What Your College Friends Teach You That Your Parents Can't

Picture Correct

At the end of every high schooler's experience, there comes a time to reflect on your last four years. Obviously there's no requirement to wait until you're a senior to become reflective, but I would argue that whether you loved or hated high school, everyone has a little bit of nostalgia within them when it comes to the final weeks of that chapter of your life. Although I have already graduated high school and have merely cracked open the book to my new story at Augustana, I'm already taking note of the life lessons I've learned here so far, particularly from my friends. While they are outwardly very obvious statements, and ones that my parents have told me millions of times as I've grown up, they are concepts that I will evaluate in a new light (hopefully), and ones that I did not wholeheartedly understand until I met my close friends here.

Debate ≠ Argument  
The environment of a college classroom thrives on discussion. I'm a thinker. I'm a talker, so this environment works for me. I learned very quickly that there is a huge difference between debating and actual arguments, while also noticing that not everyone around me had the same understanding of the difference between these two forms of discussion. At home, your family knows what you're saying and how you're meaning it, at college, no one knows you like your parents do. It is very important in a college environment to make note of your tone of voice used when addressing certain situations because in an instant saying, "I don't know" in response to someone asking what the homework was turns into "I don't care what you have to say stop talking to me." It was evident even during our Foundations' class's debates about The Inheritors, or abortion, that people were misunderstanding each other and how they were saying things. Just because someone disagrees with a point you make, doesn't mean they dislike you as a person, nor does it mean that they're questioning your character. They are merely disagreeing with your position, and that's okay.

You need to learn to be lonely.
When you're little your parents try to teach you to socialize with others. They scold you for having phones at the dinner table or texting instead of acknowledging the people who are physically around you. Regardless, in Palatine (my hometown), everyone is constantly on their phones or computers. Many of the schools in my old high school district actually have implemented iPads as parts of our education system. Everyone in the school has them, but almost no one uses them for their educational purposes. We are truly obsessed with constant communication, just as the society in Super Sad True Love Story. The idea of always being in touch with other people is not such a foreign concept to me. However, when I came to college, one of my friends from Palatine and I had a rude awakening. The people we became friends with thought it was weird to be on a phone constantly. This rose the question, how much are you actually experiencing college if you're always in an electronic world? In college, you have to learn to be "lonely" (without your phone) to get things done and experience the world around you!

Not everyone comes from the same social class.
Growing up my parents always told me "There will always be someone richer than you, and someone poorer than you." This is a phrase many of us have probably heard, but not many often think about. In college you're thrown into an environment of people who could be making impulse shopping trips weekly, or people struggling to pay their own tuition. I am very fortunate to have never known struggle, come from a financially stable family, and live in a financially stable area, but I now recognize there are people I directly interact with that live a life I will never understand. It's difficult to know people are struggling right next to you and you can't help them, but it's a lesson of great importance. Learn to understand that your value of a dollar may not nearly be as great as the person sitting next to you.

Everyone doesn't look at life through the same lens.
My dad used to say, "My mother was raised Lutheran. My father was raised Christian. I was raised pedestrian." Some people are optimistic. Some people are existential thinkers. Some people believe there is no god. Some people can't decide what they want for breakfast that day. Ultimately, everyone has a different perspective on the world and the life that we all share here. As we said last week in Foundations, you may know your best friend like the back of your hand, but there are parts of their life you were not there for, and areas of their mind you will never have access to. You don't know what everyone is thinking, therefore you have to accept your differences and find people who will compliment your individuality with their own.

Dear Diary, I Googled Myself Today

January 18

Dear Diary,

I Googled myself today for a college assignment about E-dentity. We're supposed to do some research and talk about the results of our online expedition. We have to define some aspect of our e-dentity, explain with evidence, assess what we find, what we like or don't like about our e-dentity, and what we learn about ourselves in the process when we think critically about it. So, I put my best efforts into the search and here's what I've found.

I'm social, but strangely kept private. When searching my name on Google you can find some information, like my Google plus account and Facebook posts I've been tagged in, but it seems like something is missing. In essence it's similar to Super Sad True Love Story. Everything about a person's life is shown on their äppärät, but when people talk to each other face to face or "verbal," people are not so open about themselves or their lives. The information you find about me tells you some of my inside thoughts I'm willing to share with the world. It gives you an idea of my sense of humor, which I've realized, is only funny to me. It shows you I'm involved in music but it doesn't tell you to what extent. In a way, I'm kind of ambiguous. I'm that outline of a figure that hasn't been shaded in yet to people who look me up online. Really, I'm just someone you don't know, and someone you can't get to know by just looking at on the internet. 

