houston we have a problem

Lesson for the day: Don't get into your car with a vague destination in mind without, in fact, knowing where that destination is. Otherwise you will end up an hour later outside the loop and missing a quarter tank of gas, on the phone with your dad yelling about how much of a retard you are, in fact, are.

This isn't the most amazing Ancaro Imparo fix, I admit. So here's a little more to go with the lesson: The famed Heights neighborhood is not, as you might think, a neighborhood. I was under the impression that it was a few quaint little streets, like the Village, but it's more the larger part of north Houston (NoHo, if you insist on being a douchebag). Basically the space between Memorial Parkway and 610? Which is apparently a rather large area.

Furthermore, the Heights (or at least the section I finally stumbled upon, West 19th between Heights Blvd and Shepherd) is not a cute little collection of affordable vintage-tastic shops. It is right in line with the overpriced designer crap at the Village. Perhaps one day I will be able to afford an 80$ tank top, but today is not that day. Nor is that day anywhere in the near future, so in this area at least this little brokeass Houston gal will be sticking to what she has already learned (Taxi Taxi!). And maybe that is the real lesson to get out of all of this.

what i can do for you

Fucking learning something every day, aren't we! Or every other week or so. Or whenever I get around to actually putting fingers to keyboard (is it sad that that's the new "pen to paper"?)

Like this: I was thinking recently about getting a new computer, and Dayna's about to get one soon too. So I went looking on the Rice website for a student discount cos I had some faint foggy memory that we get something somewhere (I mean, that 30,000$ has to pay for something other than just your professor's wrinkled khakis and filling Leebron's pool with 1$ bills.)

And look what I found! A whole page of discounted laptops, desktops, cell phones, printers, and other random tech stuff. Why don't they tell us about this stuff? Do they tell us about this stuff? Well now we all know! Now go forth and save 100$ on that 1500$ Macbook!

no, you're not rid of me

I know some people have a hard time excepting the realities of gender-based wage inequality and think that it's from another time and place. That's not a true story.

The true story is that it is alive and vibrant. A recent study shows that on average, recent male college grads earn 21.09$ while recent female college grads earn 18.17$. For those of you into numbers, that's a difference of 2.92$, and that's for, let me emphasize, recent college graduates. A group that you would think would face a relatively equal field. And in fact wage inequality is so inherent that the article doesn't even address it - the article is actually about how recent college grads salaries and benefits have gone down since 2001 and makes no mention of the wage discrepancy.

Ta da! You are still learning!

all american girl

Wanna hear something really amazing?

Two college softball teams were playing at a conference. A senior stepped up to bat and hit the first home run of her softball career. She accidentally ran past first without tagging and doubled back so she could tag and keep running. Doing so, she tore a ligament in her knee and collapsed in a heap on the field. Her coach at first base tried to tell her to crawl back to first and touch it. If anyone on her team helped her, it would only count as a single, not a home run. So two girls from the other team asked if they could carry her around the bases. And they did. They picked her up and stopped at every base so she could touch it. By the time they got to third base, everyone was standing and applauding. The home run counted. The other team lost.

True story.

I'm not normally very sentimental or mushy, but this story actually makes me tear up. I don't know why - I mean, is it so crazy that true sportsmanship actually exists? But I still think it's really inspiring and heart-warming. And it makes you think... would you carry your opponent across the finish line?

Morrissey says the joke isn't funny anymore

Ok, it's way past time for me to say this: APRIL FOOL'S!

I am not failing out of school. I'm definitely coming back to Rice last semester and I haven't sunk into fuck-all apathy. I'm busier than ever but I'm actually doing better than ever, which is how it seems to go. So no worries.

The post was the result of coming home after a long day and catching up on all my blogs and emails which contained a ton of April Fool's jokes and then realizing that it was 11.45pm and I had yet to pull one myself. Lea and I brainstormed, I wrote it, and she sent it to a couple people in a concerned email. Neither of us really thought that anyone at all would believe it.

But uhh, everyone did. My roommate, my best friends, and even my brother... all swallowed it pretty much hook line and sinker. So while I don't know how to feel that everyone could so easily believe that it was true, I do want to apologize for causing anyone undue worry. I should have written earlier that it was fake, but it slipped my mind. And thanks for the genuine concern from everyone, its really good to know that were something like that to actually happen I would have a safety net of friends to immediately rally around me.

xoxo,
gossip girl

Helter Skelter

So this blog is supposed to be about learning. But as the few people that read this might have noticed, I don't really post much anymore. This is because, frankly, I am not learning. Somewhere along the line I just totally lost the motivation for school, and so I've stopped going. I'm guessing I've failed most of my classes by now, because they all have attendance policies and I've missed the last several weeks. Who knows how many assignments I've missed. But I just can't bring myself to care anymore. I'm not sure what I'll do or where I'll be next year. I haven't been officially notified but there's no doubt that I'm on academic suspension. I don't think I want to be in the rat race of Rice anymore anyway. I've reached a state of total fuck-all apathy.

