Why Going Home is Awful

Holidays, Brothers, Full Houses

Paige Polesnak

The Collegian Contributing Writer

   This holiday season was pretty hectic at the Polesnak house. We had so many guests it was insane, and very nice, don’t get me wrong. We had my Mexican brother, David (Da-veed. It makes him exotic) who was a hoot and a half. He would not leave my poor, old, morbidly obese dog alone!

And my grandparents…

My big brother fresh in from Mexico… who was still a little confused about exactly what language he should be awkwardly cursing in…

Ginger boyfriend…

Andddd… that’s all I think. Plus, naturally, me and my mom and dad.

All in our lovely Pennsylvania house.

More to come.,. about this fantastic, amazing and terrible holiday.

The Little Mermaid is Spoiled

Aggghh

   The Little Mermaid is a horrible example of a decent female. I have many reasons for believing this, so don't jump just yet, because i will sway you. First off, She is 15 years old! and only wears a shell bra! While I realize she doesn't have a mother as an older female role model, she DOES have a ton of older sisters who should be setting a good example for her.  Next, she is incredibly insubordinate. She disobeys basically the only thing her father asks of her, and embarrasses him in front of the whole underwater sea-people kingdom thing! Which loving father forgave her for, because she is her father's daughter. I wish I was as nice a person as he is, but I am not. 

I feel like she is so spoiled, too! She is so ungrateful for the things she has! Listen, this is from "Part of Your World." (Which, is basically a song of her fantasizing about some man she doesn't know from Adam. He enchanted her with his magic flute playing and dance moves! But, i'm sure we will confront those issues later.)

1.       I’ve got gadgets and gizmos of plenty, I’ve got whoseits and whatsits galore, want to see my thingamabobs? I’ve got twenty. But who cares? No big deal. I want more.

How we’re meant to see it:

How I see it:

   She has twenty thingamabobs! What else does she need? Instead of being grateful for what she has, she spends the rest of the movie searching for meaning in the arms of a man who obviously has no care for her personality or brain (cause let’s be honest, she didn’t display the most intelligent capacities throughout most of her interactions with Eric throughout the majority of the movie) all stemming from a strained relationship with her father.

2.       Men up on land, they understand. They don’t reprimand their daughters.

BULLSHIT. YOU CRAZY GINGER.

Picture Postcards

You win again, StumbleUpon

   Stumble has been sending me to some different sites lately, with these photos, that have little quotes and writing on them. I like those. They’re pretty nice. But sometimes I look at them and I wonder… how in the world does that quote go with that picture? So to emphasize this fact, I added on to them in red, just so they go together a little better. 

The Surprising Weaknesses of Pete "The Beast" Polesnak

My Brother is… unique

    Achilles had a bum heel, Hercules had Megara (according to the Disney Movie) and the ginormous Pete Polesnak is no exception to this trend of old. Pete is 6’6” ish, and capable of inflicting such horrible pain upon people that Nero would be jealous. That having been said, he is a man of many, many quirks. Ten to be exact. This article’s purpose is not to give the reader a leg up on my brother, but just to show you 1. What I’ve had to deal with all my life, 2. How weird this kid is, and 3. Okay, he might be annoying me a little… So, here you have it: the 10 Surprising weaknesses of Peter Polesnak.

1.       Three-Pronged Forks. Peter lives in fear of three pronged forks. He hates them so much that he won’t use them. “A fork has four prongs, once you take one away, it is not longer a fork but a trident. Tridents are for ruling the sea, forks are for eating.” And since his plans for world domination haven’t gotten that far yet, Pete uses forks.

2.      Taking clothes back to their respective stores. Since we were kids, Pete has been afraid of confrontation. He will endure bad meals, wrong orders, and let anyone misspell his name as long as he doesn’t have to correct them. Taking clothing back to stores has always been a problem in this department. He makes me do it. Do you know how weird it is being a 12-year-old peanut, trying to exchange a pair of 42x42 pants? …pretty damn.

3.      Yellow skittles are the Kryptonite to Pete’s Clark Kent. I just take a handful and pop ’em in my mouth, but it’s pretty funny watching him dissect a bag of Skittles, and separate them like an extremely intricate surgery. When he finally finishes, he is relieved. Like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders… At no point should a candy treat be that stressful on anyone.

4.      His moles.

He just doesn’t like them.

5.       Cursing. Because of his humble upbringing, (I assume), Pete has never been good at using curse words in a threatening, or otherwise fluent manner… For instance, we were once trapped behind a very slow-driving car, at which, Pete exclaimed “You better damn be turning!” – it just makes me feel sad.

6.      Pete needs to eat things in even numbers. Thank God wings come in even dozens…

7.        He loves any food that makes him feel like a giant. Mini burgers…? I’ll take two... (Never three.)

8.      Dirt under his fingernails. Pete cannot live with his fingernails dirty. Younger, he had such a problem with biting his nails, I was surprised when he could grow nails at all! I guess now that he has em, he needs to make sure they are in their top condition. Strange.

9.      Pete, much like a cat, hates being wet, unless he’s fully submerged. Once he’s under water, he kind of gives up on any hope of maintaining dryness.

Since leaving this list at an odd number would drive him batty, I’m going to do just that. So I guess secretly, I’m one of the things in his life that constantly sabotages him…

10.   There. I AM a loving sister.

Dear StumbleUpon.com

We need to talk

   Look, I like you and I know you like me, but I am begging for some things to change. First off, I am not sure what I listed as my interests, but somehow I am constantly getting this error message from my proxy server at my conservative, Christian school:

Every time I get it I turn red in the face, and get nervous I don’t know why but I then feel the need to clarify to everyone around me that I was not actually trying to look at anything inappropriate website, but merely was sent there by a rogue Stumbling engine.

This is what it looks like in class.

Usually in the middle of a lecture…

Usually on the Holocaust.

Also, Stumble… could you please stop sending me “troll comics?” I hate them. There are like three different faces that are recycled and recycled and recycled.

They all look the same. So I made this one, just to show how stupid and recyclable they are... enjoy.

Ok, so that might be a little wrong but…

Why Going Home is Awesome

Moms, Laundry, Showers

   Going home for the summers after being away at college is bittersweet. Yes, there are no quizzes, attendance called, or 8 AM classes, but there are chores. That’s right. You're 20 years old, taking out the trash. In my opinion, this is a small price to pay for showers without flip-flops…

That is all.

Wormmageddon

After the rains come

   Living in Pennsylvania, it rains like no other, and sure, sometimes, we all want to go walking on the newly watered ground, and squish the wet grass between our toes, but here, you can’t. The worms have a mind of their own around here.

So the worms go lay on sidewalks, and climb up to the surface of the ground, I have no idea why they do that…

Maybe something like this:

Or maybe this:

Either way, they sneak up from the ground, find where I’m going to step, and lay there. And wait.

I hate them.

They get pale, bloated, and I don’t understand why they keep doing this crap. I don’t want to kill them, and I get really emotional when I step on them accidently, and I just don’t want to have to deal with it any more. I don’t know what to do about them. I can’t stay in, but I don’t want to go out either.

Usually I just end up sprinting out of my dorm to the other buildings while screaming:

And I usually feel better upon arriving after that.

Happy Spring Holiday!

Let’s collect some Spring Spheres!

   The holidays are always an interesting time for people who revel in being politically correct, in the world of holiday trees, season’s greetings and the festive nondenominational menorahs, I find myself laughing at the extremes people go to, to be inoffensive. But basically it makes you sound like a pretentious jerk, in my opinion.

The previous scenario has never actually occurred but I’m expecting it any year now…

So it is currently Easter season, and I have heard that a school in Seattle has taken it upon themselves to rename Easter Eggs. They are now  the more politically correct “Spring Spheres” (http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=11&sid=459668). I just wanna shake these people and say “You are not Starbuck’s! You cannot just arbitrarily rename things because it’s trendy!”

First off, spheres are circles, like ping-pong balls. Eggs are not spherical, and if you think that eggs ARE spherical, you should probably not be teaching at a school, EVEN in Seattle. Is alliteration so important that we are completely abandoning calling shapes by their proper name? If this were the case, we’d all be playing Four-Fractal, and how tough would that be?

About that tough.

Dear American Apparel

  I don’t know what copyright there is… but I don’t own these photos… so let’s start off with that. But has anyone noticed that American Apparel has incredibly slutty advertisements? Every time I check Texts from Last Night (http://textsfromlastnight.com/) I am confronted by graphic images of topless women trying to sell me watches, totes, and basically anything else that doesn’t necessarily require nudity advertise. First off, where do you find these women? And how do you say to them: “you’re going to be in an advertisement for totes. You need to be naked.”?

This just doesn’t seem necessary to me. you're advertising a bag. Not a shirt. Not a smock. Why make it look like one? Is it sex appeal? I don’t find this sexy. Kinda sad. I just wanna buy this poor girl a shirt so she doesn’t have to wear this tote around anymore. And this next ad:

Why would I want to buy these watches? I would only disrobe her further, and who wants that? Does the cleavage come with it? Just wondering, not for me, I mean.

Look, all I’m trying to say is that your ads make me feel uncomfortable, and get a little red in the face. Let’s put this into a different context, if this were facebook, and one of my friends had this on her profile picture, I would think she was desperate for attention and maybe a little high. I would take it upon myself to inform her, when she sobered up, that she has an embarrassing picture up. But since I don’t know these girls, does it suddenly make it ok? Cause I don’t think so. I just find it a smidgen ironic that a place that sells clothing advertises people wearing nothing… I would start re-thinking my marketing campaign, but that’s just me.

