The head baker here at Seton Hill is an amazing woman. Emily the baker, as I affectionately call her, is so patient with me when I go interrupt Rachel as she works. Her stuff that she makes from scratch is nearly as good as my mom’s baking (and that is saying a lot!). Still, there’s something special about the chocolate chip cookies. You know which ones I’m talking about. We had them today at dinner. They’re perfectly round, perfectly chipped, and with just a hint of softness in the middle when they’re cooked just right. These cookies are purchased, not the fruits of Emily the baker’s hard-wrought labor. They are apparently a famous brand name: Otis Spunkmeyer.
I love this name. Otis Spunkmeyer. I picture this guy, balding, short, white-gray hair, coke-bottle glasses with dark gray plastic rims, wearing a button-up red flannel shirt with a pair of pockets and a collar, underneath army green suspenders and tucked into dark beige pants, slight gut overhanging his brown braided leather belt, well-loved and badly worn brown loafers touching flat on the ground, sitting on his rocking chair on his rustic, wooden front porch that he probably made with his own two hands, sipping the first lemonade of summer with just as many ice cubes as there is lemonade.
His wife bakes the cookies, but in his day and age, women were barely worth mentioning, so the cookies are named after him. They’re actually his favorite recipe of hers, so she bakes them every Sunday just after their church service. She stands on the black and white checkered linoleum floor, baking in her white flats, nude panty hose just a shade too dark for her skin, knee-length pink dress with purple tulips gathered at the waist by some unseen elastic, short sleeves covering her shoulders and the tops of her arms, white lacy collar up close around her neck and the white pearl button that’s there just for show, her careworn face staring down into a bowl of flour, sugar, eggs, and butter, and her curly white hair gets into the batter once every other Sunday. Her name is Millicent, and no one would buy cookies that were called Millicent Spunkmeyer, even though everyone calls her Millie anyway.
If I met the man of my dreams, the most amazing man on the face of the planet, my proverbial knight in shining armor, I could just not bring myself to marry him if his last name was Spunkmeyer. First of all, my first name isn’t Millie, and secondly, I look terrible in pink. What’s worse, I do hope to get my Ph.D. some day, and no one would take me seriously if my name were Dr. Spunkmeyer. Even if I hyphenated it—Dr. Reigh-Spunkmeyer (especially if I hyphenated it). That is not a name that wins a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Despite the soft spot in my heart for this beautiful old couple, Spunkmeyer is just not a name I would want on my marriage certificate. Despite my love for their cookies, I couldn’t eat them every day. I like Emily’s from-scratch cookies, too. I also love the cakes (though largely from mix) and the pies (a fair mix of from-scratch and store-bought). All in all, however, when I think of the name Otis Spunkmeyer, I have to smile.
The Nickelodeon trivia answers appear in the extended entry below. How many did you get right? I know, I know, the questions were really hard... I asked around. But let me know anyway.
1a. The Midnight Society
b. Dr. Vink and Sardo
2a. Moira Quirk
b. The Aggro Crag
3a. Ferguson (brother) Sam (best friend)
b. Thomas Tupper High
4a. Ben Ernst
b. Gastrothrombosis
5a. Ice cream
b. A guitar pick
6a. Bog and Quagmire
b. Peanut butter
So yeah, I actually did have to look up Mr. Earnst's name... but everything else I knew from memory.
Whenever my life gets me so down, you know I can go down...to where the music and the fun never ends. As long as the music keeps playing, you know what I'm saying... I know that I can find a friend down at the ROUNDHOUSE!
~Stephanie
The early 90s were filled with some of the greatest TV shows of all time. Thanks to the revolutionary channel Nickelodeon, shows like Hey Dude and Clarissa Explains it All were brought to the pre-teen crowd, and everyone in my generation remembers these classic programs. Even if I sometimes feel like I’m the only person who knows all the lyrics to the theme song of Nickelodeon’s Roundhouse, everyone can recall the classic TV show Salute Your Shorts. Sometimes I’m surprised at the things that people remember and don’t remember, and I pride myself in knowing many useless facts from this fantastic TV era.
