Who said that?

To wake up in the morning to the smell of fresh roses in the air is a wonderful thing. To wake up in the morning and find out that you don't have anywhere to live, that's quite the opposite. The student's frightened expression did not belie the fact that they did not expect such an outcome. The quick fingers upon the keyboard sent an email to schedule the nearest appointment with the housing staff that they could manage around their busy Monday. They ran out of their dorm and through the ice covered ground later that day to make the appointment to discover what could have possibly gone wrong with their living arrangements for the following year. The foreboding lights were dimmed in the housing section of the commons. The student slowed and caught his breath as he pushed open the door to the busy department. He walked up to the counter so they could tell him that they were expecting him and to take a seat as they got the respective woman in housing that he had emailed. The thumbs he held in his lap played a game of tag as he waited along with three other students. He leaned over and asked the girl next to him what she was there for. "Oh, it sucks, I didn't get housing next year..." she said while pursing her lips.

Although she was attractive, his attention didn't focus for too long on the girl as he realized she had the same problem that he did. Finally a woman came out and looked at him and asked, "Jacob?"

"Yeah," he responded and with a sigh, got up out of his chair to be ushered by the woman to her office only to be told in a droll voice that, like so many others, there was nothing that could be done to get him on campus the next semester.

"Sorry..." is all that could really be said in this situation.

Q: "Did you get housing next year?"

A: "Yeah, I did, it's really nice"

Q: "Did you know that apparently there's a large number of students this year who didn't get housing?"

A: "Wow, that really sucks. I can't even imagine not having housing given to you. I mean, what are they even going to have to do now?"

Jonathan - freshman student - ~19

Q: "You're a senior, when did you stop living on campus?"

A: "Actually, this is my first year off campus. I thought I should try living on my own now because it's my last year and some freshman or someone would probably like my room more than trying to find one themselves I guess."

Peter - senior student - ~22

Q: "What would you do if you didn't get on-campus housing?"

A: "Well...probably run around in circles trying to find a place."

Anonymous - female freshman -~19

*Anonymous because she just didn't want her name posted simply

"5169 students applied for housing contracts, 3887 received them." (Anselmo, and Glossner )

Anselmo, Julia, and Joshua Glossner. "Lack of Housing Contracts Disappoint." Collegian Feb. 2011, Print.

"Freshman Acceptance & Retention

Total applicants: 40714

Total applicants who are accepted: 21017

Total of accepted students who enroll: 6540

% Undergraduates Living on Campus: 37.00" ("Princeton Review")

"Pennsylvania State University--University Park." Princeton Review (2008): n. pag. Web. 13 Feb 2011. .

"Student LivingFirst-time Room / Board Required

Dorm Capacity 13,399

Meals per Week N/A

Room Fee $3,820

Board Fee $3,930"

"Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus Academics, History, Financial Aid, Alumni, Campus, Students, Faculty, Address, and Tuition." stateuniversity.com. stateuniversity.com, 2010. Web. 13 Feb 2011. .

I still have to meet and greet with some people in the department of housing to get the numbers and statistics that don't seem to be posted online anywhere. They just didn't happen to be open over the weekend so there wasn't much I could do to meet and interview someone there. However, I did find it interesting that Jonathan, the student I interviewed on a bus of all places, got his housing through the honors college and he really seemed to be living the good life as a result and I found that quite interesting. I might interview someone who's in charge of that to get some numbers from them and in a way inspect what can go right if you play your cards right in the smart game possibly. The only other thing that I might like to research is the average cost of an apartment around the area and place the numbers against housing on campus and check if people thrown off campus are getting beat up financially as well, in a sort of adding salt to the wound type approach.

Penny for your thoughts?

