Movie Review Monday: When Harry Met Sally

Welcome to another awesome edition of Movie Review Monday!

This week's film is the 1989 romantic comedy classic, When Harry Met Sally, starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan.

This movie came out the year I was born and has been referenced and given homage to many times over the years. I feel like I had seen it already but I had never sat down and watched it from start to finish. It felt like a good choice to watch on a lazy night with my partner and we were right.

The story follows the long, winding journey of the friendship between Harry and Sally (Crystal and Ryan respectively). They fall in and out of contact over the course of over ten years, sharing a special connection neither dares to speak of. Their friends all know it, but they feel as though what they have is good and they don't want to ruin it by trying to make it more.

This movie is a wholesome, fun, relatable story about love, friendship, and the courage to take a chance. It is a very timeless story (other than some of the fashion choices and the use of pay phones) and I'm sure will be a classic in the genre for many more years to come. While it isn't uproariously funny, it more than makes up for it with heart.

I definitely recommend checking out When Harry Met Sally, which is streaming now on Amazon Prime Instant Video.

Thanks for stopping by!

What I'm Geeking Out About This Week - 07/24/15

Hello, friends!

I know it's been a little while since I've posted one of these, but nevertheless, here's what was going on in my world this week:

• The Daily Show

Jon Stewart's time on the venerable fake news show is coming to an end soon, and his final stretch of episodes began this past Monday. The Daily Show has been mandatory viewing for me for years now and the quality of every show has been consistently amazing. All of Jon Stewart's episodes over his 17 year run are live streaming on the Comedy Central website (through August 6), where you can also find extended interviews with recent guests. Bid Jon adieu with me and the rest of his fans in these final weeks.

• Routine

Lately I've been feeling a bit both in and out of sync at the same time. I have been keeping with my regular sleep routine (which is very important to me) but I haven't been writing as much as I would like. Inspiration certainly has it's place and sometimes I just have to wait for it to come, but I feel strongly that consistency and hard work are important, especially with where I hope for this whole thing to go. I think my recent travels earlier this month and last month has played a role in upsetting my rhythm. I'll be staying local for the foreseeable future so hopefully I can meditate, reflect, and write.

• Thrift Shops

My partner and I (now that she is back in Maine) have been shopping around for some new things to decorate and furnish with. We got some great deals and found a solid bookshelf (we'd been needing one badly for a while now) to house all our books and my movies. I have donated often to various thrift shops and have found a lot of cool stuff at them over the years. I highly recommend supporting your local shops or places like Goodwill, Salvation Army, or Plato's Closet. You save money, help people, and support sustainable reusing of all sorts of stuff.

Thanks for stopping by!

How Running a Successful Orientation Can Impact Student Retention

* This was originally posted on The OOHLALA Blog.

With summer upon us, it is the season of New Student Orientation for colleges and universities across the country. Incoming students, fresh out of high school, are becoming acclimated to what will (hopefully) be their home away from home for the next several years. Orientation programs come in all shapes and sizes, and there will always be different form of programs that fit better for every institution. Nevertheless, the overall importance of a proper New Student Orientation program cannot be understated. It is the first chance to engage new students in the culture, expectations, and resources your institution has to offer, and the impact of your efforts, is increased retention and student success as a result of their preparation and knowledge that they are supported as students at your institution.

Here are 3 specific ways New Student Orientation programs impact student retention and success (and what you can do to maximize this potential).

1. Encourages Social Involvement

A great part of orientation is the fact that it is the first time a big batch of incoming students are all coming together ahead of the start of the semester. There may have been disparate open houses and other chances before, but all of these students are committed to your institution and are all together. This changes how they interact with you and how they interact with each other. It's important to get the students to connect with their fellow peers rather than having you being the main conduit for their interactions and questions. The bonds that students make at orientation can be their saving graces in those first few weeks as they are still figuring everything out and wanting to meet new people. If they feel alone, isolated, and like no one cares, then they are far more likely to check out of the whole college experience altogether. More possibilities for social involvement at orientation are chances for incoming students to interactwith current students. This could be through icebreakers with their Orientation Leaders, student panels, or engaging with student clubs at a fair type portion of the day where all the organizations table and speak to their offerings.

