Wow!

I can't even believe how long it's been since I posted an entry on this thing. Lots has happened. I've moved a few times, become an aunt, switched vehicles, gotten a job... Very nearly in that order.

So to expound a little on some of those things... I think I may have moved (twice? maybe?) since my last post. I was "living" in Parowan for a while. Which was code for "my stuff is in Parowan, but I house-sat up on Cedar Mountain all summer." Man... there are few better ways to make someone feel homeless and adrift than bousesitting in different places for long periods of time. It got to the point where people would ask me where I lived, and I'd go, "uhhhh... I don't know?" Confusing. Anyway... done with that, thank goodness! I'm now living out by Three Peaks, which is probably about seven miles from Cedar City, as opposed to my previous seventeen or so. The place where I live has about six or seven goats, a zillion cats, five chickens (roosters the lot of them) and two horses. For the past month or so, I've been working on-and-off on a mural on my closet doors. It's a fictitious representation of the Temple in the Old City of Jerusalem. Completely inaccurate, but it's the idea in which I'm interested. I'm also getting a kitty of my own. He's a rescue - someone's dropoff - mostly black but with some white. A tuxedo kitty, if you will. I have named him Toulouse after one of the kittens from The Aristocats.

My new job, of which I have just completed week two of training, is with a company called Convergys. It's a call center, and I'll be providing customer care for AT&T Mobility customers. As in, they call in with their problems and I fix them. Fun stuff! It pays well for this area, so even though the hours leave me exhausted, I'm not complaining. I get my first paycheck at the end of next week. The first paycheck I'll have had since the beginning of May! Hallelujah! I look forward to paying mom back what she lent me for my last job fiasco... Plus all the gas money I've had to borrow... My mom has definitely been a blessing.

The first use of my available funds, which will occur after I've paid off my horrendous medical bills, will be to buy my motorcycle. I'm buying it from my roommate, Astra. It runs beautifully and is a gorgeous machine. A 1996 Yamaha Virago. Just my size, just my style and just my price. I obviously won't be riding it during the winter. But I can't wait to get my helmet and start getting a little bit of practice on it. I've named it "Vinnie." Funny trait with me... I name all my cars. My first car was an Isuzu Trooper which I named "Izzy" (actually short for "Icarus," not for "Isuzu") and my current truck is a little blue Nissan named "Nessie." My mom's brown Dodge was nicknamed "Bertha" while I used it.

Anyway... the most important part! Nephew! Wyatt James Cole is the most beautiful baby in the world, and it is so cool to be an aunt! I can't wait to meet him. Lauren and Wyatt will be coming to visit for a day or two in December (or so the tentative plan goes...). It will be the first time anyone but my dad has met either one of them. I can tell from the photos that he has my brother's hands. :) I so want to be one of those aunts who sends birthday cards and checks every year... If I lived closer, I would want to take my nephew to baseball games... to play in the park... to give gifts and candy for just no reason at all. I have to admit that one of my big fears is to be so disconnected from family that my nieces and nephews barely know I exist. I have two or three aunts I've never even met, and I hate that. Disruptions in family affect everyone. Anyway, enough about that.

So... Now that we're all caught up... Stay that way! :P I'm on Facebook more often than I am here, and anyone (like... all two people) that is interested in keeping up a little more often than I post here can look there.
More in about a decade or so! :P

Love,
Anna Grace

Operation Get-A-Life

It has recently come to my attention that I have no life. Okay. Maybe not so recently. I've had no life for a long time. Not that I don't like sitting at home, cleaning and Facebooking and waiting for job callbacks... Okay. So I don't like it. I don't like it at all. It's really hard to get out of the house for a few years, have your life and your freedom and then come back and try to pretend everything is as it was, when it just isn't. Pretty much this whole past semester, I've been thinking about direction, and about the fact that in reality, I pretty much don't have any. I don't know what degree I want to get, or what I'd want to do with that degree if I did get it. Something that might be good to know halfway through college.

