News of the Day

I know, I know... I haven't posted anything in ages. But I've got some pictures I just had to share.

First of all, the weather finally remembered that it's supposed to be winter now, and we got a bunch of snow last night/this morning. Here's what I woke up to in the front yard.




And here are some shots of what I woke up to in the back yard. Note that there's even snow piled up on the wind chime.








For those of you who don't know, that big white stripe in the air is part of the cable we hook the dog up to when we let her outside. It usually looks a lot thinner.

And this... is just more trees. Covered in snow. Most of that snow is already starting to fall off, because it's just too heavy to stay on the branches. See how they're all weighed down from it? Gosh, I love nature. If only it didn't have a habit of being so inconvenient.




The other news is that I got a new haircut on Wednesday. So I guess it isn't really today's news, exactly, but I just took a picture of it. Huzzah for a pixie cut--it's so easy to care for! Yay!

Map of the Aldwynan Region

It's not enough for me to know the name of the kingdom I'm writing about. I need to know the exact geography of that kingdom and the surrounding kingdoms. And a detailed list of every holiday they celebrate, from Pankerfest to Faviol Night.

Fanart: Gobo and Luri Fraggle

I'm awful at drawing Fraggles. I try to doodle them in class, and they come out looking nightmarish, particularly when I try to draw any members of the Fraggle Five--Gobo, Mokey, Wembley, Boober, and Red. Well--alright, so I can sometimes draw a decent Boober. And once, I even made a somewhat-acceptable Wembley. But no matter how many times I've tried to draw Gobo, he somehow always ends up looking like he's part-dinosaur, or some completely different Fraggle in Gobo's shirt, or some other similar disaster. Oh, I can usually draw a decent random, anonymous Fraggle... but specific Fraggles don't work too well.

But I started working on this new Fraggle fan-fiction that involves a new Fraggle, and I wanted to get a clear mental picture of what this Fraggle looked like, so I picked up my colored pencils to see what I could do. My little Luri Fraggle turned out so well that I decided to try to draw Gobo next to her. And believe it or not, he's actually recognizable as Gobo! I was so excited that I just had to share. I'll spare you the horror of seeing all my doodles, but here is a fairly acceptable drawing that I'm kind of proud of!

Thanksgiving and still alive

You know, Imaginary Reader, it's funny... I was so sure that when I started school, I'd have a regular schedule, and I'd start posting on a regular basis. At LEAST once a week, if not every day.

Yeah, so much for that.

See, I sort of promised myself that I wouldn't post any drama on this blog--you know, wouldn't use it to vent or to bash anybody. And the school year started with a whole huge boatload of drama. Drama up the wazoo. And by the time the drama calmed down, I was stressed and pressed for time, and this blog was just NOWHERE on the priority list. School comes first, after all. And then there's Hillel, of course. And I do love my family--they are CERTAINLY a priority, not that there's much I can do with my family when I'm at school. And for a while there, I was even working, so that's certainly a time commitment... Anyway, you get the idea. I haven't had much time or energy and I've been swimming in stress.

But now it's Thanksgiving break, and I still have plenty of schoolwork to keep me busy all week and family to visit in between. That's what I've been doing all week; if I haven't been visiting family, I've been doing homework. And I should really probably be doing homework now. But I'm tired, and quite frankly, I've had enough. It's Thanksgiving. For once... it's nice to relax.

So while there's still a little bit of Thanksgiving left, I'll say what I'm thankful for.

I'm thankful for a chance to relax today. I'm thankful for the wonderful family I have--thankful for how supportive they are, thankful that we love each other, and thankful that we don't have to PRETEND to like each other at gatherings like today. We're genuinely happy to get together.

I'm thankful for my Hillel board. I'm thankful for their good ideas, for their hard work and dedication, and for how supportive they are.

I'm thankful for my friends, two in particular--Ryan, over on The Muppet Mindset, and Rachel, one of my board members. Both of them have been with me through all sorts of stuff and supported me so much... (You may have noticed I've been saying that a lot. I've needed a lot of support lately. I'm fortunate enough to be able to find that support everywhere I turn.) I'm also thankful for Rachel's roommates, who have absolutely no objection to me randomly invading their apartment to watch Fraggle Rock, vent to Rachel, and do homework. Or pretend to do homework. Or stand in the kitchen and watch them clean up or make food. Or whatever else I may need to do in attempt to maintain some semblance of sanity.

I'm thankful for my professors, who actually care about us students and really want to teach us and help us learn and grow and become successful. It makes all the difference. And it helps that they actually know what they're talking about, too.

And I'm thankful for the Muppets, for Fraggle Rock, and for Sesame Street. I'm thankful for all the joy and hope they bring into the world. I've said that Fraggle Rock is all that's keeping me sane this semester... and really, it's not much of an exaggeration. But mostly, I'm thankful for the magic. Yes, Muppets, Fraggle Rock, and Sesame Street are all magical, and I'm incredibly grateful for that.

