Owner: An Open Book: A Lynn University Student Blog URL:http://blogs.lynn.edu/anopenbook/ Join Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2007 13:29:32 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Jana is an English major at Lynn University who loves books, history, and now blogging. This blog is sure to captivate and entertain as Jana’s life becomes an open book. Site statistics:Click here
Nature Brings Out the Kid in Me 2007-10-03 12:27:24 When I read books and poetry, I don’t like to read about nature. Pastoral poems don’t interest me and I could live the rest of my life very happily if I never had to read another excerpt of Thoreau’s Walden.
I find it somewhat ironic because most of my childhood was spent in very rural areas. I never even lived in a city until I was about 12. I was constantly outside as a child. And barefoot!! My family still laments that they could not get me to keep a pair of shoes on no matter how cold it was outside. I would climb any tree with a branch low enough for me to grab ahold of. When I lived in Georgia, I loved to go fishing at the lake that was a couple of blocks away from my house and I would always try to bring bread for the ducks that lived there. As a child, I rode my bike around the neighborhood, went hiking, rolled down hills instead of walking down them.
Things have changed since then. I don’t go outside as often, but remnants of that childhood h
Entrepreneurship 2007-10-02 09:28:44 I took an entrepreneurship test today. I actually think I did okay on it, but that’s because I studied four days in a row and super studied this morning before the test. It was five short answer questions. I’m really only worried about the first one, which was about gross margin. I memorized what it was, but then there was a question asking how price increases and decreases affect gross margin. I didn’ t know, so I wrote down everything I knew about gross margin and I turned it in anyway. As I was walking out the door, Professor Malfitano came out and asked me if I was satisfied with the answer. I told him straight out that I wasn’t, but I didn’t know what else to put. He tried to give me an example to see if it would help me any so that I could come back in and work on that question, but I still didn’t understand it. I was grateful, though, that he would try to help me on it. Since he did that, I came back to my room and looked in my book to see if Read more:Entrepreneurship
The Way a Sound Sounds 2007-10-01 07:08:03 It is such a dark day today. The clouds look so angry. I woke up this morning and the first thing I did was look outside and say, “It’s going to be an ugly day.” I was walking down to the library and I heard the bell that signals 8 o’clock. But it sounded different; it sounded like a funeral bell. I was surprised, because I’ve never heard it like that before. I had never noticed how the day could affect how you hear something. I know it affects a lot of people’s moods, but that it could change a sound…like I said, I was surprised. I wish it was sunny; then people and sounds would be happier.
Read more:Sound
, Sounds
Happy Birthday Mommy! 2007-09-29 19:04:24 It was my mom’s birthday today. She didn’t really do anything because she had to get Sandy’s husband’s funeral, but tomorrow she’s going to the Big E, a fair in Massachusetts. Or did she say King Richard’s Fair? I can’t remember. So anyway, this is a little tribute blog to her because she’s the most amazing woman I know. She is so generous to people, too generous sometimes, and it’s gotten her into trouble, but it hasn’t changed her. She hasn’t become cynical or pessimistic about life. Her eternal optimism is truly commendable. Her strength, though, is what I admire most. She would do anything for her children and she’s proven it time and again. Some don’t agree with the way she raised us, but she mixed the perfect amount of freedom with the perfect amount of discipline. Sometimes, I don’t understand how she could have allowed us as much freedom as she did; I can’t imagine how terrified she must Read more:Happy
, Birthday
, Mommy
, Happy Birthday
Without a Father 2007-09-28 09:29:51 My grandma’s friend Sandy lost her husband a few days ago. They live in Arizona (I think) and his wife was there in Massachusetts to help their daughter with wedding plans (she’s getting married sometime this year, I think). They got the call a few days after Sandy had flown to Massachusetts, so he was alone when he died. I really can’t imagine what that would be like, and I hope I don’t have to find out. Not only did she lose her father, but she lost him just a few months before her wedding. She no longer has him to walk her down the aisle. Little girls dream for years about their wedding, and a father to walk her down the aisle is a natural part of that dream. The pain of not being able to see that part of the dream come true would be so hard to bear. My heart goes out to them.