2. Builds Student Pride

An important component of New Student Orientation is welcoming the incoming students into your community. This includes getting students excited about being a part of it and partaking in the traditions of your campus and institution. Incorporating your mascot, branded swag (shirts, hats, prizes, etc.) and having students participate in a tradition such as learning the student slang or signing a class banner (Don't have a tradition? It's never too early to start!). Even at the very least, just having a fun, engaging, positive, and friendly atmosphere for students is the least you can do to get students excited about attending your school. They could have chosen any number of other places to go, and they should feel like they can't wait to get the school year started!

3. Provides Support

Something more practical and functional to accomplish during New Student Orientation is to make students (and families) feel like they are supported and guided through the process of getting into and through college successfully. It can be a very confusing and stressful experience to get acclimated to the large bureaucracies that many campuses have become. We shouldn't assume students and families (especially those that have never gone to college before) can just figure it all out on their own. We need to make everything as simple and efficient as possible while also letting everyone know how to reach out if they need some more help. Orientation can be an overload of information for everyone involved, so the most basic thing we can do is make sure that students and families feel like they are cared for and supported by our staff. That goes a long way since we can't anticipate every single need that could ever arise, and we shouldn't just dump information on everyone to try to solve all the questions ahead of time.

I believe New Student Orientation is one of the most important functional areas in student affairs since it brings together every other area to help shepherd in students and make them feel valued, excited, and supported. The tone that is set and the investments made at orientation can pay dividends later in huge ways. I encourage you to continue to tinker and improve your New Student Orientation programs and make sure as many students attend as possible. Your students and your institution will thank you for it.

Thanks for stopping by!

Summer Movie Musings: Ant-Man

This past weekend, I saw the new Marvel movie Ant-Man with a group of friends. It's been an anticipated movie for me since it continues the long, positive streak of films and television shows in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). While the trailers had me a bit worried, there was a lot of good buzz going in ahead of Ant-Man's release and the movie lives up to it's Marvel pedigree. It's a lot of fun and further builds upon the established MCU in some very cool ways.

The story surrounds Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and his redemption through his origins as the classic Marvel hero Ant-Man. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), who created the Ant-Man suit decades earlier, needs Scott to use the suit to stop the evil plots of Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), his former assistant who has been obsessed with recreating Pym's work. With the help of Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), Scott devises a plan to break in and destroy Cross's work for good.

This film is another fun, light-hearted entry in the MCU. It is most like Guardians of the Galaxy, which also has a very different tone and vibe to it. Ant-Man is a heist movie (for the most part) much like GotG is a sci-fi, space-faring epic. None of the other Marvel movies really come close to embodying the unique feel of Ant-Man. What they do all have in common is the fun, humor, and increasingly rich universe they all share. They put Hank Pym into the history of the MCU properly and set up new characters too.

I really enjoyed Ant-Man and I hope people will check it out, especially if you're a fan of the MCU.

Thanks for stopping by!

What I Was Geeking Out About: June 2015

Hey there! Here's what was going on in my world last month:

Every Friday, I share what's on my mind from the past week. There was so much to awesome stuff to geek out about last month, and to help you sift through it all, here's my monthly wrap up of all the stuff that was going on in June:

• Week of 06/05/15
• Week of 06/19/15
• Week of 06/26/15

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Some Final Thoughts on San Diego Comic Con

San Diego Comic Con is the pinnacle of geek culture. Pretty much everything you can think of in the entertainment world is somehow represented there. From Power Rangers to Galactus to Buffy to Peanuts and Charlie Brown, and everything in between. It's a great melting pot of fandom, with people coming from all over the world to take part, but there are some elements that were distressing to me as a newcomer, much like with national student affairs conventions.

