Whiners

I really hate whiners. I realize that I am a(n extremely verbose) complainer quite often, but at least I have legitimate reasons to back up my complaints. And when they aren't legitimate, they are always well-worded and/or extensively passionate. Despite my periodic dips in the Well of Whining, I feel that the particular situation I wish to discuss is an unusually legitimate, and is one for which I feel more than usually passionate. As to well-worded-ness, that is yet to be seen. But I hope that it will be so.

Seriously, though, this is a very big deal to me, and I refuse to remain silent about it. Here's the problem: Some students (yes, at BYU) seem to be severely afflicted with a sense of entitlement that renders them rude, and is, frankly, an embarrassment to our fine educational institution.

I've noticed the tendency towards this sense of entitlement a few times through my experience at BYU, particularly as I've taken my GE classes. I suppose this can be partially attributed to freshmen, just out of high school and used to waltzing through their classes without even grazing over the thought of making an effort, and maybe that's why they think that they have a right to have every answer to every test question handed to them on a solid-gold platter without having to learn anything that they won't actually be tested on. Maybe that's where the problem is originating. I HOPE that that's the only place it's coming from. I'd be even more embarrassed to be numbered among the students in my class, who really are acting like a skid mark on the undies of our campus.

Just to be clear, I've had two GE classes this semester, Biology 100 and Sociology 111, and as I've attended the final reviews for each of these classes, there have been multiple students who have sat around complaining about having to know things that aren't on the test. Like two extra percentages, or a couple more dates. When my Biology TA listed the three statistics that we should know, a student asked, "But which ones are actually going to be on the test?" My TA said, "You just need to know them. One of them could be on the test, or all of them." The kid was obviously not satisfied with this answer, and the girls sitting directly behind me said in softish voices, "This isn't a game. Why won't he just tell us?" Later, while the TA was writing something on the board, the girl next to me leaned over and said, "It's better if you take your contacts because then you can't see how ridiculous it is that he's writing that on the board."

Now, I'm going to admit that even though I went to most of the lectures, I in no way have been paying attention for the past month or so. Considering the barrenness of the classroom and the tendency of numberless concourses of students to leave mid-lecture (which really is so disrespectful I could just spit), I'd say there's a pretty decent chance that the majority of the people in the review weren't coming to class, and of those who were there, they probably weren't paying much more attention than I was. And let's be honest, if you really pay decent attention in class, reviews aren't that necessary. Helpful, yes, but not necessary. You can get a very decent grade without them. Very decent.

As one of the less-attentive students, I was just happy that he was willing to set aside two hours in the middle of his finals week to hold a review. That's kind of a big deal, you know? I mean, we are ALL very busy, and there have been reviews held every single day since the last day of class. That's huge.

Furthermore, reviews are, as always, completely and totally optional. So if you don't want to be there, don't be there. You knew that this review was going to last two hours. Why you would think it would last 30 minutes is so far beyond me, that I can't even express it adequately.

And seriously, we're paying a pittance for our education here at the Y, so what makes you think that you should have everything handed straight to you? I mean, I am so hugely against people thinking that they can just pay for things and get what they want without working for it, but I am even more against people paying very small amounts of money, paying costs that are subsidized by tithing from members of the church all over the world, and still expecting to not have to work at all for their education. You ingrates. I'm so sick of you.

What do you have to do that is so much more important than studying for a final anyhow? I mean really? How much is really as important as this right now, short of your mother being on her deathbed? Oh, I'm sorry... Is your boyfriend eating his dinner alone in the Cougareat right now? GET SOME PRIORITIES.

Why is it so hard for you to be respectful, huh? I mean really, there is very little that grates on my nerves quite like people being disrespectful, and I'm APPALLED at the number of people who were cutting off the TA, who were making snarky comments, who were asking him to tell them exactly what was going to be on the test, and who were just being rude to him, and to the rest of us who were in there.

I literally wanted to punch every person within a 5 seat radius of me in the face. I have never been so disgusted in my life. The majority of students were so rude, so disrespectful, and so disgustingly convinced that they deserved to have the answers to every question on the test given to them so that they could memorize them and spit them out verbatim with the smallest amount of effort possible.

NEWSFLASH STUDENTS: You don't deserve a degree UNTIL you've made an effort.

