Cultural Opportunity #3 (Yule Walk)

The friday after Thanksgiving, one of my guy friends decided to take me on the Yule Walk in downtown Peoria. Not really knowing what I was getting into, I went along with it. The Yule Walk is an annual Christmas celebration thrown by several different businesses in the downtown area such as the Caterpillar building and the local banks. Mostly it consisted of different kinds of art showcases all over that part of the city. There were choirs singing in almost every building possible. One bank had featured a guitarist who played Christmas music, and another had Richwoods madrigal singers, where I got to see one of my friends singing. They were all lined up on a staircase in their extravagant medieval clothes and sounded incredible. Up by the courthouse (?) there was an ice sculpture exhibit. There were presents, reindeer, candy canes (which were arranged as such that I had mistaken them for a sculpture of an elephant...), and this massive throne that seemed worthy of St. Nick himself. My friend that I went with dared me to go sit up on it, so I did, and had to walk around the whole downtown area with a wet bottom. He still has the blackmail pictures.

Cultural Opportunity #2 (New Moon Premiere)

EDWARD CULLEN!!!! Those two words, normally don't stand out. At the 2nd installment of the Twilight series, New Moon, premiere, that name could start a stampede. The Twilight saga has created a spitting frenzy of obsessive fans from their early teens to forties. It's city vs. city, best friend vs. best friend, sister vs. sister. It's Team Edward vs. Team Jacob. No, this isn't a WWE smackdown; this is hardcore twilight action, all in front of roughly a 2000-person audience (according to the Journal Star) all decked-out in supporting team gear. It was absolutely insane. There were people EVERYWHERE. I (Team JACOB-FIND-SOMEONE-ELSE/Team Jasper-because Jasper's that shmexy) went with my friend(Team Jacob/Team JFSE/Team Find-A-Better-Edward) and her sister(Team Edward/Team Whoever's-Shirtless-At-The-Moment =] ) and have been seriously anticipating the release since Twilight came out. (The first movie was a total fail. With a new director, I had to hope it got better.) Anyway, we sat two rows from the front for the ultimate up-close, I-can-probably-look-up-Edward's-nose-if-I-tried viewing experience. The movie actually holds a semi-standing chance with the other movies that are out right now. New Moon almost joins the ranks of a decently produced movie. (The wolves were kind of out-there, but otherwise the acting somewhat got better with the exception of Robert Pattinson sounding like he doesn't know English and the fact that Kristen Stewart was simply not born to act. Sorry if this offends anybody, but honestly, Summit could do better. )

AstraZeneca Finances

Finances:
David Brennan, Chief Executive Officer, said: “AstraZeneca has delivered a robust performance in an increasingly challenging market environment.” As of December 2nd, the stock prices are up +1.6% since September 7th at $45.93.

AstraZeneca Stock

ad analysis writer's statement draft (conference draft)

Writer’s Statement
The Ad Analysis. Oh my. Amazingly, the best part of writing this was probably getting to have the wonderful smell of the cologne on my computer desk for the entirety of the project. Otherwise, I think my initial concern was keeping on topic as I wasn’t completely positive that I wanted to do this ad. None that I pulled out seemed to grab me in any strong direction. Well, maybe it was a strong direction, but every ad that I grabbed seemed to have the same concept: gender roles.

So Long, Farewell

Now comes my final blog for the semester! After a long semester of blogging, it's pretty sad to see it come to an end. I've really enjoyed being able to talk about current events and reflect on my writing as a whole at the same time. I always had fun trying to make my posts as interesting as possible, and didn't ever really need the censorship rules on my work. I don't use any of those words normally, so it didn't really apply. It was rather interesting seeing everyone else's perspectives on what we brought up like Dominic (? sorry if it was someone else!) and abortion. Having really backed-up opinions totally helped me learn about the subjects. Good job everybody!=] And have a great break!

To like "be" or like not to be?

After working on the be-verb exercise, I've noticed it coming up in my writing much, much more than necessary. It's like pointing out how many times a person says the word, "like" when they're talking. (Hah, I already failed.) It's so, like, frustrating. I mean, like, you like start to like focus on like everything you say, and then like every other word like is engulfed by that word, like y'know? It's like, borderline reverse psychology in like a loosely-related way. Since it's like, already in your head, it like wants to jump out at like every opportunity like you could imagine. Just like being like reminded of it like encourages the like bad habit. I was like, having like major issues like trying to like fix all the like super annoying be-verbs that like kept popping out of my paper like it was like going out of style. That exercise like helped me like a ton to like further edit like my writing. Like can't you like tell?





Disclaimer: I'll try and post a translated version soon, so it's actually readable!
Wow. I'm not going to be able to talk right for weeks now. =]