"Frank Sinatra has a Cold," by Gay Talese, is considered the best profile that there is, and I can see why. The infinite yet specific scope of the piece gives an almost perfect rendition of the man called Frank Sinatra. I think the author assumes some previous knowledge of who Frank Sinatra is, but truthfully the real definition of how important he is comes from the bar scene where his position is made clear as nobody who knows something wants to get him mad. His interesting behavior thereafter and how he reacts to the situation at hand also makes him someone who the reader wants to learn about. The title of the piece pulls about that, when Sinatra has a cold, it really hits home for him as a singer. The moments where Sinatra cannot pull together his act because of his illness shows picture perfect the seriousness Sinatra puts into his singing. The descriptions honestly couldn't be enumerated to speak of how clearly the reader can visualize Sinatra by his personality without ever really physically describing him. It's slightly hard to grasp the motivation beyond for Sinatra to work other than the fact that Sinatra just wants to live a dream and, when that dream is taken from him by any cold, he is destroyed on the inside. The other aides to this lay with how his parents were under oppression by Irish. Although his mother never let it get to her, the pull of being free and letting go seems to be very important to him. The writer has drawn on so many sources, likely some that nobody would ever have thought about, to get their information. The depth of information seems incredible, and although I doubt that all of it is word for word truth, I feel like it should be. The author puts such an incredible amount of information in his piece, that it's unimaginable to think that there couldn't be a focus on the truth of who Frank Sinatra is.

In the interview, I was surprised at how old the man Gay Talese was. Of course to do the profile on Sinatra he had to have been around during Sinatra's prime, but to still be doing profiling at his age is amazing. It's interesting to see how well he enjoys what he does to be truthful. He really knows how to make the audience interested in what he's talking about. He also really knew what his interviewer was going to ask as well, which I guess just comes from the job. His description of what a profile should be was much more in-depth than I thought it could be. First he starts by talking that you really need curiosity in the subject and you need to portray that curiosity in your piece of literature. It surprised me by how far his curiosity would lead him when he stated that many of his 'interviews' would last from one to two years, which seems ridiculous (I won't, though, in light of this new information ask for a one to two year extension on my paper so it can be thorough enough; no worries). As a result of this, obviously, his pieces tended to be longer, but he really enjoyed that. It surprised me when he talked badly about newer journalism that tends to be focused solely on celebrities and only short bits of information at that. I can easily see his angle, considering how much of the news is only focused on the trivial outer appearance of something and doesn't ever go into a static neutral zone where the interviewee is a person; no more, no less. I found the fact that his upbringing was so similar to Sinatra's, where it was an Italian upbringing with a strong mother figure. I personally attribute then his success with "Frank Sinatra has a Cold" to a little bit of a personal connection. Talese mentions how he manages to stay in contact with the people he interviews because, obviously after a few years of research, he is able to become friends. The things about trust that he learned from his mother was an insanely interesting idea in that you really just want to learn about the person, paper or not. In that sense the idea of polite questioning was a very blunt hit as to the directives of an interview. I found it hilarious, in this sense, when the interviewer of Talese, who really couldn't ask many questions, seemed to cut Talese off at one point. The fact that Talese never used tape recorders or open notes threw me for a loop a bit, but I can fully understand the fact that if you want to get a completely calm person to interview, taking notes on everything they say can be overwhelmingly distracting. I really loved the way that Talese seemed like he was just teaching these newer journalists at how to do their job, while at the same time being interviewed himself. It seemed almost ironic, but truly enlightening at how this man, influenced by pure storytelling, could create such masterpieces of non-fiction.

Number One School, period.

