Let's See How Far We've Come 2017: The Year in Review

I just wrote all the birthdays, anniversaries and school schedule on my mother's large kitchen calendar, which must mean we're approaching the end of yet another year. With the change of  calendars comes my my annual year in review post.

Believe it or not, this is my fifth year-in-review post. I lamented last year that I didn't write much here in 2016. While I resolved to rectify that, apparently my unconscious took that as a challenge to write even less. I did publish my five letters from the editor here, but the blog was fairly neglected. I had decent excuses for myself - 2017 was incredibly busy for me personally - but at the end of the day, I like to look back at this site to remind me of what all happened and how I felt in the moment. But enough about my shortcomings - here goes nothing!

I rang in 2017 with my parents at home - any and all plans with friends had fallen through and frankly I enjoyed the quiet. At the stroke of midnight, I became editor-in-chief of the Globe, began my junior year of college, and embarked on what will go down as one of the craziest years so far. I continued my work as a resident educator on the 16th floor of Lawrence Hall. Bobby and I rebooted NewsNight into its current, nightly-news style program. At that point, we were doing the show every other week in the Center for Media Innovation.

The first edition of the Globe in February brought with it an editorial that changed everything. Shortly after publishing, the university president called me into his office and we talked about tuition increases. I'd like to think at this point we have a good, professional relationship and I would say it started there. February brought with it the 50th anniversary of the Globe, and a campus-wide celebration including a Snapchat filter and throwback logo on the front page. On the whole, February was a lot about continuing what I started: NewsNight began ramping up, the paper was in full swing. It was also about looking ahead: we had meetings about taking a trip to the university of Salford Manchester slated for that May.

March began with spring break and the Intercollegiate Broadcast System Awards in New York. I'm proud to say that the previous September's interview with Sarah Koenig brought me, Vinnie and Brandon a win. The conference was enlightening, but the night we won the award was a whirlwind: I began the day standing in a line in Times Square to get student rush tickets for Sunset Boulevard alongside Kayla Snyder and a girl named Trillium. After winning and taking pictures, I bolted the 13 blocks or so from the Hotel Pennsylvania up to the Palace Theatre in a suit. IT WAS COMPLETELY WORTH IT. March also brought the Globe's 50th anniversary celebration in the Lawrence Hall Lobbies. There's so much to say but suffice it to say: we invited as many people as we could think of, and 121 people came out to celebrate the history of our little paper.

April brought with it several conferences, the first being the Society of Professional Journalists conference in Detroit, Michigan. I didn't win anything myself, but our paper took home several accolades and I was a finalist for two Mark of Excellence Awards. I turned 20 in April, the day before Eastern Orthodox Easter. Emily Bennett and I went to New York City to participate in the New York Times Editor workshop. That Thursday evening we went on an adventure that became my radio production final, Night Court. As much as I would love to link you to Night Court, I'm also super hesitant because it's a dramatized version of actual events, and I haven't actually the permission from the subject to publish it. For what it's worth, though, it earned me an A and featured the voices of Kris Chandler, Bobby Bertha and Carrie Reale. I finished my work as a Resident Educator, and ended the 2016-2017 school year.

May began my summer and my foray into public radio with an internship at WESA in its newsroom. It also brought with it my whirlwind trip to Manchester, England. It was billed as the trip of a lifetime, and it certainly was. I spent 10 days in Manchester, and met some amazing folks like Adam Roberts, Megan Hayward, Megan Hornsby, Callum Phillips, Fay Toulios and Tom Hinkley at Shock! Radio, Siobhan McAndrews from BBC Radio 6 and Geoff McQueen who was our lecturer for the week. It was a crash-course in UK radio and capped off by - several things. The course itself was capped off by an on-air show with Wythenshawe radio, but there were several other adventures within it including a bar crawl that ended with me being cursed, there was a concert in the basement of a place called the Soup Kitchen, and countless other mini-trips.

As I said earlier this year, the trip was most noted by the outside world by the Ariana Grande Concert Bombing on 22 May. In retrospect, I had been able to sample in some way, shape, or form the culture and art of Manchester before that. It'd be irresponsible of me to say that I got to know the place well, but it certainly felt like it by the end of the trip. I say that because thinking about the bombing - it's heartbreaking to think about such a vibrant, cultural place to become the target of a terrorist attack and have to deal with the aftermath of tragedy. But if I've learned anything about Mancunians, it's that they move on. Be it World War II, the fall of the textile export industry, or even May's heinous act, they come back strong.

June brought with it my experience at WESA-FM, Pittsburgh's NPR News Station as well as my summer job at Forsythe Mini Golf. To tell you the truth, June, July and the first part of August kind of blur together for me. At WESA, I was lucky enough to be a part of several stories and learn the workflow of a full-fledged public media operation. I was able to do a 3-minute feature on noise in Pittsburgh and some other odds and ends throughout the summer. I also learned the trick to South Side Parking: don't. I can unequivocally say that Forsythe was my favorite job to date. I got to be outside, help people and use my inner whimsy to operate a mini golf stand. I had fantastic bosses - Sam and Kristi are not only great bosses but I'd like to consider them friends. It's a true family business over there - when I had to head back to school in August, they hosted all three of their employees for dinner at the family homestead. I have a whole playlist of music that I played over their stereo in the Golf Shack, and every once in a blue moon I'll play it to reminisce.

August brought back the rush of school. I finished my internship and my employment with Forsythe and moved back to Point Park - this time to the boulevard apartments. Greg came down and we watched the solar eclipse in village park. The full time professor union struck their first-ever contract with the university, and the Globe broke the story. I began a new semester of classes and we were full steam ahead with a new semester of the Globe. On the first day of school I made two dumb decisions and had a meeting with the president. Ultimately, all three of those things were resolved. But it's funny looking back at it all to see what worked out and how it all ended up working out.

September brought with it the full insanity of the school year: we launched the Pioneer Public video series for the Globe, I took on 5 classes, and apparently made it my mission to work as many hours as possible to make myself sick. We began season 2 (really 3 but we can't count that one pilot as a season) of NewsNight and I returned to work at the Post-Gazette for high school football and basketball season.

October felt a lot like September - too much work and not enough me to go around. I had to make a mid-semester hire for our Arts and Entertainment section, and we began using both television studios on campus to produce NewsNight - an adventure in ridiculousness and coordination. At the end of the month, I made a point of stopping the constant spin. Alongside Vince and Beth and some friends, we rounded out the month with a trip to Hundred Acres Manor and watching the Great Pumpkin in the apartment. It was in October that things got a little rough, but also when I decided to take some time to spend more time with friends and be more **festive** with my life.

November was an entertaining undertaking - I spent a weekend in Carnegie shooting a video press kit for the Andrew Carnegie Free Library alongside Nick Kasisky and Robert Berger. It was also in November that I started trying to figure out what's next after the Globe.

And so this is Christmas. Well, New Years. December was insanely frontloaded with finals and such. After that were several short, quiet Christmas festivities. I was informed earlier this week that I was named General Manager of WPPJ for the spring semester. So that's what I'll be occupying my January, February, March and April with. But as with the past two Decembers, I slowed my 120 miles per hour year to a more manageable 60 or so...

I could honestly copy-paste last year's ending to this year's post. At the end of the day, I'm incredibly excited to see what the future holds. This year has been a great amount of work but I'm glad to have done it all with some of my favorite people in this world. I've traveled across the mid-Atlantic and to Manchester and all sorts of places. I've played miniature golf, attended an inauguration, celebrated the 50th anniversary of a paper as its editor, and it's hard to believe that this is the "start" of my life, but it's easy to see how these are some the greatest moments in my short life thusfar.

As for what the future holds - I don't know. I know this much: I'm greeting 2018 with optimism and some new energy. I hope I can have half as great a year as this one moving forward.

So here's to you and yours - have a happy, peaceful and pleasant new year! Go fight win!

My two cent clarification: In defense of Carlynton High School and Small Education

Hang on, this is going to be a long one.

A warning: the following is an opinion. As a journalist, I don’t like having those. Understand that opinions change and evolve as time does, and please respect the place I was coming from whilst writing this. Also I use Oxford commas, don’t judge me. I do not advocate for any candidate or particular legislation or anything beyond dialogue. Want that to be clear before I proceed.

So last week I shared a post from a Carlynton alum that I attached some comments to. I was under the impression that the commentary was an assessment of the district I graduated from in the aim of opening a dialogue on the faults in the education system as a whole.

Boy was I wrong.

