Mwahahaha!

So, I'm pretty much on a blogging roll here.

I just got an email from a coach wanting to know when would be a good time to call and talk to me.

So, like a good college student hopeful I went to the beacon of knowledge known as Wikipedia to learn more.

Found out the basics... nothing too appealing, Roman Catholic Affiliated, 4,000-ish undergraduates (a few more than I would like), dark blue and gold colours.

But then I saw this.

A college with a master plan? I don't even care what it is, the fact that they are calling it "the Master Plan" is beyond cool. Sign me up!!

3!?!?!?! Aka: A link to someone who can put the horrors of Girl's State far more elegantly than I could ever dream of doing.

From the lovely Miss Jessie Freese: I'm Proud to be an American (Murican!!)

Bless her (in a totally non religious way...), she even spelled Murican right!

I hope she doesn't mind me mooching off her. I feel that it is necessary though, in order to give a comprehensive overview of exactly what Girl's State is and prove that the horror was not just in my mind.

Also... JESSIE RULES! (and is a ninja)

Zmog! 2 posts in one day!?!?!

Someone who shares my feelings about Bob Barr from KPC, one of my favorite blogs. Post here.

My post here.

Looking back at it I'm kind of disappointed in myself for not mentioning the stache...

Depressing stuff from the U.N.

I'm not going to pretend to know a great deal about the going ons of the U.N.

But this particular article has not done much to contradict the many negative things that I have heard about them.

You can find the article:
here

"The ban came after a heated session on Monday, when the representative of the Association for World Education (AWE), in a joint statement with the International Humanist and Ethical Union, denounced female genital mutilation, the penalty of stoning for adultery and child marriage as sanctioned by Islamic law."

Now I could understand why Egypt, Pakistan and Iran would get all up in arms if they were criticizing Islam for something like praying towards Mecca or their belief that Allah is the only god, but female genital mutilation (a dangerous, painful and basically cruel practice)? The stoning of adulterers (something that only applies to females in most places and the burden of proof for a man accusing his wife of adultery is really a joke)? Child marriage (I kinda want to put parenthesis after this one because I put them after the other two, but I don't really think that I need to elaborate)? These are legitimate issues that can/are causing harm. Oh, yea and free speech. That one is important too.

Real Quick...

I'm tired.

I'm sunburned.

But I am home.

A few quick links before I hit the bed...

RIP George Carlin. http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2339172520080623

Zimbabwe is a scary place. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL2026827820080623

Nap time

List of good things about this camp so far

At my mothers suggestion I have decided to think positively. Here are some of the good things about girls state:

• The Female soldier speaker was really interesting. I enjoyed hearing about here experiences in the military. She had a very unique point of view and I think she did an excellent job of addressing us.
• The speech by the dean of admissions at Catawba. While he gave no new information, his speech was entertaining none the less.
• Singing in the chorus. I'm not all that good and totally inexperienced, but it is fun all the same!
• Drawing during meetings. See previous post.
• Hanging out with my friends, I've really enjoyed messing around with my RCHS friends and the new ones that I have met through my roommate.
• The food. SO GOOD! (Chalifoux ref.)
  
• Free time
• The weather is nice... not boiling and not too cold.
• The campus is really pretty.
• Listening to the different regional accents.
  
• Elephant poo paper. Google it.
• Other things...
  

On the bright side...

The artistic fruits of this week.

Girl's State, day 2

Boring and not fun. I'm eating way too much. It isn't healthy.
I do enjoy some of the people here. My roommate and her friends are really cool, as are my school friends.

We broke into committees today to try and come up with some bill ideas... it was kind of a fiasco.

I tried for a while to get people to make bills that actually had substance. Topics included: lowering the drinking age, making the Gardasil (sp?) vaccination compulsory for middle school girls, limiting eminent domain and annexation, the creation of a school voucher program, banning the display of cigarettes in gas stations (which Canada did), and the legalization of civil unions/ gay marriage.

My thinking was that I need not necessarily support these bills, just come up with good and interesting things to debate. In fact, I didn't agree with half of what I proposed (the only things I agree with are lowering the drinking age, legalization of civil unions/ gay marriage and limiting eminent domain and annexation in case you were wondering... actually I'm not sure how I feel about school vouchers). NOT ONLY did I have to explain to EVERYONE what voucher programs and eminent domain were but they just... gah!!! It was like I was speaking a foreign language! So I ended up just giving up and doing some awesome doodles while my group members wrote bills allowing only cute boys to come into our state and requiring that all lifeguards be hot. I continued to doodle, occasionally stopping to help them express their middle school ideas in heightened vocabulary or just in general bill format. It was really depressing. At least I got some cool doodles out of it.

The whole program is majorly flawed though fundamentally which I will expand upon later.

Went swimming. That was good. Talked to someone on the Catabwa team... she loves it and I'm going to meet the coach Thursday.

Girl's State and Fun links!

I'm going to be at Girl's State till Saturday, so I'll try and give daily updates about the goings ons here in addition to some fun current events stuff.

First Girl's State.

Can't say I'm enjoying the program to much as of right now. I have described it to several people as a kind of American Hitler Youth and have found no objections to that label thus far. So maybe that label is a bit harsh, but lots of things about this place scare me. They're all ultra patriotic about everything and lots of the counselors are ill informed. One of them was unable to verbalize the differences between Republicans and Democrats.

Most of the people running this joint are pretty religious too. It's kind of annoying. We keep hearing "it'll get fun later on in the week!" and "you'll start enjoying yourselves later" but I'm not convinced. My counselor is not cut our for being a leader in my opinion. She is timid and just can't handle all us girls.

