Anarchist at heart.

Job searching is not the most pleasing of pastimes.

I was looking over Ohio States suggestions for career finding and I came across a giant list of dos and donts for interviewing. Do: comb your hair; Don't: wear flip flops or open toed shoes. Do: wear something professional; Don't: wear the uniform of a street walker.

Things of that nature.....


Women
Do
- Traditional business attire means a conservative suit or dress.
- Skirts are traditionally knee-length. Skirts slightly shorter or longer are also
acceptable.
- Avoid blouses that have too tight of a fit, have low necklines, or reveal your
waistline. Typically, arms are covered from either the mid-bicep or wrist.
- Always wear hose to an interview, even in humid weather. Wear plain-style,
non-patterned hosiery complimentary to your suit and shoe color. Carry an extra
pair in case of runs.
- If you wear makeup, keep it subtle. Keep foundation close to natural skin tone,
lipstick in a soft shade, no false lashes, subtle eye liner, natural toned eye shadow
and subtle blush.
- Keep fingernails at a conservative length and avoid brightly colored polish.
- Wear flat shoes or low pumps in neutral colors. Avoid shoes that hinder walking
quickly. No open-toed or backless shoes, as those styles are associated with
social settings.
- Consider removing visible body piercings and covering tattoos.
Don’t
- Purses should be conservative and inconspicuous.
- Avoid wearing jewelry and makeup that is too showy or distracting.
- Don’t wear more than one ring per hand. Remove ankle bracelets, etc.
- Avoid floral pints, brightly patterned blouses and flashy scarves.



Quite the extensive list.

And it bothers me. In order to succeed professionally you have to completely ignore who you are as an individual. When have I ever worn panty hose?

Does getting full time employment mean you must conform to baseless standards of "professionalism".

I want to work for a company that values individualism and wants to hire me because of the fun and casual non-business suit image I project. But I lament to think those companies do not exist.

So must I don the panty hose, knee length tweed, and kitten heels. Remove the piercings, dark eyeliner, black nail polish and change the color of my hair from dark red to mousy brown. Purchase a handbag that does not look like it came from the sales rack at target.

And its not just attire. This extends to one's entire demeanor from interview to job duties. One is expected to answer interview questions with the perfunctory self-promoting replies that frame you in the best light and once you obtain your job by effectively being dishonest and manipulative you are expected to act a certain way that can often go against instinctual proclivities. Customer Service: kiss peoples' asses. Sales: lie coerce manipulate.

Can you still be yourself and fit into the post secondary education career world?

I guess I just don't do well with rules and guidelines.

Yes I Do Exist and This is What I Have to Say

As outcasts, we are conditioned to believe there is something intrinsically wrong with us. Ostracized by the blind conformity society entails, we go about life never quite a part of the whole, on the outside looking in. And we are told we are weird. Crazy. Creepy. And an abundance of other seemingly innocuous adjectives used to differentiate us from the crowds of conventionality.

Are these herds of sheep simply oblivious to their blind acquiescence to ordinary? Or is it a conscious choice born of the desire to associate. To not be alone in their loneliness. And which is worse? To be too boring to have a real personality and real interests outside of the normal…or to choose to subdue that which makes an individual unique and interesting in favor of fitting in.

And what is the nature of society but to bring the many together for a common purpose. The more sameness involved, the more cohesive the society. This is why we humans instinctively fear people who are different from us. This is why there is racism, ethnocentrism, bigotry and hatred. Human society functions best when there is no variation, no idiosyncratic differences from one individual to the next.

We have evolved into a socially driven species. Not long ago, courtship was guided by social class and in many respects it still is. We associate only with those with whom we feel comfortable. We are comfortable with those who share the same beliefs, the same background, the same language, the same work ethic, the same thoughts and ideas. Common ground.

If you are unable to communicate, do you really exist? If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it make a sound?

I guess what I am trying to say is…is existence driven by human relationships? And if so, what does that say about those who prefer to spend their time alone.

And we are all so desperate to be heard. Nowadays you are surprised to meet someone who does not have an online social media outlet to proudly declare that, “yes, I do exist and this is what I have to say.” And so often it is nonsense. Nothing of consequence. And so often its all the same. Does anyone have original thoughts? Is anything really original?

And what is a thought but an electrical impulse in the brain. And what does that mean. That humanity is nothing more than a complex arrangement of biochemistry. That the human mind is nothing more than neurological signals that get interpreted as thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions, language, art, music…

And meanwhile the truth stares us all in the face: there is no meaning in life. A random arrangement of chemicals, atoms, electrons, energies. We are both too simple to understand the how and too naive to recognize that there is no why.

Or is it the other way around? Too naïve to think we can grasp the how and to simple to understand the why…









And upon reading this over I realize that very little of it makes sense....but I'm gonna post it anyway.

Tinkling keys.

7.7.09

Clare de lune, debussy is my new favorite.

