What do you do with a BA in English... or Communication for that matter?

First off, props to Avenue Q.  It has some great songs. 

Secondly, I bare news.  I have decided to stop putting off the inevitable and go try to do something with my life and my talents.  (Limited though they are.)  So, I guess I may never know what one does with a B.A. because I'm opting out of the process in favor of doing something that I love.  Once I actually figure out a plausible way to make money from sketching, writing and acting as an unofficial tour guide...

The best part of the whole thing is the role reversal though.  For the last year or more I've been asking myself what the **** I was doing in a hyper structured system while the family told me how wonderful it was that I had submitted myself to that system.  Now the family is asking me what on earth I'm thinking to leave the well paved path, but I'm practically (and sometimes literally) jumping for joy to be able to move in the direction of my dreams.  

It's not much but it's a start.  And as my fiancee reminded me as I pulled out of Berry's parking lot, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." (Lao Tzo)  This is my first step.  I'm scared to death, and excited beyond reason.  This is going to be one hell of a journey.

Assume Survival Float

When floating in water for extended periods of time, it is important to remember the correct methodology for a survival float.  The survival float allows one to stay afloat for periods of time that would not be possible using other methods.

You may sink below the surface at times, but so long as you don't panic you will be okay.

It may seem like it is taking forever for help to arrive, but it is important to remain calm and continue floating.

Make sure to keep filling up your lungs all the way.

Relax.  Breath deep and don't panic.  Only 6 weeks left... then land and rest.

Is television bad for children?

Today's blog is brought to you by my contemporary persuasion class, and all the wonderful people in there that I will be speaking in front of today.

The Problem:
Children are watching large amounts of violent programing and are becoming violent themselves. This fact is clearly evidenced by the recent accidental killing involving a little boy who killed his sister when he practiced a wrestling move that he saw on tv on her.

Case study
Case study 2

Why is this happening?
Television does influence our actions, and it influences children even more then adults. Children mimic what they see on tv. Unfortunately, what they see on tv is fighting, shooting, stabbing and other forms of violence.Too many violent shows on television during hours when the most impressionable viewers are watching.

Family Guy example

What can we do about it?
Some special interest groups are advocating safe times when major stations will cut down on violent programing during times when more children are watching. The focus for this method is on the hours when children are just arriving home from school.

Another way to protect children from the effects of violent programing, is to make easier and more readily available parental controls for televisions. This form of parental control was the goal of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that made it a requirement for television makers to install a chip that would block violent programing using a rating system that the networks devised.

"Most critic[s] feel that the V-chip, a form of rating system, will fail in its effectiveness to monitor children as it has a proven history of failure in the past. Ratings such as "NC-17" had to be changed from "XXX", simply because it was becoming a symbol in modern culture, and became more of a right of passage for youth, rather than a deterrent." -Through the Wires

Rut

I've been very conflicted about where I'm going lately.  I distract myself and deflect, but I can't help but realize that this process of sitting in dark rooms, listening to professors go on and on with their favorite process, repetition.  

So much...

...stagnation...

...here.

I can't stretch here.  I can't grow.  I can barely move.  This is hell on earth for me.  This forced attention to details that I'm only trying to make myself care about.  This isn't going to work.  I'm leaving.  

Only a few questions remain:

1. When?
2. Where will I go?
3. How will will I explain to the family?

I know that I am going though and have a rough idea of what I will do when I get there.  At least its a start.

Planning

So, it is decided:  I am going to do something else.  But what?  For how long?  Where?

I have a hundred questions for myself, so I resigned to do what I do every time I am faced with an overwhelming decision... I try to learn something.  

It's ironic how the main part of my problem solving method involves me distancing myself from the problem at hand.

4 hours in and I just realized that after all those "exercises" and all that reading, I can now design a black and white version of my first myspace page.  (Okay, so a few other elements might be lacking, but the basic format remains the same.)  It is kind of thrilling and depressing to learn what is hard and what is just ridiculously easy.

It makes you think about what goes into the pages that you look at online too.  Just click View/View Source on a web page and suddenly the long lines of code become visible. It makes me realize something important: I want to be able to type html on pages, but I'm glad that I don't to have to type in html every time I type something online.  

If it came to that, then this blog probably wouldn't exist.   I would have gotten annoyed at a misplaced tag somewhere or another and moved away from the system very early on.  The first post probably never would have gone up.  (Not that anyone actually read the first post, but that is another story entirely.  The point is that I wouldn't be typing this now.)

In the end, I find myself thinking back to Hamlet's famous question and rephrasing it for today:

To html, or not to html?  That is the question.

Last Semester

I'm going to cut down on my college course load.  More and more this "education" is beginning to seem like just another bureaucracy.  Its just really this long (dare I say pointless?) process for what?  A piece of paper that says you went to class and turned in something requiring a mediocre effort.  

*sigh*

This may be my last semester.  I stress too much over busy work, and the busy work is not worth the stress.  

