A Change of Plans...

because we can.

Screw daily blogging! The both of us have decided that we'll only post when something significant comes up. Maybe that'll make the content better...

So long for now,
Ashley and Jillian

Pinwheels

Every year, our school has a pinwheel planting in honor of the children (quite literally-- that sign says "Today these pinwheels represent adults who provide a voice and advocate for our children). It's a nice thought, and the pinwheels are awfully pretty to look at when the wind blows by...

We Chalked the Sidewalk

I'm part of an organization called NSCS. It's just some scholar club that does community service. Anyways, we chalked the sidewalk to get our name out there on campus Monday afternoon.

... Of course it rained a day later.

Class Registration

Last Thursday was my registration enrollment date for Fall 2013! I'm glad that my final schedule worked out after a bit of emailing and constant pestering of other departments.

Something that I hate about SU's registration process is the fact that you don't always know whether or not you can take a class until you click enroll and find out on enrollment day. Granted, you can get around the roadblocks that revolve the administration after a bit of persuasion.

Fall 2013: Presentational Speaking, Reading Popular Culture, Photography in Broadcast News, and various news and media related classes?! I'm psyched!

Interpretive Dancing

This past weekend, my friends and I filmed our English final project. Afterwards, we had a funny dance session at 2am. The fact that we can do things like this sober just tells me we need to refrain from any substance use because who knows what will happen when I'm not in a sane state of mind.

News and Social Media

So I've been busy this past week doing a variety of things from midterms and papers to putting together my first news package for CitrusTV. Filming, writing, and editing in one day is hard work! Anyways, excuses aside, let's talk about the news... since, you know, I'm into that stuff as a wannabe journalist.

The bombings in Boston this past week was a tragedy for many. Why Boston? Why innocent marathon runners? While we await the details of the recent event, many people expressed their concerns whether it be contacting people they know in Boston to make sure friends and family were okay or just posting a Facebook status that expresses their sympathy for Boston's situation. All over various social media you see the words "Pray for Boston."

But there are others. There are people out there who care more about popularity in the eyes of the public than about the people. Don't know what kind of people if you dare call them that I am referring to? I'm talking about people like this...

Has the perceived use of social media stooped so low that "proving your care" in the eyes of the public is more important than sympathizing with humanity?

Verisimilitude: BOOM! Pregnant!

What can I say?  I have been waiting for this day for quite some time, and I'm so glad that I finally get to share it with all of you!

verisimilitude \ver-uh-si-MIL-i-tood, -tyood\, noun:

1. the appearance or semblance of truth; likelihood; probability: The play lacked verisimilitude.
2. something, as an assertion, having merely the appearance of truth.

Verisimilitude: BOOM!  Pregnant!

Go to 2:07.

You're welcome.

Ma Rainey's dramatic lilt

lilt \lilt\, noun:

1. rhythmic swing or cadence.
2. a lilting song or tune.

verb:
1. to sing or play in a light, tripping, or rhythmic manner.

I like to believe that I have made my Interpretation of Drama class famous on this blog, and the interesting events just keep rolling in.

Yesterday we had to read (and yes, I say had to because nobody read the play, we were all too busy writing a paper for this class the night before) a play called Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, a play that I also believe no one in the class had ever heard of.  Luckily, I think there was a point in the class that m teacher realized that no one read the play.

 So what can you do in a situation like this?  Show the class video clips of the bluesy lilt for which the play is named?  By the original Ma Rainey?  YES!

That's exactly what our teacher did.  For a good seven minutes or so, instead of discussing why Ma was late and forced her band to go get her a Coca Cola, we listened to the original Black Bottom song, and then clips of people dancing to it in the 1920's.  It was pretty interesting, and I honestly wish that kind of dancing was around now, instead of the grinding that we currently have.  The black bottom is so much funnier/classier depending on who you dance it with.  Maybe I would go out just a little bit more on the weekends....

Here's what we got to sit and listen to:

Rainy ingressions

ingress \IN-gres\, noun:

1. the act of going in or entering.
2. the right to enter.
3. a means or place of entering; entryway.
4. Astronomy. immersion (def. 5).

I was able to use today's WoD in a tweet!  Since it was raining extremely hard today, I had absolutely no desire to go outside, so I decided to order delivery.  My tweet went as such:

"I don't think the ingress of Sadler is worth it right now #rain #delivery"

Sadler is the building next door with the dining hall that I had no desire to enter.  My delivery was fan-freaking-tastic by the way.

Machinating the Internet

machinate \MAK-uh-neyt\, verb:

to contrive or plot, especially artfully or with evil purpose: to machinate the overthrow of the government.

