Live 8

I think Kat truly summed up the experience on her website, so I'll let her tell you about it. It was an amazing experience and I am happy that I went. I don't know if it made a difference but at least we tried. I hope that everyone who attended one of the 10 concerts around the world will continue to support the cause and write and email their representatives because only with persistence will we be able to Make Poverty History!

I will say a few things about the concert. Bon Jovi Rocked! Linkin Park and Jay Z were Awesome and you have not lived until you have sung the theme song for the show, Fresh Prince of Bel Air with a million other people!

Graduation Day!

It's hard for me to believe that on Saturday, I will be a college graduate. Wow, the four years have really flown by. I mean seriously, where did those 4 years go? I really don't feel any older then when I started back in 2001 but I guess I am. Ok, I know I am but I'm just not mentally prepared to call myself an adult just yet. There is so much I want to do before I have settle down with responsibilities and a nine to five job. I just don't know what I'm going to do next.

So graduation is Saturday. I had decided years ago that I would not be participating in the ceremony. I just don't see the point. I think there are better things that I can do with my time then sit through Kirk Ferentz and other speakers so I can walk across a stage for two seconds, shake some important person in the University that I have never seen before and then pose with a blank degree. To me that sounds like torture not a celebration. So instead, I am going out to breakfast with my friend Elizabeth, and fellow graduate, and her girl Sarah. Then Later having a dinner with just my family and then Kat is taking me to see the All American Rejects at Gabes! Now that is how you celebrate graduation. I have told be several people that I will regret not walking and maybe I will but that's ok. I'm willing to live with that. It would be one thing if I had relatives who were flying in to see it but since none of them have yet to make the trip to Iowa (except for the Grandparents, who came once to see Kat graduate High School and too be fair to them, they would have come to mine if they were not ill. Traveling is just too much for them and I understand that.) so why would they start now. I may sound bitter but I am kind of relieved because I really did not want to walk. So they have relieved me from feeling guilty for not doing it.

I'm sure my parents are a little bit disappointed that they won't get to see me walk across the stage but I also know how grateful they are that I am not going to make them sit through the long boring speeches. I've talked to other people who are graduating and are walking and it seems like most of them are only doing it because their families want to. That's great and all but doesn't it take a little bit away from the ceremony if you are forced through it? It's their graduation, shouldn't they do what they want? It is easy for me to sit here and speculate because I don't know their reasoning. To me, it seems selfish to ask someone to do something they don't want to do. Maybe there is something about the whole thing that I am missing but oh well, what do I really know anyway.

To the Class of 2005! Congratulations and Good Luck! May we all find jobs in the very near future!

What am I going go do?

I recently had an assignment in my broadcast journalism class to do an interview. It was suggested that we use this opportunity to use this interview for our final project but considering that I have yet to pick a final project I was left scrambling to find someone to interview. I have been thinking a lot about life after college, probably because I am graduating in May. My friend Elizabeth, is also graduating this year but unlike me she is going to graduate school. Elizabeth is an interesting person to talk to anyway but I thought it would be relevant to this time of the year to do a story on "going to graduate school". So I emailed, Eli (Elizabeth is a long name to type over and over again) and asked if she would let me interview her and because she is a sweetheart that she is, agreed.

It took us a couple of tries to actually get together but eventually we finished the interview. I haven't heard that tape yet because I turned it in my professor but I thought we both did a good job. In the course of the interview, I asked Eli why she wanted to continue to study classics in graduate school. The moment she started to talk about classics and what she liked about it her face lit up. She talked with such passion and enthusiasm, that it made me wonder if there was anything in my life that I talk about with such passion and enthusiasm. It was clear to me that the main difference between her and me is that she knew what she wanted to do with her life and knows what she needs to do to get it.

Me, I think I know what I want. I would like to be a producer for a sports radio station some where outside of the state of Iowa. I have submitted applications for internship at various stations because I do not think I have the experience needed to get a job as producer now. Honestly, I have no idea if I am going about my job in the right way. I don't even know if I will be any good at it, really. I am constantly second guessing myself. I'm sure that is normal. Gayane, my professor, has told me that I'm getting better at writing in broadcast style and I feel that I am improving with my editing skills but I don't know. I feel that maybe I'm missing something. Maybe I'm missing that passion and enthusiasm. I love working at WSUI and the people there but I have not spent that much time at the actual studio. Sometimes, I wonder if I'm only interested in working in radio because I think it would be cool to work at a radio station.

After we finished the interview, I thought to myself, I hope that whatever I do in my life that when someone asks, why I do what I do that I will speak with the same passion and enthusiasm that Eli did. I think that is a goal of mine.

Why I still like Baseball.

Doesn’t it feel like ages since the Boston Red Sox won the World Series? I know it was only last October but with all the talk of steroids and congressional investigations, it is like the world has forgotten. I was lucky enough to get tickets for my dad and me for game 4 of the World Series. It was an experience I would never forget. There was a tension in the air. It was in St. Louis and all the Cardinals fans were hoping for a win to prolong the series but there was also an excitement of possibly seeing history in the making. All of us who were in Busch Stadium got to see live and in person something that has not been seen since 1918. It was amazing!

It was not long for all the good feelings that came out of the Red Sox win to quickly dissipate for me. Soon after talk about which multi-million dollar player deserved another multi-million dollar contract and which player may or may not have used steroids. Why do I like this sport of over paid, self absorbed, juiced up little boys who hit a ball with a stick?