Here’s your Nickelodeon Quiz, all the questions thought up by me! The a questions are easy, and the b questions are a little more obscure.
1a. What did the group that sat around the camp fire in the show Are You Afraid of the Dark? call themselves?
b. There were two recurring male characters in the show. One was a “Doctor” with a “Vuh vuh vuh” and the other was not a “mister,” with an “accent on the Do.”
2a. The TV show Guts had a British female host. What was her name?
b. The mountain that they climbed at the end of the show had a weird name, too.
3a. What were the names of Clarissa’s brother and best friend?
b. What was the name of the high school that Clarissa and her friend went to? (Now that one is hard!)
4a. What was the name of the ranch owner on Hey Dude?
b. What disease did he think he had when he got the veterinarian’s report by mistake?
5a. Budnick from Salute Your Shorts can assemble puzzles upside-down. In the episode where he is stuck at the infirmary, what is on the puzzle he puts together?
b. Deena and Budnick dated temporarily. When Deena made Budnick get his ear pierced, what did she make him wear for an earring? (Those are both pretty difficult, come to think of it…)
6a. What were the names of the Moat Twins on Eureka’s Castle?
b. What was their favorite food?
This is the first installment of the Nicelodeon quiz. I’ll be posting the answers sometime soon. I asked these questions because I could answer them all without looking any of them up…except for the one about the ranch owner on Hey Dude. I’m hoping I remember it between now and when I post the answers.
Bonus points if you know all the lyrics to the Roundhouse theme song.
~Stephanie
As if dating itself were not painful enough, the method of obtaining dates can often be downright excruciating. Of course the modern female has some advantages—she’s not considered overly forward or too much of a feminist if she asks out a guy. For traditional girls like me, however, pining from afar and hoping to be asked out often is the dreary alternative to being a strong and assertive woman. The college years makes dating more awkward, because of certain social protocols. If we could all go back to elementary school dating, everything would be far simpler.
So let’s say there’s a guy in one of your classes that you think is particularly attractive. Or better yet, let’s say there’s a guy that you don’t have any classes with—but one of your closest friends has a class with, and you are interested in him. The first step in elementary school dating is to determine if he’s dating someone else. That’s when you have one of your friends ask one of his friends if he’s single. This is truly a crucial step, because it is never advisable to tread on another woman’s territory. Same goes for the guys. Always check up first. But of course, those are elementary school rules, simpler and safer.
Now that you’ve determined that Mr. Perfect is unattached, you write that all-important letter. “Dear (insert name here), I think you are cute. Will you go out with me? Circle: YES or NO”
Have your friend take this letter with her to class, and she can discreetly give it to him in some way, shape, or form, preferably by slipping it in his coat pocket. Of course the prerequisites are 1) Mr. Perfect’s name has to be on the outside of the neatly folded letter, typically with the word TO: written above it, and 2) you (unfortunately) have to sign this note, “Sincerely, (sender)” or something to that extent, otherwise how will he know who he’s accepting? If you want to extrapolate this metaphor to college, you can also write your Seton Hill box number after your name, so he can send your letter (with circle) back to you with ease.
Once you get the letter back, that’s when important things start to happen. If he has circled “yes,” you must contact him as soon as possible. You must plan that all-important first date, (which hopefully doesn’t go like my sample dates posted in Dating, Part 2) including where you’re going and what the dress code will be. On a side note, guys by in large do not understand the dress code thing that girls do, so allow me to explain it. Say that dinner is the suggestion—is this skirt dinner, slacks dinner, jeans dinner, or dress dinner? Those are all crucial facets of dinner. Coffee is a great first date, because it indicates a casual, getting-to-know-you, inexpensive air. Hopefully the first date is smooth, and from then on, they only get easier…sort of.
