today on the internet...

I just came back from practice for my graduation from the College.  Cray-zay.   And now that I have the time (which I should be using to do laundry, pack my stuff, and...I don't know...learn French) I am going to regale you with commentary on ridiculous things I found on the internet today.  

I checked the weather this morning (hoping it would rain again so I didn't have to sit on the stage in the blazing sun) and noticed that Weather.com has made some updates.  Again!  I feel like they do a redesign every other week.  Those people are on the ball.   Anyway. Today I noticed a new feature:

That's right. It says "Alert me when it rains."  A useful feature for...cave dwellers? People without windows? Maybe, but chances are that if you aren't already outside or can't see outside, you won't be going outside soon. And if you did, you would probably be able to tell when you got there. I'd hope.

 It doesn't say "alert me when there is a hurricane" or "alert me when there is a deadly waterspout hell-bent on making it inland and headed straight for my house" or "alert me when ash falls out of the sky after a Super Volcano-type situation cuz then I will probably need more than a poncho." It says "alert me when it rains." I am curious to know how many people use this application and why.  But that's for another day.  

OH! Weather.com also lets you know about weather-related "trending" topics from Twitter users in the area.   And surprise! Today's trending topics are "rain," "raining," and "sunny."  Fascinating.  Potentially useful/interesting if the topics are "blood rain" "locusts" or "aliens??"  But for now... it's a bit redundant.

Another thing that caught my attention (potentially more stimulating than weather.com updates) was this article about the new cover for Time Magazine. It's about the mother breastfeeding her almost-four-year-old son. Here's the picture:

Oh my! Controversy! That child is wearing army pants!

 

OK, setting aside anything implied by the actual Time article or the headline ("Are you mom enough?" really? Time Magazine, why you always gotta be startin' sumthin?), the article about the article was pretty inflammatory and stupid.  The url for the Gawker article is "http://gawker.com/5909256/mom-puts-boob-in-giant-preschool-sons-mouth-on-cover-of-time?tag=moms." GIANT preschool son's mouth? I don't know all of his parentage, but I doubt he is even half-Giant. Does he look like a child of Hagrid? No.

The final questions are designed to get commenters into a frenzy.  The first two are valid:

• How does this cover make you feel? 
• Will it haunt [the child's] future? 

but of course, even these questions elicit the most heinous internet responses:

"Wish I was that Kid so I can have my mouth on those sweet jugs : )"    classy.

"Not being breast feed had NOT ONE negative effect on me and I'm closer to my parents than some of my peers. My first cousin breastfeeds her children until they're almost two years old and they're allergic to almost everything under sun!"  to which someone responded: "maybe if you had been breast fed you would understand the concept of sample sizes"    hahaha touche.

 And then people just started getting sarcastic..."Breastfed toddlers are also Giant Pussy Crybaby Whiners. See Science publication Vol456. The correct feeding method is Mountain Dew in a bottle with Kool ashes flicked on the head."

And this gem:

 "First of all he is four and his brother is five, and they both breastfeed. That is way beyond the point of normalcy, whether you agree with that or not ("normal" is relative, but that is a fair point, this is not average behavior). And I only took 4 classes in psych in college (please, please don't brag about this. By starting your sentence this way I have already stopped listening to you) but I am quite sure (you are the expert opinion here) that the kid will develop a different bond with people than most. It is likely that he will be much more needy for companionship (not true - several studies show similar levels of attachment to peers as well as fewer problems weaning off of transition objects like teddy bears and security blankets) since for 4 more years he had to attach himself to his mother for nutrition (what? pretty sure he ate other food - otherwise he would not be the "Giant" you claim he is) while all other kids were learning to eat by themselves. I'm not saying it's a certainty, but it is a likelihood that could prove a major problem later on in life."

I am not going to take a side on this.  I am not going to use anecdotal evidence and say "I know people who breastfed past the age of four and they turned out pretty OK fine" because that is the kind of reasoning these commenters use and it is completely ineffective.  What I will say is this: people on the internet are stupid. I do realize the irony of writing all this on the internet, yes.  But just remember that opinions are opinions and facts are facts. And please don't pretend to be an expert and then admit to not being one in the same sentence.

 

Also, just FYI, I have never before seen the word "tits" used this many times in a comment section about a Time Magazine article. ever.

I have been pretty stressed out lately, and noticing a few indicators of anxiety neuroses.

anxiety:  "an unpleasant emotional state for which the cause is either not readily identified or perceived to be uncontrollable or unavoidable"   

yay.

I started to ask questions: When did these start? Why am I so sensitive? Why do I feel like I am stressed or anxious all. the. time? 
How come some people can calm down and not me? (apparently, only 18% of Americans. SO 82% of Americans are anxiety free most of the time! no fair!)
and
Why do I only ever use the left-hand "Shift" key?

That last one has been bugging me for a while now, actually.

Anyway, I started looking back on my life and noticing flare-ups of stress, but a general anxiety blanket over most of my thoughts starting around high school.  So naturally I thought it must have started around there. Something about the universally traumatic experience of post-pubertal development within a public high school plus braces plus orchestra minus cool equals inevitable generalized anxiety problems. 

BUT, as I pointed out earlier, not everyone has these chronic problems. Clearly.

And then, remembered for a completely different reason, a fully formed memory floated into my head:..... (bubbly dream sequence harp playing)...

