Finally finished

And now, here comes the whirlwind effort to catch up on exactly three weeks of inactivity on this blog.  Bear with me please.  I'll do my best to zip through the days and get you all caught up on what's been going on with me.  Going back in time, now:

I'm done, really done.  I just finished my Adv. Creative Writing final.  I was kind of worried, after our last class period on Thursday, that this exam would be harder than I thought, but it was actually a lot of fun.  Tons of writing though, but hey, I'm a writer so it wasn't bad.  And now all I have to do is visit with family and friends who have already started arriving here for grad, participate in all the graduation events, and pack up my apartment.  Should be fun.

My dad, grandpa and one of my uncles got here this morning.  They left my hometown last Friday, stopped by WWU for Alumni Weekend, and then drove the rest of the way to TN.  My dad called me earlier while I was holed up in the abandoned Accent office marking/helping to edit an Adv. Reporting student's final project/studying.  I gave Dad directions and the three travelers came up to the office to say hi and visit for a few minutes.  They didn't stay long since they wanted to pick up the fifth-wheel that my parents left in TN last fall and move it to the KOA they'll stay at during grad weekend before it got too dark.  And now, in a few hours, one of mine and Bryn's friends, Cherry, will arrive here too so I guess I'd better start cleaning this place up a bit for having company.

Class memento

I'm so excited.  I have a lot of new reading material.  Dr. Nash took our Literary Journalism projects and photocopied all six of them for each of us to keep.  So now we all have a 150-page memento of experiential, immersion, and reportage-based literary journalism.  When we got our copies, we passed them around the table, getting everyone to sign their own piece, which I think is really cool.  Now I can't wait until my last exam is over, the hype of graduation weekend dies down, and I'm on the road home.  Then I'll be able to finally settle down and read my humongous document.  It's going to be great!  My only regret is that we didn't get Mr. Lale to do the same thing for us in Creative Writing and Adv. Creative Writing.  That would have been really nice, too.  I love reading really great writing from people I know - my peers and classmates!

Completion

I'm done.  I did my final speech.  I finished my 20-page Literary Journalism project on literacy in the Chattanooga area and handed it in.  And, other than exams and finishing an article for the Southern Communicator, I'm done.  It feels great.  I hope I'll never have to stay up all night to finish another assignment.  I think it's time I take a short snooze.

John Glenn

*Warning: Unless you're in Literary Journalism class or have read "The Right Stuff" by Tom Wolfe, you probably won't get this post.  I'm just writing it so I won't forget the scenario since it was such a funny class period.  Just know there's a lot of inside jokes in our class from that book about the Mercury seven (first men in space).

At the start of Literary Journalism class today Audrey came in to interview us and Dr. Nash about the class for an article she's writing for the Communicator (the SJ&C's newsletter).  Before she could ask any questions, Dr. Nash showed us his new iPad he just bought on Monday night.  He passed it around the class, or tried to.  He gave it to Emily and she had it for most of the time Audrey was interviewing us.  The most amusing part of watching her try out the iPad was when she played some marble game (I don't know the actual name) and had to use her whole upper body to keep the marble moving right.  "Wow, this is a lot harder to play on here than on an iPod," she remarked.

Audrey's questions were pretty easy to answer and we took turns giving her quotes.  Rainey answered one question and did so very eloquently.  She's got a great way with words, both written and spoken (which is a real skill, in my opinion).  When she was done her answer, Chris smirked at her, "Thanks John Glenn."  Every person in the room burst out in laughter, except for Audrey who smiled while looking a bit confused.  "Chris, stop it," Rainey said sheepishly.  Chris grinned down at Rainey while raising both his hands in the air (like elementary students do when they REALLY want the teacher to pick them) and then made his hands into "thumbs up."  Then suddenly Dr. Nash said, "Oh, John Glenn!  Oh, that's funny!" and really started laughing, which made us all laugh even harder.  It's always amusing when people laugh before they actually realize the joke.  Emily joined in, while still keeping her eyes glued to the iPad screen, "We should get a picture of Rainey with her hands up like that."  "Ya," Dr. Nash added.  "Just a picture of Rainey beside the story."  "Wait," I said, "There's seven of us and there were seven of them.  We could all pretend to be one of the Mercury seven at the press conference."  Dr. Nash turned to Chris, who had started the whole thing.  "Who would you be? Al Shepard?"  "No," Rainey countered.  "Emily would be Shepard since she's always been ahead of the rest of us in getting her drafts done."  "I think Chris would be Yaeger even though he wasn't one of the seven," Angela said.  Aimee added, "OK, we really need to get this picture taken before the school year ends."

