April-Hope Wareham

Undressing Mannequins: What's to Know?

2010-08-08T23:36:00.007-05:00

Today, Norm and I went into Express, one of our favorite stores. I've loved Express for years because it tends to carry clothes for people who look like me and who have my fashion preferences; it is pretty fashion-forward for the midwest, and that means it tends to have clothes that are made for men and women of the thinner variety. Last summer, however, I realized that they no longer carried my size in jeans. Their smallest size (zero) was too big for me. I was quite angry because they were one of the last stores to start vanity sizing, but when they did it seemed that they'd suddenly erased all their lower sizes.

Anyways, I was lured into my local Express by the mannequins sporting skinny jeans that made my mouth just water with anticipation for the days jeans would once again be weather appropriate. I started picking through the front display at the store. Holding up the top pair of jeans on one pile, size zero, I was surprised by how much fabric I needed to unfold. Norm raised his eyebrows, and I'm pretty sure I looked just as shocked. These were the smallest jeans in stock, but they were also obviously not the size being worn by the plastic ladies standing above us.

Norm and I were curious, then, what the mannequins were wearing.

I tugged down the closest mannequin's jeans to where I could read the tag. Sure enough, the size was "2f". 2f??!? What the hell?

We asked a sales associate where the size 2f pants were. It seemed that he got the question a lot, so he directed us over to the 00's.

Express has since started carrying a few select pants in size 00 in their stores, which tend to fit me pretty well. Today, however, the 00's in the store were in a style of jean I didn't want to buy and they were Long length, rather than Regular.

On top of all that, the 2f jeans are still smaller cut than the 00 jeans. I'd understand if the mannequins were an entirely unusual size, but they aren't; in fact, I know a few women who are somewhere around a "2f", so it's not like the 2f's were some unnatural size that were only for mannequin use.

The truth is, though, I'm not angry at Express. They know what their customers want--to look like the mannequins--but they also probably would lose money if they carried size 2f's in the stores. We live in a world of supply and demand. Based off this simple model, if people don't demand smaller sizes, Express won't supply them. Not enough people in the United States are small enough to fit into 2f's anymore, so Express would just end up not selling those jeans if they carried them in stores. It's ideal to supply the largest demand, and people like me keep getting left in the dust.

Sometimes, I wish I lived back in the 1950's where I would have been a size 12 or larger. It is pretty demeaning to wear a size 00 when I have gorgeous thighs and a sexy butt. Trying on clothes at Express doesn't make me feel very sexy if I look at the tags. Then, I watch TV and hear some impossibly painted-over news anchor talking about how some kid died today, starving, trying to be a size zero. People start cursing size zero, and here I am, an apparent double zero.

Double nonexistent, and impossibly unsexy.

Thanks, customers of Express!

Why It's OK to Look in the Mirror and Dislike What You See Sometimes

2010-07-12T00:01:00.000-05:00

I've been feeling ugly. A lot of that, I know, comes from my behavior. Not eating, sleeping, and exercising regularly and properly cause bad feelings in any animal, and I am no exception. Everybody has a right to look in the mirror and feel that they look like crap every once in a while because it brings us back to terms. For me, that was realizing that I need to stop treating my body like it's some sort of thankless vessel. Lately, I throw my body through things that I shouldn't, like riding my bike over sixty miles in a week and eating hardly anything, and then exercising hardly at all but eating powdered sugar out of a bowl because I feel shaky from not eating enough the next week. Just the typical don't-quite-have-a-schedule behavior, but it's taken its toll--I have a bit of acne and and a few headaches, and my muscle tone is down and my cellulite quantity is a bit up.

The point is, sometimes it's ok to look in the mirror and dislike what you see, as long as you have a plan to fix it. Don't go overboard and wish that you could make your toes longer or your skin a different color or something pretty unchangeable like that, but it's a good idea to sometimes say hey, I don't look my best right now. Maybe I need a haircut or a shower, or maybe I just need to look out for my body a little bit better. The best motivator you have to work out is looking in the mirror and seeing the thighs where you want to have strong quads, and the best motivator to drink more water is to look in the mirror and see unclear or dull skin.

The trick is to be realistic about it. In our culture, we focus too hard on being happy with what we have without realizing we can make it better, or we focus too hard on going overboard and we become unhealthy that way. If you look in the mirror and notice that you are five hundred pound and five feet tall, please realize that something is wrong. On the other hand, don't look in the mirror and decide you won't be happy until you are skeletally thin with no regard for anything else. If you are thin, you might not be healthy, but you might also be perfectly healthy. I'm thin naturally, but not always healthy. It's about learning your body, and it isn't all about gravity pulling on your mass.

Just keep in mind that you will learn to love yourself even more when you look in the mirror and see someone who is healthy. Learn to recognize lack of health in yourself, and sometimes be a little bit harsh when you look in the mirror. It might be just what you need to get back on the bike or stop eating sugar out of a bowl.

A New Look at Body Image: Today, Would Marilyn Monroe be a Size Zero?!?

2010-07-01T19:36:00.006-05:00

If you've read my writings, you know that I have a certain affinity towards blogging about body image. A lot of this stems from my own struggles with body image throughout my life. You can read more about living as a thin young woman in a culture that likes to label us as anorexic or unattractive here. For this article, however, I set out to learn what size Marilyn Monroe would be today. The results shocked me, and made me feel really good about myself -- today, Marilyn Monroe would very likely be a size zero.

I got on a tangent of doing research about Marilyn Monroe a few days ago. It started with a discussion about vanity sizing where we were all whining about it, and I started googling what the actual measurements are for a size zero (which I am now). The measurements turned out to be anywhere from 30-22-32 inches bust-waist-hip to 33-25-35 depending on brand. Keep those in mind.

Google gave me a result about vanity sizing throughout the ages. I noted that a size 12 in the 1950's was about a 32" bust and a 24" waist, which sort of seems to fall into the size zero category. Looking at that, I would probably have been about a size 12 back then, or even bigger--I measure 34-24-34.

About the same time, I remembered a middle school assembly telling me that Marilyn Monroe, the svelte, sexy, awesome sphinx who transformed the meaning of sex appeal in the middle of the 20th century--was a size 16. This intrigued me, as many claims do, and being a great believer in asking questions, I decided to take a look at this claim.

First, I realized that the claim came from Rosie O'Donnell in 1996. "Marilyn Monroe was a size 16. That says it all," she claimed. I hate to say it, Rosie, but that does not even touch "saying it all". The size 16 Rosie referred to was a UK size 16, which translates to an American size 12. According to that dressmaker, the size 12 of Monroe's time was a 24" waist.

I was kind of struck by this, so I decided to do a bit more research. There are two claims about Marilyn Monroe's measurements: her studio's 37-23-36 and her dressmaker's 35-22-35.

Based on these measurements, Monroe would be somewhere around a zero or a two, at least pants-wise. Her top would probably be a bit bigger based on her bust, but her waist was teeny-tiny and even smaller than mine. Her hips were a bit larger than mine, but possibly only by about half an inch (I round down to 34, but I'm around a 34.almost5).

So what does this mean? This means that my "itty bitty" size zero isn't so itty bitty after all. It means that I'm sexy, almost the same size as one of America's greatest sex icons. She was a bit smaller than me in some places and a bit larger in others. For a little ending surprise, here is a picture of me with a life-size wax statue of Marilyn Monroe at Madame Tussauds in NYC. If you notice, Marilyn Monroe is pretty obviously not a size 16 today.

Sources:

Marilyn Monroe's Website
Vanity Sizing 101
Size Zero
For the Last Time What Size Was Marilyn Monroe?
US Standard Clothing Sizes
Marilyn Monroe Photo

My Thoughts on Natural Birth, and Birth in General

2010-06-03T19:48:00.001-05:00

I guess I'd just always assumed that the reason cats and dogs have such an easy time giving birth is that the dogs and cats who died during birth never reproduced, and that wasn't the case with humans. From a young age I loved watching A Baby Story when I was home sick from school, and I remember cringing at the women's screams and the tearing of their perineums. I was intrigued. I was a believer in the power of nature, and I wondered how things went wrong…so much.

I guess I'm interested in birth because mine was pretty crazy. I was born with an emergency c-section. I'd aspirated meconium and I was a black color when I was pulled out because I wasn't getting enough oxygen, and I had to be fed with a tube in my nose for the first few days of my life.

Disclaimer here: I don't remember that. I am totally naive on the topic of giving birth, but I'm curious. So here you go.

I started watching 16 and Pregnant on sort of a dare: one of my friends told me I'd hate it. I loved it. I was interested in the whole having a baby part, especially. I'm a medicine geek. I was interested when I noticed that most of the girls on the show got this drug called Pitocin. 16 and Pregnant called it "medicine used to jump-start labor".** I knew what induction was, but up until this point I'd been of the assumption that it was only used when there was some sort of problem with the baby, not when it was two days after the due date and everybody freaked for, what looked like to me, no good reason.

As a self-defined foodie, I didn't really mean to, but I started drawing connections between birth and food. Margarine is a good example of what I'm talking about. Back in the good old days, we decided that the fat in butter was bad for us, so we created margarine. The hydrogenated fats in margarine turned out to be killing us, so we changed it. And then we changed it again. And then we added omega-3's to counteract the ridiculous amounts of omega-6's. And as it turns out, butter is still much, much better for our arteries.

I sort of started wondering if we were doing the same thing with childbirth. In the past childbirth has always been natural, but suddenly the use of c-sections has skyrocketed along with the use of various medications during labor. One in three women in the U.S. now has a c-section to give birth to her child. Obviously, some of those are necessary. If it wasn't for a c-section, I wouldn't be here, and neither would some of my friends. Many c-sections happen now because the babies would not have survived 40 years ago--I would have probably died because the doctors wouldn't even have known to get me out. In the past, premature babies weren't cut out by c-section--they were often stillborn. Today, babies born as early as five months can survive if they are placed in a solution of perfluorocarbons, a breathable liquid.

Despite the fact that kids who wouldn't have lived 50 years ago are living today, the whole 1 in 3 thing is ridiculous, especially when you look at the c-section rate in 1965: 4.5%. Today, major reasons for c-sections are rooted in medications during pregnancy, women not knowing how to listen to their bodies, medical refusal to allow a vaginal birth, funky thoughts, and more. Medications like Pitocin are thought to sometimes be related to c-sections because they make contractions more difficult, so women are more likely to get epidurals, which slow down contractions, so more pitocin, and then more epidural…and then whoops, you can't push at all. Women not listening to their bodies is an issue in all of western culture, with men as well--just think about it; if we ate what our bodies told us to eat, we'd not be so fat. Some medical professionals refuse to deliver babies vaginally if the woman has had a c-section before or if the baby is in an unusual position. Funky thoughts refer thinking that a c-section is not major surgery. I think the whole idea of a baby pushing out of your vagina is actually considered more frightening in our culture than the baby being cut out of you.

