoes. I have a feeling most four-eyes would tell you this, because getting rain or snow on your glasses is a pain. You can’t see without your glasses so you have to keep them on, but if you look straight ahead during even the slightest drizzle, your glasses get clouded and spotty. Then, when you finally reach shelter, you look like a total nerd with your spotty glasses. Looking down helps you keep your cool and prevents glasses from getting totally drenched.

My glasses give me great eyesight, but they do nothing for my observation skills. In college, I would complain that my schedule was so opposite all my friends because I never saw them on my way to class. It turns out a lot of them walked past me, waved at me, shouted my name, tried to trip me and I completely failed to notice. I believe I have a condition called face blindness where your brain cannot distinguish facial features enough to recognize different people. I saw a story about a guy who had it on 60 Minutes, or I made it up, I’m not sure. Either way, it’s socially inhibiting so instead of facing the problem head-on, I deal with it face down. As mentioned above, staring at my shoes prevents any eye contact, which in this case, avoids any social awkwardness from looking directly at a dear friend and walking right past her. If I have done this to you, I apologize. One day, there might be a cure for face blindness, but probably not since I made it up.

3) I am clumsy.

I know, this sounds like a Bella Swan cop-out (yeah, I made a Twilight reference) but I truly am uncoordinated. I was on the basketball team in 5^th and 8^th grades and between the two years I made a total of one basket. I fell off my bike and scraped my knee when I was 15. I walked into several screen doors at various high school graduation parties (why is the food always on the porch???). You can imagine how graceful I am in a pair of heels. Since I’m looking at them the majority of the day, I choose shoes that are pretty. These aren’t usually ballet flats. I really admire women who can casually walk around in stilettos like their wearing slippers. In the middle of summer, I will go to work wearing my Ugg boots and change into my high heels once I’m firmly planted at my desk. When I have to make the trek to the bathroom or head down the hall to a meeting, I keep my eyes glued to my shoes. Any misstep and I could end up face down on that low-grade carpet. Even in flats, I have to watch my step. My shoes come untied a lot and I trip over absolutely nothing. I’m basically a toddler with shoes that don’t Velcro.

My love of shoes runs deeper than just the materialistic side of it. Staring at my shoes gets me out of a lot of awkward situations, or that’s how I like to think of it. All this downward looking probably makes me appear more awkward than if I would just look up and own my hatred of small talk and misty glasses. However, I’m pretty sure it’s giving me a spine problem popularly being diagnosed as text spine, so that’s pretty cool. My back condition is as trendy as shoes.

Sorting Through My Solitude

2011-08-15T19:14:00.005-04:00

I do a lot of things by myself. I live by myself. I go shopping by myself. I eat at restaurants by myself. I’m an introvert to the fullest extent, so usually, I revel in all this “me-time”, but the looks I get from strangers as I order my second gin and tonic and toast myself get a little annoying, and how often I shave my legs is directly related to the amount of human interaction I have, so I figured I’d better make some friends. The last time I made really good friends was at Notre Dame, so what better place to look for new friends than the Notre Dame Club of Cleveland? I could be sure they all shared my love of Notre Dame football and 25-cent hotdogs, and that’s what friendships are made of. The club was sponsoring a service project at the local food bank, so I signed up in hopes of meeting some other guilty Catholic introverts to befriend.

I was one of the last people to get to the food bank, so when I walked into the volunteer room, everyone had claimed their seats and the room was pretty divided. One side was full of young, well-dressed, attractive people, all paired up with a significant other and chatting away with other couples. On the other side were the rejects—single, frumpy looking men and women, complete with hair scrunchies and Notre Dame sweatshirts, staring at the floor or examining their fingernails. My own hair was scrunchy-less, but poofy. My top was kind of cute, but my shoes didn’t really match. Most significantly, I was alone. I knew where I belonged in this group. I sat next to a woman with ashy blonde hair and Velcro shoes. As desperate as I was for friends, I knew this wouldn’t work. I tried to edge my way onto the attractive people’s side by awkwardly jumping into their conversations. I overheard a man named Greg introduce himself two seats away from me and instinctively responded “Nice to meet you!” even though I was not the one he had been addressing. I shrank back into my plastic chair, accepting my seat on the friendless reject side. If I couldn’t make friends, at least I would do my part for the community by sorting some canned goods.

A man with a lobster claw for a hand was in charge of the volunteers. As he led us into the warehouse, one of the attractive people started talking to me. I yammered away, desperate to make friends. I tried to keep myself in check lest someone mistake my enthusiasm for a bubbly personality, but it was difficult when these friend-making opportunities were so few and far between. Lobster man started dividing us into pairs, and I was determined to get paired with my new best friend to solidify our friendship. I could have a shopping date planned within the hour! But then that jerk dumped me for the peppy blonde who didn’t even look like she had gone to Notre Dame. My options for partners dwindled quickly, with pre-established couples obviously picking each other. A man in his 50s wearing a Notre Dame polo that showed off his moobs grinned at me. Lobster man asked for a single volunteer. I jumped at the opportunity.

There are two jobs for volunteers at the food bank—reading expiration dates or sorting food. Since there were too many volunteers, I was placed in between an expiration date reader and a food sorter to “pick up the slack”. Both jobs are pretty easy. There was no slack. Nevertheless, I tried to help. I scanned left behind cans and boxes for expiration dates and placed them on the conveyer belt. When a jar of sauce would pass me by, I’d snatch it up and toss it in the sauce bin behind me. It was pretty mindless work, so I took the opportunity to talk to the girl next to me. She had come with her boyfriend, but as it turns out, people with significant others can be sociable! We were chatting away (me probably more than her, despite my best efforts to not look desperate), but in doing so, I started shirking my food bank responsibilities. A couple of old farts next to me had gathered all the sauces I missed and when I came to gather them for the sauce bin, the man said to me, “Finally! We thought you were never coming back!” As a knee jerk reaction, I responded with “I have ADD.” Somehow, that blatant lie was supposed to explain my long absence from the sauce bin. Then I topped off that gem by grabbing one of the cans he had set aside and saying, “This isn’t even sauce. These are diced tomatoes!” and throwing it in the sauce bin anyway. I have obviously been away from humans for too long. It's a wonder I didn't start throwing my own feces and claiming I had Asperger's as well.

After all the cans had been sorted, lobster claw man came by to thank us for our work. One of the Irish fans piped up and said she would love to help out again. Sebastian hands said we all needed more practice to master the art of spotting botulism, then singled me out. “This young lady over here was too busy being miss chatty to sort her bins!” He grabbed a can of Manwich meat with his one giant finger and thumb to demonstrate. “She’d pick a can up. Look at it. Talk some more. Look at it again. And do that about five more times before finally just putting it down on the belt! Girl, you need a lot more practice ‘fore you come back!”

I left the food bank with no phone numbers, no shopping dates, and no feeling of helping the community, since apparently I did such a crappy job at it. Maybe it’s better that I spend the majority of my time in solitude. It gives me a chance to practice swiftly reading all the expiration dates in my pantry.

False Signs of the Snowpocalypse

2011-02-08T20:40:00.003-05:00

You might think that the scariest thing about moving to Cleveland would be the crime or living by myself or starving to death because I get lost every time I try to find the grocery store. However, the part about Cleveland that sends me into fits of terror is something I’ve been dealing with my whole life—weather. I grew up in Ohio and spent the past five years in Indiana, which are both places with hard winter and lake effect snow, but never before have I watched the morning news before hitting the road on a snowy day.

Just a month into my new job, and I’ve already started a routine. I wake up, flip on the TV and set the channel to WKYC, Cleveland’s NBC station. The anchor and meteorologist fill my morning with cheery banter surrounding stories about school board meetings and photos viewers sent in of their dogs. They gently tell me to wake up and gleefully instruct me to grab a cup o’ joe. Then, just when they’ve gained my trust, even my friendship, their jovial attitudes turn dark and the weather and traffic segments begin. The weather woman warns of the doom that surely awaits me as soon as I leave my apartment. She tells me the visibility is so low I will need bat sonar to navigate my way to work, that I will freeze to death if I can’t make it to my car in under two minutes, and that it will be even worse on my drive home. Then, she puts on her whitestrip-enhanced smile and tosses to the traffic guy, who has a grizzly beard and more bad news. He says that traffic is so heavy I need to leave an extra 15 minutes early, even though I’m already running 20 minutes late because I stayed in bed a little longer to watch their news story about teens raising awareness for puppy cuteness or something. The grim traffic man reports that there are already several accidents and some cars are sliding right off the road into deep ravines filled with sharks. He warns that I better get my butt moving or I’ll be next. Then, the morning news resumes its cheerful disposition and tells a story of a local cherry farmer who makes jewelry out of the pits.

Just after I’ve convinced myself that the weather can’t be all that bad—I mean, I looked out my window and there’s zero precipitation—the meteorologist steps back in front of her green screen to point at a bunch of arrows that are meaningless to me but she says indicate a blizzard or a plague of locusts. I look out my window again and start to doubt my vision. She is on TV. She has a clicker in her hand that makes a smoke-like graphic move across a map. Even though my eyes are sending my brain an image that says it is not snowing, the weather woman must be right, so I start to panic. Not only am I going to have to fight the 4 gods of winter—Snow, Ice, Wind, and Seasonal Depression—but I will have to do it partially blind! I scan the closings scrolling across the bottom of the screen, hoping my place of business has the compassion to protect its employees from the storm, but no such luck. I pack up my things and prepare to leave my apartment for what could be the last time. I bid farewell to my cat and put out extra food just in case the snow piles up past the 10th floor and no one is able to reach my apartment. I take one last look at my apartment, and head out toward my destiny. On the way down in the elevator, I try to think of the great life I have lived, but all I can picture is my tiny car careening off the road into Lake Erie. Then, I’m eaten by a polar bear.

I expect a snowpocalypse, but when I drive out of the parking deck, the world is not a whiteout—it’s perfectly fine. Cleveland is not breaking off from the rest of the state under the weight of the snow and floating away to become a Great Lakes iceberg. In fact, the roads are dry. There isn’t even any traffic. I briefly wonder if perhaps I am the only survivor of a terrible snowstorm that quickly melted and moved on. But then I realize that the people I trusted so much, those I considered friends and who I allowed into my home to start my day, had lied to me. The anchor and the meteorologist and the bearded traffic guy were all in cahoots to trick me and make me panic so they could have the roads all to themselves. Oh, they’re good. They really had me going. Then comes the part where I vow never to watch them or believe them again.

And the next day, the cycle repeats.

This is going to be a long winter.

Is Gelato the Cat Bipolar?

2010-12-14T16:20:00.002-05:00

Is Gelato the Cat Bipolar?

Supporting Arguments:

He sometimes sleeps curled up next to me. Other times, he wakes me up at 4:30 in the morning.
Though he is relaxed and purring, Gelato will occasionally lash out while I am petting him and bite me.
Gelato will cry at the top of the steps, seemingly waiting for me to come pet him or feed him. However, as soon as I get near him, he runs away.
Gelato never plays with his anemone-shaped toy when I toss it to him or perform any other gesture inviting him to play. However, the anemone tends to change locations during the night.
Gelato will usually eat tuna straight from the can, but on some occasions, he will unexpectedly turn his nose up at it, leaving me to find stale tuna hours later.
Gelato find household items, like pens and shoelaces, very entertaining. However, store-bought toys have no appeal to him.

Defending Arguments:

Gelato is a cat.

What Beats an Applebee's Steak Knife?

2010-12-07T19:05:00.002-05:00

Some people are very easy to Christmas shop for. My parents are not these people. Dad never has any ideas except for “consumables”, but getting him candy is counterproductive to the healthy lifestyle he’s supposed to be living, and getting him golf balls when there’s a foot of snow on the ground just seems mean. My mom thinks she’s easy to shop for because there are so many things that she likes. The problem is, she goes ahead and buys all these things while she is Christmas shopping out of fear that no one will think to get them for her.

Giving a great Christmas gift is really important to me. I love to see the joy on a loved one’s face when they open something so unexpected, yet so absolutely perfect. It’s one of the ways I’ve maintained my status as the favorite child. Last year, Alex threw his old fedora and a stolen Applebee’s steak knife into a giant cardboard box without wrapping and gave it to Mom. This year, he plans on getting her a tattoo. With this kind of competition, it would seem I wouldn’t have to try very hard to give the better gift. However, since Alex is the baby, his thoughtless tradition of calling whatever item he grabbed from his bedroom floor that morning a present is considered adorable. With the kind of stuff Alex pulls off, I sometimes wonder what he could get away with if he were actually retarded. Despite Alex’s gift-giving misgivings, he has inspired my idea for the perfect Christmas gift for the parents this year—a lava lamp.

A couple months ago, Alex went shopping. Instead of buying clothes or things that might actually be useful, Alex traditionally blows all his cash at Spencers on things that make the basement look like a rave. This time, he bought a giant poster of a naked girl and a Bob Marley lava lamp (nevermind that Alex probably has no idea who Bob Marley is). He hung the poster in the basement and put the lava lamp below it as a sort of shrine to buyers’ remorse. While Alex was enjoying his new décor with a few friends, my Mom went down to the basement to get something and this is what happened:

Mom: Hey guys, how’s everyone doing?

Alex and Co.: Gooood (all awkwardly avoid eye contact because of giant naked poster)

Mom: This is new (Mom heads toward poster). Woah! Cool Bob Marley lava lamp! I love lava lamps!

Alex and Co.: (snickering, waiting for Mom to notice giant naked poster)

Mom: That’s awesome! You should take that to your dorm! Lava lamps are great! Ok bye!

Later, Dad came downstairs…

Dad: Hey guys, what’s going on?

Alex and Co.: Noooothing (all look bashful because of giant naked poster)

Dad: Hey, is that a lava lamp??? That is one cool Bob Marley lava lamp!!!

Alex and Co.: You think so?

Dad: Yeah! I love Bob Marley! Well, see ya!

Alex and Co.: (now wondering if the giant naked poster has parent invisibility powers)

It wasn’t until days later that Mom discovered the giant naked girl poster hanging directly above the lava lamp she so admired. I had no idea my parents were so smitten with lava lamps and Bob Marley that the combination of the two would send them into a sort of tunnel vision, but now I know exactly what I’m getting them for Christmas.

Winter Memories

2010-12-07T18:37:00.005-05:00

The snow is falling, the Christmas lights are twinkling, and everyone is bundled up in hats and marshmallow coats. This time of year always reminds me of an event a few years back that still has me chuckling. Actually, I wasn’t laughing about it at first, which is probably why I haven’t blogged about it until now.

It all started on a cold winter day in Columbus, Ohio. My mom and I had enjoyed a day of shopping at Easton mall, then we parted ways. Mom went to spend a night relaxing in a hotel room, and I left to spend some time with my dear friend Metzger, an OSU student at the time. Mom told me she would call me when she was on her way to pick me up at Metzger’s apartment the next morning, then Metzger and I headed out for the night.

The next morning is where the trouble/hilarity began. I had my phone on vibrate, so I didn’t hear my mother’s eight phone calls. What I did hear was a crazed woman outside Metzger’s apartment, yelling into a cell phone. I looked out the window to see my mother standing outside in the snow, wearing a beret, and asking passersby if they knew where Stephanie Metzger lived. I knew she would be angry, so I wasn’t sure if I should hurry up and get out there, or hide and come up with a good excuse. I looked at my phone and noticed the nearly dozen missed calls and voicemails, and decided to grab my stuff and run out of the apartment in my pajamas.

The progression of voicemails went something like this…

Voicemail 1:
“Hi Elise, it’s me. I’m just about ready to leave the hotel and come pick you up, so I just wanted to make sure you’re awake. I’ll call you again in a little bit! Bye!”

Voicemail 2:
“Hi Elise, it’s your mom. I’m on the road now and I don’t really know why you’re not answering, but I’ll be there shortly. Ok, bye.

Voicemail 3:
“Elise, why aren’t you answering your cell phone??? I think I’m on the right road, but I don’t know which apartment is Stephanie’s. This is really irresponsible. “

Voicemail 4:
“Ok, I don’t know where the hell you’re at, but this is ridiculous! The roads are getting terrible, it’s snowing like crazy, and we have to drive back to Stow so you better get your little ass out here now!”

Voicemail 5:
“Hi sweetie, it’s your dad. Mom’s pretty upset and I’m a little concerned about why you’re not answering your cell phone. I really hope you call Mom back soon because she’s really angry and taking this out on me. Ok. Bye”

That’s about when I woke up. My mom wasn’t kidding about the roads. What is usually a two-hour drive turned into a five-hour one because of, what my Mom dramatically calls, “the blizzard of the century”. Lucky for me, that blizzard saved me from taking on too much wrath because it was all directed at the snow. All I came away with was a wonderful memory of my mother standing outside of some OSU apartments in a beret, accosting undergrads.

I really hope it's OK to laugh about this now.

Song and Flashdance

2010-11-16T11:48:00.007-05:00

Either this job search is making me crazy, or the questions potential employers are asking are getting ridiculous. It's probably a little bit of both.

Evidence to support that Elise is going crazy

Exhibit A:
One job application for a copywriter position asked the question "What is the best piece of copy you have ever written?" My response:

After years of toiling away at pages and prose, I finally completed what was sure to become the next great American novel. As I held my completed 4,224 page masterpiece, a plane full of babies crashed into a nearby field. I cast my life’s work aside and ran towards the flames, grabbing the first child I saw. I turned him over to see if there was still life in his eyes, but there was not. There never had been. This “child” and the hundreds of others scattered among the burning debris were nothing but plastic dolls. I knew right away that this was the work of my arch nemesis, Plaige Urism. I looked up just in time to see the evil woman grab my book, hop on her hovercraft and take off. My cry of despair rivaled the din of the weeping robot babes, but there was nothing I could do. After that, I wandered through life a shell of a person, my spirit gone with my novel. Years later while walking past a book store, I saw my story. It had been divided into seven volumes and was being sold to millions all over the world. My elation at finding my long-lost masterpiece quickly turned to despair when I saw the byline: J.K. Rowling, Plaige’s secret identity. Not only had she stolen the best piece of copy I have ever written, but she had also denied me fame and fortune. Now, there is nothing I can do but hope that one day, I can write a book to rival my own.

Honestly, I'm a little surprised I didn't get that job. Claiming to write the Harry Potter novels shows creativity and awesomeness, but perhaps it displays too much crazy.

Exhibit B:

In an in-office interview for a marketing job at a welding company, I was asked the following question:

"What experience do you have with welding or welding machines?"

My response to the executive who had spent the past 30 years of his life with the company:

"Well, I've seen Flashdance....so....that's about it..."

I have yet to hear back from them.

Evidence to support that potential employers are asking ridiculous questions

Exhibit A:

In an online job application for a marketing position, I was given the following writing prompt:

"Writing in the first person, describe a turtle's greatest accomplishment"

My response to this inane, totally irrelevant, but kind of fun question:

It’s not easy carrying your house around with you everywhere you go. Imagine, every time you want to go to the grocery store or the movies or even just to visit a neighbor, you have to pick up your home and all your belongings and trudge on over to your destination. That’s why turtles are so slow, and that’s why simple things like crossing the street are so perilous. In my 72 years, I had never seen a single member of my family cross the street, but we always speculated about the other side. We could see that the grass was indeed greener, and we guessed that the worms were plumper, the ponds more inviting and the birds less threatening.

One not-so-special Tuesday morning, I decided I did not want to wonder anymore—I wanted to wander. I kissed my wife and eggs goodbye and slowly began the long journey across the road. Thankfully, the traffic was light and I made it an entire five feet without encountering a single vehicles. My luck would not last for long, and the rest of my journey was plagued with cars and trucks and mopeds whizzing by, threatening the home I bore on my back. I kept walking, focusing on each step, until I felt grass under my feet. I had made it, and the other side was just as wonderful as I had imagined. I looked back across the street to see my family celebrating my great accomplishment, or at least I assumed that’s what they were doing—I had forgotten my glasses at home.

I think that story is downright precious, so if I don't get this job, I'll at least have a great start to my collection of children's stories.

Exhibit B:

For another marketing job, I was asked to "choose any word and add, subtract or change a few letters to make up a new word and define it." After running through several manipulations of the words "eggplant", "giraffe", and "leotard", I settled on the following:

Fedorable (adj.) - adorable or charming while wearing a felt hat with a curved brim.

I'm not sure where this evidence leaves me--either crazy, or a victim of the ridiculous. Either way, finding a career is turning out to be a lot less professional and a lot more song and flashdance.

Librarian

2010-10-20T11:16:00.002-04:00

I think I would really like to go back to school. The pursuit of knowledge thrills me. The idea of expanding my mind to its limits while furthering research in an academic field excites me. Moreover, if I hide out in school for a couple years, maybe the job market will be in an upswing when I come out.

I’ve been considering PhD programs in media studies for a while now, such as the University of Wisconsin’s Media and Cultural Studies program or Northwestern’s Screen Cultures program. However much the prospect of studying television sitcoms for the rest of my life entices me, it also gives me pause. Who would this help? Who cares? This kind of program truly would be research for the sake of academics in the field itself and no further. I’ve never been much of a do-gooder, but I’ve always thought that at some point I might do something meaningful. Plus, I don’t really like the idea of having “She watched sitcoms for a living” on my headstone.

I’m still going to apply for these programs (my chances of getting in are pretty slim anyway) but now I’m looking at shorter, more practical programs. Masters degrees seem to be the new bachelors degrees, with no one finding jobs and everyone having the same “let’s hide out in school” mentality as me. However, I’m not really sure what a masters degree is worth. Most jobs I’m looking at don’t require them and if a business wants you to have one they’ll usually pay for it, so it doesn’t make too much sense to go for one on your own. That is, unless you’re super passionate about a specific field. Oh, to have a passion….

After perusing through masters programs, one kept catching my eye: Library Sciences. It would keep me in academia without having to write a dissertation or actually become a professor. I’m good at being quiet. I can read. I wear glasses. As it turns out, these are not actually requirements to be a librarian (except literacy). According to the American Library Association, librarians should:

· Enjoy helping and serving others (I have never met a nice librarian so I believe this is more of a suggestion than a requirement)

· Interested in developing and providing services, resources and materials that inform and entertain, such as books, movies, music, storytelling, websites, local history, databases, and puppets (PUPPETS???? I’m picturing a puppeteer class in library science school)

· Believe strongly in First Amendment rights protecting the freedom of speech and of the press (Well, I’ve never not believed in this)

· Wish to contribute to the greater good of a literate society (as long as I don’t have to teach people to read)

· Believe all information resources provided by libraries should
be equitably accessible to all library users (Books for everyone!)

After reading more about becoming a librarian, it turns out you don’t always need a library science degree, which kind of defeats the point of becoming a librarian at all. That also brings to light that I might not actually want to be a librarian—I just want to go back to school.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job outlook for librarians in the next decade looks good, since most librarians are old and probably retiring (though I just assumed they all died on the job since all librarians seem to be ancient). The median salary is about $53,000, but a lot higher if you work for the Federal Government

I think I could enjoy being a librarian. I could get a lot of reading done and rock the pencil-absentmindedly-stuck-in-my-hair look, but I’m not sure if it’s really what I’m supposed to do. If I did become a librarian, I would be sure to implement a “reading to dogs” program. This has been started at other libraries, and it involves dogs being told to sit and stay (and probably sedated) while little kids read to them. The point is that children who aren’t confident with their reading skills can get good practice reading out loud to dogs, since dogs won’t interrupt them or make fun of them. But I have a hunch that this is one big librarian prank so they can get a good laugh watching a first grader read to a golden retriever. Or maybe I’m just a sick, soulless person, in which case, library sciences is not for me.

Genetic Counselor

2010-10-05T17:45:00.003-04:00

In high school biology, I always thought the subject of genetics was fascinating, and that’s not just because class project where we had to make a double helix out of gumdrops. Genetic counseling might seem like a totally off-the-wall career option, especially considering I didn’t take one science class in college, but in the spirit of getting back to the basics of what I enjoy (or what I’ve enjoyed in the past), it’s something I think I should explore.

According to genetichealth.com, a genetic counselor helps people understand their risk for genetic conditions (such as cystic fibrosis or cancer), educated people about these diseases, and assesses the risk of passing those diseases on to children. Now, it’s not too clear to me how a genetic counselor does this, but I’m assuming it goes beyond those cutesy little allele charts we made in high school.

Nope, that’s basically what they do, as you can see from this little example of a genetic counseling session, provided by the website.

Does that say rectal bleeding?? I would have to investigate a whole family’s history of rectal bleeding??? Maybe this isn’t the job for me. I can’t even talk about feet without getting grossed out.

But then again, genetic counseling does seem like the cushy side of the medical profession. No surgery. No open wounds. No staring into people’s mouths or looking at their urine. I just have to talk about rectal bleeding and Downs syndrome. I can manage that, especially for an average salary of $55,000 annually (after working in broadcast news, I’m easily impressed).

Becoming a genetic counselor might be a little difficult, since I haven’t taken a science class since I was 18. I would need a masters degree, and I would probably have to take a few undergraduate courses to make up for the lack of science in my past. But, I don’t mind being in school. It delays having to job hunt, which shouldn’t be too hard as a genetic counselor since it’s a growing field.

Now that I know what they do, do I really have what it takes to become a genetic counselor? According to medhunters.com, a genetic counselor should be:
• Calm and able to put people at ease: I’ve always thought I had a soothing voice
• Empathetic and sympathetic: I can fake that.
• Enjoy working with people: Umm….
• Able to impart complex information: Memories of unsuccessfully trying to teach my mother how to use the computer are flooding back to me.
• Non-judgmental and able to keep your opinions to yourself: Well, there goes that option
• Must be pro-choice: They’ll take one look at my Notre Dame education, assume I was one of the crazies who welcomed the president with blood-stained babies, and throw my resume away. Not to mention, I am Catholic, and I have no money for indulgences.

Well, it doesn’t look like I’m meant to be a genetic counselor. The healthcare industry is where it’s at as far as job growth, but maybe I should take a more communications approach to it. At least now I won’t have to talk to some stranger about their colon.

Public Relations

2010-10-04T12:18:00.002-04:00

“PR? Bunch of champagne charlies and slosne rangers harassing journalists and going out for long boozy lunches? That’s an easy job!” - The Blog Herald

Ah, public relations—the journalist’s retirement plan. According to a recent “U.S. News & World Report” article, “It's not uncommon for journalists who have become frustrated by the sour state of their industry to seek refuge in this generally more lucrative career path.” I saw plenty of evidence of this in the newsroom I worked in. From day 1 on the job, I heard talk of people switching to PR for a more stable schedule and better pay.

I majored in marketing, but still have no idea what exactly marketers or public relations specialists do. According to Wikipedia (the ever-reliable information source) PR is “a field concerned with maintaining public image for businesses, non-profit organizations or high-profile people, such as celebrities and politicians.” So basically, it’s making people look good. Perhaps I would be good at this. I can put a positive spin on things. “I realize the sludge Company X is dumping into the river appears to be toxic, but I can assure you that all reports of three-eyed fish and two-headed are merely rumors.” Hmm, maybe I need to work on that.

I’m still unsure what a day in the life of a PR specialist would be like, but after searching the internet, I have a vague idea. It seems like a lot of email checking, phone chatting, schmoosing, networking, working lunches, and power words like synergy. While I have the required ability to juggle different tasks and lots of information, I don’t have the suggested extroverted personality or verbal communication skills. Sure, I can write, but going through a conversation without saying “um” is virtually impossible for me.

Education requirement: bachelors (check!)
Average salary: $50,000
Average workweek: 50-60 hours
Average stress level: high.

The pros: good salary, excuse to wear a suit, lots of chances for upward mobility, good projected growth over the next decade

Tbe cons: usually have to start with an internship, staring at a computer all day, networking (I despise that word), have to wear uncomfortable business clothes, probably an office full of the people I went to business school with (there’s a reason I only stayed in touch with the TV people).

It’s definitely something I’ll continue to look into, but the more I learn about the corporate business world, the less I want to be a part of it. Perhaps “The Office” has given me a bad perception of cubicle life, but I just get the feeling that any job description that uses words like “networking” and “action items”. I think a public relations job at a museum or non-profit would be better suited for me, rather than being one of thousands in a global PR megacorp. I can see it now, writing press releases about a zoo, sending it out to all the local news outlets. “The Zoo would like to extend our deepest regrets and sympathies to the family and friends of Timmy Smith. Safety is our highest priority, but the exact cause of the gorilla’s escape is still under investigation. The ape exhibit will be closed as police continue their inspection, but for the rest of the month the Zoo is offering free passes to our dolphin and killer whale show.”

I’ll be sure to file that one away in my writing samples.

Home Sweet Home...Again

2010-10-02T15:52:00.003-04:00

At the end of Thomas Wolfe's novel You Can't Go Home Again, the protagonist, George Webber, realized, "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame.” Years later, Jon Bon Jovi responded in song with “It doesn't matter where you are/it doesn't matter where you go/If it's a million miles away/or just a mile up the road/Take it in, take it with you when you go/Who says you can't go home”. I think I’m somewhere in between that. After a year working in broadcast news, I have returned home, unemployed and once again searching for my life’s passion. I am surrounded by nostalgia—my bedroom is filled with memorabilia from my childhood and I find myself wondering what I want to be when I grow up. Yet, the wanderlust is still there—I have not returned for good. My first job out of college was not meant to be the end of my career search. I still have soul searching (and job hunting) to do, so for me, coming home means a chance to restart, reevaluate, and hopefully, reignite some of that childlike passion to pursue a dream.

Broadcast news is a great career, if that’s what you’re into. I had no intention of ever working in news—I never read the paper, never watched an evening newscast, and generally lived in ignorance of world happenings. I landed the production assistant job at a station in my college town through my college adviser. Having lived at home for 3 months after graduating with no hint of a job offer, I took the position and moved back to South Bend. In my year in the news business, I learned a lot about the industry and even more about the Michiana area. I quickly became bored with my minimum wage, part time gig, so I started helping out with producing newscasts. Eventually, I started producing evening shows on my own and was offered a promotion to a full-time producer. This is where I found myself at a crossroads. I could take the producer job, which was a 2-year contract with laughable pay and benefits, or I could take a risk and say “no” to all of it. I thought of my coworkers, all news junkies whose bedtime stories had been editorials and who had posters of Walter Cronkite and Diane Sawyer in their college dorm rooms. I thought of the day-to-day life as a news producer, staying in my college town as my friends graduated and left, working 12-hour days with no chance of a raise, fighting against layoffs and job consolidation in a struggling industry. I decided to turn down the contract, which might have actually been the less risky option. At least now, I won’t risk two years of my life in a career that would burn me out in one.

So just when my brother went off to college and my parents were settling into their empty next, I flew back to the roost. Moving home was difficult, of course. I really did enjoy my coworkers and it was tough to give up the independence of my apartment, but I am very fortunate to have such a supportive family who will welcome me back with minimal teasing. Now begins the arduous task of searching for jobs and applying to grad schools. Hours will be spent in front of my computer, only half that time on YouTube. The most difficult part of all of this is that I still don’t know what I want to do or where I want to live. I thought I wanted to live in D.C., but then I visited and discovered that, contrary to my naive perception, the city really is entirely based on politics. I have no interest in politics, and even though I spent a year working in news, I continue to get my information from the E! network. What I’m getting at is that I need to narrow down my search. Every day, I think of a new career that sounds interesting or even exciting, but by the next day, my capricious mind has moved onto something else. Therefore, this blog will serve as a sort of tool to help me refine my search. Each post will explore a different career option or location (and it might occasionally focus on my parents’ latest antics). Topics to look forward to include: public relations, sommelier, Minnesota, professor, Chicago, zoo keeper, and genetic counselor. Any other suggestions are entirely welcome and will be considered. Except sales. I refuse to do sales.

My Mother, the Tree Whisperer

2010-05-19T17:31:00.002-04:00

I’m starting to notice, as others of you might be, that this blog’s focus is turning towards crazy things my parents do. Though that wasn’t the original intention of the blog, my parents weren’t originally this weird. I always thought your parents were supposed to seem weirdest to you in your teens, when they drive you nuts about boys and curfew and grades. I actually got along really well with my parents, and I still do. The difference is, I was living at home and too close to the situation to realize just how crazy they really are. Now that I’m living in another state, and my brother is the only one around to keep the parents sane, Mom and Dad have over-indulged in their idiosyncrasies, which I get to hear about over the phone, and you get to read about in my blog.

The crazy parent of the week award goes to Mom, for two specific instances.

The first occurred earlier in the week when I called home to have a nice chat with Mom. My little brother, Alex, answered the phone and actually had a conversation with me, which I found odd because he usually acts as if he doesn’t even have a firm grasp of the English language. Suspicious, I asked him why he hadn’t handed the phone off to Mom
“She told me to talk to you until she’s done with a manicure,” he grumbled.
“Oh, that’s nice,” and then I thought twice. “Wait, is she giving the manicure to herself or to the dog?”
“The dog, of course! She never takes care of herself anymore!”
“She’s actually giving the dog a manicure?” That’s when I heard Mom telling Henry the dog to just sit still and be a good boy so she could make his nails pretty, because he’s a pretty boy, yes he is!
“Yeah, stupid dog,” my brother said through clenched teeth, or at least it sounded like he said it through clenched teeth. That might just be how he talks, we’re not sure. “She’s been talking to the fish more, and yesterday she started talking to a tree.”
To give you a little background info, Alex won a goldfish at a school carnival. He named the fish Steve. Mom quickly changed it to “Baby Fish Mouth” and enjoys feeding it every morning while telling the fish how cute it is and asking it how it likes its breakfast. News of Mom talking to the fish was nothing new to me. The tree thing, however, was a bit shocking.
“What do you mean she was talking to a tree?”
“We had a big storm and it knocked this branch part of the way down, so I had to cut the whole branch off. The whole time, Mom just kept saying ‘It’ll be ok. I’m sorry, tree. I know that hurts. Everything will be ok.’”
“Wow, things are getting pretty bad over there. Why haven’t you been on top of this?”
“There’s nothing I can do,” my brother said, apparently after stuffing a handful of marbles into his mouth. “She’s just crazy.”
Finally, Mom finished giving Henry his mani-pedi, and she took the phone.
“How did Henry like his manicure?” I asked, even though I knew this would send her into a love sonnet about her puppy dog.
“Oh, he’s such a good boy! Aren’t you Henry? Yes you are! Henry, stop. Henry, put the ball down, it’s not play time. Stop biting me! Stop it! Down! Henry! Off!”
“Sounds like obedience school is really working”
“It is! I just have to remind him that I’m the pack leader.” Mom had recently enrolled Henry in dog obedience school that was run by a brutish Russian woman with a Doberman. My Dad was forced to go to “doggy school” and texted me from each class with another comment of just how brutish and just how Russian the instructor was.
“So why were you giving Henry a manicure?” I dared to ask.
“Well, you remember what happened last time I tried to clip his nails?” I did. Mom cut his nail too short and Henry bled for what seemed like days. What’s worse is that Mom came out of the bathroom covered in dog blood, and the bathroom looked like a doggy murder scene. “I got a new tool that shaves down Henry’s nails instead of clipping them.”
“Probably a good idea. Hey, I heard you were talking to a tree.” I felt like a psychiatrist checking in on a past patient.
“Yeah, I was talking to a tree,” Mom said in the same tone she might use if instead of “tree” she said “neighbor”. “Alex was cutting into its trunk and it was sad. I felt really bad for it.”
“Oh, that is said. Poor tree.” I’m probably just as bad for indulging in this, but I did feel a little sorry for the tree.
The rest of our conversation carried on as usual, swapping cat stories, talking about our favorite shows, and sharing the latest weird thing Dad did.

The other reason Mom has received the “crazy parent of the week award” is because of her Facebook experiences, or more accurately, upsets.

