If I had to come up with one thing I’ve learned since becoming a post-grad it would not be how to set a budget or how to meet people without classes or student groups. It would be that all those stereotypes about unemployed college graduates trying to find what they want to do next in life are wrong. Believe it or not, I don’t spend all day on the couch or in bed. I don’t go days without showering. And I’m not living in some cockroach infested apartment – although I feel like that will happen once I truly live on my own.

Unfortunately though, it’s pretty hard to convince the masses otherwise. Upon meeting someone for the first time, I feel like I always have to defend myself as a “post-grad” because the bulk of people I’m meeting are either unemployed and unmotivated, still in college, or are at least ten years older than me – and they have no clue. You would think that having some kind of detailed plan such as the LSAT and freelance writing to fall back on would help, but no – it just leaves people scratching their heads.

If they’re not scratching their heads, I get a lot of “You must miss college.” Uh, duh. Of course I miss a lot of things about college (there’s a reason people refer to it as the best time of their lives), but considering I have only been a “graduate” for the past few months, it’s not something I’m sulking over too much. And in all reality, I miss a lot of things a lot more than college — you know, things like not having to pay back student loans! Read More »

Having just “celebrated” banned books week in America, I started thinking about the importance of reading, the beauty of stories and how much books enrich all of our lives. And most of my thoughts came back to one single theme:

W.T.Eff?

Banning books? Seriously? First Obama gets attacked from those crazy moms who think he’s out to brainwash children by giving them talks on the importance of education and now reading is bad for children, too?

The whole thing is just absurd. Have people even read the books they’re trying to ban? How can a story about a pooh named Winnie who likes to eat honey and play in the woods with his other anthropomorphic friends possibly be bad? It seems like a book that is deemed “good” and “appropriate” these days is a book that will not inform your child of the existence of sex, racism, violence, homosexuality, the devil, bad language, and any other concept that will cause children to ask you awkward questions. The whole banned books thing will probably cause my AP Literature class to be renamed AP Literature That Will Morally Damage Your Soul.

Does this mean we should ban Pokemon as well, since the little animals “evolve,” which therefore enforces the idea of evolution and is therefore anti-Christian and therefore is Satanic? Winnie the Pooh may be the poster child for the obesity epidemic, his friend Eeyore for depression, and Kanga for single moms everywhere, but that doesn’t mean our younger siblings can’t read about them. I happen to like Tigger, even if he does have ADHD. And although Harry Potter may have “witchcraft and wizardry” and whatnot, it’s still one of the most significant contributions to literature in our lives, and as such, should be available to anyone who wants to read it.

So let’s take the attention and money away from banning books and focus on some more important things that should be eradicated from this planet. Because in 2009 there are so many things worse than kids in capes flying around on broomsticks or finding a lion in your closet. Read More »

My friend called me her favorite Oreo.

“You know,” she said, “black on the outside, white on the inside.”

I gaped at her, trying to figure out what I could possibly say to that. She thought she was genuinely complimenting me. I mean, I don’t even like Oreos.

We had just gotten our SAT scores back and I had done really well, surprising even myself at how much knowledge cramming I had retained. But apparently my friend thought scoring well on a standardized test is something that doesn’t fit with the black race. I just changed the subject because I didn’t want to seem touchy or like a drama queen, but instances like these have happened to me so many times. I’m fed up!

Do I get classified as an Oreo because I’m a voracious reader (apparently all those SAT flashcards paid off)? Or because I might seem reserved when you first meet me? Or is because of one of the other billion facets of my personality? Yes, I would seriously contemplate selling my soul to be front and center at a Lil Wayne concert, but I also can’t help but belt out Taylor Swift songs when they come on the radio. Toni Morrison and Zora Neale Hurston both have works on my list of favorite literature, as do Shakespeare and Jodi Picoult. Oh, and if you see me out dancing, I might be bouncing around to the latest hip hop song, but I could just as easily be showing off some complicated salsa step I learned during the two years that I took salsa classes. Read More »

So we’ve debated whether or not we would date someone who weighed less than us (twice), but what about dating a guy with a lower sex drive?

The stereotype is that it’s always the guy who initiates sex and the girl who turns him down. Well, contrary to popular belief, not every college guy is looking for some sexy time. [Yes, these mythical beings do exist and, as luck would have it, I got stuck with one.] Seriously, my boyfriend has the nerve to call me a “hornball” for all my honest efforts to get him laid.

Case and point: Everyone knows that home movie nights are the best times to get a little groping action going on, but my attempts at playful fondling always end with a humiliating, “Why don’t you ever just want to cuddle and watch the movie?”

I do want to watch the movie, you idiot. It’s called multi-tasking.

I just don’t get it, it’s not like he’s gay. He’s not a prude either. We’ve done it in a public park, for goodness sakes (a story for another time). And he definitely isn’t saving himself – a little too late for that one, bucko. So I’m forced to chalk it up to a lower sex drive, which seriously sucks for me and my libido. Read More »

Last December, The Journal of the American Medical Association reported that over the last twelve years, death rates among 2,600 adults 60 and older were slightly lower in overweight individuals than in normal weight adults.

Wait, what? Isn’t obesity a major health concern?