Oftentimes I machinate to do my homework early on in the day, but fail miserably.  I blame the Internet for being such an entertaining place.

Plethoric amounts of rain in Syracuse

plethoric \ple-THAWR-ik, -THOR-, PLETH-uh-rik\, adjective:

1. overfull; turgid; inflated: a plethoric, pompous speech.
2. of, pertaining to, or characterized by plethora.

I don't usually say this, actually, I've never said this, but Syracuse has a plethoric amount of rain right now.  Seriously, there's thunder and lightning and everything. 

So.  Much.  Rain.

Stranger Danger

See this piece of Hershey's Chocolate? It was taken from the arms of a stranger. Let me explain...

My friend Ali and I were walking to class when we passed by a student with a colorful sign that had the word "FREE" written in one hand and this piece of Hershey's Chocolate dangling in the other. Both my friend and I noticed this as we walked by, but neither of us wanted to take the piece of candy. After all, "stranger danger" comes to mind with such a creepy, atypical move. A few moments after passing by, we both just knew we wanted that candy, so we went back and greeted the guy and each of us received a piece of milk chocolate!

Recently, breaking the "stranger danger" rule has been a novel concept to me. It shocked me the other day when I was playing basketball at the gym with my friends and a group of guys I didn't recognize asked to play with us on the same court.

This concept of "stranger danger" has always been a rule I'd follow as a kid, but as an adult, you're forced to face strangers everyday.  It doesn't help to shy away from something you want or new people you could potentially meet. There's a point where you need to recognize that not everyone is out to get you.

It was warm today.

Today was so warm, it was 60 degrees! Jillian and I just had to get some froyo at Yogurtland, so here's a lovely picture I took today on a stereotypical park bench with my $10 worth of yogurt.

Sorry I didn't take a more meaningful picture today...

To all those demimonde engineers

demimonde \DEM-ee-mond; Fr. duh-mee-MAWND\, noun:

1. a group characterized by lack of success or status: the literary demimonde.
2. (especially during the last half of the 19th century) a class of women who have lost their standing in respectable society because of indiscreet behavior or sexual promiscuity.
3. a demimondaine.
4. prostitutes or courtesans in general.
5. a group whose activities are ethically or legally questionable: a demimonde of investigative journalists writing for the sensationalist tabloids.

Personally, I like the second definition, one can have so much fun with that if ever there was a funny social commentary.  The first, however, reminds me of my favorite show ever, The Big Bang Theory, therefore I shall write on that one because it is even funnier than social commentary.

For those of you who have not seen The Big Bang Theory, change that status, immediately!  It is a fantastic show about four nerdy guys who work at CalTech in Pasadena, CA and have a beautiful friend whom one of them likes very much and ends up dating and then there are two other girls as well for two of the other guys but there's still that random single guy who's mad about it and there's lots of Star Trek and Star Wars and Doctor Who and other comic book references and it's just great go watch it it's good for your soul.

In the show, there is a character named Howard Wolowitz, a.k.a. my second favorite character on the show.  He's different from all of the other guys because, well, he only has a master's degree.  No Ph.D.  What a loser.  It's funny because this little nip in eduction makes him a demimonde amongst his other doctorate friends.  He is (spoiler alert!) the first of his friends to get married, however.  

There, I've done it, I've used the Word of the Day.  Now I'm going to humor all of you with my favorite scenes and pictures from Big Bang.  You're welcome.

Above is a tribute to Howard Wolowitz.  Shout out to all the engineers out there.

The Whipped app.  I swear it's really funny.

Best.  Scene.  Ever.

The cast looking extremely attractive.

Spin Art

I never had the privilege of knowing about Spin Art until I came to college... but apparently most people passed by the Spin Art machine with words like, "OMG SPIN ART! I used to love that!" Maybe I lived under a rock when I was younger for not knowing about this magical toy, but Spin Art is pretty cool.

Syracuse University Relay For Life 2013

I participated in my first Relay For Life yesterday,  hence the late post. Let me tell you, it was nothing like I had expected. I didn't realize that the event was an all night soiree with performances and ballroom dance lessons and things to buy and make and play in addition to the given walking and the speech giving.

My experience is best documented by this video I threw together last night/this morning.

Roberto's idiolect concerning sports

Today's post goes out to a guy who makes up funny words in the middle of a Syracuse basketball game even though he claims to have used them in high school.

idiolect \ID-ee-uh-lekt\, noun:

a person's individual speech pattern. Compare dialect (def. 1).

