TwentysomethingTeen

"There Will Be Blood" Really Wasn't That Good.

2008-01-28T18:52:00.000-06:00

Sigmund's watching Scrubs right now. What is with that show being syndicated on at least x>4 different stations? And what is with Zach Braff always sounding like Kermit T. Frog when he narrates?

I took a nap yesterday for the first time since last school year. Wierd, isn't it? Well, I sure think so. Of course, that's mainly dependent on me making day-to-day observations on myself, most of which you (the reader) wouldn't have a clue about. Enough lame witty-ness.

Anyway, this nap right, well It was one of those 100% REM naps, where you dream the entire time and wake up feeling Elmer Fudd probably does after he gets leveled by a cement truck driven by Bugs Bunny. After reflecting on it upon awaking, I realized that I don't think I took one nap last semester nor did I take one last summer. It's sad, really. So before going to work today, I decided to make it 2 in a row. Granted today's was only 15 minutes, but it still felt great.

Sticking with my inadvertant theme of reverse chronological order, I had a rude awakening this morning. I walked out the front door of my building and saw the body of a dead, black'n'bloodied cat on the sidewalk. Car musta hit it, methinks. Anyway, there's a little porch area by the front steps with about 1 foot of open space underneath it. A family of cats, which is composed of a mom and at least 3+ little ones, has lived under there since I moved in. If my memory serves me right, I believe this catty was part of the Under-the-Porch Family. And seeing as it was fairly large, I think it might have been the mother. Don't worry though, I have noticed over the last week or so someone in the building had been setting out those annoying little circle cans of cat food for them. So, hopefully they saw the dead cat this morning and are now extra-motivated to keep putting food out for the little guys. Come to think of it, they must be starving by now. It's pretty cold out, and I don't think they have hunting skills yet. I should probably be driving over to PetCo right not and buying them food instead of writing this. Sadly though, I don't like cats.

Which leads me to another point:

Is anyone else consistently annoyed/semi-angered with those cat food commercials that personify cats to a higher-than-human level? You know which ones I speak of. Usually, they have a very smooth, lower talking woman doing the voice over. Laid on top of this is multi-camera-angled, slow motion footage of a cat with disgustingly-perfectly combed hair, prancing around on top white, leather furniture. And then the cat food, which looks like it was cooked up at Magianos, is ever-so daintily scooped into a sparkling, crystal serving dish. Does anyone understand this? These are cats, not royalty from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. And furthermore, does this marketing strategy really encourage people to buy these types of cat foods for their kitty? If you ask me (and since I'm writing this, I sure am asking me) it encourages me to not even buy a cat in the first place. Ugh. I really dislike those critters.

Capping off this backwards entry, I missed my 9am last Thursday. I set 5 alarms on my cell phone, but it was on "silent." Apparently, alarms on Motorola's Slvr phone don't go off when it's on silent. What's with that? I know it technically might make sense what with it being called "silent" and all, but it's an alarm. It's susposta make noise. And to really put the frosting on the brownie, I even set my alarm clock (who uses those anymore? I know) incase my cell phone alarms didn't go off. Of course, I failed to switch it to the "on" position. Oh for six. So, hopefully I won't have the same problem tomorrow. Knowing me though, I will.

What To Do... What To Do.

2008-01-24T23:08:00.000-06:00

I was going to write this post on how annoyed I am with TA's and the administration at U of I right now. But that's no fun.

I watched a video for an online class I'm in today called "Globalization and Workers." Sounds fun, huh?!

Not really, not at all.

It was disgusting, actually. Sweatshops to me have always been a very removed thing. Kind of like Heath Ledger's private life from the public, till he burst on the scene, having passed away. So sad, really. So sad. Anyway, after watching this 35 minute video, I got up, looked at my Gap jacket, American Eagle corduroy pants, Banana Republic shirt, and shuddered. I felt sick.

