So this quarter I'm taking four classes: Group Dynamics, Intro to Student Affairs, Intro to Theory, and Internationalizing College Campuses. All these are very interesting, especially Internationalizing, which will be continued next summer with an abroad trip.
I bring this up because these classes are very discussion based and trigger a lot thoughts and reflections. Sometimes, I want to get my mind straight on these topics, or spend more time dissecting them than we have in class. So I figure my blog is a place to do that, and you are welcome to read or not. I'm sure many of you will find it interesting, and many more of you will find it boring. But at least for this first episode, I think I'll have some fans. So, without further adieu, I give you...
Video Games and Groups Dynamics!!
In our Group Dynamics class, we were tackling the question of whether we as a society were moving toward or away from groups. The textbook had cited a shift in society away from bowling groups between the 1950s and today as a microcosm for this potential change. This was discussed in the book "Bowling Alone". "Are Americans bowling alone?" our professor asked.
Under my breath I joked, "No they are bowling on their Wiis". And then I had a thought: video games as an analysis of group dynamics. I raised my hand and voiced my idea: Video games started out as a communal activity. You went the arcade and hung out together, playing as one or two people with a group watching (so I've inferred from Tron anyway). Yes, there's an element of isolation and individuality, but even The Who sing about a Pinball Wizard who people are watching and cheering for. So there was a group aspect to it. Especially when compared to the next phase of video games, the home console. As video games moved inside, you'd think that the family would gather around this new invention called the "Family Computer" or Famicom (aka Nintendo). That worked for a bit but as every young boy learned, the console system served more as a battlefield, waging war with parents who tried to send you outside to interact with people than as a family bonding experience. Even if you had siblings or friends, the games could cause more arguments than anything. However, as games changed and grew, first with the N64 and later with the Wii, video games turned into a party experience. Add to that the simultaneous growth of computer gaming with games like Diablo and group dynamics really began to come into play. Today video games of all kinds have large multiplayer experiences. Look at what Halo did and Call of Duty has thus far perfected. It's a whole new world of group dynamics.
This is just like a fun premise for a thesis, nothing quite as fleshed out (pun somewhat intended) as say zombies representing the crowd, an extreme of group dynamics and also part of Dungeon Daddy's really interesting English Master's Thesis. As a class, we generally felt that society is still very much enmeshed in groups, they've just changed. Facebook and the internet have turned group dynamics on its head. We interact with people more and more, but the question becomes is the quality of interaction the same type? Are we getting the some sense of belonging, life skills, communication practice, and personal growth that in person interactions have demonstrated to show with online relationships? While there are many levels of group interaction, ranging from your best friend or parent or sibling to being on the bus with other people, where does internet group dynamics fall? I suppose its relative to the person and the type of interactions you have. If you have 800 facebook friends, are those quality group interactions? On a related note, which interactions are more effective, playing Rock Band together in your living room or World of Warcraft online?
Well that's about it for my thought experiment. I will say as one last point about internet group dynamics, I've found online gaming with say, Spam Boa, Dungeon Daddy, Heavy Spy, Math Magician, and several others to be very positive in maintaining friendships. I think regardless of extroversion, introversion, lots of friends or a few good ones, being able to function in groups makes life a lot easier and is pretty important to success in so-called "society".
Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions in the comment space. Hope you enjoyed!
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
School is has been started
I had my first classes this week. Its both exciting and intimidating to be back in school. I'm not ready for critical analysis and mass amounts of reading. I do think all my classes are good and I'm going to learn and get a lot out of them. Already it feels more like job training than traditional schooling, which is good. Rather than just give a presentation, I am developing a presentation I can use in future jobs. And rather than a powerpoint, I make a professional poster that I'd use at conferences. So its useful stuff. And my professors are pretty awesome.
It also means I'm getting to work with my cohort more, and hang out too. It's nice to start getting to know people, from dinners to parties to tailgating to just walking from class to class, I'm finally starting to figure out some of the people I'm going to spend the next two years with. I'm sure I'll describe more of them as time necessitates.
Today though I have a bit of writer's block. Which is OK because I need to write a paper later and I'm actually more motivated by that than this week's blog. I just have very little to report. My paper on the other hand, its about the best group I've ever been a part of (its for my group dynamics class). I'm going to write about my student leader experience, my first real involvement at the University and the place where I met people like El Bandito, Dungeon Daddy, P-Diddy, and a few others. That set up a number of my good good University friends, Tenshi, and ultimately got me on my way to Summercamp. But the paper is just on that first Student Leader experience.
I have a lot of stuff coming up this week that will be blog worthy though. Next week, is Jordan and Penny's wedding, so I'm flying to Atlanta and will see a lot of my friends. On Tuesday, I have a "one on one" with some of my old staff members either on Skype or Google Hangout, so that'll be cool. In two weeks, I leave for Rome with Naysayer P Squirrel. I'll fill you in on that one probably next week.
It should be noted that the next two weeks I may be late with my blogs for these reasons. Sorry in advance.
It has been nice catching up with people like Mother Mapster and Micki Granger on Google+, Spam Boa, Dungeon Daddy, and Heavy Spy on Skype, Dr. Beaker Flips, Tenshi, and Pokeboss on Gchat, Clark, King Wrangler and Red Button on FBchat, and my family, Naysayer, Brock, Mama G, and P. Diddy on good ol fashion phone. Technology is really amazing. And these days so accessible.
I still have my ups and downs in adjusting here. Micki and I were talking about Christmas and that seems so far away from this goal I've set in my head for vacation. Being away from home makes that countdown for vacation mean something different. I've decided I'm not very good at small talk and having the same conversation 10x gets old, which is what's going to happen when I go home. But I think that's a super minor consideration thats less related to something I am not looking forward to and more related to how much networking I've done this week and how it's tricky. Still, I'm excited for a place of comfort zone.
Speaking of networking, I've been going to all the welcome events from various departments, colleges, clubs and offices, mostly for the free food. Around here, free food costs one email so they can contact you later. It's been good at some places and some places get my old aol email, which I use more for spam. But with the amount of traveling in my future and my tiny paycheck, gotta get the food where I can.
OK, I think that's all I got this week. Sorry for the shorter, less interesting blog. Just wait for next week, after I'm roomies with Clark and Brock again for a bit.
Listening to: Indiana Jones theme song, saw the 4th movie again today on TV. It wasn't as bad as I remember. If you just remove about 3 big scenes it'd be fine. Not great but fine.
