Week 1 bites the dust...

Part of me wants to be like, "Where the hell did the first week of classes go?" but the truth is that I'm still trying to figure out where my last year went. Suffice it to say, Fall 2011 has started and methinks it's going to be a great semester.

I'm taking three classes, all of which are going to rock my socks. They're all going to be a lot of work (a lot!), but that's expected at this level. I have two assistantships, both with professors I really like. And both professors have asked me to spend my assistantship time working on projects for them. (Oh, darn!)

For fun, let's add this up: I'm still volunteering for the Curley Center, am working on two projects/assistantships with different professors, have my own independent study to complete, have three classes that will require individual/varying projects, still have a book chapter to complete, am an unofficial officer in a student group, am a communications officer for the AEJMC sports interest group, have two studies I need to clean up for conference submission... and that's before I add in course work. Speaking of, on top of regular article/chapter readings, I only got assigned two 200+ page books to read by Wednesday next week.

And here's the thing; I'm NOT complaining. This is freakin' badass stuff!

You probably think I'm being clever and showing you
Hurricane Irene (I am). What this really represents
is my next four months.

The other really nice thing about being back to the grind is getting to see everyone again. The new cohort is going to be lots of fun, and in general I've already been to two social outings hosted by groups in the college. I even managed to get sick in the middle of all this, but my willpower is stronger than my germs and I won this round.

Things helping me through my first week include The Joy Formidable, Pearl Jam Radio, Slatkin & Co. candles and lots of water. My weight loss kick is about to get a dropkick to the face 'cause I'm going to buy a bike. And I'm going to use it. (Crazy talk, I know.) Natural disasters abounded. First, there was the earthquake I didn't even feel. Next, there was the hurricane that completely passed me by. (I'm actually a bit disappointed. When I worked at Disney we had three hurricanes in a 5-week span and the best thing in the world was going to the parks the day after a storm. Walking directly on to rides is no joke.)

And despite all this, my favorite thing that happened this week managed to occur this morning. There I was, minding my own business, reading a book about how to build social science theories (aptly called How to Build Social Science Theories). As I get to the chapter about model-building, the last thing I expected to read was that "Models help build theory, but they do so mainly by maiming and murdering," (Shoemaker, Tankard, & Lasorsa, 2004, p. 113).

Just chew on that until you hear from me again.

Toodles,

Mel(li) :)

The one where I discover I still dislike smoothies

I've tried. With all my heart and patience, I've tried. But whether I buy them at some fancy place or make them at home, I just don't like smoothies.

I suppose I should back up a bit. I'm on a health kick these days after I topped an embarrassing weight on the scale. In a way, this is the start of a culinary adventure for me. I'm a picky eater. Waaaaay picky. Just introduced peas to my diet kind of picky. Ethnic foods, for the most part, are out (unless they include a lot of bread and cheese, in which case I'm all in). Part of the problem is I'm a texture-eater (whatever the hell that means). I can't stand when things are too mushy or tough. So when it comes to smoothies, I strongly dislike drinking something that requires chewing or navigating seeds.

Even so, when I went to the grocery store the other day, I saw the prettiness: peaches, apricots, raspberries. I thought, "Alright, I'll give it a try." I've never been a big fruit eater, but since arriving in State College I've at least tried things I would normally avoid. (I've also watched enough Cooking Channel to be tricked and inspired into trying new things. Jamie Oliver can probably get me to try anything except anchovies at least once. I'll give him that.)

Today I decided to break out this huge Disney smoothie maker Mom bought me years ago. (It's turned out to be more of a fridge decoration than a useful appliance.) I tossed in ice, a peach, two apricots, a handful of raspberries and a cup of orange juice. I dispensed, I drank, my face puckered like all hell... back into the blender goes the mix, add two teaspoons of sugar.

Although the smoothie wasn't bad, I just couldn't get past the seeds. Once again, the smoothie won. But then I realized I was hungry, and that's when the magic happened. I got out some chicken and got it cooking... then I cut up my last peach... then I strained the smoothie and added balsamic vinegar. I toasted and made a bed of slivered almonds and next thing I knew I had the best freakin' piece of chicken I've ever put in my mouth. No, really. That ish was delicious!

At that point I realized, "I want to tell someone! I must overshare!" So here I am, oversharing my meal on my blog and possibly beginning a new trend: Stuff Mel Eats. I probably won't do this often, but be warned that I might start talking about food other than ice cream. (Frozen Friday happened quite frequently last year, despite the lack of posts regarding it.)

