Why Did We Ever Learn Cursive?

Took the GRE on Tuesday -- I'm excited about the future opportunities this will allow me to have; but mostly, I'm just that it's over and I can go back to doing things I enjoy (reading, blogging, nothing) without feeling guilty that I'm not cramming worthless words into my brain that I will never use in a normal conversation.

They're quite strict about admission to these tests (understandably), but all the signed forms and presenting of IDs and having my mugshot taken made it feel like I was being granted access to Area 51.

Oddly enough, perhaps the most formidable challenge to my success on the exam came before it even started. I had to fill out a form on which I gave my agreement to not disclose details about the test and say I understood the testing rules. I then had to copy down an entire paragraph, verbatim,to verify that I understood the agreement. In cursive. When was the last time you wrote in cursive? I have no recollection of the last time I wrote in this archaic script. I'm pretty sure I looked like I had arthritic hands as I unnaturally and uncomfortably fumbled my way through writing an entire paragraph in cursive English. The end product probably looked like a drunk 3-year old's attempt at writing a statement. I'm surprised they admitted me to take the exam, but I suppose they took some pity on me since I did pay them $160 to take it.

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Bustin' the Butt Rock -- Photo of the Week 5 Jan 2009

(click image to enlarge: l. to r. Ozzy Osbourne, Anthrax,
Def Leppard, Pantera, Judas Priest)

When: May 1999
Where: Some hotel lobby in Chicago, IL

Had to pull this one out of the vault. It's just me and some high school buddies displaying a sampling of the butt rock t-shirts we amassed over the course of a few years. No need to fear, though. This was the only time I wore the shirt in public.

Unless, of course, the following are considered "wearing in public": Wearing it to all school basketball games that I was a fan at; underneath my soccer jersey my senior year (good luck...duh); to various school dances; to all major Science Olympiad competitions* I competed in, etc etc.

In all seriousness, I want you to appreciate the composition of this photograph -- the symmetry, the raw emotion in our expressions. This should be hanging in a museum somewhere.

This photo is also serving as a primer for tomorrow's blog post. Make sure to come back and check it out.

*I know, I know.

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To a More Powerful Vocabulary

My high school English teacher made us study out of this book called "30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary." It was actually a great book, but not one that you want to get caught reading in public. This entry follows in that vein.

As all the loyal readers recall (HAH!), I make up new verbs based on people's names, by either taking a tendency or a random act of moronic stupidity (whichever works in my favor) of a certain individual and making a verb. In recent days I have conjured up a few. These verbs contain subtle nuances, so you will want to read closely. Apologies for the non-gender neutrality of my examples; if you stick 'she' in there, it works just as well.

• "That guy is a total hypochondriac. He always Hillary's his situation and compares his cold to 'the Black Plague.' " - A certain presidential candidate for a certain political party has gotten desperate and has been making some exaggerated comments about her decision to continue running. (trans. "That guy will say anything to get attention, even to the point of drawing ridiculous and overstated analogies to his situation. What a wuss.")

• "He totally Hugh Grant'ed his front row seats to the NBA Finals for a fake-autographed tennis racket of Maria Sharapova's and a $5 gift card to Bath & Body Works." - No, this is not in reference to Hugh's tendency to play the exact same character in all of his movies, although that is stereotypical Hugh Grant. This refers to when he was dating Elizabeth Hurley, but threw it all away when he was caught cheating on her with a prostitute. (trans. "He had the opportunity that others only dream of, and completely ruined it for something of much much lower quality.)
  

• "Can you believe that?? He completely Pargo'ed my Powerpoint Presentation in front of the new boss." - I don't know if anyone saw Game 7 of the Hornets-Spurs series, but if you watched the last 6 minutes, you may know what I am talking about. Janero Pargo hadn't been effective for the Hornets the entire series and entered the game when his team was down by double digits. With the uncontrollable excitability of a golden retriever playing fetch with an amphetamine-laced stick, Pargo attempted to take over the game, and teammates like Chris Paul (MVP runner-up) and David West (All-Star) didn't touch the ball for a straight 5 minutes. (trans. "I can't believe that guy! We had a game plan all worked out, and then he totally took over my part and ruined it...not to mention he was so excited he wet his drawers.")
  

