I woke up, 8 am, graduation day...

Forty classes, eight semesters, four years, two universities, one degree. 

Welcome to graduation, class of 2012.

What we've been looking forward to, the reason we wrote (or paid someone else to write) all those papers, the reason we studied for all those tests. The reason we didn't give up, the reason we (kinda) passed our classes, the reason we rolled out of bed (almost) every morning and usually went to class, unless there was a pool party or it was someone's birthday or a holiday...

In seven days, I'll be walking across the stage at the Blaisdell and accepting a diploma for a BA in Journalism from Hawaii Pacific University. We paid this university thousands of dollars so it could reward me with a piece of paper and a spot on the Dean's List. Excellent.

When I turned 13, I remember thinking, "Well, once I turn 18, that's when I'm really going to be an adult." Then I graduated high school and I told myself, "Once I'm 21, that's when I become a real adult." And then I turned 21 and told myself, "No, no, once I graduate college, that's when I really become an adult."

Well, it's here. I mean, I hope I'm not jinxing myself by saying I'm going to graduate before I take my last three finals, all of which fall on same day (Friday), forcing me to spend 12 hours on campus on my last day of undergrad study, but whatever. Point is, I'm graduating college and honestly, I don't think I've hit that adult point in my life yet. I don't feel like an adult. I mean, I work, I pay my own rent and almost know what I'm doing when I go to the grocery store, but I don't know the real stuff that makes you an adult. I don't know how to pay taxes or get insurance, I don't know how to buy a car or what a mortgage on a house is, or how to sign up for a new credit card. I don't know what my credit score is or those magic home remedies for when someone's sick. I can't cook like real adults can and I still get nervous filling out important forms and usually end up calling my parents.

It's a little strange I'm walking away with a college education, supposedly something of very high value, and still feel like I'm not ready to hit the real world, to merge onto the fast-paced highway of life, trading in my bicycle for a real car, being forced to have real responsibilities and not rely on the "well, it's okay, I'm still in college" mentality.

And then I realize there's hundreds of us, thousands - tens of thousands of college students graduating right now, all fighting for jobs and internships and acceptance letters into grad schools. Tearing their hair out, wondering what they're going to do with their degree, how they're going to pay off their student loans, where they'll get a job, who'll hire them and how come this degree didn't magically come with the perfect job?

Well, it's not really all about the degree. And it's not really all about the job and the money and the status, the house and the perfect car and the ideal life and you know what, I'm young. I could be worried about where I'm going to go in life, what my plan is, where I'll be in 5 years. I could stress over future payments for a future house that I will get once I have my future job, or I could realize that I'm 22 years old, I've completed my education and there are so many more important things in my life than a career right now.

Settling down and trying to fit that perfect, cookie cutter mold society has built for us is hands down the worst think I think I could do with my life right now, so many more important things to focus on. Like what? Family. Friends. Happiness, finding my passions, doing what I want, going where I want to go.

I heard the song Dynamite by Taio Cruz the other day, and in my mind I could hear my mom singing "Galileo" where he sings "Ayooo gotta let go!" because I think I told her once those were the lyrics. That was when I realized how excited I was to go back to Vegas after graduating and being close to my family again. They're crazy, sometimes I can't believe I'm related to them, but I love them.

Some people look down at moving back to your hometown or where your family is after graduation. A lot of people avoid it, seeing it almost as a sign of weakness, that you can't make it in the "real world," you were only able to leave for the semi-sheltered college life and then back home you go. But you know, it's actually the exact opposite. Going back home and spending time with your family is one of the most important things I think you can do after graduation.

My family has supported me through everything the past four years, from me deciding to go to college on a rock in the middle of the ocean to playing with the idea of joining the Peace Corps for two years to spending a semester in a city I knew nothing about. They have supported me in my education, helped me when I needed anything, answered phone calls at strange hours to answer questions ranging from when my mom's birthday was to what I should do to cure my tummy ache from eating too much frosting, and what kind of generation are we, to repay them by yet again moving farther away, carrying on and continuing to isolate them from our lives?

