Victory

IU's win last night over Illinois was a pleasant surprise. The game started out like it always does, with IU sticking with the Illini, even possesing the lead for the majority of the first half. I had prepared myself for the team to fall apart in the next half, like they had for the past few games. The win against a ranked team was a huge one, ending with the students storming the court in excitement. I wished that I could have been there with my parents to participate in the excitement. Hopefully this win can give the Hoosiers some confidence to go and beat Michigan St. on Sunday.

Our editor and chief has been out all week for newspaper, so paste ups has been different to say the least. You would think that nothing would get done because she is the one who puts everyone back on task, but surprisingly, a lot of work has been accomplished. In order to keep in contact with her, we have been Skyping our editor. This would have worked out nicely except for the fact that the microphone on her computer is broken. She could hear everything that we said, but she was not able to voice anything back. The collaborative effort of puting the newspaper out is always an interesting one, filled with late hours, and many distractions.

Innocence is Bliss

Although I know that this essay is supposed to show a person's innocence in middle school, the writing style seems very immature. When the writer descibes the music being played in the car, it definately reminds me of middle school. The quotes included in the essay are exactly how we used to talk and how kids in middle school still talk. "Will you go out with me?" is exactly how boys would "ask girls out," but going out usually meant nothing more than sitting at the same table at lunch, walking from class to class together, and maybe going to the mall on Friday nights to see a movie. This person's relationship was an exception. Although the writing style is not the greatest, the author brings out the naive emotions of middle school that everyone remembers.

Phases

This weekend, I began to brainstorm topics for my upcoming essay. I realized that within the past year I have gone through or still am in multiple phases. As of recent, Angry Birds has been a recent obsession. I'm not exactly sure what it is, because it always just seems to frustrate me. Even if I can't pass a level, I will put my iPod down and then an hour later pick it up and try again. There is something about those stupid green pigs that continually makes me want to kill them with the different assortment of birds. Twitter is also a phase that I am currently caught up in. Even if it has nothing to with me, I love refreshing my ap and/or computer screen to see my peer's or celebrities' latest tweets. It allows me to be impulsive and tell the world what I am up to or share a random thought that comes to mind with the tworld.

Appreciation

The snow days these past two weeks have made me appreciate my sleep even more. After getting very little sleep this weekend, today allowed me to finaly catch up. If we had not had this day off, I would continue to suffer further with lack of sleep. Working on the newspaper has trained me to live without sleep, so having days devoted to sleep or sleeping in are very much appreciated now.

A Practiced Grace

In this essay, the author does a very good job of giving the description and overall atmosphere of a Starbucks store which, in turn, shows the work ethic of the working as a barista. Jeremy does an excellent job of giving physical when he describes her uniform, "Her beige slacks come down far enough to hide the tops of her black and white striped shoes, and her blonde, shoulder-length hair is up in a ponytail behind her head so as to keep out of the way." When the author explains how she moves from job to job behind the counter, I get a feeling that the barista knows what she is doing and has been doing it for a while. I felt that the description of the person was lost as the essay continued and veered off to describing the store instead.

In The City

I recently got the CS5 Adobe suite, so I've been playing with photoshop and all of the other programs. This is a shot of downtown Boston, where my family and I traveled this summer. I could definitely see myself there at some point in my life, it has so much to offer. You can get that big city feel when you're downtown in the heart of the city, but once you move away from the city, there are parks and suburbs that give a completely different vibe.

College Graphic

I came across this image at http://www.good.is/ , a great site for info graphics, design ideas and other random stuff. It definately shows the major changes in the price of a college education over the past years. I like the fact that the icons in the board category change with the years, with todays fittingly represented by a coffee cup.

The Way to Rainy Mountain

The beginning paragraph of "The Way to Rainy Mountain" makes me feel as if I am actually on the plains on Oklahoma. I can almost see all of the weather that is being described by the author. When the grass is described as "turning brittle and brown, and it cracks beneath your feet" I can hear the crunch of an extremely dry grass during a drought in the middle of summer. When Momaday begins to talk about the lonliness of the land, I can see the wide open space that seems to never end.