Busy Work

My Dear Reader,

This week, besides reading a book and preparing for a test, I have to finish a project that's absolutely worthless. And that's all for one class! Add to that the other book I have to read, the test I have to take at the end of next week, and you've got the typical college workload.

Now, the books are arduous, though I don't really mind as long as they're spread out, but I really don't see the point of assigning a purposeless assignment when there's already a lot going on at the same time. Why do professors feel the need to throw extra hours of library time as if an endless amount of homework is the only things that will keep us off of the streets?

Useless assignments have been plaguing me ever since kindergarten, and I just don't get why teachers of all grade levels can't manage to use the time they're supposed to fill up. It reminds me of high school, when my teachers decided that thirty to forty minutes of lecture time was more than adequate, meaning that my fellow students and I had a designated card game period at the end of each class. Then, of course, they told us we weren't allowed to bring cards to class (probably because we were making the teachers look bad), which turned our card-playing time into doing-whatever-worthless-thing-popped-into-the-teacher's-head-that-day time. It was just abut the lamest thing you could imagine. I used to look at my teachers and think to them, "I've only got one childhood to live and you're making me waste it on this?"

There's just no telling what I could have accomplished in the time I've wasted doing worthless assignments. Maybe I could have cured cancer. You never know. If we spent every bit of every day in the classroom actually learning something useful, we could probably fit a bachelor's degree in there somewhere, producing a generation of 22 year-olds with Ph.Ds! Oh, the possibilities.

And just to be clear, I'm not trying to say that every finger painting exercise was a waste of my time, because art is part of education too, but do we really have to spend three weeks working on posters that represent each of the constitutional amendments? I mean, really.

Kids have a lot more potential than we think they do, and I personally feel that this potential is wasted in a careless manner, and that failing to realize the aptitude of people at a very young age creates a pattern that extends through adulthood. Soon, busy work is a staple of the academic diet, because apparently the academic elite just don't know what to do with themselves if they don't have something to grade. If we could only be a little more efficient with our time! There is so much to do!

Anyway, despite the things I've said, the fact that these word are inspired by a specific, pointless assignment might make my point seem trivial, and I suppose it's easy to ignore the rantings of a poor college student who feels ill-used. Go tell it to your neighbor with melanoma.

Regards, best wishes, and educational efficiency,

-Cecily Jane

The Deal with Doughnuts

Dear Reader,

Ever since I can remember, my Madre has taken special care to ensure that my brothers and sisters and I grew up consuming as little sugar as possible. This meant that cake and ice cream were only for birthdays*, candy was only for holidays, and root beer was only for pizza**, and sugar cereals were a mythical substance too dangerous to be thought of. Because of the care which Madre took in her endeavor, it happened that my only experiences with doughnuts occurred in cases when a large amount of men (uncles, people from church, neighbors, etc.) had to come over to our house for an activity that chiefly concerned moving heavy objects.

At this very precious and impressionable stage, there also happened to be a family that lived down the street who had a very different philosophy when it came to sugary foods. For them, doughnuts were just part of their usual Saturday morning ritual, and I remember going to visit them and being amazed by the boxes of doughnuts on their tables every week. It was like I was suddenly in an entirely different world. We kept coming over, week after week, if only to watch the ritual that was so alien and intriguing. I can only imagine how they felt; trying to eat in peace while the kids down the street are treating them like an exhibit in the zoo. The circumstances, however, seemed to make this scenario unavoidable.

You might think, Gentle Reader, that when I moved out of the house and off to college, my previous sugar deprivation would turn me into some kind of junk-food-binge-beast. I splurged a bit, but I was able to keep things under control. And by that I mean that my diet consisted mostly of pepperoni Hot Pockets. Believe it or not, I actually lost weight my freshman year, despite the odds, and when I moved out of the dorms and into an apartment I developed a strategy that works fairly well: I never buy any junk food except for ice cream, and I always make sure that I have one container of ice cream handy at all times. Sometimes it will last me a week, sometimes it will last me a month, but the idea is that I have an outlet for my sugar cravings. When I crave something sweet, I remind myself that I have the power to buy it anytime I want and that it will always be there. Then, if the cravings persist, I indulge myself with as much ice cream as I need to be satisfied. The end result is that I spend less time and money on junk food and go on with my life. It works pretty well, for the most part.

