HOCKEY is cool

So this weekend my parents were in town for parents weekend, I’m sure like a lot of yours were, WOOO! We had fun I always like seeing them. We went to the Hokie Hockey game in Roanoke because my parents are die-hard hockey fanatics. My Mom, my dad, and my brother all play, and I was always peer-pressured to start. But my Dad’s from Canada and my Mom’s from Maine, so it’s probably completely normal. But the game was so bad, well actually it was great, but we lost in a shoot out after the other team scored a goal with 4 seconds left in the game. The weirdest thing ever though happened!

So we got to the game and we were looking at the program and my parents saw the name Travis Young. And they were like “Oh my gosh, Travis Young, he played on your brothers team!” And sure enough we turned around and there his mom was. My mom plays hockey with his mom and I grew up around this kid my whole life, because it was actually his younger brother that played on my brother’s hockey team for like six years. So he was always around. It’s so weird though, because he used to be this short completely round and roll-able red headed kid covered in freckles and now he’s the starting goalie for the Virginia Tech hockey team as a sophomore. It was really cool I wish that I could go to more of the games, and like I could probably because I have a car, but they are so far away! Roanoke was like a good forty minutes away, which is just a lot of time. I also need to find a group of people that would want to go with me! I have four seats in my car here people, haha you guys can all come/you should.

I love hockey so much and everything that has to do with it. I completely grew up around the sport. My parents always watched it on TV and then my mom and my brother and I would all go watch my Dad play hockey when we were little, almost every Sunday. I am instantly comforted as soon as I enter a hockey arena. When my brother started playing, that’s when my hockey life started. I was little and unable to stay at home and so I went to every practice, twice a week. Then my brother got really good at hockey, which just tripled the amount of time we had to go to the arena. He started playing on the travel team and then after that every single weekend, I kid you not, we had a tournament that could never be closer than two-three hours away. We went to different states; there were tournaments in Michigan all the time because they had the best sport complexes. So my life completely revolved around my brother and his practice times.

And then years after that, after I had finally breached the age that I was allowed to stay home by myself and miss all of his practices, the Columbus Blue Jackets came along; Columbus Ohio’s very own professional NHL hockey team. My dad had been dreaming about this since the day we moved here, when I was like four, since we used to live in Florida, less than twenty minutes away from the Tampa Bay Lightening arena. I was in sixth grade and my Dad had four season tickets; another layer of hockey was added onto my life. The NHL seasons lasts from the end of September to sometime around the middle of March. It is the longest season ever; which is something now I completely appreciate.

The Hokie game was really fun though, because they were obviously better than my brother’s team at home, but they were still a club team, which means they’re a lot more laid back. I like the college level hockey, and usually club more, or just differently than I like NHL hockey. Since they’re so much younger it seems like all they want to do is have fun. Hockey isn’t their job it’s just something they do because they love it. They seem to try a lot harder and their plays aren’t so structured. They dance down the ice with the puck passing it between they’re legs and spinning around players, it’s just a lot cooler to watch.

Sometimes with much larger schools, who have outstanding division I hockey programs, have a really intense coaching team. And yes, they win games, but they always seem so much less creative. I love when coaches just tell their team to go out there and have some fun. When my lacrosse and soccer coaches told me that I was just so much more relaxed and it was basically permission to do whatever I or we wanted to do to get the job done. And it really brings out the better player in you, for some reason everything just clicks better. After watching the Hokie game, it really seemed like that’s what the coaches told them to do—until they lost with four seconds left. I guess that’s when you have to draw the line, but I mostly believed that happened because they lost focus and got lazy, not because they were playing too much with the puck.

I think they should fund a bus to take students to the games and then maybe more people would go. I’m sure though since it’s only a club team, they don’t have the money to do that at all. All the players though, I believe really deserve the fan support, they seemed really good and they worked really hard. Then again, maybe they’ve just gotten over the fact that no one comes to their games. Oh yeah, if I didn’t mention this earlier, no one was at the game. There were maybeeeee two hundred people there, probably more like a hundred. Out of these hundred-ish people probably only like forty of them were students, or looked like they could be students, everyone else was just local Roanoke people and kids, or parents of players and there were fans from the other team too. Anyywyayyayayayayayayayyayayayyaay if you love hockey and want to a game hit me up son! PEACE!

