Author: Kat (Page 84 of 89)

Presenting The Hallmark Keepsake Ornament Medicore Quarterbacks Who Made the Super Bowl by Super Fluke Collection!

I am DONE!!! Everyone yell it with me! I AM DONE WITH MY UNDERGRADUATE CAREER!!!

Wow, that felt good, didn’t it?

Well, I am taking a break from packing up my room to write. See, when you don’t move home for, oh, almost two years, you tend to accumilate way too much stuff. This is a tiring and not very enjoyable process. I implore anyone who is going to be a senior next year to start going through your stuff now. This is a pain in the neck.

I thought I’d pass on the following little nuggets of information to ya’ll (yes, I’m getting Terrace 5 Round-Up-y on you all yet again):

-I was in Hallmark tonight, and in the back they had clearance Christmas ornaments. And they sure had a lot of Kurt Warner Keepsake Collection ornaments. I mean, a lot. Hallmark, when your designers sat around their idea table and thought, “Which football player are we going to offer this year?” they COMPLETELY missed the mark with Kurt Warner. I mean, what’s next? Brad Johnson? Jake Delohomme? Are they going to start a whole “Mediocre Quarterbacks Who Made the Super Bowl by a Super Fluke” collection?

-I like hockey. I like that I now will be able to watch hockey. What I don’t like is that my hometown team, the good old Rochester Americans (Amerks for short) is heading into the conference finals on a seven game winning streak and I will not be in Rochester for any of it. Now, mind you, I was raised on playoff hockey, as evidenced by the gazillions (okay, more like hundreds….okay, fine, tens) of banners hanging from the ceiling of the War Memorial. And of course, I with the perfect timing, has to be leaving upstate New York just as we’re back in the thick of playoff hockey. Internet radio and I will become best friends in the next week, since who knows if there will be hockey for me to follow come fall…

-When presented with free time, I really don’t know what to do. I handed in the Thesis From Hell this afternoon around four, and honestly didn’t know what to do with myself afterward. I didn’t want to pack…but I didn’t know what other options were. Like, I could watch TV, but what is on and I could read a book or a magazine or ESPN.com…oh wait, I read ESPN.com 23 times a day even in the thick of thesis-dom and finals-dom, so that’s no change. But really, what do you do with free time? It’s….unnerving? Especially when you realize that you’re in the desolateness that is Binghamton, NY and you don’t have a car. Yeah, you notice those things while you’re in the thick of work, but when you don’t have any work to do anymore, you really notice it.

So I packed.

What happens when I don’t have to pack anymore?

Uh…

I think I’m going to jump the gun and start planning for my Administrative Planning project, which I have to have some idea of by our first class on Thursday. Yeah, why not?

See, this is the real reason I’m starting grad school mere days after graduation. Because I would go nuts if I didn’t have anything to do. But I won’t have two jobs and 16 extracurriculars in grad school, so what am I going to do with that time that’s not taken up with work and school?

Ah, the dilemmas of graduating. I was forewarned….

-Speaking of my jobs, mad props (like the slang? can you tell it’s 1:40am?) to the Mountainview College Housing Office for being awesome. I will miss that place like you don’t know what. I walked in this afternoon to Sean and Jeff singing along to “Build Me Up Buttercup” at the top of their lungs, and Darlene just looking at them like they were crazy. I will never have more fun in a work place than I did there.

-Really, can I just say that I want the collective works of Peter King and Bill Simmons in a hard-bound collector’s edition book set? With like, special commentary by….oh, me, about how much these two men rock? Please, I know I talk about them every week, but if you have not read them yet, please do. They’ll please those of you who know nothing about sports, so if that’s what has been keeping you back, please reconsider.

-I was at Bar Crawl last night (Ithacans: Bar Crawl is to Binghamton-ians as what Beer Golf is to you, but ours is sanctioned by the university.) Can I just tell you, if all the men of the world were completely trashed all of the time, I’d have no problems with guys not noticing me. Drunk guys right and left were throwing compliments at me like they were Curt Schilling pitching a complete game. It was great. Except when you realize that they’re drunk, and when they’re sober, they’re not going to think you’re hot. But it was great before I realized that. Still not a really big fan of Binghamton’s downtown, but it doesn’t matter because I’m moving in a little over three days.