The author of the report, "#1 Party School," takes an interesting approach to explaining the drinking 'issue' at Penn State. The author defines drinking in a way for the audience to understand easily by doing the sort of 'in-cognito' approach to both define the issue and make the audience understand what the problem actually is. The reasons are also defined in the undercover work in which it shows the investigative necessity of the alcoholism in State College. The way the report describes the different viewpoints of multiple different types of people such as the home owners, business owners, and police all give the best way the issue affects multiple groups of people. The author is using a radio talk show, so to be quoting someone is irrelevant when the majority of the show is the audio interview of the multiple different perspectives. However, one quote with Graham Spanier when he tried to say that drinking isn't for Penn State and the reactions thereof really showed how serious drinking is for Penn State. The students are interviewed in the beginning, so their opinions are included. However, only those students who are in the worst case scenarios are interviewed and so only a part of the population is considered in the report. I hate to say it, but this is obviously only a negative light on the drinking here at Penn State, with the only positive light being placed on what the business owners say in that they actually enjoy to see the students have fun. Obviously the author wants to get across the message of how intense drinking is at Penn State. The negative light on Penn State drinking is obviously inherent in the entire report with every situation being the greatest negative possible. Overall, I think this report is too widely biased to only one side of the issue and, as a result, seems almost unfair for a report of this length. As in the cases with the pizza man, there's obviously a reason why he STILL works the job he does. He never once really said he hated the job, he just stated that, yes, absolutely crazy things happen when you're a pizza driver. Not to mention the inability to be tipped if you deliver wings. I felt that this was strangely and funnily realistic. The only house owners interviewed seemed to be the most drastic of people, who clearly dislike the place they live in. I highly doubt that most people can't choose where they live if they bought a house in one of the biggest party areas in State College. It seems to me that it would be their fault if they didn't have any idea of where they were buying a house, which is not a light decision to make. All in all, there's a reason why Penn State has the biggest alumni association in the world. People loved what they did in Penn State, and most people drank, even from ages past. That being said, I can personally say I don't drink, but I love to see how lively my college is. The fact that people can have so much fun here is a great thing that other colleges don't offer. Penn State IS unlike any other school, but I wouldn't say it's in a bad way in the slightest.

Words of Wisdom?

Anne Lamott's segment on 'Shitty First Draft,' in her book on writing, Bird by Bird, she describes the excellent detail of how far down the toilet a piece of writing is allowed to be because nobody is every going to care what it was like. Taken to heart, I could always look back on my first writings for anything and easily see the mountains of problems and complications that they had. I would always, consequentially, tend to delete (I can't say that I had too many essays that I chose to handwrite) the majority of the work seeing it as just plain, well, shitty. I've believed for a long time now that a first draft is never intended to be remotely perfect, but reading that Lamott puts it that it's actually intended to be bad is fantastic. If I think back far enough, if I ever thought my first drafts were anything but bad, I probably would have been much better off as the world's youngest genius a while ago. While I'm still working on the prodigy inside me, I do enjoy the idea that my first draft can be terrible. With no intentions of making it this way, of course. In my personal narrative, I do believe that I did not, in any form, achieve a perfect first draft. More than likely the only difference from Lamott is the fact that peer editing is going to happen and if I wrote, 'Well so what, Mr. Poopy Pants,' I may not be able to come to class without an amazing amount of embarrassment. Beyond that, though, I do like to know that this first draft isn't, by any means, my final draft. My piece isn't polished, and I feel that's what Lamott really wants to get across. There's an animated movie, by my favorite animator Hayao Miyazaki, called "Whispers of the Heart," (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisper_of_the_Heart_(film)) which depicts this concept perfectly by comparing the main character's first draft to that of a rock. The rock, however, hides a true gem inside of it that is needs to be cracked open and then polished. I've long felt that way towards my writing pieces after seeing the film. I'm always trying to polish the best gem ever for my writing, but I know that I'll always need to start with the rock first. Lamott's proposal that once you learn, you can pretty much trust the process, is true to the 'more or less' part. While you can learn and become a greater writer and enhance your pieces, no two pieces will ever be written exactly the same way. The statement, I believe, applies then to every writer out there. To keep writing is to keep improving. There will never be a single thing set in stone for any writing, no pun intended. However that stone is needs to be broken open to find the gems inside and polish a piece literature. Lamott worded it that all good writers write 'shitty first drafts,' and I couldn't agree more.

Narrative Criticism, Anyone?