Those rude students in my Biology class are not making an effort. Well, they're making an effort to get out of making an effort, and that is simply not acceptable. I am so repulsed at their behavior, and at any student who exhibits the same behavior. It's absolutely foul, and it's an embarrassment to the university, and to the Church that we represent. Students need to be more respectful, and need to care more about their education. Because that's what we're here for; that's what life is all about—learning. And if you're expecting the purpose of life to be given to you without asking anything of you, you need a serious attitude adjustment. And you certainly don't need to be at BYU, because there are people out there that would actually put in the work, that deserve to be here, when compared to your whiny tushes. Stop being so ungrateful, and get rid of that revolting sense of entitlement that you possess.

I need to stop. This rant is getting outrageous, and also I'm running out of G-rated words to describe my annoyance with these idiots that call themselves students. UGH.

Don't You Hate It When ...

It can happen to anyone, anytime. You slide your feet further under your seat, you clasp your hands together, you try to adjust your desk or move your chair, your stomach makes the gurglies....

And you just know that someone in the near vicinity is going to think you ripped one.

What do you do? This depends on who you're with. If you're with friends, you can laugh it off and explain what happened. If you're with family, you don't even need to say anything. But if you're with strangers ... Well, let me just tell you what happened to me this week.

I just so happened to be sitting in my Biology 100 class, absorbed in Facebook and StumbleUpon, as I am wont to be in the middle of the world's most brain-mushing GE. In the midst of this absorption, it became apparent that it was time to participate in an in-class assignment. We had to write down whether or not we should try to save endangered species, or something dumb like that. I don't really care what it was, because it's not really important. What IS important is that while I was waiting for the TA's to tell us what to do with our papers, my fingers were not occupied with my keyboard. So, as so-called "nervous" people tend to be, I needed something to do with my hands. I often struggle, especially when I'm extremely bored, to keep my hands still. They've got to be doing something. So I was clasping my palms together, squeezing my joints about, which led to my palms squeezing together. This was not a problem, as I had exceptionally dry hands that day. Except something went wrong, and there it went ... the flatulent noise that boys have perfected by the age of seven.

Only it wasn't a perfect one. Not one of the loud, obvious, fake ones that we all know so well. No. This was a terrible one because it was just loud enough to be heard, but quiet enough to sound like I'd tried to sneak a real one. There were people right in front of me ... I knew that they had heard. And I was sitting all by myself, which meant there was no way I could even pretend that the guy next to me was responsible. No. I was trapped.

I had to let them know that it was an accident! That it was the pure product of unfortunate circumstances, the result of the tragic laws of science and vacuums and whatnot!! So what do I do?

I start squeezing my hands together with furious speed.

But they, of course, were unusually dry, and I couldn't get the slightest hint of a sound to eject from my hands. So I lift my hands up a little higher, so that maybe if I can't repeat the sound I just created, then maybe they'd catch a glimpse of my hands and therefore understand that the mystery sound was not a legitimate Bronx cheer, but just the result of air rushing between my palms.

Some time after this, I just gave up.

But don't you hate that moment when you know that people around you think that that sound they just heard could have been the warning bell that their air is about to be befouled? Then, of course, you're in this losing battle with time trying to make the same sound again so people realize that you haven't tried to cropdust them.

Whether it's frantically rubbing your shoes against the floor, tromping all across the wood trying to find the squeaky board again, or squeezing your hands together with enough ferocity to permanently attach them to each other, we'll all do anything to keep people from thinking that we are guilty. And I think it's hilarious.

This Must End

You may have noticed that I haven't blogged anything in the past month. I owe this to the fact that I was overcome with some sort of self-consciousness since there were people (besides the people who always read it and/or hear about almost everything I write about anyways) who were reading it. I know you aren't judging me, so I don't know why I got so self-conscious about it, but I did and that's the truth. So I have about 50 (no actually it's only like 5) drafts piled up in Windows Live Writer that are just waiting to be finished, because I can't really compile my thoughts suitably. Basically I just didn't like what was coming out. However, I've come to the realization that I really need an outlet. I've been going crazy over the past couple weeks, and I think it's because I haven't taken the time to write my thoughts down and clear out all the excess gunk in my head so that I can actually function like a normal human being, which is what I'd really like to do with myself right about now. I can no longer keep these things to myself. The silence must end. NOW.