Don't forget about what really matters as you continue into the "adult world." Remember why you are here in the first place, who raised you and made sure you made it to where you are today. And I beg of you, don't forget to call your loved ones and tell them how much they mean to you. You are never too busy for that phone call, nothing is ever more important than that.

Congratulations, class of 2012. We did it!

Ride, ride, ride your bike gently down the street

When the word design comes to mind, recently I would only associate it with page design and layout, unfortunately.

A few weeks ago, Instagram came out for Android phones (finally!) and I've (of course) become addicted. I was scrolling through it this morning and a guy who photographs his bicycle designs was being featured and I spent far too much time scrolling through his pictures. They are beautiful.

Fixed gear bikes are amazing. Their design is so clean, no messy wires and excess glamour. The beauty is in the simpleness of the bicycle, the basic frame and the tires. Everything on the bicycle is necessary for it to function and it doesn't need anything else. Yeah, some of them have a paint job or neon colours on the tires, but it's still focused on the basics.

There are few things in todays society that are like that. Look at cars, for example. Also a mode of transportation, but they are anything from the basic frame. Sun roofs, rims, lifts - you name it, it's been added onto a car. Same with every day objects we use: phones, computers, clothes, toothbrushes, kitchen utensils. Hardly anything is simple anymore, and I think that's where the beauty is in a fixed gear bike.

I mean really...try to tell me these aren't perfect.

 

Stage 4 clinger

Was anyone else surprised when they logged into blogger.com and the entire layout was changed? Naturally, I'm not in the mood to navigate through this new layout and setup to try to figure everything out. I'm sure once I get the hang of it, it'll be great, but for now it's annoying. -_-

Blogger wants us to connect with Google+...what a surprise! It seems that lately all the networking and social media sites are combining and pretty soon they're all going to be connected. This got me thinking - what's the difference between all these social networking sites and why do we have 400 accounts? What do we use everything for?

I broke it down into the most popular ones to try to figure out why I feel the need to keep an account and update/read/post regularly. What's every websites mission for its users?

Facebook: The giant King Kong of social networking. They did it right. While MySpace was popular as well, Facebook took over with its simple(r) layout and with its more professional/college users (usually...sometimes...when it first came out). Now it's used mostly for people to post pictures, keep in touch with high school friends and stalk others.

Twitter: It became popular not too long after Facebook, and while I was against it at first because I didn't see a purpose in it, I now love it. It's a great way to constantly let everyone know what you're thinking/doing/watching/wanting to do without being that annoying Facebook user updating their status all the time. And of course, it's still a great way to stalk friends, enemies and celebrities.

Tumblr: I never really caught onto the Tumblr trend. I feel like it's a lot of people sharing the same million pictures and quotes with one another. Not very useful for stalking.

Instagram: So happy there is finally an Android app for this lovely picture sharing program. I love the hipster filters that automatically make everyone believe they are a photographer. I love that for the most part, people share original pictures, and I love being able to actually see what others are doing/eating/watching/seeing, and not just read about it. Why Facebook bought it, I don't know. Also useful for feeling like you're close to celebrity crushes. Nice for stalking.

Foursquare: Never quite got into this one either, but I assume it's excellent for stalking. Who doesn't want to let everyone know where they are all the time?

What networking and social media sites do you guys use the most? For what? And what celebrity crush are you stalking? :]

Class of 2012

There are small things that would make my life so much easier, such as being able to bring coffee into the FC building, learning how to fully function on only five or six hours of sleep and not having to do homework. Unfortunately, I have about a month left of school and none of these things are going to magically happen.

I'll be graduating in a month and spending the rest of the summer on the island before moving back to Vegas. I'm hoping to get an internship with the Make A Wish foundation over summer, because I haven't done an internship yet during college.

