"Frah-gee-lay. It must be Italian."

So, holidays are here.  Or passing.  I……don’t really have anything to say.  I thought I might post a rousing update tonight, but now that I’m typing, I’m thinking that is widely impossible.  Here’s hoping there’s more to write about in 2012!  And, that I finally get my act/life together!   One more picture, because it kills me with it’s awesomeness:

you wish you had one of these

As most of you know, I have my qualifying exams at the end of August and defend the first week of September.  While most of the summer has been okay simply because my days have been so dictated by preparing for exams that I’ve had little time to focus for very long on anything else, as the dreaded days are approaching, I’ve been vacillating between focused determination, panic, and resentment.  Today added another emotional state, that of sadness.  :(

Really, I just miss all of you (which can be further evidenced by my listening today to all of the party playlists I still have from the various house parties we threw back in the day).  I had to stop catching up on facebook and people’s blogs intermittently today because 1) I have work to do, but more so, 2) while looking through pictures and updates, I would inevitably almost start crying.  Which, by the way, is probably a bad idea in a public location and put me in a poor learning state.  (In all fairness, I almost cry way more than I used to.  Maybe it’s the stress.  Probably it’s just because I’m constantly trying to live in a past or a future in which I’m around my friends and family again).

Anyhow, I know I’ve been completely absent lately (even more so than normal, I think), but I just wanted you all to know that I think about you everyday.   My friends and colleagues here are getting tired of how much I talk about all of you and what great times we had and how you’re all so much better than anything Indiana has to offer.  Sometimes I love looking at Facebook and whatnot when I get the chance, just to feel like I know what’s up with everyone, but sometimes I try to avoid it because it just reminds me of how much I wish I were a part of what you all are doing and how much I loved and miss being a part of your everyday lives.  Not to mention, I’m missing 3 weddings this summer (most notably, Gromek’s) where I’m sure I would have been reunited with many of my friends.

But enough pity party.  I love you all and miss you more than you can imagine.  I’m so grateful for the times we had together and am blessed to be your friend, even if from afar and even with serious gaps in communication.  I’m looking forward to visits and conversations in the near future, as I’m seriously thinking I’ll be heading to Boston for a brief (celebratory, provided I pass quals) visit in late October, hope to see Timmy K. over T-giving again in gloomy IN, Klug over Christmas, maybe San Diego folks in January when I’m there for my conference, and who knows who else after the new year.  And, I’m certainly counting on gradually increasing my conversations, skype dates (which, again, I have, but haven’t actually used), e-mails, and fb communications once I can breathe.  After all, I take my written exam Aug. 25-26 and defend a week later.  If I pass, I’ll be a real person again, and if I don’t pass, well, I’ll get kicked out of grad school and will be looking for a place to stay, so either way it’s a win in terms of our friendship!

The last couple of years have been sort of rough on me, to say the least, and sometimes it’s hard to stay focused and committed to the steps I need to take to work on the issues about which I am passionate in the way I feel called to work on them.  So, thanks for sticking with me, and I promise to be more present very soon (5 weeks-ish, to be exact-ish).  Until then, I hope the summer, jobs, moves, marriages, and everything else are beautiful.  Inordinate amounts of hugs, love, and peace.  K.

Bath Tub Apocalypse

Right, anyhow.  The weather has indeed been freaky these last few days/weeks.  Much worse in the surrounding areas, obviously (e.g., Missouri, holy cow), though I did get stuck in what I have been calling The Apocalypse on Monday evening.  We were supposed to get storms, but apparently “storms” meant swirling winds ripping down giant trees to block the roads, bringing public transit to a halt.  Thus, I was stranded at the psychology building with torrential rain and a wee broken umbrella to get by.  Luckily, I have friends and one of those friends has a car and a heart, so he came and picked me up.  Sirens everywhere.  I honestly thought I might have to sleep in my office.  On the upside, the psych building probably is one of the safer places to be in the midst of a tornado.  Limestone through and through with a basement to boot.

Oh.  And there goes the power.  Damnit.  It’s trying so hard to come back on, but no luck.  No wait…we’re back!

