Happy 22nd Birthday Mike. Hope you have a great day. Wish I could be there to got out with y'all.
-Jesse

I am done with my final for Public Administration and Democracy. I just have a paper to go. I will give more details about the class later. In the meantime, enjoy my official bio at Maxwell. You can also see who else I am in my program with.
-Jesse

It has been a pretty good weekend as I have been able to catch up on a lot of things I have been slacking off on since my class started, like doing dishes, picking up laundry, doing my reading for class etc. It is nice to feel somewhat caught up, but a feeling of dread comes over me as I realize that I still have one more week of the evilness that is this class. I will first give you a little overview of what has happened. Last weekend, I had to work on the Democrats response to the State of the Union (this is the speech given by the opposition party each year after the president gives the state of the union. here is a link to last years ) It was going to be annoying to do it because the person who usually gives it for the house democrats was going to be out of town for the weekend. That was no big deal though because I didn't mind working on it cause developing political message/themes etc is all I learned about in undergrad. So we were supposed to meet on friday with the senate dems. They never showed. One of them sent an email saying he really didn't work on saturday so he could take a break from a pretty intense week of class, so another House dem and myself worked out a message and themes based on the issues we were going to be addressing. I thought it was pretty good (but I was the one who did it). I emailed it out and got a response from the Senate dems saying that the person who would be delivering it wouldn't be back until 6 on sunday and that the message would be "Where's the leadership?" with themes being different issues that the President has not shown leadership on. This was an awful message for several reasons. First, after a State of the Union, the president is seen as being a strong leader who has just laid out a series of initiatives, to respond to this strong leader image with a "Where's the leadership?" message would ring pretty hollow.Second, you want your message to be one that is about yourself that instantly draws contrast between your opponent. "where's the leadership?" is not about the dems at all, plus the person delivering the message for the senate dems was not going to be their leader, making the where's the leadership message ven more ridiculous cause our ledership is not the one questioning it. Third, issues are not themes. Themes say something about the message specific to a certain catergory. Ugh. I know I sound really poli-sci snobby here but I can't help it. This is what I did for four years and when people who don't even bother to show up to help and work on the speech challenge this, I get VERY annoyed.

Anyway, I will skip the rest of the annoyingness and say that we eventually met with them sunday night and my message and themes prevailed. On Sunday night, we also discovered that the person for the House dems that was supposed to deliver half of our response was not going to be back in Syracuse in time to deliver the speech. I volunteered to do it cause I am an egotistical glory-hog, plus I took multiple public-speaking courses. As far as delivery, the speech went pretty well. First, during the president's speech, we got the dems to clap when they weren't supposed to. After the line, "Parts of the Patriot Act are set to expire" It was very funny especially cause the dems in real life clapped at that same point on the real state of the union address. We then delivered ours and the Republicans were pretty rude about it booing and yawning loudly. But I got them back, while I was talking about preserving Social Security, one of the Republicans yawned loudly, I was able to react to it and say, "we need to protect social security so our seniors can enjoy the benefits they are entitled to <yawn> like that elderly man back there." I was thrilled that I was able to come up with that off hand. It really helped make the speech and a bunch of people later told me how much they liked the speech.

The rest of the week was also stressful. I set up a series of press conferences the Democrats message an created a template press release so everyone could write a press release on their issue. They went pretty well, but it is annoying trying to edit press releases that explain a person's position that you are unsure of. They did end up going pretty well and I was impressed with how my group handled themselves once they actually were talking about the issues. One of the highlights was when my press release was cut and pasted into the first five paragraphs in the lead story of the paper.

On thursday, we had hearings, they went ok. The first two panels we couldn't really get the best of, but we rocked the third. It was mainly because of my real-life hatred of boeing and my wanting to show what a bad organization they are. We were also told that we were by far the better prepared of the House Dems committee.

This weekend has been nice. We got friday of as our spring break. I cleaned my apartment caught up on my reading etc. Friday night, I went to the b-day party of someone in the program. It was nice, pretty laid back, but AWFUL music. (who plays Nirvana's unplugged version of Come as You Are at a party).

