Well... Now What?

I woke up in Laconia this morning, bleary eyed, getting told we were going out on the boat cause it turned out today was a nice day. After fumbling around for my Nalgene, I drank some water and proceeded to see if I'd gotten any messages. No messages, but a reminder from my Google Calendar, "Blog Anniversary."

Yeah, I didn't realize it'd been that long either. And while this blog has fallen into severe disrepair, it's always nice knowing that should I ever feel the need to post something on the internet longer than 140 characters, I can. And now, watching the Celtics go up against the Heat in game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, having exhausted my extensive supply of webcomics to read, social media to catch up on, and memes to peruse, that I write an anniversary post on the big elephant staring me in the face: I just Graduated.

College was great. I wouldn't say I loved every minute of it because A, I'm not a liar and B, because I didn't. It's impossible to love every minute of college, because college itself is usually the worst part of the college experience. Especially this last semester, I gave myself a solid self five every time I went to class, because it would've been soooo much easier to just stay in bed, or hang at the apartment or listen to music in WMUA's Vinyl Closet or go to the U-Pub or... You get the point.

Yes, I did look this up.

But I did go to class, I did graduate, and I did have the time of my life the last four years. But now I've graduated, and after a brief postponement between staying in Amherst and going on a weekend road trip, I'm home, my money is dwindling, and I need to get a job.

"What job are you looking for Jim?" Well that's the million dollar question isn't it. I'm going to be honest, still have no idea. I've started working a few things out in my head. Nothing that's going to make or break any job offers that come down the line, but I think when it comes down to it, I'll know if a job is or isn't for me.

"So why're you writing a blog and not out there trying to find your dream job?" Well, first of all, it's 9PM. Business hours are over. Second of all, pending approval on my woefully out of date resume, I could start tomorrow! Which is good. Because no work and all play makes Jim a broke boy. 

I guess that's my next step then. Job. Jobbing it up. Becoming a real adult. So maybe I can do that with my blog, talk about stuff Job related... Nahhhhh. Too serious for my liking. I'll keep it loose. I'll post whenever, maybe more often now that I'm really unemployed and without anything to do. But I've said that I'd post more before, so take it with a grain of salt. 

Hugs and Kisses,

Jim

This is Crap.

(Or Why the Ban of Technology in College Classrooms is Stupid.)

I wrote this blog in class on Tuesday. Due to it's considerable length, and just not caring enough I didn't transcribe it until now. I hope you enjoy it. It's verbatim, with the exception of a few punctuation and spelling corrections.


So here I am, sitting in my Tuesday night SpecialEd class. The teacher is this hispanic lady who is roughly 65 years old. This is being written literally 10 minutes into class. She's banned the use of laptops and cellphones, so I decided, "Well I'm not going to pay attention anyway, and I haven't written a blog in a while so screw it, I'll just handwrite the damn thing."

The thing that sucks is, writing this, I'm paying way less attention to this lady than I would if I were just sitting on my laptop. This is one of two classes that has banned all technology during class time. By giving us this rule that no technology can be used, in my mind, you're not respecting my right to use technology, and whether it's because you don't think i'll pay attention or what, it means you're treating me like a child. I'm a big boy. I'm almost 22. (Yikes!) All in all it means I'm not going to respect you back.

IMeanwhile both of these classes have optional-mandatory online coursework. Meaning, "It's up to you to do the coursework online. But if you don't do it, you'll automatically fail the class." Okay, so I get there's online materials and work, but you're not going to allow me to access any of it during class? Yeah, no. That makes perfect sense to me too.

What it comes down to, is that both of these professors have had "years of experience" in their fields, and are now teaching college courses. Bully for you! But guess what? We don't care! Just because you've been doing your thing for years and are an "expert in your field," it doesn't mean you know how to teach a class/lecture full of college students.

Day 1. Both these teachers ban technology under the ruse that "Multi-tasking doesn't exist!" Claiming studies have discounted it, and that in reality you're just shifting focus rapidly between two or more stimuli. Well... I don't know who let the secret out... but duh! I'm not saying my brain can magically comprehend everything around me, but if I can surf the web, and still take notes, and listen to you when you make a point, that's really all I need to do.

I've talked about multi-tasking and me before, (hyperlink here,) so I'm not going to go into another long tirade. All I'm trying to say is just because you've been in the education field for years doesn't mean you know how to teach. Best professor I ever had didn't care what we did in class as long as we sat and stayed quiet. He didn't take attendance and in fact told students not to come to class if they felt remotely sick. (He had small children.) He made the class interesting, he made us want to show up, and to interact. He respected our ability to learn. So some classes I would sit there, laptop open, and just listen. Then when he made a point, I'd ask a question, and he would just roll with it. He complimented a kid in class for the great drawings he made. He let us do our thing, while he did his thing. I might not have "learned" as much facts or methodology in that class as I've been forced to in others, but I learned how to treat people, how to act, and a lot about life. And that was just talking to him during and after class.

