Dear G-Unit
Introducing Whitworth’s only advice column, written by a Whitworth student, for other Whitworth students! For your edification, amusement, & pleasure: it’s Dear G-Unit!
Dear G-Unit: I’m writing you today because I feel my parents are starting to like my roomate better than me. The first thing they always ask when they call is “And how is *roommate name witheld to protect the innocent* doing?”. They give him care packages, and they lavish him with compliments when they see him. What can I do to reassert… ahem… “parental focus” back on to moi?
Belittled in BJ
Hi BB! Wow, how insensitive. I suggest getting new parents….No, wait, that’s not cost-effective. Never mind. Um. Let’s see.
I assume you have already tried standard techniques like whining on the phone. It’s time to get drastic. Stage a crisis.
I’ll go ahead & assume you’re a freshman, because, after all, Baldwin-Jenkins is a freshman-only dorm. It is a well known fact (at least to us upperclassmen) that most freshman are more concerned with friends then they are with grades. Plan carefully. Begin mentioning the names of friends that you are hanging out with (make up names if you have no friends or your friends hate you and refuse to hang out with you). Begin mentioning these names at an exponentially increasing rate. Eventually, if they are the kind of parents I think they are (by which I mean, parents who like to see some evidence that you are putting all that money they are forking out for tuition to practical use), they will begin to ask about homework, classes, and grades. Downplay the grades, at first. Mention classes, but when they ask how said classes are going, mumble and change the subject. Mention tests but then don’t mention your final grade. Et cetera. Eventually they will catch on, being the savvy adults they are, and demand proof. Proof of grades. Proof of success. Proof that you are not on academic probation. At this point, break down. Begin to sob. Tell them about how much time you have been spending with your friends, instead of poring over your homework. Tell them the love of your friends is only a poor, shabby substitute for their love. And beg them to fly up/down/over and visit you next weekend. And they, sobbing by now as well, will proceed to do exactly as you ask.
I know, I know, I’m a genius. You don’t have to tell me.
Dear G-Unit: I just starting dating this AMAZING girl from Warren. I think she may be the one. We agree on everything; from how it is TOTALLY wrong to call people gay as an insult, to that apples are the best fruit! My question is: how do I tell when we’re annoying people? We really love each other and like holding hands and kissing and being all ridiculous, but even so, I don’t want to be THAT couple, who totally alienates everyone they meet just because they are just so SO.
Warren Peace
I’ll try to make this quick and painless for both of us, Tolstoy: I’m afraid you already are that couple. The ones making goo-goo eyes at each other across their Saga tables. The ones constantly referencing stupid inside jokes that nobody else gets, even if we cared to try and figure them out. The ones walking each other home in the Loop, shrieking loudly at 3 AM. The ones breaking the ‘quiet’ rule in the back shelves of the libraries.I have three words for you and your girlfriend: GET. A. LIFE. I know, I know, you are SOOOOOOOO IN LUV, and you NEVER want to be apart and you ALWAYS want to be together and you are TOTALLY ring-by-spring-ing, but my point stands. The relationship will die (I know, I know, HEAVEN FORBID OMG) without space. You need space, especially if you are seriously considering getting married and aren’t just flinging that around like so many Whitworth couples do. By space, I mean time apart, and having things you enjoy doing WITHOUT the other attached to your hip.
And, are you annoying your friends (really the only ‘people’ who matter)? I don’t know. I am not your friends. Perhaps you should, you know, ask them.
Dear G-Unit: Recently this really awesome band came to visit Whitworth. They played the HUB multipurpose room. Me and a couple friends started dancing. We just couldn’t help it. The music was so good! It was really awkward though, because it’s like the band on stage, and then that little square of light, and then everything else is dark. And there were, seriously, like four of us dancing, and everyone else just outside in the dark, standing still, maybe swaying a little, all spooky like. How lame! How can I get people to join in the fun next time?
