03/03/2008
So this is the second half of the most recently Top-5 list. My bad for not putting this up until now.

Top-5 Places to Eat at Miami – Off-Campus Edition

• Steinkeller’s: German, sit-down, good food, awesome fries, and great draft beer options. This place only ever had one downside and that was that it used to be really smoky since it’s in the basement of a building. Since the law in Ohio changed, however, that hasn’t been a problem and I couldn’t be more pleased. Truly, the draft beer choices here are the best in town and the food, while somewhat pricey, is quite good.
• Fiesta Charra: one of my favorites, the only reason this place isn’t number one is because I haven’t been able to get horchata consistently there. Sometimes they have it, sometimes they look at me like I’m crazy for asking for it. Even if I am crazy, I don’t like people looking at me like that. Digression aside, the food is decent, prices good, and it’s very speedy (so a good choice if you’re hungry now). I’m a big fan.
• Pita Pit: made-to-order pitas, this place is relatively cheap, the choices are excellent (even if I only ever order turkey), and I am always a fan of watching my food prepared. The only negative I’ve ever had was biting down too hard on a pita once (my fault, not the pita’s), I chipped my tooth. Not a fun experience, but not really Pita Pit’s fault. All in all, a good eating choice and healthier than most fast food joints.
• Smokin’ Ox: I put this and the next one on the list tentatively. I can’t think of two that I like better, but I’m pretty reticent to jump on board with these guys. Smokin’ Ox bugs me on a couple levels. First, I want the “g” on Smokin’, call me silly, but I go the distance. Second, there is one guy there, who I think may be a manager, who’s a little creepy. He’s only ever been super nice and polite to me, but he sets me on edge. Third, the food is only ok. I’ve never walked away saying “wow, that was awesome.”
• Bagel & Deli: This is a neat place, but I’m not sure, like I said, it should be on here. Until I think of two to knock this is Smokin’ Ox off, though, they’re staying on the top-5. Bagel & Deli makes made-to-order bagels (go figure), and you can put darn near anything on them. I’ve seen options with bananas literally cooked on the bagel. Never tried it, but the people who ate it are still walking (I think), so maybe it’s good. I like the versatility and choice you get here. My beef is that it’s not much food (you can’t pack that much onto a bagel, no matter how much you try) and it’s fairly expensive for what little you get. On the plus side, it’s open pretty late and they generally play very good music in there.

So there’s the second (of two) Top-5 on where to eat. Until we meet again, the case is solved.

02/25/2008
A short blog because I’m rewarding myself.

I have now finished the first draft of both the introduction and conclusion to my thesis. This means that I have completed the entire thing in its first draft form, which is good. What stinks is that my long-winded (I know this will surprise some readers) ass took over 100 pages to say my piece, so now I have 100+ pages to edit and revise before the second draft is due in. I am looking forward to such an unpleasant spring break it’s not even funny.

At the same time, I can now stop feeling guilty about my superhero party which prematurely celebrated my thesis’ first draft conclusion, so I’m patting myself on the back.

For any of you, O my audience, who would like to read the final copy, you have until late April to e-mail me (dave.sheehan@hotmail.com) and ask for an emailed copy of it. That version will be fully edited, formatted, and probably near 115 pages long (wowzers!).

Here’s some general advice on theses, should you decide to do one:

Don’t bite off more than you can chew. It just makes the whole thing long and the back-end process of revising and editing becomes a huge drag. It should be a relief that I’m done with my first draft, but it’s really hard to get excited when I know how much back-log I have to wade through just for a second draft. Remember, if you write it, you’ll have to re-read it when it comes time to edit, since no one is perfect.

02/18/2008
Of late my focus has been entirely bent towards finding a job after I graduate. This week there was a career fair and I had to do considerable catching up to prepare for it, although it is a story with a happy ending.

First things first, the career fair: what is it, where is it, and how often does it occur? If you’ve asked yourself any of these questions, congratulations, I’m going to actually answer what you’ve asked for … for once.

Miami puts on a career fair twice a year, once in the fall (which I missed because I’m a moron) and once in the spring, which I rocked like a 12-year-old fighting with first graders. At these career fairs, which almost always take place at Millet Hall because they are big affairs that require lots of space, many business (mostly from Ohio but also from some nationwide places) come and set up tables where they leave representatives for you to go up and talk to. Almost all of the participating organizations put info up online prior to the event so you can read up on what they’re looking for (position), what their company is about (context), and what majors they’ll accept (accessibility).

So preparation for this shindig was lengthy. First I had to update my resume. Couple of things about resumes: first, I haven’t apparently updated mine in like three years, because it was out of date as hell and I had to spend considerable time tracking down and remembering all the stuff I’ve done since then just to get it sort of back to modern day Dave. Second, no one can agree on what makes a good resume. I literally made and remade, formatted and reformatted the damn thing a dozen times because each person I’d ask about it would give me different advice (sometimes contradictory, which was really super cool… not). Eventually I came up with a final draft and only just became aware before final printing that I had spelled the section heading “ACADEMIC & RESEARCH” as “ACAMEDIC & RESEARCH”. Read it again. Got it? Yeah, that would have been embarrassing had it not been caught!

Also for preparation, I had to go through over 70 businesses’ pages about their companies, trying to sort out which companies to see and in which order. I wanted to make sure I got to the most important ones early on before the people turned their brains totally off after talking to tens of Miami students, so after I read all these profiles and decided who to see, I then planned out my route to make sure I could speedily swoop around, wowing and amazing where necessary.

As I said, the whole affair had a happy ending: I got an interview the next day and have had several follow ups (including two more scheduled interviews) since.

Here’s a couple general tips from my experience:

• Get sleep. For some unknown reason, I had sugar before bed and couldn’t get any sleep the night before, so I wasn’t quite at the top of my game, but still good enough that most everyone around me still seemed… well, not me.
• Keep your resume up-to-date. Seems like easy advice, but I didn’t do it and wished I had.
• Be personable and confident. I talked with several representatives who said that based on my major, if they’d just received my resume and never met me, they wouldn’t have accepted it or looked for an interview. Because I came up and confidently applied myself, however, I have seen some very positive results.
• Be more assertive than I was to get the cool stuff they bring. See, most companies bring some sort of nifty toy or pen or water bottle or gadget to entice you to come talk to them. I must have done something wrong during the day since I only walked away with a pen, a pad of paper, and a rubber band ball (which, to be fair, is pretty sweet).

02/11/2008
Ok, a quick blog to clear something up that is unnecessarily convoluted.

University Honors students who come to Miami are expected to complete ten Honors “experiences” during their four years here.

Oxford Scholars students who come to Miami are expected to complete ten “enrichment points” during their four years here.

Why the program decided to use two fairly long words that begin with “e” is beyond me, but no one asked my opinion and now I just try to make the difference clear to those who don’t understand it. Hence this blog.

So here’s the rough and dirty difference, to make it perfectly clear what the difference is and so that there can no longer be confusion.

ENRICHMENT POINTS are endeavors a student undertakes based on the relative rigor and time commitment associated with said activity. Tougher, longer projects are thus worth more enrichment points than short and easy ones. There’s a veritable slew of enrichment point activities and pretty much anything you can do for an Honors EXPERIENCE also counts as an enrichment point, only you get more for it as an Oxford Scholar than as an Honors student (because the Scholars program is designed to be more flexible than the Honors program).

EXPERIENCES, on the other hand, are a based on a one-to-one ratio. That is, you do ONE activity and you received credit for ONE Honors experience.

Let’s use an Honors class as an example to distinguish between the ENRICHMENT POINT and the EXPERIENCE. If an Oxford Scholars student takes an Honors class, they receive three ENRICHMENT POINTS for completion. If, on the other hand, and Honors student took that same class, they would receive one Honors EXPERIENCE for successful completion.

So there’s the difference. Now I should never have to explain it again, I can just say go to my blog page and read up (+2).