Reading: Student Services, 5th Edition. Looks like I'm going to be in a text book for a while. It's ok actually but still sad.
Playing: League of Legends... yes I succumbed. I've been fighting it forever. But I found I could lead a second life after my nights out here, I could play with people on the West Coast who are just getting on their comps. Danger...
It also means I'm getting to work with my cohort more, and hang out too. It's nice to start getting to know people, from dinners to parties to tailgating to just walking from class to class, I'm finally starting to figure out some of the people I'm going to spend the next two years with. I'm sure I'll describe more of them as time necessitates.
Today though I have a bit of writer's block. Which is OK because I need to write a paper later and I'm actually more motivated by that than this week's blog. I just have very little to report. My paper on the other hand, its about the best group I've ever been a part of (its for my group dynamics class). I'm going to write about my student leader experience, my first real involvement at the University and the place where I met people like El Bandito, Dungeon Daddy, P-Diddy, and a few others. That set up a number of my good good University friends, Tenshi, and ultimately got me on my way to Summercamp. But the paper is just on that first Student Leader experience.
I have a lot of stuff coming up this week that will be blog worthy though. Next week, is Jordan and Penny's wedding, so I'm flying to Atlanta and will see a lot of my friends. On Tuesday, I have a "one on one" with some of my old staff members either on Skype or Google Hangout, so that'll be cool. In two weeks, I leave for Rome with Naysayer P Squirrel. I'll fill you in on that one probably next week.
It should be noted that the next two weeks I may be late with my blogs for these reasons. Sorry in advance.
It has been nice catching up with people like Mother Mapster and Micki Granger on Google+, Spam Boa, Dungeon Daddy, and Heavy Spy on Skype, Dr. Beaker Flips, Tenshi, and Pokeboss on Gchat, Clark, King Wrangler and Red Button on FBchat, and my family, Naysayer, Brock, Mama G, and P. Diddy on good ol fashion phone. Technology is really amazing. And these days so accessible.
I still have my ups and downs in adjusting here. Micki and I were talking about Christmas and that seems so far away from this goal I've set in my head for vacation. Being away from home makes that countdown for vacation mean something different. I've decided I'm not very good at small talk and having the same conversation 10x gets old, which is what's going to happen when I go home. But I think that's a super minor consideration thats less related to something I am not looking forward to and more related to how much networking I've done this week and how it's tricky. Still, I'm excited for a place of comfort zone.
Speaking of networking, I've been going to all the welcome events from various departments, colleges, clubs and offices, mostly for the free food. Around here, free food costs one email so they can contact you later. It's been good at some places and some places get my old aol email, which I use more for spam. But with the amount of traveling in my future and my tiny paycheck, gotta get the food where I can.
OK, I think that's all I got this week. Sorry for the shorter, less interesting blog. Just wait for next week, after I'm roomies with Clark and Brock again for a bit.
Listening to: Indiana Jones theme song, saw the 4th movie again today on TV. It wasn't as bad as I remember. If you just remove about 3 big scenes it'd be fine. Not great but fine.
Reading: Student Services, 5th Edition. Looks like I'm going to be in a text book for a while. It's ok actually but still sad.
Playing: League of Legends... yes I succumbed. I've been fighting it forever. But I found I could lead a second life after my nights out here, I could play with people on the West Coast who are just getting on their comps. Danger...
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Adulthood?
Hello friends!
This week featured meeting my cohort (the people in my program who I will take most classes with) and continuing my training for work. It also featured a terrible day for sport on Saturday, where any team I rooted for lost...
But what I want to talk about today is adulthood. I've been thinking about this a bit all week.
For those of you who know me (basically all of you) I am a fan of the casual dress. Steakhouse would say this is a vast understatement. She's been trying to get me on What not to Where forever. If Queer Eye still existed I'm sure there would have been an army to get me on that show. I usually take it in stride. I'm not that bad of a dresser (cue Steakhouse's choking attack) but I do like a very simple look: flip flops, jeans (or sometimes cargo shorts), and a tshirt (usually something from Woot or one of my million University shirts). I don't do anything to my hair, just try to muss it down, and if its really long and rebellious, I'll through a hat on, usually finding more comfort in the backwards baseball cap. I'll also forgo an extensive shave in favor of a scruffy look or even a beard from ear to ear.
All that has changed. Every weekday I have been wearing nice shoes, black socks, good black or khaki pants, a nice belt, a long sleeve collared shirt and a tie. This means I have ironed almost every night I've been here to make the pants and shirt look good. That's right, IRONED. Whatmore, I gel my hair daily, still going for the tuffled look but gelled in place to make it fancy-like. And of course a close shave is also included. Now you may say this is just cuz I'm working in the business school and have to look good. And you're right. But take a look at this as well. On my first day with my Student Affairs cohort. I say student affairs because 90% of Student Affairs jobs seem to have jeans as part of the uniform, to give you an idea of the more casual nature. So I wore my nice jeans, the only ones Steakhouse ever approved of. Then I had a nice Aereopostale (sp?) shirt which looked like two shirts, one with long sleeves one red with a design on it, putting me in school colors. I IRONED that too and then opted to wear my nice shoes again despite the chance for sandals or tennis shoes. That's right, I even took care of my appearance on a non-work day. This can only be a sign of adulthood. Being conscious of my first impressions and dressing up rather then squeezing what I can by. I'm sure Naysayer P Squirrel is shedding a tear and Steakhouse is in apoplectic shock.
Other things that seem strangely adult: reading articles in coffee shops a week early... drinking tea in the morning... washing dishes every day... getting up early to get ready for work and have breakfast...
I'm trying to form good habits before school starts. We'll see how much actually sticks. They say it takes 30 days to form a habit. I hope I can keep up the routine.
One of the things we did during our welcome session was called Strengths Quest. For those of you familiar with Myers-Briggs or DiSC Assessment, this was very very similar. It takes the approach that you are born with certain talents and your environment also hones certain strengths. Often times those talents combined with environmental honing leads to you having certain strengths. IE- You may be naturally good at organizing things. You may have also had a job that forced you to take inventory of a clothing store and put all the clothes back where they belong each day. Your Strength Quest strength then might be "Organization".
