Gotta love it! So a week ago today I made my editorial debut in the Orlando Sentinel’s New Voices section proclaiming how college is easy. Well evidently my little article that could turned into the talk of the town overnight. People either loved it or hated it. They either laughed or got steamed. At first I was kind of upset that people didn’t take it for what it was: pure comedy–with a dash of the truth. But then I quickly decided to bask in the controversy that I had created. It’s not everyday you can bring a town up in arms. Then, mid week, I found out that not only were people talking about “When College is Easy,” they were writing about it too. In fact, two reactionary opinions are being put into today’s issue of the Sentinel. In true “fair and balanced” style, the wonderful editor of New Voices Michael Murphy ran both a conforming and dissenting opinion. So, without further adieu, I bring you links to these articles:
(You may have to create a user name for the Sentinel’s web site–this is free and they won’t spam you.)
Reality After College
Written by Florida State alumni Tony Salvagio
It’s Your Choice
Written by Lone-Palm Creations’ own Shannon Rich
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Updated: November 17, 2003
I’ve taken a bit of flack from some of you guys out there and I just wanted to say that my article is only based on truth. I over exaggerated certain points and added detail where I felt necessary for comedic elements. I do in fact take very tough classes and this semester have had to work harder then ever before. I have actually found myself more stressed out and bogged down with school work in the last few weeks then in my entire schooling career. I write as an outlet for my stress and I try to make it light-hearted and funny. I in no way meant to disrespect the school or anyone connected with the school. So, please do not take offense for my article because its sole purpose is to entertain.
So the other day I promised a big announcement–I hope you are ready. I, the one and only Justin Cox and owner/founder/chief author of Lone Palm Creations have made it big time. I have made the jump from online media to print media. So if you all will procure yourself a copy of the New York Times… oh wait, no, that’s next year. But you do have to start somewhere. It’s currently just after one in the morning here in Florida and as I type this, an article I wrote is being printed in millions of copies of the Orlando Sentinel–the local paper for, you guessed it, Orlando. If you can’t see through my sarcastic humor, I am pretty excited. And this is only the beginning. I’m going to continue to write and hopefully, continue to be published until one day, yes one day I too can embellish facts and invent stories like a real journalist–or something like that. Maybe. Anyway, enough bantering. Below is the article that one day will be known as “the one that started it all.” Enjoy it. Oh yeah, and if you don’t believe me, here’s the link to the article at the Sentinel’s web site: Orlando Sentinel
“When College is Easy”
Originally printed in The Orlando Sentinel on Saturday, November 15th, 2003:
In high school all the teachers would say “you better shape up, because college is much tougher then you may think.” Well, I’m currently in my third year of college and I have to disagree. Granted, I have taken some challenging courses while up here, though, for the most part college has been easy.
One of the biggest problems is horrible professors–or more often then not grad students posing as professors. Case in point, last semester I took meteorology being taught by a grad student. He cared more about what we thought of him then the weather and as a result I have no idea what low barometric pressure means but I can make one hell of a hurricane chart. I’m currently taking a law class from a professor who will remain nameless–though does hold a pretty prominent state-government job and looks a lot like George Costanza when he tries on the toupee. This professor, after giving us our first test, disappeared from the face of the planet for not one, not two, but THREE weeks! How am I, a diligent young college student, supposed to learn anything when the professor doesn’t even want to show up to class?
Another problem with today’s college scene is some of the tests–they don’t test students’ knowledge, they test our memories. I’m currently in a class where both questions and answers to twenty five percent of each test are handed out beforehand by the professor. The only catch is that you memorize the answer and write them, neatly, word for word with the proper spelling (which is actually a problem for me because I cannot spell for ship–see, what did I tell you?).
This is not to say, however, that all of my college courses are this easy. I do have some that are quite difficult, where you actually have to think, not to mention dodge the occasional eraser the professor throws when wrong answers are given in class. But this all does lead me to wonder, is college necessary for success? Quentin Tarantino dropped out of the ninth grade. Bill Gates did pretty well for quitting college as did Ashton Kutcher, though I wouldn’t say he’s done anything substantial in his life, except maybe Demi Moore.
