Questions for me?


If you're following me on tumblr (which, oddly enough, most of you are) you've probably already seen this, but I have jumped on the FormSpring bandwagon! Which now gives you all the right to ask me literally anything. (Seriously: do it, please? I like answering questions! And then posting my answers to those questions!)

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This week pretty much sucked for me in a variety of ways. But it was totally made up for this weekend through an EPIC The Rachel Maddow Show and a hilarious Numb3rs on Friday, Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream to celebrate cloture in the Senate on Saturday, and wins by both the Giants and the Pats earlier today. Plus, it's Thanksgiving this week, meaning only two days of classes and then three days back home - with eating, watching football, family get-togethers and just generally lounging around, not getting anything school-related done! I'm excited.

( A few very brief thoughts on tonight's House. )

In short: really not what I needed after last night's Pats/Colts game. Not only was I having terrible flashbacks to Superbowl XLII, but now the MIGHTY BENGALS OF CINCINNATI of all teams are actually really being considered as contenders for this season's Superbowl! SERIOUSLY.

Since I haven't had enough heartbreak over the past two weeks, let's talk about the New York Giants.

It's not that I'm mad at them. From what I understand, it's more about who they're playing than how they're playing (although I do think might have something to do with it - I mean, how do you win four straight and then lose four straight? INCLUDING TO THE CARDINALS? COME ON.) I just don't think they've been well matched-up in terms of opponents - but that isn't anything the team themselves can control. In a way, I wish the Giants and Patriots fates were reversed: Eli's team could've won three, had a bye, and then won again; the Pats could've won four and then lost four, which we could have attributed to Tom Brady's delayed reaction on returning to football after taking last season off. All I'm saying is that I'm thankful the Giants have a bye this upcoming week, as it'll give them a chance to regroup and get back on track, as I heard a really upsetting anecdote on ESPN during dinner (my TV choices then are either ESPN or CNN Headline News, so shut up.) that no team has ever made it to the Superbowl with four straight losses. Which sucks, as I would really like the Giants to at least have a chance of making it this time around.

In short: San Diego Superchargers, I know you have a cool theme song and all, but would it have killed you to let the Giants win the game on Sunday? Especially since they were at home, and hadn't won a game in three weeks? The team needed it. the fans needed it. I NEEDED IT.

*attempts to get this posted before tonight's season finale*

( Mad Men 3x12: The Grownups. )

I'M HOOOOOOOOOOOOOME.

It's great to be back. I haven't seen them since before I left for Grand Valley at the end of August, and even though I talk to my parents on the phone every Sunday night, it's just not the same as seeing them in person. I was near tears when I walked in the door, and both my parents gave me huge hugs when they saw me (Dad was home when I arrived, but Mommy came in a little bit later.) That good mood was quickly crushed when I went upstairs to my room to put my stuff away and saw that Monica, who has been using my bedroom for its better WiFi connection and my bathroom in general (since she normally shares a bathroom with Graham and well... EW), had completely trashed the place. She knew I'd be coming home this weekend, so she could at least make the effort to clean it up to almost how she found it.

My parents were being their adorable selves last night while watching Law & Order with me - Mommy especially, in the way she gets so wrapped up in watching these crime procedurals. I was really excited that even with a stop at Meijer and Wendy's for dinner, I was able to make it home in time to see it; how could I not, as it was two hours in HD on our big-screen TV! SO SHINY. Except it ended up being two completely different episodes instead of one big long one (which I would've preferred, seeing as the first episode sort-of ended in a cliffhanger.) daygloparker's right: tres disappointing. And Numb3rs wasn't much better, partially because our CBS HD feed was faulty, and this is still on my mind.

Today I spent most of the day watching C-SPAN coverage of the Health Care Reform debate in Congress - something I'd never thought I'd do, plus I planned to spend at least part of the day doing more research for my World Politics memo essay (Due Thursday, have not started it yet. I forsee a lot of late nights in my future.) Obviously, that did not get done, and it probably won't happen tomorrow either - I plan on watching Rachel Maddow do Meet the Press and then watch the Patriots/Dolphins game before I have to go back to campus in the late afternoon. I could attempt to start it tomorrow night, but who knows how tired I'll be. Plus I still haven't re-watched last weeks' Mad Men, and I'd really like to talk about it before the finale.

In conclusion, Taylor Swift is adorable.

It has been a very stressful week for me. I got offered a chance to job shadow at the local ABC affiliate on Tuesday evening, an as much as I'd really like to go, I don't drive and getting there by bus on time would be damn near impossible. I found out on Tuesday that my Memo Essay for World Politics is due next Thursday - I definitely knew that, seeing as it was given to me at the beginning of the semester, but since it wasn't due for a couple of weeks and I had other more urgent things to work on, it got pushed to the back burner. So obviously, I haven't started working on it - and it's worth 20% of my grade, so if I do poorly on it, I'm pretty much guaranteed to fail the class. Commence freaking out.