Okay, so here's the first bomb-to-be-dropped, for those of you who don't already know. I will not be returning to SUU next semester. While it may come as a surprise to some of you, it did not particularly come as a surprise to me, as I rather bombed the last semester. Five weeks late for starting classes, go figure. So to reiterate what I said before, I have no life. At least, it's not my own life. I'm far too dependent on my parents and on friends, which limits my options as far as direction goes.

So. I'm taking the first steps to autonomy. I spoke with an Air Force recruiter today about joining the service. This isn't a fly-by-the-way idea, either. It's been knocking around in my skull for quite some time. And now more than ever, it seems like an excellent idea. Furthermore, my mind is made up. If the Air Force will take me, I will sign the papers and join. The major worries were medical until I spoke with the recruiter today. The only medical problems that can be proved, I can get the doctor's release to say that yes, it happened, but it is no longer a problem. Now the only worry is a credit check. They don't like bad credit, and I have medical bills up the wazoo that are overdue because I have no money and no job. Some of that they can waive, as it doesn't look like they're going to have to waive much else. Especially if I get as good a score on my ASVAB as I did last time.

Furthermore, if my credit denies me entrance to the Air Force, I've been assured that the Navy doesn't do that same check, and nothing would keep me out of the Navy. So one way or the other, I'm not going to stop until I get in.

Anyway. Operation Get-A-Life is rolling. And now I've got to go help Laura make cookies.

Muchlove,
Anna Grace

Taking a break...

So. Two big-ish developments since my last post. Firstly, I will be taking a break from school. Due to financial aid - a lack of it, actually - I will not be attending SUU in the fall. Which means no copy chief job. Oddly enough, that's really the only part of not going back that saddens me. Heaven knows I could use a break... But I'll definitely miss all of my fellow Journalites.

Instead, I get to find a job. Yeah. Good luck with that. Convergys doesn't even seem to be hiring right now. That's my last last choice, anyway. Convergys - though it pays fairly well and has insurance benefits - is kind of a soul-sucker. I'd rather work at Taco Bell than Convergys. Anyway. Still looking for a job.

The second thing is that I am no longer dating Michael, for several reasons. However, the important thing is that we are still friends, and we're both okay with that. Not saying we couldn't try again sometime in the future (distant future...) but there have got to be some prerquisite conditions.

Anyway. I'm headed back home on Sunday, and as far as I know, I'll be over there a whole week.
I'm looking forward to a bit of stability. Looking forward to Sunday, too. Soundboard is pretty much awesome - if a bit scary, as I'll be flying solo. Everyone else who knows how to run the soundboard will be gone on Sunday. My first solo test. I think I can handle it... :P We shall see.

More as it comes!
Ciao!
--Anna Grace

Busybusybusy!

Okay, so as you may have guessed from the decreasing frequency of these blogs, I've got a lot on my plate. Summer hasn't done a thing to slow me down. So I've got a lot on which to update you. If I can remember it all. :P

I think last time I told you all that I have been hired as the Journal's copy chief for next semester - catching and correcting other people's errors. My dream job. Anyway. Since then, I've moved back home - if you can call being here two days a week "home." I've been house-sitting so much that it keeps me quite on the run. People seem to leave in droves. All at once, you know. And they all seem to call me.

Another cool thing is that I now run the sound-board for my church. It's pretty awesome, since I have figured out how to work it. Most people are utterly bamboozled by all those buttons and knobs. But I love it. So I have to be in church early Sundays and on Wednesday evenings for youth group. Michael tags along on these outings.

I should probably explain Michael, too. Michael is my boyfriend. He's utterly sweet and considerate. However, he's not a Christian, and this is a huge point of contention for me.

The last few weeks I've been helping my friend Becky clean out a foreclosed house. It was pretty nasty in there... And I ended up getting a second degree burn on my left wrist from a combination of a watch allergy and a sunburn. Then yesterday, the same house, I accidentally dropped a stove on that same hand. Sort of crunched it in between the stove and the dolly on which we were carrying the stove. So... my left hand is sort of maimed. Oh. And we found remnants of a meth lab in the basement, today, so the whole house has been sealed off and we're not cleaning it anymore. Can't say I totally mind that.

