The "All-Nighter"

For the most part, at some point or another, every college student will  experience the all-mighty "all-nighter." As its name is pretty self-explanatory, if you don't get it, an "all-nighter" is when you stay up all night long studying, drinking, talking, etc. I tend to experience this mostly before a big test. Like many, I have a problem with procrastination. Ellen Degenerous talks about procrastination in the following clip that really discribes me...



I would much rather sit around or do activities than study for a test. I say this because I would rather put everything off until the last moment and do everything in one night. Today I had a big Marketing test, so last night, I never went to sleep. Its kinda fun sometimes. The house is silent, I listen to music, I can read out loud and not feel weird. You get everything done and you are able to get a really deep understanding of the material. The downsides include: lots of Adderall (it is prescribed to me), exhaustion the next day, and extra meals. I probably have 5-6 "all-nighters" per semester, depending on my class load. Anyways, I am now procrastinating by blogging, so I should probably start a new one or actually do my work...

Lawnmower DUI

The following video is from inside a cop car in south Louisiana. Steve rides his lawnmower while drinking and things take a nasty turn. It makes you wonder what people are thinking sometimes... I laughed for ten minutes it is so funny. Enjoy!

Sorority Rant

I love my sorority so much that I have taken on an executive position. I am in charge of the calendar, social, sisterhood, merchandising, song, intramural, and house chairs. Recently we started housing lists for next year. It is my job to choose who lives in the house and who doesn't. Some of it is decided for me based on seniority and attendance, but at a certain point people are exactly the same. This is where I get enormously frustrated. I don't like to choose things like this. It really upsets me. There are so many girls who will be beneficial to the house and I can't let them live here because there is not enough room. IT SUCKS! I just feel so bad for these girls who really deserve to live in the house but, by luck of the draw, just didn't get a place. Ughhhh

Blackberry Brick Breaker Breakdown

I am an addict. Not an addict of alcohol, pain killers, marijuana, cocaine, heroine, or nutmeg, but I am an addict of Brick Breaker on my Blackberry Smartphone. I play it constantly... while I am getting ready, talking to others, during "text wars," even, dangerously enough, while I am driving. It has gotten to an unhealthy level. I am scared for my fingers and my mind. I have beat all 34 levels 10 times now and made it back around to level 16... the scary part is, I have only had the phone for 2 months. If I could quit, I would have so much more time on my hands. I could read, paint, draw, watch tv, or even carry on a full conversation. What I really need is some kind of patch, to give me the little satisfaction of playing so that I can ween myself off of the game. I guess I have concurred the first step, admitting I have a problem... stay tuned, I might be able to quit soon. 

The Wikipedia Game

So, my favorite new game to play is the wikipedia game. The way it works is you open two windows in your browser. You go to www.wikipedia.org in both windows. After clicking English, or whatever language  you speak, you click "random article" on the left hand side. Both windows will have vastly different article topics. It is then your job to get from the article in the first window to the article in the second window by clicking the links strategically. The game is made more fun if you are able to use an instant messaging service and talk to someone, preferably using Skype, to use the same links and race someone to the win. The game is not only fun, but very educational. 

Roommates

One of the weirdest relationships in life is the roommate relationship. Not in the way that older people who haven't come out of the closet use "roommate," but in the college sense. For my first roommate, I went potluck. At first we got along, we were civil, and overall, good friends. When second semester hit, things began to go down hill. I was hardly ever in the room, and when I was, it was awkward as hell. See, at the beginning of the semester, my roommate accidentally left her dirty dishes by the window on a hot day. This caused a colony of ants to march into our second story room... GROSS! I was livid about the situation. Eventually, I got over the event, but things were never the same. 

This year, I live in the sorority house. Thirty girls, one house... that is a lot of girls a lot of the time. As a sophomore in a sorority house, we don't exactly get first preference of room choice. I live in the Quad. Four girls, one room. Luckily for us, one of our roommates lives with her boyfriend. This has created an  enormous amount of extra space! But, just because we have extra space, it does not exclude the weirdness that occurs. One of my "quad-mates" has an unmatched, nocturnal rage. It is almost like she has tourette's syndrome coupled with narcolepsy. Her sudden outbursts are unfiltered, unrated, and overall, very scary. Once I woke up suddenly when she was screaming at the top of her lungs, "YOU FUCKING BITCH." She then proceeded to sleep quietly throughout the night while I lied awake, scared for my life. Overall, my quad-mates are amazing. We get along fabulously, and they are two of my best friends. 