And I'd say that summarizes most of what I'm thankful for this Thanksgiving... and it also happens to summarize most of my life. So I guess I'm not doing too bad.

And the clock just changed, so it's no longer Thanksgiving and is now Black Friday. Best wishes to those of you crazy and/or brave enough to head for the stores.

Freshly Baked Cookies

There is nothing in the world like a chocolate chip cookie fresh out of the oven.

As I'm sure many middle-class kids do, I have many a beloved childhood memory of baking chocolate chip cookies with my mom. In my case, it also involves my big sisters, some kids my mom babysat, and a set of matching aprons with the biggest one reading "I bring home the dough" and the smallest one reading "I EAT the cookies!" Those memories also involve the fact that my mom's chocolate chip cookies were the absolute best in the world.

Then came eighth grade, when I baked some chocolate chip cookies for my uncle. Weeks later, my mom went to my aunt and uncle's house and was surprised to find the cookies not only still in existence--they never last more than a few days in our house--but still perfectly delicious when dunked in a little coffee. She decided I had surpassed her cookie-baking skill, and who was I to argue? From then on, when cookies needed to be baked, it fell to me to bake them.

Fast-forward to the end of this past semester of college, when I started baking cookies to bring home every time I came home from school. I bought a lovely cookie jar just for the cause, and my cookies became an expected, much-appreciated treat, and of course I gave a repeat performance in honor of my big sister coming in from California and my future-brother-in-law coming in from Pennsylvania. (They came in at the same time. This was only one round of cookie-baking.)

Well, last week, Daddy had a little accident on the motorcycle (and by "a little accident," I mean "half a second away from catastrophic," but that's for another post) and fractured his left shoulder blade. Now he can't work, he's in a lot of pain, and he's crawling the walls with boredom. The obvious solution? Bake cookies, of course.

The magic started just as I was adding the flour. Mom came downstairs, gasped, and grinned to see what I was doing. Then, of course, she picked out a little finger-full of dough to eat.

Moments later, the chocolate chips were in, and suddenly the beater and spatula were no longer needed. "Dad, which one do you wanna lick?" He chose neither, thinking I would still need the spatula, and he grabbed a spoon. Mom picked out some more dough with the knife I'd used to level off flour and sugar. I got to lick the beater. And Dad grabbed another spoon. "Don't even bother cooking it. We'll just eat it like it is," Mom teased.

But mere moments after I took the first batch out of the oven, Dad was off the couch.

"Oh, you've got some done already?"

"Yup. Fresh out of the oven."

"That's when they're best. When they're nice and mushy..." He picked up a cookie and took a nice, chocolatey bite. "Mmm... MMM..." I didn't have to see his face to know how much he was enjoying that cookie.

So once I had the next batch in the oven, I took one of the fresh cookies upstairs to where Mom was doing some ironing. "I brought you a present," I said. The look on her face alone was priceless, but I watched her eat the cookie, every "Mmm..." almost exactly the same as Dad's. (They've been married almost 33 years, so yeah, they've grown a little similar.)

A few minutes later, I finally had a fresh-out-of-the-oven cookie. And you know what? As wonderful as that cookie was, I enjoyed seeing my parents enjoy their cookies more than I enjoyed my own cookie. And just now, when my brother-in-law walked in the door and I greeted him with the announcement that there were fresh cookies, he absolutely lit up, which made me light up.

My Children's Literature professor pointed out several examples in children's books where food = love. I know that will all the eating disorders and obesity problems in the country, that's a dangerous equation. But the difference these cookies made today? If writing doesn't work out, I might consider opening a bakery. When simple sweets light up a person's face... Well, there's something to be said for giving someone a bite of happiness, isn't there?

The Stuff of Memories

Sometimes childhood memories aren't actually from childhood.

I've always loved fireworks, but I don't think I realized how much I loved them until I went three years without them. You see, in the summer of 2004, I was on a youth group trip up in Washington. I believe we were on Mount Rainier on the Fourth, and we didn't really acknowledge Independence Day very much at all. Then in 2005 I was home, but the fireworks were rained out. In 2006, I was in Israel, so we spent our 4th of July swimming in the Dead Sea instead of seeing a parade and dancing on a boat instead of watching fireworks. So when I was home again in 2007, I was ridiculously excited for the fireworks... and then they were so low, we could barely see them. Huge disappointment, but then I had a great view of fireworks multiple times a year from my dorm room window for the next two school years.

But enough on that tangent. This weekend has been a family reunion on my dad's side of the family, which means that even though some people had already left town and some people stayed back at my aunt's house, our walk to the fireworks was a parade of 23 people. It's a 1.25 mile walk that seemed like an impossible feat when I was little.