Now, let’s all just get back to the basics (which apparently means lunging around in our neutral colors, as it were).

Love,

Paige

It's Friday

Rebecca Black

   This horse has been beaten into a moist pulp, and you probably have your own opinion about it. Firstly, if you have not heard the song “Friday” by Rebecca Black, or seen the music video, please go here now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0 … did you? Good. Just gonna clear a few things up: I am not just going to hate on her. This 13-year-old “won” a contest to cut a song and music video for $2,000. That is fine. She sang (auto-tuned to the point that she sounds like she’s drowning) a song written by the company, not one of her own pieces, the lyrics are not hers. They are the company’s, so I’m going to make fun of those. Not her. Though I could. But honestly, coming from a 20 year old woman, it would just sound petty, and bitchy.

Moving on!

(Yeah, Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ark) 
Oo-ooh-ooh, hoo yeah, yeah 
Yeah, yeah 
Yeah-ah-ah 
Yeah-ah-ah 
Yeah-ah-ah 
Yeah-ah-ah 
Yeah, yeah, yeah 
Great start. I always thought actual words were overrated. This intro reminds me of “Baby” by Justin Beiber except longer and more annoying. If I were watching this with the sound off and just subtitles, I am pretty sure that I would just see “vocalizations” for the first 40 seconds. Link to J-Beebs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kffacxfA7G4 (let’s be honest, though, you KNOW what I’m talking about…)

Seven a.m., waking up in the morning 
Gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs 
Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal 
Seein' everything, the time is goin' 
Tickin' on and on, everybody's rushin' 
Gotta get down to the bus stop 
Gotta catch my bus, I see my friends (My friends)

Short of saying the type of milk she uses and detailing the seven outfit changes she had to go through before heading out to the bus stop, this stanza describes the morning. Also, she says she sees her friends in their car. Miss Black, ya 13-year-old, what’re you doing having 16-year-old friends? And why do they look like they’re 12? And you were waiting at the bus stop. Are those kids going to drive you to school? I don’t think so. They’re going to high school, and you're in the 8^th grade. Does your mother know that you're not going to school? Do you think she would feel comfortable with you getting in the car with clearly unlicensed drivers, who have no regard for seatbelts or capacity laws? I mean, I know it’s Friday… but come on!

Kickin' in the front seat 
Sittin' in the back seat 
Gotta make my mind up 
Which seat can I take? 

I have no idea which seat you can take. I would suggest you take neither, take the bus, get an education so you can write better songs in the future.

It's Friday, Friday 
Gotta get down on Friday 
Everybody's lookin' forward to the weekend, weekend 
Friday, Friday 
Gettin' down on Friday 
Everybody's lookin' forward to the weekend 
Partyin', partyin' (Yeah) 
Partyin', partyin' (Yeah) 
Fun, fun, fun, fun 
Lookin' forward to the weekend 
When I was 13, I looked forward to One Saturday Morning cartoons. What partying was I doing? …None. But that was 7 years ago, and times have changed… apparently the kids are “partyin, partyin (yeah)” these days which is fine, as long as you don’t repeat fun four times and call it a line in a song, and expect me to know what you mean.

7:45, we're drivin' on the highway 
Cruisin' so fast, I want time to fly 
Fun, fun, think about fun 
You know what it is 
I got this, you got this 
My friend is by my right, ay 
I got this, you got this 
Now you know it 
Now, its 7:45. Wasn’t it just 7am? I guess I got lost in all the fun, fun, fun, fun. This is assuming that it means 7:45 PM, not 7:45 AM when she should have been at the bus stop, and is instead on the highway. Again, this cryptic “fun” is mentioned. I would love to “think about it” if you would be more specific, no I don’t “know what it is.” Next: “my friend is by my right”--- only one.

Kickin' in the front seat 
Sittin' in the back seat 
Gotta make my mind up 
Which seat can I take? 
If you're cruising down the highway, I really hope that you have already chosen your seat, girl.

It's Friday, Friday 
Gotta get down on Friday 
Everybody's lookin' forward to the weekend, weekend 
Friday, Friday 
Gettin' down on Friday 
Everybody's lookin' forward to the weekend 
Partyin', partyin' (Yeah) 
Partyin', partyin' (Yeah) 
Fun, fun, fun, fun 
Lookin' forward to the weekend 

Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday 
Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin') 
We-we-we so excited 
We so excited 
We gonna have a ball today 
Tomorrow is Saturday 
And Sunday comes after ... wards 
I don't want this weekend to end 
Dear whoever wrote this song: I thought it was odd that you took the beginning of the song and just describe a morning with an incoherent rhyme scheme. But now this. You're listing the days of the week, and disregarding that English requires verbs to create a complete sentences. We so excited? Are we? And why did you stop listing the days after Sunday? There are three unnamed days that you could turn into another verse of this ballad! And why don’t you want this weekend to end? Didn’t you just say you wanted “time to fly?” Consistency is not important here.