When you open your letter from your guy, and the word “no” is circled, the first important thing is not to panic. A “no” on a letter of this type is an excellent way to be rejected, because you are so distanced from the rejection it’s almost like it didn’t happen. So by in large, the urge to key someone’s car should be drastically diminished. The greatest part about having that “no” in your hands is the knowing. You just know that there’s no chance, he’s not interested, or you got bum information and he really is dating someone else. It’s so definitive, that “no,” that there are no secondary wonders or questions. It’s like a release from those emotional bonds you set when you pick a guy to whom you become interested. What a catharsis!
The ability to send letters like this on a college level would be so excellent, I can’t even imagine it. This situation is even more advantageous than the high school method of dating, asking your friend to ask his friend if he likes you. The chances of failure are smaller, because you get answers directly from the source. The worst part is the not knowing, really. Why even become attracted to people if you never have any intention of working it out? I think, by in large, this is where the guys have it more difficult, because they are expected to be the ones who take initiative. I’m a direct sort of person, but I feel like I’m committing some act of radical feminism when I ask a guy out. I prefer to let them come to me.
These elementary/high school dating tactics, always in the back of my mind, give me trouble sometimes. Sometimes I throw off-hand comments at people, such as, “Oh, tell him he’s hot.” I only say that if I really think that the person is attractive, but I don’t seriously expect people to tell other people that I think they’re hot. The addendum “P.S. You’re hot” just doesn’t sound as sincere when it comes from a third party. I don’t know why. Some day, I’m just going to say the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time, and I just might irretrievably embarrass myself…but all for the better. I would rather speak my mind bluntly and honestly, but for some reason, romance is a game that requires subtlety and sneakiness. I’m not good at subtlety. Maybe that’s the reason why I’m not the greatest with guys. But I wouldn’t change my directness for the world.
So thus ends Dating, Part 3. I hope you enjoyed this one, though I am not sure if it is as well-written as the others. Do you like my entries? Circle YES or NO.
Sincerely,
~Stephanie
P.S. You’re hot.
It's been over a week now since I posted an entry. I was a new blog user, warm and friendly to the blog world, and I tried my all to write a new entry every day. Suddenly I got busy, and then break occurred; I was at a loss. My blogging slackened. Now I find myself mourning my lack of worthwhile topics. I think my next entry, however soon I get it posted, is going to be about the thrill of TV in the early nineties--the shows of my childhood, including all of those famous Nickelodeon TV classics. Then maybe, an entry about pets, and how cool my dog is. We'll see.
~Stephanie
I know I’m not the smartest person in the world. I’m not even in the top ten per cent. Heck, I’ll go so far as to say that I may not even been in the top quarter. However, there’s a trend in our society that people are getting stupider by the day. How many of you noticed I said stupider? That’s not a real word. But it’s an example of how people talk in our society, and intelligence is worsening in more areas than just grammar.
My friend Laura and I spent high school doing what most high school girls do: talking on the phone about boys. We talked about a large variety of boys over the years, and we were best friends for a really long time. One specific boy comes to mind as I write this article, but I’ll save his name to protect the innocent. Laura liked him a lot, so we spent a great deal of time amassing as much information as possible about him. On one occasion, Laura was walking through the hallway during class (as she frequently did) and heard the newspaper advisor calling to him, “There’s no ‘e’ in argument.” This is a minor mistake, sure, and a commonly misspelled word. There’s an “e” at the end of argue, why shouldn’t there be an “e” in argument? Another occasion, however, would make any grammarian shudder. It had been raining outside, and Laura was sitting in a classroom talking to a teacher. The same aforementioned guy walked in to the class room and said, “This floor is slippy. I almost fell down.” Not only did he say the word slippy, which consequently is not a real word (unless you live in central PA), he also ended his sentence in a preposition. Is it so hard to say “The floor is slippery. I almost fell.”?
