READ THE BOOK.

I happen to have a project now that I need to get done with two other individuals. Everything was going okay. We got the books needed to gather our information, and I was skimming through and taking notes.

And then this happened.

"Ugh, I can't believe this. I can't understand this. I hate it when you have to read these."

Really?

You're a college student - and you can't read a non-fiction book and understand it?

What the hell?

Are we so accustomed to professors spoon feeding our information through bullet points that actual college students can't take information from a book?

This cannot be right.

I do not care if you're better at math or science than you are at history.

All you have to do is READ THE BOOK. Its that simple. You don't even need to deduce conclusions from your information - you just need to READ THE INFORMATION.

GAH.

Please shut the fuck up.

Class eats up my life. I wanted to start the whole school year off with my rants about education, but I haven't had time to write something that uses that much research.
Instead I wanted to rant about this.
So bear with me.

Some sounds are just annoying. Squeaky mechanical pencils. Nails on a chalkboard. Or my personal bane-of-existance = foam rubbing together (ugh!)

Imagine this. You're sitting in a classroom where everyone is talking. The teacher has just walked in and hasn't started doing anything yet. The teacher's pet, a dumpy girl with squinty eyes and mouse brown hair, screeches "shut up!" Her voice is worse than nails on a chalkboard, its high, nasally, and causes everyone to glare in her general direction. Quite simply, she has a bad voice.

Bad voices suck. They're grating, high pitched (most of the time), and make you want to smack the person vocalizing in the face. You hear them speak, and you watch as everyone's eyes in the room twitch just a little, they clench up, and pretend nothing occurred. The worst part? They almost always belong to someone that you can't just say "shut up" to. Like a teacher, drill officer, or cheerleader. (fuck you cheerleaders, fuck you. You drive me insane.)
The worst possible situation is when this person decides to tell you to do something in a commanding way. "Get in line!" or "Hurry up!" are some of my favorites. Even if you like them, their voice just makes you want to say: "Why? I don't have to listen to you!" and again, makes you want to smack them in the face. Instead, you smile, twitch, and keep everything under control.
My other least favorite type of "bad voice" is the one that belongs to "that girl." You know who she is. Everyone knows at least one (or more) of these. She's the one that says "like omg no way", in the loudest, highest voice possible - just in so they could make sure anyone in a 5 mile radius could hear their dramatic story. Most of the time about being drunk. Or fucking. Shit that no one wants to hear. This girl makes me want to stab her and her clones every day, and she has NO FUCKING CLUE WHY.
The sad thing is - there's nothing you can do to change the situation. No matter what you say, they will always have that same friggin voice. It will always suck. We will always cringe. And there's no avoiding them because bad voices seem to be a fucking epidemic these days.

So please, if you recognize that you have one of these voices:
Shut the fuck up.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS WONDERFUL, READ.

This summer I had the pleasure of going to see "Shakespeare on the Green", a wonderful event in which two of Shakespeare's plays are done in their entirety in the middle of a park. It is lovely. The show I got to see was A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is undoubtedly one of my favorites. I was, in a word, ecstatic about the opportunity.
To watch the show, I decided to go with my boyfriend, and meet up with some of my friends, and some of their friends whom I did not know. For those involved, you know who you are, I love you, and I am glad to have seen the show with you. HOWEVER. During our "before show games", there was one girl whom I knew I would not be able to stand talking to. This is a rather harsh statement. I hadn't met this girl before, and yet she managed to say something so horrid that I absolutely could not stand her presence. This is that statement:
"Oh, I don't read, I just watch movies."

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS WONDERFUL, READ.

What?
Are you kidding me?
You don't read?

Reading is like this:

They open your mind. They transport you to another world. They can expand your horizons and give you a way to escape the mundane. They engage your mind, instead of just letting "colors and anger" smack you in the face for hours.
I cannot say how many hours I've spent, just sitting and reading a good book.
As Andrew Ross once said: "The smallest bookstore still contains more ideas of worth than have been presented in the entire history of television."
Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone read a book every time Jersey Shore came on?

It would be fucking magic.

On another note, Borders is shutting down for good. I was seriously depressed when I found out about this. I mean really, Borders is my favorite book store. Barnes and Nobles just doesn't compare for me. So its basically a tragedy.
But the one good thing that came out of this?
Epic book sale.

I've bought at least 8 books since the clear-out sale has started, and I couldn't be happier about my purchases.

So seriously,
Take advantage of this sale. Go get some books. READ THEM FOR GOODNESS SAKE, don't just turn them into a pretty coaster.

On Bad Habits

Bad habits. We've all got em. Whether we like to acknowledge them or not, they're still there. Kinda like ignoring someone in hopes that they'll get the hint and leave. In which they don't.

I think summer magnifies bad habits. It's like the excessive amount of sun makes generally lazy people worthless piles of shit, annoying people more useless things to jabber about, and so on.

Here's my bad habit: Saying I'm going to do something and not doing it.

During the school year I could say: I'm doing these classes, this for lunch, this amount of practice, study these things, and then I'll watch this movie and go to bed. And I'd do the classes, maybe the lunch, most of the practice, some of the studying, and probably not the movie.

The summer is much, much worse.

In the summer I have TONS of time. But because I'm not on a schedule, I can never do what I wanted to do, because I don't have to plan it into a 1-2 hour time slot.

For example: today I wanted to make sea salt icecream earrings, get to the next chapter in my book for my music class, and practice my flute.

I accomplished getting through a chapter.

And what prevented me from making earrings/practicing?
I'm not quite sure. I somehow ended up going out to some stores, bought some fruit at a fresh produce stand, and doing a whole lot of nothing on the internet. Not all that productive. Kinda fun, but definitely not what I planned.

On a larger scale, during the summer I always say I'm going to do something BIG. Like a road trip to Kansas City. Or skydiving. Going to the pool (not all that big...but I always manage to forget to go...) Working on my novel (also not big, definitely something I should do, but never do) or have a huge party with my friends.

I never do these things. I plan them out a lot of times. I spend mass amounts of time just thinking about doing them, but I never actually do them. I think this might just be another symptom of my current status: being a lazy pile.

I suppose this week I'll attempt to accomplish something. Or maybe I'll just think about accomplishing something. Either way, I'll be letting my terrible habits take over. After all, it is summer, so I'll blame that until fall comes.

....thats probably another bad habit, isn't it?

Spring Break

It's the week before spring break.
We are tired.
We've been banging our heads against exams and projects and essays, the everyday monotony of worksheets, readings, and practice (for my fellow music majors).
A lot of us are ready to give up.
Some of us already have - with failing grades or just general lack of interest in learning anymore.
Whoever came up with spring break was genius. The students need it. So do the teachers.
In fact, most people in general just need a break during the spring.
Wanna know a "not-so-well-known" fact about spring break?
It's partially here to save your life.
Seriously.
Quite simply, the toll of everyday life tends to really hit people in the springtime. They've been working their asses off, dealing with all the stress that comes along work/college/school/relationships/etc, and when those birds start chirping again something just clicks in their brain.
Like a bullet.
Yup, springtime is actually when the rate of suicides (especially in college students) takes a significant spike.
So seriously,
TAKE A BREAK.
Don't just use spring break to study just as hard, or to take on extra work.
Do yourself a favor, and have some fun.