Justin Bieber should grow a beard

I’m taking a capoeira class and it is pretty darn cool. I’ve never done martial arts, but I’ve been dancing for a couple years and I’m a big fan of literally just moving around. However, even though I love dance and movement so much, the class, which itself was designed to be similar to dancing, it is not always fun. I will tell you why: last time when I went to class we were doing a cartwheel-like maneuver and I ripped a big hole right in the back of my pants. The funny part is that I didn’t notice until the very end of class. I hadn’t heard any “rip” noise or anything like that. As soon as I realized it happened, I told one of my friends. She told me that she had noticed it, and I found out several other people in the class had too. I guess it was nice of them to say nothing, rather than pointing and laughing at me right in the middle of class. It was a cold day so I wore a sweatshirt to class. So now that I had a big hole in the back-center of my pants, I tied my sweatshirt around my waist like it was the ’90s again. Of course, it was still cold out when class had ended so I was chilly going to my next class, because I was not wearing my sweatshirt correctly. Fortunately, when I got to my next class, there was a building-wide fire drill, so I got to go back outside again and stand there. And I had another class right after that class, so I had to keep walking with my waist-tied sweatshirt through the cold weather. I reach my final class of the day and lo and behold, there is a fire drill in this building, too. The scenario from before repeats. When this class ends, I finally get to go home and change my pants. Mission accomplished.

I went to the bookstore the other day and saw a big section dedicated to one certain book. I can’t remember the title of it. That’s not important, though, because the only need-to-know piece of information in this story is that the book was written by Justin Bieber! Yes, the kid-friendly singer has written a book. I opened it, and it was filled with creepy high-quality photos of J-Bieb’s eyes piercing into my soul. Believe it or not, there were words in the book, too, proving that the boy can write. I read a few sentences and declared it a really boring book. It was written in the style of a memoir, like how this site is, except it lacked things like humor, satire, social commentary, and insight. And that made it extremely boring. The parts I read could have been written by anybody– the information was not enhanced just by being written by Bieber.

So I was featured as a prominent “sexy single” at my college recently in the school newspaper. I went in for a photoshoot and had to answer some questions which would be published in the paper and online. The section was called “Towson’s Most Elgible” and the misspelled “elgible” was featured as prominently as the sexy singles who are apparently at my school. In the main picture for the photoshoot, I posed holding a pint of Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream, an ice cream flavor. That earned me brownie points among nerds and cool people. I also did a picture that was like this:

And here is a copy of the questions I was given, and my answers to them:

Describe your sex life in one syllable.

Ehhh

Finish this sentence, “Roses are red, violets are blue…”

I’m sexy and I know it.

What would your Spice Girl name be?

Old Spice

What would you do for a Klondike bar?

Whatever you want me to do.

Top or bottom?

Bikini Bottom

What animal were you in a past life?

A bear because I was in your love cave.

What candy are you most like?

Peanut M&Ms because I have nuts.

Who are you voting for in the 2012 election?

Stephen Colbert

What’s your biggest turn on and turn off?

Biggest turn on: If she’s stronger than me.
Biggest turn off: Exit 78 on the highway

What’s your most embarrassing moment?

The day I was born. Nobody could stop staring at me. And I was like, “Something on my face?” And they were like, “Whoa, a talking baby.”

If you could be stuck on an elevator with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?

Paris Hilton. Because everyone knows…

What’s your jam?

Evolution of Dance

What gives you goosebumps?

Pretty girls.

Would you rather listen to Justin Bieber or Nickleback for 24 hours straight?

Justin Nickleback and his hit single “Baby Rockstar”

What’s your favorite hashtag?

#TowsonGirlProbz

If you were president of Towson University, what would you do?

Give myself a raise… if you know what I mean.

If you had to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, who would it be?

Batman. He gets to be a BA at night and he gets the ladies in the day.

What couldn’t you live without, your cell phone or Facebook?

I have real friends.

What’s your most successful pickup line?

