Blog Outage

Having some blog problems... my page isn't loading for some reason, it just comes up as a blank page. So I'm posting just to see if it fixes it.

May as well talk about my weekend then, huh? Well Friday night I went to the Family Arena to see the Missouri River Otters take on the Quad City Mallards (ok the duck in their logo is totally Plucky Duck.) and of course the River Otters won, causing Kristen to hide under her coat in dismay. :) After that we consolidated cars at Tracie's, and headed off for the Pepper Lounge downtown, so that Kristen and Tracie could check out their favorite DJ again. Dancing was going on in the back room, but the music kind of sucked so we went back up to the front to listen to their DJ some more and we formed our own dancing circle. Kinda fun. I crashed at Tracie's Friday night and slept till 11:30 the next day, and we went and got breakfast at our favorite little coffee shop. I have become a huge fan of chai, let me tell you. Oh wow. Need to get some of that stuff for myself. Anyways. Then I went home and showered and Tracie picked me up again to head out to West County Mall to buy our tickets for Les Misérables. (I'm seeing it again, yay!! For only the sixth time! Hehe.) Then we left to go to another mall, St. Louis Mills, so that Tracie could look for computer speakers and boots. Met up with Kristen there. Shopped for a couple hours (I had no money, so really couldn't shop) and then left to meet their friend Joe at his apartment. They met Joe a while back, but this was my first time meeting him. Wow, I've never seen an apartment with more CDs in it. Joe is also a DJ, so he did some spinning for us. Quite interesting. Anyways I went home around 2:30. Went to my parents' house on Sunday morning to do laundry, watched news about the Iraq vote, and my sister came over a bit later, did my taxes, and then I had to leave to go see Kristen sing with Javier Mendoza at Immacolata, which was très cool. Very cool to see Javi lead a church congregation, and this was also Tracie's first Catholic Mass experience. :) After Mass we got dinner at St. Louis Bread Company and then went to Kristen's and watched a movie with her friend Jason. Fun times.

Now you all know EXACTLY what I did this weekend! Aren't you so enlightened? :) And now, I'm here. So maybe I should start acting like it and do something productive... hope this blog will work now! (yay! It did!)

oh well

They were looking for someone to do a part-time internship. That won't work. Oh well. At least they are still interested in me... but I can't take anything with them unless it's full-time. Guess I'll keep waiting...

Well, well....

Last night when I got home I had a message on my phone from that company I interviewed with about three weeks ago. They want me to call them back. I'll have to do that sometime this morning... stay tuned!

My Precioussess...

Man do I loooove my new silver rings... how I love them... it's almost getting to the point where I feel naked if I'm not wearing my rings. I want all kinds of silver jewelry now... I love Celtic designs. Wish I bought more of it when I was, oh, actually IN Ireland?? I bought like one piece of jewelry for myself when I was there (my Claddaugh ring which is losing all its stones). Guess I'll just have to go back and stock up. But for now I gotta make do with what I can get here...

So, on that note, all you girls come to my jewelry party on Feb. 10!! I am pretty excited about it. I'll make sure I have all sorts of yummies there too. It'll be worth your while, I promise! I'll see you there...

Class Overview

Well, now I have been to both of my classes that I will be in this semester. The cruise class will be a lot of fun. It's practically all the same people from last semester, same teacher, and we even are sitting in the same places, so it's like hardly anything changed. Our project for this class sounds pretty cool: we get to research and plan a cruise (or riverboat) itinerary. So that'll be interesting to work on.

My second class, "Intro to Hospitality," is a general overview of the hospitality industry, including hotels, restaurants, and tourism. So I'll get a wider view of the whole spectrum. Plus I have a side interest in bed-and-breakfasts and think it would be a lot of fun to run one someday in a quaint little town by the sea somewhere, so maybe this will let me indulge that dream a little. Our project for this class is to find someone in the industry who does what we want to do, and interview them and write a paper, supported by internet research, on that particular niche. Eesh. That doesn't sound fun. I don't know who to interview. It'll be a challenge, at least.

Now I have two expensive books to crack open this week and start reading... just need to find the time to do it...

Back to School!

It's the first day of school for this semester! Tonight I'm going to my class on cruises. That'll be really fun, I think. I wonder how much of the same crowd from the last class will be in this one... possibly quite a few of them, so it won't feel too different. It's in the same classroom at least, and might even be taught by the same teacher. (He told us last semester that he probably wouldn't be doing it, but his name is on the schedule, so who knows. He could get someone new at the last minute.) So not a lot of change. Except that this class is about half the length of the last one! The last one started at 5:30 and went until 9:50; this one is over at 7:40. Yay!

Tomorrow I have my first morning class ever at this college. It's "Introduction to Hospitality." Should be easy.

I only wish I would've bought my books already for these classes. I don't know why I always forget books. Maybe I'll just get them from the bookstore before class tonight. But then I end up paying a LOT more than I would on Amazon... oh well.