Okay, now I’m tired. Tomorrow are various recognition ceremonies and the arrival of the Hasenauer clan, of course on their Hasenauer time, meaning I had to tell them everything starts a half hour earlier than it really does. I love my family. I don’t love Hasenauer time.

The next time I write I will be a BOSTONIAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let’s finish where we started and yell, “I WILL BE A BOSTONIAN IN 4 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Wow, that felt good, didn’t it?

Ten Questions…

This week, I will answer ten burning questions that have been posed to me by different people through the past two weeks. Y’all are very inquisitive people, thus I must oblige.

1.) Why aren’t you going into something having to do with sports for a living? -Darlene, one of my bosses in the housing office

Because I don’t know enough about sports. Now, mind you, that’s never stopped that idiot bimbo that does the sideline reports for Monday Night Football. But anyway, I will admit I never really gave it a fair shot. I had one bad experience, one bad class and jumped out too quickly. However, there are way too many people out there who would like to be in the sports industry who are ten times better than I would ever be, so instead of facing constant rejection for the rest of my life, I kind of took the safe route. I’ve done extracurricular my whole life, and now, pretty much, those will be my career. Plus, you can always watch and read about sports, and in my case, fill pages and pages on my computer and personal journal about sports, even if you’re in it for a career or not. That’s not necessarily the case the other way around. (By the way, I still get a little jealous when I see female sports journalists–thus why I make faces whenever people like Suzy Kolber or Bonnie Bernstein are on TV. I don’t hate them, I’m just jealous. Give it a few years, and it won’t happen anymore.)

2.) What do you look for in guys anyway? -several people

Sigh…I swear, this spring so far as been love-over-drive. Not as in me being in love or anything good like that. But everyone is getting engaged or married or hooking up…I think this is because I’m getting older. I feel no need really to do any of that stuff, seeing that I preoccupy myself with everything else on the face of the earth. I’ll run the world, you all hook up so you don’t have time to run the world, so that lessens all competition for me running the world. Sounds good, right?

Thanks to two crushes I currently have, I have been able to figure out what I look for in guys. I went for a while not really being able to put it into real definitive terms, and then while talking to each of my crushes this week, I was able to pinpoint what it is that I like. So, ladies and gentlemen, here it is:

What Kat Looks For In a Man

1.) Needs to like sports. Not necessarily play. Needs to like watching, reading and talking about them.

2.) Needs to be open to the fact that my main hobby is “burning myself out.” Needs not to lecture me about how I’m overworking myself. I’m fully aware of it. But it’s gotten me where I am, why do you think I’m going to stop now? Overworking=who I am.

3.) Sense of humour.

4.) Ability to talk about absolutely anything. For example, one of the guys I have a crush on and I had a 15 minute conversation Friday night about doing laundry and losing socks.

There you go. I have peculiar tastes, yes. However, I think they aren’t entirely out there or unattainable.

3.) Why didn’t you mention my name in your acceptance speech on Thursday night? -Jeff, another of my bosses in the housing office

I blanked! Here’s the back story for those who weren’t there:

So I was nominated for Outstanding Non-Executive Board Member of the Year for my work with Mountainview College Council at Thursday night’s XCELsior Awards. And my boss, Jeff, nominated me. However, I did not think I would win–I was up against one of my orientees who is absolutely amazing in her community government, and is the driving force behind creating a Binghamton RHA. And I was right–in the category award of Non-Exec Board Member of the Year for Student Government, I lost to her. I was happy for her, so I didn’t really care.

Well, before the ceremony even started, Jeff, who was sitting with all of us MCCers, says, “Now, you all know who nominated you, so you should thank me in your speeches if you win.” We all nod.

So we get to the Overall awards. The way it works is that if you’re nominated, even if you don’t win the category award, you are eligible for the overall award in that certain award, so I was still eligible for it overall. But there was like no way I was going to win.

Well, I won.

I screamed. I was in shock. There are pictures of me when they announced my name and when I was walking up there–and that’s good, because I was in so much shock I don’t even know what was going on. I got up there, step up to the mike, and totally and completely blanked.

I never blank! I never get nervous. I was just in complete shock that anything I was supposed to do flew out of my mind. So I stood there and completely forgot Jeff’s name. So I go, “Thanks to the person who nominated me,” while looking right at him.

A couple minutes later, I’m back at my seat, and I come back down to earth and totally feel like a complete and total idiot. The one person I was supposed to thank, and I totally forgot his name. I feel like an idiot.

Luckily, I’m sure he understands. I mean, I did thank him, just totally forgot his name when doing so. So thank you again Jeff, for nominating me.

4.) Why are you starting grad school two days after graduation? -Everyone

Three reasons: I’m saving up my loan deferment. By starting in the summer, I keep my full post-graduation deferments. Two: I have to do at least one summer for my program. By doing my summer now, I get it out of the way and can jump into the student affairs job market at its peak next April/May. I will have one class to take term I in summer 2005 because it’s a requirement and that will be the only time in the next two years they offer it, but that’s not bad, especially if I decide to stay in Boston for a job. Three: What the heck else am I supposed to do this summer? I was unlikely to find a job in my field for just the summer. I didn’t want to go back to retail or any other job. And I can’t just sit there. That’s so not me. Vacation? What vacation? Why take a vacation?

5.) In what way do you resemble a 60 year old grandmother? -Everyone

I am addicted to Hallmark. Some people gamble, some people drink, I go to Hallmark and buy cards. I just bought a stash of thank you cards for graduation yesterday, and used my preferred customer card and the $2 off coupon I got for being such a regular customer. It’s rather sad. I am my grandmother’s granddaughter.

6.) Why are you choosing to see Ben Folds and Guster this summer instead of Barenaked Ladies? -My mom

Because I’ve seen Barenaked Ladies 10 times. I’ve seen Ben Folds and Guster each once. I am limiting myself to one concert this summer, seeing that I will be a poor grad student, and decided I’d rather see someone I haven’t seen as often then someone I’ve seen twice in the past four months. Plus, Barenaked Ladies are touring with Alanis Morrisette this summer. Booooo. I hate her music. I liked her in “You Can’t Do That On Television” back in the 1980s, but I haven’t liked her since. Let’s see if I relent by August 9th and just buy myself a Barenaked Ladies ticket.

(As a side note, my mom asks a lot of questions, such as, “Are you ever going to come back to Rochester?” “What exactly are you going to work as?” “Can I just tell people who ask about you that you’re going to be President of the United States?”)

7.) Why can’t you properly pronounce the phrase, “Tore up?” -Marsha

Because I’m from western New York? Yesterday, Marsha and I were in Best Buy in Syracuse, and she tried to get me to say that properly, betting that I couldn’t. I can’t. But I got my revenge when she picked up a CD that said “Greatest Hits, Volume II.”

“Greatest hits, volume 11? Wow.” she said.

I looked at the CD. “Marsha, that’s volume 2.”

“Oh my gosh, I’m really not stupid. It looked like an 11, not Roman numerals.”

8.) Just how disappointing was Connie and Carla?

Terribly so. Nia Vardalos was into it, but she was the only one. David Duchovny looked like he was getting teeth pulled the whole movie. See, once you make a movie of the outstanding-ness of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, anything else is really going to pale in comparison. I mean, it wasn’t too bad. I’ve seen worse movies, trust me. And Nia Vardalos is still one of my idols–she’s hysterical and she writes all of her own stuff. But this just wasn’t the same caliber as Greek Wedding. Try again, please?

9.) Why did I drop Dontre Willis from my fantasy team last week? -All of the Mountainview College Housing Office

I wasn’t paying attention. He doesn’t play for any of the teams I pay attention to. I never said I was any good at fantasy baseball. I’m just making a valiant effort–and am currently losing miserably.

10.) Why was this week an outstanding week in terms of sports writing?

Three articles:

NFL Still Goal For Clarett and Williams

This article by Sal Paolantonio is a must-read for those of us who like sports and law a little too much. It details the options for Maurice Clarett and Mike Williams upon their non-eligibility for the NFL draft.

