1 Year Island-versary...

It's official.  I have been living in Hawaii for one full year now. I can safely say that I would not have predicted the way things have turned out. I feel I have changed a lot this past year. Looking back on my earlier posts, I was a very angry girl. I think my frustration stemmed from my living situation with the added pressures of being a new graduate student. I was homesick. I missed my friends and family. I missed doing things the exact way I was used to doing them. I was disappointed with my program. I constantly compared Hawaii to Ohio... Now that I have been here for a while, I feel I can say that neither state is better than the other; they are very different. It's like comparing apples to pineapples. I can also say that I am happy, for the most part, that I live on this beautiful island.

I still desperately miss my friends and family back home, but I have met some pretty cool people here too. I am definitely  more comfortable here now than several months ago.  Although I may not have the same quantity of friends here as I did back in Ohio, I have made a few quality ones in this last year. There are still plenty of times that I think people out here don't quite get me, but I handle it better now. Everyone has a different sense of humor. Surprise! Not everyone is going to find me exactly charming, so fuck 'em.

This next year I will be a seasoned graduate student. I will be trying to finish everything as quickly as possible, and it's going to be difficult. I now have a job in my field. I have cool friends. I live in an awesome house with awesome people. I will probably run into some frustrations along the way, but who doesn't? I can also say that I don't regret moving out here at all. Even during the darkest times, I am thankful for the life experiences I had while living on this island. Whether I move next year or in ten years or never leave at all, I will always have these times to serve as a guide for my future endeavors. They will be pinpoints on the road map of my life. (I am so sorry for the cheesiness of that last line)

I am excited to see what the next year here will bring me, and I am excited to share the experience with my friends (both old and new).

Dude... I Might be a Bro.

The newest thing to hit the bro-world is Broetry (Read "Impact." It's my personal fave.)  It's poetry, you know, for dudes. Truth.

The Jezzies over at Jezebel are not fans, to say the least; Nothing but snark as far as the eye can see. I just don't understand all the hate for all things bro. Sure the bros can be obnoxious, but not any more obnoxious than the hipsters peddling their poorly produced music and "ironic" clothing choices. As I was reading some of the broems, it hit me like a case of Natty at a frat party: I might be a bro.

The Bros and I have a lot of shared interests. Drinking beer, eating pizza, watching sports, playing beer pong, action movies, video games, etc. Although I may not talk about "banging bitches" or boobies, my friends and I have spent many an hour objectifying the shit out of the guys around us and on television. We have "lengthy" discussions, if you will. For those who didn't catch it, that was a penis joke.  So does liking these things make me a bro?

In general, I find the bros easier to approach at bars than non-bros. With bros, I just have to go up to them and say something about sports (usually a detailed explanation about why I think their team sucks balls). Boom! Instant conversation and perhaps a free drink or two. I enjoy sports. They enjoy sports. I think they are cute in that wholesome-home-grown-corn-fed-all-American boy sort of way. They think that I am cute in that alternative-pierced-tattooed-pixie-haircut-chubby-vegetarian girl sort of way. Everybody wins.

My usual day-to-day attire is jeans, a pair of flip flops, and some sports related t-shirt. My hair can easily morph into a faux-hawk with a little bit of wax. I can be pretty obnoxious awesome when I drink. I am overly competitive, and I back this up with a false bravado; I have been known to tell people to "suck my dick" on occasion. I keep a picture of The Shoe as my computer and phone wall paper ALL THE TIME. I will kick your ass in beer pong. I like fist-bumping and high-fiving. All of these things are common attributes of bros, right?  So, I think I might be a bro.

Except.... Maybe not.... I definitely have better taste in music than the common bro. Because really... fuck Dave Matthews Band.

Thoughts on Google+ and Why It Won't Kill Facebook (for now)

Since I have been dicking around on Google+ for the last few hours, I am pretty much an expert. Seriously, it is very clean looking and fairly easy to navigate. These were the things that put Facebook ahead of the late (not so) great MySpace. People like things to be clutter-free and easy to operate.  But the things that Facebook has over Google+ is the nostalgia factor and several years invested in building a relationship (albeit rocky at times) with its clients.

I have had my Facebook account for about 6 years now. 6  FUCKING YEARS. I am almost embarrassed by the amount of time I have spent on it. It's  because of these countless hours that I won't be able to cut ties with my beloved Facebook account any time soon. Get comfortable 'cause I am going to take you down a trip down memory lane. Yeah... shit just got real.

