Back in business

Ok people, the blog is back.

After a year-long hiatus, I feel like writing again, and I could not be more thrilled. I apologize to everyone (especially Alli and Jen) who faithfully read my blog and have been nagging me since my last post. I have missed "siempre de moda," but now I feel refreshed and ready to once again pour out my strong opinions. In future blogs, I will return to posts of a more topical nature (theories about society, opinions on celebrities, things that I love/detest), but I think I will use this one to catch my readers up on my life.

So many things happened in the past year. I spent a wonderful school year living with Joel "JoelCat" Richardson, and interviewed at seven different medical schools, traveling to Omaha, Hershey (PA), NYC, Iowa City, Rochester (MN), Chicago, and Milwaukee. Four of them wanted me, and in the end I decided on the University of Iowa, Carver College of Medicine. Right before Christmas my paternal grandfather died, and he has now been singing in the celestial choir for six months. In May, I graduated from Grove City College with a BA in Spanish and a BS in Molecular Biology. Laura Bush spoke at my graduation. I also receive the Robert H. Sisler award from the Modern Language Department for my commitment to modern languages and "joie de vivre."

Since I last wrote, I also have learned many new things. I gained a working understanding of the German language, and made paella, tortilla, and ensaladilla rusa for the first time. I learned how to be a better friend and worked on putting others first. Dad taught me how to cross country ski, and I was trained to work in the GCC Admissions office. At graduation, I also learned how to say goodbye and have been trying to learn how to be a better long-distance friend over the past few weeks. Currently, I am learning how to be content by myself and how to be self-driven with a less rigorous schedule.

Like any summer, I have several goals and projects to keep me busy. I am once again committed to physical fitness and have been working out every day. Ideally, I would eat healthier too, but my 22-year love affair with Mac n Cheese is hard to end. I am working on attending as many friends' weddings as possible and hope to make it to as many East of the Mississippi as I can. Since I sleep in a basement at home, have a deep window well instead of a normal window. I have hated this window well since I was a child, but this summer I filled it with potted plants and am even growing tomatoes in it. My shopping list for the summer includes a car, laptop, apartment, and backpack. I also want to work on my Spanish and keep learning German.

My parents bought me a Nook Color for my graduation present, and I have used it almost constantly since receiving it. I have been devouring books and highly recommend anything by Stieg Larsson. Next I plan to check out the Hunger Games or reread some Harry Potter. On my Nook, I have also been playing a ton of Angry Birds, surfing the web, checking my email, listening to music, and doing sudokus. For those of you who do not know, the Nook Color is basically a Kindle but cooler and more useful.

I can sense that this is the point in my blog posst where I tend to start rambling, so I will end things before that happens. For the eighth summer of my life in a row, I am working at the Hospers Pool and thus have plenty of time to think up new topics for blogging. You will be sure to hear from me again in the near future.

Until then, love from me and my PC!

Spotted.

I wish that Gossip Girl were real.

On the hit CW show, a mystery blogger called Gossip Girl follows the lives of the elite teenagers of the Upper Eastside of Manhattan. As the students navigate their daily drama, students everywhere text photos and bits of gossip to the omniscient Gossip Girl, who in turn posts these compromising photos and juicy details on her website and sends them as updates to people's phones.

I want Gossip Girl to move to Grove City. Imagine the thrill of walking around campus never knowing when someone might take a photo of you doing something silly or sketchy and text it to the Gossip Girl. Even better would be the regular phone updates telling me the buzz.

Things would be so much more simple once we lost our privacy and started pretending to live the scandalous lives of the upper east siders. I would never again ask someone about their girlfriend two weeks after they broke up. Life would be easier knowing who was feuding with with whom, and whose latest scheme had backfired.

Granted, GCC (with one recent exception) does not have scandals like they do on Gossip Girl. People at GCC communicate effectively instead of storming off dramatically, so a lot of confusion is avoided. Furthermore, most of us did not start the party scene at fifteen or grow up in Manhattan so many of the basic activities in the lives' of the Gossip Girl characters are absolutely bewildering to our rigorous, authentic, and valuable minds.

In an attempt to emulate the Gossip Girl system, I enlisted two of my dear friends, Stephen Wong and Paul Chenowith. Neither of them watch Gossip Girl, but both of them enjoy texting information about things they see on campus, especially Stephen. I taught them an official format for GG updates and here is what it is:

Spotted.
Informational sentence.
Snarky comment.
xoxo,
GG

For example,
Spotted.
David Janssen sprinting to his first class.
Look like someone had a late night...
xoxo,
GG

Getting one of these updates can brighten my day significantly. Knowing that Paul spotted that gross couple having too much PDA in the hallway of the Physical Learning Center makes me smile. Having Stephen report that the girl who exercises too much is in the aerobic room (again!) makes me laugh out loud.

A school-wide Gossip Girl service would actually improve campus life. While gossip is not desirable, the truth must come out. Privacy is a luxury invented in the modern era--the more we develop technology, the more we are able to control what aspects of our lives others can see. Gossip Girl levels the playing field. Cheaters might think twice before cheating if they knew a photo of them might be distributed to half of campus.

In all seriousness, I do enjoy getting GG texts from friends. However, the administration definitely would not support any sort of official GG network or website, and if anyone tried to set one up, I believe that it would be quickly shut down. For it to be successful, the site manager would have to be under the radar and stay anonymous.

Maybe you should be Gossip Girl. Text me--you know the format.