In less than 48 hours now (that’s less than 2 days!) I’ll be sitting in Jordan-Hare Stadium as Auburn football kicks off the 2008 season.  It truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

My computer screen is still half dead, so in order to be able to use my computer, I have to hook it up to external monitors.  At home, it’s not bad.  I have a nice small, lightweight flat screen that my boy had.  At school?  Well…it looks like 1994 all over again in my office.  The monitor takes up over half my desk – which granted, isn’t that big to begin with.  Still.  It’s a funny sight.

I’m closing in on the official first full week of school, and I already feel behind.  One of my book chapters is due by Saturday, and I’m way behind where I planned to be at this point.  I’m kind of at the point of “I’ll just throw stuff in there, because I know they’re going to come back with revisions for me.”  Not the best attitude to have.  Not that I’m planning on throwing shoddy work in there, but it might not be the bestest effort I’ve ever had.  That’ll be saved for the final version.

I did drop one class (my communication information and technology class) in favor of a media psychology class.  I went to the media psych class for the first time today, and I think I fell in love.  Everything just made so much sense, and we talked today about new theoretical models with regards to new media, which is one huge area of interest for me.  The professor of the class seems really interested in pushing us to be leaders and put new ideas out there, and I really like that.  I think I’m going to make nice with him as much as I can.

In less geeky academic news, I saw the most fantastic breakup today outside the rec center at school.  It was about 8am, and there was a couple standing right out in front of the doors – you know, where everyone had to pass right by them?  The guy was pretty stoic, standing there with his arms crossed.  He kept saying, very monotonously “I just don’t want to go out with you anymore.  I want to break up.”  The girl was not so stoic.  She was sobbing – loudly -, screaming “I don’t understand, you can’t break up with me, you just can’t!”, and the more he kept saying he did want to, well, she finally hauled off and slapped him.  Several times.

Ok.  I get it.  People break up.  But 1. Was in the front of the rec center really the appropriate place to do this, and B) If that was the way she was acting, is anyone really wondering why he’d break up with her?  I know that I’m only seeing one fraction of whatever their relationship was, but sheesh.  And again…did everyone entering and leaving the rec center this morning really need to be a part of this?

Undergrads.  Providing blog fodder daily.

Tropical storm/depression/whatever they’re calling it Fay visited Alabama this past weekend and doused us with some much needed rain. It was so wonderful to wake up Saturday morning and fall asleep Saturday and Sunday night to the sound of the rain on the window. I know people bitch about the rain, but I like it.

Until I have to trudge a mile or so across campus in it. That made me a little crabby today, but thankfully I got a new umbrella this weekend, so I didn’t have to deal with my old umbrella that I rigged to stay up with hair ties.

I’m so sophisticated.

I spent the entire weekend writing. I got the heavy duty theory bulk part of my 2nd book chapter written. I’ve enticed my boy to be a co-author with me, as I came to the realization that he knows some of this stuff better than I do. So I promised to cook him yummy meals, and then swayed him with the guarantee of getting published. Next time someone says I don’t know how to ask for help, I’m going to bring up this example. Probably for the next 25 years, considering that’s how bad I am at asking for help.

Thus, I have nothing fabulously exciting to share from the weekend, so instead, I’ll talk about one of my favorite blog topics – the stupidity of undergrads. My friend Andrew and I were walking back from class this afternoon (in the rain) and we passed two girls waiting on the corner for the light to change. Apparently the fashion this year is to wear a t-shirt, really short shorts, and those big rain boots. I don’t get it, but I’m old and not on the cutting edge of fashion. Anyway. One girl is standing there, and gets this absolute look of glee/mania on her face, and then leaps into the middle of the puddle in front of her. She turns to her friend and says “This is so cool! I can like, jump in the puddle and my feet stay dry!”

I think Andrew summed it up best. He said, “I want to pat her on the head and give her a cookie.”

College don’t mean smart.

Sometimes I hate people.

Today I was walking back from the strip after volunteering for a lunch run for a bunch of people stuck up here in a lab (it’s warm and semi-nice out – a good day for a walk!).  On my way back, I got behind 2 guys smoking.  Gross, but whatever.

I was sipping on my water, when I started choking, because water + walking = unstable drinking conditions = cough.  So as I’m coughing, one of the kids turns around, looks at me and said, “Jesus Bitch, get over it already.  I’ll smoke if I want to.”