Enough about the weather (though if I die tonight in a tornadic fury, this unpublished blog post will serve as a warning for those who underestimate the power of oppositional winds and rapidly falling temperatures); in other life news, I’m currently studying for my qualifying exam.  Uuuuuuuuuuuuugggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  Really.  Essentially, on the last two days before classes start in the fall, I will, for four hours each day, (attempt to) cogently argue and write on three questions regarding ANYTHING IN ALL OF THE FIELD OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY.  Yeah.  How about them apples?  Needless to say, I will be reading, literally, thousands upon thousands of pages this summer and attempting to memorize a hundred plus citations that I will basically choose at random because I have no idea which should be memorized/will be useful.   Yay!  Fun times!  My light, introductory reading that I was supposed to do this week was a 600-some page social psych textbook, leading into a 2-volume overview of the field called The Handbook of Social Psychology and a beast of a text on dual-process models, moving eventually into a few review books per major area of the field (4-ish) and a fine integration of hundreds of relevant empirical and theoretical papers.  Sure.  Anyhow, after I do the written exam I have about a week to prepare for my oral defense, which petrifies me.

So, that is my summer.  Well, along with running some experiments, analyzing data, writing and editing manuscripts, and trying to avoid getting beaten down by some massively pissed off wind and rain.  I will have a short reprieve in Portland for about 2 weeks.  I get to see my oldest nephew turn 6 (I haven’t been home for his b-day since he turned 1!), and go to the beach for the 4th of July with the entire family…so that’s pretty awesome.  I plan on powering through and continually reminding myself that, come September 6 or so, it will all be over and new episodes of Doctor Who will be back on TV.  What could be better than that?

One more thing, since we’re ending on positive notes here…I won a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (in real life, not just in my escapist fantasies), so that was seriously exciting when I found out.  I guess it means that some people out there think that what I am doing is worthwhile (which my mom told me to shove in the face of the math prof who didn’t understand the scientific method and “judged” my research poster at an IU women in science conference and wrote on my eval sheet that funding would be better spent elsewhere).  It also means my take home pay over the next 3 years just went up by about 50% and I never have to TA again, sooo…that’s awesome.  I have had to keep reminding myself about it so I could renew my battered self-esteem over the last few months.  And not to be all “the year in awards” or whatever, but I also snagged a $500 travel award for my research for a big national conference and a fun $100 award for being an “outstanding graduate TA”…which I only bring up because, as I alluded to, I was having a hard time at it by the end of this semester and really needed something to validate me being here and doing what I’m doing.  I’ve never had awards or recognitions really matter or mean something to me before.  I mean, they’re nice and great and all, but this time around…I don’t know.  Not that I was going to quit, necessarily, but I needed some affirmation and validation and some motivation to keep on keeping on because I was sort of feeling like shit, and I wasn’t going to get what I needed anywhere else.  So it was nice having some 3rd parties give  me a little pat on the back.  Anyhow, that bit there was longer than I intended.  I meant to write about school year/end of semester stuff earlier, but never got around to it.  Eh.  No one’s keeping track.

Crossing my fingers the tornado warning is over now so I can go to bed, surely to be woken by my weather alert radio around 3AM telling me to go back into the bath tub.  Full circle.  Aww.

“He knew he was close to completing and so that’s what he was doing: getting me to describe things to him, so they’d really sink in, so that maybe during those sleepless nights, with the drugs and the pain and the exhaustion, the line would blur between what were my memories and what were his.”

I’m procrastinating again and have consumed something like 29 ounces of old coffee today.  I suppose that’s why you’re getting a new blog post after some 4 months or so.  And, I’ve started this one with a quote – never done that before.  The audacity is astounding.  Anyhow, apparently I’m supposed to be writing a paper that isn’t due until December.  Because, you know, that’s coming up quick.  That was sarcasm.  Sorry if I’m a bit off today.  The coffee’s not working like it did yesterday.

Because this blog is exciting. Like a firework.

It’s spring break, or really the ghost of something like it, and I’ve been mostly wasting the days sleeping and watching television shows that are entirely unnecessary.  Well, that and working.  It hasn’t been terrible, but it’s also not really ideal.  I think my advisor telling me I could spend break writing up my paper because it’d be a really great time to do that (when I both already had a long list of to-dos I’d planned to cross out and absolutely hate when people impose their priorities on me without good rationale) put a damper on the holiday before it even began.  So, I think I’ve spent the last few days resenting that and protesting productivity which, inevitably, is only hurting myself.  But whatever.  Also, I’m in Bloomington.  Just saying that sucks out any possibility of excitement.