Whatever the reason, it can't be argued with that the United States has one of the highest mother and baby mortality rates in the developed world.

I also find it kind of weird that we give birth lying down. I mean, I've heard stories of women giving birth in the toilet and not even knowing it. I don't think you could give birth lying down and not know it. Studies actually show that lying down makes your pelvic opening smaller. I'm pretty sure I have a small enough pelvic opening as it is, thank you very much. Why not give birth standing or squatting? I know physics. Gravity, I'd assume, would be my friend in childbirth. I'd rather that 9.81 m/s squared pushing my baby out, not pushing down on me while I try and push the baby out in the other direction, you know? I think a lot of this is just logic, ladies (and doctors)!

This whole article is just a bunch of musings from an intrigued 20-year-old who isn't planning on having kids until after getting maybe a master's degree and a law degree. That's at least 10 years from now! All this birthing stuff will probably change by the time I'm making any decisions. We will probably have decided that extra doses of Pitocin cause ADHD or Autism or something, just like Thalidomide and the kids with no arms or legs. Either way, it's a good thing to keep my eye on because it affects everyone. It's always a good time for a person to start listening to her body. Even if it's just to decide what she wants for dinner, it will help when it comes time to figure out what position is the best to push that baby out.

Moral of the story? Don't believe everything you hear about childbirth on TV. Question everything.

I'll let you guys know what I think of this post in 10 or so years. ;-P

**When I googled it, I realized that the body naturally produces Pitocin during labor! It's called oxytocin, and then when it's sold in medicine form they call it Pitocin.

Souces:

Wikipedia on Pitocin
"Why does the National U.S. Cesarean Rate Keep Going Up?"
"The Business of Being Born", Film by Abby Epstein
Wikipedia on Liquid Breathing

So Why do Teens and Gen Y Roll Our Eyes At Our Parents for Tech Reasons?

2010-06-02T22:24:00.002-05:00

Because you seem not to care about the most central parts of our communication. Sometimes, you actually say that you don't care.

Because when we tried to talk to you about the crisis in Tehran, Iran last summer, you said that you'd heard "something on the news" about it, while we watched real-time everything that was going on and had nightmares about Neda's death.

Because when we were young, and had so much trouble writing our names, and when it felt so strange and foreign, you told us that one day it would feel natural. You told us that we could do it and you told us that it was very important for us to know, even if we didn't quite understand it yet. We trusted you.

When it comes to technology, you don't trust us.

You didn't let us say "I just can't do this!", but you expect us to let you give up.

You laugh about our smartphones and Facebooking behind our backs, but we hear it.

And then you get a Facebook. Sheepishly.

You complain about us using technology all the time and tell us that it's making us dumber, but then you expect us to fix your computer!

You expected us to learn manners in your world, but you won't learn manners and etiquette in ours.

10 Ways for College Students to Save Money and Eat Better

2010-04-16T17:02:00.003-05:00

Just a few things I've picked up in this life o' mine.

1. Don't carry cash.

We are all super busy, and sometimes it's easiest just to grab a snack at a vending machine. This is something that I am so, so guilty of! Not only does it waste money, but it keeps you unhealthy. There is not much your body wants in a bag of chips (no matter what kind, and that includes all those "Baked" varieties! More on that later). If you are a student, you should be focusing on eating food that fuels your brain. While fats, salts, and carbohydrates are all necessary, the crap that's in something from a vending machine is not. In fact, many of those foods are so highly modified that the nutrition content that would have been in them when they were fresh-picked potatoes is GONE. Vending machines don't sell real food, and they're a waste of money!

2. On days when you aren't going to the cafeteria for your meal plan, pack a lunch.

Simple. Campus restaurants are filled with crappy food, and you're spending far more than what it's worth on that food. I think they should be paying you to eat it, personally. Just don't do it. If you wake up late, pack your lunch the night before. I do that often because I'm a lazybones in the morning a lot of the time. ;-)

3. Beware of diets and diet food!

Weight Watchers? May as well flush your money down the toilet. Atkins? It'll kill you if you stick to it. Grapefruit diet? You're trying to keep your brain from functioning optimally, now. People seriously pay money for that stuff. Serious money is not something a college student has. As a student, you need to be eating varied foods to keep your brain and body up and running, and these diets cut out necessary nutrients (Atkins and Grapefruit, etc) or necessary portions (Weight Watchers).

Just as these diets are a bad, overly expensive idea, all that "Low Fat" and "Whole wheat!" food in the supermarket is a fail. Stay away from foods claiming to have health benefits. Instead, eat foods that don't need to claim health benefits. I'm talking fresh produce and foods with no hydrogenated oils or added sugars hidden behind the "certified heart healthy" Cheerios label.

4. Cook on the weekends and stick it in the fridge. Microwave dinners are expensive!

Self explanatory. I have absolutely no pity for a college student complaining about money and cooking him or herself microwave dinners every night. In fact, I have negative pity for a college student cooking him or herself "Low Fat!!" microwave dinners.

5. Try cutting out High-Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) and other unnatural sugars.

I did this close to a year ago, and it's amazing. I have a surge in energy, I've stopped getting headaches that I used to get all the time (read: less Aleve to buy), and best of all, I save tons of money! I don't buy soda, bulk sweets, or anything else that gets marketed to me while I'm out and about. This also gives me incentive to pack my own lunches. People told me I wouldn't be able to do it as a college student, but I certainly did, and I saved money at it.

6. Try cutting out meat.

I actually cut out meat when I was in seventh grade, but I've noticed when I'm at the store that meat is crazy expensive compared to what I eat! I spend a lot less by just choosing dried lentils over chicken. Also, I've heard that going vegetarian can give you better mental clarity and more stamina, especially brain-wise. I know my test scores are best when I've been vegan for a few days. Finals week, here I come!

7. Buy a coffee maker.

You won't be tempted to buy coffees on the go and you won't be tempted to buy soda!

8. WALK.

I am amazed by how many college students I meet who are fat and unhealthy, constantly worrying about diet, and who drive two blocks to class or work every day. Seriously. Wake up the five minutes earlier and get your ass in gear! You will save gas and car expense money, too!

9. Always have food you like around, and a variety, so you don't feel tempted to order in.

The key here is variety. I've been so tempted to eat out sometimes (see: Insomnia Cookies!!) when I don't have enough of something that I need to make food I'm hungry for. Eating out or ordering in can totally ruin your budget. If you spend just $10 three times a week ordering in, that's $1,560 that you could be saving each year!

10. Eat less, but eat well.

Many Americans are starving even though they are extremely obese. This is because they eat far too much food that their body doesn't need, and they don't eat enough food that their body does need. Plain and simple. If you eat the foods your body needs, you will in time eat less food overall because you will need less foot to feel satiated. And yes, eat until you are about 80% full (the people of Okinawa practice this ancient tradition for health).

One more thing: be realistic. The average American spends less than 10% of their income on food (less than any other country in the developed world), and 16% of their income on healthcare (more than any other country in the developed world). Of course, the healthcare data may be slightly skewed by different systems, but the 10% of the budget unfortunately stays the same no matter how you look at it. So what does your body need: that new electronic toy, or good food? That cute new outfit would be great for interviews, but wouldn't a clear brain be better?

Good luck, everybody! Health to you all. Don't forget the most important part of food in all this: enjoy it! Food is an amazing part of our lives; a necessary miracle. We are all very, very lucky to be able to make the choices we do.

Sources:

"Time" Article: Explains Our Food/Healthcare Budget

The Food/Hunger Paradox

Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food" (about the Okinawa Stuff)

An Agnostic Grace

2010-04-14T10:11:00.005-05:00

Growing up, many of us who now consider ourselves secular enjoyed the concept of "grace" or "blessing" of the food. It quieted the family for just one moment; it brought everyone together; it made you think of how lucky you were to be eating. Many agnostic or atheist families drop the grace idea when they create their own households. To be honest, I miss the idea of a grace. Just because I don't believe in a religious ideal doesn't mean that I am not grateful for just how lucky I am. Just because I won't be thanking a god at the dinner table with my children doesn't mean I don't want them to learn humility and thankfulness. I also think that there is a correlation between families being thankful for food together and lower rates of obesity, just as there is a correlation between families eating together and, well, you guessed it.

Anyways, here is something I read in Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto". It's a quote by Wendell Berry, a prominent writer and farmer of this modern time.

"Eating with the fullest pleasure - pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance - is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend."

I created a little graphic art with this (using Pages, so yeah, it may not even be considered graphic art...) and hung it in my kitchen. It is a good reminder for me to prepare foods that are actual foods and to not disrespect food by "cooking" something with high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, or anything else that isn't really food. It is a good reminder to me that buying food is much more important than buying some new decoration for my kitchen or some new electronic toy, which is something that Americans seem to forget far too often.

It also reminds me every day to be thankful for the amazing miracle that is food. In the end, isn't that what a grace is all about?

Computer Engineer Barbie: For Once, She's Just Like Me!

2010-04-12T19:29:00.004-05:00

Admittedly, I've never owned a Barbie doll.

I owned Happy-To-Be-Me dolls that fizzled out in the mid-to-late 90's, and I thought that Barbie was pronounced "Ball-Be" because, when you ripped her head off, there was that little ball underneath. Remember? Don't say you don't know what I'm talking about.

Growing up, I was also taught to hate Barbie because she didn't look like a real woman. Truthfully, I didn't notice Barbie's too-small waist and too-long neck. Her feet were funny and small because, well, she was a doll. The reason I loved playing with Barbie at my friends' houses were because of her clothes.

Barbie could be so many people! I would make her a doctor and a mom and a teacher and my favorite: a slick, rich, well-dressed high-class biotch driving around in her hot pink car (that she'd earned herself with an MD's salary, of course).

Today, I'd like to tip my hat to the women and men who voted for Barbie's profession of the year 2010: Computer Engineer.

A big thing that I like about Computer Engineer Barbie is that she isn't losing her femininity or style. As a woman in the male-dominated field of computer science, I get pretty annoyed at the people who expect me to sit around with a greasy ponytail in a gamer t-shirt and man jeans. Computer Engineer Barbie is telling girls that, not only can they enter a male dominated field, but they don't have to lose their femininity to do so.

Computer Engineer Barbie is respected--pink laptop and glasses and all. Her confidence makes me more confident in the woman that I am. Barbie does look like a real woman--she looks like me! Today and always, I'm proud to be a sexy, well-dressed woman in computer science.

