25 Things I Wish I Could Put On My Resume

This is a post that is completely ripped off from Thought Catalog (which is a blog that if you are not currently reading, I highly suggest it). By ripped off I mean straight down to some of these are taken straight from the post because they applied to me as well.

1. Is a proud and loyal fan to Detroit, especially the Red Wings and Tigers.
2. Willing to be the big spoon or the little spoon.
3. Loves to bake from scratch, but doesn't like cake so more for you.
4. Learned how to moonwalk off YouTube.
5. Is almost always willing to drive on road trips.
6. Knows 80-90% of most songs when listening; knows 5-15% when not.
7. Loved by babies.
8. Sleeps well in cars.
9. Used to be able to identify the speaker, season, and episode name of any quote from Gilmore Girls seasons 1-5.
10. Always willing to play N64.
11. Loved by grandparents.
12. Puts genuine thought into Secret Santa gifts, even when not close friends.
13. Amateur gingerbread house decorator.
14. Always willing to DD if able.
15. Will talk sports with as much knowledge as possessed and none more.
16. Has only complained about service at a restaurant once.
17. Will give props for a good pun.
18. Will pet your cat even though she does not like your cat.
19. Does not understand fashion but will make an honest attempt.
20. Loves 80's movies.
21. Reads a lot of YA novels and is not (too) ashamed.
22. Enjoys watching others play video games.
23. Fills out a bracket even though she does not follow college basketball.
24. Can make a great bag of popcorn.
25. Draws great pictures in Draw Something.

Nicki Minaj and the Top 8 of AI

I realize that I am one of like 5 people left on this planet watching American Idol, but as I sit here watching my DVR of last night's results I have some thoughts that I must share; first about the guest performances and then about the contestants.

So when I heard Nicki Minaj was going to be singing I admit I was not excited. I am not a Nicki fan, I don't get her. I hate that I like Super Bass, but I do. The like basically stops though. So part of me was hoping that she would sing that even if it is a bit old at this point. I would have settled for her singing anything by the end of it because she barely sang anything! They played her entire song for her and she would jump in with a line here and there but nothing significant. Then she would just jump around. At lease when Usher stops singing mid song he does really impressive dance moves. I realize that American Idol's ratings are dropping and they are probably looking for big names to bring in some viewers but this show is about finding the next big singer, so why would you bring in artists that the contestants can't learn from. Nicki has the stage presence, yes, but this performance especially had nothing to do with vocal talent. End rant.

Scotty McCreary. Oh Scotty, how I love you. Last year he was one of my picks from auditions and then quickly rose to the top of my list during the live shows. I was glad to see him back and I still love his voice. I think in a few years he will actually be one of the American Idol winners who continues to thrive.

Before I get to this year's contestants, I want to point out that if you read the Yahoo blogger Lindsay Parker's take on the shows and like what she has to say you will probably hare what I have to say. Just a head's up. I also want to point out that I think all of the contestants have talent, so I am comparing them to each other not just to the world. Ok, here we go.

Hollie and Jessica were compared by Jimmy this week. Jimmy said that Jessica showed more soul in her songs than Hollie did and because of this that Hollie could not stand up to Jessica. I disagree. I love Hollie so much more than Jessica. At first I didn't really care for either of them, but Hollie has won me over whereas I'm stilling wondering why there is even a Jessica bandwagon to jump on to. I don't have strong feelings for Carrie Underwood's Jesus Take The Wheel, but I thought Hollie's version was so powerful that I didn't understand why she was in the bottom three.

Sklyar is by far one of the best performers on the show. She brings so much energy to all of her songs and you can tell that she is having so much fun with it. I was more surprised by her ending up in the bottom three than Hollie. She's in my final two.

Joshua is another one that the judges keep raving about that I just don't see as a performer. They, along with Jimmy, always put him in the top and talk about him as if he is a guaranteed finalist. When they do use their one save I feel like it will be either on him or Jessica.

