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MONDAY, MARCH 3, 2014
PAGE 4
opinion
TEXT FREE FOR ALL
That moment when you find out your 21st birthday is the day of the NCAA semifinals.
I managed the impossible: two FFAs in one day.
Text your FFA submissions to (785)289-8351 or at kansan.com
Sure, it's acceptable to propose through the FFA...As long as you're ok with being rejected through the FFA.
Panda Express open till 9pm
EVERY night?? I think I'll make the
Union my new nightly hang out.
Om nm new nom...
This guy just fixed his hair in his SnapChat camera in the middle of lecture. That snapchat must have been very important.
This class could put me asleep for days.
In all fairness, Kansas alone can have a foot of snow and it still be 60.
And all I want is for a handsome ginger man to fall for me. Is that too much to ask for?
I like mean bus drivers only because they'll yell at people who try to exit through the front doors on the bus.
RELATIONSHIPS
10 the people texting on machines at the rec "YA GOTS TA GO."
SafeRide is a lie. I am tipsy and need a safe ride to the bar what do you mean you don't do that.
Editor's Note: They mean that they don't do that. The only place SafeRide will take you is home.
I'm in a competition with my friend to see who has the most FFAs in a semester. So far I'm winning.
My biggest pet peeve is people who come in late to class and don't even try to shut the door behind them quietly. What, were you raised in barn, slamming doors?
You know it's serious when your snap chat conversation turns into texting.
Did anyone arrive on campus via dogsled today?
Several stores released their spring collection on Sunday. They timed that well...
The Underground is a lot like a dirty room,it's pretty cool when there's not junk everywhere (I'm not directly referring to people as junk.)
Editor's Note. Lately we've had trouble getting enough usable FFAs. Remember, FFAs should be Funny, Friendly and Appropriate.
Don't befriend your ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend
Isn't it crazy to think that out of all the serious relationships we have in our lives, only one won't end? According to Bowling Green State University's National Center for Marriage and Family Research, our generation is waiting longer than ever to get married, averaging the age of 27 for women and 29 for men.
an ex?
By that age we have probably gathered up a full list of failed past relationships. So what are you supposed to do with all of them? Which brings an even harder question...
Can you be friends with
I know we have all tried to justify it at some point or another, but let's be honest with ourselves. The answer is no.
After you go down the "I'm in love with you" path, there is no going back to being just friends. It's like eating pizza. Once you eat an entire pizza by yourself, one slice will never satisfy you again. Once you have had a person physically and emotionally all to yourself, converting back to a small piece of them will not suffice.
When ending a relationship with someone.
it's probably best to break it off completely. Go cold turkey. No doubt that breakups are hard, but don't make it even harder on yourself by befriending that person when things clearly didn't work out.
By Kayla Soper
opinion@kansan.com
Who even created this horrible idea of becoming friends with an ex? Keep in mind that, "It's not you it's me, and I still want to be friends," does not actually mean that they want to remain friends. It just means they don't want to feel as
bad about not wanting to be with you. If they aren't being a good enough boyfriend or girlfriend, chances are their friend qualities will suck as well.
You are taking the easy way out if you expect to be friends with an ex right after the break up. You're probably thinking, "You aren't completely losing them in your life if you stay friends. You'll still keep in touch and know how they are doing, and this way you won't be as sad about the change in your relationship status." But what you're really doing is prolonging the hurt.
When your "friend" starts dating other people, will you be a good "friend" and give them dating advice for your replacement? Probably not.
There are more than seven billion people in this world. Not only does that mean you have a lot of other options for new love, but it also means there are more than 6,999,999,998 other people that you can be friends with besides your ex.
Kayla Soper is a senior from Junction City studying journalism and political science.
Millennials aren't lazy, just distracted
I have often struggled to reconcile the media representation of my generation as "lazy" with my own experiences with exceptional millennials. That is why, as I was huffing and puffing on my stationary bike at the recreation center, I was dismayed to watch 80 people walk past a discarded towel and not pick it up. At passerby number 81, I decided to pull out my phone and perform a little experiment
During a two-minute clip I counted 20 more people pass by the towel. Finally, one young lady looked directly at the towel, picked it up, asked if it belonged to any of the onlookers and then put in the towel bin. That's my kind of woman.
Later that night I was thinking about what had happened at the rec.I was truly bothered and a little angered that so many people my own age had strolled past a tripping hazard, an eyesore and a missed opportunity to be a good citizen. I started to wonder — are we really lazy?