Sometimes I listen to classical piano. I like to picture what it would be like to have been alive back in the day these pieces of music were written. A time of relative ease. Peace. When wars were fought with muskets instead of tanks, automatic weapons, and suicide bombs. Where people spent their time socializing in the town market and not on their iphones. When only a fraction of the 6.8 billion human lives today crowded the earth. Who were these souls and did they really differ that much from the people we see today.

Has technology really advanced civilization or doomed us to our own destruction. So many people. To what end.

I have been having difficulty finding beauty in the world. Too much negativity. And I need to get away from it all and rediscover the beauty that was once so obvious to me.

Beauty in a piano concerto. Beauty in a blissful sunset. Beauty in the scent of a blooming rosebush. Beauty in the bitter taste of salt water amidst the crashing waves on a craggy beach. Beauty in a well told story of fiction. An inspirationally well-made film. Beauty that brings you to tears.

Routine has gotten the better of me. And I’ve been made to feel ashamed of my life choices far too much as of recent. The things we must endure for the comforts of familiarity. It is hard to break free from the confines of that which engendered your being. Do people ever really change? Or is it just a change for the worse?

When you meet someone for the first time, do you ever really stop being that same person to them? Everyone has a role they instinctively play. Is it human nature, the wiring of our brain? Something we have done since birth and thus will never truly feel comfortable being anything else.

I often get sad because the world is increasingly not as glorious as my youthful imagination pictured it to be. Full of possibilities and opportunities for happy occasions. But nothing ever really lasts. And I think that is the theme of life. Nothing lasts. Is that why relationships are so scary? Because you know that no matter how happy you get to be, it will not be forever. Eventually something will come along and knock you down a few notches. Eventually you will experience as much pain as you did pleasure.

They say cherish each day as if it were your last. Because nothing ever lasts. Have we all made the best of that advice? I know I am guilty of failing on said account.

Was life easier back in the days of Debussy and chopin? Or is it true that people never really change. Despite generations past…humans really are probably very much the same. Selfish, hateful, and yet capable of some of the most charitable and loving acts imaginable. Enigmatic is the human condition. I still have yet to unlock the mystery that is human behaviour. And they say the theme is love and not loss. But maybe they are one in the same.

Cattle Herding.

Apparently it takes more than a college education to know how to line up in consecutive order in a timely manner. I no longer wonder why graduation rehearsal exists. Waste of time if you have skills at counting, but for those graduates that have trouble (and believe me there were several), well worth the trip.

I've been walking around campus for the past couple days thinking to myself, this is the last time I will ever do certain things. The last time I will ever use a mac in the design lab. The last time I will ever walk up the journalism building's steps to the third floor. The last time I will walk across the oval as an undergrad. The last time I will take a crap in the Science and Engineering Library's bathroom.

Let the nostalgia set in.

World's Biggest Goof

My how unrealistic the movie independence day really is. How on earth is Jeff Goldblum smart enough to integrate a 1990s computer software virus with alien technology? Unbelievable. Unless you are 10 years old.

I will never understand skinny jeans.

What is it about springtime that incites couples everywhere to break out in public displays of affection? Are they just too cold to act like teenagers in the fall and winter?

Once upon a time there was a girl who ate too much porridge. She fell asleep and was mauled by a family of bears. Tragic.

Some days I want to shoot not babies.

Sometimes I stay up until 4 am. Unwise.

Life is like a box of chocolates. I wish I could get rid of the coconuts. I don't know how that applies to life but I really want a chocolate covered caramel now.

In a few days I will be a college graduate. Am I supposed to feel proud? Accomplished? Fulfilled? I don't think I feel any of those things. I was always supposed to do something like this. I would be more proud of myself if I had gone against the grain and done something original.

Originality. Its what many of us seek. Everyone wants to be exceptional. Most of us are nothing but ordinary. And really we're all the same. But deep down we all want to be rock stars. Immortality through originality. Forever famous in the eyes of history.

Art. Ideas. Words. Work. Babies. How do you seek eternal eternity?

Personally, I am going to create the worlds biggest ice cream cone and inadvertently solve global climate change here on earth. Mark. My. Words.

Call me Dork, but I just looked it up. "The Guiness Book of World Records setting ice cream scoop consisted of 28,000 scoops of strawberry ice cream that weighed 7,800 pounds." World's Biggest Ice Cream Scoop

Someone already beat me to it. :( Although I thought to add the cone...points of originality?? No, not so much? Drat.

So much for solving global warming.

If global warming gets too bad you've gotta wonder what will be the next cockroach...you know, besides the cockroach. I think the Canada Goose has some forthcoming longevity in the cards. They will they become the alpha species. Enslaving man to do their goose bidding.

Just think about it.

And that is why we ought to recycle. And accelerate near ponds.

No...but seriously.


Originality. Ingenuity. Creativity.

I resolve to never attach a photo to this site that I have not taken or created myself. I nearly integrated a photo of a mountain of ice cream. But I have instated a new rule....although I do not think I have heretofore broken said rule...but future reference we have.

I digress. I get off topic. I redundantly repeat myself. And reiterate.

