Keeping up the alma mater spirit

Over the past few months living and working downtown, I've had plenty of run-ins and adventures in the city. Whether it was seeing the manager that hired me at T.G.I. Friday's when I was 16 at an El stop or ending up on the same cart of the train as a college friend, something is always making me smile.

One Mizzou tradition is a very simple chant: saying M-I-Z and responding Z-O-U! This is done at all of our sporting events, with the students on the MIZ side and alumni on the ZOU side. It's also not uncommon to scream "MIZ!" when you see someone in Mizzou attire in public, sharing the Tiger spirit across the country. This was big in Dallas & Atlanta for our football Bowl & SEC Championship games, especially in the airports to recognize fans. As a joke, I often shout "MIZ!" when I see someone in University of Kansas attire, just for fun. 

Last week at work, I was eating lunch with my college roommate Kate in the Renaissance Hotel lobby. A young woman was walking by in a Mizzou fleece jacket, so indeed I said MIZ! and she stared at me like I was crazy. She laughed and was clearly an alumna, but didn't seem to want to ZOU back in front of her co-workers.

Fast forward to two days later, I was at a Phi Mu alumnae event and met a graduate of my chapter from 2009, so our time in Columbia never overlapped. She said, "Yeah, the other day I was at meeting for work and someone actually said MIZ to me." I looked over at the coat rack and it was the same Mizzou fleece. Slightly embarrassing, more so hilarious. I asked, "Was it at the Renaissance Hotel?" Yup. It was. "That was me," I told her. We cracked up.

There you have it! Just another city adventure to MIZ someone in public and meet them in person two days later! 

Photo Credit: News.missouri.edu

What I've learned from taking a break from the book

Sitting in the back seat on Facebook these past few weeks, here are a few things I have learned:

1. People give themselves a lot more credit for what they post than they deserve.
I've been in multiple conversations lately where someone is describing a weekend outing or situation, and they have actually said, "You probably saw the picture on Facebook." With complete confidence. Maybe I am biased as I have a large Facebook community, but I would never assume that someone sees each of my posts on Facebook, especially with how targeted the news feed is these days. Staying off of it shows me how much people rely on posting as a means to share their whereabouts, rather than actually sharing news aloud. 

2. Facebook is integral for learning about others' relationship statuses.
While Facebook's status updates are a key way to hear relationship news, clearly it can't be that important to your day-to-day life because if you were really close with someone, you'd hear about their "official" boyfriend/girlfriend status or engagement from them. That being said, I've missed plenty of relationship news shying away from Facebook, and heard about engagements through friends telling me the news or through ring photos on social platforms with more intimate communities, like Instagram. Because this is a "status update" that isn't an option on other platforms, it's most prevalent and frequently updated on Facebook. 

3. We have plenty of other outlets to communicate.
Not logging onto Facebook every few hours has taught me how many other communication outlets are accessible to reach others. If I want to reach out to someone in the digital space or send them an article, I can text, email or tweet at them instantly. All of those options exist to share photos too. Facebook only dominates if you let it. 

City streets: continued

Casual broken hose on Lake Street…things you would and wouldn't expect to see in the city. #cityliving

The intersection at Lake & State Street in Chicago

Instagram photo map

The Instagram photo map has to be my favorite social media feature right now. Creating it provides an incentive to geo-tag photos, and it creates this beautiful map showing all the territory you have conquered! 

Instagram photo map: Chicago area. Clearly I'm lacking on the South Side. 

Restaurants and destinations win because their locations look more popular on social media. FourSquare wins because they are getting checkins. Instagram wins because you're uploading photos, and you win because it makes this super cool map. I look at the photo map as digital scrapbooking, a simple visual showing where you have been and identifying what else there is to try. Try it out! 

The Loop - River North border on the photo map

Ancient Internet stories

The other day in a training session at work, an executive at my company said, "And in 1996, clients would ask, 'What are we going to do on the Internet? There's nobody there.'" 

That sparked all of the stories from our youth of the Internet being new and exciting. Remember….

• In elementary/middle school when everyone had a dial-up connection? 
• How you could practically do a dance while the computer was connecting to the Internet? 
• When everyone was on AOL Instant Messenger until the wee hours of the night? 
• When your house could have a computer without Internet on it and it wouldn't be a big deal?

There are countless memories. What other ancient Internet stories come to mind? 

Social media flirting

Life growing up in your 20s as digital natives: where this is a normal conversation to have with friends.

Unbelievable news stories

A quick list of news stories in the past few weeks that still make me go, "What? Really?" after hearing them:


1. Malaysia Flight 370
Along with the rest of the world, I continue to be baffled that in today's technology age, there is still no accurate tracking of this flight or any of its passengers.

2. Crimea voting to leave Ukraine and join Russia 
This one shocks me because it happened so quickly. "Oh, we're going to be part of another country now, k thx!"

3. A recent Lake Shore Drive car chase / standoff for a murderer
When one man shuts down one of the biggest access points in Chicago after an hours-long car chase with police over a recent murder

4. A woman leaving an alligator at Chicago O'Hare
This was a few weeks back, but how did a woman casually bring an alligator on public transportation and leave it at the airport? 

5. Edward Snowden speaking at SXSW
How can someone who had to flee the United States perfectly fine video-conferencing with one of the largest US festivals?