Griping

Warning: I'm about to gripe about something. If you hate reading about people's gripes, etc., stop reading now.

Today, I was sitting in a windowed hallway in the building where my office is located, looking outside. A professor passed by me on his way to the office, and then passed by me again on his way back, a few minutes later. When he passed by me the second time, he said, "You really should be reading, or something. You have work to do." He was utterly serious, and was criticizing me right there. Without knowing ANYTHING ELSE OF MY ACTIVITIES.

He was working under this general principle: graduate students always have work to do.

Here are some things he didn't know:
1) I am normally in my office by 7:35 A.M. every day. Today was an exception, because my husband and I slept through our alarm.
2) My husband and I slept through our alarm because we have both been struggling with a terrible form of head cold, and crazy long days, to which we are adjusting in this, the first week of the fall semester.
3) I worked steadily from the time I reached school today (8:20 A.M.) until the time the professor spotted me in the hallway (about 3:00, or 3:10 P.M.).
4) That was my first real break of the day, and I was reflecting upon the fact that I had been so busy that I forgot to eat, and unfortunately, because I had another class beginning at 3:35, I didn't really have time to eat. I was also pleased because despite being sick enough to warrant sympathy from coworkers, I had managed to have a productive day.

The world is not a fair place. I just need to keep repeating that to myself. Maybe I am a lazy student, but I REALLY didn't need to hear that from ANYONE today. In fact, I NEVER need to hear that from anyone. Bastard. Ugh.

Sick....again.

So, I have a cold. I caught it from Michael. Once he got sick, I pretty much resigned myself to the same fate. SIGH. It sucks buckets. I don't know what that means, but it sounds funny. Okay, I'm signing off because my head hurts.

No longer a Non-Blonde...

I wanted to look a bit different, so I frosted my hair, as you can see from the pictures. Michael and the neighbors really like it, and I'm getting more and more used to the new color. I decided life was too short to think that changing my hair color is an important life decision, to be undertaken seriously and carefully. Anywho, let me know what you think!

Snakes on a Plane

Michael and I, along with two of his comrades from the psychology department went to see Snakes on a Plane today. It was vastly entertaining, and hilarious. One of the comrades visited the site for the movie, and found a nifty feature, in which you can send a friend a personalized cell phone or e-mail message from Samuel L. Jackson, telling them to go to the movie with you. Michael received one of those messages and thought it was pretty funny. Anyway, it's a campy, quirkly little flick, and fun to watch.

Rachel Baker, B.S., M.A.

Well folks, it looks like I don't have to resort to one of my fallback careers after all! I was granted my degree this morning, after an oral defense of my exam. I've been calling parents and telling neighbors and former professors, and doing strange little dances ever since. I'm SO happy (the "so" is pronounced in this case like "sew"). Two degrees down, ONE MORE TO GO. YEAUUHHH!

Rachel's Guide to Avoiding Sex in Middle School and High School

I have a profile on myspace (yeah yeah, get your laughs out now, this is SERIOUS), and a lot of friends and family have contacted me on there. I was looking through some of the profiles this morning, reading blogs if they had any posted, and I was shocked by some of the things I read on the sites of some of the younger members. Some of these poor kids were pouring out some really awful stories about teenage pregnancy, and cheating boyfriends. I couldn't believe how young some of them were: fifteen and dealing with shit like that! It's RIDICULOUS. Now, I know I have almost always been pretty mature for my age, but I was NEVER, NEVER EVER ready emotionally for sex, pregnancy, or any of that crap when I was in FREAKING MIDDLE SCHOOL. I will also give away too much information and say that either I wasn't ready or I was too damn smart to do anything sexual in high school either (although, who knows....I really wasn't given much opportunity...I had all of two dates, all very innocent). But...I really feel the need to say something about this, even though it probably won't be seen by anyone who REALLY needs to see it. Here are some things to keep in mind whenever you feel the drive to have sex in middle school or high school:

1) Though it seems like everything during these years is SO FREAKING important and like that guy/girl is THE ONE, in the grand scheme of things, it is NOT very important, and that guy/girl is probably one in a long line of people you will ever have a crush on or fall in love with.