Poor Audrey must have felt left out.  "Well, my next question was going to be, Because this class is so small, are the dynamics different?, but I think you've already answered that one," she said.  The six of us students looked around the table and realized what an awesome class we were in.  "I think so," Angela pipped up.  "I feel like we're a family in here.  We all help each other out about our articles.  I mean, Rainey and Alison have fixed me up with dates for my project.  We've talked together about each person's topic and I think we have a special bond."  I agreed with Angela and I think the other four students and Dr. Nash did too.

I love having small classes where everyone knows everyone else and gets along and helps each other.  Emily and I had that last year in our six-person, all-girls Adv. Reporting class with Ms. Chamberlain and now we have it again with Dr. Nash in Literary Journalism.  LJ (Angela's acronym for our class) class today just made me realize again how much I'll miss the SJ&C once I graduate and leave.

PS - After Emily had got to level 4 of her marble game, she passed the iPad to me and Angela who worked on a Mad Lib game.  We got all the way to the last word and just needed to put in an adverb when Dr. Nash needed his iPad to read us an e-mail he'd gotten.  So we never got to see how our Mad Lib turned out, but it was going to be good.  Like Angela said, "We used the word gobbleygook.  How could it not be good?"

Research and posters

This week already stinks.  I can't wait until next Monday is over and my Mass Comm. and Society research paper is finished and turned in.  My life will get a lot better after that.  Meanwhile, I'm currently sitting in the Mac lab making Bryn's senior recital poster.  It looked iffy for awhile (yeah, I'm not a designer), but we finally found a way to make all the words fit and I think Bryn's pretty happy with it now.  Yay, something new to put in my portfolio, along with Jonathan's poster that I helped him make last week.  It's been about a year since I put my Pub. Tools skills to good use so it was definitely time to remember how to use InDesign.

Time without school

Sometimes I wonder what in the world will occupy my time when I'm done school.  I can't even imagine that scenario, although it's only five weeks away.  Hopefully I can hang on that long . . . I really would like to graduate.

Frustrated

I really want to go on a rant on here. But I don't think I will because I don't want certain people to see it and possibly not let me go overseas next year. I don't think that certain people will ever read this blog, but just to be on the safe side, I will refrain. Let's just say I am frustrated with a certain class that is zero credits, but that I am required to take. I know other people are as well. OK, rant over.

In other news, Hockey Canada posted a really great commercial on their Facebook page this afternoon. I saw the post and watched the video and fell in love. You can watch it here.

Celebratory meal

We had a lot to celebrate tonight so we went to the VM after orchestra and got two frozen pizzas for a celebratory meal. What were we celebrating, you ask? Well, first, Bryn did her senior recital jury and passed. She didn't have to play anything again for the professors and now just has to do her senior recital (April 13 for any of you who need convo credit or just want to come because you like classical music) to be able to graduate. Second, Jonathan did a test to challenge Discrete Math, which he needed to graduate. He said he felt it went well so we figured that was a good reason to celebrate.

And finally (and least importantly since it didn't impact whether I would graduate or not), I did my last debate for Mass Communication & Society. It was on digital strategies and my position was that the Internet and new media are debasing journalism. I half believe that stance and half don't, but apparently all the media world don't agree with that position because it was super hard to find any sources to back what I was supporting. In any case, I did find a few and I think I made a pretty good argument despite not having too many great sources. I did plan out a pretty great rebuttal and James, my opponent, played right into my hands on that one. I think my rebuttal was probably one of the strongest parts of my debate, so for that I'm pretty happy. Anyway, so now the only thing I have left to do in that class is my 10-12 page research paper. Man, I can't wait until graduation...