You may be asking me, Stephanie, why did you choose this particular day to reminisce about the past? That is a very good question, one that I’m more than happy to answer. I awoke from slumber this morning with my alarm, rose from my bed, and went to the rest rooms down the hall from my room. Written on a sheet of notebook paper (no joke) was the following sentence: “The tolits will not flush!” It was written with ink, and then traced over with yellow highlighter. The girl, whoever she may be, did not even stop to think. And she wrote it twice. I shudder to think how the sentence would have read if more than one word contained multiple vowels. I can understand misspelling the word argument. If you can’t spell the word “toilet” without Microsoft Word spell check, how on earth did you get into college?
I am amazed and appalled sometimes by people’s lack of grasp of the English language. I am no expert, to be certain, and I am sure that my entries would be a lot worse off if I didn’t proofread them first, but some things people should just know. My biggest pet peeve of all time is verb/predicate agreement. How are you doing, you may ask someone. I’m doing good. The very phrase brings pain to my ears. You cannot say that! I am good, I am doing well. It is bad enough to hear in the hallways of Seton Hill, but this summer, I heard it on a Lowe’s commercial. That’s a national advertisement. They said “doing good” on national TV for everyone to hear. I wanted to claw my ears out.
My opinions on grammar may be a little extreme, but I know I’m not alone. Our society is slowly getting stupider, and the closest thing we’re getting to improvements is the No Child Left Behind Act. It’s to the point where the average teenager would rather smoke a joint than read a book, and that thought terrifies me. Parents, teach your children from a young age how wonderful reading is. I believe that this is where intelligence starts—the home. Read to your kids early and often, and they won’t misspell the word toilet.
Being the observant college student that I am, I love to walk around campus, looking casually at passers-by, smile politely, and just take in their style and demeanor. As Strong Bad says, Everyone Is Different, so people-watching is an enjoyable activity, especially on a college campus. You might ask me, so Stephanie, what is the most common feature of today’s modern college student? Is it the ever-popular belly button ring? Or how about the lovely thong underwear? No I would reply without hesitation, as diverse as my college campus is, there is one thing almost all students here have in common: the cell phone.
The cell phone is an interesting little invention. The telephone was such a great idea, people wanted to have one with them at all times. At first this idea seemed preposterous: How could something with wires be carried around? Then suddenly, a break through: the mobile phone. Perhaps some of you remember these gadgets, as big as an oversized banana, that sat in bags on consoles in cars across the country. My dad had one, and it was a great step for his business—instead of being annoyed while at home, people could call him while he was on the road elsewhere. Eighties movies showed all the wealthy people having phones in their cars, and car phones were revolutionary. The technology got better, smarter, smaller, and now cell phones are everywhere.
Like the phone itself, my opinion towards cell phones has evolved drastically. I certainly never needed a cell phone in high school, because I didn’t get my license right away, so I never formulated an opinion towards cell phones. As a freshman here at Seton Hill, I began to realize the growth of the cell phone world. They were not uncommon devices, and I sometimes wished that I had one, because it was a long distance call to my boyfriend at home. I could not tolerate, however, the people who forgot to turn their cell phones off during class. Sophomore year, I had a 600 minute phone card, and I talked to my boyfriend whenever I wanted. I began to grow weary of the constant sight of people talking on cell phones, and the increase in people who received phone calls during class. Junior year, cell phones were everywhere. I couldn’t sit on a swing by Sullivan lawn for half an hour and not see someone talking on a cell phone. People talked on them on the way to class and in the lunch halls, and phones began going off during tests. My boyfriend and I broke up that spring, so I had no one long distance to call. I guess you could call it cell phone embitterment.
This past summer, I bought my first car. My darling Rosalie, my beautiful car, and I paid for her completely out of my own pocket. Since I was a driver, and since I was going to be driving, it became essential for me to have a cell phone in case of automobile emergency. On the way to school, my beautiful Rosalie, which was sabotaged by my mechanic, coughed and sputtered to a stop. She needs a new engine, they tell me—but I still have a cell phone. My cell phone doesn’t leave my person. It’s become a leech, attached to my side, just in case someone should call me. I’m on Verizon, and I have free nights and weekends in addition to unlimited IN calling. I talk to my friend Rachel for an hour and a half straight, and it doesn’t cost a penny. I call my family on the weekends, stay in touch with my siblings, and can plan my trips home with ease. I get text messages from friends in the middle of class, but I make damn sure my cell phone never rings or beeps.