02/04/2008
If I haven’t said it before, I’m saying it now: I love Valentine’s Day. Single or chained, there’s something about this unabashedly commercial, profit-mongering holiday that just makes my heart leap. Of course, this could be from all the sugar, but I like to think it’s all the hearts that get filled with joy (or jealousy, depending on your attitude) that just gets me going.

If you’ve never been on an official Miami University visit, then you’ve never taken one of the Miami Tour Guide tours. If you’ve never done this, congratulations, you’re an hour smarter than your unlucky fellow humans. No, I’m just kidding – I was a tour guide for a year and a half, after all – but one thing that always bother me about the tours was the Upham Arch story.

Miami has a stupidly high percentage of its student body who wind up marrying each other. Average percentage nation-wide is like 4%, we’re up around 16% last I checked (and by last I checked I mean that’s what runs in my head). Now, this freakishly high percentage (they have a name for it, how scary is that? “Miami Mergers”) should be considered decent proof that Miami students aren’t all that intelligent, but let’s put aside my thoughts on marriage for a second and get back to what I was supposed to be talking about, the arch story.

Part of what contributes to this high percentage is this superstitious story about the Upham Arch. Upham is an academic building that houses various departments (History, Sociology, Anthropology, etc.) and programs (College of Arts & Sciences administrative offices), and it’s shaped (from above) like a “U”. If, however, you’re just looking at the building from a normal view, at what would be the bottom of the “U” is an archway, which allows passage under Upham, rather than around it. On the ceiling of this archway is a hanging lamp.

Now I know what you’re thinking, nothing says romance like administrative offices and departmental programs surrounding a lamp. Turns out, you’re right, because, as the story goes, if you kiss your significant other under the lamp at midnight, especially on an important evening such as, say, Valentine’s Day, you’re destined to be together forever.

Nothing like legend to ruin the commercial goodness that is Valentine’s Day, huh?

Anyhow, various people apparently believe this nonsense and go to the arch/lamp area at all times of the year to smack lips and seal their fate. But not me. Oh no, I swung wide of Upham every time I was with Lindsay, and sometimes by myself just to be safe, for the 13 th, 14 th, and 15 th, just for good measure.

So there’s the story. I never used to tell it on my tours because a) I’m not superstitious or a dipshit enough to believe it, b) it’s not that compelling of a story, c) there are more important things to talk about (Barry), and finally, d) I think it’s hooey.

[Author’s note: You wouldn’t believe the number of unhappy comments this blog received from my editor. Well, maybe you would.]

01/28/2008
Fact: From time to time I feel uncharacteristically helpful and informative.
Fact: Rarely do these times occur when I am writing blogs.

Since this is one of those opportune moments, O my audience, I suggest you listen, especially if you are a prospective student. This week’s blog is another Top-5 list for you but, instead of doing some category of cinema, I thought I’d theme this one around another favorite thing of my life – food.

Now, I had initially planned to do just one of these Top-5 lists, which would cover all food options, both on and off campus. But then I decided, why not get paid twice for the same idea? And, to be fair, there are some really decent eating options and I just couldn’t cut my list below seven.

So here is part one of my next Top-5:

Top-5 Places to Eat at Miami – On-Campus Edition (insert dramatic music with ascending drum roll)

• Scott: Scott hall, which is an upper-classmen residence hall in central quad, has not just one fabulous eatery attached to it, but two! One is called Encore and the other Ovations, but I have never bothered to learn which was which and, just for your, O my audience, I am not going to now either. For those of us (the vast majority, I think) who don’t know which side goes by which non-descriptive name (seriously, how much can you tell about food at a place called “Encore”? Does it comes with a wailing guitar solo and a dimly lit stage?), we refer to the two Scott dining options as the “hot” and “cold” side of Scott (even though both serve both hot and cold foods). What is really funny, and somewhat sad, is that I am not even sure of the difference between the hot and cold names. Instead, I like to distinguish between the two by the main food staples they offer. One side has various pasta choices, a make-your-own stir fry (they cook it in front of you but I’ve never seen anyone lose an eyebrow so it’s not that exciting) area, and then a full service custom-made pizza/sub-sandwich station. These last two options in particular make me very happy as it allows me to pick a base food (sub or pizza) and then apply whatever my mood fancies. The only bummer is that you then have to wait roughly ten minutes for the food to cook.
• Scott: The other side of Scott, which I don’t prefer quite as much, but which is still pretty sweet, has a deli line where you can make wraps, sandwiches, etc., a pretzel area (think Auntie Anne’s but without the stupid name), a make-your-own smoothie lines (you pick the base and fruit, they blend it into juicy goodness for you and add ground ice), and a made-to-order grill. This last option rocks socks off, especially the angus burger (I’m still sponsoring vegetarians, remember), which you can have cooked and added to in any way you see fit. Cheese? No problem. Mushrooms? You got it. Mayo and ketchup? You bet. Delicious burgers with only a relatively short wait while they cook them. Oh and both Scott options are a la carte.
• Hamilton : A buffet style option, this dining hall is awesome for two reasons. First, as far as buffet style dining halls go, I’ve had the best food experiences here and the atmosphere of Hamilton is usually pretty subdued. The second reason my editor completely cut, mainly because it deals with the typical gender distribution being tipped highly in my favor… so this is me not saying it. Really, the only negative to Hamilton is that almost every time I’ve been there they have had country music playing, which means you have to wear headphones or accept your brain matter bleeding out of your ears.
• Alexander: Located on western, this dining hall is only this far down on the list because I’m lazy and don’t like to walk. And, when I haven’t eaten, riding my bike to food just isn’t terribly appealing. Anyhow, Alexander is buffet style, so don’t expect anything terribly new in that regard, but what Alexander does have is a stellar fruit and salad bar. This made it a favorite for weekend breakfasts, where I’d drag my rear out of bed, mosey over, and gorge myself like a bat or some other fruit-consuming critter.
• Shriver: last and only barely on the list, Shriver’s food options aren’t anything to write home about, but they make the top five simply because of convenience. Haines Food Court, an a la carte option, is open until the wee hours and the market near it is always open, making Shriver the prime place to go if you’re hungry and it’s ridiculously early.

01/21/2008
This week of classes has not been so hot.

To celebrate the finishing of my first draft of my thesis, I decided to throw a small gathering over the weekend in a Superhero-themed party. Yes, I wore spandex and a cape and a muscle suit. Yes, I had a huge “A” emblazoned across my chest to notifying one and all my identity as Captain Awesome. No, I did not get out of control. Yes, the planning and preparations for this event kept me from actually finishing the first draft of my thesis.

Unfortunately, my planning didn’t take into account that on Monday I would wake up with an intestinal flu so powerful that even Captain Awesome’s impressive immune system (the equivalent to having 400 Swiss Guard and one woman in charge to make sure everything runs smoothly) couldn’t handle it.

Here’s a daily recap thus far:

Monday: Slept all day. When I was awake I was in the WC. If you don’t know what a WC is, you’re not French, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it isn’t necessarily a good thing. Last I checked, verdict was still out. Dave’s Daily Day Indicator Reading: Sucked.

Tuesday: Felt a little better, decided I shouldn’t skip classes. Went to TA for Latin and stared blankly at my desk most of the time. Went to broomball and decided it wouldn’t be that big of a deal not to wear elbow pads (dumb choice, I went down hard on them like 2 minutes in). Went to capstone, which is in Benton Hall, about on the other end of campus from where I live, which, when you have intestinal flu, is a long walk. Dave’s DDIR: Partly Better with a splatter of Sucked.

Wednesday: I’ve pronounced this as Punishment Day. Mainly because my body decided to punish me all day for being scholarly the previous day (as if it hadn’t already punished me Tuesday evening and night). Dave’s DDIR: Super-Sucked. Technically, it was a better day than Monday because I hurt a little less, but it sucked more because I was awake (and thus suffering) more of the time. Plus, Wednesday night I walked into a wall. Yup, I made a spectacularly graceful choice in, while sick and stumbling from bathroom to bedroom, deciding not to put my hands out before me in the dark.

