A Day In The Life
PREFACE:
It seems that (other than a pic) the majority of you would like a nice, long post. In trying to figure out what specifically I could drag out, I decided to do this instead. This post will take you through last Friday with me, the whole damn day. I figured that might be long enough for you. :)
7:00 AM
The alarm rings. At least, I have to assume the alarm rings. Boyfriend has a rediculous snoring problem, and it has forced me to sleep with an air conditioner, a rain machine, and earplugs. I'm serous, his snoring reminds me of something out of a horror movie. Not only does he have the intake snore (you know, choooooocccccccchh), but he has an out take snore as well (pchhhhhaaaaa) which just makes me want to smack him upside the head when I'm trying desperately to fall asleep and the only thing I can hear are the freakish sounds that are emitting from his septum.
Regardless, the alarm rings. Now, the deal is, I sleep in the earplugs so that boyfriend no longer fears for his life; and he wakes me up when the alarm goes off. Simple, right?
Wrong.
What usually happens is boyfriend will get out of bed, hit the snooze button, and go back to sleep; leaving me none the wiser and late for class. Brilliant.
7:15 AM
The alarm rings for a second time. Did I hear it? Of course not. Did boyfriend wake me up? Yeah, try again.
7:30 AM
Now we're really pushing it for time constraints. There I am, sleeping peacefully with purple squishy memory foam sticking out of my ear canals, and boyfriend is using much more effort to get out of bed, hit the snooze, and then get back into bed than it would take to simply shake me and tell me the alarm is going off. Men.
7:45 AM
I am going to be so pissed when I finally wake up! I mean, fifteen minutes... I could make that up in the shower; but forty-five? By some grace of God I wake up on my own about this time, and have one of those "Ohmygodi'msolatei'mgoingtoleapoutofbedandrunaround" moments. Fun times; great way to wake up in the morning.
7:50 AM
After five good minutes of yelling at boyfriend (it's better than coffee, you should try it) I finally hop into the shower and get ready for school. If it's alright with the rest of you, I'm going to glaze over the shower and drive to school; it's really a pointless event and I really don't want this blog turning into Literotica ("cue the porn music") while I discuss soaping up in the shower.
8:55 AM
After battling traffic for the last forty five minutes (I took a VERY fast shower) I manage to make it, albeit quite breathlessly, to my first class of the day: Civil Liberties. For those of you who don't know, this is a class taught at State U as a law school class; so if you are considering going to law school, this is the class you should take.
This is, possibly, the most labor intensive class I have ever taken. We have this HUGE green legal case book and we have to brief at least four cases ahead of where we stopped the class before. It's set up as a complete discussion class, where the Prof will mention a case, and we have to chime in with the answers. Pressure pressure pressure.
I pull out my blue folder with my briefs and he dives right in.
"And what were the two requirements for Fourth Amendment protection regarding Katz?"
I wait the obligatory three second pause before chiming in. No one, least of all me, wants to be a show off.
"The respondent must show a personal manifestation of subjective expectation of privacy and society must recognize this intent as valid," I respond.
"Exactly," he responds, and I sit back in my chair, feeling rather smug with myself. We continue on with the Fourth Amendment's protection, specifically regarding the search and seizure of marijuana. Here's a tip: if you're going to grow marijuana, have a grow house, don't do it in your back yard. Here's why:
Police received an anonymous tip that this guy, Ciraolo (pronounced Sih-rah-low), was growing pot in his backyard. When they showed up at his house, they realized that he had enclosed his backyard in a ten foot privacy fence, then surrounded that fence with a six foot fence, and had a big nasty dog running in between. Not a very "neighbor friendly" guy. In order to get a search warrant, the police had to have probable cause that he was growing pot in his backyard, so what did they do? They rented a plane, flew it 1,000 feet in the air, and took pictures of his plants in his backyard. Ciraolo felt that the police's actions were a violation of his Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizure. The Supreme Court said that while he definitely had a subjective expectation of privacy (the fences) since the air above his house was public property, the police were well in their rights to fly above his home and take pictures of his pot.
