Embarrassing story

I am going to decide to end this blog on a funny note, or at least I hope you think it is funny. I am going to tell you a story about one of my most embarrassing moments that I have ever had. I worked at Panera Bread last year the last half of my senior year of high school. We have a drive-thru at the one that I worked out and I was operating the drive-thru with another kid but I was taking the orders while he made the food because he did not know how to take orders. Well this one guy ordered a Panini but it was taking a while to grill so I asked him to pull around and park in the parking lot and I would bring the sandwich out to him. The Panini was ready so I walked his meal out to him while I had my head set on incase the kid I was working with needed me really fast. I gave the customer his Panini and looked back towards the restaurant and there was a very long line for the drive-thru since I was not there to take orders. I start running towards the door of Panera in order to start taking orders so I am really hustling and I am almost sprinting by the time I get to the door. Well…..I thought the door was a ‘push’ door so I am almost sprinting and brace myself to just open the door by pushing it, but the door was actually a ‘pull.’ I body slammed into the glass door and my head set and  hat that I was wearing got all messed up and I looked like a mess. I think fixed my hat and head set and walked in to Panera and everyone in the restaurant was staring at me. I was so embarrassed so I started laughing hysterically, which is supposedly a good way to cope with an embarrassing moment (http://www.ehow.com/how_2384452_get-over-embarrassing-moment.html). Everyone has embarrassing moments so you just must always look on the bright side of it, which I like to say is the funny side because then you can laugh about it later.

My Bucket List

My Bucket List

1.     I want to go skydiving because I think it would be a really big adrenaline rush and it would be really cool to see the Earth from above.

2.     I want to get a star named after me. According to The International Star Registry people have stars named after them all the time and you can do it though their website. Even though a lot of people do this, I still think it would be cool.

3.     I want to be a Verified Account on Twitter.

4.     I want to go to Aruba and lay on the beach in the sun while Channing Tatum gives me a back massage.

5.     I want to meet every player on the Pittsburg Steelers Football Team. They have always been my favorite team so that would be a dream come true.

6.     I want to graduate college.

7.     I want to go bungee jump over Niagara Falls.

8.     I want to meet the lead singer of All Time Low, Alex Gaskarth.

9.     I want to go to Italy, France, England, Ireland, and Iceland.

10. I want to go back to the Azore Islands, Tercera to be specific, in order to visit the place where I was born.

11.  I want to be in four places at once, which you can accomplish at the corner of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado.

12.  I want to learn how to play the violin and to relearn how to play the piano.

13. I want to go scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef.

14. I want to watch every Disney movie ever made back-to-back-to-back.

15. I want to dance to “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith at my wedding

16. I want to have enough money to afford this list.

http://www.starregistry.com/

Growing up :(

I never took it seriously when my parents said to cherish my childhood. As a child I always wanted to be older and tried to act older because I though teenagers and twenty year olds were so cool. I imagined myself being tall with luscious hair and having curves but none of those really happened. I am 5’4 and get mistaken for being 16 on occasion when I am really 19. (I guess when I’m older I will appreciate that but for now I do not.) Growing up is depressing. It is nice to have more freedom to make your own decisions but making important decisions comes hand in hand with more responsibility. I miss being a kid. I miss coming home to my mom asking if I want a snack, or coming home after field hockey practice and plopping down on the comfiest couch in the world that is in my basement. I miss those days when I did not have to worry about a job or making money and saving it. I miss seeing my best friends from home every day like I did in high school, seeing them on breaks is not enough. Don’t get me wrong I love Virginia Tech, but I miss not having so much responsibility. High school was hard but not as difficult as college. I took rigorous courses in high school but I was more disciplined then versus now. I also did not have to study for days and hours and hours for tests like I have to in college. One of the causes of failure in college according to the University of Alabama is that the student does not understand the amount of work that is required (http://www.ctl.ua.edu/ctlstudyaids/studyskillsflyers/generaltips/causesoffailure.htm). Growing up is a necessity in life but if I could I would go back to being a kid sometimes. I am looking forward to what the future beholds and what my life is going to turn out being like.

