Dead Week...Ha!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was pretty sure the whole point of "dead week" (the infamous week preceding finals) was to give students an entire week in which to cram a semester's worth of information and work. Well, not if you happen to be a UNK English major with a journalism minor. If you fall into my demographic, dead week IS finals week.

ALL of my English and journalism finals were due this week, including my 15-20 page research paper, my final creative portfolio, a final radio performance recording, and a video commentary blog entry. The only "final" I have next week is a 10-minute presentation over my research paper, and that is only because I opted to do it next week instead of this week. Normally, I wouldn't complain in the slightest about being done with classes a week earlier than most people; while they are cramming away in front of computer screens, I can be outside enjoying the spring weather. However, in the last couple years, I have discovered a pattern in both the English and journalism departments of UNK. EVERYONE makes their final assignments due during dead week.

I'm sure this is done with the best of intentions; the professors probably realize that most students have more than enough to do during finals week, so they up the due date by a few days to give students more time for other assignments. Plus, they probably have their own finals to collect, so why not give everyone a little break? Well, that's great in theory, but what about those of us who DON'T have any other finals? All we have are English papers and journalism assignments, which leaves us in the dead week dust. We don't get an extra week to focus entirely on finishing our projects. We don't get a week with no other assignments due. Instead, we get an end-of-the-semester crunch week where EVERYTHING is due, and we still have all of our regularly-scheduled classes to attend on top of it. Yay us!

So, while the rest of you are dutifully studying away in the library for the remainder of this and next week, we will sleeping. Passed out from sheer exhaustion and assignment-overload in our comfy corner beds until it is time to pull ourselves up, put on the cap and gown, and celebrate the fact that those days and days and nights and nights spent in the library and computer labs really did pay off, and we are finally, officially FINISHED!

Top 10 Movies to See Before You Die - UNK Style (video commentary)

Leap, kitty, leap!

Ok, so this video is actually pretty pointless, but it made me laugh, and laugh, and laugh. It even made my two roommates laugh and laugh and laugh as well. So I figured, with it being the end-of-the-semester-crunch, we could all use a good laugh. Even if you don't like cats, you'll love this video--trust me!

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Cat In A Box @ Yahoo! Video

Now that's what I call a CATapult!

There. I hope you smiled--if not actually laughed out loud--at least once. Happy finals!

Take Me Hoooooooooooome: an After Midnight Project review

All it takes is the deep sound of the lead singer’s voice yelling "1, 2, 3…JUMP!"

The riff of a guitar, the beat of a bass drum and the entire crowd is on its feet, pounding their fists in the air, screaming at the top of their lungs. Even those in the stands have to fight the urge to bang their heads to the insatiable beat of the trap set.

The smooth, edgy voice of the lead singer sends chills through the stands as he stretches out the title note of "Take Me Home," and the crowd appropriately screams with all their might to the chorus of "I Scream for You."

That was the effect of After Midnight Project at the Spring Concert Saturday, April 18 in the UNK Health and Sports Center. From their very first song, "Digital Crush," After Midnight Project established a theme of hard rock/punk songs that kept the audience dancing, jumping and screaming throughout their entire set.

Punk isn't exactly my first choice of music genres, but I really, really enjoyed After Midnight Project. They brought a sort of punk and hard rock blend laid over original and poetic lyrics without excessive screaming or overdone musical theatrics. One of the reasons their show was so great was because they really brought the audience into the performance. The lead singer even went into the audience at the end of the show. Everything they did amped the energy up more and more to the point where the band and crowd were just feeding off of each other, making the show that much more intense and enjoyable for everyone involved, whether they were on the stage, on the floor or in the stands.

Although they served as an opening band to the opening band, weren't mentioned in promotional material and their name did not even appear on the ticket, the vocals, lyrics, and overall musical talent of After Midnight Project proved that this band is ready to break out of its small-time shell. Judging from the crowd's response and how quickly word of them as spread in the few days since the concert, I have little doubt that After Midnight Project will very soon be selling out their own concerts and headlining their own tour. Maybe, someday, they’ll come back to our little college town and play the Health and Sports Center again with a couple platinum albums under their belt.


If you don't want to take my word for it, check them out online or hear for yourself:

HELP!!! Seiously!

I'm putting together a list of Top 10 Movies To See Before You Die - UNK Style and I need your help!