I completely own up to sharing it, and further to misrepresenting a blanket approval from me of this statement with added commentary. I thought it was (and, full disclosure, I didn’t read the whole thing that late at night) an attempt to open dialogue and I shared to push further the reach of that dialogue. I also did it as a way to promote someone I felt at the time should be heard by my reach. I recognize that the alum can stand behind what was said as an opinion, but I want to make it clear: that opinion expressed in the piece isn’t mine.

The fact of the matter is when you share across your stage or your platforms, the assumption is that anything you further share you agree with. I need to add the whole “RTs do not equal endorsements” bit to my Twitter for this reason, but I’m not here to preach about social media, I’m here to preach about what my views are on the education system and what I meant to say originally.

I graduated two years ago from the Carlynton School District. If you’re fairly new to my adventures, the Carlynton School District is a tiny (and I mean tiny – my graduating class was 92 strong) school district five miles outside Downtown Pittsburgh. I’m currently pursuing a B.A. Journalism degree at Point Park University, a subject I consider a passion and a school I consider the best decision I’ve made.

The original alum commented on apathy at my alma mater and said quite bluntly (and quoting an unnamed source) that “this place is a disease.” I won’t argue that apathy exists within the education system but I have to argue that the source misidentified the problem. This place – being Carlynton High School – is not the disease. It has the disease that comes along with being (against its own will) a part of a governmental system that puts numbers ahead of people and tests ahead of education.

I’ve said for years privately that the strength of the Carlynton School District lies in its faculty and students. Teachers (and I’m dear friends with some education majors, I count them here also) don’t get into such a cutthroat business without a passion or a drive to accomplish something greater. It’s a drive to change what they experienced, or to provide something greater than themselves to their students. If you don’t have a drive to change it or to affect some sort of change, you’re not going to last in education long. You. Burn. Out.

I want to challenge the original poster to think about what honestly was said: was the lack of challenge you described you had experienced your senior year a result of climbing an academic pinnacle as I had, or was it because of a chosen apathy on the part of the participant? You said you chose against taking Advanced Placement yet expected the same level challenge at a general level class, what did you expect? I am genuinely curious.

I’m not going to lie, by my senior year I wanted to get out of Carlynton but that was because by that point I felt I had outgrown it and I had a taste of the real world and college life and wanted to move forward beyond the K-12 system. It’s a system that I strongly believe is designed that way for a reason so you can make a clean cut when you walk across that stage and be ready mentally to take on the next step, whatever you determined that to be.

If I didn’t feel challenged in the classroom, I did this potentially self-destructive thing I do in college where I get CRAZY involved with stuff to challenge me further in a way outside the classroom and to challenge the ways I think and the means by which I communicate. I’m not saying it’s the best way of doing things, but I will say that the challenges I didn’t find in a classroom I found elsewhere through in-class resources.

I want to step back for a moment and talk about resources. Carlynton doesn’t have many because, well, it’s tiny and is not the wealthiest district. But isn’t that a shame to say? I mean, seriously. Should size even matter when you talk about resources for students? Why does the per-student cost to educate vary from district to district and why should resources be tied to standardized testing?

Further, why are we allocating resources with preference to certain groups? It’s a television trope to have schools buy new equipment every year for a football team while the band uses decades-old instruments. I’m not saying that is true within Carlynton, but I have heard stories along these lines at other schools.

Also, why is the education system still structured in the way it was during the Enlightenment where local government meant something? It makes NO sense to penalize a district’s funding because of standardized test results, frankly those that struggle should be given MORE resources to bring them up to speed in my humble opinion.

Single A designation should not be a death sentence, nor should it inspire any sort of victim situation. It doesn’t at Carlynton (with the only exception I can think of being an oddly specific school board meeting in 2013 or 2014 where the justification by the superintendent for class scheduling problems was “well, we’re a single-A school, you’re lucky you get to have electives) but I know it’s true in some other districts. Being small means more individualized and community-based education.

Parents pick a school for its resources, and I’m proud to say my family found a district whose nonphysical resources (teachers, programs, etc.) are incredibly abundant. We have fall plays and spring musicals and 19 sports. How could a school of less than a thousand do it except by having people who care and others who can stretch a dollar?

Am I saying Carlynton fell behind? No.

What I am saying is that as a whole the education system has fallen behind. Money that could have gone towards offering unique electives and challenging students’ ways of thinking is instead going toward mandated remediation on testing, diagnostic programs, and compliance with further regulated yet seemingly innumerable and indistinguishable revenue-sucking mandates. It’s not the Carlynton School Board or the principal deciding this, it’s someone at the federal and state level telling these people they have to.

Do you know how often I was given diagnostic testing ahead of the Keystone or PSSA exams? Nearly monthly. Imagine, that’s at least 10 days outside of the classroom every year. Don’t forget, several of these tests were multi-day, and you had to do some sort of buildup prep to the diagnostics, and then the build up to those tests...

This testing obsession is classroom time spent chasing your tail in an effort to save the school that you’re being set aside from. It’s circular and so, so wrong. And let’s not forget those diagnostic tests are expensive to use, and could go to, I don’t know, journalism books, or psychology books?

So where am I going with this? It’s no myth that the education system is broken (at least by my assessment) but it is a myth that the individual district is to blame. Do you feel trapped? Good, it’s the system that got you to the point where you can realize it. Challenge that system.

I was reminded recently that the successes I’ve had and the career I’ve chosen didn’t come from the classroom. I never once took a journalism class, and it wasn’t for lack of trying either. The teacher of the journalism course did pull me aside at one point and told me I wouldn’t have benefitted from the curriculum. Why? In part, it was out of date books and a lack of resources to do real journalism. But at the end of the day, it’s important to remember this positive: my love of radio stemmed from a gifted education teacher passing along the information for a program at WYEP.

Yeah, Carlynton didn’t teach me a lede from a nut graph but can you seriously blame the high school for that? There should be no reasonable expectation that every profession should have an offered elective that prepares you for that individual, specialized profession. It’s unreasonable.

What Carlynton did offer me was the access to that gifted teacher who shared the WYEP project, or to that band director who let me try my hand at announcing, or that English teacher who (and I still don’t understand how this happened) let me run a newspaper as a high school senior or the drama teacher who rescued me from hating theater after a bad experience and let me anchor the TV morning announcements after being a technical director there, and I could go on but hopefully you get the point.

Was I saying to myself junior year “dang I wish I could drop out and move on to college”? Of course. What teenager wants to be a cog in a politicized state-level machine that hasn’t been working well?

But why do you stick around? Two key reasons in my case: because your end goal is a diploma so you can keep moving on to that liberal arts school in the city, and you stay out of respect for how you came to that conclusion.

The reason you want to leave high school in the first place is because you discovered the ‘real world’ a teacher on the inside helped share with you. In other words, you can’t realistically wish to be a part of a different world if you had never heard of that other world in the first place.

So what was draining about Carlynton? The public school system. The helplessness you feel on a daily basis where the decisions are made for you in either a board meeting or some faraway marble castle in Harrisburg. It’s not some sort of deeply engrained lackadaisical work ethic in the teachers or administrative support staff, it’s an apathy at the extreme top that trickles its way down to resources at the feet of those who truly care.

If Carlynton didn’t challenge you, it’s you that failed. Not because it was supposed to consistently hit you with ridiculous workloads or whatever effort you expected of it but because you didn’t seek more. In the real world, people don’t work with you or for you. You have to seek out your own challenges or support for what it is you’re trying to do.

It’s a lesson I feel this alum missed. By choosing to enter and remain in this supposedly toxic environment (read: it isn’t) then complaining afterwards it didn’t help you, apparently you hadn’t sought those challenges out through the system? I don’t know, I can only guess your position, but from mine I feel like there is some action on the participant’s part that is missing here.

I know this much, however: the reason I got where I am is I sought out and sucked up every opportunity I could inside and outside the classroom. There isn’t any professor who asks you to become Editor-in-Chief of your campus newspaper your freshman year. It’s Josh Croup and your friends who you’ve surrounded yourself with who convince you to take that leap. It’s the professor who tells you you shouldn’t be doing it.

This is probably the longest post I’ve written in a long while but I wanted to make this incredibly clear: I can’t endorse the notion that Carlynton is some sort of wretched wasteland where dreams go to die or whatever yarn that you want to spin. It’s a wonderful place where teachers do the best they can with what they have. It’s a place where you have to find your own path because that’s how the real world works. It’s a place where you have to seek a challenge, you can’t expect it to be served to you because that’s not how the world works.