So I took the test and its run by Gallup and it came back with the following 5 strengths in this order: Includer, Developer, Harmony, Arranger, Adaptability. These fall into the groups of Relationship Building (4 of them) and Executor (Arranger). Other groups are Influencer and Strategic Thinking. Includer and Harmony are exactly what they sound like: keeping people connected to groups, making sure noone gets left behind or forgotten and building harmony in a group, for me that seems to be through compromises. Adaptability means I'm kinda in the moment and take a go with the flow attitude. Developer means I like to challenge people to take things to the next level or try new things (do I do the Pokeboss?? haha). Arranger makes me sound organized but its not quite like that, its more I follow through with my obligations and prioritize and arrange things to work. It goes nicely with adaptability and Harmony if you think about it.
It definitely made for interesting self assessment. I noticed that these top 5 strengths don't directly address my tendency toward logic and practicality or how I'm a very mental person as well as a talker. They say that we really have 10 top strengths 14 kinda neutral strengths and 10 kinda bottom rung strengths (not weakness per say but things that we are very uncomfortable doing- like for me that would be Focus, staying set on a task for hours and hours and hours on end without any change or movement, I can do it but it'd be hard). Either way it was really interesting and I hope to continue to hone my strengths and enhance those other hidden ones. This assessment definitely fit me to a tee, especially at this point in my life, and I figure it's pretty applicable to student affairs.
I have to wrap it up early. My laptops dying. Tomorrow I finally get internet, so maybe I'll blog again soon.
Goodnight all. This week the goal is to go to the gym with Dandy Woo and others after class. If I keep saying it itll be true.
Reading: Immortal Life of Henrietta Lack- University's first year read that is shaping up to be good.
Listening to: You can't always get what you want- Rolling stones... so fitting
Playing: Fallout New Vegas again. Had some time today
This week featured meeting my cohort (the people in my program who I will take most classes with) and continuing my training for work. It also featured a terrible day for sport on Saturday, where any team I rooted for lost...
But what I want to talk about today is adulthood. I've been thinking about this a bit all week.
For those of you who know me (basically all of you) I am a fan of the casual dress. Steakhouse would say this is a vast understatement. She's been trying to get me on What not to Where forever. If Queer Eye still existed I'm sure there would have been an army to get me on that show. I usually take it in stride. I'm not that bad of a dresser (cue Steakhouse's choking attack) but I do like a very simple look: flip flops, jeans (or sometimes cargo shorts), and a tshirt (usually something from Woot or one of my million University shirts). I don't do anything to my hair, just try to muss it down, and if its really long and rebellious, I'll through a hat on, usually finding more comfort in the backwards baseball cap. I'll also forgo an extensive shave in favor of a scruffy look or even a beard from ear to ear.
All that has changed. Every weekday I have been wearing nice shoes, black socks, good black or khaki pants, a nice belt, a long sleeve collared shirt and a tie. This means I have ironed almost every night I've been here to make the pants and shirt look good. That's right, IRONED. Whatmore, I gel my hair daily, still going for the tuffled look but gelled in place to make it fancy-like. And of course a close shave is also included. Now you may say this is just cuz I'm working in the business school and have to look good. And you're right. But take a look at this as well. On my first day with my Student Affairs cohort. I say student affairs because 90% of Student Affairs jobs seem to have jeans as part of the uniform, to give you an idea of the more casual nature. So I wore my nice jeans, the only ones Steakhouse ever approved of. Then I had a nice Aereopostale (sp?) shirt which looked like two shirts, one with long sleeves one red with a design on it, putting me in school colors. I IRONED that too and then opted to wear my nice shoes again despite the chance for sandals or tennis shoes. That's right, I even took care of my appearance on a non-work day. This can only be a sign of adulthood. Being conscious of my first impressions and dressing up rather then squeezing what I can by. I'm sure Naysayer P Squirrel is shedding a tear and Steakhouse is in apoplectic shock.
Other things that seem strangely adult: reading articles in coffee shops a week early... drinking tea in the morning... washing dishes every day... getting up early to get ready for work and have breakfast...
I'm trying to form good habits before school starts. We'll see how much actually sticks. They say it takes 30 days to form a habit. I hope I can keep up the routine.
One of the things we did during our welcome session was called Strengths Quest. For those of you familiar with Myers-Briggs or DiSC Assessment, this was very very similar. It takes the approach that you are born with certain talents and your environment also hones certain strengths. Often times those talents combined with environmental honing leads to you having certain strengths. IE- You may be naturally good at organizing things. You may have also had a job that forced you to take inventory of a clothing store and put all the clothes back where they belong each day. Your Strength Quest strength then might be "Organization".
So I took the test and its run by Gallup and it came back with the following 5 strengths in this order: Includer, Developer, Harmony, Arranger, Adaptability. These fall into the groups of Relationship Building (4 of them) and Executor (Arranger). Other groups are Influencer and Strategic Thinking. Includer and Harmony are exactly what they sound like: keeping people connected to groups, making sure noone gets left behind or forgotten and building harmony in a group, for me that seems to be through compromises. Adaptability means I'm kinda in the moment and take a go with the flow attitude. Developer means I like to challenge people to take things to the next level or try new things (do I do the Pokeboss?? haha). Arranger makes me sound organized but its not quite like that, its more I follow through with my obligations and prioritize and arrange things to work. It goes nicely with adaptability and Harmony if you think about it.
It definitely made for interesting self assessment. I noticed that these top 5 strengths don't directly address my tendency toward logic and practicality or how I'm a very mental person as well as a talker. They say that we really have 10 top strengths 14 kinda neutral strengths and 10 kinda bottom rung strengths (not weakness per say but things that we are very uncomfortable doing- like for me that would be Focus, staying set on a task for hours and hours and hours on end without any change or movement, I can do it but it'd be hard). Either way it was really interesting and I hope to continue to hone my strengths and enhance those other hidden ones. This assessment definitely fit me to a tee, especially at this point in my life, and I figure it's pretty applicable to student affairs.
I have to wrap it up early. My laptops dying. Tomorrow I finally get internet, so maybe I'll blog again soon.
Goodnight all. This week the goal is to go to the gym with Dandy Woo and others after class. If I keep saying it itll be true.
Reading: Immortal Life of Henrietta Lack- University's first year read that is shaping up to be good.
Listening to: You can't always get what you want- Rolling stones... so fitting
Playing: Fallout New Vegas again. Had some time today
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Another episode of... Cooking with James!!
