Why do I love college football?

This is why...

moments ago unranked Oregon State upset #1 USC!!! (I can't stand USC) it was a beautiful, scary game and Mike and I enjoyed every second and made our TV worth every penny.

just a flashback... remember 2006 when UCLA upset USC so we could go to the national championship?

Hopefully there are no other big upsets this weekend (ie Florida or Texas), but Georgia vs. Alabama is going to be AMAZING!


I LOVE FOOTBALL SEASON!

Mike has good luck

...with signed balls. I promised a picture, so here ya go! Last December he won a basketball signed by Julius Irving and now he won a football signed by Urban Meyer! The only difference is Dr.J signed it right in front of us, while the football was already signed and in a protective case. We were still very excited :)
The ball is to commemorate our 2006 National Championship win so there were only 2006 made.

:)

I just got an email from one of the girls I mentor and it made my day so I thought I'd share it:

hey honey bunches of oats how are you today i thought i would write you i thank you sooo very mush for helping with my work and being there when i need help your a true shining star lol thanks again!!! please keep in touch!!!:-)

...makes getting up at 6:30 in the morning totally worth it!

yIKEs!

Ike, most likely my first Texas hurricane! Hopefully EVERYTHING isn't bigger in Texas! (although this looks pretty freakin big...) Some cities are already being evacuated- I'm not all that worried because we're a bit over 2 hours from the coast and could desperately use some rain, but this could do some real damage to the unfortunate coastal cities in its path... whatever that path may be.

Go Gators!

26-3

Let us all take a moment to laugh at Miami!

GO GATORS!

PS- Mike won a football signed by Urban Meyer! I'll post pictures soon :)

I could never work in Politics because I care too much

This is my blog and I do what I want. Therefor, today I am going to complain more about politics. My mom keeps forwarding me these obscure emails that Republicans are sending around to incite more anti-Dem hoopla and... well, they're sick. I mean, I find it really funny in some ways, but in other ways I'm completely scared and upset by it.

Now I have to preface this next part by saying I truly respect other people's opinions. It's what makes America the wonderful country it is. We can all disagree and not kill each other... isn't that wonderful? My problem is when people twist the truth or only focus on the truths they already believe in. If I've learned anything in advertising it's that people seek out information that confirms their existing beliefs. One must make an active effort to expand his/her mind and learn new things. It's a hard thing to do... and I think it's especially hard for older Republicans who are less used to being progressive. I consider myself a moderate Democrat. I'm not tolerant of all people and all situations. At the John Edwards speech in Gainesville right before the 2004 election a Bushie called me a "Baby Killer." I promise I have never personally killed a baby.

Back to these strange emails, the most recent one "compared" McCain to Obama. That's fine, side-by-side comparisons are an excellent tool for people who are too busy to research this information. The problem with this comparison is that it only focused on a couple facts, most of which included arbitrary numbers and ideas. Republicans are so scared of higher taxes, but it is their administration who got us over $9 TRILLION in debt. That means every individual american needs to pay $32,000 if we want to break even. I know we're not going to do that, but how do the Republicans suggest getting out of debt without taxes? Do they really think Obama is going to hike all the taxes so high that by the end of his term we're all living in cardboard boxes? This man is in it for 8 years, I guarantee he's not going to piss off the middle class that much. McCain may not make it through the first 4 years, so I'm not sure what his incentive is to behave.

Another point about this strange email... Do Republican women believe Abortion is the end all be all for women's rights? If so, they need to wake up. Let's talk about domestic violence laws, pay equity, birth control and the opportunity to control our own reproductive health. As far as Palin is concerned, we have to remember that not every woman supports women's rights. Both McCain and Palin favor overturning Roe v. Wade, want to make birth control NOT covered by health plans and institute abstinence-only education. Excellent! We're possibly going to nominate a VP who was the Governor of the state with the highest incidence of rape and not allow sex education OR abortion! Wonderful! Great Thinking!.... ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Even if you are just so prolife that you would give up any and every freedom to support it, McCain was not prolife at a speech he gave in 1999 (where he stated keeping abortion legal is important to deter women from having illegal and dangerous operations) and a vote for him is a vote for a brown-noser. That's right, my friends. McCain is brown-nosing the Republican party and changing his ideals to match the right. It's not news. That's why most Republicans hated McCain at the start of the election. He wasn't "Right" enough. Now, though, no problems. They've got their man!