I was walking behind my church, leaving after some post-Mass event or other, and I was worriedly asking my mother what I would have to know to make my First Communion.  I remember that it was warm and sunny outside, with fluffed pine straw in the landscaping to the right of me and the carpool lane on my left. I remember seeing everything from my much smaller 7-year-old height and the hum of the generator behind the old gymnasium. 
And I remember someone telling me "...you're going to be quizzed on all the priest's homilies. I hope you were paying attention..." 
and all of this, the carpool lane, the generator, the pine straw swirling around me as anxiety scooped me into it's dizzying arms.
 ...I haven't been paying attention, I worried, I'm not going to get it. I'll never get it. I'll be old and wrinkly and no one will give me the Eucharist...

Something in his voice (and the laughter that followed the statement) told me he was kidding, but I couldn't undo the worry. And I didn't - not until I finally did make my First Communion a few agonizing months later (during which I spent every Sunday willing my attention to the priest at his pulpit and begging my brain to remember it). 

And so the pattern goes.

1. Evil thoughts.
2. Needless worry
3. Needless worry
4. must calm down.  CALM DOWN.
5. Oh no!! [insert worry here] is about to happen...
6. Oh, what? [insert worry here] already happened? And everything's fine? Oh. Phew.
7. repeat. ad nauseum.

 Moral of the story: Claire has been like this for a while.

I don't know if you can tell, but I'm about to graduate from college. 
 

procrastiknitting, meet procrastiblogging.

Things that I am thinking about right now:

1. I don't want to be writing this paper.  

Prompt: If you'd been put in charge of raising you, what would you do the same and what would you do differently? What "risk factors" do you think you could have avoided? 

Seriously. "Tell me how your parents messed you up. Be explicit. Also, be explicit enough to fill 2-3 pages single spaced."
I told my mom about having to write this and all she said to me was "Don't let me read it. I don't want to read it."  Relax, Mom. I'm trying to figure out a way to write this paper but not write this paper.



      2.  ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT IS COMING BACK!!  

I feel like shouting it from the rooftops! Which I could probably do because we have access to the fire escape.
 
      3.  I would rather be using this time to finish knitting my sweater.

I only have the sleeves left to do. Well, and 8" of the right side...but if I play my cards right, I could be finishing that to.night. If I ever write this damn paper.

This is what it's going to look like. (pictures to prove my skill later)

OK, no more procrastiknitting or procrastiblogging.  Time to settle into this awful paper.

Good night.

things I think about in the airport...

I'd like to share a few examples of how my mind occupies itself when its plane is delayed for two hours. I scribbled down a few starts for things to eventually blog and apparently today is "eventually." Here they are.

I have a habit of, every once in a while, looking around and thinking "these are the people."

These are the people I will be trapped in this elevator with.
These are the people who will be left alive with me if everything in the world is destroyed except for this room. Everything  except for this specific bank of seats in the B gates at the LaGuardia airport.
These are the people who might (in a survival situation) look at me and think to themselves "could I eat a human being?" Or, you know, vice versa.
These are the people I will be stranded on a deserted island with (if somehow this plane from New York to Atlanta flies over a deserted island. Or an ocean for that matter).

These are the people.

please don't let me spend my last hours on a MARTA train

I will scan the faces of the people around me, trying to judge their character by the way that they talk or laugh or whether they move their stuff and offer the seat next to them. He's a good guy, I think. But will his kindness make him weak? These are the kind of things you need to know. 
(Additionally, which one of these people is most likely to stab me? The small Asian boy. Watching Power Rangers on his iTouch. Just trying to be a hero.)

So this is who I'm stuck with, I think. I already hate the way that woman cackles at her cell phone. That guy over there didn't even bring a book to an airport. He's clearly not the survival type. That muscly guy on his laptop could be useful... Maybe he's a g-man or an ex-cop. 
So as people around me stress about having to deplane and where Gretchen put her boarding pass ("is it in your bag? It's GOTTA be in your bag cuz it sure as HELL ain't in mine!") I am assembling my team. And deciding who to leave behind if we find an abandoned working vehicle in our now post-apocalyptic landscape. 
...I'm looking at you, cackling cell phone lady.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

mmmm light pollution

As my plane was flying over New York on the way back home, I looked down on the sparkling city below.  I had already been delayed 3 hours and thought I might sleep on the plane until I got distracted by the view outside my cabin window.

Then my sense of geography started to fail me.
If that's New York, and we're on the East Coast...it looks like we're going further East right into the ocean! Or maybe North to Canada??  

This worry (that the pilot had no idea where he was going and I was going to be stranded in Canada for the night) began to creep into my thoughts and disrupt my reading.

"Tobacco,  introduced to London the year after Shakespeare's birth,...  

Oh no what if the flight is actually going to Canada?

...was a luxury at first but soon gained such widespread popularity... 

I got in the right gate. Right? B8. Yeah. I got in the right gate. My ticket was scanned. It made that satisfying "ping" noise that means I am supposed to be on this plane.

...that by the end of the century there were no fewer than seven thousand tobacconists in the City....  

Dad would be so upset if he drove all the way to the airport at midnight and I'm actually in Canada.

...It was employed not only for pleasure but as a treatment for a broad range of complaints... 

no. they won't be upset. They'll be worried, won't they? I'll probably end up crying if I have to call home and say I accidentally ended up in Canada.

...including venereal disease,... 

but NO. I won't cry. I'm an adult. I'm a grown-ass woman. I just went to New York all by myself!

...migraine,...

I'll take care of everything. I can get myself a hotel or something, and email work to explain my absence and book a new flight and - yeah. I'll be fine. 