Thursday: So I broke down and went to the health center, which is how I found out I had an intestinal flu (can you guess which day I’m writing?) I feel better today, but only a little. According to the doc, my intestines are a little like a pulled muscle in a runner’s leg. I don’t like running from anything except bears, so I try not to think about what that means, but I assume it means I should be getting better soon. Dave’s DDIR: Okay.

Update: I just spilled 7up all over myself. DDIR: Okay with a chance of shower.

01/14/2008
If I haven’t mentioned it before, I always enjoy the first week of classes. (Note: if I have said it before, I just earned 2 clever points for getting paid twice to say the same thing.) You get to see old friends (and enemies – squirrels, I know you’re there even if it’s cold), you get to meet new professors and see whether your schedule needs abrupt changes to be made, and you have almost no chance of having a paper due.

Unless you haven’t finished your thesis. (Insert that Jetsons’ dog saying “Rut Roh!”)

As the new semester dawns, I’d like to impart some useful wisdom about pre-semester preparation, particularly the buying of supplies.

The biggest thing is the procuring of binders, paper, notebooks, pencils, pens, etc. (not including books, which are another topic I’ve discussed already). In all likelihood, you probably have plenty lying around from the previous semester, so buying lots of new ones just means wasted space on shelves, in closets, or under beds. So instead of buy, buy, buying away (watch out economy, I’m after you next!), take a look at your resources first.

I like to start by throwing away the useless stuff (namely old paperwork and illegible notes from classes I didn’t like) and thereby freeing up some three-ring binders. Then, I look at how essential the notes I did take (and can still read) truly are. If they don’t pass the “I could use this information during a bear attack” test, I can ‘em and move on. Oftentimes I find that between my tendency to doodle rather than take notes, as well as my willingness to recycle darn near anything I write leaves me with several only barely used notebooks at the start of each term.

The next step is guessing how many of the classes I will be taking will require me to have either a notebook or three-ring binder. Broomball? Note likely. Independent Study in film history and theory? Maybe, but a steno note-taking pad will be crucial there. Thesis? I’d have to do work for that, plus, I already have a binder for it from last term. Capstone? Probably. Teaching Assistant for Latin? Definitely.

From there, I can figure out C (how many notebooks or binder to buy) by subtracting B (the number of them I’ll likely need) from A (how many notebooks and binders I’ve salvaged), using the following, highly-complex, formula:

A – B = C

Here’s the best advice though: just wait until after you’ve been to your first class for each class you’re taking. Then you’ll have a pretty good idea whether a folder, binder, or small bin will be the most useful storage container for what you’re going to be receiving in the class.

01/07/2008
Happy 2008.

So it’s a new year and that calls for that thing we love to hate best: resolutions. Here are some resolutions I have:

• Don’t procrastinate on my schoolwork (thesis not included). I had a heck of a good time last semester at the end because I did my work in a timely fashion and didn’t put it off until I had to work like crazy just to turn it in on time. I like that and would like to make a habit of it this year.
• Get a permanent job. This seems like a no brainer, but I’m a big fan of checking the little boxes off on a to-do list and will sometimes split a single, multi-task job into its components just so I can check them off as I go. By putting “get a job” on the resolution list, I’m sure to be adding a checkable area for myself (I rule! +3).
• Be more prompt with my updates on this blog. I was a bit of a recluse last semester when it came to fulfilling little girls’ and boys’ dreams across the world, but I’m determined to be better about getting these suckers churned out more frequently than finals week. Plus, since this is the last semester I’ll get paid to do this, I might as well make the most of it.
• Paint more. I did a final project for one of my classes last fall and part of it included doing some paintings. I really enjoyed painting in high school, but had largely cut it from my habits since I’ve come here to Miami. But, now that I’ve resumed it a bit, I think I’d like to continue doing it, as I find it very relaxing and gratifying.
• Avoid having babies. Like the job thing, this seems like a gimme, but let’s just be sure and safe and put it down so no little spuds come cropping their strikingly-old-man-like heads up anytime in 2008.
• Find a new editor. Just kidding, Lindsay.

I already got one.

Just kidding again.

12/31/2007
This break I have three goals: to finish the first draft of my thesis, get my resume together, and catch up on sleep.

Fact: It is week three of break and my thesis isn’t done.

This week, I have a new Top-5 for you.

Top-5 Ways to Avoid Doing Your Thesis

1. Do pleasure reading or prolong the reading you’re doing for your thesis. In the latter case, it looks like you’re doing your work AND you’re putting off doing your work.
2. Watch movies. Come on, what’s two hours time gonna hurt? Except motivation, nothing!
3. Tell others about your thesis. Like prolonging your reading, this particular approach makes you feel like you’re working on your thesis – after all, it can’t hurt to discuss your ideas with others, right? – when in reality you’re just not doing your work.
4. Continually outline, organize, re-outline, and re-organize what you have done on your thesis already. Somewhere along the way that organizing will come in handy… right? … right?
5. Write a blog on how to avoid doing your thesis. (+7 Clever Points)

12/24/2007
Every once in a while I like to take a break from my diligent writing and retreat into the recess of my mind. In the well-spring of all creativity and awesomeness, I contemplate how I can best serve you, O my audience, in each blog.

This week, I decided to let my editor, Lindsay, have a chance at more glory than just editing my work. What, you may rightly ask, is more glorious than getting to read my words, unedited and straight from the source? Well, getting to do that AND getting to write a guest blog for me.

As before, I will make notes throughout, just so she knows her place (editor, not writer), as well as award Clever Points for the witty things I say.

One final note, every once in a while she just starts yammering on and on, soI’ve shortened hers a bit for both our sakes. Try to enjoy and I’ll see you next week.

12/17/2007
I’ve received some disconcerting news from some of my more dedicated readers concerning a previous post. More specifically, several of you, O my audience, appear to have missed the intent of my blog about a proper PowerPoint presentation.

Fact: That blog was written sarcastically.

Fact: This means that when I said you should “totally, totally, totally DO” those five things, I was kidding; actually, each of these bullets represent some common mistake that I have noticed a lot of my peers (and profs, eek!) commit.

Fact: I really thought I was pretty obvious in not being very serious.

Since my subtlety was apparently greater than my hyperbole in writing the blog, I’d like to take this opportunity to run back through that bad boy so I can show you, O my audience, the numerous (if not obvious) clues that I was joking, awarding clever points where applicable.

12/10/2007
In the spirit of the upcoming holiday season, I decided to do an understandably themed Top Five this week.

Top Five Holiday Movies

1. Love Actually – British, but human in scope, this film is actually a kaleidoscope of the various manifestations of love set to a Christmas theme. Initially, I really dislike the movie, thinking that it tried to take 7 or 8 sub-plots on at face value and never developed any of them fully. Upon later viewings, however, I realized that the intent of the movie is not to show one plot’s love, but how love pops up in so many ways. My one complaint is that the film’s producers were serious wuss wimpletons and cut out a same-sex love plot. Basically, love is ok except for people of the same sex – a statement I think is both short-sighted and problematic.
2. Groundhog’s Day – Guess which holiday this one focuses on? This is just a very clever and amusing film with a somewhat cheesy happy ending. Its message is still good though and because it includes some of the funniest lines ever written, it makes the list (for example: “If we wanted to hit mailboxes, we would have let Ralph drive!” and “Don’t mess with me, porkchops.”)
3. It’s a Wonderful Life – I almost didn’t put this one on because it’s such a gimme, but then I thought about it, everyone expects me to not put the gimmes on, so I have to do it. Decent acting, a cute story, and a happy ending. Go ring a bell and feel good, but know that most of the world lives in abject poverty while the Mr. Potters make the most important decisions and mostly denounce the growing environmental problems as distorted science.
4. Boondock Saints – Ok, so I’m stretching it here, but this is just a sweet film and it does play up the St. Patrick’s day, making it somewhat acceptable to be on this list. If you haven’t seen this movie, watch it. If you don’t like violence, remember it’s a movie and not real, and then watch it.
5. Trains, Planes, & Automobiles – Because everyone knows at least one person who’s as irritating and clingy as John Candy. I myself have three or four I can’t seem to shake. This is film, which I think many viewers forget is based on getting home for Thanksgiving, has some good messages and great lines (“Those aren’t pillows!”).

