Other blog Plug

Hey all! I posted a huge blog post on "mixtape" and I think you guys should check it out. I really broke down the "15 Steps to the Half Light" playlist I created earlier in the first semester (I may or may not have tagged you in my post on facebook).


http://inbetweendaysmixtapes.blogspot.com/

As for a general update, I'm truckin' along in school. I have a huge Stat exam tomorrow and a chem test two weeks from now. Not excited. My classes are a whole lot harder than last semester and require a lot more work.  A little over a month until I'm free!

The weeks fly by fast and it won't be long until I see all of you again over the summer! Weee!

Speaking of summer, I got a job at Foxdale as a dietary aide (something that people look for on a resume when hiring a nutritionist) and I'm taking a class for the minor I want to pick up--Global Health. The shifts for Foxdale are 8 hours though so a couple of my days are going to look like getting up at 8 to go to class and then speeding over to Foxdale to work until 7 or 8. I feel like a grown up!

I'll update again soon!

I know, I'm sorry.

Hey everyone! It's been a while... a long while. But I have to do these other two blogs for this honors rhetoric class I'm in and they have been taking up all my time. One of them you might like more than the other one: my passion blog. Its all about music and how it's been fitting into my life lately.

Check it: Mixtape

Anyways, I just want to thank everyone who donated to THON and the Four Diamonds Fund this year.
We raised 9.56 MILLION dollars. This is incredible. As they revealed the numbers we all expected an 8 as the final digit. But no. IT WAS A 9. WHAAAAAT!?

Obviously I am very excited and incredibly moved by this THON weekend experience. Check thon.org for more information about the weekend.

 I cannot wait for next year. THON was my life, and now since it's over...my life is too.

Playing with 4Diamonds kids was one of the most rewarding parts of THON.

Again, thank you so much for your support. I had a fabulous time.

Holiday Fun

Hey everyone- here is the post I promised you!

Over break my friends and I had tons of fun and by the end of break I realized that the life I was livin was too good to give up. I admit I definitely wasn't ready to go back to college. I miss sleeping in till 11, playing boardgames, watching movies. Please notice that this list does not include chem homework.

Warning: there will be tons of photos in this post!
Every year the graduated class of Master Singers (or choir in general) paints a mural for Drafall and presents it to him sometime during the next year. Over break we painted it with all the things we had done together as a class, going to Europe, singing our favorite songs, learning about flamanco dancing and music, going to canada, all the musicals, etc. Here we all are working on it basically the day before it was "due" in Jon's basement. I DID THE CLOUD! I may or may not have mentioned that several times to Mr.Drafall.

Fin! (I did the cloud)

So on Christmas day, I opened presents with my family and then headed over to Marc's for Christmas at his house. Because I had stayed up watching movies with my family and still had woken up at the wee hours of morning for present opening, here I am conked out while Marc and his sister's boyfriend, Josh play some sports video game. Marc's face says it all. He was obviously thrilled.

 Let me explain this bit about the toast. So like, here we are, forced to work at Foxdale on Christmas. And honestly there is no one at the cafe (the main meal was during lunch that day). We have approximately 2 tablespoons of Chicken a la King left, and then the chef comes out to the cafe and dumps a buttload of toast onto the line. Because we were bored, this was hysterical to us. We all agreed later though, in retrospect...it wasn't really all that much toast.

Thank you Mike...for all the toast.

 

Toast henge.

We also decided to stay out till 2 am to watch the eclipse. To stay warm we played tag and spied on a suspicious looking car. Literally, Matt drove up to this car with his high beams on and actually took a gander into their car. Ballsy, much? 

Besides being obnoxious, cold, and out on the alert for cops telling you to leave the public park because it's after dusk, it ended up being really pretty when the clouds cleared.

We went ice skating. And Emma went down.

Before

After

 Fail.

CHECK OUT THE FACE.

Love you all. I hope you enjoyed this post!

