I'll Figure It All Out Eventually

For a more idealistic take on New York fashion...

2012-02-21T20:47:00.002-05:00

...you should probably look somewhere else (I would suggest here). Anyway, my parents came up to visit and, interestingly enough, to wander around NYC for a few hours window-shopping... meaning I learned a lot about our current fashion trends. Not from the window-shopping, though. My parents were actually focusing on old paintings and antiques. You know, this crap:

I'm sorry, but this really should be exciting to no one.

So, as they drooled over some 17th century abstract painting of (what looked like) a deformed foot, I creeped on all of the delightful people passing us by and apparently, despite all of the protestations to the contrary I hear from pretty much everyone I've ever talked to, this is still an acceptable alternative to pants:

I probably should have included a parental advisory for this post.

And despite all of the hate (more likely feigned indifference) for Paris Hilton, this is still everyone's favorite fashion accessory:

Sad as it is to say, I had more trouble selecting this picture than all of the rest because, well. There's a lot of cute puppies.

People also seem to be really into that whole tall boot thing:

I don't think anyone's this bad, though.

Oh, and for an Interesting Fact of the Day (That Has No Scientific Basis Whatsoever): wearing earmuffs guarantees at least fifteen smiles from random strangers.

Just to be clear- earmuffs are not properly depicted here. Also, no matter what sort of headpiece you wear, you will not look this cute. Unless you are five. In which case, you really shouldn't be reading this blog.

Seriously, try it sometime. My self-esteem went up, like, two inches. Yes, it came crashing down after my parents left and I went back to my dorm to see that I had a piece of lettuce stuck between my teeth for what must have been at least half of our little adventure. Not to mention the fact that my hair looked like, you know, my hair. But all that's besides the point: earmuffs are awesome. End of story.

So I didn't really learn anything this past week...

2012-02-14T17:14:00.001-05:00

...other than the fact that when celebrities die everything changes for, like, a day. Especially on the Internet. They suddenly get a lot more long-time fans:

Miraculous coincidences occur:

Everyone suddenly wants them to rest in peace:

Those patronizing, I'm-so-above-your-blatant-lies people notice this hypocrisy:

And then there's people like me who blog about the stupidity of it all.

I don't know. For me, Whitney Houston was just another great singer who could hit all those big notes... but it's not like I have any of her songs on my iPod. My family and I watch The Preacher's Wife at least once every Christmas. I knew that she had a difficult life and that she was a drug user, but that was about it. I can't pretend to be her biggest fan.

Anyway, at least I'm not this bad:

Is this real life?

2012-02-06T16:45:00.000-05:00

I didn't think I would have to turn to politics as a source of stupidity until we were at least a little closer to the election (though the Republican debates are full of great material), but I... I just can't not talk about this.

Your Daily Dose of Stupidity (That, For Once, Has Absolutely Nothing to Do With Me): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/06/rush-limbaugh-nose-super-bowl_n_1256652.html?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl16|sec3_lnk3%26pLid%3D133111

It seems that when someone touches their nose for two seconds, I am supposed to assume that he or she is actually picking it, and, further, determine that this act is both newsworthy and deserving of the headline "Limbaugh Caught in Gross Act at Super Bowl."

I mean, I'm no Republican, but... really? This is considered scandalous? How desperate are journalists, that they have to analyze Limbaugh's (supposed) nose-picking habits? Why not critique all of the things he says on his show? I've never been a fan of personal attacks, but there isn't even a basis for this one. I'd be willing to bet that the cameramen have tape of every single person in the stands touching his or her nose (or, worse, actually picking it) at some point during the game. Why didn't they also post footage of some dude eating a hot dog he dropped on the ground, or people throwing up after the game? I know Limbaugh's the famous one and all, but if that's all you think you've got on the guy... you're in pretty bad shape.

So I've been thinking...

2012-01-31T13:47:00.000-05:00

that I really need to think things through more often. Seriously, my thought process usually goes like this:

This is another reason why I try not to talk in class unless it's absolutely necessary- I'm not really that shy. I'm just kind of* slow. I hate when professors suddenly decide to call on me immediately after asking a bunch of random thought-provoking questions. It's like they get nervous when there's more than two seconds of extended silence and no visible work is being done. I know that I'm probably worse off than most, but if you only give students a moment to think the majority of them will still have only come up with this:

Let them process for more than five seconds before you force some desperate child to be all, "uhh... well.. that guy... he... UHFMDKG METAPHORZ!" or whatever. You might be surprised to notice that (well, some of us) youngsters occasionally have an intelligent thought cross our brains.