Usually, it's cool enough by nighttime that we need to change into jeans and long sleeves before the fireworks. We also have to coat ourselves with bug spray. This year, out of habit, we did the same. Well--most of us kept the short sleeves, because it was still pretty warm. It turns out the jeans were a bad idea. Between heat and humidity, we weren't exactly chilled on the way to or from the fireworks. "Melting" is more the word I would use.

The walk that was so impossible when I was five is a piece of cake at 21. We've gotten used to keeping a pretty good pace on the way to fireworks, but with all the out-of-towners in town this year, we suddenly had three-year-old legs at the back of the line. At first, the front group (because 23 people will always turn into three or four groups on a long walk) kept slowing down and stopping to make sure the back group would be able to find the way, but eventually we just made sure they had someone with them who know how to get there.

It's funny how I have more memories about the walks to and from the fireworks than I do about the fireworks. Fireworks really don't look much different from year to year, and conversations don't usually extend too far beyond "Ooh" and "Ahh." But some of my best cousin-bonding-time has been on those walks. From this year, I'll remember that on the way there, my sister's fiancé got the whole front group singing a few lines of "Living on a Prayer," which sounded way better than "Happy Birthday" earlier in the evening, and that he improvised a song about my oldest sister; and I'll remember that on the way back, my brother-in-law (and later my sister) attacked me with a nice warm blanket.

And this year, I'll remember the fireworks, too.

I watched as we spread out half a dozen blankets that somehow still weren't quite enough for all of us and my cousins' kids bought the glow-sticks we've long outgrown--which, by the way, have gotten way cooler. I stretched out next to my cousin, and the fireworks appeared off to the side instead of straight ahead, much closer than I ever remember them being. When they got high enough, it looked like the sparks were coming down right on top of us. I could feel some of those big booms in my entire chest.

And then we realized that these tiny bugs on us were actually ashes. Yeah... We've never been that close before.

I asked my cousin if she remembered when we had names for all the different kinds of fireworks. She did, and even remembered a bunch of the names. I'd only remembered one name, and while she struggled to think of what she was missing, she said, "Geez, ask me to remember five years back, why don'tcha."

Five years? Was that right? That had been the summer before seventh grade, and here I am about to start my fourth year of college... "That was almost ten years ago." We marveled at the passage of time, felt old, acknowledged that we're not really old, and decided to feel young instead.

Those fireworks left me with a great big grin, as they often do. And as we all lay there being amazed at those explosions in the sky, I thought about how perfect it was to have so much of our huge family from all over the country right here in one place. It was good, and the kind of simplicity that I think adulthood tends to forget about.

So while I'm not a child anymore, I count last night as a very sweet childhood memory.

How long has it been this time?

I'm really no good at this "blogging" thing.

It's not like I haven't done anything in the past week. I've had two articles over on the Mindset, I babysat, I've been on some nice long motorcycle rides with my parents (as a passenger--I don't have my license), my dog had a seizure, the first few family members are trickling into town for a reunion... Yeah, there's been plenty I could have blogged about. It just sort of hasn't happened.

I'd say it comes down to this: If you want something to get done, give it to a busy person to do. I am not even remotely busy, so nothing is getting done. My three loads of laundry took all day yesterday to do. I really need to go pick up my contacts from the eye doctor, but, well... that hasn't happened.

I suppose I could crotchet, but I could also put that off for when I can't sleep or I'm visiting my grandmothers. I've been working on the same blanket for a year and a half now, and it's still not done. In fairness, it's almost done, and it's big enough for a twin-sized bed. (Pity I don't have a twin-sized bed.) For a while now, I've been working on it every time I go to see Grandma, which is every Saturday night when I'm home. (Yes, I'm a college student with such a non-existent social life that I spend my Saturday nights with my grandmother. But I like visiting Grandma on Saturday nights.) When I'm off at school, she apparently asks my parents how I'm doing on my blanket. I think she cares about it more than I do, and I would give it to her without a second thought as soon as I finished it if only the heat in my apartment at school hadn't earned itself a reputation for malfunctioning. Maybe I'll give it to her after I graduate.

We no longer have any Project Linus blankets in the house that I could work on, which is actually good, because in a couple of days my sister will be in town from California, which means we'll have more people than beds in a house where space is already at a premium. It's funny--the house was just the right size when my sisters and I grew up, but then they moved out and my parents spread out a little, and then the oldest and her husband had to move back in, and all of a sudden we're out of bedrooms.

So all that's really left for me to do during the day is write and exercise. But I don't feel like exercising until after I'm put together for the day, and getting put together for the day includes showering, and it just seems silly to shower and then exercise, so that almost never happens.

And that leaves writing. There, at least, I've been making some progress. Not nearly as much as I could, mind you, but it's something.

