After watching "The Girls Next Door" earlier tonight, I was inspired. Why can't I be a slutty ho with fake boobs and a fetish for old men? Certainly, if the blond brains at the Playboy Mansion can do it, so can I. Maybe I can add a bit of ethnic spice to the predominantly blond crew. I want to be able to go to castings and flash my silicone-pumped naughties at random camera men who then establish all rights to my nude photos. It really is a dream. To live at the posh Playboy Mansion, to be able to shop till I drop on Heffner's tab, and of course, the b(r)est perk of all, to be at all hours on call for a good romp with the grandpa himself.
Okay yeah. No.
I'm all for women embracing their sexuality. I'm all for women proudly displaying what they've got, being sultry and even showing off a little. Nothing wrong with that. But when you've devalued yourself enough to be part of Playboy's sick harem, that is demoralizing. I was seriously staring at my screen with a dumbstruck expression because I just could not look away. I mean, there has GOT to be some sort of illness to explain this. How could so many girls want in on something like that? And these girls... they primarily come from wealthy families. It's not like their wanting for money (not that I'm advocating prostitution). The only way you could ever get me to join that cast is if my son was dying and I had NO other option in the world to save him. And even then I would hate every minute of it. But to see the lines of hundreds of women who all hope to be the next Playmate is disheartening. And what is it for? The prestige? Please. This is Playboy, not Yale. Sick. Gross. Objectifying. I'm all for classy, tasteful sexy images. I'm not for whoring yourself out to be in a magazine.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Saturday, July 31, 2010
I'll Trade you this Cactus for.......Whatever that Extremely Green Plant Is?
Heyyyyyyyyyo. Sorry I haven't blogged in a while, it's been quite hectic around here. The end of camp, finding and sealing an apartment, my boyfriend's 21st birthday, readying for my internship here in Connecticut, and many goodbyes all happened within seriously 8 days of each other. Needless to say, I was running around in circles but I think it all went well. Camp ended smoothly, my roommates and I found a gorgeous condo to stay in, Chris loved his bday present, my internship is interesting to say the least (I'll get to that in a sec), and I've said all my goodbyes. Whew.
Okay, so what I really wanted to talk about was my internship. I intern in Yale's Child Neuroscience Lab. In a nutshell, they look at children with autism, and their siblings. That last bit is particularly interesting to the lab, because in some cases kids with autism have siblings that are normal, or "typical," as is politically correct. In their study, a family volunteers to have their child (or children) go through an MRI test. Meg I know you remember this from psych....magnetic resonance imaging! Basically its this huge ass machine that uses magnetic forces (up to 24,000x stronger than the Earth's magnetic field fyi) to scan images of your brain. You have to remain extremely still, because like any camera, if you move the picture will be blurry. The whole MRI process takes about half an hour, and the kid gets to watch a movie inside the machine while it happens. Sounds pretty simple right?
Oh hellll no.
Friday was my first day interning. I had no idea what to expect at all--everything in the above paragraph about MRIs I learned AFTER the day was over yesterday. So anyway, I walk in and there are about 6 people who work in the lab. I was very nervous about the whole thing but it turns out all of the lab folk are super nice. Anyway, they explained the whole MRI thing to me and made me watch some corny videos about it. Then, half an hour in, one of the girls who works in the lab comes in and says to everyone, "So...one of our families isn't going to show. We need to test another subject."
I remember this part very clearly. I feel all eyes move to me and I know what's coming before she says it:
"Let's use the intern."
45 minutes later, I was walking barefoot through the the main medical school building in a hospital gown with my bra in one hand and and my shoes in the other (absolutely NO metal is allowed in MRI scan since the magnet is so powerful...even the metal underwire in my bra!). I walk in through a double door and enter the control room--a room with a thousand computers and dials and mics. The control room does just what its name suggests--control the MRI. The control room is separated from the room with the MRI by a wall that contains a large square window looking at the scanner. The actual scanner is this huge, mammoth thing. If a minivan 3 times the size of a normal minivan mated with a road tunnel in a mountain, you'd get the MRI scanner. In the tunnel goes the subject of course, which, in this case, was me. The clinical psychologist running the MRI in the control room helps you into the stretcher on the MRI, gives you earplugs, a helmet that encompasses your whole head, shoulder things and two remote controls. Then the stretcher moves backwards into the tunnel. I can talk through a mic in the scanner to the people in the control room, and vice versa. The helmet has a mirror directly above it, which reflects the back of the tunnel/scanner where there is a projected screen. For the first scan, I watched Kung Fu Panda (the scan WAS intended for a child after all, but I wasn't complaining).