I think a lot of people really stress getting internships while in college before entering the 'real world,' because it's a way to get your foot in the door. It's a good way to secure a job after graduating or at least get the experience that other employers will look for. But throughout my four years at HPU, I've realized I don't really like journalism all that much anymore.

Designing pages, which I once loved, is now more of a chore than anything else and writing articles isn't fun for me anymore. I've grown to really love the hospitality industry, having worked in restaurants since my junior year of high school. I know that switching majors during college is very common, but I never switched majors because I didn't want the work that I've already done to go to waste. So I'll be graduating with a degree in journalism on May 17, and although I don't really know what I want to do with it, I'm glad I completed college and pretty soon my life won't revolve around homework. Except for the homework we have for Rachel's class, that's really fun.

Please update to version 394.49588

The other morning my phone said I was able to update my software to the newer version and I pressed "accept," which I now believe was one of the worst ideas I've had in the past week (besides laying in the sun for three hours today without sunscreen...and procrastinating all my homework).

After my phone had updated, everything was completely different. My home page was different, the icons were different, the apps that came with the phone functioned differently. What used to slide sideways now went up and down, what used to go up and down now went diagonally and my alarm clock was nowhere to be found. It's been a few days and it's still frustrating trying to adjust to the new design of my phone. As far as I know, all it's done is confuse me and use more battery than it did before.

Facebook seems to be doing the same thing, constantly updating and upgrading and improving, adjusting and tweaking and making everything "easier." Well, I don't find the new Facebook Timeline easier and I don't find my phone any easier to use now. It's frustrating for consumers when the design is constantly changed on them, especially when it's so drastic.

However, when magazines or newspapers change their layout or designs, is it always such a drastic switch or do they do it gradually, switching a little bit at a time so the reader has time to take it in and get used to it, rather than being bombarded all at once with a completely new magazine that's now written backwards and Chinese with invisible ink that only appears on Tuesdays. I think this technique should be applied to electronic changes as well. Just because our generation is more tech savvy than we were ten or fifteen years ago doesn't mean we want everything constantly changed. It makes it difficult and I think I speak for the majority of us when I say I don't like things too difficult. At least tell me where the alarm clock on my phone is going to be hiding before you switch everything up on me.

Spill your guts

I have a hard time updating my blog - I know. This happened with my other blog as well (myeuropeanloveaffair). It's really fun and exciting at first but then it starts to seem more like a chore. And since it's my personal blog, I should be able to update it whenever I want, however often I want, and my readers should be okay with it because I'm doing what I can.

Well, I realized that's not really how it works. Blogging is a lot like putting out a daily/weekly/monthly magazine. You have to stick with a routine and update frequently, otherwise people lose interest and will go somewhere else.

PostSecret. I would say it's one of my favourite blogs, but it's really  hands-down my favourite blog I've ever read in my whole entire life. It's the only blog I check religiously. It's actually the only blog I read (besides the awesome blogs in my Electronic Journalism class).

Every Sunday, the blog is updated with new postcards people from all over the world have sent in, revealing their deepest, darkest, funniest, scariest secrets. For as long as I've been reading this blog, Frank Warren updates on time, every single week. I know when new secrets will come up and he never lets me down.

So what if he went with the it's-my-blog-I'll-update-whenever-I-want mentality? It'd be so frustrating, never knowing if you're going to have to wait a day or a month for new secrets. So I guess that's my reminder that while blogs are much more casual than newspapers and magazines (using first person, opinions, etc), writers still have to respect their readers.

Typography

I absolutely love typography. Ever since I was little, I would use WordArt to create title pages for anything I could, and the best part was always picking the font and the colours. Thankfully I'm not still using the same fonts and colours (Comic Sans MS, red, was a personal favourite) but I still love it all the same.

Typography really makes or breaks a publication. A crisp, clear font used in a headline can add so much to the article. It sets the mood and without even reading the actual words, a reader can already tell if this piece is a feature or something more serious. A colourful headline hints toward a feature, a distinct font steers the story to something out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, page designers do a much better job than I do when it comes to typography, so I often spend my time salivating over their work rather than trying to make my own.