The Verge did a great piece that gave voice to some of my concerns, and The New York Times highlighted well the convention experience as a whole. The long lines, the shallow industry showcases disguised as fan service, the overwhelming crowds, and the exclusive, fairly expensive nature (especially with airfare, meals, and hotels) of it all just seemed very privileged to me. The convention lost some of its immediate luster to me after spending a few days there. Maybe I just didn't do it right, but I didn't feel like the point of it all was to spend half of your hard fought ticket to SDCC waiting in lines for a short session that essentially was just a studio patting itself on the back for how great their thing is (and then the trailer you saw being released the next day online). There was a lack of depth that annoyed me to most of the proceedings. There was so much going on it's not surprising. There just wasn't a time or place for it.

Maybe the whole event has become a bloated version of what it was originally intended to be and it will eventually deflate back to a more focused event. Or maybe that is what the other conventions are for. Nowadays though, a lot of comic conventions seem to be trying to model themselves after SDCC, becoming huge entertainment industry showcases versus a focus on panels, artists, and personal interactions. Also, it's a whole other post in itself about the problems SDCC has with consent and cosplay.

Don't get me wrong, I had a great time. It just feels like it could have been even better. Maybe if I get the chance to go again it will be different. Maybe I'm expecting too much or maybe it's all just not for me. The crowds were frustrating for me at times, I couldn't buy a lot of stuff even if I wanted to (I didn't that much), and I got confused many times about just how the convention worked. Maybe I should have done more homework and preparing.

Well, either way, until next year, here's to the memories and the weird, wild, and one of a kind San Diego Comic Con.

Highlights From #SDCC15

From July 9-12 I was at 2015 San Diego Comic Con (SDCC), which was my first time ever attending this mecca of sorts for geeks and nerds (and my first time ever in California). It was a whirlwind trip that had a lot of great highlights for me.

First off, the weather in San Diego was beautiful for the weekend I was there. The sun was out, it wasn't too hot, and overall it was just a great setting to be able to explore and experience the area. I did a lot of walking over the few days I was there, which wore me out a bit and gave me a solid sunburn towards the end of the trip.

On the first day of the trip (Thursday), I walked to the convention center to check in and just walked around the show floor and other off-site events to see everything and get a lay of the land. I eventually made my way to the San Diego Central Library for the panel I was helping to cover. This was definitely a huge highlight and it was what enabled me to come out in the first place so I'm really happy I was able to sit in and take a bunch of photos of the session.

After that panel, I crashed back at my room since I had to wake up early that day for my long flight from Boston. On Friday, I did more exploring, got tickets for a session, popped in for a panel, and then played the new Star Wars Battlefront game on the PlayStation 4. The Nerd HQ was demoing the game and it was incredible! I would contemplate getting a system to play this game it was that good. Then I went to the Nerdist Conival to see of their speakers (mainly Felicia Day). Both the Conival and Nerd HQ were free to anyone to come in, no SDCC badge was required. They both a lot of fun activities and it was nice that they were there as accessible options for fans to enjoy.

My favorite session that I got to go to was the Nerdist Podcast Network Podcast Jam (an unwieldy title to be sure) that featured Jonah Ray, Matt Mira, Pete Holmes, Kumail Nanjiani, Emily Gordon, and Sandra Daugherty. There was also a kid who does a podcast apparently on the network (The Mutant Season) that I had no idea who he was but it was sort of neat to hear from a young person and the impact doing a podcast has had on him. I had never seen all these people in person, much less all at the same time. It was hilarious! They provided some neat insights as well from their collective years podcasting. As a fan of the medium and an avid podcaster myself, it was definitely a major highlight of the whole con for me.

Saturday was spent checking out a local beach and dipping my feet in the Pacific Ocean (a life goal for me). I came back to SDCC later in the day to check out Adam Savage from MythBusters do a Q&A session as well as a session from the folks at Nerd for a Living about doing just that; how to get into nerdy creative fields like costume design, movie makeup and effects, comic writing/illustrating, etc. I have appreciated the work they do for a little while now so it was cool to be able to check this panel out.

