Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas everyone!

One family party down and there has already been too much food, too much wine, too many highly contested games of charades. Santa Claus also proved too generous (yes, after three months of completing all computer activity on my iPhone and/or during lunch on my work PC, I finally have a new laptop...so, unbelievably happy). I'm also slightly afraid of my mother right now (and of making any critical errors - like matching the gold napkins with the white place settings) as we embark on the stressful endeavor that is hosting 13 people for Christmas today. If we survive, it will be more of the same: too much food, champagne and games of "Right, Left, Center" for the high stakes' pot of $39. :)

Hope everyone has a safe and wonderful holiday. See you in 2011!

Halfway there...

Wow, time flies...I am about to hit my two-month mark at Weber Shandwick. (And, while yes, I would love a job with them - I recognize that client budgets need to allow a position to actually open before I can even be offered anything. So I am actively searching for post-Weber opportunities starting now. If you know of anyone that is looking to hire on a young-PR professional (particularly in a salaried, with benefits, non-intern way) let's chat!

All-in-all though, life is good. The commute is still epic (perhaps even more so thanks to the increasingly cold and rainy late fall weather) which means I am reading all the time (recent recommendations: Never Let Me Go, The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets, Lamb, A Reliable Wife). I am also ever-so-slowly improving at Words with Friends, so if you are an iPhone-user interested in a Scrabble-battle, we should talk. Work itself is increasingly interesting, the more I get to understand and put my own stamp on my markets (still Detroit and Philly). I spend a lot of time on the phone conducting outreach, about encouraging federal benefit recipients to get their payments electronically. Over the last several weeks I've established partnerships with Meals-on-Wheels programs, American Red Cross and Goodwill chapters, food banks and local government offices that deal with everything from intellectual disabilities to aging. It's enjoyable because the people at these organizations genuinely want to improve the lives of the people they work with and although I do pester/stalk them, it's in the interest of further helping those people - so everyone gets off the phone happy (me, because they are spreading my campaign message, and them, because the people they work with will get financially educated).

Socially, I just have to say - strangely enough, there is more to do in Chicago than central Illinois Sorry, Champaign. We had a great 4 years, but recently Chicago has offered Sara Bareilles at the House of Blues, a friend's birthday party on a trolley and a classy charity fundraiser.

More to come. As always, I'll try and write more often - it's just that my daily time spent with the Metra and CTA consume more free time than I even care to admit...

Weber Shandwick

I am getting so bad about staying up-to-date with writing on here, especially compared to when I was at school. (Current undergraduates, let this be a lesson - the real world sucks up ever-so-much more of your life than class/homework. Enjoy it while you can!).

So, I guess here is the quick version to bring up everyone (anyone?) who still reads up to speed - after my New York trip I had an extremely stressful 24-hour period where I had to decide between two competing internship offers - both were great and interesting, but I ultimately decided that Chicago is where I want to be at this point (especially since, living on my intern wages, I have the opportunity to live at home and commute (and an epic commute by foot, car, bus and train - ick)).

I am now a Corporate Affairs intern with Weber Shandwick! It's a public relations company located in the Northwestern Hospital building on St. Clair, right off of Michigan and Erie. Aside from the fact that I often ride the elevator with infectious disease doctors (should I worry about the state of my health? Nah, one of my friends is in med school), it's an incredible location. I can wander around just about anywhere during lunch - Museum of Contemporary Art, Tiffany's, Water Tower Place, Ghiradelli's...I'm also working on an account that is unique from anything I worked on at Dig. I do grassroots outreach (in my two markets - Philly and Detroit) to financial institutions, community-based organizations, local government agencies and not-for-profits on behalf of my client, the U.S. Treasury. I also do a daily media monitoring report for this account...so my wealth of obscure knowledge is shifting from biofuels to anything and everything related to social security. Hit me up if you ever want to talk about cost-of-living-increases, SSI-payments or receiving your federal benefits via direct deposit.

The company itself is also a lot of fun - we had a company-wide happy hour in the boardroom at 4:30 on Friday after an afternoon break of candy-apply making/eating. Need I say more?

That's the short version on my life. I'll try to start writing again regularly, so...more later!

New York

So, I took an extremely last-minute trip to New York this week.

I had a chance to meet with someone about an interesting job opportunity - he was in from out of the country and only in the States for a few days, so I had to take a chance offered in a very narrow time-frame and a totally different U.S. locale. I made the decision to go to NYC on Tuesday afternoon and my flight left O'Hare at 7:00PM on Wednesday. Busy!

I worked until a little after 4:00PM on Wednesday and then caught the Blue Line over to the airport. Completely uneventful flight - you know that thing in the movies where the really handsome stranger you meet in security ends up on your flight, seated next to you? Yeah, doesn't happen like that in real life (alas, handsome stranger was off to Tuscan). I got to my Laguardia-area hotel around 11PM and was too tired to even take advantage of free-HBO. (I hate you, real world).

My meeting happened the next morning over breakfast (goat cheese omelet, toast, lots of coffee) at a hotel in SoHo. It went great - looks like I am going to have some next-steps options in non-Chicago cities. Very exciting, just waiting to see how a few other possibilities play out.

I left myself a several-hour window after my meeting to explore NYC (having never been there before, something which amazes me, considering the fact that I have been to the much more distant Rome, Paris, London, Prague, etc.). I tried with a complete and total lack of success to penny-pinch by taking the subway up to Central Park. The New York subway was by far the most complicated public transportation system I've ever encountered. I managed to easily navigate the metros in at least five non-English speaking countries while abroad, but New York left me utterly perplexed. Nothing is marked in a way that makes sense - so, eventually embarrassed by the fact that I looked like such a lost, confused tourist and not the sleek, confident, city-dweller that I wanted to- I gave up and took the $15 cab. I spent 2 hours at the Met (loved it) and another half hour walking around Central Park (also loved it). Then it was back to the airport for a 4:10PM flight, and in the office again yesterday for my last day at Dig.

I'm not sure that I was really there for long enough to give a solid opinion on New York City. But I liked the sliver I saw (except the "L" wins over the subway, hands down), and hope to make it back sooner than later.

Finally, during my two days of travel, I read Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. It is a heart-breaking Holocaust story set in Paris in both 1942 and 2002. The premise: ten-year old Sarah is about to be taken away with her parents by the French police and delivered to Auschwitz. She locks her four-year old brother in a secret cupboard - to protect him - promising to return. Sixty years later, Julia, an American journalist and ex-pat, is investigating Sarah's fate. Intense, but a page-turner. Definitely recommend it.

Final Weeks at Dig

So, three months flew by! I finish up my internship with Dig Communications this Friday. I am in the midst of following up several leads for jobs - I'll keep you posted!

Here are some of the things I've been up to lately with work.

1). Pitching, pitching, pitching! Last week I juggled sending out emails and press releases - and making follow-up phone calls - to reporters/editors/TV & radio news desks for three different stories. The ultimate goal of this quasi-stalking process is to get publications (the more top-tier, or relevant to your story's region, the better) to write about the information you have. For instance, this past Friday, Chicago Bear Tommie Harris hosted a charity event in Northbrook to benefit Prevent Child Abuse America (my client) and the Tommie Harris Foundation. We got the story covered in Crain's Chicago Business (under "10 things to do this weekend"), the Chicago Sun-Times, and the event calendars for CBS, 97.1 FM and 90.9FM, to name a few. I also ALMOST got ESPNChicago to come cover the actual event (but they needed confirmed Bears' interviews in order to show up - boo. Ah well). Pretty fun!

MillerCoors also offered free, all-day bus service during the Valparaiso Popcorn Festival yesterday, as a safe alternative to drunk-driving. It's actually a pretty interesting program - they offer it during major celebrations (St. Patrick's Day, 4th of July, Halloween, Kentucky Derby Eve, etc.) in major cities. Valparaiso is a much smaller news market (than, for instance, Chicago with the Tommie Harris event), so we considered it a success when I got the Times of Northwest Indiana to write an article about this story (with the press release I wrote!).

2). Researching! This is the part that I still find interesting, but where most people start to tune out with glazed over eyes until I resume talking about the celebrity encounters experienced by other staff in my office. Everyday, I do a quick news-summary on the cellulosic ethanol industry. If you ever care to know anything (and I mean anything - from U.S. biofuel policies, to the different types of biomass used as feedstock, to which international countries represent our biofuel-competition) about this industry, you let me know. I'm leaving Dig a veritable biofuel-guru. I also do a weekly news-summary on the B-to-B (business-to-business) payment card fulfillment industry. Again, I know way too much about gift cards, open and closed loop cards, the credit and debit industries - care to be enlightened? Just let me know. For a third client, I also keep tabs on what's happening with global alcohol policy (Did you know it's illegal to make moonshine in Latvian apartment buildings? That beer sales increased substantially in China during the World Cup? Both true.). Finally, I get random research projects all the time, putting together information on everything from China's major oil companies, to Chicago's Alderman Burke, to a bio on a Cincinnati Enquirer reporter. So, this industry is definitely a great way to keep learning after graduation, without forking over the money (just yet) for grad school. That's possibly one of my favorite things about this field so far!

