Day 30- Meep

Day 29- Sunset

Day 28- School Colors

Day 27- Hopeful

Contained inside?  My submissions to the literary magazine on campus, The Gleaner.  Good luck pictures!  I'll see you again in the Spring.

Day 26- An Aerie of Eagles

Golden Eagle

Day 25- Winter Wonderland

SGB's Semi-Formal 2012- Winter Wonderland- centerpiece by the Floral Society

Day 24- An Apple a Day

Day 23- 3 Bales a' Sitting

A Christmas tree with gifts on hay-bales in the dining hall.  Welcome to ag school...

Day 22- Frosted Goodness

Some baked goods for a fundraiser!

Day 21- White Flaky Stuff

First real snowfall of the season!  And it took them at least 3 hours to start clearing it.

Day 20- Bombardment

First day of classes back from Thanksgiving break and oh my goodness do I have a lot to do.  Magnified by the fact I couldn't do anything over the break without a computer.  Oh, and I found out I have two group presentations on Thursday, not just one.  So just keep it coming, semester, I will kick your butt!

Day 19- Fly Away Home

Well the relatives slept over again last night, meaning I woke up to a cutie pie all over again!  Today was also my last day at home and I flew back to school in the early evening.  But while I was home I had enough time to finish three more ornaments, help setup the Christmas tree, and pick up my new laptop, hurray!

Day 18- Star Gazing

Today's ending was really cool because I was able to setup a display of the paper ornaments I make in a local shops window!  The shop is owned by my mom's friend and she was kind enough to agree to let me sell these ornaments.  I hope it goes well.  There is promise, though, as my mom sold 5 at a craft fair two weeks ago.

Day 17- Do You Measure Up?

So my brother, sister-in-law and niece are staying over until at least Saturday, if not Sunday.  Amanda (sister-in-law) works closer to our house than theirs and with the early hours she's working because of Black Friday and all it was just easier for them to stay with us for a couple of days.  Which is working out wonderfully because I have a lot of time to catch up with them, particularly the little one.  And boy does she like getting into everything...

Day 16- Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I spent the day with my lovely parents and my Uncle Steven.  Later on in the evening my brother, sister-in-law, and niece arrived as well.  My niece was even kind enough to share her bottle with my dad... It was a great day!

Day 15- All Smiles

Today I opened the pictures that my dad picked up for me about a week ago.  I accidentally sent them to our local CVS, instead of the one near campus.  Anyways, I opened them and I was expecting three 5x7s of some nature pictures I took about a month ago.  Well I got two of them.  The third was what had to be the cutest mix up ever...

Just look at those cheeks!  These little ones are simply too cute!  And in case you were wondering, I did go back and they kindly re-printed my order and I now have all three of my desired pictures.

Pause

Okay ladies and gents,


I have to postpone my picture a day blogging mission for just a few days.  I will continue to take pictures, but my laptop officially died last night and I will not be able to upload anything until I get a new one.  I'm more than a little angry about this.  Losing access to a laptop or computer is a horrible thing, as some of you have probably experienced.  The only upside to this is that Black Friday is only two days away.  Luckily they can now transfer all of my documents, etc. onto the new computer.   I hope everyone has a nice Thanksgiving!  And try not to hurt anyone on Black Friday, it could just be a college girl trying to get a new laptop to replace her dead one.

Day 14- Takeoff

Finally made it home- YAY!  Spent a full 5 hours on the train and at the airport and on the plane in order to make it here.  Would have taken just as much time to drive.  Oh well.  I did manage to take a few pictures along the way...

 First from the airplane...

 And then...
oh my god watch out it's a Space Cat!!!

Day 13- I'm Coming Home

Well today was a super busy day- class, work, more class, studying for my night class.  And then after all of that... packing!  Because I'm going home for Thanksgiving tomorrow, yay!

The stuff on the left is mine and the stuff on the right is my roommate's.  She currently lives in New Mexico so she's taking more stuff home.

Day 12- Not a Penny More

Celebrated an early Thanksgiving dinner with some members of The Wildlife Society today.  Thanks for a delicious meal ladies!

Day 11- A New Brand

So Delaware Valley College is going through a lot of changes right now.  Last year they initiated a brand change for the college.  They are also in the process of becoming a university as well as building an additional building or two.  As a part of the brand change they posted a lot of banners on the light posts all over campus.  Personally I hate them.  Every time I see one I have to read it the way it's typed out, which isn't the way it's supposed to be pronounced.  For example:  "Do whAT's RIght" on multiple lines and in different text sizes.  In addition to that some of them really don't make much sense.  I saw the following banner today while leaving one of the academic buildings.