Movies

I love watching movies. I could sit around for hours and just watch movies. I do not watch any TV really, except for The Voice, because I do not have time and just do not have the patience to watch TV sometimes. I like every type of movie. I am a sucker for romantic comedies and love stories, typical girl stereotype I know. But I like comedies because I love to laugh, while sometimes I like to watch war movies or action films. Some of my favorite movies include The Notebook, Mean Girls, The Patriot, Troy, Braveheart, Pride and Prejudice, The Hangover, Tommy Boy, The Godfather Triology, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Stepbrothers, 21 Jump Street, and many more including the classic Disney films such as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, etc. Horror films are not my thing though. I will occasionally be in the mood for a good scary movie but I am such a baby and get scared at the littlest things. One movie that I especially like that is supposed to be a horror film is Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock. It is more of a mystery which makes it more exciting to watch because I tried to figure out who the killer was. According to Filmsite Movie Review, “Alfred Hitchcock's powerful, complex psychological thriller, Psycho (1960) is the ‘mother’ of all modern horror suspense films - it single-handedly ushered in an era of inferior screen 'slashers' with blood-letting and graphic, shocking killings.” (http://www.filmsite.org/psyc.html) . This film lead to other horror films such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween , which are also considered classics. Overall, I could sit and watch movies all day everyday and be perfectly happy.

Gas Prices

The price of gas money is very outrageous now-a-days. When my Grandpap was growing up gas was 10 cents per gallon (http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1930s.html) . The average cost has been increasing rapidly over the years with some years’ gas being lower than other however, but those are exceptions. In 2009 the average amount of gas spent per month by an American family was $173.80, increasing to $368.09 in 2011 (Rooney). Gas prices in my hometown in Fredericksburg, Virginia are around $4.00, which I find outrageous. Before Obama came into office the gas prices were a great deal lower than they are now. I am not an Obama fan and do blame him a bit for the increase in gas prices but I do not think it is all his fault like others do. I think there were many factors that affected the price of gas such as the increase in demand for it as more people are driving and issues with the United States having to depend on countries overseas for oil and gas. There are solar powered cars along with electric cars that multiple people are purchasing in order to cut down on the amount of gas they use. Many citizens over seas bike almost everywhere they go. Their cars are also way smaller than most of the cars her in America. They do not own a lot of SUVs and diesel cars since they only need smaller cars to maneuver around the cities and narrow roads. In conclusion, gas prices are outrageous and hopefully they decrease soon.

Princess Adele

Once upon a time there was a princess hidden away in a castle. Unlike many other tales where the princess is usually being hidden away, she chose to stay here. Her mom who was the queen encouraged her to go outside but she would not. The princess was named Adele and she was a teenager. She would just stay inside the castle all day and night singing depressing songs because for some reason they made her feel as happy as a giggling baby. She did not live in an ordinary castle however, which is why she never left. Every room had a different environment. One room was a tropical rainforest where there were tigers and panthers and insects OH MY. Another room contained an arctic climate where there were penguins and polar bears. One room was underwater and it depicted the Great Barrier Reef with a ton of colorful fish and even Nemo and Dory lived here. In every room the animals could talk though, and Adele sang all of her songs to these creatures.  She had the power to adapt to every environment. Her most favorite room of all was her Hunger Games room. There she became Katniss and was the star of the show. She had to fend for her life and it was like she was in a video game. One day however, Adele decides to venture out of her extraordinary castle. She steps outside only to find that the world is animated. She then turns into a cartoon character and meets up with Mario and Luigi to rescue her sister, Princess Peach, from the evil Bowser. In each environment that they traveled through, they experienced surprise attacks from zombies. There was one zombie in particular that caught Princess Adele’s eye. She fell in love with him as he gained her trust and promised that he would not eat her. Adele then killed the rest of the zombies once she found out that she could set fire to the rain. She then said that she has been waiting to find someone like him for the longest time because her ex was a huge jerk. Princess Adele and the hot zombie lived happily ever after in her castle and had many adventures with the different rooms in her abode.

Hunga Games 2

I saw the Hunger Games in theaters Thursday night at midnight and it was awesome! It was very true to the book, which most books that are transpired into movies are not so that was very nice. There were a few events that were altered and a character that was missing but other than that it was pretty good. The Harry Potter movies are tweaked way more than this movie was which surprised me. The casting for the Hunger Games was spot on which was very relieving because in a lot of book to movie movies the characters are totally different than you had imagined in your head while reading the book. A number of movies based off of books are either totally different than the book or are way worse than the book. For example, I read the Twilight series and really liked the books so I was pumped when I heard a movie was being made based off of the books. The movies definitely did not exceed the quality of the books, which was very disappointing. So the producers of the Hunger Games did a fantastic job. According to an article in Today, “…The Hunger Games opened with a staggering US$155 million (S$196 million) at United States and Canadian box offices, the highest domestic opening for a movie that isn't a sequel, and established what may become one of Hollywood's biggest blockbuster franchises.” (Today) The success was unexpected by many people. The Boxoffice.com editor stated, “"Harry Potter had seven movies before it got to that point, and Dark Knight had years and years of building the Batman brand. This movie comes and hangs with them in the same league.” (Today) So the fact that the Hunger Games had such great success is amazing. In conclusion the Hunger Games movie did exceptionally well and I would definitely suggest seeing it!