Everybody look at me!

What is the key to your heart?

Blood and all that stuff.

Why are you Towson’s Most Eligible?

I’m a cute guy and a good dancer.

The first few words to come to mind

Today is a Friday. All the ten people who read my blog posts are probably in shock that I am publishing this post on a Friday. Because my schedule is to put up new content* on Thursdays and Sundays, and I have missed a day. Please forgive me. Actually, even the ten to twenty-ish people who read my blog each time I update it probably don’t follow it religiously enough to have even noticed that I Thursdays and Sundays are my update-days. Oh well. I shouldn’t have even said anything. Oh gee. Now I’m going to live in regret for the rest of this blog post.

So my lunch today was Poptarts, chicken tenders, Doritos, and Gatorade. It was filling. Some people criticize me for the food I eat. Those people are probably used to gaining weight and getting sick and stuff. I’m too cool to gain weight or get sick. I think those activities are stupid, so I eat what I want!

I’m taking a capoeira class and it’s the first class I’ve ever had where I was forced to buy special shoes. That doesn’t sound too unreasonable, but the instructor is fairly obsessed with using “indoor-only” shoes, so everybody had to buy a new pair. I was so, so hesitant to go out to the mall just to buy some shoes, especially because I had already bought a new pair fairly recently. Every time I almost stepped out the door, I turned right back around and said, “No, I do not feel like walking to the shoestore in the mall.” Then I would think about how I had no other choice, and I would go towards the door again. And repeat. I guess I’m just a big lazy oaf… who dances.

I went and I found some cheap shoes, and there was a sale, and I ended up buying two pairs of shoes and spending $20. Pop quiz: what kind of sentence did I just write? A run-on sentence! Good job.

My journalism teacher was reviewing the lead sentence of a hard news story recently and she used a term that I hadn’t heard before. She said we have to get right to the BAM! And every time she said it, she made a BAM sound. It was a very onomatopoeic presentation. Sometimes she would further increase emphasis on the importance of the BAM by saying baBAM instead, adding a short and powerful “ba” to beginning of the BAM. Thanks, professor. I know a lot more about jouralism now. Explosions, too.

Rebecca Black. Lady Gaga called her a genius. If she is a genius, then I must be completely freaking stupid. Why would I ever think that the key to success is from getting an education and working hard? I had no idea that I could have just sung a terrible song at the age of 14 and had a career in singing more terrible songs. We should all copy this girl. It’s too late for me, but when I have kids I am going to have them sing the stupid songs I can write everyday. I will save money by not paying for vocal lessons and use the money I save to buy a good-quality camera to shoot a music video, and the fame will start rolling in.**

I was talking with my friends about Sesame Street the other day, and one of them said that it went off the air, and has been off for quite some time. But I remember that there was a recent episode of Sesame Street that got pulled from the air. It featured two things: one was Katy Perry, and the other was Katy Perry’s cleavage. Moms got angry, and the episode was pulled. I guess if that was close to the end of the series, you could say that Katy Perry and her inevitable sex-appeal killed Sesame Street.

So I just got a comment on one of my old Youtube videos. It was a humorous presentation in which I describe the life of knights and the chivalric code they followed. This comment was from a student who explained that his or her teacher sent my video to the class to help them study the subject. Now, I actually showed this video I made to my own class when I was a student-teacher, but it’s hilariously awesome that other teachers are also using this for their students.

*Some people call it crud, but I call it content.

**Sorry, I just felt like writing a joke. Rebecca Black is cool.

Life

Usually when I’m writing a blog post here on “The Adventures of Squirrel’s Life”, it covers the random thoughts that I spontaneously have while I’m writing. Sometimes, however, this blog does actually cover the titular “adventures” of my life. I’ve been doing a lot of things lately, so, with only a little bit of further ado, please enjoy some of these stories about my life over the past three days. This is a sentence. I wrote that last sentence so that I could have some more ado than the usual writer. A lot of writers prefer their stories without much ado, but I’m a maverick and I will have a lot of ado if I feel like it.

Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t really have much going on that I haven’t already written about. It feels like a lot, though, so I am going to write about it AGAIN. And IN MORE DETAIL. And featuring MORE CAPITAL LETTERS THAN REQUIRED.

I recently entered a contest of sorts that my school’s newspaper is holding. You submit a questionairre about goofy love questions and the newspaper decides if you are good enough to be featured in their article. They highlight the best and most interesting single-people with the intent that they will be able to find true love. So like I said, I entered this and I found out yesterday that I was one of the people chosen. Now I have to do a photoshoot and also a video interview. I’m worried that my beard will be too attractive for the newspaper and its website to contain.

I have been aware of an upcoming standup comedy competition later this month. As a rather avid comedy-fan-person, I planned on going as soon as I heard about it. However, and I can’t remember why I did this, I recently decided to enter into the competition myself. I inquired about it, and I was asked shortly afterwards to submit a video of some of my material in order for the coordinators of the event to ensure that I am “semi-funny.” So I sat in my room and made a quick Youtube video, simply reading off my blog posts as my ”jokes”. I got an email the next day telling me I was accepted into the competition. I then was asked to provide some fun facts about myself for a program that will go along with the show. My fun facts included dressing as a female stripper last Halloween and being a fan of the Pokemon Trading Card Game. I suppose that means I’m an interesting guy. In any case, I will be doing my first-ever standup comedy performance soon. This is kind of a big deal for me, especially because I want to win, which means I have to be funny. Or have the most friends in attendance who will vote for me. The winner will open for the renowned actor and comedian Eddie Griffin the week after. That’s really cool, and I would love to do it. My biggest fear is that the other “comedians” will actually be funny.

My school had a major event last night and they held a bunch a random activities in the main building on campus. There were a lot of expectable festivities, like karaoke, a mechanical bull, and minute-to-win-it stuff. That was cool and all, but there was one particularly interesting thing that was not very expected. And that was getting to see live, exotic animals run around the building. There was an exasperatingly long and uncomfortable line for it, but there was a presentation to see some random animals, and seeing animals in any setting besides a zoo is pretty neat. For example, I got to witness a kangaroo hop all around. And there was a lemur that climbed all over people. And a gigantic owl. The only thing that could have made this any better would be if they loosed the animals around the whole building, rather than just one big room.

My friends and I have an annual tradition where we go to the Melting Pot. Most of us have January or February birthdays so we all get together and celebrate each year. Even though this is only our second year. I’m not a very big fan of restaurants, especially the more-expensive ones, but we go straight to the dessert, which is multiple pots of melted chocolate in various flavors, and it is strangely awesome. That keeps it fun and from being too expensive.

So last night I saw someone get hit by a car. Sorry to throw a damper on your evening (or afternoon, or whenever you are reading this), but I did give a disclaimer at the beginning of this post that it would be about actual adventures rather than the usual simple stuff I think about. My friends and I had gone for a late-night 7-11 run, an activity which we regularly engage in, and on the way back, we hear a big BANG* right behind us. Turning around, it was obvious what had happened. There isn’t too much else I can say, except that it was bad. And that was what concluded my night, which had been pretty nice until then. Sometimes, this kind of thing happens in life, so it’s imperative to enjoy everything you have as you have it. You can never know what you’ll be missing the next day.

*I told you there would be more capital letters than required.

Single Comedian

I just started a bunch of new classes at school. They’re all cool, but one of them stands out from the rest, and it’s all because of the professor. That would be my professor Peter Lev, who is special because he sounds exactly like Ray Romano. I couldn’t stop thinking that for the whole time on my first day of his class. We also watched Bladerunner, which is a good way to spend college.

My school newspaper has this debatably stupid thing that they do around Valentine’s Day each year. In any case, I entered it. You are asked a bunch of dumb questions about love and other things, and they’ll pick out those who came up with the best answers and will publish them in the newspaper. I cheated and asked my sagest lady friends for some advice on what to answer, but it was all genuine. I’ll repost some of my answers if they’re published. Some were really dirty. Well, in comparison to my usual cleanliness.

