Blog 70

For the students of next quarter, I urge you to stay on top of your assignments. The grading is straightforward and the amount of assignments mean that loosing easy points can hurt your grade. First and foremost, do all of your blogs. It’s extremely difficult to sit down every night and do them, especially on the weekends. This is what I struggled with most. Instead, it helps to sit down and work ahead when you can.

            You write the majority of your papers through the blogging process, and when I sat down to write the actually draft, I found it was easy when I had completed the blogs on the subjects and difficult when I didn’t.  

            The theme of my section was science fiction. I came into the class loving it and the best part of it was watching primary sources and using them as evidence for the Analytical Research Paper. I urge you to appreciate that you get to watch television in place of reading books. It takes an hour an night, yet reading would usually require more than this, so don’t take it for granted.

            I came into the class with writing skills geared towards my major, Biology. I could write scientific responses and lab reports but struggled with properly formatted and grammatically correct English writing. During the course of the class, the tools were presented to me to get better at writing in general. You’ll write a lot, and this can be annoying if you don’t enjoy it, but it really does make writing easier and more efficient.

Blog 69

For all intensive purposes, this is my last blog! I wish that I would’ve had time to do them all by the deadlines, but that’s what extra credit it for, right? The horrible thing, I can’t think of anything to blog about.

Right now, I’m sitting in my living room, Biology session completed, food cooked and eaten, and siblings on the sofa behind me. They’re watching Nickelodeon, a show that I’ve just been informed in called Victorious. It lacks dimension. I miss the shows of the nineties; I feel like they held more entertainment value and had generally more substantial values.

My friends and I loved Hey, Arnold!, Courage the Cowardly Dog, The Wild Thorn berries, and others. My cousin is obsessed with Adventure Time, while I miss the Smurfs. My favorite was Rocky and Bullwinkle, a throwback to the times when we were still terrified of the Soviets and patriotic propaganda came to us in the form of cartoons. The villains speak Russian and the good guys always fight them on some sort of principle.

I also appreciate Disney movies, the animated kind that were pieces of art and didn’t subscribe to the new Pixar 3-D junk. Don’t get me wrong, early Pixar drew me in, but I miss the good old days of simple drawings that were animated to captivate us. Every screen shot in Bambi is a painting, and each one of those movies had soul.

The good news is that the oldies are coming out on DVD, so I can choose to be old-fashioned if I wish. 

Blog 68

My boyfriend and I have the oddest conversations:

A: “Jewthyphro ~ An extremely [academically oriented] or [booksmart] Jew.

Origins ~ It is a malapropism of "[Euthyphro]", a friend of Socrates' who studied at the [Lyceum] and is generally portrayed as a scholarly figure in keeping with his status in the work as a contemporary and friend of [Socrates]. He claims to have a very broad and deep knowledge of all things pious and impious; which in the specific context means "all things religious and nonreligious". He speaks with Socrates in the first section of Plato's "[The Last Days of Socrates]"

B: * Ostentatiously [Jewish] Friend * ~ So I was reading this book the other day; Fyodor Dostoevsky; Crime and Punishment, have you ever read it? No? Ok, well it's interesting, it really displays the feelings of alienation and stultifyingly ineffective governing in Russia at the time; and at the same time that it serves as excellent and startlingly accurate political commentary, it's also an astonishingly insightful work on how the conscience of man acts on him. You see the real punishment isn't what the government deals him, the real punishment is dealt to Raskolnikov by himself as he agonizes and suffers endless pain over his own guilt.

* Incredulous * ~ . . . Alright Jewthyphro, go talk to Socrates for awhile, maybe he'll understand what you're talking about.”

A: What is the point of this; do you need it for a project or something?

B: No, it just kind of sprung out of nowhere.

A: … <3 

Blog 67: Females Should Really Read this One

               I’ve decided to dedicate an entire blog to my Easton visit on Saturday. My boyfriend was meeting up with some old friends at Easton to throw a surprise party for his friend at his dad’s pub there. His junky car was being shady, so I decided to drive him there as it’s only 30 minutes from his home and I needed to get some shopping done.

               We got there early and parked, moseyed around the mall until he needed to meet up with his friends. We parted ways until the dinner was over, which was a HUGE mistake. I walked around the mall, visiting several stores in search of a birthday gift for his 6 year old sister. I made a purchase, bought a pretzel and decided to kill some time in Barnes and Nobles. Whilst there, I looked for Sarah Palin’s new book, more to flip through it than to buy it.

               A man followed me into a corner of the store, I had been keeping an eye on him and assumed that he was looking for a book. He turned and looked at me, then asked me if I was there alone. Shocked, I said no, pushed past him and left the store. He followed me out. I sat next to a family at a table by the crowded fountain plaza, not looking back. They were confused and surprised but responded to my prompts about the weather. After an hour or so, they left and I had no idea if the guy could still see me or even if he was following me. I sat in the crowd for another two hours, knowing that I was in a public place, but terrified to leave or go back to the store and inform them, to find a police officer. I was having a silent anxiety attack  and couldn’t function. Eventually, boyfriend’s party was over and I told him to come and get me. After he came, we rounded a corner and I changed my sweatshirt. He accompanied me through to my car, I took down my OSU parking pass from my visor and we got out of there. I took a convoluted way back to his house and was comfortable that no one followed us.

               I wasn’t able to explain what happened until after the fact, although he could tell something was wrong and did as I said. I wish I was able to think and take the measures necessary to get a police man, but there wasn’t any in sight and I was frozen with fear. I was having an anxiety attack and couldn’t function beyond the instinctual things that I did. After the fact, I don’t remember any identifying details about the guy.

               I’m glad that I was able to take the measures that I did to say safe. I attribute it to the paranoid teachings of my mercenary father from when I was little. He was always thinking of these sort of things and repeating them. Thinking back about what I did wrong, I don’t remember any other female in that whole mall that was alone. They were all travelling in groups, with friends or moms. I should’ve had someone go with me.