So I have a couple of things going through my head right now, the first of which is my sociology class. It's just Soc 111, nothing special. I mean, I really like the class and I think it's totally great, and I found out that Jake Heaps is in my class today, which is kind of interesting I suppose. Anyway, we had these big old papers due a couple of weeks ago and we just got them back today. Which wouldn't have been a big deal, except that I found out that my printer sabotaged me. For those of you who don't comprendo, here's what happened:

The Violent and Tragic Destruction of Page Four

Yeah. I turned that in. (Moment of Irony: "Dancing Through Life" from Wicked just came on my iTunes, and the line that says "mindless and careless" played right as I uploaded these photos. Well said, Fieyro. Thanks for pointing out my own idiocy.) I mean, do you see how heinous that looks?? It's so embarrassing that I let that slip under my radar. I should know better. This happened to me once in my first semester, and it was just as embarrassing, only less because I actually knew the person who was grading it. (Why is it more embarrassing when a stranger grades it??) But yeah. How could I let it happen? I remember being in such a hurry, and that I was a tiny bit late to class that day... Gosh. Lesson learned. I no longer trust my beast of a printer, not a bit.

In other news ... I had a great moment last night after Heather and I went on a walk last night. We ended up getting home at like 1:00, and I stayed up doing who knows what until like 1:30-1:45ish. I go into the dark bedroom and proceed to prepare myself for bed. Being that it was dark, I had to turn my lamp on, which totally woke Natalie up. I really didn't mean to, but I didn't adjust the angle of the lampshade as well as I thought I had, and it was terrible. To my surprise, however, she sits up a little bit and starts talking to me.

"What did you win?" she asks. I, of course, am confused as heck. What did I win? What on earth is she talking about?

"I don't know what you're talking about," I say back, continuing to change into my pj's.

"She had a Wheel of Fortune thing out there. What did you win?"

I still am extremely confused, but also extremely tired, so I kind of ignore the question and keep getting ready for bed.

"By the way," Natalie says to me, "This isn't dream talk. I'm awake."

Oh really?

I give some kind of non-committal response and go brush my teeth. By the time I'm done, she's asleep again and I go to sleep.

This, of course, is not the end of the story. As I'm putting on my makeup this morning, Natalie comes in to do the same and asks me, "When did you go to bed last night?" I tell her that it was 1:30, 1:45ish that I went to bed.

"Did I try to talk to you last night?"

Oh yes. Yes, you did. I told her this, at which point it became very funny. I admit, in the middle of the night, I was more confused than amused, though it was a funny moment. It was one of those moments when exhaustion made everything less funny rather than more funny. Once we were both fully aware that she was totally like, dream-talking to me, we both laughed. Like I said, it was funny.

This brings up something else that I'd like to talk about. Have you ever had a moment when you have been trying to nap, or have accidentally fallen asleep, or you're trying to go to bed, and then someone wakes you up or says, "Oh yeah, she's asleep," but you find yourself either suddenly conscious, or you simply hadn't fully fallen asleep? I know it's a confusing way to put it, but I think you understand. You're all intelligent folks. Have you ever noticed that whenever this happens, you often feel this sudden need to alert everyone around you to the fact that you're awake? It seems so important! They have to know that you weren't asleep. Never mind the fact that you're completely incoherent and the only thought that IS forming in your head is "I'm awake. They have to know I'm awake." All the while, you're just proving that you're totally not awake OR coherent. So silly, and yet it always seems like such an urgent matter... Funny.

In other good news, the BYU Bookstore had a $1 Book Sale! It was great. I didn't even know it was happening, and then this girl who was at a focus group that I went to (which I'll tell you about in two shakes) told us that she went to it. And I was like, "BOOKS FOR A DOLLAR? Sign me UP baby!" So I went with my awesome amiga Katie, during the time that I should have been in class... but the focus group was gonna make me 15 minutes late anyways, and I think it's so rude to interrupt class like that, especially a class with only like 30 people in it, that I just can't do it. So I skeeeeeped. Whatever. No big deal.