Not letting college students use laptops or cellphones in class is dumb. Our generation, especially the freshmen, has grown up with computers as an integral part of our daily lives. Saying "You can't use a laptop unless you have a note from disability services," is the equivalent of saying, "I know you can type faster than you can write, but the threat of Facebook scares me." It's not practical. I can see where they're coming from with cellphones, but once again, if you respect me enough not to make a big deal about it, I'll keep any texts short, sweet, and I'll go back to listening to you when I'm done. If I miss something, that's on me. I'll take that burden. And if I keep missing things, i'll wise up and save my texting for later. Even the naive freshmen are still adults, so treat students like we give a damn, and maybe we will. But if you're going to give us the "Teacher knows best," routine don't expect us to drop everything and believe you. We're not (all that) dumb. Sure, we'll most likely do as we're told, but you're going to be staring at a sea of dead, uninterested eyes, who most often then not will be staring down pretending to take notes while we text friends or tweet about how much your class sucks.

If there's one thing I've learned from being a comm. major, it's that change is coming. Media is becoming more and more ubiquitous, and is rapidly approaching omnipresence. These professors are tying to teach us as they were taught; trying to fight the times. Stop. We know you don't get this whole "technology" thing. But then maybe it's time to get out of the teaching game. Maybe technology is the reason you got out of your field in the first place, I don't know, but you aren't helping anyone by trying to bust us back to the days where students sat quietly with pencil in hand while the teacher drones on. (I picture the classroom scenes in the Indiana Jones movies.) Moves on, and let our generation do what we do best: use technology. There's a reason you ask for our help when you can't get your computer to work. Time to stop punishing us for it.

Jim

P.S. And if this teacher knew anything, it'd be that there's no public wifi in this building. So... you're dumb. (Link.)

Yeah. I was pretty pissed. Oh well. I take none of it back. Let me know what you think. 

Ode to the Worst Class I've Ever Had The Displeasure of Taking

College is a wonderful place. There's plenty of opportunities, there's plenty of girls (or guys (if that's your thing)) to swoon over, and there's plenty of interesting classes you can take. Unfortunately, after the honeymoon that is most student's freshman year, in my case freshman and sophomore years, you settle down with a major, maybe a minor, and you have to take some classes that aren't so interesting.

Now I don't remember if I've ever gone into detail on my schooling and whatnot, but I'm now officially a Communications major here at the good ol' University of Massachusetts. I'm also unofficially an Education minor. It's a Catch-22 system, where you can't be a minor until you have completed all the courses, and it never tells you what courses you need to take online, because you are not a minor. It's a dumb and flawed system.

But what's more dumb and flawed is one of the classes that I've needed to take. Now I won't go into specifics of when I had to take this class, or which class it is specifically, but let me tell you about it. This class had a promising title, offering to teach us about international things, implying that the general scope would be scattered, you know, internationally. Turns out international, in this context, stands for "Africa, India, and China."

Now, I wouldn't mind studying Africa, India and China, except that's all we did. I was under the assumption that if our teacher was from Great Britain, we might actually take interest in the U.K. and Europe, but apparently I was mistaken. My Bad.

Anyways, this class was painful to go to. Not only did we have the class in a room that always had the heat blasting from 5 gigantic radiators, even during the fall when it was already high 70's, but the class was rarely taught by our actual teacher. Most of the time, we'd walk into class, and we'd have a guest speaker, talking about something irrelevant, and non-consequential to the class. Then a few times, we'd walk in to class only to find that all 8 of the TA's were going to parade up to the front of the class and tell us about all their time spent in the peace corps in, oh wouldn't you look at that! Africa. The few classes she actually taught? Yeah, she just stood up there and talked at us. It was painful.

So that's what happened from a "teaching" perspective for the first few classes. From a "student" perspective I did the following:

• Read a book
• Listened to my iPod
• Played PSP
• Played Trivia/Solitaire on my iPod
• Played Mahjong on my Laptop
• Read the Newspaper

There was no wireless in this building for some godforsaken reason. Who knows why. Perhaps they thought the heat would make us pass out before we tried to use it. Perhaps they were right.

I will take this time to tell you the sole, shimmering gem of wisdom I've gleaned from this class. Having all that time of sitting in class allows one to accomplish tremendous feats. I mastered the alphabet. Backwards. Yes. Through repetitive writing, and filling two pages of paper, I, Jim Redding, have conquered the alphabet both forwards and backwards. I feel accomplished. I also wrote a short screen play for a Star Wars spoof created by my bro-host Kevin and myself. We are thinking of selling it to Robot Chicken. They seem pretty cool.

After the Midterm Reviews, where everyone slammed her for having an awful class, she decided to merge the second and third papers of the class into one final paper. At this point I need to mention the discussion section of the class. The class only met once a week, with a discussion section immediately following the class itself. Two and a half hours of class purely on one subject is brutal, even in the best of classes. This was living in a hellish netherworld where time falls to a standstill and you are prodded with a pointy stick for what seems like eternity.

Now my TA was nice enough. Arguably too nice. Hailing from, oh weird, AFRICA (specifically Nigeria), she was all about being our friend, and us being buddies. So the first couple of classes, we'd go in, and instead of you know, having class, possibly getting through everything so we could get out early, we'd sit down, and have to find a neighbor and ask them, "How was your day?"

Cue the prodding.

This is the last place any of us wanted to be, and we were forced into niceties with strangers, that nobody really wanted to be there with. This eventually escalated into "Friendship Groups" which consisted of 5 people sitting around and asking each other how our days were. This was quickly replaced with us asking each other why they had made the horrible decision of taking this class.