But I digress. The point is that college is obviously not challenging us enough. I mean, if it were I wouldn’t be writing this article at four in the morning. Instead I would be studying or sleeping soundly, my mind contently filled with quantum physics or something like that. But until that happens, I’ll make the most of my eraser throwing professors who hand out grades–when they actually come to class.
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This post was written by guest author, Jeff.
Most of you know who I am, for those that don’t, I’m sorry, sucks for you. After an invitation to write for Lone Palm quite a while ago, I have finally gotten off my lazy ass and actually written something. Since the topic of movies is common to this website I thought I might as well continue that by just giving a brief chronicle of what I have been up to.
Once again I am in the great state of California. To be more exact I am in the great city of Los Angeles. To be even more specific, I am living in Westwood, which is in Beverly Hills and right next to UCLA, living with two girls for the summer! The rest of my time will be spent laboring for a production company called Form Productions. This company makes commercials, many of which you have probably seen. These commercials range from Snickers, Dell, Kellogg, Clairol and Victoria Secrets. And yes, I will try to weasel my way in any way I can if they shoot another Victoria Secrets commercial. But most of my day consists of arid activities that aren’t glamorous. These activities might include that making sure all the conference rooms are neat, taking out the trash and any other task that they can think of. The better part of a day consists of working in the vault, the place where they keep all the director reels and any other tapes, or running errands. The vault can be a relaxing place to be but it tricks you into thinking that. By being in the vault you don’t have to be bothered with everyone else in the building unless they come to you. But the responsibilities are great and if you can’t get it done you’ll just be fired. There are 3 main representatives that we send the directors reels to. One in New York, one in Chicago and the other is out here in LA. Each rep needs to have the reels for the directors they represent, sometimes they want custom reels, but when most importantly they need to have the reels when they need them or else problems can arise. If a rep doesn’t have a reel and they’re trying to get a job and they can’t show it to the client, the client might just decide to go with another company, and if that happened because you didn’t get the reel to them on time, that means you just cost the company around $300,000 probably. That’s about the price it takes to make a commercial that will be on air for 30 seconds. And believe me, people in this business hate to lose money. You can tell that by how ridiculous the life style is in Beverly Hills. Then I also run tapes or packages to other companies, which isn’t bad. This lets me catch up with new music and learn the city. But I started thinking, am I really learning the city when it takes me 30 minutes to go 8 miles? Probably not, but what the hell, it gets me out.
So there you go, a brief description of what I’ll be up to this summer, and then a week off and back to school again around mid September, and fate is just laughing at all of it.
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Well, it’s been a fun weekend, and then some. It all started Thursday with a trip to Atlanta. That’s right, Atlanta. Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band were playing in Atlanta, so, being the massive Parrothead that I am, I of course had to go. So I gathered up some friends and headed to Atlanta. We stopped for lunch at an Atlanta (are you wondering how many times I can say Atlanta in one article?) staple, the Varsity. If you’ve not been there, you must go, now. They’ve got the best and greasiest food ever made. We’re talking onion rings that EACH contains a lethal amount of grease. But it tastes good and I love it. After the Varsity, we continued our northbound trek and stopped at my aunt’s house in Lawrenceville, just north of Atlanta. After some down time, it was off to the concert.