As a math-oriented person, I thought an equation would be appropriate. This makes sense to me, but it may not make sense to some people and I want those people to explain to me why it does not make sense so I can have some understanding and stop getting headaches over this.

Sex Education + Contraception = less Pregnancies = less Abortion

Ok, my final note (I promise!)
Does ANYONE care about ANYTHING other than themselves? Everyone is scared of higher taxes because they like to eat out five times a week and god forbid they need to cook once or twice more a week to insure that all the elderly and poor people have health coverage (by the way, just because socialized healthcare may be instituted doesn't mean privatized healthcare is going to be done away with- all us fortunate people will continue to be fortunate and see our fancy doctors) and that less-fortunate students are given government-funding for college and that the government can continue to do research on everything from cancer to renewable energy.

Sarah Palin instituted a $150 bounty for the left leg of every freshly-killed wolf brought to her. Does anyone care? Does anyone care that she supported slaughtering baby wolves after the mother had been shot? Does anyone care that the wolves are close to being back on the endangered species list because of this? Does anyone care that Palin is suing the Bush Administration for putting the Polar Bear back on the endangered species list because she is concerned with the effect it will have on oil production? Did I mention her husband works for BP? Is there such a thing as a Republican who also cares about animals? In this election, I'm not sure it exists. Someone who supports animal rights and votes for Palin is a hypocrite. Straight up, I'm going to be stubborn about this. I'm going to close my mind this one time because I truly believe in the protection of wild species and their environment, and in this matter I think Sarah Palin should be ashamed and stop calling herself "Prolife." That word obviously has NO meaning to her, because life has NO value to her.

This country needs to wake up and roll out of bed. Problems won't fix themselves and neither party has the answers to everything. Cross party lines, open your mind. Be progressive, not in the means of politics, but in the means of thinking. There is a reason the seasons change and the years change and people grow older... the reason is that change is inevitable. If we stick to the ideals that got the country through the Reagan era we are going to fall behind as the rest of the world moves forward. I'm not being a crazy liberal... I actually disagree with many issues on the Democratic platform, but I disagree with almost all on the Republican side. Why? Because I'm a bit of an idealist. I believe in the reasons this country was founded. I believe that freedoms are not handed to us at birth and we need to protect them. I believe religion and sexuality are personal choices that need not be judged by the government and result in loss of rights. I believe in the right to be an individual and the right to stand one's moral ground even if we are not part of the christian "moral" majority. I believe in this country, but I don't always believe in its leadership. 

This election is about more than YOU. This election is about more than ME. As I passionately exclaimed to my mom in an email this morning, This election is a bigger picture. It's about our environment, our relationship with the rest of the world, the way we treat the less fortunate in our own county.

This is not the time to be selfish.


Care about the environment? Educate yourself:

read this article: Sarah Palin's Record on the Environment

watch this video:



PS- A common practice in Psychology is basing someone's mental health on the way they treat animals. That being said, Sarah Palin must be one crazy bitch!

This about sums it up...

Palin: wrong woman, wrong message
Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

By Gloria Steinem
September 4, 2008

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.

Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."

She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.

So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.

Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.

Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.

And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.

This could be huge.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-oe-steinem4-2008sep04,0,2288253.story

in over my head?

Wow... this is it. I'm in grad school. I actually have to work hard? No, I don't have to work hard. I actually have to work my HARDEST. High school was a joke. Undergrad was a lot of work but not exactly the most difficult. This is a whole new ball game. Almost 500 pages to read over the weekend, half of which I didn't even understand. Unfortunately I got shoved in more advanced classes than my peers (many thanks to my advisor) so I didn't even get a chance to get situated in my new environment... no introductory classes... no hand holding here. I'm completely intimidated in my Psychology of Media seminar. There are only 9 people in the class and I'm the only one who isn't a PhD student or completely enamored with the subject. PAPERS PAPERS PAPERS. No one told me exams don't exist in graduate school. Did I ever mention I love exams? Did I ever mention how much I hate writing papers? Not good.
But I have to admit, this campus is beautiful. Huge, but beautiful. I guess it's not bigger than UF, but the hills make rushing from one end to the other a much greater task. It's obvious how much money goes to this school... just look at the architecture, the fountains, the landscape, the insane amount of genius asian students attending for free.
Oi. I'll adjust.
Right?