Take back the city for yourself tonight...And I'll take back the city for me.

There's something about cities that makes me want to fall in love.

Travelling alone on the train tonight, I switched my iPod to Genius, which is my new favorite thing upon upgrading to a 15gb iPod Nano (it's purple). As the train whizzed past different apartment buildings and offices, my iPod played lovey dovey songs...and instead of switching the songs, I listened...and I listened good.

There's something about cities that makes me feel older than I am - more experienced, if you will, in everything that has to do with living. What is silly is that I am merely a 22-year-old girl, so completely naive and sheltered. Growing up in small-town Ohio, I always dreamt of one day living in a great apartment that had a view of some fabulous city. I used to pretend that outside my bedroom window in my parents' house was a beautiful, tree-lined street in New York City. Now, instead of pretending that I have always been resident of the city, I envision myself working, living and enjoying life in the city. Alongside this vision is a guy - a wonderful, career-driven, sports-fanatic, successful guy. And we're craaaazy about one another and the fact that we both prefer Bud Light drafts rather than in a bottle. We both love the same teams and discuss when it will be financially feasible to get season passes to all of our favorites. I want to fall in love and I want this guy to fall in love with me. I want him to be crazy about me. And I want to hold hands walking down that same tree-lined street that I envisioned when I was 10.

There's something about growing up that makes me want to be in a city. I want to be swallowed whole in the life - the thrill, the excitement, the culture - of a city. I want the love, the glory and the pride that comes with finding yourself, and someone else, in a city.

The Meat and Potatoes does Chicago

There's something about traveling and touring alone that makes me feel like a local everywhere that I go. I can remember even feeling like that in Dublin, Ireland - a place where I'd never be able to convince a local that I was from there. I felt that way in London and I ALWAYS feel like a local in New York. Maybe it comes from my fabulous sense of direction and my stubbornness toward asking for directions. Or perhaps it just comes from my undoubted love of exploration.

I am currently blogging from my $50 Holiday Inn hotel room in Elk Ridge, IL - just 7 miles away from Chicago's O'Hare airport. Before today at 11:15am CST, I had never actually been outside of the O'Hare airport in Chicago. But today, I checked another city off of my "to-do" list.

I am in town, interviewing for a position with the US PIRG, just for the night. I will return home tomorrow to spend the weekend with family in from New York.

Here are my tweets for the day, so that you know what I've been up to today:

Peace out, downtown Chicago. See ya tomorrow! Back to the Holidae Innnnnnn.about 1 hour ago from TwitterBerry

Yep. They're playing That's Amore in the restaurant!about 3 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Getting ready to feast on Pizano's world famous deep dish pizza! They are the inventors of deep dish! Mmmmmmmm.about 3 hours ago from TwitterBerry

To the top of the John Hancock observatory in the fastest elevator in N. America! 20 mph!about 4 hours ago from TwitterBerry

To the top of the John Hancock observatory in the fastest elevator in N. America!about 4 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Finallly made it to Michigan Ave! Awesommmme.about 6 hours ago from TwitterBerry

103rd observatory is closed. Only going up 99 stories today.about 6 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Found the Sears Tower. Okay good.about 7 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Whoops just jaywalked.about 7 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Don't really know where I am or where I'm going but I'm just enjoying life.about 7 hours ago from TwitterBerry

On the shuttle back to the airport to catch the "L" into the city. First stop, Michigan Ave! Thinking of taking the water taxi.about 8 hours ago from TwitterBerry

First beer of the trip at the hotel restaurant. And a delightful shuttle trip back has made chicago great already! To the city after lunch!about 9 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Just made it to my hotel and got checked in. Not bad for $50.about 9 hours ago from TwitterBerry

@gmac852 HI MOM! Look here! Keep track of my trip on Twitter!about 10 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Go figure I was 5 minutes late to this hours shuttle. Been waiting for the next one for a half hour. Good thing I have nothing to do.about 10 hours ago from TwitterBerry

@smalltwndreamer thanks Kater. PS I must mention that I hate Bluetooth and hands free cell phone devices. The guy sitting next to me sucks.about 10 hours ago from mobile web

Now to find the shuttle to my hotel. Hmmmmm.about 11 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Just landed at O'Hare. I did not like that bumpy descent over Lake Michigan though.about 11 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Sitting in the Columbus airport awaiting my flight to Chicago! @kelseymb Thanks for the luck!about 13 hours ago from TwitterBerry


So there you have it - my day in a twitter-nutshell (is it bad that I'm starting to become obsessed with my TwitterBerry?).

Is High-Speed Rail really that horrible of an idea?

While I am not writing a column for the Post this quarter, I would like to keep writing a bit while I'm venturing through the last quarter of my college career.

Today, I officially start the interview process for my "big girl" job. I am interviewing with the US P.I.R.G. for a position somewhere in this country as a Campus Director - basically instilling the campus community with P.I.R.G. knowledge. In preparation for my interview, I decided to brush up on my current favorite environmental policy - a high-speed railway in the United States.

