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.

There is something to be said about Tiger Moms.

Here's my phone history for one day.
Incoming calls:
11:12am
11:46am
11:55am
2:52pm
3:35pm
7:23pm
8:07pm
10:20pm
All from one person. My mother.
You know, checking up on your kid to see how they're doing is perfectly fine. I have friends whose parents call them once or twice a day. But 8 times? That's a bit much.
There's something to be said for tiger moms.
Ah, for those who don't know the term, here's my definition.
Tiger mom: Mother who's parenting style involves incredibly high standards, disapproving statements/glares, and attempts to control all aspects of child's life.
Aka: Asian mother.

Being half Chinese with a very White father places my mother into this lovely category.

Now don't get me wrong, I appreciate being raised with a tiger mom. Seriously. Would I be starting a career playing the flute if my mom did not FORCE me to practice everyday for at least an hour or else I would have no computer/talking-to-friends-on-the-phone/sanity? Probably not. I hated that instrument for months before I realized that somehow along the way I had improved. The same goes for piano, which I played for an hour every day since I was 6. I would sit there and practice, even if my friends came over to play, I couldn't leave until the kitchen timer rang to say "Hey! You have freedom now!" Of course, if I hadn't improved on the piece since I started, I'd still have to practice until I got it right.

My mother, like many other tiger moms, also had a strict belief in the power of homework and perfection. I was not allowed any grades less than an A. I can remember coming home with a report card in third grade that showed straight As, with an A+ in both English and Science. My mother exclaimed: "What is this? You should have all A+s. I never got anything less than an A+ in school." She monitored my homework, and on the days in which I did not have an assignment, she would make one. Thank you Georgia University for granting her a master's degree in education, because she thought this gave her the authority to give me extra assignments. Between extra math assignments (that were always more complicated then what we were learning in class), repeating letters of the alphabet to "improve my terrible handwriting" (which, stayed horrifically akin to chicken scratch), and several pages of Chinese letter writing, I stayed fairly busy.

The biggest difference between western parents and Asian parents is how the child is given reinforcement. I have had friends that got 5 dollars for each report card that came back with mostly As and Bs. After concerts their parents would say "great job! It was wonderful!" My mother scoffed at parents paying their children for "doing mediocre", and after my concerts she'd exclaim "that was wonderful! But you could have improved on...." Western parents tend to give positive reinforcement in order to help their child understand how to improve. Chinese parents believe that this babies the child, and doesn't help them prepare for the "real world". Telling the child that "you can always do better" supposedly gives them the constant desire to improve. While this is true, I know for myself and other Asian raised children, this attitude also gives the child extremely low self esteem. I still battle with the constant feeling that I am "not good enough" for my mother, whether she agrees or not.

All tiger moms have one final and all encompassing rule. They determine your future. You want to be a dancer? Too bad, you're a doctor. Luckily for me, being a classical musician was one of the chosen career fields my mother had in store for me. My other choices were: marine biologist, geneticist, engineer, teacher, or pharmacist. For a while I wanted to be a graphic designer, and my mother shot that down as soon as physically possible. I have several friends faced with the same situation. Their college, and future career, is all determined by their lovely tiger moms.

Tiger moms may seem extreme to many people, but for me at least, this was the norm. Her constant "I need to know where you are at all times!" (hence the calling 8 times a day), and her "you can always improve" stems from one thing. Love. Believe it or not, this harsh way of raising a child is all a product of love. Tiger moms sincerely believe that everything they do will eventually help their child in the long run. This may be true. But tiger moms also create scars that will never heal. Many Asian children drop all contact with their parents as soon as they become independent, a trend that is currently scaring the aging Chinese population. Many Asian teens suffer from low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety.

I'm not saying that tiger moms are wrong. They look at western mothers, particularly the ones that let their children eat junk food and watch tv all day, and say "look how much better I am at raising my child!" They watch their child "succeed" in their terms and are proud of their work. And who can blame them? Having a child grow up and become a surgeon is an accomplishment. But I think there must be a middle-ground somewhere. Having children gain successful jobs without the low self-esteem would be an accomplishment. The method though, is still unnamed.

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.