Picture it: Summer 2005. I had graduated high school and was getting pretty excited about starting my freshman year at THE Ohio State University. I was spending the weekend in Columbus with a small group of friends from high school (oddly enough, they are the only ones I still stay in contact with, but that's another story). We were going to the Renaissance Fair because we were(are) supah cool. Since no parents were around, there were plenty of alcoholic drinks to be had. I never drank in high school; so the couple glasses of Smirnoff Ice and pink Catawba wine had gone straight to my head.  We all had a little bit of a buzz, when one of my friends turned to me and asked if I had my OSU email address yet. After I responded in the affirmative, they all gleefully (I like to imagine them holding hands and skipping, but it was probably more like a fast-paced stumble) ran to bedroom and brought up Facebook.  I had never even heard of this thing they were so excited about. Once we finished creating my account, I felt like I was part this elite club. It was a club that only people in college could join. 

This was the start of the Golden Era for Facebook. Every new feature was awesome.  Facebook could do no wrong. The ability to add photo albums of my college adventures really rocked my shit. It was this awesome time when you could friend anybody you ever had a class with -- even that know-it-all, pretentious dick from English 110 who thought he was so smart, but totes did not get what the hot TA was really saying about Beckett's Endgame. You totally did though. You connected with the gorgeous thing in jeans and tweed jacket with patches over the elbows. Oh hey! You could friend your hot TA, because he was hip and had a Facebook. Oh no! He did not put anything for sexual preferences!... Gay. Oh well. He is still pretty dreamy... The moral of the story was that Facebook was awesome when it was more selective. Users felt somewhat safe that some creep isn't looking at their profiles. Or if there was a creep looking at your profile, at least the creep was in college.

Then things took a turn for the worst. Facebook allowed anyone to join. At first, it was just a bunch of high school kids and young adults who did not go to college. As it grew in popularity, more old folks wanted to get in on this action. Moms, dad, and grandparents wanted to check in on their precious little snowflakes. These people who could barely text started poking and "liking" things left and right.  Farmville happened. Facebook was no longer cool.

By this time, it had become a huge part of our everyday interactions though. "Did you see my post?" "Did you get my invite?" "I can't believe so-and-so broke up with what's-his-face." It's annoying, but true. Many times I have considered deleting my account, but to do so I would become a social pariah. Not to mention, I would have nothing to do when I was killing time between class. Plus, I have posted tons of photos. Some of the photos have been lost over time due to hard drive crashes. At least with Facebook I will have access to them.  I thought about starting a fresh; Unfriending everybody I haven't talked to in a month. I just couldn't do it. I don't want to be rude. I know how it feels to browse someone's profile and you find they have unfriended you. What's the purpose of social network if you don't network after all?

And this is the reason why Facebook will stick around for a long, long time. People like me who can't let anything go. I have boxes upon boxes of t-shirts from events and groups I participated in. I can't throw them away because they have memories (I promise I am not a hoarder).  Facebook is the same way. It has memories attached to it. Remember those few months when everyone put "stickers" on each others walls ? Or the first time you untagged an unflattering photo?

The best metaphor I could come up with is that Facebook has become the Linkin Park of social networks.  Yeah you heard me. Think about it. You really loved it when  it first came out.  It was edgy, cool, and your  parents hated it. As you grew older, your tastes changed. Your parents started to not hate it. It wasn't cool to listen to it anymore. In fact, you are kind of embarrassed whenever it pops up on shuffle, but you just can't get rid of it. Although when nobody is around, you like to put on that Hybrid Theory album and rock out like it's 2000... sometimes.

Google+ offers me that option of starting over without being rude or deleting the friends I am no longer close with. I can use it as my main social network but keep little ol' Facebook on the side.  Facebook can become more like that email address I use when signing up for discount cards and stuff. I can be much more discerning about who I add, and what gets streamed to me. Finally, I don't have to hear about some high school classmate's toddler doing something completely trite. I don't give a fuck that your little angel does the "funniest" things. I just don't.

My Mid-Grad School Crisis.

I blame my parents and teachers.

They believed in me. They told me I was bright, special and full of potential. While they were filling my head with thoughts of grandeur, I was doing very little. I never felt like I was pushed to apply myself. Everybody around me was more than satisfied with the minimal amount work I put forth. My whole life I devoted very little effort to anything academic, yet I was still managed to rise to the top of my class. Even in my undergraduate classes, I spent little time worrying my work. I never worried about grades. Things had a way of falling into my lap. In fact, I started to push the envelope on how much I could slack before starting a project. I would get this sort of adrenaline high from completing a project just in the nick of time. I would chuckle to myself when I received my grade, "If this is the grade I got without trying, just imagine if I actually applied myself."

