The Reluctant Raconteur:

Full time student, part time philosopher, closet romantic.

theatlantic:

Memes Are People Too: Meet the Viral-Video Stars of ROFLcon

The “ROFL” in “ROFLCon” is an outdated web acronym — Rolling on the Floor Laughing — basically an old-timey way of saying “LOL.” ROFLCon uses it ironically. The vintage webspeak is characteristic of the event — a conference that is equally concerned with the past, present, and future of Internet culture. The two-day event, held at MIT last weekend, combined the best elements of a fan convention with a truly academic conference. Don’t let the goofy names of panels, like “Adventures in Aca-meme-ia,” fool you; the featured panelists and giddy audience members were all too eager to dive into serious discussion. 

Christina Xu and Tim Hwang, who co-founded the conference in 2008 as Harvard undergrads, curated a lively mix of panels, bringing together speakers from around the world. Topics ranged from how people in China use visual humor to evade censorship (“Global Lulzes”), to what to do when a YouTube video of your kid suddenly goes viral (“Honey I Memed the Kids!”). Amid the chaos, a central issue took shape; web video is radically reshaping pop culture. […]

In this eight-minute documentary, produced and edited by Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg, we discovered that even though their lives have been turned upside down, and in some cases totally transformed, by Internet fame, they’re people too. They’re pretty awesome people, actually.

Featuring: Antoine Dodson, Double Rainbow guy, David (of “David After Dentist” fame), the maker of Nyan Cat, and many more of the Internet’s favorite people.

Watch. It’s excellent.

These people are from the internet.

Also relevant: The alt text for this xkcd comic from a few years back reads: “I’m waiting for the day when, if you tell someone ‘I’m from the internet,’ instead of laughing they just ask ‘oh what part?’” I think we might be there. (Though the map of the internet has since been updated.)

algo que me hace muy feliz…

In less than a month, I’m going to be in Havana, Cuba—definitely not a place to which I imagined I’d be able to travel any time soon. I’m so excited to be spending two weeks of my Christmas break exploring, writing, and getting out of the chilly Midwest.

The writing workshop is a 3 s.h. class, so we are meeting every day and that is going to be intense and at some point, undoubtedly, annoying, but I’m glad that I will have a record of basically every day, whether I feel like making time for it or not.

Then when I get back, maybe I’ll actually use this blog and post some of the stuff here. Internet and phone won’t really be available while I’m there, (glorious! though mildly frightening for Mom and Dad), so I will probably bombard tumblr with all the details over the first few weeks of next semester—my last semester at college (eek!) and hopefully my first that isn’t completely brutal. All of the insanity the past two years means that I can finally take a lighter load and maybe have some time to oh, I dunno… Find a job and a place to live after I get kicked out into the cruel, “real” world? Better get back to thesis editing and paper writing so that that can actually happen though.

Cheers.

Hairs are chopped off and eyes are super-puffed from all of this Iowa pollen, but I’m trying to be excited about this semester. I survived summer classes and am on track to graduate in May (hooray!), but have never been so nervous about starting school again. After cramming a year of Italian studies into an eight week summer course (10 credits! Bam!), I am kind of worried that taking two upper level Spanish courses is going to absolutely kick my butt. And I want to be completely awesome at my internship but don’t really know what it is going to be like yet. Guess I’ll find out tomorrow. For now though, I’m going to go ahead and enjoy the last night of my summer and put off my statement of interest for my thesis workshop until the last possible minute. Some things never change.

Hairs are chopped off and eyes are super-puffed from all of this Iowa pollen, but I’m trying to be excited about this semester. I survived summer classes and am on track to graduate in May (hooray!), but have never been so nervous about starting school again. After cramming a year of Italian studies into an eight week summer course (10 credits! Bam!), I am kind of worried that taking two upper level Spanish courses is going to absolutely kick my butt. And I want to be completely awesome at my internship but don’t really know what it is going to be like yet. Guess I’ll find out tomorrow. For now though, I’m going to go ahead and enjoy the last night of my summer and put off my statement of interest for my thesis workshop until the last possible minute. Some things never change.

Chorizo & Garlic Tapas

gocookyourself:

280g Chorizo / 4 Cloves Garlic / 2 Tbsns Sherry Vinegar / 2 Tsps Honey / Oil

SLICE chorizo into small discs

PLACE large pan on high heat, add drop of oil

SKIN garlic and slice finely

THROW chorizo into pan

FRY for 2-3 minutes

ADD garlic and cook until browning

REMOVE from heat

ADD sherry vinegar

DRIZZLE over honey

PLACE back on heat and stir for 1 minute

SERVE

FOLLOW us on Facebook

GO COOK YOURSELF

This just happened. Mine looked more like a crumbly sausage pile than like little discs, but it was a delicious crumbly sausage pile.

Last week of sophunior year!

Still working on digging my way out of a giant pile of take home finals,

but the end is finally in sight!

Then I get a glorious three week break from homework and paper-writing before my summer classes start and I am once again enslaved to my pursuit of higher education. I plan on trying to like it though. I may have two hours of “Intensive Beginning Italian” every single morning for two months (8 credits. = worth it, I hope), and two online classes that will force me to improve my time management skills, but I will also get to hang out in Iowa City for most of the summer. That means lots of live music and sunshine and getting fresh stuff from the farmer’s market and eating it. I can’t wait!

guilty. :[ Also guilty of spending more time reading collegeproblems|tumblr than writing my final papers. Oops.

guilty. :[

Also guilty of spending more time reading collegeproblems|tumblr than writing my final papers. Oops.

(Source: collegeproblems)

What’s even more important to me than my Hawkeyes?

Socially responsible consumer practices!

Tonight, I attended a skype session with two workers from the Alta Gracia apparel factory in the Dominican Republic. Alta Gracia is owned by Knights Apparel, one of the largest manufacturers of collegiate licensed clothing in the United States. What’s special about Alta Gracia, though, in addition to safe work conditions and reasonable hours, is that the factory pays its workers a “living wage,” an hourly amount calculated to actually provide them with enough money to feed their families and send their kids to school.

UI Students Against Sweatshops at the University of Iowa was actually hugely influential in the opening of this factory, which has only been around for a little more than a year. In that time, it has completely changed the lives of the workers as well as reviving an entire community that had been devastated by the loss of jobs that accompanied the closing of the previous factory. In order to keep Alta Gracia open and keep the town of Villa Altagracia from being plunged back into poverty, people need to spread the word about the choice of Sweatshop-free clothing, and march down to the University Book Store and buy some in order to send the message that UI students want to support companies with ethical business practices. The bookstore is even running a promotion April 13-17 offering a 25% discount on all Alta Gracia products.

I’m getting mine tomorrow. You should too!

Read more about the Alta Gracia project here, or check out this article from the New York Times. And seriously, go buy a shirt!

Starting this fall, I will be spending a lot of time in this very cool place (the oldest residential dwelling still standing in Iowa City, a farmhouse built around 1840!) as the 2011-2012 Editing and Publishing Intern for the University of Iowa Press.

I am super excited to be exposed to so many aspects of the editing and publishing process, and to build that resume that will be so important when I get kicked out into the cruel, cold, real world next spring. I also have a thesis adviser now and a decent idea of what my topic is going to be, so now all I need to do is squeeze in enough semester hours over the summer and hopefully get all of the fall classes I want and then graduating a year early will be a sure thing instead of just a crazy idea that I came up with this semester. Honestly, I am kind of surprised that it seems to be working. But so, so happy.

Now I just need to make these final papers and projects happen. Ready…. GO.

Since spring break, I have:

  • Spent a weird morning in Menomenee, Wisconsin, drinking bad chai and eating a pretty good scone while waiting to bum a ride back from Minneapolis.
  • Read two books.
  • Made two milkshakes.
  • Written an annotated bibliography that was due yesterday even though the paper isn’t due until May.
  • Sat around and moped while wearing a sweatshirt I stole from Justin because I was sad that I had to leave Minneapolis.
  • Cut my bangs.
  • Baked cookies.
  • Applied for two internship/jobs.
  • Given my superdark jeans a bath in hopes that they will stop turning my legs blue.
  • Almost caught up on homework/life.

But I have not even come close to choosing a thesis topic or ask anyone to by my adviser. I really thought that I would have more time to think about this. I know that a 30 page research project is not a huge deal, but I do kind of want to secretly enjoy doing it a little bit. Being done with school in another year simultaneously seems like the impossibly distant future and the way-too-close-omg-freakout future. And while I absolutely do not want to be here for two more years, sometimes it just seems like I will never have the time to cram in everything that I want to accomplish before leaving, or I feel like I’ve wasted valuable time and passed up awesome opportunities. I kind of wish I wouldn’t have spent so much time and energy (and money. oops.) on chemistry classes. Having those be English credits instead would have made these next few semesters so much less stressful. I know it is dumb to whine about it now, and really, really hope that someday all of my knowledge of molecular structure and interaction benefits me in a more valuable way than helping me answer trivia questions or complete crossword puzzles.

I know I claimed that I planned to write interesting and meaninful things on here, but I am currently too overwhelmed by the above to do that. So instead, I am regressing to my routine, emotional tumblr outpouring. Hopefully interesting and meaningful things are coming.