The next case involved yet another anonymous tip (hint: if you're going to deal in large amounts of marijuana, don't piss anyone off) regarding a grow house owned by a fellow named Kyllo. The police, in this case, parked on the street and used a thermal detection device that allowed them to gain heat readings off the house. They determined that the heat readings were consistent with grow lights (really strong UV lights used to grow pot indoors); obtained a search warrant and confiscated his pot. This time, however, the Supreme Court said that the police violated the Fourth Amendment because they were using technology that was not available to the general public, and they were probing, in a sense, into a man's house without actually going into his house.
Moral of the story: if you're going to grow large amounts of marijuana, grow it indoors.
9:55 AM
I head down the hall of State U towards my next class: Sociology of Religion. I really like this class; however, I don't so much care for some of the people who attend. Some people have yet to understand that this class is Sociology of Religion, not "My religious views are better than yours so I'm going to spend all class debating them." Fun times.
Today we are discussing individual forms of religiosity, and the Prof has separated four categories. We're focusing on what he calls "religious switching," which occurs when you change your personal religion without experiencing any specific change in self. This can occur for a variety of reasons: marriage, geographical change, status change, etcetera. He stops for a moment on the subject of marriage, and introduces the idea that some people switch for the benefit of any children that may be conceived in that marriage.
"Uh-oh," I'm thinking to myself, "this can get rather volatile."
Sure enough, someone starts to chime in about how children need to be brought up under one religion, and someone else chimes in about how children should be allowed to make their own decisions, then the girl behind me really gets me fired up when she pops off with:
"I really don't think it matters as long as your religion isn't too different, like if one person is Christian and the other is Jewish or Muslim."
I am unable to keep my mouth shut. I shouldn't let it bother me, but I do.
"Well," I start, "I'm Jewish, and Boyfriend is Methodist, so it's not really a big deal for us. Because my status as a Jew is ascribed (inherited), regardless of whether our children attend Church, they will still be Jewish."
"There," I though, triumphantly, "that should put an end to that." I had forgotten, unfortunately, how strong small minds are in the South. No sooner had I spoken than a girl in the back chimed in as well.
"Um," she said, starting in, "my momma tough me that you shouldn't mix your yolk with someone else's egg."
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," I thought. But no, not kidding. In fact, she continued.
"See," she continued, "it says in the bible that you shouldn't do that. That you should only mix your yolk with someone else's yolk that's the same as yours, otherwise there could be conflict. And if you had kids, they would be conflicted. So you shouldn't get with someone who's different than you or else you'll have conflicted babies. And so you shouldn't have babies."
I turned to my friend, Joyce, in horror and a mixed form of intrigue.
"Did she just refer to my unborn children as conflict?!?!"
Joyce laughed, and the Prof. put an end to the discussion. Luckily, we were out of time.
10:55 AM
I walk with Joyce out of the classroom when the girl behind me (the one who made the Jewish comment) stops me.
"Um, I really didn't mean to offend you," she said, "so I was wondering if you would tell me what exactly Jewish means."
This is a recurring exchange for me regarding a lot of people from the South. They'll say something bigoted (whether they mean to or not) and then after I mention to them that I am Jewish, they'll barrage me with questions so they no longer feel badly. The whole way up to my next class I was explaining the subtle (hah!) differences between Judaism and Christianity. Fun times. One day I'm going to freak someone out and tell them we pray to a four-headed dog with eyes the size of saucers.
I head into Introduction to Social Work (my next class) and take my seat in front of Jason, my flamingly gay and fabulous friend. I'm recounting what happened last class and we got into the discussion of homosexuality in the bible.
"You think what happened to you was bad? Try hearing 'Thou shalt not lie with a man as one lies with a woman' you're whole life!"
"Here's what I don't understand about that," I start. "That verse comes from Leviticus, in the Old Testament."
"Right," Jason responded.
"Well," I began, "right next to that verse are the Jewish dietary laws."
Jason looked at me blankly so I continued.
"You know, the cloven hoof and the fish without scales? Don't eat pork or shellfish?"
Jason nods in understanding so I press forward.