2) If you have any goals, you should consider what a baby or even a sexual relationship will mean for those goals. Also, YOU SHOULD HAVE GOALS (especially goals besides getting married and having babies)!!! You are young, vibrant, and your life is really just beginning. You don't want to be saddled down with a child, or with a serious and demanding boyfriend/girlfriend. Furthermore, your views and goals will change: so while you may think you want to be Susie or Sammy Homemaker, that will probably change.

3) If you think you are mature enough and smart enough to handle sex, then please please PLEASE wear a condom AND get on birth control. Try your BESTEST not to do one without the other, until you are ready and willing to deal with the consequences. Condoms break, and birth control (depending on the type) fails sometimes, due to things you may not even think about (especially certain medicines).

It all boils down to this folks: in middle school and high school, your hormones are going NUTS. So, for you to decide at this point in life that you are ready for sex is to say that people under the infuence of some sort of drug or someone in an asylum should be making important life decisions. Now, I know some of you feel ready, and would argue that you ARE ready and all I can say is that if that really is the case, then you will go through with guideline #3 without a qualm, and you are ON birth control or your girlfriend is on birth control, and you carry condoms with you and never EVER do anything without them. Okay, I've preached enough.

Test is over!

Okay, so my exam is over with. My fate is sealed, the die is cast, all that jazz. It was nice being a graduate student in philosophy for a while, but I may not be meant to be one for as long as I had planned. Anyway, on to fun stuff!

I found that I talk about myself a lot on here, which makes me uncomfortable. I know I am somewhat self-centered, and it makes me feel bad. So, I am going to feature information about some of my friends on here every now and then, to make things more interesting and to let them know how much I value their presence in my life. The first featured friend is Crystal (pictured above). Crystal and I have been good friends since...I want to say junior high or maybe more like high school.

Crystal is sooooo funny. She was voted "funniest person" or something to that effect in high school. She is married to another friend, Jeff (he'll be featured later). Crystal is also a movie buff. She had one of the largest VHS collections I had ever seen, and has been converting it to DVD slowly but surely. In high school, Crystal was a free-thinker, new-agey type of person (I received my first tarot card reading from her), but she's become a lot more conservative since she got out on her own. She has been pursuing a degree in education, and plans to teach the offspring of other people when they are "still young enough to love their teachers." Yes folks: kindergarten.

Crystal also tends to be on the forefront of slang, probably due to her dogged resolve to keep in touch with pop-culture. She has also coined a few phrases of her own, one of my favorites being, "thirsty like the devil". She also was able to take into her own language the frequent and funny misuses of language from her two younger sisters. Thus, whenever we mean to say someone is "psychic" that gets changed to "psycho."

Speaking of her sisters, Crystal was one of the most responsible kids I've ever met, because from the time she was small herself, she was responsible for taking care of most of her sister's needs (waking them up, getting them fed, making sure they got dressed, etc.), and when she was able to drive, for making sure they got to school. She also was in charge of cooking dinners for her household.

From all of this, I hope you can see why Crystal is an awesome person and a great friend. If anyone who reads this knows Crystal personally, what might be nice is if they would contribute a comment or two about her as well, from their own experiences of her. Anyway, that, gentle readers, is Crystal.

Calming down...

So I have two of my three questions answered for my masters exam. After I finished typing the second answer last night, I stopped feeling so hopeless about the endeavor. I might even say that I felt mildly euphoric! Perhaps the problem all along has been the worry that I would not finish on time? I don't know. I am still concerned with the quality of the answers I have given. But hey, the worst that can happen is that they will kick me out of graduate school, and after the last two hellish semesters I'm beginning to wonder if that really is all that bad. It will be embarrassing, to be sure, but....so what?! Yeah. So what?!

On a lighter note, has anyone else seen Lady in the Water? Michael and I disagree heartily about whether or not it is good. Michael thinks it sucked, while the neighbors and I think it was good. Now, I by no means believe it to be M. Night's BEST movie thus far (I liked Signs the best), but it was far from bad. Michael claimed the storyline was really stupid, and that the actions taken by the people were not very believable (namely, their lack of skepticism). I pointed out that it was difficult to see how anyone who loves Starship Troopers could criticize ANY movie, much less this one. Which is....fallacious reasoning, I'll admit. I was just being mean. Anyway, I'm just curious to see what some of my peers thought about the movie, to compare.

