TUESDAY, APRIL 2, 2013
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opinion
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Only in the NCAA Tournament can the third best team in Kansas make the final four.
So I'm guessing the baby-changing station in the Underground restroom is a recent addition?
Shout out to whoever drew the hopscotch on Wescoe Beach. My run was much more entertaining than usual.
Is it really necessary to wear gloves when it's 65 out?
Life is like a pineapple jalapeño popsicle; spicy and confusing.
Do the blue signs all around campus remind anyone else of Pokémon?
It's Sunday night, and I'm still hungover from Friday... That's how hard I took that loss.
BUT EVEN WITH CRUISE CONTROL YOU STILL HAVE TO STEER.
To all women: Holding a door is a little thing that can make a guy's day. Give it a try!
KU is out, but Wichita State is still in! Time to shock the nation!!! #kansaspride
Umm Wichita is south of us... Editor's note: Yeah, Kansas City folk seem to believe everything outside of the northeast is "west."
At least the cover of the Apartment Guide made you smile yesterday, am I right?
Just so you know you aren't having the worst Monday in the world, I watched a girl fail off her bike this morning — twice.
Wichita State "out west?" Really?
Thanks Angel, Carolyn and Monica.
We love you!
To the person who referred to WSU as being "out west" like it's practically in Colorado. Go home, you are drunk.
You know you're a KU student when making the FFA is your biggest accomplishment of the semester.
As a Royals fan, every year "this is the year." At least in April...
I'm not a sore loser. I only have one team, and they're out. So who wins doesn't matter to me.
So wait... Is the paper due tomorrow, or was that just an April Fools joke?
Hey, Elijah! I still love and support you. Thanks for bringing home a 9th straight Big XII trophy. Rock chalk!
If it looks like I patted my own butt while walking, I wasn't being creepy, I was just neurotically checking to see if I had my wallet.
"Nahh I'll just stay another couple of months." - Winter
I didn't like Michigan in the first place...
Some politics need votes,not voices
The flood of red equality pictures on social media seemed to catch most of us off guard. The conversation crept up on us, and suddenly most "allies" seemed to have no clue what they were talking about.
I'm an armchair liberal who sits on the floor. I'm barely half a step above slacktivist and a full 10 steps below anyone alive in the '60s.
I've picked up a sign on an embarrassingly few occasions and have spent most of my time repeating the words of people who are much smarter and more involved than I'll ever be. I take every chance I get to fight the Facebook good fight and take personal offense to anyone who disagrees.
So when suddenly dozens of arguments began opening up
across my Facebook feed, ranging from the legitimacy of the gay movement to the strangely low-resolution equal sign everyone was sporting. I knew my time had come. Here was my chance to eloquently defend an issue I'd immersed myself in. This was my time to shine in front of my peers.
I ate concrete. I floped and then some. Everything I typed was torn apart and dumped in the river with cinder blocks chained around its ankles. Despite cowering behind the shield of my computer screen, I was hurt.
The thing is there are very few in our generation who are against gay marriage in the first place, much less in my friend list. When hackles are raised and there's no one to use as a scapegoat, whole groups of overzealous college
liberals turn on one another. A vitriolic comment thread gets lost in the details of Bible verses no one has actually read and misused phrases like "discourse" and "Oueer oppression."
After failing so hard in what I considered home territory, I realized something: Even if I've read every LGBTQ book and article, seen every art-house film and have 10,000 gay best friends there's nothing that I can legitimately contribute to a conversation that is way beyond me. The
number of bumper stickers I've managed to scrape together and the deluge of social media trends I've tagged along with don't change the fact that I was raised in a predominately white, heteronormative society.
A perspective formed by experience is infinitely more valuable than one formed by second-hand accounts. That's why videos of George Takei discussing LGBTQ politics have millions of views and my 200-word comment on someone's Facebook status has, - at best - two likes.
In a weird way, the arguments from the anti-gay crowd on Facebook are more legitimate than mine. Those are personally formed and crafted while mine are poorly paraphrased versions of a Rachel Maddow interview from 2010. I'm not even a drop in the ocean. I'm a thimble full
Is it sad that it took me this long to realize I'm an idiot? I'll chalk it up to youthful ignorance
of water scooped out and gently lowered right back in.
UNIVERSITY
So I clicked up a new profile picture and cut off all the arguments I had started so hastily. If I am going to be an ally of the LGBTQ community, then it will be with my vote and a very sparingly used, positive voice. No one logs onto Facebook ready to have his or her mind changed, so why bother with the frustration and tension? From now on I'll sit down, shut up and learn from the people who actually know what they're talking about.
Kenney is a freshman majoring in political science and journalism from Shawnee
Search for advisers who help more than removing holds
By now, maybe you're thinking about your next semester's class schedule. You'll have to go through the University's advising system to enroll. It works, but it's hardly advising and hardly a system.
I wish I could take myself back to 2010 and give some advice to the younger me about KU advising. Maybe it's worth trying to mimic Blake Griffin, taking a Kia Optima back in time to tell my younger self just a few words.
your enrollment adviser is a great person, but can't really tell you how to get an edge in class or how to get ahead. Also, advising is incredibly hands off, so don't expect anyone to guide you in your education."
"Hands off" is really a aphemism for "Come back in six months". This is how the current advising system works: I schedule an appointment. My adviser tells me what courses to take, though I've checked my Degree Progress Report (DPR) and know which courses I need. He suggests applying for internships, something I did. Sweet - see you in six months.
