Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Every day is a gift

Every day is a gift. Sometimes that gift is the lead singer of fun. waiting at your door wearing nothing but a layer of raspberry cheesecake. And sometimes the gift is a dead skunk wrapped in moldy cabbage. But still, it's a gift.

posted from Bloggeroid

Word games


As part of a pedagogy class, my coworker designed a writing exercise wherein each student chooses three words from a collection of magazine cutouts. The three words must be used for the title of a story, the beginning of which she had them write in class. I practiced this little activity and the following is the result. :D



Extra Glowing Revolution

Why the fuck do vampires shimmer anyway? Crissy thought for the millionth time after the director yelled, “Cut!” They would have to do the scene again, all because her idiot coworkers couldn’t get the scene right- if the protagonist, Edward, turned too far to the left his face was in shadow and the CGI crew would complain about not being able to make his countenance pale enough. Secretly, Crissy preferred the old-school pointy eared, slick haired dorky vampires to the sexy-pale ones that were all the rage today. But her manager had told her that this role would make her famous, and it had. So who was she to argue?
Although what’s the use of being famous if you’re constantly surrounded by idiots? Crissy wondered. She was dating her costar Doug in real life, also following the advice of her manager/publicist Joan, also her aunt. She couldn't decide which was worse, starring in this crappy role, or having to spend every waking moment with someone who actually believed they were making a valuable artistic contribution with this nonsense. In truth, as little time as possible was spent with Doug, who she could not stand, but after having been caught “cheating” on her “true love” by the paparazzi, Joan had forbade her from dating anyone else- at least until the movie was released. Then Crissy could do whatever she wanted. Well ok, almost anything- the BEST thing she could imagine doing would be to publicly join the ranks of cynical young adult Dusk haters like herself, but Joan would surely murder her for that.
“Places!” the director yelled, and Crissy rolled her eyes as she walked back to the center of the set.



Sunday, October 21, 2012

The absolute value of two evils



Meerkats live in community, and one of the more interesting aspects of their social interactions is the alarm call. When a lookout sees a threat such as a badger, it calls to the other meerkats to alert them. Scientists are perplexed by this, because by drawing attention to himself, the lookout may put himself in danger even as he protects the other members of his community. (I remember this little anecdote because when my professor, also my undergrad adviser, explained this he cited an experiment wherein a grad student dragged a dead badger through a prairie dog community while they all shrieked at him. My adviser got quite a bit of amusement out of this.)

The university I attend has sent out four "Public Safety Alerts" in the past 36 hours. The first one was about a male non-student who approached and basically tried to solicit services from a female student. The other three events were basically just teenage and young adult townies attacking students.

This is pretty upsetting. Making it even worse, none of the students decided to file police reports. I don't know if this is because the university urged them to not to or because they themselves were hesitant. This is silly. To my mind, there is no reason not to file a police report when you're attacked. A physical assault isn't an accident and shouldn't escalate from a misunderstanding with a stranger. What other reason would you have for hesitating to get the police involved?

I think that one other deterrent is fear. But why are we letting fear win? Yes, these people might have the power to hurt us. But is that a reason to let them get away with it?! It's really our civil responsibility to report such incidents, and doing so is a very real way to protect our fellow students and citizens. Am I the only one who watched Law and Order? There's something called "priors" and something else called "motive". Both help a conviction of a criminal.... and by not reporting violent incidents, YOU are responsible for keeping this predator's record clean while he or she has actually already committed an offense.

I think something that further aggravates this situation is the divide between university and residents that occurs in many towns. Students may not want to appear to be elitist or prejudice by reporting what may seem, in the great scheme of things, a small crime. However, knowing that these attacks are happening is obviously going to make students more suspicious of residents and more hesitant to interact with any of them, wondering if they too might have some bone to pick with university students. One way that we can fight this cycle of mistrust and division is by making everyone feel safe. Everyone should do their part to report crimes and to take note of suspicious behaviors, creating a community where we know that we can trust our neighbors to back us up and look out for us even if they might feel uncomfortable getting involved. Haven't we all seen the news article about the girl who got the crap kicked out of her by two bigger girls as a security guard and a bunch of people stood around? Well guess what? The security guard wasn't the only one who could have done something (although he should have). Didn't read that article make you feel a little less safe, knowing that even if people are around it might not save you from being attacked? Let's leave this mantra of "sucks to be you" behind and look out for each other, because in reality that means that someone else is always looking out for US.

Prairie dogs also selflessly alert their friends of predators. Shouldn't you?