-----

P.S. Yes, I do know that I did two Mattel articles in a row. That is pure coincidence. I love dolls. It must be because I'm such a doll. ;-P

Sources:

WSJ Article
Photo

American Girl's "New" Homeless Doll

2009-10-05T17:57:00.005-05:00

As a patron of Pleasant Company (now known as American Girl and owned by Mattel, Inc.) since the tender age of somewhere around five or six, one could certainly say I grew up with the American Girl dolls. My parents allowed me to choose one doll, and it was given to me the Christmas after I turned seven years old. To this day, I still own, cherish, and collect items to go with my vintage Molly MacIntire doll, the glasses-wearing World War II era girl, because I chose her with the knowledge of what she'd "been" through. Her story interested me the most--growing up while her father was away at war with a crop of siblings and a busy mother--but before I chose this doll, I read every other American Girl's story first. There was Felicity, the colonial-era doll struggling with her own family's Patriot beliefs while her best friend was a Loyalist. There was Addy, an escaped slave (who escaped in the first book of her series). There was Kirsten, a young Swedish immigrant whose closest friend died on the boat to America, and there was Samantha, a Victorian-era mischievous girl whose closest friend was a 9-year-old factory worker during the industrial revolution.

Nowadays, Samantha has been impermanently retired and there are many more dolls, including a 1970's era girl, a Native American, and Kit, a girl who grew up during the Great Depression. American Girl has recently started putting out limited-edition dolls, modern-day American Girls, each year. Girl of the Year 2009, Chrissa, recently dealt with her family's move to a new town and bullies at her new school. Gwen, the doll this year, is homeless after her father's leaving and her mother's loss of a job (seems like it will be because of the recession).

First of all, good for you, American Girl! I know that the number of homeless children in the United States has risen dramatically increased since the recession began, and I also know that these children will need something to relate to. At the same time, critics are complaining that perhaps, this doll will glorify homelessness.
My first response: what the hell, critics. I mean, seriously. When I read Kit, the Great Depression doll’s, story, I remember her fear of becoming homeless when she had to start working, at the tender age of nine, after her father lost his job. He lied to the family that they had money left over and she found him waiting in a bread line to bring them food. In Samantha’s story, her friend describes watching a young girl getting scalped by one of the machines in her factory, while in Kirsten’s the nine-year-old watches her friend buried after watching her die of cholera. These books are serious and touch on issues that children need to learn but may not ever learn in the comfort of grade school classrooms. At the end of each book is a five or so page spread, nonfiction, about the topics discussed in the books. I used to refer to those last few pages of the books for schoolwork up until mid high school. Each doll has a series of five books and I read every one of them at a very young age. My friends, male and female, and I discussed them and we learned a lot about history, and were able to relate to it.

Nowadays, however, I find myself talking to the grade school youngsters about one of the best parts of my past and learning that they have no idea what I’m talking about. “I have five of the dolls!” one youngster tells me. Another discusses her plans to get others as gifts. If they have read the books, they’ve only read the first book in a doll’s series, and only because a copy of the book comes with the doll. Some girls haven’t even read that.

So I guess, to one of these young “collectors” (these dolls cost $95 apiece, by the way…way to teach kids the value of a dollar) a homeless doll would glorify homelessness. I mean, if somebody had given me a Molly doll in 1997 without having me read her story, I would’ve been happy-go-lucky to dress her in the cute clothes. I never would have learned about the bombings in London and how they made other children homeless.

I guess that’s another thing—Gwen’s story isn’t the first to discuss homelessness. In fact, she isn’t the first homeless doll. Kirsten was homeless when she first came to the United States, and her family doesn’t get their own home until the last book of the series (she stays with family after the first book). Addy was homeless after she escaped slavery for a few books. Kit nearly loses her home and Molly ‘s family takes in a young British refugee after she loses her home during World War II.

Hey critics…you don’t know what you’re critiquing.

As for complaining parents, how about you stop buying your kids dolls for a moment and bring them to the library. There, you can teach them about history for free, and the American Girl books are a great resource.

Source: TIME Report

I am (not) a Rebel: Part II of Whoami

2009-07-24T14:43:00.004-05:00

A lot of students go to college because they don't know what else to do and because they aren't yet able to survive in the real world. At least, that's what they tell themselves.

You see, I truly respect colleges and universities for what they are supposed to be--institutions that give students great learning opportunities. The problem is, that isn't their first priority anymore. When was the last time you went to a college town? What do you see there every (in particular Friday and Saturday) night?

Reminded of: Scott Westerfeld. This list-topping science fiction author wrote the dystopic Uglies series, set a few hundred years in the future where age is the determining factor in what social class you are a part of. Children live with parents, pubescent (starting at 10, I think) children, or uglies, live in dorms, and at age 16 you get an operation to make you beautiful and just like everyone else. You then go to live in new pretty town, a place where everyone is a late teenager-early 20s-ager and parties all the time. The pretties don't have a care in the world because, during their surgeries, they have been made virtually indestructible and they can't get sick. STD's are extinct. Something the pretties don't know, however, is that their surgeons gave them brain lesions while they were being perfected. They are programmed to have fun and not to think.

So why the hell do college students today, particularly undergrads, choose to act this way? I think a lot of you already know how insane it drives me when my peers drink their weekends away, perpetuating the stereotype that all college undergrads are drunks who can't control themselves around liquor. Actually, I take that back. Change liquor to Keystone Light. Hah.

So I choose not to get drunk. I have no problem with drinking. Having a few drinks with friends is fine, but why do college students seem not to have a stopping point? Don't they realize that it won't solve any problems to down sixteen light beers and whatever else gets thrown at them? Do they really enjoy hanging out in scuzzy bars filled with sounds and smells that assault every physical and emotional sense? Don't they know that their boss could call them on a Saturday night with some work emergency (even if it's only a weekday job)? Do they ever consider that professor who could at some point be an incredible resource and mentor might be walking down the street and the same time they are veering down it, hardly able to speak? Do they really think they're solving anything by drinking? Why not spend an empty Saturday night fixing whatever you're worried about rather than stewing over it?

On top of this, my peers are setting our generation up to be looked at as a generation of drinking, debauchery, and general lack of discipline. When I stayed at my parents' house visiting after my first semester, my mother joked that now that I was a college student, I still couldn't drink the wine she'd left open in the cabinet. The joke assumed that, being a college student, I couldn't control my societal instincts to grab a bottle of whatever alcohol was available and down it. I know it wa a joke, but it didn't strike me as funny. Where there's smoke there's fire. If people can joke about a stereotype, there are people who believe it. When I explain that I've just finished my freshman year of college, I hate the wink and the "how was it?" I hate even more the surprise these people show when the first thing I describe are my classes, my job, my extracurricular activities, and the incredible people I met and worked with.

So I guess that makes me lacking in awesome rebellious young adult stuff. I won't ever be the 27-year-old who, when asked how his weekend was, answers "Awesome! I just stayed drunk the whole time!" Um...okay. I didn't gain a freshman fifteen, and I obviously never will. I've never smoked pot or any illegal drug, and I won't. I think it's stupid and it doesn't appeal to me. I will continue to make decisions based on financial feasibility and long-term goals rather than short-term satisfaction. I will wear a bike helmet despite being a good biker (yes, after my period of teenager-hood where I decided that I didn't need one, I've decided that I'm far too intelligent to get my head smashed by something I can't control). I will work a job that I enjoy and make it a part of my life, rather than sprinting out the door at 5pm every day.

Why is this such a big deal, though? It's almost like I'm a rebel to choose doing these things. Teenagers and young adults are expected to be rebellious, and that rebelling is drinking, smoking, apathy, and more, but this is really just following the crowd. I'm a rebel in my own right and I already stand out for that reason, but I stand out in a good way.

Something that bothers me about this is the way people tell me I am so "mature" for acting the way I do. My recent financial and education decisions have led many adults I know to praise me, to be proud of me, but my peers don't understand. I've been compared to an investment gone bad and told that I shouldn't talk about some of the things I talk about because I should be embarrassed. I disagree, but not before wondering if maybe I should just go along with the flow a little more. I know that, in the future, I'm going to have to deal with my peers as coworkers and perhaps I should network with them socially a bit more. But if that requires drinking excessive amounts of disgusting and doing things that are regrettable, I guess I'll just have to network with the few who are unrebels like me. I am (not) a rebel. And I like it that way.

First and Foremost, I am Nothing But a Tax Deduction: Part I of Whoami

2009-07-16T00:40:00.002-05:00

At least, that's what I feel like today. When your family decides to build a new house over the course of tax year 2008 and then can't decide whether to let you file as independent or dependent, that means you have to do your taxes in July 2009 (once all the paperwork goes through three months after you've filed for an extension, of course). Gotta love bureaucracy.

It was finally decided that this year it would be easiest to have me file as a dependent, because there are no reasons why I shouldn't. Pretty much, my parents get more money back for claiming me than I would for claiming myself. Sadly, this way, I actually owe the government of Illinois money (geez, I guess I was some sort of workaholic 18-year-old?). Anyways, it got me thinking.

I mean, I don't mind being claimed; otherwise I would have filed independently in February and my parents would have had nothing to say about it. At the same time, it makes me feel inferior, but I'm not sure why. I know a few parents who give their children nicknames like "Daddy's Little Tax Deduction" and stuff, and it's cute for a while, but I guess there's a point where it isn't cute and it's just annoying. (For instance, naming your child after the month they were born in. How cute on a baby, how annoying when I get asked in a professional setting "So were you born in April? REALLY? ". As if you've never met someone named after something. Give me a break. Can we get back to the interview now that you've set it aside in your little mind-book that I have a silly name?)

Anyways, I think I'd punch somebody in the face if they called me a tax deduction right about now. I mean, really. I've had it with trying to figure out if I'm a child or an adult in the eyes of the government. I pay all my own bills, rent, college, food, etc...but yes, I am still being claimed as a dependent. I can vote, but I can't buy alcohol. And I can live entirely on my own, but I still can't use my salary instead of my parents' on the FAFSA (unless I get married, of course. Because I would suddenly be a real person if I got married at nineteen).

And yes, I do know that a lot of my friends are still claimed by their parents, but I'm curious. I've noticed that I'm the only person I've talked to who fills out my own tax forms but is being claimed as a dependent. I truly don't mind; in the end we're getting more money back from the government. Still, I'd like to know how many of you out there close to my age are claimed, aren't claimed, fill out your own tax forms, don't fill out your own tax forms...

I'm really interested. I know that my financial situation is currently a lot simpler than my peers'. A lot of you have money saved up for you in accounts that have existed since before you were born or soon after, and your parents understand the situation better than you do so they just do the taxes. In that case, are you still claimed as a dependent? Are your parents or aren't your parents helping with college, and does that affect how you file?

The truth is, I may or may not have my own dependents someday. Even if I'll never have children, I still like to think of how I would raise them, were I raising them in this exact moment. I guess I always had this idea that the year they were 18 for most of it, I'd stop claiming them and teach them to do their own taxes (yes, the 18-year-olds in my situation do have more money than just college loans and whatever they made this past year; there's no way I'd ever make a kid without having some form of support for it already stashed away). I think that would be a strong step toward financial independence. If you know me personally, you know how I feel about students these days never learning to become financially independent.

