Takin care of business

I'm (pretty much) settled in at my awesome apartment in Chapel Hill and the craziness has begun! I hit the ground running and my "three-day weekends" are actually just a chance to get all my readings done for the next week. So far, all work and a tiny bit of play. I did get to go to a women's soccer game but no Mia Hamm sighting.

I don't have much to write about except school. I am officially in the Business and Media track, where I'll not only learn corporate communications but also how to write about business. Pretty snazzy. I read the Wall Street Journal and everything. Some other tracks people have are reporting, health and medical journalism, visual communication, strategic communications, communication law and electronic media. There are only 13 of us so not many people overlap and I'm the lone bizz girl. There are 22 people in the cohort above me but the theory is that they only brought in the amount of people they could fund this year. Either way, there are just 13 of us, and we're from all parts of the U.S. (and world), with all sorts of life stories and ages. I'm the baby.

Examples of people in my cohort: a Coast Guard officer, a surf instructor, a girl from Brazil, a guy that did the Peace Corp in Mozambique.

I'm a white girl from Alpharetta.

That aside, I'm hoping that coming straight from undergrad will help me out a little. My roommate, Tina, just started law school here and, judging by this weekend, we'll have similar schedules: Wake up, sit at our desks all day studying, treat ourselves with a shower and then sleep.

My awesome classes? Research Methods, Reporting and Writing News, Communication Law, and Digital Media Economics and Behavior. So far I really like my classes, my professors, this town, this university, and the supportive feeling of the program. There doesn't seem to be a downside (unless you count the amount of work, but that's what makes the degree what it is).

I feel really good about all this. I know I'm here for a reason and I'm excited to see where it takes me.

**No sightings of my gay best friends yet**

Newest North Carolina resident

I am moved into Chapel Hill and I met some people in my program tonight! I'm excited and anxious and scared shitless. Until 7pm I knew no one within like 100 miles of me and I didn't know any roads. This is very different than moving to Athens with 60 people from my graduating class.

I've moved into my wonderful apartment and I am so excited that this is what I get to come home to every night. My tub is incredible. Who puts a marble shelf in the tub? I don't know, but I'm glad they do. I'm such a grown up.

I also don't have Internet or tv yet (blogging via iPhone- technology these days!) so I've been listening to a radio station that plays the same ten songs in a cycle. Hopefully when I get Internet I can update more about this new city but for now: no wifi= no pictures.

Some things I've noticed that I like:
- everyone goes about 14 over the speed limit. Perfect.
- people wear school paraphernalia. That's awesome because I'm so excited to have a new school that I've bought an obnoxious amount of Carolina blue already.

Many (hopefully) more things to come!

A-head of the game

It's my last week of work before I move up to Chapel Hill to start my new life. And it's very bittersweet. I have lots of words to share about my internship, but they're probably too mushy and serious so we'll just talk about Chaz.

I mentioned earlier that a huge part of my internship-humbling-process has been carrying weird things. Or just things in weird shapes, unfailingly things that are hard to carry. Yesterday I think (hope) I maxed out the weirdness.

As an awkward-appetizer, I had to first wheel a cart-load of boxes full of books down to my boss's car. Which would have been fine, but our office cart was being used, so I had to use the tax department's cart.

This cart has proven itself to be an enemy in the past, and yesterday was a battle that I most definitely lost. These carts have four swiveling wheels. Or they're supposed to. The tax department cart only has THREE swiveling wheels. The front right wheel does not swivel. Which makes turning left extremely difficult.

Not only that, but after six boxes of books were stacked on the cart, it would have been hard to turn left WITH a swiveling wheel. So as I ride down the elevator, I look at my watch and realize that it's 11:30, prime lunch time in my building. As the elevator doors open to the first floor, my fears are confirmed that not only do I have to turn left out of the elevator, I have an audience.

I basically end up grunting and heaving and trying to lift the right side of the cart to two-wheel it into a left turn, which naturally fails horribly- leaving the crowd in awe and a few books strewn on the floor.

I picked them up and scurried out of the elevator bank, head down.


Now in terms of embarrassment, that might take the cake for the day. But in terms of carrying awkward things, Chaz does.

As part of a presentation that I'm running today, I have to demonstrate a wearable computer. It pretty much looks like a super fancy headset.



You say commands and it opens folders in the little screen under your eye and then you can tilt your head up and down to scroll through a document. It's very cool. And very expensive.

So yesterday I had to go get it and learn how to use it in order to demonstrate it today. I also had to get the accesories for it. Which include: a battery charger, an SDcard and holder, a carrying case, and... a mannequin head. SAY WHAT?

Yes, friends, yesterday and today part of my job is to carry around a mannequin head. Not only around the office, but the presentation is at Mercer, so in about 20 minutes I'll leave the office to carry said head around Atlanta.