Today episode is more like a pair of short clips. I do more cooking these days but nothing too challenging yet. Lots of PB&J, chilaquiles one night, and premade pizza. But I've also started doing something with my morning routine. I get up at 730am most days and since I dont drink coffee, I've decided that tea is a good thing in the morning. I don't much care for tea, but I force myself just to get some caffeine in the morning (something I didn't used to do but feel I should probably need. And with my 4.5 hours of sleep average lately, I really do need it.
So this morning I went to make some tea. I put some water in the pot, but not too much cuz I was only making a cup. As it whistles, I grab it and begin pouring, but realize that the small amount I put in had evaporated into steam(duh.) leaving me with very little hot water. Fine. I'll just make some more. So I open the lid and the aforementioned steam comes spewing out onto the handle, where my right hand is conveniently holding the teapot. Hot gas burns my hand. I quickly put the teapot down, annoyed with myself. I then, because the lesson didn't sink in, grab the handle again to refill the pot, and burn my hand again with the steam! I persevere, dump a bunch of water into the pot and put it down to replace the lid. However, I fumble the lid, dropping it on upsidedown, handle down. So in my continuing dumbness, I grab the lid, which if you understand anything about conduction, you can conclude that the metal material had heated up, and I thereby burned my other fingers too. Moral of the story: i really do need caffeine in the morning.
One last side story for about my dinner endeavors. I made chili beans tonight, which ive made before and am good at. I dumped it all in the pot and heated it up. When things boil, they also steam, and then condensate (sp?) on the pot lid. My lid is glass. I can see the hot water on the bottom of the lid. Yet when I picked up the lid to stir the chili, I hold the lid sideways and that hot water falls on my foot. Thank goodness I had socks on to take most of the water and I'm tall enough that it cooled a little bit, so the burn was barely noticeable. BUT I definitely thought it was going to hurt and hopped up and down in reaction before I realized I wasn't in pain. Steam and me are not friends.
Oh well, at least nothing burned down (and i tried by mistakenly leaving the label on the pot as I cooked...)
See you Sunday!
So this morning I went to make some tea. I put some water in the pot, but not too much cuz I was only making a cup. As it whistles, I grab it and begin pouring, but realize that the small amount I put in had evaporated into steam(duh.) leaving me with very little hot water. Fine. I'll just make some more. So I open the lid and the aforementioned steam comes spewing out onto the handle, where my right hand is conveniently holding the teapot. Hot gas burns my hand. I quickly put the teapot down, annoyed with myself. I then, because the lesson didn't sink in, grab the handle again to refill the pot, and burn my hand again with the steam! I persevere, dump a bunch of water into the pot and put it down to replace the lid. However, I fumble the lid, dropping it on upsidedown, handle down. So in my continuing dumbness, I grab the lid, which if you understand anything about conduction, you can conclude that the metal material had heated up, and I thereby burned my other fingers too. Moral of the story: i really do need caffeine in the morning.
One last side story for about my dinner endeavors. I made chili beans tonight, which ive made before and am good at. I dumped it all in the pot and heated it up. When things boil, they also steam, and then condensate (sp?) on the pot lid. My lid is glass. I can see the hot water on the bottom of the lid. Yet when I picked up the lid to stir the chili, I hold the lid sideways and that hot water falls on my foot. Thank goodness I had socks on to take most of the water and I'm tall enough that it cooled a little bit, so the burn was barely noticeable. BUT I definitely thought it was going to hurt and hopped up and down in reaction before I realized I wasn't in pain. Steam and me are not friends.
Oh well, at least nothing burned down (and i tried by mistakenly leaving the label on the pot as I cooked...)
See you Sunday!
Sunday, September 11, 2011
It's Tough to be a Buck
This week, I guess the best way to summarize it is highs and lows. In the class I used to teach, El Bandito and I used to ask our students to give us their weekly Highs and lows. Because this is my blog, I'm going to give you a bunch, though I'll try to keep it interesting, especially since most readers I have are still in California (with notable exceptions of Spam Boa, Mother Mapster, Micki Granger, and P-Diddy), and so its worth tayloring to my audience :)
So my high for this week: Starting Work. My Low: Missing a Google Hangout
Starting work has been great for me. I'll tell you why but first lemme analyze the concept of homesickness a little. My mom asked me if I was homesick. I don't think I am. Homesickness means you don't want to be where you are but rather where you were. I am definitely happy I'm here, meeting new people, starting up school and all of that. It's a long term adventure, and I love adventures. Instead, I think I have moments where I wish I could be a part of everything. I love all the stuff i've been doing here. But I also want to be at the stuff back home too. It's that same old complaint of I can't be in two places at once. This was a problem in California and it's just a long distance problem here. It's magnified by the fact that there's a lot more things I'm missing at home that I haven't yet replaced here. I just don't have the social and work calendar I had before. And no friggen' internet or video games to fill this newfound free time. (Well I did solve the video game problem)
Things I wished I coulda been at this week that I couldnt AKA my other lows for this week: Talking with Mama G in person rather than on the phone, University training with Red Button, Pokeboss, Captain Peanut and Naysayer P Squirrel (I don't miss training itself but training time and definitely appreciate Pokeboss' updates),
Things I attended here that I'm so glad i did, AKA my other highs for this week: Work training, lunch with my coworkers, happy hour with the other GAAs (Graduate Administrative Assistants), German Village with an old friend, TS Eloquent, my first OSU football game (which they won!), Mass and dinner with another old friend, Little Joyful
Anyway, that's my thoughts there. I have never been one that can sit idly alone for long periods of time. I need people around me. I get my energy from them. I'm truly an extrovert. So that's why work is my high this week. I got to meet some great new people. And new people of course means new Blog characters. For work, I'll introduce you to Dandy Woo. Dandy is a GAA like me. And she's one of those people who you are instantly comfortable around. Like after 5 minutes of talking with her I felt like we'd been friends for years. I named her Woo because in the StrengthsQuest (which is the kind of personality assessment thats popular here, a Woo is someone who thrives off of starting up conversations with complete strangers. This is totally her. She is the kind of person you don't want to sit next to on a plane ride you plan on sleeping through. And that's what she says. And she'd know, her dad's a pilot and she flies all over the place. We are gunna be good buds at work I think, and we have all the same classes too so it's good that we get along.
She along with our two other GAAs and our supervisors, have been my companions during training. I am the only man (there is one undergrad student worker who's a guy too but I'll be lucky to see him more than 5 hours any given week). The first day was spent talking about how one of the girls just got out of a relationship then moved to Dandy talking about her recent wedding engagement, which led to pictures of her wedding dress, which led to conversations about the other girls' weddings. Yes, for those of you keeping school at home, I'm the only man and three of the four women my age are married or about to be married. I feel like this should be significantly different from my previous situation, but I feel about the same. Once again I'm surrounded by great people I can't directly relate to but am amused and interested by their various conversations. It's lucky I'm patient and easily amused :)
Work itselt is going to be about Interviewing techniques, resume writing and ideal cover letters. My job is to prepare business students for getting jobs. Not only does this seem like a good skill in this day an age, but I feel like this will really help me in the future too. And I'm sure this means even MORE people will be asking for help with their apps and what not. It's nice to be needed.
I also went to the German Village, which is a district south of Downtown. My tour guide was TS Eloquent, an old friend from college who was an English major like me and also hung out with our crew on and off for a while. TS Eloquent took me to this nice Jewish Deli for some sandwiches and then this simply AMAZING book store. It was in this quaint brick building with little fountains and a cobblestone walk. Then inside, there were over 30 different rooms of various book and genres. One, you couldn't tell by looking at this cottage-like shop that there COULD be thirty rooms inside. Two, the rooms all connected on a few paths, so it was literally a labyrinth of books and rooms that you wander through. It was the Narnia of bookstores. The Diagon Alley. The Rabbit Hole. Neverland. It was a wonderful place. Each room had its own CD player with its own soundtrack ranging from every like big band to nature sounds to the beach boys, fitting the theme of the room. I'm so glad he showed me this place. It makes me happy just thinking about it. He also took me to the famous Jeni's Ice Cream, which I've heard about almost every day I've been here. I had two schools, one a chocolate with cayenne pepper to give it a good spicy taste and the other the buckeye, which had nuts and spices and a number of other things in it. There were hundreds of flavors to choose from and none that you'd ever seen anywhere else. And all natural, locally grown ingredients too. Very amazing. It was also nice just catching up with an old friend, filling him in on my life in California and hearing about his pursuits for a Master's degree in Creative writing, specifically Poetry for him, a direction my life might have gone at one point. He was amused by all the stories I had from the quirkies in my life :)
I went to my first football game here. And at a town with no students yet cuz school hasn't started, there were 105,000 people in attendance of this game. Packed full, and league play hasn't even started. It was amazing and exciting. With school spirit about, its nice to see how much a school can impact its community.
I also spent the evening with Little Joyful and her boyfriend. Little Joyful, I've known since like kindergarten. We go that far back. We have always been good friends, going to the same schools until college. She grew up in the same neighborhood as Heavy Spy and actually knew him pretty well. Small world. She also majored in English after change her mind about a life as a vet, which of course I approve of haha. And now shes finishing up her teaching credentials to start teaching English, my other dream. I shall live vicariously through her (that makes it sound like I don't like what I'm doing, which is not true, it's more I wish I could do both). After Mass they took me to a place to get a giant hotdog, which I ate but did not take a picture of because last time there was a photo of me with a giant corn dog that people would not stop teasing me about...haha good times.
I should probably talk about the low, at least briefly. I don't like dwelling on the downsides. The reason this was my weeks low was because I think it hit me how much I miss having someone to talk to about my life. I miss the companionship one gets in a relationship, and that will hit me at random times and always leaves me feelin' blue. I miss the daily interactions that come from working in ResLife. And I miss being able to game with my friends (why AT&T why!?!?!?). I guess this could mean I am a bit homesick. But at the very least, I think it means I'm a bit lonely. And while I don't notice it 24/7, it does hit me. Hence why missing a Hangout would be a low. As usual, though I'm stubbornly optimistic and generally pull myself out of it. I know I have to go through these grieving/healing/transitioning moments though, so I let myself sit in them a bit too. Still, every day is exciting and full of new stuff for God to throw my way.
I think that's all I want to talk about. One last thing: Facebook. I've noticed that I try to go on it a lot more than ever before (this past Saturday was the first day I hadn't). I think this is the natural way to reach out to the world we, who are away, have left behind. I noticed that Steakhouse has been on Facebook a lot lately too, sending messages to people and touching base while she's back at home 9 hours from most of her friends. Spotty Sister seems to do so too, while she goes to school in Hawaii. She even had a comment that she's become a "Facebook whore" a testament to my point (and also a testament to how much I've been on facebook to notice that). I wake up in the morning and wait the 5 minutes it takes my phone to load News Feed (I have terrible reception) just to get the update at what happened the night before (cuz I usually sleep just before my old night owl friends get active). That can't be healthy because it means my brain and heart aren't totally here yet. Which is natural but also gunna make my time here much harder if I don't immerse myself. So my goal this week is to make facebook a way I stay in touch with people here too. And that will be much easier considering I finally have school orientation and can meet the rest of my class. At least things will start moving. I give it a few weeks and I'll probably miss this slow paced time.
Ok I'm out. Did I mention I got a car? There's a picture on facebook.
-JTY
Listening to: I'm writing this in my car, stealing internet, so I'm listening to the modern rock station out here, which is playing a Puddle of Mudd cover of a Rolling Stones Song (Gimme Shelter) its interesting.
Reading: I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by John Haddon (I think) and it was really good. A story told from the PoV of a boy with "special needs". Really fascinating and a little sad but also a murder mystery.
Playing: Arkham Asylum. My bro sent me my PS3 but no games. This was the last straw to not being about to use my TV so I went our and bought Arkham Asylum, which I love and spent the last day and a half playing.