I made the mistake of introducing Mom to Facebook while I was in college. It started out innocently enough; she just wanted to see pictures of my old classmates that had been in her Girl Scout troop. Then she wanted to see if I could find her old classmates. Once she got tired of only looking at the thumbnail image of each person, she decided it was time to get her own Facebook account.
She figured most of it out by herself, which I have to give her credit for, but trying to explain the concept of a “wall” is really difficult if you haven’t been using it since your teens.
“Your wall is where people can write public messages to you, and you can do the same on their wall”
“Why would anyone do that” she asked, looking disgusted. “Why would you want your message to be so public? I don’t get it.”
“Well, I guess it’s just for little messages, like ‘hey, how ya doing?’ or ‘take a look at this website.’”
“Well, why not just put that in an email? It’s the same thing, then all your stuff is private.”
I have to admit, she had me stumped. I don’t really know why we use Facebook walls. I gave up on the wall explanation and moved on to filling out her personal information. That became a bit futile because she couldn’t decide what she wanted to put, so I left that for her to do on her own later. I neglected to explain the complicated things, like uploading photos or downloading applications, but again to her credit, she figured the photo thing out on her own and now our family’s European vacation is as public as those wall posts.
A few weeks after helping Mom set up her Facebook, I get a call from her, sounding very frustrated.
“Someone friended me, but I don’t want them to be my friend. Can they see my stuff?”
“No, you have to friend them to allow them to see your profile. Who friended you?”
“It’s my old high school friend’s daughter. Isn’t that weird?”
I agreed. That was really weird.
“So what do I do if I want them to go away?” Mom pressed on.
“Just don’t accept their friend request. Hit ‘ignore’”
“Ok, she’s gone,” she said, sounding relieved. “I just wanted to look at other people’s information and pictures. I didn’t know people would start bugging me!”
Mom found the problem we all eventually come across with Facebook: stalking others means you too will eventually be stalked.
Eventually, Mom got more acclimated with Facebook. After not going on for months, then logging in to realize she had been neglecting wall posts and messages (she felt very bad about all this), she started making it a point to go on to the site several times a week. In doing so, she found more old friends and started to make efforts to reconnect with them. However, the results were not what she had hoped for.
“You won’t believe what happened to me on Facebook today!” she said in a recent phone conversation.
“What happened?”
“Well, I found this old friend of mine and I friended her and she friended me back right away.”
“Well that’s nice…”
“Just hold on,” she cut me off. “I sent her a message, asking her how she’s been the past however many years its been since we’ve talked, and she never replied! That bitch never wrote back, and I wrote the nicest things to her and I was such a good friend to her back when she lived here!”
“Maybe she just doesn’t log onto Facebook that much. You’ve been known to do stuff like that.”
“No, I know she’s on Facebook, because I’ve checked her wall and there’s stuff all over it from the past couple of days!” It seemed Mom had mastered the fine art of Facebook stalking. “She’s always playing that stupid game, and pops up on my news feed for adopting sheep and pigs and shit.” It also seems Mom discovered the annoyance that is Farmville. “And you know what? She had big, blonde, over-teased hair in the 80s, and she still has the exact same hair!” And finally, the true purpose of Facebook—to judge.
“That is pretty rude of her not to respond. She sounds dumb.”
“She IS dumb. Facebook says it’s about “reconnecting”, so if you’re going to be on Facebook, reconnect, damn it!”
I feel like Classmates.com might have been a better social networking choice for Mom.

Mom might be a little crazy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. What else would I have to write about?

I'll Have a "Beer"

2010-04-17T20:12:00.002-04:00

So far I haven’t written about my boyfriend, though that’s because up until recently he didn’t do anything embarrassing, distasteful, or hilarious enough to put in this blog. About a week ago, he finally gave me some good blog material, quite possibly at the expense of my respect.

After a rather trying day at work, I text my boyfriend (for the purposes of this blog, let’s call him Red), and ask what he’s doing for dinner. He’s over at a mutual friend’s apartment, and he [jokingly] says they’re all going to dinner at Chuck E. Cheese and that I should join. Starving, and wondering where we were really going, I head over to join them.

I get there and Red is sitting in a chair, awkwardly hunched over. I don’t think anything of it, but after a few minutes of chit-chat, I noticed that what I thought were khaki shorts are something else. Red was wearing the one type of clothing I despise more than any other: camouflage. Immediately, I shout “Are you wearing CAMO?!” and he finally sits up to reveal the camo shorts in all their red neck glory. What this movement also reveals is an Indy 500 sweatshirt, which in his defense, really tied the whole “I’m from southern Indiana” look together. Perplexed by his wardrobe choice, I ask “Who are you hiding from?!” because in my mind, the only reason to wear camo is to blend in with your surroundings. He responds with “I didn’t think I was going to see you today,” so at least he tried to keep the appalling pants from me.

After getting over the shock of seeing my boyfriend dressed like a 13-year-old NASCAR fan, we head out for pizza and beer. What I thought was a joke was actually serious. We were going to Chuck E. Cheese. So after a hard day at work, I was going to blow off some steam with some toddlers and an animatronic rat, accompanied by my boyfriend in camo. Great.

I don’t recall ever going to Chuck E. Cheese as a child, but my mom assures me that I did. I must have blocked it, and I could see why. The robotic animals on stage were more frightening than cuddly, and the music was repetitive and annoying. The games looked boring, and the prizes were even worse. Since it was a Monday night, there were no birthday parties, but there were plenty of teen moms and their brats.

We ordered pizza, breadsticks and beer. We didn’t know what kind of beer, since we weren’t given any choices and they didn’t tell us. We simply ordered “beer”, which required the manager to come out and serve us all, since everyone else who works there is 16. It seemed unnecessary, though, since the “beer” appeared to be O’Doul’s.

So there I sat, in front of a singing rat with my nondescript beer and a slice of fairly gross pizza, next to my charmingly blend-able boyfriend. Never had I ever felt further from adulthood. The only good thing is that we laughed a lot, and Red will never wear those shorts again.

Conversations With My Parents About Celebrities

2010-03-24T22:46:00.001-04:00

Mom: Have you seen “Celebrity Fit Club”?
Me: No….
Mom: Well, that Kevin Federline surprisingly seems like a really sweet guy.
Me: Huh?
Mom: I think the media has him pegged wrong. He’s just so laid back, so sweet, never starts fights, and just seems like a really nice guy.
Me: So you’re saying Kevin Federline is a good guy?
Mom: Yeah! He seems really great! Makes you wonder how he ended up with crazy Britney. I mean, she obviously didn’t go crazy because of him.
Me: Obviously…
Mom: I mean, Kevin Federline is probably the nicest person in Celebrity Fit Club. Now, Sebastian Bach is a jerk. He’s always starting fights with people and he’s downright mean.

Mom: I think John Mayer is a jerk.
Me: Oh, because of those things he said about Jessica Simpson?
Mom: Yeah! But especially because he badmouthed Jennifer Aniston. I love Jennifer Aniston. I’ll see anything she’s in. I can’t wait to see “Bounty Hunter.” But John Mayer is just a jerk. I mean, what kind of guy goes around saying that stuff? He’s not even attractive. He’s ugly!

Me: I had a dream that we were at the grocery store and Snoop Dogg was our check out person and you were telling him how much you loved his music.
Mom: I HATE Snoop Dogg! Why would I say I love him?
Me: I don’t know! Do you even know who Snoop Dogg is?
Mom: Yeah, isn’t he the ugly one with all the girlfriends?
Dad: No! Snoops a good guy! He has that show about his family!
Me: Yeah, you’re thinking about Flava Flav.
Dad: FLAVA FLAV!!!
Mom: Well then who is Snoop Dogg?
Me: He’s another rapper. Kind of has a long face, braids…
Mom: I still don’t know who that is, but I don’t think I would like him.
Dad: Snoop’s cool

Dad: Have you seen that “Pretty Wild” show? Those girls are crazy! They make the Kardashians look tame!
(One week later)
Dad: They had the first and second episodes of Pretty Wild one right after the other so I got to watch them both. Those girls are crazy! I figured, if Mom can watch “Biggest Loser”, I can watch stupid E! shows.

Taylor Swift's New Clothes

2010-02-06T23:26:00.000-05:00

After watching this year’s Grammy Awards, I am sure of a few things: I will never have Pink’s acrobatic skill or killer body., 3-D is really annoying when you don’t have 3-D glasses, and I absolutely hate Taylor Swift.

I’ve always had a hunch that I hated Taylor Swift, but the Grammies really sealed my distaste for the latest pop/country phenomenon. Some might say, “Why hate on cute, innocent Taylor Swift when there are so many more annoying celebs out there, like Miley Cyrus, Robert Pattinson, and Heidi Montag?” True, those other “stars” are annoying and talentless, but despite their popularity, everyone hates on them. There are plenty of college students who rock out to “Party in the USA” and in the same breath, lambaste Cyrus for her mush-mouth, child porn-inspired performances. It’s the same with the other obnoxious celebrities – everyone acknowledges that they are talentless idiots, but their ironic fame keeps them in the spotlight. However, Taylor Swift’s fame is not ironic. People actually think she’s good. That’s why I need to hate on her, because someone needs to tell the crowd that the emperor has no clothes.

Taylor Swift has a sugary sweet image and cutesy, elfish looks. Her long blonde hair, conservative clothes, and acoustic guitar make her non-threatening to teens and parents alike. Her lyrics relate to the every-day teen, talking about that first date or the boy who doesn’t notice you. She plays her own music, she writes her own songs, and she’s so young, so how is this not talent? Any American Idol hopeful can do this. Sure, it’s talent, but it’s nothing special. What would set Taylor Swift apart from every teenage girl with a crush and a guitar would be maturity.

Granted, she sings about what she knows, but all she knows is that high school is tough and boys are mean. Every time I hear one of her songs on the radio, I think, “Didn’t this song come out a year ago? Oh wait, no, it is actually a different song about a different boy in a different class.” She is too young to be so famous for writing such crappy songs. Also, her voice is not very strong. She would blow me away at karaoke, but when your job is to be a singer, you better be better than good karaoke.

These were all things I knew about Taylor Swift before the Grammies. What really irked me and inspired me to write this blog condemning the blonde bimbo was the fact that she won so many awards and her reaction each time. First of all, how did she beat out so many phenomenal singers for album of the year? I can hardly believe that her collection of songs about teenage boy drama was deeper and better composed than Pink’s divorce compilation or Sasha Fierce’s take on life. However, Taylor Swift seemed even more shocked than I was that she won. Maybe she’s been scarred from the Kanye West incident and feels she needs to show her thank-you’s on her face in case she doesn’t get to say them. In any case, she has proven to be the Meryl Streep of music, ever-humble, ever-obnoxious. Come on, Taylor, like you didn’t know you were going to win something. Quit talking about your parents and what a great year it’s been and quit fanning yourself with your hand and acting speechless. You’ve been practicing your acceptance speech for days in front of the mirror (along with how you’re going to tell that boy in math class that you like him, which will surely lead to a chart-topper).

In a perfect world, Taylor Swift would not be so decorated for her merely decent performances. However, the world is run by tweens, so I can’t wait until next year’s Grammies when the Jonas Brothers and High School Musical cast-offs duke it out for album of the year.

The office ham

2010-01-06T18:39:00.001-05:00

Sitcoms and Dilbert comics portray the work place as a hotbed of hilarity and awkward situations. Never having been in a true office environment, but having heard complaints from others about the daily grind, I assumed office shenanigans were just a myth, like unicorns or North Dakota. Now that I have been in the working world for 3 months now, I can say that there doesn’t seem to be so many office hijinks as there are people who make your day fly by with their hilarious quips go on for hours longer with their inane comments.

In the news business, you would expect everyone to be on top of the daily goings-on and to be in touch with the world around them. This is true. You might expect news people to be observant and desperate to change the world. This is occasionally true. You might also suppose that news people are intelligent and articulate. Not always.

One of my fellow production assistants nabs the prize for most frequent butt of everyone’s jokes. The poor fellow wants to be in news so badly and tries so hard that he ends up being his own worst enemy. His writing and comprehension skills are sub-par, and his ability to observe and react to social cues is that of an autistic 10-year-old. He is kind (with occasional bouts of swearing), and determined (with frequent instances of self-importance), but most of all, he is entertaining.

In one of my first experiences with him, he was posting a story to the website about a local event called “Fall-o-ween.” I’m sure you can guess that this is an autumn-based event around Halloween time. However, this cutesy term tripped him up so much, that every 3 minutes, I heard him muttering “Fall-o-ween? What could Fall-o-ween be? That can’t be right. What’s Fall-o-ween?” I tried to explain to him that it’s just a clever title of a silly local event, but he wouldn’t accept that answer, and kept on proclaiming “Fall-o-ween!” around the news room for the entire night.

My favorite instance of him just not getting it involved a very sad story where a young woman was raped after someone broke into her apartment. The silly PA (who we will call Chester from now on…why Chester? Because I want some Cheetos) posted the story to the web with a headline of his own, but was later reprimanded by the executive producer. Distraught and confused, Chester asked me why his headline was changed. His original headline was “Woman raped after forced entry.” Oh my, poor baby Chester did not understand why this was so wrong. I tried to decode the double entendre without going into detail his 5th grade health teacher should have provided him with, but he still did not see the error in the headline.

Occasionally, I will bring in cookies to work to better secure my promotion for the enjoyment of my coworkers. This, without fail, brings out Chester’s ham obsession. After seeing the delighted smiles on our coworkers faces as they try a fresh-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookie, Chester will get jealous and declare that he is bringing a ham into work. “I should bring a ham into work!” shouts Chester. “Everyone loves ham! That would be great! A nice big ham at work!” Chester never mentions any other meat or baked good, but is fixated on ham. Only ham will do for his beloved coworkers! So every day, when he walks into the newsroom in his blindingly white jacket, I wait and hope that he pulls a ham out of his backpack and places it on the empty desk to share with everyone. But alas, months have passed, and no ham! Finally, out of the blue, as if he can read my mind, he tells me that he has no container big enough to fit a ham. As I’m typing away and he’s still trying to figure out what Fall-o-ween is, he looks at me and says ,“I have nothing to carry a ham in.” It was like watching a part of him die. Perhaps it was at that moment that he realized that bringing a ham to work would be ridiculous and difficult, and his dream of eating a freshly prepared ham while working died.

There are other amusing instances of Chester’s follies, like the time he wrote “to make ends meat” or when he asked me what “k-through-12” meant, but those are just a sampling of the daily shenanigans that go on at this office. They should really make a sitcom about it…

Vampires vs Zombies: A look into the paranormal world of popular creatures

2009-11-19T15:02:00.002-05:00

DISCLAIMER: Now that I'm out of school, my amount of mental stimulation has dropped significantly. The other day, I began a discussion with some friends about which are better; zombies or vampires. Since I had a couple days off and really feel strongly about vampires (more so the former reason than the latter), I decided to write an essay arguing that vampires are superior mythical creatures to zombies. I should really join a club or get a second job or something....

In this essay, I will discuss the advantages of vampires over zombies based on the following parameters: fear factor, fight, sex appeal, friendship and boyfriend-material-ness, popularity/media, myth/lore, and metaphor.
Vampires and zombies both have a place in paranormal pop culture, but vampires are the more significant of the two, given their lasting popularity among all age groups, their stable, yet adaptable legend, and their prominence as a metaphor for real-world outcasts.

I will begin with a basic discussion of the physical attributes of zombies and vampires. Both undead creatures are feared for their strength and ability to destroy humans. Zombies are humans who have died and risen again to either eat human brains or dance in a Michael Jackson video. They move rather slowly, but are not easily destroyed, since they are already dead. They are very ugly, appear to be smelly, and some have appendages attached by simple needle and thread. Vampires are also humans who have died and risen again, but their sole purpose is to terrorize humans, or as they like to call them, food. Vampires are sultry creatures of the night who are driven by a need for human blood. This leads into my argument that vampires are much scarier than zombies. Though the stench and appearance of zombies is quite terrifying, they are much less frightening in concept than vampires. Zombies are always immediately identifiable as zombies. Vampires, however, maintain their human form, and can possibly even improve upon that form. It is a natural first response to run from a zombie, since they are gross and eating human flesh/dancing to Thriller. Vampires, on the other hand, draw a person in using tricks as simple as seduction or as complex as hypnosis. A person might not even know he/she is dealing with a vampire until it is too late and they are lost in the ecstasy/agony of being completely blood-drained by a ferocious and sexy being. Therefore, vampires are far more frightening, because anyone could be a vampire. Zombies have no disguise, no mind tricks, and no speed. Vampires have all this and more. The only thing to defend yourself against a vampire would be a cross, garlic, silver, or a slayer, none of which are carried around by a normal person. While there are fewer things that can defend you against a zombie, a swift chopping off of its head will do the trick. Fire and joining in the Thriller dance can also aid in thwarting the zombie.

Admittedly, humans are weak, so the real challenge to decide between vamps and zombs would be to place the two in a battle against each other. Spoiler alert: Vampire wins. Although the vampire’s powers of seduction and mind games would not work on the zombie (because the zombie has no brain or lust), vampires are better fighters and have greater endurance than zombies. The vampire’s traditional threat – it’s teeth – would also be no use against the zombie, but vampires have many strengths, including strength. Each creature would have to rip the other’s head off to win. The only advantage the zombie would have is it’s brute strength, while the vampire has supernatural strength and speed, and in some cases, the ability to fly. Vampires are also clever, since they have maintained their human mind. Zombies are like the village idiots of the paranormal world. They have lots of strength and are physically capable, but they have no strategy or cleverness about them. A fight between a vampire and a zombie would end rather quickly. The zombie would lumber towards the vamp as the fanged felon casually lights up a cigarette, biding his time (being immortal, he literally has all the time in the world). When the vampire gets tired of waiting for the ridiculously slow zombie to make his way over, the vamp jumps in the air, landing on the zombie’s back, and rips his head off. The zombie didn’t stand a chance.

Sex appeal might seem like an unfair category to discuss when comparing vampires and zombies, considering that zombies are hideous, but it’s a vampire’s greatest strength, and certainly important when later discussing the media explosion of vampires. Though the original portrayal of Dracula by Bela Lugosi was not attractive in the slightest, vampires have come a long way in the looks department. Zombies have gone in the opposite direction. Frankenstein’s monster was vaguely attractive in a Beauty and the Beast sort of way – you could tell he had a soul and had once been beautiful (you know, before he was dug up and composed of various different people’s body parts). Since then, zombies have become diseased humans with exposed skeletons, blotchy skin, and oozing orifices. Vampires have become sex symbols, gracing magazine covers from Tiger Beat to Vogue. The Vampire Lestat, Angel, Bill Compton, and Edward Cullen are some of the most famous vampire hotties. And it’s not just male vampires that are appearing in lusty supernatural fantasies – Kate Beckinsale in Underworld got hearts racing, even though her character’s heart had stopped beating, and Salma Hayek had a memorable scene involving a bikini and a boa constrictor in From Dusk Til Dawn. A zombie has never been a sex symbol. Perhaps zombie killers could be considered sexy, but part of the appeal would be that they’re destroying the ugly.

Sex-appeal aside, who would make a better friend: zombie or vampire? It might seem contradictory to say that vampires would make better friends, considering that earlier in this essay, it was determined that they are more frightening. However, in personal relationships, vampires would prove to be more mentally stimulating and occasionally loyal. As was previously discussed, zombies have no brains, or at least no brain function. They simply exist to destroy humans. Also, they are extremely slow. Imagine going to the mall with your bff, the zombie. It would take an hour just to make it around the food court. He couldn’t offer you any good opinions on clothing options, and he certainly couldn’t grasp the concept of making fun of emo kids in Hot Topic. Also, he would discourage anyone else from talking to you given his appearance and stench. Hanging out with a zombie would basically be like having a really ugly, decomposing dog with you. A vampire friend might be dangerous, but at least it would be exciting. In some cases, vampires have been able to maintain relationships with humans. For example, Angel had a soul, and was thus a great buddy to Buffy and her pals. In True Blood, Bill Compton swears off human blood and drinks only synthetic blood so that he can be with his human love. In Twilight…actually, let’s not talk about Twilight because I refuse to subscribe to the idea of sparkly vampires. A vampire friend would be like having a bodyguard…a really hot bodyguard. A vampire would know all the great place to go at night. True, you couldn’t share garlic bread, but your vampire could tell you stories about what life was like 100 years ago and you could talk to him about what the sun looks like these days. A person would be very lucky to bag themselves a loyal vampire with a soul, because that would be one great friendship.

Lately, zombies and vampires seem to be battling it out for popularity and prominence in the media. Movies like Zombieland and 28 Days Later proved popular with a college crowd. However, there are far more media outlets that vampires have claimed dominance in. TV shows like True Blood and Buffy the Vampire Slayer have developed cult followings, and in Buffy’s case, this following lasts long after the series is off the air. Books range from Anne Rice’s intricate description of a New Orleans vampire to Stephanie Meyer’s inane, yet tween alluring, Twilight. Dracula is a classic novel that is taught in high schools, and has been adapted into films several times. Zombies provide entertainment and fright, but a zombie could never be a main character, given its lack of verbal communication and it’s grotesque appearance. Vampires maintain the lead in the paranormal popularity contest given their ability to appear human and super-human, making them relatable and unattainable—everything a celebrity should be. Zombies will always be a part of horror films, but vampires have successfully preserved their place in mainstream pop culture throughout the years.

The legends of zombies and vampires have changed over the years, and varies depending on who you ask. Zombies are sometimes humans brought back from the dead, and other times they are humans infected with a virus. Some are fast, some are slow. Vampires have even more variation—some can be thwarted by silver, some are bothered by crosses. Some can fly, some can go out during the light, some need coffins. Numerous variations in myth might seem indecisive and inconsistent to a fault, but it leaves room for experimentation. There’s not much to play around with in zombie lore—in all cases, they cannot relate to humans and thus are strictly scary, killing machines. The myth of vampires can be molded to place the creatures in different settings and situations. Your imagination can run wild and you can make up your own rules, given you stay with the basic tenets that vampires drink blood, are supernatural, and are undead. This mutable legend is part of the reasons vampires have maintained popularity. As culture changes, so do vampires. They can go to high school, fall in love with a waitress, or regain their soul. Having a loose, varying legend is a good thing, because this ensures that the myth will be fresh and adaptable for future generations.

These myths not only serve to create great stories and fear, but they also exist as metaphors. No matter what the scenario, vampires are metaphors for the outcast in society. They are not accepted by the general public and cannot even go out in the daylight. They're persecuted for their unconventional ways. Sometimes, the metaphor is for an evil outcast that must be destroyed, such as in Dracula. In other media texts, vampires are symbols of the misunderstood outcast who does not deserve persecution. In True Blood, for example, vampires “come out of the coffin” and reveal themselves to humans in an attempt to “mainstream”. This is a clear allusion to the gay community and their attempts to be accepted by mainstream culture. Another facet of the outcast metaphor is overt sexuality. Vampires exude sex in a society that censors. Vampires stand for raw human sexuality, thus they are hidden under cloak of night and seen as a threat to stability and safety. Twilight (sorry, I didn’t want to talk about it, but it really fits in with this argument) takes the side of cloaking sexuality and uses the vampire metaphor to stress chastity and self-control. Anne Rice’s vampires see feeding on humans as a sexual outlet, insinuating that they survive on sex itself. However it is used, vampires provide a powerful metaphor from something as simple as representing the high school bad boy to something as complex as symbolizing a puritanical society’s fear of sexual expression. Zombies, save for Frankenstein’s monster, represent nothing. Frankenstein was the apex of zombie culture, and everything after that has been for pure fun and fright. There is nothing wrong with a paranormal myth existing purely for entertainment, but this only furthers the point that vampires are more complex and significant creatures. If anything, zombies represent poor hygiene or, at their most complex, biological warfare, but either of those metaphors is a stretch. Zombies are zombies. Vampires are much more.

From Bela Lugosi to Bill Compton, vampires have grown in legend, sex appeal, and popularity. Their mystique has been consistent, but their meaning and power in the pop culture world has changed. Zombies will also have a place in paranormal culture, but as of now, their popularity seems limited to snarky college students. Vampires span the ages and draw in various demographics. A vampire would kill a zombie and then flash a fang-filled smile that makes your heart skip a beat out of both lust and fear. At the base of this argument is that zombies are predictable while vampires, with their adaptable legend and soulless sex appeal, are dangerous and exciting.

An Enchanting Transition

2009-11-14T14:24:00.002-05:00

You may have noticed that I haven’t posted a new blog in awhile (the “you” refers to my mom). Though the last two posts bemoaned the fact that finding a job during the Great Recession is tough, I now have a job, thus the lack of posting. I moved back to South Bend to work at a news station as a production assistant. It’s pretty bottom rung, but I love the work and the atmosphere of the news station, so I’ll just count it as a step toward my future.
Of course, moving to Indiana and starting a job is not without adventure. First, I had to find an apartment. South Bend apartments range from the run-down (recently busted for meth) to the over-priced ($1200/month for a one-bedroom!), but I finally managed to pick one that suited me perfectly. The complex itself has a castle theme, complete with turrets and flags and medieval-looking street lamps (or how I imagine street lamps would look in medieval times if they had electricity). The complex has about 700 apartments divided into sections with quirky little names like The Royal Huntsman’s Court, Coachman’s Trail, and The Royal Vineyards. I managed to score a prime spot in the best building—The Enchanted Forest. That’s right, I live in the Enchanted Forest. Giving my address to strangers at the post office or bank does not come without a smirk or a raised eyebrow. People want to add a “street” or a “road” to the end of the name, but my address is simply “The Enchanted Forest.” Songbirds fly in to dress me each morning and woodland creatures clean my apartment while humming catchy tunes. My mail is delivered on horseback and fairies prepare my meals. Good thing I don’t live on a second floor apartment, or else I would have to grow my hair out in order to have guests over.
In reality, my apartment is very cute and I’ve done a fairly good job of making it homey. I like living alone, except I have to have people over once in a while to bring me back to reality. Too much alone time, and I start losing sense of social graces. Living by myself definitely has it’s perks – watching whatever I want on TV, never having to wear pants, drinking milk straight out of the carton. However, it’s a little strange to laugh out loud by yourself while watching The Office. It’s even stranger when I’ve become so comfortable with it that I start talking to the TV. Every once in a while, I’ll take a step back, re-evaluate, and return to some sense of civility – I’ll put my pants back on, close the bathroom door while showering, stop singing what I’m doing, and open the blinds to give myself encouragement to stay this way. I keep thinking that getting a cat will improve my hermit-ways, but I don’t know if talking to a cat is much better than talking to a television.
To break in my apartment, I’ve had a few get-togethers, and they have been fairly successful. I’m getting better at cooking, though I still manage to make a mess doing the simplest things, like reheating soup on the stove. My first dinner party involved chili and Funfetti cake. The chili turned out great, and all was going well until I cut the cake. As a lifted a piece out of the pan, it pulled away a very noticeable and very long hair from the middle of the cake. Horrified, I pulled it out as quickly as possible, hoping no one would notice. I looked up to see John Minser staring at me, looking partially disgusted, and partially amused at my baking faux pas. I took that piece for myself, and made a mental note to more securely tie my hair back when cooking.
The job is going well, and I’m doing fine living on my own. It’s good to be back in South Bend, where I still have a lot of friends and am familiar with the area. Though I had hoped to end up in a big city (ideally Chicago), this is turning out to be a great transition. Now it’s time for me to go feed the unicorns that live outside my apartment…

Decoding the Job Hunt

2009-08-21T13:42:00.003-04:00

If you read my last post, you might begin to understand my frustration in job searching. But the broad reasons I gave are just the tip of the unemployed iceberg. There are countless annoying, ridiculous, senseless, and just plain stupid qualities of the job search that are present regardless of the job market. So if you are an undergrad and want to be discouraged out of graduating, or if you are employed and want to reminisce about how stupid interview etiquette is, then read on.

Emails (or, back in the “old days”, letters) sent to a potential employer must be written in a code that expresses what you want without really saying it. For example, if I am applying for a job at NBC, I send a cover letter that begins something like this:
“As a senior marketing and television major at the University of Notre Dame, I am interested in NBC’s East Coast Page Program. With its worldwide audience, variety of programming, and innovative achievements in new media, NBC is an ideal company to begin my career. I am specifically interested in the Page Program because of the opportunities it provides to explore different departments at NBC and because of its history of successful participants.”
So what did that really mean? Allow me to decipher for you:
“Dear NBC,
I am educated and unemployed. You are a thriving company. I will work for pennies. Hire me.”
Now what’s frustrating is that I can’t actually say that. It would save everyone a lot of time if I could just say, “Look, I have the skills and the education to do this job. Look at my resume and see for yourself. I want this job. Hire me.” But I can’t, because that is improper etiquette.

In the middle of the cover letter, I tout my skills and experiences with the help of a thesaurus because I’ve already used “skills” and “experience” 5 times. Basically, I elaborate on my resume, but wouldn’t a busy HR person rather just glance over my resume than read a lengthy paragraph about how I became so proficient in Final Cut Pro? It says in bold print on my resume that I am proficient in Final Cut Pro. Do they need proof? Is that the reason I need to explain exactly how I rose through the ranks of my college’s television station to become an editor extraordinaire?

Then there’s the last paragraph, which looks like this:
“If selected for the East Coast Page Program, I would commit myself to representing NBC with excellence and hard work. Thank you for your consideration. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at…”
Translation:
“Please please please please please please please hire me!”
So put it all together, and this is what a decoded cover letter is really saying:
“Hey you, I am educated and skilled. I want this job. Check out my resume. I’m begging for this job!”

Think of how much time we could all save if it were that simple? HR people could take longer coffee breaks. I could use the time I spent looking up synonyms for power adjectives to work on my reel. And at the end of the day, the best person would probably still get hired, because when it comes down to it, they will just look at your resume and who you know.

If you are lucky enough to get an interview, you must learn to speak this mysterious job etiquette code. First, you dress the part by wearing that suit you got for just such occasions, but since you’ve never worn it, you have to take the tags of and get used to how uncomfortable suits are. Then, you pack up your folder with your resume, references, and reel, and head on over to the office. This all sounds doable until you get in there and they ask you something ridiculous like “Why do you want this job?” They’re expecting an answer that flatters their company and expresses your childhood dreams of working at a production house in the old B.F. Goodrich warehouse, so that’s what you tell them. But etiquette aside, the answer would be, “Because I need to make money and gain experience wherever I can get it.” The game goes on for 15 minutes to 3 hours, however narcissistic the employer is, then you leave and wait for their hiring decision.
And you wait.
And wait.
Still waiting.

After a couple weeks of waiting, you haven’t heard a yay or nay from this company. You start to second-guess yourself. Did I flatter them enough? Did I compliment their floor tiling? Did I have a firm handshake? Was it weird that I was wearing a suit and they were wearing jeans? You need an answer, but calling and demanding one would be poor etiquette. So, you send an email that reads something like this:
“Dear Mr. Blank,
I am still very interested in the job opening with Company X. If there is anything else I can do to help with your decision, please do not hesitate to let me know. Thank you!”
Short, sweet, and completely false. By this time, you have given them your resume, cover letter, work samples, list of references, and you’ve taken the special test that all their employees have to take. Unless they need a neck message, there is absolutely nothing you can do to help with their decision. You know what this email really means, and so does the employer. It means, “I’m still here and unemployed!”

Finally, just when you’ve forgotten about the interview, they send you an email saying, “Thank you for applying to the position of X. We had a record number of applicants and can honestly say that the decision was very difficult. Unfortunately, we will not be able to hire you at this time. We will keep your record on file for any future openings.”
This is the job equivalent of “It’s not you, it’s me.” They did not have a record number of applicants, and the decision probably wasn’t that hard, but at least they tried to sugar coat a rejection. What they really mean to say is:
“This other kid was way better than you. Plus, his uncle works here. Sorry, but not really.”

And then the whole vicious cycle of etiquette and lies starts again.

What the Class of '09 is Thinking

2009-08-10T17:19:00.003-04:00

It's now been 3 months since I've graduated. I'm living at home with my parents, without a job, and have been out of contact with 20-somethings this entire summer. After working hard all throughout my school life--taking the right classes, getting good grades, going to the right school--I have not obtained what I had been promised--employment in my chosen field. My generation was brought up in a society of encouragement and can-do attitude, where we were promised that we could accomplish anything with a little hard work. Too bad the previous generations screwed that up for us. Now I, along with all the other marketing, political science, english, and other non-accounting majors out there, am stuck in life limbo. We have outstanding resumes, glowing recommendations, and great experience. We have dreams of apartments and city life inspired by Friends and Sex and the City. We have goals of career-oriented success that is symptomatic of my generation's competitive, ambitious, and somewhat entitled nature. Yet, most of us can't even get an interview.

Though the economy is the largest contributor to the class of 2009's plight, the system of job applications is also at fault. Help-wanted signs are not just posted in store fronts, but on websites as a sort of national casting call. When thousands of bright young hopefuls submit their well-polished resumes to the same job, it's the ones who are familiar to the HR director who get noticed. It's all about who you know, but in an age of instant communication, familiarity has many facets. There's the real-life in-person connections--coworkers, friends, family, professors. At this point in my job search, these sources have been tapped out. I've used all the advice they gave me and applied to the job openings they told me about, but nothing worked out. The next level is fellow alumni--using Facebook, LinkedIn, and the ND alumni directory, I can search and stalk any registered alum in any given field. The problem is, so can everyone else. These sources have also become tapped out--they are tired of giving advice, and quite frankly have no new advice to give in an economic situation they are trying to come to terms with themselves. While they would love to help a fellow alum, they simply can't. The third level of familiarity is everyone else in the world. Social networking sites make getting to know someone without their knowledge pretty easy. With just a name and company, I can find out the HR guy's favorite band, girlfriend's name, high school mascot, etc. So you could say that I know him. And if it's really all about who you know, shouldn't I get noticed among the thousands of resumes he has to sort through? It seems these sources are tapped out, too. I guess when your job is to look through all the applications that are flooding your inbox, it's just easier to hire your best friend's nephew than to look for the best person for the job.

Maybe now you are beginning to understand the frustration in unemployment. Granted, I have it much better than some--I am very fortunate to not have loans to pay off and to have parents who support me and let me live at home. This just isn't how I pictured my life at 22. My twenties are being wasted away in a high school throwback. I have potential; I've prepared for a career and now I'm ready to start one. I submit at least 30 applications a week. If I'm lucky enough to hear anything back at all, it's usually an automatic message that says the company isn't hiring at this time, but promising to keep my resume on file. I'm throwing all my personal information into cyberspace and none of it is boomeranging back. It all seemingly gets lost in this cyberspace abyss, though my junkmail has increased. I'm working every day to look for a job, and though I might not be finding anything, I am doing my best. Which leads me to the next section of this essay...

Don't tell me what I should be doing. This goes mostly out to my mom's friends, my dad's golf buddies, my grandma's church friends, the guy at the bank, the receptionist at the doctor's office, and everyone else who feels the need to put their 2-cents in. I realize I might sound cruel and unappreciative, and I know that most people bring up the job thing for lack of something to talk about, but please, talk about the weather instead. Here is my explanation:
1) Do not tell me what job search engines to use. Do you honestly think I haven't heard of mandy.com already? I have explored every crevice of the internet, so unless you just invented a job site that is guaranteed to hire me, don't bother.
2) Do not assume that because I majored in marketing, I want to go into sales. I am not a people-person (can't you tell?) and in this economic climate, sales is the last thing I want to do. Also, I want to go into videography or television production, so don't make me give up on that just yet.
3a) Do not say "It's all about who you know" and...
3b) Do not push your contacts on me. I have figured out by now that networking is key, but unless you personally know Al Roker, I don't care that your uncle's best friend's cousin has a quaint little marketing company in Kansas. Also, I don't like feeling like I owe you for something I didn't want in the first place.
4) Do not say "Man, I wish I had time like you have. Being unemployed sounds great." How insulting of you to think I want to be in this situation and that it's ideal or enjoyable for me to be squandering away untapped potential and thousands of dollars of education. You're job may be hard, but you have one in an economic climate when so many others don't.
5) Do not look at me with sympathy or treat me like I am pathetic. The worst part of this is feeling like a sad example of the nation's downturn. I am not pathetic. I am working on finding work. If I had graduated any other year, I would have work, so do not assume that I am lazy or unqualified or pathetic.

