Why I Think It's Better To Be Single On Valentine's Day

     It seems to be that time of year again when flower places are actually able to make a significant amount of money and the horrible actors in the "every kiss begins with Kay" commercials get dug up from last year. 

     I remember when I was little, I used to love Valentine's Day. Every time it came around, me and the rest of the kids in my class would all go out to the store beforehand and buy candy for everyone in the class. It didn't matter if you didn't even know everyone, you still got candy from them. Valentine's Day used to be a day you came home from school with a ton of candy for no reason, and it seems like as we get older, we either grow to love or hate it. It seems like the ones that love it are the ones that have boyfriends or girlfriends, although I had a boyfriend last Valentine's Day and I still thought the holiday was pointless.
     Regardless, the point of this post isn't for me to talk about why Valentine's Day sucks. I think it's safe to assume that anyone reading this already knows why it sucks. The real point of this post is for me to point out why I think it's better to be single on Valentine's Day:

• There's no pressure for you to buy a cheesy gift: It seems like an obligation to buy a gift for your boyfriend or girlfriend, as if to say, "Hey thanks for putting up with me, here's a completely unmemorable gift." As a girl, I think it's hard to come up with a gift for a guy on Valentine's Day. Giving a guy flowers and chocolates just seems weird and awkward.

• There's no pressure for you to act happy/surprised when receiving said cheesy gift: Try as you might, it's really hard to act surprised when your significant other hands you a bouquet of flowers on Valentine's Day. Especially after they point out that they did it because their mom told them it would be a nice thing to do. Of course, I'm not speaking from experience or anything like that.

• You don't have to spend money on anyone else: Treating someone you care about to dinner is a nice gesture and makes you feel good. Spending your own hard-earned money on yourself makes you feel awesome.

• You don't have to worry about getting dumped: Just think about how much it would suck to get dumped on Valentine's Day. Now think about how that's not going to happen to you, because you're already single.

• Instead of cuddling with another person, you can cuddle with your dog: Sure, they may have a shedding problem, they might lick you unnecessarily, and they might have a really annoying or deafening bark. But in the end, they're outrageously cute and love you unconditionally, even if you have no game. This applies to cats as well.

     If you have a significant other this Valentine's Day, good for you! If you don't, stop crying about it and telling yourself you'll be forever alone. Life goes on, and not having someone else to spend Valentine's Day with is the definition of a first world problem.

The "Me" Generation

     This semester I'm taking a ton of bullshit gen ed classes that Temple makes you take even though it doesn't necessarily contribute anything to what you're studying. Two of them are sociologically/ anthropologically based, and in both these classes, the professor has brought up either social networking or just the way we use technology in general.

     And of course, this gets me all riled up because on the inside, I'm an old person when it comes to thinking about that kind of stuff. It's scary to me how far we've come as a society from the times when people used to all gather around their one black and white clunky television set to watch the same show as the majority of America. If I can recall from my history class last semester, most of America used to watch Miss America in the 1960's. We can't say that anymore about even the highest rated shows today. When I was little, I remember being at my grandma's cottage at the beach and not understanding how to turn on the TV because it had a weird dial on it. It was weird to me then, but seeing something like that in 50 years would probably be so weird that there isn't even a word to describe the caliber of weirdness.

     My youth cultures class was the one where I was told our generation is being called "The Me Generation," even though almost every generation accuses the following generation to be selfish. I think it's the perfect name. When something funny happens, instead of just laughing, I've noticed people will laugh and simultaneously whip out their phones to text someone about it/ tweet about it/ make it their Facebook status/ etc. Why do we feel the need to do that? It just seems normal, but when you really think about it, it makes no sense. Your life will be the same whether or not you broadcasted to your network of online friends that you are going to the gym, tanning, and then doing laundry.

     What's worse, is when people feel the need to share with the world "work at 12," "laying in bed," "going to Starbucks with the girls!!!" Again, why do we feel the need to do that? It's like people think everyone they're friends with online cares what they're doing at all times. On a similar note, it's blatantly selfish when girls include in their about me sections "Don't even try to hit on me!!! I probably think you're lame!" Come on. You should probably just delete that and, instead, say "Hey guys I'm really full of myself."

     Of course I need to mention Tumblr here. I recognize that a lot of things people post on Tumblr apply to human interest - people post certain things because they figure other people will find these things interesting too. But then there's those blogs where people only talk about themselves, which I personally don't have a problem with because there's no rules on what is and isn't acceptable to put on your blog. A blog is a forum where you can post whatever you want to, and posting aimless paragraphs or sometimes even just phrases about your life, pictures of yourself, etc. are all pretty normal things to do, which just adds to the whole reason why people are calling us "The Me Generation."

