Have you seen my fox?

Adventures in Cupcaketopia has received some exciting feedback: promises of transcontinental flights to come visit me *coughcupcakeplacescough*, thoughts that I was writing actual reviews, and even someone threatening that I need to get a real job. Which brings me to big update number 1.

I have a real job.

It hasn't started yet - look forward to March 13th for more news on that front - but it's my first foray into the paid world of politicizing the youth.

In small update number 2, my internet has been buggin' out like crazy. For example, I haven't been able to sign into this blog for days because of, as far as I can tell, nothing. More frustrating however, is the innumerable amount of other important things I can't do. Don't get me wrong. When I want to do some mind-numbing facebook surfing (facesurfing?) there is, of course, no problem. Or if I want to stay up until the wee hours watching Firefly? Fine. But when I want to do something trivial like, you know, send in a resume or look at grad schools or - most importantly - upload photos to facebook, the damn interweb seems to buckle under it's own weight. I know, I know - it's not selectively hating on me. But it sure seems like it.

So in short, if you did something like travel through Ireland with me, or go to inauguration with me, or some other such nonsense, and you have been waiting less and less patiently to see the photographic evidence, rest assured: I have absolutely no idea when that will happen. But feel good: not getting the pictures uploaded time after time after time is WAY more annoying on my end.

I didn't even mention the best part of my web-woes: My fox has gone missing. Not my Firefox, mind you, that's still here. I'm using it right now! But my Firefox icons - the little orange fox wrapped around a blue world, you know? - have gone missing. From the whole computer. They have been replaced by mostly clear question marks. Seriously. What once was



has become




Just weird.

On Politics and Kids

So, here's my things:

1. I like politics,
2. I like young people, especially kids,
3. I like being outside.

I can think of ways to mix 2 out of 3, but ultimately, I think one of the three will have to take a hit in terms of what you can practically combine into a career.

So, let's say that I want to work on getting young people more involved in politics and human rights issues.* And you know, go camping on weekends.** What do you study in order to do that? Political Science? Public Policy? Social Work with a focus on Youth? Education? ...what?

I like the idea of going back to school because (a) the economy is crap anyway so finding a job is frustrating, (b) I can still get a scholarship from Cornell if I go back to (any) school soon, (c) I think figuring this sort of stuff out involves a lot of research, and nobody researches better than a university.

And then, of course, what do you then do with this additional degree? Work...at a school? For a political campaign? Some office that does stuff for youth but never actually interacts with them, other than by spamming their inboxes? Start your own organization?

Hmm. Sometimes the world is just so big.




*This doesn't mean just the 18 & over voting age crowd. You can work on human rights and political issues at any age through writing letters, lobbying, just learning about them, etc. Don't let voting hold you back, kids!

**Ooor, be a girl scout leader, because I love the girl scouts and could totes work with young kids then. And my troop would be bad ass, so we could camp and hike.

Phone Freak Outs and Blogger Greek Outs

I think that I've mentioned this: a big portion of my internship is helping run nightly phone banks for Obama & friends. The phone banks, I feel, are fun, important and always provide some good stories. For example:

I called a family tonight and asked to speak to one woman. The man who answered the phone told me "Yeah, you better because we are a household divided. I just donated $100 to you guys to mess with her. SHE'S voting for the other side!!"

Another guy told me "I might vote for Obama on the pro-choice, but I think he has a liberal agenda and he's going to drive this country into the ground so think about THAT!!" *hang up*

Or, everyone's ridiculously overzealous favorite: "I'd rather die than vote for ______!" Really?

Anyway, tonight one of the bloggers from feministing.com came and called with us. I was totally star-struck. Feministing was/is a fundamental part of how I learned about feminism and became a feminist rock star myself. Obviously it was a very big deal to me to meet someone who has unknowingly had a pretty big influence on my life. True to that unknown part, I don't think she realized that she was a really big deal to me. Which is clearly for the best, because one of the only things lamer than geeking out about meeting Barenaked Ladies or Neil Gaimen is geeking out about meeting a blogger.