The (Deprivation) Situation

I feel like I’m depriving myself of a key experience and that my deprivation may lead to being isolated from the rest of the world forever. There are certain things that happen in life, that if you don’t make yourself aware of or take part in, define you and your ability to relate to your fellow humans.

For example, if I were to completely ignore 9/11 some would call me ignorant, un-American, and even anti-social. Whenever there was a conversation about this life changing, history making, culture defining day, and I were to withdraw from it or say that I knew nothing of the subject, people would begin to look at me differently. Perhaps people would begin to value my opinions and political views less. Perhaps they would choose not to be around me because the idea that I choose not to participate in an event which is shaping this country every day would be too much for them to bare. The world would change around and without me until I would be left alone on my own little 9/11-less island.

The phenomena I have wrongfully opted out of which is changing this world with every Tweet, every article, every episode is that of MTV’s Jersey Shore. I have not seen a single episode or subscribed to a single cast member’s Twitter, nor have I set my Google Alerts to inform me every time one of them is mentioned on the internet. I know, I know. How could I? How can I be a 20-something living in America and not know what a JWow is? Don’t I know what Snooki’s hair style and orange skin means to this culture? And what the hell am I doing if I’m not aware of The Situation?! Do I want to live alone in a Guido-less world forever? What is wrong with me?

I ask myself these very same questions every time a post about them appears on Jezebel or Gawker or one of my favorite bloggers mentions them and I skip over it. I am being left behind. The world is being shaped by these Jersey Gods and I am standing on the outside looking in. Maybe I should just dive in and watch the whole first season and catch up with the second season. I’m just afraid of losing brain cells and what the spray on tans and tanning booths will do to my skin. These are such silly worries, I know. Maybe I should just do it. Maybe the brave new Fist Pumping World will let me rejoin them if I do. It’s not too late is it?

I did watch the youtube clip where the midget whose hair is as tall as she is gets laid out by a PE teacher. Maybe this can be like a passport of sorts or the secret word at the New World’s front door? “what’s the secret word, Outsider?” “Snooki got socked by a meat head”.

I don’t know. I’m just scared; scared of becoming orange, and scared of being left behind. What to do, what to do?

*Note: while I really don't subscribe to this fad, I do seem to know quite a lot about it. The clip of Snooki getting punched is disgusting and though I poke fun of it here, it is really not a laughing matter in reality... and this is supposed to be reality TV, right? Also, I don't really believe you can really compare 9/11 and Jersey Shore, but in today's culture its almost possible... which is sad. Sad, I tell you.

Hey Look, a post in which my head explodes and I become an Alcoholic... in that order.

I am a giant spaz. GIANT. Pretty much anything that happens or that I have to deal with stresses me out and then I have panic attacks until everything is resolved. This morning I was on hold with my college financial aid office for like, 900 minutes, because I needed to make sure that since I just changed my WHOLE class schedule, and I was 3 units short of full-time until I get added to the two classes in which I'm on the waitlist (URGGG), my loans wouldn't turn their back on me making me unable to pay for school in my second to last semester. This is most likely all my fault, but I'd like to examine the ways in which it’s not ENTIRELY my fault.

My school decided to move the location of one of my classes without letting me know, which is a bitch move, School, BITCH MOVE. In the whole history of my being at this school, I've always taken classes in the same building or the building right next it. FOR TWO YEARS. I transferred in and after finally deciding to be a psych major, the majority of my classes have been in the psych building. I really only know THIS part of campus. I haven't had to traipse around finding this building or running off the print shop, or bookstore, or student union. I understand that these acts may enhance my college experience, but you know, when I have to work three jobs in order to pay for said college experience, I'm too damn tired to do much exploring. Teach me, and let me go home.

Anyway, so, the school decided to move my last class of the day ACROSS CAMPUS which, if you think about it is like almost a mile and a half away. No way are my midget legs carrying me to a foreign part of campus I've never been to in ten minutes. No way, I say. I found this horrifying bit of news out three days ago, and this of course sent me into a panic. Since no one could give me any GOOD ideas (though I did get suggestions such as: buy a scooter. Buy a rocket pack for the scooter. Steal one of those golf carts campus security drives around in. Seduce and sleep with campus security... to get free rides in said carts. Learn to fly. NOT HELPFUL!!!) and my panic attack was full blown, my anxiety grew giant hands and clicked the "drop" button next to the course name.

My panic subsided for all of ten seconds, until I realized I really effing needed that class and then another typhoon of anxiety washed over me. Now I had to search for THREE classes to make up for the ONE I just dropped. Of course, a week before school starts all of the good classes are basically full. At this point I'm shaking my fists through my anxiety attack at my irrational anxiety induced solution to drop the last class. After an hour of searching and being denied and searching I opted to waitlist on Human Sexuality (which is also not in a building I know of, but is relatively closer and there is a 4 hour gap during which I have PLENTY of time to leave one class and find that one... plus I've already taken it, and loved it, so it should be easy), and enrolled in an online course called, get this, Nature and World Culture. SHOOT ME. JUST GET IT OVER WITH WHEREISYOURSHOTGUN? I didn't find a third class, but I have space in my schedule next semester to fit it in, so I'm ok.