Counting Blessings

According to the time, it's now tomorrow, but I haven't gone to bed yet, so...

My friend signed in tonight/last night/this morning (?) having just returned from seeing Toy Story 3, which we've been ogling and drooling over and anxiously awaiting for months now. What should have been a rave fest of how incredible the movie is quickly turned into me throwing myself a pity party. I have no money and no job, and don't dare ask my parents for ANYTHING because I know they will answer with a question about my job search, so the chances of me seeing this incredible movie I've been looking forward to all school year are pretty much non-existent... Oh, and it might be more than a small challenge for me to be able to feed myself this coming school year. I know my parents won't let me starve, but I'm sure they'd rather not have to help me, and I'd certainly rather not need their help.

So I could very easily wallow in my misery... Or, I could watch some Muppets, eat some comfort food, and count my blessings so that I'm at least in a good enough mood to potentially sleep tonight.

Today has been a good day. I took the dog for a nice, long walk--granted, a very HOT walk, but a nice long one. I exchanged the yarn Mom didn't want for the yarn she did want, which I wasn't expecting the store to have in stock, since they didn't have it when I went two days ago.

I've finished two blankets for Project Linus, both made from fleece from donated blankets that were too poorly-made to be given to kids as they were. I've never done that before. It felt good to finally feel like I did something for this organization I've helped in smaller ways before, to give something comforting to a child somewhere who needs it, and to take some good intentions that didn't quite work out and turn them into something successful. I've always wanted to actually make a blanket for Project Linus, and I guess now I finally have.

I even got to flex my writing muscles today, not just with the earlier blog post but by helping my mom with her annual "beg letter" for the Ride for Kids fundraiser for the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation. She had one letter written, but wasn't satisfied with it because it didn't tug at the heartstrings. She was all set to start from scratch, but it just so happens that I specialize in tugging heartstrings, so I stepped up to the computer and edited the heart-wrench in. I usually feel evil (and enjoy feeling evil) for making my readers cry, but this was for a good cause.

I don't think I've quite absorbed that my writing can work towards a greater good, that I could potentially inspire people to get out there and start doing little things to change the world. It won't be one big thing to change the world, you know. It will be millions and millions of tiny things that you wouldn't think count, like smiling and holding doors and picking up litter. A lot of major religions are waiting and praying for the Messiah, for one person to come and set everything right, but one incredible person can't do any good at all if the world isn't full of millions of alright people.

One of the most-quoted Jim Henson quotations is probably this: "When I was young, my ambition was to be one of the people who made a difference in this world. My hope still is to leave the world a little bit better for my having been here. It's a wonderful life and I love it."

I've always liked that. From the first time I read it, I've had that same hope--to leave the world a little bit better for my having been here. And I guess the things I did today--the letter-writing and blanket-making--I guess they sort of help with that, don't they?

That isn't so bad. No, that's not a bad thing at all.

Thunderstorm

Hello again, Imaginary Reader. Yes, it's been a little while. I've started to post a couple of times now, but I keep losing interest because I can't decide what to post about.

But right now, we're in the middle of a thunderstorm. I love thunderstorms. I think I always have. I don't ever recall being afraid of the thunder or lightning, and to be honest, I have trouble understanding why anyone would be (with the exception of animals, especially small ones, like my dog who's afraid of air vents). Unless you're dumb enough to go dance around in with a metal pole in the middle of an empty field, you really don't have anything to worry about your personal safety. Just stay inside or in your car, and you'll be fine.

I can understand being worried for your stuff in a thunderstorm. We've all unplugged our computers (yay laptop battery!), and Dad even unplugged our pretty entertainment system. And yes, thunderstorms can damage stuff. I've seen our yard sprinkled with shingles that have blown off our roof--although not in a while, because we got a better roof. Sure, if you've got rotten luck, a tree can fall on your house or car and cause all sorts of expensive problems. But in the twenty-one years that I've been alive, the worst we've had happen is that our back-up sump pump exploded, which had absolutely no negative affects until our main sump pump broke about ten years later, but that's our own fault for not getting the back-up replaced.

So when I started hearing the rumble of thunder, it was soothing, and when my bedroom lights flickered, it made me grin.

There's power in thunderstorms--a reminder to respect Mother Nature. To me, the energy of a thunderstorm is contagious. Lightning shows, when you've got a good seat to see them, are incredible and gorgeous. Dad and I love to watch them. He still talks about "that one time" years ago when we drove to a field a few blocks away and got some great video of lightning from some storms on the other side of the state border. I have fond memories of a family dinner at T.G.I. Friday's by the windows, oohing and ahh-ing with that whole side of the restaurant as we watched the lightning. And then, my first year of college, we had three nights in a row of thunder-snow in February, and I had a great view from my dorm room.

