MaryT's Rules for Sniffing Out Hipsters #1

Very rarely can a true hipster spell definitely correctly.

Remember when I won the hipster spelling bee several years ago? That word came up and three people ahead of me misspelled it. Thank God I was there to stop the bloodletting.

But back to you, hipster detective: once you have found the tell-tale trail of definately,definatly,definitly, or even defiantly--you are definitely on to something.

Proceed with caution. Do not give away any of your facebook network information! Stay tuned for more tips.

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Background: I am about to begin my first graduate school classes, which are all online. As such, I am required to complete an online orientation in order to be "allowed" to take my class next week. Part of this orientation includes a non-optional evaluation. Read below to find out why I should never be given a mandatory evaluation, even though I actually don't mind them at all. Perhaps therein lies the problem.

Question 8: Is there anything you would like to see added to the orientation? [Skipped.]

Question 9: What did you think of the online orientation overall?

I personally did not get a whole heck of a lot out of the orientation, but I (sort of) see why it is mandatory and how it could be extremely helpful for some people. To me, it seemed a lot like taking defensive driving online, where you're told that you must remain on a page you've finished reading for at least 20 more seconds to prove you've actually read it, which doesn't really prove anything except you know how to wait to refresh your browser. The VPN tutorial was the most helpful. I got a fair amount out of clicking through the discussion, too, but mostly because my future classmates appear to be very interesting people. The rest should be optional--like the quizzes. Several of the questions I didn't remember the answer to were simply because I knew I could look them up later. What good does it do me to know the *first* place I should look for help if I have a general idea of all the places? Years ago, I kept failing my written driving test because questions asked what the penalties for DWI were. I was never going to drive while intoxicated, but even if I were, I'm sure the police would let me know very clearly what the penalty was going to be, right? This is the material point, especially since the reason many people are taking an online course is because they have other things to do during the day than get to class. Like jobs and nose picking, for example. That said, I could see how someone who was not computer savvy beginning an online course could sink like a stone without such an orientation. But mandatory? The people who need it, who skip it, will certainly know better next time, eh? But that's harsh, so thanks for this quick review… I guess. I wonder if this is anonymous…

Question 8 (again, after unsuccessfully attempting to submit the evaluation, but being told I hadn't finished):Is there anything you would like to see added to the Orientation?
Even the write-in answers are mandatory?! Good Lord. I'd like to see more options for people who are already on Question 10 in their hearts.


I hope I pass!

The Last Dinosaur

My first year in college was the first year that some univeristy (in Ohio perhaps?? Ahh yes, Beloit it is; thank you google, my liege) put out this memo or somesuch to the faculty to advise them of what they could expect from their incoming students. It was called the "mindset list" and probably served to make the faculty feel like buying sports cars and dyeing their hair more than it helped them prepare relevant lecture notes. In any event, the memo was hugely popular and widely circulated and has been produced in each subsequent year.

I used to think the research for the list was really flawed. I remember for my incoming class, it said that "Black Monday in 1987 was as significant to them as the Great Depression." What they should have added was "in that it wasn't significant because they were in second grade and didn't know what that meant." But then they think we don't even recall the Challenger in 1986? I definitely remember that. Most of the list assumes that aside from the stock market crash of second grade which we would obviously have been keenly attuned to, we were mostly in a cultural coma until the 8th grade, awakening to find postage stamps very expensive and our skate wheels all in a line. I could go on, but you know, you're welcome to visit the link yourself and imagine what kind of cranky phrase I might interject. "But I had a pac man birthday cake!" (Actually, that was Matt--true story.)

What I still think is flawed about the list is that--perhaps by its inability to have hindsight ahead of time--it dwells only on how *young and naive* the people are and not how *old* they are in experiences compared to those behind them. My class is the last of an older generation and the last of an era. Not only are people my age the end of the disillusioned Gen X, we're the last generation where paper was not just the norm, it was the standard.

I started college ten years ago. And when I did: none of my friends had cell phones, we had a very high monthly long distance bill in our dorm room, and we thought our one roommate's tv/vcr combo was superslick! (only the wildly rich and the wildly impulsive had DVD players). I applied to college on a paper application and when I asked about sending in the newly-unveiled online common application, I was discouraged from doing so for the application's lack of credibility. (It was rumored that those who used it got wait-listed. And I believed that this was not only true, but likely linked to "my permanent file." You know--the one that never existed.)

I used to stand in line-- a very, very long line, at the registrar to add/drop classes, and perform a million other little chores in my daily routine that I think most college kids would find incredibly inconvenient these days. Also, my brand new laptop computer featured 60 MB of RAM and this impressed everyone (ish). Unfortunately, it used to get so hot that it scalded my bare legs on a number of occasions. Sacrifices.

Now I am starting college again and it's all brand new. I applied online for an online program and I am taking an online orientation that is designed to familiarize me with this wacky (and apparently new?) world of "the internet." I can contact my adviser and instructors during their virtual office hours. If I choose to, I never have to see a human being in the entire course of my degree program. No wait, I have two weeks of face to face. Rats! People and interaction! Bollocks!

On the other hand, my cell phone still plugs into my car cigarette lighter and is approximately the size and weight of a brick. It makes me feel like a guest star on L.A. Law, my favorite television program. Fine--that's not true exactly. But I do still hate cell phones and I still write letters. I write pages and pages of letters--real ones with the postage that I've apparently only ever known as being $0.32+ (false). I was the world's best pen pal at one point in my life and I'll be damned if Al Gore and his fiendish internet are going to put me out of business. (Excelsior, Team!)

My high school art teacher once ominously quipped that we're all going to evolve with T-Rex arms so we can just reach our keyboards, but nothing else. We're wasting all our energy replicating cells on elbows and such when it could be better used updating our twitter accounts.

Isn't it funny? No matter how you look at it--whether I am being crotchety, cell phone-hating me or super modern young person attending school on the internet me, I'm nothing but a dinosaur.

RAWR!

Dear Friend, Part I: Stay sweet! Don't ever change!

Note: I've begun this blog post more times than I care to count. Yet each time, my lengthy, LENGTHY entries get saved as drafts because they all end up meandering away from the point. I finally figured out the central theme here (I think; we'll see how this one goes) and will break it down further into sub-themes denoted by various yearbook entries for your series enjoyment. Being an obsessive compulsive is grand!

In the past few months, as my ten year high school reunion looms (well, in theory, if my high school--which is closed--were having one), I have been struck with a bizarre nostalgia. It's not that I miss being a so-called carefree teenager or any of the associated hormonal angst. I don't at all, but I am truly floored at how ten years passed in the blink of an eye. Because of that, I have become somewhat obsessed with finding out what's become of my past--now that I realize I'm old enough to have one. I began searching for familiar names on facebook and the google, knowing in these modern patriot act times, no one can hide for long. (Mwahaha??...ha?) For the most part, everyone turned out just like everyone who knew them always thought they would--or at least as far as I can glean from their carefully crafted online presences. The only one life ever seems much of a surprise to is yourself. And I can't decide if that's comforting or depressing.

On the phone yesterday, Angela and I laughed about how we both suddenly started driving like people who don't want to die, how we now consider "in good school district" a factor in our housing decisions, how one day the only real responsibility any of our friends had was a dog, then another day we all woke up with spouses and mortgages. In fact, in a bizarre twist, I learned from a photoset I stumbled onto, that an old friend and I both got married and closed on our houses the exact same days. This freaked me out enough to wonder if the Matrix was more than just an excellent movie with major crap sequels.

I started thinking about this hilarious commentary by Peter Sagal I listened to on the radio last week, in which he laments that everything he thinks is unique about himself he discovers to be a demographic trend for people in his exact demographic. I stayed in the car extra minutes to hear this comedic brilliance, but the idea that it's really true is kind of chilling and brings all kinds of weird fears about destiny and being owned by advertisers to the already overworked hamster on a wheel in my head.

Speaking of ten years ago nostalgia, how about we take a quick break for: The *ORIGINAL* Hampster Dance?! (We used to think this was so hilarious and clever...why?)