One of the Vines I reposted via Vine

( To look at the rest of Audial Sunshine and Vocal Jazz's videos from last year you can go to my channel! )

My ambiguity and lack of entertaining pictures or information was quite surprising to me. I thought I was going to be much more interesting than I was! However, I realized that I do have a lot of my primary social media restricted from public viewing. My Facebook is a place where people can get quite a lot of information about me from, but it doesn't even come up in a search on Google because I have it secured. Someone would only be able to find it if they dug deep into the "Audial Sunshine" Facebook page that I'm tagged in. But, once they get there, they'll be stuck outside my precious Facebook, staring at two pictures of my friends and me, documenting how much I enjoy living my real life, with my REAL identity, outside of the internet. I am a person who is unbelievably willing to share my inner thoughts and quirks about me to people who know me or who are willing to speak to me, but to strangers on the internet, not so much. 

In searching myself on Google someone could definitely be under the impression that I'm very concerned with the aesthetic parts of life; I care a lot about how I look to the outside world, but I seem like a very free person at the same time. If you look at my Pinterest, all of my pins have to do with appearance, except for maybe the food one. As a result, someone could assume that I'm a very self conscious person, I'd even say you could be right with that assumption; however, if you look at my Twitter or my Youtube you can see that I'm a pretty free, happy person as well. All of my Youtube videos are from the a Capella singing groups I've been in, and my tweets and retweets consist of a lot of song lyrics, pictures, random things that come to my mind, and photos of dogs. I adore dogs. 

While I think that my e-dentity only scratches the surface of who I really am, I like that I seem to be a very social person. I appear to have a lot of friends that I spend time with and that I have a lot to do with music. I don't have any incriminating photos or information that's public, but I do think if you analyze my social media a bit, you can begin to understand who I am a bit better. I may tweet something seemingly unimportant like the tweet below, 

but did you ever ask yourself why someone likes dogs as much as they do? or why they would tweet something about majoring in chocolate? It could be that they don't like feeling alone, and dogs are the epitome of comfort and friendship. It could be because that person is having a crisis about what they can major in and do with their life. When you dig a little deeper into those "random" posts, they aren't so random, are they?

The Five Faces of Oppression: Why Taylor Swift Should Go Out of Style

US Magazine

Today in the music industry there are countless artists both male and female, with work consisting of songs about anything from love to shootings to singing about a dog. Each person has their own taste in music, however a common occurrence I notice when people talk about music they say which genres they like, and automatically criticize the types of music they don't like. While many people may criticize rap music for notoriously being vulgar, degrading towards women, and violent, I feel we should take a closer look at the music that is popular alongside this supposedly preposterous genre of music.

Taylor Swift is an apparent role model for female youth. She has won over 300 awards for her music which is primarily about her feelings toward past relationships and guys she's dated. Much of the female population enjoys her music because she characteristically represents that men are the enemy or the cause of a lot of female pain, which is quite often the way young women feel. However, by using this appeal to sell her albums, she is also displaying the five faces of oppression Young discusses in her article. 

Exploitation and Powerlessness- Swift's songs characteristically talk about her past relationships, sometimes even including the real name of one of her exes. She includes specific details from the relationships like times and experiences to write her songs, and although these details make the songs personal and help the audience relate to her, they exploit the men she's dated in the process. Chances are Taylor did not check with these men to see if it was okay to expose these details to a world-wide audience, nor did she allow any of them the opportunity to tell their side of the story, leaving them powerless. While they're not in a relationship anymore, there is some form of confidentiality to be upheld, as many of the guys are famous, just as Swift is. In a sense she is being extremely immature in publicly trashing these guys with her songs. It's a subtle way of destroying their reputations and status with the public. As a result, they are left powerless because any response on their part would be viewed negatively.