Now in graduate school, I find it hard to shake my bad habits. Unfortunately, people don't seem to find me nearly a brilliant as the people in my past. It's as if they want me to try harder, and I just don't know how or what they want from me. So here I am, rethinking all my life decisions.

I think the reason I never put much effort into anything is because I have this intense fear of failing. Or maybe I was never as smart as they said I was. I am fraud. I have tricked them all for the last twenty-four years, and it seems as though the jig is up. My luck has run out.

I have never quit anything. I have never failed anything. I will find a way to make things better. I am sure that smart young woman is still somewhere inside buried beneath layers of idleness and sloth. I just need to figure out a way to coax her out and teach her how to work. I need to figure out how to do this soon.

In Defense of the E-Reader

Because nothing says "procrastination" like writing a blog post.

Ah, yes. To e-read or not to e-read? That is the question. Currently there are several camps in the Great E-Reader War, and I am not talking about Nook v. Kindle (For the record, iPads are stupid and don't count). There are several groups that have strong feelings about the use of e-readers and their place in the world of literature.

 As technophile and a book lover, I often find myself at a crossroad. As cliche as this sounds, I love the smell and feel of books. When I was growing up, I found that most of the kids in grade school and junior high either too cruel or too stupid to deal with. So I used a rather escapist strategy, and fled to the different worlds within my books. Other times, I would read to escape the doldrums when I finished an assignment. There was a long period of time when my sister and I spent every afternoon in the local library. I still have dreams of one day owning a personal library like the one in "Beauty and the Beast" (rolling ladder and all). The smell of libraries and book stores has a calming effect on me. I currently have a position in the school library, and my favorite task is gathering all the books that people requested. I love to wander the musty stacks; Often times, I find more books for myself than I do for the patrons. I love feeling the pages. I even like the risk of a possible paper-cut. It's a battle scar I can discuss over a beer. "Oh, this one? I got this one from spending a late night with Aldous Huxely." I dog-ear pages and write notes in the margins of my favorite books. I love looking at my bookshelf and seeing an entire collection. So, yeah. I love books, but more than that I love the simple act of reading.

Cue my technophilia: E-readers are convenient. With out-of-copyright literature, I have my choice of thousands of classic pieces for FREE. I don't need to drive to a library or the book store. I can read the Epic of Gilgamesh, switch over to Leaves of Grass, throw in some Austen or Shelley (depending on my mood, of course), and finally settle on something by Oscar Wilde while sitting at the beach. At any given point in any given day, I carry with me several hundred books (Not to mention the PDFs of countless journal articles).  Also if I buy a newer NYT bestseller and/or "fun" book like "Chelsea Bang Bang" I can do so at a discounted price, and they don't take up my very limited space in my tiny apartment. So yeah. I love my e-reader too.

When I see internet memes like the Judgemental Bookseller Ostrich or read the comments of  the Hyper Critical "Jezzies", I cannot understand why people are trying so hard to keep this firm grasp on an antiquated past. We should be embracing this new technology, not running from it. It makes literature more accessible to both the casual and avid readers.

And have no fear, the books that truly move me will find their permanent place on my bookshelf.

How Firm Thy Friendship, Ohio?

Once again, I am glad I am living on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  I hear talk of the beach and how bad the weather has been. Sometimes I hear talk about theoretical framework, but I tend to tune that out. I don't hear any talk of Tressel, Ohio State, or shame.

First, I am going to bore my faithful three readers with a delightful anecdote. Picture it: Columbus. Oct. 25th, 2008. The Horseshoe. A Deck. First quarter of the OSU/PSU game...
 A few of my girl friends and I were enjoying the game, cheering on Buckeyes. In front of us stood two twenty-something dudes wearing blue and white. Yeah, a couple of Penn State fans chose to watch the game from the middle of lion's den. Behind us stood (I use this term loosely) some of Ohio State's less-than-finest. They were shouting some unsportsmanlike comments at the Penn State fans. The boys in front of us didn't react, but they did look nervous. Perhaps they had made a bad decision? Not even halfway through the first quarter and the locals were restless. Sensing their uneasiness, my friend, B., turned to the inebriated Buckeyes behind us and asked them to refrain from the unsportsmanlike language. They turned their anger towards her. I prepared myself to jump in, but then this conversation happened.

