What irks me... every now and then

Ok, so for many people who know me, I generally let a lot of stuff people say slide.  I'll admit it, we're all culpable of saying things when we really haven't thought out the implications. One of those things that repeatably gets said around me involves that fact that I look young for my age. I'll admit it, I don't try hard to look older, but I also don't try to look younger than I really am. What are those remarks? They are the unintentional ageist remarks young adults (22+) quite often hear.

I know I'm not alone in hearing "oh, I thought you were a student" or "you really don't look old enough to ___" or the best "really, you're 25?!! Gosh, I thought you were ____ (usually an age in the teens)". I mean, if I were to reverse those comments to be a comment on how old the person looked, it would A) be insulting, and B) imply that I thought that person wasn't equipped to be doing the job or activity they're doing due to their age.

For awhile (like most of my life), I've let these kinds of comments slide. Most women in my family do look younger than they really are and I will consider myself very lucky one day when I'm 45 and feeling like an old hag and someone says I look like I'm in my 20s. But what really set me off onto a path of thinking about ageist comments was an experience someone I knew had at a professional conference.  There's this friend of mine that I encouraged to get presentation experience and she submitted a proposal, which got accepted. She worked long and hard on it, and did a fabulous job. What really irked me was when we were reviewing her presentation feedback forms and some of the comments read "what a great job she did, considering how young she is".  I was flabbergasted!  Age shouldn't have anything to do with how qualified someone is.

Grr it really makes me mad.

Update

Today I was taken away and locked up! Thank you all for helping raise bail for me. Today I raised $80, 10% of my personal goal for Jerry's Kids. That is enough to pay for 1 minute of research, or 3 flu shots (with come change left over). Thank you everyone! If you forgot and still want to donate, my website is still open to securely take money.

Roll Tide!

Ok, I'll admit it. I LOVE FOOTBALL. College football to be precise. Which leads to faux debates with J about college vs. professional. I like the screwups and the bad seasons. I think the skill and unseasoned-ness of college students is awesome. It probably comes from having this thing for wanting to work with college students and see them be successful. Anywho, I know I'm right that college football "rawks!", so to speak.

That's not excatly the point of this post. The point is, I'm going to 'Bama this weekend to watch the USC beat Alabama (I know, in my dreams, cuz 'Bama is having a great season so far). So I'm going to watch the game in Alabama... on TV. Yup, I'll be watching from Birmingham, but I'll be cheering for the Gamecocks. Go Gamecocks!

So weeks ago, I signed up to help raise money for Jerry's Kids, a part of the MDA, or the Muscular Dystrophy Association. I have a week and a half before I'm thrown in Jail. Here's what you can do: go to https://www.joinmda.org/aiken2009/annev and donate. It's that easy. Please consider giving a little (or a lot). So you know how much of a difference just a little bit of money makes, I've included a chart of what donations go towards:
* $30 - Flu Shot
* $82 -1 Minute of Research
* $100 - Support Group Session
* $800 - Child to MDA Summer Camp
* $2,000 - Assist with Wheelchair or Leg Braces
* $4,000 - Cabin of 5 friends at MDA Summer Camp

If just 3 people donate $10, together they can help pay for a flu shot and help these kids stay healthy. My Goal is to send a child to the MDA Summer Camp, so I'm trying to get to $800 dollars.

Fall Break Thursday

I love students. But sometimes, a small break from them like fall break can be rejuvinating and refreshing. I'm already off to a good start this morning and I'm excited to get more stuff done, like grading final exams. (If you're one of my students, the good news if I'm half way through grading your finals. The bad news is I'm not posting grades until Monday).

Fall is starting to be kinda nice here in South Carolina, but unfortunatly it's just not that good of a season here. The leaves kinda change, but they also do that when we have drought conditions. No, the season I really, really like in the South is Spring. There's so many beautiful things blooming at that time, that it catches your breath with the beauty surrounding you. Sorry Southern Fall, you lose to Southen Spring.

USCA's Small Obsession

So I came back to campus today and found this gem in my email from a faculty member on campus:

Yes, that is an Albino Squirrel. Like anything albino, apparently these are pretty rare. I guess something must be in the water because this is the second Albino Squirrel to take up residence on the campus. Our last Albino Squirrel died last spring. and the death was verified, as someone found the dead animal on the ground.