Read more:Father
Tingles, Business, and Roomy 2007-09-28 09:21:08 Maybe I’m just weird, but when I get out of the bed in the morning and put weight on my feet, they tingle. Does anyone else’s feet do this? It must be from laying down all night. I don’t think they’ve always done this; I don’t remember them always doing this. It’s such a strange feeling, like they fell asleep, but it only happens for a few seconds. Hmmm……
Anyway, I’m bored and procrastinating my studying for my entrepreneurship test on Tuesday…which I’m gonna fail. Business
is too logical for me. I don’t have a common sense bone in my body. However, Anand and I have had this conversation….he argued that I am logical. He wasn’t winning until I helped him by saying that it takes logic to organize a paper. But still…I can’t wrap my head around business.
In other news…..Aly’s gone for the weekend! It’s gonna be too quiet without her–I won’t have anyone to
In Conclusion 2007-09-27 15:32:49 Okay, I’m an English major. That means that naturally I have a lot of reading and writing to do. Sometimes, it’s hard to keep up with it all. I always finish my work, but it’s not always the best quality of work that I can do. So I got a paper back today with comments on it. I worked pretty hard and labored strenuously over most of the paper. It was on the concluding paragraph that I worked the least on; I just couldn’t figure out what to write anymore. The professor wrote notes on areas I could improve. Strangely enough, she wrote that my concluding paragraph was excellent. ????? I put almost no effort into that paragraph at all. Why is it the best? This happens to me a lot, to tell the truth, and it doesn’t make any sense to me. I have a hard time with conclusions and end up giving up on them just so I can be done, but this part invariably ends up being the best. I’m always told that I need more of my concluding paragraph in my paper. Is that not w
What is Art? 2007-09-27 14:35:08 What is art coming to these days? Not just visual art, but poetry, literature, etc. We had a nice discussion in my poetry class about what is considered poetry today, and whether or not it should be considered such. The main question was: How far is too far in poetry? Holly used the example of a poem with one word: Dog. Someone could probably pass that off as a poem. I read a poem that was the same sentence repeated for about 10 lines. To me, that is not poetry. I wondered how it had even made its way into an anthology. It was just a sentence being repeated over and over. I know another recent form of poetry is the prose poetry. Maybe this is just me, but I’ve always perceived a poem as having some kind of structure to it to make it more meaningful. Prose poetry, to me, is just a beautiful piece of prose, nothing more.
And with art, I use this example all the time: Someone can put a dot on a peice of paper and pass it off as high art. It’s not! It’s a dot on a
Wishful Thinking…. 2007-09-26 08:03:35 My life is sad right now. I have no time to read. Okay, so it’s not the crisis of the century, but it’s a big deal for me. I have so many books that I want to read and new books are always being recommended to me. Let’s see, there’s The Boleyn Girl series, Nineteen Minutes, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, a couple of books I’ve seen in the children’s section at Barnes and Noble, A Thousand Splended Suns, and a million other books that I just want to reread. But I can’t because I have so much homework. I almost had a meltdown yesterday when I realized that I three tests and three papers due next week…by Wednesday.