Due to the curiosity that overwhelmed me, I couldn't help but choose to read "Tour of Duty," by Denise Grollmus as my memoir to critique. The basic idea would be the many faces that being on tour with a rock band can hold. Being an excellent memoir, however, it holds a candle that shows flames that both give light and darkness. A light to show what a grand adventure can do for you, as well as the darkness to show what it can do TO you. That warm atmosphere is depicted as both burning and gentle in certain moments of the piece. All facets of life could use the meaning shown with this piece, even if I, personally, believe that the audience was no person other than herself in an almost 'showing' kind of way to remind herself that what she was 'stuck' in was something she truly did want to remove herself from because, behind the negative atmosphere she did wish to be where she was. The memoir is filled with her personal pathos, a passion for her life that needed to have an end. The feelings put into the art were very broad; an alcoholic hot and steamy life combined with dreamy, soft moments where life wasn't so bad. The beginning throws out the idea of alcohol and drugs, which is tossed back and forth throughout the whole piece in the most negative of lights to show that it was easily a downside to the adventure. Although, the author honestly speaks outright and holds nothing back by showing that she did, in-fact, partake in drinking heavy enough to give herself hangovers. In my opinion, the inclusion of the eleven year old girl with the gnawed leg is strangely intriguing, not necessarily by the lesson learned, but the fact that Grollmus did indeed learn and grow on the journey. The selective dialog went hand in hand with showing which parts of the journey impacted her emotions deeply. Many times where speech is involved related to feelings of home and peace. It seemed that, during the passage of time, she seemed to want to be at home, in a family that eats warm eucalyptus leaves. Conversely, the dialog also focused heavily on negative events during the trip that showed the evils of the journey itself. The transitions were worked in such a fashion that the storyline was similar to that of an epic; where it starts in the center, goes to the beginning, and then finishes afterwards. The transitions beyond that were flawless, leading one hangover into another so that I couldn't point out to you any serious time jumps other than the time leaps that put the story into a general feeling to start and continued with that feeling. A feeling which I can honestly say made me feel like I, myself, was stuck in a "Tour of Duty."

Non-Generic First Journal Entry

Unlike most college students at this point, this will be the first college 'paper' that I'll have written. The previous semester consisted of two computer science courses, two math classes, and a basic physics; none of these classes required or even suggested at the idea of writing so I am more than likely quite a bit rusty at this since I haven't written anything since High School. Lucky for me, however, I became a fairly proficient writer during my last English class in high school where writing papers was a massive foundation for the class. Generally speaking, my fortes in writing are probably my writing style along with the subjective content. I would put down grammar as another forte, but honestly word processors do a darned good job at that so I wouldn't feel right saying that. Conversely speaking, my writings are, obviously, far from perfect and I can't say I'll honestly ever be able to say that they would be. I lack quite a bit of organizational skills, both in writing and outside of it. The best I can hope to do is make outlines of things and try and follow that to stay on due course. Procrastination has a lot to do with it, but all I can say that does is keep me up until six in the morning working on a paper. Going beyond that I'd have to point out another flaw is a certain inability to withhold information and not just 'cloud' write. For all of my imperfections I do enjoy a certain pride in being able to overcome them. No particular means or ideas help me more with this than just writing and editing my works to see what would make my writings a touch better. That being said this class should help me improve greatly, seeing as the basis is, in fact, writing. Overall I see vast improvement as long I really try to improve (of which I will).

Being the son of an English teacher, I can't start to express the obviousness that is my fundamental inspirations. Books of all sorts were showered upon my since I was born and so it wasn't hard to say that I've had many experiences that belay my connection to the writings and works of many great authors. Though, I'm not saying this in retaliation against my mother who wanted me to read and learn how to write well. This wasn't intended to be a discrete section of hate, more of just a description to better know where I come from. I easily can say that I have always read for pleasure, although I can't say that I often write for pleasure. It seems I enjoy to get sucked up into another author's world as opposed to my own. I've read countless numbers of grand works, but there are only a few that manage to inspire me as great as the four great European Epics. Paradise Lost, http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/pl/book_1/, is easily my favorite among them and I would have to admit my favorite book ever. The subtleties of diction will always inspire me to continue to become a better write so that I can, perhaps, write papers with as much power as Milton wrote with. That being said, the subtleties in poetry also tend to inspire me to write without bounds. Edgar Allen Poe's works tend to be my favorite, but I can't put off others such as Frost or Byron as having grand numbers of verse written to perfection. However, "Hollow Men, " (http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/784/) by T.S. Eliot is easily my favorite poem ever that inspires me, more than any other, to write with meaning.