Why Not to Steal Music.

I don’t steal music.  No, I won’t call it “illegal downloading” or “filesharing” or any other soft term you come up with.  Stealing is stealing.

A friend asked me the other day why I didn’t steal music, as if it was some strange fetish I had. I had three main reasons:

1. It’s illegal. Plain and simple.  (It’s also why I don’t drink, and won’t until I’m 21, another choice that people think’s absurdly bizarre when it’s actually quite sensible.)  I wouldn’t go to Target and steal a CD under my jacket.  Why would I do the same thing online?
2. I don’t deserve music. Music isn’t something that appears from nowhere or descends from heaven.  People work hard and make it.  I don’t deserve it for free.  The founding fathers gave us a lot of freedoms, but free music isn’t one of them.
3. If I like the song, I should support the artist. Seriously, if I like something so much that I will put it on my iPod and take it EVERYWHERE I GO, I should also like it enough that I’ll pay pocket change–$0.99–for it.  I can’t just download something and tell everyone “Hey, I LOVE the new Lady Gaga CD! It’s SO GOOD!” when I haven’t paid for it.  I can’t justly support an artist in words and not financially.

Now that I think about it, albums and songs aren’t that expensive anyways.  Sure, having 614 songs sounds like a lot of money spent, and it is.  But it’s well spent.  I pick songs and albums that I really like and will actually listen to, instead of just downloading every Top 40 song ever and never once listening to some of them.  Also, music’s not any more expensive than it’s always been, really.

I really support the music industry.  I don’t think they’re trying to suck us all dry.  I think they’re asking fair prices for music that we want, especially since music is such an important thing in a lot of people’s lives.

Jacob Black Pees on Babies.

Can we please just take a minute to quit ogling him and instead let me point this big example of Twilight-saga freakdom out?

He “imprinted” Bella’s baby.  That is, he marked her as his territory.

The man turns into a wolf.  Wolves mark their territories by peeing on them.

Thus, Jacob Black peed on Bella’s baby.

The face of a baby peer.

To Write Love on Her Arms Day is Fucking Stupid.

Excuse the language.

Writing the word “love” on your arm does not do anything for anyone.  It’s pretentious and stupid.

How does defacing your arm with a Sharpie help anyone? It prevents depression? It keeps people from committing suicide?

No, it shows off that you “care” without actually caring enough to DO anything.  In other words, it shows off that you’re a tool.

I honestly don’t even understand the concept of this organization.  What is the point?

Depression and suicide are REAL problems.  They need REAL solutions.  You can’t will them away, especially not with a Sharpie and lackluster doodling skills.

Additionally, the numbers people use to back up the cause are total crap.  Maybe that many people are diagnosed with depression, but that many people don’t have depression.  We live in a society where anything but contentment is diagnosed as a problem–be sad for a weekend, and you’re depressed; be happy, and you’ve got ADHD.

It’s still a noble cause–”to present hope and find help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide.”  It sounds great.  But writing on your arm isn’t going to solve anything.

Essentially, what we have here is another one of today’s favorite useless buzzwords–”awareness.”  People already know that other people want to die.  It’s like AIDS; telling me people have AIDS over and over isn’t going to solve the problem.  I wish these volunteer organizations would quit wasting their time and money on “awareness” and start spending it on something useful, like an actual cure for AIDS or setting up programs in schools for cutters.

My total dissonance towards these types of things is why I avoid them like the plague.  You don’t look caring when you participate.  You look stupid.  You look like you’re getting fooled.

I’m totally taking part in To Write Lady Gaga on Your Arms day, just for the satire and sarcasm of the whole thing.

How to Hate Someone Effectively.

I had an art teacher in high school who hated my guts.  She was mean, vindictive, and petty.  I couldn’t stand her back, but I at least tried to be respectful and kind.  She actually ended up teaching me a thing or two about hating someone.

Of course, a nice person wouldn’t use what I’m about to share. I never have…until now, but more on that later.