I received 10 movies from Dr. Sam Umland, and 10 from my friend Travis Robinson, and now I'm stuck! So, I'm listing all 20 movies and I really want your help! Just write a comment with which movies you would like to see in the list (if you want to number them, feel free, but you don't have to). I also threw in a few of my own picks. Please don't add to the list - I have way too many to choose from as it is! Unless there is one purely iconic film that you feel CANNOT be left off the list - then it's ok.

WARNING: This will only be available until 10 PM TONIGHT! After that I will just have to finish it myself. Please, get as many people to vote as you can! THANK YOU SO MUCH!

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Back to the Future

The Sixth Sense

Gone With the Wind

Addicted to Technology

They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. My name is Shelly, and I'm afraid I am becoming addicted to technology.

OK, maybe not really, but I may be showing some warning signs:
As I have said in previous posts, I cannot leave the house without my cell phone or I will turn around and go back. My laptop is my lifeline. If I go more than three days without high-speed internet, I feel as though I've been cut off from the world. I spend hours making playlists on iTunes for my new iPod Nano. My pictures are all tucked away on my digital camera's memory card. I don't remember the last time I actually sent an honest-to-God, hand-written letter; e-mail is so much quicker. Who needs to make a phone call when you can chat online? Who needs to chat online when you can text?

Does any of this sound familiar? Don't worry; we're not alone. This growing technology addiction isn't just something I made up, it's becoming a real disease. We all like to joke about being "addicted to technology" but in today's techno-centric world, it may not be so funny.

So how do we kick this nasty, yet oh-so-convenient habit? The obvious answer would be to abandon technology. Yeah...um...let's call that Plan B. I don't know about the rest of you, but no one is taking my cell phone until they pry it from my cold dead fingers! And don't even think about touching my laptop if you value the use of that hand. Maybe we should try a different approach.

In conclusion, I would like to share a funny-because-it's-true video with everyone. Warning: the content may be deemed semi-explicit, so viewer discretion is advised. I think it's safe to say, this is probably the point where you need to say, "Whoa, maybe I should do something about this..."



Note: I strongly encourage you to check out the articles I linked to. They have some very educational and very entertaining insights. My personal favorite are all the references to the Blackberry as the "Crackberry."

This column is untitled

I wasn't originally going to put this on my blog, but Dr. Hanson said we should never write something we wouldn't publish, so here we go...

4-9-09
Two nights ago, my friend tried to kill herself.

I didn't know this. Her roommate didn't know this. Neither did her mother, her sister, or her aunt who she considers more of a mother to her than her own. Her roommate and I just thought she was sick after she threw up all over their room, but neither of us would have guessed it was her body’s last attempt to rid itself of the more than 40 pills she had swallowed earlier. We didn’t find out what she had done until around 8:00 the following night when her aunt called, asking one of us to go sit with our friend until someone could come and take her home. Since her roommate couldn’t get away from work, I volunteered.

When I walked into her room, she looked up at me and said, “I wish it would have worked. I’m such a failure; I can’t even do this right.”

For the first time in the four years I had known her, I didn’t know what to say. I sat there, holding and rocking my friend while she told me through her sobs that she was so tired of pretending to like her life. She was tired of living for everyone else; she was tired of putting on a mask every day. She just wanted it all to end.
She’d been planning this for months. She was ready, prepared. She had goodbye letters written out to her mother and aunt, and had another with detailed instructions taped to her bed for when her roommate came in to find her lifeless body. She told me she’d wanted to do it at home, but she couldn’t bear the thought of her little cousins or aunt’s foster kids finding her like that.

It’s very difficult for me to write this, just as it was very difficult for me to listen to her talk about how much she wanted her life to end. In October, I lost one of my oldest friends in a car accident. She was 21, on her way to being an elementary teacher, and had two little sisters, parents and a husband who loved her beyond words. A few weeks after that, I came far too close to losing my 19-year-old brother—the number one guy in my life—in another car crash. Last week, my best friend from high school and her husband welcomed their first child, a little boy. I am in awe of his little miracle, and I’ve never seen them happier.

Recently, I was diagnosed with HPV; something that I will never be rid of. I will have this virus in my body for the rest of my life. HPV has been known to cause cervical cancer, and I am awaiting the test results that will tell me if I have it or not. Life has never been more precious to me than it has become in the last year. I want to be there for my friend; I want to be supportive and sympathetic, but I cannot understand why she would do this. Life is so short and fragile as it is; how can there truly be nothing in this world worth living for?