Going in for advising feels like going to the dentist. I call in my appointment. The dentist tells me to floss more, which I do. The dentist tells me to invest in an electronic toothbrush, and I tell him that I have a Sonicare toothbrush and use Sensodyne for my sensitive teeth. Great - see you in six months.
The advising system at the University pushes students to be autonomous. The DPR is self-explanatory, albeit error-prone. There are curriculum guides, enrollment guides, sample four-year plans and course catalogs available online. The process is so "hands off" sink or swim and
figure it out on your own that most students learn how to pick our classes without talking to any adviser. Over time, going to an adviser becomes the final step, a formality at most. It becomes unimportant.
We essentially advise ourselves. There is value in forcing students to advise themselves on what classes they should take, what direction they should head to be most successful. However, I don't think that the ineffectiveness of the advising system was carefully, meticulously crafted so that I could reach a more independent self. I tell my adviser my schedule. He checks a box. My hold is gone. I enroll. See you in six months. No one cares. Advising slowly becomes this transaction that takes place every few months.
Think about what we miss out on. I'm not saying independence isn't great, but we miss out on potentially great relationships and the chance at greater achievement. My adviser struggled to remember my name for the first two years. He doesn't look at my goals and say, "This is a great way to get there." We never talk about my goals anyways; we just go through the motions of getting my holds removed, and then I go enroll in whatever I want. It makes me, "Okay, whatever man, I will go figure it out on my own." Maybe you've felt this way about advising, classes and just the direction that education at the University tends toward. The entire college experience could become a transaction, just like advising. I could turn in my homework but never stay for class. I could live by myself off campus. I take a test, I get a grade. I pay for credit hours, and I get a degree. I could graduate unknown to any of my peers. I could come to the University and better myself, but leave the University without better it.
Don't let this happen to you. Even if classes are these emotionless transactions like buying milk at Dillon's, don't let that derail your college experience. You have to make something out of nothing.
Maybe your adviser isn't in your corner, helping you find every edge you need to succeed. If not, then befriend people who will. Seek out advisers who do more than remove your enrollment holds. There's no way we can take every adviser, underwhelming to outstanding, and force the thoughts "Be an overachiever. Change the lives of these kids. Give them some direction. Help them." That's a lofty, unreasonable expectation. However, no one is stopping you from meeting the people that could very well launch your career path, become your coworker or console in hard times. Don't let your college experience be another transaction you make every day.
Ouyang is a junior majoring in petroleum engineering and economics from Overland Park. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisOuyang
TELEVISION
Character inspires by embracing faults
O h, Hannah Horvath. What is it that makes this brutally honest. 13
pounds overweight, often unemployed 20-something so endearing? I think it's something about the fact that she is incredibly self-conscious and yet completely disreards it.
Though I have mad love for HBO's "Girls," and Allison Williams' and Jemima Kirke's characters as well, I have to warn you, this column focuses on my one and only Hannah Horvath (portrayed by Lena Dunam). The following are five compelling reasons to love our Hannah.
1. She is so delightfully awkward. Everyone can relate to that hand-on-head feeling after greeting a cute boy with, "What's shaken!?" or simply, "Hiiiii...". Hannah doesn't just recognize this feeling, she embraces it. And she does it all while wearing a see-through mesh tank top.
That episode when she shacks up with hot married guy Patrick Wilson for two full days? Her oversharing with him is so cringe-worthy, yet so bold you have to love it. It almost makes you wish we lived in a world where it was socially acceptable to say whatever is on your mind - without committing social suicide, of course.
2. She doesn't make apologies for who she is. She says and feels what she wants, when she wants and to whom she wants. Hannah isn't afraid to say, "I'm scared," but also isn't afraid to say, "I may be the voice of my generation." She is 100 percent authentic, and if that means sitting pantsless eating Cool Whip, so be it. Keeping up appearances is pretty low on Hannah's list of priorities, and I respect her immensely for that.
3. She both loves and loathes her body, I've definitely seen Lena Dunham's boobs more than any other human's, on TV or in real life. The nudity - OK, mostly Hannah's nudity – in "Girls" is disconcerting at first, but something about how comfortable Hannah is in her own skin makes viewers more comfortable also.
It is my theory that Hannah's confidence – even if misguided – gives viewers permission to be
confident in their flawed selves as well. There's something so liberating about a woman who admits that she is overweight, has a terrible haircut and is a questionable dresser, but also that she is awesome and worthy of love.
4. She doesn't hide her emotions. I sometimes hate the "it's all good, bro" culture we live in today. You know, the one where if you're not super chill about everything in life, you basically damaged. I admit that the go-with-the-flow lifestyle can be very healthy and allows us to take things in stride, but it also doesn't allow us to truly feel. Hannah is on an emotional roller coaster. In a single episode she goes through several mood swings and has at least one major breakdown. Some would say she is unstable, but in reality, she just refuses to mask the emotions we all feel, but struggle to keep inside.
One of the most lovable things about Hannah is that she is flawed. Like, really flawed. But rather than struggle to hide those flaws under the ruse of a "balanced" lifestyle, she plays them up. Her dysfunction is what makes her character so unique, but also so relatable. Because, on some level, we have all experienced the type of personal crisis Hannah does when she gets writer's block or has an OCD relapse. Watching her go through it – sometimes successfully, sometimes not – gives us license to take our own crises at our own pace. And to not beat ourselves up when they happen in the first place.
5. She is the brainchild of Lena Dunham. The end.
Mayfield is a junior studying journalism, political science and leadership from Overland Park
@Im2masTrouble
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