...and even bad breath." 

Shit, I have to read that whole passage again. Didn't take in a word of it.

(excerpts from Bill Bryson's Shakespeare: The World as Stage)

Social Guard

I am really hungry but have to write about this first.

I was stumbling around the internet this morning, bumping into some Mean Girls/Harry Potter tumblrs when an ad caught my eye on the side of the page.

It was a fake Facebook post (it said "advertisement" at the top, so people won't get confused and try to "like" it or something) that had a girl saying

Some Girl: Can't wait for tonight! Party at my house and it's going to be aMaZiNg!
Bitchy Girl:  No one wants to go to your loser party!
Some Dude: Sounds great, what is your address please?

And then next to the two posts this X pops up and says BLOCKED or something dramatic. The fake profile melts away to present what the ad is selling: Zone Alarm Social Guard.

This is a program designed to recognize key words and phrases to block cyber bullies and potential stalkers. Bitchy girl was a cyber bully and using the word "loser" flagged her, and that dude is probably a 43 year old because he asked for her address. Right?  They couldn't possibly be being sarcastic or just need her address. While I do fully understand cyber bullying and it's new prevalence and severity, I still don't know if I like the idea of this product.

The website says "SocialGuard scans millions of records using a unique algorithm to determine threats and sends warnings to you the minute they happen, not just once a day like the competition."
This program sends parents alerts at the tiniest sign of trouble. Woah. That's like if you got emailed every time your kid was picked last for softball or ignored at the lunch table. These things happen.
I believe that the answer to bullying is to start at the child; to promote tolerance and compassion and help kids see that they can bond together because this happens to everyone.  This is not always a parent's battle, and although you want to do anything you can to protect your child, I do not believe that being an internet helicopter is going to do any good.

Cyberbullying
Alerts you to alarming words used in private messages, status updates, and wall postings.

Strangers
Alerts you when someone who may be a stranger is trying to interact with your kid on Facebook. 

Age Concerns
Flags friends that are much older than they claim to be; someone who may be pretending to be a kid. 

Dangerous Links
Catches dangerous links sent in private messages, status updates, and wall posts. Prevents viral attacks and data theft. (this thing checks private messages. hm)

Rules for being on the internet:

1. Don't "friend" anyone you do not personally know. Even if you have friends in common. Meet them in person first.
2. If your child is too young to be on Facebook, don't let them on Facebook.
3. I can't think of any more, I'm too hungry.

I am getting all confused in my opinions. This thing really threw me off guard.
I hate bullies, and of course I hate internet predators, but this SocialGuard seems so...
I don't know.

What do you think?

Mob mentality

It's pretty clear I am avoiding writing a paper. Technically, I am avoiding researching for a research paper. Which is dumb because that may be the easiest part. This is my third research paper in three weeks, and I have a rhythm down. I just don't feel like being in the rhythm right now. So I am listening to Alexi Murdoch and Brother and Freelance Whales and allowing myself to get distracted.

Now a little story.

I came back from my extra long meeting (planning next year for CSA) and sat down to my computer, resigning myself to actually do work. If I get down the research on paper, take a few pages of notes, and do the bibliography, all I have to do is write 7-9 pages tomorrow! Cake. 

I checked my email and this was the only new message:
(that's not sad, it means I am on top of things. For now.)

(Important: This is not exaggerated, but copied straight from my inbox.)

Sender: Lauren R*****

Subject: REMINDER: Meeting today

Hey Guys!

This is just a reminder about our meeting today at 5pm at Stern Center Gardens. Look forward to seeing you there!   -Lauren

Um. What.

• I have no idea who this girl is. Luckily, she has a really distinctive name like Lauren, so I can narrow it down to 500 girls at this school. And 5 or 6 dudes.
• I have NO IDEA what club or organization this is for, and she doesn't bother to say.
• I had Mass at 5, so I couldn't go anyway.

Then I started to think what if this wasn't my fault? What if this is a brilliant ploy to create an "accidental" flash mob?

Picture it: This email goes out to everyone on campus. It's bland enough to apply to anyone, any group, any meeting. In the rush of exams, group projects and final papers, everyone is forgetting things and shirking responsibilities. A student receives this email and thinks "oh no! I forgot. I can't tell what this is for, but I should head over to see what it's about just in case."
When hundreds of people think the same way, you have droves of semi-curious anxious students wandering around Stern Center with a look that asks "did I leave my keys over here?" and BAM. You've got yourself a flash mob of unintentional flash-mobbers.

Or is it flash-mobsters?



EDIT: It was not a flash mob, it was for some honor society thing. If I had bothered to search my inbox for her name I would have found that out. But congrats to my friend Aaron on being president!

Dizzy Teddy and Brah-ms

I think it's safe to say that the worst word pair you can hear in a classroom is "group project."

...followed closely by "gas leak" or "cumulative final."

My Happiness class (which is slowly becoming an ironic title) has a group project component. We have to make up our own research question about happiness and design a research study and...

I already don't want to do this. I hope this isn't a reflection on my interest level in the subject! It's probably just a representation of my horrible work ethic. For example, I have a research paper due next Wednesday and I was all gung-ho to start writing/accumulating research and instead I sat down to my computer and started blogging. Blerg.

Anyway, group projects. Every group project is the same.  No matter how many members, it could be two, it could be ten, there will be ONE person whose schedule is days ahead of everyone else. This person makes the others feel lazy, but to appease this member, the others pump out whatever they were supposed to contribute according to the Proactive Person's schedule. How is that fair? It's not. But life isn't fair, as I was reminded constantly as a child.