Here's some quick facts on Bangladesh:

- over 2 million workers in the garment industry
- about 90% of these are women
- typical work day is 8am to 10pm
- all workers must work 7 days a week
- "overtime" means working from 8am till 3 am
- "overtime" days are typically done 3-4 days in a row
- workers work about 15 "overtime" days a month
- on these overtime days, workers sleep in their factory, leaned up on their sewing machines
- they are lucky to get 2 days off a month
- most make 10-17 cents/hour (contrary to popular opinion, this is not a lot of money in their country)
- if any are seen talking with or about a union, they are immediately fired

and best of all...

- workers say that if they could only make 34 cents/hour, they could move from "misery" to "poverty"

Imagine how this is tearing apart families across their country. Mother's don't even get to know or spent time with their children. Eckh.

I don't think I'm ever going to buy anything ever again. And that's the worst part; everything in the US is made from exploiting workers in 3rd world countries. How do you think wal-mart keeps their prices low? Everytime they roll back prices, they roll back Human Rights across the world.

At one Bangladesh factory that made Disney clothes, workers went on strike because of their conditions. What was Disney's response? Cut-and-run. They abandoned the factory and moved it to a different country. Their message: Either do what we want, or you won't have any job to do at all. This response is not an atypical thing; it is an across the board standard for any company whose workers strike.

Sick, huh?

I can say for all the times that I've seen sweatshops mentioned on the Nightly News, they're never shown like this. And the condition of the homes the workers lived in... deplorable. I won't even get into that. All's I'll say is to just imagine your entire freshman year dorm floor living in 3 dormrooms instead of 30 with one bathroom in a bamboo shack built above large ponds of stagnant water filled with sewage. Oh, and that water is your drinking water, too.

Another interesting fact: Many of these multinational corporations spend their money on public relations employees in the US whose sole job is to make sure their company maintains a good reputation amongst the American public. Essentially, the jobs of these PR employees is to pull the wool over our eyes. Anyway, I'm pretty sure, and I don't have any definite facts to back this up, but I'm pretty sure that these companies (Disney, Nike, etc) could raise the pay of their 3rd world workers from "misery" to "poverty" by simply firing the PR employees and transferring their salary among the millions of overseas exploited workers. Did that make sense?

But as amazingly depressing and un-uplifting as all of this is, one really cool thing stood out to me. When asked if they resented or hated Americans for this, the workers all said "no." Why? Because they felt that it was the fault of these multi-national corporations, not so much the American people for their conditions. They were glad to have jobs and be able to work, just not the essential slavery-like conditions that went along with them. Wow. Now there's optimism.

Keep The Dream Alive

2008-01-17T22:09:00.000-06:00

So. Sigmund's playing NFL Blizt right now. He's trying to score 100 points in one game. And he just blew it. 96. Down to the last play, and he got sacked.

Anyway.

I think New Zealand is calling me. I don't know about you guys, but I really want to see a different culture in the very near future. You know? Ever since junior/senior year of high school, Shane and I frequently have conversations that involve our desires to get out and see the world. Not through the Navy.

No, these conversations usually involve him talking about California and going to cocktail parties with Jon Favreau and Leonard Maltin and me saying things like, "It's just like.... I just want to.... do you ever get that... you know?" with a general feeling of angst, wonder, excitement, aprehension, and flat-out desire, mixed with my inability to put into words everything swirling through my mind. And when it reaches this point, one of us inevitably says, "I've got the itch, man!"

And that's what I've been feeling tonight. "The itch."

See, what excites/worries me is that it's been going on 5 solid years that I've had the itch. Excites, because I know it's not just a spur of the moment feeling, not some dreampipe idea. Or is that pipedream? And I'm worried because I have this fear that it won't ever end up happening. And I'll end up thinking, "Oh, could I have made it?"

I'm sure it'll happen, though!