Marginalization and Violence - Not only does Taylor Swift tend to exploit the men she's dated, she generalizes her experiences to all men. This is her way of making the songs relatable and marketable, however it marginalizes the male population as a whole, while sometimes even getting violent. In her most recent hit "Blank Space" she has lines saying, "You look like my next mistake," "Boys only want love if it's torture," and refers to guys as "players." Even in her older song "Picture to Burn" she says she'll tell all of her exes friends he's gay to get revenge for cheating on her. These examples of verbal violence and marginalization of men show she is degrading men just as much as male music artists degrade women, just in a less vulgar manner. 

Cultural Imperialism - This leaves us with cultural imperialism. How could sweet little Taylor Swift's songs be displaying this form of oppression you ask? Let me ask you this. How is it appropriate culturally to teach girls such a strong double standard? That it's not okay for guys to sing/rap about the female body and sex, which are both natural parts of existence, because they're degrading women, yet it's okay for females to sing about how terrible guys are and that there are no worthwhile men in the world. Even though there is no single person that is the oppressor, Taylor Swift songs are an example of an oppressor. She writes as the epitome of the sweet, angelic little girl who can do no wrong.  How is it fair that she is teaching the younger generations of females that men are nothing but heartbreak and hurt, when we ourselves break their hearts as well? 

Fighting Firestone with Fire

As "the fireball" of the feminist movement, Shulamith Firestone had many strong beliefs that she voiced on behalf of all women, with the overall assumption that every woman wanted the exact same things as she did. I believe she was admired by many women but her argument on the desired method of childbirth falls short. She believed that women were desired merely to provide children and food to the male population, and believed that it would be a relief to women if they could reproduce a child outside of a mother's womb.

http://tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/114393/the-feminist-manifesto

While I have personally never given birth, I can understand Firestone's assumption that "Pregnancy is barbaric" because I too view birth "like shitting a pumpkin." It sounds terrifying and seems to be gruesomely painful. However, that's exactly what these statements are: assumptions. Firestone herself never actually gave birth to a child, so she doesn't know what it's like to give birth and instantly be overwhelmed with an unconditional love for a tiny, alien-looking human being.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant

There are numerous types of women in the world: Women who want children and women who don't. Women who want a child but don't have the ability to have one. Women who have accidental pregnancies. All of these women are individuals. They are people with rights and opinions. Some may think of childbirth in the way Firestone does, but others may consider it a blessing and a beautiful experience of life. Firestone failed to think that not everyone will have the same opinion on any particular subject.

http://www.everywomansoutheast.org/policy/preconception-related-policies

In making the assumption that all women would prefer to create a child outside their womb's, she did exactly what she was fighting to stop: she oppressed women. She created her own "artificial reproduction outside the womb" if you will. She took away the voices and opinions of other women, (which can be represented by) the egg and the sperm, and artificially conceived an idea without the consultation or support of her fellow women she was trying to fight for (the mother's womb). 

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/08/05/oppression-and-intersectionality/

I have no doubt in my mind that there were women who did agree with her and like her idea of reproduction outside the womb. One side of the argument could be that when Shulamith Firestone took away the voice of other women, she devalued them. She showed she wasn't thinking enough of the other women to consider their input. However, the feminist movement needed a lead voice to represent all women, just as our president Barack Obama represents the American people. Without Firestone, the feminist movement would not have succeeded nearly as much as it did.  

7 Risks You Take by Befriending an Only Child

In developing a friendship with someone you try to get to know the broad things about the person, where they're from, what their hobbies are, but also who their family is and what they're like. People are not often shocked when they find out someone is an only child. They usually say they could tell from the beginning. However, did you know I'm an only child? Most of the people who know me tell me they would never have guessed I was one. I'm the exception to a lot of people's stereotypes of only children. Regardless of me being the exception, I am still aware of the stereotypes. I know not everyone is born without siblings, but should we really judge those who are? The following are 7 risks you may you take by befriending an only child, so now you can't be shocked. You have been warned.

1. We're spoiled.
This is the most common stereotype of only children and I am here to tell you it's accurate. However, before you go blaming it on us, think logically about our family situation. There is only one child in the family, therefore there is a greater amount of money dedicated to us than there would be if there were multiple kids. Having a single child allows for us to go on vacations more frequently, have our laundry being done for us, and our meals cooked for us instead of us making them.

2. We're materialistic.
Although similar, materialism is not the same as being spoiled. As I said before, since we are a single child the parents have more money to provide their child with that cool new iPhone, concert tickets, or that car for their 16th birthday, and as a result of being provided with these things, we grow a liking for THINGS!