Alcohol and Truth....?

I read an article here at WebMD that raised the question of whether or not people are truthful under the influence of alcohol, inspired by Mel Gibson's recent bout of anti-Semitic comments made while drunk. Some of the points were a bit disturbing, considering some of the things that have been said to me by people who were drunk, or by my own words and behaviors while drunk. It is easy to push some things back in your mind when you think people don't really feel the way they claim to when they are drunk, but a bit more difficult when you consider that those may be their true feelings. Either way, it is an interesting article, and will make me think twice about overimbibing.

ARGH!!!!!!!

Someone just shoot me NOW. That way, people will say things like, "Aww, how sad! She was just about to get her masters too." If I live, then people will say things like, "Geez, what a shame. She was lazy and she didn't study hard enough and look at what happened?! She wasted all that time and now she is a FREAKING FAILURE." ACK! Okay, okay....I'm going to stop hyperventilating, and remember my fallback careers, and how even if I fail my masters exam, I'm still a WINNER:
1) Law school student, specializing in civil rights and/or environmental law (yes, I apparently have an aversion to money)
2) Intern at private detective agency (my secret dream has always been to be Nancy Drew....I'll just have to become so good I can refuse to take cases concerning cheating spouses, ick...)
3) Investigative journalist for Skeptical Inquirer Magazine, or Skeptic Magazine, or maybe the Center for Inquiry (whoo hoo, paranormal activity investigation here I come!)
4) CIA or FBI (they like philosophy students, right?? ESPECIALLY ones with some mad useful Ancient Greek skills.....*sigh*)
5) Umm...Ummm....okay, so I've run out of ideas....other than..bookstore clerk *shudder* and.....I don't know.

Enough self pity for now. Peace out.

Television, Master's exam....crap

Well, I shouldn't be posting, but I'm taking a break from my master's exam. My master's exam is such that it is a week-long affair, during which I must produce answers to three questions, that should be about five pages long each. I have until Wednesday of next week to do this, and I feel.....fine.

So, I can now add another man to the roster of television characters with whom I am in love. As I explained to my husband, Michael, it is perfectly fine for me to be in love with these men, because they are fictional characters. Thus, he is in absolutely no danger of losing me to them, because they do not exist. The one with whom I have been in love with for a few years now is Fox Mulder (the guy in the suit, played by David Duchovny) from X-Files. Why do I love him? Well, he is funny, loyal, fearless, and he tirelessly searches for the truth. Even with all his qualities, I think he is better admired from afar. After all, he puts his work before everything else, frequently puts himself and those around him in danger, and has a penchant for porn, though the last characteristic is more comical than offensive.

The new television love is the character of Logan Cale from the sadly short-lived series Dark Angel (guy in the glasses, played by Michael Weatherly). That I am in love with Logan Cale and NOT Michael Weatherly is obvious from the fact that Michael Weatherly is now on the show NCIS, where he plays a character that is a bit of a jerk, and I am not in the least in love with THAT guy. So even though both David Duchovny and Michael Weatherly are handsome fellas, that actually has very little to do with their appeal. Why am I in love with Logan Cale? He is the daring reporter Eyes Only who takes great personal risks to get the truth out to the people, and he is loyal and determined, as well as unprejudiced, sweet, and kind. Now, why would he actually be a terrible boyfriend in reality? Well, just like Mulder, he tends to be more committed to his work than anything else, and he, too, frequently puts himself and those around him in danger (though he does try harder than Mulder ever did to avoid such things). He is also a bit too prideful. In the series, he is shot and is rendered unable to walk. This seems to be a major factor in his inability to actually begin a romantic relationship with Max (played by Jessica Alba), as he only begins flirting with her and really coming on strong whenever he comes across temporary fixes for his disability. Thus, he seems painfully insecure, and too prideful to accept help, or to believe that someone could love him even though he can't walk. Trust a guy to let something like that get in the way. Anyway, I'm going to stop waxing poetic about guys who don't exist, and get back to the Master's exam. And if you are reading this, my dear husband Michael, keep in mind that existence in reality (in this case at least) really IS greater than mere existence in the mind (well, television), and that I truly love only you.