THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2013
PAGE 4
I'll miss the winter Spandex pants.
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I need to make a video resume. How do I get in touch with the AV crew that makes the KU Basketball videos?
Valentines day is like beating K-State:
happens every year but still gives me an excuse to get drunk.
Perhaps some girls look nice at lottery because they have to go to work immediately after.
If she thinks jean jackets "never were cool" she's too young for you, bro.
I just saw a squirrel climb up a tree with a Kansan.
Everyone is looking for love, I'm just looking for my OChem notes.
BREAKING NEWS: Frat guy breaks away from Frat Pack to help non-sorority girl
Excuse me, jean jackets are dope.
Always have been, always will be.
I can't take freshmen wearing suits seriously. It's like looking at babies in suits.
A person told me today that it is good luck to get pooped on by a bird... Well let it be known that I disagree with said person.
I want to sincerely thank the Kansan writers for putting together the Chalmers' jersey retirement section. I seriously choked up reading it.
Definitely ran into every guy in the School of Engineering that I've ever had a crush on at the career fair.. On Valentine's Day.
Trust me, I love Chalmers as much as anyone, but when I reminisce on "Mario's Miracle" I think Sherron Collins deserves just as much credit.
Can camping be a legitimate reason for skipping class?
Pick one: A wand, a sonic screwdriver, or a lightsaber.
A 65 percent three weeks in is not as bad as a 65 percent three months in. Just savin.
What are sleds but boats that work on solid water?
If the Kansan could talk, I wonder if it would ask us to stop riping it into confetti on game day. Editor's note: Nah, we dig it.
Sometimes I stare at people and think to myself their never going to get laid.
I hope that guy outside of Pay Less Furniture never changes.
Ladies and gentlemen, you don't come to Allen Fieldhouse drunk. Respect the Pho
Rece Davis tried to kill the woo... Even he failed.
Please tell me papa Self took baby Self out for ice cream after he scored.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Whenever I come home I always clean out my family's pantry. Yumm! Foooood!
Visitation rights are not a privilege
I'm not going to be the guy who convinces you that homosexuality is perfectly natural. I still sometimes use the words "gay" and "lame" interchangeably. I wince when I see two men kiss. I hate that I still have some homophobic tendencies, but it still just seems so weird to me.
And then I get to thinking about love and rights, I think about my times in medical treatment and how much it means to me to have my girlfriend there and then I simply can't imagine how anyone would try to take those rights away.
I told my girlfriend Liz about my immune deficiency and my blood infusion treatments the day after our very first date. I don't know why. I wasn't in the habit of telling people back then. I didn't tell my close friends, I didn't tell my teammates and I sure as hell didn't tell thousands of newspaper readers every week. My
health was my business, and if I couldn't fight it on my own, then I didn't deserve to be OK. But Liz had the most beautiful, warm smile and she held my hand like I was someone to be cared for.
After just one date, I told her the truth; that the only thing keeping me out of the hospital again was a weekly dose of someone else's immunoglobulins. I wanted her to know up-front what a pathetic, disease-addled misfit I was, and give her the chance to run off.
She didn't.
Instead, she visited me for my very next treatment. I had never let anyone see me so vulnerable. Hooked up to IV's with baseball-sized welts on my back and stomach, I felt like something less than human. But Liz brought me candy and watched TV with me until my two-hour treatment came to a close. With her by my side, I knew no pain.
She's been by my side for over a year now; a year where I've had
over 200 needles go into my body and spent over 100 hours in infusion therapy. Liz was there when my two-hour treatments turned into five-hour treatments. And in spite of it all, I wouldn't trade a single one of those hours to be anywhere else, because with Liz by my side, even the eerily sterile, fluorescent-lit clinic seemed like the right place to be.
We all deserve to have someone like her in our lives, regardless of gender. Someone who still calls you handsome when your eyes get puffy and there's a bloodstain on your forearm. Someone who doesn't believe
you when you say you're feeling fine. Someone who treats you like a human, not a patient. We all deserve to be treated like humans, regardless of sexual orientation, race or gender, and especially when we are at our most vulnerable.
It was a sign of progress for humanity when President Obama mandated equal visitation rights back in 2010. But those rights continue to come under attack every day. Even during the 2012 election, Governor Romney claimed that the ability to be there for your loved one in a time of dire need is a privilege, not a right. These battles for basic human needs will not be met until we have equality across the board, from the operating room to the chapel.
I complain a lot, but I know how lucky I am. My five-hour infusion treatments could just as easily be five-hour chemotherapy treatments. I have the full support
of my family and I have a girl who makes me happy in my lowest times. I simply can't imagine being separated from my loved ones in a life-or-death situation because they aren't considered a traditional family. Because death doesn't discriminate. And neither does love. So why should we? Why should I still be homophobic? I can relate so easily to others' pain, other's struggles. I can write about them for days, but I can't find the words to describe how much I care about my loved one. If I ever did, I wouldn't write another sentence. Love can't be boiled down to words on a page, or on a marriage license or a legislative bill. It's for everyone.
Webber is a freshman majoring in journalism and political science from Prairie Village. Follow him on Twitter @wmwebber.
CAMPUS
KUID lottery for bus rides would solve crowding issue
Survival of the fittest is a well known phrase, but to be honest, I never thought it would apply to getting on a bus.
There I was, standing outside Lippincott hall, shirling like wheat in a blizzard, waiting for the most cutthroat bus on campus: 43 Red.
Kansas was having one of its temper tantrums, below zero days of intense cold and ferocious wind, and my hands and face were entirely exposed to the weather. More than anything I wanted to put my hands in my pocket, but as they were holding two large bins full of cookies, this was not possible.