1. Love them to their face, hate them behind their back. There’s nothing more awful than this.  Be so sickly sweet to them.  Act like there’s no friction whatsoever between you.  It makes things so awkward for them, because they don’t quite get what your game is, and they will loathe you for it. Remember, though, that they have to know you hate them to begin with–so be sure that’s clear.
2. Nail their ass to a wall when they ask you anything. Be as matter-of-fact and saccharine as you possibly can.  Treat them like a child.  They don’t deserve better.
3. If you get called out, just cry. Crying really works, especially if you’re female.
4. Use any and all authority you have against them. This is difficult if you’re below them, but you will have some chances to undercut their authority.  My art teacher used my grades against me to the maximum of her ability (which was giving me a B, since most everyone thought I deserved an A and she couldn’t stray too far).  Use ANYTHING.
5. Do things that “you just had to be there” for. Mutter death threats in a way that could be taken as a joke later.  It’s next to impossible to screw up ”I really just want to strangle you right now” and not make it sound facetious later.
6. Kiss up to higher authorities. It doesn’t matter who it is that’s your opponent.  The closer you get to whoever’s in charge of them, the more they fear you.
7. Make them fear you. Keep them on edge and intimidated.  Make them feel pressured not to act out against you.  This pretty closely relates to everything else.

Guys, I’m aware that this is a terrible strategy to take, and that by virtue of the golden rule you shouldn’t use it.  But the golden rule works in reverse.  “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” equally means “Do unto others as they have done unto you.”

I think that we should respect everyone, just by virtue of them being people, too.  Especially when they’re in an authoritative position over us.  However, sometimes people cross too many lines and honestly don’t deserve respect.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that you have to earn my respect–I’ll give it to you by default–but that you can lose it.

Case in point: my music professor.

The man never really seemed to like me.  I was okay with this.  He was still in charge, and I still tried to be respectful.  He gave me bad grades on essay questions by virtue of not liking me.  He told me once in his office to essentially stop participating in class since I was nothing but a distraction (no, not to stop talking to my friends or anything, but to stop participating whatsoever).

I gave a project on Madonna, which inspired my last post.  He had suggested beforehand that I check out a book about Madonna.  Turns out, the book was about her and feminism, wheras my project was about her influence on music.  I didn’t end up usingt his book, as it was irrelevant.  After my presentation, which was actually really, really good (I’ve been told), he tried to catch me off guard with a question about her and feminism.  It was completely irrelevant, and he was basically trying to catch me off-guard and give me a worse grade for it (I’m aware of how paranoid that sounds, but it’s what happened).

Guys, I answered the shit out of that question.  He looked like I slapped him.

Anyways, our exam in that class is Friday. He told us about a week or two ago that he would send us the exam questions ahead of time, and that it would be all essay questions.  However, he still had not done this as of yesterday.  So I sent him an email:

Sounds reasonable, right?

Apparently not.  He flipped shit on me, all because of my facetious “let’s just not have an exam!”

This is NOT how you run a class successfully. Not at all.  I don’t have any respect for him, and luckily I never have to take another one of his classes ever again (since they’re all pointless things like American Music).

I did send an apology, but it was one of those hollow “I’m sorry there was a misunderstanding” deals, and I definitely poured on the sweetness, even though it still probably sounded a bit bitter.

Once again, I feel like I should stress that I really don’t believe in employing these crazy hate tactics on anyone, and that we should treat others with almost unconditional respect just because they’re people too.

But sometimes, when worse comes to worse, we all snap.  It’s not something we’re proud of, but I’m just trying to snap effectively.  These methods not only will get you in to less trouble than if you just cursed someone out (especially someone in authority), but they also probably work better.  People get used to being told they’re assholes.   They know that already.  They obviously don’t care, or they would be a little more respectful to you in the first place.

In Praise of Madonna.

Madonna, looking like a teenager despite being approximately 500 years old in this photo.

I’m working on a presentation about the importance of Madonna in American music.  I’d have to say she’s pretty important–the woman’s the highest-selling solo female artist in history, her albums and singles read like a list of the most influential works in modern music history, and countless artists list her as one of their inspirations.

She’s timeless, yet she continually innovates her style and music.  She’s always cutting-edge, and her music feels both fresh and classic.

“Like A Virgin” is easily the most influential album in the history of pop music.  It singlehandedly refocused the pop music industry from bands to soloists,  emphasized the importance of women in music, opened the door for R&B and Hip Hop to break mainstream, and allowed artists more autonomy in their music.

Let’s all just take a moment to celebrate the fact that Madonna is the greatest musician alive today, not measuring by talent but by influence.  She’s an icon, a force in the music industry, and will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the “legends” of music alongside the likes of Elvis and The Beatles.

The Goal of Pre-Med is to Make You Dead Inside.

There. I said it.

Let’s be honest here.  Everything you need to know about being a doctor, you learn in graduate school.  You don’t take undergrad freshman Biology and learn how to diagnose and treat a rash.  You cut up pigs and poke at their insides.  You put fruit flies in a tube and see how they react to light.  You look at diagrams and models of the inner workings of genitalia.  You learn about these the very basic things that will help you later learn to learn the things you actually need to know.

