I used to always think I didn't want children, and to a certain extent, I'm still skeptical.  I mean, I can't stand children.  But now that I'm getting older, I'm starting to wonder if the problem isn't the children themselves, but rather how they're parented.

I suppose several factors influenced this change in my stance: observing how children behave (and how their parents respond to their bad behavior) while working in the shoe store, psychology class, the whole topic of how the spread of technology and psychiatric medications are affecting the younger generation (i.e. the books Lunar Park and Generation Me and the album Fear of a Blank Planet), and then this interview gave me the last little push over the edge.  (Okay, the bit about the interview is more of a joke playing to the expectations of the people on a site I used to frequent...I do admire the man greatly, but part of the reason I tried to bring him up in almost every post over there was because I knew it drove them nuts...I had already more or less reached this "maybe I do want children afterall" point before seeing that video.)

You see, I didn't think I had the patience to put up with children.  I thought I'd make a lousy parent.  But then I observed lots of parents with their children when I worked in the shoe store.  A lot of children acted like maniacs in the store, and here's the thing...their parents would do nothing about it.  Maybe they would tell their children to stop, but they would never follow through with the promised punishments.  How is a child supposed to learn not to throw a tantrum at the slightest drop of a hat if you never actually discipline them for it?  No wonder I think most little kids are utter brats...their parents aren't teaching them how to behave properly in public.  Now I'm not advocating spanking or violent punishment, but it certainly does disturb me that most parents are now afraid to punish their children at all.

And then when these children get older and their parents get tired of their bad behavior, it's off to the psychiatrist to put the kids on medications for ADD, ADHD, and other disorders.  I have to wonder if ADD and ADHD are truly disorders, or if they're just invented to sell more prescription drugs.  I mean, the symptoms just sound like the children were never taught how to behave, not that they really do have a mental illness.  And if it is really a true psychiatric disorder, why do we feed the kids pills to cover up the problem instead of giving them therapy to actually treat the problem...after all, the pills only work as long as you're taking them.  Oh, that's right, pills are the quick fix...no one has time to try and actually solve the problem.

Let's not forget the impact that technology is having on the younger generation.  Generally speaking, the Internet is a good thing, but it does get abused frequently.  It may help some build better social connections in "real life", but for many others it's just a crutch for avoiding social contact (I must admit that I do suffer from this problem, but I think the children of today probably suffer from it even worse than I do).  The reason I think it's going to be worse for the children of today is because a lot of their parents are keeping them locked inside because they're too scared for their children's safety.  This isn't good.  Let your children outside to play and get scraped knees.  Let them run around the neighborhood.  I don't think the world is really any more dangerous than it was when I was a little girl...I just think the media is doing a better job of scaring the shit out of us than they used to...everyone is more aware of what's happening in our world now.

And then I'm hearing about parents with older children who are so paranoid about their children walking a short distance to school that they're making them call them on a cellphone to tell them that they got to school safely.  That's just paranoid in my opinion.  It's unnecessary.  I mean, none of us had to do that when we were children and we made it to adulthood just fine.  Maybe it's because I'm just biased against cellphones in general, but I don't think that's it.  Your children are never going to grow up if you keep spying on them like a hawk...they have to be given room to breathe.  Trust me, the world won't come to an end if your kid doesn't call you every time they arrive somewhere.

I've come up with a list of things I've promised myself I'm going to do if I have children:

1. If I tell them I'm going to punish them for doing a certain behavior, I will follow through on the threat of punishment.
2. As long as we're living in a somewhat safe neighborhood, I will let them out to play.  I might even make them go out to play.
3. No video or computer games.  Hey, they existed when I was a kid and I got by just fine only playing them at other people's houses.
4. No cellphones until they go off to college...or maybe I might let them carry a cellphone if they're going off on a date in high school, but they will only carry when they're "going out"...not for school.  One way or the other, they will not have text messaging as long as I have to pay for their cellphone...I think text messages are completely useless and I'm not having them mangle the English language with textspeak.
5. I will be completely frank with them on matters of sexuality...as soon as they ask me, I will tell them the truth about "where babies come from".  I think it's disgusting that people won't tell small children the truth...I mean, it's not like you have to tell them about the finer nuances of sexual activity...you can save talk about contraception and technique until they're old enough to actually need it.  Are eggs and sperm and genitalia really that offensive?  Grow up, people!
6. Computer time will be limited.  For that matter, so will television time.  They're going to get acquainted with these wonderful stacks of paper bound between pieces of cardboard...they're called books.
7. No psychiatric medications.  If they do indeed have a psychiatric disorder that needs treatment, they will get therapy.
   
8. Absolutely no Heelys.  I will buy them skates, a bike, a scooter, a skateboard, or pretty much anything else with wheels but those.  You see, the difference is that the other items I listed are things that you clearly don't use indoors, and you usually wear protection with them.  Heelys, on the other hand, aren't particularly good for outdoor use (on account of only having one wheel), so children basically use them as license to act like complete jerks indoors and skate up and down the aisles in the stores...they don't have a legitimate recreational purpose.

Of course, I suppose this is all a moot point...I'm not seeing anyone right now, and if I continue at the rate I'm going, I'll probably never wind up married...no one is ever interested in me.  Unless the impossible happens and I make a really good impression on Mr. Wilson at the Houston or Dallas shows in October, I'll probably never wind up with children. ;)

*I would like to say that I am not criticizing the parents I've seen on Vox.  At least the parents that get featured on [this is good] appear to all be first-rate parents from their posts (I haven't read any parents' posts that weren't featured there), so I'm prepared to say that this site has a much higher average of decent parents than the normal population.  My critique is based more on parents I've observed in person...no offense meant towards any parents on here.

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Looking through PC Magazine's Top 100 Undiscovered Websites, I found Website Grader.  Naturally, I was tempted to see how my blog stacks up.

Here's how I did: http://www.websitegrader.com/wsgid/222023/default.aspx

My blog got a score of 72, which I imagine rides mostly on the Alexa rank of Vox (last I recall, subdomains do not get counted separately, so your Alexa rank is really the rank of Vox overall).  If your blog actually gets read (unlike mine), your score will probably be higher.

Some interesting things I noticed that apply to all of us:

1. The meta-data description is blank...wouldn't it be awesome if they added a feature to let us come up with a meta-data description for each individual blog?
2. Apparently Vox uses twice as many meta keywords as recommended.
3. We all have multiple H1 headings...apparently that's unusual.

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This thought occurred to me this afternoon after a little event in my Microbiology lab.

I was looking through a microscope at some pond scum (it was the basic "let's get everyone familiar with the microscopes" introduction).  At first I just saw these tiny rod-shaped bacteria squiggling around quite rapidly, and random bits of trash (dead plant matter, perhaps?).  Then I saw this object that was roughly ovular, with one end slightly pointed, and the other end had a very distinctive cap.  I get really excited and proclaim that I found an egg for a parasitic worm in my slide.  Then I had to put myself through the mental exercise of remembering what kind of parasitic worm it came from.  Clonorchis?  No, that can't be it.  Then the words japonicum and mansoni sprung to mind.  A schistosome, perhaps?

Of course, as soon as class gets out, I have to immediately look up these parasitic worms to figure out what it was...it was definitely something I saw in my Parasitology lab two years ago.  It turns out that it was Paragonimus westermani (I knew it was some kind of flatworm!).

Anyway, I go off to lunch, and on my way back, I reach an epiphany of sorts.  I got that excited over identifying . . . the . . . egg . . . of . . . a . . . parasitic . . . worm?  Perhaps I am on the right track after all, if I got excited over something like that.  Or if it wasn't that, maybe I was just excited that my brain hasn't turned to complete mush in the past two years.  I may just make it after all.

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A semester of college never properly starts until the first time the fire alarm goes off in your dorm.  As you can guess, that's exactly what happened this morning.  I had returned to my room for the two hour break I have between my morning classes and my afternoon class.  It took me a while to realize what it was...the fire bell sounded more like someone with a really obnoxious alarm clock rather than a real alarm.  As soon as I figured out what it was (I peeped out the door and saw an RA knocking on all the doors), I told my roommate to climb out of bed and stick something on her feet.

I overheard a small snippet of conversation between two RAs on the way out of the building to the effect of this not being a drill, but I wasn't certain if I had heard them correctly at the time.  The south wing girls gathered in the parking lot closest to us until the RA in charge of us told us we had to stand in the field across the street.  I was still trying to figure out if I had heard what I thought I heard from those two RAs, then I catch a whiff of smoke.  I look around and discover that a girl directly behind me had just lit a Marlboro and was huffing away.  I mean, lighting up a cigarette when everyone else around her is trying to figure out if it's a drill or the real thing?  Could this girl have exhibited any worse taste than that?  (Granted, I think smoking exhibits incredibly poor taste period, but smoking during a evacuation that might have been for a real fire?...that's just wrong on so many different levels!)  Anyway, it turns out it wasn't a drill, which probably means some jerk pulled the fire alarm as a joke.

