Featured in the Sun!

I don't know why anyone would want to interview me, but it happened.  Check it out in today's sun:

http://cornelldailysun.com/section/opinion/content/2011/03/17/miery-loves-company

My life is clearly just amazing.

A Few Facts

Here are some things you may or may not know about me:

I have a crippling fear of living statues.

Living statues are those "performance artists" who dress in costume and/or body paint and stand completely still. They have some sort of container for you to place your money in when you are impressed with their ability to stand still. Yes, I realize that it actually takes a lot of strength and discipline to stand still for a long time, but all that time dedicated to learning the art of doing nothing could have been spent honing another, perhaps more practical, and at the very least much less terrifying, skill. The worst thing about these living statues is that when they do receive money for their efforts, they suddenly snap out of it and move towards you. It's supposed to be some sort of reward for your donation, which baffles me. What is more scary than a statue suddenly becoming alive??

I think that my fear of these living statues comes from a nightmare I had when I was eight years old. I am 21 now, and this nightmare was so real that it stays with me to this day. In the dream I am walking along the street towards the beach with my family. We walk by a statue, but something catches my eye as I pass by it. The statue moves. Frozen with fear, I stand paralyzed while my family unsuspectingly continues on their way.  Deep down in my heart, I know the statue was alive, and that it is evil. I sprint away, but not without catching the statue moving once again in my peripheral vision.

Here is an example of a living statue that my friend, knowing my fear, photographed for me in London:

And here is my response:

I want Morgan Freeman to read me bedtime stories.

He just has a wonderful speaking voice. Think about how soothing and nice it would be to have Morgan Freeman read to you just as you were drifting off. Magical. 

I also love the voice of Falcor from the great movie The Neverending Story, one of my favorites (for all the wrong reasons). Falcor is a Luck Dragon with a booming yet pleasant voice, and he looks like a flying dog.

I want a reason to shower with my clothes on just once.

This is a little confusing and misleading, so I will explain. In movies, whenever something really traumatic happens, the characters suddenly decide that they need to shower with their clothes on to feel better. I don't really get it, but for some reason I really want to do it, too. The problem is that I don't really want to have to go through a traumatic experience in order to accomplish this goal, but I also know that I can't force it. I'm not sure what other occasion calls for a fully clothed shower, but if and when it happens, I will let you know.

Casino Royale, Bond and Bond Girl upset they had to kill a bunch of people

Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker pretty upset after people dying and bombs going off, etc.

So now you know.

Ambitious

I have always had really low expectations for my future, but usually only subconsciously.  My current status as a second semester senior has been getting to me, and my cynicism about where I will end up next fall is slowly eating away at me.  I am less than confident that I will be employed after I graduate, which hopefully is not true and is just me freaking out about the unknown.  This lack of high expectations for myself, I have discovered, started at a very young age.

In the first grade, we were required to keep journals and every day we would have a writing prompt for a new journal entry.  One day we had to think about  a classic question: "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  Most kids have great dreams; future doctors, astronauts, inventors, and entertainers filled my classroom. I, on the other hand, had a completely different plan.  Before I reveal the dream job my 6 year old self longed for, I want to point out that now, at 21, I have no idea what I want to do in the least, and I have felt like that for years. My goal to become a cocktail waitress has faded. Yes, when I was in the first grade, my ultimate goal was to bring drinks to people. Ambitious. I didn't even want to be a full blown waitress at a nice, upscale restaurant. Nope. Cocktails would be my specialty. This journal entry was even accompanied by a drawing of Becca the future cocktail waitress with a tray with a drink on it.  The drawing is poor, so a career as an artist was already off of the table at a young age.

Looking back, I always knew I didn't want to be a doctor (any blood or injury that isn't my own makes me feel queasy) or an astronaut (I have an intense fear of outer space).  There was a while when I had a vague dream of being a vet, but again, medical stuff soon became too much even to watch on TV, let alone deal with on my own.  When it was time to apply to college, I applied to ten schools, all in their liberal arts programs as undecided. All but Cornell. Here, I decided that I would apply to the prestigious Hotel School, which is number one in the world for hospitality. Lo and behold, I got in. After a week or two at the Hotel School, I realized how much I was in the wrong program. Managerial communications and organizational behavior were not subjects I wanted to spend time learning, at least not in college, where I wanted to explore everything.  I switched into the College of Arts and Sciences after one semester, and it wasn't until the end of sophomore year that I declared History as my major.