Tracing a Family Treason

Bill Simmons wrote a non-NBA related column for the first time in like two weeks! Score! This details watching the Eli Manning drafting and trade.

On Thin Ice

The labor agreement for NHL player runs out in mid September. If a lockout occurs, is my second favourite sport to watch over as we know it? This article from the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine examines hockey’s loss of popularity. (I’m all for league contraction, by the way, as long as it touches the right places. Places like Texas, California, and Florida should not have hockey. They aren’t ever going to get into it. But don’t dare touch Buffalo. Buffaloians might still be into the game had Dallas not unfairly beaten them for the Stanley Cup a few years back.)

Off to do some pointless history and art history work…only 9 more days of my undergraduate academic career!!!

Charge Me With WTUIH–Writing A Thesis Under the Influence of Hockey

I have returned. With my thesis nearly finished and part one of my theory and methods project over, I now have time to write here.

I’ll miss the constant stress of my thesis, and how I always worked best on it while either watching or listening to hockey. In case you don’t already know, my honors thesis is about the Metis People of Canada and their relation to the issue of Quebec separatism. And in both of its forms (the senior seminar paper last spring it evolved from, and this version), I always got the most work done on it while being under the influence of hockey. Take last night, I’m typing away, listening to game 7 between the Leafs and Senators, and I finished roughly eight pages in an hour and a half. That’s prolific if I do say so myself. I guess I need the hockey to get in the Canadian mindset.

Now, mind you, my thesis was due a while ago. And I’ve never ever ever turned in anything late in my life. However, seeing that I’ve been wicked sick this semester, it kind of got delayed. I no longer know if I will get the honors designation–but at least it’s almost done. I had to finish it to make myself happy–and for the three people who have asked to read it when I’m done. It’s very weird to think that people want to read my dinky little thesis, or that if I do achieve the honors designation, it’ll be in the Bartle Library forever. It’s just a little….unnerving? I mean, there was a time in my life where I aspired to be a writer, and here I am kind of, sort of fulfilling it. But then I think, “Wait, who the heck here at Binghamton is ever going to want to read about this topic? That book is going to sit on the shelves and collect dust for 20 years until they decide to move it to remote storage.” Eh, oh well.

On that note, my quote of the week comes from that Leafs-Senators game last night. I was listening to Toronto’s coverage of the game, and the announcer yells before the start of the game, “If you have lucky underwear, put it on Toronto!”

If you have lucky underwear?

I guess they did, they put it on, and it worked–they scored 3 in the first period to go on to win 4-1. Complete blow out. “I’ve never seen worse plays by a goalie IN MY LIFE!” exclaimed underwear man about the Senators goalies at the intermission between the 1st and 2nd. He then proceeded to talk for at least 10 minutes about how the OHL (Ontario Hockey League for you non-almost-Canadians) has 8 game series instead of 7 game series (the games don’t go into overtime until game 8…I’m still a little unsure as to how this works, but the minute I can do mindless research on stuff that interests me, and not stuff Binghamton tells me interests me, I will look more into this.)

I love hockey. Luckily, I am moving to a city that holds its hockey close to its heart–even if they lost to Montreal on Monday. Montreal=where my great-grandmother was from, or so I have been told. Boston=where I am moving. Very interesting…for a few seconds.

Speaking of moving, I have reached that point where I lack any motivation to do anything for the next, oh, 25 days. You know, senioritis? The fact that nothing I am doing right now has little bearing to anything I’ll be doing starting on May 19th? Well, I mean, working in the office and store has to do with it, but that’s it. Nothing else does. It got really bad last week, when I actually had the physical Harvard rejection letter in my hands, along with 2 letters saying I lost out on roughly 7 different senior campus life awards here. I was thinking, “Well, I worked my tail off for years, and it meant absolutely nothing to anybody.” And that is definitely not true–I did get into the other 4 grad schools I applied to, and I got a lot of my grad school costs taken care of–but it all came at once and it seriously stunk. Add onto that the mess that was elections, and I was in a serious funk where I just wanted to go to bed and sleep until graduation. But it worked out. I may not have gotten into Harvard, my dream since I was 10, and I may watch every other senior student leader out there get awards except for me, but you know, it was fun while it lasted. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself. It’s like that saying they tell you at every leadership conference ever, “Don’t do stuff for the recognition, do it because you like it.” Very true.