               The cautionary point: DO NOT GO TO THE MALL ALONE. There are evil people everywhere, and safety is as important in the suburban mall as it is in a big city. 

               I never did get to preview that Sarah Palin book. 

Blog 66

               I’m procrastinating. I need to get in the shower and get on the road to go to this poster session ordeal. The problem isn’t laziness; it is how soft this blanket is and the half cup of coffee that I haven’t gotten a chance to finish.

                I feel the need to blog about my weekend, as it was eventful.

               Friday night, Julia and I met up and decided to have a girl’s night out. She loves Karate Coyote so we headed to Kobo for their concert. With her little sister in tow, we arrived and found out that it was a 21 and up event. Allie, her sister is 17. Somehow, Julie managed to talk the guy into letting us in. She didn’t flirt, she just reasoned with him and we ended up sitting by the bar and watching the opener with red Xs on both our hands to prevent us from purchasing alcohol. After a trip to the bathroom, I discovered (quite accidently) that the guy used a washable marker. We didn’t buy booze, but did laugh at the situation. The concert was great. We saw a bunch of hipsters.

               Afterwards, we went to a hookah lounge, something that I was very reluctant about. I’m and asthmatic, tried it once, didn’t inhale, and decided that I would never try it again. I don’t need anything junking up my lungs, and the atmospheric haze was enough to do so. It grossed me out.

               I got home at 3am and left home at 7am for work. I opened and closed the business day and then raided the company fridge for leftovers. I drove my boyfriend to Easton because his car has been shady, and stayed to shop. I spent yesterday doing chores and getting things done.  

Blog 65

This morning I woke up on time, got dressed, washed my face, put socks on, and then climbed back into bed and slept through all 3 of my lectures until 1pm. I just can’t shake this exhaustion, so I figured I’d be ohkay if I skipped a day of classes. Nothing is due, there are no quizzes, and my attendances are under check. Then I woke up and realized that five percent of my Biology grade is in the RPAC today from 4:30-6pm in the form of a poster session. This wouldn’t be much of an inconvenience if I lived on campus, but this means that I have to change out of my PJs and drive my tired body to campus.

After I knock that off my list, I plan on coming home and crawling back into my PJs. It’s just one of those days. There’s laundry to be done, and homework to be completed. I think I’ll make lasagna for the family when they get home and complete as much work on my project as I can.

Some days, I just want to be home, to lounge around in sweatpants, to set up camp in the living room and just be comfortable. I’m not at all a shut-in; there are often times that I don’t come home for a weekend and do all that I need to do get done by running about and getting errands done.

I guess that sometimes I just need to home and cocooned in my comforter. 

Blog 64

 I’m parked in front of my television and crying. (I decided to sit in front of the TV in a nest of blankets and knock out the rest of this Blog Project) It happens to me all of the time. I see a television program and something about it makes me well up. While I have been able to isolate this to moments when I am alone and it hasn’t become a problem that I can’t suppress while watching movies in public, it’s still fairly embarrassing to be sitting on the sofa at home watching a 16 and Pregnant and having your sister’s friends walk in and ask you why you’re blogging.

If you’ve read my blog on babies, you’ll understand that I cry whenever one of those irresponsible teens pops out a baby and finally realizes the gravity of what they’ve done.

The oddity to it is that in ‘real life’ I’m not an emotional person. I’m not a cold lump of stone, I just do not usually express what I’m feeling. I rarely ever sob unless I’m watching a TV show or movie. I don’t understand why.

For example, the show just changed to Tyra. I don’t watch this on a regular basis, and I don’t know much about it. Today’s talk-show topic is on things that people do around their children. There’s a crazy lady that thinks lounging around her kids naked all day is a teaching mechanism. It creeped me out and I got emotional and cried. Until it becomes a real issue, I’m going to embrace it as safe emotional release. 

Blog 62

I’m terrified of spiders. It’s a recent development really; in the past year or so I have developed a phobia of large proportions. When I was little I’d marvel at the spiders at the zoo, big fuzzy tarantulas and tiny little ones that crawled all over each other and not have a problem at all. Now I feel a wave of panic every time I think of all of those little legs crawling over each other and the little pokey pinchers that they use to suck the life out of other insects.

Rationally, I am able to recognize that if a spider comes at me I can just step on it.  I am a large organism, the top of the chain. I am capable of killing other predators, or eating things like cows. I am woman, and I can definitely smoosh a tiny little crawly thing.

Simply put, it’s psychological. I hate the idea of lots of little organisms. Or, in the case of that Harry Potter movie, lots of very large organisms. It’s the lots that get me. What triggered my fear in the first place was a dream that followed the watching of that movie. I feel asleep on the sofa before the movie was over and dreamt that spiders were on my face, striking at it and poking venom into my eyelids. Whilst asleep, I started flailing and whacked my boyfriend, who was still watching the movie, in the nose and he shook me awake. I hope that one day I’ll shake it, or at least have it fade away. 

Blog 61

There are so many current events that concern me that it is difficult to choose just one. I guess the issue that I find myself following most consistently in the news is that of healthcare reform. I’m aware that this is a highly controversial subject, so I’ll try to be considerate of outside views in this blog.

As you may know from previous posts, I work at a doctor’s office. Health insurance is something that I deal with on a daily basis and I see how politics affects everyday people, the patients that we treat in a myriad of ways.

Right now the bureaucracy is complex and confusing. Patients often don’t understand their coverage or really what they’re paying for. That being said, those on government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid struggle to get services covered. Every charge is regulated; providers are required to devote extra resources to billing services differently and obtaining approval for services that take extra amounts of time that stall treatment. Some doctors choose to provide for their patients in the same way that they would any other, for the best quality that they can. This results in one of two things; patients are held fiscally responsible for services or the doctors choose to write off charges and don’t get paid.

Something needs to change with healthcare. That being said, I do not personally believe that the government should keep slapping private industry with regulations that inhibit their ability to operate as they wish. I also do not support completely government run health care as the federal programs have just as many problems as private insurance companies.

Either way the legislation goes, it makes me nervous. 