The one class I dropped was a 6 unit course, leaving me three short of the necessary 12 to fulfill my loan agreement. So while, I did possibly find replacements, I was still on the waitlist for one of the replacements (ps, I was already on a waitlist for another class I desperately need to graduate) meaning I'm still 3 units short of my loan money and must now kiss my dreams of getting a PhD goodbye, drop out of college and get a job at Mackers (that's McDonalds for all of you who have never had a roommate move to Australia for six months then come back speaking something that's totally not English, mate).

So, back to waking up this morning with an elephant sitting on my chest. I immediately dialed the number for the Financial Aid office, got kicked around through four different people, each time I was placed on hold the psycho-killer vein on my forehead enlarged twice its size, and then finally was placed on hold for 900.. or maybe 20... minutes. This let loose a new set of anxiety as I'm trying to remember how many minutes I have left, and if I go over those minutes how I will pay for the overages (stripping, hooking, drug selling, Mackers in that order). By the time the woman answered the phone the psycho-killer anxiety had crept into my voice and I'm sure I sounded quite insane as I babbled this whole story to her very quickly in a squeaky syrupy voice.

Then, the woman said, "Don't worry. We won't drop you until September, goodbye".

A three day long anxiety attack took only took 8 words to fix. So after I hung up, I opened and drank an entire bottle of Two Buck Chuck at 10:30am.

Let’s recap. The SCHOOL fucked up. My FRIENDS gave me horrible suggestions. My ANXIETY grew hands and dropped classes. The SCHOOL put me on hold.

It’s not my fault.

Now I need to go buy more wine before my roommate notices a whole bottle is missing.

Tech-impaired

I am almost 100% sure that all of the technological gadgets in the entire world get together on a semi monthly basis and plot how to go about confusing the crap out of me. This is not in the least bit conceited or exaggerated. Every single piece of technology hates my guts/loves to mock me.

When I walk past Radio Shack, the Apple Store, or even come within a quarter mile of Fry's Electronics I can hear them all sniggering. All of the laptops, desktops, printers, scanners, cell phones and all of the i-things. They sense me. It must be their 3g networks. They know when I'm coming and they all agree to do the most mind boggling things ever.

Normally, I steer clear of electronic stores of all type. I have this need to believe that I am an intelligent human being, and as soon as I get around a gizmo all of my beliefs fly out of the window. You thought you were smart? How come you can't even get that cell phone to show you its key pad? You're never going to get a PhD if you can't even find the "hint" button on your friend's laptop to show you their password. Give up, loser!

You know that scene in Office Space where that really angry desk-nerd-guy can't get the printer to do anything he wants it to do? Yeah, that's pretty much me with anything you can plug in, recharge, or make wireless. Though, instead of me throwing it out of a window, the device usually convinces me to jump myself. They have that much control over me.

Office Space Printer from Shang Xiao on Vimeo.

I swear, my mother knows more about computers than I do, and she didn't even get complete access to one until about three years ago. I grew up in the technology era. I'm 22 friggin years old, yet every time some new electronic device comes out, I scratch my head. I have no idea who came up with this strategy, but it does nothing; absolutely nothing.

About a year ago I upgraded to a Blackberry because I began to believe the hype. "The Blackberry will change your life... it will transform you from Disorganized Schizophrenic to Multitasking Guru... it will keep your life on track, and there are so many cool amazing things you can do with it... your life will be exponentially better..." I thought that if I could get in with the BB, then it would give the rest of the Electronic World the heads up that I was cool and then they would all stop picking on me.

Up until last week, all I could do with my blackberry was call my mother. Ok, maybe thats an exaggeration. I'm a master texter, so I could text my mother too, but that's pretty much it. My friend and her boyfriend told me I was a "dumb ass smart phone user" which, if I didn't already know, as well understand my complete inability to grasp anything created in this century, would have really hurt my feelings. So I decided to start learning how to use this damn phone.

I, of course, went to my personal guru for guidance, and as usual, Google had all of my answers. I can now buy tickets for shows I don't have the money to see via the ticket-master app, have turned my text message program into a pseudo-i phone messaging system, can BBM 5 of my friends, tweet on a whim (though, I'm still not sure how/what/why to tweet though I did tweet about a very interesting man I met at a cupcake shop...story to come), play this game where I pop bubbles while I wait for classes to start and or assholes in front of me to get out of my way, and get directions anytime I need to by using google's wonderful offspring google maps apps.

While it seems my blackberry is on my side for now, perhaps it is only setting me up for a giant joke where all of these apps that I will no doubt come to depend on decide to crash all at the very same time and my life crumbles and I roll into a ball and cry. Blackberry, should this prove to be a cruel, cruel joke you and your comrades are playing on me, please have mercy on me and let me keep my bubble popping game. I'm working on my high score, here.