Since graduating college some people might say my tweets are funnier, or raunchier depending on whom you ask. Why? Well I can actually make a joke that says “asscheeks” now if I want to (and believe me, I’ve made many).

Little known to most people, I went through college under a strict social media policy within my sorority that forbid any swearing, references to sex or alcohol, or seductive photographs from being placed online. And as a punk rock loving woman, keeping my mouth closed—albeit online—drives me crazy; let’s just call it the “stick it to the man gene” that I picked up somewhere along the way.

Now I think social media policies are effective in certain industries, but I don’t think collegiate women should be victim to them. I couldn’t post photos of my 21st birthday if there was alcohol in any of the photos or essentially, I couldn’t be controversial in the slightest or else I could get my pin pulled. Sadly the average sorority woman must play by these old school rules trying to be adapted to a modern platform. And although I love the women I can call my sisters, there are a lot of parts of being in a sorority that I find contradictory (but that’s for another blog). I wouldn’t change my college experience for a thing, but damn did I hate being told what I could and could not post online. Especially because these kinds of policies are instated to try and combat Greek stereotypes, it’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t thing.

So when you see my tweets lately, just remind yourself that I’m going through a phase kind of like those severely repressed kids at college for the first time. And then remember that I didn’t get to archive my higher education experience online… But then again, maybe that’s the reason I have a job now.
Also, just because I can: I have a motherfucking diploma now, bitches!

I love Jimmy John’s and I’m pretty sure that isn’t a secret. Throw me a #14 any day of the week and I will be a happy camper (I even ate one today, holla at some BBQ chips!). If anyone has walked into a Jimmy John’s ever they probably noticed the quirky decor, the fact there is a giant sub that costs almost $12 and the employees themselves usually mimic the brand. There is a reason that they post themselves up next to college campuses, and that’s because Jimmy Johns aims to keep that youthful vibe. Do you know what youths are? They aren’t politically correct, but they certainly are hungry and Jimmy John’s fills that void.

This woman posted on JJ’s Facebook page about how employee’s shirts said “damn” on them. Oh! Think of the children they said! They will be offended they said! I think this woman forgot the uniqueness of a brand that sells sandwiches. It is a sandwich with a personality! But seriously, nothing gets me more excited than a brand that sticks up for themselves. Damn it! Jimmy Johns does what they want to, and you better believe those sandwiches are damn good! And damn fast!

I mean, come on the FCC doesn’t even care about “damn.” Throw out some Janet Jackson nipples and f-bombs though, and that’s when it gets serious. So the moral of this story is be glad that your Jimmy John’s delivery man  isn’t wearing pasties and citing the delay of your sandwich on a “wardrobe malfunction.”

You can’t please everyone, and Jimmy John’s is A-OK with that. They acknowledged things wouldn’t change, and they are who they are. You don’t expect your spouse or your friends to be perfect, and you certainly aren’t, but those quirks are what attracts people to you. So you’ll see me down at the Jimmy Johns,  eating my damn good sandwich and celebrating the individuality of a brand that said “no.”

There are people on my Twitter feed that I can identify as single, lonely, unemployed and on the opposite spectrum, in love and ridiculously happy. Obviously I sometimes am all of the aforementioned, but I don’t want to overload people with it because then you just become associated with that adjective or action. A friend of mine always whined via Facebook, and her RA’s referred to her as “Facebook Girl.” So although I would love to tweet all day about #thingsthaturnmeon (punk rockers, tattoos, smart men, and secret dorks), I just can’t.

What are some hashtags you can get behind without shame? When I see #ReasonsIhateJerseyShore on the left side of my Twitter feed, you know I’ll be hammering out 140 characters in no time at all. 

Chillin’ at our rented 70′s-era RV

This past weekend I partook in a Missourian tradition, the beloved float trip. I realize a lot of people outside the Midwest, or even some people in the Midwest (shout out to my Wisconsin-based family and their oblivion) don’t know what a float trip is. So allow me to inform you, it consists of renting a raft to float down the river in, and 99% of the time, extensive amounts of alcohol to drink whilst floating. Unlike with a car, or most transportation devices, a raft is one thing you can operate completely blackout drunk and it is perfectly acceptable and usually expected – it’s the Missouri way! I mean, the earliest inhabitants around these waters, even Tom Sawyer and “N-Word” Jim floated these same rivers probably under the influence of moonshine and extreme bigotry (unfortunately the latter still reigns pretty strong in some parts of this state).