Another thing that has been bothering me is the language usage. A number of the staff (especially this one girl) have horrible oratory grammar. Well, not horrible I guess... better than my Spanish grammar... but still, it is kind of painful to listen to. She says things like "There is red and blue shirts..." and "most favorite". I'll discuss why I think she makes the first mistake tomorrow (this comment not directed at Jessie if you are reading this as I have already discussed it with you at lunch today!)

Good things:

I really like my roommate. She is nice and fun to talk to. I also like being able to hang out with my friends on occasion. I joined the chorus which is really fun, even if I don't have a clue what is going on. The songs we are singing are all patriotic (not that there is anything wrong with that...) except one. I know pretty much all of the patriotic songs but since I'm and alto I have to sing it in a funny way that I have not encountered before. It makes for an interesting effect.

I also like hearing the different accents and speaking quirks people from different areas have. My room mate and her friends who are all from the beach like to use nouns and adjectives and there are also slight pronunciation differences between different people, especially on the vowels "a" and "o".

Now link of the day from Language Log (one of my favorite blogs!)

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=248

great story!

Reuters Reels in the Alliteration!

I'm not entirely sure how to pronounce "Reuters". Rooters? Royters? I like that last one because it sounds a bit like "Coyters". Pronunciation is however irrelevant in my world... well, so long as I'm doing it, it is (I will pronounce "facade" "fack-aid" dammit!)

So, back to the original reason I mentioned Reuters in the first place. I have a Reuters oddly enough subscription on my Google homepage, I get three of their headlines. It's pretty 1337.

This story caught my eye, simply because of the alliteration. I have a thing for alliteration and also... ummm does it seem to anyone else that the Mumbai government is acting like a 3 year old? If there is a legit risk then I don't see a problem with a government warning its people about it. Even if the chance of something bad happening is so miniscule less than 10 people have died in recent years (no mention of injuries that did not result in death) there's no harm in being warned. So suck it up Mumbai!

Also, It was a smellly, smoky (more alliteration!) day in the triangle. I woke up and was like, hmmm. I can't breathe. Breathe being a word I'm not sure I have ever typed before and was not sure how to spell it until Firefox told me there was an "a" in it. Story (about the smoke, not my spelling) here.

Modest Mouse and The National

Just got home from seeing Modest Mouse and the National open for REM. It was quite excellent.

I didn't stay for REM for two reasons, 1) I'm not a big fan and 2) I have to wake up absurdly early and my family wanted me home at a reasonable hour.

We had lawn seats which were quite excellent, possibly better than regular seats, and much cheaper.

The National played first. We got there a bit late so we missed some of their set, but what I heard I have to say it was just OK. Not terrible by any means, but only fair. It was enough to please established fans such as I, but I don't think they made any new fans.

Modest Mouse on there other hand was FANTASTIC. They had a very energetic and banjo filled set that could keep me from dancing. All in all it was a great show.

On a personal note, we had a girl who joined our team in the fall die last night. She had a rare agressive bone cancer that spread from her liver to her lungs and killed her in about 8 months. She was 9 years old. I can't begin to imagine what her family is going through. Life is not fair.

When food's involved...

Amazing things can happen as evidenced by this story.

I think this deserves a ROFLMAO

Money Quote:

"It's cratering," she said of the restaurant system. "Candidly, I don't think the taxpayers should be subsidizing something that doesn't need to be. There are parts of government that can be run like a business and should be run like businesses."

Get up, get out

Raleigh (my town) has a pretty ballin' music scene. Just this year I've really grown to appreciate local music.

Quite possibly my favorite local find thus far has been The Rosebuds. They have a pretty sweet, kind of electronic, kinda of... a lot of stuff. I don't know how to describe them... they kind of vary a lot. Get Up Get Out for example is a very dance worthy song, where as Silja Line (my favorite of their songs) is slower... darker. There is without a doubt a lot of New Wave and Dance influence in their music and I kind of love it.

I suggest checking out Night of the Furies (their more recent album) on iTunes.

Bob Barr on the Colbert Report

I occasionally enjoy watching an episode of the Colbert Report or the Daily Show. They're good for a laugh.

A few nights ago while watching an episode of the Colbert Report, I was delighted to see they were interviewing Bob Barr, the Libertarian presidential nominee.

My delight was heightened even more by the fact that Colbert called Barr on his support for DOMA and the Patriot Act as well as his switch on Medical Marijuana.

The interview itself did not to do much to improve my opinion of Barr... he came off a bit boring in my opinion but I think he did a good job of handling the questions posed to him about the Patriot Act and Medical Marijuana. He made no comment regarding DOMA, much to my disappointment. I'm not really sure there is anything he could say to satisfactorily defend his support of that particularly vile bit of legislation. He scares me, I'm not gonna lie.

I wanted Mary Ruwart to get the nod, and I will be unable to vote in the upcoming election so it doesn't make a great deal of difference what I think about Barr. I'm just scared that my party is going to be run over with social conservatives... Linos? before I'm even legally allowed to vote. I'm all for us getting more attention on the national stage and drawing in more support but not at the expense of the party's identity.

A significant number of Libertarians are... unsatisfied... with Barr. Many were quite upset that he was nominated and did not show much of a willingness to support him in the general election. Hopefully this does not lead of any splintering or other things that could damage the party in the long run.

Best quote from the interview: “Bob Barr has a long, Libertarian voting record. In Congress, he supported such privacy-friendly, small-government initiatives as the Defense of Marriage Act, which made the government small enough to fit in a bedroom.”