Typographica put together a list of their favourite typefaces of 2011 and I am in love with Alana (left) and Mija (right).

I'm also a big fan of Helvetica (surprise!). It's perfect, versatile, universal - it just works. Always. Period. Fact. I use it whenever I can, I abuse it, and so does about 85% of the worlds population (I made that up). I also used to really like Arial, but only on the computer screen. Printed, it doesn't look as nice as Helvetica. The two are actually fairly similar at first glance, and Ilovetypography.com put together a nice article comparing the two fonts. You can read it here.

In other news, The Hunger Games movie comes out this Friday and I can't wait! I'm absolutely in love with the books and hope the movie does them justice, which I know it won't but I'm excited anyway. May the odds be ever in your favour...

Grab an umbrella, I make it rain

You know how there's certain things you don't really bring up just for small talk? Religion, politics, money? It can get messy real quick because either the person you're talking to doesn't agree with your views and is going to try to suck you into their cult/tribe/political fundraiser, or they do agree with you and immediately sign you up for five years worth of weekly nude Buddhist meetings and schedule your house for the next Republican Club debate. Your landlord's a Democrat so he evicts you, leaving you homeless, but of course your teacher doesn't believe that's why you don't have your homework in, so you fail the class and  end up dropping out of college to work at McDonalds's until you get promoted to Zippy's, where you were doing great until Doomsville came to the island in the form of torrential downpour and your job is now a swimming pool and you don't have a lifeguard license. Back to the streets.

I put weather in that list of taboo topics as well. Not because any tragedy, failure, or homelessness has ever come from talking about the weather (to the best of my knowledge). But because once you start talking about the weather with someone, that's when you officially know one of you two fall into the category of "The Most Boring People on the Planet." And you probably don't think it's you. But it probably is. If the conversation carries on for more than ten seconds, it's a safe bet it's both of you.

So how great is it that everyone on Oahu (and by everyone, I mean the majority of my Oahu-living Facebook and Twitter friends) have been talking about the weather?

On the whole Facebook note, please don't be a creep and add these people. They have no idea I'm using their weather-related status' to indirectly label them as "The Most Boring People on the Planet."

By the way, I actually really like all those people. And only one of them is actually boring. Just kidding, just kidding. I'm going to get sued for libel.

I know, I know. Talk about calling the kettle black (whatever that actually means). It's been pouring rain for the past week. I mean seriously, what is up with this weather?

I haven't been able to work because Hard Rock doesn't think it's important to have a cover over the lanai and - surprise! - people don't like to eat while sitting under waterfalls. I have to wear my Uggs to school so I don't end up with frostbite toes and people make fun of me and my entire existence is being wasted away as I write hundreds of characters about the WEATHER! At least I know I'm not the only one.

I'm not going to tell you that the hail was caused by cold weather. I'll leave that to the professionals. I'm talking to you, Star-Advertiser (but +1 for the headline, very catchy).

 

Stay dry, and don't make fun of my Uggs. They're warm. 

And in other design/electronic journalism related news, I learned how to capture a screen shot on a Mac today. You'll also notice I abused that knowledge today (see above).

FLUX your innov8ation

A friend of mine is a distributor/promoter for innov8 magazine, so I came home from school today to find it on my coffee table. I skim through the occasional issue when I find it and I have to say, I really like this magazine. This is the March/April issue and the cover is a picture of the Haiku Stairs. This immediately caught my eye because it's one of my favourite hikes on the island: the combination of the rush of getting past security, scurrying up the stairs in near darkness and then the solitude at the top all make for a great morning - not to mention the killer views.

I was disappointed when I found out this issue didn't contain an article on this hike. It was simply a small, five sentence paragraph about the Haiku Stairs (Stairway to Heaven). Bummer.

