MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2014
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PAGE 4A
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Text your FFA submissions to (785)289-8351 or at kansan.com
if you're in college and you still use the wrong your/you're, I judge you.
Spread peanut butter . Not rumors.
After twenty years of life I finally realized why it's called a corndog. It's cornbread on the outside.
You know it's love when you still love them after they admit to not having seen Space Jam.
I just caught a bus an hour before my class to avoid having to walk.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Today is about navigating the sidewalks that have become snow mazes.
Professor yawned while lecturing. So boring he's putting himself to sleep.
Saw some guy carrying a sled through campus. Must've declared his own snow day. No F's given.
Why yes, I did bring a sled to class today.
If I had a nickel for every time an American said "oh Canada...I don't know any more." "I'd have enough to pay tuition and 50 gallons of maple syrup.
"To blessed to be dressed"
— Sweatpants
Late enough in the lease I don't care if I piss my roommate off.
Seeing a basketball player on campus is like finding a heads up penny; you get good luck for the rest of the day.
What I learned from the Sochi opening ceremony. Russians really dig electronic music.
First time at AFH. Rookie mistake buying a $4.50 bottle of Coke.
It's great we have this cookie delivery place but how about a bacon delivery place?
So I just tried to click the newspaper and favorite an FFA like it was Twitter - those snow days must have done some brain damage
LIFE
I put way too much emotional investment into KU basketball.
To the guy who helped me get my car out of the snow: Thank You! To KU: Please clear residence halls parking lots.
If your high school color was purple you shouldn't be allowed to wear any of its apparel.
It's embarrassing when the opposing team's fans are louder than us.
I fell down the stairs by the scholarship halls. Twice.
Resolutions for change can be made any time
Let's start this article with a mild interrogation. How many of you are still working toward your New Year's resolutions? I'm guessing not many. I doubt a lot of you even bothered and I don't blame you. New Year's resolutions are notorious for being impossible to fulfill. In fact, researchers at the University of Scranton found that only about 8 percent of people keep theirs. I have a few theories as to why this is, as well as better ways to go about changing yourself.
To start, New Year's resolutions are arbitrary. Why do we choose to suddenly make changes to ourselves on this specific date? Why not any other time? That's the problem. Many people make these goals, I believe, because society tells them they should, not because they
believe that they need or want something different. There's definitely a tinge of stigma associated with having no resolution for the New Year, and it reeks of "having no goals for your life." But that's not how change works. You can't change someone else, especially by guilt. The very essence of these resolutions is rooted in a fabricated goal that is manufactured simply to meet society's expectation of what you ought to be.
Another issue is that people take on too much at a time. I'll use myself as an example here. I wanted to transform my health: weekly cardio exercise, correct my posture, take care of my skin, drink more water every day, and so on. Not only were these goals vague, there were just too many of them to start
with. Social Psychologist Roy Baumeister has shown that your mind has a limited amount of "decision capital" allotted for each day. After a long period of making decisions, your prefrontal cortex becomes exhausted and is unable to make good decisions. If you seek to wake up each morning as a totally different person, you'd have to consciously think about everything you do throughout the day and quickly burn out that decision capital. Point is, you can't do everything; some
things will be compromised. Pick one goal that you think is most important to you and you will be more likely to see that change through.
Perhaps you do know exactly what you want but still find it difficult to stay committed. Reminding yourself of why you are doing it and how it will change your life for the better is a helpful way to stay on track. If you can't answer those questions, perhaps you should consider problem number one. Psychologist Susan Morales also points out that envisioning yourself carrying out the new behavior can help your mind adjust to the change. Take the classic gym resolution for example, many people envision themselves with a transformed body image, but what would be more beneficial is envisioning
your day-to-day routine with the gym part added in.
Lastly, there's nothing wrong with having a little accountability. Couples and friends who work out together are more likely to stick to their plan than those who don't. Finding someone who shares the same goals as you will better ensure that you can reach your goals. It's not too late to start on a resolution if you actually want to — to heck with the arbitrary date. If having a mid-February resolution means you get results, then that's much better than those broken January dreams.
TECHNOLOGY
Will Ashley is a sophomore from Topeka studying Chinese language and literature.
Extremist groups prevent civil internet discussions
Filled with forums, comment sections and a barrage of vitriolic emails, the Internet is host to millions of meaningless and infuriating arguments. A breed of those debates is growing and I've found that the "educated discussion" on gender politics is doing way more harm than good.
Let me lay out the battlefield and combatants that make up the Web's gender politics.
On one end of this spectrum is the radical feminist movement. These radical feminists (rad-fems) have set up shop on Tumblr.