In other news, I’ve resumed wanting to move to the UK for no apparent reason other than things seem better when they take place on a grassy, rolling land surrounded by water and are said with a British accent.  Thus, I spent two days watching a licentious British teen drama and have, as of about 35 minutes ago, picked up the novel, Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro.  Two chapters in, I like it but do not have high hopes for finishing it.  I think since last summer I’ve started and failed to finish something like 6 non-fiction books and 7 or so novels.  All I’ve really managed to read are countless academic articles, though, even there, not as many as I should have.  Here’s hoping I finish the book so I can move onto The Corrections when this whole British phase snuffs out.

One other thought before I give writing my paper another go.  I was catching up on a friend’s blog today, and she, too, is having a hard time with the day in and day out monotony of her current life, finding herself with little energy by the time she gets home from work.  What I found funny, though, was that for her, sitting on the internet at the end of the day is wasting time away, whereas for me it’s a triumph.  Getting myself to sit at a computer from home is like progress, an indication of better things to come.  I guess I’m further behind on this whole “life” thing than I thought :)

P.S. Oh, fuck it.  I’m going to go make dinner instead.

random photo from the old days

So, posting has been infrequent, to say the least.  Sorry about that.  I am always making these resolutions to post more and make photo albums on facebook with pictures from the last FOUR years and other semi-productive things that normal people seem to manage just fine but I feel like are major tasks that require inordinate amounts of energy.  And then fail at all of them.  Anyhow, I am not dead, in case anyone thought that.  I am, however, not using contractions as much as before (Thanks, science writing!)

Quickly, a rundown of my life this last semester:

1. Writing

2. Sleeping

That is pretty much it.  I have mostly been working and trying to remain focused, cooking and eating boring food because of my allergy adventures, and sleeping at like 8:30PM (to which Tim replied, “That’s sort of depressing.”)  Thankfully, it’s less depressing than it sounds.  This semester ended up being pretty…okay.  Not great, but definitely not terrible.  I have been really busy, but have been managing, and my advisor has mostly left me alone and been okay.  I have been sleeping a lot, especially since I have been busy and completely without any form of caffeine, but the sleep has allowed me to be more than functional, which is obviously appreciated.  I have gotten to hang out with friends some, just not as much as we would all like.  Everyone has been busy, though, so it has been difficult to figure out times to hang out above and beyond birthdays, Halloween, and other bigger event-type things. My allergies are completely not figured out yet, so I’ve been off the diet since I’ve been home in Portland, will be back on in Bloomington, but then back off when I head to San Antonio for a psych conference at the end of January, and then back on in February when hopefully I will have the time to get some more things figured out.  I’m beginning to think they are just chronic, and I will have to deal with them until they decide to go away on their own.

Well, this feels boring now.  The point is, the semester was fine and now I am home in Portland with about a week to go before I head back to Indiana.  Next semester will be busy and then the summer will likely suck as I become a giant ball of anxious exclamations of obscenities as I study for my qualifying exams in August.  I am itching a bit to start doing some other things non-psychology-related, but who knows how long that will last.  Before leaving for Portland, I actually picked up “In Defense of Food”…and then set it on my table without reading it.  But!  It’s a start, right?  Currently I am tackling Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point” because he is a keynote speaker at my conference.  It is pretty decent so far…sort of all things I already know since it is related to psychology and how fads, etc. come about.  I will say, at least so far, he seems like a pretty good introduction to understanding some of what social psychology is about for the lay person.  So if you’re interested, I would suggest picking up one of his books.

I have nothing else to say, I suppose.  Well, other than to say I have Arcade Fire’s album, The Suburbs, and it is awesome.  You should listen to it.  You should also catch up on episodes of Parks and Recreation before the new season finally starts on January 20.  I know I am missing in this post vital pieces of my fascinating life and mental world, but for now, this will have to do.  Hope everyone is having a splendid holiday and enjoying a bit of a break!

First, the positives.  Summer was…fine.  Being home for most of August was wonderful and right before heading to Portland, my mom came out to Indiana to help me move into a new apartment.  I definitely like this new living space better than my old one; it’s bigger with a place for (almost) everything, I can use an oven again, and it feels homier (friends have even said so).  So, that’s one less thing to worry about this year.