Health-care bill

She drops her backpack and slides into her seat. The professor enters the classroom and writes the day's agenda on the whiteboard. She watches without interest. Another Monday, another senior-level communication class to sit through. Not even a lively discussion about the health-care bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives the evening before captures her attention. Why would it? She is Canadian after all. She can't remember a time without universal health-care. What is the big deal about the whole thing anyway? She doesn't know and she doesn't care to find out. She looks at the clock. 10:09. Still another 41 minutes to go. She unzipps her backpack and pulls out today's newspaper. Centerpiece is a monotone picture of the bill being passed. She flips to the Lifestyle's section and opens to the Puzzles page. Doing the word search and sudoku will help pass the time.

Field trip

I went to The Yellow Deli for the first time today. It is definitely a one-of-a-kind restaurant. Mr. Nash took our Literary Journalism class there for a field trip. Emily is doing her project on the Twelve Tribes and the local one, Benyamin, owns The Yellow Deli.

We sat in the very front of the restaurant at a round table with half booth seats and half chairs. Warm sunlight poured in through the front window and splashed across lacquer of the handmade wooden table. A woman with long white hair hanging down to her waist in a limp ponytail passed seven menus around our table. The five who had been to the restaurant before told Mr. Nash and me what was good to eat. Once we made our decisions and closed our menus, a young girl (probably in her late teens) wearing a long skirt made from a piece of cloth covered in a nondescript small pattern, wrote down our orders.

We talked about spring break while we waited for our food, and then Mr. Nash decided to look around the restaurant. Four of us, followed his lead. I noticed the hippie theme as I walked up the spiral stairs to the second floor. A huge mural spanning the length of one wall met me at the top. Hippie colours and sayings intertwined with pictures of Jesus and joyful-looking groups of people. A scene at the front of the mural caught my eye. A small group of people were stepping onto a hippie bus. In white paint, stenciled over the front of the bus were the words: "We know the way. We'll lead you home." More homemade tables and chairs crowded the top floor. On plaques hanging between the tables were portions of scriptures with small illustrations. "Go to the ant, thou sluggard," was just one that I noticed. Near the back was a study area with a brown leather couch and matching easy chairs. A trunk sat as a coffee table in the middle. A perfect study haven. A Twelve Tribes magazine sat nonchalantly on the trunk. Several wooden stairs led to a door to an outside patio. Three tribe members sat at a table talking. The old lady who had given us the menus came outside behind us. They struck up a short conversation with Mr. Nash and the other students. I returned inside, went down a set of stairs at the back of the restaurant and walked around more seating areas back to our table where Emily and Rainey sat and the others slowly trickled back to their spots too.

Soon our food came. As we ate, we continued talking, more about spring break, about our classes, about what we were going to do in the summer and after we graduated. We finished our meals, Mr. Nash got the check and paid. We wandered back outside into the afternoon sunshine, piled into Mr. Nash's Honda Pilot and drove back to Collegedale. Rainey and Chris played the girls' Auto Bingo game. "I thought I would have one car ride with no kids arguing," Mr. Nash commented when they started quibbling about the rules. We listened as Emily gave us more information on her project and the research she has been finding. Rainey asked for advice with her project. We discussed, asked questions, gave suggestions. Then we were back at the school. Just that fast our short trip away from the pressures classes and homework and deadlines was over. It was a nice reprieve and an interesting time. Literary Journalism is absolutely the best class ever.

Sleep is great

Whoever invented sleep was a genius. I didn't sleep last night due to my procrastination in preparing for my debate and my subsequent preparation. I finished working on my debate around 7 a.m. and then made sure I'd covered everything I wanted to and proofread it and went over it a couple times. Then I printed it out and went to have a shower. When I got out of the shower Bryn told me that Jonathan was here. When I went out to the kitchen he was making French toast for me. It was amazing, except for the fact that I only had a few minutes to eat with him before running off to my classes. Anyway, I'm definitely willing to bet that he's the best boyfriend ever. French toast on a Friday morning when you didn't sleep at all the night before is awesome.

I felt pretty good and not too tired when I was in class giving my speech and rebuttal and doing a few errands after class. But when I came back to the SJ&C to do some grading later on I started getting tired. I finished one assignment and decided to give up on getting the other one out of the way. Then I came home, ate a small lunch and had a nap. It was awesome. So awesome, in fact, that I think I'll head back to bed again, this time for the night. Good night all.