On that subject, I actually wanted to share a frikking amazing idea that seems really obvious now, that Scott Swanson gave to me in a twitter conversation about undergraduate college students and money.

His idea is that a substantial way to help your undergraduate college student become financially independent is to help them financially, but to have them track everything they spend of both their money and yours. His suggestion is Quicken Online, which is free and actually gives you little charts of where all your money goes, category-wise. I have used it for about a year now and LOVE it.

I have met far too many college students who just don't understand the value of a dollar. In my opinion, a good way to teach a college student the value of a dollar is to get them to track every cent that goes towards them from an early age and to have them do their taxes. Also, make them write the checks that pay for their education, their rent, etc. This way, your student isn't at a disadvantage because he or she is going into debt, attempting to fill out dozens of scholarship forms a week, working 30+ hours a week, and et cetera while he or she should be studying. Your student is also not at a disadvantage because he or she has no idea how much that, say, $12,000 a year *is* when he or she is finally out in the real world.

Because no, college isn't the real world. More on that in my next article. ;-) For now, comment on this one. Thoughts anybody?

Whoami?

2009-07-14T00:38:00.001-05:00

If only figuring out who we are was as easy as this Linux command. Of course, it's only to know who you are logged in as, so assuming humans aren't turing machines, we don't have a whoami command. (Ok, this is a stretch, but I've had a fever all day, so give me a break, ok?) :-D

For those of you who aren't that familiar with what I'm talking about, just understand that I am nineteen years old, and I have decided that is a pretty good time to set in stone who I am. I mean, I guess I already thought I knew, but my society tells me otherwise.

Over the course of the next few days/weeks, I am going to write five articles. Here are the layouts. This is subject to change. If you want me to look at anything else, let me know and I will do what I can to write about it!

1. First and foremost, I am nothing but a tax deduction.

This article is about money. Well, in particular, it is about how money makes me feel and how money makes other people feel, and how I want money to make the people I care about feel.

2. I am (not) a rebel.

This article is about age. It asks once again the question my closest friend in second grade asked me back then: "Is it that we are more mature than the other kids? Or that they are more mature than we are?"

3. I am a white raised lower/middle class upwardly mobile middle class young woman raised protestant now atheist higher-than-average intelligence techie linguist sociologist digital native partly-ginger low-income for a regular person but not for a university student and (your) blogger.

This article is about social class--in particular, my social class and experiences with it--and role models. I pose the question: Is Michelle Obama a good role model for every woman?

4. I am beautiful.

This article is about physical beauty. I've been told so many times in my life that I am "ugly", and then all of a sudden, I got "pretty". I want to look at that.

5. I am female adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

I have adult ADHD. When I was younger, I had undiagnosed ADHD. I want to explain some of the misunderstandings that come with ADHD, especially for women and adults, and I want to explain why I think ADHD defines me and makes me such an amazing person.

Bill of Rights for Digital Natives

2009-07-10T21:30:00.002-05:00

Hey all--I thought of this during the weekend before NECC, and started writing it. It's been kind of worked through a lot, so I hope you find it informative!

**Bill of Rights for Digital Natives**

1) The right to a Facebook (access).

A digital native should, at the age of 13, have the right to use any social networking site based off of his or her PERSONAL DECISION. At the age of 13 based on international law, a person comes of age on the internet. Not 18, not 21, not 24, but 13. That is when a person is considered old enough to understand privacy policies and agree to terms of use. Therefore, a person age 13 should be allowed to make the decision about whether he or she wants a Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, or so on. This is not a parent's decision. A parent should guide his or her digital native, but should also understand that a student starting a good digital footprint at a young age is necessary in today's cutthroat world of school, job, and social opportunities.

Side note: NO ONE should EVER be required to give his or her passwords to someone else. This includes children and parents. Not only is this secure, it teaches students good habits for the future. If a parent wants to see what his or her son or daughter is doing online, said parent should get a Facebook and friend the student, and then it is the student's decision whether or not to let the parent in. I was once asked, as a computer science major, by two parents to help them "hack" their digital native's MySpace account. Do you really think that hacking someone's social networks is going to make them respect you and the (actually important) advice you have to give them later?

2) The right to an education (aka digital footprint knowledge).

I am one of the luckiest high school students in the United States. When I started at the Illinois Math and Science Academy (IMSA), I was required to attend a session teaching me about my digital footprint and what I should or should not do with access to the internet. Safety, law, and accountability were straightforwardly discussed. In exchange for this class every student at IMSA was given virtually (I say this because some ports were blocked due to security risks) unfiltered access to the internet. More about that later. All in all, it is the right of every digital native to have this discussion, preferably at the age of thirteen or before.

3) The right to non-filtered, uncensored world access.

This begins with the networks students are given. Don't block pictures that could be considered crude; every digital native has seen worse, no matter how strongly you censor what they see. I mean, you didn't teach your daughter any of those words you heard her using with her friends but she learned them, right? I dare you to ask your 12-year-old if he's watched Neda die. Especially if you don't know what I'm talking about, you are no longer allowed to judge what your digital native does and doesn't do online.

4) The right to privacy/encryption and safety.

There should be laws dictating what to do and what not to do to on the internet, and those laws should be clearly spelled out. I am not a lawyer and I will not try to be, but I do know that digital natives should be educated on what their legal rights are and where those rights end. I see far too many people getting in trouble for things such as torrenting that they never knew were illegal. If you know and choose to do it is one decision; doing it without realizing it's wrong because you never had the opportunity to learn is another. Imagine a cop ticketing you for speeding in a district that chose never to post speed limits.

5) The right to curiosity.

Under no circumstances should any digital native, or any person of any generation, be told what he or she can or cannot learn.

So, that's my Bill of Rights for Digital Natives! Comment, add, discuss, please!

My Response to CNN's Article on Vanity Sizing

2009-07-10T11:33:00.002-05:00

Here is the CNN Article on Fatness. I suggest you read it first.

The worst part of this is, people who are actully healthy no longer have clothes that fit them! I was a size 4 in 1995, but today I can't find even a size that fits my tall, slender frame. I have to shop in the juniors' section at stores just to get a pair of pants that doesn't look horribly baggy (and for a working woman!). Even a size zero is too big for me (not height-wise, just width).

I am a perfectly healthy woman but I often get comments from people calling me "anorexic". I do not have an eating disorder. I keep a healthy diet and exercise regularly. I find it incredibly demeaning and unfair that it is inappropriate for me to call a fat person fat or to tell them that they keep an unhealthy lifestyle, but it is appropriate for people to ask me if I am anorexic on the first or second occasion I speak to them (and then often tell me that they don't believe me!).

I agree that our culture has gone overboard when it comes to thinness, but in the end, a person with less body fat is actually healthier. I find it unfair that it is socially acceptable to disrespect healthy thin people, and I find it especially disrespectful when I can no longer find clothing to fit me in stores.

Kind of a response to the article I wrote forever ago on vanity sizing.

Glad to see someone else has *finally* caught on.

Prose and Naivete.

2009-07-07T20:16:00.002-05:00

Well I'm still working on my Bill of Rights for Digital Natives (which is my next big post, for those of you who don't follow me on Twitter), I decided to post a beautiful little bit of prose I wrote near the end of 2007. At that time, I was just beginning to play with the idea of lost naivete, and I wasn't the best writer of all time, I posted it anyway as my instant message status. I didn't realize it meant much to anyone but me until someone messaged me saying how it had put tears in their eyes. In March of 2008 archived it, and someone reminded me of it today. I'll post it so you can have something to nibble at while I brave writer's block. :-P

"I close my eyes and for a second I am spinning; spinning like a colorful top I got in a treat bag after somebody's birthday in grade school and broke after a few uses. I am leaning my shins against the metal rim of our kitchen table and I'm all alone, eating ice cream and not caring about the calories from the dairy and the peanut butter and the chocolate and I'm reading Sweet Valley Kids and, even though it's the library's copy, I'm correcting the grammar errors in pen. Black pen that doesn't work very well because it's been sitting on top of the microwave with all the other papers. I can smell the summer. The yellow curtains, trimmed with white lace that is dusty are swaying in the lack of breeze. I can barely breathe, damn the Chicago summers. Air conditioning is expensive and I hear the outside noises because the back door is wide open. I am wearing shorts and the backs of my legs are sticking to the chair and my toes are dirty from not wearing any shoes--my feet don't fit properly in any shoes, anyway. The first day of school is going to be hell because I'll have to wear shoes. My hair is long and wet and salty on the back of my neck where it fell from the ponytail. It's so still outside, that not even a bird complains. Just the distant traffic, screeching or stopping or going full speed down at the bus stop. And I am content with a feeling of contentedness that I will never feel sitting in front of a computer in a heated dorm room at one in the morning. I am a child, but not a child. I am April-Hope, nothing else, no past worth telling and every inch of the future worth planning. I am beauty and wonderment and childhood. I am happy."

Launch of Independent Students Social Network!

2009-07-04T21:17:00.004-05:00

Hey all--I know it's the fourth of July, but you know me. I'm hanging out up in my apartment eating strawberries, writing articles, applying for scholarships, and now...launching Independent Students.

It's the social network I told you about. Yes, I know it's bare bones. And yes, I know it's a Ning. What do you expect, that I toss away some dollars so I can have a pretty url? And toss away some time so I can revamp Yogurt? (Yes, of course I wanted to do that...:-/)

Anyways, take a look. The Independent Students Social Network

Let me know your thoughts!

ahw

College Kids Arguing Grade School Education on Twitter!!!!

2009-06-30T00:19:00.003-05:00

Ok, so I have had, like, no time to write *anything* for all of NECC so far. And this was an article I started on Saturday, for the purposes of people who asked about it at EduBloggerCon. Pretty much what happened was I tweeted this:

why we should let students design their own education..budget cuts. we care enough about our own education to work for free #ebc09 #necc09

I had been tweeting pretty much every two seconds, so I had no idea this would be the tweet that would warrant so many responses. I was pretty much tweeting every thought I had, whether or not I believed it. Real-time blogging, I suppose. Anyways, one minute later, I got a response:

tiertier @ahw That sounds like potential for disaster. A lot of students are pretty stupid.

And so began the argument. I cut some parts, because we were tweeting so fast that we often missed what each other said and then ended up saying "what?" "what?" "oh i said that!" etc.

Anyways, here are some digital natives (all just finished with our freshman years at various universities across the nation, but we are class of IMSA 08) arguing a pretty sensitive education issue. I think this this argument good to show to people who know me, because I know that the impression that I make tends to say that every student my age thinks the same way I do. In fact, we get pretty bitter with each other. (By the way, I'm ahw.)