We’re, what, about half way through the semester now?  It’s going very quickly.  I’ve managed to mostly focus on my work without hating each day too much, so that’s better, I guess.  It’s weird to say that not feeling happy is a step up from before, but I guess it’s true.  Some of you have heard me (or read on here about me) complaining about my advisor and my work situation and Indiana in general over the last year.  Well, those, I suppose, were very much understatements on my part.  Not that I want to overstate the whole situation either, but…hmm.  Let’s go about it this way:

Many of you know that I’m not the most positive, upbeat person and that I do, in fact, have what Tim calls my dark days (or was that Jonathan?)  In high school and once in college I went through what was likely a pretty decent bout of depression, but for the most part, other than being generally more down than the average, it’s not too big of a deal.  Well, over the last year I have gone from my usual to pretty…depressed, I guess.  It’s a little hard for my to analyze and understand because the feelings are pretty different than the other depressive situations I’ve been in before.  I’m fairly confident that the impetus of this feeling is my advisor and my work situation, but I’m sure there are other things (like not liking Indiana much or not having the same community group or not having family nearby, etc., etc.) that while are not the cause of feeling crappy, don’t really help either.

Anyhow, it got to the point where I didn’t have the energy to deal with pretty much anything and didn’t want to talk to anyone because what’s the point?  Who wants to hear about how shitty my life is (because my life is work and not much else) and, honestly, I don’t really want to talk about it.  It’s not how I want to spend my free time.  I didn’t want to hang out with friends or do things that I normally like because it takes so much goddamn energy and I’m just too tired.  I was having a hard time focusing and motivating myself to do things.  It was strange because I’ve felt bad before, but this year was just bleh…an all-consuming bleh.  I’ve definitely been sadder before, but I’ve never not been able to get excited about something.  I felt like I was just succumbing or settling or something.  I was still doing pretty well in school because I’m pretty sure most people that can get into graduate school don’t fall apart when things get hard because our low level is still higher than the average, or else we wouldn’t be here, but whatever.  Mostly, I just really look forward to sleeping.  Apart from being tired all of the time and needing sleep, sleeping is the most enjoyable thing in my day.  I pretty much fall asleep around 8:30 PM and…I’m okay with that.  For now.  So yeah, that’s been my life, in a weirdly stated nutshell.

At this point, things have gotten just barely better so that I feel like I am, at times, not unhappy, just not happy and can therefore get some work done.  I still feel pretty bleh, but the ability to at least work makes me feel somewhat productive which has something of a positive effect.  I’m getting by now, sometimes without having to tell myself that I am getting by and that’s better, if that makes sense.  However, I finally disclosed all of my work issues (which I’m not going to go into here, because there’s too much and it’s not really relevant to all of you) to my undergraduate advisor to get advice on what to do (particularly because my advisor will be up for tenure next year and I may have to write a letter and he may be taking a new student next year and what do you say to them when they ask about what it’s like to work in the lab?)  Basically, she said to get the hell out immediately.  Which was nice in that someone was saying that I’m not crazy, but also scary as fuck.  It’s also not really a viable option at this point, but I am thinking of what might be able to happen after I pass (if I pass) my qualifying exams in the summer.

As for my mental state, I am planning on scheduling my very first visit to a psychologist to see what wisdom they might be able to impart on me (other than “positive construal!” which, duh, I’m a psychologist too).   I haven’t, however, had time to do this yet since appointments occur during the work day and I have to work and what time I can pull away from work has been devoted to the other negative (but more annoying than seriously negative) thing in my life right now, my physical health.  But, before moving onto that ball of fun, don’t be too worried.  I’m not going to do anything crazy or anything, and honestly, it’s probably part of the reason why I have been out of touch – phone calls and real conversations were just one more thing I didn’t have energy for.  I think short notes were all I could handle, and, in case you didn’t notice me falling off of e-mail, gchat, and facebook, I could handle receiving but could barely handle responding even to that.  I totally know that you all are there supporting me and thinking of me in general and all of that stuff (aka I don’t feel neglected, if you were worried at all), I just haven’t had the energy to take advantage of that.  Or something.  I’m not sure how to explain that.  But, I love you all and I know that it’s reciprocal.

