My play history.

Tonight, I heard Dr. Stuart Brown talk about play: why we do it and why we need it. I’m trying to wrap my head around how it ties into J Week (the reason why Brown spoke at the university). What it comes down to is that play allows us to be creative, optimistic and, generally, happy. It’s exactly what the journalism field needs nowadays.

RSJ professor Rosemary McCarthy told me how in Brown’s book, he talks about the importance of understanding your play history. What did you do as child to entertain yourself? The answer to that leads to why you act the way you do as an adult.

So here I am on a Thursday night, sitting in the journalism school while others edit stories and write photos, contemplating my play.

A mini analysis of The Last Five Years

I went on a musical theater tirade to my friend today after she said she hasn’t heard of Jason Robert Browns’ The Last Five Years. After explaining the storyline to her (for those not in the know, the musical looks at the relationship between Cathy Hiatt and Jamie Wellerstein; she tells the story from end to beginning, he tells it from beginning to end, and it’s no secret that they broke up), I got to thinking about the lyrics and noticed the progression of Jamie’s feelings for Cathy  in the songs where he’s addressing her and he mentions his love.

These are a few of my favorite things.

After being inspired by one of Chuck Klosterman’s articles, I decided to go through a few of my favorite songs to make a similar list, partly because I thought it was a good idea, and partly because I’m procrastinating.

Enjoy.

The Backstreet Boys showed me how to love.

Something I wrote with Becky a while ago. An old one, but a good one.

Busy, busy, busy.

As I often reiterate, I am a terrible regular blogger. So here we go with the seasonal update of my life.

1) I caught the flu and then was out of town in two consecutive weeks, so my attempts to stay up with my school work failed miserably. I’m still working on catching up with reading, but at least I’ve done all my homework. Thank god. I also did a decent job on my midterms.

2) Insight is going well. October proved to be a hurdle because of the whole sick/out-of-town thing, but everything is getting done, and November stuff is on its way. I still need to work out how to build the multimedia staff beyond myself and the other editors at Insight.

The countdown begins.

And the panic attacks ensue. I had one a couple weeks ago at midnight. The thought process went something like this:

I’m a senior. Whoa.

I’m graduating in May.

Wait, how many months is that? (counts on fingers)

Nine months?

And my lease is up at the end of May.

And I probably won’t have a job. Or any prospects.

Oh. My. God. What am I doing with my life?

Oh. My. F—ing. God. What if I have to move back to Las Vegas? With my parents?

Writing for the sake of writing.

When I was little, I wanted to be a lot of things. A doctor. A ballerina. A paleontologist.

But most of all, I wanted to be a writer. I wrote “articles” for the kid newspaper I made up for my third grade class. I created stories about my favorite cartoon (Sailor Moon, if you really want to know). After reading a book I liked, I’d try imitating that author’s style.

Summer update.

Dear faithful readers (ha),

Sorry I’m not a good blogger. It’s been a busy summer, and yet I feel like I’m not doing anything particularly blogworthy. But here it goes:

Passion.

Do you ever feel like you’ve forgotten why you do what you do? You just go through the motions, you get lazy, you settle for mediocrity.

And then something just kicks in — BAM! — and you’re back.

Memories.

I know I left the Sagebrush in December, but I finally grabbed the last of my things at that office. Despite what you may or may not think, the Sagebrush meant a lot to me while I was there, and I wouldn’t trade my time there for anything. That chapter of my life has officially closed, and I’m moving forward – but not without a few things to laugh at or smile about. Below, you will find a list of things that I found amusing enough to document with quotes, polls, photographs – basically, anything a journalist could do – and then keep at the office until today. Think of it as an equivalent to a Sagebrush scrapbook, circa August 2007-December 2008.