I love history and all the classes I have taken, so I don't regret pursuing a liberal arts education. It does make it tough, however, when specialized skills make finding a job that much easier. All my engineering and business oriented friends already have jobs, which is annoying, but I am trying to keep hope alive, despite my lack of any clue of what jobs I want to look for. I am down to try almost anything, and, if any potential employers are reading this, my skills from being a history major make me able to adapt to new situations and I always want to learn new things.  I am very "well-rounded," as they say.

My one goal that I have defined thus far is to move to New York City.  The main reason for this is that I would have a great support system there. With family near by and almost everyone I know moving there after graduation, I have designed a couch rotation for myself.  Every week I will move to a new friend's couch, mooch off of them, then move to the next friend's place.  The number of people I know who will be in NYC is great because when my rotation starts over, months will have gone by, so my hosts won't feel like I am always sleeping on their couch specifically.  This plan is also great because many of my Wall Street friends, who will have ridiculously long weeks, will barely be home themselves, so they won't even know I am there. One friend has also promised to subsidize my life, paying for my shelter and food, and, sometimes, if he's feeling generous, he might even buy me something nice.

If all else fails, you can find me in Costa Rica working on an organic farm.

How You Know It's Finals Week, or, Living at the Library

The Library. For most, it's a college student's home away from home, especially at academically driven Cornell.  It blows my mind, but from the first day of each new semester, people are already filling up the tables. Why? Nothing has been assigned yet! I guess it's part of the culture. Not for me though. I absolutely refused to go to the library for my first two years at school. I went once Freshman year because I had to use a book for a paper. I think I spent a total of 45 minutes there, and we had gone with a couple of guys on the baseball team, who, in order to enjoy their time studying more, picked up a 30-rack along the way.  Every ten minutes or so, the sound of a tab being popped open cut the silence. It brought me comfort during my short introduction to the library.

Sophomore year I headed back in only once, again to grab a few more books, and then promptly left.  It wasn't until Junior year that I realized I was missing out on some prime people watching (notice I didn't say prime studying time. I have a very poor work ethic).

At first, I decided it was best to start out with baby steps.  I would head to the library between classes and sit by the window to do the daily crossword. I had to ease myself in. Every so often, I would actually do a little homework, but I was never expected to stay long or to really accomplish anything at all.  My friends know me as the girl who pretends to do work. Pretending to do things is a skill I've really honed over the years.  Finally, during study and finals week last fall, I spent more than one hour at a time at the library and I actually did work. It really boggled everyone's minds.  On the upper levels of Olin Library, the only library on campus I've really been to, there are graduate study rooms that undergrads are banned from until study week. The fact that I wasn't allowed in got me excited, so I chose one of these rooms. It has been my go to spot since then.  During study week, however, the rooms start to fill up, and this room only has three electrical outlets for some reason. This brings me to sign number one that it's Finals Week at Cornell:

1. The fight for outlets.  You have to get there early to get a good spot. Or you have to get there late, when everyone else has given up and gone to the bars to drown their sorrows. If all outlets in a room are taken, you can see the panic in everyone's eyes, followed by a constant compulsive checking of people's actions and movements. Are they getting up? Are they leaving? Will that outlet finally be free? And the second that one becomes available, people race to get their power cord plugged in first. May the fastest and most anxious man win.

2. Meals at the library. You know it's bad when you are at the library for long enough that multiple meal times pass.  One meal is demoralizing enough.  I spent so much time at the library this past week (shocker, I know) that I made dinner one day at my house and immediately put it in a container and went to the library to eat it.  Bringing and eating home-cooked meals at the library may take it a little too far...

3. The Regulars. If you go to the same room every day at the library, you start to notice that the same people always show up, too.  In my room, the same three guys were there every time I was. When you get to a point that you are becoming friendly with the random people studying at the same time as you, it might be time to take a break.  When you know exactly where to find someone throughout the 7 floors at Olin at all times, tell them they should go home.

4. The Regulars who take it to the next level.  One of the guys who was always in the same room as me wasn't feeling too well the other day. He had about a dozen empty water bottles around him and his desk, as well as a bottle of pills and maybe some other medication. Ok, fine, you have a cold and you are trying to take care of yourself, I get it. But when you pull out a THERMOMETER and take your temperature in the middle of the room, it's time to hit the road, buddy. GO HOME. Don't sit here and infect the rest of us with your disease. Some things are meant to be done in private.

It may look like a pen in this picture, but I swear to you that it's a thermometer. Look at how he's holding it. And look at all the bottles and nasal spray and ibuprofen. Get the hell outta here dude, you are freaking me out.

Then of course there are the trash cans piled high with empty coffee cups, the papers strewn across every square inch of every desk, and the kids who come in wearing sweatpants and shirts with holes in them. I know you want to be comfortable while studying for hours at a time, but at least wear shirts that are completely in tact. This isn't your house, it's the library.