Now, it’s worth noting I haven’t seen every movie, and there are probably some I’m forgetting. That’s ok though, I reserve full rights to saying your opinion is wrong and even amending my own afterwards. Think you’ve got a better list? Write me at dave.sheehan@hotmail.com and maybe over my holiday break I’ll look at it as a special gift to you.

12/03/2007
So it’s the end of the semester. Here’s where I tell you what I’ve learned from social dance, and give a nice, compelling recap on how the experience, upon reflection, has bettered my life:

Finals week is generally my favorite part of any semester. If I’ve ever written this about some other time, and you really feel like calling me out on it, drop me a line at dave.sheehan@hotmail.com, but know that I won’t care.

Anyhow, especially this semester, finals week has none of the usual requirements (class, readings, meetings, etc.). Instead, all you do is write final papers, prepare for final exams, and pack up and go home.

For reasons I cannot explain, I got a sudden surge of energy the week before finals week and had both of the two final papers I had to do finished before the week began. The only other requirements I had for finals week were a take home final for hockey (which, since I don’t know anything about hockey and just like playing, was surprisingly more challenging than I expected), a presentation for Latin (which I had figured out weeks ago), and I had, of course, to go to a final social dance.

Like I said, I can’t explain how I didn’t procrastinate. Knowing oneself is an important thing and I know that on things that don’t matter and I know won’t take much time, I tend to put them off. For whatever reason, then, I decided mentally that all my stuff was important, and I systematically went through it and finished it in a timely fashion. Strange, I know.

Here’s a word of advice, however, from personal experience: if you have a final presentation to give at 7:30 in the morning, don’t set your alarm clock for 6:30 pm.

I made it there halfway through and got to give my presentation, but I paid for it by a full letter grade on the project. All for not looking more closely at that damn alarm clock (the third bane of my existence after dancing and squirrels).

11/26/2007
Bored and perusing Facebook lately, I have noticed a curious phenomenon: an inordinate number of people I graduated with either have a child or are currently in the process. Now, I’m 22, and about average-aged for my class. Yet babies are as far from my mind as Chuck Norris is on the scale of awesomeness from Sleepy.

So what’s the deal? While pondering this seeming coincidence, of all the people I graduated with popping out spuds, Jason came into my room and to ask me a question.

One of the greatest joys in my life is to interrupt whatever plans Jason has in an effort to divert his attention to something else. Sometimes I entice him by knocking on his door while he’s doing homework, and when he says “yeah?” I reach in my hand holding nothing but a remote control for a video game console. Other times I’ll wait with a foam sword I bought until he comes out of his room to go to the bathroom or feed himself, and then I strike. And sometimes I just speak before he does and ask him about something that will completely make him lose his train of thought.

So I asked him, “Jason, have a lot of people you graduated with been having babies? And if so, why?”

Jason said he had also noticed this trend but, like me, he didn’t think it was because of our age. When I asked him if he was thinking about growing any potatoes in the near future he said “I’m going to wait until I’m older and can afford kids… or when I have no more friends.”

Laughing, I asked him why and he replied, “Kids are what you have when you get bored, because they have to hang out with you… that’s how grounding started.”

Jason, rest assured, forgot what he came in for, and, with his sound advice in mind, I have concluded that the people I graduated with must be really bored, because I still can’t figure out any reason why anyone would want to produce something that doesn’t do anything but cry, scream, sleep, and poop. And don’t give me the “aw, babies are so cute” line either, I’ve already written a blog about that (see previous blogs).

So here’s some advice if you’re aged 25 or younger (because those are the people with the least sense not to produce such a creature): buy a plant. If it doesn’t die in two years, upgrade to a small mammal. If that’s still alive after 5 years, you should be around 32 years old, which means you’re too old to have kids anyway. It’s ok though, there’s 6 billion other people, so no loss… now you can get a dog.

Oh, and don’t buy a dog that doesn’t come from a pound. There’s tons of great dogs getting put down while people are dropping several hundreds of dollars just because it says “pure bred” on the dog’s paperwork. Pure-bred is a joke – technically all dogs came from the same place so, in a sense, they’re all pure-bred.

On second thought, keep buying them, because if you’re silly enough to buy an animal based on its short-sighted classification, you probably don’t deserve the money you’d save by buying a cheaper animal anyway.

11/19/2007
I have to say that I take a diabolical glee in the current writers’ strike. Not only am I a fan of people getting paid for writing… … … (everyone get it who’s going to?), but I’m also a supporter of the higher ups every once in a while getting checked by the people who make them oh so much money.

But on top of all these things, the part I love the most about the writers’ strike is the fact that so many people are put out from having their spoon-fed mindless activity on a regular basis.

I have a really deep-seated loathing for people who plan their lives around a weekly installment on television. I think it shows a real lack of creativity, imagination, and impetus (heck, they don’t even make the effort to break their own schedule). Moronic technological advances like TiVo have made it even easier for TV junkies to get their fix.

But not now, not with the writers’ strike.

The people I know are guilty culprits of TV fanaticism I try to regularly ask what they think will happen each week on their given show. They always have a glimmer of hope in their eye, thinking that maybe, just maybe, the strike has ended and I somehow found out about if before they did. Hah hah ha, then I bat them down with “oh, that’s right, there’s a strike going on, isn’t there… I guess nothing new will happen on the show this week.” Sometimes I include a maliciously evil laugh at the end, sometimes I feign innocence. In either case, I don’t care one bit how long it lasts and I hope that all the writers overthrow their executive restraints.

I do like shows put on DVD format, however. More like a movie, no part of the show controls the viewer and with the power to pause, shut it down, or fast forward, I find this approach to watching “TV” ok.

Why bring up the strike and TV on the blog? Well, a surprising amount of college work gets put off, rearranged, and disregarded in my peers’ efforts to make sure they get their fix. This bugs me, so I figured, why not share it?

Don’t be a robot, cast down your bonds to television.

11/12/2007
One thing every student can look forward to in the fall semester is Thanksgiving break. That time when you are forced to show for class on Tuesday afternoon because it’s being taught by the same professor who is advising your thesis and is making you re-do a section due (you guessed it) on that same Tuesday. That time when you get to trek home and eat food and answer your family’s questions about how your semester is going when you know there looms a pile of work to do, waiting and lurking in your room. That time of year when, if you’re my family, you gather roughly 20 people (and I say roughly because I think that number might be low) for a meal and then an after dinner entertainment.

This year, the gathering decided that that wanted to see Lindsay and me show off what we’d learned in social dance. Imagine what expression is on my face right now, thinking about it, now multiply that face by the thought of puppies getting killed, my unfinished thesis, and squirrels… that’s pretty much how I looked when I realized there was no way I was getting out of dancing.

I pointed out that we didn’t have enough space to dance on the kitchen floor because we’d set up a table for all the food there.

That table got moved.

I mentioned that we didn’t have any swing, mambo, or waltz music to dance to, conveniently forgetting that I myself had access to some of each in my own music collection.

Music was found.

Finally, I tried poisoning Lindsay’s drink, hoping that in the hubbub, I could make my get away and be free from dancing.

What I thought was poison turned out to be cranberries, which is apparently festive for that time of year.