Having a cell phone is a shackled sort of freedom. It becomes a necessary evil, attaching itself to you so that you can constantly be in contact. I hate how I’ve become about it, to the point where if I leave my room even for five seconds, I feel like I have to bring my cell phone with me. I can call whoever I want, whenever I want, from wherever I want—and they can do the same to me. Since there’s no such thing as long distance, I can call my friend Nicole in Long Island just as easily as I can call my friend Rachel in Greensburg.
I can definitely see where having a cell phone has its benefits, especially when my car broke down half way to Seton Hill. It’s like a security blanket, almost. Even though I know I used to hate cell phones with a fiery passion, I’m kind of glad that I have one. The ability to keep in touch with my sisters and brother, and my other long-distance friends, without having to worry about a phone card—the cost is really insignificant. I love being able to call my sister on a Saturday morning, talk to my awesome nephews, or call Rachel just to chat (about boys). Though my conversations may be a far cry from Bell and “Watson, come here, I need you” in 1876, the ability to reach out and touch someone often makes my day a little brighter.
~Stephanie
The dating world has its ups and downs. The ups are typically really wonderful, and the downs can be downright terrible. People both love and hate the world of dating, and I’m often alarmed at the number of people who are contented just to date. Casual dating does have its social benefits, such as learning what you like in the opposite sex (not to mention what you cannot stand). By in large, however, dating is a lot more hassle than it’s worth. Dating, in all actuality, is a lot like trying to find a job.
When looking for a job, you write a resume, telling everyone about your very best skills and accomplishments. You send that resume to lots of companies, hoping that you’ll get an interview. Getting dressed up to go out to a bar, for example, is kind of like writing a resume. Wearing a low-cut blouse and a lot of make-up sends one kind of message (perhaps that you’re only interested in a temporary position), while a business-casual air gives a completely different impression entirely. All of the eligible bachelors look at this “resume” that you’ve put out, and they consider whether or not you get an interview.
No one wants to just go to interview after interview and never find a job. In the real world, people submit applications to places in hopes of securing a permanent position, for the most part. Some people are more than happy to work for a temp agency. People who are willing to date and not settle down are like the temp agency people. There’s nothing wrong with it, but I personally would rather have a nice, steady paycheck.
The most difficult part of dating is each date itself. They are all successive job interviews, to see if you are “right for the company.” If you have a really great interview and they don’t call you back, you wonder what was wrong or what you did to make them not want you back for a second interview. Dating is more than just one or two interviews to fill one job, however. Dating can go on forever, and it’s not necessarily temp-to-hire. You almost have to sell yourself on a date, just like you have to sell yourself in a job interview. Let’s take the following examples:
Him: So, tell me about your family.
Her: Well, I have three older siblings. Janet is 33 and married. Mike is 30 and married. Theresa is 28 and married.
Him: I see. So you’re the only one not married yet?
Her: Yep.
Him: Is there any pressure on you to get married?
Hold the phone, she thinks. That’s a little bit of a crazy question--but it kind of made sense. So she laughs a little bit, explains that no, she can get married on her own watch, thank you very much. And the interview continues.
Him: So, your resume says you’ve been spelunking before.
Her: Yep. I was a counselor at a youth camp. We took at-risk youth into situations like spelunking and rock climbing in order to bond with them.
Him: So you like kids?
Her: Yeah, I do. They’re great.
Him: Do you plan on having kids some day, then?
Again with the weird questions! How do you answer those? I’m not deliberately picking on the guys here, because girls ask them too. I try to avoid the weird questions as much as possible on dates, but sometimes they’re unavoidable.