This brilliant plan hit a snag, however, when I started working full time in a cafeteria over the summer. My nine-to-four schedule meant that I came in everyday right after the breakfast shift was ending, greeted by a couple trays of assorted doughnuts. The effect was somewhat disturbing. After I had supposedly conquered my cravings for sugar during childhood and re-conquered them after I moved out, I found that during these summer days I spent a lot of time thinking about and longing for those doughnuts. Since I could buy my meals there at a pretty good price, I got into the habit of eating lunch there everyday during my break, and as the summer progressed I became more and more concerned with making sure that the left over doughnuts made their way to my plate. Soon, it came to the point where I would have three or four a meal, and my behavior was getting notice from my co-workers. Soon my doughnut cravings became kind of a joke among my friends at work, nothing too serious, but enough that people started saving doughnuts for me. It all started to get really weird.

And that was when I realized that I had actually turned into that junk-food-binge-monster that I had avoided becoming way back during my freshman year. It's kind of strange that I waited four years to go on a sugar spree, and it's even more strange that I chose doughnuts as an outlet, but I suppose that it goes to show that we humans aren't in as much control as we think we are.

After the end of the summer, I found that my sugar-craving symptoms started to subside, and now I rarely think about those doughnuts when I see them, having realized that I don't actually find them as appetizing as I thought I did. Perhaps this means that my doughnuts cravings have finally be satisfied, or perhaps it means that I've got some more hurdles to go through until I have real control over my sweet tooth. Either way, I don't really want to see that junk-food-binge-monster ever again.

Regards, best wishes, and sweet days,

-Cecily Jane

*In these rare cases, my family experienced an equally rare phenomenon, as all birthday cake and ice cream always mysteriously vanished during the night. As children, we attributed it to some kind of Sugar-Monster, but in my later years I realized that this monster was actually Padre. Oh, the irony.

**And pizza, of course, was only for Madre-and-Padre-are-so-busy-that-they-can't-cook-dinner-style emergencies.

Cecily's Note

My Dearest Readers,

Plain Vanilla will return next Tuesday, 10/23, when I anticipate to be caught up on my homework. Sorry about the late notice, but I hope to see you here next week!

-Cecily Jane

Good vs. Well

My Dear Reader,

In addition to my love of literature, I've found that the language itself can be just as interesting as any author's genius can be. So I've been increasing my knowledge of the language I speak inasmuch as my major will allow, and this means that I know all sorts of ridiculous grammar rules that most people are completely unaware of. One of these rules dictates the use of the words good and well, and once you get to a certain level of education, the rule seems unavoidable (unlike the rule that says you can't use which before an nonrestrictive clause, which completely ignorable). So I thought that I would conduct a little experiment to see what the difference between good and well really is in the real world.

Now, before I explain my results, I'll quickly explain what the big deal is: technically, good is an adjective (which describes things) while well is an adverb (which describes actions or states of being). Thus, some people some time ago decided that when someone asks you how you are, you are to respond that you are well (state of being). To demonstrate:

Person 1: Hi, Person 2. How are you?
Person 2: I'm good, you?

=WRONG

Person 1: Hello, Person 2. How are you?
Person 2: I am very well, thank you. How are you this fine morning?
Person 1: Tea and crumpets?

=CORRECT

The argument that these dead people (and their living allies) are trying to make is that good is synonymous with virtuous, meaning that when you call yourself "good" it is really a proclamation of inherent righteousness. To demonstrate:

Person 1: Hi, Person 2. How are you?
Person 2: I am very good today. I didn't lie or cheat, and I saved some orphans from a fire. I'm pretty much the greatest thing ever.
Person 1: Your hubris is showing.

