And so we begin!

As a recent college graduate looking for work in my field, I decided to begin a blog to maintain my writing skills as well as create a writing portfolio.  The lovely Sarah, my college roommate from Senior year at Concordia College, has agreed to serve as my accountability buddy as we look to put out job applications, build our career portfolios, and give ourselves time to figure out our vocations.

I live in the Greater Twin Cities area of Minnesota.  I am engaged, but living at home for the moment with my parents, sister, and puppy Joe.  I am a fairly liberal Lutheran who loves Sherlock, Doctor Who, Lord of the Rings and NCIS.  I graduated Concordia College with degrees in English Literature and Classical Studies and a minor in Religion.  My original plan was to go into editing or publication, but currently I am uncertain of my path in life.  I'm a college grad - what else did you expect?  Currently I am working retail and direct sales while looking for a more "career" job and just trying to adjust to a life outside of school.

My goal with this blog is to explore my passions while working on my writing and critical thinking skills, and I hope to do that by making "reviews", book reviews, movie reviews, television, products, etc.  Ideally I will post book reviews on Monday and other reviews on Thursday.  With that, I suppose its time to begin!

Last night, I began watching the show "Brain Games" on National Geographic.  The show seeks to be both entertaining and informative, and the first two episodes I watched courtesy of my fiance's DVR did exactly that.  With topics such as Vision and Time, the creators of the show have combined their "brain games" with insight from experts who vary from researchers to illusionists.  While the games may not be so fascinating to those who choose not to participate, it is remarkable how well their examples work, even through the television.  For example, to explain peripheral vision,  the show enlisted three volunteers to choose some cheerleaders while staring at an X on the screen.   We giggled as the volunteers chose men wearing wigs to join their team, because so little information about details can be gathered from their peripheral vision.  Then they asked the audience to do the same.  I chose the male the first time, and the female the second, while my fiance chose the female the first time and declared "They're both dudes!" on the second go.  The games hey chose to use worked surprisingly well over the television, but it wasn't solely about the optical illusion.  The show was both humorous and educational, and I look forward to watching more episodes soon.