Blog 60

I often think that I would be exactly the same person if born in a different time period, but that possibly I’d be more suited to my environment. I dream about the beginning of industrialization in America, of the time of rail culture in the late 1800s and the early 1900s. My boyfriend thinks I’m Dagny Taggart (The main character in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged), and I wouldn’t mind that if her character had lived in her grandfather’s time.

               I hate computers, but work hard and appreciate ingenuity. I’m fond of mechanical things and a strong woman regardless of whatever rights are associated to my gender. I’m sure that I would be just as strong willed and independent if I was raised in an environment of sexism. For me, this isn’t a characteristic that stemmed from the liberal modern environment as much as the matriarchal society of my ancestors.

               I’d get to wear ridiculous dresses and I’m all down with that. While I’m not an overwhelmingly feminine girl, I am a female and for some reason frills and lace are appealing to me. It’d be like an old-fashioned prom every day.

               I’m not sure that I would be compatible with the role of a housewife at the turn of the 19^th century. While my grandmother made sure that I am versed in ettique and housework, I hate it and would require a rich environment that allowed for housekeepers and maids. A myriad of intelligent woman came out of that period of time and I’m sure that I would maintain the integrity of my personage if I had been cast upon those times. 

Blog 59

This prompt caught me off guard, I initially had to skip it and come back to it. The biggest mistake that I have ever made, that’s an extremely personal question that I don’t think I would even discuss with those closest to me. This brings me to my point: the mistake that I make most often and that effects my life to the greatest degree is that I am a very closed off and private person. It’s hard for me to share things that I deem near to my heart with others.

This affects my personal relationships to an absurd degree and often prevents me from connecting with people to the largest extent possible. There are only a few people that know me and even they don’t get the chance to fully apprehend how complex and far reaching such things go.

I often claim that I am simply introverted. This is true. I don’t turn communication and expression outwards to share it with others, but reflect most of my thoughts and emotions inwards. I’ve been told that I’m cold as a defense mechanism, but this simply isn’t true. I care and I’m not afraid to show it, I just like to keep the most profound aspects of my personality to myself.

I know that this is a mistake when it comes to my social development. I just can’t help making it. It bars me from a lot of the satisfaction that is involved with relationships, and I do it every day. 

Blog 63: I'm Really White

I have a hilarious story about how I learned to avoid excesses.

Very recently, actually this quarter, I was missing class frequently because of physical exhaustion. I’m not talking about being tired or sleepy; I mean the kind of exhaustion that celebrities check into the hospital for. I was weak and had very little energy to function regardless of the amount of sleep or calories that I ate. I learned to suck it up, drag myself out of bed an hour earlier and to force myself to stay awake through class.

I developed a stomach ulcer and drinking coffee or any type of caffeine had me doubled up in pain.

Having had mono before, I knew that this wasn’t the cause of it but I decided to go in to see the doctor and get tested regardless. For a while, I was anxious that something serious might me wrong. Today the doctor called me with the results, it was good news. Something is wrong with me, but it was easily fixable. My vitamin D levels are dangerously low.

I don’t’ drink milk because it grosses me out because it comes out of a boob.

I burn like crazy and don’t go into the sun. This started when I watched my sister develop skin damage from laying out with oil on her in the summers of her teenage years. I’ve frantically avoided sunlight with sunscreen and floppy hats and shade ever since.

Simply put, I am too white and it has made me sick. The remedy is easy enough: while  I stil can’t stomach the boob-juice, I start on prescription supplements today.  I plan on napping in the sun on the oval the next chance I get. 

Blog 56

Julia is a hoot. I’m not sure she even knows that she’s my best friend. She’s the one that I know will always be there for me, that will accept me for my whole person, and that will make crude jokes that I’m way too shy to smile at.

Julie is a Jew. This is not meant to be offensive: She subscribes to the Jewish faith; it’s her culture and her family and a large part of her identity. She laughs in the face of anti-semanticism, she embraces her entire self no matter if anyone else has a reason to hate her.

Please pardon my language, but she’s fucking hilarious. She taught me how to saran wrap cars and not to be mortified when someone mentioned sex. Before I met her, I was so shy of myself that I couldn’t open up, and now she’s made it possible for me to express what I want, when I want, and to not take any prisoners. In her great words, “ I do what I want”. This has kind of become my mantra, and I’m not ashamed of it.

Friday I’m going to a concert with her to see some indie band I’ve never heard of. I’m her safety buddy. It’s then that I will see her freshly dyed purple hair and dance to some music of questionable quality until two in the morning. Like Lady Gaga (if  you read my famous person blog, you’ll get the reference), she makes me feel like I can be exactly myself and it’s perfectly ohkay. 

Blog 55

I don’t have a specific favorite place, rather a favorite category of places that can be applied across various locations. To be clearer, I love libraries. It doesn’t particularly matter which library I’m in, I simply find serenity in emerging myself in volumes of information, of knowledge and of the legacies of people that came before me.

At OSU, You can find me in the stacks. If I could read for the rest of my life, for a living, and for nothing but my personal gratification, I would. Sadly, I’ve looked into it and that’s not feasible in today’s job market.

There’s something magical about being able to understand how those who came before you felt or knew or experienced. I have a suspicion that this is part of why I am a history major. My dad always encouraged me to read into other people and words and I don’t think it’s something I’ll ever loose or miss about it.

The library is also a superb place to curl up with tome and doze off. I’m sure I sound like an old person when I say that, but it’s true. If it’s a good one, it has climate control, and I simply love the dusty old book smell that comes with it. I associate libraries with ideas that are larger than myself, and If I ever need to escape from me, I can do so.

My first kiss was in a library, and hopefully they’ll be more between the shelves of awesomeness.  

Blog 54

All of these stories are true, but they aren’t all mine. Guess which one isn’t!

1. My dad is a mercenary. He’s American, but lives in another country as a gun for hire by a Middle Eastern government. He’s ex-military, but before that printed newspapers and marched in a world class Drum Corps (marching band on steroids). Obviously, this had a large impact on how I grew up.