- Stephen -

The Concentric-Circle Theory of Urban Growth: 4 Strikes and You're Out

2008-01-15T11:52:00.000-06:00

Trying to figure out my schedule for this semester. Still.

I found a great course that involves an end of the semester 11 day road trip to Maine. It's 1 hour of credit and essentially the entire course is the road trip. Great huh? That's what I thought until I got there. My thoughts are between what the Prof. said.

"Well, as you can see, there are about 40 of you signed up for this class. Unfortunately, there's only room for 25 for the road trip."

What?

"Please fill out this form and... tell us about yourself. We'll make the final selections this week and let you know who's going and who... can't."

What, were there budget cuts at the last minute?

"Last year, and well, for the last 15 years this course has been taught, we've always had a great group of 25 students."

Huh? Since when did a the first day of a senior-level, Integrative Biology 447 course turn the selection process found only in a 7th grade, gym class game of dodgeball?

"Oh. And make sure to write down all the lab courses above the 200 level you've taken."

Lab courses? Above the 200 level? I guess my planning workshop course might count for that...

"Write down anything you feel important for us to know. Or 'pad your resume,' depending on how you look at it. Hah."

Since when did Biology turn into the cut-throat business school?

After class, I walked up to the professor what was female and had a quick chat with her.

"So, you're not in the IB program?"

Strike 1. "No. I'm a planning student."

"You haven't had any hands-on lab courses, then."

Was that a question or a statement?

Regardless, Strike 2. "No, I haven't. But I worked in a greenhouse with plants for 4 years. I don't have the "book knowledge' but I'm definitely familiar with plants and soils."

"Yeah. What about ecosystems."

Again; question or statement? "I've taken a number of environmental sciences classes."

"But as far as hands on lab courses go...."

Strike 3. "No, I don't have those."

"Right. You wouldn't get that in Planning."

While I should have said, "And you wouldn't learn about Comprehensive Plans, Vision Statements, Statistics, Traffic Patterns, or The Concentric-Circle Theory of Urban Growth in Biology, now would you? I simply awkwardly said, "Guess not."

"Well, is there anything else you'd like to tell me about yourself?"

Taking that as my "you have one last chance to give me one good reason as to why I should make the cut" cue, I simply said, "I'm really interested in the course. I may not have the technical lab skills, but I have had work experience and I think my Planning perspective can really add to the group. Thanks."

"Well, we'll add you to the pile," she said, dropping my sheet onto it.

Strike 4.

Sorry for the upcoming rant, but it really frustrates me that many people at this University with science degrees look down so heavily on students with "non-technical" degrees. It implies that my knowledge is inferior to theirs. It makes the assumption that I am incapable and unable to do what they do. And it frames the things that I have learned as being "non-technical," and therefore, unusable.

And sure. I hate lab classes. I never even took one in college because I hated all of my physics and chemistry courses in high school. But could I have taken and passed them? Of course. Would I have enjoyed my 4 years here? NOT at all.

But why is it that we, and maybe it's just the impression I've received, perceive math/sciences classes to be so much more amazing than writing/social sciences, etc.? I would love to see some of my biology, physics, and engineering friends write a paper for a lower-level Planning or English course, let alone an upper-level one. I have plenty of skills and abilities they don't have. And vise versa, I'm sure.

Guess I'm just a bit put off. Excuse the rant. More uplifting notes to come.

Goodbye Sky Harbor

2008-01-10T01:05:00.001-06:00

So I quit my job at the Geological Survey. It felt pretty good. It was a bit anticlimactic however, as I haven't worked there in about a month. It kind of felt like going to a class a few times, stopping for a month, then realizing you'd forgotten to officially drop it through the university. Maybe?

Going back to school on Friday. I've been slowly packing over the week. My goal for today is to fill up 2-3 garbage bags of stuff from my room. I've never been as efficient as throwing away stuff as I wanted to be, leaving me with a plethora of junk dating back to 5th grade. Gross. See, normally when I start to throw stuff away, it turns into a "remember this (insert childhood toy or mix cd made junior year of high school)?" game, followed by a boring drive to the corner of Nostalgia Blvd and Pastime Pkwy. But not today. No thinkin', just pitchin'.

