Precisely 1 year ago today, I made this post here:
Well, since another year has now passed, & it's now 2015 instead of 2014, I'd like to do that all over again, except looking back at 2014, & looking ahead to 2015, instead of 2013 & 2014, respectively!
2014 started all down for me, with my GPA through my very 1st semester of college, the economy due to "correct" itself &, thus, contract by over 2% after "only" growing by 3.5% the previous quarter (to end 2013), & the same old, same old everything in the media at this time last year, there were few reasons for me, at least, to expect much to be different in 2014, but did it ever become different as it progressed - you saw some of what I took notice of throughout the year, from politics:
http://anytandeverything.blogspot.com/2014/05/2016-dangers-of-borderline-single-party.html
On a different note, here's a chart from IEEconomics, showing key U.S. economic indicators in my lifetime:
On a different note, here's a chart from IEEconomics, showing key U.S. economic indicators in my lifetime:
GDP growth rate last quarter: 5%
inflation rate: 1.7%
interest rates: .25%
U3 (people actually unemployed, instead of "underemployed") unemployment rate: 5.8%
Obviously, those figures don't necessarily mean the situation over here is all brilliant, but let me give you people another economic indicator just to further my own belief in this slow, but steady recovery:
AAA averages for gas:
regular: $2.217
mid: $2.442
premium: $2.632
diesel: $3.113
OPEC barrels: $52.69
a year ago:
regular: $3.326
mid: $3.500
premium: $3.673
diesel: $3.876
OPEC barrel forecast for this time next year: $60/barrel; a slight, yet negligible, increase
to sports:
to scandals:
to this big-screen phenomenon:
to my personal crusades, both international:
& in print:
1st off, however, I'd like to recap the New Year's Eve show for this year, since there was an entirely new slate of performers compared to last year, which was mostly 'cause most of the performers featured this New Year's Eve hadn't yet released any of what they performed, or, in some cases, hadn't even been heard from before last New Year's Eve:
The news before the show was that the special will be back through the early 2020s (Hollywood Reporter):
"ABC and Dick Clark Productions have renewed their deal for both the American Music Awards and New Year's Rockin' Eve.
The duo announced Friday that new nine and ten year deals with keep the AMAs on ABC through 2023 and the Ryan Seacrest's New Years show through 2024. News of both renewals comes after ratings surges for both telecasts in their most recent outings.
Both shows have indeed proven to be successes for ABC. Despite intense competition from Sunday Night Football on NBC, November's 2013 outing of the AMAs hit a 11-year high. Year-to-year, the show jumped 32 percent for a 4.5 rating among adults 18-49 and 39 percent to 13.1 million viewers.
The news before the show was that the special will be back through the early 2020s (Hollywood Reporter):
"ABC and Dick Clark Productions have renewed their deal for both the American Music Awards and New Year's Rockin' Eve.
The duo announced Friday that new nine and ten year deals with keep the AMAs on ABC through 2023 and the Ryan Seacrest's New Years show through 2024. News of both renewals comes after ratings surges for both telecasts in their most recent outings.
Both shows have indeed proven to be successes for ABC. Despite intense competition from Sunday Night Football on NBC, November's 2013 outing of the AMAs hit a 11-year high. Year-to-year, the show jumped 32 percent for a 4.5 rating among adults 18-49 and 39 percent to 13.1 million viewers.
“We are delighted to remain at ABC, the home of many of DCP’s franchise events. Both the AMAs and NYRE continue to exhibit tremendous growth year to year,” said Dick Clark Productions CEO Allen Shapiro. “We enjoy a tremendous relationship with ABC which has resulted in significant ratings growth in both events and trendsetting breakthroughs in our approach,” commented Mike Mahan, president of dick clark productions. “We are happy the relationship between ABC and DCP will continue for many years to come.”
New Year's Rockin' Eve, originally emceed by Dick Clark Productions' late namesake, delivered its largest audience since 2000 with 22.8 million viewers.
Dick Clark Productions and The Hollywood Reporter are both owned by affiliates of Guggenheim Partners."
Instead of recapping the annual special myself this time around, as I had this time last year, since websites of all types recap such events every year, I'll just leave it to Billboard to recap the festivities:
"The biggest names in pop, country and hip hop have rung in the New Year at the traditional Rockin' Eve concerts.
ABC's broadcast bounced around parties in L.A., Miami, Nashville and New York City, where many thousands -- host Ryan Seacrest called it a million -- braved the cold to watch performances from the likes of Taylor Swift, One Direction, Snoop Dogg, Magic! and Florida Georgia Line.
The action didn't stop there. Billboard's Hollywood party hosted some of the hottest artists on the planet. Billboard has picked seven of the night's most memorable moments.
Taylor Swift was right at home on New Year's Eve. The pop superstar has relocated to New York City, and she's settling in just fine. "It's the best," she told Seacrest of her new home. "Honestly, this is the greatest city in the world. I'm so lucky." The locals gave her the warmest of welcomes when she served up "Welcome to New York," the opener from her hit new album 1989. And then came "Shake It Off." Start spreading the news…Taylor Swift is the new Queen of New York City.
UPDATE: Swift's performance was flawless, but post-show, fans captured Swift briefly losing her balance walking off the stage. Naturally, she shook it off."
(I have to take issue with Billboard describing the NYE crowd as being full of "locals" - ever since the Times Square show started back in 1972-73, it's done both of 2 things):
1: It's welcomed over a million people to celebrate each New Year since then, &
2: The show itself has been composed largely - I'd estimate at least 80% - of tourists, not to mention all the performers who have graced Times Square with their presence over the years, & most N.Y.C. residents have generally told relatives & strangers alike to avoid Times Square unless taxiing through those streets to get elsewhere in Manhattan, myself included, so while us "locals" do hold Times Square in somewhat high regard (in other words, only when showing relatives around), we prefer to just pass through it into other Manhattan neighborhoods! Back to the article:
"The pre-NYE rumors of Niall Horan leaving One Direction turned out to be well off the mark. The boyband used the platform of Billboard's Hollywood Party to dispel any notion that five would become four. The lads kicked off the broadcast with a performance of "What Makes You Beautiful," with cheeky-chappy Niall clearly happy on stage with his British buddies. The boys worked as hard as anyone, making return trips to the stage for renditions of "Story Of My Life," "Steal My Girl" and others.
Jenny McCarthy is a stickler for tradition. The co-host of ABC's broadcast kept alive her ritual of a New Year's snog for the cameras. Though on this occasion, she didn't plant one on a random guest in the crowd. The actor and model landed her lips on her husband, Donnie Wahlberg of New Kids on the Block. She also got to deliver one last gag for the year. Whilst outro-ing 1D, she told the cameras "I'm proof that if you stalk a boyband member for long enough, they just might marry you." Before the New Year clocked in, Jenny was trending on Twitter in the U.S."
Idina Menzel couldn't have hoped for a more appropriate setting to perform her big hit from Frozen. The singer looked as though she was singing "Let it Go" from inside of a freezer cabinet. This wasn't a perfect performance. Menzel hit a few bum notes on the stage at Times Square, and she struggled with timing issues. Though she will take with her into the New Year the experience of having a city-sized crowd singing back at her, "the cold never bothered me anyway." Perhaps the cold bothered Menzel a touch."
I would comment on how it's not necessary for 1,000,000+ people to get an impromptu "sing-along" of that going, but apparently, it was necessary for the show's producers to schedule all the performances every year randomly, instead of, you know, having some sort of schedule, since it's not as if everybody will be just flawless on the biggest stage (quite literally) in all of entertainment...
"It's a long way from Mullumbimby to New York City. Just ask Iggy Azalea. The Aussie singer, who in 2014 joined the Beatles as the only acts to rank at Nos. 1 and 2 simultaneously with their first two Hot 100 hits, capped her big breakout year with a stint onstage at Billboard's Hollywood Party. She had announced just prior to the show that she's been diagnosed with TMJ (or temporomandibular joint dysfunction), the medical term for jaw pain or dysfunction. There was no obvious sign of her affliction when she took to the stage to perform "Fancy" with Charli XCX."
TMJ disorder is usually something for old people, not record-breaking (& deceiving, in a good way) rappers, but apparently, we now have a known case of that condition ailing somebody who performs for a living - not that hearing such news will massively disrupt the industry, but I'm sure some people will overreact eventually, & that'll create a new set of pointless issues...
"Elton John's honeymoon period ain't over just yet. The recently-married British pop legend was all-smiles when he played to a packed house at Brooklyn's Barclay's Center for his first New Year's Eve concert. Elton gave the viewers back home a (seated) performance of "I'm Still Standing," a hit from 1983."