It got trickier after that though.
After the scan where I could watch the movie, I had to do a TON of really weird, random tests. They displayed a cloud of moving dots on the screen and I had to decipher if there was a human in the cloud of dots, if it was expressing an emotion, and lots of other strange tests. They told me this whole process would take approximately half an hour.
75 minutes later, barely fighting panic and claustrophobia, I emerge from the tunnel freaked out and extremely disoriented. Don't get me wrong--it was absolutely interesting and I'm glad I did it, it was a valuable learning experience.
And they paid me 50 bucks. Turns out they need adult subjects for their study too.
Oh CT....
Okay, so what I really wanted to talk about was my internship. I intern in Yale's Child Neuroscience Lab. In a nutshell, they look at children with autism, and their siblings. That last bit is particularly interesting to the lab, because in some cases kids with autism have siblings that are normal, or "typical," as is politically correct. In their study, a family volunteers to have their child (or children) go through an MRI test. Meg I know you remember this from psych....magnetic resonance imaging! Basically its this huge ass machine that uses magnetic forces (up to 24,000x stronger than the Earth's magnetic field fyi) to scan images of your brain. You have to remain extremely still, because like any camera, if you move the picture will be blurry. The whole MRI process takes about half an hour, and the kid gets to watch a movie inside the machine while it happens. Sounds pretty simple right?
Oh hellll no.
Friday was my first day interning. I had no idea what to expect at all--everything in the above paragraph about MRIs I learned AFTER the day was over yesterday. So anyway, I walk in and there are about 6 people who work in the lab. I was very nervous about the whole thing but it turns out all of the lab folk are super nice. Anyway, they explained the whole MRI thing to me and made me watch some corny videos about it. Then, half an hour in, one of the girls who works in the lab comes in and says to everyone, "So...one of our families isn't going to show. We need to test another subject."
I remember this part very clearly. I feel all eyes move to me and I know what's coming before she says it:
"Let's use the intern."
45 minutes later, I was walking barefoot through the the main medical school building in a hospital gown with my bra in one hand and and my shoes in the other (absolutely NO metal is allowed in MRI scan since the magnet is so powerful...even the metal underwire in my bra!). I walk in through a double door and enter the control room--a room with a thousand computers and dials and mics. The control room does just what its name suggests--control the MRI. The control room is separated from the room with the MRI by a wall that contains a large square window looking at the scanner. The actual scanner is this huge, mammoth thing. If a minivan 3 times the size of a normal minivan mated with a road tunnel in a mountain, you'd get the MRI scanner. In the tunnel goes the subject of course, which, in this case, was me. The clinical psychologist running the MRI in the control room helps you into the stretcher on the MRI, gives you earplugs, a helmet that encompasses your whole head, shoulder things and two remote controls. Then the stretcher moves backwards into the tunnel. I can talk through a mic in the scanner to the people in the control room, and vice versa. The helmet has a mirror directly above it, which reflects the back of the tunnel/scanner where there is a projected screen. For the first scan, I watched Kung Fu Panda (the scan WAS intended for a child after all, but I wasn't complaining).
It got trickier after that though.
After the scan where I could watch the movie, I had to do a TON of really weird, random tests. They displayed a cloud of moving dots on the screen and I had to decipher if there was a human in the cloud of dots, if it was expressing an emotion, and lots of other strange tests. They told me this whole process would take approximately half an hour.
75 minutes later, barely fighting panic and claustrophobia, I emerge from the tunnel freaked out and extremely disoriented. Don't get me wrong--it was absolutely interesting and I'm glad I did it, it was a valuable learning experience.
And they paid me 50 bucks. Turns out they need adult subjects for their study too.
Oh CT....
Monday, July 5, 2010
A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of Ahhhh
Okay, my bad, I know I haven't blogged in a while. But with all the crazy things going on right now, I just couldn't find the time. I'm actually writing this blog from New Haven, CT, which is where my dad lives.
As a bit of a backstory to why I'm here right now, I'll need to take ya back to May. My grandfather (my dad's dad) has frontal lobe degeneration, which means that he now has trouble controlling the aspects of his life governed by his frontal lobe. That includes his sense of right and wrong, reasoning, morality, planning, decision making and personality. My dad flew out to India in May to help him out around the house, getting things in order and whatnot. However, due to my grandfather's condition, he often goes through violent spurts of attacks and will beat anyone around him. During one of these outbursts, he pinned my dad's arms behind him, tearing some tissue in the shoulder.