Debate

Just let it be known that I officially hate debates! I'm in the process of trying to write my first ever actual debate; it's not going well. It's on the right to know with my position being that there should be a right to know. My classmate Renee, who is taking the opposite side, will give her side of the debate and then I have to talk for 8-10 minutes on my side with numerous great examples of why there is a right to know. After that Renee gives a 3-5 minute rebuttal about what I said and then I give a rebuttal on what she said. Then we're done. Let's just say that I cannot wait until 11 a.m. tomorrow when it will be over. Then I have until March 24 before I have my second and final debate in Mass Comm. & Society. I absolutely and definitely can't wait until that date passes and I am forever free of having to write/make official debates.

Musical sayings

Mrs. Minner says the funniest things in orchestra rehearsal. In Tuesday's rehearsal she was telling the violins to vibrate the high notes in a certain passage of a piece. "Even a little wiggle helps the sound." (Other than the word "wiggle" that wasn't a direct quote because it was about a billion times funnier than that. And yes I know funnier isn't a word, but I like it, so I use it.) I thought her actual quote was hilarious and tried to ingrain it in my mind so I could still remember it at the end of rehearsal and write it down. Sadly, by the time I remembered to write it down, much later at night, I had forgotten the actual quote. It was a very sad time for me. Yesterday in rehearsal Mrs. Minner said more amusing things, all of which I've forgotten by now. I think maybe I should buy one of those really, really tiny Moleskines and keep it on the music stand during orchestra rehearsals so I can jot down any hilarious Mrs. Minner quotes right after she says them. I've often thought about keeping one of those really small Moleskines in my pocket at all times for just such instances as that, but then I'd have to find a tiny pencil/pen that would fit in my pocket too and I'm just not sure they exist. Anyway, if you're ever in a mood to hear some really funny sayings, come hang near the orchestra rehearsal room in Mabel Wood Hall.

Printing error

The six of us - seven including Mr. Nash - sat around the table in the SJ&C conference room discussing the new book we'd just begun, "The Right Stuff" by Tom Wolfe. Rainey went first. I agreed with many of her points about Wolfe's style. Then Chris gave his opinion. Aimee was next. She had her notebook open in front of her. Instead of the required three quarters of a page of reactions to the reading, she had about three lines. "Mr. Nash," she started, "you can deduct points from me if you want, but let my explain myself first." She went on to tell the class that she's taking a really intense upper division three credit history course and then, when she started reading the book, she couldn't get into it because of all the "history-type" words that she kept running into. She said she'd stopped reading on page 4. "I guess I'm just history-ed out," she concluded. "Like, OK, here are some words I kept focusing on on page 1." She read war, revolution, patriots. A brief thought of Where is she getting those words from? They didn't stand out to me. crossed my mind, but the book did start out with stories of military fighter jet pilots and so I realized those words probably had been in the book. I just must not have done as thorough a job of reading as I'd thought. Mr. Nash, who had been doling out praise of Wolfe's book only last class period, suggested Aimee to take some time when she wasn't thinking about history, kick back with "The Right Stuff," and just do some relaxing reading. "Once you get a few pages into it, hopefully you'll start feeling better about it, like the rest of us," he encouraged.

We moved on to Angela, then me. Emily went last. She turned to page 17 to read a section that she particularly enjoyed. We all flipped to the page to follow along with her. Aimee murmured something to Chris. He responded. Then they started a hissed conversation while Emily continued reading and then explained why she appreciated that passage. As soon as Emily stopped talking Aimee broke in. "Mr. Nash, I think you should give me my points for today. Let me explain by showing you something." She held up her book, which was an identical copy to the one the rest of us had (except for Chris who has an older edition). I focused on the front cover, noting the rocket taking off in front of billowing clouds of gaseous smoke and the large TOM WOLFE above the rocket in silver lettering. It looked just like my book, just like most of the books sitting on the table. Aimee opened the book to the first page and we sat blinking for a second, staring at a title page that looked nothing like the ones sitting just inside our own front covers. "Oh my WORD!" Emily exclaimed. Then laughter erupted around the table, most likely rippling under the door into the SJ&C office and probably all the way back to Mrs. Herod's secretary desk in the far corner. Apparently everything from the title page until page 10 of the book were from some random (and, by Aimee's description, terribly boring and horribly written) book about Queen Elizabeth and the Puritans, or something like that. None of us took too close of a look at the actual copy as we passed the defective book around, each examining the accidental pages and comparing them to rest of the book.

