Gigi: An Introduction

A wild newbie appears!

Hello, all :) My name is Gigi. Nice to make your acquaintance.

I'm a semi-small-town girl from a semi-large-small city in Yolo County, California. Yearning to get out and away, I graduated from high school in 2011 and moved my life all the way out to the bay area to become a Linguistics student at Cal. Or, rather, to become an undecided and indecisive student at Cal. The Linguistics part came later.

As one might guess, I currently live in Berkeley, California. It's certainly an exciting place to live. There's always something going on; whether that's a good thing or not, I don't know. But the most beautiful part for me is this: if I take a walk East for fifteen minutes or so, I reach hills where I can hike to the top and see the whole bay. And if I take the bus West, I can sit at the marina and enjoy the silence and the ocean. It's easy to get away here.

If I'm being perfectly honest, one of the first things that drew me to studying Linguistics was that Cal only requires eight classes for the major. This means I have space, I have time, I have freedom to study a lot of different things. And I've so far been taking advantage of that time. This semester I'm taking one Linguistics course, one Italian course, one course about insects and one on written musical harmony. Variety is certainly the spice of life.

And if I'm being perfectly honest, that wasn't the only reason I chose my major. I took my first foreign language in high school: Japanese. Three years straight of one subject and I loved it. Language is beautiful. By learning (a little bit of) Japanese I opened myself up to communication with almost 130,000,000 new people on the globe, and that's just counting Japan's population. So now I'm learning Italian as well, and planning to pick up Japanese again next year. To be fair, though - Linguistics is not a study of foreign language. But a love of foreign language was what led me to it. And though I'm not very far into the major, I'm loving it so far. Two of my (legitimate!) sources for the homework assignment I just finished were Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Urban Dictionary. It was about the historical semantic change of the word 'wicked'.

Career-wise? I'm going to become a librarian. I decided this last year pretty much on a whim, and after volunteering at a library and talking to some people, it seems like a better and better idea all the time.

Things I think are wicked cool: Books (kind of a requirement for a would-be librarian). I just finished At Swim Two Birds, which I highly recommend, and I'm currently slowly getting through Ulysses, which was forced upon me by my boyfriend, but which I am so far enjoying. I'm a huge Douglas Adams fan. I haven't read anything by John Green yet, unfortunately, but it's coming! According to my parents, when I was little I would sit in my room reading for hours, and then come back out and ask why nobody was paying attention to me. So I suppose attention is another thing I like. 

I also very much enjoy cats, a "like" that I'm sure many others can relate to as well. I doodle at times, so those may show up here. And as with anyone, I love music, and some particular favorites are Pink Martini, Aqualung, Tom Milsom, Alex Day, Andrew Huang, CAKE, POTUS, Don MacLean, and Talking Heads. I also enjoy making music; I'm a decent singer, I can do some basic guitar and uke, and I recently bought a pennywhistle, which I've quickly learned has one setting: obnoxious.

Fun fact: one of my thumbs is a hitchhiker's thumb and one is not. So I am not perfectly symmetrical. Oh well.

I'm very much looking forward to this. New experiences, new people, new opportunities! New = good :)

DFTBA!
Gigi

School Sucks. Also, Nerdfighting.

Alright, I was kind of MIA last week because I had a big project due and I'm a horrible procrastinator. So to make up for that (and for the fact that my nerdfighter story is super lame), the first half of this will be about the education system.

Now, I think the number one thing you have to understand about the American Public School System is there is not uniformity to it. It is literally different every place you go. I'll save you the history lesson, but the US tends to favor state and local legislation. For the most part, federal government plays a very very small role in public schools. They're ruled by the state is a very broad sense. Local government plays a very large role in the public school system here.

For example, Matt and Caroline both talked about pre-school. We don't have preschool where I live. I never went to preschool, and the only thing close to it that exists in my district is our Early Childhood Learning Center. Which is basically just for children from immigrant families that don't know English. So you go there, learn English, and (hopefully) aren't utterly confused when you're at an actual elementary.

Another example, uniforms. I didn't have uniforms until Grade 4 when it was put to a district-wide vote weather or not to have uniforms in every level of schools. Elementary and middle school, yes! High schools, no. So in my district we wear uniforms until Grade 9. Fun fact: Some local districts consider Grade 9 to be middle school.