In other unrelated news, two days until the semester starts. I have one chapter essay done, one to go, and a bunch of other stuff to catch up on. Meetings are already starting to pile up for next week, syllabi are showing up online... ahhh, beginning again.

Toodles!

- Mel(li) :)

The Sarlacc Pit

If you've been following this blog you've probably forgotten about it. Not posting in almost a year will do that to a tiny, smidgen corner of the internet. But I'm OK with that.

To say the least, this has been a wild year. After making it through my first semester as a doctoral student, my second semester was a breeze. The first semester had its ups and downs. I felt like the semester started without me and spent the rest of the time feeling like I was playing catch up. I had a project that took a lot out of me confidence-wise, and that was compounded by a constant desire to just go home. It's odd to be in the middle of a lot of life changes; moving out of my home for the first time was difficult, so I decided to do that, move out of state AND start a doctoral program. No pressure. There were successes, though, and I clung to those. I went to my first conference (NASSS in San Diego) and banged out a couple of papers worth turning into something more than semester-end babblings. Then I went home, recuperated, and came back ready to kick ass.

My second semester went much better than the first. I was ahead of my work and got a lot done with my assistantship. Apparently I'm really good at making codebooks; who knew? I didn't do a lot "extra" in terms of writing immediately publishable or presentable papers, but all my semester papers are getting tweaked for conferences in the coming months. I got through my classes easily and actually started to enjoy State College more. Homesickness waned considerably and I really started to feel like I was in the right place.

After taking a six-week course at the beginning of summer I returned home to a bit of craziness. Not only did our home sell, but we also moved into a new place. There was a two-week lull between closings, and a whole lot of madness outside of that. After packing up a 4-bedroom home in two weeks (it's amazing how much shit closets hold) I got to semi-relax for a couple of weeks. I spent that time catching up on assistantship work and hid in my friend Joe's kitchen as a way to de-stress. Then the townhouse closed and, with the help of my dearest friends, we painted a three-bedroom, two-story townhouse in two weeks. And got the floors changed out. And got all new electrical stuff. And cleaned up the messes left by past tenants. And started actually moving in. All in all, I had my first all-nighter (the day we moved out of the old place) and Joe and I had two nights working 9-5 (that is, 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.) packing and unpacking a huge storage unit.

My blog, like Lando, gets saved from
ten thousand years of digestion.

And somehow I managed to gain 10 pounds. *shakes fist at weight gods... then remembers that week spent cooking*

So that's how my last year of blogging nearly fell into the Sarlacc Pit. With everything going on, the last thing I thought about was dedicating 30 minutes to an hour per week talking about the monotony of my daily routine. Only it wasn't really monotonous. It was kind of hectic monotony with a bouts of insanity and a whole lot of Cooking Channel.

All that said, I'm hoping to be a bit more diligent with this blog. I'm also planning to launch my hockey communications blog, which was started and stopped but will have a place in my CV when all is said and done. I have two book chapters I'm wrapping up, an independent study to bang out, and three planned conference submissions this semester. I'm starting new assistantships (two; research and teaching) and hope to continue my involvement with various on- and off-campus groups (CGF and the AEJMC Sports Interest group). The ball is rolling faster down that doctoral hill.

Adieu, mes amis! It's good to be back!

- Mel(li) :)

Frozen Friday: Take 4

Things are finally starting to settle a bit... and by settle, I mean I'm getting back in the swing of 12+ hour days, 6 days a week. The adjustment has been slow (by my terms) and somewhat arduous. Who knew that taking 2.5 months off work and everything would throw me off my work mojo so badly?

Alas, there is no time for whining. Things are going well and it's hard to believe I'm about to start the fourth week of the semester.

Of course, if a new week is starting that means a few days ago I had... Frozen Friday!!!

The truth about this week is that I totally had ice cream on Wednesday and Friday. On Wednesday I went to the Creamery with one of my classmates... and had the Death by Chocolate. That ice cream is going to be my ultimate vice, I can already tell. Then, on Friday, I had Apple Cobbler Crunch.

If you like apple pie, then Apple Cobble Crunch is pretty much the way to go. Per the Creamery site, this awesomeness is cinnamon apple flavored ice cream with pie pieces and apple sauce swirl. Um, YUM. I don't even really like apple pie and I really enjoyed this ice cream. There are, quite literally, chunks of pie crust in the ice cream. The apple sauce is mixed in such a way that you get these bursts of appley goodness. Mmm. Yum nom nom.


On that note, back to work. I have procrastinated enough!


- Mel(li) :)

Frozen Friday: Take 3 and PSU Football

I'm late on the Frozen Friday update, so this is a combined Frozen Friday and ZOMG I WENT TO A FOOTBALL GAME post.

