Category: Uncategorized (Page 29 of 34)

What I Wouldn’t Give for a Pop, Abbotts’ and a White Hot Right Now to Go Along with My Digital Cable and Amazing Stanley Cup Final

Okay, here’s three words you never thought I’d say:

I miss Rochester.

Now pick all your jaws off the floor, and get ready for the next statement:

I miss Binghamton.

Now, that one may take a while for you all to recover from. I couldn’t wait to get out of each place, and now I miss them like I have never missed anything ever before. I guess it was inevitable, but I told myself I wasn’t going to feel these things, that I was too excited about moving to Boston to be depressed. But then I got here and realized that everyone I care about is back in New York State. And I realized that gosh darn it, as much as you prepare and save, it sure is expensive to live in Boston. And then I realized that I have to start all over again by scratch, that I have to do the dirty work, that I have to impress people, that I have to go out and find the opportunities all over again. Can’t I just stay one place and build on what I’ve done? Two years one place, two years another, now onto another. And then I realized that I need a break, because I’m burnt out not unlike those prodigy child figure skaters/gymnasts/tennis players who just quit at age 17 saying, “I just want to be a kid!” Well, I just want to be a 22 year old! I just want to sit around and not worry about anything for a week and get to spend time with all of my friends.

Blech. Things will get better. I’m here now, it’s fun, and I need to resist the homesick and Binghamton-sickness. I will get to go home in a few weeks, then off to see my downstate NY friends a week after that, then home again for the holiday, and then home again hopefully during the Democratic National Convention (because no one’s going to be around for that one). I hope I can get that one off, although that looks pretty darn unlikely.

It’s just hard. I have great friends, and I love talking to you all. I just miss seeing you all, and I hate knowing that you’re all there (there being New York) and I’m here. And if things get really bad, I can always transfer…because that’s what I do best, haha! But that’s unlikely, because Boston has been my dream since I was 10.

Darn post-graduation-stress-syndrome.

Onto other news:

-I got the job I mentioned last week in a modified form. Hey, it still works. It’s money, it’s higher ed, it works.

-I have found mint chocolate chip ice cream at the corner store. Three different varieties in fact. So thankfully, mint chocolate chip does exist in Boston. Unfortunately, Wegman’s mint chocolate chip brownies (which now are available at all Wegmans’, or so the ad last Sunday said) are not. Or actually, I should rephrase that. Unfortunately, Wegmans in general does not. Shaw’s is acceptable, and I like it better than most supermarkets, but really, Boston, you don’t know what you’re missing. Wegmans is the best thing since…I don’t know. I can’t put it into words. It’s just amazing. (On that note, did I ever tell the story about how I used to wait at the bus stop with a girl who was a Wegman? Like Danny Wegman’s niece or second cousin or something–it was 8th grade, so I forget. Like, they weren’t close, but they were related.)

-On another food note, I have been informed by the Boston University food court that the type of pizza my family makes has a specific name. It is “Sicilian pizza.” I was unaware of this, but the more I think of it, the more this does make sense. My parents’ two favourite pizzas in the Rochester area are Ninos (a little past the intersection of Culver and Merchants on the Rochester-Irondequoit border–where I grew up) and Mark’s Pizzeria (which used to be in Irondequoit, near Waring Road, aka where my parents’ grew up, but it isn’t there anymore–it’s a local chain, so it’s all over, they go to the one in West Webster now). Now, I know that Nino’s advertises as “authentic Sicilian pizza,” but it’s been six years since I last had it, so I can’t remember what it was exactly like. But seeing that its my parents’ favourite, then it would make sense that their own pizza would be similar. My parents do make pizza that is square instead of circle (which is more out of the fact that for years they made it in toaster ovens, not the oven, then anything else), and it is very doughy and thick. Everything about the pizza is thick–the crust, the layer of cheese, and the pepperoni (because my dad buys a stick and cuts slices himself–we went through a phase where we didn’t have pepperoni, but as of recently, it’s back again. I have no idea why it disappeared for a year and a half.)