Let's Start Over

Hey friends, I realize that I haven't posted in approximately 11 years. I'm home now- I LOVE HOME.
Here are some reasons I love home:

1. You don't have to eat during designated meal times

2. Mom's food is better than school food

3. I can eat meat at home! 

4. My bed is a cloud.

(see below)

5. Thomas, my car, is just waiting to be driven.

(Thomas may or may not have a flat in this picture..as per usual)

6. I can take showers without wearing flipflops- and the temperature of the water stays the same...the whole time!!

7. No homework, just friends and family all the time!

This was during Thanksgiving Break, but it's a great picture. I love my fam!

By the way, I am completely aware that almost half of those reasons have to do with food.

To explain: my cloud bed refers to the fact that I have a 3 inch memory foam mattress topper covered by huge white downy comforter, 500 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, and like 2,000 pillows. By 2,000 I mean 7. It's fine. 

When I googled cloud bed, this is what came up. This is nothing like my cloud-bed and does not even remotely comparable to the comfort of mine. Mod furniture= over-rated. 

All in all, home is awesome. Stay tuned for a holiday activities post!

Throwin' some pots, no big deal.

Hi. Well, I recently started attending a pottery class on Thursday nights. It's 2 hours long so you can get some serious work done. You all should be expecting pots for Christmas (sorry for blowing the whole surprise aspect of the holiday).

THROWING IS HARD.
Let me tell you why:

1. You have to do this "centering" thing. You throw your clay down and then you basically have to get it to settle the heck down. (see above cartoon)

This entails bracing your elbow on your hip and then leaning your body weight into the clay that is near to spiraling out of control.

You're constantly re-wetting your hands because  the clay gets stuck to your hands and starts ripping clay off your mound.

Sometimes when I'm desperate I close my eyes and I have this idea that if I just think really hard the clay will be scared into submission by the intensity of my mental powers. This tactic has yet to work.

I was trying to find photos of people centering on google images but I decided not to pick one of a person because none of them seemed to exhibit the frustration, that in my mind, is paired with centering.

These were my pots after the first class:

These were my pots after the second class:

Whoever gets the one on the bottom left is a lucky relative!

Despite how difficult centering is, I look forward to Thursdays just because of how relaxing and stress relieving class is. It's amazing that even when I am focusing so hard on a pot, I'm also in deep thought about other things. Great truths have been revealed to me thus far. Well, maybe just truths- I'm not sure if they qualify as "great" truths yet, but I'm sure they're coming. Regardless, when I throw I slip into this meditative/prayer land.

Did anyone notice that under "Throwing is hard" I attempted to make a list and only made it passed number 1? WAY TO GO EMMA.

Anyways, before I end this post I want to direct your attention to a new feature of my blog. On my sidebar you will find "Emma's Nutrition Fact of the Week." Very exciting, I know!

HUGE Blog Update

First of all, I apologize for not blogging in 2 or so weeks but I had a sudden surge of exams and various other meetings.

Fun things that happened recently:
1.Halloween at Penn State (aren't those girls freezing?)
2.Pottery Class
3. Michigan (not state) vs. Penn[CHAMPIONS]State Game

*I will eventually get to all of these during this next week. But since today is officially Halloween I'll blog about....

 HALLOWEEKEND

 

Corny font changes, I know. But I couldn't resist. Anyways, I did my best to not confirm to the wear-no-clothes themed halloweens here. Girls really hang on to that quote from mean girls: 

 Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it

If you're wondering what I was-I was a Sudoku puzzle. And the shirt took me 2 hours to make. I was very proud of my creation.

This was post-halloween party too. So as you can see, I was partially solved! It was fun, except for I had to stand really still while everyone tried to fill me in. If you know me at all, you know this is nearing impossible for me. Also, I urge you to notice the japanese writing on the left sleeve. It means Sudoku. I WROTE IT. I'M A CHAMP.

Okay moving on...

This is what most girls wore: 

 

Well. This is from Mean Girls. But you get the idea. It was also 36 degrees on Friday night when a lot of Halloween parties were happening. 36 DEGREES FARENHEIT. 

