Finals Update

They now have swords.

Whistling: Horrible and Great

It's Finals

   Whistling is both fantastic and terrible. I love whistling because: 1. I am pretty good at it, 2. Depressed people don’t whistle, so if I’m whistling, life is going better than terribly. Now the problem that comes with whistling is that it is a contagious idea. When I hear someone whistling, I usually come to the slow realization that I am neglecting my own abilities, and begin whistling right along. It is only after about a minute and a half of this more-than-awesome orchestral-type duet that I come to my next realization: That we are not whistling the same thing.

   Not only this, but everyone around us has begun to get incredibly annoyed. This is usually followed by an immediate recession of my whistling, confidence, self esteem, and desire to whistle ever again. In that order. Now, after this ordeal is forgotten, I usually end up hearing a song with some whistling in it (Don’t Worry, Be Happy is a major suspect in this) and think it’s a great idea. This could go one of two ways. I can start whistling a good song, staying on pitch and key OR, I could decide to whistle with my headphones in, horribly and at volumes I cannot realistically gauge considering my current hearing-impaired circumstance.

   I also hate whistling around my friends, because they, then, catch the contagious whistle-lust, and begin to whistle, also. As I said, previously, I am a pretty good whistler. I am a snob and will then stop whistling just so that the other person can stop murdering my sonata. Sometimes, though, I choose to whistle extremely loud, or merely hold the same note until they get the point that I am supreme at whistling, and they should not have challenged such an adversary.

  On a related note, it is exactly 6 AM. It is finals week. I have been awake for about 46-odd hours now. What brought on this blog post was the fact that there is a man sitting in the common study area with his headphones in, whistling. Whistling the same song he has been whistling for the past two hours while his friends discuss World of Warcraft strategy. I am in pain. Short of actually going up to him, and explaining the “studying situation” that everyone else is undergoing, the only retaliation I can think of, speaking in their own language is talking loudly about how my “guild” is “doing some serious empirical studies,” requiring complete “silence” (which is in quotations because I could go for any other sort of noise other than this dude’s whistling. Pigs squealing, perhaps. Silence is not required. “Silence,” that is the absence of whistling, however, is imperative.)

   Then again, I’d probably get called a n00b (which, for the records, Microsoft Word accepted as a real word with arms wide open. No red squiggly marks here!) for using improper verbiage when it comes to WoW. To which, I will proudly announce that I have been kissed, and watch them shrink away in sadness and shame… At least their avatars have been in the pubs lately, chattin’ up all sorts of fly digital honey! (Did I mention it’s 6 AM, and I didn’t get up early, but have rather stayed up late? Twice? Consecutively?)

Literally, It was an Epic Fail.

Like, Legit.

    

   Hey, neighbors. Just thought I’d literally drop an epic note for you, and I hope you find it legit. It would literally break my heart if you think it’s a fail, though… Right. I thought that we should have a little talk today on the verbiage of our generation and their use of the words “literally,” “epic,” “fail,” and “legit.”

   When you say “literally”… you mean “actually” and “without exaggeration.” It is not synonymous with “very.” So when you say “I am literally bursting with laughter.” Everyone around you should start slowly backing away, because you are actually going to burst. So keep this in mind and when you hear someone say “I am literally peeing my pants!” you can have the confidence of looking at them an assessing the fact that they either 1. Don’t know the meaning of the word, 2. Know the meaning of the word, but doesn’t have the presence of mind to know when to use it properly or 3. Have an extremely overactive bladder.

   Things that are “epic”… are things that are larger than life, such as the ocean, or perhaps God, and a genre of literature where heroes reach their goals despite seemingly insurmountable odds. I’m sorry that Beowulf is, in fact, epic, while your last Facebook status about eating burritos is not. Now if your burrito were perhaps, 50 feet tall, or on its way to avenge its village by killing an evil dragon, or trying to deposit a ring in a volcano from whence it was forged, perhaps then, it would be epic. Was it? No? I didn’t think so.

   “Fail” is particularly close to my heart… because it makes the least sense of all of these colloquialisms. The word “fail” is a verb. As in “I failed that test.” You would not say “That test was a fail.” That would be almost like saying “That test was a sneeze.” “Failure,” however, is a noun. “My studying methods were led to my utter failure.” This sentence works perfectly well. Next time you are determining if you are in fact using the word fail properly in a sentence, replace it with the word “sneeze,” if the sentence still works, you are using it properly. If the sentence doesn’t work: don’t use it out loud. For instance: “You sneeze in that class every year!” works. So the sentence “You fail in that class every year!” also works. Well done. I’ll inform your second grade teacher that she didn’t completely fail in her attempts to teach you when to use nouns and verbs.

   The word “legit”… is usually preceded by the filler: “like,” and followed by a question mark. Usually this phrase is asking for the verification of a fact. When looked up in the dictionary, Legitimate refers to something of a legal nature, and the secondary definition means “genuine.” At no point is it defined as “awesome.” “This blog is pretty legit.” Well, I certainly hope that it is legal, and as far as it being genuine, yes, every word of this is mean in a heartfelt manner. I just don’t see the point of saying it out loud.

   Thanks for reading, I hope this helps you in a small way, and leads you to snicker at people when they perpetually use these words incorrectly.

Dear Funny People

And those who think they are

Dear Funny People:

I thought I’d write to find out how you’re doing! I hear that you’ve been using mass emailing to show off how hilarious you are. How’s that working out for you? I was reading the “To” field of your email, and I realized that not only did you include the entire teaching and housekeeping staff of GCC as well as alumni, but also Dr. Vincent DiStasi our chief information officer, himself. You know… the guy who busted you for civil discourse? Not to mention the fact that you sent it to our President Dr. Jewell and his First Lady…

Anyway I was just checking in on you, as I heard you were going to appeal your case to the board, so please let me know how that is going to go! Suit it up, calm it down: as we say in the old country, “don’t talk so much.” With any luck, you’ll be the one case they don’t INCREASE the sentence on, but as I can tell from your sense of humor that will be unlikely to happen.

As the Resident Satirist, I understand the desire for one’s work to be read by all and to be considered hilarious, but I would like to also mention that you have to actually be funny for this to occur! Or if there is no chance of that, please at least be grammatically correct (e.g. “Sounds like a cool story, but if you do read it, be a sponge” is a sentence fragment, and makes me cringe). Being sarcastic is one type of humor, where things are “funny because they’re true.”  Kind of like how your being fined for a really offensive email to the entire student body (and then some) is funny because it’s true.  But let’s not get caught up in the past and poor life decisions. If we wanted to draw attention to offensive mistakes, we could just find someone wearing leggings as pants and write an article on her!

I hope this has been informative, and helpful. If it isn’t, feel free to write Brittany Knowles (THAT’S MY ROOMMATE!).

Love,

Paige Polesnak