Plus: Poetry club is having problems with the poetry coffeehouse. Everything is being done late, so everything is naturally going wrong. We couldn’t print the flyers that Jean made for us because one: we have microsoft word; he has vista. We couldn’t open them on our computers. Two: Even if we could print them,
I Just Want To Sleep! 2007-09-24 09:16:56 Oh my god I’m so tired!! Why does everything wake me up?? For the past week, again, I have woken up every day at 7:30. As soon as it happens, I just have to think, I could be sleeping for another hour. What am I going to do with this extra hour?? Every day. I just want to sleep! And you know what’s super sad? I can hear the alarm clock go off in the morning…..next door! I think it must be Bernard’s because he’s the only one crazy enough (besides me) who wakes up at 7:30 in the morning. It happened yesterday morning and I was just like, what is that? When I realized what it was, I though, Are you serious? There’s just something wrong about that. What’s worse, is that it’s the same tone my mom uses, and I would hear that at home and it would wake me up. So it’s just more likely to wake me up now. This does not bode well for my year. What happens if I don’t go to bed til 3 in the morning, but wake up at 7:30? I really do just wa Read more:Sleep
Time To Speak Up 2007-10-14 10:06:27 I walked by Dr. Andreas the other day and she stopped and commented on the irony of one of the quietest students in class writing a blog for everyone to read. I had never thought about this much before. It is true, though. I don’t speak in class; I never have. If I spoke up as much as I think about doing it, no one would recognize me for an English major capable of critical and analytical thought. I think it has something to do with too much attention being focused on me. I get nervous and all logical thought just flies out of my head. I’d rather write a paper any day. I’ve also noticed in the past year or so that it’s much easier for me to write someone a letter than to talk to them if I need to say, complain about something or talk about something important. It’s easier for me to organize my thoughts, and I don’t have to worry about the pressure of a direct comeback. So I think, in a way, this blog is a really good thing for me. It gives me a
The Daily Heartbeat or the Daily Heartbreak? 2007-10-10 08:31:39 The iPulse, as I believe Ashlea has mentioned, is Lynn University’s student newspaper. I think a student newspaper is an amazing thing to have on a campus; it’s a way to reach out to students and make them aware of the happenings on campus. It’s recently been reformatted, and that change has improved it so much. However, I do have (quite) a few complaints regarding this publication.
I’ll start out simple: I was reading the tenth issue for this year and there was an article that had a sentence that went something like this: “He is also excepting electronic submission with a cover e-mail.” I don’t feel like this article could have been edited. I think someone should have picked up on the fact that ‘excepting’ should have been ‘accepting’ and ’submission’ needs an ’s’ at the end. I catch things like this all the time in the iPulse.
In another article, I read that “the following stores will Read more:Daily
, Heartbeat
, Heartbreak
My First SGA Meeting 2007-10-09 19:49:52 I went to my first SGA meeting tonight. I don’t like the formality of it. It was excruciatingly boring, but I guess I can understand why it’s necessary. I’d rather things were more relaxed; then it wouldn’t be so intimidating. It wasn’t all bad, though. There was some laughter over some of the new business that was introduced. That was probably the most interesting part. People were proposing ways to make campus better, such as improving the parking lots and cafeteria food. One subject that I found particularly funny was when someone proposed putting ice cream machines on campus. As if I need any more temptation in my life! Chocolate is probably the biggest to my health right now. Another proposal was the hammocks….again. No one seems to know why they were taken down last year, but I have to admit, it was nice having them. Anyway, I better get used to those meetings. I hope to be the poetry club president after Christina leaves, so I will have to a Read more:First
Three Books at a Time 2007-10-08 09:10:45
I finally got a chance to read! I’m actually reading three books right now. I’m reading The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, which is amazing! So far, it’s about a doctor who delivered his wife’s twins. The little girl had Down Syndrome, so he told the nurse to take her away and told his wife she had died. The little boy is perfectly healthy and they raise him. The nurse ends up raising the daughter herself and moving to another state. I can’t wait to finish reading it.
The other book I’m reading is The Little Prince. I read it once, and then I decided I had to read it again. It’s a children’s book, but it’s so philosophical and everything is a symbol of something else. I especially liked this quote from it: a little flower says “I have to put up with 2 or 3 caterpillars if I want to get to know the butterflies. I thought that was so relevant to every day life.