"From what I understand, the reason Christians don't have to follow the dietary laws is because Peter (I think) said that Jesus created a whole new set of laws in the New Testament, so that you guys didn't have to follow the rules in Leviticus and Deuteronomy."
"Right," Jason said.
"So, if you guys don't regard or pay attention to the dietary laws in the Old Testament, why do you pay attention to the one verse in Leviticus about homosexuality?"
Jason didn't know, and neither do I.
Social work went by relatively quickly, and I headed out to meet Joyce to get something to eat. We had Chinese. Yum.
1:00 PM
I'm in the lab, getting ready for Senior Seminar to start. This class is your final class in sociology where you actually write your first independent thesis. I decided to do mine over gender-traditional roles as perpetuated by the mass media.
Here's the way I see things: television consistently portrays stereotypical sex roles in their programming. Even in shows aimed at preschoolers (Barney and Friends) it consistently shows boys as the active sex (running, jumping, playing) and girls take on the more matriarchal role (cooking, cleaning, playing with dolls). Even when these shows depict adults, they're always doing gender-traditional things. In regards to prime-time programming and commercials, women are continually overrepresented in the 20-30 year age category, whereas men are free to age with grace. Additionally, men are three times as likely to be shown in high power career roles than women; and when women are shown in a position of power, there's almost always a man who is in a position above them.
Think about it. Take "Law and Order" for a moment. The district attorney is female (on SVU), but her boss is a guy. How many shows do you know revolving around a single dad (Full House doesn't count!).
Interestingly enough, I found that in predominantly African American forms of media, the women are depicted in opposite gender roles. Additionally, African American women are more likely to be shown as a "Lolita" character, and be more combative with their partners.
So, my hypothesis is that: people who have high levels of television viewing are more likely to exhibit traditional gender-role attitudes. This is especially true for Caucasion/White viewers.
After pulling some more articles and discussing Britney Spears (seriously, she's lost it) class was over. Time for me to head home.
NOTE: I'm going to post this now to give you all something to read, and I'm working on the rest of the story: what happened at work that night. :)
It seems that (other than a pic) the majority of you would like a nice, long post. In trying to figure out what specifically I could drag out, I decided to do this instead. This post will take you through last Friday with me, the whole damn day. I figured that might be long enough for you. :)
7:00 AM
The alarm rings. At least, I have to assume the alarm rings. Boyfriend has a rediculous snoring problem, and it has forced me to sleep with an air conditioner, a rain machine, and earplugs. I'm serous, his snoring reminds me of something out of a horror movie. Not only does he have the intake snore (you know, choooooocccccccchh), but he has an out take snore as well (pchhhhhaaaaa) which just makes me want to smack him upside the head when I'm trying desperately to fall asleep and the only thing I can hear are the freakish sounds that are emitting from his septum.
Regardless, the alarm rings. Now, the deal is, I sleep in the earplugs so that boyfriend no longer fears for his life; and he wakes me up when the alarm goes off. Simple, right?
Wrong.
What usually happens is boyfriend will get out of bed, hit the snooze button, and go back to sleep; leaving me none the wiser and late for class. Brilliant.
7:15 AM
The alarm rings for a second time. Did I hear it? Of course not. Did boyfriend wake me up? Yeah, try again.
7:30 AM
Now we're really pushing it for time constraints. There I am, sleeping peacefully with purple squishy memory foam sticking out of my ear canals, and boyfriend is using much more effort to get out of bed, hit the snooze, and then get back into bed than it would take to simply shake me and tell me the alarm is going off. Men.
7:45 AM
I am going to be so pissed when I finally wake up! I mean, fifteen minutes... I could make that up in the shower; but forty-five? By some grace of God I wake up on my own about this time, and have one of those "Ohmygodi'msolatei'mgoingtoleapoutofbedandrunaround" moments. Fun times; great way to wake up in the morning.
7:50 AM
After five good minutes of yelling at boyfriend (it's better than coffee, you should try it) I finally hop into the shower and get ready for school. If it's alright with the rest of you, I'm going to glaze over the shower and drive to school; it's really a pointless event and I really don't want this blog turning into Literotica ("cue the porn music") while I discuss soaping up in the shower.
8:55 AM
After battling traffic for the last forty five minutes (I took a VERY fast shower) I manage to make it, albeit quite breathlessly, to my first class of the day: Civil Liberties. For those of you who don't know, this is a class taught at State U as a law school class; so if you are considering going to law school, this is the class you should take.
This is, possibly, the most labor intensive class I have ever taken. We have this HUGE green legal case book and we have to brief at least four cases ahead of where we stopped the class before. It's set up as a complete discussion class, where the Prof will mention a case, and we have to chime in with the answers. Pressure pressure pressure.
I pull out my blue folder with my briefs and he dives right in.
"And what were the two requirements for Fourth Amendment protection regarding Katz?"
I wait the obligatory three second pause before chiming in. No one, least of all me, wants to be a show off.
"The respondent must show a personal manifestation of subjective expectation of privacy and society must recognize this intent as valid," I respond.
"Exactly," he responds, and I sit back in my chair, feeling rather smug with myself. We continue on with the Fourth Amendment's protection, specifically regarding the search and seizure of marijuana. Here's a tip: if you're going to grow marijuana, have a grow house, don't do it in your back yard. Here's why:
Police received an anonymous tip that this guy, Ciraolo (pronounced Sih-rah-low), was growing pot in his backyard. When they showed up at his house, they realized that he had enclosed his backyard in a ten foot privacy fence, then surrounded that fence with a six foot fence, and had a big nasty dog running in between. Not a very "neighbor friendly" guy. In order to get a search warrant, the police had to have probable cause that he was growing pot in his backyard, so what did they do? They rented a plane, flew it 1,000 feet in the air, and took pictures of his plants in his backyard. Ciraolo felt that the police's actions were a violation of his Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizure. The Supreme Court said that while he definitely had a subjective expectation of privacy (the fences) since the air above his house was public property, the police were well in their rights to fly above his home and take pictures of his pot.
The next case involved yet another anonymous tip (hint: if you're going to deal in large amounts of marijuana, don't piss anyone off) regarding a grow house owned by a fellow named Kyllo. The police, in this case, parked on the street and used a thermal detection device that allowed them to gain heat readings off the house. They determined that the heat readings were consistent with grow lights (really strong UV lights used to grow pot indoors); obtained a search warrant and confiscated his pot. This time, however, the Supreme Court said that the police violated the Fourth Amendment because they were using technology that was not available to the general public, and they were probing, in a sense, into a man's house without actually going into his house.
Moral of the story: if you're going to grow large amounts of marijuana, grow it indoors.
9:55 AM
I head down the hall of State U towards my next class: Sociology of Religion. I really like this class; however, I don't so much care for some of the people who attend. Some people have yet to understand that this class is Sociology of Religion, not "My religious views are better than yours so I'm going to spend all class debating them." Fun times.
Today we are discussing individual forms of religiosity, and the Prof has separated four categories. We're focusing on what he calls "religious switching," which occurs when you change your personal religion without experiencing any specific change in self. This can occur for a variety of reasons: marriage, geographical change, status change, etcetera. He stops for a moment on the subject of marriage, and introduces the idea that some people switch for the benefit of any children that may be conceived in that marriage.
"Uh-oh," I'm thinking to myself, "this can get rather volatile."
Sure enough, someone starts to chime in about how children need to be brought up under one religion, and someone else chimes in about how children should be allowed to make their own decisions, then the girl behind me really gets me fired up when she pops off with:
"I really don't think it matters as long as your religion isn't too different, like if one person is Christian and the other is Jewish or Muslim."
I am unable to keep my mouth shut. I shouldn't let it bother me, but I do.
"Well," I start, "I'm Jewish, and Boyfriend is Methodist, so it's not really a big deal for us. Because my status as a Jew is ascribed (inherited), regardless of whether our children attend Church, they will still be Jewish."
"There," I though, triumphantly, "that should put an end to that." I had forgotten, unfortunately, how strong small minds are in the South. No sooner had I spoken than a girl in the back chimed in as well.
