Previews

Coming this weekend, to a blog near you, my annual Academy Awards Predictions! Didn't do them last year. A> I was tired. B> They were incredibly predictable. C> I was too busy watching Ed Norton movies. If you're new to my film geekdom, you should probably be aware that my predictions for the AA are usually around 85% right, including for live action shorts, short and feature length documentaries, animated shorts and feature length,  and foreign, which yes, I don't see all of them. My best year was for 2003, when The Greatest Piece of Cinematic History The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King swept; 2004 (Million Dollar Baby), 2005 (Crash) were also good years for me; for the most part, I'm pretty accurate. But I skipped last year. (It was obvious Slumdog Millionaire would take it. It was just so good.)

But they will make a comeback this year, as you could guess by my GG/SAG post. And I'll rant about that. And Avatar. I freaking hate James Cameron. So there will be a love post to Peter Jackson, also in the near future.

I will also be posting some retro-posts, throwbacks, whatever you want to call them. These will be posts from my old Xanga, which date back to my freshman year of high school; posts that I think are amusing or still hold strong to what I am. We'll see. I have a lot to go through.

Other than those things, still working on student teaching, still working in my building, and still getting a move on my grad applications. Nothing has really changed. :) Will be back with that AA list in a few days.

I have no accurate title.

Ok so this is what happens with blogs. I get caught up in life, which I guess isn't necessarily a bad thing. ... Right?

So for the past few weeks, I've been doing the following, and mostly running on 5-6 hours of sleep a night:

1. Spending some time with friends, being immature before we all go off and get real jobs.
2. Trying to see a bunch of people I don't get to see very often.
3. RA Training was two weeks ago and boards were my life. Pictures to come.
4. Student Teaching, prep for graduation, and shenanigans for grad school.
5. Duty. Programs. RA stuff.

So right now my main priority (and for many years to come) has been prep work for teaching. Lesson plans, activities, Do Nows, Homeworks, learning names, that kind of thing. It's all incredibly helpful and stressful at the same time. The work of teaching is the planning, the configuring, etc. But just being in the classroom is a reward. So I don't really see that as my future job. Paperwork is job.

I've been placed at a wonderful high school in Wappingers, about an hour away from New Paltz. The commute is a nuisance, but it is indeed totally worth it. I love the faculty. I love the building. I love the students. I love the classes I will be teaching. I love the English Department's lounge. Let me know when to stop gushing. Looking forward to the experiences and relationships I will make there. Can't wait to start! Feb 10th. Have some really quirky, out of the box lesson plans that I think the kids will enjoy.

On the flip side, this Student Teaching semester is my very last semester before I truly am an adult. Eep. I'm looking at grad school, I'm looking at job options... Grad School is probably at the top of my list right now. If I can get a job, I'll do the job and grad school. If not, I'm staying on campus to stay as an RA or maybe I'll go for CDA. There's a lot of options out there, and I think I'll take my time with looking at all of them. I would love to get a job at the school I'm at right now; of course that really depends on the future weeks to come. I would definitely need to love the school; it's not a job for job's sake. However, I LOVE being an RA. I love my staff, I love my residents. Not quite sure if I'm ready to leave... But I'll know what I have to do when the time comes.

That being said, I've been really lucky and blessed in the past few weeks. Nothing is going poorly; everything is very positive and working well. I have all the proper elements to make this a good, relaxed semester. I say relaxed because, as usual, I am staying out of drama. There are more important things to do than whine over who got the last piece of meat.


Can I just write a brief ode to College and the Life of Drinking? Well, this is my blog. So I can.

It is my senior year, and I have experienced some crazy nights here, all fun. I wouldn't trade them for the world. On the flip side, I have seen many people with terrible nights. These are usually the people who are stumbling home, crying about a lover, or running to the bathroom to throw up. If you can't tell, I say that in disgust. Me? I don't drink. I won't say never have; it is something I, as a college student, have grown not to love and make excuses for.

The bottem line is, I don't need things to be crazy to have a good time. In ways, I represent New Paltz pretty well, but at the same time, we're at odds with each other. I'd like to think of myself as laid-back, open minded, and easily amused, which fits the hippy side of things. But I'm not a party girl, I don't get plastered every night, I don't smoke up all the time, I don't go out looking to get laid, I don't look for trouble; but I'm not a typical college student either. I don't have any problem with drinking or people who like to drink. I have plenty of friends who love to drink and party, and there's nothing wrong with that. I have a problem with the peer pressure of college life to drink as much as possible.

Many people (in college, and not just New Paltz) have this stereotype that if in college, please get bombed as often as possible. Listen up little kiddies of America: This is not true. You can have nights where you stay in. You can be the only sober one and still have a good time. I, in my firm decision not to drink no matter how much peer pressure is put on me, have had countless nights of fun- without being ashamed of throwing up in the middle of the night, doing something embarrassing at the bar, or taking the Walk of Shame home. And I have to say, it's pretty self empowering. In a college town with three of four corners being bars, surrounded by Happy Hours and cheap thrills, I can see the pressure of this trend; however, I'm pleased when someone offers a drink and I say no. Yes, you offered me a drink. Yes, I said no. Yes, I'm sure. No, I don't drink.

I'm offended when people ask me what the worst I've ever been trashed and when I reply that I do not consume, they either don't believe me or ask why. Well, why not? I know it is incredibly rare to find a college student who doesn't drink. Hey you see this? I'm raising my hand. And I've been this way from the beginning. I could probably easily slip into this lifestyle;  but yes, I'm proud to live this way, I'm proud to say no, and I'm really happy that I haven't given into this scene.

I strongly believe that alcohol is not always necessary to have a good time. I also like being in control of myself. I believe that if I need to take a substance to loosen up around people whom I consider friends, then how much of a friend can they be if I don't feel comfortable with being myself around them? And to go hand in hand with that, I believe that friends are people who accept you for who you are- that don't pressure you to do something they know you have no interest in.

Believe it or not, this goes much deeper than my attitude towards drinking. I'm not just talking about my non-alcoholic lifestyle; this is commitment to my own awareness of who I am and my morals and values. This alone has launched me above the heads and shoulders of the average college female. I don't sell out; I don;t fake my personality; I don't try and pretend to be something I'm not. I am who I am. I have accepted that. Now please, you should too.