2. I love reptiles. In my senior year of high school, my best friend went on Craigslist and bought two desert Leopard Geckos. To her surprise, they ended up being opposite genders and to stop the vicious “fighting”, I got a gecko. Unoriginally, I named him Lizzie. I’d stick him in a large hamster ball and we’d frolic around together. Last summer, he stopped eating and was severely suffering.  On the pet store’s advice, I froze him to be humane. What do you do with a frozen gecko corpse? I threw him ceremonially down a waterfall not far from campus and hoped that he would get eaten and that his molecules would get recycled into the great cycle of life

3.  My aunt is truly a phenomenal woman. Until recently, she lived on a mountain in Colorado, where she raised wolves on her property and kept them as semi-docile pets. At some point in her life, she was the principal of a high school, and always a devout Catholic. Although I don’t share her faith, I’ve always admired her patience and dedication to being a nun. Last year she was appointed Mother Superior! (of the Franciscan Order)

Blog 53

“Imperial” is an adjective. It’s classy, it’s regal, and it’s somewhat snobby. If imperial were a woman, it’d wear fur coats and saunter down aisle ways at the royal wedding. It makes me think of a deep purple and of fat kings and aloof cats from a Disney movie that wear jewel-studded collars and eat of people bowls.

To others the word “imperial” is a statement of fear and hate and racism. European powers not too long ago slaughtered men and women of advanced and complex civilizations in Africa, India, and Asia in its name. They measured the skulls of other races and claimed that the white man was further evolved than them because of his physical, religious, industrial, and social differences. It claimed that some had the moral responsibility to make everyone else like their own and killed a lot of good culture in the process. “Imperial” in many ways disgusts me.

To some “imperial” strikes a chord in their nationalistic pride. It makes them think of days past when the spirit of their fellow man was embodied in the being of a monarch or another ruler. It holds morally heavy connotations of romanticism and patriotism, a throwback to the years when men didn’t bicker in public over the country’s policies and everything was a matter of principle.

“Imperial” has grown from diverse roots to form a single tree of meaning. People visit the idea of it every day and are emotionally moved by its definition.

It is a powerful word. 

Blog 51

Technically, I am still a Biology major. I picked biology because I excelled at science in high school, but when I started taking classes at OSU I decided that it wasn’t for me. I could definitely get a Biology degree. The classes are challenging but I’m confident that I could do so, I just found myself longing to do something with more feeling and missing the arts.

Therefore, I’m unofficially a History major (I have yet to go through the process of getting it switched over). History is something that has always captivated me, and something that I found always came easily. Most importantly, history is a study of everything. I can bury myself in any subject that I want and see how  it relates to people and places and how everything got to be how it is today.

I’m fascinated in the explanation of how cultures and places developed. It gives me a sense of pride to understand how something acquired its identity.

Contrary to how many people perceive it, pursuing a degree in history is full of unique challenges. I won’t be spending hours in the lab and doing calculus, but I will need the patience and humility to learn how to gain insight, and how communication alters facts by perception. At OSU, history is in the college of Arts and Sciences and is regarded as an art. I’ll have to use skills that no other field does and craft them into the observations that compose modern history. 

Blog 50

I really struggled with coming up with an answer for this question; it is not something that I usually dwell on. Aside from my history homework, I rarely ruminate on the significance of people that aren’t in my immediate life, and I’m certainly not one to follow celebrities. In fact, I’m not sure that I could recognize many if asked.

When it comes down to it, I do have people that I admire, that inspire me to be better than I am. Don’t laugh, but Lady Gaga is one of those people. She presents herself in a quite ridiculous way; she looks like a slut, wears ugly outfits, isn’t ashamed that she’s not a great dancer, and most of all, she embraces the aspects of her personality that most people would (and do) ridicule her for. She reminds me that I’ve got to accept all of my personality, even the parts that are geeky or obnoxious.

Like the biggest loser in the world, I blast her song, “Born This Way” in my car on the way to school, and I’m not at all ashamed of it. Sometimes, I can be a ho, or look ridiculous or even make a fool out of myself. I’d like to meet Lady Gaga not to ask her how to do this better, or to fawn over her like a fangirl, but to thank her for being the best kind of role model that someone can be- that is, someone that doesn’t inspire you to be like them, but someone that  inspires you to be like you. 

Blog 49

Most of the time, I don’t have dreams that I can recall. On some occasions, I wake up with a jolt and what stays in my mind is a crazily random hodge podge of images. Sometimes I can discern a string of events from them and rarely can I remember a story line.

After taking psychology last quarter, I am convinced that Freud’s dream theory is a crock of bull and that my personal experiences point to an activation-synthesis theory of dreams (a term that I’m very surprised that I have remembered a day after that final). It all seems to be the product or random firing of neurons, or something equally by chance.

My best friend swears that his dreams point to inner struggles or even reveal truths about his emotional state. I wish that I could find meaning in mine, even if it was after the fact. Sadly, I’m just too rational to be able to sort through the mumbo jumbo.

I woke up this morning and remembered the following: the purple sweatshirt I left at Disney land, running with a purpose, probably in a marathon, being well groomed, my uncle’s beef stew, and feeling stressed out. Who knows what the hell this means? I’m sure a psychic with a dream book could charge me twenty dollars to let me know, but I don’t care enough to pursue it.

I guess that is what it comes down to: I don’t put much stake in my dreams, and as a result, they’re a very small part of my life. 

Blog 48

This is going to sound a little creepy, but babies fascinate me. I feel like I must provide readers with a disclaimer: I’m way too young and not at all ready to reproduce, but babies in general make intrigued in a very non-goo goo gaga way.

I don’t want to fawn over them, to make cooing noises or exaggerated facial expressions. My ovaries don’t ache when I hear one laugh- I just think they are, well, the shit. They’re phat. They’re a biological wonder. They make me marvel at the genius of human development and the intricacies of our composition.

