Monday, April 09, 2007
Learning After Undergrad: What About Your Friends?
(GAWD, I love old-school TLC!) I love this video becauseof the message: if a friend is down from the beginning, they'll stay down, as long as they "stand their ground" and continue to "be around."
This becomes even more true after you graduate from college. I'm a steadfast friend -- I can't help it, I'm a Capricorn, and we're known for our loyalty -- and I expected that the friends I had post undergrad would be my friends for life. Because I did a purge in high school to weed out the friends that I knew couldn't or wouldn't stick it out. Because I swore to myself that after graduation I would take the time to cultivate and maintain the friendships that I wanted to be lasting.
I've had my heart broken recently by people who I thought would be lasting friends. (A good way to tell if someone is a lasting friend is to consider whether you would go out of your way to invite the person to your wedding.) One is a person who I threw away another friendship for, out of loyalty; another is someone that I grew to be friends with post grad.
Now, I'm not a high-maintenance friend -- holla at me through e-mail or over the phone every once in a while and I'm good. I understand that life can sometimes get in the way. But I got friends in low places (sea level Long Island), in high places (hello, Wyo!), and across the globe(Lee, my dawg!) Shoot, I've dated my boyfriend long distance for almost three and a half years now, getting by on a three-day visit every month and nightly phone calls. I'm not asking for much. Just a shout-out, an acknowledgment that the years you spent laughing and crying and arguing meant something, that it wasn't for nothing.
So it pains me to think about the time I invested in these people, only to learn it was a waste. But I guess I should've known -- learning doesn't stop after undergrad.
(And I'm not all that bitter, just sad. But that's life, right?)
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
No, I Didn't Forget I Have A Blog...
But I'm making time tonight because of...Sanjaya! OMG, the kid is, well, how do I put this gently?
HE SUCKETH MUCHO.
Okay, maybe that was too harsh. He doesn't suck -- in fact, I venture that if I were in high school with him, we'd be chorus friends. He'd do vocal jazz, the musicals, variety show, etc. He'd be the center of chorus drama, and after fights, we'd make up by braiding his hair. Point is, he's got a decent voice.
But if you are Sanjaya, and you're competing on American Idol -- Melinda Doolittle and Jordin Sparks are the better singers on the ladies side, IMHO, while Blake Lewis is the total package -- you have to bring your "A" game. Making a girl say "aw, shucks" doesn't make you the next American Idol. Or at least it shouldn't.
I totally feel for the kid, I really do. I cringe every time he performs -- because I'm hoping for the best but expecting the worst, and then the trainwreck happens.
Compare the following to Sanjaya's performance of "Bathwater" last week, and tell me you don't agree -- Sanjaya's small potatoes.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Cute Kid Of The Week, Vol. 2
I don't know if I can keep this up, but I'll try...
SNOW!!!
Not flurries, like actual snow. Like powder snow. Pretty snow.
It snowed the entire time I was in Ann Arbor. Five freaking days straight. And normally I hate snow -- here in New York, it's pretty for first 15 minutes and then it becomes a nuisance. Then the streets gets salted and the snow gets pushed around, and it becomes ugly.
But in Ann Arbor, the snow fell gently. Miniscule snowballs of powder, versus the downpour slush flakes that I'm used to. Even after the streets there were salted, the snow remained white. The sullied snow vanished, it seemed, into thin air.
Maybe it's that lake effect stuff I always here them mention on the news, or maybe it's the fact that I'll tolerate snow in Ann Arbor because I really like Ann Arbor. It reminds me of Georgetown, without the money and the pretentiousness. And without the closed campus.
Unfortunately, I'll probably never live there. I found out last weekend that the University doesn't really hire it's own graduates, so there's no way the boyfriend will get a job there after he graduates. Oddly enough, he mentioned the possibility of wanting to go back to Georgetown to teach.
It's funny how things come full circle.
SNOW!!
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Cute Kid Of The Week, Volume 1
So cute, right?
And by the way, I do think he totally said "pooh on my hand, boy." But that makes it so much more adorable.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Rosie vs. The Donald -- Brand Management Gone Awry?
Now let's get down to the business.
Have you heard about the continuing feud between Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump? O.K., you'd have to live on Mars to NOT hear about it. It's been in the news, on the TV, everywhere on the web and it will be preserved for posterity in libraries across the country that archive mags like People and US Weekly (and there are some libraries that do.)
A quick re-cap: The Donald decided to let Miss USA keep her crown. Rosie pooh-poohed The Donald's decision (by the way, everytime I put 'The' before 'Donald' I feel as if I'm writing about a mob boss) on The View. Donald comes back on the attack, Rosie blogs about it, Donald hits again and drags Barbara Walters into it, and poor Barbara has to "clear things up" and declare neutrality. Then Donald sends a lovely letter to Rosie, telling her that Barbara is lying to the both of them. NY newspapers then say Rosie blew up at Barbara backstage at The View, prompting this exchange meant to show that everyone's okay. Donald retorts once more, calling Barbara a "pathetic puppet" and insinuating that Rosie is steamrolling The View. Maybe they've reached a detente, because I haven't seen anything more about it in the news.
