missing: my bike

Hello my name is Aimee and this is a real life adventure...
(or what I would classify as another disaster)

Just 13 days ago I decided to have a productive Friday and forced myself out of bed around 10:00am to go downtown to work on a presentation project rather than lay in my bathing suit acquiring skin cancer. I hopped on my white beach cruiser (with really neat-o pink accents) and cycled down to the light rail stop. After multiple attempts on my life by oblivious drivers I decided to cut through campus and lock my bike up on one of racks, as there are a plethora at the Rural and University light rail stop (and I have been banned from bringing my bike on the light rail).

I took the train downtown where I had a semi-productive day of working on my presentation while distracting my colleague and wonderful confidant Kellen from his home work, and annoying Dr. Ariel Rodriguez. Luckily for them my partner in crime and fellow blogger Candi was in her office just down the hall. We took an hour and a half lunch break and walked down to Baja Fresh where I purchased a ridiculously large cup and filled it to the brim with fountain Coca-Cola, my favorite drink. When we got back from lunch we pretended to work while we chatted about Candi's secret love and Dirty Dancing II: Havana Nights via ASU Google email chat. When I was no longer bearable Dr. Rodriguez shut his door and Kellen pretended he had a meeting to attend. Candi and I decided to head back to Tempe, as we were exhausted from lunch and gossiping. After swinging by Mojo (we really deserved frozen yogurt) I was dropped off at the light rail stop because I didn't want to leave my bike all alone overnight on the bike racks.

My poor, unsuspecting self hopped out of the car and shimmied (I was listening to Pandora on my phone, officially the coolest thing EVER) across the bus station to where I had parked my bike. I got a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach when I started getting close to the seemingly empty bike racks. I looked left, and I looked right. I turned all the way around, but I still could not find my glorious hunk of white and pink medal that I so shakily had ridden to the exact spot earlier in the day. I continued to look about the scene as my eyes started to tear.



The bus stop weirdo's stared at me like I was the odd one, and one man even tried to help me locate the bus I was looking for. But it wasn't public transportation I was looking for, it was my bike which now appeared to be stolen. At a loss for words and with watery eyes I started the long walk home.

Despite a love struck Jack Johnson serenading my ears I could not shake the feeling of a broken heart. The fifteen minute walk seemed to go on for 15 years as I watched other ASU comrades fly by me on skateboards, scooters, and most painful of all: bicycles. I thought of my fellow PRSA officer Mark, who had his bike stolen just a few weeks before (however his loss was greater than mine, as he is actually good at riding bikes). He consoled me by suggesting our bikes found each other in bike heaven somewhere, or where ever it is that bike thieves take our precious pieces of finely crafted machinery.

I must admit that when passing by a beach cruiser on or near campus I perform a double take hoping that one day justice will be served and my ridiculously heavy and poorly ridden bike will come back to me. In the mean time this cruel act has left me with but one mission. I must find another bike to dodge death upon, spill my coffee on, and take on the light rail (maybe) so next semester I can sleep for ten more minutes before starting yet another adventure.

reading day bliss

Hello my name is Aimee and this is a real life adventure...



Today was an epic day, academically speaking. Reading day is normally celebrated with heavy partying the Tuesday before and an impossible amount of studying and writing to do during the day (usually performed hungover). Despite deep concentration and extensive rehabilitation by many students on campus, around 8:30pm life can be spotted. Creeping out of residence halls and libraries ASU students flock to one of the three all-you-care-to-eat dining facilities on the Tempe campus. We stand in line for a half hour while being mocked by a man in a pancake costume surrounded by others complaining about the amount of studying left to do, all for one purpose- finals breakfast. The tradition started in 2003 (as stated by the staff shirts) when ASU decided to serve a free meal to the student population as a way to help prepare us for what lay ahead.

Finals.

Of course I happen to love this Arizona State tradition and have attended almost every finals breakfast since freshman year, always with a smile. Whether I am stressed out about last minute studying, or completely relaxed with nothing to do I can always be found dragging my neighbors, friends, and roommate out of our rooms and towards one of the dining halls. Tonight I was especially impressed with the accompanying activities the meal had to offer. While waiting in line, I was given the option to create a priceless craft in literally a matter of seconds. After carefully choosing my fill-in-the-blank, circle shaped piece of paper I wrote something clever and handed it a woman in a finals t-shirt. Thirty seconds later my piece of paper was encased with a pin on the back and hanging off of my shirt.



Recently becoming the President Elect of the Parks and Recreation Student Association (yes, there will be more to come on this later) I decided to take advantage of this light hearted craft, and creat my first promotional piece for our student organization. Despite being tacky and homemade I feel extremely accomplished (especially in comparison to how productive I was today).