Our mandatory schooling starts with Kindergarden (K). When I was in K we only had half days. So you were either there in the morning, or there in the afternoon, but not both. It has since changed and now children are required to spend all day at school (an example of local-level govt). And so it goes on in much the same manner as my fellow Americans have explained. Until Grade 3.

Grade 3 is when we start our state standardize test. Every. Single. State. Has as different test. Stupid, right? Yeah. And on top of that, they're constantly changing. At least here they are. When I first started testing, I took a test that was abbreviation to TAAS. The Texas Assessment of Academic Skills. Then in 2003, it was changed to TAKS. The Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. After I graduated, the changed it again. Students now take the STAAR. The State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. There's lots of assessing in Texas. Now basically what these tests are trying to do is to make sure everyone is on the same level. But here's the thing. What happens if you don't pass? Nothing! Nothing happens if you don't pass the test. You get shoved into the next grade with an extra 'prep class'. So as Matt mentioned, sometimes these tests do nothing except see who gets funding.

And about funding. You'd think schools would get rewarded for having students pass and have a good understanding of their courses, right? Nah, you get federal and state grants in several ways. If you have very smart students who are in 'advanced' classes (and therefore need more help) or if you have very poor performing students (and therefore need more help), or if you're in a school district where the majority of residents have low income (and therefore need more help). But most schools don't get rewarded for having consistently above average students. This is why schools in my district can build new state-of-the-art, eco-friendly schools with windmills and solar panels, give laptops to every single high school student, give an iPad to every single middle school student, and give elementary school children tablets for their classrooms. Other schools, ones with average performing students, in districts where the mean income is above average have to rely on donates to the schools. Which works for them, a lot of the times.

Now college. As previously mentioned, it's ridiculously expensive. Private universities cost almost twice as much as public ones. My DREAM school, the one that I hope to get my masters from, is Southern Methodist University. I would have loved to have gone here straight out of the gate. Unfortunately it's $37,050 for tuition. Plus $4,700 in fees. Plus $13,725 for room and board. Which brings SMU's total cost of attendance to a whopping $55, 475 per year. Now I don't know about anyone else, but I don't have $200,000 dollars to spend right out of high school. That's more than my house. That's more than twice my house and my car. And that's not even the most expensive in the US.  Bigger state schools can afford to charge higher tuition. For example, the University of Texas is a very popular school. They've got good programs, they're in a really awesome college town know for being...you know, awesome. They've got an amazing football team, basketball, baseball. They have it all basically. Everyone and their mom wants to go to UT. So they can afford to charge around $30,000 a year (sorry for not looking up the exact figures, SMU killed me) because they're popular and people want to go there. SMU is also on the popular list. School like these offer little in the way of financial aid because they don't really have to. People will pay just to say they got a BBA from SMU, or an Engineering degree from UT. Fun fact: The University of Texas at Austin is so popular that it receives $7.2 billion dollars out of the $16.11 billion available to public Texas universities.

And I'll leave it at that. That's my two cents and it's all I really wanted to say about the American School System. Everything else has been explained to you. My experiences where the same, for the most part, as Caroline and Matt's.

Now that I've made myself very depressed with the realization of how much in debt I'll be in when I leave college let me tell you more about how I waste precious time on the internet.

I started watching the vlogbrothers maybe...a year an a half ago? (I honestly don't know, these are all rough estimates. I'm not the math major.) Before that, two years ago, was when I really started watching youtube videos. And I was watching some other youtuber and they linked to a vlogbrothers video. I checked it out, looked at some other videos, quickly realized that these guys are AMAZING, and haven't looked back since. I wasn't never involved with the nerdfigher community until literally two days before this blog started. I started watching vlogbrothers from the first episode back in the summer and I was finally getting to videos I had already seen so I thought it was high time I got involved. Now that I knew my shit, and whatnot. So here I am. Ta-da!

Told you my nerdfigher story was lame. Glad I blabbered on about school for so long! XD

American Education system (abridged)

Simply put, the American education system is a convoluted mess, but I will try my best to give a brief overview of the entire system and then talk a bit about Knox, the college I go to.