At the other extreme is a group who has labeled itself as the Men's Rights Activists and is mostly found on boards like 4chan as well as certain parts of Reddit.
These are by no means the standard-bearers for the greater feminist movement or men in general. These are just the citizens of the Internet who've banded together efficiently, angrily and loudly.
Day in and day out the rad-fems traded image macros with stories of oppression and circulated jokes poking fun at demographics that carry more "privilege" than others.
The Men's Rights Activists (MRAs) posted stories of their own oppression felt as men, derided radical feminists from the past and made their own jokes about the opposition.
To a point, these two communities were in a dissant harmony. They hated each other based on
their identities, but mostly kept to their own quarters.
Until disaster struck. On Reddit, boards sprang up that parodied and lampooned Tumblr feminists. In a counter attack that involved legal action, "Tumblrites" helped bring down a photo-sharing board on Reddit that hosted pictures of women unaware they were being photographed, labeling the board sexist, creepy and illegal.
The two communities clashed on multiple fronts until finally, the discussion of the effect of gender on politics and society lost itself in the rad-fem and MRA labels. All of the debate turned into insults against the other side and soon the two groups refused to even communicate.
Up until this point, the two factions were hardly making an impact outside of their small and isolated communities. But that didn't last. They spread into other, greater boards, hurling angry rhetoric and gendered insults in forums that were hashing out economics and sharing goofy videos.
That's when this whole debacle caught my attention
When my Facebook feed was being overloaded with links from Jezebel that were written to stir up the radfem core and generate page
When I saw fedora clad MRAs spouting that bisexuality is a myth and all women are golddiggers.
views.
When I noticed that none of these people were interested in solving the problems they kept bringing up; that they just craved the feeling of being righteous and indignant.
I realized that we are living in a post-apocalyptic landscape of gender politics. A few extremist groups made up of a handful of loud and obnoxious people have scraped a dirty bomb together, detonated it and irradiated every inch of productive discussion.
Anymore, it's not worth starting to discuss the topic of gender for fear of being labeled, shut down and ignored.
That argumentative blockade is criminal.
But when the MRAs and rad-fems come blazing into a discussion with their flags held high and language loaded, they're simply impossible to ignore. When the greater debate is a contest on who can be the most offended and insulted, that's when we've hit rock bottom.
Unlike most problems, I don't have a solution. I have no idea where we would begin to reverse this trend. The whole system has been corrupted so totally and radically that my best idea is to simply shut them out and ignore them.
Wil Kenney is a sophomore from Leawood studying English.
LETTER GUIDELINES
RELATIONSHIPS
There's more to life than marrying young
It seems like every time I get on Facebook, there's another engagement to congratulate someone on. I can't scroll down my news feed without seeing at least one flashy diamond ring and girls wooing over it. It's hard to find half of my friends from high school on Facebook when I'm typing in their "old" last name on my search bar. Should I be worried that I don't have a ring on my finger? And an even better question — why do I feel like in college it's so hard to meet a guy who is ready to put a ring on my finger?
The answer is simple: It isn't the time yet. We may feel like a life-long love is everywhere except with us, but the truth is our generation is waiting longer than any generation ever has to get married. The average age for marriage is 27 for women and 29 for men four to seven years after college. We have time to get our own lives together, and we should use it. Sure, you can't control when you meet "the one,"but don't go out looking either.
And waiting is what most of us will have to do whether we want to or not. Take advantage of the wait, and prepare yourself for the right person. You know what's better than meeting a partner with a successful career? Being the partner with a successful career. Don't worry about finding the right one, or even just finding one. What they say is true; when the time is right it will happen. Until then, take advantage of being single.
Look at it like this, we have years to focus on ourselves, our career and our dreams. We go to college for four, maybe more, years to get us on the right track to
Kayla Soper is a senior from Junction City studying journalism and political science.
accomplish those dreams. Yes, getting married can be a part of your plan, but don't let it be your entire plan. A good friend once told me, "Your partner shouldn't be your main course; they should just be your dessert." This isn't to say that those who are already married are wrong. That situation has its advantages, as does waiting.
@NickBAwesome
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@KansanOpinion I have not completed mine yet: to forget my new years resolution. I'll eventually get around to it.
@KansanOpinion I kept my resolution of not keeping resolutions. Wait... does that work?
Katie Kutsko, editor-in-chief kkutsko@kansan.com
@KansanOpinion I don't make new years resolutions, I just set a goal to achieve each month.
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@KansanOpinion lol no
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Members of the Kansai Editorial Board are Katie Kutso, Alison Kohn, Lauren Armendariz, Anna Winner, Sean Powers and Kobot Bots.