Did we dance? Yes. Was I ashamed? Yes. Was I awesome, even though I was performing an action inherently anti-awesome? You bet.

Ah, Thanksgiving break. That time when even squirrels get a rival for the bane of my existence.

11/05/2007
Way back during the first semester of my freshman year of college, I was taking an introductory Classical Mythology course. One of the readings we covered was The Iliad, that millennia-old story about Achilles’ battles at Troy. While reading it, I was continually struck with how likeable a character Hektor, the Trojan Prince, was. Now, The Iliad was an epic written for Greeks, by Greeks, which means Hektor was technically the bad guy. Why make him so cool, then?

Fast forward a semester: spring semester, freshman year. I’m now taking Roman Civilization, another introductory Classics course. We’re reading book 21 of Livy, a historian of Rome, and he is recount the second Punic War (between Rome and Carthage). Out of no where, Livy goes into this long description of the Carthaginian general, Hannibal Barca. Now, while at some points what Livy says defames Hannibal’s character (he calls him incredibly cruel, for example), overall, the picture Livy paints is a generally positive one. Like Homer, Livy makes his bad guy at least admirable and, in some cases even likeable.

I was intrigued.

Fast forward two years: summer between junior and senior year. I am now studying the ways Roman historians constructed an archetypal Roman enemy by analyzing various Roman enemies (shocking, I know). Among others, I finally get to look at Hannibal for the figure that he is in Livy, and how he conforms or undermines the idea of the hero.

Fast forward to senior year: I’ve decided that the two things I’m really interested in are the hero and superhero movies – the former because it’s this amazing commonality that spans human existence, the latter because, as stupid as they can be, they cry out to be analyzed with this larger heroic tradition. So what do I do with these interests? I undertake a senior Honors thesis.

Now, I’m rather proud of how many ways I’m getting this project to count for me (double-dipping in credit is always fun). First, as an Honors student, so long as I complete my requirements I’ll graduate “with Honors.” However, if I do a thesis in any field, I get classified as graduating “with Honors with distinction.” Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? So there’s one form of credit for my idea (Credit #1). Secondly, I’m doing the thesis within the Classics department, which means that by completing it, I’ll get recognized as achieving “departmental honors” on my transcript. (Credit #2) And, because there is no “departmental honors” class in the Classics department, my two-semester project has to be done as independent studies. The way the Honors requirements work out, you can get two of ten met by doing “independent study related to departmental honors,” which, if you’re counting, means I’m getting a fifth of my total requirements met by this one project (Credit #3).

Perhaps the best credit I get, however, is the fact that I’m study exactly what I have been interested in and thinking about since my first semester of college. This project is really the culmination of 4 years of on and off thinking… and I get to watch superhero movies as part of it (+42 Awesome Points).

From what I’ve said thus far, one might get the impression that a thesis is sweet, and in some ways, that’s true. That said, every coin has two sides and as nifty as my project is on the theoretical side, there looms the ever-present reality of having to spend a year of my life just to complete this damn thing.

Fact: I’ve been working on my project for nearly a semester now and I still haven’t gotten to screen one of my superhero films yet. It’s all been background, preparatory, theoretical work so far. Ugh.

As much as I enjoy the Star Wars saga, one part of The Empire Strikes Back has always bugged me. When Luke is training with Yoda to become a Jedi, he has to carry Yoda on his back through a series of physical feats that test his endurance and stamina.

Doing a senior thesis, I have found, is a lot like that part of Luke’s training. No matter how good any day has felt this semester, no matter how chirping the birds are or how green the grass is, there constantly hangs on my back that irritating feeling that I need to keep working on this project which, while it’s something I want to do, is a really pain in the ass. What really bums me out is that when I’m done I won’t even be able to move things with just a thought.

10/29/2007
Fact: This semester I took a history class on War and Cinema.
Fact: Each week we watch a film about World War II and then discuss what it shows about the war, the time the film was made, and about how film historicizes events.

This week, I thought I’d do a Top Five since I haven’t done one in a while. So here it is:

Top Five War Films (not limited just to WWII)

1. Ballad of A Soldier – A Soviet film, this seemingly simple story is laced with ideas about the war and social critique. It’s at once a very sad but also very moving story.
2. Days of Glory – Following a band of French-Algerian soldiers as they liberate France, this movie is what Saving Private Ryan could have been if it hadn’t sucked at the end. This film is also impressive in that it literally changed the political situation it addressed in France.
3. Saving Private Ryan – Even though I hate the end, this movie gets on the list because it has one of the single-most disturbing scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie: the scene where the translator watches the Jewish soldier die is both haunting and thrilling in its composition and inclusion.
4. Home Alone – just kidding, number four is actually Hero – even though this film isn’t about WWII, and it’s fictional, I see it as a war film and, as such, include it on this list. I choose Hero because it is both one of the most beautiful movies I know of as well as one of the most intriguing films I’ve seen in how it shows how the individual fits within the wider context of war.
5. In Which We Serve – Non-linear progressions, interesting commentary on social status, and a truly impressive view of how one film can encapsulate a national ethos, this film isn’t great, but it’s good enough to make the list.

10/22/2007
This blog is for students. Here’s my advice on what not to do at an honors visit or something like it (i.e. college visits).

1. Don’t not talk. I know that’s a lot of negatives, but I’ll bank on your being able to figure it out. All too many times I sit down with students and their parents, and I might as well be talking to a mannequin. You’ve traveled all the way to Miami, having scheduled a visit with me, you’ve done all this work in getting here, only to say nothing and ask no questions. Now, I know I’m decent at what I do, but I also know that I don’t cover everything. There isn’t time or space to do so. So I leave it up to you, as the student, to fill in the gaps of what I missed by asking about the stuff you think is the most important. It doesn’t help you out at all to sit there silently, since I don’t know what to tell you more about and you don’t get the information you want or need. It’s a lose situation for you (I don’t say lose-lose, because I frankly don’t lose: if I talk less, all the better for my vocal chords). Also, by not talking, you invite your parents to fill the gap for you with questions they (but not necessarily you) think are important. It’s ultimately your college decision, so don’t let someone else ask the questions about it. Get the information you want!
2. Don’t fall asleep. Even though I found it funny the first time, if it were to happen again I’d have to blame it on myself, not you the student, and that wouldn’t be fun for me.
3. Don’t try to be Mr. or Ms. Clever. Making snide little clever comments in general just makes me reticent to give you time and, generally, the students who do this come off more irritating and arrogant than amusing. If you have a joke, great, but I rarely enjoy having them made at my expense when I’m trying to professionally convey important knowledge to you.
4. Come informed. A shockingly large percentage of people I meet with have absolutely no idea about any of Miami’s Honors & Scholars programs. Now, to a certain extent I’m happy to fill in the knowledge gap – it is what I’m there for after all. But at the same time, you have a limited amount of time you can spend discussing things with me, and if I waste a portion of it just going over the basics (which, coincidentally, can be found at honors.muohio.edu), you won’t be able to use our time together to the maximum potential. I’m not saying you need to read every bit of publication and website we have, but doing a quick run through of some general knowledge will show me that you care enough to look into it ahead of time, and really help you use your information session time in the best way possible – by getting answers to questions or clarifications of confusing information. This is a good practice to get into for all admission programs, not just the Honors & Scholars program.
5. Don’t use me or the information session to make a point to your parents. This is sort of the whole distance from home thing I wrote about last blog, but in reverse. If you want to duke things out with your family, do it on your own time, not mine. I’m a big supporter of people growing into adults by going out into the world, discovering their place within it, but also keeping family close and respecting the advice of those who have some experience on you. I’ve certainly had my battles with my own parents on the whole give-me-some-space-for-independence topic, and while they aren’t fun, they are important and most of the time and essential part of separating a sense of “home” from the physical place where you grew up (which is a major step into adulthood). This doesn’t mean, however, that I support people having this battle when I’m trying to answer your questions about the Honors & Scholars Program here at Miami. Do it somewhere and sometime else.
6. Finally, be patient with your parents. They’re, in all likelihood, just doing what they think is best for you, and that’s admirable, even when it can be irritating. If they’re involved, it’s because they care, which isn’t a bad thing. This make come as a surprise to some students, since in part I think most kids have a bit of a vision of their parents as knowing what to do all the time, but it may be that your parents are just as clueless as you are about the who college search process. They may, in fact, be asking a lot of questions and stabbing in the dark quite a bit in an effort to try and appear confident, despite not knowing a lick about what they should be asking. It’s also worth keeping in mind that the whole process of letting you grow up into an adult, of which the going-to-college experience is only a part, can be really, really tough on your parents. Think about it, they’ve been working for almost two decades on trying to keep you safe, sound, and doing as well as you can, and suddenly you want them to just cut the ties and let you do your own thing. There’s a reason they call it empty nest syndrome and not irritating parent syndrome. It can be a trying time for parents to have to release some control of you, but despite how frustrating this release may be, it doesn’t mean they are doing it to be mean. I’d guess that most of the time they’re just trying to do what they think is best.