You see gross things.  You touch gross things.  You do gross things.

You learn not to care.  That’s what’s important here.  They tell you to point at a lateral epicondyle, but you’re not learning where that is.  You’re learning to forget that the bones you hold in your hand were once a person, and that the same bones are inside you.

You’re getting the background you need to start learning to be a doctor.  You’re getting prepared to learn to be a doctor.  You are not learning to be a doctor, you’re learning to be a student.

Those gross things you’ve done?  You’re learning to think nothing of them, because soon you’ll be doing gross things on actual people.

Cupthieving.

Guys, I have a problem.  Every time I see free disposable cups, I take a couple.  I don’t have any use for them, and I realize this.  But I do it anyways, just because they’re there and they’re free.

My school has them around the water fountains and I just stole ten. Last night, there had been a reception in the Honors Commons (a student lounge for nerds like me), and I took a big stack just because another student (my age, even) told me not to.  Well, that and the fact that these were those clear plastic shiny ones as opposed to the normal paper ones that water fountains have.

Me. Also, cups.

High School Spanish vs. College Spanish

I remember my first Spanish class.

I was in 10th grade, but the rest of my class was in 9th grade, because I didn’t take Spanish in 9th grade.  I took art instead.

Anyways, we learned all the verbs in the present tense.

We started with ser, “to be,” then moved on.  And for a while, everyone used ser with their other verbs, which made my teacher mad.  Like “Yo soy comer.” “I am to eat.”  But we broke that habit, and we learned the regular endings of these verbs.

And we all thought that this was difficult to understand, to learn verb endings for all of these present-tense verbs, especially since there were all these wacky irregular verbs like tener and estar.

But we learned them. We learned them well.

Then, one day, halfway through the year, my teacher tells us that we’re going to learn the past tense now.  Everyone in the class was mortified.

“There’s ANOTHER one! Wait, we have to learn all that AGAIN?!”

Yes, we did.  The preterite.  It was quite stressful, and some people would mix tenses, but for the most part people got it.

And still, that was all we learned that year.  Those two tenses.

And it was ridiculously difficult.

Now, we learn a tense in two weeks and are expected to know it for life.  And the tenses are irregular in some verbs and not in others, and some verbs are irregular in some tenses and not in others, but we had better know them all.

I hate college Spanish.

The Heart.

Last night, my entire class was studying for our Biology test together in the lab. I made a quiz for my friend, and one of the multiple-choice questions was “What is the primary purpose of the heart?”  The options included a few rational answers, and “love.” Our conversation about that answer went something like this:

Her: Haha, to love.  That’s your other heart’s job.

Me: Your other heart?  The soul one?

Her: Yes! It’s in front of the other one, and it’s red or pink and shaped like this. (She makes her hands into a heart shape.

Random Girl: I thought a bunch of hormones controlled love?

Her: Umm, no. You’re not going to do so well on this test.

Me: Does it have a lock and someone else has the key?

Her: Yes! Only science hasn’t found this kind of heart yet, so it won’t be on the test.

Me: That’s because it turns invisible when exposed to the world outside your body, so they don’t see it in surgeries and stuff.

My friends and I have a mutual understanding of how stuff works.

Dirty vs. Cluttered.

V of Violent Acres writes, “I’m not dirty. I’m cluttered. I happen to think there is a difference.”

I’m not really responding to her post in particular. She just reminded me of a primary difference between my roommate and I.

I’m not dirty whatsoever.  I don’t harbor bugs, old food, stinky clothes, etc.  I don’t leave water around the sink, or pee all over the floor in the bathroom, or just not clean up after myself.  I am, however, very cluttered.  My desk right now is unusable; it’s covered in papers, a typewriter, and bits and pieces of various projects.

I de-clutter about once a month.  I clean constantly, vacuuming or using Windex on the windows or changing my sheets or cleaning the sink/toilet.

My roommate is the opposite.  He isn’t cluttered, but he’s dirty. If he ate in the room, this would be a bigger problem.  But right now, it’s mostly just the bathroom that he leaves a mess.  It’s literally amazing how much water the guy can get on the counter when he doesn’t even wash his hands (yet another part of being dirty).  He hardly ever washes clothes, and although he doesn’t wear dirty clothes, they’re all sitting in his closet floor. I’ve never seen him vacuum or clean his floor.  He’s never once tried to clean up the bathroom after himself.

But his desk and his bed are organized-looking and neat. So he’s constantly de-cluttered, but never clean.