So anyway, I go to lunch in the University Food Court Monday, and go to the pizza part. And I look at the selection and there it is, a pizza that looks like my parents made it. I was overjoyed. I looked at the label. “Sicilian Pizza.” Huh. I bought a piece, and it tasted like my parents’. Finally! I have found a place to get pizza like my parents. Oddest of places, but I have found it.

Of course, I could just make some myself. But for those days I’m too lazy to, I know where to find it.

(And no, the Hasenauer family is not greatly Italian. I mean, look at our name. We are a little bit on my dad’s side, but that’s it. But walk into my house and spend time with my dad’s family and my immediate family, and you’d think we were the Sopranos–just without the shooting and the dumping of bodies and the cursing. Okay, maybe the cursing–except for me. But not the killing.)

-Public transportation is so not made for us vertically challenged people. I can not reach the top bar of the subway car, which is a problem when you’re on a crowded train and that’s the only place to hang on. I stood on my tiptoes and held on with my fingertips. That was all that would reach.

In addition, the city wide pastime of Bostonians, besides loving and hating the Red Sox, is to complain about the T. People, please spend five minutes without a car in Rochester, Ithaca or Binghamton and then tell me how much you think Boston has the worst public transportation then. In fact, just spend time in New York City. You all have no reason to complain.

-I am the supreme hockey goddess of the world. Thank you. Please light puck shaped candles at my feet and ask me who is going to win the series that I SO CALLED. Even before last night’s game, I was saying Calgary, because the birthplace of hockey deserves the Cup back, and because they’re good. I mean, I’m fond of Tortorella, seeing that he’s a former Amerks coach and all, but the Lightning let the Flyers come back in that conference finals series–the Flames didn’t need 7 games, but the Lightning let it go to that with the Flyers. Plus, as evidenced by last night’s Game 1, the Flames are just amazingly fun to watch. They’re sneaky and just fly across the ice. This is good hockey. Well, I mean, it’s always nice when it’s close in a game, but it’s also fun to see a fun, good team dominate a game. So I’ll take the Flames in 5 games.

(And Jarome Iginla, the Flames captain, is hot. But that’s besides the point. But really, he’s Juan-Luc Grand-Pierre material right there. Where is Grand-Pierre? He was the HOTTEST hockey player of all time. Oh wait, I just found him. He’s with the Capitals, and his picture on ESPN.com does not do him any justice. When he was with the Amerks, he was amazingly good looking.)

And onto other hockey news, hockey season officially ended tonight at the Blue Cross Arena, with the Amerks’ 4-1 loss to the Milwaukee Admirals tonight, letting the Admirals take the series 4 games to 1. It was a good run–I remember my father complaining at the beginning of the season that the Amerks were “stinkin’ up the place.” They weren’t the best team this season, but they’re always fun, they always try, and playoff Amerks hockey is just a Rochester tradition. Next year, people, next year.

-On another homesick note, I keep saying pop. I went to Shaw’s and looked for white hots. They don’t have white hots here. At least in Binghamton I could go to Wegmans and get some real white hots (not the Syracuse kind–Syracuse white hots are different all together–they’re skinnier and spicier.) And while I make a conscious effort to say soda, I still slip and say pop occasionally, even after four years of living with non-Rochestarians. No one has called me on it here yet, but I dread the day I go to a restaurant and slip. See, in Rochester, you can go to a restaurant and ask for an orange pop or a regular pop and people know exactly what you want. (I know–my parents do this when ordering at fast food restaurants.) I fear they won’t know what pop is here in Boston, and then I’ll feel like an idiot.