Anyway. More updates later. I'm pretty tired and need to go to bed.
Ciao, gente!

--Anna Grace

Oops.

I realized today (thanks to an email from my grandma) that it has been a very long time since I posted here. So therefore, I think it's probably time for an update.
To make a long story short, I'm up to my eyeballs in busy. I'm still working at the paper as opinion editor and taking classes. Church is also getting pretty busy, too. I've got mini-church on Thursdays, sound-board practice on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Saturdays are a bit hard, as it lands smack-dab in the middle of my paper layout. And then some ladies from my mini-church finagled me into starting a knitting group every other Sunday. So that's fun.

Speaking of knitting, that's something else I've been doing a ton of. My friend Angie is having a baby. And very soon, so I've been working on a baby blanket for "little Joe." We don't know his first name yet. And when I'm done with that one, I'm starting on one for my new niece or nephew. I am sooooo excited to be an aunt, by the way... :) I want to be the kind of aunt who always sends birthday cards with $5 in them, or candy in a box. If I lived closer, I'd take him or her to a ball game (or a rodeo!) or go play in the park. Babysit. Teach him or her Spanish. Send big Christmas packages to stuff in stockings.

Anyway. I may be moving home for the summer. I look forward to gardening... and sunshine... and cleaning, actually, which is a big change. And then I've been hired back to the Journal next semester as the copy chief. For those of you who may not know what that is, that's the person who reads and re-reads every single article and page to find all the mistakes and fix them. Nothing gets published without the copy chief's say-so. I was sooo born for that job...

Anyway... I had better get back to work. It's layout day and I have knitting to do... :P
Love,
Anna Grace

Throwdown: Social networking sites vie for users' affections

(By Anna Cole: Originally published in the University Journal, January 26, 2009.)

Like any self-respecting Internet addict, I spend a ridiculous amount of time surfing those delightful places that are fondly known as "social networking sites" - namely, Facebook and MySpace.

As the first trend on social Web sites, MySpace has the advantage of experience. It enjoyed its overwhelming fame long before Facebook entered the scene.

However, fresh ideas bring fresh faces, and Facebook, in its relatively short heyday, has far surpassed MySpace's value as a cyber social gathering.

While MySpace does have its uses, they seem primarily centered on blogging and self-expression. Great if you want to document your life, not as useful if you're trying to keep up with someone else's - which is what socialization is all about.

MySpace's flashy layouts, bulletins and page comments simply aren't as conducive to an active social site. Having to search through one's friends just to find an update on how he or she is doing or who said what to whom is far too much effort.

Facebook's neatly centralized social center puts all the updates in one place, so all I have to do is scroll down to see that Mike is eating some chocolate chip cookies and that Jane commented on Max's photos. Not specific friends - although you can specify some if you like - but just friends. All together like friends should be.

Comments and wall-writing are a few more aspects of the social scene that Facebook has perfected to outperform MySpace, specifically in the areas of status comments and wall-to-wall function.

MySpace has friend statuses, of course, but no area for public comment on them, and I love that I can comment on statuses with Facebook.

For instance, my cousin and I (nerds that we are) love to have lyric and quote wars on our statuses. If she posts a song lyric as her status, the challenge is for me to complete the lyrics in the comments without looking it up.

Besides the obvious advantages of social interaction, photos and statuses - as if we needed more - Facebook also provides variety from everyday boring life by means of pirate talk.

It's easy to get tired of plain old English. One might get tired of "writing on the wall," and might instead get the urge to "scrawl on the plank." You can visit your Bottle o' Messages instead of your Inbox.

The wall-to-wall function for posting is also excellent. MySpace comments are all well and dandy, but I'm oftentimes rather hampered by the format, simply because all it shows is the comment box. I'm fairly scatter-brained at times and don't always remember what I wrote before. So when Pinky-Girl25 leaves me a comment that says, "That's so funny! I think so too," I don't want to have to scroll all the way down her page to figure out what I said that she agrees with.