For the Love of Biology

So I think I’m finally getting a hang of college, famous last words, but I feel like by my next exams I’ll be golden, not like A+ golden, but just a lot better than my first two exams were. My first exams for bio and chemistry I didn’t study enough, my second chemistry exam I studied a lot for, but now I know the only other thing I’ll need to do is practice more equations and math chemistry problems. Right now/this weekend I’ve been hard-core studying for biology, my next exam is Wednesday and I need to do a lot better on. Except I realized that I’m now spending all this time trying to understand the chapter, when that is something I should have done a lot sooner, and then I could actually study right now. It’s taken me about two-three hours to understand/summarize the important parts of one chapter, which is RIDICULOUS. But, now I know that next time I should type out my summaries, like I’m doing now, while I read the chapter for that day and seriously my life would be ninety five percent easier right now.

I’m going to blame my unsuccessfulness and need to reread every word of the chapter even though I took notes about terms the first time I read it on my biology professor, haha, just like you’re never supposed to blame someone else. But I just despise him. I’m counting down the days until winter break just so I know I don’t have to go back to his class again.

I know this whole life isn’t fair thing that everyone talks about, but I hate how much work I have in that class compared to my roommate, who is taking the same class with a different professor. Sometimes I just wish that all the homework and the exams across each course were standardized. They are in my math class and I feel like that just makes sense. My first biology test raped me, it was the hardest test I’ve ever taken, granted it was my second test in college and now I’m at a whole other level, but my roommate said hers was so easy. Hers was simple spitting out definitions and mine was about applying information, something I’ve been notoriously horrible at. And once your grades are published your grade isn’t curved according to how hard you professors are, or a grad school doesn’t look at it and say “oh, she got a C in biology, but oh it was with Buikema, he’s the hardest so we understand.”

Oh well I guess I only have six more weeks left with him and then the final exam, and like I said I’m getting used to his work load, and now I know how I need to prepare for tests earlier. Or I hope I now know how to prepare for tests earlier, me spending three hours per chapter could still be the wrong way to study and I still could just have no idea how to apply my newly acquired knowledge and then I would scream, literally.

Our student TA was talking to us on Friday during our little review session at Deets, that he’s one of the hardest teachers we’ll have, and he does it to weed out the other biology majors. I don’t understand though because, I’m NOT A BIOLOGY MAJOR here buddy, I’m just taking the class, so I would prefer to not be weeded out thank you. She also said that whatever biology class we take next year will be a piece of cake, but once again I’m not going to take biology next year and I think I’d much rather have my work load at a steady pace.

I was trying to figure out my schedule for next semester and I went to ratemyprofessor.com and searched every biology professor I could have. I picked the one with the best reviews after reading a good number of them and then planned my entire schedule around that one biology class. Whether this is a good idea or a bad idea I guess I won’t know yet, but all I know is that I was sick of dedicating so much of my life to it because, it wasn’t only the homework that was ridiculous, I went to class and learned absolutely nothing at all. He talks to fast for you to write anything down, he would add extra information to the slides that you would also try to speed write down, and then at the end of class he would just ask us some questions that were application questions, but wouldn’t show up on the test or help my brain apply it anywhere else.

I’m going to take Simmons next semester; I almost jumped for joy when my advisor told me that I didn’t have to have the same professor for the same class. People commented on how he was one of the best teachers they’d ever had, I guess all I have to do now is hope that I actually get into the class.

For the rest of my classes it took me a really long time to decide where I’m going to put things. There were just way too many decisions to make and variables to account for. I also need to pick a class that goes to the core curriculum to get some of those things knocked out of the way. I’ll have 18 credit hours after I do that, but I’m hoping that just a lecture class on psychology or something won’t be that hard. I could just be being completely naive though but really, my brain would gladly accept listening to something that wasn’t about chemicals or cellular respiration or calculus. Last Thursday I went to a seminar on public speaking just for the heck of it and even though it wasn’t that enlightening, it was the basic don’t mess with you hair or put your hands in your pockets, it was really nice to listen to something simple.

How are you schedules looking for next semester easier or harder? Or better or worse? Or more fun or less fun?

A crazyyyyy commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhA-TGkS64g&feature=player_embedded#

So I’ve never actually seen this ad before, but I was searching through for cool ads and I found this one. Now I thought this one was actually really clever and funny, but I don’t know if it was good at advertizing the product.

For one they actually pulled off the commercial. They pushed it so hard and made so much crap and bad things happen that it worked. And up until the end I had no idea why these things were happening. I thought that it was just because the couple had lots of bad luck. And I did sort of chuckle to myself midway through the commercial.