     If I didn't have a Facebook, I would feel out of touch and just plain bored because I'm so used to having it. It seems like when Tumblr is down it's apocalyptic to some. In no way do I hate technology, nor do I exclude myself from any of the cliches I mentioned. I just find myself thinking about how different it's made communication and how much it's changed how people interact. I'm not sure where I'm going with this at this point because there's just too many reasons to bring up. All I'm saying is that it makes complete sense to me why people are calling my generation "The Me Generation." Trying to explain why turned out to be a lot harder than I thought but I hope at least one person can make sense of my rambling!

Three Tell Tale Signs That You Have No Game

     Just some pet peeves I've compiled from my experiences as well as what I've heard from my friends. Think of this as a public service announcement. I can't personally make a convincing sad puppy dog face, so I'm leaving that to this sad dog from one of those tear-jerking ASPCA commercials. Please, I'm begging you, if you do any of these things, stop. Please. In my opinion, you have no game if:

You can't spell: Calling myself part of the grammar police would be an understatement. I'm going to go so far as to call myself a grammar Nazi. I am also fully aware that I'm setting myself up for mass amounts of criticism if I overlook a typo in any of my future posts. However, accidentally typing a word wrong is much different than just not knowing the difference between "there, their, and they're," "you're and your," or just blatantly not knowing how to spell basic words like "embarrass" or my personal favorites "intelligence" and "grammar." Saying to me "your cute" will not make me like you, and I'm sure I'm not the only girl who feels this way.

You are clingy: How would you like it if someone you are merely acquainted with texts you every free chance they get and Facebook ims you every time you're online? I would say it gets old much quicker for me than it does for the average person.

You self-loathe: Nobody is perfect and we all have our insecurities whether we like to admit it or not. I thought it'd be common sense that if you're trying to get someone to like you, you shouldn't draw attention to those insecurities. Everyone always says that confidence is an attractive quality. Everyone always says that for a reason. Of course, don't be a pretentious asshole. But don't act like you hate yourself either. The next time I hear a cute guy say "I'm not that cute," they're getting a well-deserved slap across the face.

(Sorry I've been slacking on updating the blog! Every now and then I think of things to write about, but my schedule turned out to be more demanding than I anticipated so I usually spend my free time being a couch potato. I'm going to try to start posting more, try being the operative word here.)

My Snowday > Your Snowday

     I was able to fulfill my duties as a woman today despite the snow by making key lime cupcakes. I made more than three, these are just the ones I managed to not mess up with the frosting. I can assure you it's a lot harder than it looks on Cupcake Wars.

Someone Take Me To This

WOULD LOVE YOU FOREVER REGARDLESS OF YOUR GENDER OR WHO YOU ARE. PLEASE. CAPS LOCK MEANS I'M EXTRA SERIOUS. For real though, this is going to sell out. Integrity is one of my favorite bands and seeing them would make my life complete.

The Facebook Obsession

     For some reason, I felt like I should have titled this "America's Facebook Obsession" because I always hear people talk about how Americans are so obsessed with technology. Instead, I decided on making it broader and somewhat unoriginal, the title of this post being the title of the CNBC documentary I watched which gave me the idea to write about Facebook. Out of all the shows my lazy ass has been watching the past several weeks or so, I'd have to say this one had the most substance to it.

     Facebook was established in 2003 and today, roughly 1 in 12 people in the world uses it. I can't think of the perfect word to use here, but I'll go with mind-blowing. Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook, virtually has control over how we - meaning everyone in the world that uses Facebook - communicate. We may complain every time Facebook evolves out of nowhere to be "more efficient," but at the end of the day, everybody puts up with it and still continues to use Facebook because we're "obsessed." I do not exclude myself from this.

     Comparing how Facebook worked in the beginning before it was tweaked over and over to get to where it is today is crazy to look back on. The way Facebook is now, it seems like it's hard to keep anything a secret. Sometimes I wonder why people even bother asking me what I'm studying, where I'm going to school, where I'm from, what kind of music I like, etc. when they're friends with me on Facebook. If a stranger fills out every single part of the "About Me" section, I can look at their profile and feel like I know them.

      Don't even get me started on the new Facebook. The "Memory" option displays all of your most popular statuses, new friends, pictures of you tagged, sorted by year. It is completely unnecessary and makes me feel like I'm stalking myself when even just clicking on my own.

     This turned into one of those "technology freaks me out" posts. It is impossible to forget about someone when they're your Facebook friend, even when you don't even talk to or live near that person. High school graduation is supposed to be so emotional and whatnot because you'll never see a lot of those people again, but if I really wanted to see almost any given person I graduated with again, I could make plans through Facebook. I can't tell if this is a good or bad thing.

OMG! First Post Of 2011!

     Don't get too excited, I've got nothin' right now. The picture to the left is a visual representation of what's happening in my mind right now. This is due, in part, to me being on winter break and therefore, my mind is turned off. The fact that I've been doing literally nothing for the past few days is also a large contribution to this. I miss you Filthadelphia.

On an unrelated note, I've been digging this whole album lately. Her voice is so pretty and needs no further explanation.