Now I decided to name the head Chaz because he looks like a young fellow. And he has incredible bone structure. And I don't like the idea of carrying a stranger's head around so he needed a name.

So if you're looking for Intern Cindy today, I'll be the one walking through the Mercer campus carrying a mannequin head and wearing a headset computer, yelling "OPEN MY DOCUMENTS!"

Nailophile

I started to bite my nails pretty much as soon as I learned to chew. That may be an exaggeration, but it was long enough ago that I don't remember it. I tried everything to stop, and Lord knows my mom did everything to try and make me stop.

Then one day, a few weeks before junior prom, I decided that I wanted to have a French manicure for the dance and would therefore have to stop biting them.

And I did.

Just like that. But even though I stopped biting them, I'm still abnormally obsessed with the condition of my nails. They have to be smooth and usually painted, but can't have any chips in the paint so I change my nail color constantly. And they have to all be the same length. I've been known to put my fingers nail-to-nail to make sure both pinkie nails are the same length, thumb nails, etc.

Anyway, my first week of work this summer, I realized that everyone had very nice nails. So I went to get a manicure. But the lady next to me was getting acrylic nails. And I though, "Wouldn't it be wonderful to not have to worry about the condition of my nails? If everyday they looked perfect and were all the same length?!"

And it is. Week 9 with my fake nails and I've got to say, I love them. I never thought I'd be that girl to be at the nail salon every few weeks, but for a $15 fill in that makes me feel this good, it's worth it. And no matter how many times I do my nail-to-nail comparison, they're still the same length.

And you know that sound it makes when you have long nails and you drum your fingers on a table? I love that.

So along with my summer nail-beautifying, I've started researching nail colors. This is the kind of nail color I've been wearing for work:




But after exploring all the nail polish colors, I'd rather be wearing these:




I've been known to wear some adventurous nail polishes, and all this light-pink-professional stuff is making me antsy. Maybe something like this for UNC:



And since rush workshop is about to start for all the panda sorostitutes, I recommend this, courtesy of SwatchandLearn.com:



I'm sure it's under dress code.

PS- I do recognize that I just posted way too many words about nail polish. I appologize to my father and the one or two other men that might read my blog.

Will & Grace

I have two new gay best friends!

Ok, well we haven't met yet.

I moved most of my stuff into my wonderful apartment in Chapel Hill this weekend and as we were leaving, two guys were moving into the one next to us. Now I don't want to make any assumptions, but my gaydar was maxing out.

My plan of action is to woo them with my Human Rights Campaign car sticker and my knowledge of marriage rights. And then...we'll fall in love. (Best friend love...obviously.)

I'm officially moving up in less than 3 weeks, so I'll keep everyone updated during the mission.

Humble Beginnings

Today I broke the printer. To the point where neither I, nor one of my coworkers, nor the tech guy, nor the print shop guy could fix it. So we've had to call Xerox and have them send a technician out. He'll be here sometime in the next 48 hours. Luckily only about 12 people use this printer, printing hundreds of sheets a day, using this exact machine for all their printing needs.

UGH.

So after I rolled my eyes and laughed that I had done yet another intern thing, I started to explain to the tech guy some of the other "Intern Moments" I've had in the last nine weeks. Here is a sample:


I am ALWAYS carrying something strangely shaped and hard to hold. I carried a gigantic orchid up from the mail room in such a way that I had to peer through the stalks to see where I was going. There were stares.

I accidentally turned off a fancy-pants manager's light on the way out of his office, leaving him sitting in the dark.

I rolled a cart out to my boss's car to get "a huge bucket" just to find out it was one small empty tub. I looked extremely weak rolling it back in on a cart.

I regularly trip trying to walk in heels, fell into a guy one time and he thought I had broken my ankle. (This came just minutes after I was asked if I was a model, and was feeling pretty high and mighty. I imagine it was God's way of knocking me off my high horse.)

If you walk through the badge-swipey-things without swiping your badge it alarms at you. This gets tricky when you push a cart through AND try to walk through. Multiple times I've had to do something similar to the electric slide to shuffle my way through the sensors without setting the alarms off. Still haven't been successful.

My new shoes get air pockets in them when I walk so it makes very un-ladylike sounds. I suspect there may be a viral email that the new intern has the walking farts.

Went in to make coffee one day and somehow the Keurig machine just started spewing water everywhere. Naturally 3 people walked in right then as I was panicking and dodging the boiling spray.

I thought I broke the copier cause it wasn't printing in color and tried to fix it for like 15 minutes before asking someone and being told it's only black and white.


I come home every day with a different story, so I'm sure I've left most of them out. It's a humbling experience, being an intern. Hopefully this will help me to work with interns someday when I'm in my big girl job.