When a fertilized egg becomes a baby, a miracle happens. Somewhere along the way, a soul is formed. It doesn’t matter if you believe this is a spiritual occurrence, or a scientific feat that we just don’t understand, it’s something sacred to all. People can make other people and embryonic development even holds the secret to evolutionary descent!

This is why I go crazy over ultrasounds and wish that there was a momma belly in the form of a transparent jar. I wish I could witness the exciting process.

What I’m crazy about is that hopefully one day when I’m ready, I’ll get to make one. Maybe then I’ll get it a little bit more. Untill then, I’m going to be the creepy chick who stares at babies when their parents aren’t looking (we’ve all done it), and pray that my sister gets knocked up soon like she wants to so I can stalk her pregnancy. 

Blog 47

Oh goodness, this is a personal prompt… the first guy I ever liked was Richard Wilfred Smith III and I pray to God that he doesn’t Google his name and read this. We “dated” for nine months in the 8^th grade until I moved to another state.

He was a nice guy. His family was overwhelmingly kind to me and so was he. We went to the same school and crushed on each other in 8^th grade science class. I can honestly say that he was a good friend to me.

Sadly, my life got a little crazy, and for reasons out of my control I was staying in a variety of houses and eventually got shipped off to Ohio to live with some relatives. To an 8^th grader this means the end of the world, but it really was the best thing that could happen to me and put me where I am today.  This is the reason that we “broke up”. (And a good one, although I didn’t really get it at the time)

Now we’re friends on facebook and his status for today informed me that he just graduated the Air force academy and is planning on being a pilot. There aren’t any hard feelings or anything.

I’m glad that things turned out the way they did, because even though I was devastated when we broke up (I probably cried for hours), I realize now that It was necessary and that I really only had a crush on him. I think the most important thing is that I associate him with me moving away and starting a new leaf, a very positive thing in my eyes. 

Blog 46

I simply cannot stand it when people spit on the ground. It’s like they can’t swallow their saliva like a normal person and feel the need to regurgitate a little bit as they’re walking along. I mention this because I was just walking past Thompson and nearly got spit on as the wind hijacked the guy in front of me’s spit and blew it my way. Really, it’s equivalent to drooling in public.

I realize that this may sound a little harsh, but I’m not a prick when it comes to any other area of etiquette. I don’t care if you cut in front of me, talk loudly on your telephone, or if you are that jerk disrupts the whole theatre at the movie theatre, just don’t spit at me.

Bodily fluids should stay in your body. If I want to share them with you, I’ll ask you on a date.

I’d also like to state that I’m aware that this blog is turning into a rant.

The only thing worse than spitters is people who spit out brown goo associated with chewing tobacco. This makes me gag.  Tobacco use is an individual’s choice, while I don’t understand why someone would choose it, I do get that it’s not my business if they do. What makes it my business is when the guy on the corner spits out his dip on my open-toed, white sandals. There is such a thing as courtesy, and seriously I think keeping your grossness to yourself falls into that category.

Blog 45

To celebrate New Year’s Eve of 2011, I packed up my car for the night, grabbed my boyfriend, and we set out on a road trip across the Midwest.

The trip began as musings of a road trip to the south for the summer and grew increasingly more spontaneous as we realized that we didn’t want to wait that long to get away. He was stressed out about having a psycho roommate. I was stressed out about the family drama of Christmas.

We were short on money (what college student isn’t?), so decided to pick low budget attractions. First we headed west towards Wright-Patt air force base and visited the National Air force Museum. Admission was free. We spend over half a day wandering through the hangars and looking at the development of flight and air warfare. As nerdy as it was, we wondered at the Sopwith Camel and took turns explaining the engines.

After that, we ventured further westwards, making unplanned stops as we pleased. We watched the ball drop, dozed off, and were up and driving early the next morning. He navigated me towards ‘gravity hill’, which turned out to be a very un-noteworthy hill in Indiana that gave you the optical illusion of falling backwards when you stuck the car in neutral just over the apex of the hill. We laughed that we had wasted so many hours on finding a hill that really didn’t do anything.

After that, we quested for the Tulip Tressel Bridge, or the Richland Creek Viaduct in Greene County, Indiana. It’s the third largest bridge of its kind in the world and is over 100 years old. We called ourselves bridge enthusiasts and spent the day navigating backcountry roads in order to get a glimpse. It got dark before we could spot it and we did the long ride back to Columbus not at all disappointed.

The trip was important to me because it made me realize that I had grown up. It was empowering to know that I could jet off on a whim and spend time with someone that I love. No one could tell me know and I didn’t care a hoot what anyone thought about it. 

Blog 43

 The summer between my junior and senior years of high school I can home and my uncle was standing next to a red 1999 Honda Civic. He did not give it to me, but he said I could drive it until I scraped up enough money to buy my own junker car.

Over the next 2 years I would end up putting two thousand dollars into that red car. It needed all new brakes, all new tires, a new rim, all new brake lines, and of course- considerable work after my ex-boyfriend borrowed it and crashed it into a Buick full of 80 year olds. I got stranded in Dayton and paid five hundred dollars to a shady shop after filling it full of diesel fuel at three in the morning.

This ‘gift’ is probably sounding like a piece of crap to you right now. Yes, it has cost me a small fortune, but I love the freedom that it has given me. That stupid red car allows me to work when I want to, to spontaneously spend New Year’s Eve on a road trip, to get away from my responsibilities when I need to and to meet them the rest of the time.

My uncle really did give me the best gift that anyone else has ventured to give me; the freedom to grow up on my own. I don’t need to rely on anyone else for transportation, money, or approval to go places. I can choose to live off campus and to do what I want. 

Blog 42

I was hired for my first and only job the day after I graduated high school and turned 18. I am a Medical Receptionist at a medium sized family practice in the suburbs of Columbus.