But on to less depressing things…

-No, I don’t care what they were saying on SportsCenter last night–Kurt Warner SHOULD NOT go to the Niners. That’s just wrong! Like say the Bills had had a chance in 93 or 94 to sign like Nate Newton from the Cowboys or the Niners had had a chance to get Brett Favre–heck no. That’s fraternizing with the enemy right there!!!! It’s wroooonnnnnnngggggg. I hate the Rams, except for the fact that Marc Bulger is hot. The Rams are evil. Their former coach (Vermeil) cries more than my mom does at TV shows, their current coach doesn’t know what he’s doing, and they always have to beat up on the Niners. I don’t care that Warner doesn’t like the Rams anymore–he’s still a Ram. He can’t can’t can’t can’t go to the Niners. I’m sorry, SportsCenter guys, but that would be a bad catch. Never mind that Rattay is really not all that proven and Dorsey’s even more unproven. There are principles.

And Carmen Policy should come back to the Niners, now that he’s left the Browns. While we’re at it, how about the whole 1994-95 team and office come back, in the same shape as they were then? Works for me!

-Fantasy baseball is fun. I rather enjoy it. My dad wants to kill me because I do. “Katie, you’re playing fantasy baseball? Why? I didn’t raise you to like baseball. That’s not a sport.” Sorry, Dad. I actually might be good at it–well, either that or I’m a fluke.

Oh, and on the subject of baseball, I now have a baseball player to add to the pantheon of hot athletes. However, upon telling a certain boss of mine who it was, that certain boss made fun of me. So I’m thinking I will not say who this player is, to avoid further ridicule. However, think about what kind of guys I like, and then if you also know baseball pretty well, take a wild guess. Yeah, I’m that predictable. Winner gets…to make fun of me.

-It’s dorm wars week here at good ol’ Binghamton, with Newing Navy, Hinman Hysteria, Salamander Days (Mountainview) and, the one nearest and dearest to my heart (sorry Mountainview), Mutant Mania (Dickinson) going on. And I’m judging a few Mania events, since I have no bias because my hall no longer exists. However, kudos to Whitney (sorry about that–I had it down as Champlain at first, then I remembered it was really Whitney) for mentioning Holiday in its alma mater–we may be hotel rooms now, but it’s nice to know that our spirit is not forgotten. So if you visit Binghamton this week and find random people in different colored t-shirts running around like chickens with their heads cut off, don’t worry. That’s dorm wars for you.

-I’m going home this weekend to see my sister’s lighting and tech work in SOTA’s production of Ragtime. If you’re there, go out and support the show–there are rumours going around that next year’s production season (my sister’s last) is going to be drastically cut because of lack of funding. This very well could be one of the last huge musicals (and trust me, this one is HUGE) SOTA puts on. But the other motivation to go home this weekend comes from the fact that I don’t have ESPN2 here, but I do at home, and the draft is on.

Till next week…

Note: I wrote this on Tues. the 6th while I was home on spring break. Home=bad internet, therefore I wasn’t able to post it till I got back to school today. It may be a little dated, but try to take yourself back to last Tuesday and enjoy. And to tell you all what ended up happening: I did come back to school to find a rejection letter from Harvard in my mailbox. Fortunately, also in the mailbox was my new Boston University sweatshirt.

Motown Philly, Back Again

Greetings from the futon in my house! It’s Spring Break and my laptop, the TV and I are having quality time while I work on and procrastinate from my honors thesis. I returned to the “Rochester metropolitan area” (Tricia’s words) late Sunday night, after attending the American College Personnel Association (ACPA) Conference in Philadelphia to start off my break. My big plans for break included having sinus surgery, however not only do I need to have more tests done before they do it, I now have my third sinus infection this year and am on new antibiotics. These ones are pretty interesting–I usually don’t get side effects, but I’m definitely feeling them with these. So bear with me.

This weekend was supposed to be full of career exploration, networking and fun. It was fun, but it was full of all of that fun inner turmoil that comes with being 40 days away from graduation. Saturday afternoon, I’m sitting there thinking, “Wait, I don’t know if this is what I really want to do. Do I want to deal with college students my whole life?” Saturday night, I was depressed at that thought and the one that I had spent two sessions hearing that two year programs are preferable to one year programs (and Boston University is a one-year program.) BAH! What am I doing? But by the end of the day on Sunday, I had settled down a bit. I like academic advising, I like alumni affairs, and the best thing about higher education administration is that if I need to get out at anytime, I work at a college and can take classes for a reduced price towards another degree. I just don’t know if student affairs (student activities and residential life) is where I want to spend the majority of my time. I can’t be workaholic me forever–I need to be able to separate work from home at the end of the day, and with that you can’t always do that. But I’m still young, and I’m willing to do that for a while. We’ll see what happens.

But the big news is that I’ve pretty much decided (99.9% sure) that I will spend the next year of my life as a Terrier, trading one BU for the other. I’m mostly excited because if you read my journal from August, all I did was gush about Boston University. Still, I am a little disappointed–I still haven’t received a letter from Harvard or BC, but I’m assuming they came yesterday to my school mailbox and were negative. I have to give BU an answer by Friday, and I have to assume by what I heard this weekend that I would of heard weeks ago had either one accepted me. BC I’m not sad about–sure, it would be a fun sports school, but I think a closed Catholic campus isn’t quite me right now. But Harvard I’m a little in denial about. I know there are people who have more qualifications in the world–many more–but I thought I was Harvard material. Maybe I’d fill some kind of quota for them–the poor girl from Western NY who has a 3.7?–but I guess this wasn’t my year. Oh well, BU wants me, likes me, and I like them. And really, my real dream was to move to a big city, get a Master’s, and be in someplace that I enjoy. And that’s what I will do in 40 days.

And from one big city to another, there are some peculiar things I noticed about Philly. One, it has all one way streets (not that that’s really unusual to me anymore) but they all have random “NO TURN” signs at the lights. Well, in order to get into the parking lots, you have to turn at the light. Maybe it was just that you weren’t supposed to turn right. But the signs gave no other directions, not even an arrow, so I assumed it applied to both. I’m glad I wasn’t driving. As evidenced by my driving to my appointment Monday morning (where I got lost on Westfall Road, and nearly hit a few mailboxes in Pittsford, where you really really don’t want to hit anything because the residents are SUPER rich), I should probably not drive in a major city. I probably shouldn’t drive in anything bigger than Rochester. Also, in Pennsylvania, when you enter and exit the tolls, there are no lanes. It’s a wild free-for-all until the lanes start up again. And there are apparently no cops in Pennsylvania, and the few that there are all hang out on the NY-PA border, catching the “crazy kids” who speed on 81. I hadn’t been in Pennsylvania in four years, and that was when I flew there to connect flights. The last time I had really been in PA, I was 15 and going to Hershey Park. Erie when I was 17 doesn’t count because Erie is not Pennsylvania, no matter how much you try to convince me otherwise. It’s just Western New York, which in turn is just Southern Ontario, which makes Erie just a town in Southern Ontario, not Pennsylvania. But my point with that all was to say is that I don’t remember all of these driving peculiarities from my previous trips because of my age and subsequent driving naiveté.

Speaking of naiveté, I am convinced that I’m really not an idiot, I’m just naive. That’s going to be my excuse for everything from now on. “I’m not an idiot, I’m just naive.” I think if Jessica Simpson said that, her stupidity would all make sense.

And on to more naiveté…

-This morning, I got to sit in my pajamas (not the football pants, but the “cat’s pajamas” pants–get it? “The Cat’s Pajamas?” I am Kat, I wear pajamas, they’re the “cat’s pajamas?”) and read a new Bill Simmons article followed by Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback from yesterday that I hadn’t gotten the chance to read yet. If I had a peanut butter cookie from the Hinman Night Owl and an Oreo cookie milkshake from the CIW Night Owl with Barenaked Ladies blaring on a stereo and a hot guy was lying next to me (Dream Job Mike?), it would of been the most perfect fifteen minutes of my life. As it was, the reality was pretty good. I feel okay about abandoning sports writing as a career three years ago as long as those two are writing.