That wraps up my advice to students and parents for college visits. These aren’t complaints so much as suggestions for how to best use your time and to help both students and parents get a clearer understanding of what they should be doing during these visits.

10/15/2007
This week’s blog is part one of a two-part blog regarding things not to do on an honors visit. This week’s aims to help parents understand their role in honors visits and similar situations (i.e. college visits).

1. Let your kids speak for themselves. I know it’s tough, you’ve been looking out for them and want to make sure they have all the information to make the best, most well-informed decision possible, but you don’t help them out by dominating the conversation. This also means it’s not a good idea to talk about your child like they aren’t in the room. Here’s an example of saying the wrong thing: “I think _____ (insert child’s name) is a really excellent candidate for your programs. ____ (insert he or she respective to child’s gender) is a member of _____, ____ (insert two activities every other student does but that somehow sets your kid apart by their clever coupling), and ____ (he or she again) has both a ____ (insert a number you think will impress) GPA and a _____ (insert another number you think will impress) SAT (or ACT) score. So, my question is, how can ___ (student’s name) make their application the strongest for your programs?” Essentially, you’re asking for an inside scoop on how to get your kids into the program. Unfortunately, someone who was trying to be confused could see through your question and I sure as heck don’t know how to do it (it being a full application with varying standards based on the applicant pool each and every year). So while you’re trying to wow and amaze me (doesn’t work, I’ve seen better when I look in a mirror) with your child, what you ultimately do is amuse me (for not stating outright what you want to know) and embarrass your kid. Honestly, no one enjoys being talked about like they aren’t in the room, especially when they’re sitting right next to you. A good general rule is if you as a parent are domineering the info session and speaking the majority of the time for your party, you’re talking too much. Since it’s the kid who goes to college, not you, this doesn’t really help answer their questions, and it generally makes them clam up so that when I ask if they have questions they just shake their heads and hope I’ll leave them alone. But, Dave, what if my child won’t say anything, you might ask. In that case, one of three things is happening: either you’re talking too much and/or embarrassing them, or they’re too timid to ask their questions, or they don’t want to be there and that’s their passive-aggressive way of showing it. In the first, see above advice; in the second, talk with them before the session and have them write out some questions they have, then they can read them aloud rather than being put on the spot; finally, if they’re doing the passive-aggressive thing, talk to them, again beforehand, about what they like or dislike about any given school. If they don’t like a school, why not? If they do, why? In teasing these things out, the students will be forced to articulate their likes and dislikes, and you can base questions from there. It never bugs me when people show up with a list of questions and we work through them throughout a session; in fact, it shows preparedness.
2. Gather information that isn’t volunteered. The best questions I get are the ones I haven’t heard before, a situation readily becoming extinct for me. While I don’t have a set goal for what I say on any given information session (since different groups know different amounts about the program and I tailor it to their wants and needs), I do have some stock information that I try to sneak in throughout the course of the information session. I am always pleasantly surprised when someone asks me a question that makes me pause and give serious thought, rather than just answering as I have before. No, I am not going to give you an example of such a question, but I will say that asking me what I dislike about Miami of the Honors Program is not unique, but it is a good question.
3. Which brings me to my next point: ask good questions if you’re going to not let your kids talk. This may means doing a little homework beforehand and thus knowing what information is readily available, what is difficult to understand, and what you really want in terms of information out of the session. If you have a clear view of the questions you have, we can jump right into them and work on making sure you and your child have a clear view of the programs here at Miami.
4. Don’t spend enormous amounts of time giving me advice. I realize that as a Classics and Latin double-major with a History minor I’ll have a difficult time getting a job. I know that working on my cover letters and resumes is an important task. I am aware of the fact that the world of adulthood differs from college life. In telling me these things, you spend the time you have set aside for your kid to learn about Miami telling someone about something he’ll have to learn a little on his own anyways.
5. Finally, and most importantly, do not use the person giving the information session, or the session itself, as a way of impressing your wants and desires on your kids. If you want your child to not go to school far away, don’t try to use me to tell them it’s a good idea to go to a school nearer to home. First of all, I figure I’m clever enough to see what you’re doing by asking me a leading question like “Well, Miami is really far from ___ (insert name of home that may or may not actually be very far away depending on how controlling the parent is), don’t you (that is, me, Dave Sheehan) have a hard time living so far from your own home?” Another, equally clever way of saying this is “Since you live so far away, don’t you have a hard time getting home?” In both cases, you’re passively asserting that you don’t want your child to go to a place you consider “far” and you’re trying to use me/the session to do it. I can say from personal experience that I don’t enjoy it. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and as parents I have no place to say how you should treat your kids, but trying to employ me to do your dirty work, rather than talking with your child maturely about a subject that concerns you is pretty immature and yet shockingly prevalent in my experience. It’s worth keeping in mind two things: first, you want your child to succeed as an adult. That means you have to start allowing them to be an adult. It follows that making adult-like decisions (like, say, where one wants to place oneself) should be something that you allow your child to do. I’m not saying you shouldn’t advise them or even strongly urge what you think is best, but forcing your kid to stay close belies your dependence on them, limits them, and potentially caps their dreams or aspirations. In my experience, telling someone not to push a big red button just makes them want to do so all the more. If, instead, you calmly and maturely explain the ramifications of pressing the big red button, you’re more likely to see the person consider the option of pushing it and, regardless of the decision that person makes, they will have done so having heard what you had to contribute. As far as I know, no parent has kids solely so they can keep their kids from growing up into adults. The college decision part can be a big step in this process and limiting your child because of your own reservations or concerns can be really problematic. Secondly, it is worth noting that moving someone away isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Between cell phones and the internet, it’s getting ridiculously easy to keep in contact with someone, and while physical presence can never be conveyed through technology, having your kid move out doesn’t mean they are no longer “there” to support you and be a part of your life. In some cases, moving out can make you child appreciate you as a parent all the more.

10/08/2007
Giving information sessions to prospective students about the Honors program comprises one of my main duties at the Honors and Scholars Program office. I call these sessions “Honors Visits” (creative, I know), and the prospective students “prospies.” Recently, I had the single-most memorable honors visit.

Now, I’ve been giving these suckers off and on for a year and a half, and before that I worked as a university tour guide for another year and a half. Never in all my years of only-marginally-dutiful service to the university have I been so impressed as I was with this one information session.

Picture the scene with me: I bring a young man and his father, as well as another young lady and her mother (the two coming, literally, from different ends of the state of Ohio to visit the program), and I sit them down at the conference table here at the office. I take my own seat, with the two ladies to my left and the two gentlemen across from me, the son situated directly across the table from me.