The best way to retain these is to attempt to use them a real-life situation. See if you can't find the opportunity to incorporate these into your vernacular with a co-worker or fellow student.

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How I Ended Up with a B.A.

A lot of people talk about "defining moments" in their lives; where it all became clear and they made a critical decision, turned their life around, [insert optimistic fluff]

I can point to a couple of those in the route I chose to take in my college education. I mean, how did a kid that did Knowledge Bowl [Captain my senior year] and Science Olympiad in high school, and seemed destined for some sort of hard science degree in college (not to mention the obvious-- Asian!), end up with a liberal arts degree?

Two anecdotes.

I had a great friend in high school, Warren, who was one of the popular kids. His only quirk was that he was a serious conspiracy theorist. I'm talking "Big Brother is out to get me" -type stuff; he had read all kinds of books. One day he came with me to my computer networking job (like I said: nerd) because he wanted to see what I did. Apparently, I did something to impress him...although I didn't know until later the extent.

I walked into class the next day and a mutual friend of ours, Neil, came right up to me.

-"Dude, you'll never believe what happened with Warren in CWP (Current World Problems) last period."
-"What'd he do this time?"
-"We got onto some topic and everybody was yelling back and forth the room at each other. This went on for a couple of minutes and in the middle of it all, Warren stands up and yells: 'It's not going to matter. You want to know why?! Because when we grow up, and Josh D [we'll leave my last name out of this] owns all of you, you're all going to be nothing but a bunch of barcodes. So you'd better get used to it!' It was unreal. The class was speechless."

So was I.

-"...So, Josh. When you take over the world, I've got a spot as a favored minion, right?"
-"Uh, sure, Neil. Yeah."

I decided then and there that if I continued on my nerd/science track, I would end up being a dictator. I wasn't going to let that happen. That set the stage for my complete break with science. The complete break would come a few years later.

*****

I took Chem 105 my sophomore year at BYU. While I don't doubt the professor's PhD status (ok, I sometimes do), our ability to learn was severely hindered by his completely Battlefield Earth teaching. Almost every single concept he "taught" to us could, in his mind, be demonstrated by blowing up a hydrogen balloon at the end of class. Apparently explosions and mayhem are really solid, proven pedagogical techniques. Demonstration of the Law of Entropy? Redox reactions? Only thing I remember about these concepts is explosions. My roommate who had class in the same room after mine would be waiting for me afterwards, and as I walked out he would just say, "Another hydrogen balloon today, huh?" It was like witnessing the Hindenburg go down 12 times in a single semester.

One day in this class we were discussing electron clouds and orbits. The dialogue between the professor and a student went something like this:

-"Professor X [no, sorry "X-Men" fans...the "X" is for purposes of anonymity], the textbook says that the orbit is where the electron has a 99.99% chance of being."
-"That's correct."
-"So where is it the other 0.01% of the time?"
-"It could be anywhere, really. The room next door, Mars, another solar system..." I remember slamming my chemistry textbook shut. Science sure does a great job of explaining things. "...now if you'll allow me to demonstrate with this balloon. Could somebody turn off the lights...?"

I think that could be the defining moment when I gave up on science.

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Education, Education, Education

Snowshoeing took me to the "mountains" of West Virginia a couple of weeks back. It was my first venture into "The ----- State" ...I actually don't know what the state nickname is, and frankly, it's too late for me to care enough to look it up. Anyway, given Rye's semi-offensive jokes regarding the inhabitants of WV, I was expecting green, sprawling fields with rows and rows of bathtubs filled with fermenting moonshine, or toothless, bearded men donning 'coon skin caps firing shotguns at each other from the ditches on each side of the road. Something like that.

Crazy expectations, you say? You haven't heard the jokes that Rye tells.