Now, on a (somewhat) lighter note, my health.  Ugh.  So, this summer I finally figured out my whole “I can’t breathe thing” and was diagnosed with asthma and seasonal allergies.  Luckily, the inhaler and allergy meds are at least helping.  I also went in for an EKG thinking I was having heart problems, but turns out just to be stress and muscular crap from the stress.  Oh, and an infection in my armpit that, on my paranoid days, I thought was cancer.  But it wasn’t.  So that’s good.  So, things seemed better.  And then…I started to break out into hives all over my body.  Every day.  For two months.  Awesome.  $25 dollars for a cab ride, $15 for a copay, and 3 hours later I was sent home because I’m dermatogrphic (my skin reacts to pressure and scratches, regardless of the presence of an allergen) and the skin test couldn’t be done on me.  So, after taking prednisone for a few days and lathering up with some TAC cream to calm the itching, I finally got my allergy test done today.  Apart from being allergic to dogs, dust mites, feathers, and pretty much every plant, pollen, grass, and mold in Bloomington, I tested positive for multiple foods (which is most likely the cause of my hives).  In order to determine what I am actually allergic to (because positive tests don’t always equal allergy), I have to get rid of all of the possible allergens from my diet for 2 weeks and then, one at a time, reintroduce each item for 3 days to see if I get symptoms.  So this is my new adventure.  If you thought being a gluten-free vegan was bad, just wait.  For your viewing pleasure, a list of things I’m allergic to and the foods in which they’re contained (I guess this officially makes me a nerd now, right?  With the allergies?):

Food allergens (common foods in parentheses): Rice, apples, blueberries, BEANS (kidney, lima, navy, pinto – and I think this includes garbanzo, black, lentils, etc.), celery, ONION, peanuts, almonds (and other tree nuts), sesame seeds (including sesame oil), sunflower/safflower (in most potato chips), basil, GARLIC, ginger, mustard/canola, parsley, vanilla, casein (milk protein), EGGS (coffee cleared with egg, malted drinks, wine, rootbeer, eggnogs, breads or rolls with eggs, pretzels, waffles, pancakes, nearly all baked goods, ice cream, sherbet, sauces, puddings, any meat or cheese that is mixed together or breaded, noodles, spaghetti, macaroni, bouillon, any soup with eggs), AND saccharomyces aka YEAST (barbecue sauce, ketchup, grapes, melons, dried roasted nuts, dried fruits, ALL CHEESES, citric acid, pastries, MSG, prepared foods containing cheese, SPICES, sprouts, truffles, olives, pickles, sauerkraut, black tea, herb teas, BEER, BRANDY, GIN, RUM, WHISKEY, WINE, VODKA, ginger ale, root beer, fruit juices, COFFEE, buttermilk, milk fortified with vitamins, rolls, mushrooms, sal-rising bread, pizza, pretzels, malted products, sour cream, TAMARI/SOYSAUCE, vinegars, tomato sauce, BREADS, bread crumbs, bread stuffings, buns, cakes, cake mixes, cookies, crackers, doughnuts, enriched flour, canned refrigerated biscuits and rolls, enriched farmina, cornmeal, corn grits, peanuts, peanut products, pistachios, meat, fish, fowl, torula, salad dressing, mayonnaise, horseradish, mustard, and mincemeat; also in multivitamins and antibiotics).

So, if you’re following this, so far I have determined I can eat potatoes.  Plain, maybe with butter and salt and pepper.  I have nearly zero sources of protein except in some veggies (which I must eat without garlic, soy sauce, peanut sauce, spices, salad dressing, and pretty much anything else that might give them some flavor), avocados, and some fruits.  I can’t drink alcohol (though, note, tequila was not on that list and I will be doing some research to see if I can drink it).  I can’t eat bread, pasta, rice, crackers (so what good was it not being allergic to wheat?), cheese, eggs, beans, most sauces, most spices and flavorings (hello, onions and garlic, wtf).  And something as simple as celery, which I don’t eat by itself, is in a ton of stuff.  Holy shit.  I’m scheduling an appointment with a nutritionist because, seriously, I don’t know what to eat.  The good news is that the allergist said it’s unlikely I’m allergic to all of these things, but we’ll never know until we systematically take them out of my diet and reintroduce them.   Yay, food!  Not really.  Upside?  Maybe I will lose some weight and look pretty.

So, that was a lot.  The more recent good thing was that I saw/heard a really great talk in a psych seminar recently by a social neuroscientist named David Amodio (NYU), who has now become my official new psychology crush and inspired me to want to do some sort of social neuroscience research (which won’t happen because it’s hard and because my advisor doesn’t want me to, for the most part, and because I know thismuch about it).  Also, my friends celebrated my birthday and had some really nice things to say in my card that was all, “aww, we ARE friends” and stuff and we’re dressing as wizard of oz (eh.  also, guess who is the GOOD witch?  I know, zero sense it makes, yoda) for halloween, and my lab mate is still great, and…that’s about it I guess.  Oh.  There are some quality sitcoms on tv now, thank God.  It’s like hanging out with friends.  Oh.  And I’m behind on my work, sort of, but I guess that’s not really a pro, here.  Hmm.  I think that’s it for now.  I’m all out of words to write…I know that probably wasn’t the update you were looking for, but I needed to rant about my allergies and felt that I might as well go ahead and give a real update on my situation while I was at it.  Hope things are better wherever you are and here’s hoping my next update won’t be so blergh, ugh (and long).  Right?  Right.

