Endorsement

Attention all journalism students, people who like to read and information-hungry citizens:

I have a solution for how to keep yourself updated on current events without necessarily Twitter, Facebook or a social networking aspect. It's called Google Reader.

A friend (shoutout Kara!) has used this for awhile now, but I tried it out at the beginning of winter break. I follow the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Columbia Missourian, Columbia Tribune and blogs of choice--such as the Missouri Journalism School, MOJO Advertising Agency, my sorority and the blogs of my close friends. It's been very effective and allows you to read not only the headlines, but essentially the nut graf and most important part of the story. When I'm at school, I will feel more informed about what is going on at home, without having to put in the additional effort to read through Chicago publications' website.

Living in a world where people prefer brief updates rather than lengthy stories, it is a perfect tool to get the headlines but read more if you are interested. Comparison and various viewpoints can be analyzed by scanning and reading multiple articles on the same news story, such as the recent Arizona shooting. I've read news and opinion pieces on safety of citizens, what this means for politicians and the story itself of what happened, and have never felt more knowledgable about one simple occurrence.

It is also a much better use of my time than reading Facebook, because it immerses you in what's going on in the world rather than the complaints, postings, feelings and photos of your Facebook network. Thus, I endorse Google Reader and highly recommend that all of my fellow Mizzou journalism students use their Gmail accounts to start a page for current event quizzes and more!

Some of break thus far

Winter Break

Given an entire month of break, I like to maximize my time by traveling, seeing as many of my friends as possible and relaxing and enjoying people's company at the same time. While there have been some hectic moments, here's a recap of the past week or so with some photos to show!

This is a late photo Kathryn took while leaving Columbia to head back to Chicago, dropping her off at the STL airport on the way. Here's how packed our car was...not including bags on people's laps. Who ever said girls overpack?

Lena and I celebrating Christmas!
Becca, Jessie and I went sledding with the great amount of snow we got on Christmas! We even went two evenings in a row so thank goodness there was something to do before the snow melted on New Years!
College Conference

College Conference is an annual event held for Orthodox Christian college students across the country to reunite and give college students an opportunity to discuss faith through programs and meeting new people. I stayed at Antiochian Village in Bolivar, Pennsylvania, slightly outside of Pittsburgh, which is one of the most beautiful campgrounds and retreat centers I have been to. Besides the camp area which we mostly stayed off of, it has the Sts. Peter & Paul Chapel where we held services each morning and night, a dining hall that looks more like a banquet hall with good food, a large room for speakers that looks like a fellowship hall, an auditorium, three floors of hotel-like rooms with room service and a two lounges and/or game rooms on each floor to hang out in. Football, soccer fields and basketball courts were snowed over, but the Pennsylvania hills and sleds provided allowed for some fun sledding late at night.

Originally, the Project Mexico interns planned to meet at College Conference as a reunion to see each other, but in addition to this, we all met so many new people and brought our friends together. With the four interns that attended being from Long Island, New York, Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, Charlotte, North Carolina and Chicago—we all had connections and friends there, but made more. I became a lot closer with the other Chicagoans there, and especially the other attendees that flew into Pittsburgh instead of driving to Bolivar. This group of approximately 30 people spent 7 hours together waiting at the airport and driving to Antiochian Village in traffic, so it was great to meet such a variety of people.

Some of my observations from the conference:

• Chanting differences in the services and Greek and Antiochian singing styles--it's interesting to see how different a liturgy can be when the same hymns are sung with different wordings, languages and paces. It's nice to hear a variety, but almost makes me appreciate the Greek church's style more
• The Greeks and Arabs (or Greeks and any ethnic group for that matter) create everything into a competition of some sort. A Greek-Arab soccer game, general gossiping around the retreat center, and dances are a competition of who is better.
• One of my favorite things to do is bring my friends together. I’ve done this in the past by having a birthday party with both Mizzou friends and Northbrook friends, but the retreat allowed for all of my Greek Orthodox friends to meet each other in a nice environment. Seeing Yianni and Gregg from Mizzou OCF sitting with Nick and Dean from Sts. Peter & Paul, hanging out with Anna, Emily and Sotiri from Mexico, joining the St. John’s Des Plaines group, with Penelope from Fanari, along with other miscellaneous priest’s children and friends we met along the way is just fascinating to me. There’s no reason to have a non-unified group so I am thankful to know people who are easygoing enough to meet other people I consider friends and get along so well.
• This was partially intended, but the conference really inspires you to improve your college's OCF (Orthodox Christian Fellowship) chapter and encourages involvement in religious events while living the busy life of a college student. I was inspired to apply for the Student Advisory Board to build this program across the country and will hopefully fulfill this goal!
• Participants get to attend four breakout sessions on a variety of topics, mostly revolving around sacraments. Besides "Building your OCF," I went to a speaker on why we value teh sacrament of confession, why baptism is important and Orthodox Christian marriage, all which taught me valuable lessons the topics in a forum of other Orthodox Christians who were interested in hearing the information.
• The keynote speaker was a Northwestern professor Dr. Gayle who discussed the impact technology has on today's society in relation to the Orthodox Christian faith. She raised points such as effects genetic traits have, and if traits are genetic, what it says about sin. As a medical expert, she talked a lot about technology that prolongs, delays or ends life. We also discussed invetrofertilization, and I had a lot of respect for Dr. Gayle because of her well-roundedness and superb intelligence not only in the medical field, but about the Orthodox faith, hierarchs and membership of archdiocese groups that support philanthropies and missions. She is one of those women that serves on multiple committees because it gives her something to do, which is obviously something I envy. While starting off slow, her presentation definitely picked up and I enjoyed hearing what she had to say.

Photos!

Greek dancing in the airport
Some of our friends going sledding
The Antiochian Village Retreat Center

The people I hung out with: a combination of Project Mexico interns/participants, Chicagoans, PKs and friends
Arab and Greek dancing
PK (priest's kids) photo...we're special
Beautiful sunset from the campgrounds!

Our group at the banquet

Sts. Peter & Paul Chapel
New Year's Eve and Chicago trip

Anna had her car at the conference, and offered to drive us home for a vacation to spend time with the Mexico interns and see family and friends in the Chicago area. We made excellent time out of Pennsylvania, and decided to spend New Years in Crown Point, Indiana where our friend Jiori lives. Our New Years Eve consisted of the Wii game Just Dance 2, looking at photos from our past four days together, learning and practicing our Greek and Arab dancing skills and a lot of food.

Here's us dancing in Jiori's kitchen!
We drove into Chicago on New Years Day in the afternoon and continued our social circle from College Conference at a party the next evening! Here's Sotiri, me, Anna and Emily at a friend's birthday party!
After attempting to get some sleep, going to church and filling our stomachs at Pinstripes, we began our downtown adventure by shopping, roaming the streets and walking to Millennium Park. Our reflections looked awesome and we got some great photos!

Anna and I posing at the bean

If brunch wasn't filling enough, Emily's relatives own the restaurant Greek Islands in Greektown so we had a phenomenal dinner there, so much that I probably won't go to another restaurant in Greektown except there ever again. Emily even went back to lunch with her family there the next day, and we explored the city more since Anna and Sotiri had to leave to drive home. We probably walked about eight miles throughout the day between Greektown to Navy Pier, Navy Pier to the car, and around in general. Here's us on the pier!

2010 in numbers

When I returned from school, my dad looked at the car for his usual inspection. He was ready to take my CRV for an oil change, car wash and more random things that help the car function that I can't even understand and would not do alone. But he noticed something alarming.

The Honda has 6,200 more miles on it than it did when I left for school in August. "You could have driven from New York to California, and back," my dad said. This shocks me even more because I do not lend my car to others. Due to its standard transmission, I am the only one that drives it, and it shocks me that I have spent 103.3 hours in the car (assuming I drive at 60 miles per hour, a good assumption considering street and highway driving combinations). "That's four straight days, plus some," Laura adds from my room right now. All of this lost time!

While some people believe in paying cabs, trains and airplanes for the time they receive by sitting on them and not driving, I evidently do not always vouch for this tactic. Where did I go in these 6,200 miles?

• From Chicago to Columbia and Columbia to Chicago two times each (beginning of the school year, winter break, back and forth in October)
• New Buffalo, Mich. to Chicago the day before I left for school to go to the Michigan Dunes
• Chicago to Cincinnati and back to pick up Yiayia for Christmas
• Columbia, Mo. to Ames, Ia. and back to visit Helen

That's at least half of it, and some travel at school. But I haven't taken any spontaneous rides to St. Louis or Kansas City to waste miles. Incidentals apparently take this much of my time. So I thought, how else can I define my year in numbers? It describes a variety of aspects of my life, but let's see!

14 states visited this year, of 16 vacation destinations

• Mexico and Washington D.C. as destinations
• States= Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia (cheater: only drove through it), Missouri, Iowa, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, Kansas, California

6 one-way flights booked this year and 8 one-way tickets total

• Including flights from Chicago to Pittsburgh, San Diego, Washington D.C., Kansas City, Boston, and out of St. Louis
• Buses and trains from Cincinnati to Chicago and D.C. to Newark, New Jersey on the Amtrak

2000 minutes average I spend talking on the phone per month

4000 text messages sent in the month of November (this is pathetic, I know), a record

104 blog posts since Lent when I started this blog

1928 friends on Facebook

2379 tagged photos

6108 photos on my iPhoto library from 2010

97 Facebook photo albums, 23 of them published this year

73 followers on Twitter, with 96 pages I follow

5 school activities- Phi Mu, MSF, AAF, Relay For Life and OCF

2 conferences attended- College Conference and the Leadership Academy

I think this is pretty fun to keep track of so at the end of next year, I can compare them! I don't regret how I have spent my time, but seeing the numbers themselves definitely makes you think about things.

The week before Christmas: in photos

Although my week and a half at home has been quite relaxing, it's been full of photo-worthy events to be shared!

Merry Christmas! The Artemas family on Christmas Eve at Sts. Peter & Paul.

Eleni, Maria and I with Yiayia Sophie
Let's rewind to Saturday, Dec. 18 and go from there. Dean's friend told him about Glendi at St. Demetrios-Elmhurst, so Christina, Dean and I figured we'd try it out. Their friend was Greek dancing in this Cretan troupe and the three of us enjoyed a nice meal and danced afterwards.

The unique part of this experience for me was going somewhere I clearly don't belong, not knowing anyone else there, and just making the most of the situation. We had a great time catching up, dancing and meeting fellow Greeks, but I felt not Greek enough to be there. If a group of college students came to a dance at Sts. Peter & Paul, the current college students would probably glare at them. But being on the opposite side of the situation taught me a lesson and encouraged me to attend such benefits in the future!

Dean and I
I spent a lovely night with the Flammily building gingerbread houses with Becca and Jessie! Mine is painted red (obviously), and is Christmas-y with its red and green gum drops, but Mizzou-spirited with M-I-Z on one side and Z-O-U on the other, bordered in yellow and black gumdrops and licorice.

If there's anything I've learned over the holidays, it's that crafts like this as well as dishes and cleaning are the most relaxing break you can take.
Jessie, me and Becca with our trees!

Problem: Since I've only been in Northbrook twice without really working at Friday's or having a constant babysitting job, I've only had these two times to realize how open-ended people can be when they don't use a planner. To take advantage of this essence, I volunteered to drive to Cincinnati and pick up my Yiayia Sophie to join our family for Christmas. Why go on a Megabus when your granddaughter can chauffeur you, and take a vacation while she does it?!

Meredith came with me and we had a nice drive there, visiting my Yiayia, three of my Theas (aunts) and some cousins. Meredith's good friend Jon from University of Illinois lives in Cincinnati, so we went with him and his sister to the zoo for the Festival of Lights! It was gorgeous!

Light show
We still got to see a couple of animals regardless of the surplus of lights and the cold weather! The elephants!
After the zoo, we decided to show Meredith all of Cincinnati and went to Fountain Square downtown. There was a nice ice skating rink we planned to skate on, but unfortunately it closed early and they were out of skates so we weren't able to pursue the plan. Our nice alternative was Graeter's Ice Cream, a Cincinnati classic, in Clifton and enjoying each other's company in a different setting than our college towns.
The next morning (we packed a lot into two days), we took donuts to my cousins Christina (left) and Jillian (right) who taught us how to play Just Dance 2 on the Wii. This game is not quite DDR, but instead lets you hold the Wii-mote and forces you to follow each move the character is doing, as if he or she is a dance instructor for let's say, a Zumba class. It was the most fun Wii game I have ever played and was a phenomenal workout. Meredith's psychic aunt purchased it for her for Christmas, so I will be playing again soon! The songs range from Ke$ha to Avril Lavigne to Mika, a variety of upbeat favorites. Give it a try!
After packing and a quick lunch at Skyline Chili, another Cincinnati classic, we visited my Thea Jeanie and her three children! Megan, Drew, me and Courtney smile below :)

Driving in Indiana with Yiayia sleeping in the front seat. This was what I actually did for 10 hours in two days, but you would think we id so much more based on our schedule! It was nice to get away and see my entire extended family on my mom's side while doing so.