Finally, I’m reading A Little Princess on my breaks at Ba Read more:Three
, Books
My Poor, Innocent Laundry Bag 2007-10-04 16:22:38 So I decided to do laundry today. Seems like a mundane enough chore. I left my laundry innocently in the dryer and my laundry bag innocently in a corner. I come back when I think my things are done drying and lo and behold! someone has stolen my laundry bag…. Who does this? I suppose it might have made more sense to me if they had stolen my clothes (it would have been worse, but it would have made more sense), but a laundry bag? You can get one anywhere! What is the point of stealing someone’s laundry bag? An empty one, no less. Who stoops to this level? I am simply appalled at the pathetic creature this poor person has been reduced to. If you ever by some chance read this, I hope you realize how pitiful this is……………..and I want my laundry bag back.
Read more:Innocent
, Laundry
First Ever Poetry Club Meeting 2007-10-04 15:13:52 We just had our first real poetry club meeting. I want the club to be more active on campus, so I thought up some questions to ask members, like when can they meet and what do they want from the poetry club. Then I wrote down some things that I thought we could do, like discuss our poetry and maybe attend off campus poetry readings. The meeting was a resounding failure. Only Professor Daily, Christina, and I showed up. We did discuss Quest, though. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a magazine for poetry and short drama (maybe fiction?). It’s a creative outlet that is also in the process of improving. We want to increase the number of pages so more students can contribute to it and make it look more like a book. So right now, we’re working on obtaining the funds to accomplish that.
As for the poetry club, I’ll keep trying. I plan to email the members’ addresses that I have and tell them our plans and ask if they have any ideas. Maybe the time I Read more:First
, Poetry
In Addition to “My Reply” 2007-10-18 15:43:18 I found this article on Yahoo. I thought it might apply to my comments on the iPulse and might help the situation somewhat. Check it out if you’re interested.
Read more:Addition
You Make Me Smile 2007-10-18 14:49:09 So I was at work last night at Barnes and Noble, and it was nearing the end of my shift. The store was picked up and there weren’t many customers, so I was talking to the girl closing that night, Mary Lou. I have a bad habit of letting my eyes wander when someone’s talking to me, especially when there are people around and I can see them from my peripheral vision. Well, as I’m sneaking glances around, I see someone I recognize come in the children’s section: Anand! I suddenly burst into the brightest (probably goofiest) smile. I can see Mary Lou from the corner of my eye with a confused look on her face, but I couldn’t seem to stop smiling so that I could explain to her (she was blocked from seeing him by the desk). She was trying to see around the desk and she told me later that she was thinking, “What is she smiling about? Who just walked in?” The smile on my face was not the polite one that we usually reserve for customers. So, when she fina Read more:Smile
My Reply 2007-10-18 12:07:38 I am glad that my blog “The Daily Heartbeat or the Daily Heartbreak?” received so many comments, especially from the Editor-in-Chief of the paper. However, it was not my intention to provoke anger with my blog, nor to tear down fellow student writers. It was unfortunate and I am sorry that it was perceived this way.
I do want to clear something up. I was aware that the members of the staff were part of a class. I also do understand some of the difficulty that comes with producing a student written paper. In high school, I was on the newspaper staff for two years (which was also a class), and I was an editor for one year. We didn’t print a paper every day (for which I applaud the iPulse), but we put a lot of work into it nonetheless. I dealt with the obstacles of people who didn’t show up for class, who didn’t meet deadlines, and who didn’t want to be there. I can appreciate and sympathize with the frustration that causes.
I want to thank Sarah for
It’s Stuck! 2007-10-23 14:41:16 I was just having a couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter (yes, by itself) and I started to wonder: How long would it take for a glob of peanut butter to fall off the spoon if you hold it upside down? If anybody knows, please tell me so I don’t have to do the experiment myself.
Read more:Stuck
The Naked Roommate 2007-10-22 08:28:31 Someone (I believe it was our very own Anthony Bosio, who makes our blogs possible) just returned the funniest book to the library. It’s called The Naked Roommate
: And 107 Other Issues You Might Run Into in College. It’s by Harlan Cohen, an author and advice columnist. I was caught by the title and started flipping through it. It offers great advice about not only roommates, but also food, money, drinking/drugs, finding friends, getting involved, relationships, sex, the classroom…the list goes on. It struck me how useful this could be for anyone on campus, especially freshmen. It’s filled with humor, true stories, quotes (even one from a student from Lynn, I noticed), and the 107 tips. If you’re interested, you should definitely check it out. It’s worth it.
