Volunteer, Advocate, Trekker.

So the only TV show that I go all out to find a way to watch these days is Once Upon a Time . ( The Daily Show with Jon Stewart , and The Colbert Report would probably come in second, and I really don't go out of my way to watch these at all.) Instead, rather than wait the 24 hours for Once to get to Hulu , my boss (also a Once fan) has graciously invited me over her house to watch it on Sunday nights with her roommate! Love this job! My favorite character from the show, as I have past alluded to? Mayor Regina Mills (AKA: The Evil Queen), played by the lovely Lana Parrilla. The premise for the show, one more time, is "...all the fairy tale characters you know and love have been brought to our world by an evil curse, where they have lost their memories..." yadda yadda yadda savior, Maine. Anyway. As everyone knows, I do love Leading Women Bad Asses, especially when they rock a pantsuit! So I thought I'd post a bit about how I wish I had clothes that were mens ...

Well, I may still be unemployed -- but at least I have been catching up on my want to actually read books! Even better, some of the books contribute to potential careers I'm studying up for. Complete Book #1 of Summer: Decision Points, by George W. Bush . The memoirs of our immediate past President were at least slightly interesting, and offered a different view of his thought process than I'd ever really been exposed to. He did focus a lot on the decisions that developed him into the person he was, he candidly spoke of his battle with alcoholism, his military service which was a contested point in the 2004 election, and various other "how he came to that conclusion" on policies like embrionic stem cell research. Not particularly ground breaking though, at least I didn't feel like I came away learning "WOW! I NEVER KNEW THAT!" stuff. Complete Book #2 of Summer: Living History, by Hillary Rodham Clinton . Published in 2003, this basically told...

Well not much content today, mainly "of the day" kind of things: woke up early; had lunch with a political consultant for Jimmy Carter and the Campaign Manager for Jesse Jackson;  ASG'ed for a few hours; class; attended an Honors Educators meeting, and LGBTU meeting (ASG has been trying to show a stronger solidarity with them since a recent unfortunate suicide), and finally of course the CKI meeting and dinner afterwards. It was nice to catch up with the CKI folk -- missed last week because of the campaign! Quote of the Day: The other day in the office the center of conversation surprisingly shifted over to me. Apparently I've been nicer lately or something? "You've been in a different mood these last few weeks. You're more expressive and happy, did you have like a life changing experience or something?" - Jackie S. Based on the time period, I suggested my break up as the cause -- but I would have guessed I'd be described as sadder or quie...

Remarkable Fact of the Day: Hillary Clinton attended a Lady Gaga concert yesterday!!! Granted, this was a concert in honor of Bill's birthday. Still! Video of the Day: Amanda showed me this today, apparently when Sailor Moon first came to America they wanted to make it a part-Live Action/part-Animated show, with a number of differences from the original version. (African-American sailor, and moon- windsurfers for everyone! Even Sailor Jupiter, in a wheelchair!) It is comically 90's-looking, with it's large Blossom-hats, bad dancing and hair, and denim overalls. Needless to say, thankfully they just dubbed over the original animation...

Site of the Day: "Five Jobs Everyone Should Experience" - a blog or something I found randomly googling. A conversation I had today, mixed with an episode of How I Met Your Mother, led me to think: where could I be in 5 years, if not teaching/in government? Well, I remember Hillary Clinton once saying she worked on a fishing ship: WTF? Random right? But like the census and American Eagle, I feel everyone should have a job in certain sectors... it teaches you interesting things. Quote of the Day: Watching a documentary on the Smithsonian channel on the science of Jurassic Park. Mom mentioned she didn't see the value behind cloning Dinosaurs in real life like Jurassic Park, "I don't think Humans need any competition" , and asked me for my opinion: "Well I don't know if they should do what they did in Jurassic Park, but I think it'd be cool if there was like -- an island museum [zoo] people could go to... oh, well I guess that is the plo...

This one'll be brief, loyal blog-followers I appologize for being so absent lately! Been super busy between CKI and campaign stuff. But here's a short blog on some image I recently noticed... As you all know from my last blog, we killed bin Ladin! w00t! Anyway, this image has become instantly "iconic" and historic, and I noticed that they kinda released a hugely high definition gigantic version of it. So big in fact, that blogs have taken to noting all the tiny things you can learn about the situation room/situation from it. I personally think being able to read Hillary Clinton's binder is kinda cool. *TOP SECRET CODEWORD NOFORN* For Use in White House Situation Room Only Noforn means "No Foreign citizens" can look at it, even within the White House. Another image I found abnormally large, to the point where I could see more than the public maybe normally could see was the recent final Endeavour crew including shooting-victim Arizona Congress...

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! ...

"...hit call all you want, but there's no one home..." Good News of the Day: According to a Gallup poll asking American who they admire most, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ranked "Most Admired Woman of the Year" for the 9th straight year! Woop Woop! 17% of Americans say they admire her most, with 12% saying Palin (who made second place for the second year in a row.) Third place was Oprah. Bad-... well, I suppose this is also Good News of the Day actually: Sarah Palin on the other hand, has won the well-deserved "Misinformer of the Year" title for all her cockamamie lies and deceptions - ranging all over from her reality show to those imaginary "death panels." Haha, here's to another year of her crazy zaniness and annoying methods of insulting Democrats while making herself look like uneducated. Best Selling Album of the Year: The Fame (Monster) by Lady Gaga ! WoooOOOOO! Lady Gaga's next album, "Born This Way...

Let me start with: I HAD A DREAM THAT HILLARY CALLED ME! xD She wanted to congratulate me on getting the internship I wanted (I refuse to get my hopes too high up though, still, I want that internship sooo bad!) And I wanted to make sure I wasn't getting a joke played on me so I asked her what Bill's middle name was, lol. That's really all I remember. Then elsewhere in the dream it was raining and I was in a hospital in my house; this was loosely affected by the Mystery Science Theater DVD menu music playing in the background while I napped I'm sure. btw: I have two classes with Natalie this semester, and she attended a committee meeting that Hillary was at! She corrected our teacher about some minute trivial thing and mentioned to me she remembered that day because she knew I would want her to report back to me on Hillary's pantsuit -- which was powder blue btw, lol. But speaking of my classes: Well, 1 week down. Dozens to go. The numbers don't really matt...

Hey, a guy can be optimistic can't he? Maybe I'll start eating healthier in the 2060s. I do hope to live to be a hundred though, that would be perfect. If I can live to see the 22nd century, that'd be even cooler! But do to the personal developments of a close friend lately, the topic of death and what is done with us when we die has been in conversations and I thought I'd think about what I want to do when I die (hopefully of old age at 113.) Also I wanted to explore a certain image suggested tonight. Just to explain my longevity for a second, I want to live to be 100. My great-grandma did, and my moms side of the family is unusually longevious. It's my dad's side of the family that ruins the average by the males dying young. But I don't want to die at exactly 100, that's like only being able to enjoy your party you've worked your whole life for for a few days. So If I'm going to live to be 100, I mise as well plan on seeing the turn of the cent...

As Sunday rolled around, we needed to head home to Akron. I'd already looked into visiting Franklin D. Roosevelt's house in Hyde Park before the trip, and it looked like I'd get my wish -- cause unless we wanted to drive through the middle of Manhattan and a million tunnels (which we didn't), we'd pass relatively close to it. Along the way, we *Happened* to pass through Chappaqua, NY -- current residence of the Clintons! Alan Arkin (from Little Miss Sunshine) and "the lead singer of Survivor" also live here apparently. You'd think you'd be able to find a decent restaurant, but we couldn't find a single one! Arr. Haha, also on the way there we crossed this toll free bridge. (The two in Manhattan cost 8 bucks a piece! Craziness!) It had several signs warning "DO NOT TAKE PICTURES OF BRIDGE" that were pretty serious. Naturally, Sarah had to stick it to'm - so for you're viewing pleasure, THE FORBIDDEN BRIDGE!: After a morning o...

Mention Circle K - Take a shot, toast to dry organizations! Mentions his hair or button-up shirt - Take a shot. Starts singing a song stuck in his head - Brush your teeth with a shot of Jack Mentions Hillary Clinton - Take a shot of Crown Royal whisky , her beverage of choice. Tries planning a road trip that won't happen (ie: House Boat, Cancun, etc.) - Take a shot of something imported. Does something especially feminine or gay-seeming - Take a shot, to scrapbookers and antiquing-ers everywhere! Mentions a President you've never heard of - Take a shot, he'll seem less annoying. Does homework night before it's due - Take a shot. Does essay 6 pages or more the night before it's due - Take two shots. Does multiple 6p+ essays in one night - WATERFALL! Swoons over Barack Obama - Chug a glass of Beer, to Diplomacy! = = Did I forget one? Remind me. = = Woopwoop! In honor of Kayla's party tonight, lol.

Haha, so the first week and a half of classes are done. My classes will definitly be handleable this semester. I have Ed Planning with a Santa Claus-like former-principal who has devoted whole class periods so far to telling stories and we got nothing serious done. Then I've got Japanese II, which I need to devote more study time to because I am falling a little behind with the vocab quizes every other day. And I have Ed Equity and Excellence, which I thought would be awful with a bitchy teacher and big projects - but she seems nicer and its more focused on discussion, which means I got to use my labtop all period - mwahahaha. Also taking Content Reading, or how to teach from a book by not teaching from a book -- and I finally got that class' textbook the other day. Lots of reading for that class (surprise). And finally, Macroeconomics - which is by far my hardest class, cause I don't remember squat from microeconomics. Hahahaha, this was Patsy's idea, I just made it a ...

So as I have mentioned, I occasionally follow several blogs devoted to following the career of Hillary Clinton (such as All Things Hillary , Secretary Clinton , etc.) And occasionally they post a "pic-spam" which is just bunches and bunches of pics from an event or dinner or something, often with a bunch of pics of Hillary. Well, I like to occasionally post pic spams of random things I find lying around my computer when I'm trying to clean it (metaphorically speaking of course.) ROFL! Points to Patsy for sending this to me, but I get a kick out of the fact that the first thing Mike thought of when he saw this was me too. Here we have someone's Post Secret card from the popular book series and website , that's updated daily ala` FML: ----------------------------------- ^Bonus features of my TV show: another look at the Birmingham trip, 2009. See what didn't make Facebook. Here's the Africa room of the Birmingham Art Museum. ^Here's an interesting wee bi...