3. We don't share.
Yes, only children have experienced interaction with other kids at daycare and school where we are forced to share, but once we step outside the walls of school we will not voluntarily share if our lives depend on it. Asking to borrow our clothes, electronics, or even little things like phone chargers, can be a moment of tension waiting to happen. You've reached a milestone in your friendship with us if we willingly share anything with you, which leads me to my next point.

4. We're territorial.
Once you befriend an only child, you are our friend, no one else's. We become insanely jealous at the knowledge of you having or being with any other friends. If you're dating an only child or simply just our friend, chances are we'll question you about any and every person you're around or speak to. We won't enjoy seeing your posts about you and other people, and don't even THINK about Instagraming a photo with anyone else, you will not get our like.

5. We get comfortable quickly.
Obviously, we don't have siblings, so we form bonds with our friends that resemble those of siblings. We confide in our friends our most important secrets and our deepest thoughts, regardless if they want to know them. We want to talk and hangout all the time since more often than not we're alone at home. We also tend to be very touchy (in a very not weird way), as we love hugs and attention since we got a lot from our parents as children.

6. We have a hard time with reversibility.
We recognize that people can do things wrong and make mistakes, but we don't always handle the reality that we can be wrong and make mistakes too. We often think we can do no wrong, because when growing up, only children often get over encouraged by their parents. We also have trouble taking constructive criticism because we take it as someone criticizing our character and who we are instead of merely criticizing one of our papers or a food we've cooked.

7. We're unnaturally close with our parents.
As a result of having no siblings, we develop relationships with our parents that are more like friendships. We take funny pictures with them, we blast loud music with them, we cook horribly with them, we confide in them about the people in our lives and our day to day problems. If you come over to an only child's house, you have to surpass the parental interrogation about your own life before you can actually hangout with your friend that you came to spend time with. You'll undoubtedly gain another crazy family by befriending an only child.

Is it worth the risk?

Photo Citations:
http://problemkidsblog.com/2014/01/06/5-good-reasons-not-to-spoil-your-child/
http://pixgood.com/mom-cooking-healthy-with-kids.html
http://theantisocialmedia.com/greed-sharing-and-keeping-information/
http://www.teen.com/2014/07/22/random-stuff/what-you-feel-when-you-meet-your-bffs-new-best-friends/attachment/territorial-best-friend-tarzan/
http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/68263003.html
http://www.quazoo.com/q/Correction_paper
http://quotes.lol-rofl.com/sad-child-face/

See Through the Tattoo

Tattoos lately have become a popular form of expression, anything from pictures of people’s favorite celebrities to meaningful dates and scripted quotes. Each one tells a story, and is a reminder to someone of a specific moment they felt passionate enough about something to make it a permanent part of them. While I myself could never get a tattoo, I think they’re absolutely fascinating. Not only can the questions “What does your tattoo mean?” or “Why did you get your tattoo?” be great conversation starters, but they can also be highly informative in getting to know a person’s true self.

This four-letter tattoo argues the pure bravery, strength, and resilience of this person, and that which they’re determined to achieve and sustain; sisu. At first glance not many would notice this tattoo, much less understand the significance of “sisu.” I know I didn’t. Upon looking up the word’s meaning, I learned that there really isn’t a sufficient translation in other languages for this Finnish term. The meaning is, in a way, left up for interpretation. I think this speaks volumes to the meaning of this photo as well as the argument of strength and determination it attempts, and in my opinion succeeds, to make.

A key aspect of this photograph lies in the location of the tattoo. “Sisu” is on the bicep portion of the arm which, when the arm is at rest, is hidden. Having the tattoo in such a hidden spot gives the tattoo a more personal feel. The fact that the word is exposed shows the person’s vulnerability in the moment of the photo, whether they acknowledge it or not. They are allowing the opportunity for the meaning to be shown; for a part of themselves to be exposed; for their meaning to be shared with the world.  Although the main portion of the photograph is focused on the flexing arm to display strength, the real strength comes from the meaning of “sisu” and the figure not shown on camera.  

This picture does not merely share the story of this individual's personal courage, as important as that is, but rather argues that others should follow the meaning of “sisu;” to have the confidence to be courageous and strong throughout any adversity they face. This picture is a reminder to others they’re not alone in their struggles, and invites them to change their lives for the better. Live bravely. Live strongly. Live resiliently.