Basically, every person whose information is published for this school newspaper is getting to freely shout out “I’m single and desperate” to all the rest of campus. I’m pretty sure that this is exactly how I should be spending my Valentine’s Day.

One of my friends was on Google Earth today and searched for “Your Mom”. And he actually found it; apparently, there is a business known as “your mom,” or so he said surpisingly. His surprise made it seem so much more realistic. Fortunately for me, I don’t fact check, so I am just going to assume he wasn’t making it up. I responded to him that there is a city in Turkey called Batman, which is completely true. There is also a city in the US called Metropolis, where every building and place is dedicated to Superman.

I was boasting to a friend of mine that you can type any of the randomest things into the search bar of this site and find it mentioned in one of my many posts. So I tried that out, and my friend said “pineapples.” But I’ve never written about them before, so my friend laughed at me. But now, I have written about pineapples, just two sentences ago, and that problem is now fixed.

As I’m typing this, I’m sitting in the lobby of the building I work in and it’s dark out. There is a wall of windows and the lighting made the reflections of the people behind me really clear. If you’ve ever seen a wall of mirrors, you know that they make the room look a lot bigger than it is, and also makes it look like there are more people in the room than there are. So I was looking at this reflective window and I saw someone wave. I waved back. However, they weren’t in that direction. They were waving in the direction I was facing to someone who was sitting is front of me, facing the other way. It made perfect sense to the two of them. But I waved back to a person’s reflection who wasn’t even waving to me in the first place.

I live in a big, tenement-like building and we have public bathrooms here. I just went in to use the toilet, as a person often does when they go into a bathroom, and a person I know was already in there shaving. I didn’t really care so I went into the stall and began to do my business. Then he started to saying my name, “Squirrel”, in a rhythmic and musical way, fluctuating his voice and enunciating the syllables to create a melodic tune to nothing more than the sound of my name. So I was sung to in the bathroom. I think this is the first time I can ever say that’s happened. It was beautiful and flattering while also being completely freaking weird.

I think I mentioned in my last blog post that I am considering getting some of my jokes together and doing standup comedy. Since I wrote that, I have entered into a standup comedy competition that’s being held at my school. The winner of the competition will open for Eddie Griffin later on. He’s an actor and comedian who I know best as Undercover Brother. It’s really exciting in a dangerous kind of way. Because I might suck. I’m already popular, so I have a lot to lose. What if my friends renounce me if I’m not funny enough? Honestly, that irrational worry is the only thing I’m actually concerned about for this competition, and it wouldn’t even happen. Your real friends are never going to desert you. So if I end up making a fool of myself on stage, I’ll be okay. Also, I am going to end up KICKING BUTT on stage, so I’ll be more than okay. I’ll be a total champion.

A story about the opera

Hey I forgot I was supposed to write another blog post today and so I’m writing it right now. Good thing I write about random stuff that isn’t important. If I actually served some useful purpose with this blog, it would surely be much harder to write.

I bought one of the Guild Wars 2 novels today. I feel like a nerd, but that’s alright. That’s just the feeling you get when you cross over to other media in the things you like. As I was checking out, the calmest-voiced man I have ever heard was at the cash register. I have never felt so safe around another human being because of their voice. He looked like Howie Mandel, but definitely wasn’t. Anywhoozles, I’m hoping I enjoy this book. I’ve never been such a fan of fantasy novels or novels based on video games, but Guild Wars is the game I have played more than any other in my entire life, and even though many people obsess over the game far more than I do, I feel like I ought to give myself something Guild-Warsy to do while I’m awaiting Guild Wars 2.