Whereas floating was more of a means to get-around back in the heyday, it is now more of a means of floating into intoxication, population you. Fortunately, these campgrounds and floating spots are usually located in the boonies and therefore lack cell phone reception which nulls out the deadly potential of drunken person and cell phone syndrome. But if for some reason you REALLY feel the need to drunkenly text your lover, ex-boyfriend, third cousin twice removed or anyone else in your phonebook, I learned this handy-dandy trick over the weekend.

How to raise your phone reception in a dead zone:

• Step one: Take an empty cup devoid of liquids. I used a plastic solo cup.
• Step Two: Put your phone in aforementioned cup
• Step Three: Enjoy your extra one or two bars of service!
• Additional step for the more intoxicated: Don’t put your phone-filled cup next to your beer or soda filled cup, because at some point you will toss your phone in the wrong cup without looking. My advice for that is to attempt this tutorial.

I do admit that this tip is a double-edged sword. Why? Because most people tend to go on float trips for two reasons: 1) to get very drunk with their friends and family; 2) to escape the city and their lives if only for a weekend. It is harder to detach yourself from your daily routine and life then one would like it to, I learned this first-hand when I found myself quitting social media for a week. Is it really a vacation getaway if you stay in touch with all your daily stresses back home?  But I will admit, not being able to tweet about some of the more-redneck happenings of my trip (such as a woman eight months pregnant smoking a cigarette), or being able to check weather.com on a whim (because later that night, less than 15 miles away a storm ripped through the area killing a woman) was very hard, but it humbles you into remembering that life isn’t always in sync with technology.

Of course an all-female staff is awesome for female-targeted brands to work with. But who wants to just be locked into working with brand after brand targeting middle aged women with a 65% influence over household consumer purchases? Women know what women want. And so when advertising to ladygraphics, WOMENK!ND seems like an easy choice as to what agency to use, but where is the diversity in a challenge? Almost all of the brands that WOMENK!ND had worked with (at least that they gave a shout out to on The Pitch) were all female-targeted, and that just seems like a mundane routine after a while if you don’t have some diversity.

But maybe I just know at an all-female agency there probably is a huge shortage of fart jokes and beer runs, and that saddens me a little bit.

What’s your thought on a female or male only agency? Do you need there needs to be at least one token male or female to balance it out?

(P.S. after writing this I stalked WOMENK!ND a little more to find that they do have some males on their team as well)

There is something about Facebook that just screams out “young adults misbehaving.” Let’s face it; the site itself was designed for college students. And just like in its initial days, college students are still using the website for flirting with their peers. In every class students are taught to hide their “partying frat boy ways” for their future employers, but what about their future friends and possible girlfriends? Better yet, why is it now that hiding your information on Facebook or social media networks makes just as much of a statement as if you weren’t hiding anything at all?

With Facebook we have created digital archives of our lives online. With just clicks of a mouse, people can see us go through weight gain and loss, the birth and demise of romantic relationships, and they can determine who our best friends and family members are. They can find our favorites movies and shows, they can gauge our ability to construct a sentence and our sense of humor. By accepting a friend request we invite these people to share in these pixelated scrapbooks, so when we notice someone is hiding something from us—and say, not hiding that same information from another person—it can feel like a personal attack or a instill a sense of distrust. I recently witnessed a fight that happened because one girl blocked another girl from her profile, even though they were still “facebook official” friends. I’ve also witnessed ex-girlfriends feeling scorned at an ex blocking them from seeing information on their profile. For the jilted lovers, they said it felt like it forced the question “not as to why they are hiding it [the information], but as to what it is they are hiding.”

So why is it that with Facebook a large majority of people feel almost entitled to the things they don’t expect to come up in daily face-to-face conversation? Do I expect to hear my friends tell me all about their recent conversation with their estranged cousin? Nope. What about hearing of an acquaintance’s new dog that they got over the weekend? Yeah, probably not.