P.S. In case you were SO interested, my other allergies:

Environmental (non-food): ash, birch, cedar, cottonwood/poplar, elm, hackberry, hickory, mulberry, oak, pine, walnut, willow (tree pollens); bermuda, brome, fescue, meadow, Kentucky Blue/June Grass, orchard, rye, Timothy, oat pollen (grass pollens); cocklebur, dock-sorrel mix, English plantain, kochia, lambs quarter, marsh elder/burweed, mugwort, nettle, pigweed, ragweed (weed pollens); alternaria, aspergillus, helminthosporium, hormodendrum, penicillium mix, curvularia, epicoccum, fusarium (molds); feathers; dust mites; dogs.

June 15, 2010

Let’s really tackle this thing today, huh?

When you’re sitting in a bathtub (for the second day in a row) listening to the national weather channel make those weird noises and machine voices telling you that, while you might not be, you probably are in imminent danger of being sucked into a swirling cloud of wind; and you’re hearing wailing alarms permeate outside as if the Russians are bombing and its 1957 and ambulance sirens streaking the air because surely everyone and their mother are trapped under debris or a house or a bridge; and you only have four senses at your disposal because there are no windows so you can only see the storm and its possibilities with your ears and your skin; and you’re sweating because your heart is sort of racing out of fear and humiliation at said fear, but, also because it’s fucking hot because it’s summer and humid, and again, there are no windows and you closed the door to the bathroom because maybe a 1 lb piece of shoddy wood on hinges will protect you from flying shards of shit, and because you have that towel wrapped around your shoulders and over your head because now there are three tornadoes somewhere in the vicinity and some expert somewhere said terry cloth will protect you and you’re putting all of your faith in that; and the floor sort of rumbles from what could be the thunder or the twister or your neighbors doing laundry, and the lights flicker in a way that keeps you on edge and uncertain; and you think briefly that this reminds you of the end of the world, just like that time at the beach on the 4^th of July and you were surrounded by seriously giant pits of fire and flames flickered and licked the air and explosions went off all around your head and you thought briefly that it reminded you of hell; and you find yourself clinging physically and metaphorically to a compilation of book reviews written by Nick Hornby, as if he were your friend there to console you and have a beer with you while you wait out the storm together, except he chose that inopportune time to review all nonfiction books in which all of the characters die at the end and you feel a bit let down and freaked out; and then the internet kicks out and it goes silent as you’re cut off from the outside world of information and weather updates, and you have no idea if it’s safe to come out yet because the silence is startling for someone who always has something on in the background and is slightly more ominous than the previous all-consuming noise…

…and then you realize that this is what your evening will look like for the next week or two (or summer.  I don’t know the depths of Indiana’s suckage.) and you think, Fuck.

Alright, so I know this is a totally random post with zero updates on anything significant, but I’ve been reading worthless internet sites today (or, as Tim says I call them, my friends) and came across this site by way of The Onion’s AV Club Q&A.  Beloit College (whatever that is) creates a Mindset list that enumerates things that entering college students will have missed out on.  While I found many (though not all) interesting, despite their odd calculation of birth year – I’m pretty sure most people don’t enter college at the age of 22, but whatever – when I looked up my entering class year of 2002 list I came across enough missteps to conjure some doubts about the list (or, maybe, my recollection of childhood?)  Curious for those of you who were also born in 1983 – or, according to them, 1980 – or after, also remember these things I’m apparently not supposed to know about.

#1-15: These first few are probably accurate, but I’m confident that we had an Atari (#12) in my house and I was old enough to play with it.  While I haven’t played Pong (that I can remember), I have heard of it, and I definitely played Pac-Man and even Frogger (#15).

#14: While I didn’t own a record player, my family did, and I grew up listening to records.  This is likely due to my parents having a good sound system growing up.  But, I also must say, I do now own a record player (of course, while it was just pre-mainstream enough to cost way too much money, it was still second-wave ownership.  How grossly wannabe hipster did that sound?  Ugh.)

