Renee’s Neighborhood

If you were suddenly granted the day off today, how would you go spend your free time?

  UnfortunatelyI rather doubt that if I had the day off that I would do anything much different then I do on most weekends. Get more sleep. Probably play on my computer and or watch a movie or two. In the evening I'd go to dinner around the usual 5o'clock time and then either return to room or head to the radio station depending who'd be up there and how I felt at the time.

What do you do with the cards and letters you receive?  Do you keep them all, just keep the photos, throw them away? 
Inspired by jacolily.

I actually do not remember the last time, if ever, that I threw out a card or letter I received. As a kid I had a box that I tried to collect all the cards I received into. I still have the box with all those cards either under my desk at home, or in the attic. As I got a bit older I started storing them in drawers and the head of my bed, where I'd pull them out from every so often to look at when I was feeling down, that or I'd tape them into my diary. Last year when I started college my strategy changed slightly. Being in a different state and over four hours driving from home I don't get home all that often so I started taking all the cards I got for different reasons during the year and taping them above the window in my dorm room. At the end of the year I collected them all together and taped them into my diary. I do this because I've taken to treating my journals as a cross between a diary and a personal scrapbook. This year I'm in a different dorm room but doing a similar thing using the side of my desk and wardrobe. Currently I have 6 hanging on my wardrobe and 2 on the side of my desk so that I can see them on my desk. Then I have one that plays the hamster dance when you open it laying on my desk. At the end of the year I plan to add all of these to my current journal, except maybe the hamster dance, not really sure what to do with it. Might just go on my desk at home.

What are you saving up for? 
Submitted by Star. 

There are several things that I would like to be able to save up for. Unfortunately my number one pick seems to change weekly, with my mood effecting which item I would like to save up for first. Currently I am thinking I'll try and save up for this one DVD collection. It contains a set of six, I think somewhere around 20 year old, BBC production Jane Austin films. I have gotten to see both the Pride and Prejudice and the Sense and Sensibility version included in the set and loved them. As a result I have high hopes for the other films included, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park and Persuasion, especially Emma as I have managed to get hold of newer versions of it and liked them and am first way through the book and love it so far. I think that this is a good choice to save up for out of the things I keep considering since at the moment at least there is nothing that I actually NEED and this is an item I keep considering and have continued returning to for quite a while. Also I think my mom would kill me if I continued to save up for more books rather then just borrowing them from the library, I already can;t fit my whole collection in my room.

How do you want 2008 to be different from 2007? What will you change or do differently? 
Submitted by Becca-Pink.

Though I'm not really sure what I'll do differently or how I'll change I do know what I would like to be different. I would like to try and find a better sense of direction. I was so lost when I came to college that I picked my major solely based on what I thought I could succeed at and what classes I found fun rather then on what I want to do in the future. Since coming I have devoted myself almost entirely to the radio station and still have absolutely no idea of what I want to do after college, or what I want to consider applying my degree towards. I have absolutely no idea what you can do with a BA in English Lit apart from writing which I don't think I can personally make a career out of. Everyone I talk to suggests teaching but I am NOT an education major, and to become one would require my county college back home actually offering the necessary courses during the summer or staying in college extra semesters which I'd prefer not to do. The only job outside of teaching or being a librarian that I have even considered is something with radio. I love being with the radio station so much that I actually have to watch myself so that it doesn't take over my life and I don't neglect my school work for it. Yet I have already had that shot down by my professor last semester. I talked to my one prof who had previously worked in radio and still teaches comm classes and explained to her that it was my interest and love in/for the radio station that had led me to add a Comm minor. I explained that currently the only career I have even been able to consider seeing myself in is radio at this point and she then started telling me to basically forget it. That if i want to go into the media that I should start concentrating on some other form like newspaper, which I had already told her was causing me a major problem (she was teaching my newspaper class and when I explained to her how hard it is for me to do the interviews necessary for some of the interview stories she started telling me that I should go to the school counseling center or go to a shrink and see if I could get them to prescribe something for anxiety). her reasoning for it is to tell me that there is not much of any future in radio, that radio is quickly dying out. Isn't that great everyone keeps telling me to at least start looking at possibilities for the future and the first time I actually find one I think is worth considering I get told that its pretty much foolish, and I get told to seek  professional help simply because I explain my reasons why I would not make a career out of a different career. So in this year I would like to actually get some clearer idea of where I am headed and where I may possibly want to consider ending up.