If there’s a problem, it’s the lack of resources allotted to these base-level programs because of a flawed administrative/governmental system. I’m not endorsing anarchy, I just want to start a responsible dialogue. Comment if you’d like, I only delete straight profanity.

When we were younger oh, oh, we did enough

As I write this I'm somewhere in east-central Pennsylvania travelling to New York City for some sort of college newspaper conference. We somehow convinced the university (who is handling the bill for this venture) to let us [being my editor and I] travel to NYC by train, My guess is that it was comparable pricing, plus a professor recommended it. 

So, I'm writing this from the relative comfort of the 42 Pennsylvanian. Taking a nearly 9 hour train ride leaves a lot of time for window-watching and reflecting. So often in life we're given opportunities to do amazing things - cover a presidential rally, head to New York City, cover the bicentennial of your city - that we focus on those things. The accomplishments, the clips, the resume lines, all that fancy jazz that we're trained to give value to. And there's something to be said for that, but still, and it's cliche to say but it'd be nice to not focus on the destination.

I've always been fascinated with road trips, and trains in particular. I don't particularly understand why, but I've begun to realize some things through this venture. 

Railways are continuous by design. They don't turn and wind as much as roadways can afford to, and that can be a good thing or a bad thing. Towns aren't built around railways anymore, they're built around exits, creating that uniform artificiality that surrounds a stop - that gas station that serves the food, that hotel that's there, and some sort of attraction. 

Railways are unblinking - you see the shiny and new bastions of industry, the windmills, the rolling hills, the Civil War era Main Streets, and, most fascinating to me, the dilapidated and the abandoned. 

Graphs are made by connecting points. Individual, dotted, unmoving points. The same applies to railways - the stops are little burgs and villes and sometimes larger cities, but for some reason someone decided to connect them directly. 

The train I'm taking, the 42 Pennsylvanian, is the most direct route from Pittsburgh to New York. It goes via Greensburg, Latrobe, Altoona, Harrisburg, Elizabethtown, Philly, and some places I'm no doubt forgetting. Those are the points - large and small - that are connected. The stations are placed by necessity - sometimes in an offbeat place with a small shelter and other times a block from the Pennsylvania State Capitol building

It's rare anymore that people have the time to talk extensively about the things they work on, but more specifically how they got there. You hear the story about a presidential candidate speaking but what you're missing is the story of how your press credentials were sent to a spam folder or how you followed a random camera guy and next thing you know you're in a private tour given by the mayor and the CEO of the history center. 

Those stories - those anecdotes on how you got the story - are fascinating in their own rite but you don't hear them because all to often you only have time to tell the one, largest story. So you do it and you move on.

I covered a Bernie Sanders rally last week, and it was amazing. Who ever thought that this freshman would get press credentials to cover a major political candidate? That deserves its own post, but the short of it is, I asked and was granted. 

I'm living this wild and crazy life I never expected to be able to be living this early on, but here I am doing it. It's an exhausting and exhilarating life to lead. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to resume staring out at the world now. 

Sheets are swaying from an old clothesline

The title comes from a song by Radical Face called, quite appropriately, "Welcome Home." I say appropriately for the point in my life right now, not necessarily the song, though I'm fairly sure that's probably appropriate too. I'm just looking for how that is.

Last year around this time I was talking about that dreaded in between place - where stuff was ending like crazy and I was, in a word, unsatisfied. I was longing for something - I guess I wasn't sure exactly what that something was, but I knew it wasn't where I was at that point. I realize now, looking back, that I was sick and tired of living my life in this mock-reality. I guess I'd liken it to when you get something shiny and metallic and they always have that cellophane wrap on it. It's pointless outside of preserving the underneath from dust, and it looks dumb and tempts you to rip it off.

You know full well the implications of ripping that cellophane layer: the shiny outside dulls after a while and that newness can never fully be recaptured. But frankly, you didn't buy that fancy stainless steel refrigerator to look at - you bought it to put your leftovers in. You bought it to be used.

I can't say that fits perfectly to my whole graduation thing, but I feel like so many people are so afraid to rip off that cellophane layer - to cut their ties and such - that they stay there in that general orbit. It's not because they want to or intend to, it's because they're afraid to loose that protected shine. I'm here to tell you that's a load of nonsense.

A few weeks back I covered the bicentennial of the incorporation of the City of Pittsburgh, and felt like a real live journalist for the first time. I was asked the question "are you with the media?" and after a moments' confusion (hey, I'm still new at this guys. I can write well, I'm still working out the gathering part...) I responded affirmatively and was promptly handed a press kit. I interviewed councilman Corey O'Connor and President/CEO of the Heinz History Center Andy Masich, and I stood throughout the press conference, listening to the Mayor and other dignitaries. If you're interested in the story it all resulted in, check it out here: http://www.pointparkglobe.com/news/view.php/1018577/City-celebrates-birthday UPDATED LINK: http://ppuglobe.com/2016/06/city-celebrates-birthday/

Maybe someday I'll tell you about what happened after the official celebration and how I ended up in the right place at a wrong time...

Life is fantastic where I'm at. I'm in the midst of a bunch of things: this Saturday is the United Student Government (USG)'s Pioneer Community Day (PCD). I've been working alongside some USG members in some capacity since January coordinating volunteers and such for this event. I'm exhausted but SO PUMPED to get this going!

I'm sitting in the basement of the University Center on campus hiding from life to focus on some personal admin work I've been meaning to do: write this blog, stare into oblivion, deep stuff like that. I'm sitting in a nondescript corner having just gotten off the phone with an organizer in Maine for the Bernie Sanders Campaign trying to get media credentials for the Globe for the Sanders rally Thursday. (Fingers Crossed!) This Saturday is PCD. We put together a Globe yesterday, I'll be delivering an issue tomorrow. A week from Thursday I'm headed with the Editor of the Globe (Josh Croup) to New York City for a Newspaper Editors' conference.

Sure it's weird to be at the end of so many things as I was last year. It's so much better to be on the other side, exhausted from being in the midst of so many things. 

So what have I been up to in the meantime?

My last update was a little over a month ago: http://2015blogger.blogspot.com/2016/02/its-different-kind-of-danger.html

• I went to see Point Park's version of The Drowsy Chaperone
• Visited my house for once.
• I covered the Pittsburgh Incorporation Bicentennial Celebration
• I was tonsured a Reader in the Orthodox Church by His Grace, Bishop Daniel when he visited Slickville a week and a half ago
• I saw the Spring Standards again because when the Spring Standards come to town you go. period.
• Played radio. WANNA HEAR ON THE HORIZON?? We now have a YOUTUBE page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnoxP4T2p66dpWkpmWmDgqA/

It's a Different Kind of Danger

It's February 24th, 2016. I last posted here quite a bit ago - it was the massive "Let's See How Far We've Come" update on my life and the year that was. Since I started school in August, I've met amazing people and have done some absolutely amazing things. That all being said, my life has been moving at high speed and things I should be doing (like keeping track of what is going on here) has fallen by the wayside.

Since starting a new semester, I've found quite a few things that I identify with, and quite a few things I cannot wrap my mind around. Contemporary Christianity still confuses my old-school self and the craft of journalism has taken on a new meaning to me. I have this crazy passionate broadcast professor who drilled into us day one the importance of journalism: to inform the electorate is the job of journalism and if you don't get that right and don't understand the importance of it you're not going to get along in this industry.

I haven't talked much about my journalistic fanaticism on here because it's more or less something I thought went without saying: I think what I'm doing is important because I feel it's going to help people. I'm not giving blankets to the homeless or anything (well, at least not professionally) but if I can bring attention to issues that impact people directly or can work to inform citizens what their elected officials are doing, in that way I can affect social change. One of the keys to this, as my professor has said, is going where people cannot and giving them information and experience.

Overall, the semester has been flying by, and I'm still loving every minute of it. I'm a host on two radio shows and I produce/write/created one (The Globe Live and On the Horizon respectively), I wandered into the world of television, and I am still involved in as many ways as possible with the newspaper. In other words, I value news and productivity over sleep because I can make a difference.

Speaking of newspapers, I'm happy to announce that I have been chosen to be the Globe's Editor Elect. What this means is for the calendar year 2016 I will be the assistant to the Editor-in-Chief, Josh Croup. Together we'll do editing stuff (like final proofs of the paper and other fun administrative work) but Croup handles all of the important high-up stuff whereas I follow his lead and provide support and such. In January of 2017, God willing, I will become Editor-in-Chief of the Globe, handling and shouldering the day-to-day operations of our humble campus newspaper.

Needless to say, this has been an involved application and approval process that I've been working on as early as November, but I'm proud to be able to announce it finally.