Technology has made our lives easier in so many ways. Some people say it has caused a bit of an “information overload” for our society, and that is true. The easier access to information about our “friends” that Facebook has provided has made our friendships and relationships that much more complicated, and because it acts as an extension of our lives, when these friendships and relationships might end it is viewable on a public scale. Yet to not subject in this public display of information is going against the grain and leaves a feeling of being “left out.” After over a year of voluntarily being Facebook-less, my friend Jim re-activated his account. One of his reasons was “because like it or not Facebook is a way that people commonly connect with each other in today’s world, and right now I am trying to expand my social circles.”

So when people say we are nearing the approach of Big Brother a la 1984, sometimes I think Big Brother is already here, and being egged on by our constant habit of publically announcing our lives on a digital forum that is easily accessible.

But hey, I’m guilty of Facebook creeping one-too-many times, so if this easy-access information can help me weed out a poor dating-prospect early on, why not?! Plus it totally makes Christmas shopping much easier. (So keep on liking those pages girlfriend! I need gift ideas!)

I won’t lie, I don’t online date. Believe it or not, I am in one of those rare monogamous relationships. But seeing a lot of my peers opening up their laptops to love, I think it’s important to remember these online dating tips:

1. Don’t Send Out Your Personal Info: You think you “love” Mr. Horny4u6969 and you want to take it to the next level of your e-relationship by giving him your phone number. Giving out personal information online is still iffy, especially on dating sites because you don’t know who is trying to lure you into their bedroom (or heart). Get a Google Voice number or a Skype account to chat with potential flings so if they become crazy they won’t be tracing your number to come crawling in your window at night. The same goes for addresses and full names. If you don’t want to be easily tracked online, make sure you use a different username than your usual aliases.
2.  Use a Full Body Photo and a Face Photo: Acronyms like S.I.F (secret internet fatty) are around because people like to exaggerate and hide themselves online. A lot of people get “keyboard courage” because with the internet it’s easy to embellish yourself when nobody is there to confront you about your claims. If you’re looking for your future boyfriend, husband, or green-card ticket, being honest is the first step. Use a recent full body photograph, because if you’re using a picture of yourself 60 lbs. lighter from spring break during freshmen year of high school, when you meet face-to-face someone is going to be upset that they were misled on your appearance. And a face photo is always good; it verifies the legitimacy of your body photo and gives you an excuse to show off your beautiful eyes or freckled cheeks.
3. Be Yourself: Most online dating sites (or at least I assume) have a section for you to talk about your hobbies, interests, and give a short bio about yourself. Be honest, and most importantly be yourself when making these profiles. For example, don’t say you love long walks on the beach if you hate the feeling of sand in your toes. And if you cannot spell worth a damn, don’t have someone spell check and fix your paragraph because when you start e-mailing back and forth with an intelligent vixen she’ll be immediately turned off. The point of these profiles is to naturally weed out those who you are incompatible with, don’t lure in the wrong people with false information.

4.  Always Meet in Public: I heard an urban legend the other day about a girl who went on spring break and came back with sores around her lips. Thinking it was an STD she went to the doctor, who asked if she hooked up with anyone and if she remembered their name. Turned out those sores were common with cannibals who ate flesh, and the man she hooked up with had murdered girls and ate their flesh. The moral of the story is you never know who exactly you’re meeting with, and that you shouldn’t go home with anyone until you know “what they’re cooking up in their kitchen.” If you do decide to break that rule and meet privately, always give a good friend the name and address of where you are going and an estimated time you’ll be back.

Online Dating is starting to become less of a taboo, and more people are starting to join websites like Match.com and eHarmony looking for their perfect mate. Although most members of these sites are on it for the right reasons, with such a high volume of users there will always be a bad apple in the bunch. Staying smart, playing it safe, and being honest are all ways to be a successful online dater. And if you really want to find a nice person to date, but can’t seem to log out of your WoW session, pop on over to DateCraft and find the Paladin of your dreams – You’re welcome.

