WJMC Check-In

I'm definitely not a social butterfly--hehehe. I know what you're thinking, but Aaaaannnnnyyyyaaaaa, you talk all the time! Sure you never show up for D&D or any other time we invite you to do anything on the face of the planet, but you have plenty of friends... And whhhhyyyyy would you go to a conference for a week with a giant group of people you don't know if you don't really want to meet anyone?
Trust me, I know.
The problem is, even though I'm not the best at striking up a conversation, or meeting new people, or that elusive new thing called "small talk" that everyone seems to be doing now-a-days, I want to meet people; I want to form relationships with people and leave this week knowing I made some amazing friends.
So after I checked in for the conference, picked up my Press Pass and met with my Orange Group advisers, I did the first possible thing that came to mind--I loitered around waiting for someone to speak to me. None of my roommates are here yet, even as I'm writing this in the dorm, a mere two hours until final check in, so I was left stranded without even the most basic avenue for friend-making, (being stuck in the same room with each other for an entire week).

Turns out, however, casting longing glances at other strays around the HUB as I play Ski-Ball, or Super-Smash, or even Black Ops II--all games I am relatively pathetic at--doesn't have the same affect that I was hoping it would. This is especially true when the people you're staring at, beckoning to them with some psychic "talk to me" signal, are doing the same to others around the room.
Finally someone sat down alone at the racing game near the other end of the HUB, and I quickly slipped in to join them. The game lasted all of three minutes, and after some stumbling introductions, we parted ways. She had left toward the Dunkin Donuts, leaving a half-hearted invitation out there for me to follow, but I turned down the offer. Instead I directed her toward the store, than sat back down on the leather sofas in front of Call of Duty. My first attempt at friend making ended not with a bang, but a whimper.
All-in-all, with the first couple hours of conference down, I still have plenty more to go. I just have to be willing to open myself up to new people and new experiences. I have to smile a little, and see what happens.

Pre WJMC

There are so many things in life I do not do because they take me out of my comfort zone. I go to bed early. I stay home instead of going out. I pass up opportunities that may help me grow as a person, or even just experience life. So while many people have questioned me about what I'm looking forward to most on my trip to WJMC, a conference hosted by George Mason University--I don't really have the right answer. I'm not looking forward to staying in a dorm with four people I don't know. I'm not excited about meeting my congressman Dave Trott. And I certainly am not happy about spending a week alone in a city I do not know. I'm not looking forward to it in the sense most people would. While I recognize the adventure of it all, I'm more likely to drop dead than jump for joy. I'm not going because I expect it to be fun, I'm going because I know it will be--as long as I push past the walls in my mind begging me to just stay home. I have never done anything like it, and I may never do anything like it again. If I want to get somewhere in life, I have to be willing to go somewhere.
So what am I looking forward to most? The answer isn't as simple as sight-seeing or meeting amazing people; it's so much more than that. I'm looking forward to living.

The Strange Addiction

For many of those much more passionate conspiracy theorists, those who claim Snowden is an American Hero (now seeking refuge in Russia), and that the NSA is evidence that the end is nigh, it may seem that Orwell's ominous prediction has come to pass. And while all of this is true, and some Special Agent may be currently surfing through my browser history looking for evidence of terrorism, the majority of Americans are not enslaved by the idea that Big Brother is watching us. (Unless they are on the TV show, Big Brother, of course.) No, our every move is not controlled by some ominous figure head, we are controlled by something much more tangible, and much scarier.

Our cellphones.

Everywhere you go now a days there will inevitably be someone on their cellphone. In fact, I am currently writing this on my phone, sitting in the stands at a water polo game, and I am not the only one paying more attention to my hand held device than the final quarter of the game, ( albiet the game isn't very entertaining, the score is 12-4). No one seems able to break their eyes away from the hypnotic glow of the screen. Even out with friends people spend more time on their phones than communicating to the person next to them.  When confronted, they'll give some lame excuse about how their being social "with other people", but then what was the point of spending time with these people?

In any matter, the evidence is clear, we as a people are plagued by this strange addiction. It is clear to me that while Orwell's prediction still lurks somewhere off over the horizion, this much greater evil has already taken hold, and we have failed to notice.

So before we lock ourselves away in fallout shelters to hide from our abusive government, we should first address the most prominent concern, and look up from our screens.