There is also always AT LEAST one  incompetent slacker who has decided to ride on the coattails of the other group members, who are all really just towed behind the Proactive Person. Incompetent Slacker will finish his/her assignment at the last possible second and rarely be on time/show up to group meetings in the library.

During my last group project, I discovered that I was the slacker for the first time in the history of my education. I felt terrible to be bringing down my group, but then I discovered how liberating it was not having to carry the rest of the group as Ms. Proactive. And now I am spoiled and I don't want to be that person ever again. It's a vicious cycle. Actually, it's more like when you realize that the backpack you have been lugging around all day is 470 pounds and if you carry your books to class one at a time instead of being prepared for everything all the time, you are much more comfortable.
I mean I guess. I haven't taken my books to class since freshman year.

So in Happiness class, we are charged to make groups of four. I look at the three people in my immediate area.

1. Thom (see RLS: MetalSlayer) 
2. Thom's metal friend, who looks like a teddy bear that has been through the dryer one-too-many times. His hair sticks up, fluffy, and there is a slight dizzy look to him as he talks about the freaktacular MetalSlayer album out next month.
3. Brah-guy, named for his propensity to refer to people as "brah," which is slightly acceptable given our proximity to the beach. He has short red hair and clothes that look like he's been wearing them for years, not in a dirty way but in a loose and comfortable way. He's the kind of person who insists on wearing flip flops year-round.

 I really need to stop judging people.

Upon seeing my prospects for my group, I decided to talk to my professor after class and request a random assignment. But then, I thought, what if she assigns me to these dudes anyway? Decisions, decisions. I thought, for sure I will be Proactive Patty for this group. Damn.

As I sat lost in my own worry and ignoring the last few minutes of class, I write my contact info on the sheet of paper Brah-guy has handed me, and I hear Dazed Teddy addressing me from his seat directly behind me.

"Cookies. You want cookies? Cookies?"
Oh, man. This guy is high.
"I mean," he clarifies, "would you like some cookies? I work at a bakery and I took a bunch home today."

It turns out he works at Baked, one of my favorite bakeries in Charleston and just as I am about to say "sure! do you have any Monster cookies? They're my favorite," he says
"Do you want a Monster cookie? And I have chocolate chip. Take a few!"



Maybe this group thing will work out after all.

RLS: MetalSlayer

To the girl in my psych classes:
Why do you insist on taking your shoes off for every class? Are your shoes really that restrictive? Also, do you buy new socks every week? Because yours look immaculate considering the amount of time they spend unshielded from the annually-cleaned floors of the Education Center.

Also, here is another story about my powers of magnetism.

In my happiness class, our professor likes to take time from her lecture to ask us to "check with our neighbor" about things we just learned or were supposed to read.
Example: "So the Stoics were definitely eudaimonists. What in the reading from yesterday confirms this statement? Can you check with your neighbor?"..and then you have to awkwardly turn to the person closest to you and shrug and say "I have no idea. Did you read? Yeah, me neither."

One day, when class ended after checking with my neighbor about Kant or Schopenhauer, I exited my aisle and one of the guys that sits behind me (one of my neighbors) blocked my walking path and stuck out his hand. "I'm Tom by the way."  Actually I think it may be spelled with an "h" like some people do. Let me paint you a picture of this guy: he's what the boy's clothes department would call "husky," with dark greasy hair that comes to his shoulders, a curtain covering one eye like the lady-villain from Captain Planet. He is usually wearing the same shirt supporting some demonic-sounding death metal band.  Most days I hear him talking about the latest metal show he went to to a fellow metalhead behind us. ("Did you see MetalSlayer on Thursday??" "Yeah, they were freaktacular, man.")

"I'm Thom by the way."
"Oh, hi. My name's Claire."
"Claire," he confirms.
We shake hands.

 The next week, our professor walks down the aisles and passes out a handout (probably something undecipherable about Nietzsche with lots of examples about pastrami sandwiches). With only three of us in the row, I have to stand up and walk to the girl at the end to get the papers, and then I pass one to Thom, who sits in my row now, if he can manage it. And he says...
"Thanks babe."

I possibly misheard him. Maybe he said "thanks mate" or "thanks gave" or "you should shave." I hope it was one of these options.

Ever since this, I have been weary. But for a week or so, he wasn't in class to avoid giving our big presentation.  I thought he had withdrawn from the class to avoid writing the three page paper and talking for 60 seconds. So imagine my surprise when I see he is still in class after all!
 Today we tackled the questions "What IS happiness?" and "What does happiness REQUIRE?" Check with your neighbor. I did a half turn and saw he was the closest person to me, so I turned to face him and said

"Isn't this what the whole class is supposed to be about?"
He laughs.
"So, what IS happiness?" I ask, "Puppies? Peace of mind?"
"How was your break?"
"Uh." I recover quickly. "Good! Really good. My break was happiness. Great idea."



I just realized that there is no reason to be so freaked out about this. People call other people "babe," right? I just expected it from some slick jerk instead of one of my own (the geeks, nerds and dorks crowd.) I should give Thom a break. Because now everything I hear him say ends that way. "How was your break, babe?" "Maybe happiness can't be defined operationally, babe." It makes me uncomfortable. But that's not exactly fair to him. He probably just said "thanks a nave."