This also might be a good time to note, while after the midterm beat-down, our teacher started teaching, and actually used PowerPoint, we weren't graded or tested upon anything we learned in class. The entire grading system is based on homeworks, done using readings provided to us online, and turned in to discussion. We took a few weeks off after we figured this out, skipping the class and blending in with the crowds as we filtered off to discussion. It was, unfortunately, all too easy, and still horrifically painful.

I have explained to you my rage, and agony I have experienced for participating in this class, but this does it no justice. Should you ever be in a similar position to that of my own, be wary of international classes. I beg of you. Should you ever stumble into a class where there is a promise of "International" and "Learning," be wary. Be very wary.

Lookout: The Lifesaver

So for those of you not in the know, I am the proud owner of the original Droid. It has been a most admirable companion, coming in clutch in many a situation. This past weekend however, we had a very close call.

Going out as some tend to do, on weekends, in college, I found myself walking home in the middle of the evening by my lonesome. Upon arriving home, I reached to check my trusty Droid only to find my right pocket man was not there. Surely my left pocket? Back pocket? Jacket pockets? Alas! My Droid was lost! After a moment of panic, the answer hit me as it so often does. Right in the face.

I bet you watch TV. I bet you see commercials. I will even go so far as to bet that you've seen more than one commercial about the Droid. Perchance you might have seen the Droid commercial about Lookout, Mobile Security. I too have seen this commercial, enough times for it to appeal to my paranoid side, that, "Hey, security is good! I should get some on my phone!" I've got to figure, we've got alarms on cars, anti-virus on computers, low-jack for both, why not on a phone? More importantly, why not on my phone?

As I made a mad dash the two feet from where I was standing to my laptop, I was questioned as to what I was doing. A quick explanation and some mad typing later, and I was on the Lookout website, logged in, and it was in the process of hunting down my phone. It hunted it down to within about 10 feet before I realized I knew exactly where I'd dropped it and set out on a quick jog to go get it. At last my Droid and I were reunited.

It was a scary 5 minutes, but once again, technology saved my ass. This is a PSA to all you smart phone users. I don't care if you're young or old, cause you're just as likely to drop your phone at a party as you are at a business meeting. Either way, Lookout helped me find my phone, and saved me the time and hassle, not to mention the money it'd take to replace my phone. So spend the 2 minutes it takes to find the App on your Droid or Blackberry or Windows Mobile, and save yourself hundreds of dollars and a boat load of stress. As for you iPhone users, maybe you can find a comprable app, but you dumbphone users are outta luck. Just another reason for everyone to get a Droid.

My name is Jim Redding and I approve this message.

Adventures in Radioland

Week 3 of classes is in the hole, but more importantly week 3 of Music Salad Sandwich has blessed the airwaves. If you haven't heard Kevin and my latest adventure on the airwaves, I must say I think we're outdoing ourselves. Last year, our brutal taskmaster of a program director came to us mid-semester and basically told us, "Listen guys, I don't want you playing any music that has ever been played on any other station, and I don't want you talking more than three or four times an show." Fearing for our infant show's life we accepted these terms and conditions.

But now it's a new year, and a new show, with a new program director. We're making the rules this year. As well as having our intern Mariah on the phones Kevin and I really have a lot more of our creative juices flowing at midnight, instead of 2 AM.

Point in case, on our way to the Station last night, we drove by the Rotary by Totman that we see every day. This time I stop to ask Kevin what he thinks is going in the middle of it. Before we even park the car down the road, we've got it. UMass's greatest alumni, back to back buddy cop style. That's right, Bill Cosby and Dr. J. Can you imagine, driving down the longest street through campus, only to find the literal gold at the end of the rainbow? That's right, not only is it an amazing statue, it is also an amazing gold statue. It would make everyone on campus's day. Imagine the nice warm spring sun gleaming upon the golden statue as snow slowly seeps off, revealing the heroes of UMass under the tundra. There would be absolutely nothing better.

Now we know, this idea has not only made your day, but your lives. We get it. This is everyone's dream come true. We don't need a lot of recognition, names on a plaque perhaps. But what we do need, is everybody's signature. If you're interested in this beautiful, priceless statue adorning our unworthy campus, write on the Music Salad Sandwich wall, through either the link up there, the link at the bottom of the page, or http://www.facebook.com/pages/Music-Salad-Sandwich/141646119211523 for all of you who are reading through Facebook and let us know you're interested. Tell your friends, get them in on this. Who knows, maybe we can actually get this dream realized!

Jim's State of The Union

So tonight was the first real night in the apartment. Everyone's settled in. We all woke up and ran some errands. Hung around all day, grilled dogs and burgers while we played a little catch on the front lawn. Then to top it all off we rented Repo Men off OnDemand and had a little movie night. The guys all went to bed, but I'm a bit of a night owl so I'm up and watching the last half of Criminal Intent before SVU comes on in a few minutes.