So boys and girls, the moral of the story is that despite how much crunching you still have to do or how many more pages need to be written, you should always make time for the little things in life because you never know when the chance to make your own custom button will come around. Until I figure out how to mass produce these things you'll just have to mask your jealousy when you see me running around campus with it stuck to various articles of clothing.

The only thing left to do is pop an aspirin (incase you're still fighting off a headache), chug a redbull, and get into the spirit of finals.

bored and hungry

Hello my name is Aimee and this is a real life adventure...

As I was sitting in my usual spot on the fifth floor today I was approached by Dr. Ariel Rodriguez. He came bearing a certificate for a free salad from McDonald's. I soon found out that I was not the only recipient of this free southwest salad, but my partner in StAR crime Candi also had received one of these stellar passes. While we were attempting to work on our TDM 350 paper an uncontrollable hunger swept over us, and we took the opportunity to cash in our certificates for a savory snack.



After locating the closest McDonald's we threw on our spectacular shades and headed north on the light rail (as you can see, it was a rather blustery day). We exited the train at the Indian School stop and made our way to the establishment handing out free lunch.

















I must say, for a salad at McDonald's I was quite impressed. The chicken was extremely tasty and crunchy tortilla strips complimented the southwestern dressing. For a free lunch it was darn good. After enjoying our salads we grabbed a vanilla cone (an essential when visiting any McDonald's establishment) and headed back to where the magic happens- the sixth floor of the UCENT building.


I got to thinking about our free meal and exactly how healthy it was for us. I visited McDonald's website (in yet another attempt to procrastinate writing my tourism marketing paper) and found that our free salad actually cost our love handles 430 calories with another 100 calories including the dressing. This didn't really strike me until I realized that for an additional ten calories I could have consumed a big mac. Here I thought Candi and I were being clever in our eating habits when really we did nothing to deserve the low fat vanilla ice cream cones (which weigh in at about 150 calories).


This should come to no surprise, but I felt betrayed by the fast food industry. I guess there is no such thing as a free lunch.

beware the orange vests

Hello my name is Aimee and this is a real life adventure....


Today as I was jamming along to Dierks Bentley (check him out- if you click in the top right hand corner you can hear his latest album Feel That Fire) at the light rail stop in Tempe when I was approached by a man in a brown camouflage bucket hat sporting an extremely bright orange vest, like the ones construction crews wear so they don't get anything dropped on them. He asked to see my light rail pass and then quizzed me on my recent light rail activity. He then spoke about the importance of tapping my platinum pass at every station, every time. At first glance I thought he was going to ask for my spare change, however I soon realized there were others in the same obnoxious vests talking to light rail users all along the platform.

After scouring over the Valley Metro website, I found no information on these informative, yet slightly bossy persons. The gentlemen appears to be part of a light rail task force, a group of individuals looking extremely unprofessional- all in fluorescent orange vests. This group has been stationed at the Rural and University light rail stop in Tempe accosting students and other light rail users. For instance, after being lectured on the specific uses of my light rail pass I was told that I needed to wait at the other end of the platform as the train would not be stopping in front of the bench I was sitting on. Let me say this light rail police, I will sit where ever I please to wait for the train and if I have to run to catch it, or miss it all together that is my prerogative. (Kirsten helped me out with this declarative statement, thanks buddy!)

So it is with great annoyance that I urge the ASU population to pretty please start tapping your light rail pass at the pay station. Also, please do not walk across the tracks to get from one platform to the other (I have found they do not find this action favorable). The sooner we figure this out, the sooner the orange vest brigade will disappear from my stop and I will be able to sit on whatever surface I please while awaiting the train.

fruition of a dream

Hello my name is Aimee and this is a real life adventure...

Today was the day the PRSA, Professor Rodriguez's 301 group, himself, and I were invited to tour the new civic space. Thankfully almost all of our propositions for opening day (see last blog) were approved and I was able to take some shots of the almost-finished park. Despite the grass areas being roped off, I could feel my tension slipping away as I was engulfed in the wavy green lawns. It's one thing to be able to envision what something like this would feel or look like, but it is a completely different thing to stand in the middle of it on a perfectly sunshiney day in April and take it all in. The potential of the park hung in the air as our group was ushered from one rolling hill to another passing the water wall, solar panel shade structures, and splash pad. Gina, a fellow female PRSA member, was exploding with visions of future events. As she spoke of slip and slide contests, visits from various Arizona sports team mascots, and a battle of the bands event I could feel my eyes glazing over. I was standing admist a parks and recreation major's dream; a living laboratory.

free lunch and fun times

Hello my name is Aimee and this is a real life adventure...