What a charming person!  My reply? “Jesus asshole, get over yourself.  I was choking on my water.”

I bet he doesn’t get a lot of dates.  F**ker.

People usually laugh at me when I tell them my Master’s thesis was 96 pages long.  However, yesterday I was able to pull out 14 pages of solid material to use for my Media Sociology paper.  14 pages of a lit review that I pretty much have to clean up and re-cite some sources.  They can laugh all they want.

We had a group meeting yesterday for Media sociology, because we have a group project.  In fine undergrad fashion, one group member never showed for the meeting.  Problem is, we aren’t undergrads.  Thankfully, none of us were in the frame of mind to tolerate it, so we just divided the paper up without his input, and stuck him with the number crunching.

I went over to the SEC Swimming and Diving Championships last night to watch the mens’ 1-meter and the womens’ 3-meter finals.  As the men began to dive, the swimmers all came in, and filled up the bleachers.  I ended up surrounded by the Auburn team, which…well, let’s just say that the Auburn Swimming and Diving team reigns supreme.   The Auburn men have won the last 10 championships in a row.  They send swimmers to the Olympics like it’s their job.  They give new meaning to “good”.

A couple swimmers started commenting on the diving, and the scoring, and I tried to help them figure out what was going on.  Finally, one realizes that every other SEC team has a banner hanging up – except them.  So he asks, “Why doesn’t Auburn have a banner?”  His teammate gave this answer, “We don’t need a f**king banner.  We just show up and win.”

War Damn Eagle.

Tonight I’m hoping to catch the men’s 10-meter platform finals before we head over to the Alabama/Florida gymnastics meet.  That should be very cool.

Is it possible to feel better, yet feel worse? I hope so. Because that’s how I feel. Now I’ll grumble under my breath some more about people that can’t keep their germs home.

Young people and voting. Studies have shown that young people do not go out and vote. Despite MTV’s “Rock the Vote” and other such campaigns, young people seem content to stay home and not vote. A couple of weeks ago, an editorial was published in my university paper by a student from the University of Virginia. She writes about Hilary Clinton, and what should be the #1 priority on the Senator’s agenda.

Know what she thinks? “Hillary doesn’t seem to want the American public to pay attention to the fact that she’s a woman.” This bright (ahem) aspiring journalist wants Hilary Clinton to pay serious attention to her LOOKS. This young woman herself says, ” I may be a somewhat superficial person who thinks that clothing matters.” Oh my GOD. Apparently it matters so much to this girl that she’s written a whole opinion piece on Hillary’s campaign without mentioning one. single. political. issue. Not the war, not national security, not social security, taxes, health care, education…nothing.

Here’s some select gems from the article that I found inspiring to be a sad commentary on what is important to this young voter:

“Hillary wears ugly clothes and gets bad haircuts to prove that she’s a “serious” politician who can make decisions about foreign policy and whatnot, and not a woman who’s going to skip a U.N. summit for Nordstrom’s semi-annual sale”

“If Hillary would let me make her more Jackie O and less Ellen DeGeneres in an awkward stage, I think she might just have a shot at this Democratic nomination thing.”

She also gives suggestions/fashion criticisms to “Senator Hil” (her term, not mine):

“Get a legitimate makeup artist and not a politically correct 15-year-old from the projects who knows how to wield a LipSmackers”

“The left half of your teeth are less white than the right half.”

“Your hair is ever so slightly reminiscent of Bon Jovi’s”

Finally, she finishes up her column with this sage advice to the first woman to ever try to run for president:

“You could be the first female president! So dress like a hottie and not Bartleby the Scrivener.”

Mother of God. If you want to read the entire article (translation: If you need to waste 5 minutes), find it here. Don’t get mad at me when you discover that it’s 5 minutes of your life you are never going to get back.

What really scares me is that these kids are learning what to value in the political elections from someone. Is it my failing (or school’s failings) as an educator? Parents failing to talk to their kids about national and global issues? The news media for spending a little too much time talking about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, and not enough time on issues that impact us as a society? A combination of all of the above?

I try to encourage my students to vote. After reading that, if that’s the train of thought they are operating under…well…I’d rather they stay home until they can judge a candidate for something less superficial than their looks.

Love was certainly in the air yesterday amongst the frat boys (there’s two frat houses I pass by when walking from my building to my car).  I heard this snippet of love yesterday afternoon…

Frat boy 1: Dude, you got her flowers?

Frat boy 2: Yeah, I’m so getting laid tonight.

