Volunteer, Advocate, Trekker.

Woah, BUSY night at work! (Which means I haven't been able to get much else done.) The residence hall I'm working at has had quite a night, I can't get too detailed because I take confidentiality pretty seriously, but I think it's safe to share that two of our residents went to the hospital (give or take), both from the second floor. Then a shower on the second floor started flooding, and two residents had to be temporarily relocated. Whaaaaaat is going on on the second floor? The RA's nicknamed the whole night's crisis: "The head, the finger and the flood." But after that, I took care of some emails about the Garfield House for mom, and looked over an essay for Sarah, and did some Circle K work. Now I hope to get to catch up on some of the MOUNTAINS of homework due in April x_X Website of the Day: Not so much a website, but a Twitter account. So a very poisonous snake is missing from/inside the Reptile House of the Bronx Zoo - and this somehow...

Oh, mother... a constant source of frustration and unequivocal support and faith at the same time. For weeks, I've been saying I'd take her to buy a new jacket - because the one she got was a hand-me-down from a family friend, and it just looks ridiculous to me -- it looks like it's got a little skirt attached to it :-( One of the many areas I wish I could improve mom - is fashion. She wears the strangest clothes. Oh if I could get her to watch and learn from "What Not to Wear"... a show she would fit right into! She has no problem with wearing clothes that look dirty, stained, grungy, or really old (some shirts she admits having since I was born.) For as long as I can remember, she almost never buys clothes. She takes David and my hand-me-downs (mainly shirts and belts), or random packages from distant relatives. But for the past few years, when I get the time and hit the frustration level - I take her out shopping, give her my critical opinions, and she usual...

Omg Blog, I miss you! It's been too long - but it's been a busy, busy spring break. First of all, as of the Sunday before last - I am the Circle K district Governor-elect (starting April 1.) Which means Circle K has become my priority for the next year+! And priority it has been. I've already traveled to Columbus and Marietta, and have plans to visit Baldwin Wallace , Cincinnati , and Dayton in the next two weeks. And I've been in contact with a bunch of the Presidents, trying to fill our board. But I'm going to try to keep Circle K off this blog as that enters a politically-gray area. Rather, lets talk about the other awesome things that I encounter in life! Like how wonderful the weather has been these past few weeks! I don't know if I've ever mentioned, but mom bought me a mountain bike among other things for Christmas this past year. I put it together for the most part on Christmas, but had some trouble with the break lines and tires. Well yesterday ...

In student government, I have been called on occasion "Captain Planet." It's true, I love green things, and want the world to be as environmentally friendly as possible (though when I originally tried to join ASG, that wasn't particularly on my mind.) None the less, is this cool or is this cool! A solar-powered wireless keyboard ! It runs off of both solar and ambient lightbulb light! Fully charged, it can operate in complete darkness for 3 months! Less than a third of an inch thick, it doesn't even include paper instructions to be greener. (Not that I'd use them anyway.) At a wince-inducing cost of $79.99, it's not exactly the kind of fun extra spending I can do right now, but something to keep in mind next birthday/Christmas/lottery winning. Song of the Day: "Him" by Lily Allen . So a few weeks ago Sarah mentioned I didn't have any Lily Allen on my iPod, so I remedied that situation and gotta say - she has alot more good songs than ...

Kudos to you, Pop music industry, for recognizing that the 2010 surge in Gay Teen Suicide was a serious issue to be addressed. As a bleeding-heart liberal, I am all for the promotion of gay rights as human rights and human equality everywhere, and no one should feel society hates them for who they are or who they love! But the actual subject of this blog is how pop music has been addressing this in recent months... Lady Gaga has set the standard for embracing her LGBT following: this has included fighting for marriage and military equality, doing all kinds of things to fight "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." But her recent song and video - Born This Way - is the highlight. I mean, the video opens with sparkly rainbow Unicorns inside of a pink triangle : a combination of a bunch of LGBT insignia. The Message of "Born This Way" is be proud of who you are, and if you face opposition it's because you were 'born to be brave!' And everyone is beautifu...

Wow! So I've been having an awesome couple of days/weeks recently! It's really frightening how good it's been, like, I'm worried it can really only go down from here. I got contacts! And I'm getting the hang of them pretty darn quickly. It took like an hour and a half of training at the place to learn to put them in and take them out. Then the first day it took like an hour and a half to get them out, I felt kinda dumb. But today I was able to put them in in like 6 minutes which by far is a record for me and we'll see how quickly I manage to take them out tonight. I have two types of cleaning solutions I'm supposed to use, and one of them is much stronger, must be in for 6 full hours at a time, and some kind of carbon gear does some kind of chemistrial magic that makes it not sting me! it's really quite fascinating. I got a new phone! FINALLY, after two long years with that awful Blackberry Storm -- now I've got the Droid X and it is wonderful! ...

So if you are ever at a loss for what to get me as a gift, and you happen to be in the checkout line of a Borders, know this: I LOVE old-looking blank journals! Specifically, the ones that don't have lines; As I told Patsy's the other day, they just serve as prison bars to my thoughts. Well Sarah got me for Valentine's Day a blank antique-looking leather journal and it's awesome! What to write in it!?... I think blank, old-looking journals are the coolest. I always imagine the movies or TV shows where the main character has to follow their great-grandfather's diary, or the maps hand drawn by some archeologist, or something cool like that! I've always wanted to find something like that in an attic or something. And if I can't find something like that in an attic for myself, by golly I'm going to leave something cool like that in an attic for my kids to find and have the fun I never had. Like in "Indiana and the Last Crusade" (by far the be...