In other news...I got the new iPhone (Michelle's birthday present to Michelle), I'm about to start reading Hotel World (my friend from high school and I are going to make a quasi-book club effort out of this one if you'd like to join in!) and I'm only going to survive the next 9 months (after True Blood's finale tonight) with help from Glee, Dexter and (if it's as good as it looks) Boardwalk Empire.

Stay tuned for post-internship updates!

Summer Reading

Here's a quick summary of my summer reading materials: four characters in the last three books have hanged themselves. (And yes, my summer reading experience has been just as emotionally-exacting as it sounds).

It goes like this: every morning, I get on the train, trying to cheerfully juggle my lunch, coffee mug, purse and water bottle - all while wearing heels. Yes, I'm up at an ungodly hour, and no, I am not yet making enough money to fund my lavish shoe-and-travel-tastes, but ultimately, life is good. By the end of my 45-minute train ride, however, I have been thoroughly traumatized by my apparent magnetism for darker plot lines. (My current read has not yet offered up suicide number five, but with malaria, star-crossed lovers and political unrest, it's an ideal template). The books have all been amazing, don't get me wrong, but somehow I can't quite switch gears that often first thing in the morning (breakfast with Dad, Nigerian immigrant suicide in British farmhouse (reading on train), Dig team meeting, British journalist suicide in his study (reading during lunch), writing some press releases and home for dinner). At the very least, I should be reading these books in the privacy of my home, instead of tearing up next to the unsuspecting commuter next to me.

So, I'm determined to make a reading-material-switch. I'm on track to finish The Poisonwood Bible tonight, and I need to find something new for my train rides tomorrow. Instead of leaving it until two minutes after I should have been rushing out the door (as per usual - and then somehow getting stuck grabbing a literary gem, chock full of suicide and a day's worth of in-work depression), I am going to preemptively buy a happy book from the bookstore.

This one popped up as a recommendation with my Border's Rewards coupon today: Juliet. This sort of cross-generational love story (with a mystery-to-be-solved twist) seems unlikely to contain genocide, rape or characters reaching for the rope. I anticipate happily riding the train while my main character falls in love with the contessa's son, and if it all goes horribly wrong, I'll back here with mascara-stained cheeks, demanding book suggestions.

MillerCoors/MWA Event

Exciting internship development: last night I worked my first event as a "PR professional." (With that very sentence, I can feel my claim on my favorite booths at Champaign's dive bars slipping farther and farther away. Growing up...yikes).

Here is the back-story. MillerCoors donated 24 pieces of art from its Milwaukee offices to the Museum of Wisconsin Art (MWA). The MWA is displaying the pieces - all by Wisconsin artists - in an exhibit called "A Case of Wisconsin's Finest: New Acquisitions from the MillerCoors Collection." (Hopefully you get the cheesy, albeit still kind of clever, beer reference in that title). Yesterday afternoon, my supervisor and I drove up to the MWA in West Bend (outside of Milwaukee) for a VIP reception and media preview that was put on to introduce the exhibit.

We arrived early and got a one-on-one tour of the museum with Graeme, the Scottish Assistant Director (very enthusiastic about his job and the collection - but luckily for me, I find art interesting, especially when explained in a brogue). We spent the rest of the night mingling with the MillerCoors spokespeople, the MWA staff, the donors and several of the artists. There was wine, cheese and (predictably) MillerCoors beer. I particularly enjoyed my chats with Bettilou (the feisty, widow donor that clearly had her eye on the younger Graeme) and the caterer that thought I must be an artist based on how awesome my shoes were (this sounds creepy unless you know that my shoe collection really is that great and artistically-ish-inclined).

Also, I have had a lot of the responsibility for pitching this story to media (trying to get them to cover it). I've had a lot of success - I got the area AP writer to pick it up and the story got coverage in everything from FOX to ABC to the Chicago Tribune online to a lot of Milwaukee papers.

So. Mid-point internship reflection: it's been hard work, absolutely, and I will never, ever like getting up at any point before 9:00 in the morning, but I'm learning enough to fill a book (or the occasional blog post) and getting to experience some cool things.

In other news...I've started The Bell Jar as my latest train-ride read and absolutely love it. Female writer + woman's issues + healthy dose of cynicism = love. How did I graduate as an English major and never read this book? Must have been on the syllabuses of those 8am classes that I so-carefully avoided for four years.

Also, I am going to check something off of my bucket list this weekend. No, not going to see the Northern Lights or marry Alexander Skarsgard quite yet. However, I am going to see Lady Gaga at Lollapalooza on Friday after work! My friend and I made a last minute decision to splurge on the tickets. Now we just have to decide how devout of fans we really are. Do we dress up? We shall see. But since my company softball game got canceled for tomorrow night, there is suddenly a wide opening in my schedule for constructing cigarette glasses and coke can hair apparel.

The Magicians

So. I just finished reading The Magicians by Lev Grossman. Considering the amount of time I spend on the lovely Metra these days, I can't go long without a good book. The very day after I finished the Stieg Larsson series, I walked over to Waldenbooks in Ogilvie and spent nearly my entire lunch hour browsing for the perfect commuter book (and considering how much I liked The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo trilogy, this book had a lot to live up to). When I finally came upon Grossman's novel - a New York Times Bestseller and a Border's staff recommendation billed as "Harry Potter for adults" - I knew I had found my match.

The book started off on a great note. The main character is a total nerd. Highly intelligent, Quentin has an unfortunate obsession with a Narnia-esque children's book series that leaves him with both few friends and a dissatisfaction with his non-magic world. He can't stop his longing for the grandeur and adventure of a fantasy realm; then one day, just his luck! Quentin receives an invitation to an elite college of magic. From here, you would expect magic wands, Quidditch games, and a kindly headmaster. What you get instead is the oddest, most compelling piece of twisted, violent, disillusioned fantasy fiction I have ever read.

Ultimately, the best way to describe this novel is Catcher in the Rye + Harry Potter + Narnia + Quentin Tarantino. The nods to C.S. Lewis and J.K. Rowling are so blatant that you really can't miss them. Grossman just gives worlds with talking animals and magic potions his own twist by sprinkling in liberal doses of swearing, alcohol, drugs and sex. The characters channel Holden Caulfield by fighting disillusionment and depression and struggling for a sense of meaning in their lives - in spite of their awesome magical abilities. When Quentin and his classmates do finally shake off their post-graduate vodka-scotch haze, they stumble into the type of magical adventure Quentin had always dreamed of when reading his beloved fantasy books. Yet, the quest offers up violent dangers (not just the benevolent talking beavers and centaurs of Narnia), and is still haunted by the same sense of meaninglessness felt on Earth.

This book is almost too complicated to sum up, and I wish more than anything that I knew someone else reading it right now. I need someone to commiserate with me over the book's complete oddness. And while I don't know that I enjoyed reading it, I could not put it down, and I am already impatient for the sequel's arrival next summer. So if you want to be utterly thrown off by a dark interpretation of a childhood fantasy...dive into The Magicians. If not, steer towards more typical summer reading choices.

Also, I'm welcoming suggestions for my next commuter book!

Eclipse

I saw Eclipse last night. (Specifically, I was harassed through work-email, gmail, text, and phone conversations until I agreed to go with my friend that wanted to see Eclipse last night). Here is the run-down.

I read all the books slightly ahead of the curve. I got to be the one to recommend the Stepenie Meyer series to my friends before they became wildly popular. (No, I did not think that they were new literary classics. As an English major, I could recognize that the works of authors like Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway and J.K. Rowling held infinitely more value). However, I enjoyed the books for what they were: a teenage vampire love story. Because of this appreciation for the novels, two years ago (unlike today), I was not ashamed to go see Twilight on opening night.

Back then, though, there existed a semblance of control and dignity about the series. Nordstrom did not have a Twilight Saga clothing line, people remained undecided about where their loyalties lay (Team Edward or Team Jacob) and I did not yet know highly intimate details about Taylor Lautner's ab-tastic workout routine. True, there was no way to avoid viewing the film sandwiched between rows of squealing, swooning tweens, but I did it with a minimum of shame.

Now, things have shifted. The hype of the series has far surpassed the actual content of the films (and probably even of the books that I once enjoyed).

Eclipse was entertaining, mind you. It was just - at the same time - so bad. For all the months and months of build-up, Summit should be able to produce a slightly better movie. The real heart of the Twilight plot lines lies with the teenage angst that all three main actors seem totally incapable of effectively portraying. Add to all this poor acting some ill-conceived special effects and the raccoon on top of Kristin Stewart's head that is supposed to pass as a wig - and it's a recipe for a movie worth a potential rental, not the $10 theater ticket price.