In contrast, the word well means healthy, or more precisely, not sick and/or contagious. And isn't that what people really mean when they ask you how you are? After all, asking someone to profess their worthiness to you in such a casual manner is quite awkward. Of course, this habit comes from a time when people were constantly dying of consumption or the like, and this was more like a "so you're not dying?" sort of inquiry:

Person 1: Hello, Person 2. How are you?
Person 2: I am very well, thank you. I was ill last week with the gangrene, but it seems to have cleared up wonderfully.
Person 1: It is quite pleasant to know that I do not have to fear that you will fall over dead at any moment, possibly taking me with you. Huzzah!

Now the problem with this rule is that it is somewhat outdated and therefore comes off as stuffy and impersonal. Yet, it is still considered wrong by people who think they know grammar, and those people happen to hand out diplomas and Pulitzer prizes. So if you happen to want to be a world-changing writer, you have to be able to hob-knob with these people, right? And therein lies my dilemma: do I speak with perfect grammatical correctness at all times in order to maintain my credibility and risk stuffiness/snobbery, or what? So I decided to try telling everybody I was well in a natural, non-snobbish way for a few months and see what happened. The results were exceedingly telling.

First of all, I found that I actually offended some people, or at least put them on guard. This generally happened with close friends of mine, people who knew me and knew that I'm not from Buckingham. Not only did my grammatically correct response come as a surprise, but they appeared to feel like I was judging their language skills, i.e. being very rude.

Second of all, I found that in more formal settings it was either accepted or not noticed. Since part of my job entails dressing up and acting with a certain decorum, I found that using well was appropriate. Somehow, wearing slacks made it all okay. I also found that certain people I came in contact with in this capacity lowered their opinion of me the moment I used good. So slacks equal well and jeans equal good. Apparently.

Thirdly, I found that I had a very difficult time being consistent for any period of time. After more than four months, I still slip up all the time, and when I do it is not unusual for someone to point it out. It's kind of like putting spats on inside out or something: what could appear dignified now looks excessively foolish.

So I've pretty much determined that we notice language more than we think, that we have a very emotional attachment to language, and that I should try to continue saying well in formal situations or I'm going to be in trouble.

See? That wasn't so bad, was it?

Regards, best wishes, and explanations a lot longer than promised,

-Cecily Jane

Expect the Unexpected

My Dear Reader,

I think that one of the stupidest English clichés is "expect the unexpected." I cringe whenever I hear it, just like I do whenever I see the word "yummy" in print. Ugh. I have thoroughly examined the situation and have decided that something must be done. Maybe realizing that there is a problem can be the first step to the healing process here. Allow me to argue my point:

How can you possibly expect the unexpected? Once you expect it, isn't it now more properly classified under things expected? So instead of actually expecting the unexpected, it's more like expecting that which was previously, but is no longer, unexpected.

Anyway you slice it, you can't really expect the unexpected. You can try, I suppose, but in my experience this has a tendency to turn into expecting all sorts of completely outrageous scenarios that have probably never happened to anyone. This is what we like to call paranoia.

Of course, there are always those rare cases in which those completely outrageous situations are suddenly (and sometimes violently) brought into reality. For example, you might be looking ahead to finals week with worry and anxiety, expecting difficult tests that make teeth pulling look pleasant, but you might not expect to go into your kitchen the morning of the last day of classes, trip over your own feet, and hit the part of your skull between the temple and the eye with a fairly blunt drawer handle, creating a cut which requires ten stitches and a tetanus shot. Yet, it happens all the time, and by that I mean that it happened to me last finals week and it wasn't pretty. I spent a whole week trying to think up a better story to tell my friends and attempting to convince my co-workers that it was not the doing of my husband or boyfriend (which were both at that time nonexistent). So yeah, I definitely didn't expect that, but should I have? Or is it preferable that I always stay in the state I was in after that, when I started to see every visable surface as an instrument of doom? That's the kind of thing that makes you want to stay in bed for the rest of your life.