B: Hey! What would your mother think if she heard you say these things?
Boy: My mom's a bitch! I don't care! *high fives bro*
B: Ok... Well, what would Coach Tressel think? *quizzical eyebrow*
Boy: Oh....
B: Would he say what you said was "classy"?
Boy: No. Not really....
B: Ok. Well let's keep it classy... for coach.
The boys immediately apologized the PSU fans and later were too drunk to noticed we had lost. They were too busy talking to the Penn State fans. TRUE STORY.

That's what Coach Tressel meant to the community. He is more than just a football coach. He was the image of classiness and sportsmanship. At some point at every single party, there was a toast to the man in The Vest.

Ever since Tresselgate broke a few days ago, I have changed my feelings about 17.6 times: denial, rage, embarrassment, rage again, hope, shame, sadness, rage again, melancholy, numbness, malaise, etc.
To say I was/am upset is a gross understatement. I was/am pissed. Pissed at Jim. Pissed at the players. Pissed at the media. Pissed at non-Buckeyes. Pissed at Buckeyes. Pissed at myself.

I kept holding out hope, that this was huge misunderstanding. Jim Tressel would never do something like that. He is a stand-up guy. He has integrity. He has class. He wrote a book about winning at life (not in the Charlie Sheen way) for, pete's sake! He is slow to anger. When he is angry, he doesn't shout. He maintains class under pressure...


I will never know what was going through his head when he received those emails. I won't pretend to ever know. No one will ever know. To speculate is wrong. Was it pressure to win? Was it paternal instinct for a few stupid kids? Was it just a "rational" decision? Some odd combination? Did he have a really good burger at Thurman's and just forget about the whole ordeal? No one except Jim Tressel will know what went through his head the moment he opened his email account and the months that followed.
What would you do? What would I do? I could bore you with story about my days as games supervisor at Cedar Point (Short story:  I let a friend get away with not shaving because I was short staffed and got in trouble).  It doesn't matter. We weren't there. Who is to say what we would ever do in a situation? We just don't know.

What's done is done. He made a mistake. He should be punished. Yes, his (and the program's) image is tarnished (for now). BUT we should not punish him because of his air of integrity prior to this scandal. He should be punished for his offense. He is human, thus fallible. We have to remember this. His punishment should only be based on precedented cases, not based on our feelings towards him a person. If we are harder on him because he is a "good guy," should we take it easy on the "bad guys" because that's what we expected from them? The shame and disappointment are already added into any punishment for the "good guys." Objectivity is key.

I am not calling for his resignation. I think those who do are blowing this out of proportion. Unless he is found to have helped set up Pryor's paypal, he does not deserve to be fired. After all, in the grand scheme of things he did NOT: hurt someone, sexually harass anyone, or pay to recruit players. He lied to protect a few dumb kids who sold things they believed belonged to them. It's bad. He should do his time for the crime, and then we should all move on and learn a lesson about this.

I believe that people (fellow Buckeyes) are especially angry because of the way information travels this day and age. Non-Buckeyes have been gloating on Facebook for the past couple days. They feel vindicated that the Great Jim Tressel has been taken down a peg. It hurts a lot. It sucks. It's embarrassing. But remember back when Woody punched a kid on television? There was no Facebook or Twitter. It sucked, but his legacy has remained mostly intact. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame just five years later. Am I saying we should build a "Jim's" in the Union next to "Woody's"? Not exactly. All I am saying is that we shouldn't turn coat or call for his head on a pike as soon as something embarrassing happens. Let's take a breath and wait to see how everything turns out.

Time and change will surely show... How firm thy friendship, Ohio?...

Attention People of the World

There are major differences between marijuana leaves and buckeye leaves. It's time you learn them so you can leave me alone.

Many plants have leaves with five leaflets. The buckeye tree is one of them. "The leaves are palmately compound with five (rarely seven) leaflets, 8–16 cm (3-6 in.) long and broad" (Wikipedia 2011).
Also, it is a symbol of pride for many Buckeyes. I happen to have a tattoo of a buckeye leaf behind my ear. It was made to resemble the sticker that is placed on The Ohio University's football players' helmets.

This is NOT a marijuana leaf. I repeat: NOT MARIJUANA.

Typically when drawing pakalolo, artists give the plant anywhere from seven to nine leaflets. Also, the leaflets are much narrower and longer than other plants' leaves (eg. the buckeye leaf).

This IS a marijuana leaf.

So the next time you see a young person walking down the street  with a bright green leaf on their shirt (or a small tattoo behind her ear), count the leaves before passing judgment.


Remember one thing:

IS NOT

 










Now that you are aware of a few differences. Please. PLEASE. Leave me the fuck alone. Thanks.