Frat boy 1: Awesome

Frat boy 2: You think I should put these in water?

Frat boy 1: What time is your date?

Frat boy 2: 8

(Um, yeah sport.  You’ve still got over 3 hours, and it’s kinda warm out)

At this point another guy pulls up, and jumps out of his car.

Frat boy 1: You got flowers too?

Frat boy 3: Yeah

Frat boy 1: You guys are so pussywhipped.

LOVELY.

Myself, I had a wonderful Valentine’s Day.  My boy got me a dozen roses, which was completely unexpected (but very much appreciated)!!!  We went out to dinner at one of the Japanese places, and had a wonderful time.

TGIF.  I’m working from home today (and probably will most of the weekend -blech) but I’m determined to take a few breaks, and I’m looking forward to those!!!

More stupidity today on campus, this time not from one of my students.  (Breathes a sigh of relief over that one).

In the locker room at the Rec center today, as I was changing into my workout clothes, two girls came to the lockers in my row, chatting.  One says, “I watched the weather last night, and they didn’t say anything about rain.  So I got up this morning and looked outside and it was raining and I thought ‘UH! Am I going to get wet?”

No dear.  That’s the dry rain.  The kind that magically vanishes in that millisecond before it hits your skin.  You’re going to stay totally dry, despite the downpour.

Ahem.

Today I think I left my brain at home.  I walked out of the house without my lunch – left it sitting on the counter.  Thankfully it was not my keys, and I remembered before I got out of the driveway.  Got back in the car and realized I forgot something else.  Forgot  to hand out something to one of my classes.  Forgot to bring a syllabus to class.  Then I walked out of my last class…and forgot my purse.  You know, the nice new bag I got that now carries my camera and wallet and other such important things?  Yeah.  Thankfully, after only a couple minutes of panic, I tracked my professor down and got my bag back. Got home, happy that the day was over, and as I was heating up dinner, I looked over on the kitchen table and realized that I forgot to bring one of the bags down of chicken I separated and wrapped up after our Sam’s trip yesterday.  Raw chicken, sitting out on the table for about 24 hours.  That promptly went in the garbage.  I was pretty pissed.

So now I’m going to go to bed, and wake up hopefully with my brain screwed on right tomorrow.

If you want to see some funny/unusual/atypcial wedding photos, check out this site here.

This morning as I was walking from the parking lot to my building, I saw/heard a wonderful diatribe from a girl who was walking beside me, talking on the phone. Seriously, who are these kids talking to at 7:45am? I would kill any friend that dared call me at that hour.

I was listening to this girl go on and on about how cold it was. How cold she was. Granted, it was in the very, very low 30’s, so it was cold. She finally said “OMG, it’s like, so cold, I can’t stand it. I feel like a giant ice cube. I can’t even like, walk anymore.” This is when I looked at her. She was wearing ballet flats. Tights with no feet and lace on the bottoms (didn’t that go out in the 80’s?). A miniskirt. No jacket. A tiny sweater, very low cut. And a headband.

No wonder you are cold, you freaking moron! Put on some clothes!

*******

Here’s some laughter and enjoyment for the day. I know I have some new Mommy readers lately – if you haven’t seen this tribute to great old Olan Mills family photographs, you might want to take notes. These are AWESOME.

http://listoftheday.blogspot.com/2007/09/great-olan-mills-photos.html

And just because I’m super cool, I can brag on the fact that my friend was at the wedding of the couple in the drink glass.

YES!!! I knew it!!! Today I give you (drumroll) the return of the asinine stuff my students say in the classroom!!!

This semester I’m teaching 2 public speaking classes. Since it’s a lower level course (which means taken by mostly freshmen and sophomores), you know that there’s going to be a couple people in there that run their mouths and say ridiculous stuff. Today did not disappoint.

On the first day, I give the kids an ‘icebreaker’ – I hand out Starburst, and based on what colors they choose, they have to tell certain things about themselves. Yellow = what they are afraid of, Pink = who they would go on a dream date with, Orange = last movie they saw, and Red = most embarrassing moment.

My 8am’s were pretty sedate. A couple girls shared that they lost bathing suit tops or bottoms, one of the girls is on the University Dance team and shared how she lost her top in the middle of dancing at one game. Nothing terrible.

