The Most Important Stuff Ever

Friday, April 29, 2005

Fuck This Week


...and it's mom, Last Week, too--

Sunday, April 24, 2005

Oh For Crying Out Loud


The next picture in my camera
phone is just like this one, only
I have one of my fingers extended.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Not Everyone Is Gonna Get A Room

It's Room Draw time, once again. It is that time of year when college students all across, uh, campus are seeking out roommates, scoping sweet bi-level triples, and program houses close to the academic side. And it is once again time for the rising Sophomores to get "anally raped by Housing" (an actual quote). Every year, small, residential, liberal-arts colleges across America experience the effect of larger and larger first year classes. We save 550 or so spaces on our campus for incoming first year students, which means that a large percentage of rising sophomores (and some really screwed Juniors) don't get housing. At the end of the story, about 96 students haven't been housed yet. It's something that happens every year, and we expected it and are prepared to deal. Eventually the summer "melt" takes place- students withdrawl or take a leave from school, not as many first years decide to attend as who paid deposits, etc. and the Sophomores get the leftovers over the summer.
An interesting twist this year is that one of our residence halls is being used by the faculty (their building is being rennovated) for their offices for the duration next year. They had their option of a less-desireable-to-students portion of a residence hall, or a cluster of several small houses (which undoubtedly would receive some new carpet and paint ahead of time) but chose the nicer, more desirable hall instead. After tonight, we thought we'd make t-shirts based on the actual numbers at the end of Room Draw:

Number of students left to be housed: 96
Number of potential spaces in the building being used by faculty: 96
Level of frustration to staff and students: priceless

Like I said, we expect this every year, but it doesn't make the situation any easier on the students and it doesn't make us feel any less bad about what we have to do (it also makes us more annoyed than ever with the selfishness of those tenured-sons-of-bitches). Some people are just gonna end up with a bad situation. It's kinda like the recent rejection letter I received from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. I never actually completed my application, nor did I formally withdraw it. I would have rejected me too. The point is, you can try as hard as you want, and you can complain to the highest authorities in a strongly worded email, but real life is real life. You have to pay your dues, so to speak, and unless you're a.) God (or the Pope) or b.) a Trustee, then you'll just have to deal for the time being. (For instance, the argument that you pay 35 grand to go to school here, isn't completely true, because first of all, no you don't, the government does, or maybe your parents do; and second of all, it's COMPLETELY RANDOM- WE ARE NOT OUT TO GET YOU.)
I feel bad about all the kids who got "anally raped by Housing" tonight, and I sure do wish we could screw the incoming first years instead but that's bad for retention. It's all a part of growing up, maybe this is one of the teachable moments we talk about in Student Affairs- where we learn to deal with rejection, pay our dues, and go on living without throwing ourselves on the floor when we don't get our way (actually happened). Sometimes in life, we get the sweet-ass double single in the Senior hall, and other times we get the dusty basement room in the Greek building, and sometimes we get nothing at all. Not everyone is gonna get a room.

Thursday, April 14, 2005

Meet Pedro

What's playing on your iPod? Everyone has them, so don't try to pretend you're too cool for this...


This is Pedro. He's just 4 gigs, and
we here at TMISE, find him adorable!


What are the first ten songs that come up on your iPod when you tell it to shuffle? Pedro, for instance (who was named after Pedro of Napoleon Dynamite fame and is a foreshadowing of the young hispanic child I will one day undoubtedly raise/use for hard labor) , sings me the following...

1. U2- Beautiful Day
2. Pearl Jam- Garden
3. Simon & Garfunkle- Hazy Shade of Winter
4. Pete Yorn- When You See the Light
5. Erin McKeown- Dirt Gardener
6. R.E.M.- The Great Beyond
7. the Whiles- Emily
8. Grateful Dead- Scarlet Begonias
9. Beck- Devil's Haircut
10. Norah Jones- Don't Miss You At All
Bonus Track: Golden Slumbers- Ben Folds

OK- Now you go. (You can also use your Media Player/Winamp/Whatever for this game, you big dumb no-iPod-haver.)

Sunday, April 10, 2005

If It Weren't For the Internet, I'd Have No Place to Brainstorm

The way I look at it, I have two options, A and B, where A equals most enticing and B equals a little bit enticing. If you add the two together, we get C, which, in and of itself (all commas aside) is probably impossible to get to in the first place. Then again, you could multiply or subtract A and B and get an entirely different result all togehter, thus causing more trauma and I threw that book out the window a while ago.

