Home State... Pride?

I won't deny it: I love Oregon.

Naturally, I get pretty excited when Oregon comes up in the national news arena. I'm always so pleased when I see my home state portrayed as something other than a land of meth addicts and crazies. However, things appear to have gone to crap since I left. (Okay, me leaving and moving to Boston clearly has no impact on the behavior of the citizens of the Beaver State. I recognize this... Just go with it.)

First off, there's the scandal business with Portland's newest mayor, Sam Adams. The local news stations have been buzzing about it for a while, and it's now made several appearances on the New York Times website.

"The Great Gay Hope" - Timothy Egan Blog

Portland Journal: A Mayor’s Lie Throws a City Into Turmoil

What it boils down to is this: Adams lied about his relationship with a significantly younger male in his campaign for the mayoral seat (the issue is not that this relationship was with a male - Portland is the largest city with an openly gay mayor in the US - it's the age differences). He's since come clean about it, and a large number of his former supporters are calling for his resignation (they can't recall just yet - Portland has a law that you can't recall a mayor for the first six months they are in office), which he has refused to do. In my opinion, Adams has done the right thing. Honestly, I don't think it's impairing his ability to lead the city in any way, and there are politicians out there that have committed far more egregious acts and we've allowed them to remain in office. Obviously we shouldn't be letting this slide, because it could be seen as a condonation of behavior we don't really want to see from a mayor, but if the man can actually do a good job of leading the Rose City, then I think we should let him.

Secondly, there's some crazy CIA stuff going on. Apparently, a man and his son from Eugene have been caught committing espionage and selling information to the Russians.

CIA Spy Enlisted Son to Collect Espionage Debts, Feds Say

I think the father is held at the Federal Correction Institution in Sheridan, judging from the article. Which is kind of weird. That's definitely only about ten miles away from my house. I guess this article isn't as interesting or controversial as the ones about Sam Adams, but it's interesting in that it went on so close to where I lived...

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Back here in Boston, things are going quite well. IAP is swiftly coming to an end (Registration Day is Monday! AH!) and spring semester is starting next Tuesday. Things I have to worry about are shifting from dividing time between sleeping, hanging out, what movie to watch next, studying and eating, to class schedules, study habits, studying, eating, and more studying. IAP has been a lot of fun, but I think I'm (sort of) ready for the semester to begin. I just want to get it over with. Then there's the problem of figuring out what to do with my summer. And camp is no longer an option, for a number of reasons. Hopefully I'll get something figured out...

Update on Life

So, I realize it's been a while since I've blogged about the amazingness that is MIT... Or anything else going on in my life. Which is kind of pathetic, I will agree. I guess I'll just do a massive update, and have it over with. Sorry if this gets really long and verbose...

Classes
Ehhhhh... Yeah. Classes. Well, they're going all right I suppose. I'm actually understanding calculus right now, and could see myself doing really well on the final. Which is a fabulous feeling. What's not looking good is this next week: two exams, a paper, and a presentation. Obviously, I'm not too worried about the presentation or paper (I'm actually incredibly excited for them), but those two exams are going to kill me. I realize that this probably isn't a bad week in the cases of most MIT students, but oh well. I'm just happy that everything isn't quite as overwhelming as it was earlier in the semester.

National Convention
So, I realized I never blogged about Nationals, other than to say what result we got. I apologize for that. Basically, Nationals was a fun time, though a bit stressful. It was nice/strange to see people from home, and nice/strange to be off campus for a week. By the end of the week, I found myself missing MIT, so that was a good sign. Because pictures are worth a thousand words, I'm going to save some space and just post some pictures from the trip instead.

We found these in Chicago. AMAZING.

Chicago was pretty, but cold.

We visited a grain elevator in Indiana, where they had ridiculous amounts of corn and fertilizer.

They took us up on the catwalk above their fertilizer storage, where they have a conveyor belt set up. The stairs and catwalk itself were rather rickety, and it was a terrifying experience...

The current US Secretary of Agriculture, Ed Schafer, spoke at one of the convention sessions. He gave a great speech, which included the line, "I felt the excitement in the halls all night long." The entire crowd exploded with laughter when he said that, and he definitely had to wait a few moments before he could speak again. I love it when politicians provide you with "That's what she said" moments (e.g. Sarah Palin's "Drill baby, drill!" line during the vice-presidential debate).
Our team walked away with this! It's kind of sad it doesn't say that we got third on it...
Our super-happy team in Monument Circle in Indianapolis. We were on our way to get ice cream right after the awards banquet.
So, for some reason, I was the only Ag Communications participant to show up to the final session to be recognized on the national stage (I even changed my flight back to MIT to be able to do so) so I was the only one up there with the national officers. It was totally worth it. Oh, and they messed up the plaque they gave me (it had the name of the girl who was third high individual in Ag Sales... oddly enough, her name is Kelsey as well...) so they're sending me another one...

Movies
I've watched a ridiculous number of movies lately. All on the weekends, but still. A ridiculous number of them.
Including...
Yes, you're reading that correctly. Quantum of Solace... at midnight. Awesome, I know. It was a pretty good movie, and I recommend seeing it for the action (certainly not the plot). That, and James Bond is just plain awesome. I also finally saw The Dark Knight last night, thanks to LSC! I thought the movie was just a lot of hype over the summer, but it lived up to its reputation. It was amazingly good. And I can now see why some people saw it multiple times...

Politics
Gordon Smith lost. The school bond failed. Okay, we're all on the same page now...

Life in General
Overall, things are going quite well. This weekend will be spent doing fun things with friends (and studying for those two tests), and there's a chance I'll be in New York next weekend. Thanksgiving is quickly approaching, which means that my friend Joanna will be coming down from her school in Vermont to visit me! I am ridiculously excited. Anyway. After Thanksgiving will be finals, and then I CAN GO HOME. Fortunately, my finals are on the Tuesday and Wednesday of Finals Week, so I am on the first flight home on Thursday. Thank you Dad for scoring those tickets.

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Election Madness!

Oh man, we have a new president!

I wasn't super-intense about either candidate, but I will say that Obama's speech was amazing. But his speeches are always amazing. I can't even begin to understand how he can be such an amazing public speaker.

While I was excited for the national election, I was really anxious for results of local elections back home. And thanks to the time difference I had to wait for FOREVER. But now some of them are being posted on certain news websites! YEA.

Okay, let me just say that I will be really unhappy if the Willamina School bond fails by 20 votes. 20 votes!!! I will be so disappointed in people!

Source: www.statesmanjournal.com

When it comes to the race for Senate back home in Oregon, it's been a vicious one. But I definitely wholeheartedly support Gordon Smith. Basically he's a moderate who's actually accomplished things in Congress that are good for the nation and Oregon (like timber payments making their way back to counties of origin! Yea! Thank you Senator Smith!). I met him at our state FFA convention last year, and he's also a really nice guy. Here's how the race looked a few minutes ago:

Source: www.katu.com

I will update more tomorrow!

AHHH.

I really hope that you all voted, if you could vote.