On the return journey we had to pull over and flip around once. We pulled temporarily into a driveway which Dave said "look[ed] like it belong[ed] to a slasher." Below is the sign that was posted at the beginning of his driveway. A simple "No Trespassing: Private Property" probably would have sufficed; not only in preventing trespassers, but also in preserving this man's dignity by not exposing his ignorance to anyone who happens to pass by:

Let me type it out in case you can't see it well, and go through this like my 6th grade English teacher used to go through sentences, picking it apart piece-by-piece.

"Trespassers will b
percecuted to the full extent of 2 mungrel dogs which
never was over sochible to strangers
& 1 dubble brl. shot gun which aint loded with sofa pillers. Dam if
I aint gitten tired of this
hell raisin on my place."

On second thought, I will not pick this apart. I think it speaks quite clearly for itself.

If I were in any other state, I would say that this is so over the top that it is a joke. But when you're in WV, sometimes you just don't know --

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A Beasties' Education

“We be gettin' stupid in your area / Causin' all kinds of hysteria / My beats is sick like malaria” -- this is pure lyrical genius. And no, you guessed wrong: it's not Keats.

AdRock's the screamer. Mike D's the nasally one. MCA is cool, calm, collected. They're three white boys from New York City that proved they could drop beats and rhymes with the best of 'em.

I have their five major albums, as well as their new instrumental CD. I have two of their DVD's -- "The Beastie Boys' Video Anthology" and "Awesome, I Shot That!" -- and I consider them two of the most prized in my collection. I was ready to go to their concert in 2000 when they were touring with Rage Against the Machine, but Mike D broke his collarbone riding home from work on his bike, so the tour was canceled. I was found sobbing in the corner of a shower stall sobbing, if my pain-clouded memory serves me correctly.

Me and my best friend in high school would karaoke and record ourselves at least once a week. We bought the same type of orange jumpsuits that the Beasties performed in one concert and wore them to school dances. We held serious roundtable discussions about which of the "Big 5" albums is the Beasties' best (I still say "Ill Communication", with "Paul's Boutique" a close second) -- I'm talking about dissertations being produced here, people.

It sounds sad, but the Beastie Boys have played a semi-major role in my upbringing. In light of all of this, I present to you a non-exhaustive list of things the Beasties have taught me, that I might not have learned otherwise (with proper citations to songs in parentheses):

1. French phrases, such as creme de la creme ("Body Movin' ") and savoir faire ("Sure Shot"). Keep in mind this in no way means I like the French. They are still cigarette-smoking pansies.

2. You can earn 11 points in Boggle for the word 'quagmire' ("Putting Shame in Your Game"):
"I am the king of Boggle, there is none higher,
I gets eleven points for the word 'quagmire'"

3. People such as Eddie Harris ("So Whatcha' Want"), Rod Carew ("Sure Shot") and Jimmy Vaughn (“Pass the Mic”) would have remained unknowns to me.

4. In the tradition of the great Japanese poets, writing about your travels in verse can still be great (“High Plains Drifter” and “Paul Revere”); I suppose where they diverge is that the Boys mostly rap about robbing people and stealing your girl from you. I didn't catch anything like that when I read Basho's haikus, but it could have been "between the lines."

5. Road trips are and always will be sweet (“No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn”)

6. Civil protests for a good cause are still encouraged. (“Fight For Your Right”)

7. It’s okay to brag about your wardrobe (“Shadrach”):
“…[I've got] more Adidas sneakers than a plumbers got pliers,
Got more suits than Jacoby & Meyers”

8. This may not be a good thing, but I've learned obscure marijuana references: sinsemilla ("Sounds of Science")

9. Is there a better music video than "Sabotage" ?

10. Loyalty ("The New Style"):
"Stepped into the party, the place was overpacked--
Saw the guy that dissed my homeboy, shot him in the back"

11. Long-distance relationships are tough ("High Plains Drifter"):
"A long distance from my girl and I'm talkin' on the cellular,
She said that she was sorry, and I said 'Yeah the hell you were'

12. It's literary to turn colloquial phrases into a play on words ("The Maestro"):
"...I am all that,
And I see you lookin' at me, saying: 'How can he be so skinny, and live so fat?' "

13. Most importantly: Don't take yourself too seriously and enjoy life.

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