The actual content of "The Right Stuff" started at page 19, which was opposite the history-book page 10. The fonts, leading, tracking, general page format, even the size of the pages, differed from page 10 to page 19. When the book was passed to me I glanced back and forth between the two pages, spotting the differences like kids do on those How Many Differences Can You Find? games. "You know, Aimee," Mr. Nash started, "when you said you just didn't like the book and couldn't get into it at all, I have to admit I was pretty disappointed because I really hoped everyone would enjoy it. Now I'm surprised you actually made it to page 4!" He flipped through the first 10 pages, reading phrases so hysterically awful that new waves of laughter exploded from our mouths. "I am so, so sorry you went through that," he concluded as he shoved the book across the table back at Aimee. "You should definitely take it back to the Campus Shop and make sure you get another copy with ALL the right pages in it." It was a good thing we had all given our reactions to the book and class was nearly over by the time Aimee realized the mistake in her book. We didn't really get too much accomplished after the book-within-a-book was revealed.

Orange tasting

Walking into the SJ&C's conference room (where Literary Journalism has had to relocate to give another professor/class the use of the Mac Lab during that time) was almost like walking into John McPhee's book "Oranges." A clear plastic pitcher displayed frothy yellow orange juice while the block letters on a Tropicana carton, standing beside the pitcher, proclaimed the juice inside was pulp free. Several bags of ripe-looking oranges just begging to be eaten surrounded the containers of juice. (We learned in our reading that, while many people pass over oranges with any spot of green in grocery stores, oranges can be green and fully ripe. The orange colour only happens because of the frost. Some oranges are ripe when they're green while others turn to the typical orange hue we're used to seeing before becoming ripe.) Seven chairs were arranged around the rectangular table, and sitting in front of each was a paper plate and two nesting Styrofoam cups. The only item on the table seeming not to belong in the citrus set was a white box of sugar cubes hiding behind the juice pitcher. Rainey came into the conference room smiling when she saw the spread laid out for our class. We chose seats and waited to find out what would happen during class time today. Dr. Nash and Chris ambled in behind her. "We're going to be doing a taste test before discussing our reading for today," Dr. Nash announced. Angela walked through the door, immediately commenting on how good the room smelled. Emily strode behind my chair. "Oh, good, we get to eat oranges," she said glancing at the table, "I've been craving them since I started reading the book." Dr. Nash had just started to explain how we would use the class period when Aimee opened the door and walked around the table to claim the last empty chair.

That was the start of my most interesting class period of the entire school year so far. Actually it was the best class period since my Advanced Reporting final at the end of last school year, which, ironically, also took place in the SJ&C's conference room. The main difference from that day was the calorie-rich desserts covering the table instead of healthy citrus products. We started today's class period with a taste test of the oranges juices, concentrate versus fresh. Each of us in turn closed our eyes, held out our hands for one of our two Styrofoam cups, and sipped the juice, trying to determine a favourite. The end result was that all five females in the class preferred the Tropicana fresh orange juice (well, Emily said the only difference she could taste was the pulp in the frozen juice, but she still liked the fresh better) while the two males (Dr. Nash included) chose the frozen concentrate. We all agreed the 7-person experiment results were interesting, although not scientific. Then we tried slices of seedless oranges from both California and Florida. Orange experts that we had all become since starting McPhee's book, we easily pointed out the differences between the fruit from each state. (California's oranges have a much thicker peel, look more pleasing aesthetically, and contain less juice. Florida boasts oranges guaranteed to spray juice all over faces and hands while having much thinner skin and a slightly less symmetrically spherical shape.) Next we tried Florida's seedy oranges while copying a strategy of Norwegian children that our book revealed to us. We cut a round hold in the blossom end of the orange, gouging the knife all the way into the fruit and pulled off half an inch of peel around the hole. Then the box of sugar cubes was passed around and each of us pushed a cube deep inside the orange before lifting the entire natural cup to our lips. I have to say, the Norwegians are geniuses! We enjoyed that procedure so much most of us had to try it again with the Californian seed-filled oranges. We ate oranges and drank orange juice to our heart's content before quickly cleaning up sticky hands, faces, and table spaces. Our discussion of the book followed as our stomachs worked to digest the sweet citrus fruit we'd consumed. It was a perfect way to start a class. Now I can't wait to see what we'll do the day we first discuss Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff."

