Shameless Plug

Not really AIS related buuuuut...
Over the summer I interned at a local recording studio owned by Gary Fry, CSO composer /Emmy & Grammy winner. While working there, we worked on the score for a short film entitled Last Wish, starring former Bond Girl, Lana Wood. We also recorded the intro song "Tell Me" which I ended up mixing. It was in the papers a month ago or so (can be seen here). It's a very interesting film with great msuic, not that I'm bias or anything ;) but you guys should check it out for sure :)

Happy Birthday to you!

I have one of those daily calendars with fun little facts on each day by my bed, which I got for Christmas. It is called The Left-Hander's Calendar and has facts about famous lefties and famous left hander's birthdays. Today, my handy dandy calendar informed me that it is the birthday of Lewis Carroll (his 179th to be exact), author of The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland and other books such as Through the Looking Glass, And What Alice Found There. Alice in Wonderland is one book that has thrilled me and terrified me my whole life. The scenes that Lewis Carroll creates are so vivid and strange, I can't help but get the chills when I read them. But Alice's story is one of childhood imagination, retold through the words of an adult. Today in class we were talking about how an author creates characters and tells stories through them. Clearly, shrinking to a size smaller than a mouse and being swept up in a river of your own tears is fantastical and not a big T truth DocOc has been talking about all year, but a broader, little t truth can be drawn from the chimerical pages of Carroll's writing. Carroll is giving his truth about imagination, the worlds we go to when day dreaming like Alice (or tripping like he was) and the glories and dangers of dreaming your life away (and drug use). Alice visits the fun side of dreaming at the Mad Tea Party, and the dangerous side when she meets the testy Queen of Hearts. This story, like the ones we've read in class, have a very important little t truth from the author, being told through a character of his design.

MetaBlog round 2!

I would like you guys to reivew my What You Don't Know Won't Hurt You blog, it was a blast to write... no joke.


Wow this quarter is already over. I feel like my writing has gotten a lot more informal. Instead of going to NPR for every post basis, I reference things I see everyday. I have goten to finding connections in movies and TV show I see, like in my most recent post about Say Yes to the Dress, to things we discuss in class. I am not quite sure if this is a better way to blog, but I am a lot more engaged in it than just forcing connections like I did first quarter.

During my day I continually look for things to connect back to class. This morning for example, I was making pancakes and Aunt Jemima on the box (yeah, I can't make pancakes from scratch...) looked a lot like the Norman Rockwell Jim we saw in class and I was trying to think about why that was and if I could make a blog post about it. I tend to now think in terms of blog posts, whether people would enjoy reading what pops into my head and even if I don't think they would, if I find it interesting, I'll blog about it.

Next quarter I want to insert more of my personality into my posts. I started doing that this quarter, but I would like to strike a balance between putting myself into my posts, but also making them a little more informative and give my opinions more. I also want to start commenting on different peoples blogs because I have a tendency to just comment on the blogs of people I'm close with in class.

How Young is Too Young?

I am an avid watcher of the TLC show Say Yes To The Dress. This past friday, the new season started with back to back episodes. One of them was the normal plot line, girl finds dress, loves it, buys it. But another episode made me stop and think about our discussions from class this week. One girl, couldn't have been older than 22, was shopping for her wedding dress. The weird thing was, she met her 40+ year old husband on a golf work trip... he is her boss's boss's boss. The entire thing gave me the shivers. This girl was marrying a man almost twice her age, and she was just beginning her adult life. In class we discussed how the average marriage age for women has gotten higher in the past 10 years, for women it is up to about 26 (according to the USA Today article). On this show, I see first hand the age of these women getting married for the first time. Some are younger, around 24, some older at 30, 22 is very young. Usually with younger brides on the show, they have been dating their fiancee for since high school, so they really know their mate well, but this girl had barely dated this guy for a few months. We talked this week about why people get married young, why so young before their lives have really even started, and why so quickly? Someone shared a story this week about her cousin who got married at 18 and people kept asking questions about why they weren't going to wait, and they're reply was simple. We don't want to wait. Maybe when you're really in love, time and age don't matter, but its still surprising when I see someone only a few years older than myself committing their life to someone, becoming someone's wife.

Here is a link to the full episode if you'd care to watch... she is looking for a piratey dress... whatever that means haha

The Language of Friendship?