Actually, the New York Times reports that “despite concerns about an obesity epidemic, there is growing evidence that our obsession about weight as a primary measure of health may be misguided.”

It seems that medical research is taking a different path down the road of health, obesity, and weight loss studies. In fact, the Archives of Internal Medicine, as referenced in the Times suggests that half of overweight people and one third of obese people are actually “metabolically healthy.”

America’s obsession with beauty and looks has long stereotyped overweight people in a negative light. However, studies such as those mentioned above are proving that in many cases, thin or underweight people are in poorer health than those with a few excess pounds. The Journal of the American Medical Association conducted fitness tests and observed mortality rates of their subjects, and discovered that “fitness level, regardless of body mass index, was the strongest predictor of mortality risk.” Therefore, skinny people blessed with a fast metabolism will still find working out to be advantageous to their health, and “big boned” individuals should not be written off as being “lazy” or “sluggish,” as stereotypes suggest. Read More »

So, now that it’s the 21st century and all, NPR’s Web site has an article proposing the idea that—gasp—Gedde Watanabe’s character in Sixteen Candles, Long Duk Dong, might be a racist caricature that doesn’t actually represent every single Asian on Earth, ever.Fetch me the smelling salts, because I think I’ve fainted of surprise.

This would probably be a good time to come clean and mention that I’ve never actually seen Sixteen Candles, so maybe the character of Long Duk Dong is unfathomably racist and I’m just too cinematically uncultured to know that. But my money’s still on no. Read More »

I have a dating nightmare story that is, I think, something of a urban legend. That is to say, I’ve never actually met anyone else to whom this has happened; sure, I have friends who have friends who know someone who has gone through this, and I’ve no doubt they exist, but I’ve never encountered these people personally.

I always sort of had the feeling that my ex was still in love with his ex girlfriend, but it would never really sink in. I suppose that I felt like I was the heroine in the movie version of my relationship, not the other woman (or, I guess, man)-that’s-totally-wrong-for-him-but-still-has-a-good-heart (AKA, James Mardsen in The Notebook, James Mardsen in Superman Returns, James Marsden in Enchanted and James Marsden in X-Men). But I was so the James Marsden and therefore I wasn’t at all surprised when I let myself in to my ex’s house (with the key he had given me with the understanding that I would meet him at his house that night–great timing, douchebag) to see him doing the mommy-daddy dance with said ex-girlfriend. Read More »

One is not born, but rather becomes, a dude.

This, at any rate, is the conclusion suggested by a recent report in The Journal of Adolescence, which seems to show that teenage boys are more interested in emotional connection than in sex for its own sake.

The report concerns a survey of 105 tenth-grade boys, who answered questions about dating and sex, along with several more general questions of health and lifestyle. When asked about their reasons for pursuing a relationship, over 80% of the boys responded that they did it because they “really liked the person.”

When asked about their reasons for having sex, the boys were as likely to say that they did it for love as they were to say that they had been motivated by pure physical attraction or curiosity about sex.

This evidence flies in the face of the common stereotypes that young men are supposed to be interested in sex rather than relationships (whereas girls, of course, are believed to prize relationships over sex). And so, not surprisingly, some people refuse to believe it.

Tara Parker-Pope, in her New York Times column on the subject, pointed out that, in her experience, the majority of the backlash to these findings came from grown men, several of whom commented on her original blog post to insist that the boys must have been lying. (As far as I can see, these men failed to provide any realistic explanation as to why the boys would have done so – my own research confirms that the “free pizza if you fake interest in a relationship” strategy is usually ineffective.) Why are these grown men so invested in denying the emotional life of teenage boys?

Well, why wouldn’t they be? Read More »

Say you wanted an assault rifle, but being a woman, didn’t want to settle for some boring old black AK-47. Say you wanted to kick some ass in style. What would you do?You log onto glamgums.com and buy yourself a Hello Kitty death machine.

The “Glambo Signature Series “Hello Kitty” HK-AK-47” is a shiny purple limited edition weapon that’s “perfect…for the lady of the house”. For only $1072.95, a girl can keep her feminine streak in tact while still toting a gun that’s guaranteed to do some severe damage.

I’d probably be seriously freaked out by all of this—if I didn’t know the site was a complete joke. Read More »

Generalizations, like clichés, are born from a truth, and ignoring them completely often means we’re trying too hard—especially when it comes to men and women.

There are traits that many women share, as well as traits that a lot of men have, it’s just a fact rooted in ratios; the only time a problem arises is when someone uses those ratios to make thoughtless, stupid remarks.

Like Tom Mitchelson, a journalist for the Daily Mail.

On a whim, Mitchelson decided to live as he “imagined a woman might” (imagined is the key word here), detailing a week’s worth of thoughts into a article so full of derogatory feminine oversimplifications that it’s a good thing I have no idea where he lives.

“I worried about cellulite, obsessed about finding the right partner and thought constantly about my biological clock” Mitchelson details, adding “Pints are out; spritzers (as in wine coolers. WINE COOLERS!!) are in.”

“Westerns are gone (except Brokeback Mountain), to be replaced by romances…I ring my mother every day, buy flowers, read my horoscope, pluck my eyebrows and browse the chick-lit section of the bookshop.” Read More »