This semester's theme is Learning to Let Go

...and appreciate good things that happen.

Like tonight, when I went to a show at the Indianapolis Museum of Art with Osso, DM Stith and Sufjan Stevens. It was really good, and I went with some friends from the workshops office, Josh and Megan. And then I got Sufjan Stevens' autograph, which was the best thing that's happened for a while.

In a recent interview, Andrew Bird said he tries to do something Real at each of his shows – something exciting or unexpected. Where did the concept come from? It's something that's been at the back of my mind for a long time now, probably since I moved back to Indiana after my semester in London. Coming back to Indiana from anywhere, really, makes me really appreciate the Real things that happen to me. The entire summer in Minneapolis was so Real.

And now back in Indiana I feel like I am only touching the surface.

BUT there are some times that are more Real, like tonight when I stood next to Sufjan Stevens for a few minutes and got his autograph. And a few weeks ago when I saw Andrew Bird. And...

That's it.

So that has been my life lately. Class and work and sleep. For the first time in a long time I started a countdown before November to Christmas break. Is this senioritis? It's the worst.


Also, I made a website: beckyrother.com. So at least there's that.

school/art

No words can describe this semester, so I made you a picture.

Ok, some words: Daily News 40 hours + school 15 hours + work 8 hours + homework 4 hours - $7 bottle of de-stress body wash.

apparently it is not always sunny in philadelphia.

Haaaa, I'm so clever.

Aaanyway I went to Philadelphia last weekend, and I feel compelled to blog about it. I went to see my friend Stephanie, who has an internship at the Inquirer. It was a lot of fun, we saw all the touristy History there is in the city, and experienced a little of the night life (lots of bros and Jersey accents). Steph experienced the wonders of Alcohol for the first time (so I can cross that one off the list). It's an expensive place to live, though. There are more photos on flickr if you're interested

Also, the Philadelphia airport is the worst place in the world. Really. Don't go there. It would probably be better to fly into New York and take a Greyhound than to fly from PHL. On my way home, my flight was delayed for two hours because 1. it had rained six hours before, 2. there were three planes scheduled to board from the same gate within half an hour of each other, and 3. the pilot was taking a lunch break. Really.

In other news, I'm back to the night schedule for my last week here. I'm a little sad about it. Mostly I'm sad about having to leave the Cities.

Oh by the way

From time to time I've been updating my other blog, beckyrother.blogspot.com, with some things I've been working on. Sooo in case you're interested in what I'm doing at work or whatever, ch-ch-check it out.

Back to the features

Hello! It's my first week back in features and I am happy about it. Today the first of a few of the things I've been working on ran in the paper, and I'm actually proud of what I made.
Not much has been happening besides that. I've been making friends here, going out with other interns and their friends. Last weekend Stephanie's friend came to visit from Madison, WI, and we had a lot of fun going to the farmer's market and driving to Wisconsin. Summer is a wonderful time.
Finally got my bike fixed (mostly - now the gears are weird, but it works) and eventually, maybe tomorrow, I'm going to ride it to work. It's not very far, and a really nice ride. This will be good.

/stream of consciousness

Well I've got about an hour before I have to go to work, so I decided to write some stuff. Nothing important has really happened since my last post, but it's one of those days when I feel like writing.

I'm sitting outside on my porch. It's a beautiful day - sunny and warm but not overwhelmingly hot. I think it's funny that I get better internet reception outside the house than in my room. I'll take what I can get, though.

Today I met Hayley at a restaurant in Northeast called the Bulldog. I rode my bike, hoping to offset the hamburger I ate. I'm not sure it worked... halfway home I my bike tire went flat and I ended up walking home. It looks like the tires are the original ones from when the bike was new in like 1985, so I'm pretty impressed they lasted this long. Still mad about it, though. I've really enjoyed having a bike up here. There are a lot of places in my neighborhood and surrounding areas that I can ride my bike to... especially around Dinkytown, where I feel bad driving to a place so close, and parking is hard to come by.

When I got home, there was a giant beetle on my front walk. I poked it with a stick and watched it crawl around for a while. Things that I do when I'm bored.

Today at work I'm designing more news pages. I'm starting to really like the whole deadline process. I just wish we could do it in the daytime so we'd have normal hours instead of this 4 - midnight deal.

A guy drove by talking (I'd assume) on a Bluetooth. I could still hear him – from his car, on the street – a block later. This is a fun neighborhood.

I was so proud of the food i cooked that i took a picture

As part of my weird news design schedule, my weekend was today and yesterday, which really meant I had most of a three-day weekend to do what I wanted. So what did I do?
Today I felt bad just sitting around all day, so I got up (relatively) early and rode my bike into Dinkytown – the Village of the Cities – and found a local coffeeshop. It's something I've been meaning to do, and since now I have all my mornings free, it seemed like a good idea. I had a delicious cranberry muffin and an iced latte in a coffee mug. I've always thought that things are better out of a coffee mug, and I was really glad to see this place felt the same way. After that, I read for a while before going grocery shopping and cleaning the apartment. Fascinating, I know, but I really felt independent. Then I came home and cooked, which I love. I would do it more, but I hate having a lot of leftovers, and most of the things I cook tend to be a lot more than I can eat by myself. So Steph helped me eat what I made – tomato-basil fettuccini with zucchini, green pepper and tomatoes sautéed with garlic, and French bread. It was delicious. I took a picture.

Oh yeah, and it was the Fourth of July Saturday. Some friends came over to my apartment and we walked a few blocks to the Stone Arch Bridge to watch fireworks over the Mississippi. It was a lot of fun.