The moral of this story is don't bring up the job thing. If you truly have a connection or know of an opening in videography or television production, then by all means, let me know. Otherwise, this is my problem to solve, not yours. To all those in the same situation, this sucks, huh? We've been dealt a horrible hand, but I guess we just have to play it out. To quote one of the less annoying comments people make about my situation, "At least you're not alone." With more people applying to grad school, that option might be more difficult than expected, too. At least I have plenty of time to bump up those GRE scores...

Yahners vs. Europe Part 4: St. John's Pyrotechnic Party

2009-07-24T15:52:00.005-04:00

At this point, you might be thinking "Geez, another installment of Yahners vs. Europe? Hasn't there been enough wacky European adventures?" Perhaps, and this same thought might have crossed each of our minds as we were on vacation, but we still have two more stops to make. Just deal with it and keep reading.
Our drive to the coastal towns of Cinqueterre started off fine. We navigated our way through the highway and to the main roads. When the streets got increasingly narrow and decreasingly even, things got a little dicey. We were using my GPS for directions, and so far, she had steered us correctly. But I should have known something would go wrong. She did once tell me to turn right at the end of a cul-de-sac, so I knew that she had a mean streak. We started driving through a very small town none of us had ever heard of when the GPS told us to turn right. The only street to the right was a narrow cobblestone alley that was too curvey to see where it led. Despite what now seems like an obvious mistake, we trusted the GPS, and to the shock of the old men sitting outside, enjoying their cappuccino, we went up the street. The road was so narrow that you could reach out of any window and touch a building. The people we passed gave us strange looks and it gradually dawned on us that this wasn't right. However, it was possible to turn around and the GPS kept encouraging us to go forward, so go forward we did. Pretty soon, we came to a dead end. The GPS insisted that the correct way to drive was through the house immediately in front of us, but we were sick of her shenanigans. After carefully maneuvering around, we were able to drive back down, where the old men were still sitting outside, probably wondering why the dumb Americans just drove up their neighbor's driveway.
Unfortunately, our driving woes did not end there. Though they weren't as narrow as the road we mistakenly took, the roads that actually led to the town were pretty tight. At one point, a van was coming the opposite direction and we both realized it would be impossible for us to pass each other. We stopped and waved the van on. The van stopped and backed up to let us through, but in doing so, backed off the road and got its back tire stuck in a ditch. Several Italians came from out of nowhere to help the poor van drivers, who turned out to be German tourists who spoke no Italian. We tried to help, but being American tourists who spoke little Italian and no German, we couldn't really do much. Dad tried helped in trying to push the van out of the ditch, but nothing worked. We felt bad for the German tourists stuck in the little town of Pignone with their paper road map, but there was nothing left for us to do. We turned on our GPS, carefully turned around, and tried once again to find our way to Cinqueterre.
After way too many extremely sharp turns and uphill climbs, we finally made it to the town of Monterooso al Mare, one of the 5 towns of the Cinqueterre. Our hotel was very modern and very close to the beach. Cinqueterre is beautiful, with clear blue water, colorful flowers, and hiking trails between each town. It was a nice place to relax during all our sightseeing.
Though they are beautiful, the beaches of Cinqueterre aren't your typical sandy beach. It is all rocks and the water is freezing, so getting up the courage to go swimming took a while. After walking barefoot on thousands of little stones, you would be struck by ice cold waves. Jumping in didn't make it better, and inching in just gave you more time to reason out why you shouldn't go in at all. The first day, nobody went in past their hips. The second day, my dad and I were determined to swim out to a big rock and jump off of it. After Alex decided he was too much of a pansy for this adventure and went back to the hotel, my dad and I edged into the water. We fought the cold and made it to the rock, which was kind of difficult to climb because it was so slippery. But jumping off was a ton of fun and made the effort totally worth it. After jumping I was all smiles and having fun until my dad said, "What happened to your face?!" Apparently, I'm not as cool as I think I am since I got a bloody nose upon hitting the water. Nevertheless, we jumped again (mostly so my mom could take pictures) then swam back to shore to warm up. Once at shore, my dad and I realized that the barnacles from the rocks had cut our legs up pretty badly and we were both bleeding. We are really hard core.
Our second night in Cinqueterre, we headed into the old part of Monterosso al Mare to see the celebration of the feast day of St. John the Baptist. It had started earlier in the day with a Mass and a concert in the church--typical religious stuff. Then, it progressed into not-so-typical religious stuff, including a sack race and fireworks. The fireworks display did not seem very well-prepared and was the most frightening fireworks show I've ever seen. After the local children placed floating candles in the sea (it was very beautiful), everyone gathered by the beach to watch the fireworks. I figured the fireworks would be going off at another beach. Wrong. The fireworks were being lit at the beach where the big crowd was. These fireworks were so close and so big it looked like we were being attacked. Not all the fireworks went up in the air. Some (mistakenly) shot off into the ocean or on the ground. While my mom and I cowered, Alex and my dad cheered. Amazingly, no one got hurt.
To continue the pyrotechnic spectacular, there was a giant bonfire the next night. It was held on the same beach that the fireworks were set off at and it was the biggest bonfire I've ever seen. It makes sense, though, since you know how St. John just loved bonfires...and fireworks...and sack races...
Even though we only stayed there for 2 nigts, I could go on and on about Cinqueterre. The seafood is delicious, as are the lemon products. The hiking is awesome (though a little steep sometimes). The scenery is beautiful, the towns are quaint, and the people are very friendly. It was nice to see a part of Italy I hadn't been to before, and especially nice that it hasn't been jaded by too much tourism yet. From Cinqueterre, we went to Rome--my favorite Italian city and the exact opposite of Cinqueterre.

Yahners vs. Europe Part 3: I Would Give My Right Arm To Be In Tuscany

2009-07-21T14:21:00.005-04:00

After picking up a rental car in Venice and figuring out how to make the built-in GPS speak English, we hit the highway, which was full of tunnels and speed racers. We made it to Siena, where we stayed at the Hotel Caterina. The hotel was beautiful, with a garden overlooking the Tuscan hills and rooms with the charm described in the many Tuscan travel books that are now so popular. After receiving a parking ticket, we figured out that we should park in the hotel's parking lot instead of at the bus stop. An American man staying at the hotel noticed Alex's ND hat and snorted "Notre Dame fan?" to which my brother replied, "Yeah, my sister just graduated from there." The angry man said, "Oh yeah, got a job yet?" "Umm, no, still looking. It's a tough market right now," I responded, trying to sound friendly and wondering what this guy's problem was. "Right, I guess," the man retorted. He then proceeded to tell me how he's such good friends with that travel book guy, Mike Steves. I'm assuming he meant Rick Steves because I get my close friends' names wrong all the time, too. Or perhaps Rick has a brother who writes a less popular travel book series. Whatever the case, the man dropped the Steves thing when I mentioned that I had met Rick Steves' son since he was in my class at ND. He then decided to tell me about how close he was with the Jenkins family. When he found out I didn't know any of the Jenkins kids who are currently students, he seemed a tad triumphant. We kept running into this guy throughout our stay and he kept being weird.
We spent our first night in Siena walking around the city, checking at the campo and watching a basketball tournament. Siena is really beautiful, and it was cool to see at night since I had only been there during the day before.
Since we had a car, we decided to do some traveling throughout Tuscany. The first trip we made was to Greve in the Chianti region. On our way out of Siena, we stopped at a gas station. Apparently, you can't pump your own gas in New Jersey because of the Italian influence. We were surprised when a man greeted us at our car and, not only pumped our gas for us, but also offered us some candy from a little dish. The way to Greve was not on a highway, but on curvy country roads. It was a very uncomfortable experience that left me wishing we had taken the train instead, but my dad is a great driver so we made it there in one piece (but perhaps a little greener...). Greve is a very cute town--small and quaint with lots of wine shops. We sampled some traditional Tuscan pasta with wild boar sauce and tasted some wine at one of the enotecas.
Later that night when we had gotten back to Siena, my brother and I went to the Torture Museum. I had previously been to the Torture Museum in San Gimignano, which has a focus on the death penalty, but this one's focus was on crime punishment. They are probably my favorite museums in Italy because they are so unique and nearly always empty and very accessible and entertaining.
The next day, we took a train to Florence, since we decided that driving to the city might get a little tricky. I warned against going to Florence--the city is jaded and has as many tourists as Rome with half the size. Siena's cathedral is prettier and Rome's food is better, so there's really nothing good about Florence (except that it's better than Pisa. Don't even get me started on that wasteland). Despite Florence's lack of authentic Italian charm, it is something you should see. We saw the David, which is quite impressive, and the Duomo, which is only impressive on the outside. The best part of the day was the Salvatore Ferragamo museum, which housed some of Ferragamo's most eccentric and elaborate creations, as well as the shoes of some famous actresses, such as Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn. The shoes were made of everything from antelope to zebra, including lizard, sea leopard, and sting ray. In case going to this museum made you feel too frivolous, the sign outside assured tourists that all proceeds go to funding annual scholarships for young shoe designers. I felt much more charitable after reading that.
In Florence, we also stopped at the Festival del Gelato--a huge gelato shop with tons of flavors. Feeling adventurous, I got rose flavored gelato. It tasted like soap.
At this point in our vacation, I began to notice something peculiar about the way my mother read information signs. She would look at it and ask me what it said. I would tell her, assuming she just couldn't see it. But then I noticed that she would ask me to read a sign to her when we were nearly on top of it, and then would seem impressed after I read it. It turns out she hadn't been noticing the English translations directly beneath the Italian description and thought I was really translating the written Italian quite well. I should have let her keep on thinking that, but being the kind, selfless person I am, I directed her to the English translations.
Our last Tuscan adventure was to Montelcino, a charming little hill town. We drove there, but thankfully, the roads were not as devil-may-care as the ones leading to Greve. The scenery along the way was gorgeous, with sprawling vineyards and hills dotted with cypress trees. The town itself was very hilly and had a medieval charm because of its fortress converted into an enoteca. Upon a friend's recommendation, we went to a little family-owned restaurant and got pici pasta with bread crumbs and olive oil. It was a delicious meal, complete with Barry White music playing the entire time.
The next day, we left Siena to head for Cinqueterre, but first we needed to see the cathedral. It's my favorite church in Italy because of its green and white striped marble and the beautiful frescoes. Though I had been to the cathedral before, something was new: at the altar there was a glass case with an elaborate object inside and a sign that simply said "Il Braccio Destro di San Giovanni Battista"--the right arm of St. John the Baptist. It was very cool, but kind of took us by surprise since we weren't expecting to see any dismembered saints that day. After seeing this, our time in Tuscany was complete and we headed to the coast.

Yahners vs. Europe Part 2: The Glass Island

2009-07-08T14:15:00.003-04:00

Venice is a beautiful city, containing rich history, unique structure, and wonderful culture. However, what stands out most to me is Venice’s narrow, labyrinth-like streets. I guess when there are no cars, a grid-structure isn’t all that necessary. But after lugging suitcases around the cobblestone streets for an hour, trying to find our hotel, the charm of ancient streets had worn thin. We eventually found the hotel (and found out that we had been near it all along, just not on the direct street to it). Our hotel was over 1000 years old, though it had modern comforts. Still, my mom complained that it was “dingy” and continued to note that all the hotels in Italy seemed “old.” I guess when you come from a country that’s only about 250 years old, its tough to get used to hotels that have been built further back than you can track your ancestry.
After a long day of traveling and getting lost, we didn’t want to bother with searching for a good restaurant, so we picked the first one we saw. It was a horrible introduction into Italian food, because it did not taste like Italian cuisine—more like Beefaroni. I guess we had made the classic tourist mistake of going to a restaurant with a “tourist menu.”
The next day we made another classic tourist mistake—accepting a tour. Actually, we didn’t so much accept a tour as we were forced into it. While my mom and brother were still getting ready for the day, my dad and I went to the hotel front desk to ask what water taxi we should take to get to the island of Murano. Immediately, the man at the desk was on the phone and 5 minutes later, Paolo showed up, saying he was ready to take us to Murano. My dad and I just kind of stared at him for a second, not really knowing what to do. We didn’t want to pay for a taxi—a water bus would be just fine. However, we felt obligated to take the taxi since Paolo was already there, so my dad got the rest of the family and we followed Paolo out the door. It turns out that Paolo was not the taxi driver—his job was to lead us to Stefano, who would give us a private ride over to Murano. Once we reached Murano, we expected to pay Stefano and be on our way. However, as a scraggly looking Italian man helped us onto the dock and started talking about the glass gallery’s “promotional season,” we realized that we had gotten into more than just a taxi ride. We were given a private tour of the Marco Polo glass gallery—it was incredible to see the chandeliers being made and the endless amounts of glass sculptures throughout the gallery. We even got to meet the master craftsman who is the 6th generation to make gold etchings onto glass. It was all very lovely, but we couldn’t help feeling nervous the entire time about the cost of this tour. We hadn’t paid anyone yet and surely all three Italian men would get a cut. How much could this cost? 300 euro? 500 euro? The glass sculptures themselves were 1000s of euros, so a tour of the gallery must not be cheap. We tried to put that out of our minds and just enjoy the tour. We disappointed our guide when we didn’t buy anything, but after being bamboozled, we weren’t in a purchasing mood.
After exploring more of the island of Murano (which is mostly just glass galleries), my mom found a vase she really liked and bought it. The man selling it wrapped it up in about 50 layers of tissue paper and bubble wrap even though he said the glass was like “Bruce Willis because it is unbreakable.” The rest of the photos from that day make it look like we adopted a little Venetian baby, all wrapped up in blankets.
We saw all the traditional sites of Venice—St. Mark’s Square, the Realto Bridge, the Cathedral, etc. After spending 2 days in Venice, we checked out of our hotel and waited to see the damage done to our bill by the glass tour. There was no charge. Turns out we weren’t as hoodwinked as we thought. Every purchase after that was justified by “Well, we got that tour for free so…”

Yahners vs. Europe Part 1: The Hills Are Alive

2009-07-05T15:09:00.001-04:00

Ever since I spent a semester abroad in Rome, my family has been planning a trip to Europe to experience the sites for themselves. The time for the great Yahners in Europe adventure came on June 11th, or so we had planned. We arrive at the Cleveland airport in plenty of time to make our flight to Philadelphia, where we would get a flight to Munich. Unfortunately, due to weather on the east coast, our flight to Philly had been delayed nearly 4 hours already, which would cause us to miss our connection. Super. So, after some pouting and rebooking for the next day, we grabbed our suitcases and went home. It was kind of a huge let down since we had totally closed the house down—shut all the doors, gotten rid of all the food, set up our vacation answering machine. Fortunately, our flight the next day was not cancelled or delayed and we made it to Philly in time to catch our flight to Munich. What’s even more exciting is that we saw Al Roker of the Today Show in the Cleveland airport. Alex said it was a sign that I was supposed to talk to him and ask him for a job. Though Al Roker seems much nicer than Matt and definitely nicer than Ann, I was too nervous to bother America’s favorite weatherman.
We arrived in Munich and hit the ground running since we now only had one day in the city. Our main goal was to find the statue of Maximillion II. My great grandparents used to live near Munich and owned some sweet nightclubs. I guess these nightclubs were so cool, that the guy who designed the statue of Max that would go in the square gave my great (or great great?) grandparents the original model. This model now sits in my grandmother’s house and before we left my mom was looking at it and almost broke it. When I had visited Munich, I searched for the Max statue but did not find it. After asking the concierge at the hotel about it and consulting a map, we finally found Max. The statue is permanently in the middle of a square, but currently in the middle of some sort of carnival. It was difficult to get a picture with him with all the food tents and beer steins around us, but it was cool to see the giant version of what we’ve always been forced to admire at Oma’s house.
We were so exhausted from the flight that we needed to take a nap. However, my dad can’t nap or sit still ever, so he went down to the lobby and made a new German friend—Peter—who bought him a beer. I was actually surprised at how much German my dad remembered from his summer studying in Austria, but he did pretty well, or at least pretended to and we didn’t know the difference because none of us speak a word of German.
After a day in Munich, we took the train to Salzburg, Austria. The first thing we did there was take the Sound of Music tour because we are tourists and love busses. The tour was actually very nice and focused more on seeing sites around Austria than it did on just the movie. However, during the bus ride from place to place, they blared songs from the film as loudly as if they were a rap song with some heavy base. My eardrums were nearly shattered by an overly loud rendition of My Favorite Things. The best thing about the bus tour was Barbara. Barbara was cranky and apparently didn’t really want to go on the Sound of Music tour, though I don’t know how you could mistakenly get on this tour thinking it was something else considering the side of the bus had a giant picture of Julie Andrews singing her heart out. Barbara continuously complained to her spineless husband that she wanted off this bus immediately and wanted to take a different bus tour. At one point, the bus started slowing down due to traffic and Barbara started to get up, saying “Let’s get off now, come on,” but the husband advised her to wait until the bus actually stopped moving and got to a parking spot before she debussed. Finally, after much complaining to her husband and the tour guide, Barbara was let off in the middle of the street where she wandered off to something else to complain about.
During our next day in Salzburg, we took a lift up to the top of a mountain to see some great views and do some hiking. Since it was so high up, the air was pretty thin and the hiking was a little difficult. Therefore, when Alex asked my mother to hike a little more down the trail, she refused. He tried convincing her by saying, “But there’s a cross up ahead. We could just go to there.” She responded with, “I don’t care if God himself is up there, I’m not hiking up that hill.” And that was that.
The steep incline and thin air was not the only thing plaguing my mother on the top of the Austrian mountain. There were also large black birds flying around that, according to her, would peck your eyes out given the chance. When one bird landed close to us, I got my camera out to take a picture. Just as I was setting up the shot, something scared the bird and it flew away. I looked over to my mom who had several more rocks in her hands, prepared to throw at any more dangerous birds that should come our way.
Though the views were enough to keep us occupied on the mountain, there were also signs with old Austrian folklore on them, mostly having to do with gnomes. The tales made little sense and didn’t really have a moral at the ending. They were mostly just about hikers finding gnomes and then these gnomes might be nice, or they might be mean, or they might just go on their merry way. Obviously, the Austrians are still working on the craft of story telling.
Once we went down the mountain, we went to the Mirabelle Gardens, where my mom made us reenact some scenes from the Sound of Music and we had a contest to see who could name all the Von Trapp children (no one got more than 2). We also visited the Augustiner, where my dad regaled us with tales from his youth studying abroad, which inspired my mother to tell stories of her youth studying in Ellet. All of the stories were unwelcome by my brother and me.
After eating lots of pretzels and sausage (which my mother described as looking like baby belugas), gazing upon the snow capped mountains, and hearing more about the Sound of Music than I ever cared to, it was time to leave the German speaking region and head onto Italy. According to my dad, this also mean it was time for me to “remember all that Italian because that’s the only reason we brought you on this trip.” Ah, family memories.

Annie, Get Your Gun...and Your Donkey

2009-06-07T13:53:00.002-04:00

Over Memorial Day weekend, my dad's side of the family had a picnic. Family picnics are typical of this sort of holiday, however, this was not an average family event. My cousin's husband owns about 100 acres of land in Southern Ohio. What is on this land? Nothin'--no plumbing, no electricity, not shelter--just nature. For those of you who know me, you can guess that I would equate this sort of thing to one of Dante's circles of Hell. I'm not exactly into camping and my love of the outdoors ends at eating al fresco. Nevertheless, we made the hour and a half drive to Southern Ohio to celebrate the holiday with the family.
Now, I realize that some people refer to the residents of Stow as "Stowbillies" because of...well, I don't really know why because we're a pretty standard suburban town. Stow is near Kent, Akron, Hudson, Cuyahoga Falls--all towns that have regular houses with minimal lawn ornaments, country clubs, private gyms, public parks, and lovely town halls. I never thought that this quintessential suburban region was a mere hour drive from a scene out of Deliverance.
When we exited the highway and drove through the country roads, we spotted trailer homes, little run down bars, and more lawn ornaments that you could ever imagine. We drove past what little bit of civilization there was and ended up in the woods without cell phone reception, which is really just dangerous. Following the directions we'd been given, we kept driving until we came upon a dirt path, then turned onto that. Minivans are not really made for off-roading--the ads don't really cater to "the mom who loves adventure." Eventually we saw where everyone was parked. We couldn't park right away, though, since a donkey was blocking our path.
We got out of the car and I quickly realized that flip flops and a sundress were the worst things I could have worn since the grass went up to my knees and I was informed that I would need to check for tics once I left. I felt like I had fallen into some really dumb movie where the city gal is forced to live with the country-folk, kind of like Sweet Home Alabama, except there was no romance or happy ending where I came to embrace the country ways at the end.
The field was scattered with tents and trailers and the entire hippy community left over from the 60s was enjoying freshly roasted pig while shooting off bottle rockets. Most people had been camping there for a couple nights and were thus filthy. About 20 dogs and a crapload of children were running around, while the adults drank some homebrew and started building bonfires. It was like a gypsy encampment. I imagine this is what Cher's childhood was like.
A few of the kids rode ATVs around the place. One 5 year old girl (who I named Ruby Sue) rolled up in this giant ATV and introduced herself. She told me that she goes huntin' all the time but she "ain't caught nothin' bigger than a rabbit yet." She then informed me that she owns her own bow and arrow and gun. Then the donkey started breying and she said, "There goes my donkey, yellin' again." "Oh, it's your donkey?" I asked. "Yeah, of course," she answered, looking at me like its perfectly natural for a 5 year old to have a donkey and a gun and an ATV.
The food all looked really disgusting because it had been sitting out all day being picked over by campers. Fortunately, my mom had brought some chicken, so we snuck back into the van to eat our KFC in the air-conditioned vehicle. Maybe that wasn't in the spirit of the day, but I was done with nature and on the verge of tears thinking about the potential family of tics that had found a new home on my legs.
At night, all the dogs and children were outfitted with glow sticks to keep track of them and everyone else sat around the campfire listening to my cousins play the bongos and guitar. Then my brother, who is a hick at heart, started lighting off fireworks. The day wasn't really my idea of fun, but it was definitely interesting.
As we drove away, we could still hear the sounds of the guitar, children playing, ATVs humming, and a donkey braying. I imagine these are beautiful noises to those who find serenity in nature. To me, these are the sounds of slow torment and good blog material.

No Chance

2009-05-25T17:50:00.003-04:00

Saturday, May 23, 2009
Day 5 of unemployment:

My mom woke me up at 9 am to tell me that she was taking our dog, Chance, to the vet to have him put down. I knew right away it was not going to be a good day. Chance hadn’t eaten in a couple days and this morning he couldn’t even stand up. He was the best dog ever. Here are some fun facts about Chance:
• We found him in the woods by my dad’s office. Someone abandon him there when he was a puppy, but their loss was our gain.
• Chance once jumped up on the kitchen table and ate an entire stick of butter. Other things he has eaten in entirety include: a box of donuts, a box of truffles, a loaf of bread, a bag of treats, wrapping paper
• Chance would always fall asleep on the top step of the basement and place his head on the next step up. Then he would start wheezing because he was choking himself by laying that way.
• One time, Chance was really thirsty so he drank a ton of water in one big gulp and immediately threw up.
• Chance was afraid of umbrellas.
• Chance played catch, but not fetch. Throw the ball, Chance catches the ball, game over.
• In the excitement of Easter egg hunting, we accidentally shut Chance in a closet and couldn’t figure out where he was.
• Chance never bit anyone and he rarely ever barked.
• Chance was really good at tug of war
• Chance was really adorable and the best dog ever.

After saying our goodbyes to Chance, we started to get ready for our family picture. For my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary, we promised them a professional family photo. What a great day to be all smiles. Incidentally, the family photo also forced me to put on real clothes. I guess a winning streak like that can only last so long.

After the picture, we went to a restaurant that smelled like dissection day in high school biology class. It was gross.

We got home and I heard my mom say “Hi Chance.” I followed her gaze and realized that the dog’s body and been wrapped up and placed right next to my futon which was in the garage and immediately got creeped out.

After Alex and Dad had dug a hole, we went out in the backyard for the funeral. We placed Chance in the grave and my mom tossed in some pig ears and tennis balls, which was meaningful, and also a good way to get rid of Chance’s toys. It was a sad moment, and then it turned gruesome when Alex started covering the grave with dirt. He pointed out a “cup” he had found when digging the hole. Turns out it was actually the margerine container we had used a year ago as a hamster casket. We all took our turn saying “Ew” or an equivalent expression of grossed out-ness, then threw in the decomposing hamster with Chance. Finally, the hole was covered and we placed a big rock on top of it. Rest in peace, Chancey.

The only good part about this day was that our neighbor baked confetti cake cupcakes for our loss. I ate three then took a nap.

After waking up, I walked over to the neighbor’s house with my parents for a drink on their deck. Heather was there with her new boyfriend, so I played third wheel for the night while they held hands and made eyes at each other. I felt this compulsion to randomly insert details of my recent dating exploits into conversations that had nothing to do with dating. Once Lauren and her boyfriend showed up, I settled into my prescribed role as the wry and self-deprecating single friend who could always make the couples laugh. It actually was a fun night, mostly because it wasn’t spent trying to steal movies off the internet and it took my mind off of losing my pet, but it made me miss certain people a little bit.

Since my parents had already left, I walked home by myself to find that I was locked out of my own house. Since my family is so used to not having me around, I guess they forgot that I was coming back. Fortunately, my mom heard my knocking and, like a stray cat begging to come in from the cold, I was let in.

It's weird not having a dog in the house.

The (Unemployed) Graduate

2009-05-23T18:32:00.002-04:00

Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Day 1 of unemployment:

After sleeping for 13 hours, I woke up at 1 pm to the hard cold realization that I had no plans that day, the next day, the next week, or for the rest of my life. I’m not starting a job this month. I’m not going back to school in August. Though it is very exciting to graduate, it’s not so exciting to have just graduated.

I job searched throughout senior year. I talked to the counselors at the career center, went to the career fair, attended lectures, and even stalked people on Linked In. I’m either too qualified for an internship, not qualified enough for a job, or just plain old not getting through to the HR person. I’m pretty talented. I have some great experience in television production. Therefore, I’m going to blame my employment misfortune on the economy, and I think that’s pretty fair.

Upon entering Notre Dame in the fall of ’05, I was promised a job in four years. Here I am, four years later, with a fancy sheepskin diploma and no job. I’m not bitter. I’m just waiting for that promise to come through. In the mean time, I’ll be living at home in Stow, Ohio, enjoying summer in the suburbs.

On my first day back home, I got out of bed at 1:00 pm, wandered downstairs, looked at all my suitcases and boxes that needed to be unpacked, and proceeded to ignore them for the rest of the day. It was just my first day back. I deserved to relax a little.

In the afternoon, I text-message broke up with Pat. He was never my boyfriend, but we did date for the last two weeks of college, and I wanted to make it clear that we weren’t dating anymore. Also, we had planned to text message break up on this day because planned jokes always work better than spontaneous ones.

I tried to watch a movie on megavideo.com but after watching about 15 minutes of it, the stupid site claimed I had viewed 70 minutes and had to wait another 40 minutes to continue watching. This discovery has really messed up my summer plans.

I wore athletic shorts and a wife beater the entire day.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Day 2 of unemployment:

I woke up at 12:30 today. I’m slowly progressing toward waking up at a reasonable hour.

I looked at all my crap that needs to be unpacked and ignored it for the rest of the day. I still needed some time to grieve my college career.

I decided to go for a walk around my neighborhood. After 2 minutes, my iPod died. I got chased by 5 dogs: an Australian shepherd, a Pomeranian, a basset hound, a beagle, a lab, and a tiny fluffy thing. I forgot that everyone in this neighborhood knows me because everyone in this neighborhood has lived here for over 20 years. I ran into a few people, some of whom congratulated me, most of whom started debates about Obama and abortion with me. I’m very tired of having to defend my graduation and I’m sad that any congratulations I receive has to come with a debate on morality. Though I guess debating political and ethical issues is more interesting than talking about gardening or something.

I tried watching something on megavideo again. It failed, so I tried to rent something from iTunes. By the time the 2 hour download was finished, I didn’t want to watch it anymore.

I spent the entire day in athletic shorts, a wife beater, and a Cubs hat.

Thursday, May 21, 2009
Day 3 of unemployment:

I woke up around 11:30. Not bad.

I unpacked one bag of clothes because I was running out of wife beaters. I couldn’t find where I had packed my underwear, so it looks like I’ll be going commando.

I job searched online for a couple hours, scouring the internet for any potential jobs. I called a producer in South Bend, who one of my professors was sure had a job for me. He didn’t. He told me that finding a job is all about luck and that he had to work at Bloomingdales after college. That was encouraging.

Finding legitimate production companies is very difficult since there are a million production companies, but probably only a handful that aren’t run out of someone’s basement. There are a lot of “one guy an a camera” outfits out there. Another deceiving thing is that a lot of job openings that sound really awesome are in the porn industry. For example: Looking for a Final Cut Pro editor, limited experience necessary, to work in Chicago/NYC area. Pay is $45,000 a year. Sign me up! Hold on…click on the company profile...oh, I would be editing porn. Fantastic. Starting your career in porn doesn’t work out too well for actresses and I doubt it works out any better for videographers.

The grandparents came over for dinner. They seem to think I’m looking for jobs in Cleveland. I’m not.

I spent the entire day in athletic shorts and a wife beater. My real clothes are on protest until I get a job. Also, I’m thinking about not washing my hair to get some sweet dreads.

Friday, May 22, 2009
Day 4 of unemployment:

I woke up at 10:30. Getting much better.

After getting up, I got a bowl of cereal and watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit. That movie is not nearly as scary as I remember it being.

I felt extra motivated and unpacked the rest of the clothes. This won’t stop me from continuing to wear wife beaters and athletic shorts.

I sent an email to a local production company, asking for job advice and if they had any summer openings, even offering to work for free. They said no.

I pet my dog for a couple hours because he’s really sick. Then I fed him some pepperoni.

I went on a walk and only got chased by two dogs. No neighbors harassed me about abortion.

I watched American Psycho with my mom. She fell asleep, so then I was just watching it by myself.

I’m considering putting on real pants.

Twilight Book Report

2009-05-07T00:02:00.002-04:00

Most of you have probably heard of the Twilight book series. Since I am a huge fan of pop culture and always want to be in-the-know on the latest trend, I decided to read the books. Stephanie Meyers has taken over Dan Brown's number one spot on my worst writer's list. As a fan of Anne Rice novels and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I was almost offended by the nonchalant liberty Meyers took with vampire myth. Despite this, I read all four books, and found myself secretly enjoying them, like some guilty pleasure along the lines of spoonfuls of peanut butter straight from the jar or OC marathons. So, to save the rest of you from wasting your time with these books, I will provide you with my summary of each one.

Book 1:
Bella is a very clumsy girl who hates weather. Edward is smokin' hot and mysterious. It turns out he's a vampire and Bella is into that. They start dating but Edward is really tempted to kill her whenever they are together because she smells delicious. Bella is cool with that. They can't kiss all that much because Edward might break her face with his super lips. Also, Edward glitters in the sun, which Bella thinks is just precious and totally vampire-like. Some other vampire also thinks Bella smells really tasty and tries to eat her but Edward and his buddies rip him apart and burn the pieces. Then Bella and Edward go to prom and Edward still wants to eat her. The end.

Book 2:
Edward decides he is over this whole scene and peaces out. Bella is really emo and doesn't talk to anyone and just sulks. She starts hanging out with this kid Jacob who is totally into her. Jacob is werewolf, but Bella is cool with it. Bella won't date Jacob because she's an idiot. Then she jumps of a cliff for funsies and almost drowns. Then she hears that Edward is going to kill himself in Italy, so she goes to Italy to try and stop this from going down. She does absolutely no site-seeing and has zero meals in the country where food is perfect. Instead, she just hangs out with vampires and convinces Edward she's not dead. Then they leave. Edward still kind of wants to eat Bella.

Book 3:
So remember that guy that they killed in the first book? He had a girlfriend and she's still pretty angry about her man being murdered, so she wants to kill Bella, but not because she smells tasty. Jacob the werewolf wants to date Bella but Bella is more of a vampire kind of girl. The crazy chick comes with an army of vampires to kill Bella, but Bella hides out in a tent while everyone else fights. The bad guys die. Edward has learned to control his cravings for Bella's blood.

Book 4:
Bella graduates from high school and promptly marries Edward so that they can have sex before she becomes a vampire. Unfortunately, MTV was not there to film an episode of "Underaged and Engaged." They go to an island and have sex for, like, 17 days, but each time, Bella wakes up with a bunch of bruises and the bed is all ripped to shreds. Bella thinks, "Worth it." This is why Rihanna got back together with Chris Brown. Then Bella finds out that she's pregnant, and at an accelerated rate. Edward is all like "Woman, we are getting this taken care of right now" and Bella is like "Noooooo, it's my baaaaabbbyyy" and Edward is like "But you will die, idiot" and she is like "worth it." So Bella is slowly dying because this baby demon keep breaking her ribs and eventually it breaks her spine and she starts spewing blood and Edward makes her a vampire to save her. Once she is a vampire, she is really smokin' hot and she and Edward have lots more sex. Then they hang out with their baby. Then some other vampires come to see what's up. The entire book leads up to a big fight. They are all ready for the fight and have all been practicing their cute little vampire super powers for weeks. Then they talk it out and part ways. Then Bella and Edward have sex again. The End.

There, now you don't have to read the books. You can just see the movies, which are sure to be entertaining in their ridiculousness.

If the Twilight series can teach us anything, it's that you can be absolutely talentless and do no research on your topic, and still become a millionaire.

All My Single Ladies

2009-03-25T00:08:00.002-04:00

Allow me to tell you a little bit about my friends. They are all beautiful, charming, intelligent, fun-loving.....and single. That last adjective doesn't seem to belong in the category, but unfortunately, these wonderful and very available ladies can't seem to find a boyfriend. I could go on about men fearing independent and intelligent women, but I think Oprah has the market cornered on that one. And I could talk about how my friends and I need to open up our hearts to more possibilities, but I don't completely buy into that. Instead, I would like to discuss what I feel is our main issue: We are completely and unforgivably awkward.
I will admit that "awkward" is a term that is thrown around way too much these days, along with "random" and "literally", but my social circle's case, it's pretty valid. Having grown up with mostly female friends and having had 2 or fewer serious relationships throughout our lives, my group really doesn't stand a chance. How are we supposed to know how to act around boys? We've always been taught to be independent and to never dumb ourselves down for a man. But no one taught us how to flip our hair while batting our eyelashes or laugh at a boy's sad attempt at a joke. Of course, we know the basics of femininity--hair, fashion, makeup, poise--but we don't take it to the extreme of slutty-ness, catty-ness, or lower-back tattoos. The resulting product of such a combination of social graces is a pretty woman who has her life together, but can't get men to see her as worth pursuing. Maybe it's because we look like we don't need men. Or maybe it's because we stay in the friend zone. Or maybe it's because we say awkward stuff like the following:

While at a bar on Friday night, a man approached Caitlin and said, "Do you dance?" Her response "Not competitively." When he grabbed another chick and moved to the dance floor, it dawned on Caitlin what he really meant.

At a bar one weekend, I was trying to get the bartender's attention so I could get a pitcher for my friends. I was waiting patiently, lost in thoughts, when a man next to me said, "Why are you so upset?" I automatically responded with, "Oh, no, I'm not angry. That's just my face." He quietly turned to face the girl on his other side.

