Once upon a time there was a girl named Gina. She was short, short-tempered and mischievous but she had a golden heart. Shortly after her 18th birthday, she had to travel far away from her family to go to college in a magical place called Auggietown. She packed up all her clothes, jewelry, belongings and her favorite teddy bear. She hugged all of her family and then she was off on her own, ready to experience all the world offered.
Gina got to Auggietown and immediately made friends with almost everyone she met. She studied hard (or hardly studied, depending on how many parties there were that weekend), she explored the city and because she was so likable, she never had to go to dinner alone, which is a very nerve-racking experience. Like omg, totes not a good time. I, like, get goosebumps just thinking about it. But despite all of the wonderful times she had at Auggietown in her first semester, she couldn't help but feel like something was missing. Gina was never quite sure of what it was. She had plenty of great friends, she was happy most of the time, she wasn't failing her classes, she got along with everyone. What could be missing?
Then one day in November Gina figured out what she was missing. It was around the time of Thanksgiving. All of her friends were talking about going home for the holiday and Gina couldn't because her family lived too far away and she had no money. It was her family that was missing, and while her friends were great, they couldn't keep her company over Thanksgiving break. One by one, her close friends got in their cars or got picked up and departed Auggietown to go back to the places they were from. All the while Gina wasn't able to. "Forever Alone" she sighed as her dear friend Alia got on the trolley and rode off into the sunset.
When December rolled around and it came close to Christmas, Gina became determined to not spend this holiday alone like she did on Thanksgiving. Cause like, the break for Christmas was a month. A MONTH. She was totes not spending a month by her lonesome. She asked her dear friend Alia if she could spend the break at her house.
"I'm sorry Gina" Alia replied with a frown, "but I just don't think that will work out."
"I try to love you but you never love me back" Gina said a little melodramatically.
"Oh Gina, that's not true" Alia hugged her short friend. After a few seconds, Alia said "We could find a suitcase big enough to hold you. I mean, you're not that tall, and we could stick some Powerbars or something inside if you get hungry."
Gina contemplated this idea for a second, but then decided against it. So then she went to ask her friend Joe, who was nice but also naive at times. And an idiot. And he listened to too much gangster music.
"Joe, is it possible that I could spend Christmas at your house?"
"You serious right now?" he asked.
"Yes Joe, that's why I'm asking" Gina replied as she rolled her eyes. "I promise I won't complain too much if you play that awful music you listen too on the way there."
"Hmmmm" Joe stared off into the sky while he thought. Cause the answers TOTALLY up in the clouds Gina thought, suppressing the urge to be overly sarcastic. "Gina I just don't think that'll work out. I gotz relatives coming over this year and there won't be any room for you. Sorry shorty."
One by one, she got similar responses from everyone she asked. Crestfallen, she then asked the one friend who could help her: the kind-hearted Drew.
"Drewwwwwwwwwwwww" she called as she knocked on his door. He opened it, wearing his winter hat and rubbing sleep out of his eyes. "What's up?" he asked.
"Drew I need somewhere to stay over winter break. Is it possible that I could crash at your place?"
He shook his head. "Sorry, but there's no room for you to stay."
"I could keep all my things in the garage," Gina suggested.
"There's a hobo living in our garage" he replied. If anyone else had said that, Gina would've called him or her out for lying. With Drew however, it could only be true. "Forever Alone" she sighed as she walked away.
Gina then went for a short walk, feeling like life had cheated her. Christmas was supposed to be about family, about sharing the holidays with people that care and love you. But she couldn't go home, and she couldn't stay with anyone in her new college family. It was set to be a very lonely Christmas.
Just then, Gina heard a car knock right behind her. She was jolted from her thoughts and decided to see what jackass had felt it necessary to give her such a shook. When she turned, she had no time to see who it was before she was embraced in a very loving hug. "Oh Gina, we missed you so much!" a familiar voice declared. It was her mom. She pulled away and was swiftly embraced by her dad.
"Gina, you look like your freezing! Come on, get in the car. We have a lot of catching up to do." It turned out that her parents decided that since Gina couldn't come home for the holidays, they would come to her instead. She no longer had to spend the holidays alone, and Christmas that year was the best thing she ever could've asked for.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
The one where I analyze the #SaveCommunity movement and attempt to be intelligent
On November 14th, NBC released their midseason schedule that would begin airing in January, and Community was not included in this schedule. A lot of people collectively said "WTF", and then made petitions to save Community and put it back on the air. First and foremost, the show is not cancelled, and it is still in production. The rest of the season will still be aired, and it's likely a fourth season will be broadcast. It's just taking a break. It's like when a couple is still together but wants to explore other options to try to recapture some passionate spark. Community and NBC aren't breaking up, they're merely taking a break from one another to explore other options. In this case, NBC is gonna hook up with 30 Rock and Community will.... have a chance to improve? Idk, the details are a little fuzzy, like when real couples take a break from each other.