The past few days have been a combination of going to a church service and eating with the family, all in efforts to celebrate Christmas. Christ is Born, Glorify Him, and hope you're having a fun break too!

The Nativity

Apparently, the thing to do this year is modernize the Nativity. I can't decide if this is the greatest thing in the world or the strangest thing in the world.

The Christmas Story: This video, as found by my friend Anna, shows a group of young kids explaining Jesus's birth in their innocent voices.

The Digital Story of the Nativity:

My dad sent me a link to this video a few weeks ago and I have shared it with many people, because it is so amazing. This creator uses current Internet technology screenshots to describe in today's world how a story could possibly be told. Some programs he uses include Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Four Square and iPhone text messaging. I was even more fascinated as I had just learned what Four Square was the day before watching this video: a program where you check into your current location and have the incentive of seeing who else is there by checking in, or being labeled the "mayor" of that location for being there the most. Social media and religion are something I never would have thought to combine, but the video works well.

The advantage is that these independent groups are spending their time and effort into putting the Nativity and Christmas story into the rest of society's terms, and it might even enhance knowledge. A teenager who grew up without a religious background and comes across these videos might better comprehend the story of Christmas. Both videos focus on simplicity, and when information is presented so clearly, humans are more inclined to listen. It's great that people are spending their time analyzing the Bible and parables, then wanting to share the lessons and stories with the rest of the world.

But are we diminishing the significance of what happened by almost mocking the scene? This potential disadvantage arose in the digital nativity video. The Virgin Mary types this on Gmail in a message to joseph.carpenter07@gmail.com: Joseph, we need to talk. I will be pregnant. Call me ASAP. xoxo, Mary. The Three Kings exchange messages about what gift to buy the baby. Generally, I think this mocks our priorities of gifts and impatience more than the Nativity story itself, hitting home, but some might see it as a sign of disrespect. For now, I remain in favor of such videos and hope to see more arise in the future.

I wish you and your family a great Christmas and holiday season!! Merry Christmas!

Christmas cards

Christmas cards are intended to spread holiday cheer. Wikipedia describes them as "greeting cards sent as part of the traditional celebration of Christmas in order to convey between people a range of sentiments related to the Christmas and holiday season." Being in a family that receives Christmas cards from parishioners of our church, family and miscellaneous people we've met around the country, we go through quite a lot of them (as seen in the photo below).

It wasn't until this year that I realized the real connotations Christmas cards have; they are a way to brag, flash your wealth and/or judge people. Maybe a nice gesture to let someone know you remember their existence--whether it's distant cousins, your best friend from middle school or the priest that did your wedding, but once the card arrives, the judging begins. She gained weight, their kids look too much like (insert parent or grandparent here), that's an unattractive family, the dog is hideous. Effortlessly, I immediately think of these examples from cards my family receives annually.

Exhibit A: One family had a tri-fold, double-sided card on photo paper. If that wasn't enough, the front was a picture of each of four children, along with some group photos. The back three sides had three photos- one of a fully furnished and decorated home, one of a pool and jacuzzi with the beach in the background, and another with the sunset. The caption said "FINALLY, after three years, our vacation home in Los Cielos, Mexico is ready!!" Intended reaction...jealousy. We've already seen your kid in every context of each hobby you let them participate in, but cannot fully understand the place your family is in if we didn't see the vacation home. I imagine it to be one of the most beautiful views, but why lust over what you can't have? The Christmas card was an obvious example of showing off the fact that they can afford a beach home, and not just any beach home, that specific one.

