Study Abroad-itis

One year ago today I was on top of the world, at the tip of the eiffel tower. Now the best I can claim is that I'm curently on top of my bed.

Paris was the cherry on top of my trip to Europe, an unexpected tasty surprise. This past week, full of awful stats midterms and 25 page law papers (no, I have not written it yet), stands in stark contrast of the same week last November when we were free to traipse through Paris wherever our whims carried us. Our whims often took us to places that had chocolate, crepes or amazing art.

The one thing they don't adequately warn you about when you leave for study abroad is not the dangers of pickpocketing or getting lost on trains, but how much the separation from the city you learn to love hurts once you get back. Or how many times you will look through the pictures you took, or visit the Web sites of stores you loved, or check what new plays are in the west end, or try to will yourself to teleport...

So many things bring me back to study abroad instantly, like hearing from my friends from home who are currently studying in Paris, Italy and Greece. Even all this talk about Twilight reminds me of watching the first movie with Sara in Stockholm and laughing through the entire thing.

Basically, the moral of the story is that you should savor the perfect moments (or in my case a perfect 4 months), because sooner or later it will be over and you'll be back in Provo dreaming about the glory days. However, luckily that doesn't mean you can't ever go back. Yesterday was payday and another drop into the travel fund! If I had it my way I would do study abroad pretty much every semester.

Here's a couple pictures of where I wish I was. If you want to see more of Paris you can go here, or read my attempt to write about everything we did that week here or here.

What I Do

I know I've been slacking in the picture department lately, so to try and make up for it a little bit here are some pictures of the things I've been working on.

As a new media and design major (in the print journalism program) we've been working on newspaper design in one of my classes, so below are a couple of projects. I even got to use my own pictures for the India tab.

For my photojournalism class this past week our assignment was to take pictures of food, so this is what I've been eating for dinner every night this week. Yes, I made it all and I'm quite proud of myself. However, it has never looked quite as good since the first day. It's an absolute miracle that I didn't burn the grilled cheese sandwich for these pictures. I haven't been able to repeat that feat ever since.

For a little bonus for you guys I'm even going to include the behind the scenes pictures of the chaos behind the food shoot. I know you're excited.

Also, for those of you who want to know, this song (You Make My Dreams by Hall & Oats) has been perpetually stuck in my head for the past month or two, so if I ever look like I'm about to start dancing this is why.

Converse and Children's Literature

I am writing this blog post purely to express my undying love for converse. I looked down at my feet today and just felt inspired. This love actually began long, long ago when I read the girl reporter series by Linda Ellerbee when I was in like second or third grade. The main character is a girl reporter (who would have guessed?) who went around stirring things up with her stories while wearing high top converse. I think that this also might be where my desire to be a reporter was cultivated. She was just that cool.

I bought my first pair of converse (red ones) my sophomore year of high school. I'm actually wearing them right now. That's the glorious thing about these converse, they're indestructible. I bought my second pair my junior year (navy blue), and I actually brought them with me to London last fall and quite literally wore them every day. There were actually a ton of people who wore converse around in London. I was surprised, but I guess they just have good taste. I bought my newest pair this summer at Ross (rose), and I still aspire to own every color in the rainbow. I think it would be awesome to open up my closet and have it just filled with converse.

So, the moral of the story is that if you want a sure way to be happy, you should just go out and buy a pair of converse. May I recommend orange? Also, children's literature can be pretty powerful stuff. We should get Linda Ellerbee to come be a guest lecturer for SPJ (she is, after all, a journalist herself). It would only cost us about 25 years of fundraising. Maybe she would make an exception?

Reading one of the girl reporter books with my dog. This has always been one of my all-time favorite pictures of me. Is it bad to peak at age eight?

And So It Begins

So, at this very moment one of my roommates and one of my reporters has the H1N1 (I'm a journalist so I have to use the real name). But don't you worry, just because people at home and at work and quite possibly at school have it doesn't mean that I will get it! I am determined to avoid getting it purely through will power. Also, I happen to have a couple of those little things of hand sanitizer that smell ridiculously good, so I compulsively put them on all day to make my hands smell nice. One of my other roommates is really freaked out though, because she has her big swim meet coming up in two weeks so getting sick would be a nightmare. She's currently hiding in our room. I, on the other hand, am blatantly sitting in the living room out in the open just to show those germs my defiance.

But, on a happier note, I made some tasty food this week! This might not seem like much, but I pretty much never cook, both because of a lack of skill and a lack of time. But I made this heavenly Chicken-Broccoli Divan Saturday and then today I made sloppy joes. It's a beautiful thing. Food that you actually make tastes so much better than the stuff that comes out of vending machines at school. I liked the broccoli-thingy so much that I've decided to add it to my repertoire. It now consists of: broccoli thingy, zucchini-thingy (this is actually what I called it growing up, and I have no idea what its real name is), chicken noodle soup-thingy, and then anything that comes in a boxed package.

The broccoli-thingy I am ridiculously proud of. I'm pretty sure that the broccoli in it can single handedly take on any H1N1 germs that come my way.

Maybe Luck?

So right now I can't decide if I'm either really lucky or if the world is out to get me. I was feeling kind of stressed and hungry, so in order to solve my problem I decided to order takeout from the delicious pizza place I walk past every day on my way home. This turned out to be an even bigger problem than my stress. Long story short, I placed the order at five during my class break so it would be ready when I finished, but I didn't actually have the food I wanted to eat until just before eight. So, what was supposed to save me fifteen minutes ended up costing me a ridiculous amount of time and three trips to Brick Oven. However, I got two dollars off the meal, an extra cookie, root beer, bag of bread sticks and the pasta they messed up on. I'm so full I can't move. But I haven't had time to start working on all the things I need to do, including writing the intro for a 25 page law paper and an interview for my photography project. And grocery shopping so I can avoid this problem. So lucky or unlucky? I really can't decide.

Also, my new favorite part of the night came while I was downloading a audio converter:

5. You may not use this software in any circumstances where there is any risk that failure of this software might result in a physical injury or loss of life. Any such use by you is entirely at your own risk, and you agree to indemnify NCH Software from any claims relating to such unauthorized use.

What? It's an audio converter! Maybe this could happen if you use the program for some sort of spy work? Or if you convert files for the mob? I don't understand.