If I may continue my belabored analogy, the Save Community movement is like a best friend to the couple that's taking a break. It wants the two to stay together, cause otherwise it won't get to use NBC's home bowling alley as much. Granted, they may also have a genuine belief that NBC and Community are perfect together: it would be difficult to imagine any other network taking on a quirky show about community college where anything and everything can happen(though in my experience, college is quite quirky and out-there. Community captures the true college experience accurately). However, this post is not about weather or not NBC is the best mate/network for Community. It's about how the Save Community movement is failing to accomplish their goal.
The Save Community website has a petition that you can sign and a short blurb that reads "Community is the best show on television and gets millions of viewers every time it airs! We can't understand why NBC would want to put our favorite show on hiatus." This blurb is what turned me off to the movement, even though it is technically something I support. Let's break it down. "Community is the best show on television" By being hyperbolic in their statements, they have made themselves appear, at least to me, incredible. The best show on television? That's an opinion. NBC is not in the business of opinions: it's in the business of making money. It doesn't matter if you think that it's "the best show on television" or "the greatest show of all time" or "a gift from the heavens that is capable of satisfying all the needs of mankind for all time", that's not what matters to them. If one guy thinks that Community is the greatest show ever and is the only guy watching that show, chances are it's not gonna survive. The shows that last are the one's that get the most views. That's why Jersey Shore is still on the air: lots of people watch it, for some reason. While Community may have a larger fanbase, or people who state that it is their favorite show to watch, Jersey Shore gets more views, and ultimately that is what advertisers and networks are after.
Even the most adamant fan of the show has to admit that the third season started off pretty weak. I had to acknowledge the same thing. But it did get better as the season went on. And that's what this break may provide: an opportunity for the show to improve and recreate the magic that they had the first two seasons. NBC and Community may be taking a break from each other, but this will give Community a chance to reflect on it's past mistakes and come back a better man/women/show (I didn't really know what gender Community would be in my "couples-taking-a-break" analogy). Meanwhile, NBC will get a chance to play the field and experiment with different lovers and will remember what it was that was so attractive about Community in the first place. Fans of Community need to give NBC a chance to sleep with 30 Rock. I mean, 30 Rock is a pretty hot man/women/show (again, not sure how to incorporate genders). I'm a fan of it. Sure, in my perfect world 30 Rock and Community would both be aired on the same night, like they were in the past, but that is not the reality of the current situation. This break does not mean that Community is cancelled, and if that unfortunate scenario were to come to pass, the Save Community movement would hopefully improve it's strategies. Cause a petition isn't gonna do much on it's own.
I offer this as my gift to fans of Community who are attempting to recover from this tragedy: a cute picture of a puppy.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Finals, Projects and Final Projects
Ok that title is a lie. I don't have any final projects to do, as all mine are already done. I just have to study for my finals and find time to not go crazy (harder than it sounds).
I had an interesting chat with a friend of mine today (I'll just call her the Redhead-she knows who she is). She stated that she was now following my blog and asked why I hadn't written anything in over a week. My first reaction was "Sweet, another follower!" My second reaction was "Dang, it's already been a week?" My third reaction was "OMG FINALS :(" and then my fourth reaction was to say "I've been a little too busy to write because of finals. In fact, I've been too busy to do a lot of stuff because of finals.
I've, in the past three weeks or so, spontaneously decided to take on a lot of projects. I'm really good at having impulse decisions and not thinking them through. This blog was largely an impulse decision. On top of that, I've attempted to teach myself guitar by borrowing my neighbor's every now and then, I've ran for and gotten elected to student government (we'll see how well I do with responsibility), I decided to write an article for the campus newspaper (and did it), and tis the season to do Christmas shopping.
What does this all mean? Well for one thing, I managed to fit a plug in for this blog in the campus newspaper, so Oh Snap It Went There just got a major boost to its cred. Nuff said. But it also means that I have a ton of junk I'm now a part of next semester. I'll start doing stuff for student government come January and I'll hopefully get to write for the newspaper again. I'm glad that neither of these involve responsibilities that I'm required to take care of right now, cause I would fail so hard. I already failed to buy Christmas gifts for everyone I wanted to, and have to get some belated gifts to hand out once the new semester starts. There needs to be a time in January where it's socially acceptable to give gifts to people you forget/spent too much time overthinking what to get them and thus didn't get anything. Christmas 2.0 maybe.