Exhibit B: A distant relative annually sends a family photo with a two-page letter describing how her family's life is, with a paragraph on each activity each child is involved in. I've never met the people, and I can probably describe Zach and Lindsay's teen years as best as they can. Three years ago, we heard about the entire family. But two years ago was when life started to fall apart. She included in the card that she was getting a divorce and basically had nowhere to go in life. Last year, she "retired" (although she wasn't old enough to really retire, just stopped working/took a break, depression much?) and her son's girlfriend got knocked up. This year, she's a 'happy' grandmother, her son still is not married and her daughter is probably staying near home for college to keep her mother up and running. Is this Christmas card calling for pity, or the only outlet this woman has to describe her life to someone?

Exhibit C: I picked up my grandmother in Cincinnati to bring her to Chicago for Christmas, and naturally, went through her Christmas card. She whined about getting less cards this year (which probably isn't true, just her perception) and I wondered why she cared. All the cards she got were pre-written, and literally had "Dear Sophie," at the top, and the person' signature under Hallmark's generic paragraph and hope all is well wishes. We had an interesting experience running into an extended family member at a nearby restaurant, where the conversation went something like this:

"Hi Sophie!"

"Hi! How's your 90 year old father?"

"He's doing great, thanks for asking!"

"Really, I wouldn't know, I didn't get his Christmas card." (why she said this, I don't know)

"That's odd, I sent them all out!" (daughter doing her job taking care of her 90 year old father from his nursing home)

"Guess I'm off the list then."

Besides the fact that senior citizens are blunt, this taught me that old people especially realize who still cares about them and wants others to know they're alive through the exchange of Christmas cards. Sure, spreading some holiday spirit is worth something; it's exciting to get mail in the winter that's not a credit card bill. But one value of cards are to know who is still up and running and well enough to write them themselves.

Exhibit D: Let's discuss the average Christmas card, a family photo. This can constitute a photo of just the children, the parents too or extended family at a nice event. Choosing that picture can be difficult because you are giving half of the people on the card list one emblem to base their thoughts on your family off of for another year. With these cards, upon receiving them, you look at a few attributes. This is included but not limited to the attractiveness of the family, how their well-being seems from the picture, where the photo is taken, if the parents are in it too, how many people or kids are in it, which parent or family member they resemble and more. As the most simple of cards, I think they portray a classy representation of one's family to their extended social circle.

Basically, when you include a letter or multiple photos on your Christmas card, you're asking for more mental judgment. You give your readers more to play off of. This depresses me because we take something so positive, the spirit of the Christmas holiday and celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, and just evolve the idea into something it is not. Matthew 7:1 says, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged." Luke 6:37 reinforces this by saying "Don't judge or condemn others." So when you get these Christmas cards, instead of trying to interpret someone's life success, appreciate the holiday spirit they are sending you in the form of the excitement of receiving mail.

How do I know that people judge and look at some cards negatively? Because I am guilty of it. My sisters and I often read letters aloud, look up the Facebook profiles of people we know from Christmas card land and are curious to learn more about, and "aww" the cute children. So as someone guilty of this, what am I going to do to not be a hypocrite?

As my solution, I'll probably send out a photo card because of my obvious obsession with photos when I get older, but do a little more to show I care. Until I have kids, get ultra-stressed out and go through a mid-life crisis, I'm going to personalize the cards with notes! Handwritten or not, it at least shows that you genuinely care about the family. And if you blank out on what to write on one of these notes, you know that person shouldn't be getting your Christmas card anyway. You'll not only save postage money, but no longer feel forced to maintain fake life relationships. The people who judge you based on how you and your dog look aren't who you should care about in life.

So rather than analyzing others by their Christmas cards, I sincerely hope that you appreciate the fact that someone cared enough about you to want you to know how their family is doing. They want to maintain some sort of contact; maybe not continuously, but some type of relationship still exists. When sending out your own Christmas cards, think of your intentions of sending a note to that family. Do you want to brag and how off how nice your family looks at your cousin's wedding, or do you want to express that although you had no time to call or e-mail someone this year, you still care that they are alive.

On an ending note, here is the Artemas family Christmas card. Anyone who cares about me enough to read this blog probably got one. I genuinely wish you a Merry Christmas, thank anyone who has sent me their family's card and hope you have a great holiday!

My cousins

Here's a quick shout-out to my cousins Christina and Jillian who I will be seeing tomorrow in Cincinnati, and are nice enough to open up this blog! I haven't seen them since this summer at their pool (pictured below :P). Love you girls!

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