Anyway, here are (the imaginary metal band for the purposes of this study) MetalSlayer's greatest hits, courtesy of Jake:

(not a member of MetalSlayer)

MetalSlayer's Greatest Hits Collection:

1. Death-Face

2. Murder for Breakfast

3. Bloodsoaked Shoelace

4. A Knife Wound a Day (Kept My Parents Away)

5. Human Roadkill

6. Bitch Coffin

7. Recipe for Necrosis

8. A One-Horse Open Slay

9. Bureau Full of Corpses

10. Love is a Self-Amputation

(I would advise people not to google image these song titles. you're welcome.)

time is running out

I need to make a decision. About my future  my class schedule. By Monday. I need help.

I have two required classes left to take for Psychology. And two semesters. I'm not going to get into how guilty I feel that I didn't graduate early, but for now my only defense is that I have to write my Bachelor's Essay next year for the Honors College, which is like writing an Undergrad thesis. And it is gonna take a lot of research and a lot of time.
Anyway. Time is running out.

I have to take my psychology lab OR Cognitive Psychology next semester, but not both, because then I complete my major and lose my scholarship. At least that is what I have been told. 

Option 1: Take Cognitive next semester, and hope that the labs don't fill up in the Spring.
Option 2:  Take the Conditioning and Learning lab next semester.

Why Claire, you say, you don't like your Conditioning class now, and you probably don't want to work with a rat for four months next semester, why would you take this lab? Simple, I answer, because all the other labs have prerequisites and even though I feel like I have taken all the psych classes C of C offers, I have so far managed to not take any of the other three lab classes except C + L. Damn.

So I either take a lab that I will probably not like and get awful friendly with a five pound rodent next semester, or I run the risk of signing up in the Spring and somehow (despite priority registration) missing out on this quickly-filling class and not getting to graduate.

Help!

notes on professors

I spend hours everyday taking notes from them. Lectures, power-points, the dreaded group activities. Now here are some notes on my professors:

Dear sir  Dear Dr. Sir,
your hair is ridiculous. I wonder how you wash it. Or rather, if you wash it.
Long, crumpled, and dark, it hangs in a ponytail almost to your waist. The size and shape of this "do" forces me to recall an unsightly clog pulled from a shower drain.
And your sweatshirt. Forest green, navy, or grey. The same shape and sad feel about it that suggests it has been worn hundreds if not thousands of times and never given the proper respect it deserves.

These things are excusable given your work as a researcher and your passion for the disgusting animals you work with: pigeons.  What gets my attention everyday is your interesting "air quotes." A typical human would use two fingers to gesticulate, either apart like peace signs or together like a Boy Scout's promise. But you, Dr. Sir elect for mitten hands, making a motion like you are waving to two small children standing next to each other. This intrigues me and disturbs me. Did you choose to do this sometime during your young experimental phase? Is it an attempt at non-conformity and rebellion? Or do you have some mildly disfiguring hand problem that restricts individual finger movement?

Carry on, Dr. Sir. Because your class is pretty boring and at least I have the quotes to look forward to.

Love, Student.

Dr. Lady, it is hard to take you seriously today.

Every other meeting with you leaves me unsettled and fearful. You always look so put-together and scornful. Your outfit makes me imagine a closet full of turtlenecks and earth tone jackets. A vanity with the perfect make up and polished-rock earrings. An alarm clock set to 5:30 to ensure enough time to wash and shape the perfect helmet of hair placed atop your glaringly critical head.

Today, I see a new side of you. And that side is knee-high black patent leather dominatrix boots. 

The dominatrix bit is only assumed.

As I try to concentrate on whatever it is you are saying, I am paralyzed by the squeaking sound of your boots rubbing together as you attempt to daintily cross your ankles. It's the sound of balloons rubbing together or that squelch from the jerk who squeaks his shoes on the linoleum when he comes in from the rain. The sound that hits me somewhere in the middle of my head by the back of my throat.

I will not be concentrating today.  Excuse me while I attempt to shove notebook paper in my ears and scrub the image of whips from my brain.

Love, Student.

In love with the problem problem:

Why I <3 my classes.

As a freshman I took a class called Intro to Academic Writing, because I was naive and listened to my previously-unknown-to-me Honors adviser, who said that since I had already completed my English requirement with AP classes I should take this intro class to help me write papers in college. I unwittingly signed up, and did not realize until the first or second week of classes what "Introduction to Academic Writing" actually meant. It meant reading journal articles, analyzing "academic" writing styles and teaching me a trick called the "quote sandwich," which I still use in all my papers to this day. However, the most important thing I took from this class was "the problem problem."

In an article by Gerald Graff, he describes the "problem problem" in the academic community as the "tendency to make seemingly obvious assumptions explicit" and a "general obsession with searching for problems where often there do not seem to be any." I was relieved in reading this article that someone else had noticed how "academics" tend to create issues where there don't seem to be issues simply to have something to write about, and thus securing their employment through "searching for problems where there don't seem to be any." While in this class, I discovered a resentment towards academics, or perhaps my professor, for writing things I had to read about which did not need to be read about at all. Perhaps this is more the case in liberal arts disciplines, perhaps not. I just knew I was fed up with reading articles and writing papers about “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adults." Do we really need to analyze how people revise their writing? It happens, it's over, move on.

More recently, however, as I began seeing the problem problem as the underlying architecture for every college course I have ever taken (and therefore higher education in general, I believe), I realized that I do not hate the problem problem as strongly as I thought. In fact, I LOVE it.

Case in point: Happiness.

