Wait, wait, I know this isn’t all that original. “A college student procrastinating on important college work? Oh me, oh my.” But hold on and just read the damn post. Humor me.
Indeed, “Procrastination” is my middle name – a middle name I’m sure I share with plenty of you, college students or otherwise.
As you may remember, I recently started a new post series called “I Regretfully Regret” - which was supposed to be weekly, but cut me some slack. I’m a lazy college student, remember? This week, my Regretful Regret is cramming for a physics midterm and here is why:
Physics is damn tough.
What the hell is Bernoulli’s equation again?
When did my handwriting get so bad?
Crap, I can’t figure out half of what I wrote down for notes
Is that a “t” or a “w”?
Calculator… battery dead? Nooooooooo… Must scramble through a dozen and two drawers to find batteries.
1:43 a.m. – if I finish in half an hour, I’ll still get approximately 5 hours and 47 minutes of sleep
2 hour session of alternating among studying, YouTubing, and crying
4:12 a.m. – can still get 3 hours and something something minutes of sleep [oh no, my math skills have died]
Inject emergency caffeine supply into arm. Head to class.
Stay in school, kids, and practice healthy study habits.
Yeah, right.
What is a recent Regretful Regret you have? If you’re a student, do you have any school-related regrets to share? (Don’t lie – we know you have plenty). Share them in the comments!
Oh what a beautiful morning. The birds are a-singin’ and the sun is a-shinin’. It’s Sunday, the second Sunday of May, which means I’ve got no work or school and can spend the rest of the day in my jammies watching Downton-
Sonofabitch.
You’ve been there. Nobody’s so perfect that they remember all the “important” non-holidays (unless you’re Leslie Knope). And if you’ve forgotten about Mother’s Day [again], you’re already on yo momma’s naughty list, so here’s how to prepare to soften the inevitable shit storm. (And if your mother’s like my mother, it’ll be one of them passive-aggressive shit storms. Oh boy.)
…Right?
Step 1. Frantically search for a last minute gift.
If it were Thursday or Friday, the Internet would be your best friend, where you can find something fast and ship it overnight in time for Mother’s Day. But because you’re a forgetful, procrastinating bastard – no judgment – Amazon, Etsy, and eBay are no help to you. This means you’ll need to actually get off your mother-hating ass and go out to buy a gift. Either that or make a gift.
Step 2. Believe that you can make a gift on the spot.
If you happen to be creative and have the resources, go ahead and do your thing. You’ve just saved your sorry hide on this Mother’s Day. However, if you’re not one of them artsy fartsy, creative types, this will not end well. Your mind will scramble through your elementary school memories of arts and crafts time, trying to come up with something to make. Sorry, a construction paper card with a crayon outline of your hand with a face drawn on it ain’t going to cut it this year. How about looking up “Mothers Day Gift Ideas” on Pinterest? Don’t kid yourself. You can’t make any of that crap.
Step 3. Give up on the creativity and go buy something.
Arts and crafts are for more sophisticated folk. What you need to do now is hit your local market. Ideally, you’ll go to a Tiffany’s or a whatever-has-expensive-crap shop. Most likely, you’ll just go to a Target or a Hallmark store. Hell, you should just settle on a Walgreens. This is your mother we’re talking about. She’ll understand. (No, she won’t.)
Some gift ideas:
$25 gift card to Red Lobster
A [tall] frappe-mocha-cinno with cream and stuff from Starbucks
Hallmark card that comments on how she doesn’t look a day over than 25
Bag of beef jerky from 7-Eleven [Original Hickory flavor]
Tupperware from Walmart
Step 4. Present your sorry self and even sorrier gift to your progenitor.
Wait for it.
Step 5. Brace yourself. Because you’ll never heard the end of it.
Yep, if you aren’t spun around on your heels and given a forceful foot against your derriere out the door, you’ll just have to take the verbal beatdown that your mother will no doubt give you. For days. If not years. Good luck.
Have you ever forgotten to do/get something nice for your mother on Mother’s Day? If you’re a freakin’ goodie-two-shoes, what did you do/get for her? Share your stories in the comments!
Allow me to ease myself into the supple contours of your mind whilst tracing tantalizing sentences along the creamy arch of your-
Ok, now that you’re fully aroused, let’s talk about Fifty Shades of Grey.
This treasure of English literature has been giving house moms and post-Twilight teens lady erections since 2011 and it’s been covered high and low, parodied, and read aloud by Gilbert Gottfried and George Takei(oh my-y-y-y). Even with all the rabid hubbub surrounding the series, my personal integrity beat out my curiosity to read the overexposed series – until recently.
I gave in, goddammit. I just had to see what all the hype and commotion was about. Could it really be that bad?
Folks, I’ll say what thousands upon thousands have said before me: WHAT THE FRICK DID I JUST READ?
Now, if you’ve been living under a rock locked in a safe buried at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, let me briefly get you up to speed:
The story started out as Twilight fanfiction [Can already tell it's bad]
Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey are the two sparkling vampire lovers characters we’re supposed to give a flying fart about [What the hell is up with their names?]
The charismatic, Adonis-like sparkling Grey becomes attracted to One Direction’s “You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful” Steele because E.L. James said so [Look up: Mary Sue]
Fifty Shades of Grey has been on The New York Times Best Sellers List for 57 weeks. [Their summary: "An innocent college student falls in love with a tortured man with particular sexual tastes; the first of a trilogy."]
The Fifty Shades series has been responsible for the death of over a trillion brain cells (and counting) and should not be read before operating heavy machinery, while pregnant, or ever. Ever. [Validity of claims pending verification]
If you want to read detailed reviews of the book, look elsewhere. Google that shit because you’ll find a gazillion of articles and threads about how awful the books are. And, of course, you’ll also find the abysses of crazed fans, who swear by the holy greatness of the series. Proceed with caution.
All right, I have to be honest, I didn’t actually read the whole series. And to be totally honest, I didn’t even finish the first book. Why? Because I have better means of rotting my brain and pummeling my soul to a pulpy heap than reading the rest of that vacuous crap. While Twilight was silly, I actually enjoyed the first book when I was 11-12ish. It was entertaining, as simplistic as it was in its style. Fifty Shades, on the other hand, is not only silly, it’s downright idiotic. Like Twilight, the super hot guy falls for the absolutely ordinary girl who’s supposedly way hotter than she thinks she is. The dialogue is atrocious – what you’d expect out of a cheap porno (not that I’d know what that’s like). The characters have less depth than Flat Stanley and the story- there is no real story. It’s all an excuse to write unrealistic and demeaning sex scenes.
Here’s a guy on YouTube doing several pretty good impressions while reading actual excerpts from Fifty Shades of Grey (Warning: NSFW language):
Still a better love story than Twilight? Well, ladies and gentlemen, I think we’ve found the exception.
What do you think of the Fifty Shades series? Have you actually read it? (If not – GOOD. RUN WHILE YOU STILL CAN.)
I’m sitting at a Starbucks on an average day in the Pacific Northwest, waiting for my next class to start. The ominous monocloud has returned, looming over the plaza. I’m wigging out and it has nothing to do with the weather. This is normal meteorological phenomena. It’ll probably be cloudless and sunny tomorrow.
The real reason why I’m wigging out is because of them.
There’s a knitting club seated in the comfy chairs across from and around me. They’re knitting (indeed) and chattering and laughing and just being loud. To be honest, they’re not that much louder than the surrounding din of Starbuckers, but something about these women are inordinately grinding my gears.
What is it?
I’m still trying to figure it out.
On one level, they remind me of the suburban housewife-y lifestyle that I am trying to dodge for my future. The idea of spending the rest of my life flitting from mundane activity to mundane activity terrifies me. That’s not a joke. Living in the suburbs attending to a breadwinning hubby and 2.06 children, while going to mommy clubs ain’t this gal’s idea of a happily ever after. (Not that this girl believes in “happily ever afters,” but excuse my jadedness.) Back to the knitters – they were irritating the hell out of me. Can’t a girl read in peace at a busy metropolitan Starbucks? I mean, really.
However! Yes, there is a “however” to this tale.
The true reason why this little social gathering was bothering me so much – this took me a while to see – was because they were just that: social. Flabbergasted, my conscious mind huffed and puffed up her chest. What? What does that mean?
Subconscious: It means you’re a social retard.
Conscious: Hey, that ain’t very PC to say. And all right, I may be relatively introverted, but I can hold my own in social situations.
Subconscious: But when was the last time you voluntarily attended one of these so-called “social situations”? Sitting around in the student government office eavesdropping on people doesn’t count.
Conscious: *sputters* Well, I never… There was that one time with the people at the place… with the stuff…
Subconscious: Admit it. You’re socially retarded.
Conscious: I am not. I’m fine just the way I am.
Subconscious: I didn’t say you weren’t fine. You’re just socially inept. You’re uncomfortable with socializing and pretend to be above all that small-talk-chitter-chatter. It’s a defense mechanism. Stop being in denial.
Conscious: I am not in denial!
Subconscious: …
Conscious: That’s not fair.
Subconscious: Admit it. And then write a blog post about it.
Conscious: Screw you.
Subconscious: And stop pretending that guy sitting off to the side in the green and grey argyle isn’t cute.
The main point is that I’ve come to realize the reason why I disdain many social gatherings is because I feel left out. It’s not even that people around me don’t like me (for the most part). A lot of the time, it’s just me sabotaging myself, making excuses about why I can’t or shouldn’t participate. The irritation I feel when I witness events like knitting circles is not superiority – it’s inferiority. The pride in being lonely and supposedly self-sufficient is nothing more than a defense mechanism. Instead of fixing my loneliness by reaching out and being social, I’ve developed a way of shrinking back into myself and shunning everyone else. It’s like being the fox in the Aesop’s fable of the sour grapes. I can’t reach the grapes, so they must be sour and bad anyway.
But what’s so sour about them? The knitting circle is a group of women, who come together to chat and unite in something they all enjoy doing. What’s so wrong with that? Nothing. It’s perfectly fine. It should be refreshing to see hints of communal interaction in our society of individualism and solitude. Isn’t it funny how we’ve been virtually trained to laugh at super nerd herds [see: Big Bang Theory] and appraise the self-serving, self-made man [see: any top dog CEO]? Community is community – barring hate groups (I’m lookin’ at you Westboro Baptist Church) – and we need to encourage people to band together, not disparage it. This is something I’m slowly, but surely working on.
We need to stop yucking their yums and get over ourselves:
What yums do you yuck? What yums of yours do other people yuck? Are you more of a social butterfly or a reclusive hermit crab? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences!
April 15th was the deadline to file your taxes. Whoop-dee-freakin-doo.
And April 20th is the extension you get when your taxes are rejected.
Alas, my taxes had been rejected. Something to do with me neglecting to list myself as a dependent for my parents. Fun stuff. However, I don’t really feel like talking about taxes. It’s boring. Unless you’re a lifeless accountant or hyper-enthusiastic IRS agent, you probably don’t want to read a whole lot more about taxes either. So let’s pretend taxes are like Fight Club – albeit a drier, Brad Pit-less, but equally blood-curdling Fight Club. First and second rules: don’t talk about taxes.
And we’re done talking about it!
Instead, let me update you on what’s been happening with my jolly exciting life. (Huzzah for mundanity).
As you may or may not have noticed, depending on your level of patience with my manicness on this blog, I haven’t posted in almost two weeks. Why? Well, I wish I could tell you that I have been off on adventures of Indiana Jonesian proportions, but then I feel the tip of my nose would probably zoom into my computer screen and end up through yours. I ain’t a real boy, Ms Blue Fairy.
No, what I’ve actually been doing are school-related excitements (read: not-so-exciting-drivel) wrapped in trying to maintain a healthier social circle. You see, a college student has the options of good grades, a social life, and sleep – but we can only pick two of the three. Since I’m already prone to bouts of insomnia, I figure I’ll try out the combo of balancing academics and socialization. All work and no play makes the student an axe-wielding maniac dependent on alcohol to get her through the day. (Not that I have any experience in such things, axe-wielding, drinking, or otherwise).
In addition, I have been working with a friend on a new blog, which I will share with y’all as soon as it’s as presentable as a bowl of chili in a chili-tasting contest (what the hell kind of simile was that, goddammit, I’m rusty). It’ll be a forum for exchanging knowledge and talking about society, evolutionary patterns, and observations of life in general – with a bit of humor here and there, as always.
This is a piece of crap update, but it’s an update nonetheless. Better than a jab with a pointy stick. Or perhaps only just as good as a wink to a blind bat…*
Now we return to your scheduled programming.
*Mega Points to the first one to name the reference
Feels like we haven’t had a heart-to-heart in a while. Care to update me on what’s been going on with you? Spill them beans!