There's not much lightning right now. The thunder is quieter, and the wind has calmed down. The lights haven't flickered in a while. But you know what? I hope the storm picks up again.

Where I'm sitting, I can see a tree that's all wet on one side and dry as bone on the other. Ain't Mother Nature neat?

My New Series on Mindset

Good news, Imaginary Reader! I have conquered The British Correspondent (again) and returned The Muppet Mindset to the rightful hands of--well, me, for now. Ryan should be back tomorrow.

Until then, I the Intern have started a new series for The Mindset: The Epic CD-ROM Family Adventure. I'll be leading the Mindset readers on a guided tour of the Muppet Treasure Island computer game.

It was originally going to be one article of me reminiscing about the game, but then I installed it on my mom's computer and once again have full access to all its glory. Since so few Muppet fans have access to that glory (or even know about it), I feel it is my privilege and duty to share it with them. Really, the game is fantastically Muppety. It would be a shame for the fans to have no idea how great it is. And let's face it--there is just too much greatness for it to fit in one little post.

With the post I have, I haven't even gotten into game play yet. The Game is so packed with Muppety goodness that I couldn't get that far. In fact, when I start the next post, I still won't be at the point of game play. I will finally be at the start of the story, though. All I've gotten through at this point is what I'm calling the First Room. That's where you meet Stevenson the Parrot and figure out how you're going to start playing. You can start a new game, load a saved game, or just automatically start playing from Bristol, the Hispaniola, or Treasure Island. (You can start playing from the Benbow Inn, too, but that's the same as starting a new game, so I'm not sure I get the point of that, but it keeps everything symmetrical.)

Anyway, I'll let you know when I post each part of the series so you can follow along, Imaginary Reader. It should be good.

General Update

Progress on the job front can be so slow. I promised my mom that my cover letter would be done by the time she ate breakfast today so that she could mail my résumé on her way to work. Now, I was under the impression that she would wake me up (as she often does) before she ate breakfast and say, "Alright, where is it?" To which I would have answered, "It's waiting to print." But of course, she didn't wake me up, and in hindsight I had no reason to expect her to. So instead, I woke up in the afternoon, at which point Mom was long gone. So it was a good plan, but it didn't quite work out. I guess I'll be mailing it tomorrow.

In the meantime, The British Correspondent (who was expelled from The Muppet Mindset after Ryan's last vacation) seems to have hacked in again, and with Ryan off gallivanting in LA, it's up to me to stop him. Apparently, TBC seems to think that hacking in and taking over will help him win favor and earn his place back on the staff. Seems like a long shot to me, but if he wasn't crazy, he wouldn't have been hired in the first place.

In other news, it's been raining pretty much since I got up today, so there goes my plan of taking the dog for a walk. Instead, I wrote and posted some more fanfiction over on Muppet Central. A real tear-jerker of a chapter. I'm quite proud of it. I like to drag my readers through the dirt before I bring them to a happy ending. Unfortunately, when writing for nothing more than my own enjoyment, I almost never get around to that happy ending.

So, that's where I've been. Nothing hugely exciting, I suppose... This weather doesn't do much for inspiring excitement.

With Web Design and Typing Classes for All

I've spent the past few hours clicking "Next Blog" at the top of every page Blogger presents me. I don't know what exactly compelled me to start clicking, but like many things that involve clicking and the internet, it turned out to be mildly addicting.

It's kind of interesting to see what else is out there in the world of blogging. At times, it's also mildly horrifying. Having done some blog-stumbling, I feel like there should be some basic rules to which all bloggers subscribe.

First of all, a blog should be legible. I realize most blogs probably don't have very many readers, but you'll never get any readers if your blog is difficult to impossible to read. Yes, I know, it's incredibly fun to play with crazy backgrounds that make your blog unique and cool-looking, but please adjust your font size and color accordingly. Or, better yet, keep the crazy designs somewhat subdued when they'll be behind text.

Actually, generally speaking, just keep the crazy designs in check. I know they look cool. I'm glad you're creative. But aren't the blog posts supposed to be the focus of a blog? I mean, I could be wrong. I'm new to this game. But it seems to me that blog posts are a lot easier to read when the border doesn't take up two-thirds of the post.

Please don't think I'm being snooty because I took one little web design class this semester and I think I know everything. Far from it. I have plenty to learn about web design. I just think some things should be common sense.

Another rule--and really, this is just general web use, and really general writing--bloggers (and anyone else who writes or types anything that someone else will see) should proof-read. It doesn't take very long, and it saves you from countless stupid mistakes like leaving out words, adding random letters, skipping complete sentences, using double-negatives... You get the idea.

