As for those gym-goers who insist upon maintaining a picture-perfect look as they work out—I harbor no disdain. I simply cannot help but comment on the noticeable vanity, not to mention, how uncomfortable some of the outfits must be. I’ve tried the tight, short shorts. They are not comfortable.
The gym is not the place for a fashion show. Plus, the put-together look just makes those of us wearing t-shirts and baggy pants look bad.

I suppose it was inevitable this would happen to me at some point or another. It seems we each have that one class that shoots every bit of confidence to hell.

For me, Introduction to Microeconomics is that class. I haven’t missed a single lecture or a discussion, I do the homework and I do extra reading from my text. Yet, despite my devotion to economic studies, I’ve still had difficulty wrapping my mind around the material, concepts my peers seem to pick up on in the blink of an eye. So, to overcompensate for my inability to understand markets, exchanges and equilibriums, I study harder.

I worried about the test a week before taking it. It wasn’t my goal to ace it (I had to be realistic). However, I didn’t think it was too outrageous to aim for a B. I wasn’t so concerned about the grade as I was with my ability to simply comprehend the problems.

I continued scanning my notes until the very last minute in a frustrated attempt to absorb every possible tidbit of information. However, once I had the 46 questions in front of me, I felt as if I had tumbled into a black hole. All knowledge relating to the subject escaped me.

I fear failure. Dark alleys, creepy crawlers and public speaking amount to nothing when it comes down to my potential in life. There are so many outcomes in life we cannot anticipate, but over the years I have managed to maintain a firm grasp on my studies. If everything else around me is falling apart, I convince myself that I can still avoid academic failure, which is comforting, but in no way healthy.

In attending school, we are taught to fear failure. Good grades merit kudos – honors and higher placement in our classes. On the contrary, failure is deemed unacceptable and often results in punishment. If we do well, we move on. If we don’t, we face deficiencies and even possible expulsion.

Since childhood I’ve been stuck in the mindset that failure is unacceptable. In second grade, I remember working for hours with my mom on a presentation about tiger sharks. I memorized my speech and printed out color pictures to show my classmates. I typed up an entire page of information I had collected while researching the topic. I was 8 years old. An A was not going to affect my future successes, yet I felt I had to do well.

I didn’t want to be the center of attention – I just wanted to feel worthy. I always had my nose in a book. I wrote, revised, and rewrote essays, poetry and short stories. I took school projects very seriously and tended to overachieve in an effort to avoid failure.

This part of me will never change. Though I have come a long way since elementary school, realizing that good grades do not define me and that there are some things that just aren’t worth the extra effort, I still become discouraged when I fall below my standards.

I am learning to perceive my failures more as temporary mistakes, as opposed to consuming letdowns. Mistakes are necessary. Without them, we could not improve upon ourselves. In the long run, the most successful people are actually those who have failed the most. They can better-appreciate the successes that they have had.

Of course, I will never be able to say my sub-par grade on my econ exam was beneficial. I would take an A over a D any day. However, as with other bumps in the road, it won’t be long before it’s behind me. This isn’t my first mistake, nor will it be my last. I’m just going to keep hoping that endurance and a positive attitude will make it all worthwhile.

I’ve always wanted a puppy of my very own and being in a house where I can’t have a pet, I wasn’t sure how I was going to get one.  I ended up working around it and the other day I got my baby Beagle. For me, having an animal means a little sacrifice and a lot of money, but it is all worth it. The training and the dedication to someone else’s schedule has been hard, but it has also made me realize how great it is to take care of a life other than my own.

Unfortunately, the lack of sleep and the constant attention that the animal needs is exhausting. Some people think I’m crazy for taking on such a time commitment. But when they see her, they fawn and swoon over her and I know some people are a bit jealous.

Each noise that Shasta makes is precious and I’m so glad that I made the decision to get her. Each kiss and hug means something to me and I know it means something to her too. I know can’t reverse this decision, and I’m not sure I would want to. Although it has only been a few days, I feel like she has been in my life forever and I’m so glad that she is. I know that having a pet in college is not for everyone, but for me it was the perfect choice.

I am definitely ready for midterms to be over. It seems like school has barely started and already it’s Week 5; we’re officially in the middle of test central. I had the pleasure of taking back-to-back exams today, as well as one more tomorrow, and I still don’t really get a break until Thursday. Then the swarm of multiple choice, true false, essay questions will finally cease.

Like most people, I have searched for alternate ideas to midterms, reasons why we shouldn’t have these tests every term. Maybe we could be presented with some real life problem to solve. You know, like those good old days of high school classes where the only project was to create a rocket, or maybe just write a superbly average poem. I miss those days. Not that those were ever actually my midterms, but a girl can dream right?

I get it. Without tests, there would be no way for teachers to test how much we actually studied. I get that the point of college is to learn and gain knowledge and retain it for many years to come. But I sure couldn’t tell you half of the specifics of what I supposedly learned in class last week. I’m not a slacker, I do learn the materials, just not when they are first presented. It generally takes me more than four weeks to cement an idea in my head permanently. So I for one want to kidnap midterms, take them to a cemetery, and bury them six feet underground where they won’t ever resurface.