Tuesday, October 16, 2012

If I die tonight

If I die tonight, it will probably be because my downstairs neighbor killed me. He's an angry bugger. Have I mentioned that the police had to break up his fight with his girlfriend this weekend, which involved throwing things and screaming, "I DIDN'T YELL AT YOU!!!"? Anyway, I finally got sick of listening to him and his girlfriend argue, fuck, move furniture, slam doors, and have high volume conversations at all hours, so I stomped on the floor to get them to be quiet. At midnight. Guess what? This totally reasonable dude slammed what I assume was his fist into the ceiling as loud as he could right back. Nothin' like bein' neighborly!! I screamed, "GOOD, I'LL CALL TED!!" Ted is our landlord. Have I mentioned that Ted gave me a lecture when I viewed the apartment on how he insists on only renting to responsible tenants, and emphasized that his tenants all have jobs, aren't partiers, and are all 'good people'? Ted doesn't like me much but I bet he'd prefer to lose a discourteous pothead as a tenant than a PhD student with guaranteed income. I almost hope my dumbass downstairs friend does murder me, so that he can go to jail (anonymous blog entires can be used as evidence in court, right?) and have someone else's sex keep HIM up all night. (Sex, self-pleasure, threats, shank whittling- whatever.) I know that's awfully mean but I'm sick and tired of people turning their lives into trash and using that as an excuse to be way more rude to me than I would ever be to them.


On the bright side, I locked myself out tonight and after knocking on three doors with no answer, I found a really friendly couple downstairs with a really cute kid and kitty. They insisted that I stay with them until I got back into my apartment and we chatted and laughed until that time came. Finally, meeting some nice people!

posted from Bloggeroid

Friday, October 5, 2012

Things I am tired of

I'm tired of my apartment reeking of cheap pot smoke.
I'm tired of finding book lice in my papers.
I'm tired of administration confusing me for a child because I am a student.
I'm tired of adults making decisions while only thinking of themselves.
I'm tired of people leaving my front door unlocked because they're too lazy to bring their key.
I'm tired of politics being reported like a beauty queen pagent.
I'm tired of being alone.
I'm tired of people lacking understanding.
I'm tired of people who open their mouths first and think second.
I'm tired of parallel parking
I'm tired of filling my tank with gas (when are we going to get magic broomsticks, already??)
I'm tired of people being tired of my problems, just because they never change (but really, isn't that the case with everybody?)
I'm tired of looking for friends who know how to have a sober (or mostly sober) good time.
I'm tired of spending $10 in quarters every time I do laundry in the room with the bulb that's out.
I'm tired of my sensitive skin.
I'm tired of the one new elliptical always being taken.
I'm tired of the kitty sleeping in instead of waking up with me (what happened to morning cuddle time, Rosie??).
I'm tired of New England winters.

I'm tired of me
I'm tired of you.
posted from Bloggeroid

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Won't you be my neighbor?

The apartment below me recently became occupied by a pair of 18 year olds.

You can imagine how thrilled I am.

Daily routine

10:00am                     Loud morning sex

11am-5pm                  Sleep

5:15                           Have friends over

5:20                           Break out the booze

5:25                           Swap jokes and laugh hysterically

5:35                           Argue over various issues and insult each other in loud                          voices

5:40                           Hit things with other things and laugh hysterically

6:00                           Time to break out the extremely cheap pot!!

6-8pm                        Smoke

8-11pm                      Go out

11:00                         Arrive back at apartment

11:05                         Practice yelling

11:15                         Knock over furniture

11:25                         Time for extremely loud sex!

11:30                         Practice porn star moaning punctuated with awkward                          pauses

11:35                         Scream each others' names unconvincingly

11:37                         Rest

11:40                         Practice yelling

11:45                         Hit things with other things

12:00                         More sex

[At this point I usually fall asleep which I believe is probably important for my sanity. When I ran into my landlord, he explained to me that the new residents downstairs were living away from home for the first time. He admitted they had some troubles but that they were "good kids" and added, "Well you remember the kinds of things you did when you were that age."

I informed him that when I was that age, the situation was a bit different.]

Monday, October 1, 2012

I can be so mean when I wanna be

Since the dog got food poisoning from eating the raw chicken, he had the inclination to avoid food procured from the garbage.

The fire had spread to the gas line, but his inclination was to relieve his bladder first.

With a noticeable increase in the clamor, the cannibals surrounded him with their torches and spears, and he suddenly had the inclination to run.

After his long and tiring day, his inclination was to drink the beer, even though he knew it was poisoned.

They had recently kissed and enjoyed it, but abruptly after a few days he decided his inclination was more towards being friends.

The receptionist saw that the line was growing and could hear the anxiety in the caller's voice over the telephone line, so her inclination was to take a bathroom break.

His date was beautiful and funny but he had no inclination to avert his eyes when the busty waitress flirted with him.

Even though he had lost the feeling in his left leg, his inclination was to maintain his stance that his wife was wrong about the gator being an inappropriate house pet.



Also watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siEHekc-1oE