Home

It's a cliche, but home really is where the heart is. Excuse my lazy blogging, but it's been a busy couple of weeks! I'm home today, and this song is resonating with me. Plus, that Christina Perri is so talented and cool looking!

Enjoy :)

A Social Butterfly

Yuck! First of all, I find that phrase absolutely cloying. Social butterfly? No, thank you! Okay, it's not that bad, but there are better ways to state it, I think.

My thoughts today are on being an extrovert. I've mentioned it in passing before, but I'm an ENFJ. That's the classification from the Meyers-Briggs (Jung) personality test, which you should definitely take! Essentially, like any personality "test", you answer a series of questions, and it tells you what you are like, what tendencies you have.

Since women have a million quizzes thrown at them from the pages of every issue Seventeen and Glamour from the time they are 13, I've taken quite a few. However, the Meyers-Briggs is different, and in my experience, terrifyingly accurate. (In a good way...)

One of the ways it helps to define whether you are an extrovert or an introvert is by asking a question about how you relax: At the end of a long day, would you rather stay at home and unwind alone and quiet, or would you rather go out with friends and celebrate a day over?

I already knew I was an extrovert, just because I like to be around people, but this break, I realized the extent to which I'm an extrovert. Have a bunch of people over for a party? Lets invite 20 more people. Going out for a casual lunch with a couple friends? I'd like to invite six more people. When I am home alone (which happens more often during breaks, since my parents work) for more than a day or so at a time with nothing to do, I start to get crazy. CABIN FEVER!

I need to be around people to feel energized and renewed and happy. I proved it this break, and luckily, lots of my friends are extroverts, so I don't have to pester my poor roommate too much. She's an introvert. But we love each other anyway.

Have you taken the Meyers-Briggs? What are you? Has it helped you to understand yourself or others better?

(PS: RFP hit 3000 views! Thanks friends!)

Back to the Future

One of the greatest things about college is that it really is the beginning of the rest of your life. Your future begins at school! How many times have you heard someone say: "Oh, yeah, that's the same school Natalie Portman went to!" or "Did you know that Tom Hanks was one of our Alumni?" It's such a formative and awesome experience, I think I may be seeing it happen first hand.

My roommate, (you know the really hilarious and totally awesome one? You can read her blog, too) made a video this past weekend, about her love for a character, Troy, on NBC's Community. It's a fantastic show, in my humble opinion, the funniest on TV now! The video is hilarious, and in an unbelievable and fortuitous turn of events, The NBC Community twitter tweeted a link to her video!

So yes, in case you hadn't noticed, today is a shameless plug for this awesome video and the show.

So watch it: Landing Troy Barnes

And hey... Do you think we can get her to be a guest star on the show? Wouldn't that be fun!

Long-Distance Dance Party

Are you a student?

Do you go to college away from home?

Is calling your family and friends on the phone just not enough?

If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, then you better believe I have news for you!

Okay, okay, enough of that. But don't you feel like an infomercial when you tell people about a product or service that you like? I always do.

But really, I found a really cool new service that I wanted to share with you! Since I go to a school outside of my hometown, I spend quite a bit of time keeping in touch with people at home. Last year, we invested in webcams and started using Skype. Skype is great, especially for times when I hardly get to come home -- I can Skype with my parents to see what's going on at home and church, with my best friend to get some much needed encouragement and chat time in, and even with friends who have moved away to chat about their lives. It has been so handy.

Over Christmas break, a few of us at church decided to try a bible study during the semester. Since we are all over the country during the year, we thought we would Skype video calls. However, unless we paid, having a conference call with 7 of us wasn't going to happen.

Then what? Well, nothing happened at first, I'm ashamed to admit. But when I got down to searching for a great video call provider who would allow the 7 of us to all talk and see each other at once, I finally found a winner. Yesterday, I signed up for tok-box.

tok-box is a video call service that allows you to conference call (for FREE) with up to 20 people. So you can have business meetings, share exciting news with a big group, have a bible study, or who knows what else!? Now that I'm signed up and getting the hang of it, I'm attempting my first 3-way video call with a couple of friends this weekend. I'm very excited.

Now all I can say is: 20-person-long-distance-tokbox-video dance party GO!

Have a favorite new product or service? Share with me, my friends!

Closer Than I Dreamt It

Guys, I have three semesters of college left, and though I am loving it, I know that this is the beginning of my whole life -- a life full of blessing and change and a whole new world.

To sum it up, I'll let my friend Frank do the talking.. er... singing.



Yep. That's about right. Hope your first few weeks of school are wonderful.

(Also, ten points for getting the reference in the title!)

Conviction: 2000

The facts in this are so shocking, but so important.

(Having some issues with formatting -- if you are seeing problems in IE, try another browser!)

Another Chance

Like many a fellow girl (and a few guys I know) I love a good romantic comedy. And though most of the time, the only thing gleaned from them is a few funny lines or scenes-worth-swooning for, seeing the end of one of my favorites make me think a little harder.

You've probably seen 50 First Dates a time or two. I absolutely adore Drew Barrymore, despite her occasional visits to crazytown, so it's no surprise that I'm a fan of the movie.

If you haven't seen it, let me just fill you in on the details that are important to this here blog post. If you haven't seen it, you might want to watch it before reading -- I don't want to ruin it for you! In any case, the necessary detail here is that Barrymore's character, Lucy, has a type of amnesia in which her memory is "wiped clean" every night. She wakes up each morning thinking that it is the same day that her amnesia-causing-accident occurred on. Here's a video of the scene I'm rather fond of tonight:



Every morning she wakes up, she gets to experience everything as if it were brand new to her, because in her mind, it is! She feels genuinely blessed, and really, I feel like it's an easy extension to say that we could all try to live like that -- to be in awe of the world around us, and to love the people around as if they are brand new, perfect and beautiful. It's cheesy, but really, the world and the people around us are pretty darn fantastic. Be grateful!

What did you get from this scene? Or the whole movie, if you've seen it? Have a favorite movie to contribute here?

A France! - Jams Pt. 1

While I could easily write an entire post about jams and jellies, I won't do that today. Music - and let me tell you, the french like their music. They are always singing or whistling, and they don't care if other people hear!

Here's the lowdown from me on French music:

The French love a good beat, on the two big music stations we've listened to, nearly every single song is upbeat and fast-paced, regardless of the language. Some examples that I hear very often are Pyromania by Cascada and In My Head by Jason Derulo (cheers to Steph Barber!) for the English speaking side of things, and Désolé by Sexion D'assaut (which I love) and Je Veux by Zaz, both in French.

They appreciate thoughtful lyrics, also regardless of language. An example of a song that does not have that quality? California Girls by Katy Perry (Slightly questionable video, but kinda funny). It is still played, because its really catchy, but lyrics... everytime it comes on, Christelle and I mock Katy Perry's perky head bob.

The best combination of these songs is one that is upbeat with an uplifting message. A current hit is Shakira's Waka Waka (This Time For Africa). It doesn't hurt that it's the official song for the FIFA World Cup this year! The first goal they show? The French team! Another classic (which has been covered in French by Julien Clerc) is Let the Sunshine In from HAIR! It's a personal favorite of mine, and I love the French version too.

Want to know more? Listen to one of the popular stations here: NRJ, which I prefer, or Radio ISA, which plays a larger variety and more French music (They have a Shania Twain dance remix!).

Voila! But before we go, French phrase of the day!
Today the phrase is je ne sais pas, which means "I don't know!"
It's pronounced as juh nuh say pah, with that first j very soft, almost a sh.
We say this a lot. :)

Allez!
Stephanie