The bus was right on time, and for just a moment I was excited. Then I saw it: the freshmen swarm. Coming from GSP and Corbin, the bus was entirely packed with students, and the looks I was getting from the riders were much colder than the weather outside. Before I even tried to board the bus I could tell they wanted me to understand that none of them were going to move for me.
But I tried anyway, because it was either that or walk to Numemaker for my class. It took nearly five minutes for the bus driver to coax the hardened students into shuffling back a few steps to allow me and two other passengers to enter, and even then we were given only a tiny patch of floor on which to stand
Somehow, I made it to Nunemaker without dropping my cookies. It was certainly no thanks to the bus riders, who made a mass exodus at the next stop a building away from the stop where I had entered. Sure, they could have gotten off one stop sooner so that the other
cold, would-be passengers at my stop could have boarded, but instead they rode the extra thirty feet simply because no one could make them walk.
This enlightening incident got me to thinking that while I got on the bus that day, there really ought to be a system for deciding which people get to ride the bus in days of bad weather. I mean, sure, it's possible people could be polite and exit a stop sooner if they see the bus is full. It's also conceivable that students could pack the bus more quickly and without complaint, but if that day was any indication, change isn't going to happen on its own. Changing a habitual behavior like this takes extreme measures, and I think I have just the right solution. It is because of this that I propose the first-ever, 43 Red Bus lottery.
track of which KU students were on the bus so that when the time for the lottery came, all would be prepared.
Now this lottery wouldn't be the kind of game where the selected student receives money. Instead, the lottery winner would be subjected to a modern day, Shirley Jackson style lottery (for those who don't know, Shirley Jackson is the author of "The Lottery", which features a town's deadly adherence to tradition).
The method would be simple. Whenever students boarded or exited the bus they would scan their KU ID card where they normally would have as a paying rider. Rather than record payment, this system would keep
When the bus is not crowded all would work as normal from here, but in those cases where there is simply not enough room for all of the passenger-hopefuls, the lottery would determine who would be allowed to ride. For however many students are at the next stop, that many students would be kicked off of the bus lottery style. So for instance, if there were three students at Lippincott Hall waiting for the bus, but the bus is full when it pulls up, the computer would randomly select three current riders to be kicked off so the new riders could enter. This way students are not forced to make a selfless choice by giving up their spot for another rider. They are simply forced to get off.
And if a student refuses to leave the bus? This is the modern world, so naturally we aren't going to use "The Lottery" tradition of stoning them to death. It's rude, and last I checked, highly illegal. Instead, we shall take crumpled up issues of Kansan and toss them at the chosen student until they exit the bus. The student will naturally pick up the mess as they leave — by then they'll have learned to be considerate towards their fellow students. Most important, by then they will realize that anyone could be that person stuck at Lippincott Hall with their hands full of cookie bins.
Wenner is a sophomore majoring in English and history from Topeka.
CAMPUS CHIRPS BACK
Whose jersey do you want KU Basketball to retire next?
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RELATIONSHIP
Students benefit from rebounds
I met the guy I would later secretly consider my go-to rebound just weeks after moving to Lawrence for my freshman year in 2008. Chris (name has been changed) was the perfect guy for the job too: tall, dark, handsome and perpetually single. We started seeing each other after I unapologetically ties with a sub-par fling, and with that, the dynamic between us shifted from platinic to flirty.
A rebound relationship (or sex, etc.) is characterized by entering one relationship shortly after breaking one off with the partner before. Traditionally rebound relationships are considered unhealthy and constructs in which people use one another, but despite their criticisms, research from the University of Toronto has found that rebounds can actually do a person good.
After a week of losses devastating to any loyal Kansas basketball fan, the team's impressive finish last Monday night became a win for the record books with the Jayhawks out-rebounding the Wildcats 41-23. But even outside the walls of Allen Fieldhouse, every year students all across campus experience a little rebounding for themselves as well.
We saw each other briefly, but I extinguished our bond only a few weeks in then started seeing a new guy the next month, which promptly became serious. My rebound and I kept in touch and hung out occasionally, and when my boyfriend became overbearing and controlling toward the end of our relationship - forbidding me from even going to a party my rebound invited me to - Chris was the first guy I went out with following my impending breakup. And the rebound date and my newfound freedom were awesome.
Shortly after, Chris and I fizzled again, only to go out on another rebound date approximately a year later after another split with a guy I had been seeing for most of my sophomore year. Then, as you may be able to guess by now, we cut ties again, and I've only seen him once since.
Rebound opponents say that jumping into one kind of relationship shortly after another without first getting over one's ex is a recipe for disaster and is ultimately unfair to the new partner.
However, according to Stephanie Spielmann of the University of Toronto, people who are "anxiously attached," or those who often seek self-worth in relationships (including those with romantic partners, friends and family), often benefit from rebounds because they help them finally detach from their former romances.
In fact, in a 2009 study she conducted, Spielmann concluded that rebound relationships enabled anxiously attached people to disrupt their longing for their ex-lovers when they believed that they could easily find a new partner. And while most of the population is not characterized as anxiously attached, a rebound relationship could be beneficial for many people anyway if they are so inclined because a rebound is a great opportunity to turn over a new leaf.
Finally, whether we tend to immediately put ourselves back out in the dating world or maintain a low profile for some time post-breakup, at least exploring the benefits of a rebound is a worthwhile cause, regardless of how much we as individuals rely on relationships to feel worthy.
We may determine that a rebound is indeed not the best course of action after nixing a previous relationship due to our personalities and how we choose to cope. But at least knowing that can help us deal with future breakups when they arise.
And in the end, knowing when to rebound and when to just take the bench can ultimately keep us playing the dating game as best as we can.
Keith is a graduate student in education from Wichita. Follow her on Twitter @Rachel_UDKeith.
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