Sometimes we humans get lucky and are able to experience something more than ourselves because someone amazing stood up and fought to make a difference. Most of those solid souls and the differences they make go unnoticed by everyone not within their immediate sphere. Mr. Jaime Escalante and his badass teaching philosophy did not go unnoticed. You can read the book or you can watch the movie. If you aren’t affected by either, you’re dead inside.
Mr. Escalante is 79 and is currently trying to kick the ass of cancer. I’m hoping that because he managed to somehow be more than most humans, someone wrote a book about it, and Edward James Olmos and Lou Diamond Phillips starred in the film, that he and his family won’t end up broken due to medical bills and cancer. To donate, go here.
Do you know who Carmen Ashurst is? She’s the former president of Def Jam Recordings and Rush Communications, and is the author of the forthcoming book, Selling My Brothers: The Movement, The Media and Me. Ashurst also appeared in the documentary, Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes.
The ideas/points/questions/answers the conference[link] aimed to cover:
Music has long served social movements as a sound track, as a means of communication, and as its own arena for activism. While multiple generations of feminists have used music in these ways, it has played especially vital roles for those born since the 1970s. This conference will explore the ways in which young feminists have defined and expressed politics through music and musical cultures and communities. Among the questions we will ponder are: How does music reflect sites of agreement and conflict among different groups of feminists? How have movements like Riot Grrrl and Hip Hop feminism attracted young women to feminist activism? How do young feminists’ uses of music compare with those of earlier generations?
While we’re on the topic of student loans and the lifetime of debt college grads will face, here are some informative articles and resources to peruse (find a paper bag and try to remember to breathe slowly and evenly).
The world order has finally reconciled itself! Barbie no longer thinks “Math class is tough!” Now she’s lighting up cubicle jockeys with her smokin’ bod and her tight pants! She will be fetching lattes for no one.
I actually like Barbie, to be honest. I know she’s supposed to be evil and make little girls feel badly about themselves, but I had about 20 Barbies when I was an impressionable young thing and I’ve never had body issues. Besides, how can you not respect a girl who can maintain that posture and walk around 24/7 on her tip-toes with a rack like that? Barbie’s a badass, I don’t care what the angry hippies say.
For a tragedy-less college student, there is nothing worse than utterly failing an exam. Having to hear some know-it-all’s advice on how not to do that again sucks as well. One always hopes to learn deep lessons from one’s mistakes. Oddly, the more mature a brain is, the quicker it learns not to ever do that again.
Which is all to say I know from experience (read: I’m a pain-in-the-ass, know-it-all b**ch) that undergrads have to see their exam-failing lives pass before their eyes a few times before they figure out how to never have a day like that again.
WorldWideLearn’s blog has an advice-filled post up about how not to torpedo yourself with one badly executed exam moment. Taking advice, learning one’s Social Security Number, and mastering the art of acquiring free beer, food, and furniture are some of the key bits of priceless information college students are expected to take away from their higher educations.
Which humans grow up wanting to be professors? Usually not the conservatives. Which humans hope to head for a career in nursing? Usually not the boys. According to their paper, “Why Are Professors Liberal?”, Neil Gross and Ethan Fosse say nursing is a “gender typed” career, while being a professor is more “politically typed.”
The overwhelmingly liberal tilt of university professors has been explained by everything from outright bias to higher I.Q. scores. Now new research suggests that critics may have been asking the wrong question. Instead of looking at why most professors are liberal, they should ask why so many liberals — and so few conservatives — want to be professors.
A pair of sociologists think they may have an answer: typecasting. Conjure up the classic image of a humanities or social sciences professor, the fields where the imbalance is greatest: tweed jacket, pipe, nerdy, longwinded, secular — and liberal. Even though that may be an outdated stereotype, it influences younger people’s ideas about what they want to be when they grow up.
“…nerdy, long-winded, secular…” Wait! That exactly describes my grandfathers! They were both total science nerd professors, but whatever. They both were liberal, and both saw themselves heading toward careers as tweed-wearing research profs. Coincidence? I think not.
Gross and Fosse’s theory is 100% right according to my family. But it makes sense in the real world as well. Not that my family doesn’t have a foothold in reality…
Redirecting your thought process is difficult on a good day. Redirecting your post-high school plans is nearly impossible, especially if college has been the one all-consuming thought you and your parents have had since you were exhibiting sheer finger-painting genius in preschool. The farther you’ve driven, the harder it is to turn the car around.
Even though eighteen-year-old me would never have listened to any advice involving my not going to college, that doesn’t mean I was correct in my closed-mindedness. Whether or not it’s advice you want to take, only fools assume their way is always right and disregard all other input and information. (That was directed at me. I’m the idiot. Or, I was the idiot. I’ve made so many horrific blunders that now I’m wise beyond all measure.)
Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist has an excellent piece about college education and what it really means in this day and age. It’s difficult to open one’s mind up and really consider what she says, especially if you’ve grown up thinking the way I do about higher education. But that’s part of growing the hell up and learning to examine all options and relevant information when making a decision. Penelope tends to think outside the box, and the more miles you walk through this world, the more you’ll realize how valuable that quality is.
There are days when one must finally succumb to reality and admit that despite the intense need and desire to beat the To Do List into submission, the day that was once full of productivity possibility is FUBAR to the fullest extent of that term and Plan B is the only viable option.
Below please find Plan B (what I do when everything goes all to hell). It’s a re-post. Not good at reading between the lines? Please see FUBAR above and apply it to my day.
Sometimes you have to just give up on getting any real work done. This was excruciatingly true yesterday and today, when Seattle had some “snow days,” (I use the term loosely). Seattle is a city with little or no annual snowfall, which means there’s not much by way of snow removal equipment. Also, Seattle is basically a collection of hills all lumped together. Not as bad as San Francisco, but it’s not like driving through snow in the flatlands of Kansas, either. All of which means that a few pathetic inches of frozen white stuff shuts the whole damn city down.
This is what happens: We get a few inches of snow, which is slush by late afternoon. Nighttime comes around 3:30 p.m. (oh how I wish I were exaggerating), the temperature drops, the slush freezes, and the whole city is one giant hilly ice rink. Most Seattleites are transplants from California, like me, and can’t drive for s**t on anything but freeways (Southern Calif., not me) or foggy country roads (Northern Calif., me). Although, I’d like to see anyone try to drive up the steep hill I live on when it’s covered with a solid inch of ice.
My husband and I like to drink our morning caffeine on snow days while standing by the front windows, watching car after car attempt to make it up our hill. They always give up and have to try to look cool (and like they know what they’re doing) while trying to back—braking—down an icy hill. It’s never pretty, and that’s why we park our cars around the corner where no inept, ice-driving chuckleheads will smack into them as they slide back down the hill.
A snow day in Seattle also tends to mean that the icy roads have hosed the school bus routes. Which means delayed or non-existent school days. And while I do love to spend the day trapped inside with my offspring, I don’t get any work done. About mid-morning yesterday I started to get that panicky, today-is-going-to-be-a-complete-waste feeling. That particular flavor of panic always makes me cranky. I dislike an unproductive day. I tried to work, but it’s hard to finish a thought (intelligent or otherwise) when tiny humans are asking you a seemingly infinite number of questions.
I was this close to snapping and turning into the fire-breathing version of myself when I remembered the post Gear Fire had up the other day about implementing a Task Kill Day. It’s the holiday season, so I have an a**load of tasks to kill. I took a deep breath, gave up on the idea of getting any real work done, and told the kids it was Getting Stuff Done Day. They are 7 and almost-3, so they didn’t really have any tasks to kill other than some artwork and bouncy-ball testing. But because I wasn’t sitting in one place and trying to have long, involved higher thoughts and was instead running around the house being super busy and kicking task ass, they mostly did their own stuff and left me alone.
I crossed several items off of my To Do List that were causing me more peripheral stress than I had thought; when I took stock of how much I’d gotten done, I saw several dark Eeyore clouds lift.
My point is this: if your day is suddenly not going in the preferred productive direction, sometimes redirecting your Unplanned Non-Work Day into a Task-List Demolishing Day can make you feel better and save you time later on. And you’ll be saving others from the cranky version of you, which people always appreciate.
Finals were about a month back. I’d be willing to bet a large pile of cash that 99% of all you college students out there were praying to gods you don’t usually summon, swearing allegiance and faith and the future performance of selfless acts if only those gods would save your underprepared asses and help you to pass your finals.
In addition to promising faithfulness to your quickly thought-up gods and to be a better person, you also promised to be a more efficient and organized student. Crap.
The holidays are over, pal, and you’re back at school, already hip-deep in the new term. Which means you’re about two weeks late with creating the new, supah sleek you.
I’m a fully functioning paper-and-pen notebook girl, myself. Should you require organizational inspiration, check out Gearfire’s post, Organisation Porn for the New You.
1. Observe yourself.
2. Become familiar with your internal guidance system (IGS).
3. Use your imagination.
4. Look for your cultural match.
5. Take one step at a time.
6. Use your team.
7. Confront your fears as you go.
8. Maintain your privacy.
9. Don’t take college admissions advice from your friends…ever.
10. Be proud of who you are.
The little nuggets are worth the 3 minutes it’ll take you to read the post. Even preschoolers know to prepare before battle.
