Pyroclastic Regurgitation

I like technology.  As much as I can want to throw my computer in the ocean sometimes, I realize that technology helps us move forward.  Whenever the power goes out I feel inexplicably uneasy.  Candles and their mood lighting are super awesome… for about an hour.  Then I’m done.

However, I do not believe that technology is, can be, or ever SHOULD be a replacement for human interaction.  The whole “robots taking over the world” thing isn’t literal in my mind; it refers to us, and how robotic we can act around each other.  We are too afraid to act “human”, which brings me to my main point: Teachers need to stop giving me C’s on my essays.

It’s not that I think I do B or A work, (believe me, I deserve most of the C’s I get… MOST of them, you frickin Literary Traditions class and your required Bibliographies.  Bibliographies are the anti-Christ of writing, and of most things) but it’s that I don’t think there should be grades period.  Since when did education become about getting a good score on a test?  Aren’t we in school to gain some of that elusive “knowledge” stuff people are always going on about?  Nowadays it is more about schools having the good numbers to show (grade and test-score-wise) in order to get more money and funding and prestige within the educational community.

Most of my educational career (and I’m truly not exaggerating) has been about structured regurgitation.  “I show you X.  You Memorize X.  You repeat X.  You forget 90% of X when the test is over.  I show you Y…etc.”  And the scary thing is… grades fucking matter.  Maybe not truthfully, but on paper, when you want a job, your diploma is gonna get you hired over Mr. Non-Diploma.  

Okay, now, I’m not one who believes that you have to go to some fancy college to make it in life.  I don’t even believe you necessarily have to go to college at all (I can name countless examples, friends and otherwise, who lead successful lives and never went to college).  But let’s create a scenario… Let’s say that Suzy’s parents want her to get into Stanford.  If she gets into Stanford and studies Law and graduates, her father will offer her a position in his law firm.

Now.  Suzy has been a 4.0 student all throughout school.  But let’s say she is right on the cusp of an A, teetering between 89 and 90 percent in her Geology class.  She has a test on Friday.  While studying Thursday she gets a call from her father that her mother has been injured in a car accident.  Having her priorities straight, she rushes to the hospital to see her mom (who is fine, don’t worry).  Because of this, she is unable to learn the definition of “Pyroclastic Flow”.

On her test the next day is a question about Pyroclastic Flow.  Suzy gets it wrong.  This causes her to get a B on her test instead of an A, which pushes her Geology grade to a B, which gives her a 3.9 GPA.  Some grumpy lady at Stanford admissions sees, immediately, that she does not have a 4.0 and disregards the rest of her application (and before you freak out on me, this is hypothetical, including the admissions process for Stanford, and the assumption that the staff of admissions is all grumpy, you sensitive ninnies).  Suzy does not get in to Stanford, and does not get a position in her father’s law firm.

Obviously, this is not the end of the world for Suzy.  She can always get a VW bus, paint it rainbow color, grow armpit hair, and sell wax-sculptures of her abstract representation of “peace”.  But this is just to show that, very realistically, grades impact our lives whether WE care about them or not, and I think that is wrong.  I think KNOWLEDGE should take precedent over grades.  Sure, someone can have a 4.0, but in NO WAY does that mean that they are intelligent.  It means that they are good at school.  Now, you can be both intelligent AND good at school, but the two do not have to go hand-in-hand; an intelligent person can completely suck at school, which is actually an extremely common thing.

But why the rant?  I don’t know.  Maybe I’m frustrated.  Maybe my hormones are going HHBLUBLUGHAGABLARGH.  Maybe I know that these things aren’t really going to change, and so I want to draw attention to them so that there is a better chance of that happening.

But then again, you all know this first-hand.  We’ve all experienced frustrations of this genre at some point, so… I guess I’m still regurgitating.  School has taught me well.

PB n J

Sometimes I feel really bad for whining about my problems.  My issues don’t hold a candle to people with REAL problems, so how can I complain when I have it so much better than they do?  Even a lot of people I am close with have much more to worry about than I do.  All in all, I have things pretty darn easy, and I will be the first to admit it.

But then I think… when does a problem become worth whining about?  (Honestly never because whining is a language reserved for pre-pubescent tweens and newborns who are hungry or have soiled themselves, but ignoring that…) And then I go back to this pyramid of needs I learned about in high school, or middle school, or all-the-time school, or something.  As each level, starting with the bottom-most, is filled, one can move up to a higher level.  But if something goes wrong on a level below, the upper levels are temporarily forgotten.

