back on the school grind

The past few weeks have been fairly hectic as I readjust to the life of a collegiate student which is surprisingly a HUGE adjustment. I'm so much more appreciative of my campus now, having done a prolonged stint in Corporate America. I love getting my grown and sexy business casual thing going but there's nothing like throwing on a new fit for the first day of school! For all those involved the month long annual celebration that commemorate the date of my birth has begun so keep an eye for events coming your way. Additionally, I was blessed enough to be hired on spot for yet another a-maz-ing internship opportunity for Fall '08 in addition to my regular gigs, so it should be a super challenging and exciting semester.

Recently....

....McCain's choice of Paulin has me completely bamboozled. Elaine Benes Sarah Palin is clearly a choice made to sweep in the votes those craaaazy women who just want to see women in power until our society is completely matriarchal. As far as I've read Palin is "unqualified" and if Sen. McCain, who is 72 and has had 4 bouts with cancer, has any sort of medical issues, Lord forbid, this woman would have to step up. Some say Palin is just as qualified as Obama but if McCain's principle argument is that Obama isn't qualified, why choose someone with the same amount of experience? I do appreciate him not "leaking" the news last night when everyone was riding high off of Obama's speech. Today I listened to the Monique show on 102.1 as I drove in to the H and people were calling in tears saying this was the most amazing thing they'd seen in their liftime, they can't believe what's going on. What a thrilling time to be alive and tapped into the political landscape! One listener emphasized Obama's call to be accountable. He won't pull out his superman cape all of a sudden, it's important we have realistic expectations and hold ourselves accountable for the state of America and its people. Monique's show also played a great version of "Never Would Have Made It" interspersed with pieces of speeches from Obama and MLK Jr. I'll get that posted as soon as I find it.

....Russia's president Dmitry Medvedev made major headlines this week for recognizing the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two territories that broke away from Georgia. Word is Russia might absorb these. Condoleezza Rice and other officials from the US and EU spoke out strongly against Russia's actions as of late as the decision to recognize the regions goes against several UN Security Council resolutions that Russia voted for and exacerbates tensions in the area. Looks like Russia is going to be in the doghouse at the next G8 meeting. Seriously though US officials said in this Financial Times article that they wouldn't push Russia on this and Russia said basically "we don't want another Cold War....but wherever this goes..." Man, wouldn't be nice if we had substantial reserves with our military power and budget in case we needed it? :-|

President Medvedev, in the same edition of FT, wrote what I thought was a great editorial explaining Russia's actions. (Read it here) He says that Russia knew the severity of its decisions before it announced them but due to recent injustices (and atrocities) against these people because of their ethnic background and historical circumstances, Russia felt it was the right thing to do.

"Meanwhile, ignoring Russia’s warnings, western countries rushed to recognise Kosovo’s illegal declaration of independence from Serbia. We argued consistently that it would be impossible, after that, to tell the Abkhazians and Ossetians (and dozens of other groups around the world) that what was good for the Kosovo Albanians was not good for them. In international relations, you cannot have one rule for some and another rule for others."

His editorial is much more specific, and I'll let you read it as I'm no expert in Russian history and relations. In researching Georgia I saw that it became the Kingdom of Georgia in 1008. A millenium?! Is there a celebration going on for that? There should be. 2776 it's going DOWN in America!

.... I got my new computer. My dance company friends, who are all Apple stans, tried to say any PC was a bad choice, but my new Sony Vaio SR came in the mail today and is a dream. The ads said "Supermodel meets Supercomputer." Hell-o love. The Sony Style store has great promotions going on right now as Sony just released several new lines of computer and are trying to be a bit more aggressive in their price points to compete with the HP's and Dell's of the world. I did an insane amount of research and I'm so geeked up this new machine.

....The Olympics concluded. There's a lot of talk about how to determine who "won." Is it the country who got the most gold medals (China -which is how most of the world reports medals) or the country with the most medals overall (US - which is how the US reports, not surprisingly)? Freakonomics reported that Jamaica had the most gold medals with 2.2 gold medals per million people.

"By this metric, the U.S. came in 33rd, and the host nation, China, came 47th. Indeed, the real puzzle from the 2008 Olympics is why the United States is so terrible at transforming raw talent — the millions of Americans born every year — into world champion material. Moreover, the puzzle deepens once one accounts for the fact that, living in one of the world’s richest nations, U.S. athletes have unparalleled access to the latest training technology."

.... MGNT - "Kids" (Soulwax Nite Version) : So fresh. (source)