Today in the office...

My boss played this song on her computer:


Tiny Dancer by Elton John

I have wasted a little time by looking at hilarious images like these:

(seen on http://redreader.tumblr.com/)

I wrote an e-mail to my mom thanking her for the Starbucks gift card to get through finals! She threw that little surprise in with my new insurance card. I love it!

And I am now going to re-edit and send in a rough draft of my feature story and work on other homework.

I really enjoy being a student worker in this office.

Swine Flu

Watch out. And watch this.


(In case it doesn't show up click here.)

college college college

Ah! There are too many things to do right now and too little time to do it. My checklist for tonight is:

-Attend Welcome Week Leader training from 6-9pm

-Look over Bob Collins' stuff on mpr.org (he is a guest speaker for one of my classes tomorrow)

-Write my news feature story
-Call Rifai and confirm a few facts for the story

-Buy eggs for photo shoot tomorrow

-Watch the newest One Tree Hill episode!

That's all doable, right? I figured that if I put this little checklist online, it would give me extra incentive to finish it!

Now, on to more fun things. Here is a list of 10 things I have been loving lately:

1. This song by Lily Allen

2. And this song also by Lily Allen (not for young ears)

3. Sharing M&Ms in the office

4. News coverage of the Spring Jam riots this past weekend at the U:

5. The wonderful post card I received from A this past week. The picture is of a man on a horse with a fanny pack and a video camera! It definitely could not get any better than that! :)

6. Figuring out a birthday present for my mom with my brother and sister. We decided to get her a Netflix account!

7. My friend Tony's comment on my Facebook "religious views." It was just precious.

8. This girl scoring herself a big-girl job on Monday! She graduates Saturday!

9. Sunglass shopping!

I got matching aviators for my sister and I, which was the reason why I took the pictures in the first place, to show her what they looked like. (And I figured out how to use MyPix Place with Verizon in order to upload these!)

10. And last, but certainly not least, I got to hang out with a beautiful girl named Beth and a wonderful band on Saturday night/Sunday morning. I'm a very lucky girl to have such good people in my life.

Hope you are having a wonderfully productive day! And if not, I hope you are outside, because that is definitely where I would love to be right now!

I roll in that crowd.

Just a smattering of images of me and my friends. All gratuitous. All wonderful. All with 4 or more people. Sometimes, I roll in crowds, yo. All over the world.

At Stonehenge!
Stockholm, Sweden
Houston, Texas

Metrodome in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Times Square!

South Dakota

Ames, Iowa
Rome, Italy

Minneapolis
Dublin, Ireland

London, England

Little Rock, Arkansas

London
South Dakota!

easter.

Just a quick photo of my (soon-to-be all) siblings on Easter! If you don't already know, my brother is getting married in June 2010! We are all very excited for B&B's wedding. It is going to be SO much fun!

Prom!

Tonight is my sister's senior prom! It is still hard to believe that she is a senior this year. She is going with a friend from a camp we attend during the summer, and will actually be attending his prom in a few weeks. She looks amazing in her dress (it's white!) and maybe, if she lets me, I will post a picture or two when she gets them uploaded. And, since we are talking about her, I need to shout out a word of congratulations because she qualified for state track in the 100m yesterday! Whoo!

Now, because I am feeling nostalgic, here are a few shots of my senior prom!

Straight up thugs.

I just love V in the background of this picture.
Senior girls!
And this was my date:
Lol. I miss this kid.

Janet Froelich Soundslides Presentation

If you have talked to me lately or follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed that I have been logging quite a few hours on my "design project." Well, here it is! In my media graphics class, we have been working on research design presentations. I researched the designer Janet Froelich. She was the Creative Director of The New York Times Magazine for 22 years, and just recently moved to become in charge of all things creative at the lifestyle magazine Real Simple.

I do not hold any copyrights to any of these pictures, and reference those who do in the Works Cited page at the end of the Soundslides production. The song is Chocolate by Snow Patrol. I hope you like it!

Live it.

All images from http://vi.sualize.us/ or http://icanread.tumblr.com/.

For really wonderful images from around the world, visit http://glimpse.org/stories/view/photo-contest-getting-places/. It is Glimpse magazine's top ten photos from their contest "Getting Places."