For once I may actually be following a doctor's orders:  The doctor told me to get rid of the big things that were stressing me out.  Roughly a year later,  I'm putting together a plan to get out of college, the biggest stress-er I have ever met.  Give me belligerent idiots, give me fighting, give me the midnight shift (I'm up anyway), give me a job where I'm overworked and underpaid, just don't make me spend one more semester in these halls of "higher learning."  

I need to be able to move and learn and grow, and for me, college just isn't the place to do that.  

I need to escape.  

I need a change.

Out of it

It's round 3 and I'm down for the count.  Too beaten and bruised to care as the hand slaps the floor.  I gave it a good run, but I've lost.  And no one ever writes about those who tried and failed.  It is the winner who tells the tale.  

Then out of nowhere a hand reaches down to pull me to my feet.  

"It is time for you to move on to a different ring," a voice whispers.  

I just nod.  I saw this coming all along.

I don't know how to get there, but I know where I'm going, so I take a deep breath and take a shaky step in that direction.

Wasn't it Eleanor Roosevelt that said, "Do at least one thing that scares you every day?"  

Good advice. 

God has a funny sense of humor....

Dear Professor,

I don't get class, and it isn't the subject matter either.  The subjects are simplistic.  You repeat yourself... a lot.  You give me death glares if I walk into your 9 o'clock one minute late, but then you are 10 minutes late to your own 1 o'clock class.

You don't remember where you stopped at in your notes during your last lecture, but find it unthinkable that I forgot this ultra important busy-work assignment that you handed out along with three other similar assignments earlier in the week.  You expect me to sit in rapt attention, yet you babble on in circles, constantly returning to some technical mumbo-jumbo.  You say that I should try to learn in your class, yet you review so much that I couldn't even say what the "new material" was in the last class.

You speak in abstracts, then say I don't explain enough in my papers.  You claim yourself as a revealer of higher education, yet you test me over the same things that I learned in 10th grade.

Where is the challenge?!?!?  Why am I here?!?!?!  Quit lecturing me on respect and accountability because until you learn to respect my intelligence, I don't think I will be able to fully respect you.  If you respect me, I will respect you; if you treat me like an uneducated fool, then I will play the part in your presence.  That isn't a threat; that is a fact.

Sincerely,

   Some kid from class

Tired but not sleeping

That simple saying seemed all too true today: 

Good grades,

Social life,

Sleep.

Pick one.

Welcome to college

I am trying to do too much this semester.  Class, work, clubs, friends, boyfriend, sleep... I'm pretty much a zombie right now, so I don't know why I'm writing except perhaps in some vain attempt to put off tomorrow for a little bit longer.  

Alas, I fear the inevitable is already on my doorstep as I run my fingers over the keyboard.  The new day sits outside the door, softly singing, "The moment's no more, it is time to meet the day."

First Day Back!

Today was my first day back in class!  Yeah!

Today was lots of fun.  I had four communication classes. :)  The things that I am most excited about this semester are learning about photojournalism and creating a web site all by myself. (Okay, so there is a computer program that will help, but I should be able to make one with out other people after this class.)  Maybe at the end of the semester, I can apply some of what I learn to this blog to make it more original.  Maybe not.  It all depends on what exactly I end out learning both in and out of class.

The bad news is the professor who teaches the course I want to audit seems to be really dragging his feet on the idea.  I just told him that I'd show up for the first class then if it works out then great, if not then... well, I should be able to hide out in the air vents without too much trouble.  Ha ha.  I really do want to listen in on that course though.  My schedule might not do well with the extra 3 hrs. though, so ce la vie.  

The best part of being back is the people though.  It is easy to forget how the friends here have already become a second family to me.  Though, I don't really want to think about how any of my friends would be related to me... They are both older and younger, more and less mature, more and less knowledgeable, cynical and overly trusting...  They are part of my generation.  They are part of that group that remembers the tragedies that occurred while we were still in our school days: Columbine, 9/11, Virginia Tech.  They remember the good things too though: watching Power Rangers and Captain Planet, digging prizes out of cereal boxes, stomping around in light-up shoes.  Older generations view these experiences from a distance, while the newer generations look off in the direction of new things and new experiences that are just now beginning to unravel before our eyes.  But what we knew in our youth has shaped us.  It has helped make us who we are, for better or worse.

Either way, back to what I was going to say...

Right now I'm trying to enact my New Year's Resolutions with my return to college.  The structured schedule seems to help keep me on track better.  I've been reading a lot, checking out ways to mellow out and this evening I exercised with two friends.  One, who is on a post-husband-deployment plan, is aiming to shape up her legs; the other, who is a determined chic who got the bum end of the metabolic-stick, wants to be able to fit into a size smaller in dresses by the time spring formal rolls around.  Both are good goals.  I just want to be able to run more, longer and harder.  Okay, maybe I want a bit out of this.  I can be very competitive with myself sometimes.  At least this competitiveness bodes well for my goals for the year.