In trying to give Emma flirting tips, Caitlin and I (the obvious experts on flirting) were debating between the methods of tactile flirting. Arm touch or chest touch? After assuring Emma that either would work, we went to a bar to demonstrate. Caitlin did her best to lightly touch a man's chest as she was talking to him and I made sure to occasionally touch the arm of the man I was talking to. Neither of us got phone numbers. Emma never used our methods and she has a boyfriend.

At a party, I made the mistake of wearing a shirt from the time when monogram clothing was popular. My shirt had a big rhinestone "E" in the corner, giving me that coveted Laverne-look. A boy came up to me and attempted to make a joke about the "E", saying "Does that stand for...easy? or...excellent...or...ummm.." I stopped him from going any further and jokingly said, "If you don't have anything clever to say, then just move on and talk about something else." Hurt, bad joke guy walked away. My friend Kristina was appalled and said, "Why were you so mean to him!" "What, it was a bad joke." I said. "Yeah, but he was a BOY"she said, flipping her hair and giving bedroom eyes to a boy across the room. Kristina is also single.

I guess what I'm getting at here is that we make plenty of mistakes, but who doesn't? Is there really any surefire way to get a guy's attention or to flirt? Flipping my eye and giggling for me is really just the equivalent of wearing a push-up bra--it's just a deception to make you more attracted to me. Even if I tried to cover it up, any guy would soon discover that I am sarcastic and independent and not at all the delicate flower he had hoped for. So my conclusion is that my friends are great women and deserve great men. So until the men step it up a notch, we're all going to be single and awkwardly lurking the bars.

Crazy Cat Lady

2009-01-26T23:11:00.003-05:00

I have had 2 memorable experiences with stray cats. The first was when Brian Setzer (from the 80s rockabilly band and, more famously, from The Brian Setzer Orchestra) sat behind me during a Cleveland performance of The Phantom of the Opera. The second is a current and continuing experience of my mother's love of the neighborhood homeless felines.
Stray cats have been prowling my neighborhood for as far back as I can remember. However, it wasn't until a little over a year ago that my mom started taking a particular liking to them. It began innocently enough--she would buy cheap cat food and set it outside for the hungry cats. As the news spread of this new food source that didn't require chasing or pouncing, cats from all around town came to feast underneath our deck. At first, my mom vowed to stop feeding them so she wouldn't attract anymore cats. But then winter came--the temperature dropped and my mom couldn't bear to leave the poor little kitties starving in the snow. So, she continued to feed them, and in the spring, their numbers multiplied.
The emotional attachment came when we started naming the cats. At first, the names were creative and made for entertainment purposes more than out of love. For instance, Squirrel was named so because I saw her sitting underneath the bird-feeder and, because of her grey fluffy coat, I mistook her for a squirrel. Gerard got his name because half his face was white, making him look like the Phantom of the Opera, who was played by Gerard Butler in the film adaptation. Other names included Inky (because of her black coat), Stinky (because of her mean demeanor), and Coco (because Chanel is a beloved designer, even in the cat world). Then, the names started to sound like potential Flavor of Love candidates, with Funky, Boots, and Little Stinker being the next generation. Later, the cat names became a lot less creative and a lot more descriptive. Now, there's B.O.C. (Big Orange Cat), Big Grey, Calico, and Cow Kitty (it apparently looks just like a cow).
During my summer in Vail, my mom called me with updates about the cats. I began to worry when she said that her goal for the summer was to pet one of the cats. My mind raced with the innumerous diseases these wild animals could carry and I pictured my mother's obituary reading: "Crazy cat lady dies of feline leukemia." However, my dad assured me that he had things under control.
He totally did NOT.
At the end of the summer, I got a call from my mother. She had a tone of sadness in her voice that made me realize right away that something was wrong. She told me that Bing* had died. My dad the enabler had helped her catch her favorite kitten with a net. They took the tiny creature to the vet, only to find out that it was so riddled with diseases that nothing could be done and it had to be put down. My mother felt terrible, thinking that it was her fault that Squirrel was missing one of her kittens. I really did feel bad for her (my mom, not Squirrel the cat). As weird as it is, my mom loves feeding those cats every morning and night, building them little houses out of laundry baskets and hay, and chasing other animals away from the cats' food. We all have our weird little obsessions. My mom's just happens to be stereotypical of old spinsters, which I guess is a stereotype that she is working on breaking.
Despite the upset with Bing, my mom still takes care of her cats. The neighbors complain that their children might catch diseases or that their dog is getting fat from snatching the cat food, but to them she simply says, "Well then keep your damn kids/dog out of my yard!"
After achieving her goal of petting a cat (and not dying), my mom has moved onto her new goal of getting the cats to come inside. Each day, Boots becomes braver and braver and gets further in our basement before scurrying out. My dad is concerned that it's only a matter of time before the cat sneaks in during the night to eat our brains. But I know that close to the surface, my dad is just as crazy about those cats as my mom is, because they make my mom happy.

*The name "Bing" came during my parents' "Friends" phase. During this, they'd watch 1 or 2 episodes of Friends a day. My dad got a little too involved in it and would occasionally call me to tell me the latest antics Chandler had gotten himself into, which, thanks to reruns on TBS, I was already familiar with. My parents have now switched to the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother," and a similar thing is happening. When I mentioned that I had to dress business casual for the upcoming career fair, my parents said, in unison, "Suit up!" and then told me that I am "such a Robin."

Face Page

2009-01-14T21:47:00.002-05:00

Technology is not really the forte of my parents or most of their generation. Over Christmas break, my mom was thoroughly impressed by the concept of drag and drop, and my Aunt Susie asked me if I had a "Face Page." I think my favorite moment came when my dad asked my brother why he was looking at pictures of "floozies" on his computer. Turns out he was just looking at pictures of his friends on facebook, but my dad said, "Those pictures are too slutty to put on the internet!" My brother clarified for the rest of us that the girls were wearing conservative sweatshirts but my dad retorted with, "But they had these come hither stares!" The internet is too saucy for my dad.
My little brother, Alex, is a whiz with the internet and computers, mostly because he's 17. He recently got a facebook and we are now "friends," which was all fine and good until his every move on the site came up on my newsfeed. I don't want to know who my brother is tagging pictures of or what he is writing on people's walls. In one disturbing episode, I went on facebook only to be hit in the face with "Alex has commented on *Enter teenage girl's name here*'s photo." The comment itself was even displayed on the news feed and was a saucy "Wow ur so beutiful" (misspelling intentional). I immediately texted Alex, informing that he should change his privacy settings so he wouldn't have to subject me to his teenage love fest. Since then, I have been spared witnessing Alex's attempts at scoring honeys.

Oh Baumkuchen, O Baumkuchen

2008-12-24T12:57:00.003-05:00

Christmas is a time of family tradition, and my family Christmas is not short of them. On my mom's side, we have the tradition of eating ham and deviled eggs while we all open our gifts at the same time in a frenzy. There was one year that my mom tried to establish some order to the holiday by having each person open one gift at a time, but this quickly degenerated into the usual haphazard shredding of holiday paper while thank-yous were shouted across the room. I guess you can't change tradition.
The tradition on my dad's side is completely different and very one-dimensional. Christmases with Oma completely revolve around the fact that we are German. My dad is only half German, which leaves my brother and I at a quarter German, but this doesn't hinder our feast of spaetzel and saurkraut. Every year, my mom hides a picle ornament in the tree, promising a special present for the first child who finds it. After much pushing and shoving between my brother and I, someone finds the pickle and Mom backs out of the present reward because she never had one in the first place.
When I was very little, my Christmas outfit was not the traditional red satin and white lace dress that most little girls wore. I wore a durndel, and Oma had a matching one. Somehow, my brother escaped wearing leiderhosen, but that might be because by the time he was born, Oma could no longer fit into her durndel, so traditional German garb was no longer required. Once I got older and learned to play the piano, the most dreaded German tradition was started--as I fumbled around Oma's untuned piano, searching for a key that wouldn't cause everyone's voices to crack, the rest of my family stood around the piano to sing Silent Night in German. Well, really, Oma would sing, Dad would mumble, Mom would turn the pages of the sheet music for me, and Alex would giggle. I'm sure our rendition of Still Nacht leaves the neighborhood dogs howling, but we can't hear them over Oma's strained soprano and Dad's attempt at remembering his high school German.
Though our Christmas seems as German-filled as the Haufbrauhaus, it has toned down since my dad's childhood, when every pastry and every toy ended in an unpronounceable suffix. My father does not miss most of the old tradition, but one thing that he has mentioned every Christmas is Baumkuchen--tree cake. For years, my mother has searched every bakery and website for Baumkuchen in order to reignite my father's childhood memories. No one except Dad and Oma knew what a Baumkuchen was, so the search was especially difficult. This year, however, my mom was finally successful in her German pastry quest. She called me and said, "You'll never believe what I found for dad!" I knew right away that it was baumkuchen, not because I'm really good at guessing, but because she told me she had found it at the German market in downtown Akron. Unless she was planning on getting my dad another pickle ornament, it had to be a baumkuchen. However, as fate would have it, this was also the year that my dad would occasionally spend half his work days surfing the internet. And of course, he stumbled upon a bakery in Toronto that sold baumkuchen. He brought one home to surprise my mom, who put on an award-winning performance, acting shocked that he had found this endangered German cake. It was a like the Gift of the Maji story, except with cake and less irony.
When Oma came over a couple days before Christmas, Dad said he had a surprise for her, "Something that will bring back some memories." "Is it a baumkuchen?" Oma said, hopefully. She guessed what it was so quickly, I began to think that maybe this cake was more central to their holidays of past than I had previously thought. I imagined everyone in leidherhosen and durndels, dancing around the baumkuchen to tuba and accordion music. This probably didn't happen, but I'll keep it in mind for a potential new tradition.
Dad took the cake out of a gold box. It was not shaped like a Christmas tree, like I had expected, and it was not very colorful or particularly tasty looking either. "I wonder if it will have that almond flavor that I remember," Oma said, a twinkling Star of David in her eye. "Well let's have some and find out!" Dad said, cutting a ring off this magical German tree cake. We each took a small piece--it was very thick and pretty good, but not legendary. After a few moments of silence while we all tasted the baumkuchen, Oma said, "Well, it's more about the tradition and the memories than it is the taste." Dad agreed, saying, "Yeah, this is a good memory."

The Thanksgiving Pimp

2008-12-01T17:19:00.003-05:00

Thanksgiving at my house is always a great day of family togetherness. My brother and I are the only kids, as we have no first cousins, so everyone else aside from my parents is kind of old. The ages range from 17 to 93, and the food shows it. Each year, the food gets a little mushier, the dinner starts a little earlier, and it's only a matter of time before half of the dinner guests are enjoying their Thanksgiving feast intravenously. I'm thankful to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with all my family members, but just like any family, they are a bit quirky.
My only job on Thanksgiving is to make the cranberry sauce. It takes about 5 minutes and the directions are right on the bag, so it's the only job at my level of cooking. I thought everyone enjoyed having real cranberry sauce, but I found out this year that I have basically been the only one eating it and that all the other family members prefer the canned crap. This just means more cranberry sauce for me, which I don't mind.
The Thanksgiving hijinks started before the grandparents even got there, when my brother came downstairs dressed as the Thanksgiving Pimp. The Thanksgiving Pimp is a character beloved by all. His job is to usher in the "ho ho hos" for the Christmas season. It entails my brother wearing an undershirt, his suit jacket, and a black fedora until my dad and I make fun of him enough that he changes into normal clothes. This is a new tradition starting this year. I don't know if it will make it to 2009, since Oma didn't really appreciate me calling my brother a "suburban pimp".
The day's festivities continued when all the old folks started showing up. As soon as Oma walked in the door, she approached my diabetic grandfather with a brand new blood sugar meter. She wanted to know how to use it (and was shocked that she would actually have to draw blood) and the two of them sat in the living room trying to figure the piece of equipment out for 2 hours before even glancing at the instructions.
The food was delicious as usual. At the end of the meal, Oma wanted a family photo. She spent about 15 minutes trying to chase down the dog to get him in the picture, but since he is also old and basically deaf, he refused to participate in the photo session. Instead, unbeknownst to anyone, the dog ate an entire plate of chocolate truffles. This is how we found out a great way to get rid of relatives on a holiday--have your dog puke all over the house. Once people had to watch their step for fear of treading in something unpleasant, it was time for everyone to go and the holiday was over. Another way to get rid of relatives (well, really just Oma) is to put in a movie. She hates the talkies.
My favorite part of Thanksgiving this year was the stuffing and the Thanksgiving Pimp. I hope both make a reappearance for Christmas

Classroom Rules

2008-12-01T16:55:00.003-05:00

With the hectic class schedule that some Notre Dame students undertake, I can understand not having time to have a meal in between classes. While snacking is perfectly acceptable, there are certain foods that people should refrain from eating in a classroom setting.
Here is an incomplete list of acceptable classroom foods:
Bagel
Coffee
Any drink from a vending machine
Gummy candy
Crackers
Most baked goods*
Small sandwiches

*coffee cake or any other particularly messy and crumbly baked good is not acceptable

This list may not provide the healthiest food options, but it's not all that good for you to be eating on the run, either, and eating the above listed foods is a lot better than eating the follow:

Unacceptable classroom foods, most of which I have actually seen people eating in class:
Banana
Baked potato
2 liter bottle of Mountain Dew
Popsicle
Salisbury steak
Pop Rocks
Celery, apples, or any other very crunchy food
Pizza

Maybe I'm being picky, but loud foods or food items that require multiple utensils are really distracting and kind of disgusting to sit next to.

While we're on the subject of classroom pet peeves...
To those who bring computers to class--please be mindful of your desktop image. If you have a laptop, I will definitely look at it because your game of solitaire and/or your AIM conversation is much more interesting than the lecture going on. However, it's a little strange to gaze upon an image of a half-naked lady or an official Hanson brothers fan club photo sitting right there on your computer for all to see. Obviously, you have chosen this photo because you like to look at it a lot. You see your desktop several times a day, so it only follows that you really like to look at pictures of the Olsen twins as often as possible. But to those sitting around you, your desktop is an unsolicited peek into your personal life. I didn't really care to know that you were into busty blondes or that you have a special affinity for babies dressed as vegetables. So to all the laptop carriers out there, please be kind to your classmates and maybe choose one of the default desktops, or at least something we can all enjoy, like a picture of George Clooney or some puppies in a basket.

Do Helicopters Eat Their Young?

2008-11-12T21:55:00.003-05:00

This year, I returned to the world of boxing. I have fought my final boxing match (after fighting with recsports...a story too long and frustrating for this blog) and am now a retired boxer. This is probably a good thing considering I couldn't handle simple EMT checks after sparring rounds.

Before we fight in an actual match, we have to spar, which is like a match, but not scored and more controlled. The EMT's are present for all sparring matches to attend to each bloody nose and black eye. Their main job is to check each fighter for brain damage immediately after sparring. Even though I've done this plenty of times before, I forgot the standard procedure.
After my first sparring match, I was brought over to a young EMT guy. As he sprayed my gloves with disinfectant and I wiped sweat off my forehead with my ponytail, he asked, "Do you know what today is?" Anyone else would automatically realize that this question was aimed at gauging my brain capacity. I, however, took it as Mr. EMT trying to be coy. I never pass up the opportunity for coyness, so I replied "I dunno, Canadian Thanksgiving?" Mr. EMT was not charmed. "No, I mean today's date." Immediately, I realize my mistake. I could have easily overcome this by giving the man the date, but I was flustered and could not for the life of me even recall the season. "Just the day of the week will do," he said, checking to see if my pupils were dialated. "Tuesday! It's Tuesday!" I finally managed to spit out. "Ok, I'm going to have to ask you another question." I could tell Mr. EMT was a bit concerned. I was pretty sure I didn't have brain damage, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask another question. He went with this one: "Do helicopters eat their young?" Well this was easy! I knew the answer to this one! "No! Hamsters do!" Turns out you don't get bonus points in the concussion check for giving out fun facts. Mr. EMT chuckled, handed me my gear, and sent me on my way. I like to think that I managed to insert my coy charm in the end of that exchange. Mr. EMT probably likes to think that its ok sending a potentially concussed young woman back into the boxing training room. It's a win-win situation.

There is one more anecdote that is completely unrelated to the above, but I feel needs to be told. I risk telling a "you just needed to be there" story, but I think I'll take that chance.
At dinner with some friends tonight, I told Emma that I had been to my latest boy's house and met his two Siamese cats. Emma immediately responded with "Oh my God, they're attached!?" immediately after which, her face dropped as she realized what she had just said. It was a great moment in cat breed/human condition confusion history.

Text From: Dad Cell

2008-10-01T20:53:00.005-04:00

I'm always impressed when someone's parents know how to text. I've tried to teach mine, but have only been successful with my dad. My mom decided she needed to learn to text after hearing a news story where a girl who had been kidnapped or something let her parents know where she was via text message. After unsuccessfully sending some blank texts, my mom decided that I was too old to get kidnapped anyway and gave up on the whole text message thing. My dad, on the other hand, has joined modern times and, with lots of practiced, has mastered texting. At first, his messages were a little jumbled since he couldn't find any punctuation or backspace keys. This caused me to get messages like:
"Mom and Janet are at Beechywood mall oh no shopping loveljoo"
My dad's text messaging skills have much improved since then, but the content of the messages is still kind of strange. To fully understand this, you must first know a couple things about my father:
1) He loves trashy reality TV Nevermind that networks such as E! and VH1 target audiences of women and gay men, my dad can't get enough of Rock of Love or Dr. 90210. After watching the season finale of Tila Tequila by myself, I needed to talk to someone about how crazy it was. Naturally, I called my dad, who answered the phone with "Did you just WATCH that??? How GREAT was that?! Tila is SUCH wreck!" Comparing notes on The Girls Next Door may seem like a strange father-daughter activity, but we are really just arguing about who really loves Heff and who is just in it for the money (we have come to the agreement that Holly really does care about Heff and Kendra is just a tramp). At family dinners, it is pretty nice to have someone with whom to discuss the girls of Flavor of Love. There are some shows that I don't even watch that my dad enthusiastically fills me in on, like Gene Simmon's Family Jewels. Now that you understand (or at least are aware of) my dad's love of trash TV, you might expect that I get some trash TV themed text messages. The other day, while doing homework, I received this one from him:
"Did you see the season premiere of Dr. 90210?"
I had not seen it, but after calling him, he recounted the tales of Dr. Rey and his wife to me, insisting that I watch the episode sometime. You would think that would be the end of the Dr. 90210 texts for a bit, but the texts seemed to take on a plastic surgery theme.
Dad: "am playing golf and almost just got hit"
Me: "be careful!"
Dad: "No kidding. If I am disfigured I will have to call Dr. Rey"
Fortunately, no reality TV show doctors needed to be called, though I'm sure my dad would have been thrilled to meet the real Dr. Rey

2) My dad tells really corny jokes. Everyone's dad tell really corny jokes. When these "dad jokes" are condensed into text messages, they become that much more ridiculous. Here is the most recent text conversation between my dad and me:
Me: I got my first boxing bloody nose of the season
Dad: Great. What did the other girl look like?
Me: Bloody mouth
Dad: Awesome. I will have a piece of apple pie in your honor
Me: You were going to have pie anyway
Dad: You are right but now I will have two pieces.
I don't really know what eating apple pie has to do with a family member's athleticism, but I think my dad really needed an excuse to eat pie.

3) My dad is sometimes really inappropriate, hence this text:
"I am eating pizza at stumpys with the geezers and stumpy is our waiter"
Stumpys is a pizza joint in Port Clinton and that's not actually its name. Stumpy is the owner of the pizza place, and that is not actually the man's name. My dad refers to him as Stumpy because he has one arm. He is surprisingly agile with his incomplete arm when it comes to carrying pizzas. "Geezers" is what my dad affectionately calls his friends.

Texting is a wonderful thing, especially when it comes to communicating with my dad. It condenses all his strange characteristics into compact little messages. At least I know that if I get kidnapped, I'll have a text message from my dad to make me smile.

*Note: After my dad read this, he sent me this text:
"I hope you know second semester isn't paid yet"
I didn't have to take this post down because the next text he sent was:
"I liked it. you are still in my will. love, dad"

America's Favorite Cookie

2008-09-02T00:29:00.000-04:00

Many would say that the Oreo is the most American cookie. The blue packaging boasts in big white bubble letters that the Oreo is “America’s Favorite Cookie.” The commercials for the cream and chocolate sandwiches show families delighting in dunking the cookies in a tall glass of milk. Older ad-campaigns gave the cookies magical qualities, spreading the mystique that those who got the half of the Oreo with the most cream could get a wish granted. The treat has even garnered its own song, “The White Stuff”, in the form of a parody of a New Kids on the Block song. Nothing could be more wholesome, more white, more American, than an Oreo cookie.
My family is big into Oreos. They are always in the car on road trips, are a staple of summer picnics, have a place on the table for holiday parties, and can be found stashed away in the most unusual corners of the house. Oreos are always on hand, so I suppose it was always assumed that everyone in my family enjoyed the treat. I don’t know why my mother never noticed that I hadn’t been eating the Oreos from the kitchen cupboard. My brother was two young to be eating solids and I had no other siblings or cousins. I guess having kids comes with the same excuse perks as having a dog. You can blame bad smells on dogs, and you can blame the disappearance of sweets on children.
I don’t know what it is about the Oreo, but other cookies have always been much higher on my list. The fake, flakey cream with the processed chocolate wafer doesn’t satisfy my craving for baked goods (probably because the Oreo is neither baked nor good). I’d much prefer an old-fashion chocolate chip cookie, but perhaps my love of the French Nestle is what made my mother call me unpatriotic.
One day, when having a picnic with my mother in the backyard, she offered me an Oreo. My 3-year-old self decided this was the as good an opportunity as any to tell my mom that the Oreo-loving gene had not been passed on to me. I refused the Oreo and said “I don’t like Oreos.” There, it was out. Now she could stop shoving that chocolate-flavored cardboard down my throat and buy me some Chips Ahoy. However, my declaration of Oreo-independence did not go over as smoothly as I had hoped.
“You know,” she said calmly, separating the cookie halves of her Oreo and inspecting which side had more cream, “Oreos are American. If they find out that you don’t like Oreos, they can kick you out of America.”
Much like an Oreo disintegrating in milk, my world crumbled around me. Kicked out of America? Where would I go? What would I do without my family? I don’t know anyone who’s not in America! I believe this whole experience was my first memory. Ironically, it was also my first time feeling impending abandonment.
Of course, my mom was just being sarcastic. However, my 3-year-old brain could not really process the subtleties of sarcasm yet, so imbedded in my subconscious to this day is a strong link between patriotism and Oreos. I’ve always recognized my dislike for Oreos, but it took until I was in college to recognize that I still eat them whenever they are offered. I guess I still have this fear of someone finding out that I do not like “America’s Favorite Cookie” and subsequently being deported. Looking back, at every road trip, picnic, school function, sleepover, First Communion, and school lunch, Oreos have been present and I have disdainfully, but patriotically, eaten them.
My neurotic eating of Oreos has subsided partly because I now realize that I will not lose citizenship because of my cookie preference, but mostly because the slogan for Oreo has changed to “World’s Favorite Cookie.” They can’t very well kick me out of the world. However, if they ever get that community on the moon up and running, I will be back to publicly eating Oreos and secretly despising them. But knowing my family, when we travel in our spaceship to the moon, Oreos will be in the cargo space right along with the moon-shoes and spacesuits.

Sucky Charms

2008-08-18T22:09:00.000-04:00

The day I moved out of Vail to head back to Ohio, I was, as usual, running late. Oscar was getting into the Denver airport at 2:00 to help me drive back and my plan to leave Vail at noon fell through when I decided that I needed one last slice of high altitude pizza. I ended up not starting out on the 2 hour drive to the Denver airport until 1:30 and was in such a rush that I forgot my drivers license in the washing machine (my usual storage place for important documents). I sped down Matterhorn Rd., leaving my neighborhood fondly known as “Matterhood”, past the Gore Creek, onto route 70, and drove away with the mountains at my back. After I had passed all those familiar exits and reached cruising speed on my way over Vail pass, I finally relaxed from my hectic exit. I took a deep breath, took one last look at the mountain range through my rearview mirror, and it finally hit me—I had escaped Vail. What in May seemed like an impossible summer at a blasé company in a hippy town where I would be expected to camp turned out to be a fairly fun summer with some crazy kids at a hard-working company where I would learn a lot. Nonetheless, I was thrilled to be going home. I yelled out a “woohoo!”, blew those mountains a Hollywood kiss, and sped off for Denver. About 5 seconds after this I hit a rain pocket, slowing all driving to a near crawl. The “goodbye, mountains” gesture would have been a lot cooler if I could have actually sped away.

There are a few things about Vail that I get a bit nostalgic about, because I know I will not experience them anywhere else. The intern house, for instance, is probably/hopefully the closest I will come to living as an actual peasant. I suppose the problems with the house were part of its charm. It was kind of fun, grabbing a piece of foil from the kitchen to stick in the door of the dryer so it would work and then crossing your fingers that your clothes would actually come out dry. Since the dishwasher flooded the kitchen with soapy water every time it ran, it also served as a convenient floor cleaner. This feature especially came in handy during parties. During the last intern house party, someone spilled a beer on the kitchen floor. Instead of grabbing some paper towels, my roommate Chris pointed at the dishwasher and shouted “Run that thang!” I wasn’t really in the mood for a foam party, so I opted for the paper towels, but the running the dishwasher to clean up a spill was definitely a viable option. The only problem is that the water made the floor expand, causing the tiles to crack and pop out of the floor. Instead of picking them up and throwing them away, we all found it better to play a never-ending game of soccer with these tile pieces. The bugs in the house also gave it some character. It made the house feel like a cabin or a garbage can. Tiny flies gathered all over the kitchen and then would stick to the wall to die. There was a whole tiny fly graveyard on the wall above the sink. I’m sure they chose that spot as their final resting place because of the beautiful views of piles of unwashed dishes coated in various Mexican dishes from weeks before.

The house could have been a lot worse, and I guess it was. Soon after I arrived there, the oven door, which had been shattered, was replaced. The heat, which never shut off, was also fixed during my stay. And right before I got there, the crazy neighbors were evicted for stabbing each other with a lamp. I really should be thankful for the pit I lived in. Considering the location, its probably the world’s most expensive junk heap.

Another thing that Vail has that is really lacking in the rest of the country is hitchhikers. I didn’t realize that people still did this, especially with all the urban legends you hear warning you against it. But Vail is a town stuck in the past—they love the old West, Native Americans, and hitchhikers. I saw about 2-3 hitchhikers a week. Vail has a pretty good free public transportation system, so I really don’t know why hitching is so popular, but I guess it is a bit more intimately social than taking the bus. I really only became aware of the popularity of hitchhiking when a coworker, Drew, brought it to my attention. One of the many perks of living in the intern house not knowing who will be sleeping on your couch that morning. As I groggily trudged downstairs to grab a breakfast shake before heading to work at 7 am, I noticed that Drew was just waking up from his night on the thrift-store couch. I offered him a ride to his house, but he refused, saying he would just hitchhike back. I thought he was kidding, but he assured me that it was a reasonable transportation option and that people around Vail were nice enough to pick people up. Sure enough, he got a ride back, and I started noticing hitchhikers everywhere. There was a teenager with a skateboard begging a ride at the front of my neighborhood. A businessman in a suit stood at the entrance of the highway with his thumb out. I never picked up one of these strangers. Vail residents might be nice enough to give these people a ride to the next town, but I’m from Ohio and I know that any one of them could be a serial killer.

Vail is a great place to go if you aspire to be an alcoholic or if you are looking to live in a community for alcoholism is accepted. As you drive into Vail on the highway, you start to notice bright orange signs advising against drinking and driving. When you are officially in Vail, these signs occur about every mile. I don’t doubt that Vail residents play a drinking game while driving on the highway where each person in the car takes a shot upon spotting one of these anti-drinking signs. Though there is a lot to do in Vail during the day if you’re into extreme physical exertion, there’s not much to do at night. There is one movie theater about 15 miles away and no bowling alley, but there are plenty of bars. Each night has a different “it bar” to go to. For example, Sunday and Monday are devoted to open-mic nights, White Trash Wednesday is a local fave at Sandbar, and on Fridays, you can go to the top of the mountain, where all there is a trampoline and drink specials. Vail obviously has a drinking problem. The rest of Colorado needs to stage an intervention. Maybe the alcoholism is part of its charm. If everyone was sober, maybe they would leave Vail, too.

Despite all the “charms” of Vail and the my bleak outlook at the beginning of the summer, my internship experience turned out to be pretty good. I absolutely loved the work and know now more than ever that television production is my career of choice. I also know more than ever that I never want to live in a mountain town. It’s very pretty and a great place to vacation, but I think the lack of oxygen makes people a little crazy. Plus, I’m not really outdoorsy beyond eating al fresco. I did learn a lot, met some great people, and came away with some good stories. So goodbye, Vail! Consider this my second attempt at a dramatic speeding off.

The Mountains Are Alive With the Sound of Music

2008-07-26T22:23:00.003-04:00

Vail is a very musical place in the summer. The concerts range from classy philharmonic orchestras, where the summer-home owners dress in “Colorado formal” (good walking shoes and khakis) and enjoy their picnic baskets of wine and cheese to the free modern music concerts that serve as a venue for the entire town of Vail to get drunk in the same place. I have experienced both ends of the spectrum and each has its good qualities. However, my favorite music experiences in Vail have nothing to do with the typical performances going on in the Valley.

Ethan, one of the other interns, and I were scheduled to get some interviews from attendants at the free concert that’s held every Tuesday at the For Amphitheater. We grabbed a tripod and camera and headed out to our shoot, but were stopped at the door leading out of the studio by Jack Sparrow dressed as an 80s rocker. The lanky man had big black hair tied back with a bandana, skinny jeans with a leopard scarf and handcuffs on the belt loop, a tight white muscle t-shirt, and enough eyeliner to put Good Charlotte to shame. He was beautiful. He met us at the door, saying in a thick British accent, “Are you here to take my picture? Is this the interview? You have to meet my band. Come now, you’re going to take our picture.” Before Ethan and I could protest, this rock god had his arms around our shoulders and led us to where four more of him were standing in front of a van. I quickly set up the camera and handed them the mic and let the magic happen. Looking back, I should have asked ~~better~~ questions instead of just letting them babble into the mic for 8 minutes, but the result was still glorious. The band’s name is Gypsy Pistoleros (and if you check out their myspace, you will find their great cover of Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca”). Vail was simply a pit stop on their way to the Whiskey A-Go-Go in L.A. as part of their U.S. tour. I hope they made it there, because they kept going on about how much they loved being in Vegas until I reminded them that they were in Vail, not Vegas. They quickly changed their tune to how much they loved the mountains. At the end of the “interview” Ethan asked them to give a shout-out to the TV station. One of the lanky, big-haired rockers took this to mean holding the microphone to his crotch and giving the “rock-on” symbol with his other hand. It’ll be tough convincing my boss to let me use that shot.

As the rockers got back in their van to find Vegas or L.A. or Ricky Martin cover fame, the man who originally wrangled us into the interview kissed my hand and said, “My, you’re cute. Are you sure you don’t want to hop in the van and come to California?” It was tough to say no, but I had a shoot to get to and no desire to become a groupie.

My week transferred from U.K. rock to Swedish disco. I’ve seen Mamma Mia onstage several times, I saw the movie version on its opening night, and now my ABBA trifecta is complete with the ABBA cover-band “Arrival’s” concert. When I heard that Arrival was coming to Beaver Creek, I was worried that no one would want to go with me. But Shauna, always up for the off-beat and potentially un-cool, brought up the concert before I had a chance to ask her. We dressed up in our most disco-gear and headed to the Vilar Center to be dancing queens. We were the youngest people there, but not the only ones dressed up. Though most were in Colorado formal, some donned boas and big hats and white pants. Our enthusiasm for the concert did not match our seating. The tickets were free, so I guess we should have expected the absolute last row in the balcony. Once the show started, however, someone was kind enough to give us tickets on the floor, dead center, about 8 rows back from the stage. Mamma mia, these were great seats! We didn’t stay in them for long, however, since the dance floor that had been cleared out directly below the stage was calling our names. We joined the plastic soccer moms and geriatric gay men for some fun disco at the base of the stage. The band itself was great, especially the costumes. The women in the group did not seem to be big fans of wearing pants, and the men were rockin’ their white platform shoes. All were incredibly Scandinavian looking.

The concert was fantastic, even amid the drunken shouting of a particularly plastic woman on the dance floor, but that actually added to the experience. Though the philharmonic is nice, and the free Tuesday concerts have their inebriated charm, give me fake-ABBA any day.

Colorado Mountain Expressed

2008-07-26T21:42:00.002-04:00

One of the first things I learned about Vail when I moved there is that it is best to take the Colorado Mountain Express from the Denver International Airport rather than the Greyhound bus. My boss informed me of this with of an air of disgust upon even mentioning the Greyhound. Since Vail is a resort town with a hefty price tag, I pictured the CME as a luxury vehicle that catered to the wealthy and beautiful. As it turns out, it is nothing more than a glorified taxi.

The CME is a large white van driven by a foreigner and packed to the gills with ski bums and rich housewives. As long as it gets me from point A to point B, I really have no problem with it, but the two hours of silence while being squished between a cashmere covered woman and a grizzly looking man is not ideal.

When I arrived from Orange County into Denver, I hopped on the CME and happily secured a window seat. Everyone else in the van seemed typical enough, but it seemed we were missing one passenger. Donna stumbled towards the white van, her loose fitting top falling off, her drawn-on eyebrows melting in the mile-high city heat. She had bleach-blonde hair and lips filled with collagen to the point of bursting. I could tell right away that she would be disappointed by her travel arrangements. As soon as she got to the door, she announced that she got terrible car sickness and needed to sit in the front. An elderly man named Norman was already sitting in the front seat and barely paid this woman attention. Donna proceeded to get graphic with her insistence that she would vomit on everyone in the van if she were not allowed to sit up front. The only available seat left was next to me, so it was more probable that most of her predicted projectile vomit would end up on me, so this didn’t really seem to bother the other passengers. The van full of Vail-goers stared at this frantic and drunk woman as she tried to get us on her team. “This man won’t give me his seat!” she whined, pouting her inflated lips to the point of making her look cartoonish. “I get really car sick and I will probably vomit, so I’m sorry if I puke all over you, but because of this dickhead up front, that’s just going to happen. I’ll pay for your dry cleaning bill.” I was starting to get nervous because no one seemed to care about this forecasted vomit storm and I really hate barf. No amount of free dry cleaning could make up for 2 hours of sitting next to a carsick stranger. Fortunately, when Donna saw that no one was budging (and when the van driver realized just how hammered she was), she decided to stay the night in Denver. “I have a really hot guy in Denver. He’s really hot. Look how cute he is.” Donna provided everyone a glimpse at her good man fortune by showing a cell phone picture of her Denver hottie. I guess she thought this would make us jealous that we weren’t staying in Denver with a hot guy, but it would take more than that to make Norman budge from his seat.

Before she left, a woman in the van asked her if she had a blue piece of luggage. Apparently this woman had seen Donna earlier when Donna had asked a stranger to watch her luggage and then disappeared. Tired of waiting for Donna to return from the bar, the stranger turned the piece of abandoned luggage into the Hertz counter. The woman in the van kindly informed Donna of this, and Donna explained that she “just got a divorce.” I’m not sure how that justifies leaving luggage with strangers, but then again, I have never been divorced, so who am I to judge?