Film Talk

I added a film studies minor (formally named "Studies in Cinema and Media Culture") this last summer. I added it on a suggestion from my advisor for my other minor (Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature), and was kind of in that "why not?" stage of summer where anything goes as long as you get ice cream at the end of the day, and where you feel like you will have time for whatever you plan. Well, I then went to London for a semester; my classes had been pre-chosen and I only had one class that could cross-over from journalism to SCMC: British Broadcasting Today. Because of this, I was in a panic while signing up for classes for this semester, as I didn't want to be staying in college an extra semester just to finish up my minor. So, long story short, this semester I am enrolled in three film classes. And today we got to watch this in one of them:

It is a wonderful French film. The first Godard film I ever saw was "Week End," and, honestly, I did not have any desire to see any others. Nevertheless, "Pierrot le Fou" made me believe in his work again. I must have looked incredibly eager to be watching the film halfway through because I was making a ton of notes on its relationship with American culture and the Vietnam war. It's incredibly vivid use of color and Godard's very poignant use of sound all made the experience wonderful.

On another note, in the film class I was in last night, we watched the introduction for and talked about the original Star Wars. This may seem completely out of character (I am actually surprising myself), but I REALLY want to watch the movie now. I really like the designs for these film posters, too. In other news, it is incredibly nice here today. I have so much homework to do, but it is wonderful to be able to walk outside without a jacket between classes and work. I must get back to work now, so "may the force be with you." (Just kidding.)

I choose to believe this today.

(photo seen on http://fletter.tumblr.com/.)

Material Girl

This is what has been playing in my head all day:



And LOOK!!! STLF (and a random twitter post from me) are featured here!

Write it out.

I'm going to post images that I like. They may describe me, make me think, make me go "yep," make me realize something, or make me laugh. Whatever they do, I liked them enough to share. So enjoy, and I promise there will be more where these came from!

All images from http://vi.sualize.us/ or http://icanread.tumblr.com/.

Eye candy

A few of my favorite photos-turned-wordart expression pieces. I would love a print of each, please.

All images f letter.

Rats on the floor

There are rats on the floor today.

When I started working in the psychiatry department, I was told that experiments are done with rats for research, but that no rats are ever on the floor in which I would work on, and that I would never see them.

This has been the case, and still holds true for psychiatry, but neurology happens to share the floor with us and they definitely have rats on the floor today. I heard them. I saw cages with a sheet covering them. At least this time there was a sheet, as the last (and first) time I ever saw rats in their research cages was last summer. They happened to have been left, with no sheet over top of them, right next to the main entrance onto our floor. (Which is by key only.)

It was incredibly disturbing, as they were racing back and forth within the cages, many of them climbing up the sides. I am a supporter of research, and when thinking of the alternatives of either not doing any research or of testing on humans, I am in favor of using lab rats. I do not, however, ever hope to see them again.

In other news, Iowa, you rock today. Look here for an article in the New York Times regarding Iowa being the first midwest state to legalize same-sex marriage.

Music > Missed Bus

When I woke up today, my internet was not working, I had delayed my alarm a few too many times, and I knew I still needed to edit a paper due this morning. In other words, actually catching the bus on time was probably not going to happen. So, in order to get pumped for the day, I walked to my 8 a.m. class listening to the musical stylings of MGMT. The last song I listened to was the one I am posting here, for your enjoyment (and because it is stuck in my head!)

And for some reason embedding it is not working, so if you feel so inclined to listen to "Weekend Wars" by MGMT, click here. (It's good, I promise!)

In other news, I am planning on posting some pictures from and information about my alternative Spring Break trip soon!

I've missed it.

So, I have started another blog. This is actually a big deal to me as I didn't want to start the first one in the first place. I have realized something lately, though, and that is that I have a lot to say and even though I know many people might not care or want to read it, it is still fine for me to consider myself a writer, and as such, to create a blog for my own personal future reference. I want this space to act as a personal sanctuary for opinions to abound, inspiration to be found and shared, and my life to be documented in a way that I haven't had since coming back from London. So, if you have found me, feel free to snoop, as that is the whole point of the internet anyways, isn't it? Well, disseminating information might be a better phrase, but either way, we all want to feel like our opinions and ramblings matter in the large scheme of things. I truthfully love learning about other people's lives, I just don't believe that everyone has what it takes to be a successful blogger. Just so we are all clear, that is absolutely not what I am trying to be. I just want a place to write freely, at home, at work, at my other home, at school, wherever. And the internet definitely provides the ubiquitous space I was searching for. So here we go, round two. Welcome to my life.

P.S. If you are interested in my semester spent in London and traveling around Europe, my first blog was highlighting these things and can be accessed at http://janaeblogs.blogspot.com/.