London Here I Come!

In less than two and a half months I will begin my journey oversees in the United Kingdom for five months. This past weekend I officially received my acceptance letter to study at the University College of London for the spring semester 2013. UCL is based in the Bloomsbury area in central London with over 25,000 students (a tad bit bigger than Lehigh!) While I am still unaware of the specific but very important details none the less (e.g. the classes I will be taking and where exactly I will be living) I am so excited to emerge myself in a completely new and foreign culture… At least everyone speaks English in the UK so I hopefully I won't get too lost!

University College of London

I have only been to London once in my life and it was with my mom so something tells me I will be having a completely different experience. Our mother daughter trip took place about a week following the Royal Wedding so it was a pretty exciting time in the UK but we mostly stuck to sight seeing and other tourist activities. This time around I have a different plan on action. While I can’t wait to explore the local pub and night life in London, I also plan on traveling all throughout Europe and taking the entire experience of studying abroad in. I have already started planning my weekend trips and the cities I want to visit but the only problem I have at this point is funding these expensive voyages. Hopefully my Christmas and Birthday money will carry me over (yes I will be turning 21 while I am abroad so I won’t be able to celebrate in the US with my friends so hopefully I will make new friends quickly to celebrate with!) I also be more than happy to eat beans and toast for dinner! Some of the cities I plan on visiting include Florence, Paris, Prague, Rome, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Athens, and Dublin. My logical thinking is I should be taking advantage of my time abroad because I will only be able to live and study abroad once so I should not let this opportunity pass by….Now I have to convince my parents that!

My first trip to the UK

While I am SO excited to embark on my journey, I can’t help to be a little bit nervous about leaving the country for such a long period of time. At the same time I know I will learn so much from my experience, not only about these various European cultures but about myself as a person. Not only will I learn to be more independent, I will hopefully have a greater appreciation for my life back home. Who knows? Maybe I will end up falling in love and NEVER return home... Prince Harry perhaps ;)

My future husband- Prince Harry

Don't worry I plan on blogging my journey next semester to keep my love ones updated on my exciting and crazy adventures abroad so make sure to check back in January! 

A True NYJets Experience Come True

Being a loyal New York Jets fan is not an easy thing to be. Honestly most years the Jets are absolutely terrible and never live to make it to the post-season. Occasionally the Jets will completely shock you and have a successful season and somehow find their way into the playoffs….2009 season anyone when the Jets were 9-7 in the regular season and  lost in the AFC Conference Championship to the Colts? But the thing is you never know what’s going to happen next and can’t be disappointed when they return to their old habits and get pounded on and can’t score a single touchdown the entire game. The Jets have not made it to the Superbowl since 1968 when Joe Namath led the team and every year loyal Jets fans pray that this will be the year we make it but know in their hearts it is a long-shot. My father swears by his life that if the Jets ever make it back to the Superbowl he will be there but claims he is not bringing the rest of our family…we well see about that.

Maybe it was the way I was brought up but being anything but a New York Jets fan was not an option. Not only is my entire dad’s family huge fans but growing up with two brothers and no sisters I had no other choice but to sit down and “cheer” but more like yell and scream while watching the Jets play on TV. This season has been no exception to the typical Jets seasons in the past.  The Jet’s pre-season was a complete fail and couldn’t even score a single touchdown but now they have picked up their momentum and are 3-3 with still a chance to make it to the playoffs.

Yesterday I found myself sitting in the 14^th row from the end-zone at the Jets Colts game. Every other time I’ve been to a football game I’ve sat in the upper deck and could barely see the game and was more entertained by the drunk screaming men yelling in my ear but sitting so close to the field I was amazed at what I could actually see. Discussing our predictions with surrounding fans before the start of the game everyone just assumed the Jets were going to lose but miraculously they pulled it together and come out with a win. That the thing being a Jets fan- you rather expect the worst and get excited when it turns out well instead of constantly being disappointed all the time. Walking to our seats proudly wearing my Tim Tebow jersey fans were telling me how much they hated him and how awful of a quarterback he was but when he went in and had a nice play those same fans started high-fiving me and cheering him on. Overall I could not have asked for a better game. 70 degrees and sunny with the Jets coming out with a win and spending the day with my friends is a great day in my book. Hopefully the Jets will survive against the New England Patriots next week!