After Donna’s remaining luggage was pulled of the van, the CME hit the road for an awkward 2 hours of silence, save for the Queen CD that was tepidly playing on the van’s stereo. About an hour in, I decided to make some light conversation with the woman whose liver-spotted arm was squashed against mine. This woman turned out to be the worst conversationalist in history. I happily listened to her talk about her recent trip to Dublin, her 9-month old terrier, and her second home in Vail. She failed to ask one question about me. I don’t need conversations to be all about me, but asking simple questions about the other person’s background is conversation 101. If I were this woman, I would want to know at least a little bit about the person I was describing my business trips, education, and extended family to. I gave her plenty of jumping off points. I connectedly threw in how I spent a semester in Rome, that I was from Ohio, and that I was only living in Vail for the summer. She seemed disinterested at best in these personal factoids. Even when I would respond to her stories with the occasional “That’s great!” and “How lovely!” she gave me a side glare that seemed to suggest that I best stop interrupting her with the formalities of human interaction. This conversation was all take and no give on her part. My last futile attempt to change her monologue to dialogue was when she said “This coffee is great.” I responded casually with “Yeah, I should have gotten a grande. This tall just isn’t cutting it.” She looked at me as if I had rained on her latte parade. I was quiet from then on and she found a new, less vocally responsive audience.

I arrived back in Vail, glad to get off the CME, but not so glad to be back in the valley. My vacation was officially over and in less than 12 hours, it was back to work. But I was happy to get back to the Vail Transportation Center vomit free.

Tee'd Off

2008-07-17T01:29:00.001-04:00

Golf and me have never really gotten along, though I do have a respect for the sport and a sense of nostalgia for it. My dad is an avid golfer. Some of my earliest memories of him involve listening to the dulcet tones of a TV golf announcer mixed with the jarring sounds of his snoring on a Saturday afternoon. Maybe that’s why I’ve never been a golfer myself—I’ve always equated it with naps in reclining chairs. That, combined with my fear of golf carts and my inability to hit the ball off the tee in the first 6 swings, makes my attitude towards golf very lukewarm. However, I do like golfers. There’s something about a polo shirt and a country club membership that just gets me. I’m usually not a fan of the prepster, but I can’t resist an argyle sweater vest or two-toned shoes.

The TV station that I work for has a daily morning show that includes guests from local businesses. One morning, a golf pro came on the show to discuss the activities going on at the Vail Golf Club. He had blond, curly hair, a strong jaw line, and looked to be about 17. He had to be older, since he claimed to have graduated from both high school and golf school. I had no intention of going any further than ogling him, but the producer of the show had other plans. She eyed him up, decided he wasn’t her type, turned to me and said, “Ohmygod you should totally go for him! He’s a total cutie and golfers are really hot.” I asked this love guru how I should go about “totally going for him” and she suggested that I just casually ask for some golf lessons. I ended up not getting the chance to make my ridiculous request because golf guy dashed out of the studio after his interview as if he could sense the female plotting going on. He ran out so quickly, in fact, that he left his fleece. The producer decided that the forgotten fleece was tangible destiny—a sign that golf guy and I were meant to be together. I just saw it as some more intern tasks to get done for the day. I called golf guy’s work number and cell number and sent him an email, informing him that I had his fleece of fate.

I finally got a hold him after undoubtedly freaking him out with my fervent concern about his outerwear. He said he would pick it up the next day. Sadly, I would not be at work the next day. But not to worry! The producer had a brilliant resolution! I could just leave my number in the pocket of golf guy’s fleece! Well, the jacket had no pockets, but I had just enough confidence to scrawl “Call me sometime if you want to hang out” on a piece of notebook paper with my name and number and stuff it in the fleece. Golf guy picked up his fleece 5 weeks ago. I have not heard from him. This might have something to do with the 80 degree weather we’ve been having. In the fall, when the weather is fleece appropriate, and golf guy slips his arm into his jacket and finds my number, I hope he calls. Then at least I won’t feel really stupid.

Another experience I had with the Vail Golf Club occurred at the actual golf course. I was assigned to shoot a 30 second commercial for an upcoming golfing event. The commercial had already been written, actors had already been provided. I was basically just a rented out body with camera so that the organizers of this event could shoot their commercial. I showed up to the driving range to find my crew: Bobby would be playing Bink, a clueless 70s news anchor (audiences should be able to deduce this from his ugly sport coat and one cartoonishly delivered line). Barbie would be the deliverer of information, annoyed at Bink for his earlier mistakes. Kirk was the director and creative input for this piece of art. Kirk had brought his own cables, microphone, and headphones, and insisted on using his instead of the one’s I had brought. He also insisted on calling Barbie his “mate”—not his wife, not his girlfriend, not even his significant other—his mate, as if they were actually two penguins who had exchanged pebbles. I could tell Kirk would be trouble when he asked me what my official title was. I daftly told him I was an intern, which apparently gave him permission to check all of my shots and only allow me to hit record. Kirk has no idea what a good shot is. When I would suggest ways to improve the composition of the shot or ways to simplify later editing, he would reply that this shoot simply did not allow for such artistic moves. If what I was suggesting was art, then it was minimalism.

The commercial started out with Bink saying “There’s a tick shot clinc going on!” Barbie then interrupts him with, “No, Bink, it’s a trick shot clinic!” and then continues on with the details of the event. When I first heard the script (and then heard it repeated 700 subsequent times), I had to restrain myself from offering to rewrite it to not sound like man’s first attempt at comedy. At the end of the ad, Bink gets his comeuppance for his earlier faux-pas when he gets hit in the head by a golf ball that flies in from off screen. I realize local commercials are usually not the greatest, but this has to be one of the worst attempts.

What made it even more excruciating was Barbie’s inability to master her lines combined with Kirk’s devotion to the execution of his “vision.” Barbie did not deliver her lines with enough excitement, or enough correctness, so she had to redo each line 1200 times, each time no better than the last. A particularly difficult line for Barbie started with “the beautiful Vail golf course”, which she kept saying as, “the Vail beautiful golf course.” She made this mistake at least 30 times in a row, frustrating both Kirk and those who had spent years teaching Barbie to deal with her dyslexia.

I thought the shoot would only last a half hour, an hour tops. It took 2 and half. After finally being released, Barbie offered to buy me a drink to make up the extra time the shoot took. A drink, even with these crazy folks, sounded better than going back to the office. I wanted a refreshing Tom Collins, but everyone else ordered beer and I didn’t want to be the only one to order hard alcohol at 3 in the afternoon.

I spent the next 2 hours, sipping Stella and listening to Kirk talk about his suggestions for local TV. Kirk has a problem with advertising on television, which is strange considering he claimed to have been working in advertising “since childhood.” His hope for the station I work with is that it avoids giving into the man and selling out. “I just want to see what your manager does when some really boring company comes to that station with a ton of money,” Kirk said. “Say I’m the Nazi party and I call up your manager and I say ‘Hey I’ll pay you $300,000 to run my ad. It’s a free country!’ Those corporate people in New York will tell the manager to take the money, but if he’s a real man, he will refuse it and be true to what that station really is. So I’ll be interested to see what he does when the Nazis come.” I nodded in agreement, because I truly would be interested to see what my boss does if the Nazis ever ask to advertise on Vail local TV, though my concern doesn’t have to do so much with selling out.

The conversation switched from local TV to the growth of the Vail Valley to horseback riding. I told Kirk my death-defying horse accident. He responded with a lukewarm, “Yeah, that’ll happen.” No, that will not just happen. Falling off, yeah that’ll happen. Getting kicked in the head, now that’s a stunner. But nothing could impress Kirk. I didn’t really even have the chance to try because I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. When he finally reached a pause in the conversation/stopped to take a breath, I said I had to get back to the office. Kirk invited me to film the actual golf event next week. I said I would be happy to. I’ll do anything to spend more time with people I can’t stand.

Where the (Undesirable) Boys Are

2008-07-01T23:57:00.003-04:00

The ratio of men to women in Vail, Colorado is four to one. These seem like favorable odds. However, this town is not the flirtation fairy tale one would imagine. Allow me to break down the men of Vail:

15%: In Relationships
25%: Ski Bums who, after college, decided that skiing and bartending would be the best use of their philosophy degrees
30%: Ski Bums who, after high school, decided that skiing and bartending would be the best way
to continue smoking pot with their friends in the 7/11 parking lot.
20%: Old people
5%: My roommates/coworkers
4.99%: Educated, steady job, fairly normal
0.01%: Educated, steady job, fairly normal, sarcastic
100%: In love with Vail

I think you can see where the problem is. I'm surrounded by men 24/7, and maybe I'm being picky, but I'm just not interested in a guy when he suggests we go white water rafting for a date. Though this is more adventurous and unique than your typical dinner or movie, I feel that rafting would be quite literally moving too fast for a first date.
Even the task of simply meeting men is difficult. At Notre Dame, it is guaranteed that there will be at least a sprinkling of eligible bachelors any given night at any given bar and, by virtue of attending the same school, you are guaranteed to have at least one thing in common with all of them. I suppose living in Vail (which isn't exactly the "real world" but is a step outside the ND bubble) is a taste of what the social world outside of college will be like. It's not so easy. Public places contain more than just my peers. Since I don't climb mountains and am not in love with Vail, it's difficult to find common ground with anyone. However, I did manage to meet a guy the other night. I was at a Johnny Cash cover band concert (that's right--and it was awesome) when this 40-something Gary Busey look-alike tried to coerce me to dance. Since the ol' "I have a wooden leg, like Heather Mills, so I can't dance" line doesn't work anymore since Ms. Mills ~~stunt~~ stint on Dancing with the Stars, the only defense I had was a series of "umms" and uninterested looks. Gary Busey eventually went away and then this less crazy, decent looking guy commiserated with my misfortune of attracting lunatics. At first, we didn't really say much, but casually stood next to each other while watching fake Johnny Cash walk the line. Then after some small talk, we found common ground, or rather, rival ground. He graduated from Boston College in 2006. I did the usual rattling off of every Notre Dame football player and statistic I knew to make it look like I'm a football expert. Even though it only takes about a minute to say Zibikowski, Quinn, Clauson, Weiss, and rebuilding year, we managed to chat until fake June Carter left the stage. This guy seemed alright, and given my surroundings, he seemed great. I could even get past the fact that he wants to get the Vail Valley logo tattooed on his calf. I mean, how many well-educated, Catholic, decent-looking, finance majors are there out there? (I'm talking outside Notre Dame, which is the hub of such a gentleman). Fake Johnny Cash and his crew left for the train for Folsom Prison and I left for the car back to the intern house. I told BC guy I was leaving, and he gave me a simple "Ok, bye!" then disappeared. Never was there mention of getting my number. There wasn't even so much as a handshake. Too bad for him, as I was just ~~desperate~~ willing enough to give him my number. I may have found him on facebook the next day, but I didn't want to be a creeper. Plus, if he didn't have the guts or smarts to ask for my number, then I've severely overestimated him.
As much as I balk about the men of Notre Dame, it seems that those are the type I'm seeking outside of the dome. Maybe Notre Dame trains us for that. The Irish ladies set their standards to a type, the only type available for four years of their relationship formative years, and then are doomed to search outside the bubble post-graduation for the kind of guy they once deemed a tool. I'm beginning to understand the "ring by spring" phenomena--I'm not subscribing to it or supporting it, but I do see how it is preventative of real word shock. As great as the Notre Dame guy sounds, it seems that prospects are not looking good in the South Bend front. Caitlin is spending her summer in South Bend and, in response to my desire to return to the campus to find "not stupid boys", she reported this
"Everyone in this town is icky or practically married (or both usually). Where are all the eligible SB bachelors i was excited about?"
It's true. It seems that all the Notre Dame fellows who aren't hopelessly nerdy or accounting majors have been snagged up by ugly girls (this sounds cruel, but I swear that the ugliest girls get the guys. However, it is a mystery as to what came first--the ugly or the boy). What I am most perplexed about is this generational penchant for long-term relationships. At what point did all the attractive, intelligent, not crazy men decide that they all wanted long term girlfriends? They are really missing out on potential pimphood.
Despite all this "woe is me" single girl talk, I'm really not desperate. I was just looking for a distraction for the summer and a reason to play "Summer Lovin'" on my iPod. I'm still holding out hope for single girls under the dome for Fall 2008. Until then, I'll just continue to be surrounded by unavailable, undesirable guys.

Cool Guy in Colorado

2008-06-20T19:46:00.002-04:00

This is my fourth week in Vail. Though I still don’t love it, it is growing on me, or rather, I’m finding ways to tolerate it. Through work, I got a free gym membership, so lots of my free time is spent there. But don’t be tricked into thinking I’m going to come back from Colorado buff and trim. Lots of other free time is spent searching for great ice cream. Work is finally picking up and I really do love the work I’m doing. I get to be around cameras and editing software every day, so that makes me happy. When the Teva Mountain Games were in Vail, I got to film and edit a piece on bouldering (which I found out was wall climbing without harnesses). The other day, I got to interview an author about his experiences on an eco-pirate ship (they attack whaling ships—fo realz!).

I’m also starting to bond better with the people here. Though I still don’t fit in (and likely never will) I’m finding common ground with the Coloradans. I’m trying out some of the outdoorsy stuff, which more often than not ultimately proves my original conviction that I suck at most athletics, but I’m always glad I at least tried it.

For example, I went hiking the other day thinking, “I hike in Ohio. This is something I can do! It’s basically just walking in the woods!” False. Hiking in Ohio may mean a stroll through a park, but hiking in Colorado means a steep incline in increasingly thinner air along narrow, cliff-side paths with patches of snow. We hiked up to a waterfall and the scenery was beautiful, but there were some rough parts. It was pretty surreal to be sweating in 75 degree weather but to be standing in snow. This state seems to be in another dimension where snow doesn’t melt and people need less oxygen.

Another attempt at outdoorsyness was horseback riding. Shauna, a coworker whom I’ve been hanging out with, knows a guy who takes care of horses for some wealthy dude who’s never around. She got me the riding hookup and she and I headed out to Eagle to do some trail riding. I hadn’t ridden in 5 years and didn’t realize how much I missed it until I got around horses. When I had horses, I never wore a helmet, but I decided to forego my already miniscule cool factor and wear my bike helmet while riding. Thank goodness I did. There were only two horses, so Victor (Shauna’s friend) rode one, I rode one, and Shauna ran alongside (since she’s a Coloradan, she has the power to run alongside horses). Shauna went ahead on the trail to take a picture of the horses as they ran past. The horses started running in a full gallop, but when my horse saw Shauna, he spooked and started zig-zagging. I fell to one side of him, but was still holding on. I tried to hoist myself back up as the horse kept running, but given my lack of upper body strength and the horse’s speed, I fell off. While this was happening, the horse behind me lost his rider. After falling to the ground, the last thing I saw before temporarily blacking out was the other horse sans rider running towards me. He ran over me and kicked me in the head, breaking the helmet. After the dust cleared, Shauna ran over to me to see if I was ok. I had a headache, some scratches and bruises, but I stood up and was fine. No concussion, no bleeding. Thank God I was wearing a helmet! I got back on the horse and cautiously rode back to the barn. I’ll be riding again next week. I've fallen off before, broken my arm, got clothes-lined by a tree branch, but this was a first for being kicked in the head. Hopefully that was my only near-death experience this summer.

The last time I wrote, I only had one housemate. Now I have three. Andy shares the upstairs with me and shares my disdain for Colorado (though I’m pretty sure his is not as strong as mine). Chris is the marketing intern who somehow ended up doing production stuff for the morning show. Hearing his frustration and complaints about having to learn about cameras and editing makes me happy to be a television and marketing major. Cam is…well…eccentric. First of all, Cam Fell is probably the worst name for a camera person (or any person who might one day be around other people). Secondly, upon first meeting him, he proved to me that he would be the strangest member of the house by providing sound bites such as “I like to read. I’ve read all of Michael Jordan’s books” and “What was the food like in Italy? Are you good at math?” and “You’re good at school and you’re Catholic, so you don’t go out much, right?” Yes, this dogtag wearing, rap writing, basement dweller is quite the character. However, his entertaining antics quickly turned into daily annoyances. Fortunately, I don’t actually encounter him too often since he usually hides out in his basement. However, we had a run-in in the kitchen the other evening where we discovered our mutual love of Cap’n Crunch and where I learned that Cam despises grocery shopping and child abuse (yes, this was revealed in the same sentence).

Being the only girl in the house is actually not too much of a problem anymore now that I am talking to the other girls in the office. I thought that all this time around boys would give me insight into the opposite sex, but it seems to be converting me to their ways. Don’t worry, my hygiene is still up to code and I am not wearing baggy pants with baseball caps. But in a conversation with Andy the other night he said with the best of intentions, “You’re not really like a girl. I mean, I know you’re a girl, but you’re kind of cool like a guy.” Thanks? Here I thought that this summer was teaching just how girly I am, but it turns out that I’m just a dude in a dress.

There’s nothing else that new to report. Between the gym, work, and housemates, I’m finding distractions to keep me busy. In July, I will be going to LA to visit Emma, so that should break up the summer nicely. Until then, I’ll just be proving to the fine state of Colorado my non-athleticism and my “cool guy” ways.

Bringin' Tom Collins Back

2008-06-02T01:12:00.002-04:00

Life in Vail is starting to improve slightly. I still have a lot of adjusting to do, but I’m getting there. In the past few days, I’ve gotten to play tennis with some Plum people, went to a party, and went to a bar. So there is life in Vail, its just kind of…strange.

The party was hosted by one of my coworkers in East Vail (I live in West Vail). Apparently, his place is in the same apartment complex as the old intern house. I really wish we were still in East Vail, since the apartment was gorgeous. I guess the house in West Vail has a more college feel to it…

Anyway, the party was pretty good. The boy to girl ratio really showed itself at the party, as it was basically a late 20s, mountain sausage fest. Andy and I were the only ones still in college, and it was a little strange to be at a party with an older crowd. There was still drinking games, awkward dancing, and copious amounts of booze, but the overall vibe was very different. I was the designated driver, so I played Jenga. Despite the unfamiliar vibe, the party was fun and everyone is so supremely friendly. There were a few girls there, and I really do want to try to meet and befriend some other girls, but it’s a little hard to pick up chicks at a party when you are an openly straight chick. I’m considering just approaching women on the street and persuading them to go see Sex and the City with me and be my friend. It’s not that the boys aren’t nice and Andy is a fantastic housemate, but I need some girlfriends.

It was about 11:00 on Friday night when Andy and I got tired of sitting in our rooms and reading and decided to go find fun in Vail. The dive bar across the street seemed like the perfect place. Well, I don’t know if we found fun in Vail, but we certainly found the characters. The bar wasn’t exactly hopping. There were about 15-20 people, calmly sipping mixed drinks with classic rock playing in the background. Andy and I decided to stay for one drink, and if that didn’t work out, we would just get McFlurrys and watch Juno. Feeling inspired by the wonderful Caitlin Conway and wanting to relive a piece of the Backer, I ordered my usual Tom Collins. Let me explain something here first. Caitlin had the magnificent idea of reclaiming gin for the young, since rum and vodka aren’t that enjoyable. We started with gin and tonics, but then Caitlin made the most fantastic discovery: Tom Collins—gin, sour mix, tonic, and whatever fruit piece you want (I prefer cherries). I realize the Tom Collins drink might be a bit....classic for my age, but it is delicious and I’m determined to make it happen. So, back the bar. I ordered a Tom Collins and got the weirdest look from the bar tender. “I haven’t made one of those in 8 years!!!” he exclaimed, continuing to look at me as if I had ordered a skunk’s pelt on a platter doused in maraschino cherry juice. “You’re the youngest person to order that! What’s even in that???” Every time I order a Tom Collins, I have to explain what’s in it. Due to Caitlin, Emma, and my frequenting the Backer, the bartenders in South Bend seem to know it pretty well by now. But now, I have to conquer Colorado with the magnificent drink. I think I will order an obscure drink every time I go to that bar, just to get that bartender’s reaction.

Once Andy and I got our drinks, we realized we were out of things to do at the bar, so we played pool. During our game, some red-headed guy in a poet laurite looking shirt dame up to me trying to pick a fight or something. He was all up in my grill, but when I agreed to fight him, warning him that I did have a pool cue in my hand, he backed off. His sketchy buddy sitting in the corner downing the rum and cokes found this a good time to ask where we were from. It turns out he is from Cleveland and went to St. Ignatius. Of course, since he’s from St. Ignatius, he knows everyone who ever went there (including Shawn…) and is still reliving his high school days. For the next 45 minutes, I could not get a word in edgewise. My new friend Chuck rambled on and on about all the famous people from Ohio and all the people he played against in high school football. He kept name dropping, and it was really difficult to figure out which names I was supposed to be familiar with and which I was supposed to ask about. He was quite a character. I looked up some of the names he was dropping, and it seems his story might be exaggerated. His uncle’s friend is not, in fact, the CEO of Clear Channel radio. Chuck gave us his number and took Andy’s and promised to get us in touch with his brother, who is some sort of sports anchor in Boston. This bar will obviously be a regular hang out if it can promise people like Chuck each time.

The job (the reason I'm here in the first place) should pick up soon, and the other roomies will be moving in this week, so there are more stories to come.

Breathless

2008-05-31T13:43:00.002-04:00

Vail takes your breath away. Literally. It’s at elevation 8,150 feet. I’ve been here for 5 days and I still get winded walking up stairs. This does not bode well, considering that the main activity in Vail is physical activity. Everyone wants to go kayaking, hiking, camping, mountain biking, etc. I’m kind of a city girl. Sure, I like taking a walk and a leisurely bike ride is nice, but I am not hard core outdoorsy and all. I don’t think I really fit in here. I wear Rainbows, Coloradans wear Tevas. I work out on an elliptical, Coloradans work out on a mountain. I hate snow, they love snow. I eat whatever, they eat organic. In general, the people here are much more earthy.

My dad and I left on Friday and got to Vail on Monday. I thought the road trip would be boring and horribly long, but it was actually a really good time. Kansas wasn’t even dull. Sure, it was long and flat and there were lots of cows, but we dodged a tornado—that and it was the state with the best billboards. My favorite one was the sign advertising the “world’s largest prairie dog” and a “6-legged steer.” We decided to stop at the exit for this natural miracle and we did indeed see “Prairie Dog Land” but it was a trailer with a bunch of cars from Arkansas in front. Across the street was the truck stop/steakhouse “Colonial Steaks.” We decided to stay in the car and get back on the highway. I like sketch, but I don’t like being kidnapped in a trailer with a giant prairie dog.

My first impression of Vail was not all that fantastic. Sure, the mountains are beautiful and its very scenic, but I got kind of sick the first few days, the town is empty, and the house is very…lived in. Of course, I eventually will get better, more people will show up in June, and the house can…well, that’s kind of unfixable. The house is constantly being lived in, though by different people as the interns are cycled out each semester. There are pots on the stove with crusty food left in them, furniture duct taped together, and sparse kitchen supplies (as in meat tenderizer, but no salt and five skillets but no colander). I was excited to get the queen sized bed, but then I realized that it’s not actually a bed, but 2 mattresses piled on the floor. I went to Wal-Mart and bought some sheets today since all I was provided was a questionable comforter.

The work is fine. The station I work for is in its off-season as well, so I don’t really have a set schedule or job. I just kind of show up at 10 and work until whenever they run out of stuff for me to do. Today, I drove to another town to pick up a tiny sample of felt from a sign design store. I’ve gotten to do some more filmy and editing type stuff as well, but so far nothing has been new. The station reminds me of NDtv times 2—it’s bigger, but still loose in organization and casual. I guess that’s good, but hopefully things will be more professional once they start their regular season.

Vail is kind of tough to adjust to. I know, you probably don’t believe me or think I am a total pansy for not being able to adjust to a “mountain paradise.” But it is pretty lonely and I feel kind of like I’ve been banished to Siberia for the summer. There are 4 boys to every girl in Vail. These sound like favorable odds, but I miss hanging out with girls. I have no one to go see the Sex and the City movie with and I’ve been banished to my room since the boys are playing video games and watching sports downstairs. I could try to be that outdoorsy, granola, sports-loving, alphabet-belching, video-gaming kind of girl, but that’s just not me. We’ll see how this goes…

Here is a song that describes my experiences and emotions in Vail thus far:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Icv6DgZ-9O4

The Lemonade Was Clutch

2008-05-20T22:22:00.003-04:00

In late April, a glorious event occurred at the University of Notre Dame--BJ Novak, of The Office fame, came to Notre Dame to do stand-up. Before I heard that this was going to happen, I was a casual fan of The Office and, by extension, Novak. However, once I heard that this beautiful and talented man would be gracing my campus with his presence, I became a super-fan. I may have gone a little overboard with the internet stalking/researching him, but it was all for the betterment of my career (and because I'm, like, totally in love with him omgzzz!!!). You see, my plan was to get an interview with BJ Novak for NDtv and then convince him to give me a job on The Office and then date me. How was I going to do this? Well, my buddy Pat works in SUB (student union board) and is in charge of scheduling comedians, hence he gets to take BJ Novak to dinner and make sure he is cozy and awesome. However, Pat failed in his own awesomeness and refused/wasn't able to get me an interview with BJ Novak. Actually, Novak refused any interviews with any students. After trying to figure out various other ways to meet BJ Novak, the only thing I ended up with was an imaginary interview. Here's how it went:

Elise sneaks backstage of Washington Hall through the vents from the NDtv studio to mainstage. The front door probably would have been easier, but literally dropping in on BJ Novak is much more impressive. Novak is shocked, but Elise offers him a lemonade Vitamin Water, which the thirsty Novak graciously accepts.

Novak: This lemonade is great! I was about to kick you out or yell for security, but I can see that you are both helpful and attractive and you look as if you might be intelligent as well, so I will allow you to stay.
Elise: Why thank you Mr. Novak
Novak: Please, call me BJ. And what is your name, fair maiden?
Elise: Elise
Novak: Cool name.
Elise: Thanks, I got it from my mamma
awkward silence at failed pun...
Elise: Anyway, I was hoping I could ask you a few questions before your show
Novak: Well the show is about to start...aww what the heck, I know I said no interviews before but that's just so I don't have to deal with ugly people.
Elise: That's very understandable. I was just wondering how you got started with the Office. I know that you went to Harvard and then went on to do stand up in LA and worked on Punk'd and you also grew up with Jon Kracinski.
Novak: Wow, someone's done their homework
Elise: It's amazing what you can do with Wikipedia
both chuckle
Novak: Yeah, it was really just a matter of being at the right place at the right time. Follow your dreams!
Elise: Cool. What do you think is the future of the sitcom? Some say its dying, with the 3 camera format being antiquated and shows like The Office and 30 Rock developing a new style and sense of humor.
Novak: I think the future of the sitcom is a question of the future of television itself. Television used to be a bunch of executives telling consumers what they want, but now, audiences are really starting to talk back to their televisions. Fandom is so much more interactive and a television show has to be so much more than just a weekly program. With The Office, for example, there are loads of fan made sites and the NBC site has a lot of interactive things for fans. I guess I'm kind of deviating from your original question, but I don't think that 3 camera sitcoms are dying. I mean, 2 and a half men is the number one show on television right now, and that's as basic as you get. It's shows like 30 Rock and The Office that struggle a bit at first and really only end up with a cult following rather than a mass audience.
Elise: Yeah I definitely see what your saying, especially the part about fandom. Fan participation is almost essential with television today. Fans need to do their research to keep up on all the little jokes within The Office that get carried from season to season and executives need to pay attention to forums and message boards to get more specific audience reactions aside from ratings.
Novak: Exactly. I was right about you being intelligent. What kind of career are you pursuing?
Elise: I'd like to work in television, not as an actor, but more like a producer or an editor or a writer.
Novak: Well, would you like a job with NBC this summer?
Elise: Would I!? Oh yes! I would love that!
Novak: Great! I will be sure to get you a job! A really great job! One that pays!
Elise: Goody!!!
Novak: Well, I'd better get on that stage now. Hey, what are you doing tonight?
Elise: You know, just hanging out, being cool.
Novak: Sweet, well, I'm going to need someone to show me the cool places in town tonight, so would you be my date?
Elise: YES!
Novak: Perfect, give me a call, here's my number.
Elise: Thanks! I can't wait! Break a leg!
Novak: I always do
BJ Novak walks out onto stage to roaring applause and begins his performance. Elise makes her way out into the audience and begins planning her night with BJ at the coolest bar in town--The Backer.

That is what would have happened had I been able to find the vent leading from the NDtv studio to backstage. The lemonade was really clutch in that situation. So I guess I'll just have to make it in this crazy world of television on my own, without the help of any sitcom stars. It turns out that BJ Novak went the cheerleader house that night. One of my friends was called to come over to join in the party, but his phone is old and dumb and did not get the call. Ah well, so it goes. I'm over that celebrity crush anyway. Now, I'm crushing on the guy who plays Dexter...

Boy Crazy

2008-05-15T22:15:00.002-04:00

I did a lot of things this semester. I cut about 9 inches of my hair off, causing people to ask if I had donated to Locks of Love, which led to me to sheepishly shake my head and reveal my selfishness in not waiting 2 more months so I could have the required amount of hair. I also started as host of Late Night ND and successfully produced 8 episodes (this all went a lot better than I had hoped, thanks to the awesome writers). I guess I took some classes, too, and did normal college things like go to bars and hang out with friends. And I guess I dated some people, too, but of course, since this is me we're talking about, these were not normal or typical dates. I'll change the names to be nice and I'll leave out a few of the boys who, well, just weren't that interesting or were actually nice to me.
First, there was Bob. Back in Rome, I was going through my list of facebook friends, trying to decide who I would date next semester. I picked Bob, a guy I had a crush on back in spring semester 2007. Somehow, through facebook messaging and eventual phone calls, Bob and I ended up hanging out. Yeah, I'm that good (or that weird that I plan this so far in advance). My plan for 2008 was to date a nice, normal guy, since it seemed to be my trend to date weirdos and creepers. It seemed I had hit the normal jackpot with Bob. But too much of an ordinary thing is, well, ordinary. Poor Bob really was a nice guy. He was sweet, cute, normal, boring, bland, from Ohio. Yeah, this wasn't working out. After a particularly average date with Bob, we went back to his dorm room to hang out. I thought to myself, "Alright, you made it through a dinner composed of long awkward pauses, at least get something out of this. Maybe he's a good kisser." So we're sitting there, watching TV, making awkward conversation about nothing, hitting awkward pause after awkward pause, and he is not making a single move. I can't take it anymore, so I say "Hey, you know what I hate? Awkward pauses." "Yeah, me too," says Bob. "What do we do about those?" I respond, "Well, I figure we have 2 options. Either we can keep on stumbling through boring small talk, or you could just kiss me. Personally, I'd prefer the latter of the options, but if that's not what you're into, I can just leave." So the emasculated Bob leaned in for a kiss. Nope, bad kisser. After about 5 seconds of that nonsense, I suggested we watch some Office DVDs instead. I guess planning ahead doesn't always lead to success.
Then there was Paul. I met Paul at an SYR (a semi-formal dance for all you non-ND folk--yes, I know, it's kind of weird). Paul was the complete opposite of Bob--Paul was completely insane. After Bob I thought that maybe normal isn't what I need, maybe I do need the crazy, but the right kind. Paul was definitely some kind of crazy, I just didn't know if he was right. He was fun, and a little violent, since he literally threw me while dancing with me, but he was cute and really funny. Funny is clutch. After the dance, all our friends went home, and we stayed and talked for a couple hours. Paul walked me home and gave me a sweet kiss before running away. Goofy, but sweet. I had a good feeling about him.
Then the fun crazy started to turn into freakin' weird. I heard a rumor that Paul did not use shampoo. Ever. I figured this must be a rumor until Paul admitted this to me without my prompting. Apparently, its his signature, to not wash his hair. It turns out that its also his signature to not only throw girls whilst dancing, but to also trip them, pull their hair, push them, etc during any activity at any time of day. It quickly became clear to me that Paul was immediately charming and progressively obnoxious because he was five years old. And as for the "sweet, nice" kiss at the end of the night--this became a raspberry on my face before a good laugh and attempt at tripping me. That's right, he raspberried my face. Paul is certainly the wrong type of weird for me.
There were a couple repeats this semester, too. Shawn, the guy I dated fall 2006 who would call me 7 times a day, made a brief appearance. He's the bartender at the Backer (my favorite South Bend bar) and saw me one night and threw a lime at me. Charming. He texted me with "U look cute tonite...I know u aren't looking 4 a relationship, but if u ever want to hang out, give me a call..." He found me 5 minutes later to make sure I had gotten the text. Then his gal pal approached me in the bathroom to ask what I thought of him. Yikes, this guy hasn't changed a bit.
This isn't so much of a repeat, but crazy guy from my summer course at Kent State randomly wrote on my wall, saying "i think its too bad that our evaluations of the world are so different, otherwise I'd so be into you!" Darn it! Why can't I change my opinions of the world so that I see music in buildings on KSU's campus or so that I find "sexy giraffe" a valid self-description??? I responded to his post by saying that variety is the spice of life and left it at that.
There were some other boys from this semester, but they are either not worth talking about (i.e. Clayton, the law student from the Backer who asked me to go home with him after 5 minutes of conversation), are actually very mean and don't even deserve the time it takes to write about them (Roma ladies and PE chicks, you know), or are too nice to deface in this blog (even though you don't even read it). I know, I'm not living the crazy life. I don't exactly have the makings of a saucy Carrie Bradshaw column going on here. But keep in mind that I do go to Notre Dame, we do have parietals, and I'm not telling you everything. On the one hand, I hope to find a great guy who is that perfect balance of normal and crazy, but on the other hand, I hope to keep attracting the weirdos so I can tally up the experiences and relay the stories.

You're Gonna Cry

2008-05-12T22:39:00.002-04:00

I'm not going to apologize for not having a blog in a while because
a) I have already personally apologized for this to Metzger
b) I've been busy
c) Though I've been busy, I have not been all that interesting

However, I did just get my nose pierced. This event was supposed to be a part of a larger "hard core" day, involving sky diving and...well I guess that's the only other hard core thing, but sky diving is pretty intense. The weather did not permit skydiving, so I got my nose pierced instead. I went with Jess and Lora (who was getting her ears pierced for the first time). We got to the first place and everyone was leaving. A big burly man stopped us at the door and said they were closing. I had called earlier that day and they said they were open until 10, but apparently, they were all headed out to a concert. I asked the bear man where another piercing place might be and he said, "There's a joint in a strip mall down the road across from the Big Lots." Perfect.
We got back in our cars and drove all the way to Michigan (10 minutes down the road) to find the place. It was a little sketch ball, but what tattoo/piercing place isn't? We walk in and tell the guy chillin' out in the front that we need a nose piercing and an ear piercing. As we're waiting for things to be ready, Jess politely asks guy in front how many tattoos he has. He has over 50, and pulls down his lower lip to reveal the word "poop" tattooed on the inside. He says he got it to match the tattoo on his knuckles, which says "Turd" but when he puts his fist together it says "Basturd." This gentleman is obviously a classy fellow obsessed with excrement. I ask the young man about how long it takes for a nose piercing to heal and he replies, in a disgusted voice, "Well I don't know! Maybe some months or a couple weeks or whatever." Fantastic.
A hole-y man named Pedro invites us to the back of the shop where we will be pierced. Since it is near closing time, everyone in the place gathers around to watch the procedure. I decide to go first and ask Pedro how much this will hurt. He says, "Well, you're gonna cry." Ha! Pedro does not know how tough I am! "No really," Pedro says. "You automatically tear up because it hits your sinuses." Oh.
Pedro and his gang are a classy bunch and as he swabs the inside of my nose with a q-tip, he discusses an earlier even that day when a few young ladies came in asking to take photos of them giving the men of the shop blow jobs. Then the dude with the fresh tattoo (and a swollen arm around it) started telling me that I looked hot. I began to wonder about my chances of getting AIDS from this piercing, but before I knew it, there was a needle through my nose. It hurt for a second, then it was fine...or at least I thought it was fine. I couldn't tell, but apparently I was bleeding a lot. Pedro said, "Wow, I've never seen anyone bleed that much before. You should go into the bathroom and clean that off." I thought he was kidding. He wasn't. Pedro doesn't like the sight of blood, apparently, which is odd coming from a man with a giant spike coming out of his lip, but he sent me away anyway until the bleeding stopped.
Lora was up next to get a standard ear piercing. Pedro was confused and kept trying to convince Lora to get something more daring as her first piercing, but no, the lobes are just fine, thank you. Pedro explained to Lora that he did not like to use a piercing gun, but instead did it the old fashioned way with a needle and a cork. This way, instead of just pushing the flesh out of the way, a piece of flesh is actually removed. This did not make anyone except Pedro excited. Lora braved through the flesh removal, creepy arm tattoo man gave some parting words of weirdness, we paid for our new bling, and left. It was a pretty good day.
I only told my brother about my piercing, so when my parents came to pick me up for summer, this is what happened after the initial friendly greetings and hugs...
Mom: It's so great to see you! It's been so--wait a second. What is that? Noooooo. You didn't! WHAT IN THE HELL DID YOU DO??? Scott! Look at our daughter!
Dad: Oh yeah, I figured she did that
Mom: You DID???
Dad: Yeah, why are you so surprised? Didn't you go with her to get her hair cut short?
Mom: Not her HAIR!!! Look at her face!
Dad: Oh geez....mothers' day is going to be fun

Incidentally, none of the grandparents even noticed on mothers' day. Hooray!

