Saturday, April 25, 2009

Prank-A-Tour '09!

Yesterday was fantastic - the kind of day that makes my upcoming graduation bittersweet.  I was up early for a run around campus, when I ran into a friend up near Festival.  She pulled me a side and asked in a whisper, "are you a student ambassador?"
I said no and she pulled me aside to let me know that Prank-A-Tour was happening in just a few hours and they needed help!  I was super excited, especially having seen the 2005 version on YouTube freshman year.  I ran home as fast as I could, changed and went back to campus to meet up with the group, who have been planning this for months.
For those of you who don't know, Prank-A-Tour is a JMU tradition, that happens once every 2 years.  A tour is picked to be pranked, and from start to finish they encounter some very odd things spread out over campus.  The entire thing is filmed and edited together before being premiered on campus the following year.
After about an hour of discussing where each act was going to be performed, and learning the order our group would be going, we split up and took our positions.  My first station was inside Showker, where 7 other girls and I sat on the floor scrubbing it with paper towels singing "Hard Knock Life".  
Next we ran to get ahead of the group and pretended to be drunk and passed out on the duke dog statue.

After the group had passed by, they witnessed Miss Piggy and a princess fighting over Kermit the Frog.  
Next, we ran to TDU, where we had a pool party on the pool tables....(clever, right?)  Following our pool party, we then went to the Burruss Fountain, where we climbed in and splashed around, which was great on a day where it was about 90 degrees and sunny :)  

As we were walking to meet the group at the JMaddy statue, we saw a large group of our fellow prankers dressed in full, head to toe animal costumes, 'worshipping' and cardboard cut-out of Obama.  We thought it would be hysterical if we ran by and stole the cut-out....so I did it, and it was one of the funniest things that happened the whole tour :)  Next, we dressed Obama in a Purple Out shirt.


   When we had him dressed, we propped him up next to the JMaddy statue and hid in the bushes to wait for the tour to end.  When they arrived at the statue, we told them they'd been pranked, and the history of the Prank-A-Tour.  The visitors loved it!  
It was so much fun to be a part of tradition like that, and I can't wait to see the video when it is all put together.  You can find 2005's on YouTube, if you search JMU Prank-A-Tour.  
As much as I had planned to get some work done yesterday, there are just somethings you have to be apart of - and this was one of them.  I'm going to live up these next two weeks - particularly now that I have come to realize who my real friends are, and we have so much fun together :)  Speaking of which - we're off to hike on yet another beautiful day!

~*~Lyssa

Thursday, April 23, 2009

I know I'm not good at this, but bear with me

So if anyone is out there reading this, I just want you to know that I know I suck at this so far.  There is nothing connecting my posts, no real meaning to any of this.  Bear with me, I'll find my stride eventually.  It feels like learning a new skill at gymnastics.  You have to just keep trying it over and over, maybe in slightly different ways until you get the hang of it.  Then, you do a million and one repetitions.  So stick with me and if you have tips to help me find my purpose (or any other tips) I'd love to hear them (read them?).

Oh, and PS, share this with your friends keep clicking!

~*~Lyssa

16 days....

So graduation is 16 days away.  In someways, it's going to be the longest 16 days of my life, and in other ways its going to fly by.  I have a ton of work to get done in the next two weeks though - including a paper for my dance class - yes, dance class!  UGH, oh well, I'll grit my teeth and get it done somehow.

I know that it's important for me to stop looking forward to things like graduation, and start living more in the moment - but I'm struggling with that right now.  I can't wait to leave Va.  There are things I'm going to miss, most importantly my girls and our weekly Shabbat dinners and even my jobs (yes I like going to work).  But on the other hand, I can't wait to leave a place that held such opportunities for me four years ago, only to have those torn away by 'the man'.  Somedays, walking around campus is a just a terrible reminder of what could have been.  It's on those days that I really can't wait to leave here.  I also feel like I am a healthier, happier person in NY.  I've changed a lot in 4 years, and relationships with people here have changed so much - but the people I worried about losing when I left NY haven't gone anywhere.  In fact it has brought us closer together and I love them for it.  Maybe people thought I was crazy for giving up one weekend at college a month to trek home, but truth be told, those were some of the most fun weekends of college - crazy huh?