I think North Texas needs to implement the same fine that UNL did for pranksters pulling the fire alarm (I think they had raised it to $2,000)...once UNL raised the fine, the pranksters stopped.

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Do you own all the albums of any particular musical artist or group? Who?
Submitted by dutterman.

Oh boy, this is one hell of a question...especially since there are several ways to interpret it.  Do we count only studio albums, or are we supposed to include live albums as well?  How about remixes or EPs?  And then what about bands that have only released one album?  Surely they don't count.  And then what about bands you collect obsessively, but you won't buy any albums of theirs from a specific era?

For the purposes of this post, I'll define "all albums" as studio albums only (no singles, no EPs), and exclude artists that have only released one or two albums (which means that Blackfield, LCD Soundsystem, Gruff Rhys, and others would have to be excluded).

Here's the list:
Richard Ashcroft
Björk
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Kate Bush
Stephen Malkmus
Opeth
Pavement
Porcupine Tree
Radiohead
Super Furry Animals (okay, I don't have Hey Venus yet, but it just came out earlier this week and won't be released in the US until next year, so give me a few weeks to scrape up the cash for the vinyl...there's too many things coming out right now that I need)
The Verve
The White Stripes

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My last day working at the shoe store was on Sunday.  Yes, that's right, my last day just had to be on tax-free weekend.  Actually, the tax-free weekend really wasn't that bad...it certainly wasn't as bad as it was at the Lakeline store the previous year (having one register certainly didn't help).  I am going to miss my coworkers (but not really the job itself).  Of course, it's definitely time to move on.

Anyway, most of this week was spent getting my things packed up so I could move into the dorms.  Yes, I'm finally back in school full-time after taking a two year break.  I arrived in Denton on Thursday afternoon around 3:30, got my parking permit, then finished unloading the car by 6pm.  It feels weird driving up on my own to the dorms...I've always had my parents drive me up in the past.  Hell, I wasn't even driving until earlier this year (no comment on how I didn't get my license until after my 22nd birthday...that's a whole post in itself).

So far I'm adapting to campus life pretty well...seem to get along with the roommate okay, I've gotten everything somewhat organized, I'm getting used to the chow halls, I now own a map of Denton (useful if I end up going around in circles like I did last night!), my father bought us a fridge today (he drove up to drop off a few things I forgot), and I even went to a party my first night in town (no, there wasn't booze...it was a civilized gathering of adults).  Now if only I can unloft my loft bed, I'll be set (this is the point where I make the shameful confession that I've been sleeping on the couch because I just can't cope with the loft bed).  Otherwise, life is pretty good right now.

Let's see if I still feel this way when classes start on Monday. ;)

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When driving alone, what do you do?  Sing along to the radio?  Think about your day?  Something else?
Submitted by carapiccoladiva.  

When I'm alone in my car, I stick a CD in the stereo and crank the volume up (but not too loud...six and a half bars usually suffices...I do care about my hearing).  Because of how fussy I am about the condition of my CDs, I burn copies for the car (sourced from FLAC files of paranoia-mode rips from the real CDs that I keep on my hard drive) of what I want to listen to.

So what albums do I have copies of in my car right now?  Here goes:

The Life Pursuit

Belle & Sebastian

Blackfield II

Blackfield

Tago Mago

Can

Future Days

Can

At War with the Mystics

The Flaming Lips

If_Then_Else

The Gathering

Sound of Silver

LCD Soundsystem

Blackwater Park

Opeth

In Absentia

Porcupine Tree

Deadwing

Porcupine Tree

Fear of a Blank Planet

Porcupine Tree

Candylion

Gruff Rhys

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Sunday may just be the most boring day of the whole week, especially if you're alone.  It seems like everyone is at home with their families, so social sites online become a bleak and barren landscape because no one's there.  Most stores close early, so there isn't much choice in places to go.  This may be fine if you've got family at home (and get along with them) or if you're of the churchgoing persuasion, but if you're not, it's a lonely day.

Okay, my sister is at home, but she hardly counts as company.  I find it amazing that she calls me rude and antisocial...I open my mouth to say even one thing to her (nothing rude, usually somewhat polite), and she transforms into a screaming banshee.  True, she may have more friends than me (easy, considering that I really don't have any), but we're all baffled as to why that is...from what we can see, she's every bit as rude, aloof, and bitchy with them as she is with us.  Why is it that a friendly and polite person can't make friends, but a screaming banshee gets them in bucketloads?

Anyway, the reason I'm stuck at home alone with my little sister is because my parents left town for my grandmother's funeral.  If we could find a trustworthy housesitter to take care of the cats and our rabbit, we'd have gone along with them, but as you can probably guess, we didn't since my sister and I are still here.  I have a really bad feeling about this upcoming week...let's see which one of us cracks first.