Being here with the guys, hangin out, talking, broin' out (yes, separate from hangin' out) and even just sitting watching TV makes me realize that this; right here; this apartment, this year, this college, this life, that I am living, is the prime of my days. I arguably couldn't be happier with the situation. I mean, sure, there are things I want to change, like I'm sure I'll dislike a class or two, I'll wish I had a better situation with some girl, and I'll wish I had a bigger budget to buy more video games, but on the whole, I am very pleased with my situation in life as a whole. I mean as far as the good life is concerned, I'm livin' it.

I guess I'm going to keep this one short. But the brevity is not for lack of emphasis. Trust me, the emphasis is there, and there's a whole bunch of it. We're keeping this one short, due to the fact that I think you guys might get a little annoyed with me rubbing it in your faces that right now, my life is incredible.

Procrastinating!

So as I sit here, "packing" and "getting ready to go back to school tomorrow," I'm doing what I do best, procrastinating, and what I do moderately well, blogging (in my opinion.) I can't help but be nostalgic on this summer, which in my books will be known as the summer of SVU.

Sure, the beginning of the summer held trips to Los Angeles, Amherst, and the movies, as well as heart-breaking losses, cherished covers, and theories about Zombies, as well as books galore. I read about 8 or 9 books, plus about 9 or 10 graphic novels. And then, on June 3rd, I was bored, and found that 10 seasons of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit were on Netflix. OOOOHHHH BABY. It took me approximately 74 days, to finish SVU but man, was it worth it. I'd always liked the series, and watching all of the seasons really made me like it that much more. I got to see plot lines beginnings and ends, the characters grow and mature, and the series progress ten years over this summer which has been really cool. Now I miss it. But new episodes start up this fall! :D

I was able to watch this much TV in this much time because of my work schedule. Don't get me wrong, work was all well and good, but every Friday and Sunday for the last half of the summer, I had to get up and go to work, which was definitely a damper when Friday and Saturday nights were the only nights of the week when the guys could hangout. So when they were working Monday through Friday, and not wanting to hang out cause of their early mornings during the week, I had a bunch of time to sit around and hang out with my good friends Elliot, Olivia, John and Fin.

But that's not to say that I wasn't active. I went and gym'd it up for a majority of the summer. Monday through Thursday for reasons already explained. That was a good thing! Right? And work was fun from time to time. Two of my co-workers, Daria and Zack as well as myself decided to make Lacrosse Pennies for the Garden Center. The first ones we ordered were too big, and the second ones aren't done yet but no worries. Next summer.

Next summer will be bigger, badder, and a lot more fun. I'll be 21, friends will be off interning in various places I can visit, and they'll be 21 too! That's not to say I want school to fly by though. With a schedule first semester as sick as this, and roomates like Jake, Andy and my bro-host Kevin (Late Night Window returns Tuesday mornings at Midnight this fall!) this is going to be a fun year. SO PREPARE YOURSELF FOR MORE NERDVENTURES COMING YOUR WAY! UNTIL NEXT TIME!

VIVE LE TROIS DE FIN DE LA SEMAINE!

Dear Everybody:

I turned 20 the other day.

Twenty. Two Zero. Two Decades old.

Seriously. How did I get this old?! People talk about things from '99 and I think to myself every time, "Oh that was what one-two years ago?" before I remind myself, "No it was 11 years ago, it's 2010. Oh yeah, and we still don't have flying cars yet."

Sometimes it really seems like it was only a few years ago when I'd get up bright and early Saturday mornings, sometimes too early, and watching cartoons on TV, sometimes causing my Dad to come out and tell me to turn it down, as it wasn't even 6:30 yet. Then later after everybody was up, and my cartoons started, my Mom'd bring me a glass of Apple juice and a Strawberry Nutri-Grain bar, and threw a blanket on me while I nibbled away, captive to my rigorous schedule of hopping from Fox Kids to watch Digimon, back to WB Kids to watch Pokemon or Yu-gi-oh before returning to Fox Kids to watch some other shows I've now forgotten.

Other times it seems like it could've been a year ago when I was hiding out in my basement, playing away at Donkey Kong 64 on my N64 or Final Fantasy IX on my PSOne, on this crappy TV where you had to turn a knob to get to the plethora of channels such as "3, 4, and 7," but trying to get as much time in, while being as quiet as I could, so maybe Mom and Dad would forget I was down there and wouldn't tell me to go to bed. Even when they knew I wouldn't be able to sleep, and would just sneak out and watch whatever Dad was watching on TV from behind the fireplace where he couldn't see me.

I remember the long hours spent at the huge honking monitor of my ancient desktop computer in the Computer Room in the wee hours after my Mom had gone to sleep, playing some fan-translated Game Boy Advance rom or looking up some strategy on how to complete this epically hard side quest in Kingdom Hearts, like it was only a couple months ago.

I've spent a lot of my life in front of one screen or another. Most of the time with my Mom telling me to turn a light on so I don't go blind, still don't wear glasses by the way, and my Dad probing my thoughts on whether I thought computer programming or video game design, more recently video game reviews, were my future. But nonetheless I wouldn't be me without all those geeky things I've done. So thanks for being enablers Mom and Dad!

Still at other times I feel as though I'm hurtling through life at 88 miles per hour, and I'm going to be out of school and in the real world sooner than I can say "1.21 gigawatts." Pre-school, Kindergarten, Elementary School, Middle Schools, High School, and now College. All in no time at all.