That's part of the reason I'm so excited for grad school(!)  I'll be getting the quality broadcast journalism education that SMAD really couldn't offer, make new friends, and shake off the depression thats been my shadow for the last year and 1/2.  I've been looking for assistantships to help defray the costs, but for the next two weeks I'm really going to need to focus on finishing up well here.  My parents think they may know some people up on the hill who could help me, and for that I would be eternally grateful.  I just can't comprehend being close to $50,000 in debt - I've never been in any kind of debt at all.  I just feel like the debt would be a weight I will always have pressing on my chest, making it hard to breathe.

Anyone have any advice for dealing with debt?  Is it as bad as I think it's going to be?

~*~Lyssa

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

You've gotta see this

So I talked to my dad a little while ago and told him that I had started a blog to help put me through grad school.  Actually first, I told him that I thought I had found a way to help pay for school - his response was "Is it legal?!"  After reassuring him that it was totally legal, if not a little shady, I told him it was a blog.  He then asked, "well what are you going to write about?" That's when I realized I had no idea.  So I started thinking about it and I'm gonna keep it really random, just like me :)  After watching the movie "Paperclips" as part of Holocaust Remembrance Week (which if you haven't heard about the paperclips project you should really watch) I want to share something that really influenced me.

While I was home for passover, I saw an absolutely incredible movie.  I want as many people as possible to see it, because it is an unbelievably non-biased  look at what happened in Israel during the disengagement from the settlements in the Gaza Strip in Aug. 2005.  It follows, over a period of 6 days, the lives of 6 Israeli young adults.  An Orthodox girl from one of the settlements who is also a filmmaker, two lifeguards from 'Palm Beach' in the Gaza Strip, one an Orthodox Jew, and the other a secular Jew, who just want to stay in their homes.  On the other side, the film follows two soldiers who have been assigned by the IDF (Israel Defense Force) to uproot their fellow citizens from their homes in Gaza.  Also, there is Ye'ela, who is working with the pro-disengagement movement, even though her sister was killed by a Palestinian terrorist.

The movie is incredibly moving, but it also is food for thought.  Now, almost 4 years later, did it work?  was it worth it?  was it the right thing to do?  I watched it with a great group of people and we had an awesome discussion about it afterwards.

So rent it or buy it here: 
http://www.amazon.com/Unsettled-Lior-Meir/dp/B00263JJ2Y/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1240360670&sr=8-4

So now it's your turn, watch it and (or if you have already seen it) let me know what you thought!

~*~Lyssa

Monday, April 20, 2009

There's a 1st time for everything....

Hey.....anyone out there?

I honestly never thought I would do this, but seeing as I love to write and express myself, I guess it's the next logical step.  Add to that this nifty little feature from Google that might just help me pay for grad school (x fingers crossed x).

I've got just two weeks left of undergrad to go; 1 final; 1 presentation; one dance performance left.  Then I graduate.  I've been thrilled about graduation for months now, particularly since I received my acceptance letter to Newhouse.  Today I got an email from one of my favorite people in the entire world, and she said she couldn't believe her little Lyssa was graduating - wow now that for some reason put things into perspective.  All these memories come rushing back, how just four short years ago she was telling me how great things were waiting for me in college, and that none of the drama of high school was worth worrying over.  Little did I know how right she was, or how different those great things were from the ones we were imagining just 4 years ago.

I guess I'm really supposed to start this thing by telling you about myself - but wow, where to start?  I'm the oldest of four kids, classic first born syndrome - perfectionist, always trying to please others, hard headed but deathly afraid of confrontation (it makes me nauseous).  So I apologize if I get all passive aggressive here when something is bothering me.  Somewhere deep in my head I know it's wrong but I often feel the need to talk out what's bothering me, and most of the time I know that no one really cares to listen - so I'll spill here.  I want to work for the Today Show one day, as a producer, behind the scenes, and I'm hoping that Newhouse is the next step on my way.  So here's to hoping this blog thing might be part of the path to getting me there - I mean, you never know right?

~*~Lyssa