Think hard enough, and this metaphor extends itself extremely well. Being suddenly let go after years of loyal service? Getting tenure? Good days and bad days? Being in a relationship is kind of like having a job, but the metaphor kind of falls apart there. Sick days, overtime, raises, benefits… yeah, I’ll stop there. Not everything parallels well.
I know I said that Dating, Part 2 would be about why I’m an advocate for arranged marriages. That was sarcasm, of course, but there’s a certain allure to it. If you knew from childhood what job you were going to have, and you didn’t have to choose, and you just spent your whole life worrying about that one job… yeah, it would probably suck. But a lot of stress would be taken out of the equation. Dating is stressful, just like trying to find a job. Sometimes the idea of having just one job, and just one husband, picked out for me has an odd sort of allure…especially because I trust my parents, but that’s another story. All in all, though, dating is a great way of learning about what you want, what you expect, and most of all, it helps you learn about yourself. Dating has its benefits. But I’ll take a nice stable career any day.
~Stephanie
Dear God,
I’m sitting idle on this lovely fall day, and I’m thinking a lot about you. Thanks to my philosophy class, the idea of your presence in my life has come to the forefront of my brain. Why is there something and not nothing? That’s probably a hubristic question to ask, for our ways are not God’s ways, and we humans can not possibly fully comprehend your mysteries. But hey, I’m not complaining about that.
St. Augustine asked you a lot of questions about time, space, and evil. His questions are all answered now, obviously, but his questions have sparked my questions. The presence of evil and the existence of time are too intangible for me to worry about at present. I am far more interested in knowing how certain people have good lives while others do not. I suppose that it boils down intrinsically to the “free will” argument… for example, how is it that I was born in one of the greatest nations in all the world? Well, my great great grandparents had free will, and left Germany and Ireland in order to start their new life over in America. That is why I was born in the United States. Given the fact that the soul is immortal, how do souls get chosen to go with each body? How much effect does the human soul have on the human personality? It is a lot to think about.
I’ve always been a happy person, God. You’ve given me so much, and blessed my life to such a great extent. My family isn’t rich, but we’ve always been able to get by on what we’ve had. I’m not gorgeous, but I’m happy with my appearance and my body. I’m not a genius, but I am so in love with intelligence that it comes across as arrogance. I am so happy being me, despite all of the trials and tribulations that I’ve been put through. How much effect did you have on this? Did you choose me to be blessed? These questions will never be answered, but it is wonderful to think of your talent and works. I do not question you demandingly, God. I merely ask out of my meager human curiosity, to grow closer to you.
Since you know everything, I ask myself, why am I writing this letter? Why do we pray? People everywhere sing praises and tell you that they love you, and I’m sure that must be wonderful to some extent. Even though you are perfect and cannot be made “happy” or “sad,” for your perfection transcends human emotion, I’m sure it affects you in some way that I could not possibly understand. To be praised in different tongues and worshipped by all different names is an astounding thought for a meek little person to consider. But then again, people are telling you all the time that you don’t exist. I am sure that that could get old. And there’s people telling you that they hate you and that whatever has happened to them that it is your fault… and I’m sure that gets irritating. Though you cannot be made less perfect, I’m sure it affects you in some way that I could not possibly understand.
I am a scientist. People use science to negate your existence, to deny you your true worth in this life. I feel the exact opposite. The more I learn about math and science, the more I grow closer to you. Through the beauty of DNA replication or the phenomenal mystery that is particle physics, I see you in all of these places. From four nucleotide bases to twenty amino acids to innumerable proteins to all varieties of life form… and how can God be taken out of this equation? Without you, it just doesn’t add up. From quarks and neutrinos to protons and neutrons to atoms and finally to the greater than one hundred elements of the periodic table…you live and breathe in every one of these submicroscopic places. You are everywhere, and your beauty shines throughout.