Along the lines of proof-reading--well, this one probably IS a case of me being snooty, but I honestly don't understand why some people can't seem to find the "Shift" key on their keyboards. Really? It's on there twice. It is just as easy to use as every other key. Yes, you have to push the "Shift" key at the same time as whatever letter you want capitalized, but even if you use the hunt-and-peck method of typing, that's not terribly hard to do (unless you only have one hand, but even then, you can usually stretch to at least one of the "Shift" keys).

Capitalization is just such a simple little thing that makes it so much easier for your readers. I don't understand why people by-pass it. If you know how to type--I mean really know how to type, and don't even look at the keyboard--then that "Shift" key just comes naturally. I have a hard time typing without capitalization.

In fairness, most of my family considers me some sort of freak of nature in terms of my speed of typing, and I tend to transcribe conversations in the room into Instant Messenger conversations, so maybe my personal experience isn't a fair measuring stick. But even when I'm typing with just one hand (which I often do for no particular reason), I use my "Shift" key.

I wasn't nearly so fast at typing before I took a typing class in summer school. "Mario Teaches Typing" just didn't do much for me in grade school. But now, these little fingers just don't understand why people choose to ignore keys that are specifically placed to be within easy reach.

I could continue my rant and wonder why so many people on the internet don't feel like they need full words, but I'll save that snobbery for another day. My real point at the moment is that the world of blogging could be much nicer if all bloggers studied a little web design and a little typing.

Résumé Blues

A few nights ago, my parents went out to dinner with a family friend, and I'm guessing they mentioned my thus-far fruitless job search. So a couple nights ago, he called them to say that one of his friends was looking for college kids to do some "college grunt work" for the summer, and that applying for this mysterious "college grunt work" would require submitting a résumé via snail-mail.

Regardless of the fact that I have no idea what "college grunt work" entails, this all adds up to me spending today putting together my résumé and sincerely wishing I'd bothered to go to one of those seminars advertised at school this year on résumés and CVs. (I have no idea what the difference is between the two, if there is one at all. Most of the flyers I saw pertained to CVs.)

This is what I thought I knew about résumés before today: résumés should have your previous work experience, do not need references, should NEVER have typos, and should be one page in length.

Enter advice and examples from Mom and Big Sister, stage left. Big Sister took advantage of those résumé seminar things in college, so she's our in-house expert. Her résumé is--*gasp*--two pages! Oh, the HORROR!

So I use these convenient family examples as a starting point, I dig up the sorry excuse of a résumé I made for a sorry excuse of a class at the beginning of Freshman year, and I start listing my job experience. I slip in a mention of the fact that I'm in the Honors Program. I even list how ridiculously active I am in Hillel. Then I go so far as to get fancy by using a sans-serif font for headings and for my name, because sans-serif fonts take longer to read and therefore draw more attention. (That's a handy little tidbit you can pick up in a college education.)

Tragically, this beautiful list of mine is more than a page. It's not quite two pages; it's not even a page and a half. No, it's just long enough that no amount of finessing will bring it down to one page. And what's worse--the page break is smack dab in the middle of all my lovely Hillel experience.

Thinking I have the perfect solution, I divide the résumé into two columns. On the left, I have my work experience, and on the right, I list my education and extracurricular activities. (Sorry, little blog, you didn't make the list. You're just a baby. You're not much to brag about yet.) Of course, it takes a good five minutes of wrestling with the computer's auto-formatting to make it line up all nice and pretty, but I finally get a one-page résumé that looks good to me.

Again... Enter Big Sister, stage left. "Don't make it two columns," she says. Then she tells me to proof-read a dozen times, then have someone else proof-read it, and then proof-read it again. Then she goes to bed. (Note: By this point, it's the middle of the day, but Big Sister works nights, so it's well past bedtime for her.)

Well, grand. I undo all that wrestling and go back to one column. Now I just need to figure out how the heck to either get this all on one page, or just give it a less awkward page break. Using a smaller font size doesn't make enough of a difference. Eliminating the double-spaces between sections just makes it look crowded, and doesn't make enough of a difference anyway. No matter what I do, there's an annoying page break right in the middle of my Hillel experience.

Eventually, Mom presented the answer (as she quite often does). She pointed out that the friend of a friend who will be reading this résumé is probably about the same age as my parents, that being the age of reading glasses, and that the friend of a friend therefore probably won't mind if the font is bigger. Add a little white space, and my two-page résumé doesn't look half-bad.

Sometimes, things are just more complicated than they should be.

Memorial Day

I was going to wish you a happy Memorial Day this morning, Imaginary Reader, but I realized that I have no idea where you live and therefore don't know whether or not you would celebrate it. I would ask where you live, but you don't have any way to answer, do you? Unless of course you post an Imaginary Comment...

Of course, now that it's after midnight, I suppose it isn't Memorial Day anymore, which makes the title and point of this post rather odd.