Because of that, my dad got surgery at the hospital at Yale (where he works) a couple weeks ago. He went through some rehab for his shoulder and is now out of the hospital. Thankfully, the surgery went well but his arm will be in a sling for a month. He can't use his left arm at all, meaning he can't drive, cook, clean, ect. He lives alone, so you can see how this may be a bit of a problem. Conveniently, all of the staff have to take one week off of work due to budget cuts. My week's this week, so I flew out here to help him out. I've been busy cooking and cleaning for him! I miss AZ, but I would give anything up to help my dad when he needs me now.
Other than that, I'm just chillin. I will go back to AZ this Saturday, work the last two weeks of camp, then head back up here to my internship in the neuroimaging department of child psychiatry at Yale for a month. Wow. I feel like an uber-nerd when I say/write that. Anyway, I don't particularily enjoy going to CT because I love AZ, and miss the people there almost as much as I miss my dad. Blah. Pros and cons. It goes both ways. Never fully happy here without dad nor there without everyone else...
Well that's what's up. Things with roomies, best friends and acquaintances are fine. Things with the boy are even finer =)
As a bit of a backstory to why I'm here right now, I'll need to take ya back to May. My grandfather (my dad's dad) has frontal lobe degeneration, which means that he now has trouble controlling the aspects of his life governed by his frontal lobe. That includes his sense of right and wrong, reasoning, morality, planning, decision making and personality. My dad flew out to India in May to help him out around the house, getting things in order and whatnot. However, due to my grandfather's condition, he often goes through violent spurts of attacks and will beat anyone around him. During one of these outbursts, he pinned my dad's arms behind him, tearing some tissue in the shoulder.
Because of that, my dad got surgery at the hospital at Yale (where he works) a couple weeks ago. He went through some rehab for his shoulder and is now out of the hospital. Thankfully, the surgery went well but his arm will be in a sling for a month. He can't use his left arm at all, meaning he can't drive, cook, clean, ect. He lives alone, so you can see how this may be a bit of a problem. Conveniently, all of the staff have to take one week off of work due to budget cuts. My week's this week, so I flew out here to help him out. I've been busy cooking and cleaning for him! I miss AZ, but I would give anything up to help my dad when he needs me now.
Other than that, I'm just chillin. I will go back to AZ this Saturday, work the last two weeks of camp, then head back up here to my internship in the neuroimaging department of child psychiatry at Yale for a month. Wow. I feel like an uber-nerd when I say/write that. Anyway, I don't particularily enjoy going to CT because I love AZ, and miss the people there almost as much as I miss my dad. Blah. Pros and cons. It goes both ways. Never fully happy here without dad nor there without everyone else...
Well that's what's up. Things with roomies, best friends and acquaintances are fine. Things with the boy are even finer =)
Monday, June 28, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
A Tale of Two Blogs
I'm going to write a spin off of Megan's latest blog about the difficulties of shopping for men, because I 850% agree. See, us girls are mostly very, very easy to shop for. Take Megan herself. A tube of Japanese Cherry Blossom lotion and a bottle of cheap vodka will please her for the next 7 months and 3 days. Anything that smells or looks good generally works with 90% of the female population. Of course, the better you know the girl, the better your idea of what she'll like. This rule only applies to girls buying gifts for girls though. Ask a guy what they're planning on getting their girlfriends, mothers or sisters for their next birthdays and you'll either be met with a blank stare or look of panic. What? She has a birthday coming up?! Oh f***!
Take my sister's boyfriend for example.
He didn't buy her last Christmas gift until, you guessed it, Christmas Eve. Luckily for him, he was smart and went straight to Tiffany's, where the sales clerk clearly must have given him the "yet-another-guy-waiting-till-the-last-minute-to-shop-for-his-girlfriend" look. This shopping trip came after he had called me, asking what Aparna wanted.
Boys....I guess they never learn.
Meanwhile, girls shopping for boys is an entirely different ball game. We take into consideration factors such as but not limited to: who the guy is, our relationship to him, the length, strength, and nature of that relationship, what we can afford, how much to spend depending on how much he has/had spent on us in the past, what his likes and dislikes are, what he already owns, ect.
Somehow, I don't think that most guys go through this level of extensive thinking....