Love,

Paige

R-B, Rebecca Black 
So chillin' in the front seat (In the front seat) 
In the back seat (In the back seat) 
I'm drivin', cruisin' (Yeah, yeah) 
Fast lanes, switchin' lanes 
Wit' a car up on my side (Woo!) 
(C'mon) Passin' by is a school bus in front of me 
Makes tick tock, tick tock, wanna scream 
Check my time, it's Friday, it's a weekend 
We gonna have fun, c'mon, c'mon, y'all 
This part here is a rap breakdown, by some large black man in his car. It doesn’t remotely rhyme, unless you count “lanes” rhyming with “lanes,” and i feel bad that the school bus passing in front of him makes him wanna scream, it’s probably because Rebecca is not on that school bus, as she has decided to drive with her “friends” on the highway.

It's Friday, Friday 
Gotta get down on Friday 
Everybody's lookin' forward to the weekend, weekend 
Friday, Friday 
Gettin' down on Friday 
Everybody's lookin' forward to the weekend 
Partyin', partyin' (Yeah) 
Partyin', partyin' (Yeah) 
Fun, fun, fun, fun 
Lookin' forward to the weekend 

It's Friday, Friday 
Gotta get down on Friday 
Everybody's lookin' forward to the weekend, weekend 
Friday, Friday 
Gettin' down on Friday 
Everybody's lookin' forward to the weekend 
Partyin', partyin' (Yeah) 
Partyin', partyin' (Yeah) 
Fun, fun, fun, fun 
Lookin' forward to the weekend

Thankfully, that’s the end of the song.

How My Nerdiness Affects Animals.

This post is a joke... but regardless... here goes...

For the records, I am a nerd. I completely love all things Lord of the Rings, and Starwars related. My boss, Amanda has a new puppy! Now bearing in mind my nerdiness, what do you think the first think I thought of upon seeing this puppy was?

Now, if your guesses included:

 or

you were right!!!!

In my mind's eye... the puppy looks like this:

or

Just letting you know.

No, there's no real conclusion to this, I was just sharing.

Why Hair Dryers Put Me to Sleep

Damn you, Operant Conditioning.

   Just to provide you some insight before reading any further, my roommate is awesome. She is full of spunk and athletic prowess comparable to a hockey goalie, (also, those guys are super athletic) but has a girly streak that’s more like a highway… Let’s call her “Dabney.” 

Now “Dabney” loves to wake up in the morning and shower, and blow dry her hair. In the beginning the noisy hair dryer would wake me up and keep me that way, but recently I noticed that after the sound wakes me, it actually soothes me and puts me right back to sleep. No big deal, right?

Well, the other day, my friend, let’s call her “Moriah,” came into the room to blow-dry her hair because her roommate was sleeping. Of course, I said yes, and let her come in as I surfed the internet. 

I woke up on my keyboard. I then realized that I had been conditioned to fall asleep when hearing hair dryers, much like Pavlov’s dogs uncontrollably salivated when hearing a bell, upon hearing a blow dryer, I fall asleep, and also uncontrollably salivate (but that’s more a personal problem, really).

One of my pastimes is watching makeup tutorials on YouTube.com. (I swear this is pertinent.) Now, I don’t wear makeup, and I don’t really care about makeup, 

but I am fascinated by the transformation of people through makeup, and how people who have almost no personality can become YouTube stars because they know the proper way to apply liquid eyeliner. The video I was watching on this particular day was one teaching me how to make my side swept bangs look like I lightly tousled them in 45 easy steps. At one point between teasing, combing, cutting, primping and ruining the ozone directly above Grove City through copious amounts of hairspray, I was instructed to use my hair dryer. I missed the last 32 instructions.

I didn’t think this was a big problem, but seeing it written in an article is actually making me think that there may be something wrong with me. I was like: this is hilarious! Who falls asleep to hair dryers??? This girl! How unique and rare! And that joviality has now turned into raw fear: Oh, God. I can’t get through anything if someone is drying their hair! What if I’m in the middle of a final and my professor needs to dry his hair? What then? How do you raise your hand and tell them that they can’t dry their hair in the middle of a final? I’m going to fail all my classes and my parents will force me to transfer to an extremely conservative Christian college. No, not again!!! Where is the line? Where did it go??

While this is incredibly daunting, I don’t think that this problem will have any effect on my professional life, unless I decide to work in a hair salon. I would write further on this subject but “Dabney” just started doing her hair.