First thing's first: Ice cream. After last week's terrible predicament, in which I had to pick between Death by Chocolate and Espresso Fudge pie, I decided to make the logical ice cream choice this week. I went with the Espresso Fudge Pie. The name really doesn't give away anything about the flavor itself. Per the Creamery site, Espresso Fudge Pie is coffee cinnamon flavored ice cream with espresso fudge pie mix and fudge swirl. All I know is that what I got had chocolate chunks and I have no idea where the fudge pie mix was, BUT... holy hell was it good! My first thought at the sight of "coffee cinnamon flavored" was something akin to, "coffee huh?" I wasn't sure how I felt about that combo, but I'm now a fan. The cinnamon was ever so slightly present, so it really gave the ice cream this awesome, deep flavor. (I've been watching too much No Reservations to be talking like this.) Apparently I'm also in love with their fudge swirl... if it's the same thing that was in the Death by Chocolate, which I'm sure it was, then fill up a bath tub with that stuff and call me Happy.


Other than the ice cream, things have been OK. Both of my computers decided to act stupid this weekend, and one of them had to be fully restored. (Poor Molly Mini.) This put me back a bit, but such is life... a game of catch up.


More exciting is that I went to my first Penn State football game. (Hey, Keverz. BOOOO, YSU!!) It was kind of unreal and hard to describe. For you USFers, imagine the mall parking lot times three or four (size wise). Imagine hundreds of RVs and campers... people who set up entire living rooms, complete with icicle lights, fluffy chairs, and even stand-alone DirecTV dishes. Prior to the game the sheer mass of people was a bit disorienting, which says something considering about 20k people showed up somewhere between the first and second quarters. Announced attendance was 101,000; not capacity. One thing I found humorous is that you can pick out JoePa no matter where he is on the sidelines. As far as I could tell, there's no beer in the stadium (noooOOOooOo). They use songs that I'm used to hearing at Bulls games, so I pretty much sat there humming my little USF heart out at completely inopportune moments. Worst part of the game? The Blue Band made the afternoon imperfect by doing a Star Trek themed halftime show... complete with a Starship Enterprise formation. Blargh!! (OK, so it was really awesome, but I have Star Wars loyalties to remain true to.)


Anyway, that's it. I have to get back to the mountain of work that sits waiting for me.

If you're on Facebook, I'll post some pictures soon!


- Mel(li) :)

Frozen Friday: Take 2

My life is terrible, right? I sit through classes, do fun stuff for work, then celebrate my insufferable week by taking myself out for ice cream (ise keem!!).

Whoa is moi.

So, I had this super awesome idea on Friday and thought I would finally update the blog on Friday. On location. (That's so Jim Cantore of me.) Unfortunately, the score of the battle between me and Penn State's campus wireless network is Wireless: 1, Me: 0. What that means is that it's Sunday and I'm updating the blog entry that's supposed to happen on Friday. Makes total sense.

For the first time since my love affair began with the Berkey Creamery, I had to wait on a line. This quasi-Disney queue went out the door and put me through 15 minutes of hell as I endlessly debated: Death by Chocolate or Espresso Fudge Pie. Death by Chocolate won... and oh, did it win.

As the dear, sweet ice cream boy scooped my ice cream from the bottom of the tub, he expressed concern. Apparently a lot of fudge had made its way to the bottom. He offered to rescoop my cup and suggested there was too much fudge. Really, kid?! Too much fudge?! Who in their right mind thinks there is anything called "too much fudge." Balderdash, says I. So, I kindly told him it was OK and I was fine with the additional fudge. He made a crack about it killing me, then we har har har'd about it being Death by Chocolate and finding me slumped over my laptop under one of those beautiful blue and white umbrellas.

My friends, I lived to tell the tale.

Holy mother of everything that is good about goodness and Ryan Miller... that was the best freakin' thing I have ever consumed. (I feel like I keep saying this every week.) I am going on record to prematurely claim this as my favorite Berkey Creamery ice cream. Death by Chocolate (n): Chocolate Ice Cream with Chocolate Flakes, Fudge Pieces and Chocolate Swirl. I'M JUST SAYIN'. And that dripping you see happening down the side of that cup is as messy and glorious and delicious as it looks. I have no idea how I'm going to continue Frozen Fridays because I will be seriously tempted to buy this every week. I mean, I have to walk by the Creamery daily and know that this ice cream is in there. Life, you're so unfair.


In other news, the weather has been stunningly gorgeous, so I sat outside and enjoyed my treat. That picture is my ice cream enjoying its last moments in the warm shade.