Here you go:

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tiertier @ahw It would have to be implemented super well is mostly what i was getting at.

ahw @tiertier yeah, but it wouldnt be as hard to implement if it was what the students wanted.

tiertier @ahw Yeah, but keep in mind that the 'students' you're used to are some of the best and that typical places don't have as many good students [This is in reference to the fact that we both graduated from the Illinois Math and Science academy and then went on to higher education at "well-ranked" schools.]

ahw @tiertier i actually had the students i went to grade school with in mind.

ahw @tiertier shouldve specified that i was talking about grade school education

tiertier @ahw Diff stuff works for diff kids. I <3 the Montessori system, but it didn't work at all for my lil sis. I think trying to generalize=bad [I thought this was awesome and retweeted it. So if any of you who follow me on twitter think it sounds familiar, you're probably right.]

ahw @tiertier exactly. which is why we should ask the students. because they know stuff like that. and we do generalize too much.

fiandola @ahw a lot of elem school kids don't know what would benefit them. i would have been content not to be in school, but i'd be screwed today. [Yes, he is referring to the horrid, horrid higher education system we all have to suffer through if we want to be "respected" these days...]

ahw @fiandola ok, build on that. what if kids "telecommuted" one day a week?

fiandola @ahw my brother is homeschooled, my mom lets him do whatever he wants, and he does zero work. "design your own program," my ass.

ahw @fiandola what if you give them a project and tell them they can do whatever they want, so long as they get it done?

ahw @fiandola when you get down to it, kids just dont want to be bored. use that. our edu system obviously needs some revamping. we suck.

fiandola @ahw this isnt true for everyone, but if you give most elem school kids free range, they'll just screw around all day.

fiandola @ahw they'd play video games while claiming to do work.

fiandola @ahw they won't get it done, given the lack of consequences for not finishing it.

fiandola @ahw as a 10 year old, i would have been ok with never doing any math. i'd be completely owned for today. [He is studying computer science.]

tiertier @ahw Yeah, but in a mntsri setting, a lot of kids would be fine socializing all day. They dont necess want to learn, just do smthng

fiandola @ahw plz provide evidence with citations for kids not wanting to be bored.

ahw @fiandola put up some standards. tell them why they have to be educated. you said you hated math cause you didnt know what u needed it 4

ahw @tiertier who says that by socializing theyre not learning? point is, they like doing that, right? so put it into the curriculum

fiandola @ahw kids need asian parents, not encouragement to be lazy. though i know you prefer being lazy. [I think @ahw might need some ice for that burn...]

tiertier @ahw What you want to do isn't necessarily what you need. Someone wont be able to do shit with their life if all they learned was socializin

ahw @fiandola our education system sucks compared to what the asian kids are doing, tho, so we have to do something... [This is a reference to many countries in Asia producing adults with more mathematic flucency than adults in the United States.]

sp990 @ahw our system doesn't suck, it's the attitude. Azn system is just rote memorization/repetition. But they value it more than we do

tiertier @ahw I'm pretty sure 'something' isn't letting everyone run around doing whatever they want.

ahw @tiertier and im not saying that kids dont need adults to help them out. im just saying, they arent responding to education now

ahw @tiertier and we can change that

ahw @tiertier with their help

ahw @fiandola @tiertier who says learning isnt fun? who says learning in grade school cant be fun?

ahw @tiertier that isnt what i mean. i mean sitting down with students to help them redesign a curriculum.

ahw @tiertier have you ever just asked kids how they think their classrooms should change? when they get serious, they dont say by doing nothing

ahw @sp990 YES! AGREED! i think we can make students value it if they see how it will help them in the future!

tiertier @ahw U said to put socializing in the curriculum bc kids like it. I was getting at they need more structure than that.

tiertier @ahw they have after school to do what they want. School doesnt have to be shitty but there stuff that isnt fun that needs to happen

ahw @tiertier i think that students can defs benefit from using social networking in an education system tho, get it?

tiertier @ahw they have after school to do what they want. School doesnt have to be shitty but there stuff that isnt fun that needs to happen

ahw @tiertier no, they dont. they often have that pointless, repetitive homework that doesnt teach them anything but takes hours. bullshit.

ahw @fiandola i think being lazy is just doing it the same way we have for years, repetitive math problems, all the same with different numbers

tiertier @ahw The pointless hw is bullshit and needs to stop, but there's still time. it depends heavily on implementation of social networking.

ahw @tiertier and that depends on student cooperation. a lot of the time, they think social networking is pointless because clueless...

ahw @tiertier ...educators write it for them. most of the time, the outside net is blocked and they only "network" within their school system

tiertier @ahw Also, to an extent, some stuff needs repetition to be learned. Not to the degree it is now, but to a point. keep in mind that there...

tiertier @ahw ...are kids who don't care and would just not learn stuff. Motivation isn't necessarily as easy as we'd like to think

ahw @tiertier of course! but, like, having the same ?s on the test as the hw (my math class last semester) doesnt teach kids

ahw @tiertier totally. thats why we need to implement more than one education system, too. like, youre totally right, we generalize too much.

tiertier @ahw Ideally, what would social networking be use for in the classroom?

ahw @tiertier i dont know. i only see how its useful outside the classroom right now. social training is important these days tho, fosho

ahw @tiertier these days there are some great programs out there tho. a lot of them have to do with literature

ahw @tiertier also, they are often implemented in private/rich school systems. its difficult to go around the laws

ahw @tiertier and people are afraid of a lot. like, the internet means our students will be in porn, oh no!!!

ahw @tiertier this conference is totally bamf for learning what people are doing, tho [Reference to edubloggercon and NECC.]

tiertier @ahw "social training"... seriously? Just let kids be kids after school. They'll figure it out.

ahw @tiertier i mean like, networking and stuff. i wish id had that kind of training in grade school! [I was also thinking about, but chose not to write, the parents who won't let their students get Facebooks or blogs even after they turn thirteen. Often, these students are only able to use social networking at school because their parents don't know, or because they trust the teachers over the students.]

tiertier @ahw I feel like that could be bad. Like, people change, if you are tracked professionally from that young, you dick around at all, you done

ahw @tiertier using what kids know to prove to them that what theyre learning is important. a lot of teachers use blogs/wikis here btw

ahw @tiertier but most of them are being tracked from that young anyway. my bro did his first social networking 2nd/3rd grade

ahw @tiertier and if it is academic stuff, they do get a good digital footprint from early on.

ahw @tiertier also, educate them on what the digital footprint consequences are (good/bad). imsa gave us that talk, too.

tiertier @ahw Coming from me, this is weird, but i feel like it doesn't need to start that early.

ahw @tiertier also, it is illegal for kids to be on most social networking sites before 13. so when i say social networking its usually 4 older

ahw @tiertier but it is anyway. even tho we werent like that, kids these days *are*. [War of the different generations of digital natives. ;-)]

ahw @tiertier my bro/sis were typing 50 wpm by kindergarten/1st grade [It's true, too. Frikking insane.]

ahw @tiertier our education has got to change with moving society.

tiertier @ahw Yes on the change. Tech literacy is vital, I feel like i'm using diff terms/ vocab than you and that's the problem

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Keep in mind that, as a student, I am offended by the use of the word "kid" to describe me. I only use that word because it is three characters as opposed to seven.

To me, this just goes to show that our disrespect for younger students, as a culture, doesn't start in our twenties or thirties. People who were in grade school only a few years ago already have a disdain for today's grade school students. I think this is a huge problem in education today because I don't understand how we can teach students anything when we don't consider them working members of our society. Comments?

Part II of Part III: FAQ on the Last Article

2009-06-26T17:39:00.002-05:00

Wow! I got an amazing amount of responses to my last article! Some people commented, some twittered, some facebooked, and some talked to me personally. I heard a range of stories from decades ago to the present. One of the most interesting ideas (that I heard a few times) was about two students, young, who wanted to have independent status, who would get legally married just to get that status. They wouldn't be in love; just friends; one of the comments given here on this blog was of a woman considering marrying her gay male friend. Interesting idea! Talk about getting married for convenience! I wonder if you get those college benefits if you get a same-sex marriage, in the states where you can do that now. I wonder how often people have used this "loophole". Hm...

I thought I would catch a lot more flack for writing this article than I did--most of you thanked me for writing a long-overdue piece and I'm happy to be of service. Here are some commonly asked (or just interesting, once-asked) questions or comments. More technical questions I put first, more personal questions last.

Q: What about the residency issue?

A: This depends largely on the area that you want to become a resident of and the rules of your specific college. Often, if you are over the age of 18 and you fulfill the residency requirements for the area (i.e. live there for six months, have a job in the district, etc.) you are considered a resident of the area, regardless of where your parents live. Beware, though: especially now, schools are pretty darn broke. They will want to argue with you. If you are a freshman going to an out-of-state college, you may need to know more than a year ahead of time, so this is a process where you might not be able to gain residency for a few years. Also, if you are younger, colleges will ask for proof of tax forms, pay stubs, etc, so keep copies of these. Also, often living in a dorm DOES NOT count as living in that district/state if your permanent residence is elsewhere. Just make sure you learn the policies ASAP. Source: eHow.

Q: Damn kids these days! When I was 18, I was kicked out of my house. I don't understand why 18-year-olds can't be self-sufficient anymore!

A: Because of the recent changes in law, it is very difficult for an 18-year-old to be self-sufficient if he or she chooses to go to a four-year college out of high school. If a person of that age (or age 16, legally able to work, for that matter) is not attending school, he or she should have no problem working and paying bills and living on his or her own. Granted, he or she will probably still need a parent's help to cosign on a rent agreement or for a house, especially now that a person cannot get a credit card to help him/her build credit until age 21. I certainly believe that young adults/college students are babied too much in this generation, but, because I know my son or daughter would be at a disadvantage not to be "babied", I would gladly help them with groceries, rent, a car, etc, so long as he or she was in school. I'd want school and internships to stay my child's first priority. However, I understand that many parents do not feel this way because they didn't do it like this, and that causes a very unique and unfair situation in our colleges and universities. I actually have an interesting connection drawn between kids who grew up during the Cold War and how they are raising their children differently because of that. As soon as I can find the bloody essay I wrote about it I'll post it...

Q: Why don't you students just get full scholarships?

A: Full scholarships are hardly ever offered anymore at the universities we want to attend and for the educations we want to receive. Even if you were offered a full scholarship at a college, did you go? Probably not. I don't believe my or anyone's education should be sacrificed because of money. Even though I'm going to do it myself, I know you won't go to community college even if it's free. The truth is, the full scholarships to Harvard you hear about for financially struggling black kids from the inner city are rare. Even more rare are full scholarships for white students who grew up in the suburbs and have parents with bad credit. I know I gave up my 4.0 (and maybe full scholarship) to go to the Illinois Math and Science Academy, but I do not, by any means, regret it. I think a lot of students in my position feel the same way.

Q: What about FastWeb (or some other scholarship site)? I've heard that you can get all your college paid for by just filling out lots of scholarship applications!