Day 10- For the Love of Mice

The craft material of the day...

Day 9- Marvin the Martian

We went to a wildlife rehabilitation center today and made a nice friend by the name of Marvin.  He's a black vulture who was released but decided to hang around the center for a while.  Oh, and he likes shoes.

Day 8- What is Love?

This is the beautiful face I wake up to every morning.  Love you Fluffy.

Day 7- Like Opening A Can of Tuna

Some of you may think that I don't ever leave my room.  And that would be an incorrect statement.  I don't, however, like being out in the cold all that much so the pictures of outside locations will be limited as we head into winter.  So instead I'm spending a lot of my time in my room with my roommate, Kayla.  Today we watched S.W.A.T. for no good reason.  The results:

"Oh no, he's a loose cannon cop who doesn't play by the rules"

"The best music since Training Day" 

Day 6- Check Out My Package

Two boxes going to two very different places.  Can't wait for the results!

Day 5- Tragedy in the Yard

Animals frolicking across a textbook page.  A typical study session in Wildlife Management.

Day 4- Dut Dut Out

I spent the entirety of today with the Central Bucks South High School Marching Titans.  They competed in the USBands National Championships in Annapolis, MD.  The first picture below is the screen when they marched onto the field.  As you can see the name was misspelled. They changed that very quickly though.  The second picture is the group setting up for their professional pictures just after the performance.  All in all they placed 2nd (out of 15) in Class 4A.  Drums won their caption and colorguard placed second.  It was the best show I have seen the guard perform.  I am extremely proud of these 25 girls and want to thank them for a wonderful season.

Day 3- We Are the Titans

I spent the majority of this evening with the marching band I'm teaching this season, Central Bucks South Marching Titans (Warrington, PA) and so decided to base today's pictures on their performance at the football game.  In fact, I am traveling with them to Annapolis, MD tomorrow where they will compete in USBands National Championships.  Good luck South!

Day 2- Brown Fluff

Whew!  I almost forgot to take a picture today.  I remembered it this morning, packed my camera into my backpack and everything.  And then proceeded to forget about it at every place I thought would have good pictures.  But that's okay because my room has plenty of interesting things to photograph.

30 Day Activities

Today I watched a relatively old TED Talks video, from July 2011, called "Try Something New for 30 Days" presented by Matt Cutts.  It was short and sweet, only 3:27 long, but Matt did a really good job of marketing this idea of 30 day activities.  I also read a post from The Buried Life (worth looking into if you don't know who they are) about 20 minutes earlier titled "19 Things to Stop Doing In Your 20s".  You can find the list at the bottom of the page.  These two posts combined motivated me to start a 30 day project of my own.  I decided to start simply, with something I enjoy doing.  So I chose photography.  It is my mission that between now and December 6 I will take at least one photo every day and post it here.  I have been seriously slacking on my posting this fall and most of it is because I am unusually busy this semester.  There's nothing wrong with that, except my neglect of this delightful blog.  So here we go, pictures from Day 1 (Nov 7).  Bonus points out to whoever can guess what these are...

DCI Montage 2012

To add a little bit more context to what drum corps is, this is Drum Corps International's 2012 finale montage. I hope you enjoy it.

The Other Side...

Well, I've kind of been avoiding writing this post because it will mean that the drum corps season really is over.  It also means that my drum corps career is also over.  I am officially too old to march in DCI.

This season marching with the 7th Regiment Drum and Bugle Corps was a total rush.  From the very beginning we knew big things were going to happen for us and I was so proud.  I've been with the corps for 5 years, and every year just shows more and more progress.  Every year pushed us in a different way, pushed me in a different way.  This year was no different.

Our show this year was titled 24601-7R.

The 24601 refers to the prisoner Jean Valjean, though the show has no real ties to Les Misérables.  The 7R is simply a referral to the corps name 7th Regiment.  The show itself was "a unique, creative vision that battled with themes of oppression and conformity" (taken from the 7th Regiment Press Release written by Kathleen Schassler). In a recent newsletter, Reporter Ken Mason, Drum Corps World staff, had this to say:

"7th Regiment continues to exceed expectations, not just improving, but doing so at a faster rate than their competition.  This corps uses everything from head to toe in performing visuals.