Well, God, though I know you are no slave to time, and are indeed outside of time, and though I know that I could spend far more of my menial human existence and still not have thanked you enough for all of my blessings, other things, mundane things, call my human existence. Even though you knew all these things before I wrote them down, before I even felt them, before I even existed, thank you for sitting behind me and looking over my shoulder as I express these thoughts and feelings about you. I may never understand you in this life time, God, but I pray that in the next life I can sit at your feet and drink in your presence.
Amen.
~Stephanie
Being single in the 21st century has become more and more interesting. With a plethora of internet sites, games, TV shows, and books about dating and relating, there’s a glut of information out there for singles to peruse and utilize. Sometimes just finding a person to date, however, is the most difficult part of the process.
Society places such emphasis has on finding the right person so we have someone with whom we can spend the rest of our lives. Through either Mystery Date from the fifties or Dream Phone from the nineties, girls have been taught at a young age that dating is a crucial aspect of life. I’m not saying that this indoctrination is inherently evil, though I could. But the push to date and be in relationships is very strong in our society. It’s so important in our culture that it has reared its ugly head in one of the most awful forms of telecommunications: the Reality TV Show.
When I was a kid, staying home alone in the summer meant watching Maury Povich and Love Connection. Love Connection was a great little dating show, matching one guy and three girls, or one girl and three guys, and they’d go on dates. This show was on for over ten years, and I think that’s saying something. That’s staying power for a dating show. Sure I was a preadolescent when I was watching it, but I was impressed by the guys in their polyester sport coats and fluffy hair. Not to mention the fact that all the women looked like Farrah Fawcett. Maury Povich, on the other hand, had very little effect on me emotionally, but it did show me a good cross-section of the freaks and weirdos. I guess it gave me a good grasp on the “guys to avoid” category.
Not long after Love Connection went off air, one of the biggest dating shows for my generation came on. That show is MTV’s Singled Out. This show embedded itself into my cultural heritage, despite only having been around for two seasons. As I try to remember the details, however, I seem to have blocked most of them out of my memory. I seem to remember the guy looking at this big board of attributes: Lips, hair, eyes, height… I can’t even remember them all. But the guy would look at the “hair” list for example, see “blonde, brunette, redhead,” and then pick which one he would axe. If he liked a blonde with green eyes (not that I’m particular), he would pick to get rid of all the brunettes, then all the brown-eyed girls. Sure some of them would be blue-eyed redheads, but there’d still be a chance. And besides, he got the final decision after it was all said and done specifically who he was keeping. It made no qualms about the importance of physical appearance, either, so I suppose that’s to the show’s credit. Though the average person in America would say, “A person’s personality is really important,” by in large a pretty face is the best foot in the door. Singled Out also used weird challenges and tricks, and the only one I remember well was a girl who had to scat with a famous jazz musician, whose name eludes me.
Finally, I come to our two most recent reality TV shows specifically aimed at dating. Sure there are great Reality TV classics like The Bachelor and Joe Schmo, but these are long-term shows. Shows that bring back that old Love Connection zest are the ones I’m talking about, and those shows are Blind Date and The Fifth Wheel.
The Fifth Wheel is a show I don’t want to give any justice to. This show basically states, “The sluttier you are, the better chances you have.” Like the show Elimidate. These shows have little to no basis in reality, mostly because the number of options. It’s a catfight for the women, and a battle of hotness for the men. It’s not an even keel. Blind Date, on the other hand, is a little more tangible. People have the chance to just be themselves and get accepted… even though this doesn’t usually happen, it can. I watched this show a lot, because I’m sick and sadistic, and it taught me more than I care to know about contemporary dating. Sometimes it seemed like Blind Date matched up people who didn’t go together just to get good footage, but other times the couples genuinely clicked or seemed like they should have. By in large, however, this show showed me how happy I am that I’m not that desperate, and I vow never to stoop to such a level. I take a quote from my favorite Disney movie, Lady and the Tramp: “Miserable being must find more miserable being. Then, he’s happy.”
