Superheros

I'm a little disturbed that this guy just happened to have a Spiderman costume on hand, but this is a very cool story.

Earth Hour Paradox

We try to be ecologically conscious, so while I applaud the idea of Earth Hour, I'm also a little frustrated by the whole "turn off the lights for an hour and save the world" message. Really I'd rather people try something (for more than an hour) that they can incorporate into their everyday lives (recycling for example).

Anyway, all that said, we (unconsciously) participated in an Earth Hour paradox at our house. I totally forgot that Earth Hour was tonight. Most of our lights (out of habit) were turned off, but all evening I was doing laundry in hot water and drying it on high heat. Why might I be doing such an environmentally unfriendly activity you might ask, because I was prepping cloth diapers (unbleached cotton has to be stripped of its oils in 6 prewashes before it becomes absorbent). We aren't only using cloth diapers because of environmental reasons, but I do have to admit that when I realized that I'd spent all of Earth Hour running our washer and dryer at maximum carbon output, I felt a little guilty. Not guilty enough to abandon cloth diapers and throw a disposable diaper in a landfill for 500+ years, but still a little guilty. At least I was consuming large quantities of electricity during the ultimate off peak time.

Keys

I'm really glad that no one measures fitness to be a parent by the ability to keep track of one's car keys and/or not lock one's self out of the house/car/office/all of the above.*

This morning I lost my car keys, then found my car keys, then 15 minutes later walked out the back door and shut the door (which was locked) with my keys in their new "safe" spot. B was on her way to come get me, when I remembered that I had been messing with the egress window that morning and likely did not lock it back. So I broke in my house, got the keys, and hurried to school.

Both of my classes were working on activities today that didn't require me to provide any materials, so I decided to leave everything in my office while I taught 170. Um, my office door locks automatically. Repeat above situation, this time with college secretary.

Is it wrong that while I was walking through Meijer this afternoon, I saw one of those pacifier attachers and instantly thought that maybe next fall, I will leave my keys attached to the baby? I mean, theoretically, I shouldn't lose my keys and the baby.


*Actually, there is a really good reason this story is appearing on this blog and not elsewhere. :)

Baby Disrupts Student Learning

I get lots of weird student email that I find amusing, but I may have to print this one out for the baby book.

Dear Mrs. XXX,
I wanted to know if it would be okay if I switched seats in your Eng XXX class. I know it's really late in the semester and everyone sits in the same place every day, but I'm having trouble paying attention. A couple of weeks ago I noticed that your baby really moves around alot and sometimes it makes it hard for me to pay attention to the class. I hope this isn't a problem and I'm sorry I called your baby it I don't know what to call a baby when you don't know the gender.

Thanks,
XXXX

For the record, I don't have assigned seats in my classes. I probably wouldn't have even thought that much about it if she had switched seats. Clearly it's not texting during class that is disrupting student learning, it's kicking babies.

A Canned Response

I cannot help you determine if your article was peed reviewed, peet reviewed, or pier reviewed, but if you are trying to determine if your article was peer reviewed please see the assignment sheet.

Thanks!

Blog Help

Can anyone tell me how to get rid of the phantom "bubble" behind the "links to this post" in my post footer? I can't seem to find the problem in the code.

Spring Break Guilt

Monday I told myself that I was going to spend the day working on comps and/or grading papers. I stayed in my pjs and played on the internet. Tuesday, I told myself that I deserved a day off and I could just get started on Monday's plans and not feel guilty about it. I got a hair cut, went shopping, and played around with new blog templates. This morning I woke up and felt incredibly guilty for not having accomplished anything for school (or really anything on my To Do list*).

I know that my students are not working on projects for my classes, so I shouldn't really feel obligated to have graded all of their papers over the break.** My advisor isn't working during the break, so I shouldn't really feel obligated to finish everything for comps. All that said, I still do. I feel like I've wasted my break if my only accomplishments were uploading new blog templates, watching tv, shopping, and getting a hair cut.