-I just realized something. There are hot hockey players, hot football players, hot baseball players, hot tennis players–but the sport of basketball lacks in hottness. Remember my famous profile quote of a few months back, where Marsha and I were in the dining hall and the men’s basketball team walked in. “Why aren’t any of the basketball guys cute?” she asked. “Because we’ve only been D1 three years.” I answered. But I was wrong now that I think about it. Basketball doesn’t lend itself to hot guys. Well, professional basketball anyway. There are some nice ones in college, and trust me, just average guys playing always produces some good ones. But in the big league, very few, if not none. The NBA makes me sleep. If I had a TV in my room and needed to fall asleep quick, I’d turn it to the NBA playoffs.

-Speaking of TV, I like digital cable. A lot. Me + digital cable + pizza = a happy Saturday night. All my apartment-mates were away for portions of the weekend, leading me to have the place to myself for most of Saturday night. I spent the whole night with a pesto, tomato, broccoli and cheese pizza, flipping back and forth between baseball, hockey, gymnastics, more hockey and random shows. There was so much to choose from. It was great. Now I just have to get some kind of deal this fall where I can have NFL Network, and then I will never ever leave my apartment. (I have no life, but at least I’m happy that I have no life.)

-And I leave you with my quote of the week, as found in Tuesday’s Boston Metro while I was reading it on the subway:

“Some people are overachievers and don’t have time for sex. You can’t put sex on your resume.”

-The creator of Harvard’s all-sex “literary magazine”

Wait, it doesn’t count as “networking?” Ooh, that was a patented Katherine-Bad-Joke-Of-The-Week!

(On a bitter and more personal note, I’m sorry, but when my family buys me into an Ivy League school like these kids’ parents’ probably did, maybe I’ll be able to drop my “if it can’t be put on a resume, it’s not worth doing” mantra.)

Welcome to Being a Grown Up…Well, Maybe

As I write this, I am sitting in my bedroom in my apartment in Brighton, MA, eating coffee ice cream (more on that later) and listening to a radio station that proclaims itself “Boston’s #1 Hit Music Station” (which, you know, it probably isn’t, or it is, but in some random demographic and that’s why like 6 stations in an area can make that claim). Earlier, as I ate dinner, I watched NESN’s Red Sox pregame.

Welcome to my dream world. And I’m living it.

Okay, maybe it’s not exactly my dream world. But it’s the closest to it than I have ever gotten. The only thing missing are the people–my two good friends up here are away until Sunday at the earliest. So I’ve kind of been on my own for a day now. Now, mind you, that whole being on my own thing would of thrilled me like 4 years ago when I was a loner. But I kind of am not a loner anymore, so this being by myself thing is kinda hard to get reacquainted with.

But why complain? I’m living in Boston and I have my own bedroom. It doesn’t get much better than that. And, to top things off, I have found what is probably the only job in the world that encompasses everything I like/am good at: I interviewed today to be an administrative assistant for the summer at Boston University’s Department of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. Sports (gymnastics and skating included!) + Dance + Higher Education Administration = Like everything I like and have wanted to do ever. Well, except that brief span when I was 4 where I wanted to be a firefighter. Yeah. I’m kinda happy to abandon that one. Let’s cross all of our fingers (well, I mean, unless you like have arthritis or something, then I wouldn’t recommend that) and hope that I get it.

On to the funnier parts of the past few days:

-So I keep going to the grocery store because it’s like a 4 minute walk from my apartment, because I’m not used to cooking for myself and I don’t know what I’ll eat and what I need to make it. Seriously, I have become a compulsive supermarket shopper. It’s addicting. So anyway, I’m walking down the aisles tonight and come across the tuna. I considered buying some. The following thought then went through my head, I kid you not: “If I buy the tuna, then I have to buy mayonnaise, and then maybe onion, and that’s a whole downward spiral I’d rather not go down.”

Does that make any sense? And the sad thing is that I listened to myself.