Hyped up by the hysterics of the feud, the press and TV's talking heads missed some things. First, Rosie's a comic. What's the fuss about her opening monologue? She told him to "sit and spin" and she mentions his bankruptcies. She dislikes him. She makes it funny. She predicts that he would respond with a lawsuit.
So Donald responds because she attacked him personally, but did you expect anything else? He had to respond because that's what The Donald would do. The Donald is a brand, and his aggressiveness -- both in his personal and professional dealings -- is part of it.
I bring up the brand because I, too, disagree with the decision to let Miss USA keep her crown, but for reasons that differ from Rosie's.
The fact that Donald would let her keep her crown seems to go against everything they teach in Brand Management 101 (or that I think would be taught in such a class. Sorry, I did not go to the B-School.) Isn't Miss USA a brand, one that Mr. Trump and NBC have ownership of? You'd think they'd work harder to protect the brand and the image from getting tarnished, and stories like this and this seem like they would do more harm than good. I mean, it's the stories and the rumors and photos that prompted pageant organizers to look into decrowning their Miss in the first place.
Big red flag? The girl could have been arrested for underage drinking and if the stories are true she could have been caught doing coke. (The underage drinking and admission to clubs is well documented.) Do you honestly want someone who's a liability reppin' your brand? I think not. And now, the poor girl will be the infamous "rehabbed" Miss USA. Tarnished image much?
Some would say I'm being too harsh. I mean, underage drinking and partying is to be expected on college campuses and in cities and towns across the country. I did it, my friends did it, G. Dub's twins did it, and (scarily) my baby sister will probably do it, too.
And then there's the fact that the reckoning happened only days before she turned 21. Uncanny timing, huh? Is all the hubbub for naught?
So it's not as if Tara Conner's behavior -- and that of her 18-year old Trump Towers roommate, Miss Teen USA -- is unexpected or unforgivable. But if you choose someone to represent a brand, to fulfill an image, then you better damn well make sure that person is someone to be respected, who will raise the profile of your brand in a positive way (and spawning Celeb Feud '06 does not count).
Especially if you are holding her out to be a role model for young women across the country.
Just my two cents.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
It's......Been So Long
Second, my Hoyas are 7-3 for the season thus far, though that could change since they were supposed to play Towson tonight. Given the way the Hoyas played in my day, the record is not bad. And I don't think they're ranked, either. That sucks, too.
Let's see, TV has been a complete bore. Both Heroes and Lost are on hiatus. Smallville and Supernatural are re-running. But gawd, next month is going to be so sweet! 24 is back, woo-hoo! And Heroes will come current on Jan. 22. So it's all good.
I doubt I'm going to get the chance to blog again before the year is out, so here are my resolutions for the coming year. These are not in any particular order, by the way, these are just the first things that come to mind.
1) Hunker down and study for the LAST, ECST, and GRE. Complete applications.
2) Find a new job, because I can't take the abuse anymore! Let's hope that recruiter hooks me up with something sweet.
3) Auditions and open mics. And maybe I should start recording again, too.
4) Celebrate my birthday in style. I'm old. I want fun in the sun, but I think it takes more than 24 hours to get a passport.
5) Start going to the gym again. Not because I need to lose weight, but because I really miss working out.
6) Give more love to my family and my man, and show love to the friends who've really stood by me.
7) Blog more. And about stuff that matters, too. I'm dying to dabble in some poli-talk.
8) Take a wine-tasting class, and possibly a knife techniques/cooking course. I chop all wrong.
9) Pray more.
10) Commit to getting most, if not all, of these things checked off before yearend 2007.
It's been swell, y'all, truly. Here's to finishing 2006 with style and grace and ushering in new beginnings in 2007.
Happy Holidays!
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
What I'm Watching
Save The Cheerleader, Save The World!: If you have yet to catch onto Heroes, you can log onto NBC's website and watch the episodes you've missed. Which you should do, because it's basically X-Men Lite, except that these 'heroes' actually have powers you would want and wouldn't make you superfreaky. With the exception of radiation guy from Monday night's episode -- um, he can give you radioactive burns by touch. Case in point -- he gave his wife cancer. Yikes!
Notable characters: The dynamic duo of Hiro the Hero and his sidekick Ando. We know I have an obsession with all things Japanese, but Hiro by far is the most kick-ass of all those featured on the show. And Ando's wisecracks -- ah, so funny! Yokkata! Ones to watch: Claire, Micah (so adorable, that little tech-mech-manipulator) and Peter (I can't decide...Milo's kind of cute but the bangs are killing me!)
If I were stranded on an island...: Lost, I still love you. Even though the Easter egg hunt you sent us on (you know, the one that started at the end of the last season and continued through the summer. Yeah, that one!) was enough to make me (and many others) feel like a casual castaway. I'm just going to let the season unfold without second guessing or taking up an investigation a la the Scooby kids. (However, it's also helpful to check-in with Entertainment Weekly every now and again. Jeff Jensen is the magazine's expert Lost theorist. He tries to put all the pieces of the puzzle together so the rest of us don't have to).