All I can think about is how selfish it was for her to do this to the people around her. Her roommate would have been traumatized thinking that maybe, if she'd gotten there just a little sooner, she might have been able to save her. Everyone around her would have blamed themselves, myself included, and spent their lives wondering if there was something—anything—they could have done to prevent it. I am so angry with her, and it feels wrong. You can't be angry with someone who just tried to end their own life. But how can she take something so amazing for granted?

I honestly believe that somewhere, there is something—or even someone—who can make her life worth living. It wasn’t her time; she must still have a purpose in this world. I hope one day she realizes this as well, because this crazy, heartbreaking, terrible, wonderful race is all we have. And I know it can be worth all the pain, if she will give it the chance.

Since then, my friend has been receiving help and treatment, but she won't be coming back to school, and I doubt we will really see each other much anymore.

Keep your hollers to yourself!

On my last blog about chivalry and sexism, my old friend/classmate/fellow blogger, Kara asked me whether or not it makes me angry when guys whistle or cat-call at me from their car windows as they drive by.

The answer to this is a great big YES! I'll admit, when I was younger, it used to give me a little rush when random guys would whistle at me or whoop and holler as I walked by (probably because I saw it happen to all my friends, but rarely--if ever--to me). But, as I got older, more mature and a little more self-confident, it just became irritating, and actually made me feel worse about myself rather than better.

Yesterday, my roommate and I were taking a walk around our block in just our comfy jeans and t-shirts when a girl in tight capris and high heels crossed the street in front of us. As a car full of college-age guys was driving by, they rolled down their windows and started whistling, yelling things like "Ow ow!" at the girl. I was disgusted at their behavior, but my roommate was jealous! She said something about how only the dressed-up girls get attention. Rather than start an argument, I kept my mouth shut.

That night we went out with a couple other friends, and my roommate had way too many drinks. We ended up literally carrying my roommate out of the bar before she could yell any more insults at the bartender who hadn't made her last drink strong enough, and probably get us kicked out for good. As we slowly made our way back to my car, a silver car pulled up beside us and rolled down their windows.

"Wooo! Hey mama, you lookin' good!" I rolled my eyes, clenched my teeth, and picked up the pace a little.

"Hey baby, how you doin'?" I looked over at my oh-so-drunk roommate in horror as she tried to seductively stumble closer to their car. What the hell?!

"Pretty good baby, how you doin'? What are you doin', you wanna go to a party? Come on, come home with us, baby!"

I turned to the car and said "No. You're done. You need to go now." I all but shoved my roommate--and her drunken protests--into the back of my car.

It may be hypocritical since I have been one of these girls in the past, but I cannot understand how girls get anything good out of being ogled like a piece of meat or hollered at like livestock.

This is my personal perspective: If someone called you a hooker, you'd most likely be offended, right? If someone mistakenly propositioned you as a hooker, you'd be pretty angry, right? If someone in any way treated you like a hooker, you would get really pissed, right? Well, If you take these guys who do all the cat-calling from their cars and put them on the Las Vegas strip or Hollywood Boulevard, do you really think you would hear them saying something different to the girls who make their living on street corners? Hmm...

Maybe it's just me, but I do not care to be treated like a street-walker, and for the record, I don't think "Nice ass!" is ever a valid compliment.

Where does chivalry end and sexism begin?

Everyone says chivalry is dead. In this day, I wouldn't necessarily say that it is dead, but it does seem to be on its way out. In my experience, it's rare to find someone who still opens the car door, gives up their seat, or makes the extra effort to hold the door open a little longer. In fact, some people today actually despise that kind of treatment, saying they are perfectly capable of opening their own door(s) or finding their own seat.

I'm not sure if women can be "chivalrous," but I suppose I would qualify. I always say "excuse me" when I bump into someone or squeeze past them. I hold the door for other people, even when my arms are full. If somebody nearby drops something, I pick it up for them. I let the person with one item go ahead of me in the grocery store line. I don't do it to get a pat on the back; that's just how I was raised.

At the store where I work, people often purchase very large, sometimes awkward, and usually heavy bags or plants. One of the services we offer is a customer carry-out; if someone does make a large purchase, we carry it out for them. I am one of only three women who currently work at this particular store, and, just like the guys, we are expected to help customers carry out their purchases. No problem; I grew up on a ranch, my parents own a feed store, I'm used to and actually enjoy a degree of physical labor in my day-to-day job. Generally, customers refuse at first, but when we insist, they usually hand over the large bag and settle for opening the door. Every once in a while, however, there will be one customer who refuses to let a girl help them.

