International Olympic

I went out with a majority of my CIR colleagues to see improv at International Olympic (IO) in Wrigleyville on Saturday night. It was good to hang out with everyone. The improv was surprisingly good as well. I still need to check out Second City to compare. Anyway, below is a link to some pictures from the Saturday evening, both at dinner and the show. Cheers!

http://flickr.com/photos/joshuaswu/sets/72157605262896970/

I love this guy

The Monkey's Off My Back!

So life has been crazy. I was back in Nebraska the weekend before last for Courtney's UNL graduation. I drove back to Chicago last Monday and arrived Monday night to attend an information session for a potential job and class on Tuesday. Tuesday night I did laundry and packed again to fly BACK to Nebraska on Wed. night for my littlest sister's high school graduation. (I had booked the tickets weeks ago). First though, I had an interview at 9:00 AM on Wednesday for said potential job on U of C campus (the Center for Naval Analysis (CNA) in Alexandria, Virginia... it went well I think). The interview finished at 10:00, in time for me to make my 3-hour, 10:30 class. I had lunch and made my way by bus to the airport from campus. My flight was delayed an hour, but mind you I had a thesis due on Friday--I needed all the spare time I could manage. Courtney picked me up at the airport in Omaha and we made our way back to Lincoln.

Thursday and Friday were mostly comprised of feverish writing and editing. I finished my thesis and sent it via e-mail to my faculty adviser and preceptor at 4:00 on Friday in time to pack up my things and meet a friend at 4:30 to give me a ride back to Norfolk. IT'S DONE!! The weekend was full of graduation open house preparations, the open house on Sat. evening, and the graduation on Sunday--though the pace and work were much more enjoyable. It was really good to be home. Courtney was able to join us in Norfolk by Sat. evening and she took me to the airport on Monday of this week to return to some normalcy here in Chicago. Sheesh. I now have two papers to complete for each of my remaining courses in the next two weeks and then I'm done!! Can you believe it? Graduation's June 13th! The fam and Court will be driving over here for my Graduation weekend and then... I don't know yet. I'm still waiting to here about the CNA job and I need to apply a few other places. I'll do my best to keep you updated. Right now, I need to start a paper. Cheers!

Good Music

Check out the new Death Cab for Cutie song, "I Will Possess Your Heart," from their new album (released yesterday), "Narrow Stairs." Great song. Great album.

Note to self...

When possible, avoid asking a professor to be your thesis adviser when he lives in Israel nine months out of the year.

'Four Minutes' of Non-Art

I want to take a moment to abuse this personal blog as a platform for opinions. Have you heard the recent Madonna/Justin Timberlake song, "Four Minutes" produced by Timbaland? It's awful. And, I feel as someone who has actually enjoyed certain, past, joint musical efforts by JT and Timbaland, I possess a legitimacy in the assertion. Besides possessing a nearly identical beat and song structure to past works, the song is completely devoid of lyrical substance or creativity. Granted, it's a song developed for the hip-hop/pop/dance genre. And, it is catchy--which is part of the point, I recognize. (Good luck getting it out of your head once you've heard it.) However, the line must be drawn somewhere. Even popular music should be held accountable to creative scrutiny at some level. There, I've said my peace. Back to the thesis.