The Mediocrity of the Opera

I was not all that impressed with the film adaptation of the musical "Phantom of the Opera." Why do movie directors go for star power over talent, each and every time? Gerard Butler (the Phantom) was so wrong for that role. Too young, too hip, and DEFINITELY not a powerful enough voice. I cringed several times. He had to sing many parts in a lower key (or lower octave) just to hit the notes. Emmy Rossum (Christine) looked the part and everything, but when she opened her mouth to sing, I thought, "Is that REALLY the best they could get??" Why couldn't they have gotten someone from Broadway, who really has a truly amazing voice? Hers was not operatic enough. The first time I ever saw P.O.T.O. performed on the stage, in 1995, I believe, the woman who played Christine had what I still believe to this day to be the most amazing voice I've ever heard. The talent's out there, they just had to find it. But whatever. These people auditioned for Andrew Lloyd Webber, and if he likes them, so be it, I guess. (I gotta say though, that the above complaints do not apply to Minnie Driver's performance as La Carlotta. She probably had the best voice out of anyone in the cast, even though she was trying to be outlandish and over-the-top.)

Overall I think this story is better on stage than on screen. There were some scenes that were less impressive in the movie than onstage (ie, the Phantom's costume at the masquerade, and the battle between Raoul and the Phantom in the cemetery). You'd think a movie would be able to make those scenes even better, but I'll take the staged versions of those parts over what was in the movie ANY day.

The set designs and costumes were pretty good, though. Art direction I guess was okay. I loved the opening sequence, with the chandelier. But it didn't make up for the mediocrity of the voices of the principal cast members... had they been better cast, I might have actually loved this movie, but they just didn't do it for me. Actually, what I think I liked best was that I got to see it at the new Galaxy theatre on the megascreen. That part was cool. :) Off to bed now...

Schedule Switch

Found out that one of my classes I was registered for was cancelled... ergh. So I signed up for a new one, "Introduction to Hospitality" (which should've been one of the first classes I took, but never got around to it) that will meet on Wednesday mornings at 9:00. Wednesdays are generally my late days at work, so it works out. I just don't have that morning to myself anymore, but no matter. So now I have classes on Tuesday evenings and Wednesday mornings (the Tuesday evening one is about selling cruises-fun!). They start next week.... eek! And I still have to buy books... ah, the joys of school.

Back to the Hunt...

Didn't get the job. They hired the other applicant who had more experience because they were picking up business and didn't have time to train someone new. They still assured me that they liked me a lot, they'd like to give me a chance another time, and if things don't work out with this other person, they'll give me a call. Well, whatever... When I get disappointments like this, it's easy to say to myself, "Well why am I going into this field at all? Screw it all!! I'll just drop out of my classes and give it up altogether..." but if I do that I'm sure I'd regret giving up so easily. I won't give up until I actually get a job, and then if I hate it, then maybe I'll give it up. But then, I have no idea what I would do with myself.

I didn't feel so good when I woke up this morning... hope I'm not getting sick... but this crummy weather could be a contributing factor if I am...

Things Moving Quickly!

I'm not going to go into too much detail now, but I have a very promising job opportunity that I've interviewed for twice now... not with Clipper, but rather with a small travel company that I've mentioned before, but I don't think I've said the name of it. I think I'll keep it under wraps for now (I don't want to jinx it!). But my chances are very, very good. I should be finding out about it sometime very soon. This could mean today (my last interview with them was yesterday) or next week, but it should be soon. I will definitely let you know when I find out!

This weekend is shaping up to be a good one... tonight is Game Night, tomorrow during the day is our Coloring Party (we're going to bring color books and be five-year-olds for the afternoon!) and Saturday night is a dance that should be a lot of fun. Can't wait to get it all started!

Low Key New Year

This year's New Year's celebration was a welcome change from some of the more recent ones I've had... I stayed in and played games. It was awesome. I drove to Columbia to spend New Year's with my brother Craig and his girlfriend Paige. We had a great time. First we went to Buffalo Wild Wings to play trivia and eat--what else--wings. Then we headed over to Paige's and watched the end of "Finding Nemo" (it was on cable) and then played a game of Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture. I won. :) Then we only had about ten minutes to midnight, so we poured champagne, counted down the seconds, and wished each other a Happy New Year. We heard fireworks going off outside, so we went out to watch. We couldn't see much. Then Paige went to bed and Craig and I played "Scene It" (he won) and then watched a little of "Return of the King" since it was on cable. But we got tired and went to bed too. I slept till 11 and left Columbia around 3, stopped at Mid Rivers Mall to see if I could find any new throw pillows for my couch (nope), picked up dinner and went home and stuffed my face full of Taco Bell, watching "When Harry Met Sally" on TV. Pretty low key and I like it. :)

We'll see what new surprises 2005 brings! Happy New Year everyone.