The long and short of it, the concert was very wet and muddy. Got to love the outdoor shows. A full set list will be added to the Buffett portion of my site when I feel like doing so. It wasn’t the best concert I’ve been to. I was glad to see that Jimmy played some stuff that he usually doesn’t, I enjoy that stuff more. Yes I’m a Parrothead but no I don’t cream myself every time I hear a song off Songs You Know By Heart. I’d rather hear him play “The Wino and I Know” or “That’s What Living is to Me” or “We Are the People Our Parents Warned Us About.” But, it seems like anyone that goes to the concerts anymore have only heard the songs Buffett has on Songs You Know By Heart which is all fine and dandy, but when it comes to other songs that they cant sing along to in a drunken stupor they then talk to their friends and ignore the concert. This again, is all fine and dandy but that prevents the true fans that are there to hear Buffett play, i.e. me, from actually hearing Bubba sing. During this concert I felt something I had never felt at a Buffett concert before, and that was detest. Namely because the one part of Jimmy’s show that I look forward to every year is his acoustic set. I love it because he plays songs that I love and they just sound wonderful acoustically. However this year I didn’t get to enjoy the acoustic set because of the people talking and gallivanting around the lawn section of the concert. I also did another thing that I hadn’t done at a Buffett concert before, and that was leave before the encores. I said at the time it was to beat the traffic as we were in dire need of gas, but I really didn’t want to stick around because I wasn’t going to enjoy them. I kick myself now of course seeing that Jimmy played “Southern Cross” as well as “Pacing the Cage” which I absolutely love, but, that’s the way it goes I guess. The only true saving grace amongst the mud and noise was that after trekking across THE ENTIRE mud covered concert venue in an effort to get closer to where we parked, I ran into Casey who promptly ran up to me which pretty much made my night. If it hadn’t been for her, I probably would have left the concert pretty pissed off and disappointed. So thank you Casey, you made my day, as you do every time I see you. After the concert we went back to my aunt’s where I slept more soundly then I have in weeks.
The next morning we got up and headed down to Orlando. Thankfully the 500 mile drive only took around six and a half hours. To recap I had traveled roughly 750 miles within a 24 hour period. And the weekend was just starting.
In Orlando I had friends from Tallahassee come into town to visit for Easter. Friday night we met up with Earl and Jessica which is always fun. We played Pictionary and joked around till late at night. The next day, we’re now to Saturday, led to Islands of Adventure.
My friends from school all went to the wonderful place known as IOA by us local freaks and had a great time. Lines weren’t horrible and the rides, as always were lots of fun. Every time I ride it, I can’t help but think of how cool the Spider-Man ride is. It’s probably the best ride ever. The day at the park was great. It was made even better because Ryan’s uncle got us all tickets. He came with us and was really a nice guy. This is a big thank you to Ryan’s uncle. After IOA came a well welcomed dinner and the movie Pumpkin which is, to say the least, interesting.
Then came Sunday, Easter Sunday. I went to church–both services–as I do on all “big occasion” Sundays though this time was accompanied by my friends from school. The services were, well, not great. The sermon was horrible and I had the pleasure of hearing it twice. If only our assistant pastor would be given the chance to speak because he is a lot more entertaining that our senior pastor–who thankfully will be leaving in June. At least our church’s Easter tradition of singing the Hallelujah Chorus was upheld. It sounded wonderful.
After church came the Easter festivities. This involved Easter egg hunting, badminton playing, and of course, lots and lots of eating — and some picture taking. Always love the Easter festivities. Then came the ride home.
Now it’s back to reality. The fun is over. I found out that I completely failed my finance test from last week and now passing the entire class could be in jeopardy. Returning to Tallahassee has brought me back to some situations I am tired of dealing with as well as opened me up to more that I have to deal with. Regardless of the situation, the test grades and what not, I always end up getting screwed in the end. But, c’est la vie, that’s life right? Emerson once wrote that “every sweet has it’s sour; every evil it’s good” which was so wonderfully retold in Vanilla Sky. I guess I’m tasting the sour right now. Hopefully the summer, which is now less than two weeks away, will bring something really sweet my way. And to think, I only have to get through five finals first!
Well that’s that. I know this article is a little drab but you gotta write about what you know right? At least that’s what Mark Twain once said. Mr. Twain also wrote the words that inspired Buffett’s “That’s What Living is to Me” that goes: “Be good and you will be lonesome/Be lonesome and you will be free/Live a lie, and you will live to regret it/That’s what living is to me.” Well, sometimes, that is what living is to me. Until next time.
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This post was written by guest author, Sarah.