After all that, I packed up and got to bed so I could head out the next morning for my flight back to the East Coast. It was an awesome trip and experience that I did not expect to have so soon in my life. I'll try to capture more of my in depth thoughts in a future post, but I just wanted to share some of the cool highlights from the trip with you all. If you haven't gone before, I hope you get the opportunity to do so at some point. It's an amazing experience to behold, and will definitely be memorable for you for your own awesomely geeky reasons.

Thanks for stopping by!

Recap of #SDCC15 "Geeks in Higher Ed" Panel

"College should be more like Comic Con..."

I had the distinct pleasure to attend the fifth annual geekEd panel at San Diego Comic Con this year. I've seen similar presentations that have been done by some of these professionals at ACPA, but this was an excellent showing by this group and featured many professionals I have never heard speak before.

The panel was moderated by Brian MacDonald and consisted of Brian Arao, Alfred Day, Michelle Kittel, Patricia Nguyen, Liz Krulder, and Emily Sandoval. It was really great to especially hear from Liz about her experience as a student at Fresno State University who worked on developing their first "Geek Week" type event for their campus. All of the panelists came from different institutions and organizations, which itself brought a diversity of perspectives. The panelists also had very different backgrounds and outlooks on what made engaging the nerd/geek community so important and how the mediums of comics, video games, and entertainment can be used to start important discussions of current events.

A few of the big, actionable takeaways I had were about making the college environment a place where students (and staff) feel safe to be themselves and be unabashedly into whatever they love. This could mean allowing for geeky decorations in your office, encouraging and celebrating clubs of all sorts for students to find their niche, and making being smart cool. So much bullying and unfortunate discouragement happens before students get to college, but we can make our campuses a welcoming place for all so that in this pivotal time for students to find themselves, they can figure out who that really is without any of the baggage they picked up beforehand.

I've created a resource page for the folks that presented, which will be continually evolving to include new books, videos, and articles that are relevant, as well as contact info to connect with some of the awesome geeky professionals out there doing good work in this space.

Thanks for stopping by!

Movie Review Monthly: June 2015

Welcome to this monthly wrap up of my weekly movie reviews!

This month had a wide array of movies available to stream instantly via Netflix. This month had just a few movies, mostly comedies and an enlightening documentary . Each week I hope to bring you a fresh new review of a great movie in the Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime streaming library. Recommendations are always welcomed!

• Pump
• Nick Offerman: American Ham
• It's a Disaster

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Mass Effect & Living With Our Choices

Mass Effect is probably my favorite video game series of all time. While many others come very close, Mass Effect has everything for me. It's an engaging, thought-provoking sci-fi action role-playing game where your choices matter. Characters live and die, planets are saved or left to ruin, and you personally benefit or sacrifice based on the decisions you make. With the fourth iteration in the franchise, Mass Effect: Andromeda, officially announced, I thought it proper to look back on the current trilogy and talk about making choices.

What I love about the Mass Effect series is how the choices you make starting in the first game carry over into each of the subsequent entries. Not a lot of other games do this. It heightens the stakes and forces you as the player to make tough choices. Just like in life, we have to make our choices and live with them, moving forward despite what we may have done before. It can be impossible to fully know what the ramifications of our choices will be so you have to do what seems best at the time and work with what you have in the future.

It can be paralyzing for people when faced with tough decisions. We can never really know what the "right" choice is, but we can make the most informed choices we can, and make them so that we can justify whatever we decided to do. We shouldn't make choices that we'd regret or that we don't fully believe in, or at the very least, can put forth reasoning for why we did what we did, perhaps being obligated to by work or family. As long as you feel they are valid reasons and you don't feel like you're being coerced or there is a large gap between your values and the values of whoever you're making your decision on behalf of, you can move forward with a clear conscience.

In Mass Effect, you can usually take a lot of time to choose your own path, but in real life, we have to make a lot of choices quickly, so we aren't afforded the luxury of infinite contemplation. The game taught me to go with my instincts, go with my heart, and to not overly obsess over what I should or could have done. I have to just do what I think is right at the time and learn from any mistakes I make along the way. I think those are some pretty valuable takeaways we can all use.

Thanks for stopping by!