With all that said, I have to get back to work. I leave you with a picture of the seating area outside the food science building.


- Mel(li) :)

ETA: I totally forgot to mention that the Creamery was named the top ice cream parlor in Pennsylvania (and listed in the top 51 in the U.S.) by local experts approached by USA Today. Yaaaaay for living five minutes away from the Creamery!

Oi Vey

We'll get the pointless updates out of the way:

1. Frozen Friday: Take 2 was temporarily delayed until this week because of The Apocalypse. OK, so maybe it wasn't quite that bad, but it WAS Freshman Move-In on August 20. Once on campus, my usual two-minute driving trek to the parking garage near the Berkey Creamery turned into 20 minutes of my eye twitching. So, this means I missed out on Mocha Fudge, which was the flavor of the week. This also means that no matter what university I attend, I abhor Freshman Move-In.

2. Tree Hugger Tuesday: II was also delayed. It was my first day of class and, quite frankly, I have felt somewhat frantic all week. The good news is that a rather pretty tree in my parking lot is already changing colours, so I have something pretty to post next week.

In other news, my first week of classes is complete. For the first time in four years I have non-evening classes... and multiple classes in a day. Let's just say that's screwing with me big time. Getting to class at 9 a.m. actually felt strange, and then knowing my second class of the day (also strange) was going to run from 5-8 p.m. was the icing on my day-long cake.

The good news is that all my classes are going to deprive me of sleep, but they should be interesting. Admittedly, there was nervousness on my part because I wasn't sure how prepared I felt. After introductions and flipping through the texts (one of which I've used for a class at USF... Yay, Dynamics of Persuasion) I feel like I've seen all the material, but I could also stand to get refreshers or better understandings of the readings. My Proseminar course actually made me giggle because it's essentially Killebrew's theory class. And from Holtzhausen's intro class, I can say that Popper makes me want to stab my eyes out, but it's nice to see a familiar name in the readings.

As for my assistantship, I think I could be persuaded to believe in Heaven... I don't think that I could be asked to sit down and describe my dream job and come up with anything even remotely close to what I'll be doing for the Curley Center for Sports Journalism. (Speaking of, I'll be posting a link to my first blog post on the Sports, Media and Society Blog within the next few days.) But, more to come about the assistantship later.

Other random tidbits:

• There's a rooster that lives somewhere near my neighborhood... and it never shuts up.
• I've lived in lots of loud places in my life, including downtown Stamford, CT and Trieste, Italy. But NOTHING in this world has ever kept me awake like the loud ass crickets that live in the Forest Moon of Endor. No, really. It can take me up to an hour to fall asleep just because of how loud the damn crickets and animals are. Don't get me wrong, I love my forest, but shut up when I'm trying to sleep.
• The people here are ridiculously, amazingly nice. Meeting other students in the program has been an absolute breath of fresh air. I can talk sports with them and be nerdy about it. And the best part? I am surrounded by hockey fans. *makes sound of angels singing* 
• After talking to one of said hockey fans, I found out there is still hope for me to get Center Ice on my TV (and not just via the internet) this season. Fingers crossed, my friends. Fingers crossed.

OK, that's it for now. I have work to do... lots and lots of work to do.

- Mel(li) :)

PS -- Love and hugs to my Tampa peeps. I totally wish I could have you guys up here sharing and experiencing everything with me. The place is awesome, but it is missing all of you. <3

Tree Hugger Tuesday: I

I figure that if I'm starting these weekly blog posts late, I might as well get Tree Hugger Tuesdays (THT) started this Wednesday.

As we know, I'm a freakin' tree huggin' hippy. To this point, I am absolutely dumbfounded by all the trees around my apartment and campus. Florida this is not. So, I thought I'd start THT.

Basically, THT is going to be a once-a-week look at some of the amazing trees and foliage on and around Penn State's University Park campus (where I'm located). The university has a history of planting and preserving elms and other trees, which -- to my knowledge -- is part of PSU's Forest Science program. I'm going to try and do a bit of research on the different trees I take pictures of ('cause it seems a lot of the older trees have history of some sort), and sometimes I'll visit the brand spanking new Arboretum that is located between my apartment and campus.

To start THT, I thought I'd offer a shot of the awesome that's outside the window right above my home office desk. (In other words, I'm taking you on a brief tour of the Moon of Endor.) This, my friends, is love.

The second picture is a closer shot of the big tree you can see; probably my favorite of all the trees outside my windows. Right now there's a sparrow sitting in one of the branches, and since moving here I've seen my bunny (story to come later) and a groundhog eating by it. Way too cute for me to handle!