While not one of the larger units in this contest (21B/14FP/8PP/14G/2DM), their field musicians projected a stronger sound than the groups that preceded them. Brass has been bowling people over all year. The battery plays with a very wide dynamic range, from the stickless hand strokes on the snares in the ballad to the highly exposed -visually and musically- full-arm accents, climaxing drum features."

We competed in Open Class World Finals on August 8, 2012.  We placed 5th out of 14 total corps with a score of 86.35. 

In addition to all of that, it was fun.  I had a wonderful colorguard made up of 14 amazing people.

We had an amazing seven person guard staff (six pictured below) who really pushed us past personal limits, making us better every day.

Happy One Hundred!

Hey everybody, guess what?!  It's my 100th post!  Woo hoo!

When I started this blog I didn't have very high expectations for it.  I just wanted to chronicle my trip to New Zealand, occasionally writing the odd post about whatever I wanted.  But once I started, the more I wanted to keep going.  Lately I haven't posted anything and that's due to a combination of reasons, primarily being I haven't been home too much.  But the more time I spent without blogging, the more I really wanted to!  Now that I have the time, however, I need to find good topics!  My new goal for the next little while is to try and post at least once a week.  It is my 100 post resolution!  So let's see how this goes...

Call Me, Maybe?

Hey, you just got here, and this is crazy, but here's my blog, so subscribe to me maybe?

That's right folks, this post is about the entertaining and utterly catchy song 'Call Me Maybe' by Carly Rae Jepson.  Now, before you turn away, this isn't about how much I love this song or how amazing it is.  It is, instead about just how many other recreations it has spawned.

I don't believe that the lyrics are the best ever written, but the tune itself is outrageously catchy and the song is just fun.  Not to mention the cute video that goes along with it.

The song was originally released in Canada in September 2011.  It's major popularity began when fellow Canadian star, Justin Bieber, uploaded a video of himself and a few other celebs dubbing the song. 

Soon after this was when the mayhem began.  Parodies appeared everywhere, videos of fans dubbing the song began appearing at an alarming rate!  It was madness!

And then came the memes.  For those of you who don't know what a meme is, according to Urban Dictionary, a meme is "A pervasive idea within a given culture. The idea may be spread through all channels of communication (word of mouth, photography, ad campaigns, television, &c.). The goal of the meme is to change the thought patterns of the populace."  The ones I usually find most amusing are in picture form.  Take the following examples:

And even after all that awesomeness, I still like this video the best...

Now that you have had an obscene dosage of Call Me Maybe, it is time for you to go forth into the world and sing it ALL DAY LONG!!  Have fun!



P.S.  If some of you out there have never seen Labyrinth with David Bowie, it is officially time to do so.

Sublime Summer

Man I really get boring in the summer, don't I?  Well this summer is a special case as of right now.  I am currently interning four days (M-TH) a week at the Buttonwood Park Zoo in New Bedford, MA (social media rules pending, I'll get back to you on that).   I am also spending the weekends in CT with the 7th Regiment as part of my age-out season with them.  That leaves me evenings and Friday morning to myself.  Not much time to get stuff done, especially when I have a summer class and homework for my internship to be completed!  So I apologize to anyone who has been avidly awaiting my next post... for the past two months.


I really don't have much to say, or any time to say it in.  I'll post some fun zoo stories before the summer is over.  As of right now, I have a weekend rehearsal with 7th, and Monday thru Wednesday at the zoo.  After that it's drum corps full time until August 11.  So you will again not be seeing any posts from me for quite a while.  Hope all of you are having sublime summers!

Stats

So as part of having a blog through blogger (possibly all websites?)  I get a breakdown of all the traffic on my page.  The main thing I look at is simply how much traffic I'm getting:

As you can see, this was a pretty slow week.  In addition to that overview I can also break it down into posts, traffic sources, and audience:

Just like that.  So I can tell what my readers are reading, where they're linking from, and where they are in the world.  Each category breaks it down just a little more.  The one that I really enjoy looking at is the Traffic Sources category.  I like knowing how people found my blog.  Was it through a link I posted or an e-mail or something they searched for?  So this right here is also a little warning to all of you out there.  The Internet tracks everything.  And it probably gives away more information than you realize.  You might be saying, 'Yeah, yeah we know that already, what does it have to do with this post?'  Well I'll show you.  Because  looking at the search keywords is my favorite part of the stats bar.  Check it out: