So tonight, I was sitting in a really fantastic group for my group project for my seminar. We all worked really hard and well together. I think our project turned out really well due to the fact that we worked really well together. As I sat there, I recalled some horrible group projects I had in high school. Sometimes, it was completely imbalanced. Only one or two people would do the work 5 people should have. It was really obnoxious, because in a lot of cases, all of the members would get the grade for the work of a few.
This is kinda similar to civic virtue. A lot of people think they can think just donate a bit of money or do a tiny volunteer project once a year, and they're the most civilly virtuous person. Realistically, I bet the most charity/volunteering comes from a few people who do a lot of work. Then everyone else takes credit for it. Which is dumb!!
I'll be honest, I'm not the civically virtuous person. But I also don't claim to be. And if I was going to, I'd do something to substantiate the claim. But don't claim to be so great, when you aren't doing the work that'd prove it.
12.09.2011
Are you serious. This was the one pleasure I had for my night.
No seriously, I just opened up a cheese stick, one of those half yellow half white mozzarella ones. And no joke, only like a quarter of it was white mozzarella. AND, let's be real, if we had to have such an awkward disparity, I'd want it to be majority white mozzarella. Because, that tastes better. Way better. So here I am, blogging, drinking a... version of grape juice... and eating this effed up cheese stick.
It reminds me of all of my essays. Because I have really prominent academic voice, and not quite enough personal voice. We've talked about it in my English class, but I really think it's a matter of being deliberate about adding my personal voice. It's going to be a learning process. But for now, I'm analytical as hell.
So, as soon as the cheese stick company makes perfectly balanced cheese sticks, I'll have a perfectly balanced voice in my papers.
It reminds me of all of my essays. Because I have really prominent academic voice, and not quite enough personal voice. We've talked about it in my English class, but I really think it's a matter of being deliberate about adding my personal voice. It's going to be a learning process. But for now, I'm analytical as hell.
So, as soon as the cheese stick company makes perfectly balanced cheese sticks, I'll have a perfectly balanced voice in my papers.
11.27.2011
"Don't you know who I am?"
This phrase makes me cringe. Just because you're Lindsay Lohan doesn't mean you shouldn't go to jail for snorting more coke than an addict given one day left to live. Just because your daddy is a CEO at IDGAF, inc. doesn't make you any better a person than anyone else. To me, you should have to earn respect and not just demand it because you know a guy or because a parent makes serious bank or has some sort of power. So what? You didn't have anything to do with the hard work they likely put into it. It's time to do your own work.
This post isn't going to be so symbolic as others have. I'm going to straight up say that social capital is a great thing, when used appropriately. Social capital is the resources (people you know) that have the potential to better you. Trust and reciprocity play a big role in social capital. There are two main ways it can be used. You can use social capital to make more connections and better yourself by working hard, or you can just associate with your social capital and say "Don't you know who I am?". For example, it's great if a person's parent has a powerful job, because it can help that person make connections and work hard (maybe they can help you land a great internship or something). That stuff earns you respect. But when the kid just essentially says "My dad's a really important guy. And he does X, Y, and Z which means you should treat me better than you would other people" that's BS. The kid has done nothing to deserve the treatment they're demanding. They have a lot of lessons to learn.
So for now, know your place based on the good you've done as a person, not because of the people you know.
This post isn't going to be so symbolic as others have. I'm going to straight up say that social capital is a great thing, when used appropriately. Social capital is the resources (people you know) that have the potential to better you. Trust and reciprocity play a big role in social capital. There are two main ways it can be used. You can use social capital to make more connections and better yourself by working hard, or you can just associate with your social capital and say "Don't you know who I am?". For example, it's great if a person's parent has a powerful job, because it can help that person make connections and work hard (maybe they can help you land a great internship or something). That stuff earns you respect. But when the kid just essentially says "My dad's a really important guy. And he does X, Y, and Z which means you should treat me better than you would other people" that's BS. The kid has done nothing to deserve the treatment they're demanding. They have a lot of lessons to learn.
So for now, know your place based on the good you've done as a person, not because of the people you know.
11.15.2011
Your iPhone is cracking me up... not; I'm going to crack it in half.
Those stupid iPhone "FU Autocorrect" posts kill me. They are so absurdly dumb. Most of them honestly seem fake. Yet people post them all over each others walls on Facebook and text them back and forth. I'll admit, the first time I saw them, I thought it was relatively funny and I laughed. But then they caught on in full storm and everyone was posting them and reading them. It's not even that they became "too mainstream" or anything, they just started getting obviously fake. It's kind of sad/pathetic to think that people sit there and type back and forth just to make some lame conversation about an autocorrect that makes it look like someone is doing something they shouldn't be doing. Whatever.
In my english class we've been talking a lot about tone and voice. There comes a point in every student's academic life where he or she must learn how to balance a personal tone with a scholarly one. And the proper balance varies from paper to paper and subject material to subject material. For example, in a chem lab write up, you probably don't want too much personal voice at all. However in an academic narrative, you want some personal voice without going too overboard on the slang and while still sounding intelligent and scholarly.
Granted I don't like the autocorrect screenshots, I recognize that there is a place and time for them, just like there's a time and place for personal voice in academic writing. The tricky thing is figuring out just when and where that is. Eventually, you will find when it's fine to share iPhone screenshots (i.e.: with yourself, with your friends, etc) and when it isn't (when you post a link to one as your status or post a ton on someones wall...). Just as you will find where it's fine to throw in a personal anecdote or a slang word as reference (in a personal writing piece) and when it isn't (in your senior thesis that is mostly empirical data).
Balance is key my friends.
In my english class we've been talking a lot about tone and voice. There comes a point in every student's academic life where he or she must learn how to balance a personal tone with a scholarly one. And the proper balance varies from paper to paper and subject material to subject material. For example, in a chem lab write up, you probably don't want too much personal voice at all. However in an academic narrative, you want some personal voice without going too overboard on the slang and while still sounding intelligent and scholarly.
Granted I don't like the autocorrect screenshots, I recognize that there is a place and time for them, just like there's a time and place for personal voice in academic writing. The tricky thing is figuring out just when and where that is. Eventually, you will find when it's fine to share iPhone screenshots (i.e.: with yourself, with your friends, etc) and when it isn't (when you post a link to one as your status or post a ton on someones wall...). Just as you will find where it's fine to throw in a personal anecdote or a slang word as reference (in a personal writing piece) and when it isn't (in your senior thesis that is mostly empirical data).
Balance is key my friends.
11.07.2011
"Ew, this place is nasty, let's leave."
Today when I was working, someone walked into my small workplace, scoffed at the things we had available, commented on her displeasure, and walked out because it wasn't to her liking. To be honest, her shirt made her look like a gremlin, but I didn't scoff at it and say it was ugly just because I didn't like it. I hate when people are rude at stores because they don't like the particular products or whatever the case is. It's personally rude to the people who work there, because its offending them on their taste in places to work. If I enter a store I don't find particularly pleasant, I simply leave. Not even in a rude way.
When I look over various blogs online, I'm bound to find some comments saying something like "Your blog is stupid, you should go die". Maybe all of them aren't quite so harsh, but you get the point. In my class when we started these blogs, we talked a lot about who to follow and how to comment. We came to the decision that we should follow blogs each of us liked, and that there's no pressure to read or follow blogs that didn't strike a cord with us. Then, we established an idea of respect! If you don't like a post, don't comment on it. And if you have some sort of criticism, do it constructively so that the blogger doesn't feel attacked, but aided. And whenever you have a good comment to leave, do it.
So, if you come across a blog you don't like, be respectful about it; you don't have to follow! Just like if you go to a store you're not a fan of, you don't have to shop there; leave respectfully!!
When I look over various blogs online, I'm bound to find some comments saying something like "Your blog is stupid, you should go die". Maybe all of them aren't quite so harsh, but you get the point. In my class when we started these blogs, we talked a lot about who to follow and how to comment. We came to the decision that we should follow blogs each of us liked, and that there's no pressure to read or follow blogs that didn't strike a cord with us. Then, we established an idea of respect! If you don't like a post, don't comment on it. And if you have some sort of criticism, do it constructively so that the blogger doesn't feel attacked, but aided. And whenever you have a good comment to leave, do it.
So, if you come across a blog you don't like, be respectful about it; you don't have to follow! Just like if you go to a store you're not a fan of, you don't have to shop there; leave respectfully!!
10.11.2011
You are so repetitive!
I'm going to be mad about something I actually do myself. It annoys me when I do this.
So do you ever get stuck on a word or phrase and use it all of the time for like a week? Think: Mean Girls' Gretchen Weiners when she says "fetch" all the time. I know that I've personally had my week long binges of the words: "solid", "stellar", "sensational", "prime", "epic", etc. It drives me nuts when I have them. I will use one of these words, and suddenly cringe, realizing that by overusing it, I've erased it's actual meaning and overgeneralized it. I think everyone does this at some point. We get word or phrase trends. But if you're around a person for a significant enough period of time, you hear the word over and over and it's super annoying.
Many people have the overuse issue with commas as well. I probably made a couple errors myself in the above paragraph. If you read a sentence, where there are a ton of commas, that don't belong, it just becomes obnoxious, to read. (see what I did there?) It's not actually that difficult to be even relatively grammatically correct with one's use of commas. They only belong in certain spots. There are rules on when one should and shouldn't use them. I won't go into it; you can bore yourself to death if you want to find them. All I'm saying is that if you completely overuse them, it becomes annoying and their purpose is erased because there is no consistency in when you are and aren't using them.
The best way to stop overusing something, be it words, phrases, or commas, is to force yourself to realize your error. As soon as you say that word you've been abusing since last friday, in your head tell yourself to find some other way to describe what you want to say. Give yourself a little mental slap on the wrist, that way it sticks with you that you want to get past the word. When you reread your paper on World War II, scribble out all of the unnecessary commas with bright red pen, and then go back and realized how much you overused them.
It's easy to get past overusing something. You just have to actually put forth the effort.
So do you ever get stuck on a word or phrase and use it all of the time for like a week? Think: Mean Girls' Gretchen Weiners when she says "fetch" all the time. I know that I've personally had my week long binges of the words: "solid", "stellar", "sensational", "prime", "epic", etc. It drives me nuts when I have them. I will use one of these words, and suddenly cringe, realizing that by overusing it, I've erased it's actual meaning and overgeneralized it. I think everyone does this at some point. We get word or phrase trends. But if you're around a person for a significant enough period of time, you hear the word over and over and it's super annoying.
Many people have the overuse issue with commas as well. I probably made a couple errors myself in the above paragraph. If you read a sentence, where there are a ton of commas, that don't belong, it just becomes obnoxious, to read. (see what I did there?) It's not actually that difficult to be even relatively grammatically correct with one's use of commas. They only belong in certain spots. There are rules on when one should and shouldn't use them. I won't go into it; you can bore yourself to death if you want to find them. All I'm saying is that if you completely overuse them, it becomes annoying and their purpose is erased because there is no consistency in when you are and aren't using them.
The best way to stop overusing something, be it words, phrases, or commas, is to force yourself to realize your error. As soon as you say that word you've been abusing since last friday, in your head tell yourself to find some other way to describe what you want to say. Give yourself a little mental slap on the wrist, that way it sticks with you that you want to get past the word. When you reread your paper on World War II, scribble out all of the unnecessary commas with bright red pen, and then go back and realized how much you overused them.
It's easy to get past overusing something. You just have to actually put forth the effort.
10.04.2011
Could everyone just stop talking?
I'll save you reading now: the moral of the story is not to talk about things that don't involve you. It breeds dramatic response, which is honestly immature and annoying.
I can't stand it when one person here's some gossip about another and immediately has to tell them. There are certainly cases where its appropriate, but if the person was honestly just sharing their point of view on another, you don't really need to tell this other person. Unless they are your best friend or something. But otherwise you're just making everyone look bad. The person who has been judged gets hurt. The person who has the opinion looks like an asshole even though in some (definitely not all cases) the other may deserve this view. It's up to those two people to sort out their issues, and they will do it when it's the right time for them. Don't force it by inserting yourself into the situation and telling them that Person A said XYZ about them.
In a class of mine last week we talked about the different decisions we can make and how they play into the greater life story of a person. We did this by playing a sort of "choose your own adventure" game (apologies that the hyperlink may bring you to the most mediocre yet delightfully distracting website). At the end, each group read their character's story and we looked at how different internet events can effect our real lives.
I think people don't realize that they have to be careful about who they are and what they say in the "real world" and who they are in a virtual setting. It's kind of pathetic that people think they can just release online. Many people think they can vent and say whatever they want and show whatever they want without consequence. They think no one will know their URL and therefore no one will know the virtual them. Which is BS. A friend of mine from high school has a pretty raunchy blog that I accidentally stumbled upon one night, and now I could never see him the same way in person. But the same goes for face to face interactions. If you don't watch what you say or do, people spread information about you that might be true, or might be assumptions based on your attitudes and actions. Or, if you involve yourself in things that aren't your business, people will realize and not trust you.
Just stop sharing what doesn't need to be shared, for the greater good.
I can't stand it when one person here's some gossip about another and immediately has to tell them. There are certainly cases where its appropriate, but if the person was honestly just sharing their point of view on another, you don't really need to tell this other person. Unless they are your best friend or something. But otherwise you're just making everyone look bad. The person who has been judged gets hurt. The person who has the opinion looks like an asshole even though in some (definitely not all cases) the other may deserve this view. It's up to those two people to sort out their issues, and they will do it when it's the right time for them. Don't force it by inserting yourself into the situation and telling them that Person A said XYZ about them.
In a class of mine last week we talked about the different decisions we can make and how they play into the greater life story of a person. We did this by playing a sort of "choose your own adventure" game (apologies that the hyperlink may bring you to the most mediocre yet delightfully distracting website). At the end, each group read their character's story and we looked at how different internet events can effect our real lives.
I think people don't realize that they have to be careful about who they are and what they say in the "real world" and who they are in a virtual setting. It's kind of pathetic that people think they can just release online. Many people think they can vent and say whatever they want and show whatever they want without consequence. They think no one will know their URL and therefore no one will know the virtual them. Which is BS. A friend of mine from high school has a pretty raunchy blog that I accidentally stumbled upon one night, and now I could never see him the same way in person. But the same goes for face to face interactions. If you don't watch what you say or do, people spread information about you that might be true, or might be assumptions based on your attitudes and actions. Or, if you involve yourself in things that aren't your business, people will realize and not trust you.
Just stop sharing what doesn't need to be shared, for the greater good.
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