The final goal of this series of entries is not to bash dating to its core and tell everyone to give up hope. What I am trying to do, however, is to analyze the kinds of messages our society sends to the modern teens-and-twenties. So tune in for my next entry, Dating, Part 2: Why I’m an Advocate for Arranged Marriages.
~Stephanie
Dr. Atherton is always good for a philosophical discussion. Currently in my History of Philosophy class, we're discussing the readings of St. Augustine, who wrote around the third century A.D. During this time period, philosophy dealt mostly with theology, and St. Augustine's philosophical writings were no different. Today, we talked about infinity and God.
St. Augustine was trying to figure out how to understand God. He was trying his darndest to understand the Trilogy, the three persons in one God, one of the greatest mysteries of Christianity. How can three persons in one God exist, coexist, unconfused? He went to bed thinking about this, and he had a dream.
He went from his town northern Algeria towards the banks of the Mediterranean sea. The water was tranquil, the day was sunny, and Augustine was feeling good. He was strolling the banks when he suddenly came across a young boy, maybe nine or ten, carrying buckets of water. The boy had dug a hole in the ground, and was taking buckets of the Mediterranean Sea towards his hole and emptying them. Augustine said to him, "Boy, what are you doing with that water?"
"I am going to take the Mediterranean and put it in this hole," the boy replied, pouring the bucket out onto the ground.
"I am sorry, child, but that cannot happen. You could never fit that entire sea into the hole that you have dug."
Suddenly, the child turned into an angel of God. The Angel said to Augustine, "I can no more fit the Mediterranean Sea into this hole than you can fit the idea of the trinity into your head."
The mystery of God is a beautiful thing. Dr. Atherton said during class, "The attributes of God are a lot more than the universe can hold." God is infinite. God is outside of time. Why is there something and not nothing? Now that is a bigger question for a later date.
~Stephanie
Staying true to my proposed format, but a little side-comment, really, is my absolote adoration for technology. It's really great. It allows people to communicate in real time with anyone across the world. I love going into chat rooms and being sent private messages by Eurasian teenagers that speak fragmented English. It really brightens up my day.
Today's greatest love is for the love that burns inside of all web geeks everywhere, html. I have a pretty meager understanding of html, but enough to realize that I can do pretty cool things with time and patience. Sure it'll take me three weeks to make a website that it would take someone who's really web savvy about two hours, but it's the principle of the thing, really. I can italicize with ease, bold with pride, and even post images... when the server cooperates.
Later on with this blog, I plan to play with the style sheets, mostly to change up the blog fonts. Not that these ones aren't nice, but they're redundant over and over again. I get sick of looking at them. Even though my site traffic will be noticably smaller than my fellow bloggers, I still take pride in all of my work. Take my dad's website for example. I designed that from the ground up, and though it may be mediocre at best, I still care that it looks good. And I want my blog to look good, too.
So in conclusion, even though it may not always be user-friendly, technology brings us great things, like chat buddies from India.
~Stephanie
So here I finally am, being drug kicking and screaming into the nineties. I have a blog. So I ask myself, why do I have a blog? Do I have anything insightful or particularly useful to add to improve people's lives? Without hesitation, the answer is probably not. Did I mention I get incoherent after midnight? I should have.
Although I may be insightful at times, for the most part, I'm going to be writing about idle things. Now this isn't going to be an angst blog, like "oh, I hate her" or "oh, I want to date him" or "I am going to fail my Quantum Mechanics mid-term." It'll probably be more like "Why I love football" or "Why I think CSI is really cool" or even "Lucky Charms are awesome." So by in large, this blog is not meant to be read by anyone with low-level patience.
I think my first few entries will be the angstiest of the bunch, because they're going to be about dating. Despite my limited dating experience, I think I have a pretty good grasp on the modern dating world, and anyone who wants to read my insane rants is more than welcome to check back. If you don't want to read yet another dating rant, then skip ahead to November.
But thanks for reading my introductory entry. I hope that amuses at least one person. I try to be amusing every once in awhile.
~Steph