In completely unrelated news, I met Rick Sebak. He came to our campus yesterday for a screening of his most recent documentary, Return to Downtown Pittsburgh, complete with a Q&A session and reception. I was there as a Sebak fan, but also to cover it for the Globe. So stay tuned to the Globe website/newsstands for that whenever I write it, but bottom line he's just as awesome and fun as I had hoped.

L-R: My roommate Vince, Beth, Me, and Rick Sebak himself

He graciously let me interview him and talked about his documentaries, how this is only the second time there has been a screening, and how he didn't know how awesome Point Park was until he shot it and talked to our illustrious P. Henni (University President Dr. Paul Hennigan). In other words, I was geeking out the whole time because RICK FRICKIN SEBAK.

Does this man sound familiar? Like in this blog? Because if you've been reading for a while, you remember the 2014 Rick Sebak sighting in the South Side. If you don't you can read it here: http://2015blogger.blogspot.com/2014/02/i-can-show-you-what-you-wanna-see-and.html. TL;DR: I saw him on the street waiting for a bus after a WYEP excursion.

Speaking of WYEP, Reimagine media and I crossed paths yet again, but this time I was covering the Reimagination project for the Globe because, you guessed it, WYEP has teamed up with Point Park to do the project. So effectively it's 2014 all over again but with a newspaper and college and stuff.

So basically I'm living the life I've wanted to live for a while and it's quite fantastic - it's exhausting and stressful but I absolutely love it, and the people that surround me. When I posted my Editor-Elect announcement to Facebook, my phone exploded with notifications. I frankly didn't know that many people cared, but as of the time I write this post, 96 people have liked the status. That just doesn't happen. Meh, I digress.

I'm so glad to have these amazing people in my life and to be doing what I love in a place that's just awesome. Yeah, it's too expensive but that's another rant for another time. I'm living this crazy life that I'm excited to be a part of. I don't hate my roommate, I'm involved with stuff on campus, people (somehow) actually like me, and I met Rick Sebak. What more could I ask for right this second? Maybe a bit more sleep, but that's my own fault.

So to past me - somehow you've made it this far, and just continue to be your crazy big dreamer self. I'd give that same advice to my future self - don't stop dreaming and stay crazy.

I think I'll shut up now.

Let's See How Far We've Come 2015: The Year in Review

I did this two years ago, and missed last year because my computer was consistently on the fritz, but that makes no difference. 

For a year where so much happened, I posted the least amount of things (this makes 19) that I have ever posted in a year. It's a paradox really: when you do so much, you have less time to document what you've done, and so on your blog it looks like you did nothing. But as usual I digress. 

I did write a Christmas letter this year, and if you're interested, here's a link to it. My problem with it is its brevity. I needed to write it to fit on a singular piece of paper in 11 point Georgia which limits a year to a mere five or six paragraphs. So here I expand my narrative. Sorry about the rest of my family, but this is my blog... Let's do this! Sorry in advance for how frickin long this is going to be.

January brought my Eagle Court of Honor, along with the Carnegie Talent Show. I don't have anything else on my calendar, and honestly don't have my Eagle COH on the calendar, so that shows you how my state of mind was at that time. I did my job shadow at KDKA. I was also working for The Cougar Times at that point prepping the January issue.

February brought my venture to Dormont for the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I didn't give an annual Valentine's Day message (thank goodness. If memory serves me right, my then-girlfriend and I split that day anyways so....). I was in the midst of Senior Madness, which is what I'll call the first five months of the year. 

In March I bought an album (Hozier's self titled album which is still fantastic). I also went to a SHASDA dinner where we talked about the future of education. I was named to Trib Total Media's Top 50 Outstanding Youth Citizen list. Which is cool, but didn't come with a journalism job offer so... 

April brought with it my 18th birthday, as well as the Trib Total Media Top 50 OYC banquet. I went to the They Might Be Giants concert with Clay, and attended High School Musical the next day at Carlynton having sufficiently blown my eardrums out. I was also on the radio as a part of WESA's Life of Learning Education panel. And Troop 831's last ever Court of Honor. 

May brought a whole lot of school-related nonsense. I took my AP tests, and I went to Washington DC with the band. I also went to prom with some friends. And that was all fun. That whole whirlwind was reflected upon in a blog post linked below under "graduated form high school".

In June I graduated from high school. I also got my diploma. Along with it, I was awarded a $5,000 scholarship from Carlynton, which was pretty freaking awesome. I also began my journey at Point Park by attending the Pioneer Experience thingy.  I had my graduation party, and a lot of other stuff happened.

In July the world kinda stopped. I dropped off the face of the earth, and for a while was employed by GetGo. I'm not going to talk about that.

August began my new life. I went to the greatest city, Chicago, with my Aunt and mother. I had my wisdom teeth taken out, and a week later I moved into my new home in Thayer Hall with my fourth floor family. Later that month I started school, and was quite great!

There's a lot of stuff that happened in September. I started writing for the Globe, started a radio show on WPPJ, was elected to the United Student Government, and started working for the Post-Gazette. I also ended up emceeing the Carlynton Festival of Bands. Which was kinda great to get back in touch with my alma mater. There's no easy way to link blog posts, so here's the September archive: http://2015blogger.blogspot.com/2015_09_01_archive.html.

October continued September's new adventures. I kept working for the PG, and was hired on as an assistant news editor for the Globe. On Halloween I invited my floor to my house for a campfire and passing out candy and such. 

November was more of the September-October Blur. I broke momentarily for Thanksgiving, was a part of Rock-A-Thon for WPPJ, and attended the Eagle Scout Recognition Banquet, as well as spoke at it. 

In December I finished my first semester of college ever. And I reflected a bit on that. I also began Christmas Break after helping participate in a 24 hour film festival with some friends. Here's what I'll say about my fourth floor family, and I already wrote it once: 

Besides that, I'm going to live in Carnegie [again] for a little under a month. While I'm excited to see my family again, I will greatly miss my extended family - those 22 goofballs I live with on this floor - and I'm also aware my family all work during the day, so perhaps I'll start writing a novel or something. I don't need a pastime, but I do need to learn how to take a break because since August 24 I've been running at a consistent 100 miles an hour and now I have no more highways to speed on, I'm relegated to back roads for a while.

So with that, I'm easing my way into 2016. Since August I've been going a hundred miles an hour, and during the break I eased it to about 65. Still not technically legal on a highway, but entirely okay considering where I was. 

Here's to a 2016 just as full of adventures, and just as much insanity. Why post today and not tomorrow? Tomorrow I'm going on a hike and possibly attending a NYE party with my high school friends. We'll see. I just had the time now before my shift at the PG. 

That Time I Served on an Eagle Board of Review: A Life Update

I last posted here 20 days ago, which at one time would be unacceptable, but nowadays life moves too fast for me to guarantee anything.

I've been thinking a lot about the past recently. Let me make one thing entirely clear: I don't want to relive, I just want to acknowledge. Anyways, I've been looking over the past year's worth of blog posts because this is the time of year where I write the Christmas, and I will make my annual "Let's See How Far We've Come" post later today, but as for now I want to evaluate where I am.

Two weeks ago I served on an Eagle Board of Review. To be entirely fair, I have never once served on a Board, and the last time I was at an Eagle Board was, well, my own almost a year prior. This was the last Board for Troop 831 because we couldn't recharter for 2016 with none members. I was asked because, as usual, this was a down-to-the-wire during-the-week case. They needed manpower that didn't have work on a Tuesday. But the symbolic thing in all this was that it was indeed that last board of review. And so everyone who was asked (and then some) appeared.

The maximum number of adult registered leaders who can appear on a board is six. Mike had six. They were Mr. Y (my mentor, and the man I credit with me becoming a more confident human being than I thought possible), Mr. Ellenberger (the district advancement chair commissioner dude, also an Eagle), me (you know me), my dad (you should know my dad), Mr. Fenton (a family friend of Mike's who knows him outside of scouts), and a personal favorite, Jake Urbanek. If you've followed my life for a long time, you know about Jake. Officially he's the camp director at Seph Mack in Indiana, he's also a junior at Cal U. Personally, he's been one of my best scouting friends and a huge influence on me taking on leadership roles and advancing full on to Eagle. We've been great friends ever since the April 2009 NYC adventure.

We realized a few things in us discovering we were both on the board: we were there for Mike's start in Boy Scouting (which was the NYC trip) and we signed off on his end. We were, progressively with the exception of Jake Seanor between Mike and I, the last three SPLs of Troop 831.