In honor of 235 years of your citizens bickering

Per usual, I'm reading the CNN Belief Blog on my lunch break.
Per usual, I'm seeking out the posts about church & state.

And I found this gem.

In honor of Independence Day, it's a post called "Why the U.S. is not a Christian Nation." And it's fascinating.

If you don't feel like reading through the whole thing, here are some quick facts that interested me:
- Thomas Jefferson was the one that coined the term "separation of church and state", but it wasn't part of the Declaration of Independence, his most notable work. It was in a letter to a Baptist church in Connecticut.
- The author says that most of the founding fathers were Protestant (I was taught in my religion classes that they were mostly deist).
- The Constitution states, "No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." Then at the end of the Constitution is a "Year of the Lord" reference. (Hey, they tried.)
- One of America's earliest foreign treaties, signed under John Adams, says, "As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, -- as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen (Muslims) ..."
- "In God We Trust" was first stamped on American currency after the Civil War, and didn't become the national motto until 1956.
- "Under God" was added into the Pledge of Allegiance 60 years after it was written (for a children's magazine) in 1954.

And the most hilarious:
- The "Ten Commandments" statues in various places around America were mostly established as a publicity stunt for the 1956 movie "The Ten Commandments."

I blame the 50's.

Now I'm not saying that we need to immediately remove all evidence that anyone in America ever believed in God, I'm just saying that maybe we shouldn't get our panties in such a bundle when someone threatens to. The symbols of "America's faith" are not the cornerstone of our country.

All this being said, the money doesn't say "In the Christian God We Trust" and in the Pledge it doesn't say, "one nation, under Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior." The argument should be whether we're a country of theism or not.

Either way, Happy birthday, America! And thanks for the ability to criticize you and blog about you as much as I want. You're still my favorite.

22 going on 30?

Today I got asked how long I'd been married. When I responded, "Oh, I'm not married. I'm only 22," I was met with a sentence of terror:

"I thought you were like 30."


This working thing must really be getting to me.

Marshmallow Bob Day

In honor of Father's Day, I've been thinking of lessons that I've learned from my own Bob. Here is a small sample:

Fifteen minutes early is on time. On time is late.

Rude birthday/father's day/sympathy cards are acceptable, and even encouraged.

Prioritize your spending. Just because someone LOOKS like they have more money than you, doesn't mean they do.

Knowledge is like a river, the deeper is runs the quieter it gets.

Passing gas/burping doesn't necessarily have to be blamed on the dog, but it does have to be followed up by stating, "Mommy taught me."

An 85 is good if the class average was a 70.

If someone has a higher position than you or more authority than you, it still doesn't make them right.

"Because I said so" is not an acceptable answer. For anything, from anyone.

Get a degree.

If you want some food, get ready to throw some elbows for it.

You don't have to grow up.

Being able to sit on the beach in a chair reading a good book all day is worth the terrible tan lines.

Travel and see for yourself.

If you're old enough to shave your legs, you're old enough to mow the lawn.


Happy Father's day to the best Bob around!

Bloggin' and Believin'

I've found a gem. Slash a hope for my future career as a religion/journalism major.

The CNN Belief Blog has a little bit of everything. Something that it has a LOT of, however, is loud-mouthed atheists that abuse the "comment" capability.

That being said, I just found this paragraph in one of the articles:

"The Protestant Reformation was in part about getting away from the authority of priests and popes. Why approach God indirectly when you can do so directly, Protestants asked. Why not read the Bible for yourself?

Unfortunately, there isn't much evidence that many American Protestants today are reading scripture with frequency or care. On a battery of 12 questions about Christianity and the Bible, American Protestants got 6.5 questions right on average, for a score of 54%. Many must rely on pastors like Long to tell them what to do and think."

Yikes.

That being said, I can't say I'm surprised. I think there is a very good point, that I have been known to argue myself, that people shouldn't rely solely on pastoral direction for spiritual guidance.

The article is about Eddie Long, pastor of a Baptist megachurch that got caught in a scandal. Go figure. We've seen this a time or two before, most notably with Catholic priests. But people are tired of the "Catholic priest caught in scandal with little boy" drama, namely Catholics. What I like about the article is that it mentions other religions and denominations that have been caught in scandals too, including Buddhists. We knew they were out there.

Anyways, if you have a lull at work and find all this interesting, take a look around the blog. They have belief and faith-based angles on current events as well as personal testimonies and experiences.

PS- World is ending on OCTOBER 21 now. Pastor Camping sends his apologies for the mix-up. Oopsies!

I like this in so many ways.

Like a horse and carriage

I helped Elizabeth shoot a wedding yesterday for one of our religion major friends. Here are some of my favorite shots:







They wanted to wait til the ceremony to see each other but we figured out a way for them to still take pictures together.