Night at the Museum

While some may preach that a museum's key function is to educate, (or preserve knowledge, or earn money, or any other singular way to approach the subject) those who look at it from only this perspective miss the point. While this objective is a noble task, as are the other aforementioned goals, a museum's most important task often goes overlooked. A museum should aim to wonder, to draw in a person's attention, to keep him staring at the same work of art for minutes straight as he considers each individual brushstroke. It should not be their sole goal to educate the public, but to garner an appreciation in them.
I think that Night at the Museum got it right, it brought artifacts to life in spectacular fashion. And while it may only be a silly franchise movie, and magical Egyptian tablets cannot really bring a T-Rex skeleton to life, each museum should try to create an atmosphere capable of such great feats, one that gets people thinking that maybe, just maybe, all of this could come to life. When a museum accomplishes this, all the rest will follow. People will learn about the past because of a genuine interest in it, they will explore new worlds and old ones, they will buy those little trinkets and key chains from the gift shop not because of rampant commercialism but as a memory of the past they visited once upon a dream.

A museum should not discourage imagination by claiming their noble mission to educate trumps all, and one should not assume that just because something is fun, we cannot learn from it. Breathe life into learing, preserve artifacts not only physically, but in the minds of those who behold them, and do not reduce souveniers to blatant commercialism, only filling the pockets of beurocrats and going no farther. A museum can be so much than the standard we are holding it to. So let it be.

The Golden Rules

P.C. is a phenomenon that has taken over our country-- everywhere from preschools to college campuses, from start-ups to retirement homes. Everyone everywhere seems to be looking for some solution to avoid offending others, going so far as to censor language, create safe spaces, and otherwise tip-toe around the rest of society.



There seems like a much simpler solution than going through all this trouble.

When we were all children we were taught a series of rules by our parents and teachers. Looking back they seem silly, just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo invented to keep us kids from tearing each others hair out. But what if there was some truth in it all? Well, let's take a quick review.

1. If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all.
2. Say what you mean, and mean what you say.
3. Treat others how you wish to be treated.

If we take all of these rules into account, the world would be a better place. No one would intentionally harm another with their speech, no one would say something they didn't mean, and everyone would stick up for what they believe in.

If we could only go back to how things were when we were five, if we could only remember the rules that were instilled in us when we were young, we could fix a lot more than a couple of silly insults and "you're stupids" coming out of a child's mouth.

Here's what I'm proposing, let's not change words, let's change attitudes. If we all just tried to be polite to each other, to act like civilized beings, we could change the world. So next time you go out in the world, take with you a few golden rules, everything else should fall into place.

Parcel 11

As we as a class reflected on the environment this past week, I began thinking more and more about a plot of land in our very city. On Tuesday I attended a School Board Workshop to fill my quota for AP Government. What I thought was going to be a couple of boring hours filled with mundane budget proposals a decisions such as whether the toilet paper in schools should be one ply or two, I was pleasantly surprised that while some of those things, the meeting also brought out a passion in this community I didn't even realize existed.

The first thirty minutes of the meeting were left open to be filled by public comments, the Board would not reply, just sit silently as citizens poured their hearts out in front of a microphone. The topic of discussion at this meeting? Parcel 11.



The little section of woods, about seven or eight acres, is going to be sold by the school board to create an early childhood development center-- basically a glorified preschool. And while I have no skin in the game either way, it seems many are strongly against this decision... and those for? Well they didn't even bother showing up.

I watched people cry over the birds, deer, and elusive Bald Eagle that may live somewhere within the parcel. I watched people argue over diminished property value, and the educational value of the woods. I listened to people in their fifties reminisce about playing in the trees, about watching their children play in them too.

Although I had heard about this issue a few weeks before attending the meeting from a friend on Facebook, I hadn't realized how big of a deal it was for the people directly effected. There are 795 supporters on change.org, I am now one of them, and the number is still growing.

It would truly be a shame if the government refused to listen to this outcry of voices, each one protecting something bigger, older, and purer than their self. The people are calling, it is time our board listened.

What a Girl Wants

Women are interesting creatures. Considered to be testy, irritable beings, Girls are also considered the fairer sex, more deeply attached to those, well, deep feelings. To many men the Woman is seen as a conundrum, something abstract, and no matter how hard many of them try, completely impossible to understand. It is true men live in a simpler world, one in which colors are duller and tasks happen one at a time. It's genetics, really.



Where in genetics though, is it determined that Women will live in a marked world and men can bounce around freely between them if he so chooses? Well, in the very base of it, chromosomes, those for Female, and those for male, are different. XX for Women, XY for men. In this case, wouldn't it be the man that is marked? Wouldn't he be doomed to a marked existence? That doesn't seem to be the case. A Woman is judged on what She wears, the amount of makeup painting Her face, and whether or not She chooses to smile at a stranger on the street. A man is judged when he decides to step out of the box, to flaunt his differences. When a man is marked, it is because he chooses to be.

But maybe that is where we have it wrong. Maybe the X is the marked chromosome. As Women, we only have one option, one world, we are marked. As men, however, two options are presented: one in the marked world, X, and one outside of it, Y. Where Miss, Ms, and Mrs, don't determine the contents of a Girls character, where the length of Her skirt does not label her intentions. It'd be an interesting place to visit every now and again, if only we had the option to.