The final nail in the Twilight vampires' non-existent coffins? I have moved onward and upward. In my maturity, I no longer pine for a sparkly, high school vampire too chaste to make a move on his heroine. Instead, thanks to the advent of True Blood, I've seen that a real vampire (Hello, Eric Northman) worries less about his beloved's soul and more about hunting werewolves and chasing Estonian tail in the most explicit way the HBO rating system will allow. Teenage Twilight fans might still be satisfied with the passionate Jacob-Bella kiss that occurs in Eclipse. But after True Blood forever raised my expectations with the sheer amount of "adult content" it can pack into one episode, Twilight pales in comparison.

I would like to say that I have learned my lesson, that I will of course wait until the final Twilight movie - Breaking Dawn - comes out on DVD. However, the plot of this book was so off-the-wall that I might get sucked into making the trip to the theater one last time. Until then, however, I am glad I have True Blood to satisfy all vampire-cravings.

(Long-Awaited) Update

So, I've been chided through one form of social media (Facebook) for neglecting another form of social media (blog). As it had not been updated in exactly a month, I deserved the chiding. Thank you, loyal reader.

I have been busy though. So for those of you that I haven't talked to lately, here is the brief life update (and from here after I will try and revert to standard blog form by recounting upcoming adventures at the Chicago Gay Pride Parade, the biannual Kloempken family 4th of July Party, and the daily train ride with my younger tax-firm-intern sister).

I started an internship with Dig Communications in Chicago. I'm working with their corporate communications team - I love it! I'm working primarily with MillerCoors, Global Brewers Initiative (GBI) and Coskata. Hopefully you've heard of the first. As for the latter two...GBI is a collaboration between Anheuser-Busch-InBev, Heineken, Carlsberg and SAB Miller. They are working together to brainstorm about and combat all the global issues facing the beer industry today. Coskata is an alternative energy client that makes cellulosic ethanol out of just about anything (woody biomass, trash, crop residue, etc). So, somehow I have managed to find a post-grad summer job that combines all of my interests: beer, the environment, beer, international everything, beer, writing. And I'm having a great time.

My roommates are still Kelly, Dave and Alison for the moment. (Aka, still living at home). The train ride is not too bad yet. I have been completely addicted to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo book trilogy (haven't read them? start reading!) which occupies my train rides. So while I read my books and save up money, I'm continuing to hang around Wheaton, eating my parent's food and hoping (in vain) that Kelly will do my laundry.

That's the brief life update! Going to try and update this more frequently the rest of the summer. Stay tuned! And feel free to comment (or send me an email) and let me know what is going on with you post-grad!

Hot Vinyasa Yoga

Initially, (foolishly) I thought my pilates class on Monday was taxing. I went with a friend and the two of us were the only non-middle-aged-housewives in attendance. You would think that this would equate to an easier class than what we were used to at school. In Champaign, we would attend giant yogalates classes filled with 18-22 year old girls (plus a consistent, albeit confusing, sprinkling of burly football players). I never once got singled out for inaccurate plank posture, and after a hard day of reclining in lecture halls, I could lay my mat out in a back corner of the room and no one would notice if I slacked off in chair pose or failed to sink low enough during lunges.

On Monday, however, the instructor of our very small pilates class felt the need to challenge us "young girls." The housewives got to do poses on their knees or elbows to accommodate for 'old, aching joints', while the instructor would simultaneously offer specific modified versions meant to whip our two young bodies into tip-top-shape. Unwilling to shame myself by sinking to my elbows or knees like the silver-haired ladies on either side of me, I spent (what I thought was a) brutal hour balancing on shaking muscles and suffered for the next two days when I couldn't laugh or sneeze without severe pain in my aching abs. For two whole days, I thought this was as bad as it could get.

Then this morning, I tried Hot Vinyasa Yoga.

Monday's instructor conned my friend and I into returning for her class today by appealing to our desire for toned summer swimsuit bodies and a more well-rounded weekly workout regimen. I thought being singled out in beginning pilates on Monday was rough. False. Rough is an hour and a half of yoga in a tiny, dimly-lit room heated to a temperature of ONE HUNDRED DEGREES. Holding Warrior 1 for an inordinate amount of time is difficult; holding Warrior 1 while sweat pours off of you adds new depth to the concept 'tough workout.' And to add insult to injury? The old man directly behind me was freakishly flexible, shaming me with his ability to contort into the most advanced stages of Eagle Pose.

The worst part? I understand why people go back to these classes. Around the 25-minutes-in-mark (to this hour and a half class), you are attempting to keep rivulets of sweat from rolling into your eyes and silently swearing you will never try anything other than the elliptical ever again. However, the last 15 minutes, the instructor takes you through an amazingly relaxing cool-down. As she tells you to relax every muscle in your body from your big-toe to your tongue, reads inspirational Emerson quotes, and discusses the importance of bringing fluidity and grace to all parts of your life, you are lulled into forgetting the torturous, sweaty misery that was the last hour of your morning. You consider maybe, just maybe, returning next week.

The jury is still out on Hot Vinyasa Yoga. I suspect that when I wake up tomorrow morning, my muscles will be so sore, I'll be stuck in bed like an invalid all day. But if I obtain the toned obliques and inner-serenity that my cool, tattooed, hippie instructor promised, I might be back, drenched in sweat and regretting my attraction to yoga.

Glee

Eating disorders. A teen quadriplegic. Blatant homophobia.

When did the content of Glee - a musical comedy - turn so heavy?

I love Glee. And quite frankly, I have no problem with the show trying to make a point, or teach its audience a lesson. In fact, in Season 1, I thought that the show managed to do this seamlessly. Glee's ability to satirize the way society marginalizes people based on their gender, race and sexuality always proved one of my favorite things about the show. In Season 2, however, I feel like Glee lacks the very subtlety that once made its messages so poignant, and, to boot, the new heaviness is coming at the cost of the lighthearted plot threads so vital to a comedy like Glee. Let's look at some examples.

Take the episode where Mercedes needs to lose weight to remain a Cheerio. Sue could have issued an over-the-top speech to the cheerleaders demanding unrealistic, stick-thin figures and detailing the ingredients of her unsavory diet shake. This would have highlighted the issue (society's ridiculous standards on body image) and been funny. Most importantly, though, it would have taken up a mere few minutes of the episode, freeing time for scenes like the Puck-Quinn cupcake-baking food fight or the Will-Emma wedding-dress-shopping-trip that made the show so light and entertaining during Season 1.

Instead, the show delved too deep. Mercedes develops an eating disorder, passes out from hunger, receives an emotional pep-talk from Quinn and inspires the student-body through her rendition of 'Beautiful.' It takes so long to slog through all these issues that none of the fun scenes pop up (Rachel and Finn flirtation?). This heaviness, an uncharacteristic shift from the tone of Season 1, keeps popping up again and again this season: when Rachel visits paralyzed ex-football player Sean, when Finn struggles to accept the death of his father, when Kurt becomes hurt by his father's growing bond with Finn and in tonight's episode, when Burt kicks Finn out for his lack of respect for his gay son.

Writers of Glee: I get what you are trying to do. You have a hit show, you have everyone's attention, and so you are trying to make a statement. Or a whole lot of statements. However, you need to scale it back. Return to the golden formula that worked so well in Season 1. Let's have some more romantic tension between Finn and Rachel. Where were Emma and Sue tonight? Bring them back! Let's have Puck infusing the bake sale goods with his 'special' ingredient, Finn frantically trying to remember the mailman crashing into his windshield and Rachel strutting around with her usual diva-like swagger. Make the show fun again, and skip the soap-opera intensity.

If not - if you don't stop trying to make Glee into a musical quasi-drama - you might have considerably less fans to preach to. And I love the soundtrack far too much to give up on this show quite yet. Impress me, Glee.

Travel

Today two of my friends leave on an amazing, month-long, globe-trotting, post-grad trip. Before they plunge into the real-world workforce, they are hitting an enviable array of cities and countries: Tokyo, Bangkok, New Delhi, Dubai, Vienna, Munchen, Prague, and Frankfurt. My first, instinctive emotion: pure jealousy. My second emotion: a (very begrudging and obligatory) sense of excitement that my friends get to experience the world. My third emotion: A faint hope that they will bring me souvenirs. (Or at the very least, the phone number of a wealthy, travel-loving, potential husband for me that they come across in Dubai).

My two friends will be starting up jobs as soon as they return from their travels, and as they majored in Actuarial Sciences and Engineering, I know these jobs would not appeal to me, in spite of the travel they are funding. For four years, I avoided anything related to math and science like the plague, and only fulfilled my science requirements thanks to 'Natural Disasters' and 'Introduction to the Solar System.' However, as I read over Tom and Tim's itinerary, and realize that the current unpaid summer internship I have lined up would not fund a roundtrip flight to Japan (let alone adding flights to another six or so countries) I can't help but wonder: would enduring four years of science/math classes would be a worthwhile trade-off for seeing the Taj Mahal? (I loved my majors. Seriously, I actively enjoyed a 400-level class on Restoration Comedy, so you can't get more 'meant-to-be-an-English-major' than that. But the travel bug is biting, and hard (Peru, anyone?) - so the jury is still out).

