Jennifer Noel

I always walk in approximately at noon. The place is packed at this time, which bothers me, because I feel like a herd of animals at the trough. It always seems people are staring, mostly because everyone likes to see if they know the person walking in. I know this, because I do the exact same thing. Sleek wooden chairs surround all the tables and are often hard to maneuver through because Bucks is so busy.

There are a set of tables and chairs that I call an island. They stand alone in the middle of the room for people who want to be undisturbed to study, watch shows or eat lunch. That is my spot. The chairs at the island are much to tall for me to reach. I stand on my tiptoes in order to get on one. As I unpack my things, my computer, iPad and books, the aroma of fried goods fills the room.

It is very loud, which sometimes makes it hard to study when I have homework like today. However, it’s nice to be able to have a study area and someone who isn’t me to make lunch, all in one convenient spot. TV’s are on at a low volume, because there is music playing on the speakers when they are not calling people to the window for their food. They are playing all the current hits on the radio, which makes it hard to not sing along. I carefully take my tangled, white headphones out so I can begin to tune out the world.

Since its lunchtime, the line to order food is long. When it finally shortens up, it’s time for me to decide on something to eat. Once again, I must wonder around the mess of chairs and people. On my way, I faintly here someone calling, “Hey Jen!” I slowly turn around in the doorway of the little closed off room, where students go in to talk to the cashier. It’s my friend Emily. We chat briefly about life, school and work but quickly continue on to our own routines. When I reach the counter to order, the cashier seems nervous. More than likely, she is new because I have not seen her working here before. She is young, blonde-haired and wearing a little paper hat that all the café workers are wearing.

Finally, I get back to my seat and start to look at my homework. There is a table of four, with a few upper classmen boys. They appear to be part of one of Morningside’s many athletic teams. All of them are wearing cutoffs and gym shorts, while chatting excitedly about game scores, plays and upcoming events. I usually tend to tune those types of conversations out.

A few tables over is a much larger group of very studious looking people. A few professors and advisors are also sitting at the table with folders. This for sure is some type of meeting. All the students are engaged in the conversation, chatting about different promotional ideas for the group. Once again, I only listen to them briefly and return to my own studies.

Before I know it, it is already 1:30 p.m., and it’s time to head to my class. I slide off the tall chair and begin to gather my things, placing them in their proper spots of my book bag. About that time, I always run into one of my guy-friends, who I walk to class with after my eventful time at Bucks.

Gravestone Technology

I actually found this article late last week, but decided to save it for my news comment this week. Like it says in the article, some people may find this addition great, while others will hate it. I for one think this is just a little too far and maybe slightly tacky? Though graveyards have an appeal all there own, I still feel that they are peaceful. A place where your loved ones are laid to rest.

I don’t know about most people, but I for one do not want to stand in a graveyard with my tablet or smartphone to read about someone’s life. Most people who visit grave sites are there to grieve, place memorials or just to “visit” their past loved one. If I’m going to hear about a person’s life and information, I want to be discussing those good times and bad times with family and friends. If you’re just there to creep on people you don’t know, just Google their name at home. Its easier and less creepy.

Nicole Kidman & Scientology

First of all, I think that scientology is kind of an odd religion. No religion should break up a family by forcing children to reject one of their parents. I feel very sad that it not only happened to Katie Holmes but also Nicole Kidman. I wonder if she saw it coming after Katie.

The fact that he auditioned for wives just seems ridiculous to me! No relationship or marriage should be based on an “interview.” This was a very newsworthy article because it involved religion and a celebrity. Two very hard hitting points in media. At the same time, I feel bad these two women have to have such personal parts of their life in the media when they are probably both grieving over their tough situations.

New Lead:

A Sioux City girl tells about her exciting journey to get to her college career. Starting back in the year 1992 in Sioux City, Iowa, Lauren Michelle Sorenson was born just one week before Valentine’s Day, on February 7. After about two years of waiting her sister finally had a younger sibling. She spent most of her childhood in Sioux City until the age of ten, when her family decided to move to Africa.

When asked what it was like to live in Ethiopia, Lauren simply replied, “It was completely different than living in Sioux City, because in Africa you wake up to monkeys literally banging and jumping around on your roof.” Sorenson continued her education in private and boarding schools while she remained in Africa. Finally at the age of thirteen, her family decided it was time to end their missionary work and head back to the states.

Lauren graduated from East High School and then first enrolled at University of Northern Iowa for two years, before transferring to Morningside College to study corporate communications. She decided that the smaller school was more suitable for her college career. Some of her favorite pass times include snow skiing, being on the school radio station and lifeguarding for the last six years.

ORIGINAL LEAD:

In the year 1992 in Sioux City, Iowa, Lauren Michelle Sorenson was born just one week before Valentine’s Day, on February 7. After about two years of waiting her sister finally had a younger sibling. She spent most of her childhood in Sioux City until the age of ten, when her family decided to move to Africa.