Originality. That is the desire. At least it is mine. And since this is my world, that's all that matters. :P I would like to be creative forever. Or at least once. Like real good. Solid creative. Creative that matters. One time. And then pretend to be creative for the rest of my goose enslaved life.

Why would you want a giant ice cream cone? Who could possibly eat all that ice cream before it melted away?! Gawd that's such a waste!

So sticky. Would need to create the world's largest napkin just to keep the universe in order.

......

Would life be easier if I had four arms, two legs and a tail? Just wondering.

I'm awfully goofy after 4am.

Resistance is Futile.

A Champagne Supernova In the Sky

Its recently occurred to me that anxiety killers make me a lot less broody, pessimistic and depressed, but also a lot less intelligent because I do not obsessively think about the world.

It used to be that I blogged because I had so many thoughts running through my head. Now I am lucky to find thoughts amidst all the business and anxiety reduction pills.

Sadly in order to function properly, I need drugs.

Here are some slightly depressing yet thoughtful excerpts from Becky minus SSRIs.



~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Thursday, April 16, 2009

People are preoccupied with appearance. Aesthetic outward beauty. Yes. I believe its natural. That's why the man peacock is colorful. Because he is beautiful and that signifies he would make good healthy peacock babies. Are we as humans supposed to transcend the laws of nature?

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Friday, March 06, 2009

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams. ~John Barrymore

How many of us really have ended up where we had hoped we would be at our age. Maybe goals change. Maybe you change. Or maybe you give up on goals that seem too lofty.

The prefrontal cortex controls inhibition. Those with a large prefrontal cortex are said to have stronger inhibitory controls. Those who have damaged that part of the brain are often 100% spontaneous. I read an article that recommends ways to improve and develop that part of your brain to give you stronger inhibitory control.

But personally I need advice as to how to do the opposite.

Your decision making capabilities are well below par when you overthink everything.

Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act. ~Truman Capote

Today I went to the park of roses and it is completely gutted, brown, desolate, dry and dead. Every hue holds the same value of ugly and mucky. I brought my camera but there was nothing aesthetic about the place. But in its own way....it was beautiful. Kind of like a blank slate. Tabula rasa.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Thursday, March 05, 2009

The cadence of consonants, structurally sound, acute alliterative attention, modifiers modifying les mots de la langue.

There is debate as to whether the art of writing can be taught. Either you are born a writer with the love of language, or you are born as simple-minded as most human beings who dangle their participles and misplace their modifiers. There are only so many Nietzches, Rembrandts, Einsteins, and Beethovens, just as are there only so many Hemmingways. To aspire to greatness is to assure one's own inevitable failure. The literary, poetic, prose writers of the past become immortalized through their genius, ghostly syllables living on in the stark contrast of black on white. Academia worships you, you are the gods of fiction, the kings of prose.

Plot. Structure. Subtext.

What does minutiae even mean?

minutiae: n. precise details; small or trifling matters


Once upon a time, I began to exist.

Anniversaries are a completely arbitrary concept, as if the passage of one full year actually means anything. 23 years ago, I emerged into a world of hate, suffering, hope, a planet so rife with troubles, a people so in denial of its own flawed nature. 23 years ago, I couldn't form a word. 22 years ago, I couldn't form a sentence. 10 years ago, I could form no original thoughts. Today, I can conjur no hope.

Are we really just primal beings controlled by our primitive impulses. Sex, hunger, pain.

The pleasure principle. Avoid pain, flock to pleasure. The only way our species is to survive is to have a lot of sex. Genetic variability. Apocalypse, please.


To contemplate the ills of society is to open oneself to the uncertainty that is the nature of the universe. Entropy rules the world, a choatic cacophony of instability. Probabilty in quantum mechanics, principles of uncertainty. Thanks, Heisenberg.

Mythology is a blanket of hope, a blindfold of fiction, the cocoon of freedom from intellectual curiousity. Interrogate the world amidst destruction, animosity, oppression, hypocrisy. Fire and brimstone here on earth, is this planet another world's hell? Ask the questions or swallow the answers.

Exploding star of the bubbly amber alcoholic beverage variety aloft in the heavens above.

Sometimes succinct is simply the best choice.
Someday you will find me, caught beneath the landslide.

23 years ago, I began to exist. Will I exist in 23 more? Will I want to?

Mindlessness. The senseless masses. Perfunctory pleasantries, please proceed with passivity. The blindfold of reality descends to staunch creativity and condition conformity. Prepare to be assimilated. Resistance, as many of you well know, is futile.

Beliefs are stronger than facts. Faith is a pretty name for a girl, but as a concept lacks desirability. Constant criticism, questioning the questions. Accept nothing as certain in an uncertain world.

Neurological chemicals tell us when we are sad. Love is the limbic system telling us to procreate.

Once upon a time, I began to exist. The verb remains unerroneous. I exist, I will until I do no longer. After that, once can only hope for the best and keep cranking the handle of passion.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Gosh...I kind of miss being broody and pessimistic. It beats being vacuous and boring.