At the very, very least, if I am stranded in the U.S. for the foreseeable future, I'm glad my friends have interesting and exciting travel plans. I plan to spend my time over the next four weeks stalking Facebook albums, obsessively pestering for email updates, and implying (with no great degree of subtlety) my love of postcards and souvenirs.

On that note: have a great trip boys! The wheels on your welcome-back-to-America party (menu: burgers, mac & cheese and fries) have already been put in motion!

Graduation Speaker

My graduation speaker yesterday was not that great. He started off strong - making a lot of well-appreciated jokes about how English majors enter college without a clue of what do with our lives, how no actual jobs stem from the English major, and how even though we all possess a secret, uncool love for Hemingway and Shakespeare, we are much more socially-adept than engineers and accounting majors. Unfortunately, however, after this intro, his speech devolved into a 20-minute montage of technological terms and political leanings, when a few concise words (Dream big. Follow your passions. Never give up) would have done the trick. In spite of this lack of relevance and eloquence in the graduation speech I heard, though, I managed to get something out of it. So here it is (and this one is for all of you that just moved back in with mom and dad, have no discernible plan for the future despite very responsibly applying for jobs this last semester, and are on the the verge of a huge post-grad melt-down):

My graduation speaker (let's call him Dan) graduated with a major in Rhetoric from the University of Illinois. Rhetoric is a fancy name for Creative Writing. Throughout undergrad, he bummed around. He switched his major three times, smoked a lot of hashish in Nepal during a study abroad experience (by his own admittance) and donned his cap and gown without a job or future plans. For FIVE years after he graduated, he continued to bum around. He bounced from jobs in the restaurant industry to one on salmon-boat to the construction industry to a gig on an oil rig. Finally, when he was 26, he had an idea for a company, and started it with three other people in a tiny office. The company was successful (so he added a few more ideas and a few more companies in there along the way). He eventually sold his company for an 'obscene' amount of money. My dad looked up this obscene amount on his iPhone in the middle of the ceremony: $750 MILLION.

Moral of the story? You can graduate with an English major and no job and still end up (nearly) a billionaire. It's probably hard now to keep things in perspective when your parents insist on calling you 'roomie' and a handful of your lucky friends are preparing for actual jobs and grad school to start...but stay grounded! We will all catch up and maybe (like Dan) end up with the millions required to fund the jet-setting, out-of-our-parents-houses post-grad lives we envisioned all along.

:)

The End/Beginning

Anyone that knows me knows that I hate change. I get upset and worried and nervous whenever any sort of change comes around - at the end of summer when I have to go back to school, at the end of school year when it is time to go home for the summer, before I left for Spain, before I came home from Spain, etc. When I was little, I would even sit on the fire hydrant outside of my house to wave goodbye (and then have a good long mope) after favorite relatives went home at the conclusion of a weekend visit. I don't think this proves to be entirely a bad trait. A huge part of the reason I hate changes so much is that I am always having such a great time with the people I am with in the current moment, and dislike leaving them. Having a great time isn't the worst way to go through life.

Coming home from Spain might have been the biggest transition so far. It was tough to switch gears from four months of jetsetting around Europe with friends to a summer of hostessing in the burbs. The transition out of college life will probably be tough too - people tell me that the drink specials just aren't as great in the real world, you don't get to sleep in until 10 minutes before your 11 am class, and a diet of mac and cheese and fries is frowned upon. However, this growing up thing is inevitable, so it's time to look on the upside. In the short run, I have a tour of the Goose Island Brewery, Season 3 of True Blood and two new roomies (hey, mom and dad) to look forward to. In the long run, we will have $$, bigger cities than Champaign to live in and explore, and new places to travel (I have close friends planning to be everywhere from Austin to Indonesia next year).

SO. Even though a change of this magnitude feels daunting this morning as I pack up my apartment, iron my graduation gown, and text goodbyes to friends, I know the next phase will be as great as all the previous ones: one I'll be nervous and sad to leave when the time comes.

HAPPY GRADUATION EVERYONE! Congrats and see you on the other (grown-up) side!

Sookie: The Books

I love the show True Blood. Last summer, my girlfriends and I had a Sunday night ritual: I got off work at 8:00, and six of us would descend into my basement in various states of sweatpants/pajama attire with bottles of (appropriately) red wine. Occasionally a guy friend would try and intrude on this girl-time (and would immediately regret it, failing to realize that thanks to the technological magic of the DVR, we could watch any scene featuring sexy Viking-vampire Eric over...and over...and over, before continuing with the episode). The whole concept of the show makes it so great. It combines two opposites: the elegance and exoticism of the supernatural world (think Interview with a Vampire, before you think Twilight) and pure white-trash, hillbilly South. However, True Blood does not get original credit for this off-beat, unique idea. It started with Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse novels.

Here is my recommendation: read the books. If you are a fan of the TV series, you will be a fan of the novels, and they are different enough you won't feel like you are re-living the same content. For starters, the TV show is obviously a drama. The books run more along the dark comedy genre. Sookie still kills evil supernatural housebreakers - but she proves less concerned with the emotional effects of murdering another soul, and more focused on which solvent will best remove werewolf blood from the linoleum. The plotlines also begin to diverge very dramatically after Season 1/Book 1. Maryann (who, along with her increasingly graphic woodland orgies, takes up a majority of Season 2 airtime) merits a mere chapter in Book 2. And further proof of the differences? Let's just say Lafayette did not survive this long in book-world, and Sarah was not even a character in the novels (let alone one Jason could envision seducing over bbq). These changes are a good thing though. Rather than ruining the original concept, True Blood instead offers you, as a reader/viewer, double the small-town murder, sex, scandal, and drama.

So. You have over a month until True Blood (the show) starts up again and ideally, you have at least a few days off before you start that awesome post-grad career you have lined-up (less ideally, you have a whole lot of time to read these books between sending off even more cover letters from your parent's basement). So, dive into the series and start catching up! If you are up to speed, book 10 (Dead in the Family) comes out on Tuesday!

Earth Day

Earth Day happens this week on Thursday, April 22nd.

Now, I've had a lot of "green guilt" throughout my undergraduate career. Thanks to the interdisciplinary nature of my International Studies major (and my interest in the environment) I've gotten to take classes ranging from Environmental Justice to Contemporary Social and Environmental Issues. This has allowed me to see how our big actions (like the construction of the Three Gorges Dam in China or the Narmada Dam in India), or our little actions (like poor waste disposal leading to the Pacific "trash islands") as humans have started to really impact the environment. Unless you're planning to go into Environmental Law, a career in the public policy, or the not-for-profit sector, you probably won't ever have a measurable impact on these major problems. But you, individually, can make small changes in your day-to-day life that will impact the Earth for the better (note: it is MUCH better for the environment to make small, long-term changes, than big changes that last for only the duration of Earth Day). So what can you do this Earth Day and beyond?

1). Educate yourself: Don't know what the definition or impact of things like desertification or deforestation really are? Never heard of the Three Gorges or Narmada Dam until this post? Don't know the difference between using incandescent bulbs and CFLS? Educate yourself. Use wikipedia, GoogleScholar and the movie Avatar as a starting point to learn more about the effect we are having on our environment. The more you know, the more prepared you will be to talk about these issues and to take action about them.

2). Take the little steps: You know all those changes you've been meaning to make, but have yet to get around to? Make a conscious effort to bring your green-friendly grocery bag to the store, instead of using 4-5 plastic bags every time you shop. Switch out your plastic water bottles for a reusable metal one. If you insist on using plastic bottles, recycle them! Turn off the lights when you are not in a room (or much more importantly, when you are not home), and don't let the faucet run when you are not using it (i.e. while brushing your teeth or shaving). Walk, carpool, drive the speed limit, fly less, and use paper products more responsibly (print on both sides, for example). Turn off your car if you are going to let it idle for more than a minute. And the big energy waster you might not have known about? Keeping things plugged in when you're not using them. So if your cell phone, or iPod, or computer is not charging, unplug the charger!

3). Share: Here's one you might not have suspected. You need a little black dress for an event. The amount of resources and energy that goes into producing and transporting a new dress is actually measurable. So if your girlfriend already has one that you've had your eye on, borrow it. Not only do you save $ that you can be better spent on a manicure, or taking your friend out to lunch, but you also positively impact the environment.

4). Hit the theaters: Go see DisneyNature: Oceans. This movie looks adorable, cool, and interesting, and Disney will also make a donation to The Nature Conservancy to save coral reefs if you attend this movie Opening Week. (And carpool when you and your friends go there!)

There are probably a million more big and little changes that you could make beyond these. Let me know if you have suggestions, or any good websites/articles to check out. Happy (almost) Earth Day!

The Real Victory Lap

The actual victory lap has begun. Yesterday marked the one-month countdown to my college graduation. For seniors with an impending send-off from Champaign, this makes everything around and about campus take on a sudden, undeserved sheen. As far as I can tell, we react to graduation by glorifying college this last month in several different, key ways.