I heard somebody say “prima donna” the other day. I first heard that term as a kid and for the longest time I thought people were saying “pre-Madonna.” So I thought that when someone was described as a “prima donna” it was like someone was praising them for being cool before Madonna was, as if to imply Madonna was just some copycat who stole a whole bunch of great ideas. So if Madonna did something cool, everyone who had been doing that cool thing already was a “pre-Madonna.” I did some research on the term “prima donna” to enhance my awareness of it, and even though the most common definition is basically “a conceited jerkface,” a prima donna is also known as the lead female singer of an opera. The male lead singer has an even more fun name, the prima uomo.

Here’s a story about my experience with the opera: I almost went to an opera last year, but I didn’t.

I didn’t say it was going to be a very good story.

So I have a beard. This is nothing new to me, as I have had it for three months now. However, I have been seeing a lot of old friends lately and all have said, in this order, “Hello. OH MY GOSH LOOK AT YOUR BEARD.” I am rather used to seeing my super beard, but I guess no one else in the world is, and it is the number one thing people have been saying to me. I feel like my life would be nothing without my beard. Some people dislike it, but if I got rid of this beard, what would I be? A bare-chinned normal guy who doesn’t garner extra attention because of an absurd amount of facial hair, that’s who! And I don’t know how I could live that way, even though I generally have for most of my life.

Beards are actually an interesting thing. As a bearded person, people often tell me that I look like other people they are aware of who have beards. Which is interesting, because I actually don’t. Or, as my bearded uncle, who people have also been comparing me to, said, “All men with beards look alike.” And I suppose that’s true. It isn’t true, but people will see that as the truth. If I were to shave my beard off, I would look nothing like the people that I am often told I look like. I suppose that means that having a beard makes a man’s face look much more universal and unidentifiable. In fact, that is definitely the case, because some of my friends and family no longer recognize me now that I have this thing.

I wonder what would happen if Madonna grew a beard. She probably could.

I really have to go the bathroom

Good afternoon. Well, I say good afternoon but that is only the time it is where I am. For all I know, you could be reading this in the morning, evening, at night, or during some more specific time of day, such as 6:37 P.M. However, I am still going to say good afternoon to you, because looking down at my own personal clock, of which I have several on me at all times, like any normal person, the time is in the afternoon. I know that I don’t like to lie, so it would be lying for me not to say good afternoon to you. I have no other choice. Alternately, if today was not a very good afternoon for me, then I would be lying to you if I were to say good afternoon. Actually, that might not be true. Because I just realized that I don’t have a clue what the phrase “good afternoon” means. I think there needs to be some kind of article in front of the phrase to specify the actual meaning of it. For example, moments ago, on this good afternoon, I thought that saying “good afternoon” meant that the person who said it is having a good afternoon and is attempting to share the good-afternoon-iness by saying “good afternoon.” But without some beginning clause for the phrase, it actually is very ambiguous and open to interpretation. Here are some other things that the phrase could mean:

“I want you to have a good afternoon.”

“I am having a good afternoon.”

“This sure is a good afternoon, isn’t it?“

“Are you having a good afternoon?“

“Please, for the love of goodness, tell me what it means when I say good afternoon.”

I think that I will no longer be able to trust any person who says “good afternoon” to me from now on. If someone says that to me, I will stare them down until they say something else or walk away uncomfortably. But that is how it must be, for when a person says the words “good afternoon” without any preceding words in their communication, you cannot actually know what they really mean. Unless you can communicate telepathically, which I think should become the new norm for social interaction. It would be a great replacement for texting.

So I’m thinking about collecting some of my best jokes and using them in a standup comedy act. Literally, that’s what I’m currently thinking about. A few minutes ago, the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind but as I was LQTMing* to myself a few sentences ago, I thought, Hey I’m sometimes a little bit funny on here. And as a person who watches a lot of live standup, I would like to further sharpen the line between good comedians and bad ones, because there are way more bad comedians than good ones, although the bad ones will often switch careers before embarassing themselves too much.