A few of them had on their "Frackets " that provided about an eighth of a degree more warmth, but even baby steps to practicality are commendable here at Penn State. 

On a brighter note, here were my favorite halloween costumes (and by favorite I actually do mean favorite. I'm trying to move away from the sarcasm just a bit).

1. "Boobie" (Bee costume + "BOO" on shirt)
2. Sandy from the end of Grease
3. Some guy wore a kilt with no shirt. 
4. Guy dressed as a nun
5. Chilean Miner (too soon?)

There were others, too. A lot that I had heard about but not actually seen. Someone was a hamster, a fully costumed-mascot-like duck, a lot of girls were Lady Gaga. A guy dressed up as an Olsen twin.

If any of you are interested (I know you are) in what Marc was for Halloween. He was Michael Cera. He wore gold shorts and a red hoodie like Cera did in Juno. Check out this Dopplganger:

Hey der, Bleeker.

Well, I don't know if any of you have blogged before and understand just how long it takes to write a single paragraph-but I just spent approximately an hour and a half on this. Have an awesome Sunday!

BEN FOLDS 15

WARNING: This post may be dangerously long. 

Let's kick off this post with an awesome new video/song on Ben's new album with Hornby.

 

yeah. he's pretty frickin' awesome. 

So I went home on Thursday to spend the night at the house with Ian when the parents were out of the house and to be his personal cheuffer. We planned some bonding....Ben bonding.

  And we had a fabulous time. 

Basically our mission was to create a "Best of Ben" CD. We chose our songs based on the following goals.

1.Show every aspect of Ben possible to create a true "Ben experience"

2. To be able to hand a novice Ben listener this CD to get them hooked on his genius-ness

3. Satisfy all the different types of Ben listeners (that's why it took 3 people and 3 hours to put this together)

4. Include a mix of Five stuff and solo Ben stuff

So what was fair game? All Five stuff, all E.P. stuff, all the albums (including Hornby), but no Shatner or a cappella jawn. We came together with our lists already made. Voted, discussed, switched some stuff around, geeked out, and then repeated the process.

MY LIST:

Effington/Jackson cannery/Army/Narcolepsy/Jesusland/Rockin the suburbs/Saskia Hamilton/Kate/Errant Dog/One angry dwarf and 2000 solemn faces/The bitch went nuts/The Luckiest/Trusted/Protection

  


  

HENRY'S LIST:
There’s always someone cooler than you/Landed/Give Judy my notice/Annie waits/Trusted/Dr. yang/Battle of who could care less/Doc Pomus/From above/Ascent of Stan/Free coffee/Magic/Cologne/Late

  





 

IAN'S LIST:
Effington/Bastard/Jesusland/Rockin the Suburbs/Mess/Narcolepsy/Doc Pomus/The Luckiest/Magic/Not the same/Evaporated/Late/Army/Philosophy

BEN FOLDS 15

1. Saskia Hamilton
2. Effington
3. Trusted
4. Cologne
5. From Above
6. Narcolepsy
7. Rockin the Suburbs
8. Brick
9. Doc Pomus
10. Not the Same
11. Jesusland
12. Zak and Sara
13. Late
14. Army
15. The Luckiest 

It's funny that I haven't even begun the bulk of my post yet. Below are some snippets from the conversations that happened while trying to formulate this awesome compilation. Well, mostly remarks that Ian made.

I was shocked that no one else had Saskia on their list. I quote:

Emma: HOW DO YOU NOT ALL HAVE SASKIA ON YOUR LISTS!?

Ian: It feels very anthemy.

This is definitely happening -->Ian: You what what would be fun? If we did this regularly. Pick, say, four artists that all share a similar sound and work on a mix tape.

Ian: the piano playing on narcolepsy is what blows me away. I can’t play it like he  can play it. He has the perfect hand balance throughout the whole song. It’s a really strong song. The lyrics are amazing once you can  make them out.

Ian: You don't understand, Marc, this is a labor of love.