1). Regression: Remember that bar you loved freshman year? Maybe the doorman looked the other way when he noticed that your fake id had expired in the late 90s, or that the gender portrayed on that little card did not match your own. It may have been that it was the one bar that did not charge your young self cover, or perhaps you just went there to listen to your favorite tunes and to dance with your friends on Wednesday-Saturday nights. After two or three semesters of loyal patronage, however, you wised up. You realized that other bars on campus actually had toilet paper in their bathrooms and washed their floors more than twice a week. You ditched your old favorite hang-out for the lure of tp and non-sticky surfaces, and until now, you haven't looked back. What's changed? You're about to graduate. This is your last chance to revisit the bar where you met that one guy whose name you no longer remember, where you lost your favorite clutch and where you learned that taking off your shoes in a bar is never a good call. Those of you that are spending this last month heading back to freshman year haunts in spite of the noxious wave of an unknown smell that hits you when you walk in the door are currently going through this phase: regression.

2). Over-indulgence: You're not really hungry for Chipotle, you don't need the calories that Chipotle contains, and quite frankly there are four Chipotle restaurants in your hometown (where you'll be moving back temporarily after graduation this summer). Yet, this is your last chance to eat at this Chipotle, here on Green Street, in Champaign, IL. Surely, you had some memories here, and you don't want to waste your last month as a college senior by eating a Lean Cuisine in your apartment. No, you will properly live it up; you will go get that burrito bowl! So, the over-indulgence mentality sets in. Now, if you feel this way about a chain restaurant, imagine how you'll feel about that small, local burger joint, or that little nail salon, or that boutique that you've always loved. You will eat, drink, and shop until you drop this last month simply because this is it: your last chance to do all those mundane things that weren't really that great for four years, but have all of a sudden become inexplicably glorified because of their imminent retreat from your life.

3). Avoidance: You cannot deal with the fact that it is almost over, so you spend every weekend away from campus, away from the poignant reminders that your time with the Alma Mater, the Quad and the Murrow Plots is almost at an end. You visit your boyfriend, your great-aunt, and picturesque national parks, but you have as little as possible to do with Champaign: it's just too painful.

Seniors, whatever stage of pre-graduation panic/mourning/acceptance/flat-out-senioritis you are in, this is it: the real victory lap. One month and counting! Scary, exciting...YIKES. What are your thoughts, and how are you coping with/enjoying the last days?

Soy Un Desastre

When I studied abroad in Granada, the host mom of a friend told her one day "Eres un destastre." Translation: You are a disaster. She meant this in the most loving way possible, but it was an accurate description of a girl that was always running late, losing everything from homework to keys, and arriving home from tapas in the wee hours of the Spanish morning. Since then, we've adopted the phrase 'desastre' as a description to be used in place of its English equivalent. Here's a recap of my recent desastre moments:

1). My friend wanted to go to Champaign's one and only gay bar for a birthday drink last week because of both the impressive size of its dance floor and the 1/2-off prices on her favorite cocktails. The moment I had been waiting for finally came around midnight: they were not only playing Lady Gaga, but specifically, a great mash-up of all her popular tracks. You all know of my love for Lady Gaga and her music, so naturally I was getting my very enthusiastic groove on. Intense dance moves + giant puddle of someone's spilled drink = disaster moment # 1. Most people fall and their feet slip out from under them. Since I was in the middle of some sort of uncoordinated gyration/shimmy combo to "Love Game" when my foot hit the puddle, I fell forward, and onto my knees hard. The result? Days later both my knees are an intense mixture of blue, purple, green and black, plus a giant scrape. I don't know what's worse: the fact that I have to show up to my church for Jeremy's confirmation on Tuesday looking like a 7-year old that took a tumble off her bike, or the fact that it is physically painful to crawl across my bed to open/close the window. Definite desastre moment.

2). I have sleepwalked twice this semester. Not into the living room, or my bathroom, like a normal person. But into my roommate's bedroom. When I sleepwalk, I have absolutely no recollection of doing it, no awareness that I ever got up out of my bed, walked into her room, started shuffling things around on her desk or responding to questions, before returning to my own room. Since I have no idea any of this is going on, the real desastre moment doesn't hit until the next morning, when my roommate and her 31-year old boyfriend have to approach me about the subject over breakfast. "So...that was awkward when you came into the room last night...again." We then have to ponder, over Frosted Flakes and Honey Nut Cheerios, just what in my subconscious brings me to their room time and again, between the hours of 3-5am. Desastre moment # 2.

3). I cried during The Last Song. No, my eyes didn't just slightly well up. I actually cried. Tears fell, sniffling ensued. The last time I out-and-out sobbed in the theaters was during Oscar-winning Million Dollar Baby. Nice to know that a Nicholas Sparks film produces the same effect. Desastre #3.

What are your desastre moments?

Michelle

Fun fact: I was named after the Beatles' song "Michelle." I like to tell this anecdote when I meet new people, because quite frankly, being named after a Beatles' song is ever-so-slightly more interesting than being named because of my parents' simple preference for 'Michelle'. If I were named for an interesting great-grandparent, or an English monarch, or a Catholic saint, I would probably brag with undeserved frequency about that as well. However, our family names (Lola, Hazel, Philomena) were not in vogue in the 80s, and rather than having a penchant for historical figures, my Dad loved a hippie-band from Liverpool. (I can only assume I got the name Michelle in particular because my parents didn't want to name me Prudence or after a song relating to LSD).

Now, unfortunately for me and my extreme love of telling this story, a lot of people don't know the song "Michelle." It's not my favorite Beatles' song ("Hey, Jude" has that honor), but it's in the top 5. Further, it won the 1966 Grammy for Song of the Year, teaches basic French phrases, and holds direct responsibility for the fact that (slightly exasperating, mostly endearing) Customer X at the fine-dining restaurant where I work calls me "ma belle" every Tuesday when he comes in for dinner. Basically, even if it's not your favorite Beatles' single, it is a great, Grammy-winning song, and you should know it. So, to those of you that are unfamiliar with the song that resulted in my name, check out this single from Rubber Soul. I will probably try and make myself sound more intriguing to you one day based upon my relationship to "Michelle" and I need you to know what I'm referring to.

Final fun fact: Paul McCartney rarely performs this song live anymore, but he performed it as a dedication to Michelle Obama in 2009.

Confirmation Present

I have been trying for awhile to determine what gift to give my 14-year old, male sponsee for confirmation. (Jeremy: if you read my blog, stop now. Present spoiler alert). A religious gift would be obvious. However, for guys there seem to be only three options: a Bible, a cross and a saint medal. If Jeremy were a girl, the religious jewelry options would be endless, but (alas) I'm stuck choosing between the three-boy friendly options. Here is the issue: his family is huge. Some aunt, or grandparent, or second cousin will surely one-up whichever one of the three I choose and purchase on my modest college budget. Is it even worth trying to compete? Ultimately, probably not.

So I have decided my back-up gift will be books. This might sound lame, but Jeremy and I have a long reading history. We both spend way too much time reading and back in the day, I would read him and his sister whole kid novels during summer babysitting sessions. I turned him onto the Harry Potter books ten years ago, and accidentally got him into the Sookie Stackhouse series last summer (Yes, the novels the True Blood HBO show is based on. Appropriate for a 13-year old boy? Absolutely not. Further proof that he chose the right sponsor. Already sneaking books wildly inappropriate to his age level = doing me proud). Since I've already done enough damage in the adult supernatural department, I am trying to choose books that I liked throughout the years that, while not religious in theme, have something to do with living a good life. Here is what I have so far (and I am 100% open to, and looking for, other suggestions):

1). The Alchemist, Paulo Cohelo: In this fable, an Andalusian shepherd boy dreams one night of a treasure in the pyramids in distant Egypt. He sells his belongings and leaves home to follow his dreams. Along the lengthy journey, Santiago meets everyone from camel-drivers to kings to (you guessed it) an alchemist that teach him life lessons. This is ultimately an optimistic story about finding happiness, and one that promotes the idea that it is not the destination, but rather, the journey that matters in life.

2). The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery: I actually gave this book to the new baby of good family friends for his baptism when I was in high school (so, I'm sensing a religious-gift-theme with me and this book). This is a beautiful little story that I first read in 6th grade, but that I think holds relevance for all ages. The narrator of the story has crashed his airplane in the Sahara desert, and is alone with very little food or water, when the Little Prince approaches him. The Little Prince explains that he lived on a small planet, just him and a beautiful rose, which he loved very much, until one day when she lies to him. He leaves his planet and travels to six other planets where he meets a King, a drunkard, a businessman, a lamplighter and a geographer (all of whom live alone on their tiny planets). The Little Prince is unimpressed by their occupation with the concerns of the grown-up world, and of their lives without love. By the time, he crashes on Earth, the Little Prince realizes he loves his rose and must make an extreme choice to get back to her. A great parable about love, responsibility, growing up and imagination.

3). Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman: This one is slightly different from the other two, but it's a neat book that I think Jeremy might not otherwise come across. In this novel, Lightman (an MIT professor) essentially explains Einstein's theory of relativity through a series of 30 short stories. Each chapter is a different, disconnected "dream" about a world in which time functions completely differently: a world where time is circular (and people must repeat their successes and failures), a world where time is frozen, a world where everyone knows one year in advance that the world will end (and responds appropriately), a world in which time flows backward (sort of Benjamin Button-esque), etc. If nothing else, this book makes you realize that in spite of Einstein's "dreams" time functions one way (passing too quickly), and it shouldn't wasted without the people you love or on the pursuits you are not passionate about.

Too deep? If so, I promise to Miley-bash or celebrity-gossip in my next posting. Any other book suggestions? I am still looking for several more! If you haven't read any of these, I recommend ALL of them. Fast reads and you get a little something out of them.

Thanks for reading (and for your comments)!

Two Weeks, Gleeks!

I've been avoiding getting excited about the new season of Glee. I knew, even back when it went on hiatus in December, that April 13th (the date of the Season 2 start) fell dangerously close to graduation. Ick. In spite of my desire for more episodes of one of my favorite new shows, I was not ready to sacrifice the perks of college for the harsh realities of the real world (aforementioned perks include: sleeping in on weekdays, pizza places that are open past 2am and easy access to Wednesday-night karaoke).

Yet, despite my attempts to deny its approach, graduation is coming - and fast. I just finished up several final interviews, I ordered my cap and gown and I even had that unfortunate conversation with my mom, at about just what point I will be expected to take on the bills for my own health insurance, gym membership, etc. So, since apparently I will be growing up shortly (whether I like it or not), there is no point in putting off my excitement about Glee any longer. Here goes:

Two weeks! If you haven't seen the promo for the new season yet, check it out here. If this 47-second clip does not make you create a countdown in your little blue Kate Spade planner, you have no soul. Rachel singing Madonna gave me chills, and I don't even really like that song. They also released a special, promotional segment of Sue's Corner. This clip encompasses a lot of what I like about the show's edgy humor: it manages to be funny, while also showcasing what is flawed about how society stereotypes marginalized peoples. Well done, Glee! Some other things to expect this season (based upon my obsessive reading of any article related to this season's filming over the last months):

1). Idina Menzel: She starred in Rent and also played Elphaba in the original Wicked (interestingly, she starred opposite Kristin Chenowith, as Glinda, who already appeared as a Glee guest star in Season 1). She will play the coach for Vocal Adrenaline (New Directions' big competitors at regionals). Not only does she have an AWESOME voice, she also apparently has a make-out scene with Mr. Schuster.
2). Jonathan Groff: He was Lea Michele's costar in Broadway's Spring Awakening and he will play both a member of Vocal Adrenaline and a love interest for Rachel. Again, I love that he is guaranteed to have a fantastic voice, and Finn needs a little competition.
3). Madonna episode: Madonna gifted all of her music to Glee (so they can use it without having to pay the steep fees for copyrighted works). In response, Glee is having a whole Madonna episode. Expect everything from Like a Virgin to 4 Minutes to Like a Prayer.
4). Lady GaGa episode: I actually kind of worry I might get hit by a bus after this episode. To combine so many of my favorite things (Poker Face + Bad Romance + the cast of Glee) into one action-packed hour seems too reminiscent of the decadent last meal a prisoner used to get before heading out to the gallows. Regardless of my fate after the episode (I'll prepare for the worse), Poker Face will be a Rachel-solo, and Bad Romance will be an ensemble piece. Supposedly, everyone will also be decked out in full-on Lady GaGa garb during Bad Romance, including Rachel in the Kermit-the-Frog outfit.
5). Neil Patrick Harris: Rumor has it he will play a high school glee-nemesis of Mr. Schuster that resurfaces as a McKinley High board member. That promises to be legen - wait for it...

Are you excited for Season 2? What episode or guest star has you the most ready to put aside your trepidation about graduation and embrace your excitement for Glee?

The Last Song

Something about Miley Cyrus irks me.

An intensive psychological analysis would probably reveal my resentment for this teen star stems from the fact that she achieved more by age 14 than I ever will: she dated a Jonas Brother, had her own show on the Disney Channel, and, oh yeah, even managed to make herself into a household name. However, every time she incites new controversy - by dancing on a stripper pole at some awards ceremony, wearing a push-up bra at age 15, or even dating that older guy from the Taylor Swift Love Story video - I secretly hope for her downfall. I don't mean downfall in a-fatal-car-accident kind of way. Just that she'll go the Jamie Lynn Spears route and receive the full force of Perez Hilton's mockery for 9 months ("Yeah, nice "promise ring" Miles").

I also have an issue with Nicholas Sparks. I enjoyed the movies A Walk to Remember and The Notebook (but I'm only admitting that on the web because I've already implied on here that romance novels are one of my top vices). And even though I really liked the movies, even I couldn't handle the saccharine cliches of the books. I did not bother to see Nights in Rodanthe, and I missed Dear John as well (too many complaints about an unsatisfying twist at the movie's end). I had thought I was well on my way to ending my streak as a Nicholas Sparks movie fan: that it would be a lapse in judgment that would soon lie far in the past. Unfortunately, however, I stumbled upon The Last Song. In spite of the problems I have with both Miley Cyrus and Nicholas Sparks, I really want to see The Last Song. I can't explain it. I dislike both the author of the book and the starring actress, yet I've been internally counting down the days until its April 1st release date for at least three weeks.

My desire to see this movie might rise from the fact that I somehow got hooked to the movie's theme song, When I Look at You. I played it on repeat 25+ times while I wrote a paper one night, and in between researching facts on the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, I caved and looked up the trailer. Now I'm hooked. Just what did Greg Kinnear do to make Miley resent spending the summer with him? Why do Liam and Miley have a climactic fight 2/3 of the way through the movie (is someone from the wrong side of the tracks? Suspected of cheating? Dying?) And most importantly, all those close-ups made me wonder: for a kid that had a whole lot of $$, why didn't Miley throw a couple of bucks towards orthodontics?

If you beat me to the theaters, let me know what you think of The Last Song. I'd rather not waste $10 to stare at Miley's crooked teeth if she doesn't pull out a predictably satisfying love story. However, if she does live up to her predecessors (namely, Mandy Moore and Rachel McAdams), expect me in the audience sooner than later.

St. George

Greetings from Florida! The weather is great, the house we are staying in = amazing, but unfortunately, when you are on a tame family vacation (as opposed to participating in the extreme revelry of college-aged friends and acquaintances currently scattered south of the Mason-Dixon line), there is little to do when the sun goes down. Yes, we just watched Zombieland (and, in spite of my extreme resistance to this pick by my younger sister, I will admit: it was pretty funny, check it out) and now I am searching for other pre-bedtime distractions.

This leaves me researching the life and times of St. George. Odd? Probably. However, in less than a month, I will be ushering yet another young soul into the Catholic faith as a confirmation sponsor (the first was my sister) and he has chosen St. George as his "confirmation saint." Catholics choose a saint, a saint whose example they respect and to whose "type of holiness" they would like to aspire. The name of this saint becomes the candidate's confirmation name. Now, I chose Teresa. All the women in my family choose Teresa, and I do like having this connection to my deceased grandma, my mom, my aunts, my cousins and my sister.

However, for lack of another word, Teresa is lame. She lived in a nunnery, had religious visions, helped the poor...blah, blah, blah. I don't think this makes her any less worthy of sainthood than the "cool" saints. However, in a religion with great, feminist martyrs like Joan of Arc, and Perpetua (wrote about her incarceration and was torn apart by wild animals in the arena), St. Teresa holds no interest for your typical 8th grader (or 21-year old). Luckily, Jeremy, my 14-year sponsee has more sense than Grandma Lola (who started this whole St. Teresa tradition), and he picked a great saint: St. George. I like his story, and quite frankly, until the sun rises and I resume my attempts to ever-so-slightly bronze my stubbornly pale Irish/English/German/Swedish skin, I have little better to do than relate it to you. So here it is: the legend of St. George.

During the era of the Roman Empire, a dragon plagued the city of Selene in Libya. The creature required a sacrifice of two sheep per day in order to leave the city alone (different versions of the story tell different reasons for the sacrifice: in order for the dragon to stop emitting a daily, deadly poison, to grant the people access to their water supply, etc.). When the citizens ran out of sheep, the dragon demanded a daily sacrifice of one child. With heavy hearts, the townspeople drew lots daily, and those unlucky enough to have their lot drawn had to sacrifice their child. One day, the King drew the lot, forcing him to send out the beautiful young princess to be sacrificed. As the princess waited for the dragon to come forth and devour her, a knight rode up (St. George!). He fought the dragon, defeated it, saved the princess, and converted the city of Selene to Christianity before continuing on his way. Pretty cool saint, right? He is the patron saint for everywhere from England to Barcelona to Greece. Even the non-legend version of his story features a Roman soldier martyr that stood up to the Emperor Diocletian for his Christian faith.