But let me begin from the beginning... which is where you begin... after all...
Things We Know (an annotated/linked list)
  1. Ohio is getting old
  2. Therefore, moving is certainly an option
  3. I have no real career interests, currently
  4. But, I no longer wish to be involved with student affairs
  5. But I still like working with students
  6. My career, for the next 5-7 years at least, is not going to be what makes me happy (no comments or link here, just take it as truth)
  7. It's probably the people that I'm with who will do that (obviously)
  8. I have no real skills like numchucks or magic
  9. I can be nice on the phone and organize events, I'm also familiar with developmental psychology
  10. Mom and Dad will be sad if I leave
  11. According to Fox News, smoking during pregnancy could possibly have affects for two generations. Fucking mom.

That Being Said, Here's The Question:
What am I going to do next? (You have three months to tell me exactly, secure housing, and send me on my way. Ready... begin!)

The way I look at it, I have two options, A and B. (sound familiar?)
Where A equals move out of the state and to a place that I'm interested in, potentially with people I love, and worry about the work later, since it's only good for buying food and paying rent anyway.
And B equals find a job that could be interesting and/or lead to bigger and better things (think, career advancement) but could possibly not include much of a relocation.
Again, A is most enticing and B is a little bit enticing. Somehow combining them (and I used math before, but we all know I have no business playing around with that) could make for a very interesting result, no matter how unlikely.

Looking back at number 6 on our list, we see that this guides the answer most directly. Perhaps, it is also the most telling of the eleven. Anyway, beginning with number six and moving forward, we see that not caring about our job, relocation and people are the top three most important things (in no particular order) related to this decision. In which case, it's obvious what I should do.

Continue to sit around and wait and see if I get lucky...
Any and all comments are welcome...

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Aw, How Cute, They're Trying to Win


This is Joe Randa totally scoring on
their asses. Good job, The Reds, let's
lay off the needles, ok?

The Bracelet Will Be Pin-Striped

I have five unrelated things to talk about here today:

  1. Other people's 'blogs are more interesting than mine. This week alone, ck has talked about plastic surgery, seibu has talked about Pat Buchanan's run in with some dressing and a weird 911 call, and LJo has written about meal worms. WTF people?? When will I get to the good stuff???
  2. The Pope is dead and those pictures of him creep me out. Someone pointed out to me that this isn't really that different than a wake where they have the body available for the friends and family to view. And? I also think this practice is weird. I feel no better.
  3. I recently discovered this thing called the College Facebook. Apparently you can go there and put your picture up and write about your interests, such as illegally keeping a rabbit in your dorm room. The concept frightens me greatly, not only because it's perfect for stalking someone (you can find out what building they live in on campus!) but also because of all the evil I can use it for against my students. Someone please warn them, it just isn't fair that I must have you busted in this way...
  4. Corn hole. I played this a couple of years ago with my dad's family in Cincinatti. At the time I thought it was kind of stupid- really the kind of thing that gets old after one or two quick rounds. Apparently it has made it up to north east ohio and people are playing it as a drinking game (because, really, what can't you make into a drinking game?) which makes it potential for fun slightly more intriguing. (Needless to say, and rather embarassingly, we weren't drinking when we played it.) Unfortunately open containers aren't legal in Wooster. Stop playing the corn game before you're too intoxicated to actually miss each other's crotches with the bean bag.
  5. Peter Jennings has lung cancer. This can only mean one thing- more cancer exploitation (I mean awareness, right?) and a possible rubber bracelet. Save the journalists, I guess. I hope it isn't because he smokes (and I truly do hope he can get better).

Monday, April 04, 2005

Then Again Who am I Kidding

Let us not forget that during the last papacy, the Catholic church gave us child sexual molestation cases, gender inequality (well we're not ordaining them), completely useless sexual health education (no condoms! no pills! just don't do it in the first place!) , creationism/big bang=non-commital, extreme homophobia (and we're certainly not even going to let them in to begin with), and a general sense of what-the-hell-are-we-supposed-to-do-now.
To end the post on a positive note, he was the most progressive human-rights oriented Pope ever. Gee, look how far we've come...

Sunday, April 03, 2005

It Wasn't ALL That Bad


John Paul II with Mehmet Ali Agca, who the Pope forgave in 1981 after his attempted assassination.