                                                                

                                                            /Creativity, Morals, Fun\

                                                       /Self Esteem, Confidence, Respect\

                                                /Relationships, Friendship, Sex n Stuff\

                                          /Health, Family, Money Stuff (security), Home\

                                     / Food, Air, Water, Internal Body Stuff for Existence\

I don’t think it bodes well for my offspring that it took me two minutes to find the “ \ ”.  Also making that pyramid took way too long for how it turned out… Class break well spent.

Anyway.  Whatever level we happen to be on (and they change all the goddamn time) is what level your worries will be most occupied with.  If you’re living on the streets, you’re not gonna be worried about getting a six-pack; you’re gonna want that pizza you found hanging out the lip of the trash bin.  If you’re drowning, you aren’t gonna be too horny.  If you have your health, basic living necessities, friends and family who are in good health, and some decent self-esteem, your worries might consist of what some people would call trivial things: Not liking that last oak tree you decided to add in to your masterpiece painting.

But this is understandable; it’s how we function.  And, looking back at my crappy representation of the hierarchy of needs (it’s Maslow, btw, for the 0 of you who care), I realize that everyone, no matter what level they exist on, has one thing in common:

We are all alive.  If you can read this, you are alive.  If you are going through a tough break up, you are alive.  If you are living day-to-day, you are alive.  This whole “living” thing is something that a lot of people have not had the good fortune to experience for very long.  Being in my 20’s I realize that so many people have lived much shorter lives than I… even though I feel that mine is just beginning.

Every so often I have to remind myself to stop worrying about my shit, whatever level it might be on, and enjoy my goddamn sandwich.

Cake, Flannel, and Teeter-Totters

First off, I want to thank everyone for the birthday wishes.  I hadn’t checked facebook since before my birthday, and when I got back to real life a couple days ago seeing all the love was wonderful.

Secondly, who the hell allowed me to turn 21?  What idiot gave me that permission?  Truly my actual age has not registered, as I still feel like I am 12.  And “ya ya,” you might think, “everyone feels that way,” but I’ll have you know that tonight I hung 30 hangers from my pockets so I could make it from my apartment to my car in one trip.

I’ve never been one for big celebrations, especially for birthdays.  What have we done to warrant such praise and affection, besides continue to exist?  I always feel somewhat bad about receiving gifts… “Oh hey, you’re still alive, have some cake and a flannel!”

I’m gonna enjoy the hell out of that cake and flannel, but the cake will taste a little like guilt.  But then once that goes away it’ll just taste like delicious.

For realisies, though.  How can a 21 y/o still be using words like “realisies”?  

We are all afraid of change in some way or another; growing older, having more responsibility.  But sometimes change comes so swiftly we don’t even have time to process it.  Suddenly you’re in college.  Then you’re thinking about career paths.  Then you are thrown into the real world and you have a house and a spouse and a louse (not really, I just wanted a third rhyme).  Everything seems like a blur in hindsight, and a giant, close-up, infinite canvas of spilled paint in the moment – cluttered and confusing and impossible to make sense of.

But, I guess, you see the borders eventually, and know that everything is temporary.  Every change, every hardship will last only for a fraction of time in the grand scheme of things.  Anger today is annoyance tomorrow, is a thought the next day, is gone in a week. 

Sometimes everything can seem so real.  Things you’ve only seen in movies or from your parents are suddenly happening to you, and you aren’t sure what to do or how to react.  Which is fine.  It’s fine to be clueless.  In fact, if you had a clue about everything from the beginning you would have nothing to learn.  I feel clueless about so much, every day, year round.  Just because I’m a year older doesn’t mean that has changed in the slightest.

And one thing I’m learning is that balance can always return, no matter how off-kilter your teeter-totter might be at one moment.  Just run to the other side and enjoy the second or two before it hits the ground again.

C'mon, Middle Schoolers, Where Are The Flying Cars??

The younger generation is scary.  When I was 10, 11, 12, I didn’t even have a cell phone.  I was scarcely going online (granted, dial up wasn’t super fun to deal with) My dad would type my papers for me because I didn’t know how (maybe I was a little younger for that last one… or maybe not…)

Now kids are becoming so technologically advanced at such a fast rate I’m not sure what schools are actually going to be able to teach them that they haven’t already figured out.