There was a lot of symbolism in that room: three Eagle Scouts, the old guard and the final guard of Troop 831, and we ended the troop with the pinnacle of scouting - seeing our last youth member make Eagle.

It felt hollow, our last Court of Honor. People shared their memories from a bygone era and mourned the lost of that which they left. I'm sorry I don't know the troop 831 of the 90s or 2000s, and that I barely recognize anyone that showed up. Here's my sidebar: yes it was a magical reunion of yore, but it was the mourning of something completely preventable. They mourned their memories of 831, not the 831 that held that court of honor. As the scouts from years past walked up to speak about their memories or advice or whatever, each one of them recounted memories and punctuated their speeches with a near-condemnation of the current administration for ending it. Here's the deal: we had 4 scouts legally and on the books. I saw this coming back when I was SPL: we lost our feeder pack because the cubmaster pulled the jenga blocks and while that's an excuse it isn't a good one. In 2010 and 2012 we needed to look at recruitment, not sustainability. Because without the first one, the second was and proved to be impossible. We reached out nowhere, and this grand network of alumni remained silent and detached until April 26th. That's the reality. It wasn't overnight, people just didn't join. And those of us that were there aged out.

So it's over. Well, the troop is at least. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I do know this much: we will go on. Jake, Mike, and possibly some other 831 alums plan on taking an alumni reunion hike in Settlers' Cabin tomorrow. Who knows where we go from there.

On First Reference: To Write Home About

I'm beginning to understand a phrase I use sometimes: "nothing to write home about." It turns out I've been misusing it all these years.

I used to use the phrase to mean nothing notable had happened. While this is still true, it's not entirely true. Since moving on campus, I've noticed that my reports back home have to be short. As a journalism major, I've learned how to identify key figures in a story and give minimal background. These combine, and I find I end up cutting people out because first reference requires background.

As a result, there are a lot of amazing people who live on my floor and such that I interact on a daily basis with that I can't reference to other people without a lengthy explanation. I find that the best I can do is for each person give two adjectives to describe them best. Several come to mind: Talented, Creative, Beautiful in Every Way, Knightly, Business-Savvy, and the list goes on.

Anyway, these are people I absolutely love having in my life but without a lengthy explanation couldn't rightly explain who they were. So to anyone concerned about me, yes I have made friends.

Things move extremely fast here, mainly because (though I jokingly said this in high school) I actually live here. I can meet with people on the same day I first contact them, and have (Mondays are famous for this) several meetings in a day.

THE CLUB, an initiative where I am part of the development team, is going pretty well.

I have a show with two other people on WPPJ (670AM on campus, or wppjradio.com or on the TuneIn App). The concept is called Sixty-Forty, and it consists of 60% music and 40% talk. And you can call in if you're crazy enough. Anyway, it airs every Friday from 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. and you should totally listen.

I am a staff writer with The Globe and as I talked about in my last post here I'm really loving working for them. Having the title "Staff Writer" is pretty awesome, even if it was a typo in the last edition.

I am still loving working for the Post-Gazette, which has become a more entertaining venture than I figured. I work 9 p.m. - midnight on Fridays (which explains why I'm still up to a degree). Who appears in the cube across from me but my Journalism 150 (Journalistic Writing and Editing) professor. He apparently does this just for fun, to keep his foot in the door, and I got to talking to him during a lull about his background. He started at a community newspaper and at one point was working at USA Today before starting his own newspaper. A rather dumb business fluke caused the downfall of the paper, so now he teaches.

As we're waiting for the T to come, who appears behind us but my Journalism 101 professor - the reason I have the job. There I was, surrounded by faculty working for the same institution, and by this I mean the Post-Gazette, not Point Park. Which, I might add, is probably the best decision I've made probably ever. Let's see where this goes.

This has been a wild ride so far, and I'm so excited to just keep doing it all, to just keep living in the end. Ride along, will you?

Let's Make Mistakes for a While

So this is a very overdue life update. Like most overdue things, it's going to be frantically thrown together and sorta clunkily large. Clunkily is not a word.

Let's start in order. I'm involved with the Globe, which is the campus newspaper. I've written 4 pieces (three have been published - each on the front page - and I'm waiting for Wednesday to roll around for the most recent piece) for them and I'm finding I'm not too terrible at this writing thing. Just not here. If you want to read everything in order from the beginning (a piece on USG - before I joined USG), look here: http://www.pointparkglobe.com/news/?s=Popichak

I was elected to the United Student Government here as the freshman representative for the school of communication, and I serve on the communication committee headed by my RE Emily (who is also USG's Press Secretary). Our first meeting? Budgets. Just my luck. USG is full of great people, and I can tell we are going to make positive changes in the PPU community.

I'm working with my friends Amber and Elise on a weekly radio show that debuts this coming Friday (9/25) on WPPJ. We're calling it Sixty Forty, because it's going to be 60% music and 40% not music. It's like half and half but with more music. Want to hear us play stuff? Download the TuneIn App or visit the WPPJ website here: wppjradio.com or this direct link: http://tunein.com/radio/WPPJ-s12994/

I'm also in real live print journalism! Kinda. I was hired as a freelance sports stringer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. On Friday nights I go to the PG's north shore offices and answer phones for two hours or so taking high school football summaries. It's a paid gig and I've found that it's really fun. And I also like high school football, so this is a good way of staying connected without being that alumnus that goes back to all the games.

Those are the major developments in my life at this point. People are fantastic here, and the professors are also pretty great. I've been keeping in touch with the people back home to a decent degree, but it's a bit hard. We're in our own little world here at Point Park - directly connected to the real world of Pittsburgh.

Straight Outta Thayer

I'm writing this in my dorm at Point Park University. That is one of the strangest things to be able to say after working so long to get here. But yeah, I'm now a freshman journalism major at Point Park University. And if you thought I was going to ease into the process and glide, you haven't been reading long this blog long enough.

It hasn't been the easiest transition but I'm loving it now. Classes are going pretty well and just today I signed up for probably 7 student organizations. I'm running for offices, and oh yeah I'm involved with the Globe.

Day one of classes there was a pitch meeting for the Globe. I took an assignment due that night - take some pictures of Monte Carlo night. Wednesday the Globe came out and sure enough one of my pictures is on the front. Mind you I have no proper training (yet) but there it is.

College is full of adventures and amazing friends so far. I spend most of my time in my 4th floor home or with my friends up on the 6th floor. I haven't had much time to write here, but a pretty great account of one of our misadventures is here: https://sowhatisthepointpark.wordpress.com/2015/08/20/the-mannequin-hand-the-adventures-begin/. It's written by my friend Elena, who decided to cut me out of her version of the story (when you read "Cara" read it as me...).

But nonetheless I am alive and thriving here at Point Park. The people are amazingly nice and I have like no free time to write here or make this make sense. Sorry about that. Maybe things will settle (HA!). Nonetheless, I hope to keep you all up to date on the goings-on here.

And I would Fly 500 Miles...

So it's been a while. Hi! I'm not dead. I'm down four wisdom teeth and almost moved out for college, but other than that not too much is different. I'm still me, you're still you, right? Right.

So last week I traveled alongside my aunt and mother to one of the greatest cities in the world, Chicago Illinois. I know what you're thinking: the midwest? Why? I'll tell you why: THE BEAN.

Okay, I'm kidding, we didn't fly a third of the way across the country just to see a bean, even if it is a majestic stainless steel sculpture of awesome. We did a heck of a lot of cool stuff in not a lot of time. That Wednesday morning we flew out from Pittsburgh International and landed at Midway around 7:00 AM Central. Time travelling (or traversing time zones to be more accurate) is an amazingly cool and disorienting thing. Especially when your wristwatch refuses to get with the program and change from EDT to CDT, but that's a whole other rant.

We took the Orange line into the Loop, which in hindsight is about the size of Downtown Pittsburgh. Plus: it's walkable and flat Minus: you walk way more than you realize and are exhausted by the end of it. But oh well.

That first day we went to Millennium Park (Home of the Bean), the Art Institute of Chicago (Home of a friendly cashier who made me realize I have a weird accent when it comes to saying the word "pin" versus "pen" as well as home to American Gothic and other famous art such), Giordano's Pizza (home of amazing deep dish pizza), the Briar Street Theater (home of the Blue Man Group), and then the Club Quarters hotel (temporary home of us). We got up around 4 AM Eastern to fly out, which is 3 AM central and finally got to the hotel to sleep around midnight central, or 1 AM Eastern. It was an exhausting but amazing day.