For those of you who read my blog while I was in Wales, I mentioned the train a countless amount of times. The train was our only real means of transportation while in the UK. And it never once let us down while we were there. It was quick, easy and took us exactly where we needed to go. And although it took a bit of planning on our part, we soon got the hang of it and were able to navigate pretty much anywhere we needed to go.

I really enjoyed my experiences on the train and found the travel to be relatively inexpensive since I purchased my pass in advance. I sincerely believe that the American people would be overwhelmed with gratitude if we were to have a high-speed rail system installed to connect us to one another in an easier, safer and more fuel-efficient way.

This past winter was one of the worst I've seen in Ohio that I can really remember. It was long, cold, bitter and of course, littered with all types of frozen precipitation. The thing I remember most, however, is the condition of the roads and the reports that, with the downed economy, cities were not able to pay the high prices for salt and were also refraining from doing any repairs until after the winter was over. Thus, we were driving on treacherous roads covered in the previously mentioned precipitation and potholes the size of craters.

However, while I was in Europe, I don't really remember noticing this problem because so many of the citizens used the rail systems. I even knew some people who didn't own a car at all! So what is so wrong with President Obama's goal to begin construction on a rail system of our very own (aside from the serious lack of funding) to make our national infrastructure just that much better?

Check out this video and decide for yourself:

An update of columns

My apologies for the lack of link posting. I'm not even sure anyone keeps up with this blog anymore, anyway. But here are links to all of my recent columns:

Week 3 - Hudson crash landing puts flight fears to rest.

Week 4 - Opposite sex friendships often harmless in dating scene.

Week 5 - Men far more complicated, emotional than women.

Week 6 - Even without jobs, seniors graduate with strong social network.

Week 7 - Reducing teen pregnancy requires stronger stance on sexual education.

Week 8 - Staying warm, sanitation vital to combating winter illness.

Week 2 Column

http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/Articles/Opinion/Columns/2009/01/13/26723/

The Meat and Potatoes

Here is the link to my first column. Check it out!

http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/Articles/Opinion/Columns/2009/01/06/26584/

Are you more mature than a 5th grader?

My horizontal driver's license says my date of birth is 12/16/1986. This confirms that I am exactly 22 years and 15 days old. This does not confirm, but merely suggests, that I am about to graduate from college and that I was in the fifth grade approximately 10 years ago.



So why are my relationships and friendships so comparable to how they were then?



When I was a fifth grader, I was a little overweight - not obese, by any means, but I had a little trouble getting rid of my baby fat (I actually just accomplished that this year when my face decided to thin out). All of the other kids around me were still scrawny and wiry little boogers with vocabularies extensive enough to cut right to the core of my chubby little soul.



I was obsessed with Clueless and wore cute dresses and knee socks with "clompy" shoes, as I called them. My fifth grade teacher later told me that she thought I dressed better than her. I was very concerned about my appearance and was very conscious about the way I looked which made me kind of a bear because I was unhappy with what I had going on.



Kids called me fat all the time. Fatso, Fatty, Chubs, Lardo and Chubby were just a few names they used. Granted, I was in a girls size 14 pant and I mostly wore Large t-shirts. But it's not like I was wearing a 14 in women's at that age. But, I was bigger than your average 5th grade girl.



I can't even express how insignificant these kids made me feel. I was smart, funny, outgoing and sporty - so why didn't these kids like me? Why were they so mean and nasty to me all the time?



I spent much of my young life searching for answers to these questions. Surely there was something other than my weight that made these kids cut me down as low as they did. But I never found the answer.



I wanted to die. I didn't want to live in the body that I had any longer. I cried at school, I cried at home and on a couple of occasions, I cried in the nurse's office because the kids laughed at me when I cried. I hated most of the people I went to school with and I hated myself for not being able to drop my weight.



I felt so meaningless. I felt like a permanent punchline and no matter what I did to try and fit in with my friends who were still in size 8's and 10's, I couldn't find peace of mind.



Luckily for me, my weight didn't go away, but it did get spread over more ground because I got my growth spurt the next school year. I grew to be one of the taller girls in my grade and I went straight to a size B bra size. I got to start wearing Junior's clothes and was in a size 5 which was fairly decent.



The boys made a beeline for me on the first day of 6th grade. I had never had so many boys flirt with me in my life. But I was sooo over the boys in my class and skipped straight to the 8th graders that had started gathering in my backyard after school. And basically, my entire situation has progressed since then.



Recently, though, I've come to a screaming realization that friendships are really not all they're cracked up to be. They're so delicate and can break right before your eyes or - in my case - behind your back.

I have, however, grown to realize that friendships come and go just as most relationships do. I am now a senior in college just a few months away from graduating and making a crazy journey out into the world. I have been through many cycles of friends throughout my life, and I don't expect college to be any different. I hope that I have made enough impact on the lives of the people I've spent these past 4ish years with - enough so that they'll always remember me and how much fun we had.

One day, I will find a companion. A true and real companion who loves me for every piece of person that I am.