It is 2011, and we’re living in the digital age. As a communications major a big majority of my classes are now taking to the online realm for classroom assignments and participation. But I’m still working out the pros and cons of taking out the traditional elements of a classroom. I know for me, blogging is something I enjoy and puts a little more vigor in my motivation to do homework, but I know with my classmates I see some are hesitant to drop the pen and pick up the keyboard.

Some reasons why I love Blogging for Class:

• It is a great way to get my writing samples out there. Just Google me and you’ll get what I mean. For journalism majors that aren’t familiar with blogging or online publication, it is a good way to get their name out there while they’re still in college. Honestly, I can’t rave enough about the SEO benefits about classroom blogging.
• It is a good indicator of my classmates’s personalities. I’ve had a lot of classes in college so far, but in the ones that promoted online-discussion and social media usage between students, I ended up with more friendships and a better idea of who the people I surrounded myself with every day were.
• When I write an awesome assignment I can share it with the class, and sometimes it is super cool to see the varying opinions or ways people do their assignments. In a way it’s inspirational and shows there’s ways to differentiate from the norm and still do things correctly.
• I feel like the classes I take that require blogging, relies on a lot more writing versus the typical quizzes. I always feel like I can articulate my thoughts and knowledge more clearly in writing than circling A, B, or C on a piece of paper.

Some reasons it can suck:

• Almost all of my teachers forced students to comment on each other blogs for participation points. Seeing “oh yeah, cool post” fifteen times on my blog when I’d read and leave insightful comments on their blogs is a little wearing on the ego.
• Internet arguments are the worse and when your assignment is to blog about a controversial topic you’re bound to have someone publically disagreeing with you. The veil of anonymity the internet provides can sometimes bring out the worst in people.
• Some people are just not meant to be writers, and it shows in any assignment they post online. It makes me show a little empathy towards the professors having to grade these assignments, but it also makes me hate the institution a little more for letting those people into a “competitive admissions” college.
• Blogging is a little informal compared to the touted stack of college papers and essays. Sometimes I feel like my proper grammar and formal structuring lacks after blogging for so long.

Overall I’d say blogging for class is beneficial to me, although it may not always be for my classmates. But at the least it is something every communications major should be familiar with, if only vaguely. If you’re curious about what I’m blogging about for my classes this semester feel free to check up on me HERE.

I took a week off from social media and I didn’t go crazy. For that I deserve some kind of prize, like free Facebook credits or a gold star sticker on my forehead. Going cold turkey from social media for me was like telling a nail biter they had to keep those phalanges away from their pearly whites. It is hard to kick a habit you consciously sometimes don’t realize you’re partaking in.

By day 3 I finally realized that the easiest way to resist the temptation is to delete all the easy-access applications and bookmarks to your favorite social media sites. Not being able to just click the Twitter application on my Android phone’s homescreen made my compulsive clicking (repeatedly hitting a login screen) next to nothing. Not having quick-access to these sites on my phone or browser made it much easier to resist. I have a habit of clicking just to click; this solved that problem real quick.

I can’t lie though, I meant to go social media-free since August and it wasn’t until I was going through a rough patch with the guy I’m dating that I had the motivation to kick the habit full-out. For anyone going through a break-up, rough patch, whatever… Hear me out–go MIA on your favorite social media networks (like right now)–it’ll help you avoid the urge to post “Debbie Downer” statuses or tweets AND it’ll keep your eyes away from you-know-who’s personal networks. While the internet stores an awesome wealth of self-help sites and motivational quotes, songs, or speeches on YouTube for the tender hearted—let’s face it—nobody wants to see your pity party all over their news feed. In all honesty, when you’re feeling down the best thing to do is focus on yourself rather than crafting the ultimate 140-character tweet to make it seem like your life is awesome when it isn’t (seriously, that isn’t good for you).