A: I have filled out almost three dozen of those scholarship apps over the years, and never received a single response. I still fill them out kind of obsessively, and I've lost count by now. Soooo many people apply for those! If you find a rare scholarship, so be it, but the best scholarships you can get come from asking your school directly which apply to you.

Q: What about the military? Can't you get a free education that way?

A: Yes! And I highly recommend it if you are that type of person! I seriously considered the U.S. Air Force academy for a while, before realizing that I'd rather have some student loans coming out and more options about what I would like to learn. But by all means, the U.S. government has amazing institutions! My cousin just graduated from the Air Force academy over in Colorado and is now doing graduate school at Oxford. I know a few other people who have gone to those institutions, too, and they do not regret it. There are also ROTC programs to consider.

Q: If you spent less time whining, you'd have college paid for by now.

A: Thanks for the advice!

Q: So...you seem to have a lot of changes going on in your life right now. What do you regret? Why are you switching schools?

A: I say, no regrets! The reasons I'm switching schools are many, and in some cases, very personal. I originally intended to go to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and now have decided to go to Parkland Community college (same area, and opportunity to transfer) so that I can hopefully get a lot of money off for a year while I'm still doing pretty basic classes. I loved the University of Tulsa and I will miss it. If I could see what was going to happen, though, I would probably have taken a gap year and worked two jobs, and maybe taking a few community college classes. It would have saved me money and stress and time, and therefore grades. Just know that, no matter how much a parent wants something to work out for you, sometimes, it just doesn't work out. No matter how hard they want to work to keep you at a four-year college, sometimes they just can't do it. I finally realized that my Dad's "We'll figure something out", which I'd been hearing for a year, just wasn't going to happen soon enough for me to have an opportunistic experience at a college where I'd be constantly worrying about how much I needed to pay. Similar living paycheck to paycheck, I was living semester-to-semester, scraping together enough money during the second semester to pay for the first, and on and on. I needed to break the cycle. I made a decision. I am still certain that it is the right decision.

Q: So how do your parents feel about this? I mean, not just the college thing. But you writing about this?

A: The college thing, my dad seems kind of sad. I think he still believes in magic and doesn't understand that this is something I need to do for my personal finances. He keeps telling me to wait one more week, he'll be able to cosign... My mother doesn't seem to care too much either way. As for the things I've been writing, I don't know what their response is. They've been kind of busy lately.

Q: What about your friends?

A: Some think it's admirable to continue working toward a college degree when I'm in this situation. Others are embarrassed to be seen with me. Some try and help (and often do!) by giving me ideas, sending me articles, helping find scholarships, and offering moral support. Some tell me that I am being lazy and throwing my life and intelligence away. I think I touched on this in my last article.

Q: So what are your plans for the future?

A: I have this incredible fantasy. It's a time, decades from now, where I've made enough money to go back to school for something that I want to learn about, just because I'm curious. By this time, I may already have a master's or a PHD, but no matter. In this future I have made enough money that I can go to school without working. I can just learn full-time, I can question, I can study late into the night just for the hell of it. I might not even get a degree for the education I'm going back for. I don't care--I'm just going to take classes that I want to take. That's what I'm working for here. That dream.

Q: What are you doing now to raise awareness about this situation? I mean, ok, you can write on a blog and you can even write to congress. But really, will that change anything?

A: I hope so. In the meantime, however, I'm working on a social networking site for students who are paying for college entirely or mainly on their own. In this network I want to be able to exchange:

a) tips on scholarships, loans, etc. This is the most obvious one.

b) tips on the lifestyle that independent students live. For instance, ideas on what jobs to get where you can get a lot of hours and a lot of pay, but still have downtime to study.

c) moral support. Not to sound emo or anything, but sometimes I feel really alone with this situation! Since I've started writing about this, a bunch of people have come out of thin air to tell me their stories. All of them are unique, and I think we can all benefit from each other's experiences.

This site won't be limited to students who are paying for their own education. I hope students who support their colleagues paying for their own education join. I hope educators join, and especially, I hope parents join. It's currently under construction but I'll be posting a link to it soon!

--ahw

Part I of Part III of College Students and Money: That's not fair! For Students Whose Parents Refuse to Help in Any Way with College

2009-06-23T00:27:00.003-05:00

First of all, I want to say that this article does not at all intend to target the parents who won't help with their students' educations. They have a choice, and we have to respect the choices people make.

Once a child is eighteen, parents often believe that they are no longer legally tied to that child. However, the United States government says otherwise. The U.S. department of education has passed many laws dictating that a college student's education is expected to be his or her parents' PRIMARY expense. These same laws have strict regulations determining when and how a student under the age of 24 can become an "independent student". An independent student is considered a student who is paying for his or her education without any aid from others. This student is allowed to apply for federal financial aid using his or her financial situation, rather than his or her parents' situation. In order to receive independent student status one must get married, have legal proof that they have abusive parents, have legal proof that they have dead parents, or have any other host of strange situations that most independent people under the age of 24 do not have. Living without any support from parents is not a legitimate reason to be considered an independent student. Even if the student is not claimed as a dependent on the parents' tax returns, the student is still considered dependent on the parents for education finances until they are 24 years of age. Many parents just don't believe this is the case. Some parents do not understand because they were married right out of high school and were always considered independent students. Some parents were abusive, but their students do not have proof (including extensive social work, doctors' visits, and court orders, totaling in some cases more than an education costs in the first place). Some parents refuse to fill out the FAFSA because they do not want their personal information looked at. Whatever the case, students who are on their own are falling through the cracks every year. Here's part of a FastWeb article I found which these as some of the most common reasons for parents refusing to help their college students financially:

--

Some parents mistakenly believe that if they refuse to contribute, the school will declare the student independent and pick up the parent's share of the college costs.

Parents who are divorced or separated (or in the process of becoming divorced) use their refusal as a weapon against the other parent. They don't seem to realize that this hurts the student, and only serves to derail the student's academic and career goals.

Some parents feel that their responsibility ends when the student walks out the door on their way to college. They feel that their children are adult now, so it's their responsibility. (Most states have laws specifying that child support ends at age 18 or 21. College support is addressed separately in several states, and the requirement does not end when the child reaches the age of majority. It is usually a good idea for parents undergoing divorce to explicitly address college support as part of the divorce decree, specifying who is responsible for paying for college support and the percentage responsibility, how many semesters of support will be provided, and whether college support ends when the child reaches age 24.)

Some parents feel that they can't afford to pay for college or are up to their eyebrows in debt. They don't realize that paying for your children's college education entails sacrifice. The parents will have to forgo buying a new or second car, clothing or big-screen TV, going on the annual vacation to Aruba, eating out every night, and a few other luxuries to help pay for their children's education. It won't be easy, but most families can afford college if they really try.

Some parents refuse to fill out the financial aid forms because they think they won't qualify, they're concerned about privacy, or they don't want their children to know how much they earn.

Sometimes stepparents don't feel responsible for their stepchildren, and feel it is unfair that the government requires them to pay.

Sometimes stepparents have children by another marriage and place a greater priority on helping their natural children than their stepchildren.

Sometimes the parents have stopped supporting the child, and refuse to fill out the forms because they no longer support the child. (This is a very strange argument -- using their irresponsibility on one issue to justify inappropriate behavior on another.)

Sometimes the parents refuse to complete the financial aid application because they don't pay their income taxes or are a tax protester.

Sometimes the parents refuse to complete the financial aid application forms because they don't want their children to go to college or they don't want them to go to a particular college.

And sometimes the parents just don't want to help (for instance, they disagree with their student's religion or sexual preference and have stopped connecting in any way with the student).

--

From what I've seen, most of the time it's a mixture of two or more of these issues.

Something important to realize is that these students do not just have college payments to worry about. These students need things that most of their peers take for granted. If they need medication or doctors' visits, they often do not have medical insurance. Even if they do, they still have to scrounge up copayments, and many insurance companies refuse to pay for necessary medications. These students are often working thirty or forty hour weeks, while their peers are working ten or twenty or no hours at all. These students fill out scholarship applications by the dozen when they should be writing class essays. Even if these students manage to get loans to pay for the amount of schooling they aren't given scholarships for, they are still placed in a sticky situation whenever they need, for instance, a guarantor for an apartment. Even if these students take the same time out to study as their peers, they have different stressors. This is where the situation gets sticky.

These students, who feel angry because they are being left alone and feel that they are being treated unfairly, become antagonistic toward their peers. In return, their peers don't understand what they are complaining about. What do you mean, you can't get your parents to cosign on your loan? What did you do to get in this situation? Why didn't you get a full scholarship? Why do you feel that you are more financially responsible than I am, when you have student loan debts and no one to help you cosign for your apartment?

In reality, many of these struggling students have very extensive scholarships, and are looking for the last few thousand dollars a year that they need. When a student is indebted to his or her school, the school does not allow that student to send transcripts to another school. That school does not allow students to sign up for classes for the next semester, and it becomes a cycle of hurt and confusion. Students who are trying to scrape money together all semester get the classes that are the least desirable and therefore are not only struggling with money, they are struggling with classes. When a student realizes that he or she should step back, reassess, and maybe move to a school that costs less per semester, the student often cannot complete the application on time because his or her current school refuses to send transcripts.

Probably the worst part of this entire situation is the misunderstanding. From a personal point of view, I hate hearing someone call me lazy or disorganized when I know that I am neither. I hate being told that I am throwing away my potential by making the decision to go to community college for a year and get all of this sorted out, while paying for my education up front for two semesters. I hate being told, again and again, that I should have just done better in high school to get a full scholarship (when, mind you, I was one of the few people in my school working, 16 hours a week, and saving all of it to go towards college). I hate knowing that the education I am going to get isn't the stellar education I could get. I hate being told that I should go get an education I feel will not help me in the future, just because it costs less. I hate knowing that I have to bear the full responsibility of my actions, and then financial repercussions. I hate that a lot of those "actions" snowballed from when I was fourteen or fifteen years old. I hate that it's my fault that I don't have a full scholarship to one of the best colleges in the world. I hate when my peers' parents think I'm a loser and tell their kids not to hang out with me--this one hurts pretty close to the worst.

Most of all, I hate the passive-agressive hostility I see on both sides of this argument. I hate that I feel superior to my peers, and I hate that they feel superior to me.

This is obviously a situation that has some loose ends in need of tying. The main article I used on my research suggests that students who are in this sort of a situation wait until they are 24 years old to go to college, but who wants to do that when they feel singled out already? I am certainly going through all possible means to continue my education, but trust me, there are some days when I wish I could just take the easy road out.

The article I read also suggests that we write to our congressmen telling our stories. When students like me fall through the cracks, it is not by anyone's intention; rather it is due to an overlooking of something that happens to thousands of students. Even if you don't have a story like this yourself, writing to a congressfigure might actually help you in the long run by taking away some of the cost of education for your parents. Here are lists of places where I've either sent letters or it is recommended that you send letters. As always, if you need help wording stuff or even figuring out what to write, let me know. I'm pretty passionate about this cause, if you haven't noticed.