As the seasons change, I think I'll definitely keep posting pictures of my window and that particular tree. Yaaaay for season changes!

- Mel(li) :)

Frozen Friday: Take 1

OK, so this first edition of Frozen Friday is three days late. Sue me.

After a weekend of chilling out with Mom (and by "chilling out" I mean working ourselves ragged getting my home set up) I am finally back online in such a way that updating the blog is possible. (Oh, yeah... I'm uh... in Pennsylvania. Haven't updated the blog in a while.) Anywho, a new tradition begins: Frozen Fridays.

Back when I gave my reasons to love Penn State I suggested there would be Frozen Fridays at Melli Mel, Ph.D. They began last week, on Friday the 13 (how appropo), with the Mombot in attendance. Love it.

From this point forward, Frozen Fridays will involve me eating different types of Berkey Creamery ice cream. I'll report on the flavor, provide photos to create mass amounts of jealousy, and unwind from what will undoubtedly be really stupid-crazy weeks of work. Sounds like a plan to me. In the future I'll probably let you guys vote on what flavor I should try, but we'll k.i.s.s. (keep it simple stupid) it for now.

ANYWAY...

Mom and I totally indulged in the awesomeness of Berkey Creamery ice cream on Friday. I tried the Bittersweet Mint and she had the super popular Peachy Paterno. To say these flavors were amaaaaazing is the worst understatement of the year.

The Bittersweet Mint was, hands down, the best mint ice cream I've ever had. Creamy, the chocolate just melted away, the mint wasn't overpowering... om nom nom.

Mom's take on the Peachy Paterno was that is was simple deeelicious! The peach flavor wasn't overpowering (which I can attest to) and was sooooo nummy. (I'll let her post her official review as a comment. :P)

All in all, this was a super-de-duper way to start my new weekly jaunt to the Creamery. I figure ice cream always makes me happy and the flavors change so often (I can't find the link that shows which flavors are available this week) that I'll always have something new to try.

Woohoo! ISE KEEM!!!

- Mel(li) :)

PS -- Mom dominated a half gallon of the Lemon Meringue Pie in five days and swears it's the best ice cream she's ever had. Ever. Anywhere in the world. I, however, failed to get a single picture of the half gallon's awesomeness.

And two more pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Peachy Paterno

THE END!

So why do I keep counting?...

Anyone who has seen my Facebook account this weekend knows I had all four of my wisdom teeth pulled on Friday morning. This is, oddly enough, one of those things that makes my upcoming move that much more real. My dentist has been trying to talk me into getting this done for some five years now... at first I refused to do it out of fear. Then, I refused to do it because I had no dental insurance (paying for cleanings out of pocket is a bitch). Now, those four useless teeth are gone. And it really makes things real because I never would have done it if I didn't have something motivating me to do it: Cue my move to Penn State.

After a couple of weeks on the phone with a bunch of moving companies, I have finally settled on a mover. Three cheers for finding a company that didn't use a single sales pitch on me and didn't talk to me as though I was an idiot. I have not experienced this a lot in life, but this was definitely an exercise in listening to men talk down to me because I am a female making a "big move" on my own. Of course, this meant that I got to take out months of stress and anticipation on a bunch of people I'll never talk to again. If I have a sarcasm bank, I overdrew my account...

But enough about the shitty people! The nice people I found will pick up my belongings on August 2 and deliver between August 7 (my move-in date) and August 12. I plan to leave Tampa noonish on August 4, giving me three days to drive. I won't tire myself out by driving 18 hours in two days and I can stop as often as I want. Mom won't be coming with me, as originally planned, but that will work out for the best. She's flying to PA from August 11-16; Instead of sitting around looking at a potentially empty apartment, she'll be there to help me unpack. Then, we can go get ice cream and everything will be awesome.

And really, as much as I'm not ready to leave Tampa (I have no less than 15 breakfast/coffee/lunch/dinner/party commitments between Monday, July 26 and Sunday, August 1), I'm ready to go. I'm sick of looking at my home stuffed to the gills with boxes (see the shoddy picture of my current view in my living room). I'm sick of planning. I'm sick of sitting around waiting for things to happen. These last 10 days are going to fly, and as much as I hate the fact that I'm probably leaving Tampa for a really long time (if not forever), I'm ready to taste some more of that sweet Berkey Creamery ice cream. I'm ready to go from high 90s and 150% humidity to high 70s. Mostly, I want my mouth to heal so I can get moving on this next chapter.

With 10 days left at home,

- Mel(li) :)