THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2011
PAGE 5A
opinion
Dear Tyrel, for Valentine's Day tomorrow, I'm giving you 40 minutes to smash K-State in their own house. Please use this time wisely. Love, Me.
Grab your flannel and syrup boys, were going lumber-jacking.
Who likes girls with morals anyways?
apps.facebook.com/dailykansan
You're designing a website and I'm playing Angry Birds. I win.
I feel like I need to wash some STDs off just from reading these posts.
Is attending every KU men's basketball game resume-worthy?
Is there anything better in the world than free alcohol?
Someone asked me if I had plans for Valentine's Day and all that came to mind was Easy Mac, boxed wine and a lifetime movie marathon...
Nothing says "Valentine's Day" like an empty case of Natty Light and watching Avatar.
Looks like the Boner Patrol is out in full force today.
And Pizza Shuttle is closed, so I'm stuck eating girl scout cookies in my bed. God bless America!
Do it on Safebus? Eww.
My brother has ADD which is weird because he drives a Ford Focus. I told my brother that joke and he didn't laugh because he got distracted by a squirrel
NUMERO UNO!!!
Iowa State throws more bricks than Egyptian protestors.
GSW = Gym, Shower, Weed ) Get on my level Jersey Shore.
I feel that absolutely nobody should be worrying about V-day, and should instead be focusing their energies on the KU-K-State game. It is way more important, as basketball always should be.
Spend Valentine's Day drunk or go to class ... drunk ... or class ... decisions, decisions.
Duke is like American idol auditions... They are more entertaining when they suck
Thank you for giving up on your New Year's resolution already! The rec center is back to normal!
Judge-y Wudge-y was a bear.
Judge-y Wudge-y had no friends.
Do you ever feel like no one pays attention? WELL THEN LIGHT FIREWORKS ON YOUR BOOBS AND THEY WILL. — Katy Perry
Five days later and pieces of newspaper are still falling out of my jacket. God, I'm gonna miss basketball season!
Muscian shines light on love and neurophysiology
HEALTH
Apparently, Kesha is a neurophysiologist. Kesha has sung and talked her way into a relatively new field of science.
She suggests romantic love is an addiction that can mask the effects of mental illness and neurotic behavior. Her findings and results can be found on her single "Your Love is My Drug." Let's analyze her observations:
"I just can't get you off my mind." Romantic love is not just an emotional entity. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) show that love is a real, concrete drive, much like a sex drive.
However, love is stronger than a sex drive. One can control tactile stimulation or physical arousal, but not the release of certain neurotransmitters. Dopamine is the targeted neurotransmitter responsible for the nuance in romantic love.
Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University studying the science of love, gave her subjects a picture of their loved ones. The FMRI
BY MONICA SAHA msaha@kansan.com
shows neurons in the midbrain light up when the photograph is shown. This is where dopamine is being produced. Dopamine is linked to the feelings of addiction, competition and ecstasy.
When one develops a crush, it is not easy to give her or him up, because your brain is producing "feel-good feelings." You want that person to be yours. You are constantly thinking about them.
"If I keep it up like a love sick crackhead."
Funny that you mention crack, Kesha
Cocaine acts by blocking the reuptake of dopamine. Cocaine binds to the reuptake transporters that remove the excess of Dopamine from the synaptic gap.
Therefore, dopamine cannot be reabsorbed by the dopaminergic neuron. There is an increased concentration of this neurotransmitter in the synapse.
As a result, the natural effect of dopamine on the post-synaptic neuron leaves an elevated and addicting feeling
leaves its elevated and indicting feeling This chemical response is similar to the feelings of love.
"My friends think I've gone crazy."
Yes, ves you have.
All your profile pictures are of the two of you. You constantly text and call him or her. You keep tabs on each other. You ditch your friends to hang out The basis of you conversations to your friends is about him or her and advice you need.
Your friends are right. It is simply unhealthy that you isolate yourself with
your "significant" other. And what happens when you guys break up? Maybe cocaine will be legalized by then.
(DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying everyone in love acts like this. But we all at least know someone that does.)
Also, you can thank the fact that you do not need an illegal substance to induce these feelings.
Now that Kesha and I have broken down the science of love, I hope you can enjoy today with your significant other. You can thank your nervous and sympathetic systems for the feelings of euphoria and love.
But to all my single friends, well, Valentine's Day will be a distant memory tomorrow and Hershey's chocolate will be on sale. Luckily, chocolate can trigger the release of dopamine, too.
Happy Valentine's Day!