When I tried to carry out an older gentleman's 25 lb. purchase, he literally took the bag out of my arms and said, "I can't let you do that, you're just a little girl!" I stand about 5'7" and weigh around 140 lbs, so it might be safe to say I'm not exactly "big," but I was a little stung by his comment. I would guess he was in his late 60s, early 70s, so I knew it was just a generational issue, and decided to let it go.

A couple weeks later, however, a man came in who couldn't have been more than 10-15 years older than me. I went out to load two 50 lb bags of fertilizer while he backed his truck up to the pallet. In my already-dirty jeans and company sweatshirt, I wasn't worried about the wet and messy bags from outside. The customer, however, was in khakis and a red and white checkered button-up shirt. Naturally, I assumed he wouldn't mind me loading the bags for him. After I threw the first bag over the edge of the pickup bed, he came rushing out of his truck and again took the second bag out of my arms. I assured him it was all right; I was already dirty and happy to load the second bag.

"I'll never be able to show my face in polite society again if I let you do this!" he said. I walked back inside with my dirty fists clenched. I'm sure these people are just trying to be polite and do as they were raised, but I find it extremely frustrating, and there is enough of a feminist in me to find it slightly offensive as well. I'm pretty sure it isn't just a size issue; of my two female coworkers, one is somewhat larger than I am in height and weight, and the other is smaller than I am in both as well, and I have seen both of them go through similar experiences. I have never, however, seen a customer take a purchase away from any of my male coworkers or refuse to let them load it.

This realization raised a question in me: where does chivalry end and sexism begin? Apparently, I'm not the first to try and tackle this question.

When does refusing to let a girl carry something heavy--even though she is getting paid to do so, and incidentally will get in trouble with the boss if she is caught failing to do so--cross the line and turn the man (I don't mean to be sexist myself, but so far, it has only been men) from a "chivalrous gentleman" into a "sexist pig"?

If anyone has any thoughts or stories, I would love to hear them!

Lights, Camera...Falafel!

I started out attempting to write a witty, yet clever, yet accurate review of the short film West Bank Story that we viewed in class the other day. However, I realized something; I have no idea what to say!
Honestly, what can you say about a film that lasts less than 30 minutes and features grown men and women dancing around fast food restaurants in the hostile Middle East wearing ridiculous hats?

I will give the film props for originality, however. Even though it was the same story of star-crossed lovers destined yet forbidden to be together (the Middle East does seem like an ideal place for such a storyline, doesn't it?), I doubt many people would have looked at that traditional theme and said, "Hmm, you know what? Let's put them in competing fast food restaurants! Yes! Hummus vs. falafel! On top of that, let's make the feuding families perform fully choreographed musical numbers about falafel and hummus! It's brilliant!!!"

Cra$h

I am not technologically inclined. In fact, I am what you might call "technologically challenged." This may explain why my computer has crashed twice in the last 5 months.

I always swore I would not become one of those people who are totally dependent on technology. You know, the kind who can't leave the house without their cell phones or feel completely cut off from the outside world without high-speed internet. Haha, well guess what...I cannot leave the house without my cell phone, and when I'm without internet access for more than a few days, I go a little nuts.

The first time my hard drive crashed, I was without a computer for about two weeks. They were just about the longest two weeks of my life. It didn't help any that I was helping to teach a freshman English class and had to communicate with my students through e-mail and the University's online Blackboard system. They said it wasn't my fault; the only thing I could have done to crash the hard drive would be to drop the computer, and they were sure I hadn't done that. Well...

See, I have a bit of a temper, and when I get to a certain point of pure frustration, I like to throw things... I didn't actually throw my laptop, but I may have picked it up and dropped it on my desk once. Or twice. I never actually told them that either. Ultimately, it cost me two weeks of running from my off-campus apartment to the library (often more than once a day), and around $350 for a new hard drive, so I think I learned my lesson. I swore after that I would be extra careful and gentle with my precious laptop, and I have been! However, about a week and a half ago my computer refused to start, saying there was a corrupt file.

Noooooooooooooooooooooo!