I have a few more stories to tell from this past semester, and I'll hopefully have time to write about them in the next couple of weeks. Topics to look forward to:
Men of Spring Semester 2008
My Interview with BJ Novak
Internships
Post-Feminism
And so much more! (or maybe not...)

Best Birthday Ever

2008-02-11T01:13:00.000-05:00

I've been back under the Dome for about a month now. It's cold. There's lots of work. I have responsibilities. Adjusting is a bit harder than I thought. I'm getting there, though, and having fun in the process.
Over winter break, I turned 21. It was the best birthday I've ever had because Jess, Caitlin C., and Caitlin I. all came to visit me in lil' ol' Stow, Ohio. I had no idea Caitlin I. was visiting and she surprised me by popping up from behind a chair in my family room. I was SHOCKED! It was a lot of fun getting to show my friends around my hometown. I took them to the fake-dome at Hoban High and to the Rhino and my dad's shop and to the "nice" mall (so not Chapel Hill). The night of my 21st, Shannon joined the 4 of us and we went to Lux, which used to be Poss. I was so excited to hand over my adult, horizontal I.D., but the bouncer didn't seem to take notice since he marked my hands with giant black X's before I could say anything. I have no idea why he marked me under, but it was a bit difficult to get a drink the rest of the night. Something like that was bound to happen on my 21st. I just have that kind of ironic luck.
Now that I'm back at ND, I've had the opportunity to sample the fine bars of South Bend. I went to Fever the first week of being back. So did everyone else, apparently, since I had to wait in line in the cold for 45 minutes before getting in. The crowd was all Notre Dame people--girls in slutty black tank tops, leggings, ugg boots and boys in button downs or polos with an ND baseball cap. We are a frumpy bunch. The Backer has quickly become my favorite place for its sheer griminess and ignorance of popular music. Finnigan's is not as fun, though I did do some great people watching there. The law students dancing there were very good and enacting every lyric of various Madonna songs.
When I'm not bar hopping around South Bend, I'm hosting Late Night ND (formerly known as The Mike Peterson Show). The first episode went pretty well, the second one was good, and the third one was even better. I say "umm" a lot and I need a better sign off than my last one of "I should go! Bye!" but I'm getting the hang of being host. If you want to check out the episodes, go to ndtv.net.
A slightly awkward situation arose the other day in conjunction with the show. My dorm had an SYR the other weekend, and instead of picking a date, Jess invited a bunch of her friends from the Australia program to share with me and some other girls. It was a fun night, but I seemed to especially click with one of the guys. Long after the last verse of piano man (the requisite final song to any SYR), this boy and I were still talking in Lafortune. He walked me back to my dorm and kissed me. All very sweet. The next day, I found out that he is rumored to have very poor hygiene (supposedly, he has a strong dislike of shampoo) and, since he is one of the student-body presidential candidates, I was to be interviewing him for that week's show. Excellent. I was a bit worried about potential awkwardness in the interview, but our brief history actually made the interview funnier. However, I recently received confirmation on the hygiene rumor, and though my friends tell me that I can teach him to be cleanly, I'm not too interested in dating a 4-year-old. Alas, perhaps I will find love at speed dating at Legends this Thursday. That's right. I'm going speed dating at the on-campus bar. Huzzah!

The Fall of Rome

2007-12-16T18:27:00.000-05:00

Here I am, back in Stow, Ohio. It's not as weird as I thought it would be. I was imagining getting a weird look from the Starbucks cashier when I am unable to get out of the habit of saying "Cappuccino, per favore. Grazie", being astounded by the size of America's cars, or being appalled by the size of the food portions in restaurants. None of this happened. Everything is normal and unsurprising and familiar. It's as if I fell asleep at the end of summer, had a very long and fantastic dream, and woke up just in time for Christmas. I have to look at the pictures occasionally to remind myself that I really did accomplish that goal of studying abroad in Rome. I think that's the first serious and specific life goal that I can check off my list.
For those who don't want to read the past umpteen blogs about my life in Rome, and for those who just want a recap, here's Rome in a nutshell (a hazelnut shell, covered in nutella and set next to a cup of cappuccino)

August 26, I arrived in Rome with 28 other Notre Dame students
We met Maria Younes, a woman who would make little impact in our lives except for added frustration and unintentional amusement
Arrived at our apartments, at Medaglia D'Oro. I'm assigned to 127 and meet Erin, Caitlin, Jackie, Kristina, and Colleen. Our apartment becomes the hang out spot for everyone else because we are so cool/are too lazy to go to anyone else's apartment.
Went through a week of intense site-seeing and orientation in 100 degree heat (looking back, I don't know how we did not complain more/die)
Heard tons of speeches about the dangers of Italian men. Turns out that we were able to handle the occasional "Ciao Bella" without being hugely offended or subjecting ourselves to sexual assault.
Walked through St. Peter's Square and my love affair with Rome began
Had gelato and became a regular at Old Bridge
Had cappuccino and became a regular at Tony's
Had pizza and became a semi-regular at Bafetto
Had pasta every single day and never got tired of it
Started class at John Cabot University in Trastevere, the home of the Lemon Tree Courtyard , intense ping-pong players, and sub-par education
Spanish Steps
Trevi Fountain
Colosseum
Roman Forum
Vatican Museum
Lots and lots of Ancient and Renaissance stuff
Figured out how to grocery shop for myself
Figured out how to cook--mainly pasta with beans and corn
Learned how to dodge traffic, or more specifically, give traffic enough attitude to make them stop
Began memorizing the metro stops and "Uscita lato destro/sinistro"
Shopped and neglected to figure out the currency conversion
Learned my size in Italian clothing simply by asking a saleswoman and having her eye me up and feel me up. The size she suggested was dead on.
Vino rosso della casa and Peroni
Learned the useful, common Italian phrases
Pub Crawl
Campo dei Fiori--hang out for Americans abroad and Italians looking for easy Americans
Florence
Sienna
San Gimignano
Pisa
La Notte Bianca--party time in Rome
Pompeii
Mount Vesuvius
Beach time outside of Rome
Ventotene island
Venice
Outlet shopping in Tuscany
Assisi (retreat)
Farfa (olive grove)
Paris
Reception at the Villa of the Ambassador to the Holy See
Prague
Vienna
Munich
London
Dublin
Bologna
Last days in Rome
Crypt of the Cappuccini monks
Mouth of Truth
Freezing in the apartment because our heat doesn't work
Lots and lots and lots of gelato
Souvenir shopping galore
7 church walk
Finals weeks, the only week of work all semester
Discoteca!
Soccer game: Roma vs. Mancester United
Saw the Pope
Hair appointment at Noi salon
Christmas party and Secret Santa gift exchange with the Rome group
Packing and moving out of Medag
Last Old Bridge gelato while chilling out in St. Peter's Square
Saying goodbye to the Medag and Rome
10 hour flight and back in the USA

And for an even quicker summary: I saw a lot, had excellent experiences, and made great friends. I'm sad that it's over, but thrilled to be able to say that I lived in Rome for four months. I'm more independent, more worldly, and have a crap load of souvenirs, so I would say the trip was a success. I'll be in Stow until mid January, so if anyone wants to grab coffee with me and hear me condescendingly compare it to Italian coffee while you update me on the past 4 months of your life, give me a ring. Well, I'm off to watch Gladiator and criticize its historical inaccuracies. The Rome chronicles are over. Thanks for reading.

RomAmoR

2007-12-14T19:49:00.000-05:00

It's 2:00 on the morning of December 15th. In 5 hours, I will take a bus to Fiumicino Airport and take a 10 hour flight back to the U.S. The trip has ended, thus my blogs will be far less interesting in the future. No more European jet-setting or stories of awkward encounters with locals. It's back to St. Ow, then back to the Bend for three more semesters at Notre Dame.
I haven't posted as recently in the past few weeks (despite finally getting my computer fixed), but that's because when I saw the end of the trip approaching, I felt an urge to fit everything I could into my remaining time in Italy. I went to Bologna, toured some more Roman museums, ate at more restaurants, went to more clubs, went to a soccer game, saw the Pope, did some more shopping, etc. After all of this, I felt that my time here was complete. Tourist-wise, I have done just about everything there is to do in Rome. Yet I could stay here for years and not discover all Rome has to offer. At the beginning of this week, beaten down from exams (so tough because they were the only work I had to the entire semester), I felt ready to go home. But now that the time to leave Rome is finally here, I'm not as anxious. I'm thrilled to see my family in a day and I will be glad to be at home where I can relax. What is so heartbreaking about leaving Rome is that I don't know when I will be back, and when I do, it won't be the same experience. I was not in Rome as a tourist, but as a student, and let's face it--my chances of living here once I start a career are not that great.
This week has been one of lasts. Last time at JCU. Last dinner with the roommates (whom I will miss living with dearly). Last look at the Vatican. Last awkward conversation with our maid, Ada. Last cappuccino, pizza, gelato, pasta. We also had our first party with the entire Rome group. All 29 of us had a party and a Secret Santa gift exchange in good ol' Medag 127. It was a fabulous night of some last minute extra group bonding. Tonight, a group of us went out for our last dinner out. Instead of one person giving a toast, each person said what he/she liked best about Rome. Some of things said were "The people", "Being able to wander around without a plan and find something cool", "The beauty of the city with its views and streets", "The history everywhere", "The attitude of Rome--things are never done in a timely fashion, but that's ok". The list goes on, but my favorite was said by Kate, a friend of Erin's who was staying with us this week. She commented that from spending time with the Rome kids, her favorite thing is seeing the family we have formed. It's very true--we are one big, quirky, Roman family. Even though I will see everyone next semester back at ND, it won't be like it is here. We won't see each other every day. We won't be in half of each other's classes (because as opposed to JCU, ND offers more than 15 classes). We won't be traveling to foreign countries with each other. This really was a unique bonding experience and I've come away with some great friends.
Going home will be strange, and a bit of a struggle, as I don't think I will be able to carry my bags. I'm expecting it to still be August at home, but it will be 20 degrees and Christmasy. The whole experience is very surreal, especially since I feel like this is probably the end of a very high peak of my life. Not that the future doesn't hold exciting things and all, but this is probably the only time I will be carefree and young in Europe.
Enough of the sentiments. What this all boils down to is that Rome was an amazing and meaningful experience. I'm sad that it's over, but I suppose it's time to get back to the real world. See you in the states.

Peasant Thanksgiving

2007-12-09T13:37:00.000-05:00

It seems a little too after the fact to tell you very many details about my trip to London and Dublin, so I'll just run through the basics.
We left for London the day before Thanksgiving (thus missing out on the JCU Thanksgiving dinner in the JCU courtyard. Seriously). Our hostel was in the back of a bar and had a wonderful welcoming gift in the room including a half drank bottle of orange soda, an opened chocolate bar, goggles, and a damp towel. The hostel actually wasn't that bad, but it did have a sketchy feel in the air. While in London I did/saw the following:
Buckingham Palace (the guards were not dressed up in their funny hats--very disappointing)
Westminster Abby (lots of dead poets, including Chaucer and T.S. Elliot)
British Library (Beethoven's, Bach's, Mozart's, Chopin's, and the Beetles' original, handwritten music. By far the coolest thing in London)
Tower of London (meh, kind of boring)
Camden market (the alternative, punkish place in London)
The London Eye (sweet aerial views)
Big Ben and the Parliament building
Ate some fish and chips (really not that good...basically just an entire fish, scales and all, stuck in a deep fryer)
Took an obligatory phone booth photo
Saw platform 9 and 3/4 (London is really capitalizing on this Harry Potter thing)
Visited with the ND London kids and went to their hang outs
Saw Les Miserables (so incredibly amazing)
Rode the Tube (Mind the Gap!)
Became very thankful to be on the euro for a semester instead of the pound

Thanksgiving was a unique experience. My holiday meal consisted in a kebab I bought for 3 pounds from a stand and then wolfed down in about 5 minutes while sitting on a side street near the theater that was playing Les Miserables. We were late for the play, so we had to eat in a hurry, but it was probably the most peasant-like experience of the semester. I'm surprised people didn't throw money at us.
London was a cool city and it was nice to be somewhere where I mostly understood what everyone was saying (sometimes the accents are a bit difficult). This may be a snap judgment since I wasn't in London for very long, but it did not seem like all that great of a place. It was nice to visit and the people were friendly enough, but the whole atmosphere seemed kind of cold and regulated. Maybe I'm just too in love with Rome to really appreciate any other European city, but I think the main difference between London and Rome is that London's character depends on its institutions and buildings while Rome consists in its people. Yeah, that probably is a very biased and quick judgment. Oh well, I love Rome.

Next stop on our trip was Dublin. The hostel in Dublin was the worst I had ever stayed at, so thank goodness it was my last hostel for the semester. I suppose the hostel itself wasn't horrible (except when the man at the front desk tried to steal money from us). The real problem was our roommate--a 30 something Dublin man who shared a bunk with me. Excellent. There was a TV in the room, which may seem like a luxury, but it was just annoying, because after the creepy man was done telling us why the U.S. sucks, he turned on what appeared to be gay porn and refused to turn it off. I put on my headphones and turned Norah Jones up to try and drown out whatever that guy was watching. However, this didn't drown own his sudden shouting and throwing his stuff around. He was nuts. Thank goodness we had a different roommate the second night.
Dublin is one of my favorite cities I have visited. There aren't that many sites or attractions, but the people are incredibly friendly and the atmosphere is very fun. The things we did see include
St. Patrick's Cathedral (but only the outside because it was closed)
Christ's Church (I think that's what it's called)
Trinity College
City Hall
Dublin Castle
Guinness store house (the largest advertisement I have ever seen. Guinness is gross. It is like drinking a sandwich).
Temple Bar

My favorite part of Dublin was when we walked into a bar and a man stopped me and shouted, "JESUS CHRIST! YOU HAVE THE MOST PIERCING DARK EYES! ARE YOU OF ITALIAN DECENT? IT MUST BE ALL THE OLIVE OIL! YOU LOOK JUST LIKE MEADOW FROM THE SOPRANOS!" OF course, it took going to Ireland for someone to think I was Italian.

So there is my overdue and abridged journey over Thanksgiving break. London is a nice place to visit, but I could see living in Dublin, mostly because of the people there (and the accents).

Christmas Lemon Tree

2007-12-06T10:43:00.000-05:00

Apparently there is an uproar on the home front due to the lack of new blogs. Or maybe I'm just hoping there and that everyone finds them so gosh darn addictive. If that is the case, this post will serve as a big tease, because I do not have the time at the moment to tell you about my Thanksgiving in London, followed by my trip to Dublin, a day in Bologna, and sprinklings of Roman fun throughout. Alas, there is no time for that, as I only have 10 more days in l'eterna città and I am going to cram millions of activities into those last days. I will miss Rome terribly and the Rome group in general. It's a wonderful place to live and I have made some great friends. But now is not the time for sappy nostalgia. Now is the time for Christmas! For those of you on facebook, you may have noticed that my name has changed to Elise Navidad. Obviously, I really enjoy Christmas (and this is one of the factors in my acceptance of leaving Rome). The Rome group is being all cute and Christmasy and started the season off right with some hot cocoa in Medag 127. This inspired a Christmas sing-a-long and then a Christmas write-a-long. where we re-wrote the 12 Days of Christmas for a JCU theme. This won't really be funny for those who don't go there and it might even require explanation. Explanation requests can be submitted by email, because I'm not going to explain it here.

This one goes out to ND Rome '08

The 12 Days of JCU

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me
Maria Younes in the lemon tree
On the second day of Christmas my true love game to me
2 ping pong players
and Maria Younes in the lemon tree
On the third day of Christmas my true love game to me
3 thousand platform
2 ping pong players
and Maria Younes in the lemon tree
On the fourth day of Christmas my true love game to me
4 Pathways
3 thousand platform
2 ping-pong players
and Maria Younes in the lemon tree
On the fifth day of Christmas my true love game to me
5 servings of pink sauce!
4 Pathways
3 thousand platform
2 ping-pong players
and Maria Younes in the lemon tree
On the sixth day of Christmas my true love game to me
6 dirty Italians
5 servings of pink sauce!
4 Pathways
3 thousand platform
2 ping-pong players
and Maria Younes in the lemon tree
On the seventh day of Christmas my true love game to me
7 awful classes
6 dirty Italians
5 servings of pink sauce!
4 Pathways
3 thousand platform
2 ping-pong players
and Maria Younes in the lemon tree
On the eighth day of Christmas my true love game to me
8 plastic tables
7 awful classes
6 dirty Italians
5 servings of pink sauce!
4 Pathways
3 thousand platform
2 ping-pong players
and Maria Younes in the lemon tree
On the ninth day of Christmas my true love game to me
9 emergency testings
8 plastic tables
7 awful classes
6 dirty Italians
5 servings of pink sauce!
4 Pathways
3 thousand platform
2 ping-pong players
and Maria Younes in the lemon tree
On the tenth day of Christmas my true love game to me
10 'dumb bitches' (said in a Juliette tone)
9 emergency testings
8 plastic tables
7 awful classes
6 dirty Italians
5 servings of pink sauce!
4 Pathways
3 thousand platform
2 ping-pong players
and Maria Younes in the lemon tree
On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love game to me
11 bar fliers
10 'dumb bitches'
9 emergency testings
8 plastic tables
7 awful classes
6 dirty Italians
5 servings of pink sauce!
4 Pathways
3 thousand platform
2 ping-pong players
and Maria Younes in the lemon tree
On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love game to me
12 chain smokers
11 bar fliers
10 'dumb bitches'
9 emergency testings
8 plastic tables
7 awful classes
6 dirty Italians
5 servings of pink sauce!
4 Pathways
3 thousand platform
2 ping-pong players
and Maria Younes in the lemon tree!!!

The Customer is Usually Wrong

2007-11-18T08:59:00.000-05:00

I am avidly avoiding writing this Ancient Rome and its Monuments paper, so I'll write another blog entry instead, this time on the topic of customer service.
Customer service does not exist in Italy. "The customer is always right" is a completely foreign concept here and I love it. Having worked in retail, I despise the notion of having to treat a customer with polite respect, even if that customer is treating you like dirt. I don't really understand how America got to the point of treating service people like sub-humans. The customer most certainly is not always right, so why must we pretend that he/she is a deity deigning us with his/her patronage? Italy has got it right and instead of "customer service" has mutual respect between customer and shop owner. Here is the difference:
In America, a man walks into a clothing store and demands three button down shirts of specific colors and size. When the size and/or colors are not in stock, the man flips out and blames the sales people, not taking into account that they are not responsible for his size being out of stock that particular day. The sales people work their hardest to calm the man down, but he insists on seeing a manager. He yells at the manager for "poor customer service" because his need for these shirts was extreme, so to assuage his anger, the manager give him a coupon, the man vows to never shop in that store again, and storms out.
In Italy, a man walks into a clothing store and demands three button down shirt of specific colors and size. Since all the sales people are currently busy with other customers or on their cell phones, he will just have to wait. Once he is finally helped, if his size is not found, this will be presented as a cold hard fact with no apologetic explanation. If he throws a fit, he will be ignored until he leaves the store.
Some may cringe at the Italian scenario, but I think it is much more efficient and makes so much more sense. In the American situation, precious time and energy is wasted and taking care of this one crazy man, while in the Italian situation, since he's not nice, they're not nice, and the nice customers who actually deserve help from the sales people get service.
Mutual respect is key and I don't know why this isn't a tennet of American shopping. It's obvious; if you are nice to the people who are helping you, they will be nice to you in return. If you're a jerk, sure they'll help you in America, but they won't do their best work. In Italy, that's taken a step further. If you're nice, you are the worker's best friend and get special perks (like extra chocolate powder in your cappuccino or a look at the latest clothing arrivals). If you're a jerk, you will not be helped at all and you might as well just take your complaining outside because it will get you no where. This is how I envision a Utopian commercial environment.
True, things run slower in Italy and it is not perfect. You can stand around in a crowded store for a very long time, waiting to be helped. In a shoe store, for example, a sales person will get you your shoes, help you put them on, then wait with you, examining the shoes, getting more sizes and styles, until you have decided on a purchase. Therefore, if all the sales associates are with customers, you have to wait until someone buys something and leaves until you are helped.
Shopping in Italy can be a bit awkward since once you try something on or look at something for an extended period of time you are expected to buy it. I was trying on gloves yesterday at one of the many glove shops near the Spanish Steps. It was just me and the shop owner in the store and after trying on one pair of gloves, I knew I didn't want them. However, since I was being "nice" and she was being "nice" she brought out several other pairs of gloves she thought I might like and had me try them on. I did not want these gloves. I finally escaped with a "promise" of returning later to buy the gloves, but the woman only gave me a dirty look as I was exiting. Shopping around isn't a very Italian ideal, I guess.
The sales people in Italy (and Italians in general) can be a bit blunt. Actually, they are incredibly straightforward. They will tell you if something looks bad, or if you need a bigger size, or if that outfit is just not for you. Such comments are never meant to be offensive, they are just meant as brutal truths that one should accept. I've mentioned before that buying knee high boots here has been a struggle because my "man calves" won't fit into the tiny Italian boots. An instance of boots not fitting happened again yesterday and when I told the sales person that they didn't fit in the legs, she said, "Yes, you are no model. Let me find you something with elastic." Shocked and appauled were the first things that came to mind, but when I considered where I was, I was not offended at all. She didn't mean it as an insult, it was simply a fact and an example of the size-consciously blunt Italians. This kind of mentality would come in handy in the states, where muffin tops and too-tight jeans abound. The women here are indeed skinnier, but it's no shame to not be stick thin. You just have to realize your size and buy the elastic boots.
So there's my analysis of shopping in Italy. Lessons learned? America should ditch its system of being nice to disrespectful customers and adopt Italy's blunt and self-respecting lack of customer service.

What IS Pink Sauce?

2007-11-18T05:11:00.001-05:00

I've been in a blog rut lately of only describing my weekend trips. Since I'm in Rome this entire weekend, I thought I'd take the opportunity to tell you some fun little anecdotes about one of the best parts of Italy--the food. Thank God there's an hour long walk to school every day, because Italy is basically made of carbs.
First, I shall describe the gelato. Gelato is the best thing in the world, and, dare I say it, even better than Handels ice cream. It's creamy, colorful, and delicious, especially at Old Bridge. Old Bridge is located right outside the Vatican Walls and frequented by the ND kids several times a week. What makes Old Bridge so good? Allow me to express this in a poem
Ode to Old Bridge
Oh, dearest Old Bridge
You're gelato is the best
Baccio, Fragola, Crema
All the flavors have some zest
You're staff, young and fun
Wear silly white hats
The flavors, creamy and bright
And numerous as Rome's cats
Right outside the Vatican
Your price cannot be beat
Una copetta di uno e cinquanta!
Now that is a great feat
Oh, dearest Old Bridge
Your loveliness I will miss
There's nothing like it in the states
But I can always wish...

So basically, the gelato is really good.

Next stop on our food tour is Medaglio d'Oro--my apartment complex. I won't be talking about the food inside my apartment, because it's not exactly the best and consists mainly of canned beans and corn. What is good around the Medag is the pizza place and the bakery downstairs. This is mainly due to the fact that the bakery man is as hot as his freshly baked pastries and the pizza man is as saucy as his pies. That was horrible, I should really stop making ridiculous similes. Anyway, they are both very attractive and to top it off, their food is excellent as well, not that I wouldn't buy it anyway.

I think I've mentioned Tony's coffee in a previous post, but it's worth mentioning again. There is a cafe right in the middle of the walk between Medag and JCU, so it serves as the perfect pick-me-up. The man who works there is Tony--he is old and very smiley. It seems that his one goal in life is to make delicious coffee concoctions. He LOVES making coffee. He also loves winking, snorting when he laughs, and waving at people who walk by the cafe. There are two older women who also work at the cafe. Tony is the only one who wears a name tag and smiles. My assumption is that these women are Tony's sisters and they abuse him, both verbally and physically, which is very sad, but also explains why Tony is ALWAYS at the cafe. This is probably not true, as Tony is always extremely happy. Caitlin and I go to Tony's every Monday and Wednesday and he has learned our names (except for the one time he called me Mila and Caitlin Kristina). He writes "ok" in our cappuccinos and says, "OK! Because you're ok!" Then he winks a few times (he may have an eye twitch) and talks to us about the weather. I don't think he realizes that we speak Italian, because whenever he tries to hold a conversation with us, he uses ridiculous hand gestures that probably wouldn't even help if we didn't know Italian. Oh, Tony. Such a goof ball. And he really does make the best cappuccino I have had hear, probably because it's made with love.

At JCU, the food hangout is Aristocampo. If you are ever in Rome and need a quick bite to eat but don't want to sacrifice quality, go here. It is inexpensive, delicious, and made right in front of you. Most days, students get their sandwiches, then take them back to the Lemonless Tree Courtyard to sit with their friends and eat them. Then this awkward and unnecessary conversation occurs:
"Oh...you've got a sandwich."
"Yup."
"Is that from Aristocampo?"
"Yup."
"What did you get, the Garibaldi?"
"No, this is, umm, I think I got the Trastevere."
"Oh, yeah, that's a good one."
"Yeah, so far it's pretty tasty."
"What does that have on it?"
"Umm, pork I think, and umm, eggplant and pink sauce."
"What IS pink sauce?"
"I dunno, it's like mayonnaise, but not."
"Yeah, but what exactly is it? It's so good, I just want to know what's IN IT."
"Yeah, pink sauce is weird. Don't know what it is."
"Well, it looks like a good sandwich. Did they give you the JCU discount?"

This goes on FOREVER and happens EVERY DAY. People really need to stop asking the pink sauce question. No one knows what pink sauce is and no one ever will. It is something we must live with and stop questioning.

One of the things Italy is best known for is its pizza. I was arguing with Alex the other night about what was better--Hungry Howie's or Italian pizza. He, of course, holds that Hungry Howie's is the best pizza ever, which makes sense since he gets it at least 3 times a week, but since I have had both Italian pizza and Hungry Howie's, I think I can give a more accurate opinion. Italian pizza is certainly better than Hungry Howie's. It's really thin and always freshly made. One of the best placess is Buffetto (Mustache) near Piazza Navona. There is always a line, but its worth it to get pizza with every topping, including a sunny-side-up egg. The staff is really gruff and will do the minimum to get you your pizza and might even make fun of you, but its all part of the experience.

For dessert in Italy, I've already mentioned gelato, which is my favorite, but there are also pastries. Honestly, pastires in Italy are not that good. They just don't get cookies. The pastries here are flaky and hard instead of soft and light. It's a little disappointing, but at least there's gelato.

Lastly, I shall discuss Diet Coke. Coke actually tastes different here. Coke has a different recipe for different countries, based on the culture's tastes. The Coke here is actually much better (I think it's a little sweeter). Diet Coke is the drink of choice at JCU, perhaps because the caffeine is needed to get you through the day of going to the worst university ever. It's a bad scene if someone can't get his/her Diet Coke. There is much wailing and nashing of teeth, until the student realizes that any nearby cafe will also sell Diet Coke. The JCU student can best be described as complacently depressed about his/her university experience, Diet Coke in one hand, Aristocampo sandwich with pink sauce in the other, wearing skinny jeans and a JCU t-shirt, standing in the Lemonless Tree Courtyard, second-hand smoking while dodging stray ping pong balls from the nearby table, waiting for a computer to open up in the computer lab so he/she can just print that stupid paper he/she wrote about an hour ago. That's JCU. Thankfully, the food in Italy makes up for the lack of educational value.

The Land of Lederhosen

2007-11-14T08:36:00.000-05:00

It is raining in the lemon tree courtyard. Since there are no other non-classroom spaces at the lovely local of JCU, the weather has forced everyone inside to the computer labs or the vending machine room. I chilled out in the vending machine room for a while, eating my poorly planned lunch of canned tuna and crackers (I say poorly planned because the crackers got all smooshed and the tuna had to be drained of its oil, so I had to get a really gross tea from the vending machine and chug it so I had something to drain my tuna oil in). That got boring, so here I am, in the computer lab. The lemon tree courtyard did recently get tents for sitting underneath. I guess these are supposed to provide warmth and shelter, but they are really just smoke houses since the Italians and Fauxtalians just sit under them and smoke, with no where for carcinogens to escape. Love thee, JCU. At least the rain gives me the perfect opportunity to tell you about Munich.
First, some background info. I'm German (I'm also Italian, but you should have assumed that by now). I'm so German that I call my grandma "Oma", holidays always involve spaetzle (noodles), and I wore a durndel for my first few Christmases. My dad's maternal grandparents were from Munich, Germany. I suspect they were pretty cool since they owned some nightclubs. World War II happened, and the Fleischmans ended up in Canton, Ohio. That is probably more information than you ever wanted to know about my family. If you skipped that paragraph, I understand. One more tidbit...there is a statue of King Maximilian II in Munich. The artist's original small-scale model for this statue sits in my Oma's house. My goal for Munich was to find this statue. Now for tales from Deutchland. (Disclaimer: I will probably spell every German word incorrectly)
I'm getting a great sampling of European airlines, as every trip I take, I use a different one. This time, it was Condor, and it is my favorite. It shows you a cute little Sim-looking video about safety instructions. It involves a man, woman, and child. It's a thrilling movie, with drama (the masks have dropped! what now?!), suspense (how will he inflate the lifevest?), and romance (once the woman slides down the emergency exit slide, she rushes into the arms of the animated man and they share a passionate kiss after their death-defying experience). Condor also has a camera attached the front of the plane to let you see what's going on or maybe so you can see what it would be like to be an airplane yourself. I'm not sure how I feel about the cameras, considering if the plane were heading into anything bad, I don't think I'd want to see the impending doom. The best part about Condor were the muffins. Most budget European airlines do not give you food, but Condor rolled out the red carpet with complimentary muffins and beverages. Eventually we got off the plane and I had real, important experiences that are actually worth telling.
We got into Munich pretty late, so we went straight to our hostel. We stayed at the Wombat again (same hostel chain we had stayed at in Vienna). Wombat is an excellent hostel--very clean and helpful. The best part of this particular Wombat, however, was the pass-out room. It was technically called a lounge, but every time I walked in there, there were people laying all over the place--passed out on padded floor, sleeping on the technicolor couch, draped across a hammock. This scene could be found at any time of day or night.
Since it was so late, the only thing we did that night was get kebabs, now a traveling tradition. While at the Kebab place, I met a guy from Frankfurt. He was pretty cool and spoke perfect English, which is excellent since I speak not one single word of German (despite my aforementioned German heritage). I thought he was around my age, but it turns out he was 28. This happens a lot, because the people who always seem at my level of education/life are always quite a few years older than me, probably because European school lasts longer, but it still throws me off.
We were staying in a 6 person room, but there were only 5 of us in that particular room (9 total people in the ND group). When we went to bed, we didn't have a 6th roommate. When we woke up, there was a really old guy sleeping in the bunk under Caitlin! Ahh! When we started to wake up and get our stuff together, he silently got out of bed and left. It wasn't not a pleasant thing to wake up to, but that's what you'll get in hostels, even in the Wombat.
Our first day in Munich was spent at Neuschwantein Castle, the castle that Disney modeled its Cinderella castle off of. It was a two hour train ride to Fussen, where we could get a bus to the castle. The train ride was actually pretty awesome, because it let us see the German countryside. It was especially cool because it was snowing and made everything look like a Christmas village or a scenic painting. We killed some time in Fussen while waiting for our bus to get there. It was a cute little town with a big shop filled with traditional German clothing. I guess people actually wear that still. I picture big German proms where everyone wears lederhosen and durndels.
After the bus, we took a cozy horse-drawn carriage to the front of the castle. I say cozy because they fit as many people as they could into the carriage, so it was a little cramped, but still so cool to ride to a castle in a carriage. The castle itself is absolutely gorgeous. It's massive, but set against the even more massive Alps. This, plus all the snow, made for a really beautiful setting. We got our pictures outside the castle then went inside to thaw out. The castle was never actually lived in because King Ludwig died right before it was finished, so only a few rooms inside are actually decorated. However, if those few rooms are an indication of what the completed castle interior would have looked like, it was set to be one incredible castle. Mosaics and jewels and lavish decor are everywhere. The best part is the cave room. It is literally a room made to look like the inside of a cave. Mad King Ludwig indeed!
We caught the train back to Munich just in time to get back to the city for dinner. We went to the Hofbrauhaus, Munich's famous beer hall. Picture what you would expect a German beer house to look like, including all ridiculousness and stereotypes. That is exactly what this was. We walked in and it was loud and bright and crowded. There were men walking around in lederhosen with big steins of beer and women in durndels with baskets of pretzels. A band dressed in traditional German attire played brass instruments and waiters carried around platefuls of sausages. No one seats you, you just have to find a table. This was a chore and after a half hour, we finally found somewhere to sit. We all enjoyed potatoes, sauerkraut, bratwurst, and beer--pretty much the opposite of Italian cuisine. The theme of the Hofbrauhaus was definitely eat, drink, and be merry.
The next day, we took a train to Dachau concentration camp. It was a very interesting place and a chilling experience (both literally and figuratively, due to the snow and wind). We each got audio guides and went our own ways. There's not much else I can say about it, but I would recommend seeing it.
For lunch, we went to a Mexican restaurant. Before you judge us about not sticking with the culture we were visiting, we had gotten recommendations for this Mexican restaurant from lots of people and guide books. Plus, we were kind of sick of sausages. It was excellent Mexican food.
The rest of the afternoon was spent shopping. Germany has a lot more department stores than Italy, and a lot bigger sizes. The people are a swarthy breed, and who can blame them when there is nothing but yellow and brown colored food to eat. Aside from the departments stores are a lot of souvenir shops, most selling Christmas ornaments. The ornaments were really pretty and oddly familiar. There were a few types of decorations I had seen at my Oma's house, but had never known they were German, but there they were in every souvenir shop. There were also a lot of chains like Starbucks, H&M, and Forever 18 (I guess 18 is better than 21 in Europe).
For dinner, we went to another, quieter beer hall called the Augusteiner. The waiter was very forward. We sat down and he said, "You will all have the house beer. It is the best." and left before we could protest. When Colleen asked for a water, he said, "You know, water is expensive. Are you sure you want it?" In fact, beer is the cheapest thing on the menu and water is more expensive. Strange. Later, the waiter put a basket of pretzels on our table and said, "These aren't free, you know." He was kind of crazy, but it was a fun place.
On Sunday, not much was open, so some of us went on the free walking tour provided by the hostel. It was raining and cold--not the best conditions for walking around Munich--but it was a really good tour. We saw the city center with the Glockenspiel that had little dancing puppet things. Another stop was the devil's church. The devil's church has a weird legend surrounding it. Apparently, the devil helped build it, on the condition that it would have no windows because he thought that no windows would lead to no one going into the church. Well, the devil's plan didn't work out because people still went in to the church (I think to avoid the cold weather in Munich). He rode in on wind, went into the church, stomped on the floor, leaving a footprint, then ran off in a fury, leaving his wind. That is why there is a dent in the floor and a lot of wind in the area. The stories people make up to explain normal things...
Near the church, there is a miniature model of the city of Munich. According to the tour guide, this is for the blind because it is written in "the language of the blind." So, I guess blind people like Munich.
It was nearing the end of our time in Munich and I still hadn't found the family famed Max statue. I asked my tour guide where this statue might be. He claimed it didn't exist, but after some further explanation (I had to specify that it was a statue of Maximilian II, not I) he pointed me in the "right" direction. I ended up wandering around for a while, never stumbling upon the statue that would fulfill my quest. It was a sad moment, but I had to get back to the hostel. I started out pretty confident in where I was going, but eventually got lost and ended up at the Hofbrauhaus wondering where the metro was. An older German man said something in German to me, then noticing my perplexed deer in lights gaze I give whenever anyone says something in a foregin language to me, he repeated in English, "Were you just in the Hofbrauhaus?". I said I wasn't then he proceeded to talk my ear of about whatever popped into his German mind. He was very nice and very chatty, so I asked him to lead me to the subway station. On the way there, he asked me where I was from. I said Ohio and got the usual blank stare so I said, "It's kind of close to Chicago." His face lit up and he said, "Chicago! How wonderful! I would like to live in Colorado because I like to ski! Or maybe Texas!" This man obviously had ADD. We got to the metro and after the subtly snide remark that Europeans usually give me about President Bush, he shook my hand, said something in Italian, and walked away. Nice, but obviously crazy.
Munich was an excellent place and one of my favorite cities I've been to during this semester. However, I will be very glad to be in Rome this weekend. I need to focus a bit on this thing called school they're making me do here...