I'm glad they mentioned that he's British... Seriously, though, I'm just glad that even people like him can have their (relatively) private lives without fundamentalist doom-&-gloom nuts wanting to burn all of them alive to create this fundamentalist "utopia", or some **** like that!
"Lady Antebellum worked a little "freaking awesome" into their set when they played Nashville with a medley that included a cover of "Thrift Shop"... with the "naughty bit" taken out. The trio is back in the spotlight after the recent release of their fifth album proper, 747."
A country group, covering a rap tune that was a parody of a subset of consumers? At least that happened in Nashville, not in, say, Chicago or wherever else, since I'm not so certain they would appreciate something like that being performed on New Year's Eve... J/K!
On a more personal note, if 2014 was the time in which I finally fulfilled my promise(s) to myself to visit Japan, well, you can look forward to the 2015-20xx timeframe as being the timeframe in which I'm planning on returning there, since that return will undoubtedly be for a longer length of time than my 1st visit there, &, the sooner said return happens, the more chances I'll have, I think, at obtaining all the possible "perks" of having already visited said part of the world, like Temple Japan hopefully acknowledging my 1st trip over there, & being willing to give somebody such as myself who (1) applied to their main campus 1st & foremost, (2) visited the country itself, & (3) improved my GPA just enough, at least so far, with that end goal in mind - I wouldn't want that any other way, to be sure!
I'm not the only person who happens to believe so much in the opportunities that studying abroad open up, since CNN recently found a few more people who agree with me on that front:
I'm not the only person who happens to believe so much in the opportunities that studying abroad open up, since CNN recently found a few more people who agree with me on that front:
"When Ashley Blackmon sat down for her job interview for a marketing position in New York City, she didn't start off by talking about the business classes she had taken in college or her experience working at a financial services company.
Instead, she talked about the five months she spent studying and traveling in Spain.
"When I left the interview, I felt amazing," said Blackmon, 24, who studied at ESEI International Business School in Barcelona the year before she graduated Clark Atlanta University. She landed that marketing analyst job at a large food and beverage company and believes her study-abroad experience was the thing that set her apart. "I learned how to be a better businesswoman, critical thinker and relationship builder in a new culture," she said.
Studying abroad isn't a common experience for most U.S. college students. In fact, only 1% of students manage to study abroad.
Finances, time constraints and safety are some of the challenges U.S. students face when deciding to spend a semester or two overseas. But globetrotting during or after college could give recent graduates an edge in the job market, which continues to be one of the toughest on record for 20-somethings.
The potential benefits are prompting new study-abroad initiatives in the States. Organizations such as the Institute of International Education have launched programs such as Generation Study Abroad in hopes of doubling the number of U.S. students who travel internationally.
An international push from the White House
First lady Michelle Obama is also working on efforts to promote more international travel among Americans. She's in China with her daughters and mother, speaking about the importance of education, youth empowerment and the benefits of studying abroad. The first lady conducted an exclusive interview with CNN iReporters on Saturday, taking their questions on studying abroad.
"The benefits of studying abroad are almost endless," Obama said during the CNN iReport interview. "First of all, it is going to make you more marketable in the United States. More and more companies are realizing that they need people with experience around the world."
Howard Wallack, vice president of global business development at the Society for Human Resource Management, has experience as a hiring manager and was an international exchange student. He says traveling abroad can introduce students to a host of skills.
"Living in another country, you learn to deal with a variety of people," he said. "You learn to listen, be proactive, be patient, assertive. All those are translatable skills."
Wallack's experience working in a rural health clinic in Guatemala after a major earthquake helped him find compassion and resiliency within himself.
"If you just stay in your own country, you have a certain mindset about your own culture. When you step out of that, you challenge your experiences and find out about yourself, which can translate in the workplace," he said.
The problem is students don't always know how to illustrate those experiences on paper. But some colleges are taking steps to teach soon-to-be graduates how to leverage their study abroad adventures for job interviews.
Take the trip, land the job
Heather White is the director of the Career Resource Center at the University of Florida. With an enrollment of 50,000 students annually, she says the key to standing out with your travel experience is to be strategic about how you exhibit it.
"Some students tend to write on their resume, 'study abroad France,' and that is it. We recommend expanding on that experience. Did they volunteer, work, study?" she said.
Jennifer Grasz, a spokesperson for job-posting site CareerBuilder, says to write out what you learned and how it's relevant to your professional performance on your resume.
"For example: Traveling abroad has provided me with a greater knowledge and appreciation of global communities and how to effectively navigate around communication and cultural barriers," she wrote in an e-mail to CNN.