We'll call this particular guy Roberto, a guy who lives on my floor, and happens to be a sports fanatic.  Roberto has a few words that he likes to use in his own little sports idiolect that I'm going to share with you below (p.s. I have to completely make up the spelling):

-Steeze: just another word for "swag" but implies athletic ability.

-Clutch: player HAS the ball.

These are the main two words that he uses, although there are more that Roberto doesn't particularly favor.

In other news, Syracuse just lost to Michigan in the Final Four round, and although it was a helluva game, I'm terribly sad about it.  :(

The codicil player

codicil \KOD-uh-suhl\, noun:

1. any supplement; appendix.
2. a supplement to a will, containing an addition, explanation, modification, etc., of something in the will.

I got to be the awkward codicil tonight.  Well, the injured awkward codicil tonight.

Sometimes, my floor likes to play late-night basketball and soccer at the gym, which is what we did earlier.  Playing basketball is really fun because if you knew how passionately involved these guys are with the sport, you'd think it's the best too.  Anyway, the time came when we had nine players, so someone had to sit out to due unfair amounts of people on one team.

We all took turns sitting out, but I had to take my turn after an unfortunate attempt to block the ball, and I landed on my knees.  Hard.  There is now discoloration and swelling in that general area, and I'm still waiting on it to heal.  

But yes, I was the codicil player while injured.  Hopefully that will not happen to anyone on SU's team tomorrow as we CRUSH Michigan in Atlanta!!

That is all.

Syracuse University's National Communications Coordinator for Residence Hall Association

Gave a 5 minute speech and suffered through a Q&A session today, but it's all worth it! I'm very excited for the next school year...

This is the apology/long post. It'll never happen again.

I would like to begin by apologizing to everyone who so loyally turns to my posts to learn enhanced English.  That's right, I have not posted in over a week.  The Earth, however, is still rotating on its axis.  What I plan on doing to make up for this unforgivable blunder is to post all of the words I've missed over the past week and a half, and write you a little story using all of those words.  I swear I'll never do this to you guys again.

tranche \trahnch, trahnsh\, noun:

1. any part, division, or installment: We've hired the first tranche of researchers.
2. Finance. a. one part or division of a larger unit, as of an asset pool or investment: The loan will be repaid in three tranches. b. a group of securities that share a certain characteristic and form part of a larger offering: The second tranche of the bond issue has a five-year maturity.

verb:
1. Finance. to divide into parts: tranched debt; A credit portfolio can be tranched into a variety of components that are then further subdivided.

pharaonic \fair-ey-ON-ik, far-\, adjective:

1. (usually lowercase) impressively or overwhelmingly large, luxurious, etc.: a construction project of pharaonic proportions.
2. (sometimes lowercase) of or like a Pharaoh: living in Pharaonic splendor.
3. (lowercase) cruelly oppressive; tyrannical: pharaonic tax laws.

swivet \SWIV-it\, noun:

a state of nervous excitement, haste, or anxiety; flutter: I was in such a swivet that I could hardly speak.

gaumless \GAWM-lis\, adjective:

lacking in vitality or intelligence; stupid, dull, or clumsy.

impawn \im-PAWN\, verb:

1. to put in pawn; pledge.
2. to put in pawn; pledge.

ha-ha \HAH-hah\, noun:

sunk fence.

splenetic \spli-NET-ik\, adjective:

1. irritable; peevish; spiteful.
2. of the spleen; splenic.
3. Obsolete. affected with, characterized by, or tending to produce melancholy.

noun:
1. a splenetic person.

aperture \AP-er-cher\, noun:

1. an opening, as a hole, slit, crack, gap, etc.
2. Also called aperture stop. Optics. an opening, usually circular, that limits the quantity of light that can enter an optical instrument.

ingratiate \in-GREY-shee-eyt\, verb:

to establish (oneself) in the favor or good graces of others, especially by deliberate effort (usually followed by with): He ingratiated himself with all the guests.

The story that I'm about to tell you is absolutely true, and it's one of the reasons why I haven't written all week.  I am currently in a class called COM117, and it's a multimedia storytelling class where all of the work I turn in is related to some kind of project.  And by project I mean video project where you're in a group and film and edit things together.

I am in a group with two other people--a guy and a girl-- and our tranche just completed a project about a man here in Syracuse who gives food to the homeless.  For those of you who have never been to Syracuse (the city not the university), it's a rather pharaoinic city, large, with a substantial homless population.  My group and I were lucky enough to find this man who does this wonderful thing, and ride in his car for a few hours, filming as he gave sandwiches he made to the less-fortunate.  It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

I was in a bit of a swivet that day, partly because I was excited to get on this project, and partly because I got to skip French class.  I considered it quite the adventure.  The three of us got to ride in his car with us as we drove around the city on his route, stopping anywhere we found someone holding a cardboard sign off the freeway or just sitting amongst a pile of junk.  Although we didn't go near a lot of the homeless people (because they were strangers to him as well, and cameras can make people on the streets nervous), I really felt like I got to know their stories. 

A real eye-opener from that day that I will never forget was when he took us to an abandoned camp site where four homeless people used to live.  It was in a patch of forestry just off the 81 freeway.  There was trash everywhere, and a well-constructed shack in the midst of it all.  Sure it was dirty and disorganized, but I realized that it was a sturdy complex.  This was not built by the lazy, gaumless, drug addicts we as a society picture most homeless people to be.  This was simply their way of life.  It was not an ideal situation for them, obviously, but it was how they got by.  It was enlightening.

It was through this experience, however, that I impawned to myself that I would never like to be homeless.  That's an obvious life goal for the great majority of us, but it runs deeper than that.  I promise that I will never let life become too much to put a roof over my head.  I promise never to become a splenetic, ungrateful person who has to live life in the aperture of the Earth, or put up a ha-ha (whatever that is) to create a home.  After my experience seeing the homeless of Syracuse, I think that we should all ingratiate with one another.  Talk to each other, see each other.  One of the first things he always says to the people he meets is, "I just want you to know that I see you, and God sees you."

I don't think it matters how religious you are.  That's a beautiful way to see somebody.

CoCoPPa App Review

In a world where iPhones are as common as cars, the iPhone case seems to be the only personalized aspect of this must-have device. But not anymore! Now the icons can also be personalized with the CoCoPPa App, a Japanese kawaii-themed app that lets the user create and set individualized icons for various apps from Facebook to Blackboard.

Despite the cuteness overload, there are some setbacks to using these icons:

1) You don't delete the original app from your phone. These icons depend on the links the original apps have, and therefore deleting the original app would only leave a useless icon. I ended up tucking all the original app icons away on the very last page of my iPhone menu so that the aesthetically pleasing ones would stay at the frontline :)

2) These icons don't show notifications! Game and social media apps typically have a little red number at the top corner of the original app icon when something new comes up. Because you still have the old icons, those notifications show up on the original rather than these replacement icons.

3) These icons only work for apps downloaded from the app store. Original apps that come with an iPhone such as Camera, Contacts, Music, etc. cannot be replaced with a styled icon, so the inconsistent use of the original icons and the personalized ones might look awkward when mixed together on a single menu page.

So is the app worth it? If you think about it, this app really is extraneous. What's the point of this app if the original icon still exists, but is only hidden away? All this extra work is only to provide some originality. Personally, I think the wow-factor of showing your friends the unique icons is worth it. Plus, the extra personalization couldn't hurt in making sure the phone you pick up off the counter is yours.

3/5 STAR RATING

It still looks amateurish.

It's taking a while, but it's getting there... slowly but surely.

How to reduce scanned file sizes (Mac).

Scanning files onto a Mac is silly when the file is much too high quality to send to anyone else via email. I give you this post because the first link I listened to taught me to reduce a quality to this:

Super Blurry Crap

We don't want super blurry crap. We want readable text that doesn't take up over 15MB. So here's what you do...

1. Scan the page (Duh).
2. DO NOT SAVE AS A PDF. SAVE AS A JPEG.
3. Open the JPEG file.
4. File -> Save As.
5. A little bar should show up letting you manually adjust the image quality.
6. Save!

Now your file doesn't take up a ton of space! You can repeat File -> Save As to save it into different file formats, but use the JPEG format to adjust the file size.

You're welcome.

Letters

What is it about handwritten letters that make it so special?

In a technological age, people tend to fancy the virtual messages, but you can't physically hold these messages in your hand. You can't touch the paper and know that some time ago, your friend also had this piece of paper.

Handwriting shows character. Maybe the person likes to write fast and forgets to dot the i's or cross the t's. Maybe the person has terrible writing all together and the words just come out as scribbles. Or maybe each word is written with such precision the words almost seem typed. Either way, the writing itself becomes part of the person's personality. It's a part of the people you can keep forever even when the memories fade away...

Anyways I write this post because last semester, my high school friends and I were very good at keeping up with the old-fashioned mail. We've been slacking recently, but now I've been reminded what makes these postcards and letters so wonderful.