Valentine's Day is Dead to Me.

Yesterday I had a brilliant idea, inspired by a friend's Facebook post. I was reminded that Valentine's day has gone from the third or fourth most fun day in elementary school to a completely useless holiday in college. I realized the sole difference was the Valentine's shoebox. So in an attempt to revive that same spirit I loved so much in elementary school I woke up early this morning to make a Valentine's card shoebox. This is the story.

The Prep

I had an old Airwalk shoebox that I thought would work well, step one was to cover it up, because only the lazy kids who didn't smell very good had undecorated shoeboxes in elementary school. I decided to use an old edition of the scroll for the base decoration.

I then proceeded to cover it with hearts and words I printed out, the most important of which was my name, what good is a Valentine's shoebox without your name on it. Else how will they know to whom they're giving the Valentine?

Class the First

I didn't have high hopes for the first class of the day, I don't really do much talking in that class so I doubted I'd get much attention other than confused glances, and I definitely wasn't expecting any Valentine's.

I was right. 

The most interested conversation I had about the box went something like this?

 Kid: "What's with the box?"

Me: "I'm trying to bring back the valentine's shoebox tradition, it's in case anyone wants to give me Valentines."

Kid: "Oh."

And then the class ended. I managed to snap this pic before I headed out the door.

(you'll note that I added several candy kiss sayings to the box to make it seem more festive. I couldn't find my red marker, so I had to go with black)

Class the Second

Someone was nice enough to take a picture of me and my shame.

Now this class I was a little more excited for. I do a lot of talking in this class, and I actually know people, so I figured I'd get some comments and at least a few hastily scrawled Valentine's added to the bunch. Still no luck, people just were not interested at all. My favorite comment was from a kid with whom I talk a lot in this class, it went like this.

Kid: "Why do you have that box Alex?" (He uses my name as often as possible in conversations, I don't know why)

Me: "Oh you know, just trying to bring back the holiday spirit, whatever happened to the awesomeness of elementary school Valentine's days?"

Kid: "...we're not in elementary school anymore Alex, we grew up."

It quickly became apparent that using such a large box was a bad idea.

That one cut deep.

Class the Third

Third time's the charm right?

 

I was certain this class would be better, it's about three times the size of my second class, more people means more potential Valentine's cards right. Right, technically. I got about an equal number of comments, but one girl had apparently come to school prepared this Valentine's day, she had a binder full of cards ready, and was quick to fill it out and add it to the box.

Otherwise, like the previous class, all the box served to do was make it hard to work on my desk.

In Summation

After a long hard day, I was excited to get home and tally my bounty.

 Here are the results:

All things considered, I was quite proud of the box.

Lid's off! Let's look inside!

Oh, just as I suspected. One card.

Fortunately, it was a scratch and sniff that smelled like chocolate. Which easily counts as two cards.

What did I learn from this? I learned that apparently the real meaning of Valentine's day has been lost to my generation. Everyone is too busy holding hands with and buying gifts for their significant other to take time to think about the real reason we celebrate this holiday. If we can't even take time out of this busy season to stop and fill out small tear off cards for people we hardly know, how can we possibly hope for a day without war or violence, a day when we can all live in peace? We can't, and until people start thinking about what really matters again, we may never see that day.

Some people may claim that it's time for me to start growing up. I would argue the opposite, I think it's time for people to finally admit that they really haven't grown up at all.

**UPDATE** 

The spirit of Valentine's day is not dead! I returned to my room to find that one of my roommates had taken time to remember what the day is really all about, and had acted accordingly. There is hope for the world yet.

Semper giving up on things

When I originally undertook to start this blog I thought to myself, "what kind of blogger do I want to be?" The answer was obviously the type that comes across as both intellectual and down to earth. The kind of person that people both liked to listen to (or read in this case) and felt like they could benefit from listening to.
Well I have the down to earth part down pretty well, at least I think. Come to think of it, I don't really know what that term means. Like most English words and phrases I know, I didn't learn it by looking it up, I just learned it by hearing it said by a lot of people in a lot of different scenarios until I narrowed it down to my current understanding of the phrase. Which, based on context, I have to assume "down to Earth" really just means, "thinks a lot like I do." So if you find me "down to Earth" perhaps we should be friends.

Where was I?