There had to be an alternate answer. Shockingly, I spared some time from the TV and thought about if for a while, a strange turn of events for someone from "Generation Y You so Lazy!" I came to the
conclusion, using the powers of my very own brain, that my generation, my friends, my colleagues and my peers are not lazy; rather, we are distracted.
As a group of people born between 1982 and 2000, we have a lot to think about. From climate change to student debt, it's easy for our minds to be weighed down with worry. With this new idea, I stopped and re-evaluated.
Maybe the gentleman who walked past the towel three times didn't see it because he was thinking about how his father's unemployment checks won't be arriving anymore. Perhaps the girl headed to the treadmill was worried about her grandmother losing her SNAP benefits. And perhaps the girl who stepped directly over the towel was thinking about her relatives in Ukraine, facing bloodshed and a potential civil war.
We were raised in a society littered with social media, ruthless advertising campaigns and the consequences of globalization. In a
single day, a person can see up to 5,000 advertisements, consume and wear products from all around the world and be inundated with sensational international news from multiple 24-hour networks. No wonder we are distracted. Our globalized society is pulling our attention in every direction at once. Meanwhile, our consumer culture is telling us to focus on things rather than people and communities.
SEE A VIDEO OF THE TOWEL INCIDENT AT KANSAN.COM/OPINION
We have lost sight of what is truly important. We have lost sight of what that towel stands for. It is not simply a wayward towel in need of a kind soul to place it in a laundry bin. No, that towel represents all the world's problems that we are too distracted to see.
While that towel sits there, the climate is changing, the income gap is widening and our democratic system is failing to serve our most at-risk populations. It is time that we shed our lazy façade masquerading as our true character and become the generation that changes the world. Let's wake up, get up and live up to our potential.
ACADEMICS
Gabrielle Murnan is a sophomore from Pittsburg studying environmental studies.
FFA OF THE DAY
If you don't have a brain, please don't speak...especially before I've had my coffee.
Put away the laptop, handwrite class notes
In class, do you take notes by hand or do you open up your laptop and start typing as the professor lectures? Is one method superior to the other? Is one more helpful in memory and recall? Some say it depends on the person, but according to various studies, it's time to invest in some notebooks, pencils and pens. Put away your laptops.
Data from a study at Indiana University suggests we're better off writing by hand. Karin Harman lames, assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience, tested children by showing them letters before and after receiving different letter-learning instruction. Children who wrote the letters by hand, as opposed to just looking at them, showed enhanced neural activity. The study shows how writing by hand engages the brain in learning. Rather than just identifying keys on a keyboard, we create each letter stroke by stroke. It's definitely not as fast, but it's excellent for our brains.
An additional experiment conducted by Jean-Luc Velay at the University of Marseille shows that different parts of our brain are used when we read letters we've written as opposed to those we only recognize from typing on a keyboard. Movements used when writing by hand leave a motor memory in the sensorimotor part of the brain. Such data leads scientists to
Writing integrates three processes: visual (the paper in front of you), motor (motor skills used when contacting the paper with the pen) and cognitive (remembering the shapes of letters). Taking notes by hand also allows us to filter out the most important information and create bullets and outlines seamlessly.
believe a connection exists between reading and writing.
But all studies aside, taking notes by hand is better for many obvious reasons. Having your laptop in class is distracting, not only to you, but also to the people behind you. While you look at cat memes, your newsfeed and Reddit posts, your education passes you by. Also, taking notes with a keyboard for some classes is nearly impossible. Think of finding all the Greek notations for your math classes or drawing price floor graphs for economics on your word processor. We don't need scientific studies to prove that some tasks are more difficult with Microsoft Word than if you were to write them by hand.
Lastly, if we grow too accustomed to typing everything, we will be in sore shape when exams come.
During finals week, when you have to fill out Bluebook essays for English or history your hand will become easily fatigued, your penmanship will lag and your professor will have to strain to read you what you have written.
It's time to strengthen your hand, your learning and your retention. Next time you're in class, take out a notebook and pencil.
Anrenee Reasor is a junior from Thayer studying economics and East Asian languages and culture.
@maddienave
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CAMPUS CHIRPS BACK
@KansanOpinion first answer: absolutely not. Second answer: it depends.
Do you think you can be friends with your ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend?
@SieARose
@KansanOpinion One of my best friends is an ex of mine. We were best friends before the relationship and the past is the past. #LetItGo
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@KansanOpinion my ex stole my cat and $300 from my seven year old sister. So probably not.
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