*see: incredibly; extraordinarily; my-grandma-moves-faster

Words Are Stupid

2012-01-22T23:16:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I wonder if the only reason I'm planning on choosing a profession in the writing field is because if I chose otherwise (say, becoming a lawyer), I would constantly be submitting this poor world to my verbal inadequacies. Seriously, I've had this problem since childhood. Much like Amy in Little Women (yeah, I read that. And watched the movie adaptation with Winona Ryder like 50,000 times. Don't judge), I often use unfamiliar words I've only read in books in everyday conversation... usually leading to some horrible mispronunciations on my part.

Of course, that's rather typical of most children. My problem is that I still do it today. All the time. Honestly, almost every other day I find out that I've been mispronouncing some random word all of my life.

My parents are usually the ones who call me out on it, as most of the members behind our wonderful school system are probably too worried about hurting my self-esteem (or too bored to really pay attention to anything I might be rambling on about). My talent for mispronunciation became very clear to people here at Fordham just a few months into my freshman Philosophy class; I've slipped up more than once, describing God as "om-knee-poe-tent", calling Socrates "So-crates" and Aquinas "A-key-ness" (actually, I still do that now. Only in my head). One of my classmates heard me for the second one and asked who A-key-ness was, as he sounded like a good person to quote for her philosophy paper (we had been talking about A-kwi-nas for weeks).

My friends like to point out my mistakes just as much as my parents do- and when I say "like", I mean love with every fiber of their being. Just yesterday I had a group of friends in hysterics at dinner because I repeatedly pronounced my Theatre professor's last name as Jill instead of Gil (which is how it's spelled in the first place). It took me at least a couple seconds to even hear the difference.

And teachers wonder why I don't like to participate in class.

But, in my defense, language is just plain weird anyway. I'm sure you've all seen that chain email about English ("The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert"), but in general, every language has at least a few strange rules regarding pronunciation and grammar, or allows for some random exceptions. It's not my fault that I can't always (barely ever) remember all of them. As my 9 years of Spanish have taught me (which is pretty much nothing other than what I'm about to tell you), there has to be at least a gazillion irregular verbs in the Spanish language. And who was the moron who decided that adding "aba" to the end of -ar verbs in the imperfect tense was a good idea? There isn't one person who can say "hablaba" in a sentence without sounding idiotic.

Now that I think about it, that's probably why Spanish speakers talk so fast- that way, no one can really get a chance to appreciate the many stupidities of their language. Same goes for us LOLing English losers, I guess.

Maybe that's the secret. I just need to talk so fast that no one ever gets a chance to criticize or even hear my unfortunate pronunciations, since they'll be too busy trying to understand what I'm saying in the first place.

Oh, and for a Random Fact of the Day (or, rather, A Random Thing I Didn't Know About That My Friends Recently Told Me Was True, So Don't Sue Me If It's Wrong):

...pepper doesn't have an actual flavor. It's just an irritant to your mouth. Which explains why I've hated pepper all of my life (seriously, if someone even just puts a dab of pepper on something, it ruins the whole meal for me). Why do people want their food to irritate them as they eat it?

People are just so strange.

So today I learned...

2012-01-18T22:30:00.000-05:00

how to blog. Well, I knew how to before, but I never really felt the need to make one. I was pretty sure that any personal ramblings about my incredibly unexciting life would be interesting to just about no one (my friends excluded. They just have to deal, whether they like it or not). So I guess what I really learned today is that it's completely okay to ignore reality and pretend that everyone actually wants to know about how stupid I am- but only if it's for a good cause (alleviating my boredom).

Anyway, in all seriousness, I plan to write about the wonderful things I've learned lately- no matter how simple or ridiculous they may be. Any topic is up for grabs: politics, science, arts, entertainment, what I ate for breakfast... you get the point. Hopefully someone will find the humor in it all.

Anyway (just a warning: "anyway" is like totally my favorite word of all time. Also, I will never use the word "totally" in this blog again. Oh, and I love parentheses), I'll be blogging weekly. So, enjoy. If you can.