Video Blog

So Carl and I are creating a weekly vodcast on our history of higher education class. Since his Toshiba webcam was not working we decided to give my awesome Sony Vaio a try. Well as we were trying to find the appropriate file, I came across this gem from the summer...

So even though you didn't request to be featured on the blog, I could deny the world of your awesomeness from this summer. Also any video featuring Coco is a must see.

Getting Baked in Bloomington

If you ever come to Bloomington, there is one place you must visit. It is called Baked. It is a cookie shop where you get to create your own cookie. It is a three step process. First you choose dough for your cookie: oatmeal. sugar, chocolate or peanut butter. Then you choose your fixins - you can choose anything from traditional chocolate chip to crasins. And finally you can chose an afterbake which is actually a candy bar added to the cookie after it is done baking.

The design of the place reminds me of Common Grounds in Waco. I met my friends Carl & Dominique. Dominique is a first year law school student and a recent Notre Dame graduate. She is destined for big things. We arrived at 9pm and ordered our cookies.

I went for the oatmeal white chocolate, walnuts, and crasins. It was DELICIOUS! There is something about milk and cookies that just puts me in a great mood. We end up staying at Baked until 2am. We also met Travis, one of the managers and chatted with him about the cookie shop, religion and life in Bloomington. It was nice to connect to someone that lived in the city prior to becoming a student.

As we left he loaded us up with a ton of cookies for free. Needless to say Baked is a place I will frequent for the next four years.

Game Night: In a hundred and forty characters (or more)

SO... I finally finished decorating my apartment. Check out Mel's facebook. I think she has some pictures posted from her trip. My apartment is a little over 750 square feet, so I have a little space to host guest. I invited my classmates Tomika, Carl, Teanna and Seth to come play games.

We decided on dominoes, unfortunately Teanna did not bring big six dominoes she brought the big ten dominoes and no one knew how to play. So we just matched ends. It was not really all that fun. It deprived me the opportunity to talk noise, and try to impress my new friends with my domino skills. After a couple games of dominoes we switch to Phase 10. It was a good night. Carl, Seth, Tomika and Teanna are all interesting people. As we played games it gave us an opportunity to get to know each other.

Carl is my best friend here in Bloomington. We clicked right off the bat and spend time together daily. It is good to have a good guy friend again. In Waco my best guy friends from college moved away, and I struggled creating deep relationships with other men. Carl and I have that potential.

Seth is SOOO young. He just graduated college in 2010. He went to Oberlin and was an RA their. He is the baby of the group, but he really is very mature for his age. I can't wait to get to know him more.

Teanna has white skin but really embraces black culture. She made the transition from being Catholic to C.O.G.I.C (if you know Donnie Mcclurkin he has roots in the holiness church), she was an African American Studies major, and dates a Kappa. 

Tomika is an IU allstar - she just had an article on the black athletes development as a student. Google her. Also she did her masters at IU, so she knows everything about this campus.  I am excited to get to know these folks better. I think they will be an essential part of my community here. And for that I must say God is great!

Cheeseburger & Paradise (Karaoke Edition)

It has been over a month since my last post. I know- totally slacking. So in an effort to redeem myself the next couple will be short vignettes about my second full month in Bloomington. Enjoy!

Pop quiz blogging friends. J.T. moves to new town. What should be his first outing in the city:

A. Take in a concert at Bluebirds (One of Bloomington's live music venues)
B. Go see a movie at one of the AMC theaters
C. Sing Karaoke at Cheeseburger and Paradise with friends in the HESA program
D. Go out? I didn't know doctoral students left the library

If you answered A, B  or D, then you clearly do not know me at all. The correct answer is yes (shouts out to KP). I love to sing karaoke, and that is just what happened. [On a sidenote the first car I owned was a 1989 Ford Probe that I named Emily (R.I.P 2003). It was for sale by owner so I took it for a test drive and checked out all the functions. It had an aftermarket pioneer cd player professionally installed. It was sweet! Unfortunately the AWESOME cd player had a Jimmy Buffet cd stuck in it. So every time that I got in the car I would hear the song cheeseburger and paradise (think How I Met Your Mother episode  arrivederci fiero).]

I arrived at Cheeseburger and Paradise around 10pm, and met up with several of the other graduate students in the HESA program. Folks had already begun drinking and sing karaoke. Two people in particular had tremendous voices: Brian Mcgowan & Whitney (I can remember her last name. Let's just say Houston - pre Bobby and crack).  Brian and Whitney sang a duet of one sweet day. It was phenomenal. All the new HESA doc students had to perform. I considered doing one of my all time favs  (Let's Get It On by Marvin Gaye), but I decided to go with Journey - Don't Stop Believing.

 Now I am usually a little nervous whenever I perform, but this time I was literally shaking before the track started. So I took a deep breath and got into character. I grabbed the microphone and kept repeating to myself, This is Journey - I can't lose. As soon as the music started the crowd cheered and sang along. It was great! You know before I came to Bloomington I didn't really see myself being able to meet new people and have fun. I thought I was going to bury myself under a mountain of books and never see the light of day. But the students I met at Cheeseburger and Paradise give me hope for some semblance of a life away from doc student work. Here is hoping.