In class today we were talking about parenting styles and how differences in parenting styles affect children. I started thinking about how language affects not just how I view my relationship with my parents, but how language affects all my relationships. With one of my best friends, we usually speak in hyperboles (examples from break include her saying "oh my goodness my soon to be step-dad and his daughter are coming on vacation with us and things are STRESSFUL AND TERRIBLE I AM GOING TO DIE"; and me saying "Half my bumper just fell off in this crash I am never going to be able to drive again"). We both know that she will not be dying and that I will (in 22 days) be able to drive again and our lives will go on, but we always talk that way because we have such an emotional friendship. We've been so close for so long, we're almost family. Everything we've ever gone through we've gone through together so we continue to say what we feel, even if we know its an exaggeration, because we know the other person will understand. With my guy friends however, we are never dramatic. We keep things grounded and real. When we talk, we are straight to the point without beating around the bush, which works for us. Being straightforward and brutally honest won't work for every friendship, but when you find the way that works for you, you keep going with it, just like parenting. If one style of parenting doesn't work for one of your kids, you change it to fit what that child responds to and makes your relationship best. If I were to go up to my guy friends and say "OH MY GOODNESS MY LIFE IS OVER MY PARENTS HATE ME" they would probably freak out and think that my parents hate me and I am going to die. You have to find what language and tactics work in the relationship and know what doesn't.

It's the most wonderful time of the year?

Happy holidays to y'all!
Every year around this time, people begin to get into the holiday spirit. They get all bundled up and go ice skating, go caroling, go to the CSO to see Welcome Yule, their annual christmas show (co-written and composed by my boss!), and enjoy what the city has to offer this time of year. Yet, this year seems different. All my friends who are usually the Cindy Lou-Hoo's of Christmas, seem to be distracted. A lot of it, sadly, comes down to too much work. This week is the week where all the teachers try and cram in all they can before the break and before the end of the semester and everyone just seems overwhelmed. In a recent post by DocOc, he talked about what schools provide for us and what we wish to get out of them besides a diploma and a nice Ivy League acceptance letter (or where ever you may wish to go). I think that through the constant drudge of busy work assignment after busy work assignment, we lose sight of that and whats important, at least I do. Although starting December off with listening to the Christmas station in my car (and subsequently turning it off when any Mariah Carey song came on), I have not gotten into the Christmas spirit because I just haven't had time. It takes a full day to watch Rudolph, trim the tree, and enjoy your time at home, but since I've been slammed with so much work before break, I haven't had time to breathe, let alone have a Christmas party!

So back to the big question:
What do I want to get out of my high school experience besides that acceptance letter?

Honestly, I want to know how to live, be well-rounded, and not obsess so much over the little things. Maybe high school isn't the place to learn those things, maybe I'll have time to watch Rudolph when I'm older and this is the time to work hard and maybe skip an eggnog or two (not like I drink it, cuz its just disgusting but I think the idea still holds) in order to get to the next level in this video game we call life. But I hope it's not, I hope I can find time to drink and undrink an eggnog and watch the old Christmas movies I love so much, and see A Christmas Carol at the Goodman Theatre, spend time with the people I love, and really get into the holiday spirit. Maybe.

Critical Viewing Revisted

A few months ago (wow have we really been in school that long?), I posted a blog about my trip to Kenosha (can be seen here) and about the eating habits of lower income families. Today, I was on a mission to make cookies for my best friend's family for Hanukkah and I realized we had NOTHING in our house to make cookies with, so I ventured to the store. Unfortunately, my family only had cash accessible today, much like many American families, so I had to shop on a very strict budget. While in the store, I got baking soda on sale for 99 cents, chocolate chips for $3 and brown sugar for $2. I was pretty excited that I found so many things on sale that I needed, but then I got to the dairy section. We were desperately in need of butter, not just for my cooking, but for veggies and everyday stuff. I had $6 left in my pocket and looked over my choices. To my dismay, I couldn't afford any of the butters offered. I had no idea what I would do because I really wanted to make these cookies and I didn't want to come back from my trip empty handed, so I looked over the rest of the section to see if there was anything I could get. I then see the Imperial Margarine box on sale for 99 cents. For those of you who don't know, margarine is filled with trans fats and partially hydrogenated oils and was created to be a butter substitute (more info on the history of margarine here). Being somewhat health conscious, I knew that margarine is not the healthiest choice, but I really needed something to bake with so I compared it with butter nutrition wise and I posted my findings below!

On the left is butter and the right is margarine. Margarine has double the calories and 2g of trans fats. This is obviously a lot less healthy, yet on my visit to the store it was 1/6 of the cost of the butter. Ultimately I took the margarine, knowing that I would be able to buy butter tomorrow, but what about the families who don't have that option? I really realized how much food really costs and how a family could, by simply trying to provide their family with necessities like butter, could be forced to use unhealthy substitutes because they don't have the funds to spend $6.34 for 4 sticks of butter.