So even though my saint holds little interest for my avid readers (or me), Jeremy is making up for the cool-factor that was missing during my own confirmation, and during my first run as a sponsor. Well done, J: Saint George is awesome.

Kings

I am officially on Spring Break and outside my window I see...snow? Yes, yesterday morning I woke up in Wheaton and looked out my window to see a solid inch or two of snow covering everything. This would be a disappointment in any other context regardless (today is the first day of Spring), but this late-March snowfall is made all the worse by the fact that I packed in Champaign on Friday. The weather was 65 degrees and sunny and so, I brought home nothing but flip-flops and t-shirts. When I woke up yesterday morning to a scene that would better fit White Christmas than my Spring Break, and with no end in sight to the sheets of freezing rain, I gave my toes a serious pep-talk and went to brave the elements. (So, yes, if you were at Oakbrook yesterday, I was that girl: in sandals with no coat and surrounded by people in scarves, Uggs and hats). One day was enough, however. I will not gamble with frostbite twice. Today, rather than running the last-minute pre-Florida errands I need to make (Target, Border's, etc.), I have chosen to hibernate indoors, instead of facing the frigid early-Spring weather in my inadequate footwear.

So, how have I been spending my time? (And how do I recommend that you waste away a solid twelve hours next time you have a free weekend, based upon freak weather conditions or sheer laziness?) One word: Kings.

My roommate introduced this show to me about a week ago and I am already done with Season 1 (sadly, the show got canceled, so Season 1 = the whole series). Here is the basic premise: David lives on a farm in the fictional, modern-day kingdom of Gilboa. His father died in the war with Gath and he and his brother are fighting on the front lines, meaning that David has a lot of patriotism and Gilboa-pride. In the pilot, David commits a heroic act in the war (I won't give it away!) that garners national attention. He comes to the capital at Shiloh to be honored by the King and gets drawn into the politics of the court. Murder, treachery, betrayal, forbidden love: this show has it all. Kind of reminds me of a modern-day Tudors.

There is also a strong, underlying Old-Testament-religious-theme (hint: David's heroic act involves the conquering of a modern-day "Goliath"), but rather than being stuffy, the religious element just makes you feel clever as a viewer for understanding the Biblical allusions. The show has an epic-feel, which I admit might have made it too dense for television (it would have made a better movie plot, perhaps), and thus probably led to its cancellation. It's also a bit of a bummer finishing episode 12, knowing that all the cliff-hangers that the season finale establishes will never be resolved. However, Kings is definitely worth checking out. All the episodes are on Hulu, so if you are stuck inside (because all of your snow-appropriate footwear is safely ensconced on campus three hours away or for another reason entirely), watch the pilot--you'll be hooked.

Too Much Salt

So I don't really cook. I can bake just about anything, but in spite of the fact that I make whipped cream from scratch for my pies, my actual cooking skills are still limited to Kraft mac and cheese and heating up canned soup. In Spain however, the senora I lived with, Leo, taught me how to make two Spanish staples: Spanish tortilla (a potato omelette) and salmorejo (a creamy tomato soup-dip hybrid). The notes I made as she taught me are a furious mix of English-Spanish ("Heat the aceite for five minutos") and since the Spanish don't measure in terms of cups or tablespoons, I was forced to write my measurement estimates in terms of things like "two solid glugs of olive oil." When I returned to the States, I cooked up both recipes immediately, both to impress my family with the wonders of Spanish cuisine and to keep the skills Leo had taught me fresh. Aside from using too much aceite (olive oil) in the salmorejo, I prepared both dished decently , realized that Spanish food was an acquired taste my family didn't care for more than a few bites of and I promptly never cooked them again.

Now, ten months later, I promised my friend I would come over early to a Granada study abroad party she was hosting and help her cook the Spanish tortilla before our friends arrived. My friend has not only graduated early (last December) and used the last two months to learn actual cooking skills (her Facebook status always brags about her recent domination over such difficulties as "eggplant parmesan" or "arroz con pollo"), but she makes Spanish tortilla with enough frequency that her skills weren't anywhere near the rusty-level mine were. She graciously decided to let me actually cook the omelette, so I could re-learn under her instruction, and when she spouted off the thought that "You can never have too much salt" not once, but many, many times, I decided to bow to the wisdom of the cooking guru.

I say this to point out that we both shared equal fault in what ended up happening with our tortilla. I'm a baker. Salt will single-handedly destroy anything that is supposed to be sweet: cookies, cakes, brownies, pies, etc. To say I avoid salt with great caution would be an understatement: I don't think I even know where the salt is stored, in my house or my apartment. If my friend had not been there encouraging me to add more and more salt (without actually monitoring what my salt-inexperienced self considered "more") I would have tossed in a conservative pinch, and we would have been fine. However, her words were a pass to go crazy with a cooking-element I normally avoid and I went overboard. Handfuls upon handfuls of salt went into the heating oil, the cooking potatoes, the onions, the egg-mixture....Well, when we decided to try our finished result, which looked great, it was SO saturated with salt, I think that the water just about left our bodies with that one bite. Everyone physically winced, it was so salty. So, the lesson I learned was simple. (And do I feel a bit like Amy Adams in Julie and Julia delivering this to you? Perhaps). There is such a thing as too much salt. Proceed with caution.

I'm off to buy potatoes and eggs to make attempt # 2 on my own, sans the cup and a half of salt that likely went into my more recent effort. Wish me luck!

Unofficial St. Patrick's Day

U of I's Unofficial St. Patrick Day happened last Friday. I've been avoiding writing about it, because ultimately, the purpose of this blog is still professional (potential employers: are you reading this and being oh-so-impressed by my writing skills, and my digital, social media savviness?). Even making veiled references to a campus full of green-clad undergraduates partaking of green eggs, Guinness and Jameson seems a poor job-hunting strategy.

However, now that I realize my friends have been featured in the The Daily Illini, and that my pictures were better, I have to at least share my favorite picture from Unofficial 2010. So here it is: Dan and Andrew, dressed up (without shame in form-fitting green-nylon) as greenman, climbing all over U of I's Alma Mater. Not only did they make at least $3.00, taking pictures with freshman, exchange, students and visitors (which, likely, was reinvested in green beer a mere 10 minutes after this photo was taken), they also made my school newspaper (and thus, have been taped to our fridge).

Senior year might be winding down, but if this picture is any indication, the next two months will be a fun--albeit random--time. Happy Unofficial!

oscarsoscarsoscars

Well, I wanted Avatar to win pretty much everything. However, I have yet to actually see The Hurt Locker and Ben Stiller presented for best make-up dressed as a Na'vi, so I will try and mask my disappointment.

Here are the BIG WINS:

Best Picture:

The Hurt Locker

Best Actress:

Sandra Bullock

Best Actor:

Jeff Bridges

Best Director:

Katheryn Bigelow

Best Supporting Actress:

Mo'nique

Best Supporting Actor:

Christoph Waltz

Unfortunately, since I have not seen The Hurt Locker (and thus, cannot properly quip about it), this will be a short post, but here it is: Favorite Oscar Moments.

1). Jeff Bridge's acceptance speech. I did not realize it was possible to say "man" that many times while wearing a tux.

2). Sandra Bullock's acceptance speech. She managed to combine hilarity, grace and liberal political correctness, all in a few short minutes. Not only did she reference her ongoing battle/love affair with Meryl Streep (started earlier in the year as each woman was nominated again and again for Best Actress this awards season), but she also individually acknowledged her fellow nominees, thanked her mom/all the moms out there and made a subtle plug for equality for everyone (in spite of race, sexual orientation, etc.). What a classy lady.

3). Kathryn Bigelow's win. Even though she stole attention from Avatar, I obviously have to support my feminist beliefs, and just be excited that after 82 years a woman finally won an Oscar for Best Director. Congrats/Go woman power!

Let the Games End

Well. The Olympics have ended, and we have another 4 years until Sochi, Russia, when we can wonder, again, just why curling is considered an Olympic sport. Unfortunately, it appears that most of you didn't really bother to get invested in the Vancouver games (unless, of course, you were my roommates, and thus, had no other option thanks to my 17-day hijacking of the TV) and so, here is a brief summary of all that you missed.

Top Tearjerkers:
1). The death of 21-year old luger Nodar Kumaritashvili the day of the Opening Ceremonies.
2). The short-program skate of Canadian bronze-medalist, Joannie Rochette, two days after the unexpected death of her mother.
3). The Dan Jansen , Go World VISA commercial. (Behold the effects of advertising: exactly 30 seconds is all it takes Morgan Freeman to get me emotionally invested in the story of a stranger, and worse, totally choked up over it).