Ashley Putnam, a fellowship director and writer for Idealist, an online resource for finding nonprofit jobs, is a bit more skeptical about the career benefits of studying overseas. "It depends on what they did," she explained. Running a public policy program, she looks for applicants who are realistic about job expectations.
"I find that people who paid to volunteer abroad sort of just take pictures and hold babies," she said. "It depends on your study abroad program, too. Just having studied abroad is good, but there is a whole other aspect to what you did while you were there."
That's exactly what Alexa Basile tried to keep in mind when she selected her study abroad program. The State University of New York at Potsdam student spent a year in Australia teaching social studies to a class of nine students.
It was during that immersion with her students, many of whom had behavioral problems, that she noticed her eighth-grade students were reading at a second-grade level. That inspired her to focus on more critical reading lessons. "And that made me realize I wanted to be a literacy specialist," she said, which she is now emphasizing as she interviews for graduate school.
Like Blackmon, Basile puts her study-abroad experience on her resume, but she also goes in depth about her trip in her cover letter. She's candid with interviewers about her successes and challenges overseas.
"I had times with this class that were really tough, and sometimes frustrating," she said. Her students routinely challenged her instructions, defied her and talked back to her.
"But my very last day, I walked into the classroom and they decorated it for me and they brought me treats and toys," she said. "I broke down immediately. It really proved to me they were tough, but they appreciated me."
Those frustrating and rewarding moments helped hone her classroom management skills. After Basile came back from Australia, she got her second student teaching job at an inner-city school in New York City.
It's exactly that sort of program involvement that Idealist's Putnam says will make hiring managers care about a study abroad trip. "Be self-aware as you are doing your job and take stock in what skills you are building. It's not just 'I go to a class and I teach the class,' " she said. "Be critical of the work that you are doing."
Basile, who is interviewing for graduate schools, says to approach studying abroad with realistic expectations. "To get most out of your travel, you need to go with the mindset that you are going to do a lot of things and be involved," she said.
"Get hands on and look for a program that has those experiences. You can be a tourist on a family vacation.'"
With that in mind:
On to college football:
The 2015 edition of the Rose Bowl, now part of the College Football Playoff semifinals, was practically over before it even started - I mean, who outside of Tallahassee, FL, thought that Florida State could even begin to match Oregon's blazing speed on the ground, & its tendency to burn opponents through the air, once they think they have Oregon's running game under control? Also, I happen to agree with all the commentators claiming that Florida State seemed to have "given up" in the 4th quarter of that game... You don't make it to the (new) national semifinals of the college football season & just give up on a chance at repeat championships, Florida State! You just can't do so & expect to remain respected!
If the 2nd half of the Rose Bowl was a total "snoozer", then the 1st half of the Sugar Bowl that followed didn't do much of anything to remove that designation, considering Alabama went up 21-6 right before halftime, & ended up having another chance at another score to widen that margin even more, before Ohio State showed that, even with 3 injured (&, thus, out of action) QB's, there's always the possibility of some sort of comeback lurking deep within the reaches of both teams in any game, &, botched final possessions by both teams aside, Ohio State ended up dominating the 3rd quarter in particular, en route to that remarkable upset win over the again #1 team in the country, looking to continue its recent run of championship game berths, in which it won all of its titles (2009, 2011, 2012, & being within a single game of reaching said point in 2013, only to have Auburn pull off the upset):
Speaking of college sports, if the past 2 years were any indication of the growth of college hockey rivalries of all types, then the 1/24 installment of RPI-Union in Albany, N.Y., should be even greater than previously, with Union defending the national championship it won in Philly last spring, & RPI going through some internal struggles, having recently 4 players suspended all at once for some mysterious incident...
Defending champions & suspensions aside, the game itself, normally scheduled on the last Saturday in January, will instead be on the 2nd-to-last Saturday this year, for reasons I've yet to figure out...
Last but not least:
Last but not least:
Aside from that, my 2015, at least so far, doesn't have anything extraordinary hidden within its 365 days just yet, at least for me, so, keeping with the old saying "live each day as if... (insert "witty" saying of some type here)", I'll hope for the best with Temple Japan, since, after all, I'll still have a bunch more years in the very near future in which to complete that "journey", & I hope you people get as much done in your 2015 as I'm hoping to get done in my 2015, since we're not necessarily guaranteed any second/minute/hour/day/week/month/year/decade of our lives...
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