http://www.todayonline.com/Entertainment/Movies/EDC120326-0000083/Hunger-Games-gorges-on-S$270-million-global-debut

Music

Music is a wonderful thing. It can be a remedy for many situations by affecting your mood due to the mood of the music. Many people make fun of kids who are in band in middle and high school and I’m not going to lie, some of them were a tad weird, but I really enjoyed playing an instrument and it is not a weird thing to create music. I played the trombone from 6^th grade to 12^th grade and it is really odd not being in band anymore. I actually enjoyed it making music because it is a very good stress reliever. You will walk into class and the first thing you do is unpack the instrument and then warm up by playing long tones, so multiple whole notes until your lips and mouth piece are warm, which makes it easier to create pitches and notes. If I was having a bad day then I would just blow as hard as I could into the instrument and it was an equivalent feeling to screaming into a pillow. I also liked band because my best friend was in there with me and sat next to me for all 7 years so we would goof around and just enjoy playing instead of following all of the rules. I was also the only girl in the low brass section in my class so that always wasn’t such a bad thing.  Girls typically play woodwind instruments such as the flute, clarinet, oboe, or the saxophone. The brass instruments are predominately male instruments. The trombone was originally called a “sackbutt” and was invented in Belgium circa 1450 (Monks). It was then renamed later and there were a few modifications of the trombone until we have the current model of it today. The trombone has come a long way and is a popular instrument today.

http://www.blackdiamondbrass.com/trbhist/tbonehist.htm

HUNGER GAMES

I used to read a lot of novels when I was in Elementary school and Middle school. I have a few books that I absolutely love and would love to reread but I do not have that kind of time anymore. Over the past month I picked up my past hobby and starting read the Hunger Games series. They are by far my favorite books that I have read in a very long time. I finished the first book of the series, The Hunger Games, in about three days which is a record because I’m normally a very slow reader. If you are not familiar with the plot, I will give you a little synopsis of the order of events.

The story takes place in North America in the future where the United States and Canada does not exist anymore and instead North America is split up into districts. There are thirteen districts and they are governed by The Capitol, who are tyrants and do not treat the districts with respect. Most of the people are starving and if any one goes out against authority then they are disciplined harshly. To remind the people in the districts to not up rise against The Capitol, each year there are a boy and a girl picked from each district that go into the Hunger Games and fight with each other to the death in an area created by the Gamemakers in The Capitol. The story unfolds from there and I cannot say much more because if you are planning on reading the book I could possibly give valuable information away.  As you might know, the movie for this book comes out in theaters March 23 in a little under two weeks. They have an official website that contains all of the information one might need to know about the film. The catchy line of the movie is, “The World Will be Watching,” which is a line stated in the book that has significance and what is on the official website to catch the viewer’s attention (HungerGames.) In conclusion, these books are very good and I would definitely recommend reading it!

http://www.thehungergamesmovie.com/index.html

Greek Life

Some people believe that sororities are full of partying, “buying” friendship, and it is the equivalent of a cult. The term sorority is defined as,  “A chiefly social organization of women students at a college or university, usually designated by Greek letters.” But in reality it is so much more than that. I am a pledge right now in Gamma Phi Beta and I absolutely love it. A sorority is not about partying or buying your friends, it is deeper than that. It is comparable to a team sport in high school. You are with your sisters multiple days a week for hours upon end and form a strong connection. Being in a sorority is a way to get involved and make the huge campus of Tech seem smaller. Whenever I am walking around campus I always see multiple girls from my sorority and even if I am not good friends with them it is a familiar face with a big smile stretched across it making your day a little brighter. I came to Tech with being friends with around 5 people here, and I am pretty good friends with the girls and boys on my floor in my dorm, but being in a sorority forces you to meet new people and make new friends from different backgrounds which is always great. A sorority typically has 1-2 socials per week with a fraternity where they meet for dinner earlier and then the fraternity hosts an after party later night. This gives us a chance to get connected and form friendships with the other fraternities. One huge component of a sorority is philanthropy work. Each sorority participates in a philanthropy and hosts events for a week in order to raise money for whichever program they are involved with. For example, this week the sorority Delta Gamma is hosting events for their philanthropy, which is called Anchorsplash. The money they raise through other Greek organizations participating in their activities goes toward their goal in helping the blind in the community of Blacksburg and Christiansburg. Gamma Phi Beta participates in these activities as we are doing a dance in the talent show this Wednesday at Burrus and it is $5 to attend so come out and support Delta Gamma’s philanthropy! There are several other events that we are participating in as well, but this is a main one.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sorority

Birthday!!