Biggest Disappointments:
1). HOCKEY (so close!)
2). Apolo getting disqualified in the 500 meter. Fair? Probably not.
3). Catherine O'Hara trying, and failing miserably, to be funny, during the Closing Ceremonies.

Best Moments:
1). The Canadian woman's hockey team celebrating on the ice (with cigars, drinks and a Zamboni) after winning their gold.
2). Wins by Team USA, Kim Yu-Na, Alexandre Bilodeau, Joannie Rochette, and Maria Riesch.
3). The Canadian ice dancing gold medalists' performance during the winner's gala.
4). That mime finally fixing the broken arm of the Olympic cauldron during the Closing Ceremonies.

Top Olympic Crushes:
1). Apolo Anton Ohno
2). Shaun White
3). The Canadian Hockey Team
4). Stephen Colbert
Note: You might question my ability to overlook the soul patch or the shoulder-length red hair. To you, I say this: OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALISTS. I assume there are no questions about numbers 3 and 4. Fairly self-evident, right?

And, now, with the Olympics over, the big question is no longer: USA or Canada? It's: Vienna or Tenley? Thanks to my freshman and senior-year roommate, Jenny, I know way too much about the concepts "final rose" and "fantasy suite" and am way too invested in just who Jake will choose to be his wife. Bachelor finale tonight!

What were your favorite Olympics moments? And which girl do you hope ABC's hunky pilot (with a slight over-tendency with get weepy) will choose?

Spring Break Reads

So. I believe all of you have just about reached the less-than-a-month point until Spring Break. (Some readers will be lucky enough to be hopping planes to Florida and Mexico as early as next week. As I gaze out my window at the windy, snow-covered parking lot behind Legend's, I can pretty much describe my feelings towards you in three words: pure, unadulterated jealousy. The thought that anyone will be able to wear sandals next week without fear of frostbite is certainly making the green-eyed monster rear its head). Anyways, for a lot of you, the rapid approach of Spring Break probably means increased time on the elliptical and an attempted avoidance of your old friends: carbs and chocolate. However, there is another aspect to Spring Break prep that you should keep in mind: book selection. If you're lucky, you will be spending hours upon hours on those long stretches of white-sand beach, with nothing more to do than read a mindless, fun book and sip a jumbo strawberry daiquiri out of a swirly straw.

Here are my Spring Break reading suggestions:

1). Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin: Rachel and Darcy have been best friends since childhood, with Rachel always in the role as good girl and doormat, and Darcy as the over-the-top, domineering friend. Rachel is all set to play maid of honor in Darcy's wedding to Dex--that is, until she ends up in bed with Dex after one too many cocktails the night of her 30th birthday. Rachel realizes she has loved Dex all along, and Dex seems to care for her too, but plans for his wedding to Darcy also continue at full speed. This book essentially epitomizes the term "Beach Read." Buy it.

2). Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris: The HBO series True Blood is based off these books. I'm sure you're thinking: vampire books = beach reads? Really? YES. I love the show, and I love the books, but they are pretty dissimilar. The books fall under more of a dark comedy genre. Throughout the series, heroine Sookie Stackhouse battles everything from werewolves to sadistic fairies, all while juggling more supernatural love interests than I can count (I, personally, am rooting for Eric, the vampire). The books are fast, engaging and fun: definitely worth it!

3). Match Me if You Can by Susan Elizabeth Phillips: Looking to dip your toe into the romance genre without the full-on cliches of a wealthy Duke and a virginal heroine? Then this author is perfect for you! In this story, we have Heath, a wealthy Chicago sports agent and Annabelle, a down-on-her-luck matchmaker. Heath hires Annabelle to help him find a perfect trophy wife. Instead, (you guessed it!) the pair fall in love after a series of misadventures, fights and make-ups. Formulaic? Yes. Perfect reading material as you sun yourself in Cancun? Also, yes.

Looking for something slightly more serious? Read Water for Elephants, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Wicked, The Red Tent, The Other Boleyn Girl or Pillars of the Earth.

Already read all my Spring Break reads? Try Sloppy Firsts, Remember Me? or Chasing Harry Winston.

Need more suggestions? Let me know!

Just for Fun

My new favorite commercial:

Old Spice, The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.

Thoughts??

Black-Hole (Or, My Half-Birthday)

Some of you are probably mildly inconvenienced right about now, as we approach the end of the month. You might be thinking to yourselves: wow, I wish February didn't insist on being so contrarily "unique." February's abnormal shortness means we have to remember to pay our rent checks 2-3 days earlier (March 1st sneaks up after the 28th this year, instead of after the 30th or the 31st, like an ordinary month), and we have that depressing series of empty white boxes at the bottom of our monthly dry erase calendars, where dates like the "29th" and the "30th" should fall. We even have the unfortunate knowledge that we are that much closer to graduation. However, February's strange briefness results in one consequence that most of you probably never considered, and deprives me of something that most of you probably take for granted.

I am talking, of course, about my lack of half-birthday.

Now, I would like to preemptively acknowledge that I know that there are people out there whose actual birthdays fall on Leap Year. To my uncle, my best friend's dad, and that teacher I had in middle school: I salute you. Seriously, if I can work up enough energy to whine about my lack of half-birthday for a couple of paragraphs, I can't even imagine how I'd feel if people were deprived of an annual opportunity to shower me with cake, cards, gifts and attention. Having a real birthday once every four years is a cross no one should have to bear, so to all of you with the misfortune to enter the world on February 29th: I'm sorry.

Back to me and my woes. I was born on August 31st. Now, a lot of you other "31st" birthdays out there can probably emphasize with me. There is no such thing as June 31st, or September 31st, or November 31st. You might think: really, Michelle, this is a small loss. Yes, I suppose you're right. Sure, growing up, my best friend always got a small cake and a cd on her half-birthday. But I didn't want a cd, and I preferred brownies to cake anyways. And yes, maybe throughout the years I felt that small stab of jealousy when I saw people's Facebook status's "Halfway to 21!" knowing that I would never be able to write my own halfway-point-status (thanks to February's abnormality, there is a giant black-hole where my half-birthday should be: this year, we'll jump straight from February 28th to March 1st).

I know there are people out there worse off (I have seen the effects of the Leap Day birthday first hand one too many times). But whenever August 4th or January 12th or March 27th come along...think to yourself: wow, I'm 21 1/2 today. I'm one of the lucky ones.

(And yes, I'm off to write "My non-existent half-birthday" in one of those depressing empty white boxes -the one that should be February 31st- at the bottom of our apartment's joint dry-erase monthly calendar).

Lizzie McGuire: Engaged

I learned something yesterday that disturbed me. It was not that my roommate had eaten the last of the cookie dough, or that Ryan Phillipe and Abbie Cornish have split (who cares?), or even that an application now exists allowing people to (apparently) track how many times I have stalked their Facebook profiles.

No, instead, the news that unnerved me for a good, solid ten minutes after I read the article on people.com is this: Lizzie McGuire is engaged. For those of you readers that aren't a 19-23 year-old girl, Lizzie McGuire was the Hannah Montana of our generation. Played by Hilary Duff, Lizzie struggled through the ups and downs of middle school with the help of her best friends Gordo and Miranda, with the annoying interference of her little brother Matt and with the narrative help of a cartoon-version Lizzie. So, sometime last weekend, Hilary got engaged to her NHL boyfriend of over two years, Mike Comrie. You might be thinking: well, Hilary is a nice, wholesome actress in an industry of eating disorders and trips to rehab. What is your problem with her finding her happily-ever-after?

Here it is: in spite of the fact that I just received an email reminding me of the date and time of my convocation, and that ordering a cap and gown is on my to-do list, and that I have interviewed for actual jobs, the growing-up real-world thing is managing to remain a surreal, distant concept. Innumerable members of my high school graduating class will be getting married this summer, but I wrote that off as a fluke generated by the ultra-conservative Wheaton values. Evan Rachel Wood (also our age) got engaged a few months back, but since her affianced is Marilyn Manson (over twenty years our senior and likely to want the ceremony to occur under an arch of human skulls), I didn't allow that one to phase me either. But, if Lizzie McGuire (Hilary Duff) is getting married, we must finally, really, actually be getting old. She was a beacon of normality for our age group during those middle school years. And although she did not exactly run with the popular crowd at her fictional middle school (I blame her preference for pastels and crimping her hair), we thought she was great.

However, whether it unnerves me or not, graduation is approaching, and so is 'marriageable-age' for our age group (thanks, Lizzie, for being the first to take the plunge). I certainly won't be walking down the aisle anytime soon (I'm going to let boys our age work for a few years, so they can save up money to buy me a rock comparable to my old idol, Lizzie's). However, if some of you faithful readers decide to get hitched sooner rather than later (like our favorite former Disney star), I will happily attend your wedding ceremony, partake of your open bar and karaoke with your second cousins.

Also. To my readers that saw Shutter Island and reported back, assuring me that I could see it without fear of nightmares: here is your reward: yummy (Leo + Esquire + IRONING = heaven. Thanks to Caroline for the tip on these pictures!).