Day two was just as busy. I had amazing french toast at Wildberry Pancakes and Cafe on East Randolph. We took an architecture boat ride through the city of Chicago along the Chicago River. We also stumbled upon, and longtime followers of my blog will appreciate this, THE 2015 CHICAGO RUBBER DUCKY DERBY! They had a giant (not really) rubber duck and launched THOUSANDS of them off of a drawbridge and it was amazing and seriously the ONE time I go to Chicago we just so happen to find a ducky derby. (Confused yet? Click Here...). I took a detour to the Chicago Cultural Center (home of a GAR hall with an awesome dome and another hall with another awesome dome), another pilgrimage to the bean because THE BEAN! and that evening we travelled north to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs take on the Giants.

I'm not a Cubs fan, and I'm not a Giants fan. I am a self-diagnosed stubborn Pirates fan. So it's really weird going into a ballyard you don't know to see two teams you A) don't really care about and B) don't know really at all to watch them play. But it's Wrigley Field so you have to. So what are you to do, root against the home team? If you ask the random sea of Giants Fans around us yes you do. Or you could just cheer for everyone without worry because it doesn't matter.

Unless of course you're worried about the Buccos' Wild Card Chances. Which, after seeing the Cards series I suddenly am...

Three years ago I read a great book about Chicago and the 1892 World Fair. It's called "Devil in the White City" by Erik Larsen. Good Swedish name, though I doubt he's Swedish. Anyway, the worlds fair took place on the same plane longitudinally as Midway Airport (Midway = Midway Plaissance).. Most of buildings from the amazing worlds fair that debuted Tesla's Alternating Current and, you know, the Ferris Wheel, have burned to the ground. They all have, except for the Palace of Fine Arts. It was fireproof (a marvel of its time) and now houses the Museum of Science and Industry. So on the third day we trekked south in search of the Worlds Fair. I didn't realize how freaking huge this place was until I got there. It was overwhelming and amazing (both in architecture and size and the cool exhibits they had there - I sat in a combine harvester!) and so I wandered about a bit, and before catching the Metra north ran all the way around the building (which, much to MSI's credit, they've kept intact from the 1893 detailing) to look out over Jackson Park, a place I must explore next time I'm in Chicago. Because it's beautiful and haunting. Exactly as I hoped it would be. The world nowadays has no real place for worlds fairs - innovations are debuted on large stages and in keynote addresses by men in turtlenecks, but it's important to realize that there was a time where you had to travel to see the new. It wasn't just beamed at you or around you, you had to get your ticket, hitch up a wagon or train to see the impressive marvels of technology.

The rest of our last day in Chicago was spent wandering about the Navy Pier, which jettisons out into Lake Michigan complete with (of course) a ferris wheel, and some interesting oddities including the studios of WBEZ (this American Life, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and most other awesome things to come from Public Radio) and a museum dedicated to stained glass from Tiffany & Co.

Standing at the edge of the Navy Pier overlooking Lake Michigan is nowhere near as inspiring as looking out over the Atlantic Ocean from Bethany Beach, Delaware. But much like the rest of the marvel that is Chicago it forces you to compare and to examine. The city was planned after a fire, and has three layers, so the top layer - what us tourists see and the wayward streetgoers do - is always clean and pristine. Below is the through traffic, and below that is trash collection world and the trains. Chicago as a whole is planned to the T, and is a constant experiment of pushing higher (inventing the skyscraper) and more practically than you could think possible.

In conclusion, I love it there. It's too dang flat for me to even begin to compare it to my beloved Pittsburgh, but at the same time there is something to be said for flying in and seeing the city far beyond a sunrise summer haze over Midway.

Chicago is an inspiring place that forces you to think about human possibility. How the hell do you eat this gigantic deep dish pizza? Why do so many people flock to the bean? How did a city known for slaughterhouses and fire rise from its bloodied messy past and become an awesome and clean metropolis? It's a wonder of its own, and I've never experienced anything quite like it.

I give all credit to my amazing Aunt and Uncle who made this possible. For my tolerant mother for letting us drag her around Chicago, and even to a baseball game (I love it, she hates it) and to the giant rubber duck, to which we owe credit for all awesome and dorky things.

You just knew I'd find some way to circle it back to the Giant Duck....

If you'd like to see any of the pictures I took of this trip, I made an album on Flickr like usual: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alexanderpopichak/albums/72157656832984110

A Whirlwind

I'm writing on a Sunday. Which is weird. I didn't even really sleep in, which while not being weird, but I'm home, which is. Nevertheless, hi. How are you? I haven't written here in a while [since graduation] so here goes nothing:

So you graduate. You pick up your diploma and report card and that's it. It's an incredibly strange feeling to be "done" with something. To me, a person with a constant stream of unfinished projects, it's unsettling, but what choice do you have? So what did I do? That night, I invited some of my friends from high school over to my front porch and we chatted. More people came, and by the end of it, it was 1 in the morning. Then came the parade of graduation parties. I'm a broke college kid, so I can't exactly contribute the money people contribute towards grad parties or whatever, so I do my best to attend every one I am invited to, and share some time.

Graduation parties are very strange traditions. For the most part, the graduate is trying to greet and send off people as they come in and out. The goal, I guess, is to get a chance to speak a bit with everyone. But in reality, the attendants don't actually get to speak with the graduate much. They just kind of show up, say hi, eat food, chat a bit, and then, I don't know, in my case it was usually appear at another grad party. And so if you're in attendance, your best bet is to go with someone you already know so you can talk to them, and then visit with the graduate as much as their schedule allows. This was the philosophy for mine about a week ago. I visited with everyone, that was my point. I cared only that they ate food (because there was so much and like that's what people do) and that I talked with them. Family and the sort insisted on giving cards and while that was nice, it was successful in that I got to talk with everyone in one place for once. It was nice. Exhausting, but nice.

This past Thursday and Friday (25th and 26th of June if you're as lost as me) was spent at my future home, Point Park University for their orientation. What I've found is that anymore colleges have stopped calling their orientations orientation, and Point Park calls theirs the "Pioneer Experience" which I guess hold true. The attendees of PPU are Pioneers, the mascot is the bison, I don't get it but I don't have to. And boy was that an experience. It started mid-day and I wasn't back in my overnight dorm until 1AM. I met several awesome people, and from the time I walked on campus I was pretty okay with spending more than one night there, but like it only lasts two days so I have to wait until August.

The cost of higher education is absolutely insane, and while I don't think any amount of fancy schooliness can justify the pricetag, at least from what I've seen so far Point Park does the best to start you working on your major and in the field now. This was extremely important to me from the start of the college search, and I feel like I made the right decision. Or the best, considering how high and dry we are left after high school. We'll see if it stays that way, but for now, I'm excited and looking to the future with optimism.

Graduation: Go Pick Up Your Diploma

I am neither the valedictorian nor salutatorian, in fact I think I'm like 10th or 11th in the class, so I don't get to give any speeches at graduation. Frankly, if you read my Eagle speech, it's not that much of a loss. Nevertheless, since this is my house and my soapbox, I'm going to say some stuff about graduation and the sort.

The way I see it, it's poetic that the commencement diploma distribution is a lie. We're called up one by one, shake hands, and receive a "diploma" that in reality is just a holder. In order to get the diploma that goes in that holder, you have to go back to the gym to pick it up. So why is this poetic?

Education, or at least public education, is often looked at as a free ride, something that's handed to you. It really isn't. Well, success isn't at least. See, the only thing they hand to you are the bare bones - the four required English classes, the three maths, the very basic classes. And even then, you just have to pass.

The poetry is this - in order to succeed, you have to take another step - you have to go to the gym, or like go and do stuff above and beyond - to actually accomplish something. That's been my experience at Carlynton these past 13 years. The school will support you in whatever you do, but in the end your success depends upon the opportunities that you take advantage of. If you take no action, in the end you just have a diploma holder.

I don't have any deep and profound wisdom for anyone - after all, I'm only a recent high school graduate - but I do have this one quote I found a few years back. It's a quote from the autobiography of Walter Cronkite that I read in the 10th grade, and I've used it as my email signature ever since.

I can't imagine a person becoming a success who doesn't give this game of life everything he's got

That's it, you just have to give this crazy game of life all you've got. Take opportunities, meet awesome people, and just keep doing things. It's cliche to say that this is just a beginning or whatever sunshine rainbow quote you usually hear at these things, but I guess it's true. In a less abstract sense, it's the beginning of your own choosing. The last thing you do as a high school student is to walk out of here and pick up your diploma to put in that holder. But that's also the first choice you make as a high school graduate.

So don't forget to go pick that up, you earned it.