This semester, I am taking a class called Happiness. That's it. That's the whole name of the class. It is a Psychology class AND a Philosophy class, so we have two professors, 70 students (which is about as big as it gets at CofC) and a whole curriculum of the problem problem.

I noticed in my Family and Childhood Issues class that Psychology is about a lot of unknowns. Most things can not be measured in this discipline, and most of the things that can be measured can not be measured reliably, like happiness. We spent most of the class supplying questions as answers, discussing what influences a child's development: "What about his SES?" "Maybe there is a history of illness?" "Parental discord or harmony?"
My Happiness class is slightly more concrete, but only because Philosophy is a different discipline. Instead of inventing questions to define the situation, each person invents answers. That is why each Philosopher has his own "ism" or theory he is associated with.  There are dualists, idealists, hedonists, and anarchists. So when you get a group full of Question majors in a room with a group full of Answer majors, interesting things happen.

I love this class. I love all my classes because of the problem problem. When there is nothing left to write about, make something to write about.
And read that book, because so far it is excellent.

the NESP wasp

I am freaking out. Just a bit.

Tomorrow is D-Day. It should be happy and exciting, because I really only have two classes standing between me and Thanksgiving, but actually- OH WAIT there is another HUGE thing standing in the way, and that is this damned scholarship.

I have a meeting with my adviser for the NESP (Nastily Exhausting Scholarship Process) tomorrow at 12:30, right before I am allowed to leave for break. It's like seeing a lovely cake on the kitchen table and running toward it in excitement only to find a gigantic deadly wasp sitting in front of it, so that you are so freaked out about the wasp and how to maneuver yourself around it that you forget the cake is even there until the wasp decides to fly away by itself. Tomorrow is kinda like that.

I have a few more essays to write and I have convinced myself that everything I can get on paper (or a word document) is progress. Except it's NOT. Everything I have written is bullshit and that wasp is going to tear me down until all I am is a small weeping child.

Maybe I should have used pie as an example. It's more appropriate for the season.

fat bullies can't climb trees

Last night I set to work, whittling down my (hourly) growing to-do list, deciding to tackle my power point presentation for the middle school on Monday. This semester I'm conducting an independent study with one of my professors, and we have chosen to design a counseling program for grades 5-8 at a local Catholic school.

My first presentation was going to be about bullies- how to recognize when someone is being bullied, how to tell if you're being bullied, how to tell if you are a bully, yada yada yada.  So I got to work, researching and finding appropriate pictures for the slides...but then my mind wandered off.

I started a new power point.  I went to ehow.com and looked up "how to survive a bear attack" and switched "bear" with "bully." Then I spent an embarrassing amount of time adding pictures and swapping "grizzly" with "fat bully" and "black bear" with "mean bully."

I could say that working on something tedious got my creative juices flowing and eventually I'll pop out something genius. Like when I made myself write anything, anything, to start my college admissions essay and ended up writing about Mr. Bean. And then sending it to all my schools because it was actually an awesome essay.

But really all I've done is waste time, and my To Do list is glaring at me, judgmental and disappointed.

If you want to see the powerpoint, just email me and I'll send it to you.

always something

Right now, it is rainy outside. Something I have been wishing for all week, possibly all month. I get to sit inside and do homework (because it's a Sunday) and read and watch TV with the room all to myself. I might even stay in my pajamas until mass tonight.

Or so I thought. Until I remembered that as Motivation Girl at the Call Center, I am in charge of themed weeks. This is the first one of the semester: Fiesta Week, which means decorating with Mexican blankets and getting supplies for the quesadilla maker. Only I still don't have a key to the office, so I have to wait for the shift to start today to go in, which kinda makes me look like a slacker.

I thought today would be sooooo relaxing and productive; I'd be free of my general stresses and soothed by the rain.

But there's always something.

That sounds depressing and cynical. What I mean is: I need to remember that the things that stress me out will almost always be around, but I should also recall how dumb I feel when I spent so much energy worrying about something that didn't ever become a problem. Daily reminder: It's not worth it! 

PS- I really want a quesadilla maker for Christmas.

where's the cake?

My stumbleupon thinks I'm about to have a hipster wedding. Or that I eventually want to have a hipster wedding.The first of which is entirely untrue, but the more they show me, the more it grows on me. Damn.

First of all, stumbleupon is a site that allows perpetually lazy college students students people to simply press a button on their tool bar that will instantly hop them to a different interesting site. It's kind of like hitting shuffle on the internet. You can customize your stumble to present you with sites about things you are interested in. For instance, mine is set to direct me to sites about psychology, humor, and for some reason, hipster weddings like this one: Chris and Krystal: the soundtrack!

They're full of witty and interesting ideas like "use Polaroids instead of a photographer" and "use a band comprised entirely of 9 yr olds in sundresses" and "use garden weeds instead of flowers because flowers are so consumerist and passe"

Between this and TLC, I feel like weddings are being thrown at me from every direction. And without even giving me cake.

the shiny guy always worries

My neighbor across the hall is a very nice girl. I just learned that she is a psych major and so far enjoying her first year in college. That's about as much as I know about her. Oh, and the fact that she has THE CUTEST FOUR YR OLD BROTHER IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD.

"Oh no! A vampire!!" -Tristan

His name is Tristan, he has Spider-man Velcro shoes and a pretty cool umbrella: "not just any umbrella...it's a Spongebob one! It's yellow and everything!" And because my roommate and I are basically 10 years old when it comes to our interests (Star Wars, Harry Potter and superheroes), and Marca has decorated our bookshelf and TV stand with dozens of action figures, he seems to really enjoy visiting us.