Colton however, SHOULD be a guaranteed finalist. He is my absolute favorite and my winner. His rendition of Piano Man was the best cover of any song I have ever seen on Idol. He's been getting a lot of crap for his twitter and fb posts because he is a strong Christian and proud of it. Guess what guys, he wants to go into Christian music if he wins so would you rather he show you that now or wait til he wins and then flips vibes? The joke is 'That person could sing the phone book and I'd buy it" but I'm telling you, as someone who is not religious, that boy could sing the Bible and I would happily stare at him as he did it. Uh, gorgeous and talented. Deal with it.

Phillip Phillips is this year's Casey Abrams. They've both got this weird style and presence on stage that just works for them. Phillip is his music. If Colton and Sklyar aren't both in the final two, Phillip better be.

If Phillip is this year's Casey, then Elise is this year's Haley. I mean this in the sense that both girls were in the bottom three for the first few weeks of the show but by sliding by they have earned a lot of respect and have proven to be kind of dark horses. I'm still on the fence about Elise because while she has the chops, she has the emotional equivalent to Kristen Stewart in her eyes. She never seems excited by anything and none of her performances are memorable.

DeAndre is the last one left in the top 8. This kid has a great falsetto.

...

...

And nice hair....It's just not my style. I'm sure he will go farther in the competition that I think he should (or he's going home next week because I said that) but Jimmy said, and I agree with him, that you either buy into DeAndre or you don't. I am on the latter half.

Heejun left last night and while I thought he was a funny guy in real life, he was the last one left that I was wondering how he even made it onto the top 10. I was upset when the judges wasted a spot in the top 24/25, but then shocked when he made it to the top 12 without their help.

Combining Things I Love

So I know I haven't posted in a while but I found this on Pinterest and had to share. As we all know, I love books, I love to read, and I usually have a book on me. You can look back to my post from the summer and see my bookcase in my room from when I painted this summer.

Back to the point. I also love Gilmore Girls and so I found the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge. It is a list of the books she read throughout the series. I am going to post it below and mark the ones I have started but not finished in blue and the ones I have read in red. Get it? Read, red. I'm hilarious, onto the list:

1984 by George Orwell
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll – read – July 2010
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
The Art of Fiction by Henry James
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Babe by Dick King-Smith
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney
The Bhagava Gita
The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
Candide by Voltaire
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman
Christine by Stephen King
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
The Collected Short Stories by Eudora Welty
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père
Cousin Bette by Honor’e de Balzac
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber – started and not finished
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Cujo by Stephen King
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Da Vinci -Code by Dan Brown
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Deenie by Judy Blume
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
The Divine Comedy by Dante
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Don Quijote by Cervantes
Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson - read – 2009
Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
Eloise by Kay Thompson
Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
Emma by Jane Austen
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Ethics by Spinoza
Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Extravagance by Gary Krist
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
Fletch by Gregory McDonald
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
The Graduate by Charles Webb
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry
Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare
Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
Henry V by William Shakespeare
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland
Howl by Allen Gingsburg
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
The Iliad by Homer
I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Inferno by Dante
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence
The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Love Story by Erich Segal
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Manticore by Robertson Davies
Marathon Man by William Goldman
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
Myra Waldo’s Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin
Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Night by Elie Wiesel
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan
Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Old School by Tobias Wolff
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
Oracle Night by Paul Auster
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Othello by Shakespeare
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
Out of Africa by Isac Dineson
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Property by Valerie Martin
Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Quattrocento by James Mckean
A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien
R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert
Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition
Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James
The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
Selected Hotels of Europe
Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
Sexus by Henry Miller
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Shane by Jack Shaefer
The Shining by Stephen King
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
Songbook by Nick Hornby
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams
Stuart Little by E. B. White
Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
Time and Again by Jack Finney
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Unless by Carol Shields
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

I'm not even going to say my goal is to read the rest. But it's a nice list. We'll see what happens.

Dictionary of Magnificent Words

So my least favorite words have come up a lot in conversation lately and I have always found it easier to think of words that I hate faster than words that I like. So I am making a conscious decision to create a list of some of my favorite words of the moment and my definitions (*note*: these are not necessarily words I use the most, though some may be, but most I probably found while making this post):

Aglet: The plastic tip at the end of a shoelace. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTzUYcGIIk0

Boom: An exclamation of joy or victory. Boom!

Bugaboo: Something that causes fear or worry (that's a for real definition). 'Cause you a bugaboo/You buggin' what, You buggin' who, You buggin me/And don't you see that ain't cool.