Now, when I hit the library, I usually plan to be there for a while. But if I go for too long I am guaranteed to hit a wall and start to go a little crazy.  On days after a night of drinking, I usually can't function, and the delirium sets in, completely destroying my ability to form coherent sentences. I also find ways to avoid doing work. Watch a little of this, read some funny articles, go to the bathroom fourteen times, etc. I also decide that I want to spend time thinking about out doing some more reckless things (anything not to do work). What would happen if I brought and drank a Four Loko in the library? What would happen if I turned this key that I found attached to the fire alarm and sprinkler system? Would it be possible to throw this chair through that window? Would anyone care if I just upturned this table with all of our belongings on it? At that point, there is really no reason for me to be in the library. I'm clearly not being productive, and that's something I can do at home or at the bars, so let's do karaoke instead of writing this paper. Cool?

Activities for the Inactive

(This also ran in the Cornell Daily Sun! Look at me! Here's the link.)

I am the vice president of a secret society. I am the beat boxer and co-founder of an a capella group. I am an intramural soccer champion.

           

All of these statements are true…kind of.

Somehow, in the past 3 and half years I have been at Cornell, I completely missed the extracurricular boat.  Freshman year I was pretty shy and scared of everything and everyone at Cornell, partially because I didn’t want to be at college at all. Lame, I know.  But I went to Club Fest and signed up for a few things. I even went to a boxing club meeting by myself.  It all fizzled out eventually, and I’m not exactly sure why.  Maybe I made one too many Rocky jokes, who knows?  I was too scared to try out for the women’s club soccer team because I had heard they were basically flow-over from varsity and way too good for me. I wanted to try out for women’s rugby but I was too scared of getting killed. I didn’t understand the intramurals website until sophomore year.  I can’t sing well (which doesn’t mean I don’t sing, so I apologize to my housemates who have to listen to me in the shower), I don’t do improv, and I loathe quarter-carding, thus making me virtually unable to join a club. 

Despite my lack of skills, I have always wanted to be a part of certain groups on campus.  Quill and Dagger was number one. But alas, I didn’t start writing for the Sun until right now (publish this piece!) so I had no shot at becoming editor-in-chief.  I am not the captain of a varsity sport and I am not the executive director of the biggest club on campus.  But I really like secrets! And I know where your headquarters is! Isn’t that enough for you, Quill and Dagger?  I will accept a late tapping. 

In the meantime, while I wait for my belated invitation to Q&D, I am in my own secret society.  My friend decided that she was fed up with waiting for her invite and took matters into her own hands. I was the first tapped member of this group and have taken the prestigious role of VP. In order to protect our members, I will refrain from revealing the name of our secret society, but I will say both the name and symbol are pretty badass.  Our philosophy is purely social/based on bad decision-making, so if you feel you qualify, let me know and we will consider you for membership.

A capella is another interest of mine. I love singing and dancing around, I just happen to suck at both. I also pretend to beat box. I have always resented the fact that I didn’t have a stage mom who forced me into this stuff.  This same friend and I decided that enough was enough and that we were going to start our own, infinitely cooler, a capella group. We are known as the Castaways; you may have heard of us since we throw killer after parties.  Have we had an actual concert? No, but that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate a job well done. Hey, you might ask, when’s the next Castaways concert? Don’t worry about it, the after party’s at my place.

Now we come to athletics.  I have played soccer forever but have only improved ever so slightly since the age of five. I dabbled in every sport available to me when I was younger, but only soccer stuck. Why my parents didn’t force me to play hockey or become a tennis ace I will never know. I could have been great, but they were too concerned with letting me making my own choices that they screwed everything up. Way to drop the ball on that one, guys.  I have led my intramural co-rec soccer team the past couple years to the playoffs, but we fall short every time. All I want from my tenure at Cornell, besides my diploma, is an intramurals champion t-shirt. Is that so much to ask? I thought this was the year, but my team did not make it to the finals unfortunately.  So instead of taking it in stride and waiting for indoor soccer to roll around, I attached myself to our friends’ men’s soccer team and named myself head of the Superfans.  There were two of us, but we came to every game. With signs. The team actually won and let me snag a t-shirt. I am even featured in the team picture on the intramurals website, so check it out (if you can figure out the site...) 

So even though I am not really active on campus, I have found ways to feel involved at Cornell.  Seniors, if you are like me, call me up and we’ll start our own fake fraternity (though we may or may not have already done that…). Freshmen, if you want to be tapped for a secret society, I hope you are already gunning for that e-board position.  If not, it’s never to late to try something new, or to pretend to.