But hey, what would I know? I'll be the first to admit that I know NOTHING about guys. I mean seriously. The only serious man in my life is my father who lives in Connecticut, who is totally content with displaying the bright pink and glittery photo frames I've made him since I was 9 prominently in his Yale office. (Big props to my dad, I am a huge fan of my father.) Growing up I always had friends who were girls--very few guy friends. And incidentally, the few guy friends I've had have mainly been questionably gay so no help there. Guys are so simple that it becomes difficult to shop for them. They have a watch, razor, wallet, cologne, and sunglasses. That's pretty much all they need. They aren't like girls who have five different types of wallets, purses, watches and perfumes. Boys are content with their one-of-what-I-need lifestyle.
Of course, this puts us girls into a predicament.
Should we get him another watch? More of that cologne he likes? What is that cologne he likes? Will he use/wear this if I buy it? It's tough. And most guys aren't exactly open to discussing what they want so no hope there.
And THAT I think... is why shopping for guys sucks. They are too simple to the point of being difficult.
Take my sister's boyfriend for example.
He didn't buy her last Christmas gift until, you guessed it, Christmas Eve. Luckily for him, he was smart and went straight to Tiffany's, where the sales clerk clearly must have given him the "yet-another-guy-waiting-till-the-last-minute-to-shop-for-his-girlfriend" look. This shopping trip came after he had called me, asking what Aparna wanted.
Boys....I guess they never learn.
Meanwhile, girls shopping for boys is an entirely different ball game. We take into consideration factors such as but not limited to: who the guy is, our relationship to him, the length, strength, and nature of that relationship, what we can afford, how much to spend depending on how much he has/had spent on us in the past, what his likes and dislikes are, what he already owns, ect.
Somehow, I don't think that most guys go through this level of extensive thinking....
But hey, what would I know? I'll be the first to admit that I know NOTHING about guys. I mean seriously. The only serious man in my life is my father who lives in Connecticut, who is totally content with displaying the bright pink and glittery photo frames I've made him since I was 9 prominently in his Yale office. (Big props to my dad, I am a huge fan of my father.) Growing up I always had friends who were girls--very few guy friends. And incidentally, the few guy friends I've had have mainly been questionably gay so no help there. Guys are so simple that it becomes difficult to shop for them. They have a watch, razor, wallet, cologne, and sunglasses. That's pretty much all they need. They aren't like girls who have five different types of wallets, purses, watches and perfumes. Boys are content with their one-of-what-I-need lifestyle.
Of course, this puts us girls into a predicament.
Should we get him another watch? More of that cologne he likes? What is that cologne he likes? Will he use/wear this if I buy it? It's tough. And most guys aren't exactly open to discussing what they want so no hope there.
And THAT I think... is why shopping for guys sucks. They are too simple to the point of being difficult.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Oh Drama...
Sometimes....I feel like I'm dealing with 5 year olds. Intelligent, vivacious, brilliant people are 100% capable of being irrational, illogical, and just plain stupid.
Now I'm not saying I'm immune to this. Of course I have my moments. But I have NEVER been immature for this long. I don't stay 5 for extended periods of time. There's a difference between periods of immaturity and full out abject fucking stupidity.
Peace out... I deal with kids as my job, but I'd like to not deal with them off hours.
Now I'm not saying I'm immune to this. Of course I have my moments. But I have NEVER been immature for this long. I don't stay 5 for extended periods of time. There's a difference between periods of immaturity and full out abject fucking stupidity.
Peace out... I deal with kids as my job, but I'd like to not deal with them off hours.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
The Madness Has Only Just Begun
I guess I should start out by telling those of you who don't know what I do in the summer what my occupation is. I'm a summer camp counselor here in the OV. I've volunteered at camp as a junior staff since I was 12, started working for them as an official staff at 16, and have been working camp every summer since (camp is 9 weeks long). This summer, camp takes place at Copper Creek Elementary School. I love my job--the staff keeps on getting rehired so I know and love all of my fellow counselors. I'm comfortable with it because I've been doing it for 7 years--it's familiar, kind of like going home after 9 months in a foreign country. If I made $200,000 a year for being a camp counselor I would do it. With all that said, even though I LOVE my job, it takes a toll when you have a million children vying for your attention all day (5 days a week). Eventually the staff doesn't give a fuck and we just tell them to go entertain themselves (under "supervision" of course).
Take today for example. I was EXHAUSTED and completely out of it at camp yesterday because I had 5 hours of sleep due to the fact that for the past week, I've been waking up in the 5 o clock hour for no damn reason. Also, I think I'm getting sick so that might have added to the fatigue/loopyness. Today was no different. I walk into camp like a zombie and 3 minutes in a camper comes up to me crying and clutching her hand. She was playing tether ball when the ball it her hand hard and she heard a snap.
