What My Roommate Doesn't Know

Health At UVM

I currently attend the University of Vermont. While VT has been a leader in clean energy and the environment, I cannot agree with all of it's policies. Many good things have come about in the recent weeks, such as the news that Ben Stein would not be speaking at our commencement, and the news that a new dorm will be acquired by the University to house the increasing number of incoming students next year.

One thing I don't quite understand is why UVM would charge me so much for a few pieces of paper. I recently had a physical here at UVM (don't worry, I am all clean), however when the physical was over, they never gave me the results. After going to their office and telling them that my doctor should call or email me, they assured me I would get my results soon. Well after a month and a half I was a bit fed up and decided to ask for the results in person. I asked them for paper copies of all my results. They agreed, and then charged me 20 dollars for 9 pieces of paper. This is absurd. I should be charging them 20 dollars for the opportunity to keep my personal medical records on file. This is like a highway robbery! I would have rather waited a year to get my results by phone! I paid the money about a week ago, and received the papers today to find out that all the blood work came back fine.

This is very upsetting (the price, not that I am in good health), mainly because I have been looking at the current financial situation in awe. I am surprised that the University is charging so much for these records, but at the same time plan to lay off some people because the economic situation is so dire! The president of the University, and other top officials, in my opinion, should take a pay cut to keep other employees here. They have not taken these precautions. One would think that if the economy is bad, the people in charge of it all should have to pay for it. Oh the wonders of common sense...

What My Roommate Does Not Know

I am currently in the middle of making a video where people talk about my roommate. He is working to become the president of a student group on campus called Alianza Latina. This is a fun video which consists of many of our friends talking about my roommate and saying good things about him. And at the end, everyone says "I believe in Jonathan (will not mention last name here for security reasons)". I think he will be shocked when it is done. 

While he doesn't know about the video, I still want to surprise him. I told him I was making a Mac vs PC commercial that I wanted him to be a part of. All he would have to say is "I am Jonathan (again with the last name), and I'm a PC". Then in subtitles I would clarify that PC means presidential candidate. Today is actually that last day for nominations to these positions, and it is to my understanding that voting will occur towards the end of the week. This does not leave me with a lot of time to complete the video although I have recorded many people and it is going to be an awesome experience when I put it on Facebook.
 

At the same time I have been trying to work on my research and keep up with my homework. Not only that, but the Cynical Cynic video is due today (AH!). I know last weeks update was not as good as it could have been, but I think this weeks is going to be a lot better. The Cynic has given me a multiple amount of material that I have prepared and am ready to spew!

Just in case your wondering, the two guys in the back are me and my roommate. This picture was taken while ice skating last semester! I went with members of the juggling club. Also I realised how much footage I have of the juggling club and I am currently in the process of making a juggling video also.

Cynical Cynic! It is Official

Well it is official. The Cynic has conatacted me and now I make videos for them every week on Wednesday. Of course sometimes I have very interesting things to say, and other times I am struggling to find something. Here's this weeks Cynical Cynic:



And here's last weeks:

Cynical Cynic and other Deviations

I have not been posting my youtube videos on here for a long time so I have to catch up. 

First I want to talk about my family in New York City. I visited them (as you know form my update in NYC video). Mom and Tiffany are doing well. I took a video of them at Carmen's party. I don't think Carmen was very happy, but I got to see Mary and David which was cool. I think they are awesome people. Donna wasn't able to come :( however I managed to have fun making videos. Mom's singing was pretty bad. Everyone was begging me not to let mom sing again on the karaoke machine, but I couldn't do anything about it. She was drunk, and dancing with everyone. Don't believe me? Watch the video:

Enough of that, not onto other things.

NYC AND VACATION TIME
So the plan while I was in NYC was to go to Times Square to see the ball drop on the New Year. I was in Times Square on the 31st of December but I didn't see the ball drop. Donna got cold, and I ended up taking her home. I celebrated the New Year (my birthday) at home with mom. My presents for Christmas were awesome. I received pajamas, a sweater, and Donna gave me two of the most awesome games of all time. Here is a video I made, when I thought I was going to see the ball drop:

Will I see it next year? Who knows.

UVM CYNICAL CYNIC
My school, UVM, has a school paper called the Cynic. Many of the views expressed in the paper are interesting to me because they let me know whats going on around the school. For example, there were recent protests against laying off people because of the economic crisis. I agree that people should not be laid off, and perhaps people higher up (like the president of the university), should take charge and give himself a pay cut to keep other people employed. Mostly I disagree with some of the quotes from the UVM Cynic. I made a video on the second week of school where I criticized the cynic for some of the people they interviewed. Here is the video:

I think I struck a cord with someone in the Cynic because I just had an interview with them today, and I am going to be making videos for them on a weekly basis now, with better lighting and more interesting material.

YURI THE ONLY ONE
I found a song I loved. Donna introduced me to it on youtube, and she heard about it from a concert she went to here in Burlington VT. The song is called Yuri the only one by the leetstreetboys, and it is interesting to see it because it takes many elements of manga and video games and combines it into a concise package.
Also I recently have been contacted by someone on youtube asking to see more of my key blades in my videos, so here goes a cheap plug for the song, and me showing off my awesome key blades for no apparent reason:


DEMARIE's PLANT LIFE
One last note. While I was in NYC I was able to see Ernie DeMarie's classroom and he did an awesome job decorating it. I was very interested in the carnivorous plant aspect of the class along with seeing the best teacher of all time do what he does best. Some people say that when you start to collect orchids you should watch out because it may end up being a problem. I am not sure that is true, if you collect orchids. I only think it is a problem when your fridge looks like it does at the end of this video:

That is a spider being fed to a Venus Flytrap if you were wondering. Anyway that is it for now. More updates to come later.

Juggling, Pokemon

Juggling Club
After a long time without any meeting (over a month), the UVM juggling club started strong with many members appearing enthusiastic about the new year. I am treasurer of the club, and as it is my last year it is my responsibility to help train the new officers. Zari is president of the club so she has a lot of responsibility and stake in this also. We need to set the club up so next year the people running it will have an idea of what to do concerning events and other things.
Here are some pictures from our last meeting:

Juggling Club meets in the UVM racquetball courts on Thursdays at 6 p.m.
If you want to see more pictures of the juggling club click here
You can also email us at: juggle@uvm.edu

Pokemon
I am also playing pokemon on my DS. I have pokemon pearl, and I have many pokemon. I am not going to put them all in this post, but my roomate has Diamond, so he often trades me the pokemon I can not get from my own game :). He also traded me a legendary but it will not obey me. I am able to make copies of my game saves and I am interested in obtaining pokemon from earlier games. If you want to trade send me a message and I will be more than willing to help you out!

Halloween 08

I never really spoke about how my Halloween went. If you are an avid viewer to my show you will know that I was planning on being pacman for Halloween. Well that plan fell through. I didn't have enough people backing me up or resources. Instead I was Riku, from Another Side Another Story (Kingdom Hearts). Riku is Sora's friend from Kingdom Hearts. This specific costume looks like the scene where he is fighting many heartless near a dark building. I can't wait for KH3!
Here are some pictures

Another friend of mine (Steve) was Dante. In case you don't now, Dante was from a popular video game called Devil May Cry. There are three parts of the game all available for PS2. Me and him had taken a few awesome pictures together. Here they are:

Another one of my friends, Chris, decided to be a Phantom of the Opera. Here are his pictures:

And lastly, Crystal. I am not sure where her costume is from but she looks like a dark angel: