First Day Observations

How you livin, blogosphere? Sir Marcus here; 

So I always look forward to the beginning of the school year because it's an opportunity to finally see who's gonna be in your respective classes and whether or not said classes are gonna be any good. That all being said, is it just me or did the 1st day of school just sneak up on us this year? That sumbitch came outta nowhere. I mean, maybe it was because I've been working at the bookstore quite a bit as of late, but I turned around and it was right there staring me down. Well meet my eyeline, opening day, game on. 

I'm also pretty sure that classes normally start on Tuesdays but this year they started on Monday, so today is part 2 of the first day of school. What I mean is that obviously in college, we don't normally have the same classes on two consecutive days. So yesterday we fulfilled our Monday/Wednesday/Friday slate of classes, and today we do the Tuesday/Thursday ones. 

As for yesterday's classes, things went fairly well. Well, relatively well. Well, I guess it could have been worse; at least I made it to all of my first day classes for the first time in my college career. I kicked off my 4th year of undergraduate work at MU with back-to-back 4000 level English classes, which were 19th Century American Literature (which thus far emanates much more of a history class vibe) and then Old English. Naturally, the Old English class ended up being a little more than I bargained for, as I thought it was more like the jargon in which Shakespeare penned his plays, but as it turns out, it's not that simple. It's gonna end up being more like the ancient Norse, Anglo-Saxon mumbo jumbo seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English. Not only do we hafta read this shit, but we're gonna hafta learn to speak it for various presentations in class (it stands to be mentioned that the phonetic sounds of the alphabet that we use in English now mean next to nothing when being employed in Old English context). When we found this out, the only sound in the room was that of the collective OH SHIT that coursed through our heads, kinda like what you were just thinking, blogosphere. 

But more important than the old Norse language that will most certainly become lost in translation over the course of the semester, I would like to address a phenomena that is becoming increasingly more prominent in classrooms these days. It happened to me in all 3 classes yesterday and I DONT LIKE IT! For years, it's been an unwritten rule of first-day etiquette that teachers should just barely introduce the course (and for non-large lecture classes, maybe a short icebreaker type of exercise) and then allow the students to get out and be on their merry way; the past has taught me that I can go into class allowing the professor 20 minutes, but anything more than that is just greedy. But suddenly, more and more teachers are leaning in the direction of keeping class for the entire allotted time frame of the class, even on the first day, even if it means they hafta employ obvious bullshit-for-time techniques like READING THROUGH THEIR ENTIRE SYLLABI. Why is this happening? For instance, my 19th Century American Lit. class was kept in class for 15 mins longer than necessary as our professor was clearly trying to single-handedly keep this trend alive, reaching around trying to come up with things to talk about. He was like "Ummmmm....... soooooo, how many of you see author names on the syllabus that you don't exactly recognize?" Ummm sir, considering the length of the average century, odds are that in a class featuring works from writers of just one particular century, there will be a couple of names that come up that we all haven't become completely acquainted with; I call B.S. on that question. He then showed off some versatility, moving onto geography: Okay, so ummmmm..... who in here is from Missouri? Where in Missouri? North? South? East? West?..... Oh yea? Emily Dickinson is from Massachusetts, but outside of Massachusetts, I believe Missouri has the richest literary history in the United States. That's nice I suppose, but not only do I not really believe you, but even if I did, I would be less inclined to do so today because you brought it up outta nowhere on THE FIRST DAY OF CLASS, meaning that you sir, are clearly stalling. Stop embarrassing yourself. 

He did end up letting us out 5 minutes early (after conceding defeat to the aforementioned first-day rule), but the trend for the day had been set. I got another dip in the bullshit-for-time pool in the Old English class when, after the obligatory icebreaker go-around-the-classroom-and-tell-your-name/major/something-you-did-this-summer exercise, the teacher decided it was time to pass out an Old English poem, read through it, and invoke the clause in every professor's contract that say they hafta ask if we recognize/don't recognize any words in the text in front of us, essentially killing another ten minutes of the time that we could be spending walking out of the building and towards our next destinations. The next thing I knew, the class was balls-deep in another handout about Old English and the various components of the human vocal apparatus (mouth, throat, lips, uvula, etc) that would hafta be used to correctly pronunciate the words, another 10 minutes had gone by, and I was now looking at something else that has become a huge pet peeve of mine: I was gonna be late for my next class. As I was telling Gossip Girl yesterday, I fucking HATE being late for anything, especially for classes, especially when I'm late for a no good reason such as a teacher keeping class the entire time (and then some) on the first day of class; It's a dick move, and ya HATE to see it. Compounding the issue was the fact that for the class I was currently in, I had already had to go outta my way to a remote side of campus where there are no true classroom buildings, and for the class after it, I would hafta go back to the polar opposite side of campus. We have 10 minutes in between classes and I'm a known power-walker, but even I couldn't walk that fast. When my Old English professor finally hit the mute button on her mouth, it was 11:53 and I now had 7 minutes to complete what was realistically probably a 15 minute walk; I arrived at the next class at 12:06, and again, that's only because I walk faster than most. Here's a tip for all professors: one sure-fire easy way to get students (or this particular student, anyways) to dislike you is to bullshit so much as to keep them for the entire 50 minutes of class and then overflow into the allotted 10 minute transmission period, especially if they have a long trek to embark on to their next class anyways. Repeated offenses will not be conducive to a very healthy or working relationship for the semester; you have ben warned. 

The next class was for Leisurely Studies (the irony of me hustling to this particular class was, of course, not lost on me) and because I got there late, I arrived to a packed house. My ire towards the Old English professor only grew once I saw this, but I just found a seat in the back of the lecture and tried to sit down without bringing too much attention to myself. I sat next to a cute, friendly girl in the back row and now added the worry about being the late, foul-smelling guy to the other issues of the day; no one wants to be that guy. Once again, this class ended up staying most of the 50 minutes, though it wasn't completely the professor's fault. He was given some help from another one of the many tools of class time-prolonging, the-asks-too-many-questions guy/girl. There's always one of these kids in class. In this particular case, it was a girl. It's no secret that when a teacher asks "are there any questions?", that's the cue for students that class is about to wrap up. But, that one particular student always has to ask a question and prevent class from being let out for the duration of the the question/answer conversation. This can prolong class by 15-20 minutes sometimes. I'm convinced that teachers plant these people in their lecture crowds, that way if/when students inevitably complain about being held in class too long on the 1st day (like me), they can just deflect the blame onto someone else in the class asking alotta questions; I will not argue this point. I will allow these people to ask one question just outta curiosity, but anything after that is excessive. So these types of students need be stopped because they are only contributing to a growing trend of keeping students too long on opening day, and that means ur only hurting urself, honey.

Anyways, those are just some of my burning thoughts on the nuances of first-day classes. There are certainly many more than that, but those are the ones that I came across head-on yesterday, and I wanted to share them with you all, because sharing is caring, right? 

Until next time, this is Sir Marcus T. Williams signing off.... Yall take care now. 

Textbook Temps: Doin' Work

Whats really good blogosphere, Sir Marcus again here

It's been quite awhile people, let's catch up for a bit, huh? 

So I've now been working as a temp at the bookstore for about a month and I gotta say, I really don't hate it at all. I work with a really solid stable of other students; every day we're definitely growing more and more comfortable around each other. The store has been getting progressively more busy over the past few days or so as students begin moving onto campus and picking up their books, so alot of us have been logging a few more hours than we used to, but it's not even that bad because the time doesn't drag like it did in the beginning. I legitimately can't say that there's anyone there that I completely dislike. Well, then again....

There is one person who comes close: this girl named Cathy.  You ever meet someone so painfully unaware of their annoyance that you dread having to see them everyday? I SWEAR whoever created the phrase "being a Chatty Cathy" did so after an unfortunate run-in with her. Long story short, the girl talks too damn much. I seriously wish we had never made acquaintances. I mean, don't get me wrong, she means well, but that's simply not enough to get you in the door. I hate getting there in the mornings and seeing her cuz she always greets me like "MARCUUUUSSS! How are you?" It's hard to convey tone and voice inflection via blog, but she always emotes these greetings with a slight pang of enthusiasm that implies to everyone else the sense that perhaps me and her are good friends; Don't be fooled, innocent bystanders. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO not friends. 

Don't think this is just me bitching about sumthin as trivial as a hello; I wish that were the extent of the damage. There is a foul stench that follows her around. Not only does it follow her wherever she goes, it PRECEEDS her as well; that's some next-level shit. You aint supposed to smell someone coming around the corner. But, did I mention that she NEVER STOPS TALKING? Cathy, when  you're speaking and not only are people allowing your random, completely un-fascinating statements to fall on deaf ears, but you also notice that the people you're speaking to are going out of their way to NOT make eye contact with you, then that's a pretty solid indication that you are officially engaged in a one-way conversation and that it is time to call it a day on trying to talk to them. And I literally mean call it a day; I would like to not participate in AT LEAST the rest of that day's dialogues, not just the one you're force-feeding us this hour, mmkay?

Not only that, but she never lets the rest of us temps forget that she has been working at MU's bookstore (as a temp) for the past 6 or 7 semesters. Because of this fact, from time to time, she tends to carry herself with an air of confidence that seems to suggest that she is somehow above the rest of us and carries some odd, unofficial sense of authority that I seriously doubt has ever been officially bestowed upon her. The great irony in this is that, of all of the temps working there, though she has a little more knowledge about the workings of our system (which should be expected, given how long she's professed to have been working there - me and some of the guys have dubbed her a "Permanent Temp" for her seemingly hopeless chances of ever being promoted to anything higher than what we are now), she seems to be the worst at doing the relatively simple jobs that we're given. For instance, we're now passing out Early Bird textbook reservations, but before that we had to actually go around with student schedules and choose the corresponding books to fill those Early Bird orders. We had to initial the bottom of the pages to denote who filled what order and those order forms go in the box with the books. So as we've been passing and sorting the Early Bird orders with the students this week, Cathy has been bragging about how few mistakes she makes on the forms that she did. And if you're willing to discount all the mistakes she ACTUALLY makes on the forms she does, then she absolutely doesn't make mistakes. I've found myself taken aback by how bad her order forms are when they come up in my boxes some days. I mean DAMN, Cathy; are you just grabbing books blindly out there? Get your head outta ur ass, please, we have orders to fill. But do you guys know what the worst thing about Cathy? That throughout my writing of this blog, somewhere Cathy is with someone else and STILL IS NOT DONE TALKING. Tis a pity, I say.

But all Cathyness aside, the job is pretty damn cool. I mean, being on ur feet all day isn't great, but the chemistry being built with my coworkers is terrific. We get to interact with people of our age group everyday and our superiors are generally pretty easygoing on us. We joke around quite a bit so there aren't very many dull moments throughout the day when we have brief respites from work, which is a far cry from the early days of the job, where we would all stand/sit around in slightly awkward silence during our down time. I'm certainly not meaning to sit here and wax poetic about the subtle intricacies and overly rewarding qualities of the job. I'm fully aware that at the end of the day, I'm only a temporary textbook stocker; nothing more, nothing less. But, when you legitimately like being around the same group of people day in and day out - which is no small task, as there are 40+ temps working there right now, which doesnt even account for the people who work there year-round - then getting up to go toil in the same tedium and minutiae everyday really doesn't seem so bad. It certainly isn't the worst job I've had in recent memory; I can genuinely say that I hope to brought back to work there again come Christmas season and the advent of the next semester. 

So that seems like a good place to close out the day's rant. it's been good sharing with yall again. In the meantime, this is Sir Marcus T. Williams signing off, yall take care now. 

A good way to have fun at the expense of the guy sitting next to you

Hello bloggies, Gossip Girl here. Okay, so maybe I'm not really Gossip Girl, just a gossip enthusiast filling in for my good friend Marcus. And now that I am back in my favorite college town, it's time to resume my favorite college activities including DRINKING GAMES. My new favorite game entails taking shots depending on how douchey the guy next to you is. Let's not lie, the guy sitting next to you is probably somewhat douchey, especially if you are in college. We all know the douche species, trolling bars and the occasional house party looking for the next lady to share his bed for the night. Warning:  because a large percentage of guys in college seem to possess that douche gene, you should probably not be surprised if this game gets you incredibly drunk incredibly fast. After that intense description, the only thing left to do is layout the rules.

(I'm not going to lie, the rules of this game are similar to Chandler Bing's game of CUPS, as in you pretty much make things up as you see fit. Having said that, here are some general guidelines for you to get started.)

1. Drink one (1) if the guy is wearing Ed Hardy, Affliction, knock-off Ed Hardy, knock-off Affliction, or more than one polo with the collar popped. 

2. Drink one (1) if the guy is wearing white sunglasses, shutter glasses, or a visor worn upside down and to the side. 

3. Drink two (2) if the guy is wearing any items in rule 1 in addition to any items in rule 2. 

4. Drink one (1) if the guy uses the words "dude", "bro" or "brah" multiple times in one minute.

5. Drink one (1) if the guy talks about how "frat" he is.

6. Drink two (2) if the guy asks you to feel his bicep or talks about how gnarly his workout was.

7. Drink three (3) if the guy possess any of the above traits AND is surrounded by an army of douchettes. 

And finally, 8. Drink as many as you find necessary to block out the doucheyness of the BRO sitting next to you. 

Have fun! Off to find more gossip and invent more games.

XOXO, Not Marcus 

E.A. Sports: It's NOT in the game

Salud Blogosphere, Sir Marcus here....

So apparently, a couple of weeks or so ago, the one and only Erin Andrews was staying in some hotel and a guy drilled a hole in a wall and watched her walk around her room naked and perform trivial tasks such as iron clothes, brush her hair, etc. Anyone who isn't familiar with her should: first of all, GET OUT FROM UNDER THE ROCK THAT YOU HAVE BEEN HIDING UNDER, and GET FAMILIAR. Secondly, you should know that she is perhaps the foremost female sports sideline personality, at least in the present-day sports landscape. I would venture to guess that perhaps there has never been a more popular and/or swooned-over female sideline reporter. Her nickname on various internet websites and pages is "Erin Pageviews" because just a mention of her name normally results in a huge boon in online traffic for that particular site, and rightfully so. Anyone familiar with the sports world knows who she is, and I would say that, at least for me, outside of her being very good looking on a superficial level, her a

ttractivenes comes from a mixture of her knowledge of sports, her seemingly down-to-earth, unassuming, good-girl-next-door nature, and a certain aura of mystery around her. What I mean by th

at is that she has a certain distant-yet-accessible charm to her, and that she sometimes wears form-fitting clothing to give an idea of her body's assets, but since she has to always be a professional first and foremost, we know that the likelihood of ever seeing her wear anything  that is too stimulating to our eyes is VERY slight; She certainly won't be popping up in Maxim magazine photo spreads anytime soon. That's certainly disappointing, but it's all apart of her allure. 

Now, not to make light of something that is clearly a serious offense, but who does all that stuff naked? Am I the only one who found that weird? No, I have not seen the tape, because I would feel like I was personally disrespecting her, but if I had seen the tape, I can't help but think that I would laugh at the relative absurdity of someone doing that type of stuff COMPLETELY IN THE BUFF. Even in the comfort of our own homes, I would think that most of us don't do a whole 'lotta stuff  completely naked. Besides obvious privacy concerns, it just seems like a weird thing to do. That all being said, many people ask "what was the guy that did that thinking?" Now farbeit from me to take the side of this clown, because what he did is absolutely reprehensible and I don't condone it whatsoever. But I would say that he was just a guy who has more than a passing interest in Miss Andrews and though many guys would love to see her naked, most of us aren't crazy enough to drill a hole in the wall of a hotel room to get a look at it. That shit's just wrong on so many levels. I mean, what part of the game is that? What a douche-cannon. 

All of that stuff came to light a week or two ago. Today I just found out that she recently placed a call to 911 to report two paparazzi guys who were sitting outside her house in Atlanta, presumably waiting for her to come out. In the call, in vintage Erin Andrews style, she was reasonably calm and collected, and while she did drop a few expletives (***good girl image shatters***), she didn't sound to be too shaken by the whole incident. But, I worry that these events will eventually lead to us seeing less and less Erin Andrews as opposed to the more Erin that we crave. It certainly wouldn't come as a shock, because even the coolest people have their breaking points, as I'm sure Erin and ESPN are going into damage control at the moment. 

This recent development, compounded on top of the hotel room fiasco, are just a small taste of what life in front of a camera can lead to. Of course, this just opens up the can of worms that is the debate of when exactly paparazzi crosses the line, which is an entirely other argument for another day. Erin has always seemed to embrace the attention in a most gracious and appreciative manner, but that was, understandably, when the worst thing she ever had to endure was jealousy and/or a negative comment or rumor here and there about her borderline unprofessional flirtatious behavior in team locker rooms. When you're drooled over as much as she is and you're named Playboy's #1 Sexiest Broadcaster two years running, those are just things that will come with the territory. But when the attention starts leading to stuff like this, it can wear on people and may even lead to an eventual complete fading out of the spotlight. It's certainly happened to worse people than Erin Andrews, so if it happened to her, it would be a damn shame, because she never really bargained for any of this. As she so aptly put it in her 911 call, "I didn't do anything wrong, and I'm being treated like fucking Britney Spears." Well put Erin, I couldn't have said it any better myself. 

Until next time, this is Sir Marcus T. Williams signing off... Yall take care now.

Weekend Update

Howdy doody blogosphere, Sir Marcus back here

We're gonna keep it short tonight. My main man Ryno came back to CoMo for the weekend to check outta his room, so it was good to see him again. His gf also came back into town to check outta hers, so he spent alotta time with her too. It's certainly something that was expected, so it's all good. I'm sure it'll be like that during the schoolyear too, so either I'm gonna hafta find my own girl to join the fray, or I'll be playing the 3rd wheel alot more during the year. Tricycles are fun though, right?

So I'm now onto stop #2 of my nomadic adventures in between living at Campus Lodge and Gateway. (Though they will prolly never read this, shouts out to Scott and Randy for putting up with me for the past couple weeks; I really appreciated the hospitality. Hope I wasn't too bad a houseguest, fellas). For the next 3 weeks or so, I'll be staying with my ex-roommate from last year and his girlfriend in their cozy little apartment down by Columbia Mall. It's a one-floor 2 bedroom joint, but because they share a room, I've been able to use the other bedroom to sleep and store all my shit. Pretty nice little place they got here, so I wanna say thanks to Chris and Bre for sharing their place with me for awhile. I'm not gonna bother unpacking too much though cuz that'll just make it tougher when I hafta move again. No one wants that. 

In other news, it's a Monday night, and that means a whole 'lotta sittin in front of the TV. Monday nights are STACKED with quality (at least in my opinion) television. First off, I hafta list that there's an hour of Seinfeld on TBS at 7 p.m. (or 6 in Missouri time). To be fair, Seinfeld comes on every weekday, but the fact that it comes on right before all my other shows just helps my argument for Mega Monday night TV. What other shows? I'm glad you asked. 

Between How I Met Your Mother / Two and a Half Men / Rules of Engagement / The Big Bang Theory / Dating in the Dark / The T.O. Show / Weeds / Family Guy / Monday Night Raw (YES, I STILL WATCH PRO WRESTLING), there's no reason for me to leave the comfort of the couch or bed and TV set on Monday nights. And shit, while we're at it, there's also the return of Monday Night Football in the fall. I got my sports, my comedies, my dramas, and even a little dose of reality TV in there (Monday Night Raw), just in case I get tired of the scripted, head-scratching, soap opera-esque drivel of The T.O. Show. God must be using this as a test for me this school year, a test that I will undeniably be failing with flying colors. My only real regret is that all of this good TV is on one night, and most weeks, I can't get this much quality TV from the rest of the weekdays combined. Tis a cryin' shame, I tell ya. 

So let this be a hint to my teachers this coming semester: I will be completely useless and/or unreliable for work purposes on Monday nights between the hours of 6 and 11 p.m; You've been warned. 

Until next time, this is Sir Marcus T. Williams signing off... Yall take care now. 

Shit Happens

What it do blogosphere, its Sir Marcus here

Tonight's Real World was a doozy. This Ayiiia chick is legitimately crazy, and on top of that, she is easily one of the most polarizing figures that I've ever seen on Real World. She now belongs in the pantheon of RW housemates that, at least of the castmates I've seen, until now inculded only Puck from RW:San Francisco and Greg from RW:Hollywood. While Brooke from RW:Denver might be a little crazier, at least people seemed to legitimately like her when she wasn't screaming. I genuinely think that the only reason Ayiiia's roommates are civil with her at all is to keep the piece between blowups. They genuinely do not seem to like her, and I cant blame them. I feel like she's one of my roommates, and I cant stand her.

In other news, apparently the Tace Bell chihuahua from those 90's commercials died today. Wake me when something significant for the here and now happens.

Also, the infamous tape of Lebron James getting dunked on hit the TV airwaves today. It was made into a big deal because Nike and/or LBJ had the tape confiscated the day that it happened, for what reason, no one knows. Earth to LBJ/Nike: HE'S A BBALL PLAYER AND AS SUCH, HE WONT LOOK GOOD EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY GAME HE EVER PLAYS. IF YOU ALL HAVE NOTICED, THE REST OF THE FREE WORLD HAS ALREADY MOVED ON WITH OUR LIVES. SHAME ON YOU FOR DRAGGING THIS WHOLE THING OUT FOR A MONTH RATHER THAN THE 2-3 MINUTES THAT IT REALLY WARRANTED. HE GOT DUNKED ON, SO WHAT? LET THIS BE THE LAST TIME WE HAVE THIS TALK.

In ACTUAL relevant news, my laptop has officially hit full-blown P.O.S. (Piece Of Shit) mode. It actually happened before I got back to CoMo, but I was able to squeeze a few more days out of it before I left home. The wear and tear on the adaptor has rendered it virtually useless for the time being, so I will now hafta wait another few weeks to get a new one. This means that I cant use my laptop at all, I can't listen to my music, visit my websites, look at my pictures, or anything that comes with the territory of an owner/ownee(?) relationship. Scotty has been gracious enuff to allow me to use his in the meantime, but I miss my own piece of junk. This shit is wack, son.

Finally, I started working consistently yesterday and now I know the trials and tribulations of cashiers, waiters, waitresses, and any other workers in any field that hafta work on their feet. My dogs are howlin' and I do not appreciate it. But, it's actually not that bad, besides the physical toll it takes on my legs and feet. As long as I stay busy, it's not the worst thing in the world. But of course, when I say "stay busy," I mean do the occasional odd job around the store while filling the rest of the time by walking around with a half-puzzled/concerned look on my face as if I'm tryna figure sumthin out. As George from Seinfeld so aptly pointed out, if you always looked concerned or worked up about something, no one will ask you questions or think you aren't working. Once again, Seinfeld FTW.

Until next time, this is Sir Marcus T. Williams signing off... Yall take care now

That's quite enough, thanks

Yo yo yo blogosphere, once again it's Sir Marcus here

Last night, my mom called me to express her disappointment in the fact that my brother and I allowed her birthday (and to be fair, Mother's Day as well) to pass without much celebration or even acknowledgement. I had been in the middle of another phone call at the time, but I clicked over when I saw it was my mom. When she asked if I was busy, I neglected to tell her about the other call, thinking it would be one of her usual quick update kinda phone calls. But it wasn't, and now she had the opening she needed to preach to me about the problem she had with us. I should have said I was busy when she asked. Damn, I wish I could go back and replay that whole sequence.

Now, before anyone flies off the handle thinking that I'm an insensitive jerk McAsshole, understand that I realize that I fucked up by forgetting her birthday. I was and am still sorry about it, and I truly didn't mean to. I have every intention on making it up to her at some point. But if she didn't do anything to celebrate my next birthday (because let's be honest, it happens), I would be able to move on and I wouldn't call her to remind her.

But with all that being said, her phone call was very indicative of the type of thing that my mom does all the time - go out of her way to ask for recognition - and it bothers me to no end. She's famous for these "unintentional" intentional guilt trips, and yesterday's was copied-and-pasted right outta her handbook of them. I don't mind too much if you say something once, but she likes to harp on one thing over and over again. Case in point: early yesterday morning at around 1 a.m. or so, she texted me to say that she didnt get a text or call from me wishing her a Happy Birthday. While I was annoyed that she brought it up, I realized the error of my ways and aplogized when I woke up later, even trying to make a little chit-chat to show my concern. Many people will disagree with me, but I'm gonna go and and say it anyways: that shoulda been the end of that whole situation. She brought it up once and I apologized for it; why bring it back to me later that day? It wasn't gonna change the fact that I fucked up to begin with, but at least I was apologetic about it, so it shoulda been over there.

When she called, she said that this was just a indicative of something that "has been problematic for you and your brother for quite awhile". She says that we've always kinda taken her for granted and while I agree that there is alot more we could probably do to show our appreciation, she knows us well enough to know that when all else fails, the sentiment is always there, if not always the resources and physical manifestation of those sentiments.

A couple days ago, she texted me and volunteered to help me pay my phone bill, but also asked me if I had moved into my next temporary residence. My response text answered her question about moving first, which she replied to by saying "I didn't see a thank you in there, but I know ur grateful." This also vexed me a bit because I had every intention on saying thanks in my next text, but I wanted to tackle one thing at a time, so I answered the question first. Besides, she couldn't even wait the extra 3 minutes to see if maybe I was coming to a "thank you" on my own???? I'm too old and too respectful a human being to need to be reminded to say thanks, especially since we were still in the middle of the conversation. This sorta thing is representative of one of the problems in our society where we're all so consumed by this desire for instant gratification. Of course we're all guilty of it because I like to be ackowledged as well, but inside the parameters of a conversation being transpired via text message, I don't think it would have been too absurd for her to wait another minute or so. My older brother sometimes gets upset with me for presumably not thanking him enough when he helps me with money too, and I certainly don't mean to offend him in any way, but how many thank-you's are needed? I normally thank him 2 or 3 times when he first pledges to give me money, but if I don't say thanks another couple times after the fact, he gets upset. I mean, I'm very grateful for the help and wouldn't dream of taking advantage of or insulting him at all, but it's not like I didn't thank him at all. Being as huge a fan of Seinfeld as I am, I think he was definitely onto something in that episode where he declares that he's gonna take a stand against all of this over-thanking that society has indoctrinated in us. I feel the same way and think that as long as someone is formerly thanked, then asking or expecting any more than that is just excessive.

Furthermore, though my mom likes to bring up the fact that she willingly does alot of stuff for us that we begrudgingly sometimes do for her, I would argue that it' not her duty as a woman, but it is as a parent. What I mean is that the minute a person knows they are going to have children, they should mentally prepare themselves for a life of giving and providing for those children. That's not to say that they shouldn't be thanked for doing that stuff, but at the same time, your responsibility as a parent SHOULD dictate that you do any and everything for your children. I know it sounds insensitive, but I didn't have a choice about being born, but my parents did and because they chose to go through with it, then doing things to help me was something that came with the territory. I know for damn sure that when I become a parent, I will prepare myself to go above and beyond for my children. I will most certainly teach them to be appreciative and grateful, but I certainly don't wanna hold the things I do for them against them as one would the various charges accrued on atab at the local bar. That's not fair to the children. I'm not saying I need her to be a crutch for the rest of my life, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect her to be willing to do things for me for as long as it takes. At least until I move out for good and start my own family.

I don't mean to sound callous or to bitch and moan about trivial things, but I legitimately think that we need to stop all of this fishing for compliments and recognition that we've gotten into. Again, I've been guilty of it just as much as anyone, but if it annoys everyone else as much as it clearly does me, then I will be alot more mindful of my own habits, because no one likes that guy and no one wants to be that guy.

Anyways, I just felt these things needed to be said. Until next time, this is Sir Marcus T. Williams, signing off... Yall take care now.