Wall-to-wall is the antidote to this problem. I can click "wall-to-wall" and see our entire conversation to find out that Pinky-Girl25 also thinks that mustard would be an excellent topping on chocolate ice cream.

There are other excellent recommendations for Facebook as well. Advertisements, the ever-present plague, can be tailored to fit one's interests more closely. If I'm tired of weight-loss advertisements (which I most certainly am) I can mark the ads as "misleading," "uninteresting," or "offensive," depending on my level of dislike for the ad.

MySpace ads, mostly sporting obviously doctored weight-loss and beauty photos, are there to stay. Need a girlfriend? A boyfriend? Perhaps both? MySpace knows just where you can get them, and they've all got a crush on you. It gets annoying after a while.

Finally, even MySpace recognizes Facebook's superiority in the Internet world. Not that they say it in so many words, of course. I did notice, however, that every single innovation that made Facebook unique and desirable has been shamelessly copied by MySpace.

Applications - those cute little quizzes that tell you which of the Jonas Brothers you should marry, or show how many countries you've been to, or let you keep a cute little virtual pet - showed up on MySpace long after Facebook had begun using them.

The "People You May Know" function that analyzes friends that people may have in common also appeared on MySpace within the last few months. I notice far less accuracy in the matches on MySpace than on Facebook.

While Facebook analyzed not only my friends, but my college and area networks to cross-reference and find possible matches, MySpace matches seemed to consist of suggestions based on one or two other friends. While Facebook found friends of mine from as far back as elementary school, MySpace found people I'd never heard of in New York and Jamaica.

I could cite hundreds of other examples why Facebook is better than MySpace, but I suspect I've rambled long enough.

Suffice to say, Facebook's advantages are overwhelming. You can poke me if you think I'm wrong, but beware, I might just poke you back.

Anna Cole is the University Journal Opinion Editor. She can be reached at acole@suujournal.com.

A month later...

So, I just realized that I haven't posted on this blog for about a month. Mucho apologies. So... a lot has happened in the last month. I'm pretty sure everybody knows, because my mother is very good about informing people, but just in case someone doesn't (out of the three people who read this blog...), here goes.

My last post took place around Christmas. I was pretty sick. About a week before the semester ended, I started getting sick. I spent the week of Christmas in bed. And the week after that. Then I suppose it must have become evident to Derek and Eryn that something really wasn't good. Maybe the fact that I couldn't eat or drink anything... Anyway. They hauled my sorry carcass into the E.R., and it turns out that was probably a good idea. So... to make a long story short, I got stuck in the hospital for a week.

I hate hospitals. But I did have some interesting adventures with morphine... that stuff messes with your head, I tell you. I'm sure it would have been interesting to watch. So... drugs, tests, needles and vampires (because doctors are secretly vampires. Really.) and Crohn's disease. Yep. So Crohn's disease... means more drugs - steroids, which I have decided are the death of sleep (not the sleep of death) and the enemy of steady hands. Surgeons on steroids - bad idea.

So basically, when I did manage to get back to school (after regaining the strength to stand up and walk on my own) I'd missed three weeks of classes. Lucky for me, Journal folks are awesome, and since they knew what was going on, they covered me for the paper. And my professors are working with me to help me make up what I've missed. Some of them anyway...

I'm doing better now. I'm walking great. I can't run yet, and I still have a little trouble with stairs, but it's a lot smoother sailing now. I've got an appointment with a specialist up in Provo tomorrow, where they're going to knock me out and shove tubes down my throat. Just the sort of thing to look forward to... Ugh. But oh well. Oh - and I'm on a new diet. Which I hate. Because it eliminates all my favorite foods. Like... all of them. No pasta, bread, corn, potatoes, dairy or sugar. It's painful. Oh well.

School is going well, for having missed so much. I've got my own radio show on Power 91 this semester, and that's cool. I love my radio broadcast class... I would love my news editing class a lot more if it wasn't at 8:30 in the morning. Anyway. Speaking of news editing, I've got an editorial to write before my radio hour, so I'd better get crackin'.

More updates as they come along!
--Anna Grace