Just got back from lunch with my dad, brother, his wife, and their two kids. Real fun. Went to Portillos. My niece has entered her terrible two's. Which really aren't that bad, seeing as she's almost way too well behaved to begin with. I think my brother's idea of misbehaving is chewing with the mouth open. Hah. But he's a great dad. It's weird... my brother's a dad? Of two kids? And my sister just had her first kid? I'm an uncle 3x? How did all this happen? And why wasn't I asked? But, I digest.

Fiona, or Little Fee Fee as I call her, is pretty darn cute. She was over last night and I played The Blanket Game with her. For those of you not familiar, it's quite simple. Lay a blanket out on the ground, and roll the little curtain-climber up in it. As Fiona likes blankets and snuggling, this game is a no-brainer. So, I rolled her up in one. "Do it again, Uncle Bud-Bud!" (Yep! That's me!). Seeing as I'm trying to establish my role as the Cool Uncle Bud-Bud, I obliged. And again. And again. Seven blankets later, she was about 2 feet across. So I stood her up on her feet and began tipping her back and forth with my dad. Par ejemplo::

Prolley doesn't need to be said, but what a cutie, huh? Later!

- Stephen -

UPDATE: I wrote this post this afternoon and waited till I had the above photo to upload. Anyway, since then I managed to clean out my room: 3 kitchen-sized garbage bags of stuff and another equally sized bag of old clothes. I pitched old notebooks, toys, stuff I didn't even remember getting. It was great. Like I said, no thinkin', just pitchin'. Job well done, Capt'n Cody!

Tennis, Anyone?

2008-01-08T00:04:00.000-06:00

Ah, the Holiday Season. Too bad it has come and gone. It didn't come without its annual blessing and rituals, though. One of these was watching It's a Wonderful Life with my Dad at least 3 times. This year however, I tried to test my hypothesis about the film. What would that be? Glad I asked.

See, it's always seemed very strange to me that whenever George Bailey goes to leave Bedford Falls, something always stops him. Here are 6 examples, in chronological order:

1) George agrees to his brother Harry going away to school; this leaves him in charge of managing the old, broken down Building and Loan

2) Peter Bailey passes away the night before George is going to go on his world travels; this forces George to stay at the old, broken down Building and Loan

3) When Harry returns from college, he is married and on his way to getting an out-of-town job with his wife's father's company; again, George must stay working at the old, broken down Building and Loan

4) When Ernie drives the newlyweds George and Mary out of town for their honeymoon vacation, they see a run on the bank happening at the old, broken down Building and Loan; again, George is forced to stay and take care of the bank

5) When WWII begins, George is unable to enlist and see the world because of his hearing disability; this leaves him at home, havin' lots of kids and working at the old, broken down Building and Loan

6) After the $8,000 is misplaced, George visits Martini's bar and then crashes his car into a tree; as he was right by the bridge out of town, it can be speculated that George was trying to leave town but was unable to do so because of the car accident

Where is this all going? Again, glad I asked.

Whenever the main character goes to leave town, something always stops him. Now what other film is this highly reminiscent of?

The Truman Show; the film where Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) is always trying to leave Seahaven, but is always thwarted. Why? Because he is unknowingly part of a large, television show in which every aspect of his life is filmed.

And therein lies my hypothesis. I believe that:

It's a Wonderful Life is actually the same set-up as The Truman Show, in that George Bailey is actually on a large television show; the only difference between the two films is that The Truman Show reveals this fact to the viewer while It's a Wonderful Life does not.

How'bout them apples? Watch It's a Wonderful Life again. It will blow your mind.

- Stephen -

I'm So Sick and Tired of Fox News.