I haven't practiced guitar in a few weeks, mainly due to not having time because of all schoolwork I have to do. I missed a few people on my Christmas list. And this is without my new responsibilities as a part of student government or maybe a frequent contributor to the campus paper. Not to mention that I'm in Honor's so I have a larger courseload than the average student. I'm suddenly not sure if I'm going to be able to balance all of that next semester. I mean, I've already slipped up a few times, and instead of ditching the less important stuff, I'm just adding more. And having reviewed my schedule for next semester, I'm confident it will require more effort than the classes I'm wrapping up with this week. Plus, this blog ain't gonna write itself, so I'll have to actually set aside time to write a post if I actually want to keep going with it, which I so do. Siiiigh. At least there's not another Christmas next semester to add to my stress, unless Hallmark decides I was on to something with my Christmas 2.0 idea and makes it a legit holiday.
I had an interesting chat with a friend of mine today (I'll just call her the Redhead-she knows who she is). She stated that she was now following my blog and asked why I hadn't written anything in over a week. My first reaction was "Sweet, another follower!" My second reaction was "Dang, it's already been a week?" My third reaction was "OMG FINALS :(" and then my fourth reaction was to say "I've been a little too busy to write because of finals. In fact, I've been too busy to do a lot of stuff because of finals.
I've, in the past three weeks or so, spontaneously decided to take on a lot of projects. I'm really good at having impulse decisions and not thinking them through. This blog was largely an impulse decision. On top of that, I've attempted to teach myself guitar by borrowing my neighbor's every now and then, I've ran for and gotten elected to student government (we'll see how well I do with responsibility), I decided to write an article for the campus newspaper (and did it), and tis the season to do Christmas shopping.
What does this all mean? Well for one thing, I managed to fit a plug in for this blog in the campus newspaper, so Oh Snap It Went There just got a major boost to its cred. Nuff said. But it also means that I have a ton of junk I'm now a part of next semester. I'll start doing stuff for student government come January and I'll hopefully get to write for the newspaper again. I'm glad that neither of these involve responsibilities that I'm required to take care of right now, cause I would fail so hard. I already failed to buy Christmas gifts for everyone I wanted to, and have to get some belated gifts to hand out once the new semester starts. There needs to be a time in January where it's socially acceptable to give gifts to people you forget/spent too much time overthinking what to get them and thus didn't get anything. Christmas 2.0 maybe.
I haven't practiced guitar in a few weeks, mainly due to not having time because of all schoolwork I have to do. I missed a few people on my Christmas list. And this is without my new responsibilities as a part of student government or maybe a frequent contributor to the campus paper. Not to mention that I'm in Honor's so I have a larger courseload than the average student. I'm suddenly not sure if I'm going to be able to balance all of that next semester. I mean, I've already slipped up a few times, and instead of ditching the less important stuff, I'm just adding more. And having reviewed my schedule for next semester, I'm confident it will require more effort than the classes I'm wrapping up with this week. Plus, this blog ain't gonna write itself, so I'll have to actually set aside time to write a post if I actually want to keep going with it, which I so do. Siiiigh. At least there's not another Christmas next semester to add to my stress, unless Hallmark decides I was on to something with my Christmas 2.0 idea and makes it a legit holiday.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Technology and Logic: Does not compute
I think it's time I shared a secret with you guys, a pretty major one. This could alter the nature of our relationship forever. So brace yourself, cause here goes....
I am a computer science major with about as much technological knowhow as my grandmother.
Everyone still breathing?
Looking back on those words I realize I left a subtle clue when I said "a pretty MAJOR one." Anyway, back to my point. I don't know a lot about technology, nor do I pretend to. "Hey Brad, can you set up my printer? Your a computer science type" my roommate asks. "Oh sure, that stuff's easy" I reply. That happened like three weeks into the semester, and it is still on my to-do list (or as I call it, my stuff-I-really-should-do-sometime-soon list). So maybe I SOMETIMES pretend to know more than I do....
I wish that was the only example. The other night, just five seconds after I finished a phone call, my iPhone started vibrating. It wasn't like a normal vibrate where it goes bzzzz-pause-bzzzz. It was more like bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz until I turned it off, praying that it didn't explode. That seemed to do the trick, and when I turned it back on there were no issues. Do I have an answer for why that happened?
(Oh snap it went there!)
Then there was the time I spilt Mountain Dew on my laptop and it broke a day later. Now, to be fair, I do understand that soda (or pop, or sodapop, or however you say it) and computers don't exactly mix. We learned that the first day of Computer Science 160. However, what I don't understand is what the Genius at Apple told me. (I'm not trying to be sarcastic: their job title is literally Genius). Apparently, the problem wasn't that the soda damaged it, but that my hardrive just kinda broke. For no reason. A day after it was drenched in Mountain Dew. I'm not complaining: I didn't have to pay a dime to fix it (excluding cost of light-rail tickets). But I'm not sure that I can explain my luck.