My first day, I learned the most applicable task I have learned at my job up to date. The girl next to me taught me how to make coffee using an automatic machine. This was not a great introduction to the job; it lulled me into a false sense that it might actually be easy. Making coffee is actually the least of my worries. Receptionist seems to be a general term for the person who does everything that no one else is assigned to do in addition to all of the administrative junk that you could possibly think of that’s associated with scheduling, insurance, and charting. I have plunged toilets, cleaned up blood from the foyer, dealt with alarms, acted as tech support, and a number of things that I never thought I would have to do.

My job isn’t rocket science, but it is stressful. Patients get upset when their insurance doesn’t want to pay claims, when they can’t get scheduled when they would like, when the doctor won’t fill their prescriptions over the phone. You don’t know what a headache is until you do 8 hours of electronic filing and paper work in a day.

The best and worst thing about my job is the funny stories that I have accumulated. Of course, I can’t tell a soul any of them because I’m bound by confidentiality consents and a mountain of laws protecting the medical information of our patients. I guess you’ll just have to believe me. 

Blog 41

I’ve always been fascinated with Latin American culture. The people, or “la gente” of South America have always caught my attention; they subscribe to different values that I have personally admired. The customs of their culture provide them with a mode of communication that makes the important stuff more visible; it’s easier to see when they love and when they hate. As a general rule, I’ve observed that the spirit of Latin America can be found in large families and lively gatherings. I love that. It’s not just the result of a single people’s development, it’s the mixing of imperial influences of old European powers, the culture of the African slaves that made colonization possible, and the indigenous influences of the native civilizations that called the continent home to begin with.
It’s not hard to guess that I’m a Spanish Minor. If I have the time and money, I’ll double major.
My dream, rather my romanticized and unrealistic dream, is to travel through South America and do service with the Peace Corps. I want to honeymoon in southern Argentina and live in a Guatemalan villa when I’m old and shriveled. I’m a stereotypical American, slightly cold and distant- I’m not very expressive and I avoid rowdy crowds and contact. I suspect that this is why I like the atmosphere of closely knit families, fiestas, and warm greetings. I know that not all Hispanic people fit this description, but I still hope that I’ll find satisfaction in learning more about the customs, traditions, and background that make up their collective spirit.

Blog 37: My Encounter with a Douche

A few months ago, my boyfriend’s college roommate accusingly asked me why there was mold in his cups. He glanced past his roommate, looked me in the eye and said, “You’re a girl, so you can tell me. . .” Later that night I found myself cleaning their toilet* while he criticized me and commented that he never intended on cleaning a toilet, but that he’d rather marry someone to do that for him. Apart from a swimsuit calendar that he received as a gift, he has shown no promise of doing so and I’m left to wonder how he’ll ever get his future toilets cleaned. Jesus save us all if he ever manages to reproduce.

               This guy is a douche bag. It’s easy to recognize this because of the way that he makes others feel and the lack of remorse at which he does so. Maybe you have someone in your life that makes you feel like you’re worthless or that you wouldn’t mind the jail sentence if you were ever pushed enough to strangle them? Although I would never admit it to his face, this guy made me feel unwelcome, demeaned, and like I would never be able to convince him otherwise.

               It’s not ohkay for another person, by nature of their personality and ego, to ever be able to make you feel horrible. I urge you to consider the problem that this niche causes in the collective mass of events that is our everyday lives.

*It was too disgusting for me to use, and I needed to do so 

Blog 33: Douche Bags are Relevant

If you’ve read my other blogs on the subject, this paper will be one that provides the reader with a way to deal with relevant issues of douche-baggery in their lives. Primarily, it will appeal to the vastly diverse student bodies of American universities; as every student is either a douche, has one in their lives, or knows someone impacted by the crimes of douche-baggery.

Understanding and coping with unpleasant people is a skill set that will always be useful if not essential in our success as educated individuals hoping to enter the workforce. Socially, it’s a skill that is crucial to our emotional health and relationships.

I aim to make the paper relevant to even those who occasionally act like jerks, or are the unfortunate holders of douchey personalities. Sometimes rehabilitation is possible, but other times it’s more relevant to promote and understanding of these cases and spread tolerance.

Like I’ve said before, everyone is affected by douche bags in some way or another. The real challenge of my paper will not be to make it relevant to readers, but to make it appealing in a way that my peers take it seriously. I chose to tackle a stereotype, and admittedly a quite hilarious phenomena that effects us, but I fear that the frank tone of my paper might distract from the very serious message of tolerance and understanding. There is a real and important message about the relevancy of my argument that I hope won’t be overshadowed by the humor involved. 

Blog 32: Douche Bags are Timely

This is a topic that will always be current, modern, and timely. At this point in our lives, the monstrous experience that is college, we are thrust into a sea of people and forced to consider how to interact with a diverse mob of people. Before education at such a large level, I had never encountered so many jerks in my entire life. I’ve become almost immune to the drunk guys trolling about on weekends, and have stopped listening to anyone sporting a backwards ball cap, wearing an Ed Hardy T-shirt, or chewing brown mystery tobacco. Ultimately, college is the time in our lives where we’re finding out that sometimes you have to face a douche in the form of your boss or professor and that there’s really nothing you can do to avoid it. Sometimes they make life unfair, and our parents can’t fix it.

Political leaders act like pricks, as Muammar Ghadafi bans internet in Libya, the douche move that launched a revolution. Our celebrities act like it’s ohkay to interrupt a young girl accepting an award and tell the world that someone else deserves it more. Soccer fans offend people around the globe with inappropriate and disrespectful sound bytes. More and more, the rigid manners of our grandparent’s generation are rotting away to reveal a very ugly facet of human nature.

I want to communicate to my peers that we can’t just ignore the problem, and that one day very soon we’ll have to assume the very dangerous adult responsibility of facing it and reducing the damage. Ultimately, “haters gonna hate”.

Blog 31: Commonplace Topic

Douche Bags: the plague of society for all communities ever

I plan to address the problem of douches in society. These pricks, jerks, tools, and sourpusses fill an essential role in social groupings. Without their existence, it would be far more difficult to appreciate the nice people in life. Still, they have the appalling power to mess with our self esteem, best laid plans, and general well-being. Assuming that you’re not a douche bag, we usually just distance ourselves from their bad attitudes.