Fucking fabulous.
So we look up her emergency contacts to let them know and to come pick her up (mind you it's only 8:33am)--her dad, grandma and mom. Dad and grandma didn't answer their calls. Her file didn't include her mom's phone number, and the girl didn't know it off the top of her head. So I asked where her mom worked, and it turns out she was some admin at the OV hospital. So I look up the hospital's number on my phone and call their main line. From there I had to navigate their employee database to find her mom, and ask for her number. Right as I was about to dial the mom's number, I get an incoming call from another parent. Why? She saw a massive rattle snake moving in towards the gym, where we would be in half an hour.
Double fucking fabulous.
Since I didn't see the snake, I walked the whole perimeter of the school with the parent on the phone, and the whole time I was paranoid about stepping on the snake and not seeing it. I never found it, but the parent was relentless so I made up some BS story about "letting maintenance know" about the problem. That loosely translates to "I'll tell the staff but that's it."
In addition, I wasn't the only staff feeling awful today. My coworker was sick too, so the both of us had no energy for anything other than just lying down. Not good when you have 60 campers.
Speaking of sick, get this:
Near the end of the day, we get a frantic call from our boss saying the whole street (Copper Spring's Trail) was blocked off because someone had to be helicoptered to a hospitals. So there, before the staff's horrified eyes, landed a giant red helicopter smack in the middle of the field, whipping up trees and dust. There were a 1000 cops on either end of the street who put us on lockdown in the gym. Problem, because it's now pick up time and the parents are blockaded from the street. So we had to send 2 staff to either end of the street to let them know that they have to either wait to pick up their kid or walk the distance to school. Luckily, the helicopter took off before most of the parents came, so the street freed up.
Now, WTF requires you to be copter-ed out of a field? Why wouldn't an ambulance work? I mean... if you're dying on top of a mountain then yes you need a helicopter.... but at an elementary school? Oh summer camp.....
Yes. It's only week 2, day 2. All in a day's work you guys, all in a day's work.....
Take today for example. I was EXHAUSTED and completely out of it at camp yesterday because I had 5 hours of sleep due to the fact that for the past week, I've been waking up in the 5 o clock hour for no damn reason. Also, I think I'm getting sick so that might have added to the fatigue/loopyness. Today was no different. I walk into camp like a zombie and 3 minutes in a camper comes up to me crying and clutching her hand. She was playing tether ball when the ball it her hand hard and she heard a snap.
Fucking fabulous.
So we look up her emergency contacts to let them know and to come pick her up (mind you it's only 8:33am)--her dad, grandma and mom. Dad and grandma didn't answer their calls. Her file didn't include her mom's phone number, and the girl didn't know it off the top of her head. So I asked where her mom worked, and it turns out she was some admin at the OV hospital. So I look up the hospital's number on my phone and call their main line. From there I had to navigate their employee database to find her mom, and ask for her number. Right as I was about to dial the mom's number, I get an incoming call from another parent. Why? She saw a massive rattle snake moving in towards the gym, where we would be in half an hour.
Double fucking fabulous.
Since I didn't see the snake, I walked the whole perimeter of the school with the parent on the phone, and the whole time I was paranoid about stepping on the snake and not seeing it. I never found it, but the parent was relentless so I made up some BS story about "letting maintenance know" about the problem. That loosely translates to "I'll tell the staff but that's it."
In addition, I wasn't the only staff feeling awful today. My coworker was sick too, so the both of us had no energy for anything other than just lying down. Not good when you have 60 campers.
Speaking of sick, get this:
Near the end of the day, we get a frantic call from our boss saying the whole street (Copper Spring's Trail) was blocked off because someone had to be helicoptered to a hospitals. So there, before the staff's horrified eyes, landed a giant red helicopter smack in the middle of the field, whipping up trees and dust. There were a 1000 cops on either end of the street who put us on lockdown in the gym. Problem, because it's now pick up time and the parents are blockaded from the street. So we had to send 2 staff to either end of the street to let them know that they have to either wait to pick up their kid or walk the distance to school. Luckily, the helicopter took off before most of the parents came, so the street freed up.
Now, WTF requires you to be copter-ed out of a field? Why wouldn't an ambulance work? I mean... if you're dying on top of a mountain then yes you need a helicopter.... but at an elementary school? Oh summer camp.....
Yes. It's only week 2, day 2. All in a day's work you guys, all in a day's work.....
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