Cray-cray: To be insane. To have crazy tendencies. Bitches be cray-cray.

Harlot: A prostitute or promiscuous woman. That wench is a dirty harlot.

Jugular: Of the neck or throat, but I usually only refer to my windpipe as the jugular. My dog stepped on my julugar.

Octothorpe: refers to the '#' symbol. When I use Twitter I use excessive octothorpes.

Trollop: A promiscuous woman. That wench is such a dirty trollop.

Uncouth: Lacking in sophistication or manners. Ke$ha is very uncouth but I will still follow her trail of glitter.

Those who know me really well will notice that I have left out my absolute favorite word/phrase. Just accept it and move on, haha! You know what it is, I know what it is, but nothing would be gained by posting it here.

What I learned in college is...

As a lot of my friends are about to start a new school year and I am about to start my internship (Oh yea, hey guys, I got an internship with the Detroit Parade Company! Yay! I'm the Studio Tours Coordinator Intern. More on that later, I'm sure) I thought I would pass down some wisdom. I fully acknowledge that these are all my own opinion.

To those entering college for the first time:

-Don't freak out if you don't make 500 friends in the first couple weeks

-On the flip side, don't freak out if the people you meet right away don't end up being your best friends. Especially if you go to a school where you know no one, people just feel the need to make friends immediately. Give it a couple months and you'll start to really meet people that you click with.

-If you don't want to drink, don't. Welcome week can be fun, and I'm not even saying don't go to parties. Just do what you are comfortable with. People watching is also great at these events.

-Go to class. This may seem silly, but really it is the main reason you are there.

-If partying stops you from getting to class, cut back.

-Do your homework. Again, not in a lecturing way, but if you are in a class of 100 students, your professor is not going to know who you are or care about why didn't have time. On the flip side, if you are in a class of 15, you can't hide that you didn't do the work and you will look stupid.

-At the end of the year if you want to transfer, really think about why you want to transfer. That was a huge joke at Carthage that everyone left after freshman year, and I honestly don't think a lot of those people gave it a fair shot. I thought about transferring twice (end of freshman year and sophomore year) and I see now how many opportunities I would have given up and missed out on.

-Oh, and if you don't know what you want to major in, take a lot of gen eds but try to pick classes that are specific to departments to. Like if you need a science class but might want to be a bio major, take an intro bio class instead of something that might be "easier". No education is bad education.

For everyone, no matter what year you are in now:

-Get to know your professors. Go to their office hours, even just to say hi if you don't have a question. There are a few reasons for this. A) You get to really know who is teaching you. B) You become more than a face or a number to them. C) Eventually you will need letters of rec for jobs or grad schools and you're going to want options and people who can give more than generic letters.

-Join as many clubs as you can. Go to a couple meetings, see what you like. To this day, I still wish I would have joined CAB (Cathage Activities Board) at my school. They got to pick the entertainment that came, meet people like Bo Burnham, etc.

-Don't waste your summers. It sucks, it really does, but try to get a job or an internship. If you need money for school, get a job your first couple summers. But before your Senior year I would really shoot for an internship.

-Utilize your facilities. Whether it is the gym, library, career services, etc.

-Take care of your friends if you go out. I'm not going to pretend that there isn't drinking and partying and other shenanigans going on. Really though, once you get a pretty set group of friends, what worked best my senior year as far as DDing was to rotate. Don't always assume that you can get a ride at the end of the night.

-Make a bucket list of things to do around your school and city. It keeps things interesting. And if there is a night when you don't know what to do, pull it out and do something.

If you are a senior:

-Don't overstress. In the end it only makes things worse.

-Leave the drama behind. That doesn't mean piss off your friends, but really especially by second semester a lot of things don't matter anymore. Do what you want, leave the rest behind.

-DON'T leave people hanging though. If you've made commitments, don't leave people hanging. Everyone is a connection and whether you realize it or not, your attitude leaves the biggest impression. You don't want people to think of you and say "Oh they were nice and motivated until the end, then they stopped caring and didn't take anything seriously".

-Start looking for jobs early. Like at least 2 or 3 months before graduation. If you are doing the grad school route, start looking now! It's like a college search all over again. Do your research now about application deadlines and their programs.