            Instead, I argue that the solution to their problem is to figure out why they are the way that they are. In some cases, you’ll find that the suspected d-bag’s identity is not in question, only the way that he or she acts. Sometimes douche-baggery is a front and breaking down this wall can reward you with a wonderful relationship or friendship. More often, everything is exactly as it seems. Some people are unfixably horrid. When you come across these cases it is still important to try and understand why they are the way that they are. Understanding a person’s flaws will enable you to know how to interact with them more successfully in important social situations.

            Maybe you’re a douche bag. They come in all shapes, sizes and even genders. I have been in the past and I will probably be in the future. The important thing in life is to respect others, hold some sort of value system, and maintain a grounded idea of yourself. Most importantly, everyone is allotted a little attitude now and then. 

Blog 16: Integrate a Quote

Establishing evidence for the greater negative violence of men:

Our society predispositions us to associate women with virtue; in actuality, are females less violent and transgressive or does it just seem that way? To get a perspective independent of gender bias, the empirical data must be considered. In Darrell Steffensmeier and Emile Alan’s statistical review of gender and crime, they find that in addition to participating in fewer serious offenses, females “commit less harm.” They also assert that when women do commit acts of physical violence, they result in “fewer injuries and less serious injuries.” (para 6) The authors are explaining that in comparison to males, females do not commit as many or as violent of crimes.

Following paragraph topic sentence: Surely, there must be a reason for this.

I’m relying on this quote and specifically this source to give me legitimacy in my factual claim. I wonder if I should find another quote with numbers, rates, etc.

I have yet to develop the following paragraph. I’m finding it hard to tie in possible explanations for female reluctance to commit crime with the episode of my choice. I need to figure out a way to assert that Penny’s gender made her fundamentally virtuous; however most analyses of the statistical gap are not psychologically-based, but strive to explain how the data itself is biased (bias in reporting, collecting, etc). For this segment I need to continue to search for more abstract articles. 

Blog 10: Preliminary Research

Although my prospectus still needs some work, my research focus is going to remain on exploring whether or not males have a predisposition to crime and violence and why.

First, I focused on finding sources that establish that there is in fact a higher crime rate among males. Statistics provided by the U.K. Government (on a website as cited below) gave me a good foundation of the specifics; a breakdown of what types of crime they surveyed and their breakdown by gender. In all cases, males were more likely to be prosecuted for crimes, and interestingly enough, be the target of them. I found very relevant facts that I will most likely quote within my paper.

I also explored sources that gave me a perspective of gender inequalities in crime from a sociological viewpoint. These focused on finding explanations for why the gap is so large in the context of contemporary society. Although the statistical evidence is necessary to provide factual support for my claims, I feel that I could and will focus on this aspect for the bulk of my research. Sociology is not a topic that I am familiar with, and I need to explore it in much more depth to get a grasp of how these articles are addressing the issue. A key thing that I did take away from them is that there are different theories regarding gender inequality in crime; this is a greatly appreciated discovery as I plan to discuss all of the ones that I can reasonably find in the body of my paper.

Although I am not yet set on sources, the links below provided me a general idea of what information I need to look for as stated in this blog. 

Sources:

http://law.jrank.org/pages/1256/Gender-Crime.html

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=442

http://tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/sociology/comments/gender-and-crime/

http://jrc.sagepub.com/content/34/3/275.short

Blog 9: Prospectus

Dr. Horrible’s Sing a Long Blog makes an untraditional statement about how gender influences the iconic roles of the villain and the hero. By redefining these roles beyond the black and white concepts of good and bad, Joss Whedon claims that the social pressures associated with masculinity inherently predisposition males to villainy. He makes this argument in two ways: by presenting the audience with two examples of the dangers of masculinity and showing how inherently feminine characteristics more adequately fulfill heroism.

Specifically, Whedon’s depiction of Captain Hammer, the show’s proclaimed superhero, demonstrates that society’s traditional view of masculinity is incompatible with what it means to be a true hero. Captain Hammer is muscular, attractive, and dominant. To Whedon, this makes him brutish and arrogant; his saves the girl from danger then treats her poorly and is overwhelmingly self-absorbed. In the end, these masculine characteristics make him the true villain; he ends up killing the innocent girl as the result of his dim-wittedness and desire for violence.

Unlike Captain Hammer, Billy (Dr, Horrible’s quite normal and un-horrific other side) is slight and largely unsuccessful. Socially, he’s an adolescent who doesn’t know how to deal with adult issues that include peer pressure, romantic relationships, and establishing a successful career. He goes from being a nice guy in the wrong career to a truly twisted individual. This shows how the pressure to conform to traditional criteria of masculinity can drive well-intentioned individuals to evil decisions.

 In contrast, the female lead of the show is undoubtedly feminine; Penny is charitable, small, and delicate. She is subordinate to the leadership of Captain Hammer in their relationship, but only to the point of becoming aware of his faults. She decides to help those that can’t help themselves, and remains uncorrupted until she dies at the end. Surely, Penny is the hero of the story- a role that the men of the story weren’t able to fulfill.

The worth to what the show is arguing is not one of complete role-reversal, but the challenge of how society associates gender with such bold statements of good and evil. Superman is just that; a man. He is a hero because he uses his strength and courage to be successful. Whedon is pointing out that true heroes work towards the success of others and use their strength and courage to withstand tribulation, not to impart it. He says that our stereotypes of masculinity can push one to villainy, and that the writers of popular comics may just have had it wrong. I’ve observed that he’s right. Men often make decisions in the real-world for the for the sake of their own manliness that result in aggression and crime.

Is Whedon right? Are men predisposed to crime and aggression? What about the genders makes it easier to associate females with altruism? 

Blog 8: High School is Hell

“High School is Hell” argues that Buffy the Vampire Slayer deliberately addresses contemporary social issues for teens in by using metaphor. The drama of using characters that are both good and inherently evil (demons, vampires, beasts, and monsters) reflects the drama of high school life. Even details of the series show how teens face challenges that more often than not, adults are blind to.