A Different Side Of Me 2007-10-21 11:17:37 I’ve been depressed the last two days. I don’t really know why since it hasn’t been an especially stressful week. Nothing bad has happened. There is no explanation for it other than that I am depressed. It’s irrational.
But it’s not the sad kind of depressed. It’s the angry kind. The kind where I hate the whole world for no good reason. The kind where I’m mad at people because they don’t care. Of course, I haven’t told them that I’m upset. It’s the kind of depressed where I expect them to know anyway. I guess that’s how it’s irrational.
It’s also the kind where I don’t want anyone to cheer me up. I just want to stay mad forever. That’s probably the worst kind of depression that exists because you just look for reasons to keep the feeling. And you find them everywhere.
I just don’t want to talk to anyone. I want someone to talk to me just so I can tell that person to go away and
Lies, Lies, Lies 2007-10-25 15:26:48 Just so you know, I love Yahoo! articles. Here’s another one I found yesterday. It’s called “Are They Lying to You?” It describes signs to look for when you suspect someone isn’t telling you the truth. I thought number one was especially interesting, and it is the only reason I’m writing this particular blog. It says that when a person lies, tissues in the nose “engorge with blood.” While I was reading it, I realized engorged = swell, i.e., gets bigger. Whoever wrote Pinnochio was onto something! I never knew there was some truth to the claim that a liar’s nose grows. Of course, it’s imperceptible in people, but on something made of wood, it might be more apparent. Of course now I’m delving into a whole fantasy realm, but the point is, there really is something behind it and I found that interesting. And if you don’t find it interesting, at least the article might be useful!
Happy Halloween….. 2007-10-24 22:36:18 Aly’s sister-in-law was nice enough to send a Halloween
cookie decorating package to us! It has cookies, frosting mix, sprinkles, gummy spiders, licorice, and candy corn. It sounds amazing, right? Really tasty……
Until Aly decides to make it. The directions were simple enough: add water to the frosting mix. How could someone mess that up, right? Apparently, Aly added too much water. Instead of being nice and thick, her frosting had the consistency of slightly colored water. She mixed it around a little and decided she would take the chance and try it. She dips in a cookie and says, “Oh this is so gross!” Naturally, I had to try it. So I dip in a cookie and completely agree with her.
Of course, we didn’t stop eating it. We just thought of ways to make it better as we ate it. I suggested we add the sprinkles to it. I never knew that sprinkles disintegrated in watery substances. The mixture turned black (even though the sprinkles were black and orange Read more:Happy
, Happy Halloween
I Knocked It Over 2007-10-24 20:28:35 Just so you know how incredibly awkward I am, let me tell you a story:
I was at the sink, blithely washing my face and preventing acne when I heard my phone (which was on my bed) begin to ring. I knew it was my mom, so I tried to rush over to it.
A slight crisis occurred about this time. Let me set the scene: On the wall beside our closet and across from the bathroom, we have a stand to store some of our things, like toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning supplies, dirty dishes……Aly’s clothes…… Anyway, it’s a little taller than I am, and held together by little black round things with indententations in them that go onto these silver, square thingies and hold them together.
So like I said, I’m trying to rush over to my phone and naturally, I run right into the thing. It was like a giant game of Jenga! The entire structure just collapsed! It was one of those helpless moments where you can do nothing to stop something you see happening
Man-Hunt 2007-10-31 08:37:14 I’ve never liked group projects; I feel like I can get things done more effeciently on my own. So I wasn’t thrilled to find out that we would be put in groups for Entrepreneurship to present a company. My group members are Alyssa and Joe and we represent Apple (another thing I was not thrilled about; I don’t know anything about Apple). Our first presentation went pretty well; Joe wasn’t able to make it to our first meeting because his parents were in town, but he showed up to the other two, and we worked everything out.