And at the same time, I think that if a person truly could expect the unexpected, life would be incredibly boring and perhaps even unbearable. Variety is the spice of life, and even though getting stitches wasn't the best experience I've ever had around finals (though it definitely wasn't the worst) it was the most exciting thing that had happened to me in at least a month, and it was kind of nice to have something to talk about when people asked me how things were going*. It's sick and twisted, I know, but I have to fight the overwhelming misconception that I am the most boring person alive with every weapon at my disposal.

So I suppose the conclusion I have come up with is that expecting the unexpected can only lead to paranoia or boredom, and neither of those are exceedingly appealing alternatives. I think I'll just try to be careful and get on with my life.

Regards, best wishes, and excitement,

-Cecily Jane

*Of course, I was in a car accident about two weeks prior to the stitches incident, but I didn't get hurt at all from the crash, so I suppose it's debatable as to which incident was more exciting. Either way, I'm sure Madre was getting sick of my calling her from the emergency room.

Sister Moment #3: Birthdays

My Dear Reader,

It's a strange thing when your younger sister has a birthday that's only ten days before yours. After all, you came here first, so shouldn't you have priority? If you were twins, like two of my brothers happen to be, I could understand sharing a birthday, but birthdays are by nature a very personal and selfish thing. You don't really want to share with someone else because it takes the attention away from you. It's a fairly natural feeling, which, like most other natural feelings, is self-centered and makes no sense.

Okay, so maybe that's a little bit of an exaggeration. It's not like we all think we're the Queen of Sheba or anything. And yet, next to Christmas, I'd bet that most people think that their birthdays are pretty high up there on the list of favorite holidays.* I mean, any day is made a whole lot better when it contains presents, ice cream, and cake. Free desserts at restaurants aren't that bad either. So I have to admit that I always get a little depressed when Petite Soeur's birthday rolls around, because I've always felt that she sucks all of the birthday out of the month so there is none left for me. And I don't care what you say, I still swear that she gets better presents. Everybody loves the baby in the family, and since she's the youngest daughter I can't help but feel like I'm like VHS tapes; put out to pasture because there's a newer model.

I remember that I got really confused sometime around first grade about how it was even possible that my younger sister could have her birthday before I did, because I had just been taught that when a person has a birthday that falls before yours it makes him or her older than you. Of course, I completely forgot the big picture, meaning the three years minus ten days that I had spent on the earth as the youngest child, but I was approximately five years old and therefore perfectly excusable. But when I went to talk to Padre and have him sort out the whole mess, he thought my misunderstanding about birthdays and ages was quite a hoot. He told me that I had really been born on Petite Soeur's birthday and vice versa, but they had switched us a few years back for kicks. And of course, being five, I believed him, and I still remember the confused look on my first grade teacher's face when I tried to explain it to her. To this day, I'm still a bit embarrassed, and have decided that I'm not going to fill my future children's heads with hilarious falsehoods and set them loose on the world, no matter how stupid they are.

Anyway, it still happens to be that the worst day of my life falls annually on PetiteSoeur's special day. I try to have a good time. I really do. But every year it somehow happens that I start out being happy and I end up hating the universe by the time they dish out the cake and ice cream. This year, however, since the two of us have grown up and become friends, she actually noticed that I looked like death and asked me what was wrong, and being the honest and open person I was raised to be, I told her everything. It was like one of those sharing moments that they have in Full House where you've got what I call "the flying music" playing in the background and everybody's just so close to tears you want to throw up, but we didn't. Instead, PetiteSoeur told me that she hates my birthday too, since the start of mine means the definite end of hers, like New Year's for Christmas. (I'm pretty sure that's why everyone ends up so smashed.) Anyway, it was an interesting experience as we sat there and confessed our mutual birthday hatred and agreed that it was okay to keep on hating. It's moments like these that I think she's not so bad after all.

