Personal Hygiene Problems

I have noticed that a lot of guys at Purdue do not wash their hands after using the bathroom. As a result, it is best to consider alternative actions before you shake hands with, share pencils with, or accept things from male Purdue undergrads. That is all.

Why Is the Canal Green?

I spent some time in public this St. Patrick's Day and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised to notice that many people I saw had embraced its true meaning. For those of you who might not know, St. Patrick is the Patron Saint of Ireland; he spent several decades of the 5th century bringing the Catholic faith to the Irish people. I was glad to see that there were many people who embraced their Irish roots today and celebrated the teachings of St. Patrick in the best way that they possibly could, by getting drunk on green beer. Since I am Catholic, I was also glad to see that there were many non-Catholics who wanted to don their green sweaters and celebrate the life of someone who had a major impact on Catholicism by joining their friends at the local pub.

Since I just gave you an incredible dose of sarcasm in the previous paragraph, let me use the following serious sentence to balance your diet. While showing disdain for people celebrating St. Patrick's Day in the wrong way or for the wrong reasons would be ultimately hyprocitical on my part, I do not think that hypocrisy would apply if I express my discord with the local and federal governments. In my opinion, it is not right to fervently enforce the separation of Church and state in matters like praying in school and displaying the Ten Commandments in public areas but it is okay to hold parades and dye bodies of water in celebration of a Catholic Saint. I could say the same for other Christian holidays like Christmas, and the argument would be at least as valid.* Although they do, government agencies may not simply choose which rules they want to follow and expect to be respected.



*As I have already said I am Catholic, and as a result I am most knowledgable with issues regarding Catholicism and Christianity, but I am sure that other religions can propose similar arguments.

Colts

So Edgerrin James signed with the Arizona Cardinals today. I for one have no problem with it. I think that it was brilliant to re-sign every starting and reserve receiver on the roster and letting the all-pro rusher, who was also good at picking up a blitz and catching passes as a check down receiver, find another team. It's okay because the team can draft Reggie Bush with the 30th pick in the first round this April, because everyone knows that the 29 previous teams don't want anything to do with him. If, by chance, that doesn't happen, the Colts still have three backs that are largely unproven as starters.

On a similar note, it seems that Mike Vanderjagt, the most accurate kicker in the history of the NFL, might be leaving the Colts. It doesn't matter, though, because he's only kicked 11 game-winning field goals and barely owns the record of 42 consecutive made field goals. I'm sure that there is another kicker who can do the job.

What A Waste

I have decided that everyone is a waste of something and, in an effort to identify all of the types, I have ranked and commented on each of them. You will see that this is true if you continue to read this post.

At the top of the totem pole is the person who is a waste of pleasance. This person is one who rises to the challenge of doing difficult things well in an orderly fashion, whose life is completely in control, and who makes sure that things stay that way by remaining diligent and focused. However, this security comes at the price of social skills. Perpetual order causes this person to lack the ability to easily interact with a person of another rank with the improbabilty of interaction increasing as the disparity between the ranks increases. This is the rarest of the types.

The second type is the person who is a waste of talent. This person has the potential to become a person who is a waste of pleasance, and can show glimpses of this type when the need arises, but all in all the waste of talent does not believe that becoming so orderly is worth sacrificing his or her social skills because the waste of talent still accomplishes difficult things satisfactorily in a truncated period of time. The waste of talent is the most versatile type and often uses his or her versatility to interact with other types. However, it is not easy to become a waste of talent without being a waste of pleasance because of the talent requirement. Despite this requirement, the waste of talent is still fairly common.

This type is not as common as the waste of time, though. The person who is a waste of time has some of the same characterists as the waste of talent, such as the ability to be sociable and to do work in a condensed period of time, but lacks the talent to satisfactorily complete difficult tasks in this period of time. In most cases this does not bother the waste of time because this type of person can still have a happy and ultimately successful life doing less difficult things. However, sometimes it causes the waste of time to be envious of the waste of talent, which would then either force the waste of time to set aside a larger part of the day to doing work in order to complete difficult tasks, or to give up trying to do anything at all because not trying would eliminate the possibility of failing.

This is the mindset of the waste of space. This type of person lacks the initiative to do anything prodcutive. Normally the waste of space likes to spend time with other people of the same type, but all too often the inability to do anything forces the waste of space to venture to other types in search of food or money. Unfortunately for the waste of space it has the unique capability of sucking the life-force out of every other type of person; this becomes more potent as the disparity between the types increases. This effect eventually causes the other type of person to cut ties with the waste of space, forcing him or her to search for another host. The waste of space continues this pattern until he or she either finds some amount of self worth and becomes a waste of time, or dies.

The reason I bring this up is because I had to interact with a waste of space on a "group" assignment today in my Spanish class. I was able to finish the assignment before my life-force was completely drained, but I think it was pretty close. Fortunately he was a Freshman and had probably become a waste of space upon entering college, but if he had been a waste of space since high school there would probably be one less waste of talent in the world today.

Hi, I'm a waste of talent. What are you?

I'm Addicted To Sprite

I think that I am just in the mood of questioning society, because now I want to talk about completely bogus addictions that are actually accepted by society. More specifically, I will discuss three addictions that I find hard to swallow: marajuana, food, and sex. If you disagree with my view because you feel controlled by one of these, I encourage you to visit a website or local support group about your problem. Each of the three bogus addicitons I have listed has its respective anonymous website in marajuana anonymous, overeaters anonymous, and sex addicts anonymous. Typing these phrases into any major search engine should provide you with the correct website.