Photography

I find photography to be a great creative outlet. It is so freeing in the way that it captures a moment in time that can never be found again. In my opinion, it shows emotion, provokes deep thought, and is extremely fun. The following pictures are from my travels and experiences. Enjoy!

                                                    

No Shit, Sure Lock

In a Home Depot commercial for Sure Lock, the advertisement comically draws a one night stand that has potential to develop into a relationship going horribly astray. This commercial pulls from the traditional taboos of a one night stand, yet it takes it to a whole new level. I don't think this can be looked at without embarrassment for the character or sheer laughter. 

Semester at Sea

Traveling is my favorite thing to do. I love submersing myself in a different culture and being forced to rediscover myself in that culture. I believe exposing myself to the whole world allows me to relate to so many more people and gives me a perspective that many others do not have. This summer, I am excited to say, I will be attending Semester at Sea. The program allows hundreds of students to travel while taking classes. The program lasts for 67 days, traveling to 8 different countries on a cruise ship. The ship sails on the 16th of June out of Nova Scotia, Canada.

Stops include:

Cadiz, Spain

Naples, Italy

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Athens, Greece

Istanbul, Turkey

Varna, Bulgaria

Alexandria (Cairo), Egypt

Casablanca, Morocco

I am so excited about the experience because I believe it is such a wonderful opportunity to learn about the world. I think that these kinds of experiences cause people to push themselves and they end up learning more about the world, material, and themselves than through any other way.

Music: The Universal Language

Music is the one thing that can predict my mood. If its emo, I tend to be sad (see "World Spins Madly On" by The Weepies), if its funky or upbeat, I tend to be happy (Britney Spears). I think this is true for most everyone. Music is a unique capability to tap into our emotions. Even songs that are in another language can be moving. The way things are sung or the rhythm of a guitar or the beat of a drum can tell us so much of what a song is about. I believe music is the universal language in this way. Any person, of any culture, language, or background, can understand and be affected by music. Music lacks pretension, attitude, and status, it is art, faith, hope, love, defeat, anguish, music is emotion, music is soul, music is a commonality of the human race. 

Airports, where people become exponentially dumb...

Okay, you are sitting in an airport waiting for your plane to board. Suddenly, the intercom comes on inviting the first 5 rows to board the plane. How many people get up? The 20 who actually have seats in the first 5 rows? NO! About 60 overly eager people feel the need to stand in line waiting for their rows to be called. Not only are they making fools of themselves, they obstruct the 20 people who are allowed to board the plane at that time from boarding, slowing the process immensely. Furthermore, why are people wanting to get on a cramped airplane so quickly that they are ensured a seat on? Why wouldn't they want to spend every available second in the terminal where there is space and comfort? 

From this point everything seems to run smoothly until baggage claim (I no longer check my bags for this exact reason). Passengers rush over to receive their luggage and get as close to the carousel as possible, blocking the view of others, impeding the ability to pick up luggage if you are not in the front row, and obstructing the person next to them from pulling any piece off of the carousel. It makes no logical sense, but everyone does it. 

4 a.m, is it the new midnight?

Lately I have had trouble sleeping and stay up way past the lonely hours of 2 and 3 a.m. Ironically enough, I stumbled across this video late one night. Rives is a poet who often appears on Def Jam. He brilliantly theorizes about the option that 4 a.m. has some mystical power. Since watching this video two weeks ago, 4 a.m. has been popping up in my life uncontrollably. I returned home from  a date at 4 a.m., I was watching the news and saw a car accident that occurred at 4 a.m., and stumbled across a song in my iTunes with the main riff saying, "well, its 4 in the morning..." This sudden explosion of recognition of the time could be because it was merely pointed out by this video, however, I agree in that there is something special about 4 a.m.