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

My first exam in grad school is about to begin. I am really nervous. I have a study sheet and I went over a lot of the stuff that will be on the exam, but I really should have taken practice problems and exams to prepare me for the pressure. I have to go and stop studying and just relax. Otherwise I will be too nervous to do anything. My biggest fear is that I get into the exam get nervous and seize up and can't think through the problems clearly. Cause most of the problems can be done if you just think through them. It is a lot of common sense. But if I start to get too nervous, I might start to confuse myself rather than just think through the problems. Wish me luck.
-Jesse

Ugh, I am such a bad student. First it was putting off completing my budget til the last second. Now it is studying for my final. We have two review sessions for my final on friday. In both we go over one practice exam. Both times I have not done the practice test going into the review session causing them to be not that helpful to me. I really got to get on studying. If I fuck it up it is my own fault.

Also, you know you are in a school of ever achievers when you have to get to class 10 minutes early to get a seat. I just had to go drop my stuff at class and then come back and post to be sure I can have a seat.

Another random thought, in avoiding studying for my exam, I have been watching a lot of South Park, and Cartman is just hilarious. He is such a great character. I especially love his hippy bashing, for example, Cartman talking in his sleep while having a nightmare, "Hippies, Hippies. They're everywhere. They wanna save the earth, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad." For more choice quotes, here is a website . Well, I got to go to a review session I am not prepared for. Take care.

-Jesse

So I really didn't have anything to write but then I looked at my friend jess' journal and there was a quiz about your sense of humor . Here are my results:

the Wit
(60% dark, 39% spontaneous, 38% vulgar)
your humor style:
CLEAN | COMPLEX | DARK


You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you're probably an intellectual, but don't take that to mean you're pretentious. You realize 'dumb' can be witty--after all isn't that the Simpsons' philosophy?--but rudeness for its own sake, 'gross-out' humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat.

I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer. Your sense of humor takes the most effort to appreciate, but it's also the best, in my opinion.

Also, you probably loved the Office. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check it out here: .

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais



My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
    You scored higher than 68% on dark
    You scored higher than 31% on spontaneous
    You scored higher than 64% on vulgar

For better or worse, it is done. My daycare budget is complete and was handed in at 9:00 this morning. All in all, I am very proud of the ways I thought to balance it and am happy with how thoroughly I examined the problem and the solutions. I think I really gained a good understanding of the dynamics of budgeting and felt that my method of calculation was much more accurate than a lot of other ways. At the same time, my presentation is pretty poor because I rushed at the end and was not sure the best way to present the information. I hope that the thoroughness of my analysis comes through inspite of my muddled presentation. But I do fear that the fact that TAs have to grade so many and that I can't really defend and explain the methods used, what I did will not be noticed and may hurt me because of my lack of definition. Ah well.

Today was a pretty good class (the last minute budgeting is why I am posting now and not earlier). The stuff we were talking about was really clicking and it made me think about different and innovative ways to create tax structures. It was like a whole puzzle laid out before me and I really want to start playing with it. (Wow,reading that tax structures line again, I am such a nerd).

Any way, right now I am enjoying some respite from budgeting until I have to start studying for my final on friday. I hope I can pull all the stuff I learned together because in doing this stuff, I find that either everything is clicking and the budget just flows or every little step is excrutiatingly difficult and you get frustrated and can't pull anything together for the life of you. Lets hope friday brings more of the former.

On to traveling news, my family is off to cancun to do a makeup vacation after last week's category 5 hurricane caused them to cancel their first attempt. Also Elena will be visiting this weekend. It will be nice to see her. I also got a few copies of the report I did for Citizens Against Government waste in the mail the other day. It is nice to have a hard copy for when it is pulled off the website or whatever.

My music club CDs finally came. I am soooo excited. I have waited for these 6 free cds for goddamn ever. I got the Beach Boys - Pet Sounds, Moby - Songs (his early greatest hits record); Velvet Underground - Greatest Hits; Echo and the Bunnymen - Greatest Hits; The Cars - Greatest Hits; and Marilyn Manson - Greatest HIts. Yes, I know there are a lot of greatest hits records and only poseurs buy greatest hits records, but I am trying to expand my music collection and explore new artists that I know a few of their songs and think I might like and if they tickle my fancy, I can purchase more of them. Anyway. That is all. I have to go and do all the stuff I didn't do the past few days cause of my budget.

bye.
-Jesse

It is official now, Lance has wone 7 straight Tour de Frances. Watching the last stage was pretty interesting. They have to do 8 laps on the champs de ellyse, which is cobble stone. This makes it very difficult and causes a ton of crashes, but because it was drizzling, the tour officials initiall had cancelled the time bonuses on the part making the players final times when they started on the champs de ellyse their final time. But then it got sunny and in the end they did end up awarding time bonuses, which screwed and American rider Levi Leipheimer who was in the 5th position less than a second ahead of Alexander Vinokourov. Vinokourov ended winning the stage after the 8 laps and got a time bonus pushing him ahead of Levi for the 5th spot. I like vinokourov generally, he has a lot of fight in him, but I felt that Levi got screwed and couldn't even challenge for the time bonus cause he didn't know there was going to be one.

Anyway, I have one more day until my budget project is due. Saturday I had a huge break thorough after must frustration and figured out a more accurate way to calculate the number of employees. I will have to run it by the TAs today to see if it is correct. It still gives me a higher number than what they say is correct but I think they might be rounding incorrectly. Yesterday was pretty rough and it had gotten the best of me for most of the day. But after a nice soak in the tub, I destressed a bit and got a lot done. Hopefully I can push through and get the last bit done and done well for tomorrow.

Well class beckons.
-Jesse

Yesterday was no good and just frustrating. A lot of things that should have been much easier were just a pain in the ass and some things that should have been done are still not. arrrrggghhhh.

Ugh. Republicans also are getting on my nerves too. Not all Republicans, just the ones who shoot their mouth off and sound like morons and/or assholes. There are a couple of people in my program that fall in to this catergory. The more I hear them speak, the more I feel repulsed by them. What comes out of their mouthes always sounds selfserving and greedy. Last year I saw former Bush press secretary Ari Fleisher speak at my school. He made the point that the one thing he would change about how the Republican party presents itself is that they do not show compassion for others. As a Republican, I could not agree more with this statement. I am sure there are some Republicans that are greedy self-serving bastards,but many do care about people who get the short end of the stick. I am just sick of the greedy ones with the loud mouthes being the ones representing our party.

Gotta get to calss,
-Jesse