On move-in weekend, while his parents were unpacking and his sister was organizing, he jet-packed over to our room and started play time.

Of course it didn't start so easy. He didn't just storm into our room demanding toys; he's too polite for that. He just leaned on our doorway for a few minutes, talking to Marca, Jenna and me about our rain boots. I could tell he was going stir crazy with the move-in effort and I wanted to offer him the chance to play with Boba Fett and Hagrid, but everything I said to him came out wrong: "Hey, do you want a cookie?" "We have toys!" and Jenna even asked "Where do you live?"

Some things you just can't say to a 4 yr old without sounding like a molester in an ice cream van.

After move-in day I thought surely I won't see him again until move-out. And I was sad. But today he came to visit his sister. And who's room did he come to first? The FUN room.

The best thing about these play dates is that he has no idea who any of the characters are that he is playing with. When he first saw Darth Vader (who protects our television), he swooped him down onto Remus Lupin and said "Oh no! A vampire!" I later found out from his mother that he has never seen or heard of Star Wars. Which seems like neglect, if you ask me.

and now you know

In an effort to reach out to my brother Sean the other day, I ventured to Wikipedia for some facts about giraffes.

Lemme 'splain.
My oldest bro (younger than me by about 3 years) is a giraffe. He's tall, a bit awkward, and I'm almost positive he has four stomachs.
He also owns about three shirts, as seen here. He wears one every day. He even found a silly band on vacation: a yellow giraffe. How perfect.

So I decided I would drop some facts on him, hoping to find something phrased like a National Geographic special about the life of a Sean. I found this:

"While research from the 1970s concluded that giraffes did not
socialize, later research found that giraffes did form attachments to
other giraffes, with giraffes spending 15% of their time grazing with
the giraffes they are close to and only 5% of their time grazing with
giraffes who are strangers."

Ha ha. Because he eats a lot and doesn't socialize. So I posted this on his Facebook. But upon further examination of the text (read: Wiki article), I also learned something quite interesting. About mating habits. That I am in no way implying relate to my brother. But I still think it's a fun fact worth knowing, so here you go:

"Another function of necking is sexual, in which two males caress and court each other, leading up to mounting and climax. Such interactions between males are more frequent than heterosexual coupling. In one study, up to 94% of observed mounting incidents took place between two males. The proportion of same sex activities varied between 30 and 75%, and at any given time one in twenty males were engaged in non-combative necking behavior with another male."

Gay giraffes. Bisexual giraffes. Bros with benefits. Besties with testes. Whodathunk?

Of course I checked other sources, to make sure some dude with a giraffe fetish wasn't editing Wikipedia (again), and it all checked out. You learn something new everyday.



Note: this post is not aimed at anyone. Especially my brother. Who totally likes giraffes for other reasons. Like their knobby head things.

here's your APA guide

It is Sunday.

A Sunday during school, which translates to "Homeworkday" in Schoolese.

This semester I am in a class called PSYC 410: Family Issues and Child Development; a special topics class that will henceforth be referred to as "Famish" because the name is really long. This topic is so special that it doesn't even have a book about it. I mean, there's bound to be one book about this topic somewhere, but regardless, my prof did not asssign a text. Cha. Ching.
However, that does mean that we will be responsible for reading several articles "in the field" (not in a grassy meadow or anything, just articles from various Psychology journals. such is life). For those of you unfamiliar with journal articles (or those of you who are too familiar) I will shed some light:

• They are boring. Hear me out. The topic itself may be riveting, and I find they often are very interesting areas of study, but the format of each one screams "Don't read me! Use me as a coaster!" They trick you in psychology text books by inserting pie charts or pictures of laughing children, but when it comes to academic reading and writing, all the cutesy stuff is left at the door.
• Academic writing usually tells you something you already know, just in more unnecessarily exact terms. Today I read an article about resilience in children (The Development of Competence in Favorable and Unfavorable Environments: Lessons From Research on Successful Children. Masten & Coastsworth 1998.) and read sentences like this: "...friends may provide emotional support. ...At the same time, however, friends may encourage deviant behavior." Really? NO WAY.
• While reading in APA style, you have to deal with the citations at the end of every sentence. Example: "Such activities may also serve to facilitate involvement in conventional social networks, which could then promote acheivement or rule-abiding conduct (Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde & Whalen 1993; McNeal 1995)." However, there could still be risks, and long term effects still in question (Boring, Uppity & Hartopronouce 1997; Talkstoomuchabouthisphd, 1992).
  
• I've decided I am in the right field to have a mildly weird, unpronounceable name. Some examples from today's reading (in APA style) are: Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde & Whalen, Luthar & Zigler, Cicchetti, Rogosh, Galbraith & Espeland, Kellam and Rebok, and many many more.
• 

there. a picture of a brain so you won't get bored.

summer lovin' (and some hating too)

Most people from the south look fondly on summer memories of their childhood. They recall muggy nights with dusty fans slowly churning the thick wet air and the “symphony” of cicadas and crickets drifting in through the charmingly broken screen of their bedroom window. Some reminisce about playing in the sprinkler or slurping watermelon at a block party. All these are picturesque summer events fondly treasured by those who experienced them and remarked upon whenever the conversation should turn to childhood memories or the upcoming summer season. However, these people seem to always forget some key parts of summer living, like the sound of your own feet melting to hot asphalt or the way a sweat drop meanders down your spine to the waistband of your shorts.

