What a week....

It seems like everything is due this week and next week. I had a journalism project due on Friday, which I barely finished on time. I also had an opinion piece due for the Kansan, which I finished a half-hour past deadline (my editor said it was okay. whew!) I had to read a really interesting book called "With The Old Breed" by a guy named E.B. Sledge. It's a memoir of a guy who fought in WWII in the Pacific. It was really interesting, but the fact that I had to read it so fast made it somewhat less enjoyable.
For next week, I have story proposals for my final journalism project, a newsroom shift (where I have to go either film or audio tape something for TV/radio stations on campus), a book report, and a polysci paper due.
I think it'll let up for a while after next thursday, thankfully.
A few more weeks and it'll all be over.

Photo #27

Chicago and the Bean

Enrolled!

I have enrolled for the fifth time here at KU, and for the first time without Russian. Time certainly flies when you grow up.
Here's what I'm taking:
Multimedia Editing: no idea what this is. I was supposed to take it with my multimedia reporting this semester, but it interfered with Russian.

Photojournalism: I wanted to take it this year, but Russian interfered.

Intro to Political Theory: Sounds boring, I know. I think it looks kinda interesting, and then I'll be done with all my Polysci courses.

Western Civ: A class that basically every student has to take at KU. Heard it's easy, heard it's hard. Guess I'll find out soon enough!

Child Psychology: so I can have some semblance of a clue when/if I have kids.

I'm also technically enrolled in an internship class, even though the internship is for the first four weeks of the summer and then I'm done.

Photo #26

My Family via The Bean in Millennium Park!

Yeah.

I realize it's been...well...forever. It's been a crazy busy couple of months. I won't go into full details, but I had plenty of things distracting me from the ol' blog.
But now, hopefully, I'm back!

Let's see...what have you all missed....

I bought a brand-new camera with some Christmas money! It's an Olympus E-330, and it's pretty sweet. It's a digital SLR, which means it has every feature a 35mm film camera has, and then some. I can change the lenses on it and all that kind of stuff. When my family and I went to Chicago for spring break, it got quite a testing. I took around 300 pictures with it...yikes! It is a lot of fun to play with.

I turned 20 on March 26th! I am now no longer a teenager! For the first time in a while, my birthday didn't actually fall on spring break week, so my family and I celebrated my birthday in Minnesota a few days before. I got some awesome gifts, including a wireless remote for my camera, some great CDs, and a card to join the Apple cult (in other words, an iPod).

School's been amazingly busy. I'm in my last semester of Russian, so things are finally winding down for that. The journalism class I'm taking is an unbelievable amount of work. I have had to 4 or 5 big stories (which is always more work than it sounds like). The links to all those can be found down below, along with some pictures and other fun stuff.

Well...I will definitely be trying to keep up with this thing now that someone has requested it (mom).
_____________________________________
Here's some links:
My J415 work: http://reporting.journalism.ku.edu/spring07/kuhr-volek/caleb_sommerville/
1st set of Chicago Pictures: http://ku.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2126984&l=f219d&id=16822725
2nd set of Chicago Pictures: http://ku.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2127958&l=c4b5c&id=16822725
First Pictures with new camera: http://ku.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2121264&l=ee3e8&id=16822725
ManMaker Conference Pictures: http://ku.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2123278&id=16822725
Trash Smash (a game at ManMaker) Pictures: http://ku.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2123282&id=16822725

Photo #25

Megan playing the piano.

