Surprises, Google Lunches, and Murder Trials

Hello dear blog, it’s been too long! Class assignments keep getting in the way. What was that Mark Twain quote? Something to the effect of, “never let your schooling interfere with your education,” but anyway, I had a very eventful weekend, so I figured I should blog about it.

My Saturday began with me.. a bit hungover.. at 8:30 in the morning.. in a lecture hall.. in a suit. After listening to a (rather informative) 3 hour lecture on career advice, I had the opportunity to talk with some prestigious members of the advertising and media industries. I learned the ins and outs of nabbing a media job in todays bleak job market. The all day event was definitely a worth while experience.

After sitting in a suit for eight hours, I hopped in my car to head home for my dad’s surprise birthday party. While on the highway I get a call from my mother. Mind you, I have a Jeep… I’m driving a tin box 70 mph, it’s so loud I lose my hearing after a long road trip. Anyway, I get a call from my mom and we’re talking on the phone and she decides to put my dad on. As I am yelling over all the ambient road noise, I am trying to explain to him that I am driving to the movies… really, really fast. When he asks what movie I’m about to see I respond, “Eli,” which hasn’t been in theaters for a while now. So needles to say it was more difficult than I anticipated to keep his part a secret, but the party was a huge success. I made this YouTube video to commemorate it!

My adventures while at home did not end when they kicked us out of the Frankfort Bowl. Monday morning I had the opportunity to sit in on the Drew Peterson trial. Actually being in the court room was an eerie, yet memorable experience. The first thing I noticed about him was his eyes, they were like black holes! He was some calm and collected the whole time, and I couldn’t help to notice that he was hitting on all of the female policemen while we took a recess. Hopefully the statements of the 70 “hearsay” witnesses will be enough to convict this guy, but watching the prosecution question Cathy’s attorney was incredible. I guess this is what I’m getting myself into when I go onto law school!

After witnessing my first murder trial, I got in my car and headed straight to the Google offices in Chicago. To be honest, I thought I was in a pre-school when I walked through the doors. Razor scooters, colorful decor, and asymmetric walls reinforced Google’s free-spirited ideology. The only reason I was lucky enough to tour the offices was Jake Parillo. Jake took me to lunch in the Google cafeteria, which peered out over the city. After an engaging discussion about Google, law school, and all things media, Jake showed me around the building. Although there were many unique things about Google, there were a couple that really jumped out at me. For one, almost everything was a whiteboard, you could write on basically anything, walls included! The other thing was all of the snack stands dispersed throughout the floor. Chocolate covered pretzels, M&Ms, and cliff bars are just a few of the things they had to offer. I never wanted to leave (I guess that’s the point)! Seeing inside an actual Google office was an incredible experience.

That was my weekend in a nutshell. Hopefully I will be updating this blog more frequently. I want to stray away from the “online journal” approach and actually start writing with a purpose… like my pet peeves or something. Who knows, maybe I’ll be the one who breaks the story on the next U of I or Governor scandal!

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