About two weeks ago, I was on my lunch break between classes. I was sitting in my favorite Sports Bar, when on one of the big screens was a Spring Training game between the New York Yankees and the Pittsburgh Pirates. As much as I tried to resist I could not stop myself from watching. The sound was off but the closed captioning was on. I swear between every at bat the commentators spoke of nothing else but Jason Giambi and steroids. I hate what this scandal has done to the sport because baseball is a great sport. It is our American Pastime. This is the sport of my childhood. I can not even tell you how many games I saw the summers we had season tickets to the Kansas City Royals. I saw George Brett’s last big league game. I’ve seen a game winning walk-off grand slam in the ninth inning and a triple play, two of the rarest feats in baseball. I did go through a period of disinterest in baseball but I have always loved the game.

But why? In my lifetime, baseball has gone on strike, raised ticket prices so high that it is almost impossible to go to a game without going into debt and now the player that is about to break the most cherished record in baseball may be a cheater. As I was watching the game this question kept running through my head. Why do I keep watching? No matter what happens in baseball, I still get excited for opening day and the play-offs and then it hit me. I watch because I can relate to baseball. Baseball is basically a game of failure.

If you really think about it, what we think is a good batting average is around .300. So that means a player only gets a hit 3 out of 10 times he is at the plate and that is if the player is good. Majority of players are happy to hit around .250. In most cases, we would look at this as a failure but in baseball we reward it. We cheer it! It makes hitting a homerun even more wonderful, a Grand slam even more spectacular. When a player finally does succeed and gets a hit, it makes that hit even more significant. Personally, if I knew going into work everyday that I would only succeed 30% of the time, I do not know if I would even bother but baseball players come in each day and try.

And that is why Baseball is our American pastime. It is the American dream. If first you don’t succeed then try, try again. Just like the Brooklyn Dodgers used to say. “Wait til next year!”. In real life, we may fail more then we succeed but we continue on. If something does not work out the way we wanted it to then we try something different. Who knows, we may strike out on our first at bat but we might hit a home run on our second. There is a hope in baseball, that we will break the odds and bat in the game winning run or pitch a perfect game or hit for the cycle. That is why I keep watching. With all of baseball’s faults, I can see a little bit of myself in it. I may not be a Barry Bonds or a Curt Schilling. I probably more of a utility player that makes the league minimum but I still have a chance to do something great.

This brings me back to last October and the Boston Red Sox. They were almost out in the ALCS but rallied past the Yankees and then swept the Cardinals to win their first World Series in 87 years. It took them almost a century to achieve it but they did and in a single moment, it was like all the failures of the past just went away.

Blogcritics.com

I have recently joined a new website called Blogcritics.com. Some of you may have heard about it since it has more then 700 members. It is a great community of bloggers. Everything in pop culture you could ever want to know is on that site. Music, books, movies, Culture and politics. It's all there! So check it out! There's a link below the archives to the right. Here is my first post.

Heloise and Abelard may be the greatest love story that most people have never heard of. All I knew about Heloise and Abelard was that they were twelfth century lovers, who’s romance ended in tragedy. Oh and their joint grave site is right next to Jim Morrison’s in Paris. I knew that they had to more to their story then just tragedy if 900 years after their death, we are still talking about them. So, I was very excited to read James Burge’s book Heloise & Abelard: a New Biography. In the interest of full closure, I am a history student so I find these types of books fascinating. I know they can be boring but Burge is able to work through the material and make it read like a novel. He allows the reader to get involved in their love affair. A nice departure from the usually history literature fare.
Heloise and Abelard romance plays out against the background of twelfth century Paris. Abelard was the star of the intellectual community. A wunderkind, who out debated his teachers and set up his own school before the age of thirty. Heloise was the niece of a Bishop in Paris. She was raised in a convent and was educated. She was fluent in Latin and well versed in classical works. It is unclear how they met but Abelard moved into Heloise’s Uncle’s house and began to tutor her. They soon fell in love and began writing each other. Their letters will filled with they lusts and passion and even details of their sexual activity as well as they philosophical discussion. After two years of keeping their love affair a secret, Heloise became pregnant. Heloise’s Uncle was obviously unhappy and took his revenge by hiring men to castrate Abelard. So that is one way to end a love affair or at least the physical aspect of it. Heloise and Abelard both entered monasteries and did not talk to each other for fifteen years. It took Abelard to write his own autobiography to get them to start to write each other again. Even after all they went through and their distance, their love was still present. Their story will make any cynic become a romantic.
Burge, a historian himself who had study their letters for many years, analyzes and picks them apart and puts into context of their time. When he describes Paris around 1100 A.D., I could picture it in my head. I imagine the busy streets around the Cathedral of Notre Dame, filled with students, clergymen, royalty and merchants selling their wares. Burge does his best to trace their relationship through they letters. From the first to the last and where the letters leave off, Burge fills in the blanks with his well researched material on the couple and the people around them. My only complaint about the book, I can not blame on the author, for I know he exhausted all his outlets. I wish more time was spent on Heloise outside of their relationship. Sadly, Heloise is victim of the gender bias of history. Documents on women were rarely made and kept and if they do still exist are scarce and usually incomplete. There is no record of her birth or where she lived before she moved in with her uncle. All that is known is that she was raised in a convent outside of Paris. She probably would have been lost to history completely if it was not for her affair with Abelard and for that I am grateful. Other then that, Heloise & Abelard was a fun and interesting read.