Now we have another presentation to do. In Entrepreneurship Tuesday, we decided that 6:30 in the library was when we would meet (this is where my story gets interesting). Alyssa and I were on the second floor of the library and decided we would go downstairs now and then to see if Joe was around so we could let him know we were upstairs. At one point, I told a friend of mine behind the circulation desk that we were waiting for someone; if she saw
My Halloween Knight 2007-10-31 08:06:45 Today is Halloween
, but I don’t have the Halloween spirit. I have a seniorita costume, but I don’t feel like wearing it; I have candy, but at 8:30 in the morning; I have something to do, but I’m going to be late for it because of work (I almost wonder if it’s not worth it?).
However, at work I do get to dress up. I think that’s the only part of the day I’m excited about. Since I work in the children’s section at Barnes and Noble, I think my costume is particularly apropos: a child. I’m going to wear pajamas, hopefully house shoes, carry around a little bunny rabbit, put my hair in pigtails, and draw freckles on my face. There is a costume contest for the employees and the employee with the best costume wins a $20 gift card. I would love to have it, but it’s not likely that I’ll win. One girl made an entire dress out of Barnes and Noble gift cards; I think my child costume is pretty likely out of the running.
It’s a sha Read more:Knight
Memorable Moments of the Past Week 2007-11-04 22:38:20 Highlights of my week:
I went out to lunch with Brittany, Maria, and Holly.
I went on a man-hunt.
My Don Quixote reading assignment was reduced from reading the whole book to the first part by Monday.
I got to dress as a kid for Halloween.
I got in trouble for talking to Brittany about a poem in Studies in Poetry.
My Medieval Rennaissance class was canceled on Friday.
I met Aly’s Dmitri.
My cell phone changed for Daylight Savings Time all by itself.
I got to eat breakfast with Aly two days in a row.
The back brake on my bike broke (try saying that five times fast).
I got to carry a ten pound, $135 book about Ralph Lauren downstairs at Barnes and Noble.
I read a book called To Hell With Love. It was good. I wanted to buy it. But I didn’t because I’m a responsible adult who only buys necessary things (my mantra). Therefore, I was forced to stay late at work and finish it…in a very comfy sofa.
And finally, I pummeled Aly with marshmallows.
Read more:Moments
The Vanishing Bookstore 2007-11-03 13:04:52 Many, many people come into the library with a variety of questions which, some of the time, have nothing to do with the library. This morning, a family visiting for the weekend came in to ask when the student bookstore is open. Apparently, there is no sign on the door. I told them I could find out for them.
The Lynn website made me into a liar. I knew I had found the hours on the website before, but it took some diligent searching. It is so hidden that searching “bookstore” will not help you find it. Even now, two minutes after I found it, I can’t remember how I did it (unfortunately, I didn’t find it in time for the family; they left because it was taking me so long). It vanishes into obscurity very quickly!
Okay, I found it again: You have to go to “offices and services,” then there will be a link to the bookstore. I was terribly confused when I saw that there were no hours for the store on the bookstore page. However, I found on the left hand si Read more:Vanishing
, Bookstore
Halloween Again 2007-11-02 08:41:24 I finally have time to blog about Halloween
night! It wasn’t the most interesting one, but I got some great pictures. I had to work that night and I got to dress up. I did get to dress as a kid, but for some reason, no one knew what I was. One person thought a cat (the freckles on my face confused him), another thought I was Strawberry Shortcake (I wish I was that imaginitive). For some reason, I don’t have any pictures of me; maybe I can get someone to email one of me to me.
A lot of people at Barnes and Noble did get dressed up:
The first was a Dryad, and the second was a geisha I think, but she didn’t wear any make-up. One girl was a fairy, but I didn’t get a picture of her. My personal favorite:
She made an entire dress out of Barnes and Noble gift cards that she had been collecting for the past year. She made the dress in the past week. She had to do a lot of hole punches and tie a lot of string.
In the kids section, we had a scary storytime. There were Read more:Again
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