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About an hour ago, I was asleep.  If it wasn't for what happened during the last hour, I'd probably still be asleep (so what if I wanted to sleep in until 1pm...that's my problem, not yours).

It all began just before noon when my little sister woke me up asking where the fire extinguisher was.  Fire extinguisher?  No, I wasn't dreaming...she really did need one.  My sister was grilling something on our cooktop and it had caught on fire.  I told her I didn't think we had one (or if we did, my parents stuck it somewhere no one would think to look).  Grace calls my father, he tells her where he thinks it is, she doesn't find it, and then she finally decides to call the fire department.  (Geesh, that would have been the first thing I would have done if I couldn't find the fire extinguisher.)

I rush to put some clothes on while my sister makes the call (after the incident where I had to move my car a few weeks ago, I am not going outside in my PJs again if I can absolutely avoid it).  We then rush to get our rabbit and four cats outside.  Grace was holding Sophie until the first truck showed up, at which point the cat decided to run and hide.

The best part about this whole ordeal is how many vehicles showed up...first there was just one normal fire truck.  A few moments later, the ladder truck shows up.  Then a third fire truck, the fire chief's SUV, and a police car show up.  All this for a small fire on a Jenn-Air grill that had been contained under a large metal cookie sheet that the first truck put out in a few seconds.  I suppose the local fire department must have been incredibly bored...there's no other explanation for that many fire trucks.

Needless to say, it's been a pretty exciting morning (sorry, afternoon).  I'm definitely awake now.  The question is, what am I going to eat now that the grill caught on fire and our microwave starts arcing for no apparent reason?  I think I'll just eat out for lunch instead.

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My last post was about how I've had the last four days off from work and school.  So what did I do with my time the last four days?  Did I get anything done that I said I would?  Well, yes and no.

I did get my things sorted out in my room, although it's still a mess in here...no sense completely unpacking when I've got to move into the dorms in just two weeks!  I also got some nice CD crates from IKEA (and a matching LP box too...might have to go back to get another one), which solve the problem of how to store and transport my media collection.

On the knitting front, I did decide what to do in place of the too-small hood on my cardigan in green Tahki Baby (which was to eliminate the hood altogether since I don't have enough yarn left to make it longer), but I still haven't finished it.  I haven't sewn buttons on my burgundy cardigan (in Knit Picks Gloss) because I still haven't found buttons small enough that I like...that's the trouble with fingering weight garments!  And then I discovered that I didn't have enough yarn to finish the top with pleated ruffles I was making out of some old yarn (taupe Reynolds Tiara) from another sweater I had unraveled, but I knew I was running a risk anyway...I have no idea how many balls I originally had, and the unraveled balls are all different sizes from each other (I must have had several balls with bad spots--there's no other reason I can think of as to why there aren't more "whole balls" left than there are).  I suppose this would be a compelling argument for me to get a scale that could measure grams somewhat reliably.  It looks like I won't be getting around to unraveling that sweater out of purple Wildflower DK and doing anything with it by the time I have to go back to school...I was hoping that I'd finally get something wearable out of that stuff after all these years (it started life as that beautiful Anna Sui lace sweater with matching kerchief from VK Winter '99 [I think], but the yarn wasn't stretchy enough for the lace rib and it was a contortionist's contraption to pull it on and off [if you want to knit that sweater, think stretchy merino wool or perhaps something like Cascade Fixation...it needs to be stretchy], and then the second incarnation was a top that might have been okay if the bust was at least four inches smaller around...this yarn doesn't drape enough to look nice loose).  On the bright side, at least I've got some yarn sitting around for two pairs socks...perfect knitting for when classes are in session.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any work done on my drawing portfolio...I must do some work on it tomorrow after I get off work so I can be prepared to ask my instructor questions on Thursday if I need to (it's the last class day before our portfolios are due).  I should also remember to order a transcript to send to North Texas, even though I really don't need credit for this drawing class.  For that matter, I've got to call the College Board and have them send my AP scores because North Texas evaluates AP credit and foreign language in a different manner from Nebraska.

And now the sad bit...I have no idea how I'm going to get a loan to cover the part that the Federal Stafford loans don't cover.  So far I've been turned down twice, and I was applying with a cosigner.  I've got a bad feeling I'm screwed as far as private loans go.  The school did offer the Parent PLUS loans, but my parents do not want to go that route.  I fear we'll have to.  It'd be so nice if some money simply materialized on my doorstep right now.

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