So my high for this week: Starting Work. My Low: Missing a Google Hangout
Starting work has been great for me. I'll tell you why but first lemme analyze the concept of homesickness a little. My mom asked me if I was homesick. I don't think I am. Homesickness means you don't want to be where you are but rather where you were. I am definitely happy I'm here, meeting new people, starting up school and all of that. It's a long term adventure, and I love adventures. Instead, I think I have moments where I wish I could be a part of everything. I love all the stuff i've been doing here. But I also want to be at the stuff back home too. It's that same old complaint of I can't be in two places at once. This was a problem in California and it's just a long distance problem here. It's magnified by the fact that there's a lot more things I'm missing at home that I haven't yet replaced here. I just don't have the social and work calendar I had before. And no friggen' internet or video games to fill this newfound free time. (Well I did solve the video game problem)
Things I wished I coulda been at this week that I couldnt AKA my other lows for this week: Talking with Mama G in person rather than on the phone, University training with Red Button, Pokeboss, Captain Peanut and Naysayer P Squirrel (I don't miss training itself but training time and definitely appreciate Pokeboss' updates),
Things I attended here that I'm so glad i did, AKA my other highs for this week: Work training, lunch with my coworkers, happy hour with the other GAAs (Graduate Administrative Assistants), German Village with an old friend, TS Eloquent, my first OSU football game (which they won!), Mass and dinner with another old friend, Little Joyful
Anyway, that's my thoughts there. I have never been one that can sit idly alone for long periods of time. I need people around me. I get my energy from them. I'm truly an extrovert. So that's why work is my high this week. I got to meet some great new people. And new people of course means new Blog characters. For work, I'll introduce you to Dandy Woo. Dandy is a GAA like me. And she's one of those people who you are instantly comfortable around. Like after 5 minutes of talking with her I felt like we'd been friends for years. I named her Woo because in the StrengthsQuest (which is the kind of personality assessment thats popular here, a Woo is someone who thrives off of starting up conversations with complete strangers. This is totally her. She is the kind of person you don't want to sit next to on a plane ride you plan on sleeping through. And that's what she says. And she'd know, her dad's a pilot and she flies all over the place. We are gunna be good buds at work I think, and we have all the same classes too so it's good that we get along.
She along with our two other GAAs and our supervisors, have been my companions during training. I am the only man (there is one undergrad student worker who's a guy too but I'll be lucky to see him more than 5 hours any given week). The first day was spent talking about how one of the girls just got out of a relationship then moved to Dandy talking about her recent wedding engagement, which led to pictures of her wedding dress, which led to conversations about the other girls' weddings. Yes, for those of you keeping school at home, I'm the only man and three of the four women my age are married or about to be married. I feel like this should be significantly different from my previous situation, but I feel about the same. Once again I'm surrounded by great people I can't directly relate to but am amused and interested by their various conversations. It's lucky I'm patient and easily amused :)
Work itselt is going to be about Interviewing techniques, resume writing and ideal cover letters. My job is to prepare business students for getting jobs. Not only does this seem like a good skill in this day an age, but I feel like this will really help me in the future too. And I'm sure this means even MORE people will be asking for help with their apps and what not. It's nice to be needed.
I also went to the German Village, which is a district south of Downtown. My tour guide was TS Eloquent, an old friend from college who was an English major like me and also hung out with our crew on and off for a while. TS Eloquent took me to this nice Jewish Deli for some sandwiches and then this simply AMAZING book store. It was in this quaint brick building with little fountains and a cobblestone walk. Then inside, there were over 30 different rooms of various book and genres. One, you couldn't tell by looking at this cottage-like shop that there COULD be thirty rooms inside. Two, the rooms all connected on a few paths, so it was literally a labyrinth of books and rooms that you wander through. It was the Narnia of bookstores. The Diagon Alley. The Rabbit Hole. Neverland. It was a wonderful place. Each room had its own CD player with its own soundtrack ranging from every like big band to nature sounds to the beach boys, fitting the theme of the room. I'm so glad he showed me this place. It makes me happy just thinking about it. He also took me to the famous Jeni's Ice Cream, which I've heard about almost every day I've been here. I had two schools, one a chocolate with cayenne pepper to give it a good spicy taste and the other the buckeye, which had nuts and spices and a number of other things in it. There were hundreds of flavors to choose from and none that you'd ever seen anywhere else. And all natural, locally grown ingredients too. Very amazing. It was also nice just catching up with an old friend, filling him in on my life in California and hearing about his pursuits for a Master's degree in Creative writing, specifically Poetry for him, a direction my life might have gone at one point. He was amused by all the stories I had from the quirkies in my life :)
I went to my first football game here. And at a town with no students yet cuz school hasn't started, there were 105,000 people in attendance of this game. Packed full, and league play hasn't even started. It was amazing and exciting. With school spirit about, its nice to see how much a school can impact its community.
I also spent the evening with Little Joyful and her boyfriend. Little Joyful, I've known since like kindergarten. We go that far back. We have always been good friends, going to the same schools until college. She grew up in the same neighborhood as Heavy Spy and actually knew him pretty well. Small world. She also majored in English after change her mind about a life as a vet, which of course I approve of haha. And now shes finishing up her teaching credentials to start teaching English, my other dream. I shall live vicariously through her (that makes it sound like I don't like what I'm doing, which is not true, it's more I wish I could do both). After Mass they took me to a place to get a giant hotdog, which I ate but did not take a picture of because last time there was a photo of me with a giant corn dog that people would not stop teasing me about...haha good times.
I should probably talk about the low, at least briefly. I don't like dwelling on the downsides. The reason this was my weeks low was because I think it hit me how much I miss having someone to talk to about my life. I miss the companionship one gets in a relationship, and that will hit me at random times and always leaves me feelin' blue. I miss the daily interactions that come from working in ResLife. And I miss being able to game with my friends (why AT&T why!?!?!?). I guess this could mean I am a bit homesick. But at the very least, I think it means I'm a bit lonely. And while I don't notice it 24/7, it does hit me. Hence why missing a Hangout would be a low. As usual, though I'm stubbornly optimistic and generally pull myself out of it. I know I have to go through these grieving/healing/transitioning moments though, so I let myself sit in them a bit too. Still, every day is exciting and full of new stuff for God to throw my way.
I think that's all I want to talk about. One last thing: Facebook. I've noticed that I try to go on it a lot more than ever before (this past Saturday was the first day I hadn't). I think this is the natural way to reach out to the world we, who are away, have left behind. I noticed that Steakhouse has been on Facebook a lot lately too, sending messages to people and touching base while she's back at home 9 hours from most of her friends. Spotty Sister seems to do so too, while she goes to school in Hawaii. She even had a comment that she's become a "Facebook whore" a testament to my point (and also a testament to how much I've been on facebook to notice that). I wake up in the morning and wait the 5 minutes it takes my phone to load News Feed (I have terrible reception) just to get the update at what happened the night before (cuz I usually sleep just before my old night owl friends get active). That can't be healthy because it means my brain and heart aren't totally here yet. Which is natural but also gunna make my time here much harder if I don't immerse myself. So my goal this week is to make facebook a way I stay in touch with people here too. And that will be much easier considering I finally have school orientation and can meet the rest of my class. At least things will start moving. I give it a few weeks and I'll probably miss this slow paced time.