Marc: Oh, I get it, it would take me this long to do Bruce songs.

Ian: We love Ben as much as he loves Bruce Springsteen.

Enough of Ian's smithy remarks. Below is how the bulk of the two hours really went. If you are fellow Ben fan, you may find this interesting! If not, listen to our playlist and then you will find it interesting.

10 songs overlapped and then we had 4 more to choose. A lot more single stuff, so we needed more Five. But we felt that his true artistry came through in his solo stuff. Even though his Five stuff was awesome, we primarily rocked out to it rather than appreciating how well written it was. We agreed that exceptions to this are songs like brick and evaporated.

Speaking of Evaporated, Ian really defended Evaporated right up until we were about to figure out the order of the final disc. Then he had a turn around. We added in “From Above” instead. The sounds of from above weren’t like evaporated at all, but the lyrics were comparable.

One of Henry's picks was There’s always someone cooler than you, a very Foldsy song. This angered Ian and I because we still don't have Sunny 16, the E.P. We felt like Fail Folds Fans. We hung our heads as we listened to how awesome the song was.

We all agreed that You Don’t Know Me was a good idea to not put on the compilation because it was far more Regina-influenced than Ben influenced. You Don’t Know Me also became extremely popular amongst non-Ben listeners, (and excuse me if this is too uppity of me) which was an indication that it wasn’t the essence of Ben. It dabbled into pop a bit. It didn’t belong on our list, even though we too enjoy its beat and general cool feel.

This kind of talk led us to an in-depth analysis of the distinguishing traits of each album.We decided that Rockin the Suburbs album (a really tight album, by the way) was truly a transitional album from his Five stuff to where he ended up next: Songs for Silverman.

Songs for Silverman was the album that every serious artist has where they lock themselves in a closet with their chosen instrument (guitar, piano) and comes up with bottom of their heart stuff.  Ian called it a “greater experience of Ben.”

With Way to Normal he started trying new things which is why we got such a unique experience of every song. Compare Hiroshima Cologne and You don’t know me. Crazy differences. 

And then we all agreed that while this new Hornby album is essentially just another awesome Ben album, the writing was definitely the highlight. 

 
Henry pointed out that Ben is a very different writer than Hornby. Ben’s writing tends to have stories within the verses to make up a message. For example, the Luckiest. A different expression or story of love is in each verse and they aren’t necessarily continuations of each other. However if Hornby had written it, the luckiest would have been a story of two people from birth to death and probably equally as powerful.

 

Okay back to songs: We all agreed that Not the Same was classy. Instant winner. I felt ashamed that it wasn't on my own list.

Henry chose Cologne over the Luckiest. He felt very strongly about it being on the final list. It “stirred emotions in me,” he said.

I admit I was on the fence about Rockin the Suburbs. Too much hype about the song maybe. My favorite remark that I’ve ever read about Rockin the Suburbs was that it showed that Ben completely embraced his whiteness. He is incredibly white. 

But we thought that if we were selling this to the public people would be like “where the heck is Rockin' the Suburbs?” 

 



And then we all realized we didn’t have Brick. And then we freaked out. We all assumed everyone else would have it. We took Magic off the list and added Brick in instead. We all then realized that we just liked magic because University of Chicago a cappella choir knocked it out of the park and we weren’t  going to count a capella stuff. Henry said that he just liked the timpani “bum bum” at the beginning.

The thing about Brick is that it makes you think. It took me 3.5 years to figure just the concept out and then Ian said he is still figuring things out. It makes you keep listening to it.

Once we realized that we didn’t have Zak and Sara (just like we realized we didn’t have brick), we decided to add a track, allowing the title to become Ben Folds 15. And then got mad because this was too hard and that really we needed two discs.

Just look at him. He's adorable.

 

Well. There is a lot I left  out, but you can tell we are Ben enthusiasts. And that we wish we were on All Songs Considered. Wouldn't that be the ultimate dream job!?

That's all. Long post ending now.

ps. I'm seeing Ben Folds in less than a month! The count down begins...