2008-01-07T18:53:00.001-06:00

Someday, Shane Madej will be directing his Oscar-winning documentary (winning for Best Documentary and Best Sound Editing, obviously) on me titled "Man, Mystery, Myth: The Planner What Re-Shaped california After the Pacific Ocean Reclaimed Everything West of the San Andreas Fault Line."

Actually, I take that back; I'd never do anything good for the state of california in my entire life. I loathe that state. I'd love to see it fall into the Pacific. If anything, I was rooting for Lex Luther's amazing scheme to happen in the original Superman movie. Too bad stupid Superman had to wreak it all, proving once again that Batman is better.

But I'd never re-shape california. Gross. Why? For starters, there's:

- southern cal,

- the terrible smog,

- u.c.l.a.,

- southern cal,

- the massive roads,

- the way all the cities blend into eachother,

- the urban sprawl,

- the lack of greenery and unnatural greenery where there happens to be some,

- the gold rush (not to mention the 49'ers),

- how californiaers act so laid back but at the same time act so booked with busy-ness,

- the southern cal fight song,

- orange county choppers (seriously. what is with all those t-shirts?)

- stanford,

- actually, all of their college and professional sports teams (and I could give you reasons for each),

and finally,

- the dozens and dozens of artists that have been brainwashed into thinking (and subsequently writing songs about) how california is so great.

Anyway, I'm sure Shane'll come up with reasons why it is good, but remember: Shane doesn't know what he's talking about.

- The Capt'n -

It's January and There's a Thunderstorm Outside

2008-01-07T18:28:00.000-06:00

I've never been much of a political person. I've listed myself as "apathetic" on thefacebook-dot-com since the "political views" option was incepted. But for most all of this past semester of my senior year, I haven't been able to sit still. Things have been a-stewing in me for a while. And then about November Youtube introduced me to Ron Paul, and my political apathy took a backseat.

Just take a look at his response to why oil prices are so high::

Most politicians would attribute it to the un/successful job we're doing in Iraq. Not Mr. Paul. I've never seen a politician not beat around the bush and answer questions as directly and openly as he does. He doesn't tell you want you want to hear; he tells you what you need to hear, regardless of how uncomfortable it may be.

Ron Paul rEVOLution,

- Stephen -

Oh Look, There Goes Another Year

2008-01-06T22:23:00.000-06:00

I'd start off by saying I haven't done this in a while, but that'd be too obvious.

Going back to school sometime this week. What started off to be Saturday is probably going to quickly change into Friday, even Thursday. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I think I'm going to quit one of my two jobs. Here's the boring old rundown:

Job 1: Daily Illini, Student-run Student newspaper: I use InDesign to do the layout for the classified section. Very fun. Minimum wage, but the most rewarding and enjoyable indoor job I've ever worked.

Job 2: Illinois State Geological Survey, Big Waste of Taxpayer's Dollars: I use a scanner and accompanying scanning software to scan in drilling logs from across the state. Shifts typically range from 4-5 hours and are mind-numbingly boring; pays quite well, but this is not compensated for in its massive degree of mundaneness. Also requires drive to work; being the eco-friendly connoisseur that I am, why should I drive to one job when I can walk to another? I think that just about makes the decision for me.

So I think the Geological Survey's going to take a hike. Kinda junky of me to quit at this point since I said I'd probably be back for next semester, but hey. I never gave them the 100% commit.

Besides, I'll be job hunting this semester, something I've been doing on-and-off all break. Which brings me to another point:

Job hunting is really, really not cool. I've spent hours of time on it, and have only found 1 job that fits most of the requirements. And it's in Peoria. I don't know about that place... Guess that's what I get for studying Urban and Regional Planning. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to listen to that "Do what you enjoy!" piece of advice everyone gave me back in sophomore year when I picked Planning. Whatever. I'll show'em all who's boss.

Later, kids.

- Stephen -