The article continues on to argue that throughout each season, the show metaphorically models how these fears develop and change over time. For example, it describes each season as focusing on separate themes, each more advanced than the previous one. Season one describes the elementary state that entering high school poses, the uncertainty of identity and how others perceive you. The second season focuses on “love gone wrong”, or the terrifying development of relationships and how to deal with them. Finally, the last season addresses how the end of high school is the end of the world that high school students know.

Clearly, the article first establishes how the series show the anxieties of modern teenagers through metaphor and then how these evolve throughout a person’s high school development.

                I think that Whedon’s use of metaphors dramatizes the anxieties of high school, but in an appropriate way. To a high school student, these anxieties are truly matters of life and death, the development of who they are or will be, and determining factors in their futures. The assignment of metaphors with such strong imagery emphasizes the importance of these issues to those they affect, something that makes the series relatable to a teenage target audience.

Blog 7: Genetic Engineering in Star Trek TOS

I’ve been a “Trekkie” for some time now, and decided to explore ARP topics in episodes that I haven’t seen. Today, I focused on an episode from The Original Series. Before starting this project I have mostly neglected the older adventures of the Enterprise mostly because it’s hard to endure the shoddy special effects.

Underneath the cosmetic flaws, the episode, “Space Seed”, was very thought-provoking and made me consider writing about Eugenics for my paper. In the episode, the crew of the Enterprise discovers an old Earth ship; it contains Khan, a character with super strength thought to be the product of genetic warfare in the 1990’s. The crew discovers that many genetically engineered supermen were left unaccounted for after this time, and that Khan was a very powerful leader on Earth.

It made me laugh to think that the writers of the series projected genetically engineered people to be force in warfare of the nineties. Obviously, we have lived through those years and no super-people took over the world. What exactly would be the timeline for such technology? I wonder if it’s possible now, and that society hasn’t done so because of the cautionary tales of old shows such as this one. With the controversial nature of genetic engineering in politics today, I’d like to research its use in militaristic situations. With the amount of popular fiction regarding the topic, I’m sure that I would not have trouble writing about how governments reconcile the possibility of effective new technology and the moral ambiguities attached to it. 

Blog 4- Holodecks

Tonight I watched an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which the entertainment of the future was explored. The spaceship on which the characters live is equipped with rooms called holodecks. These function as more elaborate movies; one can program them to align to certain scenarios and even walk through the scenes. Instead of watching characters and plots unfold, those wishing to be entertained take part in the story. In this particular episode, “Elementary, Dear Data”, Data and his friends create a program capable of defeating the android. This program, in the form of a Professor Moriarty, then gains access to the ship’s computer and real danger ensues.

Although the world of Star Trek seems far away, the invention of a working holodeck is closer than I originally thought. The technology exists to match real-world movements to those in a videogame with commercially-sold game consoles. This is something I plan on exploring more as a possible topic for my paper.

What I really took away from this episode was how the writer explores the ever-present concern that the ability of technology will surpass that of humans. Instead of posing the conflict as one between a human and a computer, Roddenberry pits the program of the holodeck against the whole crew of the ship, and specifically against a human-created android. In the end, he seems to suggest that the human collective mind will always be able to overcome such obstacles; at the same time the success of Data leaves the boundaries of human creation open to interpretation. 

Blog 2- Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog (306)

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog was entertaining and insightful. It’s hard to pinpoint what about the miniseries I found compelling. The hilarity of it surely did not go amiss; the leader of a villainous league is a horse and the protagonist’s nemesis, Dr. Hammer, sings about his penis.

Beyond that, I appreciate how the writer used character development to make his somewhat outlandish concept relatable. As I progressed into the show, it became less about comic book culture and more about how people deal with the challenges of living in a world where ambition and identity is all rolled up into the same tangle of decisions. The main character, Billy, is a normal guy that tries to fight his normality by becoming the super villain, Dr. Horrible. When he puts on his gloves and goggles, he feels powerful, unique, and capable of accomplishing great deeds and receiving recognition for them. Outside of his lab, he’s timid and sweet. He loves a girl that wants to help others, and doesn’t know how to be the charismatic man that he thinks that she wants.

There are times that I put on my own pairs of goggles and gloves in order to define myself in terms of something quantifiable. I don’t know how to measure my success as a person, so I measure my worth in how successfully I fill a role.

Dr. Horrible ended up becoming truly evil, and Billy became numb. He hurt the person that he loved as the result of his violence and plight to obtain something he never really wanted. The story made me think about how I define the concept of “my self”. Is the façade I play really just an expression of a part of who I am? Or do I stuff myself into roles to play and loose something in the process? 

I Don't Mind Being an Armchair (263)

            It’s easy to define myself in terms of what isn’t the least bit important. I could state dozens of facts about myself; my social niche, style, appearance, activities and origins. I could tell you that I commute, that I’m a sister and a girlfriend that reads books like Catch-22 and that I don’t get trashed on the weekends.

I can tell you that I’m a commissioned artist for local businesses around my town, that I’m a medical receptionist to pay my way through college, or that I can’t think of a better game than Settlers of Catan. I’m vain enough own makeup, yet not enough to take the time to put it on half of the time. I’m also classy enough to get into Applebee’s.

By reading the above you have no idea of who I am. Harder to communicate is that I’m an armchair.

http://imagebank.ipcmedia.com/imageBank/cache/c/chair-news1_e_3037d1bce01c13631a6a31672519ba90.jpg

Surely you’ve seen an armchair. You have one in your living room or in your life. When people are fatigued and stressed they flop their weight upon me. When it rains, they cuddle into me for comfort. I bear the burden of their fidgety troubles, providing a place for them to just sit and be. Those that I love will never find a more comfortable part of their home. I don’t think I’ll ever be capable of getting up and walking away.

Most of all, when the sun shines through the windows around me, I can’t do anything but feel the presence of those I love and to cherish every ordinary activity.

I don’t mind being an armchair.