A Degree of Introspection

Our first semester, what a journey it has been. I remember just a few weeks ago the stress I endured while trying to locate 309 Sparks. Since then, a lot has changed. I've learned to use the busses, saving my legs from an grueling 18 minute walk from East to our classroom, and I've discovered the most efficient route to the room, allowing me to arrive a tad less sweaty. The point I'm trying to make is that us little freshies have grown into something less, uh, fresh. 

In the interest of being a but philosophical and somewhat unpredictable, I decided to make the subject of this final people-watching blog of the first semester about us. No, I haven't been secretly watching you all throughout the year, but what I noticed, both in myself and in all of us, is that we have all grown. 

For instance, many of us have ever blogged before. It wasn't until fate brought us CAS 137H and began our evolution into the master bloggers we are today. It seemed in the beginning of the year everyone was bit rusty with their blogs (Lord knows I had a sharp learning curve, sheesh). Fast forward to the present, and Holy Great Barrier Reef (Spongebob reference, for those of you who didn't know) you people are amazing. I always look forward to reading as many blogs as possible and really feeling the passion in these aptly named passion blogs. I'm also glad that some of you enjoy my blogs and accept the mild creepiness that is inherent with my topic. Over the course of the semester, I hope that I've done a good job of proving that I am not anymore creepy than the average person. 

The excellence doesn't end at blog writing. I love seeing how everyone has faced the dreaded public speaking aspect of our class. I've watched as we all tackled the fear of speeches and how we came out on top. I can say I've seen everyone get better and that I've never been in a class with better speakers!

Our class, CAS 137H, is no joke. We are elite warriors in the war of words. We have been tested by papers and speeches and some casualties along the way, but we've almost made it to the end of the semester. Even though this is possibly one of the most difficult classes I've taken, I am thankful. It's been stressful at times, but, in the end, I think we all are better because of it. 

As one president-elect might say, we're gonna be YUGE!

Selfies Aplenty

Like it or not, technology has embedded itself in our culture. Many of us are certifiably addicted to our phones in our generation especially. Studies have shown that we can spend up to 23 days a year staring at our little rectangular screens!

It's sort of amazing to think of how much power is endowed to us by our cellphones. With the touch of a finger, you're able to access almost any bit of information you desire, provided you have good reception. But there are also more frivolous things our devices allow us to do, like take selfies. A lot of selfies. Enough selfies to make the word "selfie" the Oxford word of the year in 2013.

I am ever thankful for the ease of people-watching in my classes containing hundreds of people. There's always opportunity aplenty. And what better way is there to spend my economics lecture than to watch someone try to take the perfect selfie for like 5 minutes in class. You think I'm exaggerating? No my friends, I do not embellish, I only recite what are our beautiful human race has done.

Alright. So, this girl is sitting in front of me and she opens up Snapchat and checks herself out. She then proceeds to try every single filter in the entire app, trying different poses and angles the entire time. She spent a particularly long time on the dog filter, arguably the most basic and overused of all filters. Listen, I have nothing wrong with selfie taking. I understand. I take selfies too (my favorite filter was the one that made your face small), but this girl was taking it too far. There is a time and place for selfies, and economics is not the place. Perhaps a lot was riding on this Snap. Was this Snap was make or break for something? I guess not because after literally 5 minutes she gave up.

One of my favorite filters. This took me roughly 5 tries to get the lighting just how I liked. 

To all my Snapchatters out there, be confident in your selfies. You may think it takes 50 tries to get the perfect Snap, but with a little practice you can get that number down to the single digits.

Also, as a side note, I caught someone taking a picture of me again. He was sitting one row in front of me in my chemistry class and he turned on his front facing camera and quickly snapped  pic. I am really confused as to why people keep taking pictures of me. Can someone offer a hypothesis?