Okay, kids start going to school at ages three to five. Three and four year olds go to pre-school and five year olds go to kindergarten. Many kids only go to one year of pre-school; you don't have to go until you are four. Kindergarten is mostly for learning to read and write.

Elementary school varies from place to place. My school system has 1st-3rd graders in the elementary school and 4th-6th graders in a different school, the upper elementary school. Then Middle school is 7th and 8th grade and high school is 9th-12th grades. Wide numbers of subjects are covered in these years, but in general it's all to teach kids how to pass tests by memorization rather than actually live in the real world. That's a major generalization that obviously has many examples to the contrary, but tests are used as a check to make sure you have learned something instead of applying it to a real world practical situation usually. This depends on the school and teachers though. Other than that, kids take numerous standized tests, some of which do nothing, others determine how much funding your school gets with higher scores on average gives higher funding from the government, and others determine the kids' entire future like the SAT and ACT which are taken in the spring of junior year and can be taken again in the fall of senior year (11th and 12 grades). If you don't score well on those, then you likely won't get into a good college or won't get into one at all, your grades matter too, but for some reason a ton of schools put a TON of importance on these two tests.

Now here's where it gets a bit messy. We have several kinds of schools here. There's public schools, which most kids go to, that are funded by the states. Then there's private schools which are for profit corporations basically and like colleges they have tuition fees (and can be very, very expensive), room and board fees, and the like. They often have the stereotype of being for snobby, rich kids types, but that's not necessarily true. You can get into one, and you normally have to apply to get in, based on merit. Then there are religious schools, mostly Catholic schools which are like private schools in that they aren't run by the government. They are run by the Catholic church and the religious leaders of that specific area. They teach a much more religiously integrated curriculum, which is supposed to be illegal for public schools, separation of church and state, but that doesn't always stop religious politicians from claiming that since evolution is a "theory" that creationism should be considered a scientific theory and taught in public schools, but I digress.

Colleges, lots of fun stuff here. They come in all varieties and price levels. They go from the two year community colleges that are local and relatively inexpensive that are good from lower income families and are a pathway to getting into a four year college or university (there's a difference between them, confusing, I know but I will get back to them in a second), but they are often looked down upon as not as good education wise. Again depends on the school. Colleges and universities, the difference between them is universities have graduate programs for getting your Masters in a certain subject and colleges don't. They only have an undergraduate program, like my school, Knox College. Colleges and universities can be either public or private. Public schools are typically cheaper than private schools, which are run like a corporation. Private schools can get extremely expensive. According to the Huffington Post, the most expensive private university in the US is Columbia University at $45,290 per year for four years not including if you stay for their graduate program! Yikes!

Colleges typically are known as having excellent specific departments. For example, Harvard Law. Knox is a liberal arts school, meaning that it has strong art, English, humanities, philosophy and social science programs. I actually chose Knox because of its creative writing program. I took some creative writing classes and ended up changing to philosophy. You have to meet certain requirements to finish your major and minor (the areas you took the majority of your class). You also have to meet other requirements depending on the school such as Knox has an experiential learning requirement and a diversity requirement on top of the general minimum credits you have to take in math and science and other basic subjects. I took astronomy, which knocked out two birds with one stone and gave me a math and science credit, so I haven’t had to take another math or science again, and won’t need to.

After I graduate I could enter the job market, or I could go on and go to another school to get my Masters and even try to get a PhD and become a doctor.

I think that’s the basics. I probably left out a ton of important information, so if you have questions ask and I will try my best to answer them.

Edit: After Sarah's questions about the difference between colleges and universities, I thought I would edit in my answer to her questions in, just in case.

You get a Bachelor's degree in the subject you majored and minored in when you graduate from a college, same with graduating from a university. The Bachelor's degree comes from graduating an undergraduate program (the first four years at a college or university).

You don't need to go to college first to go to a university. They both have four year undergraduate programs. A university is a college in the same way that a young adult book is a book, all young adult books are books, but not all books are in the young adult genre. All universities are colleges, but not all colleges are universities. If you go to a college for the first four years you can apply to a university to go an additional two years to get your Master's degree on top of your Bachelor's degree, but you can choose to go to a university for the first four years instead.