I remember that I turned in a paper to my Scholar Citizen professor who majored in Computer Science (and now teaches philosophy: welcome to Augsburg). He told me it was very articulate for a Computer Science major, which is probably the closet to a complement I'll get from him. I later asked him if he could clarify that statement. He said that sometimes Comp Sci majors didn't know how to write. I think, given my ability articulate myself, and my inability to explain half the problems I have with technology, I might be in the wrong academic field....
I am a computer science major with about as much technological knowhow as my grandmother.
Everyone still breathing?
Looking back on those words I realize I left a subtle clue when I said "a pretty MAJOR one." Anyway, back to my point. I don't know a lot about technology, nor do I pretend to. "Hey Brad, can you set up my printer? Your a computer science type" my roommate asks. "Oh sure, that stuff's easy" I reply. That happened like three weeks into the semester, and it is still on my to-do list (or as I call it, my stuff-I-really-should-do-sometime-soon list). So maybe I SOMETIMES pretend to know more than I do....
I wish that was the only example. The other night, just five seconds after I finished a phone call, my iPhone started vibrating. It wasn't like a normal vibrate where it goes bzzzz-pause-bzzzz. It was more like bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz until I turned it off, praying that it didn't explode. That seemed to do the trick, and when I turned it back on there were no issues. Do I have an answer for why that happened?
(Oh snap it went there!)
Then there was the time I spilt Mountain Dew on my laptop and it broke a day later. Now, to be fair, I do understand that soda (or pop, or sodapop, or however you say it) and computers don't exactly mix. We learned that the first day of Computer Science 160. However, what I don't understand is what the Genius at Apple told me. (I'm not trying to be sarcastic: their job title is literally Genius). Apparently, the problem wasn't that the soda damaged it, but that my hardrive just kinda broke. For no reason. A day after it was drenched in Mountain Dew. I'm not complaining: I didn't have to pay a dime to fix it (excluding cost of light-rail tickets). But I'm not sure that I can explain my luck.
I remember that I turned in a paper to my Scholar Citizen professor who majored in Computer Science (and now teaches philosophy: welcome to Augsburg). He told me it was very articulate for a Computer Science major, which is probably the closet to a complement I'll get from him. I later asked him if he could clarify that statement. He said that sometimes Comp Sci majors didn't know how to write. I think, given my ability articulate myself, and my inability to explain half the problems I have with technology, I might be in the wrong academic field....
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Hello, and Other Greetings
I started a blog.
Yes, divine revelation right there, I know. I've been wanting to blog for a while now but I never really thought it would be productive. I'm learning about pragmatism in one of my classes (I am a college student), and one of the central tenants of their philosophy is that learning occurs through interaction. Which would defeat the purpose of this blog. I'll write stuff that I've been mulling over (or post a picture of a puppy-both are liable to happen here) and no one would read my blog. Why would they? Thus, I would be talking to the sky basically. That's why I've held out for so long.
Then I had a thought: forget that, I like to ramble. And so this blog was born (with a little extra push from some friends). Who cares if no one reads this? No one reads my thoughts (I hope), but I still think them. Why shouldn't I blog?
It took a bit of time to develop a suitable name for my blog, until I dissed one of my friends while brainstorming ideas. I had the page open and it told me to "Insert blog title...." and I stared at it, hoping words would appear in the box. Then the aforementioned dissing occurred. My friend's mouth dropped and I remarked "Oh snap it went there!"A spark illuminated in my brain ( I imagine thats how great ideas are expressed) and 15 minutes later, I finished this sentence.
I feel it would be pointless to list a bunch of facts about me you are likely to forget (like that my favorite color is blue), so I'll just continue to update this blog and you can learn more about me that way.
As promised, cute puppy photos:
Yes, divine revelation right there, I know. I've been wanting to blog for a while now but I never really thought it would be productive. I'm learning about pragmatism in one of my classes (I am a college student), and one of the central tenants of their philosophy is that learning occurs through interaction. Which would defeat the purpose of this blog. I'll write stuff that I've been mulling over (or post a picture of a puppy-both are liable to happen here) and no one would read my blog. Why would they? Thus, I would be talking to the sky basically. That's why I've held out for so long.
Then I had a thought: forget that, I like to ramble. And so this blog was born (with a little extra push from some friends). Who cares if no one reads this? No one reads my thoughts (I hope), but I still think them. Why shouldn't I blog?
It took a bit of time to develop a suitable name for my blog, until I dissed one of my friends while brainstorming ideas. I had the page open and it told me to "Insert blog title...." and I stared at it, hoping words would appear in the box. Then the aforementioned dissing occurred. My friend's mouth dropped and I remarked "Oh snap it went there!"A spark illuminated in my brain ( I imagine thats how great ideas are expressed) and 15 minutes later, I finished this sentence.
I feel it would be pointless to list a bunch of facts about me you are likely to forget (like that my favorite color is blue), so I'll just continue to update this blog and you can learn more about me that way.
As promised, cute puppy photos:
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