Random selection

Today in Mass Comm & Society we finished choosing debate dates. No, we are not pairing up and going on debate-watching dates. (In our class of 18 we only have three guys anyway, so that wouldn't work out too well, not to mention a date to watch a debate would be an incredible time-waster for me right now.) Part of the requirements of the class include participating in two debates during the course of the semester. I'm less than thrilled about this prospect. Maybe if we had been put into teams of two or three and had some allies to help us in the process, maybe then I could try to show some excitement. But having to organize an 8-10 minute debate on one side of a communication-related grey area, then listen to another classmate present their own side of the issue and then give an impromptu 3-5 minute rebuttal to their presentation and then listen to their rebuttal doesn't sound like much fun to me. After that the whole class will jump in and critique us while offering their own opinions, adding to those that the debaters have already presented. All I can say is that I hope this semester proceeds rapidly so I can leave classes such as this behind. The one amusing part of the whole debate-topic decision process was how our professor chose to find a random order for students to select the topics they wanted to debate on. He found a Web site to help us out. He put in the number of students in the class and then the Web site randomly put those numbers in order. Then he showed us the class roster listed in alphabetical order with 1 being the person with the last name closest to the start of the alphabet and 18 being the person with the last name closest to the end of the alphabet. I was highly amused at the use of technology for a relatively simple process that a hat and numbers written on pieces of paper could have solved. Oh well, it kept us amused through the ordeal. I ended up being the 14th person to pick a debate topic and, surprisingly, nobody had picked my first choice by that time so I grabbed that. When we got to the last person she got to pick twice in a row and then we just went through the list backwards to pick our second debate topic. I was able to get another topic that wasn't too far down my list of choices so at least that worked out well for me. Anyway, that's about the most interesting thing about my day.

I did spend three hours in the library doing random things for Adv. Creative Writing. A good part of that time was spent trying to look for an article similar to the one I'd like to write this semester. It seems an article like that has not ever been written, or at least not in any of the magazines our library subscribes to. Tim was working while I was in the library and was an immense help. I told him what I was trying to find and he gave me several magazines to look through. When those didn't work out he got on the computer and looked up articles in the periodicals database. He finally found an old (1989) article in Reader's Digest that slightly resembled what I was looking for, so he produced it on microfiche and sent it to the printer for me. It was really nice of him to help me for so long. The other time waster was trying to find the "Writer's Market 2009" book that Mr. Lale showed us in class. I browsed around the reference section for a bit looking for it before finally giving up and asking at the front desk. The two workers there gave me blank and kind of shocked looks. They had no clue what I was talking about. I, having never opened the book or even held it in my hands, tried to explain what the book was all about, but they were completely sure they had never heard of such a book. They tried looking for it, and other possible word combinations, in their computer database, only coming up with some Adventist Writer's Guide book from 1981 or so. They gave the information to find that book and told me that other books like it were in that same section so I trudged upstairs, found the section, found the book, laughed cynically in my head about them thinking such a book would actually help me out in this day in age, and pulled it off the shelf. I looked around for any other book that held any similarity to Writer's Market 2009 with no luck. All the books around there were about how to write well and that type of thing. Anyway, I ended up flipping through the first 15 or so pages of the Adventist book and then just going back downstairs to find some potential publishing venues for my article online instead. It was an aggravating three hours that I could have used doing other things. Oh well, today's done and that means one less day until I graduate.

And now, to end the day on a happier note, here's one last incident that greatly amused me. I was fighting sleep while grading the last few papers of an assignment tonight. The assignment was to read sets of one or two sentence-long potential news stories and write (1) whether or not each story was suitable for the news section of a local newspaper and (2) which news value(s) the stories contained. For the suitable/not suitable for print part on one question, one student wrote: No way, José/Ms. Chamberlain/Alison "British Columbia" Quiring. Immediately I broke out into a huge grin and, after reading it again, an even bigger laugh. What a simple, but amusing, pick-me-up at the end of a rather stressful day. I put a red smiley face beneath the "British Columbia" part. He deserved it.