I still say that when I have children I'm going plan things a little better.

Regards, best wishes, and general stupidity,

-Cecily Jane

*Of course, there are always those people who hate the fact that time keeps moving forward no matter what we do. These people are old. The way I see it, you're not old until you're embarrassed of the time you have spent here and the experience you have gained, or in a cliché, you're only as old as you feel. People seem to be stuck in this great irony where we hate how old we are and yet diminish those who have less experience than we do. Maybe someday we'll all just grow up.

My Beef with Peanut Butter

My Dear Reader,


Those who know me well know that I dislike peanut butter. Dislike is a good word for it; hate is what I feel for uncooked onions and loathe is what I feel for ranch dressing. To illustrate, if I were at a social gathering and someone set me before a nice salad ruined by ranch, the smell would make me sick and I'd immediately push it away. I wouldn't care who was looking. If I was at a fancy restaurant where I was required to wear a dress I have yet to buy, I'd tell my server to take it back, something I ordinarily wouldn't do. With onions, on the other hand, I would probably just pick them out, no matter where I was and no matter who I'm with. I'm not eating that. If I was served something with peanut butter, however, I would swallow my pride along with the concoction, in the interest of being polite. By now, Gentle Reader, I hope you understand my full intent when I use the word dislike in this context.

The funny thing is that it didn't used to be that way. Growing up, I was the tomboy who spent her recesses catching grasshoppers and her suppertime devouring whatever happened to be on the plate. Sure, there were things I liked better than others, but food was food, and I had to eat it all before Madre would let me go and ride my bike. It was the same at lunch time, where the faster you ate, the faster Mrs. C would let you go out and play. I was a messy eater, but I'm what Madre calls a Pokey Puppy and that's what it took to keep up with the other kids.

The peanut butter thing didn't start until at least seventh grade. Madre was raising six kids at the time, and two were twins and one was a toddler. So of course, the budget was tight, and of course that meant than when she made lunches she went with whatever happened to be a mixture of cheap and easy. For Madre, that meant peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Every single day. When Madre was feeling like making us something special, she'd make us peanut butter and honey, and once in a blue moon we'd get tuna. So by this time, peanut butter consisted of a large part of my diet, as it had ever since I was in kindergarten. I guess it just kind of got old.

At first, it was just peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I begged for peanut butter and honey, but that got old, too. I started begging for tuna, but there was no way my Madre was going to make me a tuna sandwich every day.

Then something strange happened. I stopped liking peanut butter in everything. While that kid on TV was trying to figure out how to eat a Reese's, I was trading the Reese's I got for Halloween with Smarties, Hershey Kisses, or whatever I could get my hands on. The same went for every special occasion, and I honestly believe that my dislike for peanut butter has decreased my enjoyment of pretty much every holiday, because there's always a Reese's tree in your Christmas stocking or a Reese's egg in your Easter basket. There's no hiding from a Reese's.

Eventually, I started hating peanuts. Madre had to keep me out of the large jars of trail mix because I would go through and eat the M&M's . . . and nothing else (except the occasional date). Then, I stopped liking Butterfingers, which was pretty tragic because at the time it was my favorite candy bar. By the time I got to college, I could only eat Almond Snickers.

The funny thing is that most people put peanut butter in just about anything and don't even conceive of the possibility that someone might not be a fan. So here I am, standing up and saying that I, Cecily Jane, am not a fan in the slightest. And I know I'm not alone. I once met a man who tells people that he's allergic just to avoid the guilt trips. That's what I call desperate. But now, my Gentle Reader, you have been enlightened. Good for you.

Regards, best wishes, and dislike,

-Cecily Jane