-Mike from Dream Job is THE HOTTEST GUY EVER. HANDS DOWN. AMAZING. I only was able to see the last two episodes of Dream Job, so I know I missed out on a lot. But still, those two episodes, and his SportsCenter appearance the following night left me drooling. I don’t even care that he agreed with Tony Kornheiser in saying figure skating isn’t a sport, that’s how good looking he is to me. Sense of humour with knowledge of sports and amazing good looks=SUPREME HOTTNESS.

-My father is in denial that I like baseball. We come home Sunday night and I hurried to turn on Sportscenter to see the score of the Red Sox-Orioles game. It flashed on the screen, Red Sox 2, Orioles 7, and I groaned (ever since the Orioles treated the Rochester Red Wings so poorly before we broke our association with them, I hate them). My father shook his head. “I thought I raised you better than to like baseball.”

In other baseball news, Peter King’s article in Sports Illustrated two weeks ago about what was wrong with baseball is nearly identical to the point of my Power Point presentation in Intro to Sports Management back in Fall 2000. Except of course that it’s almost four years later and he’s more knowledgeable on the subject than 18 year old me was. Right on.

And my fantasy team rocks, especially my pitchers.

-The Patriots play the Niners at home this upcoming season. Can the 98 Niners play the Patriots instead? Either way, I’m going. Coincidence that my favourite team is playing in my new residence the fall I get there? I think not! Okay, maybe. But it’s a nice one. (But if it’s Homecoming weekend, I can’t go. This would be a tough decision for me if the Niners were going to be any good this year, but they aren’t.)

I am off to the post office to mail forms to my new school! Till next time…

Ramblings From Work…

I know, I said I wasn’t going to be able to update this for three weeks. Well, I just happened to bring the laptop to work during my weekend rotation and was a tad on the bored side (the Texas-North Carolina game just ended and I got to the end of one of my articles for my paper), so I figured I’d take a moment and write. I don’t think I realized how many people actually read this until my friends that I don’t get the chance to talk to too often started to stop me on campus or leave me an IM and tell me that they read something in my blog. It’s cool to think that people read this–I always did want to be a journalist, but somehow I got derailed on that road. This works though. Maybe someday I’ll revisit that. So thanks for reading everyone–I’m really flattered that you do!

-My brackets, they are a mess. Thursday was a glorious day, well, until 5pm, that is, when BYU lost to Syracuse. I had been 3-0 in the early games, having picked Manhattan to upset. When I left for art history around 4:15, BYU was leading. I was stunned. I had ended up picking BYU because I couldn’t allow myself to break my streak of picking them without fail, and because I had convinced myself that Syracuse stunk. Sure, Syracuse started pulling out some wins along it’s conference season, but before that it had looked just a tad glum. Plus, by the time that game started, I was convinced I was on a total bracket roll and could afford one loss.

But no, Syracuse had to pull it out, like the defending national champions they are and beat BYU. The poor Mormons. Maybe Steve Young can stop by school and deliever a motivational speech. And while he’s at it, can he stop by my school and do the same, for my brackets are now totally in shambles and I need some motivation to keep checking my standing among the Holiday boys (again, I am the only girl in the pool). I also need some thesis motivation.

-On that note, does anyone ever think that BYU ever brags about Jim McMahon? In their football recruiting materials or any admissions materials at all, do they ever actually mention the fact that he went there? I mean, if I’m a conservative, no-alcohol, no-drugs, no pre-marital sex, Book of Mormon reading parent, and my son or daughter receives promotional material from a school naming a bad-boy where-have-you-been lately, DUI committing, ex-NFL quarterback as one of their alumni, wouldn’t you just be a little skeptical? Even the Mormons couldn’t curb that guy’s image. How the heck are they going to control your kid, who, for anyone over on this coast, is going to be thousands of miles and several hours away from Mom and Dad? I’ll have to dig out the old BYU mailing I got when I was in tenth grade, if I still have it, and see.