Snow Day

Today was awesome. I got a phone call last night from the photo editor about a story she kindly agreed to write for the first issue of the Accent. At the end of the conversation about the story she mentioned that there was a marketing story on the school's Web site about Friday's classes being canceled. I was pretty happy about it and got even happier a bit later in the evening when I checked my e-mail and saw the real, live proof. I have to say I was a bit amused by the entire thing. There wasn't even half a cm of snow on the ground when I opened my door to check if more snow had fallen since I'd entered my house. Having lived in Alberta and experienced many real snow days (ones that only took place if the temperature was -40 C or lower, which is when a diesel engine quits working and the school buses couldn't run) this Tennessee snow day was a joke. But don't get me wrong. I'll take any day off school than I can get. I'm already sick of this semester, well at least those two classes that I don't really want to be taking. I guess I'm just kind of ready to be done with school for a bit. Oh well, less than four months left.

So on to my day. I spent the entire morning catching up on lost sleep (I know, ridiculous right? Lost sleep less than a week into this semester? Unheard of. Oh well. It happened) and then later on in the afternoon I went over to Jonathan's. He had made me a lunch of bean threads and we ate it when I finally got over there. It was delicious and I was surprised that I've never had that before. Tim was decided that he would provide our dinner entertainment and showed us a 16-minute video called Ticket Validation or maybe just Validation. It was pretty hilarious. Then Jonathan and I had our Christmas, which was awesome. (It's always nice to have a second Christmas, especially when it's on a snow day!) First I sent Jonathan into his bathroom to hide while I conscripted Tim to help me hide Jonathan's presents for a treasure hunt. I made up the treasure hunt before I'd come over so I knew which rooms I wanted to put each present in, but not where in each I wanted to hide them. Tim was a great help and within minutes I told Jonathan he could come out again. Then we had Christmas in January using Tim's little fibre optics Christmas tree. It was tons of fun, especially watching the treasure hunt, which Tim took pictures of. After that we did some reading and then came back over to my place to make supper and listen to a Dr. Ashton sermon from SEYC a few years back. I love listening to Dr. Ashton speak, even if it's not in person. He just has such a great voice and has a lot of knowledge and good things to say. After that was done I wanted to listen to something else so we found Paul Howe's testimony from GYC a week ago and listened to that. It was super good and I was really impressed and quite inspired. And that's how I spent my snow day. How about you?

Career list

Last night I got inspiration. I was in bed and semi-snoozing when, for some reason, I started thinking about all the careers I have, at one time or another, wanted to do for my lifework. I was beginning to compile a list of those careers in my head when I realized that it might be a neat idea to write them out somewhere. At first I was just thinking it might be a fun blog post, but then I started thinking about why I wanted to do each of those jobs and how my idea of the actual career was quite different, especially when I was in elementary school, than what the job was really like. Suddenly I was struck with a thought; I could use this for my writing assignment for Adv. Creative Writing. I liked that idea so much that I sat straight up in bed, reached over towards the door and flipped on the lights (first telling my sister, as any nice older sister should do, that I would be turning the lights on), and then took out my Moleskine out of my pillowcase (it lives there for moments just such as the one I'm describing to you) and started scribbling wildly. Once my idea was appropriately documented I turned the page and made a few notes about some ideas I've thought up for Literary Journalism. They aren't the greatest so far, but hopefully making a list will help to inspire some more ideas for that assignment. Then I put my Moleskine back into my pillowcase, turned off the lights and went back to bed. Although I was planning to go right to sleep, my sister and I started a night time conversation (something we used to do almost every night my first year here when we were roommates in the dorm, but haven't done a lot of lately because we usually go to bed at different times this school year), which just got more and more hilarious. By the time we actually finished talking and tried, once again, to sleep I was wishing I'd turned on my voice recorder or taken a video with one of our cameras so we could have recorded the conversation. I was totally random and just got more funny the longer we talked. It was nice to have one of those night time talks again.