However, some good comedians are bad comedians. Don Rickles posted a tweet earlier today, and this is what it said: “Flying with bad turbulence is rough. I was in the 5th row having coffee, next thing I knew I was having coffee in the co-pilot seat!”

I saw that tweet and LQTMed.* That joke is not very funny, but it is a little bit funny. And somehow the lack of funniness makes things funnier. As an example, when a person does something annoying, it will just be annoying, but eventually people will start laughing at how annoying it is.

A more specific example: Norm Macdonald made a joke about how murder victims are always found in the woods in what is described as a “shallow grave.” He then said, “That’s now how I would do it at all. If I were to kill someone,” and then went on for several minutes about his exact plan about he would commit a murder. At the end of that he said, “And then I would bury them in the woods in a very, very, very, very deep grave.” His plan on how he would murder someone was given in great detail, but contained no humorous elements. However, if he didn’t say it, then how he ended the joke would not be funny at all. As a matter of fact, no part of the joke would be funny. It would just have been sad and strange to bring up in the middle of a standup comedy act.

So, again, things not being funny creates potential for enjoyment later on. It’s a very interesting aspect of how the human mind works.

Yeah, I can’t think of anything else, so I’m just going to end the blog post now. I also really have to go the bathroom.

*LQTM: Laughing quietly to myself. This joke property of Demetri Martin.

Face Punch=Happiness

Ugh. Gee. So it’s Thursday. That means time for another new blog post. Man…. I don’t want to write a blog post. Well I guess I don’t have to if I don’t want to. You know, this is making me wonder, why do I even write a blog anyway? Only a small few people actually read it, and most people come across it with keywords like “fat cat” and “paris hilton sex tape” because that’s the lovely kind of content contained within my blog posts. I wonder if I should try making my blog more kid-appropriate. Because I don’t know if a kid could handle seeing or reading about a fat cat that I posted a while ago. It might traumatize them.

Actually, I feel like I could show this blog to anybody. I’m just so amiable! Reading one of my blog posts is like smacking yourself in the face with a dandelion. Dandylion? How about we go with tulip instead because my speller (aka brain) isn’t working with me right now on how to spell flower names.

By the way, there’s a real dandy lion to the right:

Shout out to borogove13 of Deviantart!

Smacking people in the face reminds me of something. I remember a group activity I had to do earlier this year as part of training for a job where I would be doing something totally unrelated to this particular training exercise. That might not be true, but in hindsight I can’t quite recall the exact purpose of that activity.

So are you dying to know what the activity was yet? I bet you are!! Because you surely have nothing better to do if you’re actually taking time out of your day to read the garbage that I put on the Internet. I’ll tell you all about the activity… eventually.

First I want to discuss the important issue of tickets to see celebrities performing live. Demetri Martin, my favorite standup comedian, is doing a show on his new tour next month near me, and I really want to go, but each ticket is $50. Remember, I’m a broke college student. I guess that’s why I have student loans– so I can spend them on seeing performers. Of course, it would also probably be expensive as all else to even get to where his show is located. It’s in D.C. and the last time I went to that stupid city where the president lives, I spent just over a hundred dollars. That was worth it, though, because I got to see Stephen Colbert when I went. Best day of my life.

Okay, so I don’t like when people say that their wedding is the best day of their life. I feel like that’s such a guessable thing to say. If I want my wedding to be the best day of my life, then I’m going to have to get married at a reenactment of Stephen Colbert’s and Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. Because that was the best day of my life, and I don’t really think it could be topped, not even by a beautiful woman in a pretty dress who kisses me on the lips and pledges her services to me for eternity. That’s what a woman does at a wedding, right?

Speaking of weddings, I was recently catching up with my non-real life friend Charles Trippy’s wedding. You know, CTFxC. He’s no Shaycarl, but his wedding was so lovely.

Argh, I am talking too much about gushy stuff! This blog is no place for gushiness! Blargh, I need to talk about something manly!