At any rate, Imaginary Reader, I'm mostly posting to assure you that I am not abandoning My Three Minds. In fact, if you look, you'll see that I've added a page for my "portfolio," which at the moment consists of one image and a brief blurb about an unfinished children's book, even though most of my writing really isn't at all suited for children.

That's really all I have to say at the moment, but I've been brainstorming some post ideas, so this should get more interesting before too terribly long.

Well, That Felt Pointless

I was actually somewhat productive today. I cleaned the bathroom, washed my car, checked in at the bookstore where I used to work, and picked up some things at Wal-Mart.

And I have decided that being productive can also be a complete waste of time.

Cleaning the bathroom wasn't so bad. Yes, it took me three times as long as it would take most people, but I'm used to that. The point is that the faucet is shiny again. Give it twenty-four to forty-eight hours, and it probably won't be, but right now it is.

Washing my car was another matter. You see, my car was FILTHY. At home and at school, my car is usually parked under a tree. For those of you who don't know, trees are terrible for a car's cleanliness. They drop leaves, seeds, and--worst of all--sap. They're also a favorite hang-out for birds, and birds poop. Then there's the fact that driving a car usually involves hitting bugs. Now add in the fact Daddy has always taught me not to go to car washes because they scratch cars (not that I have much spare money to go to a car wash) and it all adds up to one very dirty car that hasn't seen a hose since sometime Fall semester (at my best estimation). So after I spent who-knows-how-long washing my car, it's still dirty. Much cleaner than it was, but still dirty. And now my face is sunburned and I have a sixth bug bite on my back.

When I poked my head in at the cute little bookstore I used to work at, I had a lovely chat with a former co-worker. As far as I've ever known, she's a wonderful employee--trustworthy, prompt, and good with customers, not to mention that she usually knew the store's inventory better than the computer did. The store is now under new ownership and no longer has a computer to look up books, so you would think that skill of hers would be particularly handy to have around.

But she works one day a week. Business stinks. So chances are slim to none that they'll be able to hire me for the summer.

So the only really successful thing I did today that will have any lasting effects is that trip to Wal-Mart. I bought a garbage can. Woo-hoo. Then I came home and parked my car under a tree again.

So tell me... What exactly was the benefit of getting up at a relatively reasonable hour and being productive? As far as I can tell, I just sped up the process of running out of things to put off. When that happens, boredom will reach all new heights.

Muppets Cover "American Woman" ...Sort of.

Let me just say that I have been waiting for this video for months.

Is it shorter than I might've hoped for? Yes.

Would I have loved for Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem to take over after Sam gave up? Totally.

Am I going to watch it ten times a day for at least a week anyway?

Heck. Yeah.

Meet Blog

Imaginary Reader, there's someone I'd like to introduce you to. See this lovely picture to the right? This is Blog. As you can see, Blog is a dragon. Now, I'm sure you're wondering... Why?

It's a long story. If you want the whole story, you've got a lot of reading ahead of you. It all started here, on Muppet Central Forum in 2005. Somehow, the crazies over there decided they should pretend to be in a movie, making up the plot as they went. Crazy times. Loads of fun. Really hard to follow.

The premise of the movie was that some evil guy was taking over Muppet Central, and the members of the forum were all sucked through our computer screens into cyberspace. I was a newbie back then, so as I meekly made my way into the plot, my plan was to keep to myself just in case I wasn't accepted. When I was sucked through my computer screen, I was immediately deposited in a jail cell. The bad guy was on the other side of the bars taunting me and torturing all my friends, and my cell mate was a dragon.

Spoiler alert! According to the bad guy, if I didn't behave myself (by the bad guy's standards), my dragon cell mate would eat me. However, my dragon cell mate turned out to be a friendly dragon named Blog. Eventually, Blog helped me escape and chased the bad guy away.

I've never really completely forgotten about Blog, and now that I have a blog, I thought I should pay tribute to my first Blog. So now Blog's portrait is on my blog.

A Fresh Start

Hello again, Imaginary Reader. Yes, I know; it's been a long time.

The school year is officially over, and since I'm not enrolled in any summer school classes, I'm obviously not blogging for any grades right now.

I'm blogging for about the same reasons anyone else blogs. I feel like rambling out into cyberspace about my thoughts and emotions, and I don't mind getting some extra exposure. In fact, I'm hoping to get my name out there. It'll probably help with the whole job-search thing once I graduate.

So this is my fresh start. As you can see, Imaginary Reader, I've done some considerable redecorating around the blog. Most of my ramblings will have to do with, well, living life. For now, it'll be about job searching and the boredom of summer. If I get a job, the subject will obviously change. Likewise, once the school year starts up again, I'll be rambling about classes and schoolwork and professors.