Blue Canary in the Outlet By the Lightswitch

Hello there! I'm alive! Senior year is one of those things that just seem to speed by and take all of your time. That isn't much of an excuse, but again I've been living my life.

I turned 18 on April 15th, and got to thinking about what that actually means. It doesn't mean much fun things, but here's a list if you're keeping track:

• Register To Vote (check)
• Sign up for Selective Service (check)
• Buy a Lottery Ticket (check, and no it didn't win :P)
• Sign for medical/legal stuff (check, unfortunately)
• Drive past 11 (which honestly I'm rarely awake past 11 so....)

I'm sure there are other things (before you say tobacco and strip clubs, just stop) but that's what I made the list of. So family came over (it was weird not having my grandmother there, but I have a feeling she was... I'm not into that whole supernatural stuff, but I'm aware it exists) and we had cake and spaghetti and went our merry way. 

April 16th brought the They Might Be Giants Concert with Clay and my Aunt Marie. Well, Aunt Marie drove us there, but Clay had wanted me to come since they announced the concert. TMBG is a band that has been both quite largely followed and quite obscure. They've been around since the late 80s/early 90s and have a rather unique, quirky alternative sound I love. It was "an evening with" so they were their own opener. All in all, it was a great concert and they played for nearly 2 hours. Many thanks to both Clay and Aunt Marie for making that happen.

April 18th brought High School Musical. I can't say too much really (partially because I was partially deaf that day, and the other because I'm a cynic) except there were two main reasons I was there: Dan Doyle (The Actuary Gigabass), and Becca. I wanted to support my friends (mainly those two) and so I did. 

April 23rd brought a mock senate (which was fantastic!) and the Trib Total Media Dinner Thingy. I was named one of Trib Total Media's Top 50 Outstanding Young Citizens for the South and West Region. I don't talk about these sorts of things much, but this is an exception. Those who were selected were invited to a (really fancy) banquet out past the Airport. It is extremely rare that I feel REALLY out of place at social functions. I was surrounded by AAA and AAAA schools, and the tops of those schools, so it was intimidating and strange to say the least. They stuck us in the back corner of the room (and I think that's a good thing, because we were with a family from Chartiers-Valley who spent the whole night feeling like the riff-raff) and gave a lovely dinner that due to my illness I couldn't really taste. All in all, it was a pretty okay night, and I have a neat little certificate to go with it.

April 24th brought the Senior Project. As a graduation requirement, students in our district are required to complete a project detailing their profession of choice. It involves completing research on the career, doing a job shadow, and it culminates in a presentation and interview on a selected day. That day was the 24th, and my panel consisted of an elementary teacher I didn't know, my kindergarten teacher (yep, he got to start and end my high school career), and one of the high school computer teachers (I wrote a story about his sports marketing class for The Cougar Times). I passed, I think, but the kicker was I had lost my voice. I have been sick effectively for the past week (it's finally been diagnosed as a sinus infection and is being treated) and lost my voice entirely the day of the presentation. So I was lucky enough to whisper the entirety of my presentation to my panel....

This coming Tuesday I am going to be on a student panel about education at (WYEP-owned) WESA. As I said, we'll be talking education: the past, the present, and the future. They will record our little panel and then broadcast it at a later date (you better believe I'll be posting a link when I get it!). The panel itself will start at 7PM, and if you'd like to join us just register here: http://wesa.fm/post/905-wesa-present-life-learning-forum-april-28.

Upcoming events include: the last Court of Honor for troop 831 (ever) is tomorrow, the doom and gloom church meeting is tomorrow, and no doubt fun stuff awaits us next week. 

Until next time, I'll see you on the radio 

(I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO SAY THAT!!!)

We'll Name Our Children Jackie and Wilson and Raise 'Em on Rhythm and Blues

Hi! Long time no write. The title is from Hozier's "Jackie and Wilson" on his album which I bought yesterday and IT IS FANTASTIC! This is going to be quite disjointed. Sorry.

These past few Fridays I have been out and about with friends, and Saturdays have been spent for the most part doing assorted nonsense. Sundays are never good, which means I've neglected my blog for the past while.

It's really strange to be doing things on Friday Nights, especially with friends. For the longest time I've been the type to prefer a night in to anything else, but I have (some people may say FINALLY) come out of my shell. I'm now proposing to go out, and to get people together doing something. I guess that's what senior year does to you: the freeing from caring about consequences leads to more leaps of faith. Or something profound like that.

I'm going to try and run quickly through the latest developments and the sort so in the future I can look back and say "I didn't post because..."

• SHASDA Dinner - fancy dinner with administrators from area school districts where they invite once a year students from each district for a forum about education and the sort. Two main points: technology is coming to our classrooms and we should try and get on that as opposed to hoping it'll just wash over like a wave, AND I've found a new line about standardized testing that was met with applause (like really? since when does Alex Popichak get applause for things he thought of on his own. I usually get C papers for that) that new line being: "I think we should start building the test to fit the curriculum as opposed to trying to jam a curriculum to fit a test". Who accompanied me to this dinner? None other than our assistant principal. 
• Trib OYC Top 50 -  I was nominated for an award and invited to attend a dinner. Every year, the Tribune-Review sponsors an award called the Outstanding Youth Citizen award and they take nominations from schools and individuals for the area's Top 50. I am honored to be named one of the Top 50 in the West division. The winner of gold medals will be announced at the dinner, as will the winner of a $5000 scholarship. The dinner will be held in April and I have to get working on that scholarship app...
• Operation Alex Pays For College  - has commenced, and I'm working on trying to find a way to pay for college. The Point Park University Presidential Scholarship and Opportunity Grant are amazingly helpful, and after federal loans I'm down to a commitment roughly equal to room and board, which is manageable. When you think of how absolutely insanely expensive it is just to get a degree, I feel I am blessed to have worked this hard and get financial aid based on that. It's weird to be recognized for stuff, but I guess that happens? I don't know. How to be humble without being a jerk...

I think that sums up some of the bigger stuff. I don't know. Sorry if this was a disappointment to all three of you who read this...

This Message Brought to You by the Junior Chamber of Commerce Players

I plan on writing three posts: This one, one on Valentines Day, and another on my Eagle COH... We'll see if that actually happens.

So this past Saturday brought me a multitude of increasingly bizarre things.

I began the day at the Espy Post giving tours. I began about 10 minutes early by request and stayed almost 40 minutes late because there was a steady stream of people. What the library had neglected to tell me was that there was an article about the post published in the Tribune-Review the week prior. When publicity hits, people appear out of nowhere. They also had someone shadow me as I did my tours. By 'they' I mean the library executive director so there's that.

The next part of my day took me to Greentree for an ecumenical service for scouts. Generally the first Saturday in February is reserved as Scout Sunday, but for some reason this year they had it on a Saturday. It was held in an LDS Church. I've written about denomination and religion on here before, but if you were to place it on a spectrum of old-timey ancient philosophy to newer ideas, we are pretty far from one another.* The Orthodox haven't changed much of anything in 2,000 years and relative to that they're pretty new-age. But that's okay, just not what I'm used to.

I changed groups of people and then things got weird.

That night a group of us decided to go to the Hollywood Theater in Dormont to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show with a shadow cast. Let me make three things abundantly clear: 1) I had never seen Rocky Horror before in any capacity 2) I wasn't exactly sure what it was about past what I gleamed from IMDb and had seen in Perks of Being A Wallflower 3) I had decided when I saw Perks that I wanted to see this eventually, and I wanted that to be the first time I saw Rocky Horror in any capacity.

So that's exactly what happened. We showed up quite early and took up the first row, danced with the shadowcast, and it was amazing. The show started at midnight and by the time I got home it was 3 AM (and got back up at 745 for church), but it was totally worth it. It was wacky, inappropriate, and downright fun. The group that does it call themselves the Junior Chamber of Commerce Players (http://www.steelcityrockyhorror.com/) and do a fantastic job of shadowcasting it (Granted, I've never seen shadowcasts before, I've only seen casts in plays and musicals, etc). If you don't know, they play the film up on the screen while the cast acts out the show on a makeshift stage in front. This is complete with costumes, outrageous props, and impromptu dialogue.

It was again one of those surreal, fantastic experiences that I entirely recommend to anyone willing to have a fun time. They have a set of rules, and the first rule (per their website) is: Rule #1. This show is about fun. If you're not having fun, you're doing something wrong. And that's true, it's a whole lot of fun. AND IT WAS ONLY $8! So go.

I noticed when I was doing the bit of research to write this that I'm apparently on their homepage. Cool.