-Don't be afraid to move back home after graduation if you have to. It sucks at times, but at the end of the day if you are looking for jobs you have a home base that you can leave at any time because you don't have a lease. You are (most likely) living rent-free with minimal expenses because you don't have to pay for things like cable, internet, or food.

-Talk to people about what you are looking for jobs in, the most random of people can have leads.

At the end of the day, have fun. It can be the best 4 years if you want it to be. It really is what you make it.

Oh, and if you go to Carthage: DON'T become an RA! Not worth it.

Leave comments of other advice you have.

"It's been a long day, Simon. We went to Circus World."

So after being rejected from/not hearing back from more jobs than I would like to admit, I decided that I wanted to take a break from searching Craigslist, from applications, from handing people my social security number and praying they wouldn't lose my application to some identity thief and go on a road trip. It was one of the best adventures of my summer, by far! I had a few applications out so I didn't really plan things out as much as I usually would but every went really well and I don't feel like I missed out on anything other than seeing Anna, which is super sad.

I did a lot so I am going to skim very quickly over a lot of things and hit the high points. My trip started on Thursday the 11th, and I went to Colleen Geddes's and saw her and Lauren Eastman.

Lauren and I worked on a lot of stuff for their production of Hansel and Gretel while Colleen went to Footloose. Unfortunately I was too tired to wait for her to come home and I passed out pretty early.

Friday was by far the longest day of my journey. Lauren woke me up at 8:30 and we started getting stuff ready to go while Colleen showered and ate breakfast. Then I went on to Carthage to meet up with people for rehearsal while they ran a couple errands. I was so excited because I got to see Preston Smith, Alex Campea, Nicole Werner, Derek Nelson, Becky Ryan, Skylar Reinhard, Tommy Novak, Elodie Senetra, Herschel Kruger, Lauren Hansen, and Jess Smith.

After moving some stuff into the Niemann Theatre, Derek had told me that Herschel, Tommy, and Elodie were upstairs so I went to see them and got to talk to Lauren as well. Lauren always makes me feel so calm and welcome so it was perfect for my trip's purpose of relaxation. Then I

sat through rehearsal and we ordered Toppers for lunch. Then I hung around until we got kicked out of the library at 5. Then we moved everything out behind the JAC and continued to work until we got rained out.

Preston, Lauren, Jess, and I moved everything to Preston's house to work in his garage, but when we got there we found that a gallon of paint had spilled in Lauren's trunk!

So we spent like an hour cleaning that up before Jess and I met Derek at Ron's place. I made a point of hitting up my top spots of Keno on this trip as well. When I got back to Preston's I helped Lauren paint and Andrew Spinelli came over with Colleen to help us as well. Preston's brother and a couple of his friends were home too so they kept us entertained for a while too. This was the power-through night for most everyone. I went to bed around 4:15-4:30 and woke up at 7.

Saturday was crazy and chaotic, especially since everyone was sleep deprived and cranky. The morning was taken up with last minute building, painting, and costume fittings and fixes. Derek, Nicole, and I went to Soup Depot for lunch and got stuck there for a bit because of the monsoon and hail that came in but, thankfully, left rather quickly. Slim also showed up to the show, so that was an added bonus. Here are a few pics from their performance that actually came out ok (I didn't get many).

After H&G I met up with Tommy and Megan Sterzinger and we went down to see Hannah Binish, Dan Ermel, and Annie Jo Fisher in Footloose. I love how many people I saw on this trip!

Sunday Tommy and I went to the Ren Faire and saw Duck at work, we saw a bunch of shows, and I got Henna.

Monday is where my road trip really took off. Backstory: I've always wanted to go on a roadtrip where you just get in a car and start driving, follow the car in front of you for 2 turns, switch cars, repeat, and just see where you end up. Or drive down the expressway and actually stop at one of the places on the billboards. So that's exactly what happened. Tommy and I were driving up I-90 and we knew based on when we left that we wouldn't make it to MN until after Simon had gone to work so we were taking our time. That's when I saw the billboard...

Me: You want to go to Circus World Museum?

Tommy: What exit is it?

Me: 106, I don't know where that is but I'm moving into the right lane. It's this one, make a decision.