So today is my birthday and I turned nineteen! It was a pretty good day, especially since there was the first snowfall of the season today. This weekend was pretty fun with my friends being here to celebrate my birthday with me. Turning nineteen is very pointless in my opinion. There is nothing special about turning nineteen except for the fact that it is one step closer to turning twenty-one. Every year on my birthday at home my mom stays up late putting streamers up around the house and also blows up balloons and tapes them on the ceiling and the doors, so that when I wake up the whole house is festive. My mom also bakes a vanilla cake with buttercream vanilla icing that is to die for, it is delicious and my favorite. Being away from home on my birthday was not weird but just different of course. Instead of waking up with streamers I woke up with my friends around me and a sign on my door with balloons. Since my mom is not here to bake a cake, she surprised me with ordering campus cookies for me. It was so cute. She got me balloons, a cookie cake, brownies, various cookies, and cookie dipping cups with milk. So this was pretty much my dinner tonight, especially since I did not want to make the hike to a dining hall in the weather. The weather was very surprising considering that yesterday there was a high of 55. I’m not going to lie, getting out of school tomorrow would be great so that I could get some extra hours of sleep. According to the weather channel, there is going to be an additional 1-2 inches of snow tonight, but tomorrow’s high is supposed to be 44 degrees (Weather Channel). Hopefully it warms up tomorrow but to the point where there still is some snow!

Whitney Houston

            There are many amazing and gifted singers in the world. One of my personal favorites is Christina Aguilera. Her personality is a little off par as demonstrated by the way she acts on the show, “The Voice,” but I think that she is one of the most talented and gifted singers of all time. I really wish I could sing but like most people I sound horrible. There are and have been many talented vocalists and musical artists in general our generation. Mariah Carey is one, along with Céline Dion and many other boisterous voices. One artist whose popularity peaked in the 80s and 90s was Whitney Houston. She died yesterday and was found submerged in water in a bathtub in a hotel with multiple pill bottles on the counter. Reports say that she had been drinking the night before and she was taking Xanax and mixing alcohol and Xanax causes drowsiness. The final autopsy is not being revealed until there are toxology tests conducted on her body. Houston’s death on the eve of the Grammy’s stunned all of the celebrities attending and performing since this was a shock and totally out of the blue. The President/CEO of The Recording Academy, Neil Portnow, exclaimed in a statement "Six-time Grammy winner Whitney Houston was one of the world's greatest pop singers of all time who leaves behind a robust musical soundtrack spanning the past three decades.” (Fox news) She is going to be greatly missed by the music industry and her fans and the public. The classic song “I Will Always Love You” is one of my personal favorites and is a very good breakup song I might add. My roommate and I tried to sing this today and let’s just say it did not go so well. But Houston was very talented and it is a shame to see her go.

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2012/02/12/whitney-houston-dead-prescription-drugs-drowned-autopsy/#ixzz1mEgIsudN

Superbowl...

            I am pretty convinced that my dad wished I were a boy instead of a girl. Ever since I was a little girl, around the age of 4, I have been sat in front of the TV every Sunday for football. Both of my parents were born and raised in Pittsburgh so I was bred from birth to be a Steelers fan. There is a home video that my mom has of me when I was two and I had a mini Steelers jersey on with pom-poms and some black and yellow face paint, so I had no choice but to bleed black and yellow growing up. I absolutely love football and I actually want to be a physical therapist for a college or professional team one day hopefully. So being a football fanatic, of course I watched the Superbowl today just like most of America did. I was mostly unbiased going into the game but I wanted the Giants to win so I am happy that they did. However, I wish that the game was more eventful. I have to say that I nodded off a few times in the middle and it did not get intriguing until the last two minutes. Another reason of why I was not impressed or excited during the game was due to the halftime show. I give Madonna props and kudos for looking that good for the age that she is, which is 53, but I just thought the halftime show in general was a little weird and not entertaining. I was thrown off by the Egyption sort of theme and then the other artists who sang along with Madonna. On Twitter there were mixed emotions on the halftime show. Some people liked it but then others did not. According to an analysis by a company who uses a computer algorithm to detect emotional words in social media posts, people on twitter most commonly used the words ,“’amazing,’ ‘great,’ ‘good,’ ‘best,’ ‘bad,’ ‘hating,’…’old,’ ‘seriously,’ and ‘retire,’” when describing their thoughts on the halftime show towards Madonna’s performance (Welsh). The commercials during the Superbowl are typically on point but this year there were only a few that really stuck out to me. I love football and this Superbowl was a bit disappointing. But hopefully next year will be more exciting!