Yep, That's half of Clay, Me, Elliot, Abby, and half of Alec on their page...

On the Rank of Eagle, and How I Got Here

[Note, I'm typing this in a second period study hall....]

So last night I had my Eagle Board of Review. I explained it to my non-scouting friends, teachers, and, well, about everybody non-scouting, as this: it's a two-hour (give or take) review and panel interview. For the first half hour or so they review the paperwork - all of my rank advancement stuff back to when I joined, the project paperwork, and the other pertinent documents. "They" is a panel that I have picked of either scouters or people I know (in this case 4 scout-related (one troop leader, one district advancement chair, one former district advancement chair, and a district commissioner) and 1 non-scout related (one vice principal)).

They review my paperwork, and then bring me in for questioning. In prior board of reviews they just go down the list of requirements and ask about them (when did you tie this bowline or whatever?) but I knew this was bound to be different - it's the last one effectively. They asked things in sections, but what threw me off a bit was after the usual (oath, law, slogan, etc) was that they started asking about me. And not just about me, but about the things I do outside of scouts. Having the Vice Principal and someone representing a volunteer group you're in gives them a list of things you've done. So they went down the list.

Then came the scouting questions. They asked about my experiences and merit badges and points of the scout law and ten thousand other things you could have probably Googled but the point is that if you've made it this far you really shouldn't have to. Talking about yourself is a strange thing. I'm not a big fan of myself (actually I find me kind of annoying), but I did the best I could in answering. Which is what they were after, I guess.

I had been told for years about the horror stories of Eagle Boards. What I had gathered from it was this: they were intense, long, and very thorough. While that held true, I found myself relaxing a bit after the first section or so of questioning. I picked a relatively tough board, but they all knew me from something. One of the most important things, I think at least, that can be gathered from organizations is networking.

I had also been told horror stories about how long it took to deliberate after the questioning. For the review of records and deliberation I wasn't allowed to be present, which I understand. Strangely enough, the "green room" for us was the room in which I had all but two boards of reviews in. So I sat down expecting a wait. Five minutes later, Mr. Y (the troop representative of the board, and probably my biggest mentor throughout scouting) appears in the door (I'm thinking that something didn't match up, there was no way it was that quick) and says "I cannot say whether the smoke from the Vatican is white or black." So I follow him back into the room, and they put me at the front (again) and Mr. Ellenberger (the district advancement chair) says: "Congratulations, on behalf of the board we'd like to welcome you into the ranks of Eagle." And that was that.

To say it's an amazing feeling is an understatement. I've been working up the ranks since I was in the first grade, so in a way this has been 11 years in the making. To everyone, and I mean everyone from Mr. Y to the other leaders to anyone who had a part in the project to my amazing family and friends (and girlfriend) who have listened and counseled me through this process, thank you. It takes a village and I am very very grateful for mine.

A Funeral, A Wedding, and an Eagle Project: The Past Month

So I haven't posted in a LONG while. Sorry.

On October 26th, 2014 I gained a guardian angel and lost one of my most dear relatives and friends when my paternal grandmother passed away. I will give this the proper post it deserves in a little while, just not now. But following that was a viewing, a funeral, and then reality.

I went to a wedding last weekend in Meadville. Or at least we stayed in Meadville. If you've ever been to the Cochranton/Meadville exit off of 79, you know that you have to go through a swamp in order to get there from points south. That's the kind of place Meadville is - kinda cool, yet kind of far removed from reality.

We were there for the daughter of my mother's best friend's wedding. It was a lovely ceremony, and lasted all of 15 minutes. I took somewhere near 100 pictures for a project my mother wanted to put together. I like photography without a set list of things to accomplish, but I am also realistic enough to know that when I'm given an assignment for this to go a step further than my computer that despite what the client (in this case my mother) says about having no agenda, they have an agenda. So I did my best to read minds and attempt to be everywhere and nowhere. We'll see how that goes.

On November 10th, I finished a project I had been working on for over a year: The Carlynton Sign Project. Mr. McAdoo signed off on it yesterday, so I feel safe saying that with the exception of some more paperwork I am done with this.

I crunched some numbers and realized that all told 35 people volunteered on the project contributing 120+ hours of community service to the school district. That's just time dedicated to working on the project, not the planning and scheming and phone calls. To say I was happy to see the project finished and to see people's reactions to it and to see that signature is a grotesque understatement.

So many people worked to make this thing a reality and I have lost so much sleep over it that I'm very happy to finally take a step back and think, wow, I did this thing. We were given a budget of $500 and accomplished what we came to do - rehab, replace, and landscape the Carlynton Sign. We put new capstone in, cleaned, painted, mounted banners to and landscaped around this thing and I think it's safe to say that it looks much better than it did.

You be the Judge:

So thanks again to everyone who had a hand in this project, from Mr. McAdoo and Mr. Loughren and the School Board to Jeff and Nick who randomly helped us clean the brick to any and all of the volunteers who took time out of their schedules to make this crazy idea a reality. 120+ hours. Nuts.

This Has Been Alexander Popichak Speaking For The Carlynton Marching Band

Yesterday was the end of an era for me, it was Senior Night at Carlynton and with that, my last football game with the band.

Three years ago I signed up to be the announcer of the band. Since then, I've attended football games home and away, and more band festivals then I knew existed. It was a blast, honestly. What started as just something to do became a part of my life, and the gaining of a family I never expected. It was because of this that I was able to do three years of homecoming court bios, senior nights, a year of soccer, and emceeing three band festivals.

Last night I was given a gift by my section member (the section of the sectionless) Abbie (best friend to my girlfriend and all around amazing band manager) an awesome gift - a decorated hatbox for my crazy marching band helmet as well as a bag of Three Musketeers.

I again read (this time half) of senior night -  for my seniors, the class of 2015. Then it was my turn to have my name and biography read as I walked down the field. It was the first time I had ever walked down the middle of the field that I can remember, and I was met at the end by Mr. Obidowski, Mr. Loughren, and Mr. McAdoo. It was surreal to say the least. The band cheered, and then I was back to whatever it was I was doing. Back to the student section for one last time to cheer on one last Carlynton Loss.

We lost, but we cheered anyway. I hung by the band one last time with the people I had grown to appreciate, the people that had taken me in as their own.

I wrote two weeks ago about living in the moment, and about taking it in. I did, and it was fantastic. Nothing was different except the beginning and the end. I took along with me to the box Sara and Cassie. They had never been there, and I offered to any senior the chance to go. So I did my thing, and I added one thing to the end of my regular script:

"Thank you for supporting music in our schools, Thank you Mr. Obidowski and the entire Carlynton Marching Band for an amazing past three years as your announcer. This has been Alexander Popichak speaking for the Carlynton Golden Cougar Marching Band. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO COUGARS!"

And that was it. They played Seven Nations' Army in the stands one last time, I must note, but that was the end of my band announcing (career?). Clay, Sara, Cassie, and I went to Kings and ran into a waitress that we had the night prior, and it was weird and surreal and wonderful.

I'm Gonna Fight Em Off, A Seven Nations' Army Couldn't Hold Me Back

It's a Friday Night and usually I don't post, but I found myself having enough time to do so. It's been a strange week, but a good one. I'm also wearing my duck shirt, so there's that.
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My favorite part about traveling week to week with the band over the past three years has been the music and the atmosphere. You really can't duplicate either, you're only in high school once and each game only happens once. I don't care that Carlynton is 0-6 on the season, they're still fun games.

Anytime they can, the marching band plays music - in between first downs, after kickoffs, after scores, quarter breaks - basically if there is a break in the action, there's music. By far my favorite stand tune is Seven Nation's army. It has this crazy deep bass riff, and, just listen to the song:

Anyway, I really like this song, and the band does it really well. Why am I telling you this? A while back, my senior adviser/WCHS adviser/Midsummer director/general advice-giver Ms. Longo told me when I was talking about realizing this is my senior football season to enjoy it, and take it in. She's right, there's no way to really capture these things (yes I have videoed the band playing Seven Nation). You can try your best to relive it, but in the end this is it, this is the time you need to own, and this is the time you need to live. So that's what I'm doing. 

I don't want to get sentimental, so I haven't done much to record it for that reason. I know that down the road I won't have anything to connect me to it, but I also remember what happened in NYC 2009. I was so focused on capturing it all that I didn't really live that moment. My exciting story comes from the thing I didn't capture: nightfall in Times Square. They say memory is unreliable, but I'd much rather have a memory to go off of where I lived and where I felt infinite than some passive documentary footage. And so it goes.