-Keeping on the topic of NFL quarterbacks, Alex Van Pelt was released by the Buffalo Bills this week. This is very saddening to me, seeing that I felt deeply sentimental about him. I mean, he was around the Bills for most of my football watching life. Mind you, he never really played much during my football watching life, nor did he really do anything too often to merit any starting position, but I had a soft spot for him nevertheless. I think it was because anytime he was mentioned on TV or the radio, my father would say, “Hey, Lucy Van Pelt’s brother plays for the Bills!” Lucy Van Pelt, being of course, the full name of Lucy from the Peanuts comics. Why my father knows that, I don’t know (he has a knack for random trivia, one I think I inherited), but he always says it, even last summer, when I came home from Bills training camp disappointed that it looked like Travis Brown was going to move up on the depth chart and mentioned it to him. And just as he said that, the power went out as we were hit by that major power outage.

But don’t fret–Van Pelt (Alex, not Lucy) was picked up by the Bills Radio Network to work Bills telecasts. Which, of course, I won’t be able to catch anymore seeing that I’ll be spending at least the next year in Patriots country. Hmm…I’m giving up Van Pelt calling Bills games for having Tom Brady talked about every five seconds. I think I can live.

-I am addicted to the show Cold Pizza on ESPN2. I started watching it over the January break, and watched it again last week while I was home. Why can I only watch it at home you may ask? Because Binghamton is weird, and despite all my begging during DIFR committee meetings during my term as DTC President, and all of Rob’s begging on my behalf at them this year, Binghamton Telecom STILL hasn’t added ESPN2 onto campus cable. It’s a travesty–we get the Outdoor Life Hunt-o-Rama channel, but we don’t get ESPN2. Now, last I checked, most Binghamton students have no interest in watching programming about hunting wild turkeys. I don’t know–maybe I’m completely out of touch with these kids. Anyway, I would really like to watch Cold Pizza in the mornings before I head off to work. But I can’t. I may be here for only (checks countdown) 57 more days, but I’m thinking of my younger peers. Don’t deprive them any longer, Telecom. Give them their ESPN2.

-I am in love with the song “Aluminum” by, you guessed it, Barenaked Ladies. (All those who know me well, and even those who don’t, all know that any questions about things I love or adore can be answered with one of three things: Barenaked Ladies, Steve Young, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. For example, if I were to say, “You know what I just love?” you would answer, “Barenaked Ladies? Steve Young? My Big Fat Greek Wedding?” And I would say, “Well, besides those.”)

Anyway, so I am in love with this song, and the verse that was cut from it during recording that recently resurfaced (okay, I admit it, I’m a junkie who reads the band’s blog everyday, where this verse was mentioned, then I went to Yahoo and looked up the cut verse.) The cut verse reads:

“Why should it come as a big surprise

It’s just an element of disguise

Even your emotions are anodized”

Now, if a song can teach me a new word, such as this one did with the word anodize (to coat in metal), it gets my everlasting adoration. Therefore, I adore this song. Hence why I keep quoting it as my away message. So here’s my caveat emptor for the week: I may be quoting this song in my away message a lot, but it means absolutely nothing. I just like the song. I think it’s got to be one of the best songs I’ve ever heard. But just because it’s so lyrically clever. I mean, the song is basically saying someone is so fake–they appear to be silver, but they are just aluminum, which is just about one of the best analogies I’ve ever heard. But I don’t mean it towards anyone, so don’t you all worry.

-I got into Northeastern yesterday. Unfortunately, at this point, I just can’t commit to two more years of school. I can’t do it. Maybe if I hadn’t burnt myself the past 2 ½ years, I could. But I’m exhausted from being a stressed out workaholic student since age 3, and I don’t think I’d make it another two. I mean, sure, once I’m out of school, my blood pressure will drop a good 20 points, making it even lower than it is now (which isn‘t a real good thing), but I think the bags under my eyes might disappear and I’ll stop getting gray hair. I am pretty much set to go to Boston University starting three days after graduation, and I’m happy about that. Then at this time next year, I’ll have to decide what I’m doing again. But at least I’ll be REALLY done.

Okay, at this point, I’m back in my room and I’m about to go to bed. Yep, my life is lame. I’m probably one of the most dull 22 year olds you will ever meet.