"Um," she said, starting in, "my momma tough me that you shouldn't mix your yolk with someone else's egg."
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," I thought. But no, not kidding. In fact, she continued.
"See," she continued, "it says in the bible that you shouldn't do that. That you should only mix your yolk with someone else's yolk that's the same as yours, otherwise there could be conflict. And if you had kids, they would be conflicted. So you shouldn't get with someone who's different than you or else you'll have conflicted babies. And so you shouldn't have babies."
I turned to my friend, Joyce, in horror and a mixed form of intrigue.
"Did she just refer to my unborn children as conflict?!?!"
Joyce laughed, and the Prof. put an end to the discussion. Luckily, we were out of time.
10:55 AM
I walk with Joyce out of the classroom when the girl behind me (the one who made the Jewish comment) stops me.
"Um, I really didn't mean to offend you," she said, "so I was wondering if you would tell me what exactly Jewish means."
This is a recurring exchange for me regarding a lot of people from the South. They'll say something bigoted (whether they mean to or not) and then after I mention to them that I am Jewish, they'll barrage me with questions so they no longer feel badly. The whole way up to my next class I was explaining the subtle (hah!) differences between Judaism and Christianity. Fun times. One day I'm going to freak someone out and tell them we pray to a four-headed dog with eyes the size of saucers.
I head into Introduction to Social Work (my next class) and take my seat in front of Jason, my flamingly gay and fabulous friend. I'm recounting what happened last class and we got into the discussion of homosexuality in the bible.
"You think what happened to you was bad? Try hearing 'Thou shalt not lie with a man as one lies with a woman' you're whole life!"
"Here's what I don't understand about that," I start. "That verse comes from Leviticus, in the Old Testament."
"Right," Jason responded.
"Well," I began, "right next to that verse are the Jewish dietary laws."
Jason looked at me blankly so I continued.
"You know, the cloven hoof and the fish without scales? Don't eat pork or shellfish?"
Jason nods in understanding so I press forward.
"From what I understand, the reason Christians don't have to follow the dietary laws is because Peter (I think) said that Jesus created a whole new set of laws in the New Testament, so that you guys didn't have to follow the rules in Leviticus and Deuteronomy."
"Right," Jason said.
"So, if you guys don't regard or pay attention to the dietary laws in the Old Testament, why do you pay attention to the one verse in Leviticus about homosexuality?"
Jason didn't know, and neither do I.
Social work went by relatively quickly, and I headed out to meet Joyce to get something to eat. We had Chinese. Yum.
1:00 PM
I'm in the lab, getting ready for Senior Seminar to start. This class is your final class in sociology where you actually write your first independent thesis. I decided to do mine over gender-traditional roles as perpetuated by the mass media.
Here's the way I see things: television consistently portrays stereotypical sex roles in their programming. Even in shows aimed at preschoolers (Barney and Friends) it consistently shows boys as the active sex (running, jumping, playing) and girls take on the more matriarchal role (cooking, cleaning, playing with dolls). Even when these shows depict adults, they're always doing gender-traditional things. In regards to prime-time programming and commercials, women are continually overrepresented in the 20-30 year age category, whereas men are free to age with grace. Additionally, men are three times as likely to be shown in high power career roles than women; and when women are shown in a position of power, there's almost always a man who is in a position above them.
Think about it. Take "Law and Order" for a moment. The district attorney is female (on SVU), but her boss is a guy. How many shows do you know revolving around a single dad (Full House doesn't count!).
Interestingly enough, I found that in predominantly African American forms of media, the women are depicted in opposite gender roles. Additionally, African American women are more likely to be shown as a "Lolita" character, and be more combative with their partners.
So, my hypothesis is that: people who have high levels of television viewing are more likely to exhibit traditional gender-role attitudes. This is especially true for Caucasion/White viewers.
After pulling some more articles and discussing Britney Spears (seriously, she's lost it) class was over. Time for me to head home.
NOTE: I'm going to post this now to give you all something to read, and I'm working on the rest of the story: what happened at work that night. :)
posted by Jennifer at 10:55 AM
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