Our view from our seats!

Tribute to @Euan

I can only imagine how Euan Semple felt at the end of our live tweeting session yesterday. As Silagh put it, it was complete chaos but somehow it turned out to be a great experience. Our class was able to have a fully engaged conservation with Euan, the author of  “Organizations Don’t Tweet, People Do” who was physically over 3,000 miles away in London. Looking back in retrospect, it was amazing of what Twitter was enabling us to do at that moment. Our class of about 25 students was throwing questions left and right at the author and receiving almost instantaneous responses in return. Since each student was operating under his or her own Twitter handle, we were able to demonstrate the individual power that each of us so-called own dispute using the common hashtag #ENT195 to share and form a community within our class. Overall I would consider our live-tweeting session with Euan Semple a success from my perspective.

After reading the first twenty chapters of Semple’s “Organizations Don’t Tweet, People Do” a few chapters really stuck out to me. I found Chapter 13 titled “Ooh, That’s Interesting” particularly fascinating because I felt a connection to what he was discussing regarding blogging and being much more perceptive and thoughtful about what is happening to you and around you. This phenomenon he explains helps us filter out the sea of information around us and adds layers of context to the meaning of information. For me personally I’ve realized to blog for the sake of blogging when I have absolutely nothing to say is not only a waste of my time but also a waste of my reader’s valuable time. Instead I should be blogging when I am very passionate or interested in a topic and feel as though I have something valuable to say so that not only will my readers enjoy reading my posts but that they will return back consistently in the future to check up on my blog.

In this same chapter, Semple expresses “Who follows you back is also important in this world of networks. Who follows you matters more than how many.”  That made me feel better about my Twitter and Blogger accounts being particularly new to both tools and in the process of trying to acquire more followers. At the same time I recognized that I need to “add more signal than noise” to add value to my accounts in order to encourage the “right” people to follow me... It's a work in process. During our live-tweet session with Euan, I asked him who he thought were some of the most influential individuals who followed him. I was a little disappointed in his vague response of “wouldn’t want to name drop- but a surprisingly high number of smart folks”. Obviously he must have been referring to the highly intelligent students in  #ENT195  ;)

Reggie's First Week at Lehigh

Having a dog at Lehigh is well.... interesting. Last week one of my roommates randomly decided that she wanted to get a dog for our house. A few glasses of wine later, my roommates and I were searching the web for puppies for sale in the Lehigh Valley making up hypothetical situations of what we would do once we had a dog in our possession. Having a dog at home, I knew how much of a responsibility it would be to take care of a dog at college especially since we are all so busy and on such different schedules. Never in a million years did I think we would ACTUALLY get a dog but the next morning my roommates were still so hot on the idea, they returned with a puppy by 11am the next morning.

BUT Reggie is not just any puppy, he is in my opinion one of the cutest puppies I have ever laid my eyes on. He is celebrity status at Lehigh right now. Reggie is all over Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. My roommates and I will walking him outside and random people will come up to us and ask if this is Reggie and ask to play with him. He has had so many visitors in the last week it's unreal. Let's just say everyone who meets him is obsessed for obvious reasons.

Reggie is a mix between a poodle and a beagle but somehow looks like neither of them (he looks more like a chocolate lab!). He is currently 4.8 pounds and will grow to be 15 pounds by the time he is fully grown. Reggie pees everywhere in the house, and loves to bite anything he can get a hold of including socks, shoes, feet, etc. but somehow its hard to stay mad at him for very long. His training is a slow process but we are trying our best to be stern and serious but loving and affectionate parents at the same time ;) Reggie has the brightest blue eyes and his left eye is a little lazy but that just makes him even cuter. Despite our frustration and sometimes lack of patience dealing with his mishaps, we still love him unconditionally. Here is a picture of the little guy!

