Breast Cancer Awareness Month

I was hoping to post this thought during the actual month of Breast Cancer Awareness, but there will be a BCA month next year so it is still applicable today.

Theorem 20: Awareness for a disease is an inefficient use of our marketing efforts

I can definitely not claim this thought as my own, and I would like to explicitly give credit to people such as Bobby and Steier who have discussed this topic with me. Nonetheless, I will be the one to present this innovative idea to the blogosphere.

So I am sure everyone noticed all the various places the color of pink was used in pro sports, on campus, and pretty much everywhere. This color pink caught my attention and I quickly became aware not of breast cancer itself, but of the fact that it was breast cancer awareness month. Therefore, I think if we keep things how they are now, we should call it Breast Cancer Awareness Month Awareness Month. That could get complicated so I say we make changes. Here's why:

I assume many people know someone who has been affected by Breast Cancer or know someone who knows someone who has been affected. Now, when you find out that someone you are close to has just been diagnosed with Breast Cancer (and I do not mean at all to make light of this issue), an adequate response is NOT, "Oh, I am aware of that disease." Rather, I want my answer to be, "Oh, lucky for you, I just developed this new medicine to cure that disease."

So here's what I propose. I want October 1st to be Breast Cancer Awareness day, in which we would target the audience of people with amnesia, alzheimer's, newborns,etc., really anyone that may not know about breast cancer. The following 30 days will be called Breast Cancer Educational Month, in which every school across the country will be forced to offer 1-credit courses only in cancer research or other science fields. Everyone writing sonnets and doing psychology research and learning Chinese will be forced to sit through useful lectures and learn science. Some people will say, "Oh, wahhh wahhh wahhhh, I hate science, wahhh wahhh" (sound of a baby crying). That's fine. Those people can spend their time in a lab doing the dirty work that they are told to do (by some scientist). Metoxen volunteers 50 hours a week of pro bono work cutting up deadly mosquitoes in an effort to cure this deadly disease we call cancer while we sit in our rooms doing math problems. He needs all the help he can get and we need to give it to him. He cares.

If nothing else, we should educate ourselves on the female breast. Channel 198 (It is a premium channel so you may or may not have to pay for it) is airing educational videos on the female breast 24/7. If you are wondering, it is that fuzzy channel that never really comes through no matter how you situate your antenna. We need to learn about the breast before can spend our time protecting it. So please, do something to help out this cause.

* * But really, breast cancer and cancer in general is a serious issue. I apologize for trying to make a funny out of it.

Texting in Class

So apparently some people have been noting that I am seemingly always texting nowadays. There are various reasons for why people might think this, and I will not get into these reasons. I just enjoy the receiving and composing of text messages from all people and to all people, what can I say?

On that topic, the purpose of this post is to present a strategy for focusing in class that is often overlooked by many educational-enhancement programs (Kaplan, Hooked on Phonics, etc.). That strategy is of course texting in class.

Theorem 19: Texting in class helps you focus

Too often these days people who can't focus in class turn to Ridalin or Adderall or whatever drug makes your brain freak out and focus (Five-Hour Energy, Coffee, Triple Latte Espresso Double-Whipped Poison, etc.), when really there is a much simpler, more effective solution: intermittent texting. You see, studies have shown that the average Notre Dame brain can't focus for more than about 3 minutes at a time. This is conveniently the time it takes for a person to receive a text, read the text, come up with a 160-character proof-read text message, send the message, and be received by the person who is just starting to space out. Right at that space-out moment, the pocket vibes (vbbbb...vbb-vbb-vbb if you will... that's the sound mine makes at least) and you snap back to attention, read the text, reply, and send all in about one minute. So that's 3 minutes of perfect focus and one minute of a mental break in which you are still present enough to catch any particularly important information. You may say that's only 75% of the time in which you are fully focused, which is not very good. I say it's less than 25% of the time when you are not focused, which is REALLY good. But my glass is 75% full.

Now contrast this with the alternate. You sit in class, friendless/phoneless/whatever, and you hit that space-out moment. If you are good at sleeping, you start nodding off. If you are not good at sleeping, you daydream and you start thinking about something way off topic. For example, you could be thinking about what you did to Metoxen's chest last night in sticks (I haven't farmed him in like a week and I'm still inclined to use that as an example, incredible). You will think about this for a few minutes, and this will remind you that you have to go to the bathroom. This thought will overcome you and you will have no chance of focusing until you take care of your business. So you either leave class for some period of time, where you are missing all the material, or you sit in class unable to focus. Either way, the short text message would have been the much better alternative.

There are two main points I want to bring up with regards to this theorem. First, teachers do not know what is best for their students. This I'm sure is obvious to everyone by now in your academic careers, but it is particularly true for cell phones. Not allowing students to use cell phones is like putting a shiny object in front of a squirrel. Secondly, cell phones with basic calling and texting capabilities are far better than the smartphones with games and such. Gaming on your phone is the worst thing you can do, followed closely by using Apps. Apps are polluting the world and killing the national education system.

Again, if you would like to be on my texting ListServ, just let me know. I can text you whenever you would like during class or just in general. We are paying a lot for a Notre Dame education, so you should do everything you can to get the most out of it. Also, if you are looking for a nice phone, get the one pictured above. It is virtually indestructible.

Off-topic Comments

I tried very hard to make this concept into a theorem but it would be a huge stretch and I've already meditated on Facebook once or twice, so I will leave it as a remark. Nevertheless, I feel just as strongly about it and it should not be scoffed at.

Remark: Off-topic Facebook comments are annoying

It's just like what you were taught in third grade during manners class: when conversing with someone, don't randomly change the topic. Ms. Dougherty didn't know it at the time but she was really teaching you how to not make enemies on Facebook.

There is nothing better than making a clever post on someone's photo or status and signing in to Facebook 10 minutes later and getting a notification that someone else has made an even wittier reply to your comment. Then you giggle for a second or two and try to formulate a counter-reply. Or maybe you cherish the work that your friend has made and let it be.

Here is what you don't do: You don't read the status/look at the picture, read the comments already made, and post your own comment like: "I love you Jessica! When are we going to hang out?" Or "I miss you, how's school going?" Or "Hope all is well!!" That is disrespectful to all the people that put in the time to come up with a clever comment and who are eagerly waiting other comments, because you know as soon as they get that notification, they are going to look to see what you said. And when they see that you completely disregarded what they had previously said, they will get offended. That's just impolite.

Now I know there is an interesting dynamic in the college years where high school friends, college friends, and even parents/relatives converge on one social network, but there should be a way to unite them all. We should all be able to socialize with friends of friends without too much trouble. I tried this once when I commented on Tara's status, saying very nicely that I would edit her paper (just so you know, there's no way I would have done that for her, and I still consider myself to be a very good friend). Her friend (for privacy purposes we will call her Shaniqua) from home also wanted to help out, and she also commented on the status. I very kindly told Shaniqua to "back off" and that I (and no one else) was editing Tara's paper. Shaniqua then claimed that we were "in a fight and she doesn't even know me." I was forced to delete all my comments, making her comments look ridiculously out of place and confusing the rest of the Facebook community. It is a cheeky little trick I've learned over the years... Anyway, the moral of the story is that some people don't use Facebook how I like it to be used, and that creates problems in my life. Problems that need to be fixed.

But speaking of editing, I also feel like if there is one thing you should edit, it is your Facebook posts. Oftentimes when you write on Facebook, it sounds good the first time but after you read it again, you realize you need to change your thesis a bit. Or maybe add some punctuation or add/subtract a lol or a haha... or an ellipsis (...). Everything makes a difference.