I first compared innov8 to FLUX magazine, because they're both designed with that modern, simple, big-arsty-picture-small-text design that appeals to the hipster population. But once I read through both of them, I realize the articles in innov8 are about two (small) columns on average, while the FLUX articles are much longer and go more in depth.

Overall, both magazines are really well put together, especially in a city that seems to be struggling so much with journalism.

In other news, I'm going to First Thursday/Slam Poetry tonight, and by tonight I mean in 40 minutes and I'm really excited. All the artsy fartsy people gather together and show off how artsy fartsy they are, but it's actually really legit.

Procrastination, Linsanity and technology

It's always nice having an extra day off school but I don't know why I always think I'm going to use that time to do something productive, because I never do. So here I am, again, on a Thursday night, waiting for the new Jersey Shore episode while doing homework that I've had a week to do. But looking through your guys' blogs, I don't think I'm alone. ;]

In the past two weeks, I've learned more about professional basketball than I ever thought I would know. I'm not one to follow sports, and while I cheered for basketball and football, I only knew the moves that required a cheer (rebounds, free throws, touchdowns...yeah it ends about there) and even then it didn't really mean anything for me. But recently newspapers, blogs, sports pages and tweets have been blowing up with Jeremy Lin from the New York Knicks. Normally I'd brush this off, but he is literally everywhere. Turns out, he's been warming the bench on the Knicks for quite some time now, and once the two good guys Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire (had to Google how to spell his name) were out of the game because of injury and family emergency, this Lin guy goes in and totally blows everyone away with his basketball skills. I'm not kidding, he's awesome, and he's from Harvard so he's smart too. I even watched a real basketball game today and was excited about it, unreal. The Knicks played the Miami Heat and lost, but I guess they're really good so I let this one slide.

On a completely unrelated note, one of our readings was 'Rethinking the Multimedia Experience' from Poynter University. I really liked this reading for two reasons. One, because when I did my semester in Vienna, one of my courses was taught by a professor from Poynter and it was hands down one of my favourite classes - he was an incredible teacher, so now in my eyes, Poynter can do no wrong. Two, I think Ferris made a really good point, writing, "We wanted content to drive the stories, not technology, with the end goal being a richer viewing experience for our audience." I think with the constantly advancing technology, many professors and newspapers are focused more on using social media, videos, audio, getting reader comments, etc., than on the story itself. It's important to remember that using technology isn't automatically a plus, you have to use it right.

Blinded by the light

Blogging for a class is always a little awkward, because I feel obligated to keep my posts school related and G-rated, but at the same time no one wants to read 400 words about what makes up a digital camera or why it's important to keep all your files backed up on an external hard drive. Actually, I don't even know what a hard drive really is. Plus if I'm already doing homework and projects for my classes, the last thing I want to do is write about it...and since I haven't yet done my readings for Electronic Journalism (but I'm really excited to read them during new Jersey Shore commercials), I can't even post my reactions/responses to what I read.

In other news, I'm graduating in May which means this is my last semester as a college student, which also means that it's about time I start growing up. I had one of those 'growing up' experiences today. It began in Walmart when my boyfriend and I were buying lamps and light bulbs. We got a little lamp for the nightstand and then a big lamp to put somewhere in the living room. We weren't sure where but I knew we wanted more light, so we got the lamp with three light things and then had to trek back to the opposite side of the store to pick up light bulbs. Being the energy efficient people we are, we got energy saving bulbs. Turns out the watts are different on these lovely eco-friendly bulbs, and when we bought 23 eco-friendly-watt bulbs, they are the equivalent of 100 regular watt bulbs. Surprise, when you put 100 watt bulbs all over your house (and in a little tiny nightstand lamp) you will promptly burn all your retinas out.

So now I'm sitting here blinded by the light, wearing sunglasses inside (exaggeration) and looks like I can't properly do my reading homework because I'll be too busy caring for my injured eyeballs.

But for the record, our living room finally has sufficient light.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." -Martin Luther King, Jr.