Ok I'm out. Did I mention I got a car? There's a picture on facebook.
-JTY
Listening to: I'm writing this in my car, stealing internet, so I'm listening to the modern rock station out here, which is playing a Puddle of Mudd cover of a Rolling Stones Song (Gimme Shelter) its interesting.
Reading: I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by John Haddon (I think) and it was really good. A story told from the PoV of a boy with "special needs". Really fascinating and a little sad but also a murder mystery.
Playing: Arkham Asylum. My bro sent me my PS3 but no games. This was the last straw to not being about to use my TV so I went our and bought Arkham Asylum, which I love and spent the last day and a half playing.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Departures
Hello from Columbus!
This marks the first blog post since I left for Ohio. I write this from outside a Red Roof, the nearest internet access I have because stupid AT&T won't set up our cable for two freaking weeks. So I'm an internet bum for now.
Things are going well so far in Ohio. I have my ID card, we bought all the basic stuff like food, a desk, a tv and a few shelves. We still need things like beds, chairs, internet, and a dining table. But we'll get to it soon.
I also almost have a car. I've paid the downpayment to lease a Toyota Camry. But I need new insurance and maybe another license. But details... Hopefully I can have the car Tuesday.
So while I was the one that left California, this actually means that a few people are going to have less appearances in the blogs. I'd like to give a few sendoffs to these people, who will now be making more celebrity appearances than anything.
Tenshi- So the biggest and probably toughest change for going to Ohio is the departure of Tenshi. We had been talking on and off for months about how we are going to deal with distance, which also meant talking about where our relationship would be going. We have amicably decided that our lives and values are too different right now and so the relationship has run its course. It's sad to end something that was good, but we also acknowledged that it was time. We will remain friends, though from my end that will be after a bit of adjusting back to the single life. Just a year of change!
Clark- I'm going to miss having Clark for a roommate. We had a lot of the same tastes and had some great conversations about everything from baseball to politics. I will forever view movies the same way and I even was looking at my living room here in Ohio going is this the ideal setup for watching a movie, much like one of my first memories of Clark as a roomie, sitting on the couch a hundred different ways to find the ideal spot with light and sound and screen position. At this point we don't have a couch, so I can't say if we would meet his criteria, but its gunna be really different without him around. We also tended to cycle between the same video games and sleep schedules, and i know he's going to miss the PS3 and the Wii now that I've taken them with me. Thanks for a great two years Clark and see you soon
Brock- Brock had a whole section in this blog, so I know that many of you will miss reading the crazy stories. He definitely kept my life interesting in both trying and exciting ways. I'll still have some quotes from him to post every once in a while and it's not like I'm never seeing any of these people again, just not as frequently. Brock is also a really good friend, and often would get us talking about deep things with his random probing questions. I like a conversation with some meaning in addition to the fun more shallow discussions we had. Like once, the three of us spent an hour discussing the different ways people die and looking things up online and predicting why these stats said what they did etc. Something a little heavier, kinda morbid, but something I'd never have talked about if not for Brock. So good times all around, and he'll always be my first and third roommate. Who knows that the future holds...
I can't say for sure yet, but I think the gay hostel that my house has been recently might also be in the past now. Here's to new hot messes and fondly laughing about the old!
Naysayer P Squirrel- As I no longer work at the university, Naysayer, the other staple of my blog, is also going to be absent a lot more. I do have an upcoming trip with him and thus will have great stories about that, but again, not an everyday conversation. He's been a fun, wacky, awesome boss who has put me on this new phase in my life, and I'm sure I'll stay in touch with him and maybe even crash at his place when I visit. Also, with facebook, I'm going to hear a lot about his crazy antics and see plenty of "Make Smart Choices!!" on my newsfeed. Ahh good times.
These are the "Quirkies" in my life that I basically started this blog for. I've been blessed with entertaining, interesting, and genuinely awesome people in my life, and beyond these three too. I'm glad that people kept saying I should keep track of all the wild stories. This blog will continue to evolve and change as my adventures continue. And you can best be sure that there will be plenty of new quirkies in the coming weeks. I'd like to introduce one new "character" today, Shakeweight Ref.
Shakeweight's my new roommate. He was a friend of El Bandito and I met him at a few parties and on a Vegas trip. He's a great guy. We hail from the same hometown, love the same baseball team, and I think are both easy going and chill guys. I don't think he's going to be the quirky that Brock or Naysayer were but he's already introduced me to some other cool people who I have a feeling are blogworthy too. Shakeweight's been awesome enough to drive me around in his rental car and we've done a lot of shopping and whatnot together to make our apartment a home. We both managed to purchase the same Camry too, though that's cuz there were only two left! I think its going to be a great year. A few observations so far (and note, I haven't told him about the blog just yet): He's a pretty healthy guy. He eats only when he has too and mostly healthy food. When we've driven through at fast food joints, he's the guy that gets the chicken wrap while I pig out on the double cheeseburger. He's not judgemental or demanding about it, it's just something I've noted. He's a good eater. He also is pretty light in the cooking and food purchasing department. He said he'd only need two pans. I don't cook much but I sometimes need three pans just to make the beans and rice and beef for PART of the meal. Haha, he's just chill I guess. Looks like I'm going to be the main chef again. Be sure to expect many more Cooking with James stories. Finally, he's an exerciser. This I am excited about cuz I need to be an exerciser. I'm not going to be skinny forever, and judging by the things people say they do around here it's going to be hard. Yay gym buddy!
Ok, well my battery is dying and I'm going to go meet up with Shakeweight and a few other peoples for some drinks. There's no shortage of cheap alcohol here. I spent $5 and got 5 vodka-7s. This is a dangerous town. I'll leave you with a few things I've heard since coming here:
James- Why is there an alcohol deal every day in every bar?
Answer- Because there's nothing to do here but drink!
Best Buy Girl- You're from California? Tell me you didn't move here.
J- Yup, just yesterday
BBG- Why do people do that?!?!?! Why would you move here?
J- Uhh...
J- I finally figured out why my sense of direction is out of wack.
Shakeweight- Yea why?
J- OSU prints their maps with west at the top. That makes no sense!
J-My friend said exploring is good by just don't go East. We're going East aren't we?
S- Yea... Well this area doesn't look that bad. I mean, I wouldn't get out of my car at night. But I wouldn't panic if my car broke down either.