Summer has always been my favorite season, and I believe it is simply because I forget the parts of summer that make me want to scream, live naked, or scratch myself to the point of drawing blood. Every year during the summer, I go nearly crazy. Every year I sit on my bed, sick of the same posters on my walls and disgusted at how my bare skin sticks to the sheets. I revisit times where I have claimed summer as my favorite season and shake my head sadly. What was I thinking? Sure, I love the beach and my birthday and not having to (or being able to) wear itchy wool sweaters. Yet even as I doubt myself and the answer I put on that internet personality quiz deciding which Jonas brother I should marry, I still feel a connectedness to summer that goes beyond my current discomfort. Somewhere in the back of my mind I have a Beach Boys song playing and a flashy Margaritaville sign hung up on a cranial wall. Because, you see, summer is a season that sticks with you (quite often literally, especially if you have leather seats).

Perhaps it is the memories that keep me in a summer state of mind. Positive memories from a young age have a way of preserving an attached emotional state, the same way the ice cream truck still gets your attention. For me, every summer is like returning to your favorite restaurant as a kid and discovering rats in the kitchen and a bug in your salad. Maybe it hadn’t always been that way. Maybe time had slowly faded the paint job and rats had only recently moved in. Either way, you feel betrayed by your memories and sad to be away from such simple, happy times. But you never lose those feelings. You still remember your tenth birthday party and various family dinners. And so it is with summer. I can never forget the times that made me love it, but as of now, I’m sweating at my keyboard and wishing my houseful of brothers didn’t necessitate a full set of clothes.

This may sound depressing or hateful towards this season but it assuredly is not. I simply remark upon these feelings because I find it truly odd how startled I am at this revelation year after year and how it always seems new to me. I find it odd that somewhere between September 22 and June 21 I forget the heat and the trouble sleeping and the feel of sunburn. I forget about flipping the pillow and standing in front of the refrigerator and the incurable laziness. I forget about upper lip sweat and milk jug condensation and mosquitoes (how could I ever forget? But I do). I forget the fact that I am terrified of my ceiling fan. Petrified. I frequently picture the entire apparatus wobbling out of control and soaring through the air to slice open my neck or abdomen or even remove a limb or two. Mostly, I forget the noise. So much noise. At night, insects are the “music makers,” endlessly rubbing legs or clicking abdomens. Many writers equate this noise to song, often regarding it as symphonic. It’s not. It is cacophony.
Human forgetfulness is this season’s saving grace. Perhaps this is true of all seasons. Winter may seem majestic until snow melts in your boots or Jack Frost nips at your nose a little too hard. Spring and autumn have their moments as well, and logically they make sense as someone’s favorite season. Spring brings life and vibrant dewy wild flowers, while autumn throws colors like Jackson Pollock. They don’t boast sunburn or heat exhaustion or poison ivy (a gorgeously itchy plant that rears its head for the summer months). Yet for some reason I cannot switch teams. I am not a winter girl or a spring chick or an autumn babe. I love summer.

As much as I complain about the nasty bits, I truly love these three months. All it takes is a little reminiscing and I pine for summer by October 1st. I remember water balloon fights and the smell of sunscreen. I remember the Fourth of July, summer blockbusters, the cool blast of air conditioning, the healing power of cherry slurpies, beach chairs, sand castles, reading piles of books, unsightly goggle marks, salty hair, and the steady rhythm of flip flops. Memories, both good and annoying, keep summer in my heart. And it’s going to stay there no matter how awful it is now. Maybe this year I’ll write a post-it to myself that says: remember to hate summer. You got 47 mosquito bites.

chew it over

I find myself puzzled by nervous habits. Possibly because my own do not follow any normal or average pattern. I don't have nervous tics or pull out my eyelashes when I stress over school or money. I bite my nails. An oh so common affliction many disregard as even a vaguely interesting personal tidbit. People don't even take the time to find it disgusting or unladylike anymore. Of course, from my mother or more commonly a grandmother, I hear a disappointed sigh when my nails are sighted as if to say "oh what a waste, she could have been a hand model." Sometimes these words actually follow the audible sigh.

It's not as if I can't help it either. As evidenced by my frequent remissions, I am fully capable of stopping if I am in the right state of mind or if I really like my nailpolish. My friend Naomi claims to be in total control of this bad habit, yet doesn't care about the state of her nails. Obviously she does it because she likes it or wants to, which in an odd way every nailbiter does, and does so because she chooses to. In fact, I am ashamed of my stubby nails because I feel like it says "look at me, I can't control myself from being gross." And then of course, I can't help but remember Freud's psychosexual stages and the corresponding "stage" of development (I do not, for the record, agree with Freud): the oral stage. This means theoretically I was understimulated as an infant when breastfeeding so now I am stuck trying to make up for it but putting things in my mouth (in layman's terms).

It makes some sense that I transferred from thumbsucking to biting my nails, and I refuse to ever smoke a cigarette because I fear that is the next logical stage. Which, if that is the case, might cause some minor, tiny, health problems but give me great nails.

I am puzzled by my bad habit because it has uncommon fluxuations. Normally, when people are busy or stressed out, they have a nervous flare up and chew to the quick. I, on the other hand, tend to have worse nails when I'm bored than during finals week. Maybe because my house during the summer is more stressful than college life during finals. That's very likely, in all seriousness.

Hm. maybe I should watch a thriller and let them come back a bit.