What else has happened... I went with Karlee, another intern, to a show by the White Rabbits at a little bar close to where we both live. Minneapolis has so many good bands come play, it's crazy. White Rabbits was a great show - they have a lot of drums in their music, so it was a loud show, but crazy good. Here's a video of my favorite song they played.



And I switched from features to news design. Not by choice, but I'm starting to like it more and more. It's a challenge to get all the stories to fit on the pages and make them look nice, as well as to work with the news and photo editors to decide which stories go where and the best presentation. Right now I've been working on the inside of the A section, which is the first part you look at when you get the newspaper. It's mostly nation/world articles, and most of the stuff comes from the Associated Press. This is good, they tell me, because we don't have to wait for our local writers to finish their stories, and we don't have to worry about house fires or car crashes happening late at night. I think eventually I work on the B section, where those local things go, but lately it's just been A: six to eight pages of content staff writers don't work on. I like it.

Twins!

I went to my first major league baseball game last week — the Minnesota Twins vs. the Pittsburgh Pirates. I went with two other inters, Nate the sports intern and Hayley the features intern. It was a lot of fun, despite knowing basically nothing about baseball. Both my friends were huge fans, though, which was good, because they could answer all my questions. I think we lost, which they say is bad because the Pirates were so bad... but honestly I have no idea and wouldn't really know a good baseball team from little league.
Uuumm that's pretty much all that has been happening to me lately. I've been hanging out with the other interns a lot – eating lunch and stuff. It's a good group of people. Everyone seems like they really enjoy what they do, despite THE NEWSPAPER INDUSTRY. It's like a black cloud hanging over our heads. You can feel it in the newsroom... everyone's a little on edge, a little worse for the wear since the last round of layoffs. Yikes.

p.s. more pictures on flickr

west/midwest/north/south

Today was Intern Day, where all the interns gathered in the newsroom to introduce ourselves and meet way too many of our co-workers to be able to actually remember anyone's name. Then after work we (the interns) went to a Japanese restaurant in Uptown to make more awkward conversation. Ah the joys of having a new job. Or, I guess, any kind of job.
One of the things we talked about for a while was how people classify the Midwest. I had never thought about it before, since most of the people I know are either from Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, the West, or random other places; but apparently "Midwest" is a kind of ambiguous term that means "the middle of the country" but applies to different states depending on where you grew up. Personally, "Midwest" means Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas - but mostly Indiana, Illinois and Ohio. I always thought of these north parts as a kind of separate section - just the North. But I'm finding out that many people from Minnesota and Wisconsin also consider themselves Midwesterners. I'm not sure how I feel about that. "Midwest" to me means corn, tractors, hot weather, farms - country livin' or something like that. And I just don't connect those things with these northern states.
SOOOO that's what I learned today. I was going to draw a bunch of maps and stuff, but I'm getting old or something and am going to bed at 10:30. I guess that's what happens when you have a real person job...?
Meh. Goodnight.

today, we found a cat

Today I got home from work and there was a cat in our kitchen. I guess it is a neighbor's cat, and it just came in to hang out. It was a friendly cat, so we let it stay.
In other news, The Hangover is hilarious, mpls has some great bars, and I am enjoying my job. I think that's about it.
Oh! I bought a bike yesterday from a guy on Craigslist. It was $30 – I didn't want to spend much, since I'll only be here for the summer and I have no need (or want) to take it back to Indiana. It's an old 10-speed from like 1983, mens, but at least it works. It seems like everyone here has a bike, and actually uses it, so I gave in to peer pressure and bought one. Eventaully I'll ride it to work, when I'm more in shape and feel confidant that I won't die on the way across the bridge.
So that's what's happening now. I'm going to bed soon. It's like 9:30, but having a job and being a real person is tiring.

uploaded some photos

I started a new flickr set if you want to look at my photos. The ones I uploaded I took with my phone, so they're not the best quality, but they get the job done. I'm sure I'll eventually take my camera with me somewhere so you'll get to see some pictures in 7.2 megapixels.
Anyway.

minnesota: nice

I'm not sure if you've heard of it, but there's this thing people call Minnesota Nice. It refers to how amazingly friendly everyone from this state seems to be. I say seems because, as a friend pointed out, it must be a trap. As I have lived here, and as my roommate says, it's really called Minnesota Passive-Aggressive.
It's an interesting place.
Getting used to so much friendliness, especially after living in Indiana – the Mean Capital of the World — has taken some time, but I'm really starting to like it. For a while it was actually more stressful, trying to be cheerful all the time, but I've been here for about a week and I think it's actually rubbing off on me. I feel noticeably happier.

That could also be because I have an internship at the one newspaper I've wanted to work for since I learned about newspapers, living in a big old house with a fun roommate in a beautiful city for the summer.
I think that about sums it up. I love my internship so far (it's been four days). There are seven other interns, and all of them are extremely friendly. It's already turning into a great internship. I love where I live, in a neighborhood close to the University of Minnesota so it's got that college-y feel, and close to downtown so I don't have to drive too far to get to work. I adore Minneapolis. It's everything I've wanted in a city... without sounding too sappy, I could live here for a while. We'll see about the winters.

Another summer, more adventures

This summer - in two weeks, actually - I'm moving to Minneapolis to start my internship as a features designer at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. I found myself a place to live, thanks to craigslist and some University of Minnesota students, and flew by myself to the Cities on a scouting mission a few weeks ago. I actually know some people who live there, which will be a nice change from the zero people I knew before I got to Colorado Springs.
And right now, I'm just waiting till it's close enough for me to start packing, and thinking about things I could be doing but not doing them. It's hard going from being busy 14 hours a day every day, to having nothing to do.
So that's what's been happening. Imma start posting again once I move up north and adventures begin again.

what i have been doing

this is supposed to be an animation, click on it, it's funny i promise.