Bizarre Halloweekend

Halloween in college is pretty awesome.  Instead of trick-or-treating, kids get dressed up, usually inappropriately, and get drunk. It's usually a hilarious time. But we have to remember that it is still Halloween, and that weird stuff happens around this time of year.

This weekend was no exception. It was bizarre, to say the least.

Thursday night was pretty normal.  My friend and I dressed up as members of Team Pup N' Suds from the Disney Channel Original Movie "Brink!" which is a pretty sweet costume and childhood reference. I ended up running into a friend who never ever goes out, so that was weird, but other than that nothing too out of the ordinary.

"We skate for fun. We're Soul Skaters!"

The next night I was ready to reveal my super secret amazing show-stopping costume: the Four Loko can. Yeah, yeah, I know, plenty of people were Four Loko this Halloween, but I honestly think that mine was the best. I was a full can of Lemonade flavored Four Loko.  I painted the whole thing myself and it was very realistic. People on the street stopped to talk to me and sometimes to take pictures with me! One guy even professed his love. Very successful costume.

Clearly the best one in this group...

Basically Friday and Saturday were loko. Friday the bars were sucky so we brought everyone back to our place to play beruit and hang out. Everyone was getting along fine and for some reason Antoine and I decided to fake wrestle each other.  While we were joking around, our friend CS randomly started pouring beer all over us (mainly me). I hadn't even noticed he was at our house as he hadn't said a word. He was just sitting on the couch, pouring what felt like at least three beers on my head and all over my body.  Luckily I had taken off my Four Loko costume and safely hung it up before it could be ruined. Now, I have had beer pour on me before a bunch of times, all by Antoine, but it was always a joke and I could tell when it was coming. This was just out of the blue and CS looked really serious when he did it. Later, I was sitting on the same couch as him but talking to someone else when suddenly CS's leg is on my back pushing me off the couch and onto the ground. Again, I was not even talking to him. He continued to try kicking me to the ground until we actually started wrestling. Physically fighting, and both of us were serious. I was pissed off and he was drunk, but he looked really mad. We were trying to kill each other while everyone just kind of watched and didn't say anything. Then I sat in the corner wearing his hat for like 20 minutes before we said bye and he left. Weird. And then the next day he came over to watch American Psycho and we all joked about what had happened. Despite my beer covered clothes in the laundry, the half bottle of shampoo I used to get the beer out of my hair, and the huge bruise on my leg, we had a lovely time watching Christian Bale being his normal, insane self. 

Later that night one roommate threw a bowl of cereal at another, then that roommate threw drinking glasses in the corner of the room because I was kicking everything off of our coffee table and he didn't want me to kick the glass (his solution was to throw it on the floor elsewhere, where it obviously shattered). We get destructive late at night apparently (see Hurricane Jeff).

Saturday night things got pretty loko. We hit three parties and at the last one spent at least fifteen minutes watching Antoine make out with someone. Literally ten of us were just standing around in the corner of the party freaking out and screaming and just being total creeps. So that was fun. Then I got into a verbal fight with one of my closest friends, so that wasn't as fun, but definitely fits into the weird fight-themed weekend. Every so often we get into a fight in which we are both upset about basically the same exact thing. We are so similar that we even get upset at each other over the same issues and essentially aren't even fighting, but reaffirming that we are so close and pretty much the same person. So after a little while of arguing in the middle of the party we made up and everything was normal again and we danced to Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca," which, by the way, was an excellent musical selection by the hosts of the party, so props to 715. 

During our fight, Linus pushed Antoine, reason unclear, and Antoine totally ate it. Antoine was pissed, Linus was sorry, but then again, Linus is always sorry. He does a good job of pissing people off when he drinks, and that night was no exception. Nothing physical happened, but it could have been disastrous if it had.  Tensions were high. Again everyone ended up back at our place with the addition of a Ken Lansing 4 Sheriff sign that I picked up along the way. Everyone was getting along, minus Linus, who was moping on the couch and then suddenly disappeared.  Later, Jeff decided the time was ripe to try to get us to make our own porno in Antoine's room and the way to hook us was to ask if anyone was interested in making some money. We weren't.  The end of the night can be described by the floor in Antoine's room: Gobstoppers in one corner, hint of lime tortilla chips all over the floor, and texts books strewn everywhere. And I was asleep in the bed while the few remaining people watched South Park. Pretty much sums up every night at our house. 

Halloweekend was definitely successful, but pretty bizarre and destructive, but then again, I guess that is pretty normal for us.

Shameless Self Promotion

My first (and only) published piece in the Cornell Daily Sun!