When asked what it was like to live in Ethiopia, Lauren simply replied, “It was completely different than living in Sioux City, because in Africa you wake up to monkeys literally banging and jumping around on your roof.” Sorenson continued her education in private and boarding schools while she remained in Africa. Finally at the age of thirteen, her family decided it was time to end their missionary work and head back to the states.

Lauren graduated from East High School and then first enrolled at University of Northern Iowa for two years, before transferring to Morningside College to study corporate communications. She decided that the smaller school was more suitable for her college career. Some of her favorite pass times include snow skiing, being on the school radio station and lifeguarding for the last six years.

After attending the funeral of my friend this morning, my heart feels slightly lifted and I am slowly coming to peace with what terrible thing has happened. it became very apparent that some nasty roomers were floating around and it was so nice that someone during the funeral stood up and agreed they knew the media was being inaccurate. So this post is just to clear up those untruths about his accident.The original report was that he was riding a wheelie down 4th street and clipped a truck, that caused him to slide with the bike into the curb and become air borne.

A few of the rumors going around included the wheelie, driving recklessly and even drunk driving. NONE OF THESE ARE TRUE. Danny was a responsible driver and the accident was caused due to a MOTORCYCLE MALFUNCTION. His bike had a frayed clutch cable that likely snapped about the time he was letting the clutch out, to ease forward to the stop sign on 4th street. When it snapped, it made the motorcycle take off and he began to lose control of the bike. He held on tighter to the grips, causing it to get more throttle and go faster. When a clutch cable snaps, an experienced rider, like Danny, knows to get the bike into neutral, however, for those who know bike gears (1, N, 2, 3, 4, etc), it is most probable that he bumped it into 2nd gear instead of neutral. With the simultaneous action of giving it more throttle and missing neutral for 2nd, it gave the bike even more power and even less control. This would give the appearance of reckless driving and even doing a wheelie. Unfortunately, there was a truck that he clipped the back of, because he could not avoid it during all this confusion. Hitting the trucked made the bike and him slide into the curb forcing him to be air borne followed by hitting his head on one of the sculptures; which ultimately is what made his helmet come off.

There have been several eye witnesses coming forward to shed light on what really happened and for that The Norby’s, Nicole, Marissa and Danny’s close friends are very thankful. If you hear someone telling incorrect information about this accident, in honor of Danny, please correct them so that his memory will live on untarnished.

J.Noel

Well, the hits just keep on coming. Unfortunately again, more bad news has come my way this week, so to hopefully help with the healing process I have decided to write. As many of you have probably read, my boyfriend had a motorcycle accident on wednesday. Fortunately, he was able to get through and start his recovery. He was very blessed.

As my boyfriend and I are spending our friday morning running errands, we receive a horrifying call that one of our friends has been in a motorcycle accident, and despite all efforts he did not make it…My jaw literally drops open. I’m in complete shock. I feel my face becoming very hot, and my heart just starting to sink. He was only 22 years old, with a beautiful daughter, who is just barely 2, how could this be happening??

I will always remember him for being such an incredible person. Words cannot describe how Danny has touched so many lives, including my own, with his happiness, care, and his amazing, fun-loving personality. He was my boyfriend’s best friend, who was like a brother and a best friend of mine who I knew would be there for anything. It breaks my heart to know he will miss many important events, but remember he will always be with us in heart and spirit.

Danny, I’m so sorry you had to leave this world so soon and the people you love. I hope you know that Chris and I will always be thinking about you, as will all of your family and friends. I know you would have been an extraordinary architect and amazing at everything you set out to do. I’m positive that God has a place and a plan for you–maybe to be our guardian angel. The tears shed for you will be uncountable, but you are forever loved and forever missed. I am so thankful that God planned for your path to have crossed ours.

-In Loving Memory of Daniel N.-

(MOTORCYCLE AWARENESS)

Today’s post is unfortunately not going to be a fun one but a bit more on the personal and sobering side, since last night my evening took a heart wrenching and scary turn. If any of you are like me I never really understood the world of motorcycles until I found my significant other, who’s lifestyle is completely based around them.

That being said, I was at home last night around 5:00 PM when I got back from grocery shopping. My friend calls panicked because she is positive she has seen my boyfriend’s motorcycle wrecked near where he works. Quickly, I get into my car and drive to the scene, only to be horrified that, yes, it was his bike. Heart in my stomach, I drive to the hospital where his family is waiting and I go into see him. He is laying on a backboard in the bed, with a neck brace on, body, legs and feet scratched and bleeding in places. My heart sinks even further.

Apparently, another driver was trying to hurry to turn left off one of the in town highways before more traffic came. In their hurry they did not see that he was almost directly in front of them. Barely slowing down for the turn, the car hit directly into him causing the bike to slide and my boyfriend to complete three cartwheels in the air before landing on the ground.

Fortunately, my boyfriend was wearing a helmet, and thank God for that because otherwise he would probably not be here with me today. We spent five to six hours at the hospital before he was discharged, and he is now working on recovery.