Have a great night y'all!
-JTY
Listening to: Hells Bells- ACDC. I found the classic rock station and am rocking out while sitting here in the car. Country music definitely is king here but theres a few other good stations.
Reading: A Post-American World- my first book for class, really interesting economical stuff
Playing: Angry Bird Rio, the only video game I have until my first shipments arrive from home.
This marks the first blog post since I left for Ohio. I write this from outside a Red Roof, the nearest internet access I have because stupid AT&T won't set up our cable for two freaking weeks. So I'm an internet bum for now.
Things are going well so far in Ohio. I have my ID card, we bought all the basic stuff like food, a desk, a tv and a few shelves. We still need things like beds, chairs, internet, and a dining table. But we'll get to it soon.
I also almost have a car. I've paid the downpayment to lease a Toyota Camry. But I need new insurance and maybe another license. But details... Hopefully I can have the car Tuesday.
So while I was the one that left California, this actually means that a few people are going to have less appearances in the blogs. I'd like to give a few sendoffs to these people, who will now be making more celebrity appearances than anything.
Tenshi- So the biggest and probably toughest change for going to Ohio is the departure of Tenshi. We had been talking on and off for months about how we are going to deal with distance, which also meant talking about where our relationship would be going. We have amicably decided that our lives and values are too different right now and so the relationship has run its course. It's sad to end something that was good, but we also acknowledged that it was time. We will remain friends, though from my end that will be after a bit of adjusting back to the single life. Just a year of change!
Clark- I'm going to miss having Clark for a roommate. We had a lot of the same tastes and had some great conversations about everything from baseball to politics. I will forever view movies the same way and I even was looking at my living room here in Ohio going is this the ideal setup for watching a movie, much like one of my first memories of Clark as a roomie, sitting on the couch a hundred different ways to find the ideal spot with light and sound and screen position. At this point we don't have a couch, so I can't say if we would meet his criteria, but its gunna be really different without him around. We also tended to cycle between the same video games and sleep schedules, and i know he's going to miss the PS3 and the Wii now that I've taken them with me. Thanks for a great two years Clark and see you soon
Brock- Brock had a whole section in this blog, so I know that many of you will miss reading the crazy stories. He definitely kept my life interesting in both trying and exciting ways. I'll still have some quotes from him to post every once in a while and it's not like I'm never seeing any of these people again, just not as frequently. Brock is also a really good friend, and often would get us talking about deep things with his random probing questions. I like a conversation with some meaning in addition to the fun more shallow discussions we had. Like once, the three of us spent an hour discussing the different ways people die and looking things up online and predicting why these stats said what they did etc. Something a little heavier, kinda morbid, but something I'd never have talked about if not for Brock. So good times all around, and he'll always be my first and third roommate. Who knows that the future holds...
I can't say for sure yet, but I think the gay hostel that my house has been recently might also be in the past now. Here's to new hot messes and fondly laughing about the old!
Naysayer P Squirrel- As I no longer work at the university, Naysayer, the other staple of my blog, is also going to be absent a lot more. I do have an upcoming trip with him and thus will have great stories about that, but again, not an everyday conversation. He's been a fun, wacky, awesome boss who has put me on this new phase in my life, and I'm sure I'll stay in touch with him and maybe even crash at his place when I visit. Also, with facebook, I'm going to hear a lot about his crazy antics and see plenty of "Make Smart Choices!!" on my newsfeed. Ahh good times.
These are the "Quirkies" in my life that I basically started this blog for. I've been blessed with entertaining, interesting, and genuinely awesome people in my life, and beyond these three too. I'm glad that people kept saying I should keep track of all the wild stories. This blog will continue to evolve and change as my adventures continue. And you can best be sure that there will be plenty of new quirkies in the coming weeks. I'd like to introduce one new "character" today, Shakeweight Ref.
Shakeweight's my new roommate. He was a friend of El Bandito and I met him at a few parties and on a Vegas trip. He's a great guy. We hail from the same hometown, love the same baseball team, and I think are both easy going and chill guys. I don't think he's going to be the quirky that Brock or Naysayer were but he's already introduced me to some other cool people who I have a feeling are blogworthy too. Shakeweight's been awesome enough to drive me around in his rental car and we've done a lot of shopping and whatnot together to make our apartment a home. We both managed to purchase the same Camry too, though that's cuz there were only two left! I think its going to be a great year. A few observations so far (and note, I haven't told him about the blog just yet): He's a pretty healthy guy. He eats only when he has too and mostly healthy food. When we've driven through at fast food joints, he's the guy that gets the chicken wrap while I pig out on the double cheeseburger. He's not judgemental or demanding about it, it's just something I've noted. He's a good eater. He also is pretty light in the cooking and food purchasing department. He said he'd only need two pans. I don't cook much but I sometimes need three pans just to make the beans and rice and beef for PART of the meal. Haha, he's just chill I guess. Looks like I'm going to be the main chef again. Be sure to expect many more Cooking with James stories. Finally, he's an exerciser. This I am excited about cuz I need to be an exerciser. I'm not going to be skinny forever, and judging by the things people say they do around here it's going to be hard. Yay gym buddy!
Ok, well my battery is dying and I'm going to go meet up with Shakeweight and a few other peoples for some drinks. There's no shortage of cheap alcohol here. I spent $5 and got 5 vodka-7s. This is a dangerous town. I'll leave you with a few things I've heard since coming here:
James- Why is there an alcohol deal every day in every bar?
Answer- Because there's nothing to do here but drink!
Best Buy Girl- You're from California? Tell me you didn't move here.
J- Yup, just yesterday
BBG- Why do people do that?!?!?! Why would you move here?
J- Uhh...
J- I finally figured out why my sense of direction is out of wack.
Shakeweight- Yea why?
J- OSU prints their maps with west at the top. That makes no sense!
J-My friend said exploring is good by just don't go East. We're going East aren't we?
S- Yea... Well this area doesn't look that bad. I mean, I wouldn't get out of my car at night. But I wouldn't panic if my car broke down either.
Have a great night y'all!
-JTY
Listening to: Hells Bells- ACDC. I found the classic rock station and am rocking out while sitting here in the car. Country music definitely is king here but theres a few other good stations.
Reading: A Post-American World- my first book for class, really interesting economical stuff
Playing: Angry Bird Rio, the only video game I have until my first shipments arrive from home.
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