Time is a fickle thing. It seems like yesterday I was in PJ's on my couch, and tomorrow I'll be graduating college. But yesterday I was sitting watching the Red Sox game here at UMass, and tomorrow I'll be figuring out the best way for me to waste the 7 hours between my Comm 222 class and my Comm 297S Action Film Screening. Wasting time is something I've gotten pretty good at over the years.

I just googled "time wasted quotes" because in this future-society that we live in that's all I had to put in before one click brought me to the Bertrand Russell quote I wanted. It's no robot butler, but it'll do.

"The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."

I've enjoyed almost every second of wasting my time on video games, novels, comic books, T.V. and movies. Both by myself, and with friends. So here's to everyone who I've ever talked nerdy to, talked geek with, shared single player with, played multi-player with, or completely nerded out with. Whether it was only for a second, or whether we can't remember when we weren't; Thanks. For everything. I mean it.

And I think that there's only one suitable way to end this post so, "Play me off Keyboard Cat!"

End of Semester Wrap Up: Numero Uno

Now, I have no idea if there will indeed be a sequel to this post come spring, but I figure, Why not? Anywho, The Fall Semester at the Good Ole University of Massachusetts has come to an end. And what a semester it was. Filled with break ups, new relationships, new friends and new classes. Nice and corny right? Well with that out of the way, let me just say this; It was bitchin'.

One of the things I am most proud of is the success of my master plan to get through this semester without books. (Read here.) I haven't gotten all my grades yet, but for the most part I'm thinking I did pretty well. I'll update with that later. Breakdown!

• Food Science: Plan of just getting info from the slides in class worked pretty well. Anything I didn't learn in there was covered in my discussion section. Nothing in the packet would have helped that much, plus not having the packet was a great way to make sure I went to class, which was definitely a bonus. Besides being a bit dull, and sometimes a little gross at times, not too bad of a class.
  
• Greek Myth: That class was awesome. Hands down, best class I've ever taken. Dr. Tuck was a boss, and knew everything I could ever think to ask. I don't know what else to say, I mean I wanted to go to that class every day, and when I couldn't I made sure that I got notes, or worked hard to catch up. Didn't need the book once. I love Greek Mythology, I loved that class, and after I finished the final, I shook Doc Tuck's hand and said a hearty Thank You. Guy said thanks for taking the class, and I took off into the sunset. Okay, not really, but still. Fairytale ending.
• Anthro: Class still straight up sucked. Ended up getting an 86 on the final though which, I can assure you, nearly made me fall off of my chair. The lecture was hardly worth going to, seeing as most of the time I read a book, or did a crossword puzzle in the newspaper, and all the slides containing the minimal information presented ended up online. Only way I ended up doing well was going through the study guide (which was almost as long as the notes I had for the test) and filling in all the information from my words, and from the 20 some odd pages I photocopied out of the book. Seeing as I only needed the words out of the end of the chapters, I copied all of those, along with the review of the chapters, then copied the glossary out of the back of the book. Problem solved. 75 dollar book, meet 3 dollars worth of photocopies. Take that.
• Legal Studies + Honors Seminar: The rules ended up being: Honors Students take 1 of the 2 tests, write 1 of the 2 essays regular length, the other 2 pages longer, skip the final test all together and add 2 pages to the final essay as well. Got a 96 on the 1 test, wrote 1 3 page paper, 2 5 page papers, and showed up. That's it. As class was right before the seminar, I could just pay attention on what I was supposed to read that class, and talk about what we talked about in class after. Easy enough. Don't get me wrong, really interesting class with some cool insights on the Law, but for the most part, the readings were pretty long, we talked about it in class anyway, he gives you the questions for the quizes before the actual quizes, and I didn't want to buy the book. Whenever I needed the book for an essay, I just borrowed it from a friend, or if I had to, the library. (I didn't have to.)
• Astronomy: Not much to say. We just kinda sat there all semester. He talked. Other older kids asked really stupid questions, and every once and a while we went outside. Then we had a quiz on the entire semester at the end which acted as a final. It was 5 fill in the blanks, 8 multiple choice, 2 label the pictures, and 5 short answer.... Yeah. Not bad, but arguably not worth the effort to walk across campus every Tuesday night.

So that's the breakdown. 5 classes, 0 books. Go me right? I'll update this later with grades and stuff so you can weigh how I really did, but for the most part, I'm chalking this one up as a win here team. I urge you to follow in my footsteps, put the money you would spend on textbooks for something more useful, like food and video games. Send schools a message to lower their prices. Study hard, Party harder. Wait. Scratch that, reverse it. Thank you.

I'll update one of these days with my thoughts on some of those sweet, sweet trailers that came out at the VGA's right before finals kicked off, but until then, Merry Christmahanakwanzika and to all a good night.

Update: Got my grades (well most of them) so here's the breakdown for you to decide whether buying books or not is worth it.

Food Science: A-
Legal Studies + Honors Seminar: A
Greek Mythology: A
Anthro: B-
Astronomy: Still Unknown

Looks pretty damn good to me, but hey, you be the judge.