And it’s interesting to see the behavior of one generation compared to another: Our grandparents typically go about their days more slowly; this is neither a positive or negative thing, it’s just a thing.  They may get less done, but they can focus on one thing without becoming distracted fifteen seconds into it.  The new generation (and our generation included – that is: all of us in our early twenties and such) has the attention span of

We might get a shit ton done in a day, assuming we aren’t high and watching cartoons for fifteen hours (and with Halo 4 out and COD coming out next week, let’s be honest and acknowledge that the level of male productivity in colleges is going to decline suuuuuuper suddenly), but how often do we actually completely absorb what we read or do?  Personally, I have trouble doing one thing for a prolonged period of time at all.  A movie in one sitting?! You make funny joke. ßBorat voice

That’s one reason I format these things the way I do: it’s a pain to read big blocks of text; it’s as much for me as it is for you.  I don’t like reading back through giant paragraphs.

So

This

Caters to 

This generation’s

Preferences

And

Uncontrollable ADD habits.

Maybe I have mentioned this before, but I would be SHOCKED if I didn’t have ADD.  The other day I was on the bike in the gym, listening to DnB music (fast, aggressive stuff), and reading something for one of my Lit classes… WHY.  You should see me edit one of these things; I don’t think I’ve ever read one straight through without jumping around at least once.  

But it makes sense.  You go on any website, and you can see why the generations behave so differently.  THER ARE SO MANY THINGS TO CLICK ON AND LOOK AT AND COLORS AND 

Yeah.  Older generations didn’t have that overstimulation.

So, whenever I can, I try to appreciate life’s simple little things.  At least once a day I make myself play guitar and think of NOTHING ELSE.

Which lasts about three minutes before I play Halo.

Slacklining is NOT Heroin

Okay, so normally I don’t write about super personal stuff in this blog, but I feel like this might be entertaining.

Eh, screw it, I just wanna vent.

So if you know me at all… or stalk my facebook… (the two are, in fact, mutually exclusive in this day and age) you will know that I love slacklining.  If you don’t know what slacklining is… go stalk my pictures.

Anyway.  In Thousand Oaks, where I used to live, slacklining was allowed essentially anywhere.  We NEVER had problems with the authorities and such.  

But apparently Orange County has some great desire to punish all those who walk two feet off the ground on a strip of nylon webbing.  OH LORDY, WHAT A SIN!!! – exclaimed the overly dramatic black woman.

I’ve been kicked out of parks several times.  I even printed out the PARK LAWS and carried them with me to defend myself.  But, and I quote the park ranger, “It’s not about what’s legal”.  Hm.  Hmmmmm.  Hrrmmm.  I do believe it is, sir.  That’s why we have laws.

I’m currently in the process of obtaining a permit for slacklining here in OC… Hopefully.  No one seems to know what to tell me, which brings us to what I believe to be the root of the problem: No one understands slacklining.  And, as it is natural for humans to shun anything unfamiliar to them and shy away from what they don’t understand (if you don’t believe me, look at any event in history ever ever), it is only expected that officials would condemn slacklining, because… after all… what the hell is it, anyway??

“It’s far too dangerous to do in parks,” … really?  Because, by that logic, people should not be allowed to RUN in parks.  I’ve hurt myself more running and walking (shut up) than I have slacklining.  Irony: when I step on a thorn and am prevented from doing anything physical for two weeks.  This happened while slacklining, at a moment when I was WALKING up to the slackline.

“You could sue the park if you are injured,” firstly, I want to address this argument in general.  Yes, there are those assholes out there who would do such a thing.  I am fully aware.  But, let’s say I am playing Frisbee with my buddy in the park… and I knock one of his teeth out because he has the hand-eye coordination of a drowning bat… by that logic, we could STILL sue the park because it was on THEIR premises.  

“It hurts the trees,” No it doesn’t.

“I trust that you know what you’re doing, but it could be dangerous to those around you; what if someone wants to try it?  What if a kid rides his bike into it?” Thank you for the compliment.  As for the two concerns, if someone wants to try it, AWESOME.  It’s a social activity.  People bond and shit.  If some kid rides his bike into it… why is he on a bike if he is blind?  That’s dangerous in itself.

As with anything that people don’t understand, it may take a while for them to adjust to what slacklining really is.  It isn’t dangerous (assuming your line is below your head), it doesn’t harm the trees (USE TOWELS), and it isn’t drugs.  I swear, I think that the authorities think it’s drugs.  IT’S NOT DRUGS, OFFICER.

I look forward to the day when one can slack in peace.