Lisa on the News!

Check it out. Lisa was on the news. I just wish they had gotten a shot of her eating fried chicken!

Great Story

ESPN featured this incredible story on Sports Center (and the coach from De Kalb was a former Sports Camp camper/staffer). Check it out. It'll warm your heart.

New Blog!

My last semester of college includes a capstone (or final) journalism course. Mine happens to be the class that I came to Mizzou for: Advanced Magazine Design. For this class we are required to keep a design-focused blog, so I will be posting (quite often as is required) on that blog for the rest of the semester.

Design novices: please don't shy away! There should be some interesting posts that are relevant to all readers, including examples of my published work from the semester.

So, check it out: White Space

Happy New Year

Well, it's finally here: the last year my parents will have to pay college tuition (otherwise known as the year I graduate from college). I literally never thought the day would come.

In more exciting news, my friend Nate is headed to India today for a "away rotation" in his last semester of medical school. Read more at his blog: The Rickshaw Express

White Christmas

Anyone who tells you that it snows in Missouri is lying.

Sure, it snows, but it's not real snow. The tiny wet flakes pierce your skin as they fall to the ground and dust the grass with a spilled salt look.

I have heard that it has been snowing a lot back home but I hope the Chicago skies save some of its large, fluffy flakes for me. I'll be home again in 12 days and the storyteller in me always hopes for a white Christmas.

I will never drink red again

So, I am back in CoMo. Back to my apartment, back to a queen sized bed (as opposed to the twin sized cocoon I sleep in in Western Springs) and back to college debauchery. When Laura and I returned to our William street home yesterday we were welcomed by a large splattering of fruit punch-colored vomit covering the sidewalk that we are forced to use to enter our house. How do we know it's vomit and not just fruit punch, well it ain't smooth.

To make matters worse, this morning I left my house, forgetting about the barf, and walked right onto it/slid over the frozen mess. In the real world will there be no barf to avoid when you want to come in and out of your house?

Hi Aunt Kim

So, my aunt may be the only person still reading my blog, nonetheless, Aunt Kim you deserve something to read. And because I had the probably the lamest day on planet earth, here is something I wrote a while back for my Intermediate Writing class about my voting experience. I thought this would make for more interesting reading:

Fallen leaves crunched under my flip-flops as I walked the four blocks to my polling place. It was November 4th, Election Day, but it sure didn't feel like it.

I gently shuffled through the piles of leaves blanketing the sidewalk. Looking down at my feet, as I usually do when I walk, I noticed that the leaves on the ground were intact. Usually at this time of the year, sidewalks and streets are covered with the remains of beautiful foliage that has been pounded into a brown dust. But no dust here, in fact some of the trees in Missouri have yet to even change color.

I think the temperature reached 75 degrees that fall day, but for my Chicago blood it might as well have been 105. Having taken only a few steps out the door, I regretted not grabbing my sunglasses. The sun was still bright at 3:00 p.m. At least I had swapped my jeans for shorts.
This unseasonably warm Election Day would eventually make the history books for more than one reason, but for me there was one historic first that super seeded all the rest: this was my first time voting in a presidential election.

Although I was registered to vote at home in Chicago’s Cook County, I filed a change of address form and became a registered voter in the state of Missouri. My vote mattered more here anyway. So, I was to vote at a local Lutheran church a few blocks away from my East Campus apartment. Convenient, especially since my friend Lisa was voting there also.

"I guess we picked the hilliest route," I said to Lisa as we trudged up Anthony Street. "You think?" she seemed to say with the raise of her eyebrows. There was no time for a verbal response in between her deep breaths. As the sidewalk narrowed from college students' unkempt lawns and overgrown bushes, I mechanically got behind her. At that moment, I realized I was glad I wasn’t alone. My overly sensitive self had secretly wanted someone to share the experience with.

At this point in our walk, my anticipation was palpable. As we drudged steadily up the hill, I felt like I was on a roller coaster climbing to its peak. I am typically a very anxious person; even the thought of a situation I am unfamiliar with will make me sick to my stomach. I think of it as a vastly magnified fear of the unknown and in the weeks preceding the election I had dreams, or rather nightmares, about voting. In one I got to a polling place and was handed a blank ballot, and no one would acknowledge that there was anything wrong with it. In another, people kept stopping me to talk and eventually my time ran out and the polling place closed- without my vote.

I’ll be the first to admit that this fear about voting is somewhat unjustified. After all, I went to public schools that served as polling places in my hometown, so I knew what they looked like. I knew they were extremely informal and actually really anticlimactic. However, when I thought about people voting in the hallways of my school what really stuck out was being told repeatedly to be quiet and not disturb the adults. Now, I would be that adult hoping for others' silence so I could make conscious and thoughtful decisions.

In reality, I didn't need silence to cast my ballot. My mind was made up months, probably even years ago.

As we approached the doorway to the church, Lisa paused for a moment. She looked at me and said, “I’m the one who’s with you your first time voting.” Yes, I nodded. “And you are always going to remember this moment.” I nodded again. And she’s right. I think this experience can definitely be classified as one of those rights of passage that will never really escape my memory.

When we walked inside, there was no line. I had heard of longer lines at Starbucks with people waiting for their free coffee. Nonetheless, I showed them my id and was given a ballot and a short explanation as to what to do. I couldn’t tell if my voting location just happened to be particularly efficient or if I had just come at a slow time, but there was nothing to be anxious about, or even really excited.

Instead, I did my patriotic duty, got a much sought after “I voted” sticker and walked out proud to be an American, just as the song suggests.