Central Euro Trip!

2007-11-07T13:39:00.000-05:00

Here's my sob story: The other night, while listening to Elton John and typing up some notes for class, my computer died. Seriously. It went black, won't turn on anymore, kaput, dead, finished, basta. I have since found out that this is because my motherboard crashed which is good because that means I should be able to salvage all my information from the hard drive but is bad because the cost of a new motherboard is comparable to that of a new computer. Thusly, I am computerless for the rest of the semester, which is really fantastic considering I have several papers due in the coming weeks and JCU computer lab is an hour walk away from my apartment. Looks like I'll be spending my remaining days in Rome staring out on the lemon tree courtyard and typing away on an accent-filled keyboard. I brought my computer to the JCU IT office (only open 2 hours out of the day) and they said they could only take it to a shop and get an estimate on the cost of fixing it. A few days later, I went back to the office to check up on my laptop and it was sitting in the exact same spot on the guy's desk where I had left it. When I inquired about this, the guy said, "The shop will come to pick it up sometime this week probably then a week after that I should know something." My guess is that JCU will be holding my computer hostage until I leave Rome.
Before I get into my long description of my long trip, let me just mention the soup kitchen I volunteered at. Just mentioning that I volunteered at a soup kitchen make shock some of you reading this, as I'm not really the community service type (i.e. good person), but I decided to give it a shot. It's fine and a good way to practice Italian, but today while volunteering, one of the women working there mistook me for one of the homeless! I repeat, she thought I was homeless! I was wearing Gap jeans and a blazer! Granted, one of the homeless Italian men was wearing a suit, but really! Caitlin, however, got called the most beautiful woman in the world and met a man who saved the world during the Cold War and is now on the run from the CIA. Good times.

Ok, so, sit back, relax, this is going to be long. On Halloween, I and 10 other people left for Prague in the Czech Republic. Caitlin and I were some of the last people to check in at the Rome airport, and the guy at the desk said, "Is there a gathering of Americans with backpacks in Prague?" Yep, it looked like we were headed for the annual American backpack convention." The flight itself was fine and from our windows we could see a very Halloweeny red moon. We had a layover in Bratislava. We could have had a direct flight, but Bratislava sounded cool. It wasn't really, since we ended up just chilling in the airport and buying lots of candy to celebrate the holiday, but at least now we can say that we've been there. We got into Prague late in the evening and went directly to the ATM to get some crowns/krowns? whatever Czech currency. Everyone's money is so much pretty than America's and the Czech money was especially artsy with lots of portraits and colors. It was also pretty worthless, considering 100 crowns is about 5 U.S. dollars. This was part of the draw of Prague.
The hostel we stayed in was called Emma Hostel. This was chosen mainly because one of the travelers in the group is named Emma and she is very nice, so I figured this hostel would be nice. It was, except for the lack of sheets, but all we really needed was the sketchy comforter. The bathroom was a little strange as well, since there were always naked European women in it (ew ew ew) but this is something that I'm sure is not exclusive to this hostel. We were given free breakfast, but chose to eat elsewhere, since breakfast at the hostel was just 5 pieces of bread and an ancient piece of bruised fruit. But yeah, the hostel was great!
The first morning in Prague, we took the metro to a stop near the castle (one of the biggest in Europe) and had breakfast. I ordered pancakes, which turned out to be crepes, and the CZECH MEAT PLATE. I put it in all caps because it was a lot of meat and when I ordered it the waitress looked at me like I was a crazy meat fiend who might try and eat her after I finished my order. I informed her that I would be splitting the meat plate among 4 people, but I don't think she believed me. It was delicious, as were the faux-pancakes.
After breakfast we headed over to the castle. It wasn't that cool or castley. It was kind of hard to take in because it was so huge and Rick Steves said it wasn't worth touring, so we just did a few things. We went to the cathedral, which was so cool and full of stained glass. It was a sunny day, so that made the inside even more spectacular. We climbed up the tower to the top and had a great view of Prague.
The rest of the day we just kind of walked around and explored. We saw the Charles bridge, which goes over the main river of Prague and went to Wenceslaus Square. We walked through Old Town, which has this really famous astronomical clock that was supposed to do something really spectacular when it chimed on the hour. Everyone lined up in front of the tower, cameras ready, and when the hour changed, 12 little apostles peeked out through a window and then a bell rang and it was over. Really anticlimactic. I guess I was expecting pyrotechnics or something, but it was cute anyway Later, we stopped by the Jewish quarter, but were too late to go in anything except some souvenir shops. The people at these shops were so pushy and annoying and kept asking me where I was from. Since no one knows Ohio, I usually just say Chicago or New York or if I'm feeling really adventurous, California. One souvenir salesmen was especially obnoxious and kept offering marriage and his soul to the girls in our group. When all the girls had successfully avoided him and gone away, he said to Dan (one of the boys of the group), "What is wrong with those girls? Are they virgins?" Not really knowing how to answer this, Dan simply said, "Yeah" and proceeded to hear about the sexual history of souvenir man. He also warned Dan that he'd better get a girlfriend soon because in 10 short year, he would have nothing! None of this enticed any of us to buy souvenirs.
That night we had some great Thai food. Prague doesn't really have its own special food (except pig knuckles and grog) but it does pretty well with other people's food. Later that night, we went to a 5 story dance club, each floor having its own theme (for example, rap on floor 4 and 60s pop on floor 3). It was a good time involving a lot of awkward dancing and conversations with Europeans in broken English. It was also an amazing accomplishment because all 11 of us stayed together the entire time. Go team!
The following morning, we had a fantastic, though a bit American, breakfast of coffee and bagels. We went to the Jewish quarter to see some synagogues and a really old cemetery, which was pretty neat. It was a pretty chill day of just taking in the city.
Prague itself is kind of hard to define. It was very strange to be in a place where I did not know the language at all, but most people spoke English. The city was nothing like Rome or that type of Europe, but it had colorful buildings and different architecture. It was very cool and I definitely liked it, but it is really hard to describe and define its character. This could be because I was only there for 2 days. The Czech language is kind of confusing and from what I can tell, it involves taking English words and adding a "y" to the end. I saw words such as "miniatury", "bagely", synagogy", "republicky", and "dezerty"
We had all planned to meet at the hostel at 4:00 for our 7:00 flight, but once we got to the hostel and got out our confirmation emails, we realized the time of the flight was NOT 7:00, but 17:00. Military time is so very tricky. After a couple seconds of frantic scrambling, it became apparent that we would not make our flight, so we rushed off to the train station and thankfully caught the next train to Vienna. The train ride was only 5 hours and not that expensive, so it wasn't that bad. Actually, that is probably the smoothest a missed flight has ever gone in the history of missed traveling. We got into Vienna and crashed at Wombat hostel (that's right, Wombat). Wombat has a chain of hostels across Europe and it is pretty hip and very clean. In the hostel is a WomBar, which I unfortunately never checked out, but the high bass music and fun looking arrows pointing to it did look enticing.
Our first day in Vienna was spent at the Hofburg Palace. After another great breakfast at Cafe Hawelka (recommended by my dad via the Travel Channel--he recorded the program on Vienna and held the phone up while I listened) we headed on to the Spanish Riding School to fulfill a lifelong dream of mine--seeing the dance of the Lipizzaner horses. My official story for loving these horses is because I owned horses and use to ride blahblahblah but the real reason is because of the Angry Beavers. That's right, a Nickelodeon cartoon inspired me to go to Vienna to see the prancing Lipizzaners. To really go into the explanation would take too much time, and you would really just need to see that specific episode, so I will refrain. In any case, I was the most excited out of the group and was probably considered the crazy horse girl for dragging everyone to morning exercises at the Spanish Riding School first thing in the morning, but it was worth it.
Our next stop in the palace was the Imperial apartments, the Sisi museum, and a bunch of rooms full of royal dinnerware. There were a ton of plates and really food-specific dishes (example, asparagus holder and duck squeezer). The Sisi museum was super cool and was all about the legend of Princess Elizabeth of Austria. The Imperial Apartments were so extravagant and made me want to be a royal. It was all very cool and enjoyable and not Renaissance art, which is always a plus in my book. After the palace, we walked outside and found a park with autumn leaves. This was a big deal, since Rome doesn't really have any parks or trees, so we hadn't seen any signs of fall. As soon as we came upon a pile of leaves, we all degenerated into 5 year olds and had a leaf fight right in front of the Hofburg Palace. Once we picked the leaves out of our hair, we headed onto the Belvedere gardens, but not before stopping at a Wurstelstand to get some bratwurst. It was filled with cheese and so very good!
We spent a lot of time in the Belvedere gardens because they were really big and very pretty. While strolling through the botanical gardens, we spotted a woman standing very still between some trees. She was in a very awkward pose, but upon further investigation, this was not the strangest thing about her. She had a tail. She was cat woman. We walked a bit closer and (thankfully) discovered a film crew and a shirtless meatloaf-esque large man with really long hair. The hairy man kept chasing cat woman around and I have no idea why. Weird, weird, Austrians.
Austria is a very classy place and maintains its classical background despite its modern look. Mozart is everywhere and street performers play the piano (don't know how they get it onto the street). To stay in line with this classiness, we decided to go to the opera. We waited in line for an hour and a half for £2 standing tickets, got some cake and coffee at the Mozart cafe, then went to the opera. Outfitted in our NorthFace jackets and travel-worn jeans, clutching to our cheap tickets, we looked like uber-peasants. Everyone else was dressed very nicely and the opera house was quite fancy. We went to our standing area to claim our spots among the other peasants, but could find no good vantage point, so this was mostly a listening experience. The opera was Tosca and it was indeed incredible to hear. There were little computer screens that gave translations in various languages, which was pretty cool. We stayed for the first act and then left.
After that classy event, we went to the most Euro trash carnival in the world! We meant to ride this really old ferris wheel, but it was closed, so we stumbled upon this weird, random carnival with a couple rides and a casino. It was all lit up, but almost completely empty. It was a very strange atmosphere and it felt like something straight out of the setup of a bad horror flick. We rode the new, neon ferris wheel, which went right along with our theme of acting like children in Vienna. Once our enjoyment settled into creeped out, we headed back to the hostel and had dinner at a cafe nearby. A few of us ordered bread dumplings to go with our soup, expecting something gnocchi-like or perhaps some actual slices of bread. Instead, we got a giant doughy lump of bread with parsley sprinkled on top. Why anyone would actually intend to order this, I have no idea. It was literally, just a ball of bread!
The next morning we went to another famous cafe--Cafe Demel--which used to serve cake to the royals. The streudel was excellent and went very well with the Starbucks latte I purchased. That's right. Starbucks. The inside of the Starbucks looked exactly like every Starbucks I have ever been in, which was a little surreal, since we were in Vienna. It was a little comforting, though, being instantly transported to America.
On Sunday in Vienna, everything is closed. Well, I guess restaurants and museums are open, but I was really hoping to shop, and every single shop was closed. So instead, we went to the Stephensplatz cathedral, which was ok, but kind of unimpressive. I guess at this point I am just spoiled by Roman churches.
We headed over to the Museum quarter to check out what it had to offer, but none of them really appealed to me, so Dan and I headed off to explore Vienna. We went to the University of Vienna and sneaked inside. It was pretty basic and boring, just a school, but still neat to see another university. Afterwards, we just walked along the Danube. It was a very scenic area with sweet fall foliage. Vienna itself is a very cool city and I liked it a lot.
Before leaving Vienna, I found a souvenir shop (one of the only things open) and bought a winter hat and a pocket watch. The pocket watch doesn't really keep time and has an elk on the front of it. For some reason, I thought a pocket watch would be the perfect souvenir from Vienna, especially since I was heading on a train. I was very correct.
On the tram ride to the train station, a New Yorker noticed my new hat and asked if I was in Vienna to ski (stupid misleading hat) and then decided to strike up a conversation with me. In theory, talking to a fellow American should have been pleasant, but you are forgetting that I attract crazies. I don't know how I manage to not give off a more judgmental vibe, but crazy people seem to look at me and think, "Now there's a girl who wants to hear my life story!". This New Yorker introduced himself and instantly told me about his recent divorce from his Austrian wife. He has two kids, but according to him, they are old enough and don't need him anyway, so he should just go back to New York. He also shouldn't have to pay child support since he'll have to start his life over in New York and that will be costly. Not wanting to start a ruckus on the crowded tram, I just agreed and feigned sympathy. And that is my last event in Vienna.
On the train, we had 3 compartments of 4 beds each. The beds were actually pretty nice and after a couple of hours of talking, we all fell asleep and slept most of the 13 hours back to Rome. Before we left, we had bought a ton of food, which was completely unnecessary, so in addition to our giant backpacks and bags of souvenirs, we also dragged bags of food onto the Rome metro. After 5 long days of traveling, we were quite the group of ragamuffins. The whole experience was very disorienting, because it was like a vacation, but instead of returning home at the end, we went back to Rome and, for some of us, straight to class. It was good to be back in Rome, however, because even after this much traveling, it is still my favorite city and the best place to be.

I am done writing now so you can be done reading now.

Total Louvre-er

2007-10-30T08:29:00.001-04:00

When I left the states to study abroad, I had no desire to travel to France. Yet somehow, I ended up in Paris last weekend and I am glad I did. The trip started out as a plan to meet some of my friends studying in London who would also be traveling to Paris that weekend, but due to complications and cell phones not working, this didn't happen, but I did have an ND Rome travel buddy.
I was only in Paris for two full days (got in late Wednesday night, left early Saturday morning) but I still accomplished a lot. I got to see Notre Dame Cathedral (and took really poorly executed hunchback pictures), the Musee D'Orsay (lots of Monets and Van Goghs etc.), the Louvre (too much art), the Eiffel Tower at night (its absolutely massive and it occasionally glitters!), Arc di Triomphe (not impressive, as there are a ton of triumphal arcs in Rome), the Moulin Rouge (smaller than I thought it would be and a little disappointing that Nicole Kidman wasn't singing on it), and the streets of Paris in general. Paris is beautiful--the streets are immaculately clean, the people are excellently dressed (very classic as opposed to the very trendy Italians), and the accents are great to hear. The food was also really good. Where Italians excel at gelato, the French prove their worth with pastries. I had my first crepe at the Quasimodo Cafe outside of Notre Dame cathedral and it was excellent, but the cappuccino I had was awful and only further proof that Italians really do know their coffee best (and that I shouldn't expect the best stuff from the "Quasimodo Cafe"). People were very friendly, which was surprising given the snobby French stereotype. However, fewer people spoke English in Paris than in Rome, which made it a little difficult to get by, considering the only French I know comes from Beauty and the Beast and the song Lady Marmalade. Italian seemed to work well, though, in helping us get along. One thing I noticed about Paris was that there were a lot more American chains like Starbucks and KFC (which was right next to competitor "Euro Fried Chicken"). Also, all the stereotypes about French people, besides the snobby one, are true. They really do wear berets and carry loaves of bread in their purses and have poodles. It kind of felt like a French theme park, with everything being exactly like I had expected, but a little better.
Outside the Louvre, someone offered to take my picture for me. He looked nice enough, so I handed him the camera and he turned around and walked off with it. It took me a second to stop posing and start shouting and walking towards him. He turned around and said "Just kidding!" and proceeded to tell me that he did this to teach me a lesson. French jerk.
That was only the start of my dislike of the Louvre. The Orsay was a much better museum with more recognizable artworks. The Louvre was just huge and contained every piece of art ever created that no one cares about (including a lot of Roman art that I've seen about a million times by now). We spent 6 hours there and by the 4th hour I was looking at the statues not for their artistic value, but to contemplate what their shatter pattern would look like if I pushed them over. Plus, the Mona Lisa wasn't that cool. There was my rant on the Louvre.
Now, a note on the Moulin Rouge. The Moulin Rouge is in a veritable red-light district of Paris. It is located at the end of a street lined with nothing but sex shops and neon lights, complete with copious amounts of nudity and disgustingly inappropriate catcalls from the hordes of men crowding the street. In other words, it was quite the ridiculous experience and a part of Europe I hadn't yet seen. Given our obvious disinterest in what the shops had to offer, we didn't stay long.
After almost missing our flight and our connecting flight (on which I got to have an extended conversation in Italian with the woman sitting next to me, who thought I was French!), we made it back to Rome, where everyone got dressed to the nines for a reception at the villa of the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See. This sounds a lot more impressive than it actually was, since we were invited because the ambassador's daughter is a Notre Dame student in my class. It was still a very classy evening and one of the coolest thing I will do. The villa was gorgeous and it was just a fancy evening in general.
That night I met up with Dana, Sarah B, and their friend Mei-Kay, who were on fall break from London. It was weird for the P.E. girls to be together in Rome, but totally awesome to get to see them. Earlier in the week, I got to see Tesia as well, so after hearing everyone's London stories, I'm super excited to go there.
Today, as I was walking to the Vatican post office, I saw a midget nun. It was excellent.
When I was sitting in St. Peter's Square the other day, studying for a quiz (just take a second to take in that sentence...I still can't get over that I live so close to St. Peter's Square), an Italian man carrying his motorino helmet stood in front of me, staring, until I would look up. He said, in Italian, "You have the most beautiful eyes." I responded, "I'm wearing sunglasses." The guy tried to explain himself by saying he was sure that I did have beautiful eyes if I would only remove my shades, but I just kept insisting that my eyes were nothing special. He sat down anyone and talked to me for a bit, then asked how old I was. When I said 20, he said, "Oh, I'm 40...well, you look busy. I'll leave you alone" then got up and left. I wish I knew how to say "creeper" in Italian.
On the JCU front... When I returned from Paris, I checked my email to find this lovely message:

For those of you who would like to get into the Halloween spirit the Housing Office would like to invite you to participate in our first ever electronic pumpkin carving contest.

Here’s how it works:

Click on this link: http://www.coasttocoastam.com/timages/page/pumpkin_sim.html

Create your pumpkin.

Open the Paint program on your computer.

Go back to your carved pumpkin.

Push the print screen button (Stamp/R Sist) on your computer.

Go back to Paint and paste (ctrl v).

Your carved pumpkin should be pasted into Paint.

Save the picture on your computer.

Either respond to this email or create a new email addressed to housing@johncabot.edu and attach your saved pumpkin (jack-o-lantern) picture. In the subject line of the email write your name and phone number (so we can contact you if you win).

This is JCU's sense of school activities. I'm starting to think JCU isn't even like high school. It's more like middle school. (Also, I'm glad they let everyone know how to use Paint and the Copy and Paste functions. Honestly....) If anyone wants to participate in the contest in my place, feel free.

Killing Abroad

2007-10-22T08:15:00.001-04:00

JCU and its students continue to confound and amaze me. Why anyone would choose to attend this university for an entire 4 years, I will never understand, yet there are some who do.
For instance, Joe from the Ventotene post is a student from Portugal who attends JCU out of his own free will for the duration of his college education. He is in my international marketing class and is full of classy questions.
The other day in said class, we were discussing international law as part of an international marketing strategy. Joe eagerly raises his hand and asks a question having nothing to do with marketing, but I suppose it was related to international law. Question: "So, I am Portuguese. I live in Italy. What would happen if I kill someone in Brazil?" The professor answers with something about if he killed someone in Spain, he would be in trouble because its part of the EU, but Joe kept refuting that answer with, "But I killed the guy in Brazil!" Seeing as he had no answer and his students were starting to feel a little uncomfortable, he moved the class on.
Later during that same lecture, Joe brought forth another question along the same lines. "So, I'm Portuguese. What if I'm in Italy, driving a German car, and I run over a Roman? What would happen to me then? Who's laws do I fall under?" I'm not quite sure why he thought the outcome would change depending on the make of the car he was driving. The professor pretty much brushed this question off as well, but I think some further interrogation should be done of Joe. I will be careful never to cross him, at least not in Brazil or whilst he is driving a German car.

Feeding Frenzy

2007-10-20T16:50:00.000-04:00

My apartment is absolutely freezing. The heat doesn't get turned on until November 15. I am painfully cold. Hopefully, writing about the weekend's events will take my mind off of it.
Wednesday, I went to Alexanderplatz, a really groovy jazz joint very close to the apartments. The woman singing that night was excellent and did a cover of Britney Spears's "Toxic". It sounded much better with a jazzy tone.
Thursday, I spent walking around the Trastevere and Vatican area by myself. It was nice to just chill out and take in the city. I walked past a guy on a pay phone and he stopped mid-sentence to shout a "Ciao bella" my way. Does that ever work? Does anyone actually stop and say, "Why, how nice that you called me beautiful simply because you noticed I am female! Please, continue with your flattering generalizations and then perhaps we shall go to the local discoteca tonight." No. Never.
Thursday night, a group of us went to Piazza Navona. We ended up in a bar that became infiltrated with lots of pasty British guys ranging from the ages of 26 to 56. One was sporting underwear on the outside of his pants and carrying around a wooden spoon. We decided he would be a fun guy to talk to and we did have an interesting conversation about his attire, which he explained by saying, "Isn't this what the Romans do?" Nope, not usually. Then he asked us if we were Canadian, so of course we said yes and he said, "Yeah, you don't seem good enough to be Americans." It was eventually (or right after this comment) revealed that we were American and this British fellow wanted to know where in America I was from. I don't know why I even bothered saying Ohio. Everyone just gives me a false nod of recognition whenever I say Ohio. The British guy was no different, except he went a little further in trying to figure out where it was. I pretty much told him it was next to New York City. Close enough. Later, we met this British guy's super creepy friend who talked constantly about how he just loooooved the American accent and any girl who had it could just melt his heart by talking. I tried to stay silent when around him, but I still got an awkward, uncomfortable, and uninvited lingering cheek kiss from him when he left. He was gross.
After about 2 hours of sleep that night, I got up and went to Perugia with Caitlin for the EuroChocolate festival. Perugia is a town in Umbria near Assisi and it has a university. It's a lot less touristy than other towns and very pretty. Chocolate Festival was very cool and consisted of a collection of tents throughout the town, all with various kinds of chocolate in any shape or flavor you could want. There was violet chocolate, pure dark chocolate, cinnamon chocolate, chocolate covered fruit, chocolate cell phones, chocolate batteries, hot chocolate, chocolate with absinthe, chocolate and hot peppers, chocolate pasta, etc. We were welcomed into Perugia by a very attractive man dressed in a giant blue mouse costume (we later found out he was supposed to be Ratattouie). He walked up right in front of Caitlin and I, waved and said "Buon giorno!" and walked off. We were so stunned by his hot factor that for a moment, we forgot he was dressed as a cartoon mouse and gave a jaunty buon giorno right back at him. Later that day, we found him again and without saying a word, handed a camera to someone and got on either side of him and snapped a photo. We left with a "Grazie" and a "Ciao, topo!" (Bye, mouse!). After eating oodles of chocolate and drinking some super thick hot chocolate, we decided we needed an actual meal and had the best pizza yet at a little pizzeria that had the feeling/smell of a church basement. Then we went searching for Ruff Stuff, a gangsta ghetto fabulous store we heard about from MTV's Italy guide book. After searching for quite some time, we finally found it, and it was closed. Bummer. But we did find a great vintage store. Good thing Perugia is small because we went to it three times before it was opened. The store itself was very small, but it had a lot of treasures like Prada shoes and real snake skin clutches. I tried on a pair of knee high boots, but as with most Italian boots, it didn't zip up all the way because of the giant calves I have developed from all the walking I do here. I have no idea why all Italians do not have massive legs. When the woman who owned the store asked if the boots fit I said, "No, ho le gambe come un uomo." (I have legs like a man). She replied with a "Si" and a nod in agreement. Stupid man legs. The rest of Perugia was very cool and scenic and the chocolate was terrific.
Instead of collapsing into bed as soon as I got back that night, a group of us went to Trastevere to see Quentin Terantino. That's right, the director. We had all gotten an email inviting us to a club opening which was also a party for Quentin Terantino. The invite boasted a hip hop and R&B party and an actual appearance by Quentin himself. Most were skeptical, but I put my trust in JCU (bad decision right there) and went to the party, camera in hand, ready to photograph QT and ask him for a job. We got to the club around 11:30. It didn't open until 12:30 and when we asked the bouncer about Quentin he acted like he couldn't understand us and just kept repeating the opening time of the club. Finally, the club opened and a flood of American students dressed as Reservoir Dogs eagerly awaiting Terantino's arrival lined up. We handed over our special invitations and asked a different bouncer about QT. She laughed at us and said, "This is Italy!" which I guess meant that in Italy, it's ok to lie to people about celebrity appearances to get them to go to a club. We left after about 10 minutes of being there. Next week, the club is having a party for Spike Lee. I will not be going.
On the way to that club we did see an interesting sight--an Italian bachelorette party. A gaggle of inebriated Italian women was gathered outside the Vatican walls (great place for debauchery) and one had a veil on and sign around her neck asking for help. Her task was to stop cars in the street and wash their windows. She was all about this and was running out into the street to wash windows. Her sign said she was getting married the very next day. I hope she didn't get hit by a car the night before her wedding.
Today was a fantastic day. It included all my favorite elements of Italy--great food, great friends, great views, and Maria Younes. Plus it was free! We went on a Notre Dame sponsored trip to Farfa. I'm still not entirely sure where Farfa is, but I think it's near Florence, so it must be in Tuscany. The town of Farfa is very small and quiet and has tons of cats and dogs just running around. There was one little dog that followed us around everywhere. I named him Quentin Terantino in honor of the previous night. No one called him this. When we got to Farfa, we walked around the town for a bit, sampled some honey from a roadside stand, and pet some stray cats. Then we hiked up a hill to an olive grove. The hike was nothing because, after Assisi, every incline will seem like cake. Along the hike, we stopped and looked at the vegetation, which was very Mediterranean and beachy. There was a strong wind blowing that made a great sound through all the trees and bushes. We got to the top of the hill where our tour guide's mother and 3-year old son, Lorenzo, met us. The view was great and you could see lots of olive groves. If you looked very hard, you could see St. Peter's on the horizon. After telling us a few facts about olives, we were sent out to take a quiz, the questions of which were tied to trees throughout the olive grove. The top three scorers each got a bottle of the grove's homemade olive oil, which we sample later and was very good. I was a top scorer, but I attribute that to my lucky guessing skills rather than to my knowledge of olives. The best part of the day was lunch. We sat on a patio on top of the hill, overlooking the olive grove and all of Farfa. We had meat, cheese, bread, olive oil, salad, olives, lentil soup, mapo (cross between grapefruits and clementines), and "chocolate surprise". It was one of the best meals ever, and not just because of the great food, but also because of the great view and tranquility of the place. After we went down the hill, we took a tour of the Benedictine abbey. It was a lovely day.
There were a few crazy Maria Younes stories. I don't know what it is with her, but she is just weird. When we were at the honey stand, someone mentioned that they put honey in their tea. Maria responded with, "I put honey in my tea, too! See, we are alike! We are very similar!" At the end of the trip when we got off the bus and headed back to the apartments, Maria shouted "YOUR WELCOME" after us, insinuating we were rude children who never said thank you. We did say thank you several times throughout the trip. We just didn't say it all in unison at the end of the trip. There are other Maria stories, but they are all too topical and I don't really feel like telling them (you probably don't feel like reading them).
Now I'm probably going to go run my face under some boiling water or walk on some hot coals or something to warm up. I did not pack well for this...

Dinner Theater Train Terrorizes Stow

2007-10-16T07:18:00.000-04:00

I had some time to kill today in between classes and decided to check out the Stow Sentry--Stow, Ohio's weekly publication. Apparently, I'm not missing much:

*I have placed in bold the best tidbits from this article

Stow -- City Council is asking county court officials to back them up in their attempt to prohibit a dinner theater train from coming through Stow.

During its Oct. 11 meeting, Council approved legislation to request a "judgment [from the Summit County Court of Common Pleas] stating whether the [city's] zoning code would prohibit this type of entertainment."

According to Council member Ron Alexander, "[Stow]'s zoning ordinances do not permit restaurants or entertainment businesses to operate in areas that are zoned residential or industrial. The proposed dinner train would operate in both residential- and industrial-zoned areas of Stow."

In February, Gabriel Hall, president and CEO of U.S. Rail Corp., said a dinner theater train will travel the rails from Cuyahoga Falls through Silver Lake and Stow to Hudson. He estimated it would not be operational until June or July 2008 at the earliest.

U.S. Rail representatives did not return calls by press time.

Alexander said if the court says the zoning laws prohibit the dinner train, he believes the city would file an injunction so the train cannot run through the city.

The line will begin near downtown Cuyahoga Falls, and travel across Front Street, Hudson Drive, along the border of Silver Lake, and into Stow on Hudson Drive and up to Barlow Road in Hudson.

The train is expected to have entertainment such as musical revues, stand-up comedy or murder/mystery/romance productions, with food and beverage service.

Silver Lake Village took legal action in 2002 to prevent the train running through the village. However, after four years of proceedings and rulings, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled last year to allow Metro Regional Transit Authority to lease a section of railroad track to the Cuyahoga Falls and Hudson Railway Co., a subsidiary of U.S. Rail Corp., for operation of a dinner theater train.

Alexander said although city officials had concerns about the dinner train in 2001, officials decided not to join in with Silver Lake's lawsuit.

"We decided to wait to see if Silver Lake could win the lawsuit, and not use our taxpayers' money," he said. "We believe our zoning ordinances prohibit the dinner train."

Alexander added he expects the court process to stop the dinner train to take between 18 months and three years.

"I'm very glad Stow's doing this," said Silver Lake Mayor Bernie Hovey. "I wish they would've jumped in and helped us years ago ... I still wish them the best of luck now."

Hovey added the village is not planning to take any more legal action to stop the dinner train.

"We've done all we can do," said Hovey.

Man, I hope this problem gets solved soon! I don't want to come back to a town overrun with locomotive feasts and entertainment! What's next, a casino on a boat on Silver Lake???

Then I found this article under the most frequently viewed articles. I think it was supposed to give me a warm fuzzy feeling about the citizens of Stow. Instead, it made me laugh and let me know that there is a nearby pet cemetery.

On May 8th, after an especially tough day, I had occassion to stop in Stow to shop around 5pm. I had left the Boston Hills Pet Cemetery with my beloved dogs' ashes, and battled my way through the Route 8 traffic to go to the Graham Rd. Pet Supplies Plus store to get pet food. With a lot on my mind, I had dropped my wallet after getting out of my Jeep....spilling a lot of the contents on the ground. I thought I had gotten it all and went into the store to shop. With my bags in tow, I got in my truck and drove away....except, I hadn't picked up my drivers license, bank card or the cash with them!! Off I went to finish the rest of my long day. Before going home, I wanted to get gasoline, and guess what? I discovered my cash, bank card AND license were missing!! I tried to think where I could have lost these things....trying to re-trace my steps! Upset and tired, I head back to my home in Firestone Park. When I came in the house, I heard a phone message from a Officer Bastock, of the Stow Police, telling me an anonymous good Samaritan had found my ID, bank card and cash, and would I please call him! This was at 11pm and he gone home, too. But, the next morning, I called the Records Dept. of the Police station and was told where I could retrieve this items by a very nice young lady. She said the officer and the staff were EXTREMLY surprised that my ID, bank card WITH cash were returned! I wasn't, though....I have never had a bad experience in Stow! It is a nice place to visit, shop and I am sure it is a wonderful place to live, since there are Good Samaritans there, too! Thank you, kind person!

Please note that "occassion" and "EXTREMLY" are spelled wrong.

I heart St. Ow

Fashion Whore

2007-10-16T04:42:00.000-04:00

One thing that is no different no matter where I am is midterms. They are always bad. Admittedly, they are not as stressful or involved as Notre Dame midterms, but considering I am in a very low-key, low-work, low-scholarly-motivational environment, midterms seem just as hard. Fortunately, I'm mostly through them and only have one more left tomorrow.
This past weekend was a weekend dedicated to fashion. This kind of happened accidentally, as we only actually had one fashion-related thing planned. On Friday, Kristina, Jackie, Caitlin, and I went to the Valentino exhibit in the Ara Pacis museum. I had been there before, but it was for my Ancient Rome and its Monuments class, so when I stopped to gawk at the dresses, the professor screeched in her faux-British accent (she's from Baltimore or something and studied in England) "Stop looking at the dresses! We are here for class! I used to like pretty dresses, too, but now is not the time for such frivolity!" So I begrudgingly turned my attention to (fell asleep while standing in front of) the Ara Pacis and some other old rocks with historical significance blahblahblah. Actually getting to go through and enjoy the Valentino exhibit was definitely worth the trip back to the museum. It was a very creepy display. Strange music was playing and all the manikins were shiny and bald and had really long necks. They were either hung on a wall or posed with their arms extended, seemingly beckoning you into their world of high fashion. It got a little less creepy when we got to the display of celebrity gowns. It was really cool to see dresses I remembered Reese Witherspoon, Julia Roberts, and Jennifer Lopez wearing. All the dresses were gorgeous and it was definitely a nice break from looking at ancient Roman architecture or Renaissance religious paintings.
After the Valentino exhibit, Caitlin and I bought chocolate and coffee and hopped on the metro to go to Cinnecitta. We really knew nothing about this metro stop, except that it was near the end of the line and the name sounded cool. Cinnecitta is like the Hollywood of Italy and I think it produced Gangs of New York and The Passion. The production studio was directly outside the metro stop, but when we tried to go in, a security guard stopped us to inform us that it was not for the public, but for work only. I thought about saying that I was there to see Spike Lee, as he had recently been spotted at Campo dei Fiori, but I decided to just pursue an internship there so I could go there every day without lying. The are around Cinnecitta looked very un-Roman, as there was no sign of the ancient to be seen. It was very industrial and open, so with nothing else to do, we just walked down the street. And then we found it. A mall! In Rome! Hooray! I don't mean to seem material, but it was really cool to see a giant 100 store mall in the middle of Italy when stores are usually no bigger than dorm rooms. Also, I just like to see Italy's take on American things (America's take on Italian things--like cappuccino--just don't compare). The mall had a department store (!!!) and a bunch of other chains, much like our own malls. But unlike our malls, people brought their dogs in with them (they were not blind) and instead of cell phone kiosks, there were bars advertising happy hour. Shopping and just walking around the mall was excellent and afterwards, we went to Piazza di Spagna and had a delicious dinner. We took a bus to the Vatican and as usual got kind of lost in a place we'd never known existed, but eventually made it home. Online, we found another mall on the eastern side of Rome that has 210 stores (!!!!!), so the plan is to make it there this weekend.
Saturday was the one day of actual planned fashion. Caitlin and I had signed up for a JCU sponsored trip to the fashion outlet stores in Tuscany. Since this was a JCU trip, there was a long walk early in the morning, an even longer bus ride, and really obnoxious people. The bus was packed, so on the way to the outlets, Caitlin and I could only get seats diagonal from each other. This put us sitting next to people as shallow as puddles and dumb as mud. I wasn't exactly expecting a group of MENSA potentials to be going on this trip, but I was expecting college students who acted like college students. Instead, there were what appeared to be high schoolers imitating what they've seen on Laguna Beach, though they were indeed college students, mostly from American University. Here are some tidbits from their conversations that made the bus trip nearly unbearable. (my comments in parentheses)
On Sororities:
Shallow Sally: I really didn't want to join my sorority, but they wanted me, so I guess I just kind of had to be nice (isn't that generous of you to offer yourself when they want you sooo badly)

Dumb Debbie: I joined a sorority without a house so I wouldn't have to live with all of them. Wouldn't that be awful, having to live with your sorority sisters? (why join a sorority if you hate the people in it???)