So I leave you all with this– Drivers, PAY ATTENTION! Know that motorcycles are around and are very small, quick and hard to see. Don’t hurry yourself to the point that you can’t keep track of what’s going on around you, (that includes texting!). Hitting someone only takes a few seconds, but so does stopping to look! (You pick which you’d rather do…) Like I said before, I myself honestly didn’t think twice about motorcycles until I became part of and aware of the cyclist community; which is partly why I am posting about this so strongly. As a person who was not involved with cyclists all her life, I know how easy it is to forget about them and now I look around every corner and under every rock for them. Motorcyclists, also be aware of whats around you and never trust a driver. Most importantly, ALWAYS wear a helmet because you never know when it could save your life.

I just thank God for our miracle last night!

Jen

When I was walking into class this morning, I could not help but notice that it was way to warm for 9:30 in the morning. The suns warmth was much to hot on my face and back with my heavy backpack adding on to the heat of the day. I finally make it to the classroom that is lined with desks and chairs, so I weave around the maze of objects to finally reach my seat at the opposite side of the room. About halfway through class we are surprised with a delicious, cool treat provided by our professor. He slowly bobs and weaves around the room allowing each student to choose either ice cream or popsicles. When he finally gets to me, of course, I usually choose popsicles because they always remind me of childhood; walking around outside, seeing my dog sitting so patiently, with his big brown eyes, just hoping that I will drop some of my refreshing treat.

As I sit at my desk with my popsicle in hand, the wrapper is thin, almost tissue paper like. I can feel the coolness of the popsicle seeping through like ice cubes in a cup. I grab the seam of the wrapper and pull the top apart to reveal the brown stick of the popsicle and gently pull the it out of the package. Immediately, I dive right in and the slush completely fills and cools my mouth. The flavor is orange. I’ve never really liked orange popsicles. They often make me feel like I am eating bad, frozen orange juice. However, on this hot day and in this stuffy room, I’m just more thankful for the treat to get me through. The popsicle quickly starts to melt away so eating it must be rushed. Halfway through the problem of running into the stick is always awkward. To make it easier to eat I turn the stick sideways and begin to eat it that way. Finally, the popsicle is gone, so once again I slip the stick back into the wrapper until class is over.

Whale Vomit

Since we’ve been talking about newsworthy and un-newsworthy articles, I decided to use this article I found on whale vomit, (yes whale vomit), to question further if more often then not, news can be considered newsworthy. As I’m looking through my YAHOO! homepage, I’m was finding it very hard to pick an article that didn’t suck.

As we’ve discussed before, news should be intriguing. It should make you want to read more about the article from just the first few sentences. However, when I started to read this article, I couldn’t help but keep asking myself, “Why the hell am I reading about whale vomit!?” So to begin, this news article has a bad attention getter.

Other than the fact that I was purposely looking for an article that was bad enough to earn the title ‘un-newsworthy,’ I would never normally read something that takes until almost the end to get to the point of why this particular whale vomit is so important. Which brings me to point two. People like detail, but if it takes until the middle of a pointless subject to get to the ‘good stuff,’ then its already a crappy news release. Many people get bored easily, so you can’t lose them before you get to the point.

Finally, I could not have been more disappointed with the ending. The kid could get almost $300,000 for this piece of vomit and what is he going to do with it?- Buy a house for animals. Now, please don’t get me wrong, I LOVE animals. However, when your 8-years old, the fate of that much money should not be put in your hands. Why would the parents not put this in savings, or something like, a charity that feeds hungry people. We have lots of hungry people! In short, this is not a newsworthy article. Bad beginning, slow to get exciting and bombed the ending.

Jen

Good afternoon bloggers!

I have a bit of a feminist rant today. I live off campus, so as I’m on my way to class this morning, I happen to be walking with some girls I don’t know, that I assume to be freshman or sophomores. As we are going along, I happen to notice that, “Holy crap…I can see through this girl’s shorts.” Now when I say ‘see-through,’ I do not imply that they are just thin or light colored material, but literally lace\crochet, see-through shorts. To top it all off, she has a hot pink thong underneath them. Classy. (Please note the sarcasm!)

Now, very clearly she is aware her shorts are see-through and more than likely she purposely put on a bright pink thong, as well. This is not a mistake made due to being rushed in the morning or poor lighting. As I said before I do not know this person, and she could very well be a nice girl but no one, from first impressions today, will ever know that. Why? Unfortunately, she now falls into my generalization that when girls purposely dress this way, it is obvious she only has one goal on her to-do-list: Be A Sex Object.

So, ‘Shorts Girl’ and girls all over the world, when you dress this way, hear me when I say, “NO ONE IS TAKING YOU SERIOUSLY!” In fact, no one is even looking at your face to PRETEND that they are taking you seriously. I suppose my point is this, “The way you dress, especially if you’re new to a place, is a huge first impressions factor. When your in an environment where you want people to listen to you and take you seriously, then dial the sex kitten knob down a few notches. There is a time and place to dress sexy and also a good and bad way to to do it. However, if your going to class, no one needs to see your business or your bright pink thong!”

-Jen