Oh yes, "semper giving up." Feeling as if I had the "down to Earth" part down, I thought it was time to move on to the intelligent part. Which was more of a leap for me. People often take me for an intellectual, I consider that to be one of my talents; not being intellectual, just tricking people into thinking I am. What I am is witty, which doesn't require intelligence, it requires fast recall. What an exceptionally witty person does is say exactly what you would say given enough time, they just say it sooner than you do. But quick on your feet doesn't apply to blog posts. Anyone can be witty, given an infinite amount of time. The trick for me was honest to gosh intelligence.
 Luckily for me I was taking a Latin class at the time, which happens to be the universal language of smart people. So I thought--again to myself--"Latin! I'll include as much Latin in my blog as possible, then people can't possibly deny my intelligence!" Well four or five blog posts later, I realize I've more or less used up all the Latin wit I can muster. And so continuing in a long line of things that seemed like a good idea at the time (cue OK Go song) I abandoned my dreams of a half Latin, half English blog examining the the finer things in life. And it became a one man forum for me to shout and mumble and spout all the things that really get my goat (there's another one I never quite understood, "get one's goat" what the heck does that mean?). It's my own little padded room if you will.
So welcome, I think it's too late to change the name, but I'll let it sit, it's kind of grown on me. And I suppose it still fits. As long as you're here, you're semper in excreta.

Dē Excretiā

Take a look at the image I've attached to this post. If you don't see anything wrong with it (besides its being pervasive and making it harder for me to watch Season 4 Episode 6 of House) then maybe you should just stop reading now. If however you cringed after a second steely eyed read through, then you can join with me in complaining once again of the plague that is crappy grammar in society, because let's face it, mistakes like this one happen a lot more than they ought to.

So, for the sake of the world I've put together a little list of things people often spell or use wrong. If you make any of these mistakes, don't feel too bad, we all do. We do a lot more talking than writing, so while we know the sounds of the thoughts we want to express, sometimes we don't do so well at the execution. Most of these come to you courtesy of the 2009 AP Style guide. If you don't have one and you look to be doing any amount of professional writing in the future (even if you're not planning on being a journalist) I'd suggest you look into buying one.

• General spelling errors:
• I'm not even going to waste my time with all the commonly misspelled words, if you are flat out spelling out words that don't exist, you have a few options. You can stop using internet explorer (unless they've finally incorporated in-browser spell check, I haven't used it since IE6). Or you can learn how to spell (I know no one cares enough to actually cut and copy everything they write into a word processor, so I won't even bother.

• Accept/Except
• Accept is a verb "I accepted the polar bears peace offering, but I was reticent, polar bears are known for their subterfuge." 
• Except is usually a preposition (if you really understand it well, you can use it as a verb too, but don't get too crazy or you'll end up accepting things when you wanted to except them). "I drink any kind of soda, except Shasta, I haven't been able to look at Shasta the same since ... the incident."

*Please also note my use of ellipsis in the second example, that is how ellipsis are used, a space on either end with three sequential full stops.

• A lot:
• I can only imagine that the phrase "a lot" came from stuffy Brits who don't like using accompanying genitive nouns with adjectives. They don't say it was a field full of cars, they just say it was a field of cars. Subsequently, if it helps, when you say "a lot" think of a parking lot, or a vacant lot. When you say "a lot of candy corn" what you're actually saying is, "candy corn sufficient to fill a lot." Never say alot, it makes as much sense as "alittle" or "ababy".

• Definitely:
• It's spelled like that, so spell it like that. That is all.

• A note on apostrophes:
• Apostrophes serve two primary purposes:
• Showing possession.
• Representing omitted letters.
• If you're using an apostrophe, ask yourself, is something owning something? Am I taking a letter or a series of letters out? If the answer is yes, you'll most likely want to use an apostrophe. Exceptions are possessive pronouns, my, your, their, his, hers, its, our.
• If you write "it's" you're saying "it is". Why do you use an apostrophe? That's right! Because you're taking the "i" out. Likewise, when you write "let's" you're actually saying let us. Therefore you write it with an apostrophe if you're making a suggestion, and without an apostrophe if you're using the third person singular present continuous declention of "to let" "Hey! let's get out of here, old man Wilcox lets his dogs out in 15 minutes."

• And Finally Then/Than
• Then represents the flow or progression of time, you use it whenever you're giving a sequence of instructions, or when you want to name the result of an action or state of being. "Go open the cage, then run like heck, the koalas haven't been fed for weeks." or "If you like Jamba Juice, then you'll love Mamba Juice, it's practically the same thing, but ours has twice the snake venom."