Why I can't do dinner and a movie

So I had dinner tonight with a friend I haven't seen in a couple of months because we've both been so busy. Now is when I realize, yet again, how talkative I am. We met for dinner at 7:30 (YAY IHOP), and hung out till about 9:30 just talking and catching up. It was a good catch up and I hope we don't wait so long before hanging out again. I think if I go another couple of months before we have a big catch up event, we'll end up needing to have a semi-slumber party for all the talking we'll do. Ah, new friends are wonderful and it's great to find like minded people in a small town.

In the last week...

Oh, shoot, I skipped a week! Why, because I'm lazy and prime time TV shows have started up. Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Bones, Fringe, House, Project Runway, HIMYM, and Big Bang Theory all require a serious amount of time and dedication to watch. I mean, it's not just enough to watch them during the show time (which I miss half the time due to silly things like performances of the Best Little W****House in Texas), but these shows require serious, I mean SERIOUS commitment. I must find an appropriate blog and analysis of every show after I watch them to find the hidden, more deeper meaning behind them. Oh yeah, I also moved... :) I love moving and I have a cute little place with my sister and we have a bit of a yard, so let the cookouts begin. Anyhow... now I'm back to blogging.

Now that my big adventure is done for the season, I'm going to take a small break from acting and give writing a chance. I've been given the chance to write a couple of short chapters in a tutor training handbook and I'm really excited to get started. Hopefully, this will turn out better than some of my grad school and undergrad papers because I actually want to write these chapters. I'm going to start thinking of a timeline for this project and hopefully have an idea by the end of the weekend of when I'm going to get what done.

Also, the book I can't put down (but just happens to be kind of lost cause I haven't unpacked it from the move):

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver- I have no clue why I like this book so much other than the ideas speak to me, it's plainly written so it's a quick read while talking about new concepts, and it's an interesting concept. The book is about the Kingsolver's family moving from the desert to Virginia so they can be localvores who don't tax the land. I like the fact that there's a lot of practical deep wisdom there and it's presented in many different formats and viewpoints. I hope this might be a top contender in our reading selection.

Two for Friday

I found this on my learning professionals listserv and thought it'd be really great for students out there to see to understand the gist of learning styles. Also, I'm attaching a link to the Learning Styles 60-second podcast I did this past spring.



Podcast: Learning Styles Info and Activities

Book Reviews

I'm on this reading committee and we're in charge of selecting a book for our yearly first year reading experience. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, in the world of Higher Ed, the answer is always "it depends". Why, do you ask? Because we've been meeting since LAST September to select a book for 2010-2011, and still haven't found one and we were supposed to be done last spring. We do have a good excuse... the theme we choose is a really hard one, and we're a bunch of hard-headed stubborn folk who won't change our theme. So we're still reading. Here is my year in review recap of the book's we've read:

Theme: Environmental Responsibility

Book: The World Without Us
Awesome book and it really helps you think about what you're actions right now, or the actions of your grandfather, mean and how long it would take for those actions to reverse. Why we didn't choose this book even though a lot of us liked it: The language was a bit difficult and we felt it would be over the heads of most (not all) of our school's freshmen. It would, however, be a good companion to whatever we choose. Definitely a must read if you're interested in your personal environmental impact. I'd highly recommend the chapter on cities, buildings, and houses, and the chapter on plastics.

Book: In Defense of Food
Stretching our theme quite a bit to include human health and nature, we all read this book and really liked it. I personally, did not like it. I felt it was a bit too much whack science, but others in the group disagreed. While we really like the book, it was a bit too much outside of the environmental responsibility theme and would require too much stretching to connect the dots for the freshmen. Our student member of the committee also felt it was too boring.

Book: Unbowed
This book is also great and discusses one woman's effort to try and re-plant vegetation in her native country that's been over developed by humans. It's really good and demonstrates what someone can do even if they come from the lowest of poverty levels. However, we didn't choose the book because it catered a bit more to the female point of view, the narrative takes place in Africa and wouldn't be as relevant to our incoming students. Also, it didn't fit just right with our theme because it focused more on the vegetation aspect of environmental responsibility and on the aspect of social injustice.

More book reviews to come (maybe next week?).