Christmas Break

Sorry it's been so long between posts, folks. I guess doing nothing all break really sucked up a lot of my time.
Not.
Well, I'm back in Lawrence after a wonderful Christmas break from school. I spent all but three days of it in Minnesota (those three were spent with extended families in Iowa), and I had a blast!
I really didn't do a whole lot over break, but I will attempt to find some things of note.
My mother purchased a brand-new sewing machine over break, so that was her new toy to play with, and she even got to fix a mysterious hole in my dress shirt.
I received my first suit for Christmas and went up to St. Cloud to pick one out and get it fitted and all that jazz. Kayla came up with us to give her opinion and to spend time with my scary family. I then wore the suit on a date with Kayla to Pizza Hut to celebrate our 4th year together. Our anniversary is actually February 14th, but because I'm going to KU and she's going to UND up in Grand Forks, North Dakota, that makes things a tad difficult to arrange.
I also received a Chia Pet from my parents (since my sister has been whining about her deprived childhood of zero pets), which I actually began to work on today. It's actually a complicated process for such a....strange thing.
Kayla gave me a book called "Comes A Horseman" by one Robert Liparulo. It's the same kind of style as Ted Dekker or Frank Peretti, which we both really like. The book was very strange. Strange on a level with Dekker's and Peretti's collaboration, titled "House." Both are very strange and make you really think about spiritual and even ethical topics. Liparulo's book delves into the coming of the Antichrist and what circumstances could surround that event in the future. I would highly recommend both.
I came back to Lawrence a few days early to attend various meetings concerning my new job as a guest columnist with the newspaper on campus, the University Daily Kansan. So far, I am only going to printed for sure twice, once in March and once in April. But, since the job description mentioned something about filling in when another column can't run, I might be able to get printed a few more times. Who knows? I already have one piece written up for them: a satire piece against Apple Inc. I pointed out their incredible snootyness (sp?) and made up a few new products for them, like the iPillow, the iPencil, and of course, the iLaundrybasket. If it gets printed, I will be sure to let you all know via blog.
Well, I believe that catches us up to today. If I forget anything, please don't hesitate to add!
Sorry about the gap!

Annoucement

Last post was my first Kansan article....but not my last!! I just received word this morning that I got an opinion columnist position at the University Daily Kansan, effective next semester!!!
I will try to post links to the stories on this blog and the actual stories on the optometrist.
I'm hittin the big time!

I'm Published!

My first article in the Kansan was published today! http://www.kansan.com/stories/2006/dec/07/holidays/
It's an article about non-Christmas holidays celebrated around campus.
Enjoy!

November Rewind

Looks like I didn't mind the gap. Sorry for the nopost November, everyone. Stuff has gotten a little crazy with finals and breaks and whatnot down here.
So, to make it up, we'll have November Rewind:
The first weekend of November, I got to go home to see my sister in "Kiss Me, Kate." But I already wrote about all that, so moving on!

I had two weeks of classes in between that and Thanksgiving. They didn't exactly fly by, but they didn't go slow either. It might have just been normal time, or something weird like that. Not much exciting happened in those two weeks.

Then I got to go home for Thanksgiving!!! My dad came down that Tuesday after my math class, and we drove the long haul back to Hutch (thanks for driving a buttload, dad!). We got back, I danced with my sister in the hallway for awhile (it was late), and then went to bed.
Wednesday I pretty much just sat around. Kayla came back Wednesday night, so I hung out there and did a puzzle with her and her family (don't ask). Thursday we had another family from church come over for Thanksgiving Dinner, which featured my mother's magnificent turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, pumpkin pie, butterhorn rolls (kinda like crossaints, but much better), and a bunch of other stuff I probably forgot. It was delicious. Friday was another sitting around day. I went over to Kayla's again and she stole a bunch of my music I had on my computer (song count now at 2018) with my permission.
Saturday I went with Kayla to her dad's brother's house for Thanksgiving with them (thanks again for inviting me, Lahrs!) It was my first time meeting the extended family all together like that. Kinda scary, but they're a lot of fun. We played two or three board games and got pretty competitive.
Sunday, I went to church and then flew back to Lawrence.
This week has been kind of exciting. On Tuesday, I wore shorts. On Wednesday and Thursday, we had a large ice storm and then some snow (i'm sitting in the computer lab in my stocking cap on and my winter coat behind me). I even had to break out the ninja mask yesterday.
Dumb Kansas weather. Can't make up it's mind.
I also decided to write for the Kansan! They've asked me once before to write for them, but I turned them down. This time, I had a buttload to do (and still have that buttload), but I decided to go for it. I'm writing about non-Christmas holidays that students celebrate. If it's online, and I think it will be, I'll post a link to it.
Well, I think that about does it. Sorry again about the gap.