At random points, I'll also be singing the praises of the Muppets, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, and other things that fall under the umbrella of my Muppet obsession. I might complain sometimes, too, but quite frankly, that's less likely.

So that's what I know of what my blog posts will be about. Beyond that, Imaginary Reader... Your guess is as good as mine.

Drug Ads

It never fails. Whenever I'm watching TV with my dad and a commercial comes on for an anti-depressant, it eventually gets to the list of side-effects, which usually includes something along the lines of increased risk of suicide, at which point my dad invariably says, "Why would anyone want to take that?"

Every single time, I bite my tongue, because I've taken a few classes in Psychology that have all said that anti-depressants are usually a last resort in the treatment of depression because of those side-effects.

In theory, if you're being treated for depression, you're seeing a psychiatrist who knows whether or not you need an anti-depressant, and will discuss those medication options with you, and will know which one will be the most likely to help you. So... why do these pills need commercials during the ten o'clock news?

The idea is that people will go into the doctor's office and say, "Hey, I saw this ad on TV, and y'know... it sounds like I could use it... What do you think?" And the doctor will say, "Well, what are your symptoms?" and from there will be smart enough to figure out if the person needs the drug or not. Clever little way for these drugs to boost their sales. And who knows? It could help someone realize they have something that can be treated, instead of suffering because they think it's "normal."

But the sad truth is that some doctors will just say, "Okay," and hand you a prescription just because you saw a clever little ad on TV. And some of these commercials don't even say what they're supposed to treat; they just show happy people walking through a field. Who doesn't want to happily walk through a field?

Once upon a time, there was some legislation that cartoon characters couldn't be used to advertise cigarettes, because they appealed too much to children, and cigarettes are harmful. Think about that, and then listen to that list of side-effects again and ask yourself why there's an anti-depressant advertising with a cartoony character who bears striking resemblance to a Shel Silverstein character. (I'm referring to Zoloft and to The Missing Piece, and I would gladly insert some pictures if Blogger would only cooperate and let me place them where I want to instead of assuming I want them at the top of the post.)

Of course, the chances that your doctor, pharmacist, and insurance company will all accept a minor being prescribed Zoloft without any amount of fuss are fairly slim. The same is probably true when a little girl sees an advertisement for birth control, featuring an animated ballerina made of flowers. But it still doesn't sit quite right with me.

Reading Response: "Practices of Looking" Chapter Nine

So this chapter was all about "scientific" images. I found it disturbing on all sorts of levels. Oh, where should I start? How about starting with this troubling and very prevalent idea of "normalcy."

"Normal" came up a lot in this chapter. There were photographs and MRIs to categorize "normal" people, as opposed to the diseased, criminal, and crazy. Now scientists are trying to sort out what is and is not "normal" with DNA. The book talked a lot about how this idea of "normal" has been (and will probably continue to be) used to rationalize prejudice and discrimination--a fancy "scientific" way of white Europeans shouting "I'm better than you are" at the rest of the world.

I think the problem with "normal" goes beyond discrimination--though goodness knows that's a big enough problem on its own.

I don't think I've ever claimed to be normal. For years now, I've proudly proclaimed that I'm crazy and celebrated my abnormality. Because of that, once in a while someone scolds me for having such a "low" opinion of myself. But most of the time, I take "crazy" as a compliment. Why?

Because there is no such thing as NORMAL! It doesn't exist! It can't exist. There's no "normal" and "abnormal." There's just difference! The whole world is overflowing with this great big beautiful rainbow of difference, and we keep blinding ourselves to it because we all just want to be this ambiguous, imaginary thing called "normal," and we can't! "Normal" is just another way of trying to get everyone to be the same. Difference is good! "Abnormality" can be a wonderful thing. Think about the great figures in history, the real difference-makers, the inspirational leaders, the role models you look up to, and ask yourself if you would ever call them "normal." Do you think Abraham Lincoln was normal? How about Albert Einstein or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr? Leonardo da Vinci? Pablo Picasso? Heck no they weren't normal!

Yet "normal," which occasionally takes the pseudonym "average," is up on this pedestal that we're all supposed to aspire to. We're supposed to be normal, and if we're not normal, we're weird, and then we're outcasts. So I try to celebrate how "crazy" I am, and then I turn around and find myself taking three prescription drugs in attempt to live a "normal" life. In fairness, there really isn't anything wrong with wanting a little help if you go weeks at a time without being able to sleep more than a few hours a night, and if you're in so much pain once a month that you can barely crawl off the floor. But when it's so ingrained in culture that you're supposed to be "normal," the fact that you are so extremely not "normal" can be devastating when you're supposed to be in the prime of your life and the doctor hands you that third prescription.

I apologize, Imaginary Reader. This has turned into more of a personal rant than a discussion of the chapter, but it is my genuine reaction. I'll discuss more of the intellectual stuff in other posts.