The Shift Key Incident

I shall call this Jenn's shift key story. You know that when you work in Photoshop you can resize images by clicking your mouse in a corner to enlarge or shrink your image, BUT sometimes when you do this the images can become distorted. If you go too far in one direction and not the other Uncle Bob looks extra fat or Aunt Sally looks like a pencil head. Well, the way to solve this problem is to push the shift key while you are resizing the image and it will remain in its original proportions. I was doing just this while I was working at Camp Fire. My boss, Laura, was approving a brochure that I had designed and she said that the Camp Fire USA logo looked a little distorted and that I should push the shift key to prevent it from changing dimensions. I proceeded to show her on the computer how I pushed the shift button while resizing the logo, but it started growing out of proportion despite my efforts. Very quickly I blurted out in a loud voice,

"SHIFT!"

Heads Turned. Silence...

"I mean I pushed the shift key." My brain worked too fast for my mouth and I inadvertently offended the entire office. I saw my internship flash before my eyes, I imagine that blatant swearing in the workplace is frowned upon. One syllable sentences at a raised voice that have similar phonologies to 4-letter words are generally misunderstood. After I started laughing and assured Laura I didn't just swear in frustration she cracked a smile and we both laughed about it. I was so embarrassed. Always think before you yell "SHIFT."

Fall Classes Begin

Classes started. Blah. I'll never have time to complete personal goals anymore, just a swamp of professor's expectations that don't exactly accomplish what you really want to in life. Of course without the regularity and certain mental stimulation along with the pretty degree the work eventually will earn you, life would begin to suck anyway. I have a love hate relationship with school. I'm just depressed that reading books for pleasure and walking outside in the sun have been ousted to a new life of reading assigned texts and barely seeing the light of day inside yucky buildings. Perhaps this is an overflow of my hatred for any other season than summer too. Days are starting to get shorter. The weather isn't as hot. Is my dislike of winter a socially instituted evolutionary response to the fact that school (which equals more work) is in this season as well? Do I have an aversion to 'unlaziness' that I substantiate with a dread of the cold and snow and dark gloomy days? But anyway, back to what I was saying before, my goals are always changing whether it be from what I'm experiencing at the time, new revelations, forgotten ambitions, and who know why else. Maybe if I didn't have a scheduled life, be it school or work, I'd never accomplish those goals anyway. I think the idea that I have the time to take on new passions, start, complete, and thrive at any fancy of mine is a comforting thought even if practically I could never do it. Like writing a book. I really want to write a book, and I've tried before but it always gets pushed to the backburner, job, classes, or nothing but a boring rainy day. I am a starter, and a bad finisher. When was the last time I actually satisfactorily completed something unless it was being dictated by someone else? Freedom is a beautiful thought, but not so practical.

The Lion King

When we were in Philly we went to see the LION KING Broadway tour at the Academy of Music. It was soooooooo awesome, even if we had nosebleed seats in the amphitheater. The costumes were by far the best part. The giraffes of course were my favorite. The people came out on four stilts, the front two higher than the back two, imagine coordinating that! The lines were taken almost directly from the Disney animated movie. Oh, how good it was. A work of art in motion. The music was exceptional as well. Especially the Circle of Life song and awww little Simba had such a good voice. He's a natural little star. I just wanted to pinch his cheeks.

Pile of Tomatoes

Today we had BLT's with tomatoes from my Pappy's garden. When I came out to the kitchen for supper, my mom had sliced up a mound of tomatoes. Even while she was praying I couldn't help giggle at the massive pile of tomato redness on the table. Geez, only three people were eating, not a giant army of tomato hungry elephants. I wish I had gotten a picture, but I do have a picture of one growing on the vine or stock or whatever the plant's appendage's are called.

I Got Toilet Papered

Yesterday when I woke up I had an interesting surprise waiting for me in the driveway. My dad was shocked. I was shocked. My neighbors were shocked. My car was COVERED in toiletpaper and saran wrap. I was impressed at how well it was wrapped around the bottom, almost like a present...
But yeah, the dew must have set and then the sun dried it, so now there are little specks of toilet paper all over my car like it had a bad shave job in the morning.
At first I wasn't sure who to be mad at. But then I thought who else would do this than Emily, especially since she had mentioned something of the likes of this to do someone else a few weeks ago? She fessed up after many accusations. Her and Neil at 3 in the morning. Those little boogers.

Philadelphia

This weekend Tami, Emily, Nicole and I went to Philly. Wahoooo. We had fun.
I may have hopelessly driven over the Benjamin Franklin bridge into New Jersey but eventually we got there.
We saw the Liberty Bell that is a tourist must-see, but a little disappointing since its kept indoors and roped off.
We toured the rest of the historic part of the city.
We got our picture taken with a mean colonial man.
We (at least Emily and I) ate Philly Cheese steaks at the infamous Pats.
We visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
We took a cab ride with a creepy driver that obviously had a mental deficiency so we requested to get out before even getting back to our hostel and lucky me got to ride in the front.
We met Dr. Fiorini at the Pink Rose on South Street for dessert (mmmm white chocolate raspberry mousse cake).
We drove through maddening streets looking for legal parking spaces.
We walked into an extraordinary expensive restaurant at 12:30 AM, realized we couldn't afford it and left there for another chic restaurant that was very nice, but in which I ordered a paté that I now know is mystery (most likely lamb) meat spread.
We starved Tami on Friday night.
We went to see the Lion King (a post to follow)
We sat outside my car while waiting for a security guard to jump my car (luckily in a safe part of the city)

I Heart Benji

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Benji won!
Benji won So You Think You Can Dance!
I have been cheering for him since the beginning of the show.

This past week I've been at my Grandma's house so I didn't get to see the show on Wednesday but my mom taped it and I just watched it. I think I screamed when I found out who won.

A: I love Benji, He's so sweet, down to earth, a good dancer, funny, and incredibly entertaining.
B: My favorite show of the summer was So You Think You Can Dance. I just can't describe how much I loved it. And my favorite dancer won. How often does that happen? Maybe the 18 times I called in to vote last week actually helped...

Sometimes I feel like I have nowhere to express my happiness. No one really shares my enthusiasm about this. At least I have a meager blog to share my reality television obsession with, even if cyber space doesn't care so much either, at least I FEEL like someone is high-fiving me and dancing on the tabletops that Benji won too. I mean come on, somebody has to care.

Camp Fire USA

This summer I interned at Camp Fire USA Lone Star Council as a public image cooridinator. I absolutely loved it there. My sister agreed to let me live with her in Dallas and I found this internship online with Exxonmobile summer jobs program so I applied for it while I was still in Spain.
The people at Camp Fire are all so cool, I miss them. The atmosphere was very inviting and fun. I liked the marketing part of my job so much that I am seriously considering changing my major...again. I translated a bunch of stuff into Spanish for them and made some brochures, made some surveys, brushed up their website that you can take a peek at here (note the fire banner), and other stuff too. Awww, now I am sad. I couldn't have had a better internship experience, I wanna go back to Texas. Boo hoo.

If nothing else, I learned the keyboard shortcuts for all the Spanish accented letters. I hate not having a Spanish keyboard. That is very frustrating. You could never compose long papers without a specified keyboard. Just when I got used to finding the @ button or the upside down question mark, I had to leave it behind. bah humbug