I’ll March to the Beat of Any Drummer with a Good Bass Line
Well, I.M.B.A.D.G.B.L., all I can tell ya is to lead by example. Whitworthians are a little, how do you say, challenged in the R&B department. Trust me, get em a little excited, or, just, you know, turn ALL the lights off (Warren Rave, I’m talking to you), and they go absolutely nuts. Try not to stare at them, though. I know, I know, that dance move was out of style when your granddad was a kid, but progress is progress. You have to do the Running Man before you can waltz, as they say.
If you’d like some words of wisdom from the most straight up G advice columnist this side of Seattle, shoot an email at dearg-unit@live.com, and you could see yourself in print! Er, type! Er…Whitworth Forum post! Yeah, that one.
Need a break from politics?
Let’s talk about sex. Cnn had an article earlier this week saying that “A survey of sex therapists concluded the optimal amount of time for sexual intercourse was 3 to 13 minutes. ”
That doesn’t include foreplay, of course. To gather this data, the women in these playful situations were given stopwatches, which seems to be an interesting way to go about it. I’m not sure if the men knew that they were being timed, but either way I’m sure there would be lively repercussions!
Well, if the data are to be trusted… (and the article cited “Dr. Irwin Goldstein, editor of the Journal of Sexual Medicine,” a man with a brilliant career counselor) there’s a nifty fact that will allow people to evaluate their sex life. I think that’s all I have to say about that…
2007 in Film — Two Lists, and a Lot More Words
There’d been some hemming and hawing in Hollywood about whether the film industry’s premiere awards show could go on without its needed scribes. But thanks to the writers’ strike ending after almost 100 long days, indeed, There Will Be Oscars.
So before the Academy renders my personal opinions null and void later today, I’ve been working to assemble two lists of my own: my top ten films from last year, and my picks in the Oscar categories I feel educated enough to discuss.
2007 was a pretty amazing year for cinema. Yes, the summer marked an especially low point with Revenge of the Threequels (Spider-Man 3, Shrek 3, Ocean’s 13, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Bourne [Fancy Noun] 3, etc.), but some of those weren’t half-bad. And I’ll gladly drag myself to anything that Our Lord And Comedic Savior Judd Apatow stamps with his divine imprimatur. But sandwiched around the lighter fare were some masterpieces that are going to linger at the top of the critical charts for a long, long time. Some I caught in theatres, others I had to catch up with on DVD, and one I had to track down online due to its sheer scarcity. Getting on the the list itself, though, let’s build some suspense and do the top ten thing in reverse order then, eh?
“Big Ugly” Goes Under
On the 29th of January, 6-14 students got together and buried the “Big Ugly” – aka the statue in front of the library. Here are some photos that show the event:
Dead Things
Writing on the wall in the painting room of the art building.
And there are too many dead things in there.
About the photo: Although the actual taking of this photo isn’t the most intriguing thing (besides getting the composition set in a way to make it interesting, especially with the white edge to the right), the editing may provide a note of interest. It was shot in a file format called RAW, which doesn’t apply all the things like white balance, sharpness, saturation, hue, contrast and compression that is applied to every JPG image whether you like it or not. It allows for a lot more flexibility in editing the image afterwards. The downside is that each image ends up being 6-8mbs each. For this image, I used an editing technique called HDR or Tonemapping through a program called Photomatix (http://www.hdrsoft.com/), to bring out the shadows and tone down the highlights.
Politeness is annoying.
Microsoft is so polite. When I typed “mete” in the process of writing a paper, Word 2007 gently underlined the obscure noun in blue. Not red; no, that would imply I was wrong. But blue, as if to say, “Look, you probably just typoed, so we wanted to check and make sure everything is okay.”
It reminds me of New Yorkers ordering Iced Cappuccinos. At Starbucks, I attempted to politely correct them, smiling and saying, “What? Steamed milk and ice? Gross.” When my supervisor caught me haranguing customers, she admonished me to be kind. After that I condescendingly smiled at the barbarians.
Which is what Microsoft is doing with their squiggly blue lines. They’re saying, “You’re an idiot. But we want your money, you precious person, so soft and pretty.”
In other news, in the first paragraph, Firefox told me “okay” isn’t a word. It suggested “tokay” instead. Which means what?