*While I'm thinking of it, I'll throw this one out, animals are venomous, not poisonous. If it's poisonous, it means you can ingest it. Cyanide, drain cleaner and the stuff in the back of our fridge that no one is brave enough to take out, are poisonous. Snakes, spiders, scorpions and solendons are venomous. Their venom is poisonous though--food for thought.

• Than represents a comparison. "Are you smarter than a fifth grader?" or " I would sooner have my legs broken than go on a date with you." On a side note, I've only ever had one of those sentences directed at me.

To wrap all this up, I'll list a few phrases that people just can't quite seem to get right, which, again, comes from our tendency to repeat general sound patterns without knowing exactly what it is we're saying.

• Supposed to: Not suppose to
• Used to: Not use to (this applies in both cases, "I used to eat glue" and "I'm used to getting the wrong directions to a party."
• Toward: Not towards
• Anyway:Not anyways.
• Couldn't care less: This means that what you've just been told is, in your opinion, as uninteresting as it comes. If you say "I could care less" you're saying that this is at least moderately interesting to you. The phrase becomes completely useless when expressed like this.
• For all intents and purposes: Please stop saying "for all intensive purposes". This phrase comes from 16th century English law, were it was originally, "to all intents, constructions, and purposes."

And there you have it, at least a few things that'll start cleaning up our grammar and making us look like we are indeed smarter than a fifth grader. If I may be so bold in requesting such; would it be too much to ask that we actually start trying to apply this principle of writing correctly whenever we put hands to keyboard? I know that there are plenty of correspondences that we don't deem worthy of the time and effort, but that's just the thing. The reason correct grammar and spelling seems so tedious to us is because we use it so infrequently. If we think in nothing but correct English, eventually that will be the way that thoughts naturally begin to be expressed on the page. I just hate the thought of our children and grandchildren getting even worse than we currently are. Or worse yet, I hate the thought of the way we communicate through text message and emails becoming the official English. What a terrible thought! Can you imagine 60 years from now a high school textbook showing the correct usage of "u" or "2" in a sentence? Or when it is or is not necessary to capitalize an "i"? I think the buck needs to stop here. I think we need to start writing clear, well formulated, concisely expressed sentences and get ourselves out of what it is we've been writing for the last few years which is, simply put, just a bunch of excretia.

Sic Infinit

In the beginning I said, "let there be a blog entry" and it didn't quite work out.

Little did I know these don't work that way. Not only do you have to make a blog, you have to be the one to populate it with content. Who ever knew the internet would be so hard?

The blog is called Semper in Excretā. Which is an excerpt from the Lord de Ramsey in 1998, more or less it means "always in excrement". Which I feel is a fitting title for any addition to the internet because, regardless of what you think of yourself, it's always important to remember who and what you're surrounded by, and in the internet's case, it's a pretty easy guess.

And speaking of the internet, my latest cause of frustration has been non other than our good ol' Facebook. It has in the last five years completely restructured socialization. Unfortunately these changes aren't (for the most part) for the good. There is an inherent danger in creating a website that allows you to recreate nearly every step of a social life online, and it is this:

Think back to when instant messaging first came around. You were so excited to talk to your friends that you would rush home so that you could sign on and be on all night, ready for whenever the familiar sound bites signaled the arrival of a "friend". Then when the great forerunner, Myspace, first emerged from the primordial ooze of social evolution. You would find yourself avoiding instant messenger, hoping it would give your friends a reason to comment on your page instead in hope of increasing that ever absorbing page view count.

We constantly avoid the most expedient means of communication in order to take advantage of the most tantalizing and distancing ones. Text messaging and instant messaging replace phone calls, "posts" replace instant messaging. Status updates replace posts. The further we distance ourselves from whom it is we are attempting to communicate with, the less we have to think about who it is we are communicating with.

Online evolution is reverse evolution, slowly reverting our spines back to a gelatinous state in which the thought of facing someone with whom we are "great friends" with online in person fills us with reticence.

The worst part about it is Facebook has reached a point where it is just too heavy a grain to bother going against. You could delete your Facebook, you could cancel your unlimited text messaging plan and switch over to actually calling and meeting people face to face. But few others would, leaving you high and dry in the social world.

Facebook is not inherently bad, there are many people who use it as an ancillary to socialization quite well. I'm not one of those, which I suppose makes this whole spiel a sort of reaction-formation defense. I always take the path of least resistance. If it's less confrontational to text than call, I'll text every time. What's that you say? It's gotten even more distant than texting? sign me up. Technology pulls us, particularly me, further and further away from one another while creating the illusion that we've never been closer. -What a load of excretia.