I will start with the marajuana addiction. I think that this is bogus because, while it is an illegal substance banned by the United States government, there is no proof that it has any addictive properties. Let me just first mention that since it is illegal, there is no logical reason to use it unless you have a medical condition like glaucoma. This type of illegal activity has far more consequences than it does benefits, and you could get in serious trouble selling or using it. Second, the fact that marajuana contains no addictive substances sheds light on the fact that there is no excuse for claiming an addiction to it. Unlike other drugs with which your body becomes tolerant and dependent, marajuana physically does not do that. This means that a marajuana addiction is completely psychological. If you want to stop, all you need is willpower. Saying that someone has a marajuana addiction is being loose with the term.

I'm pretty sure that a physical need for food affects EVERY SINGLE LIVING ORGANISM ON THIS PLANET. This is instinctive, and as such I do not believe that it can be labeled as an addiction. It is like saying that you are addicted to breathing, because try as you might your body simply won't let you stop. The claim of a food addiction is associated with overeating. As you may have seen on some commercials, some people believe that if you are are overweight by some value, say 100 pounds (I cannot remember the actual claim), that you are suffering from some kind of disease. This is false. If you are that much overweight, it is probably due to you eating more than you are supposed to for a long time. This would cause your stomach to expand. As a result, your body would not allow you to feel full if you didn't continue to overeat. This does not mean that you are diseased, though; it means that you are fat. Plain and simple. However, the sooner you accept this the sooner you can help yourself. Your stomach is an organ and if it can expand over time it can also contract over time. Eating the correct amount of food per meal will cause the contraction to occur. While this may give you an unpleasant feeling of not eating enough, you need to convince yourself that eating 2000 to 2500 calories a day will provide you with enough nourishment to survive. In fact, an average person can remain active for about a week without eating anything. If you have the problem of overeating you probably have a good layer of fat, which the body will gladly use in place of food to provide you with fuel for activity, so you could probably remain active for more than a week. The solution to this problem also hinges on willpower and, as a result, I do not think that this can be classified as an addiction.

This now brings me to the idea of being addicted to sex. I have heard that studies conclude that males think about sex, on average, several times per minute. If you are male and claim to be a sex addict, stop. This is another case of willpower. Your body will not stop working properly if you don't fulfill your sexual desires. If you are female and claim to be a sex addict, stop. You probably think about sex as much as the average male. Congratulations. Just like a man, your body will not shut down if you don't fulfill your sexual desires. Plus, I'm pretty sure that there are lots of women whose sexual desires aren't fulfilled that don't consider themselves sex addicts, so you'll be in good company.

The Shame Of Society

I believe that there is a real problem with American society regarding certain subjects. One that I wish to highlight now is its acceptance and, to an extent, encouragement of disorders. I am not talking about many mental disorders with which thousands of people struggle every day. Rather, I am talking about the abundance of psychological disorders that seem to afflict every other person in the nation. For instance, attention defecit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, seems to be an epidemic in today's society.

Before I continue, let me say that I understand that there are many people who are tremendously affected by this disorder and require treatment in order to be productive. But I believe that ADHD is greatly overdiagnosed. A large number of the people who are initially diagnosed with ADHD are boys in elementary school. I see an inherent problem with this, and let me tell you why.

Most every gradeshool boy can be considered hyperactive for some part of the day, usually during recess or other time when they are free. However, some boys take longer to transition from an active to a calm state, which could pose a problem during times when their heightened activity is disruptive. When these boys who seem to be naturally disruptive go through the natural processes of rebellion, looking for attention, and testing the bounds at school and at home, situations can become difficult. However, instead of confronting the problem and working toward a permanent solution that would enable the boys to control their bodies, teachers and/or parents decide that the child has a disorder and force him to take pills to temporarily solve the problem.

But several of the people that I have met that have ADHD routinely neglect to take their pills. This tells me that they feel that they can be productive without medication. Also, I have observed occasions when the person would be told to take the pills and instead this person promised to change his behavior. This tells me two things: that the medication is somehow unpleasant to ingest or its effects are unpleasant, neither of which I can claim as factual, and that on these occasions the person believed that he could control himself without the pills. This leads me to believe that he could control himself all the time if he wanted to, or at least enough to warrant the termination of treatment without ill-effects. However, as a society we accept the disorder as legitimate in cases that do not merit it and we encourage its diagnosis to remove misbehavior and further increase the idea of normalcy among people.

For the following paragraph I deem myself to be someone with the authority to offer a sound diagnosis. I believe that American society has a disorder. It suffers from a terrible affliction with symptoms including laziness, irreverence, and envy. It seeks to change those who are not in accordance with it and works to enforce complete acceptance of its beliefs at all cost. If left unchecked, the consequences could be dire.

Post #1

The following are my personal slogans that try to put to use. They should suffice until I find something about which to write.


Do not attempt to judge that which you do not understand. In addition to being a waste of time, it will almost certainly expose your foolishness.

Failing at something difficult while trying your best is better than succeeding at something easy without trying at all. The former gives you a goal for the future, while the latter simply shows that you had goals in the past.