Video did not kill the Radio Star, I'm still here

Oh me, so modest right? Well that's neither here nor there. Well in the recent weeks myself and my good amigo Kevin have been going to the UMass radio station WMUA 91.1 Amherst, and have been going through DJ training. I decided I wanted to do this over the summer, when the only reprieve I had through the monotony that was working at the Marblehead Garden Center was listening to podcasts, specifically The Adam Carolla Podcast, and The Sandbox podcast.

Now the Sandbox podcast is a shortened down version of the radio show The Sandbox on WFNX 101.7 Lynn/Boston. Listening to this show every day (for the most part) got me to thinking. What do I do for the most part? Talk. What do these guys do all morning? Talk. The gears were turning. So I figured, hey why not give it a shot right? So I looked up the info, shot off an email, and forgot about it. A couple weeks went by, and I got a response. All the info about training, when they would be having meetings etc. So I my mind was set.

A month or so later, school started, and the time came for the first meeting. I was pretty much on my way out the door when I saw Kevin. In what I could only assume was out of suspicion of some murderous plot against him, Kevin asked me what I was doing. As I told him, he nodded and said "OK, I'll go with you." I was awestruck. Someone else wants to do the radio? How did I not pick this up all last year? But as I soon learned Kevin was no novice when it came to radio.

Kevin's small town, where we just recently learned they do indeed have cable TV, (A shocker, I know,) also had it's own little radio station run by the high school. Kevin was a DJ there and pretty much had free reign. Their version of giveaways was giving away the class books that were property of the school. That right there's sticking it to the man. But eventually after getting a new antenna the FCC, who had previously ignored their small 1 mile radius station, started taking notice, and made them actually start doing things the "right" way. Lame.

So then Kevin went to college and forgot about it. But then I rekindled it! Whooo! So now we're training and having fun and all that good stuff. We've got our test to see if we get to be DJ's in two weeks I believe. You can wish us luck. If all goes we'll get a show next semester. We don't have a format, and we don't have any idea what genre we want to play, but we figure we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

In the meantime however, we've got access to the production studio and we got a chance to get in there two weeks ago and take it for a test run. So if you feel like wasting an hour and would like to hear me talk about nothing, instead of just reading me write about nothing, give it a download. And if you do please, please, please let me know what you think. Okay? Thanks.

Wow that was a pretty long post for me just to ask you to oblige me. Oh well. :D

Multi-Tasking: Friend or Foe?

I embark on this post, with neither a direction, nor a purpose. Except maybe to alleviate my boredom. As I sit here in class, my professor talking about something regarding Japanese internment camps, and constitutional law, I can not help but turn my attention away. Not because I don't feel as if this topic deserves my full attention, is unimportant, or the professor is unintelligent, but instead because that is what I do.

Now I wouldn't say I have ADD. In fact if I really get into the zone with something it is hard to pull me away. *coughvideogamesandcomicbookscough* I think instead what it is, is that I've almost become dependent on multi-tasking. A self-proclaimed multi-tasking master, more than once this summer, I sat in my room reading a book, watching SportsCenter, and talking to people online. Good times right? But now when I'm stuck in class, listening to my professor talk, I just can't do it. I have to do something else. More often than not I don't have my computer, so I just end up doodling all over my notebook. But with a computer in my hands, I've bounced back and forth between my Facebook, Twitter, and iGoogle about a million times, looking for something to keep me distracted. The only reason I've settled on writing a post is because from my teacher's perspective it probably looks like I'm taking notes very, very adamantly. The fact that I can look up and pretend to nod in agreement while I type does well to enhance this illusion.

But now, I ask for your feedback. As I would very much like some input on this topic. Is it a bad thing that I can't put my full attention on my teacher? Don't get me wrong, I'm still learning, hearing, thinking, but at the same time I've also got a part of my brain working on writing down this entire situation that I'm in. Is it bad that I can't feel my right foot, as it fell asleep a long time ago, and I felt like letting it take a nap? Do you do this same thing? What classes does this happen to you most in? Or can you just walk in to class and enter in to a trance-like state when the professor begins talking, and become some sort of note-taking machine? I'm bored, and I'd be eager to hear your thoughts on this matter of utmost importance.

Starting.....Now!

Psych! Now!

Food Toxicology: Everything you eat will kill you. Sorry.

So as I mentioned in my last post, one of the classes I am taking this semester is Food Science. Now this class is unique in that it is split up into three separate sections. I am not going to bother looking up the other two, but the first section is Food Toxicology.

Now, first things first, this professor literally looks like he's going to keel over at any second, if not that he should already have keeled over. While pacing and postulating back and forth across the lecture hall, pausing at points to change the transparency on the projector ( I don't think he knows what a computer is, but I do believe he fears it is but one of many signs of the upcoming apocalypse,) I consistently believe that there is no possible way he will be able to turn around an make it back to the projector before he falls to the ground dead. Yes he is that old. So as he tries to "teach" the class, I am constantly distracted by the thought that if he doesn't die of old age, he will die of some form of cancer, or one of the many "carcinogens" he is teaching us about.

That being said, from what I can grasp from this class so far, absolutely every food you've ever eaten, yes, even that super healthy protein shake you just had as part of that new diet you're trying, contains "carcinogens", or toxins that will give you cancer and you will die. Or at least that's what the Professor keeps saying. It's only under questioning, or as a brief side-statement, will he drop the fact that in fact these "carcinogens" are pretty much omnipresent in everything, but in fact require huge, almost nonsensical amounts, in order to actually give you the cancer he describes.

He also has talked previously about food adulteration, and how every food you've ever been eaten was most likely at one point in time tampered with by the company that produced it, in order to aid their money making agenda. He then mentioned briefly that this was mainly in the early 1900's and our food now is watched to make sure that it isn't tampered with. For the most part.

This man clearly strikes me as a cynic, and I believe it is this quality that has kept him out of the grave for so long. He has perhaps sworn off all food, and merely now drinks the blood of the purest unicorns in order to keep his flesh alive. But that is neither here nor there. The reason I am writing this post in particular is due to the grim scenario he displayed in class today.

Today's topic for the most part was teratogenesis, or birth defects. After showing a few slides, with some studies that I couldn't really copy down in detail (which I brought upon myself, due to not buying the course packet. Fight the power,) he then proceeded to show about 20 different pictures of rats and monkeys with birth defects. Really.... just..... great stuff.... I really, and I mean, really appreciated teratogenesis after I saw that one deformed rat fetus, that looked more like a chicken nugget, and reminded me of one of those chicken tenders I had for lunch today. Really, an eye opener.

It's probably just me, but I like to look at the upside of things. I am an optimist, and prefer to live in blissful ignorance or at least blissful ignoring things that I know I don't have any control of. So when this professor comes up and starts talking about carcinogens and teratogenesis and about how some carcinogens aren't actually carcinogens, but the second you have something else along with that carcinogen, you're basically going to be a walking tumor, I can't help but get annoyed. I don't want to hear about this. I just want to go grab a cheeseburger, maybe a double cheeseburger, no, probably a double cheeseburger, and go about my business. It's classes like this, and movies like Super Size Me that just annoy me. I mean, don't get me wrong, knowledge is power and all that, but I also believe that there are somethings that the general public is just better off not knowing.

For example, what happens to cows in processing factories is enough to turn any red blooded American steak eating male into a vegetarian. Best thing to do is to just turn a blind eye in my opinion. I mean sure, if someone really wants to know what exactly is in their Happy Meal, let 'em have it. They're asking. But for me? Just put it in the wrapper, put the wrapper in the bag, give me the bag, and let me eat it. I think now-a-days people put too much stock in knowing everything, and being healthy. Being fortunate by having good genes and a quick metabolism, I can pretty much eat whatever I want and be fine. I'm often referred to as the "skinny fat kid" by at least one of my friends. Bully for me, but I also believe in balance. You've got to work out, or at least go for a run if you're gonna eat fast food. It's that simple. And it really grinds my gears when someone comes along with yet another 400 page study detailing the horrific side effects that will come to dominate your daily life, by driving to your nearest burger joint and picking up some food on the go.

WE GET IT. FAST FOOD = BAD.

Everywhere I go someone is telling me, or has posted a nifty sign, about what constitutes a "good" diet. Bite me. If I want a burger, I'm gonna eat a god damn burger. And if I don't go for a run to make up for it, I'll accept the consequences. NOW SHUT UP. I can go on and on. But I fear I've already rambled too far from my original point, being that gross pictures of fetuses and telling you everything you eat is going to give you cancer, is a pretty dumb way to teach a class. Maybe soon I'll give you a rather long rant about how they don't give us full sized cheeseburgers at the Dining Commons anymore, and instead force little Sliders upon us. If you're lucky right?

Jim. Out.

Don't Worry, I'm Still Here or Jim's Master Plan to try and get through this semester without buying a single book.

WHOOOOOOOOO BABY. Sorry bout the delay there folks, but I kinda sorta got swept up in that whole "Hey I'm back at college where I don't have to wake up till 11 every day and can eat and do pretty much whatever I want whenever I want," thing. My bad. But what's important is that I'm still here. For people who care you can find what classes I'm taking right here! Pretty chill right? Anyway, class is awesome for the most part. My Greek Myth teacher has said penis 3 classes running, I get candy for answering questions then stand in a field for an hour in Astro, I don't have to take tests because I'm in the Honors section for my Legal class, I could probably nap through Food Science and Ace it, and Anthro straight up sucks. Other than that everything's good in the hood.

"Now Jim, whats that second title for your blog today all about?" Well, I'm glad you asked. Cause you definitely did. Anywho, so one of the main lessons I've learned from my first year of college was that you don't really need to buy the books that the Professor says that you need. Some classes will put the readings online anyway, others will just review the material in class. There are the occasional few classes where you actually need the book. I might be in two of those classes this semester, but I am gonna do everything I can to get out of that. A few classes last year, I thought I was gonna need the book so I bit the bullet and bought 'em, only to find out that after the first test, where I didn't use the book to study, I could easily not have the book and've been just fine. So I'm going to do everything I can to get out of buying a single book this semester.

Aside from the main, and most pertinent reason, that textbooks are way too overpriced and after you've shelled out your 150 bucks for your one book for one semester, you can return it at the end of the semester for a solid 15 bucks, if that, I've also decided to do this in an attempt to test my theory that you don't actually need a book to do well. That and too see how resourceful I can be. See, I'm pretty sure that they have copies of all the books at the library. The only classes that I think I'm gonna need it for are Anthro and Legal.

• Food Science's book is a packet containing all the slides, I can subvert that by going to class.
• Astronomy, our quiz is on the constellations. And we get candy. Nuff said.
• Greek Myth, I think that I know enough already, and if I take notes and do the readings online I think I'll be fine.

The problem is Anthro. Mainly. Anthro I've got to do a Word list from the end of every chapter due Monday of every week. They're not online, and for the first two weeks, when they were because the professor wanted to be sure everyone got the book, I looked up the words online, and ended up guessing for a solid 25% of 'em. But I'll check the Library and if they've got it in there I'll see if I can't check it out, do all the word lists, or at least a solid few for a while. Besides that, there's Legal. I think I can get away with not getting the book, as most of the questions he asks us are more on our thoughts on the subject than the details of the subject itself. The Honors section is going to be hard though. I think most of those readings are going to be online, and the few that aren't I think I can borrow a friends book. (I've got 3 friends in another section of the class.) So. I think I can do it. I know that Zero of you few out there care, but this is a pertinent subject in my life right now so I thought I'd share. Anyway it was a good way for me to break back into this whole blogging thing. Ight. I'll hit you guys all up on the flipside.
Later hombres!

My Thoughts: Alcohol

First things first, I will not be talking about alcohol and myself, or anything related to that. Perhaps I'll cover that someday down the road.

Moving on, what I want to talk about is the Drinking Age. You hear it everywhere. "21 means 21." Well over in most parts of Europe "21 means you've been drinking for a while now." I personally believe that the drinking age should be lowered to 18. Or if I'm really hoping on hopes, lower.

Reason 1: You can vote, why can't you drink? Would somebody be able to guide me through the logic that an 18 Year Old has enough sense, reason, and maturity to be able to vote for the President of the United States along with other elected officials, as well as serve in the Armed Services, but isn't smart or reasonable enough to handle and willingly imbibe alcohol? I would have to say that's kind of messed up, wouldn't you?

Reason 2: College. Most people either went to college, visited a friend at college, heard about college from a friend, or just sat down and watched Animal House. The point being that everyone, and I mean everyone, knows what goes down at colleges in terms of parties and the like. Kids go off to college, and they become immersed in this subculture of a drinking hierarchy. Everyone goes to school during the week, then Friday night comes along, and everyone goes out to party. (Okay, not everybody, but enough that I make a valid point.) I know at UMass there's some crap statistic floating around on different posters around Campus saying "3 out of 4 UMass Students know how to have fun without Alcohol. Do you?" First of all; Yeah I do. Second, I also know that all four of those students probably know how to have fun with Alcohol too. Plus, that they get this statistics from mandatory classes that have to be taken after students get busted for Alcohol tends to make these statistics invalid or at the very least heavily skewed.

Back to my point though, Parents send their kids off to College knowing that they're going to be all around drinking, and that they're not going to be there to watch over their shoulder. So it's best to let them just drop into this new setting, not knowing how to drink, and let those Frat Boys show them how to do a keg stand, right? Were the drinking age to be dropped to 18, most students tend to turn 18 their senior year of High School, when they still live under their parents Sauron-like gaze, which would allow parents to set a good example. That couple of months should be long enough for parents to give their kids some idea of how to drink responsibly. And if you don't think so, what's wrong with you that you can't sit down for maybe 1 night and tell your kid that drinking too much alcohol is bad for them? All I'm saying is that kids are going to school and most likely will be drinking before the age of 21. If you'd like them to learn how to drink from Frat Boys and other excess drinkers and party goers, keep 21 21. But I think it'd be a lot more reasonable to have kids learn how to drink under their parents than under Brother Buster at Beta Tau Omega.

Reason 3: Not every kid is as dumb as you give them credit for. Lots of people tend to have a big argument about lowering the age as 18 year olds simply aren't smart enough to handle this huge responsibility. Well maybe if you treated it more like a responsibility and less like a privilege, less people would take it for granted. I'll put it like this. Hypothetically, if the age were lowered, maybe even lower than 18, and younger kids were taught that alcohol wasn't to be abused, but used in moderation, and were allowed to experience this in little steps as they got older, they wouldn't just have this idea of alcohol as the forbidden fruit that the American School and Police system make it out to be. I remember back in the day sitting in my 5th grade classroom with the D.A.R.E. officer coming in to tell us all about how drugs and alcohol are bad. He was basically like, "Well Alcohol is horrible and you should never use it ever, but when adults drink it, because we're old and mature and can handle it, it allows us to relax, and have a better time hanging out with friends." Or at least that's what I remember. Given that description, kids would be dumb to not try it to prove how mature they were. If you were to ease kids into it instead of making it out as this Golden Apple, I am positive that it would definitely lose most of the allure that young kids see in it nowadays. It's only a big deal because some jackhole decided to make it a big deal. If you treat your kid like he or she is adult enough to handle it, they'll do everything they can to prove to you that they are in my opinion.

I could go on, but I know that some people have their minds all made up, and will disagree with what I said, as I am set in my way about this. So if anyone cares to write back and explain how flawed I am in my thinking, I would thoroughly enjoy getting into a heated debate about it, but otherwise I've said my thoughts. Jim out.