Main Source:

FastWeb Article

Part II: Coming of Age Financially: Are We Ready?

2009-06-16T23:33:00.008-05:00

In some cultures, the entire village celebrates when a girl gets her first period. In others, a boy gets his ears pierced when he begins puberty.

Joseph P. Kennedy, the father of John F. Kennedy, gave each of his children one million dollars upon reaching the age eighteen.

When our culture turns eighteen, we get credit cards.

When we get our first our credit cards, we come of age to do a lot of other things, like take on student loan debt. We are told to start "building our credit". We are warned that, if we do not build our credit and build it well, having a FICO credit score as close to 800 as we can, we will never survive. We look at our economy and our pulses race. We worry...now that I am a functioning member of society, my portion of the US debt is...$37,226.18. Great. I now have to get into personal debt and pay it off, bit by bit, paying interest as well, to prove that someday, with my tax dollars, I will pay off the debt of my generation's fathers, to buy a car or a house, or to rent an apartment.

Yeah, that's a lie.

Plastic is gorgeous, and it is, to quote the British-book-made-American movie "Confessions of a Shopaholic": MAGIC.

More students are graduating from college with not only student debt, but credit card debt, every year. In fact, a small number of college students commit suicide every year, leaving behind bills totaling thousands of dollars. Their parents are blaming credit card companies. Of course, the companies are out to make money, so they do start offering us credit cards as soon as they legally can. Why wouldn't they? We are now, functioning, voting citizens of the United States of America. It's our fault for getting into debt, or someone else's for not teaching us properly. Of course, our parents don't want to take responsibility for our debt any more than they would want to take responsibility if we, say, got pregnant.

What's sex got to do with it? Actually, experts say, a lot more than we think. The two most difficult subjects for parents to discuss with their children are sex and money. Everyone remembers their "talk"; your parents sit you down and told you something you probably already knew from school. It...happens when a man and a woman love each other very much...it's a beautiful thing...Daddy's...well...Daddy's...penis...it goes into Mommy's...er...vagina. For the most part, we felt our parents' discomfort and took it to heart, recognizing this sexual intercourse thing with reverence.

Does anybody remember their money talk? I remember being told by my mother never to get a credit card, because it was bad. We were passing by in the kitchen, not sitting down, not looking at each other. That's about it. Our parents try and teach us to spend our money wisely in childhood but that's where it stops. As soon as I was old enough to understand the concept of a credit card, I knew I had to get a few. I knew how important my FICO score was because I googled it after seeing dozens of freecreditreport.com's commercials. I also knew that I had to build it. I needed student loans and I didn't have parents willing to cosign for them. A student on mostly scholarships, I was still at a private university, and even the money I'd saved up working sixteen hours a week through high school wasn't enough to cover the cost of my tuition. I knew that paying back my loan would help my credit score, but I also knew that I couldn't get a loan until I had a good score. Cheap credit building, meaning not needing to pay interest, is having cards you pay back every month, and I did exactly that. In fact, I've earned enough points with one of my cards to fly across the country for free. I read about this online. My parents, remember, told me never to get a credit card. I'm an extremely lucky and unusual case.

I think a big mistake our parents are making is that personal finance has changed over the years. Saving and spending are still very important parts of our existence, but there is now much, much more. A lot of parents don't realize just how often we are exposed to various media telling us that our credit score is more important than anything else associated with us. Of course, I realize not all parents think this way. In three different cases, all of which I have seen, parents have:

-Taken out and repaid entirely a number of small loans from the time a child was twelve or years old.

-Offered to foot their college student's entire credit card bill every month, just so the student would get a card.

-Cosigned on their child's student loan.

Not all parents are blind to the world of finance their child will enter, but many are. Worst of all, even some of the parents I mentioned above never sat down with their child to explain the reasons they were taking loans out in his or her name! Why do we feel so uncomfortable talking about finances to our children?

It isn't just the parents' faults, of course. Almost all schools are required to have some sort of a sexual education program, but almost no states require a personal finance course. Illinois, where I went to school until I was eighteen, is one of the rare states where we are required to take a finance course in all public high schools in order to graduate. The Illinois Math and Science Academy, however, is exempt from this policy. That's where I went to school.

I did, however, participate in the Stock Market Game in eighth grade. Out of many grammar school experiences (including building a life-size lego man), the Stock Market Game was probably the most memorable and enjoyable. To be honest, I don't remember exactly what we did. I do, however, remember our stock market unit in Language Arts class. Dr. O'Brien (I think my first teacher ever to have a Dr. in front of her name) told us about how she paid for college using the money she made investing in McDonald's and cigarettes. Even though she indulged in neither, she explained that she saw the trend coming and was glad she'd made the choice she did. I was enraptured and decided that, as soon as I had money to my name, I would invest it in a company that made pacemakers. You get the general idea; I was a bright kid.

I also remember hearing my parents, aunts, and uncles giggling about sex and groaning about mortgages. I thought a mortgage had something to do with having children until I asked about it years later.

So what do you think? Should parents talk to their children more about money? Less? Which children are better off--the kids who don't have to know what a mortgage is and don't learn it for a long time, while having their credit score built for them, or the kids who learn by doing and sometimes get in a bit of debt along the way? What effect does this unique coming-of-age have on our society? What are your experiences with teaching or learning about personal finance in this day and age?

Sources:

-Teen Guide to Personal Financial Management By Marjolijn Bijlefeld, Sharon K. Zoumbaris
-National Debt Clock
-JFK Biography
-The Discovery Channel

Part I: Money Fun: How Much Does a College Student Spend in a Day?

2009-06-12T09:19:00.002-05:00

Ok. So. First of all, to those of you who read my blog, if you don't get sarcasm, then go die, or at least stop reading my blog.

That's to the last article. Most of the others are honest, not sarcastic.

Anyways, I was playing with numbers on the metro on the way to work today. Here's what I discovered:

-The average American spends $100 a day (this includes mortgage, bills, gas, food, etc.)

-The average American spends 30 minutes in the bathroom each day. That's about $2 if you're talking in money minutes.

-I spend about $50 a day (I don't have a mortgage but I do have a rent, phone bill, gas bill, etc.)
-Out of this $50, $31 is rent and water, electric, gas, phone, and internet bills (I don't have a TV).
-$9.60 is transportation. That's during the weekdays, but sometimes I travel extra on the weekdays or on the weekends, spending a bit less or more. So I'm just going to approximate $10 per day for transit. (I don't own a car so no insurance bills or gas costs or car payments.)
-I'm going to say that the rest goes to food, groceries, etc. For instance, I eat at around $5 to $10 per day, depending if I eat out or not, and then I'll just toss the rest into random groceries category (tampons, toilet paper, cleaning supplies). I'll also throw medical into this category. Being nineteen and a full-time student, I'm still on my father's medical insurance, so I don't have to pay much. On prescriptions, doctor visits, and ER visits last year, I spent around $300, which is less than a dollar a day.

-During next semester, I'll be living in a college town and spending only around $10 on rent and utilities daily. However, with my tuition, I'll be living the American dream. Of course, a lot of stuff depends on scholarships (which I'm still waiting for answers back on) so I don't know for sure how much I'll be spending per day. Also, should I calculate in student loan interest? Yikes. I suppose $100 a day is not really that much when your education is involved. When I look at it that way, there's no way I'm ever cutting class again! Or calling in sick to work, for that matter.

-I don't know how much time I spend in the bathroom per day. If I'm average, that's about $1 per day in money minutes.

-The average sweatshop worker makes $6 a day and uses that to support a family of five, including himself. Maybe he should sit on the toilet more often?

I guess that's my fun for the day. Back to work on important stuff.

Global Warming ProCon?

2009-02-26T08:54:00.003-06:00

We all know that it's bad. But how bad? My professor just brought up an interesting point--if global warming continues, there will be some very fertile farmland in northern areas we never really thought would be farmable. Of course, Russia's relatively stable population wouldn't be affected by their thousands of acres of newly fertile farmland. Maybe we should send it to Africa, because it looks like global warming would ruin a lot of their mediocre farmland, and a lot of their excellent farmland, as well. Would the farmland ruined by global warming equal, exceed, or deceed the amount of farmland created by this climate change? Your thoughts, please...

The Media and Thin Women: What does This Mean for Us (As Thin Women)?

2009-02-20T15:38:00.006-06:00

Everywhere we look, we see unattainable standards of beauty.

You've heard this before.

Of course you have.

My driver's license says that I'm 110 pounds and 5'6'' tall. In reality, I'm a little taller than 5'6'' and a little less than 110, but I've gotten used to lying. People often comment on my size, and I am always quick to voice a complaint: "But I wish I was curvaceous enough to have kids!" "If only I had a lovely butt like yours..." I'm not entirely sure how to tell my peers and colleagues that they are, in fact, fat. They are adding to the nearly 40% of Americans, or nearly 20% of children and adolescents, who are considered "obese" by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States right now.

So why is it impolite to call someone "fat", but I am offended daily by my overweight peers telling me that I need to gain weight? I've been told, more often by women than by men, that if I don't develop some curves, no man will ever be attracted to me. Maybe I shouldn't blame them, though.

Although there are "unattainable standards of beauty" wherever we look, as soon as we turn around, we see something that tells us that these standards are, in fact, unattainable. Take, for instance, the Dove advertisements in their "Campaign for Real Beauty". Look at these women featured in the campaign, as seen on the Dove USA's homepage. Despite the fact that the women are larger than most models seen in other advertising campaigns, it is obvious that no one looks like these Dove models. Computers using programs such as Adobe Photoshop have made these women's skins without blemishes or moles, taken stray hairs away from their faces, and camouflaged cellulite. These women are by no means attainable standards of beauty; their looks are no more attainable than those of the slender models gracing the covers of magazines such as Vogue and Elle.

So what went wrong? Somehow, the "reality" of media, as told to us by that same media, allows overweight women and men to be more beautiful, and therefore healthier, than their thinner counterparts. Not only are we, as healthy, slender Americans, not allowed to call them "fat"--they are allowed to say that we are unhealthy or even sick with anorexia, bulimia, or some other horrible disease. This is taken as the fat people's right, even though most thinner people don't have any eating disorder or illness at all.

According to the CDC's Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator, I am healthy, with a BMI somewhere around 17.5. I measure with a 33 inch bust, a 24 inch waist, and 34 inches around my hips. These measurements show that I have not stunted my growth by being subject to malnutrition. I keep a healthy diet, exercise regime, and sleep schedule. Every doctor I've had has told me that I am in excellent health, especially weight-wise. When I asked a pediatrician if my small size would keep me from having children, she told me that I am actually a normal size, and that any pregnancy of mine would likely be healthier for a baby than an obese mother's.