Lucky for me, I have a friend who is absolutely brilliant with computers. He works with them, he's majoring in them, basically he speak fluent tech. I, on the other hand, know exactly one computer trick: Ctrl+Alt+Delete. He ran some tests on my computer and told me that since my hard drive was so new, he highly doubted that was the problem. Even if it was, the hard drive was still under warranty. The tests revealed...a corrupted file on the hard drive. I really thought I was going to cry. Luckily, it was still under warranty, and the guys who fixed it the first time said they could do so again, but they would have to send the computer to the hard drive manufacturer then wait for them to send it and the new part for it back, which would take about two weeks. Or, I could pay $20 to have it back in two days. After throwing down $350 for a new hard drive, $20 seemed like a drop in the bucket.

After three days, I called to check what was taking so long. No answer, and no return phone call. Four days, five days, six days...after they'd had it for a week, I called back again and--thankfully!--I was able to pick it up later that day. They told me there was a file left over from the first time it crashed that the new hard drive was supposed to repair, but somehow wasn't able to. In other words, yay! It really wasn't my fault this time! My computer is now password-protected so no one can use it but me, and it rarely--if ever--leaves my desk.

I know this is a little backwards, but...
Crash once, shame on me.
Crash twice, shame on you.
Crash a third time, and Shelly is junking you for a new computer!

Pirates ye be warned...

As we've been talking about reviews so much in class, I thought I would share this little story... We all know that pirating films is wrong (not to mention illegal), but that doesn't exactly deter people. My question is, if you do illegally download a movie that hasn't even been released yet, why would you publish a REVIEW of it???

Yahoo! news posted an article about Fox News columnist, Roger Friedman who was fired after he published his review of a full-length work print of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" that had somehow been illegally leaked to the public. Friedman and Fox News decided to "mutually part ways" after he wrote that downloading the leaked version of the film was much easier than actually going out and watching it. In Shelly-language, that translates to "we both know you're going to get fired, so let's not make a big scene."

According to the article, 20th Century Fox plans to prosecute the person responsible for the leak, and have even brought in the FBI and Motion Picture Association of America to investigate the source of the leak.

Heads-up to all you modern-day pirates out there; if you insist on illegally downloading films that haven't been released yet, you might want to keep your reviews to yourself.

And people say MY nose piercing would hurt...

I'm sitting at work right now listening to the Rush Limbaugh show (don't judge me--my boss maintains complete right-wing control of the radio) and during one of the news briefs, I just heard the most bizarre tidbit. A grown man went into the doctor's office and walked out holding a nail in his hand.

Know where the nail was? In his nose.
Know how long it'd been there? Nearly 30 years.
Know why he went to the doctor in the first place? To get an MRI.

Not even for the nail in his nose; he didn't even know it was there! While he was laying down for the MRI, he felt a pain in his head (makes sense considering an MRI machine is basically a big magnet). So they pulled him out and found a nail in his nose.

A NAIL in his NOSE! And it had been there for nearly 30 years! How do you not notice something like that??? Or maybe the better question would be: how did it get up there in the first place???

In situations like this, there is really only one thing you can say:
What?!?!?!?!

Who Watches the Watchmen? David Chen.

First and foremost, let me put this out on the line: I am a bit of a geek. When I hear about a new superhero movie or comic/graphic novel adaptation coming to theaters, I HAVE to know more. What characters are they including? Who is playing whom? What will the storyline be? Etc. With that in mind, I went to one of my new favorite movie websites, /film, to find a review of the recently released film, Watchmen. The result: a lengthy, detailed, and yet spoiler-free review by David Chen praising the cinematic achievement of successfully bringing the celebrated graphic novel to the big screen.

I never read the graphic novel (though, after Chen's many references to it, now I think I might have to), but I did go to the midnight release of Watchmen at the Kearney Cinema 8. In retrospect, I'm not sure that was such a good idea. In his review, Chen mentions his second screening of Watchmen at the IMAX theater, saying that he actually didn't care for it because it made the movie's flaws too prominent. I would say the same for the midnight screening. When it is almost 3:00 in the morning, and the movie is STILL not over, you can't help but focus on all the things you didn't like.

I almost abandoned the review when I started scrolling down...and down...and down. But I decided to give it a shot. I found that, despite its length, I really enjoyed Chen's review. He brought up many good points about the cinematography, and even music playing in the background (which isn't usually something I find in movie reviews). However, since I haven't read the graphic novel, and because Chen makes soooo many references to it, I did feel like there was a lot of information I couldn't relate to or form an opinion on--and I don't like not having an opinion. I didn't agree with some of his observations on cast performance levels (I thought Malin Ackerman did a great job of keeping up with the men), but he provides more than ample reasoning for his opinions and stresses that they are just that--HIS personal opinions. Overall, his review gets two thumbs up from me.