Whats Trending in #ENT 195

After reading through our classes posts on who they follow on Twitter, it was very evident that many of my classmates had similar Twitter interests and followed many of the same sources. Many students expressed their interest in following the Presidential Campaign especially since many of us are first time voters and want to be fully informed before we cast our votes this November. Twitter has evolved into such an effective tool for following the election and Twitter is even taking it a larger role in election. I just discovered that Twitter has unveiled its "Political Index in August in an attempt to compare sentiment about President Obama and Mitt Romney to the overall mood of the massive micro-blogging universe which I found really innovative and exciting! 

After reading Julia Pierce's post about following the Wall Street Journal I realized that I also don't read many of the tweets posted by news sources unless something instantly grabs my attention and pops out at me. I usually just scroll past these posts but I realized what's the point of following the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times if I'm not actually reading them? Isn't the point of following sources is to actually read  their posts? I need to make a decision to actually start reading their posts or unfollow them in order to manage my Twitter account more effectively!

                                    

Who I am Following on Twitter

So for my private Twitter account I am primarily following my friends from home, friends from Lehigh, a few news sources such as the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal, celebrities, my two favorite sports teams (the JETS and METS) and non-profit organizations from my hometown that inform me of what's happening around town while I'm gone and upcoming events to look out for.

As for my new public Twitter that I made for this class, I recently just added a lot of new people and organizations to follow. I was never too passionate about politics but Twitter has definitely made me more aware of what is going on with the election. I am following both presidential candidates (not that it is probably even them tweeting anyways) but just by reading some of their tweets I have a better grasp of the progress of their campaigns and in which direction they are headed. I also just started following a couple local politicians in my area that will also help me be more informed of what is happening while I am away at school.

Just recently I added a couple of local non-profits and businesses in the Lehigh Valley as well as Lehigh led programs as requested by our professor. I am actually really happy she asked us to start following these organizations because I already feel more connected and part of the community just by following and reading their tweets. Like most Lehigh students, we are consumed and trapped in the "Lehigh Bubble" and don't really leave to explore what our community has to offer. Yes the weekly trip to Wegmans,or shopping at the Promenade or the mall, or going out to dinner on the North side of town but there are a thousand of other things to do in the Lehigh Valley that I am now aware of through Twitter. No the Lehigh Valley may not be New York, but there is so much to explore-that is if you are willing to engage yourself and expand your Lehigh network outside of the university! Through Twitter I found farms to go apple picking, haunted houses to test out, upcoming concerts in the area, festivals to attend and so much more to try out!!! Can't wait to test it out and blog about my experiences in the upcoming weeks!

The New Tools of Storytelling

While the rain was pouring down this afternoon, I found myself attending a presentation given by Dan Gillmor, the Director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University on "The New Tools of Storytelling". As an Accounting major it is not very often I find myself attending a journalism presentation so it was definitely a nice change of pace for a rainy Tuesday afternoon. 

As Dan was well into his presentation, he asked the audience a rhetorical question- "Are all bloggers journalist?" That was an easy question for me to answer in my head...NO WAY! Since creating my blog for this class I have "published" 3 posts but in no way shape or form would I ever consider myself a  real journalist. But if we all can create buzz or media through blogging, posting Youtube videos, etc. who are the "real" journalists and more importantly what is journalism? Dan described  that there is no clear cut answer. You do not need to be a professional to write about news worthy events but in fact you just need to be at the right place at the right time and have your IPhone on you to capture the moment. So maybe one day I will be able to consider myself a journalist if I have my IPhone ready to go... can't wait to find out!

One of the most interesting things I took away from Dan's presentation this afternoon was how digital tools have evolved with new technologies. He showed us an example from the Summer Olympics to demonstrate his point of how data is more understandable when visualized. Personally I was amazed at what  saw! Check it out to see how far Usain Bolt’s 9.63 Olympic record is ahead of every Olympic medalist whose ever competed in the event.

That's it for tonight! Stay dry!