So why am I angry about this? I figure I could just ignore it, but something that not a lot of my larger colleagues realize is that, because of this "real women have curves" mania, people like me are truly being left behind. The idea of "Vanity Sizing", or marking larger clothes with smaller sizes, has taken the consumer's world by storm. I am now a size 0, where twenty years ago I would have been a 4 or a 6. Does that mean that in ten years, I will have to start wearing children's clothes? I have been looking for a suit that fits me properly since I stopped growing. I can find nice dresses in the girls' section, but women's clothes are made for the fatties of the nation, not for real women like me.

I am also angry because I often get the feeling that I have to complain about being small in order not to offend important colleagues or classmates. In reality, I don't care that I am thin. I love my body and I think that I am beautiful. I know that I am healthy. I would much rather be the way I am now than "curvier", like the people I am trying to please.

What kind of culture would make me want to hide the fact that I see myself as beautiful? Our media looks for things to tell us are wrong with our bodies, but I'm OK with that. It's a great form of marketing. The only problem comes when people take the media too seriously and ask me outright if I have an eating disorder. How am I supposed to respond?

I'm waiting for the day when I scrounge up the courage to tell someone that I'm not thin; they're fat. Until then, I guess I'm still stuck in a world of unattainable standards of beauty.

Sources:

Dove's Campaign
Super-Thin Women Dropping off the Size Scales
CDC Website

Fear: Election 2008

2008-11-12T16:52:00.002-06:00

/**
Disclaimer: If this offends you, get off of it. I'm looking at trends, not specific individuals.
*/

I was elated on the night of November 4, 2008.

Since then, however, I've been waking up every morning with an unshakeable sense of dread. Attending the University of Tulsa in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I am in an interesting place: loving my education, but living in an area that I'm certain will someday be its own downfall. The people of the midwest and southern United States are the most impeccably mannered, friendly people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting, but they are more afraid of change than anyone I've met in my entire life. The outside the box thinking I experienced in my three years at IMSA is not only unheard of here, but squashed when attempted. Being from the liberal Chicagoland area, I did not believe that areas still ruled by guns and God existed. Southern states do have governments like any other state in the nation, but so many people I have met from this area know that there are other ways of protecting what is theirs.

There was only one person running around celebrating in the streets the night Barack Obama was elected president.

I'm certainly not the only pro-Obama person in Oklahoma, and, living on a college campus, there are plenty of fresh-into-college-rebel-against-mommy-and-daddy-be-liberal's. But maybe I should have looked around me before I ran in courtyard in the center of our campus, excited that Obama won (Fox news said so, so I was sure). I came inside to see tear-streaked faces of people who are not ready for a dark-skinned man to be our president. There will always be conservative, never-changing US citizens who are not ready, but when these citizens are the people I will be ruling this country with in the very near future, I do worry.

I'm scared. I'm scared that the young, charming, intelligent man I voted for to become president of the United States is in grave danger.

Those "booing" people in the audience at Senator John McCain's are not alone. I live among them, and they make up a very large percentage of our population. This isn't like "Damn, who let the liberals get away with it?". This is "My country will NEVER be led by a black man. There is no way I will let this happen." People at the gun show in Tulsa this past weekend were buying rust-free tubes to bury their guns (for when Obama outlaws firearms; the signs on the wall said that he will!), but they were also buying guns.

I don't know what to think. I do know that people where I am from have no idea that this exists. Where there are a majority of forward-thinking people, that ethic raises children, but vice versa exists. It takes a whole village to raise a child, right?

Welcome, United States, to your new chapter in the world of politics. Fear and hate abound.

NECC 2008: Part 1

2008-07-11T16:25:00.001-05:00

So, I haven’t really written anything since NECC, because I never was a blogger by habit. I only really write when I want to, and it can be difficult to put huge, amazing events like NECC into words. So, I'm going to break it down a bit. Here's an overview of what we did at NECC.
Before I begin, let it be known that NECC stands for the National Education and Computing Convention and was held in 2008 in San Antonio. NECC is put on by ISTE, or the International Society for Technology Educators, if I've got that right. NECC is often known by its sheer size—there were over 13,000 edutech people, principals, teachers, students, and other educator-types there this year. I attended with my mentor and boss, Scott Swanson. Since I finished my senior year at IMSA, I went back to work as a Strategic Technology Bhikku in the Information and Technology Services department. I went to NECC to give a Student Showcase poster session on One Laptop Per Child and the work IMSA is doing with it. I also co-hosted, with Scott, a Birds of a Feather for OLPC.
Thursday the 26: We few in. Ate at Acenar, which was really tasty. We would eat here at least 10 more times. Not even kidding. Worked a little on presentation-type stuff.
Friday the 27: Meetings and more presentation preparation-type stuff.
Saturday the 28: Edubloggercon!
Sunday the 29: Constructivist Celebration and opening ceremonies. Scott did a lot of SecondLife stuff, so I helped out where I could and otherwise enjoyed One Horse Shy, the band playing. We also caught the end of Ferdi Serim's incredible jazz playing at the Obama rally.
Monday the 30: In the morning, I took pictures of the Second Life Education Potential workshop. In the afternoon I had my Student Showcase poster session and in the evening, the BoF.
Tuesday the 1: Second Life playground, LOL at NECC, and the SIG1to1 forum/workshop.
Wednesday the 2: SIG1to1 meeting in the morning, looked at vendors, ice cream social, and closing keynote. Then we did a closing dinner and went for drinks afterward with Gary Stager, Sylvia Martinez, Hoppy Chandler, and a cool guy named Martin, but I don't know his last name.
Thursday the 2: Wrap-up and home-going.
Alright...more to come, hopefully this weekend...

To Chew On...

2008-03-23T21:26:00.002-05:00

http://soojinl10.kiswrites.org/2008/03/21/we-dont-need-the-11-laptop-system/#comment-89

My comment:

"My school (of 10-12 grades) recently started a 1:1 program using XP tablets. As of yet the 10th graders are the only ones required to have the tablets, and nearly all the departments at our school have changed to support and help with this new program. It is true that students sometimes don’t pay attention in class, but they could also be doodling in a notebook. We try to keep the curriculum difficult enough that the students need to pay attention and, even more, want to use the laptops. It is helpful for the students to own the laptops because we are a residential academy and they can study and collaborate even outside the classroom (in breaks, after school, in lunch hour, etc.).

I do, however, agree with the idea of the 12th graders (seniors) appreciating this program more than the 10th graders. Some of the seniors are required to have a tablet for a class, so they are loaned one by the school. These students take even more of an interest and appreciation for 1:1 than the sophomores, in my opinion."

This made me think a lot...I never really imagined TAKING 1:1 FOR GRANTED. It is something that I've worked so hard for...part of me loves seeing students taking it for granted, because they are so comfortable with it and they think even more outside the box...there is no box, if you know what I mean. However, part of me is so angry to see it because they don't see how lucky they really are. I mean, I assume I could say the same thing about pencils and paper and my grade school classes, but these are just my thoughts of the day.

Happy Easter everyone...even though I guess it's not a holiday, because Starbucks doesn't think so...some days I love being secular. =)

Gah

2008-03-22T00:18:00.002-05:00

http://www.marcinpiasta.com/university-and-me/school-kills-creativity.html

School Kills Creaivity...

2008-03-22T00:07:00.002-05:00

Interesting link, especially because my friend sent it to me as I was writing about this very subject. Sometimes, I look back and wonder what could have been. At a young age I was very good in in music, dance, and theater, and now I am just mediocre. I decided to take the math and science round, but recently I have wondered what would happen if I had gone the other way. I was promising and maybe I would not have had a great salary, but would I be happier? Some days I wonder. Now, it is too late to go back. I am too out of shape to dance, and although I sing in IMSA's choir, I am too out of shape to sing professionally. Same goes for acting. So take a look, tell me what you think:
http://www.marcinpiasta.com/university-and-me/school-kills-creativity.html

College Visit: Macalester

2008-03-18T23:00:00.001-05:00

So I went to visit Macalester college this week. I am looking at the small liberal-artsy type colleges so I can do CS and linguistics, and still take Russian and German and study abroad and try out for shows. Macalester has an amazing reputation, so of course I was excited to sit in on classes. Last spring, I sat in on a German class that was a bit below my level of speaking and a Russian class that was supposedly a bit higher than where I was, but I understood both very well. I was impressed at the level of teaching and the curricula, but I was not impressed with the way I was treated. The professors were very interested to talk to me, but the students were not very welcoming, especially in the Russian class. The idea that I was a junior in high school and above their Russian level seemed to unnerve them. I was rather offended, but took it to be the specific students and I did not let it affect my overall feeling for the college. I applied early this year, and I went back to visit. This time, I sat in on a linguistics syntax class and I was very interested, but sad to see that I was one of the few in the classroom. My experience in a java-based CS 120 class was much better. The students were involved and obviously enjoying what they were doing, and the professor was very knowledgeable. I was especially impressed by the use of Moodle (hooray, not BlackBoard!) and the way that Moodle was used in the class. However, my experience in the syntax class is not forgotten. I wish the students in that class would realize what an amazing opportunity they have and enjoy the class, whether or not it is what they want to study forever. Overall, my visit to Macalester was very successful and I hope to be accepted; it will be a hard decision come the end of April, but Mac is definitely near the top of my list.

Links

2008-01-23T23:36:00.000-06:00

Oops published too soon.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Illinois_Math_and_Science_Chapter

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:ahw

2008-01-23T23:34:00.001-06:00

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Illinois_Math_and_Science_Chapter
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:ahw

COGG!!

2008-01-23T23:03:00.000-06:00

So we just got back from COGG/OLPC Grassroots at Google in Chicago, and it was a lot of fun...

As I told Scott:

I was so glad to see other people as passionate about the OLPC project

as I am. I felt like I could bring up any idea and still be accepted as

a member of the OLPC community. I guess I can say that my best takeaway

is knowing that there are a lot of people out there who want to do this

just as much as I do. I also am glad to see that so many talented

people are working on projects; people are working on so much that I

would never think to do or be able to. I have a great picture in my

mind of a room made brighter by all the little green antennas sticking

up.

And it's true...there were people there from, now this is just a guess, about 9 to about 60. Maybe more...computers tend to keep you young. Anyway, it was great for a little kid like me to be able to see Google and to talk with people who are normally taboo for someone like me: a high school student.

The ideas that were brought up were not only IMSA's chapter's ideas but ideas from people all around the area--local Linux zealots, programmers, CIOs, even a kind woman from Madison, WI, staying at the Chicago Youth Hostel, who came for help with some software problems she'd been having with her G1G1.

Anyways, thanks for everyone who came, and thanks if you're reading this blog after only two posts! My old one is really outdated and I wanted to start anew.

In the here...

2007-12-20T20:18:00.000-06:00

I have other blogs, but this blog is my professional one.