I'd been trying to relax a little bit, as I haven't been sleeping well as of late and have been getting some pretty bad headaches - including the one earlier today, which required a heavy dose of Tylenol and a three-hour nap - by watching the World Series. I'm not a huge baseball person, but it's nice to have some sort of distraction, even if I'm too distracted by it to actually do my homework. Anyway, I had finished everything I needed to do last night, so I watched Game Six. Thrilled by the Yankees win (PHILLY CAN SERIOUSLY SUCK IT NOW), I stayed up on the internets for a little bit. That may have been a bad idea, since I came across this:

CBS Reduces the Number of Numb3rs episodes this season from 22 to 16. Which I figured would be the next step after CBS has to make the decision to continue with either your show or Without a Trace (just barely escaped that one) and one of your main actors, Peter MacNicol is forced to take a temporary leave of absence from the show as a cost-cutting measure. What irks me about this is that the most recent episode brought in about 7 million viewers - which is impressive for any average television show, let alone on a Friday night. It handedly wins the 10 PM Friday timeslot almost every week. The fact that CBS increase episode orders for all the CSI's is also pretty upsetting - I always though that with the big name casts and what goes into making a seemingly "formulaic" show that it actually be more expensive to produce than Numb3rs. To see CBS go the way of NBC - eschewing popular, good quality programming over something more mediocre simply because it costs less to make - is pretty depressing. Isn't CBS supposed to be doing really well? I can understand why NBC is doing this, but CBS? SAD.

On a slightly less serious note, this cutting back of episodes better not mean that I don't get to see Charlie and Amita's wedding on-screen. I WAS PROMISED AN ON-SCREEN WEDDING, YOU GUYS. IF I DON'T GET IT SIMPLY BECAUSE CBS ARE IDIOTS, I'M REALLY NOT GOING TO BE VERY HAPPY. (And don't say "If you don't get it, I'm sure people will write fic about it!" HAHAHAHA, like that's going to happen. No one cares about this fandom, so there is no good fic. I'd write some myself, but I am not the best writer. But I'm not complaining about that. I WANT MY WEDDING I'VE BEEN WAITING A VERY, VERY LONG TIME FOR.)

However, I do have some great things to look forward to in the next few days: I'm job shadowing at the local PBS affiliate tomorrow afternoon, which is actually on Grand Valley's downtown campus - super convenient, as it is just one half-hour bus ride away; I AM GOING BACK HOME FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE I MOVED OUT TO GRAND VALLEY AT THE END OF AUGUST, which I'm obviously beyond excited for - I really miss my family a lot, you guys - and I'll be back home by tomorrow evening, meaning it's entirely possible I will get to watch the two-hour Law & Order extravaganza in HD on our big-screen TV. And I found out last night via a promo that Rachel Maddow will be on Meet the Press on Sunday, which is always exciting. And even with all this excitement, I'd really like to squeeze some doing of homework in - but that's highly unlikely. I'll be so thrilled to be home that I won't want to do anything.

I can't believe it's been a whole year since this. Here's what I remember:

Dad took me to vote early Tuesday morning before class - he and Mommy already voted by absentee because he didn't want to wait in the long lines at our polling place. After I finished voting (not wearing my Obama t-shirt or pins of course), he dropped me off at college, where I spent the entire day with a huge smile on my face, wearing my Obama gear (I changed clothes once I got to school) absorbing what little election coverage I could get from the internet on my breal. I didn't get home until about 5 that day, since I had my 3-hour Speech class. I was watching election coverage on TV and eating dinner when Dad comes in from outside and goes, "The RNC people just showed up, saying 'we're here to pick Maureen up and take her to go vote.'" And I was all, "Are you serious? Did you tell them I already voted first thing this morning? And I voted for the Democratic ticket all the way through?" Apparently they were unaware that this first-time voter is an unofficial Democrat. (Also, there are RNC people in Michigan? We've been a solidly Democratic state for yeaaaaaaaars.)

Then we spent the night watching NBC election coverage, as they are our favorites - though we occasionally flipped over to MSNBC and CNN. Graham and I made brownies - they ended up being too hot and squishy, unfortunately. Monica and I decided to make our own electoral maps. We used a map of the United States copied from her planner and colored each of the states either blue or red depending on whether they went Democratic or Republican; we also played "Guess the number of electoral votes a state has", of which I got a lot of them wrong and we laughed about how ridiculous some of our guesses were ("Georgia." "Seven?" "No. They have 15.") And in honor of Tim Russert, we used the whiteboard in our kitchen to record election results - states and their number of electoral votes in blue for Obama, red for McCain - as well as favorite election related quotes: "O'Biden by the law", "I can see Russia from my house!" "Maverick. *drink*" and "Brokaw Real Estate".

I remember a little after 11pm NBC calling the Presidency for Obama, and I was so excited and nervous over what just happened that I couldn't remember how many electoral votes California, Oregon and Washington State had when I went to write them down on our whiteboard. I was in total shock for awhile afterward - I couldn't say anything besides say "Oh my God" over and over and over while sitting frozen on the couch. And even though it was almost 1 AM by the time Obama made his speech and I had class the next morning, I stayed up until the very end because I wanted to have a story to tell my children and grandchildren - that on a Tuesday in November I voted for our first African-American president, the first time I'd ever voted. I was really tired and just plain worn out from everything that happened in the day, but I couldn't fall asleep no matter how hard I tried. It still hadn't sunk in - and wouldn't sink in until probably a week and a half later - that change had finally come to America, and I help make it happen.