Results of my experiment:

• I really missed tweeting out dumb thing my classmates do or say (like the infamous “pissblanket”), I actually started writing things down in my notebook that I would have usually tweeted out.
• I was out of the loop with news. I was the last to know about Steve Jobs stepping down I’m pretty sure.
• I focused more on the relationships at hand for the week, rather than juggling online conversations while hanging out with someone.
• I realized sometimes I almost feel an obligation to be active on social media. To cut it out was a little therapeutic. I wasn’t tweeting or taking photos of what I was doing, but rather taking a part in it. I saw the world through my eyes, and not a camera lens like I sometimes tend to do.
• I missed using Twitter more than Facebook.
• I made more phone calls and texted my friends more, rather than finding someone on Facebook chat or Twitter to kill my time with, and in such I spent more time with my friends and strengthened some of those relationships with people I didn’t know too well yet.
• I almost felt bad when I couldn’t tweet out about how awesome this restaurant Smashburger was (delicious!)
• I did a ridiculous amount of online shopping this week, I still don’t know if that is in correlation with anything.
• Since getting back into the social media game, I’ve been less active. Oh damn, there goes my Klout score.

Overall I think I would do another social media free week. Oddly enough, I was approached by a professor to discuss the benefits of using social media during my supposed week free from it. Trying to explain certain features of Facebook and then backing it up with “I’d show you right now, but I don’t have a Facebook currently,” makes for a confused 50-something-man left with vague ideas of what I’m trying to explain.  Hopefully the next time around I won’t have that problem, and hopefully next time my reason for going SM-free will be because I’m too busy vacationing in a tropical wonderland. (Unfortunately, that’s probably not going to happen.)

But I am a Taurus and because of that I have been born nothing short of stubborn, so I won’t back down from this challenge… But I will admit I might back-down if it involves any of these other fears of mine:

• Spiders… Well, Toilet-Dwelling Spiders. I once heard a myth about a breed of spiders that liked to nest underneath the rim of a toilet bowl; only sprouting up to bite an unsuspecting victim when essentially they moon them with their pale asses (see: sit on el’ toilet-o). After hearing this story I tried to avoid going to the bathroom as long as I could, but one can only hold a 32 oz. Mountain Dew in their system for so long. I also scream like a little girl at 20 when I see a spider outside of a toilet too, which is why I could never be a Fear Factor contestant.
• Dying Unbeknownst to All: They say dying alone is one of the biggest fears in our society. It is not necessarily dying alone that scares me (and if you don’t want to die alone, be sure to drink the kool-aid—you can die with everyone!). But rather dying and nobody knowing, I’m afraid of dying and my body decomposing in some place or another for weeks before anyone found out. I at least want to be able to have an open-casket funeral; nobody wants to look at my rotting flesh from baking in the sun for two weeks at my last-hoorah.
  Side note: Not sure if that also constitutes as dying alone.
• Ordering Take-Out Food from the Phone: I’m a switchboard operator and I cannot order food via phone. My brother can attest to this – He’s been ordering all of our Chinese food, pizza, and everything else since we were kids. I also couldn’t answer the door for the pizza man until I was at least 16. I stepped up to this challenge once during my first internship where I had to order lunch for the bossman. Fortunately I kept my anxiety under control and never had to order him food again.
• Driving over bodies of water (boats excluded): I have accepted the fact that I’m not Jesus and therefore I can’t walk on water. In that fact that I’m not Jesus also means I will die without being resurrected and in such am capable of drowning. I think my fear of driving over water worsened after the Minneapolis bridge collapse (driving over water = driving on bridges). Suffocating and drowning in a car underwater? Two of my least favorite ways to die packed into one. Maybe if I die this way the universe will showcase its fine taste in irony by playing that one Armor for Sleep song on the radio.
• 

  Old Photo, Same Nose.

  Breaking my nose: Sure this must sound a little vain. But I have a wee little elfin nose that I’ve come to be quite fond of over the years. If you catch me from my profile it curves up just the slightest! Break any other bone but that one, please. I try to avoid any blunt objects to the face area for this sheer reason. Also could be considered a fear of having a weird and/or irregularly shaped nose.

I have many fears I didn’t list here (like going blind), but whatever the reason may be, many of my fears revolve around the idea of death. My Aunt says it is because I was raised Catholic, a religion that likes to focus on death and how we need to behave now on Earth or repent for our sins in Hell. But I’d like to think that they all wrap up into a fear of the unknown (or that I watch too many morbid movies).

Do you have any fears you’re not afraid of admitting to?