I'm posting this here because I know pretty much only my close friends read this and I don't want to have the same awkward and painful conversation over and over, and with our small group of friends I know the gossip will spread eventually so I thought I'd clarify before it gets out of hand. So now you know.

SHE'S ON HER PERIOD!

So... I just wrote a super feminist paper on how advertisements for pads and tampons have served to shame women and keep the topic of menstruation under the rug as a "feminine problem" from when they are invented up until the current day. Wtf? I always find myself writing these kinds of things and yet in general I feel like I could hardly care. But here are some examples.

Anyway... now you know.

Headsoak

"...Beer represented a civilized beverage renowned for its healthful influences, consumed by all classes in the productive countries of Western Europe and the rest of North America. It offered an alternative to the lower-class symbolism of pulque or mescal that Mexico's rulers blamed for the low productivity and constant inebriation of Mexican workers. Drinking beer allowed the gente decente both to differentiate itself from the lower classes and to offer them a moral example of how to build a stronger, more progressive nation."

-from 'Consumers of Good Taste:' Marketing Modernity in Northern Mexico by Steven Bunker

We've come a long way, baby.

My wandering days are over

RE: The last post: If any of you were real friends you would confiscate all access to technology after the first shot I take. haha

Moving on...

Ann Coulter said she would vote for Hillary over McCain. I don't even know what to make of that. But it kind of explains why I would never vote for Hillary. Its not because I hate my vagina or hers or vaginas in general, which I guess is what people are saying about women who won't vote for her. It's because she's a wolf neocon in a liberal sheep's clothing, and its kinda scary.

Which means with Edwards out I guess I am a de facto Obama girl. Oh well.

livin for the weekend

So.

You toast a bagel. It dont matta what kind.

Then you spread butter on it. It dont matta what kind.

You wait for the butter to soak in.

Then you put cream cheese on it. It dont matta what kind. I recommend a good fatty kind tho, none of that light/fat free shit.

Then you eat.

Yeahhhh, motherfucker.

Watching the detectives

It's no big secret that women, on average, earn less than men. But did you know that in addition, ugly people earn less than pretty people?

So maybe somewhat ironically, ugly men are penalized more salary-wise for their ugliness than ugly women - although men are rewarded more salary-wise for being pretty than women are, at least in the US.

For more info/the specific numbers go here.

the past is a grotesque animal

I got in my car yesterday and the radio was playing "Love Hurts." So I immediately switched stations, and the next station was playing "Hold On For One More Day."

Divine airwaves, I don't know what message you're trying to send me, but I don't appreciate it.

get it while you can

I finally got my life in order today! I organized my room and re-arranged the living room and now I feel functional again. Even though I am quite a messy person, its just due to laziness - I actually much prefer for things to be clean and organized but I can't usually be bothered to do simple things like hang a shirt up after I wear it.

ANYWAY. Not the point. Here's your ancaro imparo fix:

According to my Educ 345 professor (who hopefully knows what she's talking about, but she is a woman after all so what can she possibly know about computers?), studies have shown that Wikipedia is about as accurate as the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Neither are 100% accurate, but they do have about the same error rate.

There is much virtue in If

The name of this blog is Ancaro Imparo. It's an old Italian phrase allegedly attributed to Michaelangelo that means "I am still learning." I stumbled across it in high school when I was firmly entrenched on the education career path and thought it was quite stellar. I've meant to get a tattoo of it ever since, but I'm taking my time.

Anyway. I couldn't decide what to do with this new blog after I discontinued my livejournal after repeated parental interference. But since the name is about learning, and I am learning, and want to help other people learn, I'm going to tell you what I learned today so you can learn something too and together we will all forget what the word learn even means because that's what happens when you repeat a word a lot like I just did.

learn learn learn learn learn learn learn

PAY ATTENTION CLASS

TODAY'S LESSON COMES TO US COURTESY OF PROFESSOR SKURA, ENGLISH 321:

Do you know where the word "hymen" comes from? Nowadays its largely a flap of skin that has one short-lived but painful purpose. However, Hymen used to be the Greek god of marriage. Thus somewhere between Paganism and Christianity the term was appropriated to mean that thing you must have if you are a good girl.