Punching people in the face! The activity I did as part of my job training. We had to individually come up with super hero alter-egos and a select few people were selected to present their idea. I was one of those selected of course, and I got to go up and talk to a crowd of a bit over 100 people about my super hero, The Smiley Face! Doesn’t sound manly yet, but as I explained to everyone in attendance of that day’s major training session, my super power was helping out people who are feeling down by punching a smile onto their face. Face punch=Happiness! I even got to draw a well-made stick figure of myself and show it to the crowd. As always, my demonstration was beloved and I was showered with applause and roses afterward.*

I finally bought a new pair of shoes today. I think it’s my first pair of shoes I’ve bought since probably late in 2009. No, I’m not implying that I steal my shoes, but I am directly saying that I have only needed to buy this one pair of sneakers years ago, and they have served me so well for so many years. I felt really sad going to the store and finding a replacement. Think of all the things these shoes have seen, the places they’ve visited, and the people they’ve spoken to. You know, I think the fact that I have talking shoes is what made them so memorable. I’m just kidding, my shoes have never spoken to anyone before. You almost believed me there for a second, didn’tcha?!

Anywhoozles, I own a new pair of shoes now. The new shoes are actually exactly like my old ones except there are not holes, tatters, or permanent dirt stains. My sister came home today after being out-of-state for a week and I gave her my old shoes as a welcome-home present. I also gave her permission to tear apart the little that remains of them if she so wanted. I can’t think of a better gift I could have given. Maybe a face-punch because face punches equal happiness.

*Or just a few chuckles if you really want to be realistic.

Rube Goldberg and the Expected Family Contribution

Hey everybody. Happy new year. You know, somehow I never realized that the new year is exactly one week after Christmas. Because last Sunday was Christmas. That means Christmas was a week ago. The things you discover.

Now that it’s January, it’s a special time for all college students. It is time to fill out the FAFSA, or as my mother always calls it, fawspha. The FAFSA is a Rube Goldberg-like piece of madness that turns information into numbers and calculates it into what is known as your Expected Family Contribution. I hate the FAFSA more than the regular person.

The regular person, I think, sees the FAFSA as a nifty way to get government aid, and they don’t think about the application beyond that. What’s to hate if you are just being money by the government? I will explain.

The most critical issues with the FAFSA are in what it determines– the expected family contribution, or EFC. Your college will use your EFC to determine how much financial aid you can receive. It’s extremely flawed. Look at the word “expected” in “expected family contribution”. The FAFSA will always come to the conclusion that it is expected for you to get money from family. That’s a major problem. If a person falls during hard economic times, does our government also expect for them to receive money from their family? There is no reason to ever expect anyone to part with their money, unless being forced to, as is the case with taxes. The second issue with the EFC is the word “family”. Not only is it expected that you will be getting money from somewhere to help you pay for college, but our government has absolutely no problem in assuming that your family intends to give you money. I think only a wealthy family would actually be able to support a member of said family going to college. What about families that are estranged? And what about families without money? These are important, real topics that the FAFSA completely overlooks.

There are other things that skew the FAFSA. For example, if you don’t live with your biological parents, I believe your EFC is automatically calculated to be 0. That means you get as much government financial aid as possible. So a person who still lives with their biological parents, whether or not those parents give any money to the person entering college, will have a higher EFC and therefore be given less money.

The FAFSA totally ignores what is most important about applying for financial aid. The government completely missed the mark. It is not a person’s parents or their family that is going to college; it is just one person. Your family is not paying for college; you are. That’s because your family is not going to college, only you are. It’s insane to expect a “family,” however you want to define what a family is, to give you any kind of contribution ever.

So I’m not quite used to having a full beard yet, and I forget to dry it out thoroughly after taking a shower. I got out of the shower a while ago, but I just put my hands in it and a lot of water was still in it, just hanging there.

Help people, get paid

Yeah! Blog post! Here we go! Posting on the blog. Right now. Doing this. Check it out.