Saturday I caught up on more reading cleaned up a bit more and played in the weekly game of ultimate frisbee. I also talked to a bunch of people I haven't spoken to in a while. I talked to my friend Jennie who is getting married in 2 weeks. Unfortunately I won't be able to make the wedding, but it was nice to talk to her.

Also, for all of you who are wondering, the part in the Gorillaz song "Feel Good INC" where it goes "Windmill, Windmill . . ." the music is a rip off of U2's Staring at the Sun. I don't know about you, but it was killing (e:Maureen) and myself.

This week we actually vote on the bills we wrote for this simulation. Apparently, this has a tendency to take forever. I am dreading it cause I don't know if we are going to be prepared or get our bills through. Eh, we will just have to cause as much trouble as we can.

I guess that is all for now. I am sorry if this was incredibly boring for you and you now know how much of a poli-sci snob/nerd I am. Whatever, it is your own fault for reading my journal. Take care.
-Jesse

Ugh, this simulation is sucking my life away. I will give more details at a later date. Just found out a friend from school is getting married. Exciting but I don't think I can pull off getting to the wedding. Any way. I really love the Radiohead song "Wolf at the Door" It ihas such a great feeling and rhythm. Here are the Lyrics:

drag him out the window
dragging out your dead
singing i miss you
snakes and ladders
flip the lid
out pops the cracker
smacks you in the head
knifes you in the neck
kicks you in the teeth
steel toe caps
takes all your credit cards
step up get the gunge
get the eggs
get the flan in the face
the flan in the face
the flan in the face
dance you fucker dance you fucker
don't you dare
don't you dare
don't you flan in the face
take it with the love its given
take it with a pinch of salt
take it to the taxman
let me back let me back
i promise to be good
don't look in the mirror
at the face you don't recognize
help me call the doctor
put me inside
put me inside
put me inside
put me inside
put me inside

i keep the wolf from the door
but he calls me up
calls me on the phone
tells me all the ways that he's gonna mess me up
steal all my children
if i don't pay the ransom
but i'll never see him again
if i squeal to the cops

walking like a giant crane and
with my x ray eyes i strip you naked
in a tight little world and are you on the list?
stepford wives who are we to complain?
investments and dealers investments and dealers
cold wives and mistresses.
cold wives and sunday papers.
city boys in 1st class
don't know we're born
just know someone else is gonna come and clean it up
born and raised for the job
oh I wish you'd get up
go over get up go over and turn this tape off.

i keep the wolf from the door
but he calls me up
calls me on the phone
tells me all the ways that he's gonna mess me up
steal all my children
if i don't pay the ransom
but i'll never see him again
if i squeal to the cops

If you ever need a good radiohead site, I think green plastic is the best.
-Jesse

God, this course sucks. I am so ready for the weekend. It is too much pressure and politics I feel like I am constantly playing catch up. At least today I registered for my courses so it gives me hope that this will soon end. And after today I will be able to collect my thoughts and get organized on the weekend.
-Jesse

So I guess I have already broken my "I'll post once a day promise." I'll try to get back on track but I am now on a different schedule with my new class so I will have to work that out. My new class is basically one big simulation with all 130 of us playing different roles in government - whenther members of congress, the cabinet, interest groups or the media. I am the ranking member on intelligence. http:/www.house.gov/harman/ It can be interesting, but too many of the people in this school are over achievers so in order to keep up with them I actually have to try. This makes it kind of difficult and I stress out a bit. What also compounds the situation is that the House of Representative, which I am a part of, is one of the least desired positions meaning that I have a ton of people who didn't care about where they were put because they are not that big into American politics. On my committee, I am the only native born American and there is only one other american citizen on a committee of 7. This presents a problem in that I really have to push the issue. Plus, I think I am one of the few American political science students in our group so I have to explain the process to them as well. This is good in that I can offer assistance an hopefully they can trust and help me, but bad in that it means I have to do a lot of work. I almost can't wait until I have normal classes. It will be so much less stressful. Oh well, in the mean time I have to get back to politicking.

As far as my exam last friday. I think it went pretty well. Thanks to (e:leetee) and (e:maureen) for the well wishes. My weekend with Elena was nice. Go see Wedding Crashers, it is hilarious. I especially love Vince Vaughn in the movie. His character is great. Ok, off to class. Take care.

-Jesse