Then. Then. My 12:30’s. The 2nd girl to talk and share her information is also a dancer/pom pom shaker for the University. I give you her most embarrassing moment – and the return of awesome blog fodder for me:

“So this weekend I went to Olive Garden with a bunch of my friends, and we were like, talking about how Bulldogs can’t have sex, and in order for them to like, have babies they have to get like, artificially inseminated. So we were like, joking about that, and I said ‘Wouldn’t it be like, so awesome if since they are dogs, we could train them to have sex in that doggy-style position?’ And all my friends started like, laughing and asked me what position I thought dogs had sex in? And then they had to like, tell me that the doggy-style position comes from the fact that that’s the position dogs have sex in, and I was like, so embarrassed because I never knew how dogs had sex.”

Needless to say, she did a wonderful job of breaking the ice.

Ethics in journalism. Some might say that’s an oxymoron.

I went to a lecture this morning given by a visiting professor from Indiana University. His talk was entitled: “Boots and Hands: Photojournalism and Democratic Public Culture”. His talk focused on how photojournalists have moved their photos from the traditional static shots of people to the different, the unusual and the shocking. He called photojournalism a vital public art for a democratic public culture because it helps us to see and be seen as citizens. He showed various photographs of political figures waving, flashing peace signs, the thumbs up and even wearing combat boots with their suits. He showed pictures of just feet and hands (hence, the boots and hands part) and pictures of missing feet and hands. A picture of a protester showing bloodied hands to Condaleeza Rice. It was a very interesting presentation.

Until he got to the point of ethics. He described a story of a photojournalist that went to a battle site, took a few shots, decided he didn’t like the scene, so he imported cannons into the scene and then shot the photographs as a depiction of a battle scene.

Unethical? The professor says no. I say yes.

In picking photographs to put in news stories, editors sit down at a computer screen and look through thousands of images. It makes sense that what stands out is that which is different and unique. I get that. What I don’t get is how people think adding or subtracting to the image is ok.

He asked the audience if there were any photojournalists. I like to call myself a photographer and I did used to shoot and edit video for television, so I like to think I have some basic knowledge of photojournalism. I raised my hand. Of course I was the only one. He proceeded to ask my thoughts on the battlefield photo. I said in that situation, I would consider it unethical. Why?

It’s a lie.

I said that adding or subtracting images to a photograph to make a new reality was, in my humble opinion, a lie. It’s a distortion of the reality, a misrepresentation of the truth.

He asked me then, what about when you manipulate the shutter or the light? Is that not the same thing? He thought it was.

(This is where I got clever. Or tried to. After all, our rock star comm guy was sitting right next to me, so I figured if I was going to look like an idiot, I might as well go all out.)

My feelings that I shared were this:

“If I had my camera today, I could shoot a couple shots of you. I could move you into the different lights of the room. If I wanted you to be more in shadow, or even overexposed, then I could use my camera to, as you say, manipulate the shutter speed and the light exposure. But it’s not necessarily ‘manipulation’ to me. I’m using what’s available in that environment, without adding or subtracting anything to it. I’m ‘tricking’ the camera into thinking that the lighting of the room is different to get what I want. I can do it with sunsets or nature scenes that I might want more shadowed to turn them into black and white. The difference comes in when I take that picture of you – what am I going to do with it in photoshop? Am I going to play around with what already exists in the environment, namely the lighting or cropping out excess noise? In that instance, I don’t think there is a line crossed. But if I decide, hey, let’s get rid of your glasses. Let’s really add some gray to your hair because I think it will make you look more distinguished. Let’s add a handkerchief to your breast pocket. Let’s make your suit jacket red. And for an added bonus, I’ll add a pen over your left ear. Now I’ve added things to that environment that aren’t there. I’ve created a reality around you that doesn’t exist. That is unethical. That, to me, is the same as taking the picture of the firefighters on 9/11 and changing them from all white men to one white, one African American and one Latino. While it’s a nice idea to celebrate the diversity of our country, to do that, you are lying. You are creating a reality that doesn’t exist.”

(Our rock star nodded, with one of those slightly impressed and pleased faces. That’s about all I cared about at this point.)

This professor and I seem to disagree on what’s ethical along the lines of picture taking. He seems to think pictures should be a view of reality – and if you have to add things that aren’t there to make that reality, then that’s ok…because it’s art. I’m fully aware of what you can do to a photograph by changing the angle, changing the lighting and cropping. I’m aware that two people could shoot the same scene and produce two completely different photos. That’s art.

Purposefully adding to create a false reality? That’s a lie. Plain and simple.