During the summer after high school graduation, after watching a Girls Gone Wild with my now ex-boyfriend (What? Who said I actually paid attention?) he made the prediction that when I got to college, I would break up with him, join a sorority, and turn into someone just like the girls in the video. Well, it took another year before we finally broke up, and another few months after that before I even tried to join a sorority. But, everything happens for a reason.
At first I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to join a sorority because, after being on campus for a year, I was well aware of all the stupid stereotypes. But I had friends, and two cousins, in all different sororities, and that helped me keep things in persepective. There were two girls who lived in my hall and were in the same sorority, and yet they both had completely different personalities. Neither of them could have been stereotyped into the sorority they were in. Just as everything else in life, there are always exceptions to every rule. It’s impossible to get a group of anywhere from 40 to 200 girls and expect them all to be the same. Every sorority has stereotypes and granted, there is probably some small reason for them, like maybe a couple girls in each one actually fit the stereotype. But people are always surprised when they talk to a girl from one sorority or another who was totally not what they expected before meeting her. On bid day, when I found out which sorority I was going to be in, I was upset because I didn’t like the reputation/stereotype of the girls, even though I obviously didn’t know any of them personally. That night, one of my friends gave me some very wise advice: “Don’t not join a sorority because of it’s ‘bad letters’ or the fact that you don’t want people to label you. If you can picture yourself being friends with the girls, stick with it. Do it for you, and nobody else.” So I did!
Being in a sorority has given me so much. Yes, I have had a lot of fun (and no I have not been on Girls Gone Wild nor do I foresee it in the future!). But even more importantly, I have met amazing and inspiring women of all ages, I have become more independent, I have sharpened leadership skills, I have learned how to work and live with all kinds of people, I have become involved in something that means a lot to me, I always have someone to call and do something with if I am bored (God forbid I ever have the time to be bored), and I’m not doing it for anyone else. I’m not trying to impress other people, I’m simply doing what makes me happy. Not everybody has had the same experience as I have. But I put my all into it, and got back ten times as much.
Of course, it is not always all fun and games. There have been times when I’ve been disappointed in people, when people have gotten on my nerves, when people have made me feel bad because they thought I wasn’t doing my job correctly (even though I was!), when I’ve had to write 30 thank-you notes by hand… but none of it has been so great as to deter my intentions. There have also been times when I have been brought to tears because it was all just so overwhelmingly beautiful. There are conflicts, just like every house. It’s kind of like “The Real World” without boys. But it’s not so much like “Sorority Life” because those girls can be really bitchy and they like to talk smack about the pledges and we don’t do that! There is absolutely no hazing either. Our national headquarters will give us major trouble if anyone is made to do anything that makes them uncomfortable, including being blindfolded, or dropped off in the woods or a graveyard, or being forced to get really drunk. My sorority takes it really seriously if anyone is caught trying to haze.
And there are no naked pillow fights either! (sorry Justin!)
And no, I do not pay for my friends! I pay so that I have a huge, beautiful house where I can go anytime I want, sit on the big comfy couch and watch a movie on the big screen TV, even spend the night if I wanted to get away from my roomate (even though I love her!). I pay so that I can be served breakfast, lunch, and dinner 6 days a week. I pay so that we can have a House Mom who is the kindest woman I have ever met and would do anything to keep us safe and happy! I pay so that I can participate in really fun philanthropies for all the other sororities and fraternities on campus. I pay so that we can have really cool sisterhood events (we rented out a movie theater in honor of Founder’s Day and saw Sweet Home Alabama with our alumnae). I pay so that we can rent out all sorts of venues for our socials and date functions. Our Sapphire Ball (formal) is going to be on a dinner cruise in Jacksonville, how cool is that? All I need now is a date!
So that’s that. I love my sorority, and I still have many close friends outside of my sisters, but I wouldn’t give it up for the world! I haven’t changed for any worse, I haven’t been “brainwashed” to look, act, or think a certain way. In fact, I’m even more open minded than I used to be. Remember, you can never judge a book by it’s cover!
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