I mean, I live for my shows but I don't want to have to WORK for them. I spend good chunks of my week doing that for other people, anyway. TV Time= Relax Time.
I also don't know how I feel this season set-up ABC's got going on. Yes, there were far too many reruns last year but I think those were helpful for those viewers who missed episodes. But now Lost is taking a break until February, and then we get 16 new episodes back to back. And those egg hunters will be tuning in to the last twenty minutes of Daybreak just to catch the Lost sneak peeks. I hope Daybreak does well, but the premise doesn't thrill me and at this point, with Denzel's movie coming out soon, it seems overdone. (Interesting that Daybreak is an ABC show, Deja Vu is a Touchstone picture, and both ABC and Touchstone are Disney entities.)
Smallville. Yes, you had me at Ar-row. As in Green Arrow. Granted, Justin Hartley may not be the world's best actor (loved him on Passions) but I love him as Oliver Queen -- he's totally stealing Soop's thunder. (To the idiots who passed on Hartley's Aquaman series -- how you feeling 'bout that now?) Add to that the possibility of other JLA members making appearances this season, and you've got a reinvigorated show that may be winning back some fans.
Good TV is hard to come by, but these are my can't miss thus far. More to come.
Gets to Tivo-ing, already!
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Because A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste...
Yes, yes, y'all, that's right. I'm going back to school so that I can get my MA in English Education, as well as my New York State certification. Given my work experience, I wanted to focus on writing and rhetoric. And while you can concentrate on a specific sub-area, it's my understanding that you can only do so after years of teaching standard English (writing and lit). The course I'm taking right now is fascinating and it's opening my eyes to the challenges that teachers, especially those teaching in urban schools, face.
That's also where I want to focus my efforts, in inner-city and urban schools. Have you read and/or heard some of these No Child Left Behind stories? How there are some schools that actually underreport (or sometimes completely fail to report) the test scores of their minority students because the actual results might show that the schools and teachers aren't making any progress towards meeting NCLB mandates, and there's a (legitimate) fear that they will be held accountable. And because of NCLB, teachers may feel pressured to test prep all year long instead of actually TEACHING -- helping their kids make lasting connections to the concepts they learn, connections that will stick around long after testing day.
The whitewash, it seems, is nothing new. This week I read a biographical account of a now 30-year old man who was once a student in NYC public schools, and you know what -- he couldn't read a lick! His teachers passed him each and every year -- he even attended one of the most competitive high schools in the city -- and by the end of it all he could read is "and" and "but"! His grades were no indication -- As and Bs. He didn't graduate (dropped out in 11th grade) and he's learning to read now, trying to make his business big out of his apartment in one of the LES projects. But I could feel his frustration in his story...It begs the question -- how many other kids got passed along for show, in the end had very little to show for it?
As well-intentioned as NCLB was, it puts the focus and emphasis on testing and pays less attention to the quality of the teaching. It's not to say that tests aren't important, but shouldn't we be concerned when kids feel like the purpose of reading is to answer the questions at the end of the story? Don't we want them to read between the lines and come to conclusions that will stir their own curiosities, their own questions, and those questions in turn will lend themselves to those at the end of the story?
If life is one big test, education is a key part in preparing in prepping our kids for what life holds, the challenges it will bring. It's key to unlocking the potential of young minds, in passing down the keys to the kingdom. I'm saddened to think about all those minds going to waste, to only being considered as a number to meet a mandate. Quantity versus quality, indeed.
Friday, October 20, 2006
Jumping On The Bandwagon
This blogging revolution is what, like, two or three years old, right? There were even some people out there that were hip to it eons ago -- I've seen some of those sites. But now everyone can get in on the game, which is pretty sweet considering that the idea of HTML scripting makes me want to put my head through the wall. I got a (respectable) C in that class in college, but that website project was a killer.
So why me and why now? A couple of reasons. First, opinions are like assholes and everybody's got one -- myself included. There are millions of moments in a given day where I would love to call up my boyfriend or one of my friends and talk their ears off about my frustrations at work, about the latest boneheaded move by this bonehead politician. About how I'm still undecided about making the investment in the Xbox 360 ( I will blog about that in the future) or waiting until PS3. Or how I love Justin Timberlake to death but "Sexy Back" just ain't doin' it for me.
Nope, nothin' doing.
Point is, I can't just call everyone up like that anymore. And even if I could, would they care? I've got a boatload of friends who think I'm super silly for still being into cartoons and video games at my age. Out there in the blogger-verse, however, there may be someone else who is feeling me about the Xbox dilemma.
Secondly, blogging is great practice for me as a writer. My job is very industry-centric and sadly my interests DO NOT lie there. Our lives and experiences are so varied that it's quite frustrating to find yourself pigeonholed into a box with walls that someone else defined.
So...Um...Yeah.
I'm unsure as to whether I've fully answered the "why me, why now" question. But I'm starting to get hungry, and that box of Cookie Crisp is calling my name...