First they both wake up and you think they’re a happy couple. Then the look on their face makes you think that something might be up. The hair dryer in the shower seems like a complete accident. Except instead of dying or anything the girl is still alive, which lets us know that the commercial is supposed to be a joke. When the window falls down on his neck that also seems like it could be an accident. This could let the audience interpret the idea that the car is bad luck and is just causing all these bad things to happen. Then the bowling ball falls off the top shelf and lands on the woman’s head, which just makes me cringe. And she should also basically be dead, just to be a party pooper. Then the guy gets his hair blow torched. The fact that he dunked his head in the fish bowl is pretty funny though. When the guy trips down the stairs you think he might lose the race, then they start fighting. The man slyly tricks the girl and makes her think that he doesn’t have the keys but he really does. I don’t really understand what is happening in the microwave though. Like what was being blown up? In any case the wife gets blown up! Which is just like what the heck!? Then of course she ends up on the top of the car, OBVIOUSLY. And then he drives to work with her on the roof of the car.

I feel like this commercial appeals to a very specific type of couple or person. The more times I watched it the more and more I started hating it and the less appealing it became. I feel like this would just make you not want to buy the car at all. It just puts this nasty awful violent image in your mind anytime you think of the car. But actually come to think of it, I can’t even remember what type of car it was for, the violence was so distracting. That could be a good or a bad thing for the car company though.

But I don’t know why anyone would want to have a car that would make them want to torture they’re significant other. It doesn’t emote a calming feeling that convinces the audience that peace and happiness will come out of them purchasing this car. It actually advertizes the opposite. This commercial basically advertizes that once you have a car hell will come about your life.

I feel like car companies usually want to make you feel like if you had this car you would be classy, successful, and happy. For example Cadillac uses the actress from Desperate Housewives in its commercials which is just like “Oh hey , this actress has this car, and she loves it. She’s so successful and she still chooses a Cadillac, a car that you can buy. If you buy this car you can have the profile and mystery as a celebrity, type thing.” Or they always talk about “does your car turn you on? “ But I actually really like those commercials actually. Here I will include one and you can compare. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkEw1rsBUak) But for this other commercial it’s like here buy a car that will mark you as a crazy person. Crazy, psycho people apparently really really like this car. A LOT.

The Cadillac commercial actually talks about and shows features of the car, the other commercial does not. All we know is that the car can move and can we silver and can fit in a driveway. The Cadillac talks about all it’s luxury items and gives people a reason they would want this car over any other car. The other commercial is just like “hey this is a car, buy it because we made a commercial about it.”

But……. On the other hand, the commercial promotes that this car is worth all the hell you had to experience to drive it. I think that was obviously the point behind the design, script, and idea for the commercial. And it does kind of spread the idea that once you enter this car you will forget the madness of your surroundings. I still think though it’s beyond a little extreme.

Maybe if at the end of the commercial there was a happy ending or it was like “psyche! We drive to work together because we both love it so much,” then it would be better. Or if there was some hint in the commercial about how much happier and better their lives were after they bought this car, instead of this car ruined our marriage, the advertisement would be better.

The other thing too is there was no other car. So the idea could just be that they were racing to the car in general. Maybe they didn’t have another car and so if she didn’t get to the car she had to walk. And any car could be better than walking…..

This idea is kind of similar to the commercial I don’t know if you guys remember it, but it was for a shower head I think. And it was like the husband and the wife were racing home, and like taking their clothes off on the way back to their house, so they could get into the shower first. And like that makes a little more sense, because it’s a little more playful, and there is a calming reward for getting in the shower first. I don’t know, it’s a weird commercial!

Major problems (but like literally my major).

So I can’t wait to go back home this weekend, I am so excited it’s ridiculous! Like honestly, ridiculous. I called my friend last night and was giddy! Except I wish I was going to stay there longer. I’ll get there on Thursday night around midnight, then have all day Friday, all day Saturday, and then I’ll drive home around noon on Sunday. And honestly, I miss my old life, and two days at home won’t really be enough time to get back into it, which I guess just means I can get even more excited for Thanksgiving break.

For some reason this has been a bad missing home week. The first two or three weeks were awful, and then I was fine, but now it’s coming back. Last night I listened to my favorite song from last year, one that I played every night on my way home from work, Bold as Love, by Jimi Hendrix, and started crying! How pathetic is that?!

I think I might cry the first time I see my parents, when I come in the driveway and walk in the door of my house. Or drive home down Riverside Drive, my favorite road in the entire world; one that I spent driving eleven miles down twice a day, and sometimes more, on my way to school. When I see my cats or pull up to see my neighbors waving next door, I’m going to be a mess, because I miss them so much. I’ll want to cry when I see my two best friends, but I won’t let them see that or know at all.