Sorry I didn’t actually post anything on Christmas. That was my day off, even though you could surely argue that my days off are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. By the way, just used an Oxford comma. But when you have a religious holiday, you have that day off. Forever. Permanently. Always. Even if you aren’t a member of a religion that celebrates any holiday, you can still take the day off for religious reasons. I’m pretty sure that’s a first amendment right. Who is to say that I will not be celebrating Kwanzaa this year, just like I didn’t last year? If I need to take a day off for religious reasons, I will. Because people who are religious obviously work harder than those who aren’t, and therefore need  more time off. Those people without religious holidays are so inferior. So the next time you go somewhere on Christmas and see people who are working, point and laugh. They aren’t religious and didn’t take the day off. Gee, how stupid.

So I went on an adventure today, and hopefully I’ll soon find out if it was worthwhile or not. Real adventure. Storytime. Now. Alright so I’m on my winter break from school right now and I decided to drive to the “city” today to go get a job, because what else would I be doing? Not anything productive enough to have substantial content for blog posts, that’s what. So I went to the “city”, which I put in quotation marks because in terms of population it’s significantly smaller than the city where I go to school. But it’s the closest, biggest place I’ve got. And I went there. Boy oh boy, did I go there. I parked on a street far away enough to avoid having to pay a parking meter because I am awesome, and I got some wonderful exercise walking around downtown looking for places to work.

I think the first place I went to was a Five Guy’s, which is one of the nicer fast food restaurants. I would never really consider working at a fast-food place, but if it’s classy enough, I’ll honor the store with one of my signature applications. People have a pretty high demand for me, I must say. There was a Ben&Jerry’s adjacent to the Five Guy’s, but it was closed for the whole winter…

SIDE STORY TIME GO- So I actually met Jerry, of Ben&Jerry’s fame, and he signed my pint of Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream. He explained that long ago Ben&Jerry’s struggled to make ends meet in the winter time because nobody was buying any ice cream. And Ben&Jerry tried some fun things to encourage people to buy ice cream in winter, but if you want that story, you’ll have to ask Jerry himself, like I did.

RETURN TO NORMAL STORY GO- So I walked around the city and applied for jobs. I remember over the summer I used this thing called the Internet to look for jobs in the city, but I just couldn’t get one, because they were all stupid. The Internet is stupid. I will never use it again for anything. I figured I would go apply for jobs in person today because I was certain that no one would deny my adorable, bearded face. It is simply undeniable.

Of course, now that it is after Christmas, nobody is hiring no more. Why you no hire me, stores in city? What I ever do to you? Like, it’s pretty lame. I didn’t quite have a chance to apply for a job pre-Christmas because I was at school and already had a job. Now that I’m not at school, I feel probably how a typical college-graduate feels, living at home with the parents and looking for the lowest-end work to do. Actually, probably not the lowest-end work, because I think that’s prostitution. Well, I was a prostitute on Halloween, so maybe I could do the real thing. Except that wouldn’t be very fun, I imagine. No, let’s just give up on that endeavor for now. I don’t think I need to be that desperate.

But I did end up applying to work at this totally radical retro store that sold a bunch of old vinyl CDs and video games. It was like the coolest thing ever. Lots of Nintendo 64s and all that good stuff. I seriously considered buying an original Game Boy, just for the sake of having one. And everyone who worked there looked like a total hipster. The guy I talked to the most had long, course hair and really pale skin and hipster glasses. I felt like I fit right in, with my pale skin and my long beard and my fidel hat and bright-red sweatshirt. Of course the guy told me they weren’t hiring, but I applied there anyway! Like a boss!

It’s at the lame moments like these when I remember just how closed the job market is. Most places just aren’t hiring, ever. If anything, though, one job I could almost certainly get is working at the homeless shelter, which literally had no requirements except being a high-school graduate. And it’s considered a governmental position so it’s very official-like.

I suppose that’s a thing to do. Help people, get paid. Might as well.

Today is Christmas.

Today is Christmas. I’m not going to write anything. Come up with your own fun stories on this fine day.