May 15, 2013

I’m Back!

Readers!

5/15/2013!

Wowza, it’s been a month since I’ve written to you last. What have I done since then? At least 40 hours of improv and a nice chunk of job interviews. I guess I cracked the cover letter code ’cause the percentage of responses I’ve gotten has gone way up! And with every interview I do, I get closer to employment and closer to conducting real world research for my story about a guy losing his sense of humor because of his employment and going on a journey of self-discovery that entails re-discovering what it means to be funny.

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April 18, 2013

I sorta get it!

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4/15/2013!

I started writing a letter and partway through I realized I had to backtrack, re-examine my thoughts, and start all over. At the outset I was thinking about gerrymandering and how it doesn’t seem worth it to me to compromise the integrity of democracy to push through a particular agenda–especially since I think an agenda is more like a wish than a guarantee. That’s because people are imperfect and, as a result, any system they try to create will ultimately be imperfect. That doesn’t mean to me that you ought not to try; rather it’s an invitation to be less strident and less unwilling to compromise because even if you got 100% of your way you’re wish still isn’t going to come 100% true.

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April 4, 2013

Just be less wasteful, dude

Readers!

4/4/2013!

A while ago I was going to write about this place called Otarian. It’s an eatery that keeps track of the carbon footprint of everything it sells. Part of its marketing is that if you eat there you leave a smaller footprint than if you eat elsewhere. “But why stop there?” I wondered. Use your own utensils, bring your own water in a re- usable container, use a handkerchief to wipe your face, and don’t eat at Otarian–just make your own food at home!

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March 27, 2013

JVP Articles are Up!

Readers!

3/27/2013!

I uploaded to my website what I thought was the best of my Johnsonville Press articles. I winced during the parts where I talked at length about philosophy, so I cut those parts out–they detracted from the narrative and were far too self-indulgent. Also, why did I even put them in there? “Hey, did you know you can think about yourself?” I think I might have had my mind blown to hard by philosophy because I spent so little time thinking I didn’t know how to be insightful. I remember I’d read Noah Cicero’s blog and wonder, “How is he able to be insightful?” I admired his courage but I also literally wondered, “How is he able to make those thoughts happen?” And then I went to college and majored in thinking.

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March 26, 2013

Reflections on a Past Life (JVP)

I are an ESL student. My parents may have taught me Russian, but I think I learned English from TV. That might be why I developed a speaking impediment that required three years of speech therapy to correct. One time I mispronounced a word so severely that it made my parents laugh. Something about that moment made me want to figure out how to make them laugh on purpose rather than by accident.

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March 26, 2013

Rutgers: Turn off the Dark (JVP)

I wasn’t around the day of the president’s 8th annual state of the school address last year, but from what I heard it was pretty exciting as far as annual addresses go. Besides the DREAM ACT protest during the speech (which entailed a number of students asking questions related to the proposed legislation and then walking out), participants in the forum that followed also caused what sounded like quite a stir. I heard that the football team gets put up at the Hyatt Hotel before home games, that one student asked what was being done about crime on campus and McCormick asked him for advice, and another student claimed to have been sexually assaulted by a TA, which lead the president to give out his personal presidential email address. Juicy stuff!

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March 26, 2013

Reflections of a Philosophy Major (JVP)

I’m a philosophy major, which means that I like having things spelled out for me. Case in point: my first day of philosophy class, wherein it was explained to me why thinking is important. “Thinkin’? Important?” Whodathunkit?! Simon Blackburn thunks so because how you think about something affects how you do it or if you do it at all. Could I have provided you with a list of reasons why thinking was important prior to that moment? Maybe, but I’m not a fan of arguing over guesses. “Was Mona a character on Who’s The Boss? Or Charles in Charge?” So, instead, I quote Blackburn a lot because I find his comment to be profound.

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March 26, 2013

Exit Through the Gift Expo (JVP)

When a movie’s so bad it’s good, audience members delight in the unintentional hilarity that ensues when enthusiasm meets lack of talent. It’s not just on the big screen where inadvertent merriment can be found. As a journalist, I get countless invitations to events that seem destined to be so-bad-they’re-good. I once got an invitation for a private listening party for the then-new Mudvayne album with Chad and Greg (from Mudvayne!)! To think, I could have been discussing the merits of Slipknot, Mushroomhead, and Limp Bizkit with Craig from Mudvayne!

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March 26, 2013

Humorless Budget Report (JVP)

RUSA had a good grabber for their budget meeting: “Where does your money go?” I didn’t stick around long enough to find out the answer to that question. Instead, I left after becoming both overwhelmed and underwhelmed by the first hour of the event—overwhelmed by the amount of information thrown at me; and underwhelmed by the absence of tools to make sense of it all.

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March 26, 2013

Sexual Assault on the Rutgers Campus (JVP)

I was shocked when I first heard the statistic that one in six women experiences sexual assault in their lifetimes. This was years ago. I didn’t know much about gender then. Now, however, after doing plenty of reading and having plenty of discussions, my knowledge of gender has increased tremendously. The statistic is no longer shocking, but it is unhelpful. To me, statistics are often so wholly abstracted from reality that they feel as though they hardly describe the world at all. As a result, “one in six” is sort of like, “1.3 trillion dollars.” It’s just hard for me to understand what these numbers mean. The only way I’d ever really know how often women in the US experience sexual assault would be if I asked every woman in the US if she’s been sexually assaulted—and that’s assuming that she’s going to actually tell me and that we both have an agreed upon understanding of what sexual assault means.

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