(I've finally recovered from my last one.)

I am currently the Secretary of the Parks and Recreation Student Association. I am getting extremely excited for an event we are co-sponsoring with a group of students from Professor Rodriguez's PRM 301 class. The event is titled "Community Celebration" and that it will be. On April 16th the Civic Space across the street from the UCENT building will have its grand opening day celebration. To help this joyous occasion (us parks people really, really love parks) we are serving FREE lunch to ASU students and the local community. That's right, free food and good times for all. I am so excited to get to use the new park, and even more excited to see my peers shining faces out and about in our new space. What's even cooler is that you can watch the last bits of construction before opening day without having to go outside (but you should go outside anyway).

Use this sweet link to view the webcam of the Civic Space:
http://copp.asu.edu/do/college-news/fp2

Or you can take a sustainable tour of the Civic Space:
http://www.asu.edu/tour/downtown/civic.html

Your best bet will be to check it out for yourself on Thursday April 16th from 11:00am to 1:00pm. I can't wait to see you all there!

but i never went to bike academy

Hello my name is Aimee and this is a real life adventure....

... or disaster, rather.

Let me just preface this by saying that I believe individuals should have to go to a bike riding school, similar to driving school in order to own a bike. I would also like to point out that if this were a requirement, I would not be graduating from bike academy for quite some time.

This afternoon my suite mate and close friend, Sara and I decided to grab a coffee from Dutch Bros. one of the best coffee places in the vicinity of the Tempe Campus. As of late Sara and I have become quite consumed with bike riding, so naturally we hopped on our beach cruisers and headed down to the irresistible coffee stand. The journey there was a successful one and the insanity didn't start until after I received my skinny, iced, raspberry white chocolate mocha.

As already mentioned I am not too confident in my bike riding skills, so I was extremely nervous to be biking with one hand (the other was being used to hold my AMAZING coffee). As I was preceding down Rural road to the light rail stop I was almost hit by a car turning right into a parking lot. After lots of swerving and almost falling twice I continued upright to the light rail station. It was then I learned the valuable lesson that individuals driving cars with their windows up cannot hear my shrieks of fear, or me shouting obscenities after catching my balance. (Honestly, this may be for the best.)

I was screeching into the light rail station at the exact moment the light rail was. Unfortunately for me this meant I would have no time to lock up my bike and would have to take it with me on the metro if I wanted to be on time. I would like to interject here and confide with you that the muscles in my arms are nonexistent. If you have been on the light rail you already know that bikes are hung up on the metro. Since I have no upper body strength I cannot lift my bike onto the rack and so I must sit my bicycle in front of me. This seems to annoy most of the passengers in my vicinity, especially when there is room for my bike on the rack.

I have never been accused of being couth and graceful. It was quite difficult for me to get myself, my large sorority bag, my delicious coffee, and my beach cruiser situated on the fairly busy light rail car. After three minutes of moving and shuffling while making awkward faces I was settled.

(In bike academy you would learn how to do things with your bicycle like hang it from tricky racks on the metro and set it in confusing bike holders on the bus.)

Two or three stops after I had joined the mass transit headed downtown, others with bikes joined us. I was terribly embarrassed when a girl about half my size got on with her insanely cool road bike (it had zebra print handlebars which matched her red shoes and indie chic look) and lifted it into the bike rack. Not only did I feel even more ridiculous for not being able to put my bike with its other counterparts, I now had the attention of the entire car who undoubtedly were wondering why on earth I couldn't put my bike away as easily as her.

Somewhere between the 44th Street and Washington and the 24th Street and Washington I decided that putting my ipod on would be a good idea. Which would have been fine if I was organized. I was bobbing my head and swaying my shoulders to the sound of Nizlopi when I came to my stop. As I was making my much awaited exit from the metro my headphone cords caught on one of the bikes hanging in the ever-defeating bike rack. I didn't notice this until my breathing became restricted and I slammed my head into the bike seat of yet another hanging bike. The gentleman (which he was indeed not) across from me thought he would help me and my cruiser along by giving me a slight shove in the direction toward the door.

My oxygen flow came back after my headphone popped out of my ear allowing me to stumble out of the light rail car, barely avoiding two pedestrians and a small child. (At bike academy they would teach everyone that ipods and bicycles don't mix.)

I am now dreading the ride home tonight, as I will have to travel back to Tempe with my beach cruiser. Even if I make a fool of myself and get into several near death experiences I will celebrate (with Nizlopi, and my paper crown) upon arrival at Adelphi. Like Nizlopi says...

It's time to throw away your doubt
Throw away your blues
Wake up in the morning
Tear up the news

(I will also look up some information on a bike academy!)