Approaching the final stretch

I can't wait to be done with grad school! Just two more weeks! But that's assuming that the first official draft of my professional paper that I sent my adviser on Wednesday is acceptable and that I can schedule a date for my presentation of it within the next two weeks...I'm a little worried about it just because I need something to worry about I guess.

I have two more papers to write and then two finals - not too bad. The great thing is that I have a lot of reading to do, which is something I can do outside in this beautiful weather :) Soon though I will have to be inside writing - boo.

No job offers yet - another thing to kind of worry about. I am waiting to hear back from someone I interviewed with this week though, and it's something I hope I get. A foot-in-the-door kind of internship...we'll see.

Other than that, I'm trying to enjoy the weather and trying to decide which book I'm going to read first (for fun!) when I'm done...there's so many sitting on my shelf, waiting to be read!

Coconut Orchestra

This has got to be the coolest thing I've heard this year: Coconutters! Monty Python orchestra breaks world record

5,567 people gathered in London's Trafalgar Square led by Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam and the cast of the Monty Python musical Spamalot to play the coconuts to Always Look on the Bright Side of Life. They broke the world record for largest coconut orchestra.

How I would have loved to be there!!!

Jackie Chan may have competition for my love

Kim, Chris, and I watched a completely awesome movie last night: The Protector. Made in 2006 (or 2005, I'm not sure because it was brought to the U.S. by Quentin Tarantino), it stars Tony Jaa, a Thai martial arts expert who is relatively new on the scene, but, as Chris said, "combines Bruce Lee's kick assness with Jackie Chan's choreography." Read his post about it here.

We were all blown away by how amazing his moves were and how unique the cinematography was. And the story wasn't bad either :)

I have honestly never seen such amazing martial arts in a movie, and I've seen some incredible stuff. Jaa is beyond incredible, using no wires or camera tricks, and I am highly recommending it (put it in your NexFlix).

Here's a chuckle

After accomplishing some stuff today, I needed a break, so I decided to look through the Photo of the Day section on the National Geographic website, and came across this picture:



Hee hee....

A Sad Truth

Here's a blog post from Foreign Policy. Please read the post first because the rest of this will make more sense.

What happened in Virgina Tech was a tragedy, and I was more affected by it than I care to admit. And while an incidence like this evokes such emotion in myself, I can honestly say that I haven't shed a tear about Iraq, about the hundreds that have died there just as innocently as those at the college. The war in Iraq makes me angry and disappointed in our government, and sometimes I wonder how people there are coping, but I've never cried over any of the people that have died due to the war. Not one tear.

I have become so desensitized that I don't even blink when the headline reads something like "102 dead in bomb blast". But when I heard about the shootings at Virgina Tech, I immediately thought about my mom because I could see something like that happening where she works. This hypothetical situation that I imagine made me worried and emotional for a couple of days. And yet, worse is happening around the world, and I don't think twice.

Being without an emotional connection to everyone affords us the ability to quickly forget what is happening somewhere else. I'm not suggesting that everyone should depress the hell out of themselves trying to think about everything that is going on in this world - there's not enough time in the day to do that.

I do worry though that we have all become too desensitized. Although I see great benefit in providing cool, rational responses, I don't think our policies and our reactions to what is happening everywhere should be completely devoid of emotion.

Hands off to you my friend

Check out this picture, and you can then understand my sick sense of humor in the title of this post. Make sure you read the story underneath though - happy ending.

A picture from the banquet

I know how I said we looked so good, so I thought I would prove it:

Picture courtesy of Mary - thank you :)