Who do you want to be caught under the mistletoe with this holiday season?
Submitted by An Ebony Epicurean.  

U know exactly who I want to be caught under the mistletoe with, yet he's also the one I am most glad that there is no possibility of being caught under it with. There's this guy I know from college that i have had a crush on for about a year now. I find him funny, nice, an overall all round good guy, and he makes me feel safe and like someone actually cares what i have to say. He does't make me feel like its weird for a girl to like history or computer games, and he's always willing to just sit around and talk or answer questions I have. And it definetly does't hurt that i find him rather cute. The problem is that being caught under the mistletoe would be bad seeing as he already had a girlfriend before I met him, and they are still going out. Thus, even if we did follow tradition and kiss, that is all it would be, tradition. For him there would be nothing more to it and for me it would hurt knowing that I wished there could be more behind that kiss and knowing that there wasn't, I'd also have to worry that I might accidentally let on how I feel. Luckily for me, I guess, it is not something I will have to worry about. Not only is there no sign of mistletoe anywhere around that I have seen, but I am in one state and he is in a completely different one for the break. I will not be seeing him at all until January when next semester starts, at which point one of the few things I can be happy of, is the fact that as far as I know he and his gf will not be seeing each other until after the holidays so there will be no mistletoe for them, which is good for me because the past has shown that I would probably  be one of the first informed if there was.

What's your favorite thing to drink when it's cold outside?

I absolutely love cocoa with the little mini marshmallows when its cold out. I even like to drink it when its not all that cold. Unfortunately I have to watch how much I drink of it since I add more mix to each cup then I'm supposed to.

What's your favorite kind of homemade cookie?  Share the recipe if you have it.

Every Christmas my mom makes several different kinds of cookies but I think my favorite recipe is her butter cookie recipe. It is a very basic cookie which makes it very easy to alter. By using that one basic recipe we can make several different styles of cookies. Some of the ones we make most often are chocolate chip drop cookies, flat ones with Hersey kiss on top, flat with almond on top, thumb print cookie (jelly in center), rolled in a ball and dipped in cinnamon sugar, rolled in a ball and dipped in colored sugar, etc. It seems like almost every year we find a new way to make a simple alteration for a new kind of cookie. 

If your Vox Neighborhood had a potluck dinner tonight, what dish, drink or dessert would you bring?

If anyone was having a potluck that I was going to I would bring apple crisp. It is one of my favorite desserts. In fact I have everything I need to make a batch sitting in my dorm room right now, except the apples cause I can get them from the dining hall. I actually came back from a trip home in October with all the cooking dish and enough ingredients (minus apples) to make two batches. The only thins I forgot and needed to pick up were a knife to cut the apples and tin foil to cover it while it cooks. 

Show us something you believe in.

Station DJ Booth

Sound Board

 At the moment I believe in the campus radio station I am part of. We were having some problems at the end of last semester/year and it did look like we might have trouble making it but we have and everything seems to be going well. We have some very dedicated members and if we keep working at it I'm sure that we can keep our station running along well and keep our little group of friends together. I beleive that if we do manage to get AM or FM back this semester we will manage to keep things running just as well as we do now that we're broadcasting only on the internet.

Station CDS

When do you start your holiday shopping?

I start my holiday shopping whenever I feel like it. Usually I'll be walking through a store and find something that'll be perfect for someone and I'll just get it to put aside. Then I do my finale shopping at the end of November and start of December and get whatever other gifts I need for people.