I miss all the weird things, like my job, which was from 5:30PM to 11:00PM on school nights, of clearing and cleaning food off peoples’ tables. That was something I used to hate going to. Or the other day I thought about the bathrooms at my high school, and how they were like my second bathroom, I had been in the same ones for six years. I changed there for work, put on makeup there before school, changed there after school, escaped from my classes, washed my face, sometimes brushed my teeth, I’d even straightened my hair in there. I miss the long, twenty-five minute, drive to all my friends and my school. I miss the “Five points” intersection (which I’ve driven through red lights there numerous times, because there are too many lights to know which one’s yours). I miss staying out with my friends until two o’clock in the morning and then getting a angry calls from my parents. That’s weird because I have the complete ability to stay out until four and no one would know or care.

I’ve thought about transferring a lot, a lot, a lot. The only reason I came out here was because I was too stubborn to go to an in-state school. Between my own mentality and my little private school, who preached us on going out into the real world and throwing ourselves out of our comfort zone, I randomly ended up here. My parents wanted me to apply to OSU, which is about a thirty/forty minute drive from my house, but about a ten minute one from my high school. I didn’t like the campus at all, it’s spread randomly throughout the city, it’s sketchy, and it’s huge, but I think my parents thought I didn’t want to go there only because I wanted to get away from them. Now I would almost go back there in a heartbeat.

Then there was Miami of Ohio, my parents’ top choice, but it was a small preppy school filled with boys in plaid shorts and pink polos. I hated it, more like despised it, and refused to go, and I thought it was too much like my high school. My two best friends from my sophomore year go there, and I was convinced that I needed to be completely removed from everything that had to do with home, also. So I argued and finally got out of it, but now if I could just pack up my stuff and walk into their classes I would. Plus one of my really great friends went to school there, and he’s not the preppy type of person at all, and he loves it. And actually loves it, not just the “love” that I or we (I’m assuming one you has said it) tell the random people that ask us about college on our facebook walls.

I’m too embarrassed to tell my parents, or anyone I want to transfer. Especially at my old high school, we’re a family and everyone would know. There would be rumors and everything about how “Oh my gosh, Maggie couldn’t be away from her family, Maggie couldn’t stand being at a big public school, Maggie couldn’t make friends,” and I’m not exaggerating. Transferring back home, is like coming back pregnant practically, it’s like you failed in the “real world.”

I just haven’t found a group of people, or really any one person, that I’m really compatible with. No one here is a lot like my friends back home or finds the same things funny that I do or has the same sort of style or just isn’t always freaking out about school all the time. Haha, the other thing to is I feel like every single person here is at least as smart, and most definitely smarter than me, and it drives me nuts! I’m all for ignoring others, but sometimes the comments people make about how many credit hours I’m taking, or “seriously? You find this stuff hard? I didn’t even study,” is making me crazy, because it happens consistently. Which is starting to tear me down a little bit.

There are two people down here who I’ve actually become close with, and I like being around a lot. One of them, though, is from my hometown. We didn’t know each other before I got here, but it’s weird to think that I traveled all the way down here to find someone who lived ten minutes away from me my whole life. And the other person is my roommate, and I adore her! We’ve become so close and we’re a lot a like, and we laugh at the same stuff, but we can’t find anyone else we like or seems to like us. It’s really just her and I. Plus, the real downer is that she’s transferring to Penn State next semester. Well, she isn’t sure yet, completely, but she said she is ninety percent sure. She’s been accepted and she’s extensively talked to her parents about it. It might be that she’s transferring that I want to leave. Plus, since we agree so much, there’s no one telling us not to do and why.

So I can’t decide at all, obviously. I want to make a stand that I’m fine out here, but I’m really not. I feel like I don’t have a lot of time to do anything, my two best friends joined club lacrosse, and I could not even imagine having the time to do that, so I’m jealous. I think changing my major will help, but I haven’t even brought that up to my parents and I’m kind of ashamed. My dad always talks about how proud he is that I’m a chemistry major, and how smart and determined that makes me. It makes me feel like any other major (besides engineering) is easier and for unintelligent people.

I originally thought I wanted to go to medical school, to save people, because I loveeeee people. I love helping them, talking to them, being their friend, making them feel special, and keeping them healthy, but I think I need to find another way to do it. All this chemistry and biology stuff is depressing and not me. I always took art and English classes, and when I could pick my science classes I chose fun ones like weather and forensics, so I DON’T KNOW. I can’t decide if I should change my major (or is that chickening out and giving up?) and wait it out here another year, or if I should start filling out transfer applications, which will be due in December. I’m really just looking for people I can have lots of fun with, and maybe I’m just most compatible with the people in my hometown.