Today it snowed. It was awesome, but I wish we'd got more snow. Oh well, what we got was pretty good for down here. At least it snowed enough for classes to be cancelled tomorrow, which is awesome and hasn't happened yet since I came here. I shall let you know what transpired in our "snow day" when I write again tomorrow. Good night for now.

Pizza buns

I'm not sure why I thought my life this semester would be easier than last semester. Yes, I'm only doing 13 credits, but 10 of those are upper division and nine of those are W courses. So besides having to come up with an article idea for Adv. Creative Writing, I have to figure out an idea for 30-40 pages of writing that I can stay interested in throughout this whole semester for Literary Journalism. I wish I was just doing Adv. Creative Writing and Literary Journalism and could devote all my time to those two big projects. But I have to do Mass Comm & Society (an icky upper division comm. class required of all mass communication majors) and Intro to Public Speaking. (Yeah, I know, I could have got that out of the way a LONG time ago, but after changing majors numerous times and having to try to get in all the required classes for my current - and final - major, I decided to leave speech until last since it's offered every single semester.) So that's my classes this semester, oh and orchestra as well. Anyway, my point was that I wish I could just take the two classes I actually care about taking and not the other annoying ones. Oh well, it could be worse. I could be doing a full 16 credits, or more...

Tonight Danielle invited Bryn, Jonathan and me over to her new apartment for supper after orchestra. Jonathan and I made a quick trip to our apartments to get some pizza-bun-making supplies while Bryn and Danielle got the rest of the food at the VM. Then we traveled together to Danielle's apartment and all pitched in to cut up the vegetables and make the pizza buns (basically mini pizzas using thin buns as the crust) and a salad. It was a nice relaxed time and I was sad when it ended because that meant I had to get to work again. Of course, lots of my homework this semester will be writing and reading so I got started on "Oranges" by John McPhee which is the first book we'll be reading for Literary Journalism. I love it so far. I wish I could think of something interesting like oranges that I could immerse myself in and research while here at school, but all my ideas sound incredibly stupid in my head. If any of you can think of something, definitely comment and let me know.

Article topic

First day of the new semester and I'm still on break mode. That might be because I only have one class today. Advanced Creative Writing at 3:30 p.m., which, ironically, is the class that I am writing this blog for. I started it for Creative Writing last semester and decided to keep it going after that class ended in December so it'll be easy to get back into the writing-a-post-of-three-sentences-a-day mode, since I never really stopped writing on this blog. Now my dilemma is choosing a topic for my Adv. Creative Writing article that I will be excited to write about for the entire semester. I am initially thinking of doing nonfiction. I am more comfortable with that, especially if it's writing about a personal experience I have had. I've written three articles for Insight Magazine about experiences I have in my life that had a spiritual correlation, but I want to do something different for this article. I know that I write best when the story is something from a personal experience or at least something that I am familiar about (I guess most writers do, too), but I want to try writing something for a non-religious magazine. Maybe I should try a humour piece, but I'm not sure my life is that filled with humourous situations that readers who don't know me would find interesting. Oh well. I have a couple days to come up with something...

And now, I must tell you the devastating news. Team Canada got silver in the 2010 World Junior Championships. Tonight they played in the gold medal game against Team USA - a repeat of the New Year's Eve round robin game. I wanted to watch the game online on a stream from tsn.ca, but that didn't work since they only stream to Canadian IP addresses. Jonathan tried to help me find a Canadian proxy address (yeah that might be totally wrong since I know nothing about that kind of stuff) so we could trick TSN into thinking my computer was from Canada, but that didn't work out. So instead we read our Bible chapters for the day (Did I mention that we decided to read the Bible through in a year chronologically?) and then hung out as I kept refreshing the TSN game updates page. Team USA looked too strong and fast to be beaten, but Canada kept up pretty good. Then in the third period the U.S. was up by two goals with a score of 5-3, but right near the end of the period Canada tied it up at 5-5. Overtime was needed to decide a winner and the U.S. got a goal to win the gold. Oh well, Canada got silver, which isn't nearly as epic, but I thought that might happen. The U.S. team was super good this year. I don't really begrudge them winning the gold, although it did put a swift stop to Canada's WJC gold medal streak. They were trying for the record-breaking 6th consecutive gold medal, but I guess they'll just have to start a new streak next year.