And a note about ice cream: apparently mint chocolate chip ice cream does not exist in Brighton. The supermarket up here has every other flavor known to man EXCEPT for mint chocolate chip. So I was resigned to buying my second favourite flavor, coffee. Two days now, no mint chocolate chip. Hmm…

-I live off of Beacon Street. I turn left out of my apartment, a few steps and I’m on Beacon Street. Now, from there, I could turn left, walk a few blocks and hit a CVS and Dunkin Donuts, or I could turn right, walk a few blocks, and hit a CVS and a Dunkin Donuts. Walk the other way on my street, and you hit Commonwealth Ave. Turn left from there, walk a few blocks, a CVS and a Dunkin Donuts. Turn right, walk a few blocks, hit like 10 CVS’ and Dunkin’ Donuts’ in the span between there and Kenmore Square. People! I don’t need that many donuts, let alone that many places to get overpriced makeup and toiletries.

-Haha! I can wear my Red Sox shirt here and NOT GET JEERED!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is a brand new concept to me!

-I am currently losing fantasy baseball this week 14-1. Man, I was on a two week not-losing streak (won one week, tied the next). This is because none of my pitchers have come up yet this week, or at least this is what I’m telling myself. My fantasy baseball people have yet to set up a fantasy football league, which apparently every single website wants everyone to do already. It’s May. I’m thinking football because I always am, mind you, but I properly can’t evaluate people until training camp…which I won’t get to go to this year because I’m here, and Bills camp is at home. Sad moment.

-Graduation still hasn’t hit me yet. I’m sure it will soon. We ended up having two guest speakers: Sen. Schumer and the composer guy who I have never heard of in my life. Both weren’t too bad. The student speaker sounded like he wanted to be either a Kennedy or William Shatner. I should of been the student speaker. But I’m not bitter. Really.

At the Mountainview Commencement ceremony on Saturday, I did get to speak (all of us graduates did). Well, the instructions Jeff and Darlene had given me prior to the ceremony had said, “Share a memorable experience from Mountainview.” And then they told me that I needed to tell the story about the time I forgot Jeff’s name (see the entry from three weeks ago or so). So I planned to.

Chuck goes first, and just thanks everyone, says what a great year it’s been. Then there was a lull. No one knew who should go next. I knew I had to get up and tell the story, otherwise I’d never hear the end of it. And then I hear Jeff go, “Katherine, go.” So I go. I get up there, tell the story, and it went over pretty well. People laughed, and a few people came up to me afterwards and said it was funny.

So people start to go up–and no one else told a memory. They all got serious and thanked everyone and said how great everything was and were emotional–making me look like the complete and total oddball. Yes, I looked like the class clown. I mean, though, is it like me to get all serious and emotional about anything other than Legally Blonde or football? It was the best for me to leave the seriousness to other people.

-So this weekend is my first weekend in a major city. I have nothing to do on Friday, because I don’t have class on Fridays, and I haven’t started work yet. So I think I may head over to MIT and finally see the Stata Center and Baker House in person. I’ve spend the past two months researching both buildings for my theory and methods term paper and presentation, and I’m eager to see both in person. I also am going to go on the Great Gabe Kapler t-shirt search. Wish me luck. I may also head over to Filene’s Basement, but I don’t know yet–I need to save things for other weekends.

-Go Flames and Lightning! Prove my hockey prediction skills correct! Let’s also hope that last night’s lousy Amerks performance was the exception. They were on a seven game winning streak. A poor ferry-less-while-it’s-being-repaired-yet-again-even-though-we-all-know-it’ll-probably-never-start-service-at-this-point-anyway city has its hopes riding on your heavily padded shoulders.

Okay, I should…do my nails? Reorganize the bookcase? Maybe read ahead for class? I don’t know. I’d watch more NESN, but I don’t have a TV in my room. That may have to change.

Can ya’ll tell this whole not having anything to do thing completely throws me off guard?

Hold up before I go: BREAKING HASENAUER FAMILY NEWS! My sister just IMed me and she has mono. Her prom is Friday, and she has a wicked nice dress and wicked good plans. But now she is doped up on codine. She says she’s still going, but she’s really out of it now. 🙁 Poor Megan. She is the queen, for all of the illnesses I’ve had, I have never had mono. Get better soon Megan, preferably in time for prom.

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…