Now, these sessions run roughly 30 minutes to an hour in length, depending on how much or little the prospies know about our program, or how interested or bored they seem with what I’m saying. Obviously, the more questions that arise, the longer these sessions tend to last (at my finest, I’ve had some run for over an hour and a half!). I can say with certainty that this session, which began at 12:30 pm, did not last for more than 45 minutes.

In that time, however, Sleepy McSleepster, aka the young man directly across from me, sat, first paying attention, then beginning to nod, then nod a little more, then slump forward until the weight of his head drooping woke him up abruptly. Looking around to see if anyone noticed – in a room filled with 5 people, mind you – that he had just reached for his chainsaw and logs, Sleepy decided he really didn’t need the information I was giving all that much (or he just didn’t care) and promptly repeated the nodding process over again.

By this time his dad was catching on, and he began to pat his son on the back, determined that Sleepy would stay awake through this visit with, for all he knew, the guy who would choose whether or not the university’s program for high-achieving students would accept his son or not. Sleepy wasn’t having any of it.

Before long, the guy had not only stopped nodding back to semi-consciousness, he had totally clocked out on the waking world. I spent the remaining 40 minutes talking to the young lady, her mother, and Sleepy McSleepster’s father about the merits and strengths of our program.

Surprisingly, this whole affair didn’t bother me all that much. When I finished, Sleepy’s dad shook him vigorously, he woke up, shook my hand and thanked me for my time, and walked out.

I honestly couldn’t be that upset with Sleepy – I myself am not a morning person and who knows if he had to wake up at some ungodly hour to drive down to Miami. I was just happy my voice was soothing enough to lull him into Mr. Sandman’s land.

10/01/2007
Ok, so a quick update on classes. Ok, because I’m still breathing so it can’t be that bad. A quick update because of time constraints. Classes, because I’ve left them alone for a week, so why not pick at the wound?

Classes:

1. War and Cinema: technically a history course, we watch European war films and discuss their historicity and merits. Part night class, part day-time class, this course is all fun. And, an added perk, there’s a whole 5 or 6 people who consistently talk. There’s even one guy who I think wants to box me since we always end up arguing about what the films say or mean.
2. Central Asian History: A 100% night class, this class is remarkable in two ways. First, it comes close to having the most reading I’ve ever had for a single course (we read at least a book a week). Second, I am almost always the only student who willingly participates. The professor is really excellent at forcefully pulling other students into the discussions, but on a regular basis, I am the only person who actually raises a hand to answer. For several weeks now, I suspect this is because I’m the only one reading. Did I miss a mention of where it’s optional? More to come.
3. Latin: We’re translating selections from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a 15 book epic that focuses on transformations of all sorts. Humans into animals? You bet. Animals into humans? It’s in there. People into things? Oh yeah, Ovid’s got it all. Unfortunately, as cool as the work is as a whole, we happen to be studying the rape scenes that occur (with alarming frequency) throughout the work. While it’s certainly an important topic, I can’t say my heart is too into analyzing how and why this or that god rapes this or that person. Is that such a bad thing?
4. Hockey: Eh, not too bad. There are three tiers: the 6-7 really excellent players, the 3-4 ok players (including me), and the 20+ people who have either just learned to skate or have never played or both. The last group can’t compete with the second group and the second group stands almost no chance against the first. So, I basically try to not play against the really good people and work instead on my stick and passing skills with everyone else.
5. Thesis: so far, so good. I’ve done two sections, only one of which required major changes, and I have two left to go. Looks like Holiday break is going to be eaten up working on this bad boy.
6. Social dance: still sucks. We are being taught three dances: waltz, mambo, and swing. Of these, I can tolerate the first two and deeply loathe the last. Not surprisingly, we do swing the most and I hear we are having a swing competition for the final exam. Oh, irony of life, how I’ve missed you!

09/24/2007
I recently bought a bike. In this blog, I’d like to cover the topic of biking on campus.

First, my reasons for buying a bike (not in order of importance):

• I don’t have a car and walking can get really boring
• I live off campus now and even though my apartment is stupidly close, I’m kind of lazy.
• It’s good for you to bike, since it’s exercise, and who can’t use a little more exercise?
• I have a friend who works at the bike shop and he helped explain to me what bike would best suit my needs and wants.
• It’s good for the environment.
• I harbor a deep-seated desire to wear spandex and a goofy-looking helmet in public.

Despite the last reason, most of my bike usage takes the form of riding to class and back, work and back, or on errands. For this last purpose, I made sure I got a rack on my bike and then got a bag that attaches to the rack. Think what you will, that bag is sweet and way better for carrying books, squirrel-repellant, and nothing than a book bag that makes my back all sweaty from riding.

But riding a bike has some disadvantages. Foremost among these are, surprisingly, non-biking pedestrians. You think you know how stupid people can act, try riding around on a bike on a busy campus day. People don’t look where they’re going (fine), can’t walk in a straight line (tolerable), and, even though they see you coming or hear you when you ring your bell to announce your presence, they almost never move out of the way (grr). Now I can speak from personal experience that it is a hell of a lot easier to walk in the grass than it is to go off a sidewalk, into the grass, and then quickly back onto the sidewalk with a bike. The angle just doesn’t work. Does this mean people are considerate and move aside? Nope.

Ideally, I’ll find the equivalent to what trains have on the front of them: a cow-catcher. With my bike-sized plow, I will move aside men, women, and children.

But Dave, surely people move out of the way when it comes to going onto or off of handicap ramps?!

Hah. The worst in people just so happens to come out when they are walking, I guess.

Allow me to explain: when crossing the street, a bike has a hard time going off of a sidewalk, and an even harder time going up over a sidewalk on the other side. Wheelchairs, strollers, and turtles share this quality with bikes. This is why the ramps that dip down to street-level exist. For the turtles and bikers.

People, who can very easily step down or up a 6-inch step (which is what a sidewalk is from the street), on the other hand, do not share this quality with bikes. Unlike bikes, people can very easily stay within the parameters of a crosswalk, while not having to use the crosswalk ramps.

Why, then, do I always (and I am not lying by saying always) have to sit there, balancing and waiting, while my supposedly bright fellow human beings walk on and off the ramps in front, even though they clearly see me waiting and probably suspect I can’t easily just step onto the sidewalk like, oh, say, they can.

Not to be a pessimist, I would like to point out that riding a bike can be really sweet, especially when you’re late and where you’re going is downhill. Since my apartment is downhill from campus, I do very little peddling each time I return (awesome), and the biggest obstacle facing my return home is, you guessed it, inconsiderate pedestrians.

09/17/2007
I’d like to use the recent changes in the Honors and Scholars Program office as an excuse for not having updated in so long, but that’d be dishonest and misleading.

It was totally the office rearranging that ate my homework.

Fact: there have been additions, subtractions, and movements within the Honors staff, resulting in serious shifting of my particular location.
Fact: I enjoy a certain degree of consistency.
Fact: They also put in new furniture in the office I previously had at my disposal, furniture that I rather liked.
Fact: The program then hired someone whose position actually requires the office I was in, causing me to get moved back to my old “office” (what some people call the copy room).

I can’t complain too much, since the back office (aka “the copy room”) has been rearranged. I share a desk and computer with two other students who focus on the recruitment aspect of the program. Across the room sits our nemeses, the Bishop Fellows. The Bishop Fellows are a group ostensibly designed to act as student advisors for their peers, answering general questions and helping at crucial times (like class scheduling and application deadline time). In reality, I suspect that my bosses created the Bishop Fellows to create a schism in the student staff and keep us quarrelling amongst ourselves, leaving their positions safe from our sights.

And while we Honors student staff walk around, clicking our fingers together and fighting in choreographed dance, the squirrels watch from the windows, biding their time and stock-piling their seeds.

09/10/2007
Despite some of their best efforts, students inevitably discuss their classes outside of the actual rooms in which they occur.