It’s all about finding something you care about. I care about comics, animals, and technological advances; about cartoons, great movies and TV shows. Find me a class offered about robotic animals, a class that teaches you how to make your own shoes and I’m there.

I recently accepted my fate with midterms; the inevitable push the night before to cram the last bits of information in your head. There isn’t much one can do about it. However, I still have my own ways of making those not so riveting classes worthwhile. If you find me in class, I’ll still most likely be daydreaming about what I am going to make for dinner that night. Teriyaki chicken and rice tonight, in case you were wondering.

My wish may be closer than most think. Some may remember the excellent South Park episode where Cartman pretends to be a robot named AWESOM-O in order to pull a prank on Butters. What I didn’t realize at the time (though found out shortly later) was that AWESOM-O (albeit spelled differently) was real. ASIMO is one of the premier ‘bots literally walking around. Hailing (of course) from Japan, ASIMO is probably the more recognized robot-about-town, but others have risen to prominence for various feats.

The HUBO, constructed in Korea, sports one of the most expressible faces on a robot (and has been made to resemble Albert Einstein). QRIO, from Sony was the first humanoid robot to achieve running speed (as in movement involving both feet off the ground at once). You may have also seen four of the latest models dancing to Beck’s song “Hell Yes,” if you saw the music video.

Finally, in the interest of Robo-diversity, Boston Dynamics has given us one of the coolest, codenamed BigDog. Created to be a next-gen “army mule” BigDog is a four legged beat of burden that has an amazing sense of balance. You can find videos on Youtube of BigDog walking on ice, and regaining his balance after being shoved by one of the researchers. (I, personally, would never do such a thing, because the last thing I want for an enemy is mule-sized robot). There is truly nothing as simultaneously chilling and awesome as watching BigDog gallop across a room and jump over a simulated gap in the floor.

Considering that we can do so much this early into my lifetime makes me incredibly eager for future years. Imagine living in a world where humans walk the streets with ASIMOs and QRIOs walking around with us. A world where EMTs are assisted by their faithful BigDogs; where bus drivers are the busses themselves and cars do more driving than you do.

And this is just one aspect of what’s waiting for us.  You don’t have to be a sci-fi geek to appreciate the changes we’re seeing on a day-to-day basis. I wouldn’t be surprised if just 15 or 20 years from now, we’re all driving (or being driven by) hydrogen cars past hydroponic farms, and massive fields of solar cells and windmills. We’ll be talking to people from across the world just on the street through video screens that link real-time. Look around. Look at news sites. Watch the Discovery channel. The world outside is becoming more like the world in our books and in our movies and in our T.V.s everyday, and it cannot get here soon enough.

We have a little saying around my house – “God, I HATE Sarah Palin!” And if you wonder why my roommates and I are so harsh on such a cute, homey, seemingly friendly mother of 5, it’s because of this sort of thing.
Since when is it a crime to not be from a small town? It seems that a recurring theme in this election has been the common, salt of the Earth goodness of small town Americans. For the past few months, the GOP candidates have been attempting to appeal to the masses by touting their rural backgrounds in contrast to their Democratic opponents, who they uniformly paint as hedonistic city slickers with no morals and an all-encompassing hatred of kittens. In retaliation, the Democrats have dredged up their own small town street cred, and what had once been an election has now become a heated debate over whose hometown has fewer traffic lights.
You know who was born in a small town? Ted Bundy, infamous serial killer. Timothy McVeigh called a small town in upstate New York his home. Hitler was from a town of less than 16,000 people – of course, that town wasn’t in America, so perhaps that’s why he went astray. I could keep going; there are lots of small towns, and I guarantee you that every one of them has produced at least a few stinkers. Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Carnegie, and Jesus were also from small towns – this disparity suggests that judging people by the size of the town they were born in makes about as much sense as judging them based on the color of their skin.
I grew up in Salem, a town of 150,000 – perhaps not a small town by all definitions, but Sarah Palin referred to Greensboro, home to some 250,000 people, as small, so I imagine that I’m even more Pro-America than everyone she was talking to that day. This is interesting, given that I am an anti-war atheist who frequently refers to our commander in chief as a “motherfucker”. My friend Mike, who has refused to vote in previous elections due to his outright lack of faith in all candidates, is even more Pro-America than I am, because he’s from Medford, population 75,000. His girlfriend, who frequently smokes an herbal substance classified as illegal by our government, is the most Pro-America of all of us, because she’s from Grants Pass, home to 30,000 of the most patriotic small town folks you’ll ever meet.
I don’t think that the best of America is in the small towns. I also don’t think the best of America is in the big cities. I think that the best of America is in America. And I think that a candidate seeking to reunite a country ideologically divided by eight years of mismanagement would do well to stop playing its citizens against one another.