I'm not sure quite when this guilt developed. I know that as an undergrad, I did not feel guilty about escaping school during breaks. Is this something I learned in grad school orientation? Can I sue for pain and suffering if I find the source of this guilt? I know that my students are not sitting at home wondering if they should be working on something for school.

So, halfway through Spring Break, I have not finished the baby's room or cleaned out the closet or written lesson plans or graded anything or worked on my sythesis statements. I feel guilty about all of these things, but not guilty enough (as of yet) to give up doing nothing. Maybe I'll start being a grad student again tomorrow, but I think I'll pretend like I'm an undergrad for one more day.

As alway, PhD Comics understand this dilema...

*Maybe I'll start feeling more successful if I include items like "play on Facebook" and "stay in pjs all day" on my lists.
**For the record, they turned them in the Friday before the break.

Google This

My post about beer pong and herpes generated more web traffic in one day than I have ever had before. When I checked my Analytics this morning, the keywords really amused me. Here's some of the funnier things people googled to find yesterday's post.

• getting herpes at college
• dirty fudge herpes
• getting herpes on spring break
• herpes in Mexico
• Do I have herpes
  
• herpes on road trip
• herpes from fox
• beer pong road trip
• Stephen Colbert has herpes
  
• lungs for sale*

I'm not sure that any of these people found what they were looking for, but they provided me with a source of entertainment. I <3 Google Analytics

*okay, this one wasn't related to yesterday's post, but was a link to my post about my crappy lungs and sinuses.

Fox Spreads Herpes

I'm not a huge fan of the Colbert Report, but last night I was waiting to take my next dose of cough medicine and watched part of an episode. I probably would have changed the channel, but Colbert was doing a story on how herpes was being spread quickly on college campuses due to the prevalence of playing beer pong. Colbert's "report" was actually not about herpes or beer pong, but really about how the whole story was a college newspaper joke that got picked up and spread by the national media (aka primarily Fox News). Here is Colbert's take...

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Beer Pong Herpes Outbreak

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Political Humor

Rap Battle
Joke of the Day

I'm always a sucker for ways of using pop culture to "teach" source evaluation, but I'm also really interested in the ways that some stories get spread while others don't. One blogger who talked about the spread of the article notes that it is probably the combination of adolescent, sexuality, and alcohol. He correctly points out that these three things are included in many urban legends, but are also strong enough social concerns that can lead people to miss the urban legend in badly written satire.

Sadly, Fox News won't allow me to embedded their original newscast, but thanks to the miracle of Youtube, here's their story. My favorite part of this is that they offer tips for "safe beer pong" while on Spring Break.



In addition to being a much funnier and more current example of evaluating sources,* I really like it as an example of the anxiety we have over adolescent sexuality, specifically as it relates to travel. You'll note that Fox News seems to be working under the assumption that beer pong is something that only happens in the tropical, debauchedness of Cancun or Daytona Beach. This story is in fact not much different than the numerous warning of violence linked to drugs and prostitution threatening Spring Breakers in Mexico. The original State Department advisory warns primarily of drug related violence, although when discussed by the media this story generally takes an advisory against frequenting areas of known for prostitution and morphs it into a warning about females being sold into prostitution.

I'm really intrigued with the ways that both the beer pong and Mexico warnings place risky adolescent behavior in remote locations and use the "holiday" to talk about taboos that are clearly issues the other 51 weeks out of year. I write a lot about how these taboos are so strong that they often have to be dealt with in the adolescent road trip novel in order to physically, geographically, and emotionally distance the behavior from adolescence, but I find it even more interesting that this pattern seems to becoming common for the media as well.

*My previous example is a series of stories about Al Gore inventing the internet and the ways that narrative was spread and expanded by "reputable" sources. Sadly, for most of my composition students, this example is too dated for it to be funny.

FSOT

For Sale or Trade:
One set of seriously defunct sinuses and lungs. Introductory supply of Tylenol, Sudafed, Robitussen, and Kleenex provided at no additional charge.