#17: Okay, I feel VERY strongly about this one, mostly because I was an OCD kid that separated colors and ranked them despite their being equivalent in taste.  I distinctly remember beige M&Ms and remember when they introduced the blue M&M (rocked my world) and, later, introduced the green M&M (whose cartoon embodiment was a female).  I don’t, however, think I remember there not being red M&Ms.  Mind-blowing, I know.

(Most of) #18-25 in rapid succession: I’ve heard of an 8-track and even seen one (almost bought one, actually, at a rummage sale because I’m lame music nostalgic like that); who the hell knows when the CD was introduced, but I was still using cassettes into Junior High to record live radio; I specifically remember being peeved that stamps went up to 32 cents; I had a b&w tv in my room, didn’t have cable, and remember no remote controls because my sister called me into her room to change the channel on the tv for her even though I was in a different room and she was less than 2 feet from the tv.

#27: I had Barbie roller skates.  Enough said.

#31: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a football player?

#42 and #43: I was there for the McDonald’s styrofoam containers (and gross gelatinous globs of mayonnaise) and MTV with music videos (they still played them in the 90s…that’s how I found out about Radiohead).

All the rest…I can’t tell if it was the avid watching of reruns and exposure to pop culture of yore because of older siblings and parents that makes it all familiar, or it actually being there when I was young.  Whatever.  This has way too much detail, but hopefully you look at the list and think, “Huh.  Sure.”

P.S. The AV Club’s list of things that make them feel old is a better list, in my opinion, especially the one about the Hand Clapper (“Clap On, Clap Off!”) commercial.  Also creepy: Remembering pre-internet, pre-debit card, pre-discman/mp3 player, pre-dvd, pre-paying for food on airplanes, pre-reality tv days.  And getting stoked to go to the video store.  Wild.

1. Arcade Fire is releasing a new album on August 3 on Merge.  If this doesn’t excite you, I urge you to seek out one of their two previous releases (Funeral and Neon Bible) and get pumped!  You can pre-order on their website.  I recorded their performance from 2007 on Austin City Limits and have been randomly watching/listening to it while I read (not really) radical books and pretend like Win Butler and I are best friends talking about President Obama and how the world is fucked.

2. Apparently a lot of bands recently have been releasing new albums.  What this means is, if you’re like me and have an odd penchant for seeing bands perform on tv despite the inevitably terrible sound quality, then you’re in luck!  Check out all of the various late night shows.  Recently I saw Broken Social Scene (!) rock out in a drug and spiritually induced haze while mainstream hipsters bobbed their head in the background because they knew they were on tv but had no idea what the fuck this music they were witnessing was, MGMT break the hearts of party boys and girls all around the world dancing to Kids when they showed their true (and inevitably weird and mildly inaccessible) musical leanings, the entire crowd oogling Zooey Deschanel despite her inability to play the keyboards with She and Him, and the audience try to dance and get pumped to Kings of Convenience’s understated, barely audible acoustic.  And, the XX kick ass.

3. Hey!  This song is good: Giving Up the Gun by Vampire Weekend (Contra).  Also, Jake Gyllenhaal is in the music video.

4. Re-watched the awesome The Motorcycle Diaries again last night and figured I should tackle Che’s over 800 page

I love the quip at the top of the book "Easy Rider meets Das Kapital".

biography this summer.  Thank you, Powell’s Books!  I”ll let you all know how that goes.  This viewing was preceded by the show Iconoclasts (which is great) with Sean Penn and Jon Krakauer, which also made me think I should re-read Into the Wild and read for the first time Into Thin Air because shit like that fascinates me.  Also, I still love Chris McCandless, sorry kids.  Somehow it all goes together and it all makes sense to me.  Both The Motorcycle Diaries and Into the Wild (film and book) are wildly worthwhile experiences, whether you end up liking the lead or not.

5. This show is funny: Party Down.  If you have Netflix, you should watch it on their Instant Play.  Or, if you have Starz, you should watch on the tv.  And if you recognize Martin Starr from Freaks and Geeks, Lizzy Caplan from Mean Girls, and Jane Lynch from everything awesome, you get extra points…in life….or something.

Okay, major interruption in the form of having to leave the apartment to pick up necessities for tomorrow’s brunch.  So, I’m leaving you with the random whatever I wrote up there.  Final note: my cheekbones feel numb.  Hmm.