Just Sayin'

So, I'm not a big deal or anything (seriously though), but I recently did a poster presentation at the Mid-Atlantic Writing Centers Association Conference at Drexel. It was a great, fun experience. Anyway, as I was putting the presentation together, I stuck a photo of a Beluga whale on the poster (because, apparently, I can't take anything seriously). Why did I do that, you may ask? Well, because I'm a quirky person and no one told me I couldn't. One minute I was writing some stuff up for the poster and I just woke up and thought, "Beluga whales, I like them, I'm going to put them on the poster." And I did. They're cute. They have cute faces. They make cute expressions. I asked my presentation partner if I could put a whale on the poster and she was like "uh, why?" and I said "because it's the writing center Beluga whale." I don't mean to brag, but I coined that phrase: the writing center Beluga whale. Enough said. H...

So, I'm graduating from college in May and, thus, I have never been less enthusiastic about doing school work. (But, seriously, senior-itis is a real and serious condition that impacts thousands of graduating seniors every year). Consequently, I've been slacking off and watching some TV. As many of you know, Game of Thrones is my absolute favorite TV show. However, true to form, I also watch lots of other, more obscure shows. That being said, I wanted to share with you some of favorite little known TV shows. Fortitude (2015) - I discovered this show on an off chance on Amazon Prime (which, spoiler, is how I discover most TV shows) and devoured the first season in approximately two days. This is a new British drama/thriller/mystery show that takes place in a small town in the arctic circle. It's difficult to describe the plot without giving too much away, but, suffice it to say that a shocking discovery and several grisly murders interrupt life in this small town with un...

The other day I was walking outside at night and I noticed a really bright star and I thought, "huh, maybe that's a planet...maybe that's Venus...or Pluto." Now, I know you can't really see Pluto in the night sky, but, as far as I'm concerned, Pluto is still a planet. I listen to scientists about most things, like global warming and zika virus, but I'm choosing to ignore science here. Pluto is a planet and that's final. It's like, if I see a long necked dinosaur in a museum, I'm going to call in a Brontosaurus. People will be like, "oh no, it's a scientific name-latin-thingymajig," and I'll be like "yeah, yeah, it looks like a Brontosaurus to me." That's how I feel about Pluto. Like, if we had to get rid of a planet, why did it have to be Pluto? It should have been Uranus. Uranus is a joke anyway. Pluto was a good planet. A serious planet. I feel that making it into a dwarf planet wasn't fair to Pluto. ...

So, I'm currently taking a class on African Art History and one of the assessments in the class is a quiz on the geography of Africa. Now, I like this class a lot and find it really interesting, but, when I first heard about the quiz, I was a little annoyed. I was like "really? is  this middle school or something? do I really have to do this?" It seemed kind of silly to me because the last time I had to take a geography quiz was 7th grade. It turns out the quiz was necessary. I am profoundly bad at geography. When my professor was explaining the quiz, he said something to the effect of "I find that this quiz is necessary because American students tend to be bad at geography." Now, the idea that Americans are bad at geography a fairly common stereotype that people, particularly Europeans, have about Americans. I've always thought it was a little unfair, but it turns out that it's totally true. I looked at a blank map of Africa to study for the quiz an...

So, yesterday was Groundhog's Day, which, here in Pennsylvania, is a pretty big deal. Now, I like Groundhog's Day -- mostly because it's the one day a year you can get accurate weather reporting. Weather people lie to you ALL THE TIME. Like, sometimes they'll tell you there's going to be snow and it ends up being sunny. Sometimes they tell you it will rain and there's sleet. If a groundhog tells  you there will be six more weeks of winter, you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be six more weeks of winter (partly because it's Pennsylvania and winter lasts basically until June). Nonetheless, groundhogs are pretty accurate when asked about the weather. Like, if I had a choice, I would have a groundhog tell me the weather every day. This is because I trust groundhogs (or, as I call them, woodchucks -- which I know is sacrilege in Pennsylvania). They're trustworthy animals. I mean, think about it. Groundhogs are fat little ground squirrels with...

I don't like February. No, it's not because of the cold. No, it's not because of the snow. No, it's not because of Valentine's Day -- although, come to think of it, I don't like any of those things either. No, it's because of the nonsensical spelling of the name of the month. I have a longstanding and well documented opposition  to the illogical rules of the English language, however, February is a particularly egregious example. F-E-B-R-U-A-R-Y What? Why is it spelled that way? Who came up with that?? I'm not exactly sure who standardized spelling in the English language, but that person was clearly unaware that 99.9% of all English speakers pronounce February FEB-U-AIR-E not FEB-RUE-AIR-E. Maybe I just come from a part of the country where people pronounce things incorrectly, but pronouncing the first R just sounds super weird to me. Apparently there's some debate about the pronunciation, but I've never met someone who pronounced the ...

If you're on the east coast of the US right now, you're probably being buried alive in snow from Winter Storm Jonas (can we collectively agree to fire the person who decided to name a blizzard after a boy band?). Do you know what would be great in a blizzard like this? A mammoth. You can't drive your car in the snow? Climb on top of a mammoth. Mammoths are the original four wheel drive. Don't have snow tires? Hitch a sled to your mammoth! Mammoths are very fuel efficient, practical, all terrain vehicles. Now, I know what you're thinking: mammoths are extinct, right? Yes, they are...for now. I'm not a scientist. However, if I was a scientist, I would be devoting all my time and energy to resurrecting the Woolly Mammoth. Let me explain. Humans are mostly responsible for the extinction of mammoths (this is why we can't have nice things). Yes, there is some evidence that suggests that climate change may have pushed mammoths to extinction, but there is also a...