Saha is a junior in neurobiology from Overland Park.
HUMOR
"Not everyone has a 'significant other,' and sometimes people don't want to be reminded of this every Valentine's Day. What's something I can do to distract myself?" —A Lady Jayhawk
Need advice? Ask our expert columnists and take their advice at your own risk. We posed this question, but we would like to hear from you. Submit your questions to dmscott@kansan.com.
Please include your name, year, major and homet
Please include your name, year, major and hometown.
Valentine's Day should be called Singles Awareness Day. Not to make singles feel like the outcasts in a crowd, but so we have a day when "all the single ladies" can stand up and realize that they don't need a relationship to feel good about themselves.
This Valentine's Day, don't stay home, watching rom-coms and eating chocolate that you bought for yourself.
Instead, visit family or go out and party with friends to remind yourself that you have people who love you no matter what. Or, dress up a little and tell yourself that you don't need a guy to tell you how hot you look.
Valentine's Day should be a day of pride for all the single people who know who they are and are proud of it.
Allison Bond is a junior from Andover in journalism and religious studies.
Stalk your ex-boyfriend. You know, the guy who doesn't have a problem with it being Valentine's Day. Even better, stalk your ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend!
They're probably going to some romantic restaurant, and there's no reason you can't join them.
It's not because you're "stalking" him, it's just that you want to treat yourself to a nice dinner after successfully not looking at his Facebook page in the past six hours. You deserve this.
Once you get there, how about making some small talk? Start with, "Where's the whore? Oh, she's right there" to set the tone.
After the jerk politely asks you to leave them alone, throw his glass of wine on his nice shirt and storm out of the restaurant as if he did something wrong to you.
Go ahead, pat yourself on the back. When you get home, make sure to check his Twitter just in case he tweeted about you.
It's okay this time, you deserve it.
Jarod Kilgore is a junior from Lenexa in film and media studies.
If you are a guy or a girl alone this Valentine's Day, you could just not worry about it and either do something with friends or ignore the holiday altogether.
Go ahead. Tell yourself that you don't need someone else to validate. Your existence.
However, I recommend wallowing in self-pity. In order to reinforce the notion that you're alone (and likely will be forever), you should make reservations at a romantic restaurant.
Then, when you're sitting alone surrounded by happy couples, start ordering glass after glass of wine until you begin sobbing out of loneliness or intoxication. You want it to be quiet enough that no one comes over to see what's wrong, but loud enough that it ruins everyone's dinner.
This V-Day, remember what Christopher Marlowe wrote: "Misery loves company and no one loves me but my cat."
Lou Schumaker is a junior from Overland Park in film and media studies.
How do you feel about Valentine's day?
You mean single awareness day? Worst holiday in America
from KANSAN.COM/POLLS
It's great, when you are in a relationship.
I couldn't care less. Mediocre holidays like V-day are useless.
Who wouldn't like a holiday that includes pink and red, candy hearts and peeps??
It depends on what mood I'm in.
40 total votes
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Campus performances fun and useful to society
This morning at the Lied Center [Feb. 9], I watched 1,500 4th and 5th graders jump off their seats to dance and sing to... A violin performance?! This wasn't just any violin concert, though; Black Violin transform our ideas of classical music by meshing popular music with their amazing string talents. But the kids were equally vocal about Black Violin's message at the show's end.
"A lot of people think you're here to learn about the violin, but you're not," said violinist Kev Marcus. "You're here to learn to think
The state currently spends less than $800,000 on the KAC annually which is nothing compared to the more than $15 million in local and state revenue generated by the arts in Kansas.
On Monday, Gov. Sam Brownback signed an order that will jeopardize performances like this one starting July 1. The order eliminates state funding for the Kansas Arts Commission, which funds countless arts programs across Kansas.
outside of the box."
To a college student, these numbers may not resonate. But remember what it was like to be a kid and learn it it was okay to color outside of the lines, to stretch your imagination as far outside of the box as it could go, to think creatively.
Programs like school performances at the Lied, Saturday morning art classes at the Spencer Museum of Art and others in Lawrence and throughout Kansas remind kids that it is not only okay to use your imagination, it is absolutely necessary. Because facing big challenges—ones like resuscitating our economy and
If you do anything this week, I hope it is this: contact your legislators and implore them to maintain the Kansas Arts Commission as a state agency. For more information, please visit the KAC website at arts. ks.gov.
preserving our planet—requires a little right brain creativity.
Sarah Bluvs is a senior from Rosewell, Ga.
Bluvas is the secretary of the Lied Center Student Association.
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