When next we meet, we can talk less about how no one really surprised anyone in their growing up-ness, and more about those heady days before the mad, mad millennium. Join us for Dear Friend, Part 2: Have a great summer! LYLAS!.

The Adventures of Crafty McGluestick

Hello pals,

I have mentioned a lot on here that I have become a crafting fiend lately. So even though this is not my typical blog content, I thought I'd at least bring you up to speed with some of my projects so you can feel better about being neglected. Be kind in your comments; these photos represent a LOT of time on my part.

Completed this morning: Crafty Apron Extraordinaire


For my part in this, I made the actual apron by hemming the white fabric and adding the apron tie fabric at the top, which matches the curtains I made for our kitchen. I also embroidered the little tomato in the bottom corner. The rest of the fantastic embroidery was done by my extraordinary craft swap partners in both the U.S. and Canada (!) from Craftster.

My contributions to those swappers' tea towels are as follows (newest to oldest, so you can see how I've improved). OD means it's an original design by me!

Crafty Dragon ahoy (OD)!


Dancing boots on a musical rainbow (OD)! (Please note that the amazing pineapples are another crafter's work.)


Chili Powder: the spiciest spice girl (OD)!


Bee and button flowers


Marshmallow (OD) and hot chocolate (the cute cupcake is not my work, sadly)

Transumers: Robots in Hawaiian Shirt Disguise

Sometimes I visit this blog and think "Oh, Mary hasn't posted lately." And then I remember, oh, that's me. I should get on that. The problem though is that I am suffering from what apparently has reached epidemic levels in America--and that is time poverty. That is, there's so much snarkiness and so little time to transcribe it. Tsk, tsk. Perhaps someone will invent a way for me to blog while I am going for a nature walk, or even when nature calls. What? You find this idea appalling?

Well how do you feel about being "transumers"? Do you even know that is what you are? Well friend, you ARE! I have attended several conferences lately that tell me so. But what is this? Simply put, these are people who, though always on the go, are never too busy to be consumers. That is, they're never not in a position to be so even though they don't have enough time in their lives to do all the things in their lives that they actively choose to be doing. Remember when I waxed vitriolic about how you could purchase everything in your hotel room? No accident! Yes, your little cave of respite after a long day of work is also your private little retail center. And a seminar I just attended on trends in tourism confirmed this--celebrated it, actually. Worse still is that barely a year and a half after my full-throated decrying of such a practice, I find myself brainstorming other ways to turn other once peaceful locations into a transumer center, especially after hearing the afore-mentioned speech delivered by a charismatic man who looked strikingly like Al Gore. I occasionally find myself thinking "well people want to buy, so why not stimulate our local economy?" and "Well, I trust Al Gore!" Excelsior!

Friends, have I become a Republican? I'm worried (not too much though; I can still feel my heart in my chest--and I still trust Al Gore!).

Speaking of my heart: everything in my heart tells me that the idea of pushing people into (more) constant consumerism is against everything in my heart. Perhaps these transumers wouldn't be so time-impoverished in their lives if they spent it breathing deeply and having actual human relationships than those who make sure every breath is a hectic and action-packed one.

Not that I am not guilty of this.My tendency as I write this is to try to pack in every quip that I have wanted to take the time to expound on the last few weeks while I was being transumed by work (I'm pretty sure that doesn't make any sense, but I can't stop saying transumer). But I don't want to transume you...or me either. Thank God that Husby here is committed to mellowing me out.

I want you to know that I've been happy and engaging in life meaningfully--and not transuming. While not delivering daily (or even weekly) to all of you, Husby and I have been having amazing conversations as he prepares to embark on his great forest adventure for the next six weeks. I've been traveling a lot, too. I read The Kite Runner, which completely knocked me silly in its amazingness. (I know, I know--welcome to 2005! Don't look now, but it's video chat!) I finished my embroidery swap (welcome back, life!). And I love, love, love my job. I get excited to go to it every day and sometimes I forget to take lunch! Wow. So I've missed you, but you need not fear I've been transumed. But I'll tell you more about that after I finish reading this SkyMall catalog...

P.S. My apologies to those of you who just started visiting this blog after the Buzz article. What a disappointment for you!