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2012/02/madonnas-super-bowl-halftime-show-divides-twitter.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ShowTracker+%28L.A.+Times+-+Show+Tracker%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

Field Hockey!!!!!

            Field Hockey is a very popular sport overseas for males and females. In the United States however, Field Hockey is predominately a female sport with few males participating in it here. Some people here have barely heard of the sport. Sometimes when I tell people that I used to play field hockey they would respond with, “Field Hockey? What’s that?” So I would have to explain that it is a game where you can use either a composite stick made of carbon, fibroglass, or other materials, or a wood stick, and you play on a football field and you hit a bright orange ball to your teammates on the field in order to make it into your opponent’s goal. There are 11 players on each team on the field at once in the high school and outdoor travel level, including a goalie. For indoor field hockey you play on wood floors with 5 girls on each team with a thinner stick and the game is played at a much faster rate. I have played indoor and outdoor at the middle school, high school, and travel level. Field Hockey was my main sport and it is very strange that I am still not doing it. I miss it a ton so I might possibly try out for the club team next semester and see how that goes, but that also means that I will have to get in shape this summer which could be quite difficult. Field Hockey was popular in my county and is becoming more popular across the country, but it is still nowhere near as popular as it is in European countries. No one knows exactly when or where the sport was invented but there are thought to have been drawings of men in the Beni-Hasen tomb in Egypt that are playing a sport that portrays field hockey (Castellone and Dimauro). It is very popular for men to play in Europe and also quite popular for women. I went to a camp with my high school team two summers ago where we had international players as coaches, with one coach from Ireland and the other from Spain and they were amazing. It was definitely very cool to have them coaching us and giving us tips since they are on their national teams. Since a woman, Constance Applebee, started Field Hockey in the United States in the early 1901, it is a female sport here. (Castellone and Dimauro). So this sport is not an old old sport but it is mildly new. Field Hockey was my life in high school and is definitely one of the things I miss about high school and living at home.

http://www.uri.edu/personal/tcas8605/

Intro to me

Hey! My name is Samantha Harman and I am from Fredericksburg, Virginia. I have pretty much lived in Virginia my whole life except from ages 0-4 where I was born and lived overseas on the Azore Islands. They are kind of off the coast of Portugal in the middle of the Atlantic. Due to this I had dual citizenship in Portugal and the U.S. until I was 18, which is kind of a fun fact that I sometimes tell people. In High school I participated in Track and Field but Field Hockey was my main sport. I’ve played Field Hockey for around 6 years at the middle school and high school level and also the club level. I was captain my junior and senior year of my high school team where we ended up being one game away from going to states. The Free Lance Star, which is the local newspaper in my area, interviewed me after we beat one of our rivals for the first time in school history and asked me how exactly we got this done and I stated, "We worked hard in practice everyday and most of our season has been built up preparing for this game, so today we were ready and focused and got the job done." (Quoted by me in The Free Lance Star) I also participated in the concert band in middle school and high school where I played the trombone. In high school I was also engaged in Class Office where I was secretary freshman through junior year and president senior year. Through that I got to plan prom my junior year, homecoming senior year, a pep rally senior year, graduation senior year, and a few other events. I am thinking about running for class office 2015 at Virginia Tech because I love doing all of that planning stuff. I am definitely not being President though because senior year I had to make a speech at graduation and it wasn’t completely terrifying like I thought it would be, but I would rather not speak in front of ten times as many people at Tech’s graduation. I am really hoping to get elected for the position that I run for though so vote for me please! Besides worrying about that, I have been in the process of rushing for a sorority, which was a long and grueling process. We came back a couple days early from winter break and started the rush process last Friday. We had to stand out in the cold in our outfits and dresses as each day got dressier but it was all worth it in the end. Today was bid day so everyone found out if they were asked to join one of the sororities and the girls could have accepted or declined the bid. I am proud to say that I received a bid from Gamma Phi Beta and accepted so I am now a pledge sister of Gamma Phi. As portrayed from pictures and wall posts on my Facebook, we had a dance party at the Gamma Phi house today where everyone was singing at the top of their lungs and dancing and being goofy and having a good ole time. It was fun to let loose and just be my goofy self around those girls. My roommate and a couple of my friends on my floor got in to Gamma Phi also which was awesome because now we can get ready for all the events and activities together. Well that’s about enough rambling about myself so I look forward to meeting everyone and this upcoming semester!