Tommy: Sure!

BEST. Decision. EVER! It ended up being like 10 miles off the expressway and there was a ton of people there. I described it as the place you would go as a child on a family vacation that you have a ton of pictures of but you don't really remember. It's just a plethora of pictures of you and siblings in front of things with drained looks on your faces. However, going of your own accord at ages 21 and 22 with one of your close friends is a completely different experience. Everything was so interesting. This place has the largest collection of circus wagons, they do restorations and recreations, and the movie Water For Elephants rented a lot of stuff from them! Even more exciting than that is that I got to ride an Elephant! Her name was Tiny and we became fast friends. The woman who owned her was kind of weird, but it was fine. Then at the end of my ride, Tiny and I high-trunked! (like high fived, but she used her trunk, get it? Get it!? I still get really giddy when I think about it.) It was probably the best part of my entire road trip (sorry to everyone I saw, you were all cool too).

There was also this like 25' python by the elephant and it was just sitting on this box. It was in a "cage" but by cage I mean those like barrier gates that don't really offer any protection. I even asked the woman with the elephant "What's preventing that snake from just doing what it wants and coming over here?" She shook her head and said nothing. Fun fact: I'm terrified of snakes.

Then we drove the rest of the way up to Simon Skluzacek and saw him at work (there was also the best road sign at his exit that made me feel like I was home! Shown below).

Then we dropped our stuff off at his house and went to the bar. There were a couple guys in there who had Twins shirts on and it was the night the Tigers had lost to the Twins and they kept playing replays while we were there. I have my Detroit pride and I held strong, my cousin Jennifer would be proud.

Tuesday we took a tour of Lakeville, MN where Simon lives and got to see all the places from his childhood. Then we decided to go to the Mall of America. Anyone who knows me knows I hate malls, but the MOA is so far from being in a mall it didn't even matter. We did walk around a lot, but it wasn't so much like shopping so much as site seeing. We played mini-golf, ate sushi, Simon left for work, met up with Courtney Matula and Eric Sipe, and went to SeaLife. What's SeaLife? Oh, just the aquarium that is the entire basement of the mall! Like I said, this wasn't a mall, this was like an adventure building. We didn't ride anything but there is also a few roller coasters inside and other rides. It's like a mini Universal Studios because it was all Nickelodeon themed.

After we left the mall we went up to St. Paul and saw Stephen Schreiber and his girlfriendJoann. It was so good to see Stephen and catch up with him. We talked a lot about Carthage and theatre and being in the real world. Best of luck to you with your job search, Stephen.

Wednesday Simon made us breakfast, we watched How To Train Your Dragon, and Tommy and I started our trek home. To go along with our theme of spontaneity, it started with Tommy saying "Have you ever ridden a duck?" and ended with a detour to the WI Dells. I had no idea what a duck was, but it was really fun. To others who do not know, they are these vehicles that were used during WWII that are driven on land and through water. We also realized when we were driving around the Dells looking for a place to eat that Baraboo, WI where the Circus World Museum is was just around the corner. That explains why there was so many people there.

Thursday was my final day of driving. I stopped in Geneva, IL and had lunch with Peter Haroldson which was exciting since I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to see him.

Overall, the trip was more than I could ever had planned. As a girl who likes details and to know where I am going to go and be at every moment on trip, it was so nice to let loose and not worry. To just know that whatever happened would be in the moment. It is also crazy to look at how the beginning of my trip was than the end of my trip. I would love to take another trip like this someday. Maybe I will actually get to do the two-turn follow the leader next time.

I can't believe I used to paint everyday!

So as you know, I have moved home. Since a lot of my stuff was already out of my room since I took it to college, it seemed like prime time to paint.

Below is a progression of clearing out my room to the new paint and setup. The pictures look a little pixelated, I don't know why. I apologize. The top picture is a more accurate color match of the walls, the ones below it they look really blue.



Now I also have a new comforter that is not pictured, but it is also black (surprise, surprise) so it looks relatively the same. Though in these photos the one I had looks kind of gray because it was so faded.



My bookcase looks so sad an empty :-(. It's a little more filled out now. I just need some wall art (courtesy of Lizzy Whalen, perhaps?) and it will be complete.