Shallow Sally: At your school, which sorority has the fat chicks?

Dumb Debbie: My big sister (assigned in the sorority--lucky her) sucked. She totally ignored me because her brother died! (how selfish of her!)

On everything else:
Sally: Counting is hard! (for some...)

Debbie: She looks like she has down syndrome. It's probably because she's Swedish. (so what's your excuse for acting retarded?)

Sally: I always have really awesome birthday parties. My 10th birthday was on a boat, so it was really mature for 10 year olds. The next year, we took a limo to Dave and Busters. (Dave and Busters?! High roller!)

Sally: I get 7 days of my birthday and 7 days of Christmas!

Debbie: (referring to the houses near the outlets) I doubt the people who live here can actually shop at these outlets (they were nice houses...)

Once the bus stopped, I ran off. These girls were too much for me. Our first stop was a store that had just Prada and Miu Miu. Caitlin and I soon realized that 50-70% off of designer fashion still puts the price at 300-1200 euro, so we got bored pretty quickly and decided to walk around a bit. Past the parking lot of the outlet, all we found was a closed sandwich shop and some guy peeing on the side of the road, so we just sat outside. The next stop was much better because it had a lot of stores. They were still really pricey, but it was fun to look at all this stuff. The restaurant at these outlets was so trendy and had fashion TV playing and was the only place I've seen in Italy that offers salads as a meal and not a side dish (though the salad looked like something I would make because it was just tuna thrown on top of lettuce with some corn, a tasty and unusual combination).
The bus ride back was quieter since people were sleeping. It got noisy again when people started pointing out the window and yelling "Prostitutes!". All along the road back into Rome were hookers. First, transvestites, then actual women. Most of them were not wearing pants, only thongs, or some version of that. They were all just out in the open, standing on the side of the road. A few cars did pull over as we were stuck in traffic. They did look better than the hookers we saw in Rome near the Vatican earlier that weekend.

Thus ends the weekend of fashion...and of annoying people...and hookers.......

Venice is Sinking, So Get There Quickly

2007-10-09T07:11:00.001-04:00

Oscar commented on the last post that I must have done nothing in Venice. This is simply not true. I just wasn't ready yet to write about how incredibly awesome Venice is!
I left for Venice by plane on Friday morning and returned by train on Sunday. I flew with Ryan Air (really cheap European airline) so I was expecting the worst, but it actually wasn't that bad. The flight attendants were wearing tacky royal blue suits and the safety instructions were attached to the seat in front of you. Since Ryan Air is an Irish airline, all instructions were given in English first and then occasionally in Italian, so in case of emergency, all Italians die. Before boarding the plane, all the passengers lined up at the terminal. People pushed their way to the front of the line, as there were no assigned seats, so the first people in line get first pick. However, as soon as the doors opened, we were all shuffled into a bus, so those who were first in line in the airport were shoved into the back of the bus and were the last to get on the plane.
After arriving in Venice (the flight only took about an hour), we had the arduous task of finding our hostel. We started walking from a train station and ended up in the Italian suburbs. It was neat to see this kind of area in Italy, but after walking up and down the same street for a couple hours, it was no longer that charming. Bicycle seemed to be the main mode of transportation in the area and 70 seemed to be the average age. We didn't quite figure out right away that there was a sidewalk for bikes and a sidewalk for walkers, so cyclists rang bells at us and scowled at us as they passed. After asking a bunch of people for directions, we finally found our budget hotel, which was pretty nice, except for the 5 pound key we had to carry around (seriously, the key was attached to a big hunk of metal). The nicest part about the hotel was its proximity to the bus stop that took us into the main part of Venice.
All the sketchy traveling and getting lost was worth it once we got into Venice, because the city is gorgeous. I expected it to be smelly or for the water to be murky, but it was neither. Unlike Florence, it was not overcrowded and unlike Rome, it was very quiet. It's amazing how quiet a city can be without the noise of auto traffic. What's even more amazing is that there's an entire city built on water and the main transportation is boats and water taxis. We spent most of Friday wandering around the city, just taking it in. It's very calm, yet not boring, and there is plenty to do, but it's not overwhelming.
The bad things about Venice are that it is pretty expensive and pigeons attack. In St. Mark's Square, we went to a caffe to get coffee, but quickly left when we saw that espresso was 6 euros (it's usually 70 cents). Pigeons don't care about how expensive things are around St. Mark's because this is their main hang out. I had a handful of granola and was about to throw it to the pigeons when one jumped up on my hand to steal it from me. These pigeons are so fearless that you can walk up to them and pick them up (some kids were doing this and then throwing the pigeons). Once you feed the pigeons, they won't leave you alone for a while and will follow you, land on you, scratch you, etc. Some crazy tourists put granola on themselves and just stand there while the birds collect on them. This was funny to watch, but not to participate in. Pigeons are gross.
Though Venice does have designer stores and some random other shops (including a male cross-dresser store), most of the shops sell Venetian glass or masks. It gets pretty frustrating shopping for these things because it's hard to commit to buying something when you're not sure if the store next door has something prettier or better priced. I ended up with oodles of glass, my favorite purchase being a set of wine glasses I bought on Murano (the island of Venice where most of the glass is made). I carried my box of wine glasses around all of Saturday and when I got on the bus that night to go back to the hotel, I realized I didn't have them with me. It was 10:30 and the buses and water taxis stop running at midnight, so time was limited to look for them. Emma was so nice and ran off the bus with me to look for the glasses. We hopped on a water taxi and went to the last place we were in an attempt to retrace my steps. Amazingly, they were sitting in the bakery where I had left them, totally unharmed. What had happened was I bought a cookie, forgot all about the glasses, and left happy with the cookie. I am an idiot. We fortunately made it back in time to catch all the taxis and buses required to get to the hotel. Later, in the train station on Sunday, I bought an apple and left the wine glasses at the counter. Fortunately, Emma knew by this point that food distracts me from paying attention to anything, so she picked up the wine glasses and handed them to me just as I realized I had forgotten them again. I should never be trusted with valuable things, or if I am, I should be starved.
Other things I did in Venice included walking through St. Mark's Cathedral (another big church, woohoo), the Doge Palace (weapons rooms+prison+Bridge of Sighs+biggest oil painting in the world=loads of fun), going to Murano where they make a lot of glass (we saw a glass blowing demonstration. The dude has a cigarette in one hand and a red hot ball of glass on a stick in the other. He was bonkers!), eating an awesome fast-food joint called "Jumanji" that had bites taken out of the pizza (the pizza man claimed the oven had eaten it), drinking belinis (while doing this, a mouse ran into the bar we were at and hid behind the Coke machine. When someone tried to tell the bar owners, they didn't seem to care), and taking a gondola ride. The gondola ride was done last minute right before going to the train station, and it was totally worth it. I can see how it would be very romantic, but considering I was in a boat with 3 other girls and it was 10 in the morning, it was more just pleasant than romantic. The gondolier and his apprentice were both wearing the traditional outfits of striped shirts and hats. The apprentice was not the sharpest gondolier in the canal, because every time we asked him a question, he got it wrong, and the older gondolier would sigh with exasperation and say, "No, Michael, that's wrong, again! The canal is 3 meters deep, not 1." It was pretty easy to forgive Michael for his blunders, as he was very adorable.
Venice is a lovely city and 2 and half days there was the perfect amount of time. If I had stayed any longer, I would have no money and oodles of glass.

Life Skills

2007-10-08T16:26:00.000-04:00

Things I am learning to do in Rome

Travel Plan: I could give up on my education right now and become a travel planner for Ryan Air and Hostel World.
Dodge Traffic: This is a necessary skill for living/staying alive in Rome
Ignore People: When Italians shout at you or when people try to sell you roses or toy cars, ignoring them is the best way out.
Get More Wear out of Clothing: There are 3 washing machines for the entire apartment complex. If it doesn't have stains, a little Febreze is all you need.
Push Your Way Through Tourists: I feel like I've lived here long enough to scoff at tourists and roll my eyes at the giant crowd waiting outside the Vatican Museum as I shove past them every morning on my way to school. Silly tourists, don't they know the line is much shorter in the afternoon? What tourists!
Use Public Transportation: The metro is pretty easy once you get the hang of it and the buses are bad either. It's watching the people make out on public transit that's difficult. That and not falling.
Cook: Some of you may be shocked by this. Out of necessity, I am indeed delving into my inner kitchen skills I know my mom must have passed on to me somehow. However, the goal of my meals at this point is not so much gourmet taste as is edible/not poisonous.

*see recipe for my favorite and most frequent dish below

Grocery shop: This goes along with cooking. I never realized how difficult grocery shopping was until I tried to do it every week and each week end up with a random assortment of food that doesn't go well together. I usually buy staples such as eggs, cheese, bread, and lunch meat then from there I just grab whatever looks good at the moment like raisins or kinder kandy or pineapple juice.
Use the American stereotype to my advantage: If I don't pay the correct rate for something or otherwise get an advantage I should not, I just play dumb and say "Non lo so!" Maybe not the most respectable thing, but it occasionally works.
Make Renaissance Art Fun: Madonna and Child is only interesting and pretty to look at for the first 140 versions, so after that, attention should be paid to how weird the baby Jesus looks and why there are floating baby heads around Mary. This or similar strategies may save you from losing all appreciation for the works of Botticelli and Michaelangelo.

In addition to all of this, I suppose I am learning cultural knowledge, some stuff in class, and general life lessons. The cooking thing will probably come in most handy.

*Recipe for Everything in the Kitchen Sink Pasta

Take necessary dishes (pot, spoon) out of sink. Washing optional.
Boil the pasta and accidentally add too much salt. Correct this accident by purposely adding even more salt, thus making this not an accident.
When pasta is perfectly al dente, throw frozen veggies into the boiling pot and overcook all contents of pot until they are mooshy enough to gum.
Drain pasta in the sink (clearing out of other dishes in sink is optional). Allow veggies to fall through colander. Save what you can.
To add protein to the dish, put an entire hard boiled egg on top of the pasta. Substitutes for egg include mixed nuts or lunch meat.
Instead of making the difficult decision of which sauce to use on the pasta, choose all them. Mix olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and tomato sauce to the concoction.
Sprinkle on some oregano and black pepper
When you realize you have made too much (too much, in fact, for all the food to fit into one dish) offer some to your roommates, who will politely decline.
If there is any salt left, add some more.
Enjoy the 15 taste sensation!

I'm No Mountain Goat

2007-10-02T13:15:00.000-04:00

First of all, you may have noticed that I recently added a hit counter to my blog (hit counter=counts the number of times someone visits my blog) and that the number of hits is rather low (I'm sure this is due to the fact that the counter is so new, and not because people don't LOVE my blog). Anyway, if you could just hit refresh on your internet's browser a few times before reading the rest of this, thus adding numbers to the counter, that would be great. Thanks!

Last weekend, I was in Assisi for a Notre Dame sponsored/subsidized retreat. I hadn't been on a retreat since high school and, to be honest, thought they were a bunch of hooey. I still think this, however, I did enjoy myself. The retreat wasn't intense at all. We visited churches and prayed and such, but we had a lot of free time and didn't play any stupid trust games (however, we did play mafia a lot). We stayed in a convent and were served delicious food the whole weekend. We visited some key spots in the life of St. Francis and went through the basilicas dedicated to him and to St. Claire, which were both lovely. Assisi itself was gorgeous with lots of old buildings, olive groves, and hills. The town also has fantastic gift shops, which for some reason, all sell medieval weapons such as maces, crossbows, and swords. The weapons present a nice juxtaposition with the many religious items found in the same gift shops.
I was feeling very relaxed after Friday and Saturday, because we just sort of walked around Assisi and hung out with each other. However, this state of relaxation was destroyed on Sunday, when we went for a "4 kilometer walk" that turned into a freakin' long 3 hour hike up a mountain. What made me most upset was that we were not warned about this at all, so I did not have the appropriate shoes or pants or anything. The hike went along a path that basically went straight up the mountain, so there was a constant super steep incline, and the path was covered in slippery rocks. To top it off, the retreat leaders didn't know exactly where we were going, and the entire group got split up due to different walking speeds, so everyone was getting lost. The goal of this hike was to get to a hermitage that St. Francis supposedly prayed at every day or something (though I find this very hard to believe, considering it would take a gladiator to climb that mountain daily). We finally see the hermitage, but we can't find that path that leads directly to it, and we end up jumping over a wall and sliding down a hill to get to it. We were able to spend about 20 minutes there before having to turn around and head back. I was so stressed out and exhausted after this that I couldn't really enjoy the rest of the retreat, which was basically over after the hike anyway.
So in conclusion, Assisi was very pretty, I still don't like retreats, and you should warn me before taking me hiking.

Pirates of the Ventotene

2007-09-26T08:37:00.000-04:00

The Internet in my apartment has ceased to function. Considering the efficiency of Italian maintenance, this will probably not be remedied until November. Therefore, I am writing this from the lovely computer lab at JCU, adjacent to the Lemonless Tree Courtyard. I'm at a computer next to a girl named Sunshine. I'm not kidding. Her name is Sunshine and she's sitting right next to me. I don't actually know her, so I really hope she doesn't look over at my computer screen. In fact, I just tilted the computer screen away because this could get real awkward. I know that her name is Sunshine because she's in my on-site art history class and one time, the professor said, "Sunshine, get off your cell phone. There are gypsies about!" Speaking of names, let me just say one more thing about JCU students (the American kind). Most of the professors are Italian, therefore, their pronunciation of American words and names is not the best. This should be acceptable, but for some, this just will not do. Maybe it's easier for me to accept a mispronunciation of my name because I've been called Elsie/Elisa/Alice/Alisha/Eliss my whole life and here my name is pronounced L-eeeeeze, which I actually kind of like. However, one student in my international marketing class does not appreciate the mistaken pronunciation of her name and she makes a point of this at every class roll call. Her name is Annie Lou, which is stupid to begin with and she should be happy that someone would call her something else, but the professor pronounces it "Anyelloo" and she corrects him EVERY TIME. It's gotten to the point where the whole class chimes in with the correct pronunciation of her name during roll call. Anyelloo really needs to just give it up.
Enough JCU and name bashing for now.
Last weekend I went to Ventotene, a small (really really small) island off of Italy in the Mediterranean. It is absolutely gorgeous, with all pink and yellow buildings and clear blue water. However, it is incredibly small and very non-touristy, which made for a nice escape from the city and a harsh reminder of my dwindling Italian speaking skills (since my stay was only for 2 days and one night, I managed to not die from lack of communication with the locals). The trip was through JCU so it was led by a student. This student, let us call him Joe (because that's his name), was Portuguese and did not have perfect English, which made for an interesting conversation with him. Allow me to give you some tidbits from our talk.
(Joe sits next to my friends and me to discuss the trip schedule)
Joe: It is hot!
Me: You could take your jacket off
Joe: Then I would be cold
Me: Well, I have no more solutions for you
Joe: What about my jacket?
Me: It's up to you whether or not you want to leave it on or off. You said you were hot
Joe: (stares blankly) What are we talking about?
(some moments into the conversation)
Joe: (looking over at Teresa and Amy, who are sleeping) Are your friends drunk?
Me: (sarcastically) Yeah, they are smashed
Joe: (seriously) Oh, well, that will happen
(Joe explains the meal option, which involves lots of seafood. I decline and he asks why)
Me: I don't like seafood.
Joe: How come? It is delicious
Me: I don't like things that swim
Joe: It wouldn't be swimming. It will be dead.
Me: I know, but it used to swim
Joe: Do you like to swim?
Me: Yes
Joe: Do you like yourself?
Me: Yes
Joe: Well then you should like seafood (this is the best logic ever)
Me: I don't want to eat myself
Joe: Just eat the seafood. But be careful when you swim
Me: I'm not eating the seafood. And why should I be careful?
Joe: Because there are sharks
Me: No there aren't
Joe: Ok, but there's a monster of Ventotene.
Me: Really? What's it called
Joe: It's called the Joe-fish. It is vicious.
(more awkward conversation and time passes)
Joe: We are renting boats today. Do you know how to drive a boat?
Me: No
Joe: You should. Just don't play the pirates (note unnecessary use of the word "the")
Me: How do you play pirates?
Joe: Well, last year, some drunk guys took a boat out and got hungry, so they ran their boat into Italian yachts, hopped on screaming, stole their food, and left.
Me: Well hopefully there will be no pirates this time
Joe: Yes, if you don't play the pirates.
(Joe asks me some more questions and I respond to many of them with "I'm not sure")
Joe: Do you smoke the marijuana? (again, unnecessary "the")
Me: What? No! No! Why would you ask that?
Joe: You sound like you do. You keep saying you aren't sure.
Me: Is uncertainty a quality of pot heads?
Joe: (long pause) What are we talking about? (I think Joe smokes the marijuana)
(Joe finds out that Teresa is half Chinese and wakes her up)
Joe: Is it true that it is good to burp in China
Teresa: Yes, it can be good.
Joe: I'm going to go to a Chinese restaurant and when the waiter says, "How is your meal?" I will say "BLAAEEEERRRRCHHH" and he will say "Thank you!"

This went on for a while, especially considering he only wanted to ask us one question about the meal plan for the trip.
We finally get to the island, get settled into our apartment (which has a shower with no basin or walls. It's just toilet, bidet, shower head.), and go to rent some boats. I got on a boat with Teresa, Emma, and Amy and none of us had ever driven a boat. We ask for snorkeling equipment and a guy with a ponytail and no shirt throws us one mask for the four of us. A Ventotene native named Chiro (he says, "Like the pizza from Napoli!" for some reason I give an enthusiastic "Oh yeah!" as if I have ever heard of that pizza before) drives us in the boat out of the docking area, gets on a boat of his own, and says goodbye. We wave "ciao" to him and Teresa revs up the engine and runs straight into Chiro's boat. Eventually, we make it farther out into the ocean and have a lovely day of boating around the island, which takes about an hour to drive around. Our lovely day does have some interruptions, however. We find a lovely spot to swim and test out our single diving mask, so we turn off the motor and jump off the boat. The water is super salty, so its really easy to float in (Emma claims it is impossible to drown in. We did not test this theory). I didn't see any fish (not even a Joe fish) but the water was pretty enough to look at. We got back on the boat and tried to start the engine. No dice. We try about 50 billion more times and still, nothing. Fortunately, we have oars. Unfortunately, we are on the other side of the island from the dock and the water is very choppy. We thought all was lost until some Italian guys in speedos spotted our flailing oars and pulled over next to us. We tried to explain our situation in Italian and when the Italian guys could no longer take the butchering of their language, one said "I speak English." We rejoiced. However, he could not even start our engine. This was good in that we no longer felt stupid, but it was bad in that we were stuck in the middle of the ocean. Finally, English-speaking speedo man got the engine started and we were off. The situation got awkward though when he said "We'll see you later tonight, right?" and they went off in the same direction we had been heading and we continued on our course, so it looked like we were following them. Eventually, they split off to go somewhere else and invited us along. Our orientation week full of creepy Italian men stories taught us never to accept any invitation, so we said "No, we have to be back by 6:00." Good thing it was 3:30 and it would have taken us 30 minutes to get back to the dock.
We took the boat a little farther out than before and were driving around another island when the coast guard pulled up next to us, honked his horn, yelled at us in Italian, and pointed us back to the docks. Thought of Italian prisons and excommunication ran through our heads and we kept practicing the necessary phrases we would need to know in Italian, like "We didn't know!", "Take me to the embassy!", "We have some extra sandwiches. Would you like them?" and "We are stupid Americans!" Fortunately, the coast guard went to chase after someone else and we headed back for land.
When we did finally bring the boat back in the dock, we turned the engine off too soon and couldn't get it started again, leaving us stranded about 5 feet from where we needed to be to tie the boat off. Chiro had to come out and help us. Best of all, the guys who helped us earlier were on the dock watching this happen. When we got off, they said, "Glad to see you back on the island!" I guess their earlier question of seeing us later was not a social matter, but more of a looking-out-for-us thing. We've been jaded into being skeptical of every word that comes out of an Italian man's mouth.
Teresa asked for her ID back from the ponytailed guy who owned the boats (she had to give her ID to him before getting on). The dude told her he had given it to one of his friends, and he would give it back in 10 minutes. We waited 10 minutes and no ID. We asked him again and Chiro ran over saying in rapid Italian "It's at my house! Just a 10 minute motorino ride away! I'll get it! Just 10 minutes!" Everything happens in 10 minutes intervals on Ventotene. Teresa did get her ID back, but we have no idea why Chiro had it at his house. Her ID photo will probably surface on the Internet within the next month.
That night on the island, there were a few live bands performing in the town center. Our apartment was right on the center square and we had a balcony that overlooked it, so we had pretty sweet seats for watching the performance. The accordion band, complete with bass guitar, drum set, tambourines, and vocalist was especially awesome. The African drum band would have been cool had I not been trying to sleep when they were playing.
The second day of Ventotene was spent touring the Alcatraz of Italy and lying on the beach. The prison was on a small island about a 10 minute boat ride away from Ventotene. The walk up to the prison was a steep incline and I thought our hobit-esque tour guide was going to die, then I thought I was going to die when he gave the rest of the tour with his shirt off. Anyway, the prison was really cool to see and was a blend of really beautiful and really creepy.
We got to spend about an hour on the beach after the tour. The sand was really dark and the water was clear blue, which made up for all the unnecessary European nudity. Teresa, Emma, and I swam out to a nearby rock, climbed up, and jumped off. It was the most thrilling thing of the weekend! Since the water was super salty, it shot you right back up as soon as you fell in.
On the boat ride back to Italy mainland, there were oodles of children running around unattended, which was actually a trend in Ventotene as well. I do not like children so much, but a rather drunk man on the boat did. He was super creepy and kept trying to grab kids who ran past him. Fortunately, the boat ride was the short part (1 and half hours) of the travel home. The bus was the long part, but we got to watch the Italian Job, so yay. Then, after the 4 hour bus ride came the one hour walk back home. Needless to say, it was nice to be back in the apartments.
This weekend, I'm headed for Assisi for a religious retreat sponsored by Notre Dame. But now, I must go to class and hear Annie Lou correct the professor AGAIN.

Three Angels in Space

2007-09-17T16:37:00.000-04:00

NOTE: This blog is really long. The first stuff is more of a detailed account of what I've been doing. The last stuff is more like little anecdotes. You might want to pick and choose what you read.

I made it through another whirlwind weekend, this time in Florence. But first, let me recap the week leading up to my trip: I went to class, ate at a Mexican restaurant, went to a wine tasting at school (oh, JCU), and saw a cool light installation at Circus Maximus (we hurriedly took one of the last trains out to Circus Maxiumus to see this light display, and as soon as we got there, the lights went off. After some pouting and near-crying, the lights turned back on. There is still no explanation for this event). Now for Florence.
I left on Friday morning by train. The station in Rome was really cool and was like an airport or a mall. Once in Florence, we went to our hostel, Emerald Fields. When we checked in, we got upgraded to Emerald Palace across the street. A palace indeed! It exceeded all of my expectations, though never having been in a hostel, my expectations were quite low (I pictured dungeons and bathrooms without doors). The hostel was very clean and spacious. I was traveling with two other girls, Meaghan and Caitlin, and we were in a room for four people. We found our roomie making bruchetta in the hostel's kitchen. He was a Canadian video game maker traveling through Europe alone. I was sure he would kidnap us and take us to murder hostel, but he was just socially awkward.
The first time in our Florentine journey was the Uffici Gallery. After finding out which of the 50 lines to get in and forking over 13 euro (this would end up being a trend in Florence), we had the opportunity to gaze upon great Renaissance artwork by Botticelli, Da Vinci, and Michelangelo. It was all very stunning and really cool to see paintings I had before only seen in textbooks, but by the end, I was pretty tired of looking at fat cherubs and weird babies with old man faces (the German artwork was especially keen on painting not only weird babies, but ugly people in general). The Uffici was really great, but ginormous and tiring. Considering this, we headed to the Academia to look at more art. Yay.
The Academia was actually really cool and I liked it even better than the Uffici (perhaps because it was smaller). The David was incredible to see and they had some of Michelangelo's unfinished sculptures on display, which gave some insight on how he actually carved it. Unfortunately, a rule of the museum was that you could not take pictures and there was one museum worker in particular who was very intent on letting no one take a picture of David. At the first sight of an eager tourist pulling a camera out of their fanny pack, she would rush over, chattering in Italian and wagging her finger until the bewildered tourist tucked the camera away and took some mental photos instead. She was more concerned on guarding the front of the statue than the back, therefore I have some pictures of David's butt and some blurry ones of his front, taken as I was running away from the camera nazi.
The rest of the afternoon was spent shopping and walking around and getting dinner. Florence is more what I expected Italy to look like than Rome. It is smaller, has tiny parks with patches of grass, all the roofs are terracotta, and the dogs are fluffier. Its a beautiful city, but it is more touristy than Rome since the same amount of tourists that visit Rome visit Florence, but Florence is smaller. Everything is very expensive and the streets are packed with vendors selling everything from leather coats to boxers. I was able to spot the Italians in the city pretty easily, as they were the ones catcalling (we got an "Oh my God! Three angels!" on our way to a bar) and wearing t-shirts with confusing English phrases (these included "Set, Ready, Be!", "I'm going to eat you so much!", and "I like too much to be...Snob").
That night, we decided to go to Space Bar, an outer space themed bar. The name alone made it sound promising, and the fact that we got handed a flyer for it on the street made it seem like fate that we should go (plus, it sounded better than the flyers we got for the "Free Crazy Party"). While getting ready at the hostel, our creepy Canadian roomie asked us where we were going, then invited himself along. Fortunately, when it came time to leave, he said "Oh, sorry guys, but I think I'm going to just stay in tonight." We put on our best fake-disappointment-to-hide-our-contentment faces and left.
Space bar was all I had hoped it would be and more. There was a "VIP room", a discotheque, an aquarium, karaoke, and a giant UFO above the dance floor. However, we didn't really explore much of the club, since the bartender took an instant liking to us and we found him too interesting to leave. His name was Fabio. 'Nough said. He was one of the strangest and most entertaining people I have ever met. He spoke English, but insisted on writing us notes on napkins with little drawings or symbols in place of words. He even wrote us a poem: "I like coffee/You like tea/I like you/You like me." Fabio is a literary genius. He requested that we sing "Love me Tender" by Elvis Presley on the club's karaoke, but since we didn't know the words, we sang the next best thing--My Humps by the Black Eyed Peas. Once the bar started closing, Fabio's friends showed up. They were kind of old and poor Caitlin got stuck talking to Massimo, who looking like a skinnier and older version of Gunther from Friends. I struck up a conversation with Fillipo, who didn't speak much English, so I had a whole conversation in Italian for about a half hour. It was a very cool and accomplished feeling. I guess this whole living in Italy thing is improving my Italian skills. At around 4:00, we noticed that we were the only ones still at Space who did not work there, as the bar closed at 3. After promising to come back the next night (we didn't) and being offered some motorino rides back to our hostel (we refused) we walked home and promptly fell into our beds.
After three hours of sleep, we woke up for a bus tour through Tuscany. As soon as I woke up, it became apparent that I would not be going back to Space Bar that night, let alone staying out past 9. Caitlin and I dragged ourselves to the bus stop, our groggy sluggishness leaving no time for coffee. We got on the packed bus full of middle aged male and female Australians, Brits, Americans, and Nick Nolte (well, he looked like him plus an afro with dreadlocks in the back, creating an octopus-like hairstyle). As we were just settling in to fall asleep for the 2 hour bus ride to Sienna, an Italian man in the front of the bus got on a microphone and started cracking corny jokes and telling useless facts about the tour destinations. This was not a good start to my day, as I do not like being talked at by a squaty Italian man while I am uber exhausted. To top it off, the Australian women sitting behind me decided to punctuate each of the tour guides sentences with a loud "tsk tsk" and a repeat of keywords. So the soundtrack of my morning bus ride sounded something like this: Tour Guide, "In Sienna, a-everybody is-a very rich, but they-a don't like to show it, so it a looks-a very poor, but don't-a be fooled by the man from Sienna!" Australian women "TSK TSK TSK Oh dear me, did you hear that? They're rich! In Sienna, they're rich. But they look poor. In Sienna. Rich. TSK" I was about to jump out that bus and roll down a Tuscan hill. Fortunately, once we reached our destination, things got much, much better. We split off from the group and got coffee.
Sienna is gorgeous. I'm going to live there one day and open a hostel. It has all the charms of Florence without all the tourism. I was actually able to find a restaurant with an all-Italian menu! (most in Rome and Florence have English descriptions on the menus). Sienna seems to have popped out of the pages of a Tuscan travel journal. While walking around, we came across a wedding where all the women were wearing hats and all the men in nice suits. Later, walking by that same spot, we saw a man carrying a large owl. I'm assuming the two events had nothing to do with one another. In Sienna, we stopped in the cathedral, which had beautiful green and white marble striped pillars all around it and within it. That was the most beautiful cathedral I have seen.
The next stop on the tour was a farm house in Tuscany where we had lunch. Think of your stereotypical image of Tuscany, and that's where this farmhouse was. All around, you could see vineyards and hills and little houses. The food was excellent and Caitlin and I sat in between a family from New Zealand and a couple from California (everyone from America in Italy is assumed to be from California). They were nice to talk to, but then we saw the family from New Zealand walking around Florence the next day wearing the exact same clothes. It was weird.
Next was San Gimignano. Caitlin and I were a little tired of beautiful landscapes and cathedrals, so we went to the Museum of Torture. This was an excellent choice and possibly more interesting than the likes of the Vatican and Uffici. The mode of torture I found most interesting was one where the victim's feet were covered in salt water and a 3-day water-deprived goat licked the skin off the feet. San Gimignano was a little too touristy for a small town and had a lot of kitchen stores, but it was pretty and had good gelato.
The last stop on the bus tour was Pisa. Pisa sucked. This is probably due to the fact that I was very tired by then and Pisa has absolutely nothing except the leaning tower and tons of fake purse stands. Plus, it is incredibly difficult to take that picture where, because of a trick with perspective, it looks like you're holding up the tower. Caitlin and I tried this a million times and now we have a ton of pictures of us standing next to the Leaning Tower of Pisa holding our arms straight out in front of us.
Sunday was spent doing some last minute sightseeing in Florence. We went to the Church of Santa Croce, where Michaelangelo, Machiavelli, and some other important Italians are buried. It was actually kind of a dull cathedral, but nothing can really compare to Sienna's cathedral. We walked up the bell tower of the Duomo. There are 400+ steps and they are all incredibly narrow, dark, and windy. To make things worse, there were people going both up and down, so occasionally, we would have to stop walking, pin ourselves against the wall, and wait for the people going the opposite direction to pass. One little girl who was walking down while I was walking up was huffing and puffing harder than anyone and used my butt as a railing as she passed by. Once we got to the top, all the walking and pausing and groping was worth it because the view was breathtaking.
We walked around Florence for the rest of the day, stopping at some parks and the Ponte Vecchio. Along our walk, we heard a high pitched squeaking/smacking sound that we thought was a bird, but we soon found the source of the sound was a couple making out across the street. They're kissing had the craziest sound projection I have ever heard. Instead of being offended or grossed out, I was just amazed. If I haven't mentioned it before, the PDA in Italy is the most extreme I have ever seen. People make out anywhere and everywhere (especially public transportation). However, this is not the same kind of public making out there is in America. Instead of just going at it in a way that is at least comical for onlookers, Italians kiss incredibly sensually and slowly, so as to make everyone around them very uncomfortable. You might think the goal is to make everyone so uncomfortable so that they go away, but these couples don't even seem to realize they are in public, since inappropriate groping often accompanies these slurpy makeout sessions.
Our last hoorah in Florence occurred on the way to the metro. We walked past a big tree stump that was smoking. Upon closer look, we realized the stump was on fire because someone had put their cigarette out on it (genius!). After we stared at it for a while, an Italian lady on a bicycle stopped by to join the staring, muttered some Italian at us, then left after Meaghan poured her water bottle on the flames. We saved Florence from burning down. Huzzah!
After this long tiring trip, it was nice to get back to the apartment. I guess there's no place like Rome...

Ok, enough of the nitty gritty details about my trip. Here are the fun stories.
I should preface the following by saying that I am a total disaster. Unlike a normal person, I find myself in strange and awkward situations daily that most people would instinctively avoid. For example....
I was buying shoes in a store in Rome, so of course, I had to try the shoes on. The store was about as big as a dorm room, lined with boxes of shoes, and had one chair. The chair was being used, so instead of being a normal person and a) waiting for the chair to be vacant or b) sitting on the ground and trying them on, I tried on the shoes while standing. So of course, I fell. In the process of falling, I grabbed onto Kristina, who gave me a perplexed look and let me continue to fall on a boots and boxes. Awesome. I fell in a Roman shoe store.
Next disaster moment occurred in a clothing store. After trying on the dress, the saleswoman insisted that I come out into the store to look in the big mirror. She instantly starting adjusting the dress, which was fine, until she reached under the skirt to lift it up and adjust the slip. I just had to let her do her thing, mostly because of the language barrier, and I didn't even know what to say to something like that in English.
During one of the stops on the Tuscan bus tour, I went into a bathroom, only to be called out by a weird old man, who made me pay 50 cents for toilet paper. I got in the stall to find nothing but a whole in the ground. Egad! I wanted out of there as quickly as possible, but when I turned the handle on the door to leave, nothing happened. I turned the lock every which way, jiggled the handle, but no freedom. I really started to panic because I was stuck in this walled in hole for a good five minutes before the creepy old guy who took my money unlocked the door and yelled at me in Italian. That was the worst experience of my life.
In Pisa, Caitlin and I were buying some fake bags and the guy selling them asked if we were from Sydney. A while ago, we had decided that we were going to tell people we were from Canada for a while, to see if we would get treated differently. We did. We got spoken to in French. We did not think through this plan. We told the salesman that we didn't speak French. He seemed confused and said that all Canadians speak French. Nope, not us. We're special Canadians and we learned Spanish in school instead. So he spoke to us in Spanish. After we gave him more blank stares, he scolded us and said that he speaks 7 languages and that anyone who speaks only 1 is a failure in life. Yet he is selling purses in Pisa.
When we were finally leaving Space Bar in Florence, we said goodbye to Massimo and Fillipo with the European kiss kiss on both cheeks. I had not had the opportunity to do this yet, so I was thrilled to get the chance to take a step further into my Italian immersion. But of course I messed it up. Massimo and I both went the same way, so we ended up awkwardly in each other's faces. This was especially bad since Massimo looked to be about the same age as Methuselah.

BASTA!