Most of the time, when I get roped into one of these conversations – and I say roped because they are never good conversations where we discuss the relative merits of a class’ content or professor’s method of instructing – they generally turn into bitch-fests, where one student just wants to complain about why they aren’t doing well in a class (ignoring, of course, that they don’t do any work for the class and try to speak as little as possible when in the class). When I do find myself in these talks, I often get asked why I take night classes.

To date, I have taken several: an introductory political science and two upper-level history classes.

Trying not to focus on the negative thought that I’ll probably have more than one of these conversations again before I leave Miami, I’d like to talk about the relative pluses and minuses to night classes.

What, Dave write about something useful? I know, I was shocked too, but I hate justifying myself more than once for the same thing, so now, having written this, when people ask why I take night classes I can refer them to my blog rather than wasting oxygen. Yes, I rule.

Pros to taking a night class:

• They almost always only occur once a week. By lumping what is traditionally split up over a week, a one-night class has several advantages over other types, these include:
• Greater chance for in-depth discussion of the readings or course content
• An opportunity to screen a film and still talk about it in the same class, rather than waiting several days, during which all memory of the film slips out of the students’ ears
• If the professor cancels, you get out of a week’s worth of classes. (+5 Awesome points)
• You get a break mid-class most of the time. How many 50 or 75 minute classes have done this? In my experience, only one and only one time. Whereas with night classes, which frequently acquire sleeper students who show up and take a nap, most of the time you get a stand-up-and-stretch-your-legs call each class
• Better readings. Because the professor doesn’t have to hold the students’ hands (distributing the reading across several classes each week), they typically just assign the readings for the week and leave it to the students to do on their own timeline
• They don’t interfere with scheduling for cool classes earlier in the day. For reasons unbeknownst to me, some of the coolest classes I’ve seen offered typically get offered at times during the middle of the day when virtually every other class (and especially the required ones) also exist. Torn between my love for filling requirements and my desire to take interesting courses, night classes alleviate taking one requirement during the day.

Cons to taking a night class:

• They almost always only occur once a week. This means that if the professor cancels, you’re missing out on what would usually be 3 hours in a week. If he or she does this twice, you’ve lost 6 classes. And, when each class costs something in the several-hundred dollar range, I start getting unhappy with class cancelling after the initial joy of having an unexpectedly free night after about one time. I know, I’m a weird guy for missing class, but I think that it’s sensible to expect to actually be taught for the money I pay for college
• If the class doesn’t talk (see previous blogs), and discussions don’t exist, 2 hours and 40 minutes can be a really long time. The professors rarely plan to speak the entire time and if the class decides on any given week (or semester, in some cases) that it wants to tune out, the seconds just slow down
• More reading. Because the professor sees each student having a week for each reading, they feel more comfortable assigning book-length readings each week, especially in upper-level classes. My experience has been that asking most Miami students to read 30 pages for every 50 minutes in class is bordering on too much. Asking for 300+ for 160 minutes seems like a joke to me. It is, of course, a sad joke, since I typically force myself to do the reading.
• There aren’t as many night classes. This means you have to really look around for them.

As you can see, night classes have perks and flaws. Personally, however, I prefer them. It allows me to take stuff like social dance in the day-time hours, which, as everyone knows, I have to enjoy because my editor is also my dance partner.

09/03/2007
It’s time for another Top Five. This week’s Top Five is a subject near and dear to every college student’s heart:
top five things to totally, totally, totally DO with a powerpoint presentation

• Use complementary colors that change between background and text for each slide. Your audience will really appreciate this, both because it’s so colorful (like rainbows!) and because having complementary colors as text and background make it so what you’re saying seems vibrant and alive (like a puppy!).

• Try not to practice your speech ahead of time. If you do, you’ll sound like you planned what you were going to say with your PowerPoint presentation ahead of time, and not like it’s an accident when image and what you say align. This loses all the spunk and pizzazz and freshness that comes with having no clue what you’re going to say and just threw text onto a page in an effort to make it look like you didn’t put your work off until the last minute.

• Includes lots of moving graphics and sounds, so you can’t so much as move your mouse without setting something off. This will amuse and delight your audience, because who doesn’t like to see little stick figures dancing when you’re talking about human anatomy, or stars shooting when you’re discussing gravity. Graphics, like complementary colors, make your presentation come alive (like a slinky!) and your audience will really appreciate all those clever noise effects you put in too!

• Fill up every blank space on the page with as much texts as possible. If possible, try to make your font small enough to be illegible, because making your audience work harder to read what you’ve written gives them a sense of satisfaction when they do. By filling the page, you make sure you don’t waste anyone’s time and it shows that you mean business. Plus, having that much on the page means you’re sure to get a good grade – look how much stuff you included!

• Most importantly: read every word on every page to your audience. The likelihood is that since you’re at college and they’re at college, they aren’t capable of reading what you’ve written by themselves; people really, really appreciate it when you don’t present your material so much as read what is right in front of them to them. This shows you care about their understanding and it also shows that you can read – a win-win situation!

I really hope this advice on PowerPoint presentations can help all of you out there. Remember, keep your audience happy and amused and what you actually say and how much work you actually did will become irrelevant!

08/27/2007
Guys, here’s some good advice:
Do.
Not.
Take.
Social.
Dance.

Girls, here’s some good advice:
Do.
Not.
Make.
Guys.
Take.
Social.
Dance.

Fact: Rather cunningly (she held out the threat of dancing with unknown guys whilst I was in England), Lindsay got me to agree to take the class (that’s right, it’s called a “class,” not a more appropriate name like “Dave’s personal hell” or at least a comparative, such as “worse than having someone pee on you for fifty minutes”) Social Dance.
Fact: I have no internal rhythm.
Fact: The first dance I tried was with Lindsay, so it was a safe and secure environment for me to screw up… right?
Fact: Wrong. Because then the extras girls got to “tag in” (which sounds fun but really isn’t, I assure you) and guess who got picked for dance numero two. That’s right, me.

Here’s Lindsay’s impression of Social Dance after day two: “I really like it, it’s a lot of fun.”

Here’s mine: insert an expression which mixes Mr. T, Chuck Norris, and Mike Tyson, all really super pissed… yeah, that’s about my response, mixed with a nice twist of shame and despair (I volunteered after all, I have no excuse).

The worst part is the natural difference between the genders. For every person out there who thinks all humans were created equal – clearly you’ve never tried to be a guy in dance class. Wholly schmolly, talk about awkward.

I mean, in eighth grade, I was peeing at a urinal this one time and this one kid – whom, admittedly, I had never seen use the public bathroom before – ran in, dropped his pants and underwear to his ankles (like I did when I was… hmm… four, shall we say?) and let loose like this was normal behavior – that was awkward in the way I feel at Social Dance. Honestly, I might as well have my pants at my ankles, for the exposed and completely silly way I feel.

The second worst part is girls’ response to this fact. Comments like, “You’re doing just fine” or “Don’t take it hard, you’re doing great!” or (my personal favorite) “It’s the first (also works for second apparently) day of class – you can’t expect to have it perfect!” just make me feel like a child learning to potty train.

Believe it or not, this is not a desirable feeling, especially when about seventy of your peers are floating around you like they grew up under Fred Astaire’s tutelage.

Social Dance sucks. Guys who read this, re-read the opening seven lines until you could repeat it in any order.

Gotta go, Lindsay is coming into the room.

08/20/2007
One of my favorite parts about the beginning of the school year is my peers (sarcasm). You see, O my audience, as the first year students come to a new place and try to immerse themselves in Miami’s campus and surrounding area, a common tradition for upper-class students who have living arrangements along major throughways is to verbally harass, at loud volumes, anyone who walks by that might be construed as first-years – that is, everyone.

It is especially bad if one travels in any sort of group. True, first years tend to travel with several companions – but when you’re in an unfamiliar place and have limited knowledge of your surroundings, have another, equally limited person’s knowledge could help, if they have a slightly different set of area knowledge. Moreover, these same first-years are going through