The Ambience of Amber (or, Almost Everything You Need To Know About Me)

I realize this post will bring us up to four for today but I figured I should get my intro out of the way so I can move on to this week's actual theme. Now, onward!

Howdy, y'all! I'm Amber, the resident Texas native. (Note: you will never see me use the word 'howdy' ever again. Ever.) Like most places, Texas is not what so many people assume it to be. Well, at least not where I live. However, I would never deign to assume that Nerdfighters would think like the masses so I won't go into The Myths of Texas. But feel free to ask anything you'd like about Texas (or anything else. While we're here I should mention that I like asides.) I'm 22 years old and right now I'm double majoring in Business and Fashion Merchandising.

Right now. The background of my academic career is lengthy, so I'll give you the long and short of it. I have a learning disability. This paired with the fact that i'm incredibly lazy makes me a terrible student. I love learning, but I don't love doing homework so I didn't really do all that well in high school. So out of high school instead of going to a university I got a job. Well, that didn't work out. I then decided to enroll in a local community college. Three years later, I'm still here. Since enrolling I've been a Theatre major, an English major, an Education major, an English Literature major and now finally a Business and Fashion Merchandising major. I have a bad case of I-don't-know-what-the-fuck-I-want-to-do-with-my-life (is cursing okay here? I'm really bad with that. I'll try and tone it down).

Good news though! I'll be transferring to The University of North Texas next fall! Thank goodness! I'm not really proud of the fact that I've been at a two year school for three years, but it is what it is. Anyway, I know what you're wondering. You're wondering why there is a fashion merchandising major in with all these other brilliantly, scholarly, wonderful majors. (I mean, Archaeology. That's awesome!) I am also wondering the same thing. But we're all Nerdfighters which means we're all awesome so I'll do my best not to say anything too stupid (but hey, I'm not making any promises. I am, after all, American). So, back to the topic at hand. Fashion Merchandising, Amber? Nerds don't major in Fashion Merchandising. Yeah well, I'm the exception, not the rule. And I LOVE fashion! And clothes! And scarfs! And hats! And shoes! Homgshoesss! But(!) I don't love it as much as I love theatre, or reading, or classic literature. Which, I think, is why I've finally settled on business as a major and career choice. The things I love, I love too much for me to want to make a job out of doing them. There are other reasons but they aren't very interesting so I'll spare you the details.  I'd really like to either manage or own a retail store that focuses on handmade, sustainable and upcycled clothing. I'm all about turning something old and outdated an turning it into something better and awesome.

In regards to my life outside academia, I love warm sunny days (Which is good because it's dead winter here and it's 72 degrees outside. Seriously, I'm contemplating a picnic), walks in the park, good books, the Internets. Also, books. Like leather/hard bound. Like I'm-the-most-beautiful-copy-of-Arabian-Nights- that-you-have-ever-seen books. I'm sure you can already tell by my previous freak out over shoes that I am girl in the most stereotypical of ways. I'm sure the men are doing their best not to roll their eyes (Don't hold back boys! I mean...men!). So yeah, I like all that girly stuff. But I also like camping, and swimming, and baseball, and floating in rivers during the summer. And Harry Potter, of course! I watch way too much television. I play the piano. I have two horribly annoying younger brothers, a huge extended family and really cool parents (No, really. My parents are awesome.) Also...Ilikevampirefiction. I know, /I know/! Don't kill me! Don't worry, I detest Twilight as much as the next sane person. But yeah, I like vampires. And zombies. Alright. I'm cutting this off. I've rambled long enough.

While I don't like to focus on the negative, things I do not like include (but are not limited to): Doctor Who, The Jersey Shore, most rap music, scifi (Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, Stargate, Star Trek. Seriously, come up with names that don't include the word 'star'. Also, Doctor Who), Twilight, Doctor Who, apples (it's the texture), world suck, decepticons (by the way, I don't like Transformers for two reasons: Megan. Fox.) Have I mentioned that I don't like Doctor Who?

Alright, folks. That ends the Amber portion of our programing for today, I hope you enjoyed it! :D

P. S.  I love talking to people and I love procrastinating so please feel free to Skype me any time! :D

P. P. S. I'm really not as disdainful as my picture would lead you to believe. My friend drew it and I think it's cute.