Anyways. I'm going around and I find all of these great books. Like FIVE great books that I want super bad. And I think to myself, "It's so great that I have been keeping my wallet in my backpack lately!" (I usually don't, because I usually leave it in my purse, also because I don't want to have money for food when I have food at home that I can eat.) And then I realize that no, I do not have my wallet. I had to lend Natalie some money last night so we could pay our electric bill and my wallet wasn't there. So I think, well if Katie has money with her, I can pay her back pronto once I get my wallet. Alas, Katie's wallet is not in her backpack either. Desperate for these books, I head to the register to beg this girl to hold the books for me. Then I see my friend Glen from Missouri who happens to work at the Bookstore. The girl, of course, tells me that she can't hold the books for me. I try to explain that it'll only be 15 minutes and I'll be back with my wallet. She still can't do it. Glen, naturally, hears my predicament and offers a suggestion: that I hide the books in a box underneath one of the tables and then put another box on top of it. So that's what I did. I then ran home to grab my wallet.

By this time, I've got a time crunch because I wanted to walk home from class with Rachel, so I needed to go and get my wallet, get back to the Bookstore, buy the books, and get back over to the sound circles in front of the JFSB at 12:50. Naturally, when I get home, my wallet is nowhere to be found. I look everywhere I can think of, including my bed and the closet where the washer and dryer are. But all my searching is in vain. I'm starting to get antsy, and my brain is saying, "God doesn't want you to have these books!" and my heart is fighting with my brain saying, "BUT IT'S GOOD TO HAVE BOOKS! AND THEY'RE ONLY A DOLLAR!!! PLEASE!!!!!!!" I start sending out frantic text messages to my roommates, trying to figure out if any of them saw it or know where it went. But it's no good. No one knows where my wallet is, and I'm starting to have horrible visions of people going under the table, pulling out the top box, and finding all five of my darling $1 books in the bottom box, then laughing as they twirl their curlicue mustaches and cradle my books beneath the sheath of their black cloak (total Bowler Hat Guy style). Terror was running through my veins. It was horrendous. Just as I'm about to give up, I see a bump under the rug. Lo, and behold, tis my wallet. So I ran back, retrieved my books from the box (you can't imagine my relief when I saw them there), purchased them, and ran to meet Rachel to walk home. It was great. Here's what I bought:

Snapshots by Michal Govrin

The Work of Print: Authorship and the English Text Trades 1660-1760 by Lisa Maruca

Sky in a Bottle by Peter Pesic

The Beautiful Fall: Fashion, Genius, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris by Alicia Drake

Flaubert: A Biography by Frederick Brown

Quite the mix, wouldn't you say? I'm actually really excited about all of them. The first one, Snapshots, was translated from Hebrew, and it's written by an Israeli woman who has won every single one of Israel's literary awards. The Work of Print is more historical, and talks about the changing concept of authorship and print culture during the Enlightenment period. Then there's Sky in a Bottle, which is also kind of historical, and talks about the changing understanding of the answer to the question, "Why is the sky blue?" through history, art, science, and the works of classical philosophers. Sounds fascinating, no? The fourth one, The Beautiful Fall also sounds interesting. I've never read a book about fashion and stuff before, and it looks super cool. The last one, Flaubert, is probably going to be the hardest read of all, but we just learned about Gustave Flaubert and Madame Bovary in my French class, and it sounds like he had a kind of crazy life, and I'd like to understand more about him. So that'll be cool. But yeah ... pretty fun, huh? I'm stoked to read them. Also to amass a larger collection of books. I love books. Oh so very much.

Anyways, on to the focus group stuff. Today, as I was hanging with Rachel and Katie and we were chilling on some of the couches on the third floor and I'd accepted the fact that I was absolutely not going to get to take a nap when a man walks up to us and asks us if we're doing anything over the next hour and would we like to attend a focus group with some consultants from the East Coast. We said okay and followed him into a classroom where there were a couple people hanging out in front of some blueprints of the Wilk and a computer with a slideshow going on it.

The purpose of the focus group was to discuss how students use the Wilk currently, and what could be changed to make the Wilk more appealing to students, and what might draw them to the Wilk during the evenings, most particularly on the first floor in the Post Office/Bowling Alley/Outdoor Adventures area. It was actually really interesting to think about why I go the places I go in the Wilk, what kinds of changes I'd like to see, what kind of changes they're thinking of making, and what I liked and disliked about the proposed changes.

And let me tell you, those changes look COOL. The study won't be over until January, and then I'm sure it'll be some time before they actually put those changes into action and actual construction, but I really want to be here when they happen so I can actually use them. They really look awesome, and they could make that area down there so hoppin' I would probably never want to leave. Okay, that's a total exaggeration, but it is going to be awesome. Be so excited for the future, guys! It's gonna be FLYYYY :)