(no subject)
Mar. 18th, 2002 11:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ocelotI should be asleep. Asleep, or eating something dinner-ish.
Another long rambling entry, so I'm cutting it.
I read this article on k5 today, and as I am one of the many people who dislikes vegemite based on being exposed to it improperly, I decided to give it another shot (IIRC, I smelled it, and refused to try it afterwards. This is a mistake. If you have not yet smelled vegemite, don't. Hold your nose and spread a very thin layer on bread. If you smell it, you will quite likely lose your will to continue). So I picked up a jar from the store.
Yes, there are stores in the US that actually sell vegemite. The same one that sells Violet Crumbles and salad cream, in fact.
It was alright. Not as bad (when spread very thinly) as it smells. Not exactly ambrosia, either.
Back in my first year of college, someone posted a question on ucd.life, asking what you would do differently if you could go back to the beginning of college and start over. At the time, having just started college, I didn't have a whole heck of a lot to contribute, but the question has stuck with me since then.
It's an interesting question. The more entertaining interpretation is "What would you do if you could go back to the beginning of college, preserving all your current knowledge?" Good for hours of fun, but not the question I'm addressing right now.
The other interpretation (well, I assume there are probably others as well) is "What would you do differently if you had the chance to go back and do it over, without your current knowledge?". It's not as fun as the other question, since it's essentially "what do you regret?", but still interesting. This is the list I came up with tonight:
1. Don't go to UC Davis. I suspect I would have done better in a smaller college. A 2-year college (or a college with a 2-year program) would probably have been a better option, as it provides a less distant endpoint (it's easier to keep going if you know you're nearly done than if you have another several years to go), and it provides better career opportunities if you don't go straight to a 4-year program.
Something other than college might have been good for me, too. I've been wondering a lot lately whether going into the military might not have been a good thing. I was raised in a non-military family in a heavy military town. There were two groups of people - the military and the civilians. Actually, three. The officers, the enlisted, and the civilians. I was always firmly in the civilians, and it never occured to me until I made friends with current/former military members that this was something that could be changed.
Being in a town with a very obvious class difference between the officers and the enlisted, and associating mostly with the officers, gave me a rather negative opinion of the enlisted people.
My opinions have changed somewhat since then.
My brother did AmeriCorp, and seemed to have really gotten a lot out of it. I'm not sure that was an option when I left high school, though.
I don't think going straight to work would have been a good idea. I managed just fine after a year and a half of college, but my computer skills really increased during that year and a half.
2. End one relationship earlier, and don't get involved in another one. In both situations, I was essentially using the person I was involved with (once I got to the point where I wish I'd broken it off, at least), and I don't like that.
3. Keep in better touch with my aunt. Ignoring the fact that she's about to die doesn't make it not happen.
If I could go back a few years more, to the end of high school....
Study a wee bit harder for standardized tests. Take the SATs a second time, because my results the first time really weren't proportionate with my results on other standardized tests.
On so many of the tests, I was exceptionally close to the score I needed for some particular thing. If I'd got a five on the Psych AP test, I wouldn't have had to take the intro psych class at Davis. If I'd gotten approx. 1 more question right on the PSATs (or if I'd lived in a different state, like Michigan (yes![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kcm, I'm still ticked about that)), I'd have made National Merit something or other.
That one is mainly just ego, though.
I guess the only other thing would be to find the motivation to stick with martial arts.
I got thinking about this subject while thinking about the idea of regret and responsibility. This stemmed from thinking about this article. It seems to me that if 1. people were taught to take responsibility for their actions, 2. less emphasis was put on guilt over sex, and 3. people were taught to establish boundaries they were comfortable with and be open and assertive about them, there would be less false accusations of rape (which is what the article being discussed in that LJ entry is about).
Teach people to take responsibility for their actions, and they're less likely to go getting other people in trouble for their actions. Get rid of the guilt, and they won't feel the need to go blaming other people in order to repress it. Teach people to establish/assert boundaries, and they're less likely to get into the situation in the first place.
Ok, sleep.
Another long rambling entry, so I'm cutting it.
I read this article on k5 today, and as I am one of the many people who dislikes vegemite based on being exposed to it improperly, I decided to give it another shot (IIRC, I smelled it, and refused to try it afterwards. This is a mistake. If you have not yet smelled vegemite, don't. Hold your nose and spread a very thin layer on bread. If you smell it, you will quite likely lose your will to continue). So I picked up a jar from the store.
Yes, there are stores in the US that actually sell vegemite. The same one that sells Violet Crumbles and salad cream, in fact.
It was alright. Not as bad (when spread very thinly) as it smells. Not exactly ambrosia, either.
Back in my first year of college, someone posted a question on ucd.life, asking what you would do differently if you could go back to the beginning of college and start over. At the time, having just started college, I didn't have a whole heck of a lot to contribute, but the question has stuck with me since then.
It's an interesting question. The more entertaining interpretation is "What would you do if you could go back to the beginning of college, preserving all your current knowledge?" Good for hours of fun, but not the question I'm addressing right now.
The other interpretation (well, I assume there are probably others as well) is "What would you do differently if you had the chance to go back and do it over, without your current knowledge?". It's not as fun as the other question, since it's essentially "what do you regret?", but still interesting. This is the list I came up with tonight:
1. Don't go to UC Davis. I suspect I would have done better in a smaller college. A 2-year college (or a college with a 2-year program) would probably have been a better option, as it provides a less distant endpoint (it's easier to keep going if you know you're nearly done than if you have another several years to go), and it provides better career opportunities if you don't go straight to a 4-year program.
Something other than college might have been good for me, too. I've been wondering a lot lately whether going into the military might not have been a good thing. I was raised in a non-military family in a heavy military town. There were two groups of people - the military and the civilians. Actually, three. The officers, the enlisted, and the civilians. I was always firmly in the civilians, and it never occured to me until I made friends with current/former military members that this was something that could be changed.
Being in a town with a very obvious class difference between the officers and the enlisted, and associating mostly with the officers, gave me a rather negative opinion of the enlisted people.
My opinions have changed somewhat since then.
My brother did AmeriCorp, and seemed to have really gotten a lot out of it. I'm not sure that was an option when I left high school, though.
I don't think going straight to work would have been a good idea. I managed just fine after a year and a half of college, but my computer skills really increased during that year and a half.
2. End one relationship earlier, and don't get involved in another one. In both situations, I was essentially using the person I was involved with (once I got to the point where I wish I'd broken it off, at least), and I don't like that.
3. Keep in better touch with my aunt. Ignoring the fact that she's about to die doesn't make it not happen.
If I could go back a few years more, to the end of high school....
Study a wee bit harder for standardized tests. Take the SATs a second time, because my results the first time really weren't proportionate with my results on other standardized tests.
On so many of the tests, I was exceptionally close to the score I needed for some particular thing. If I'd got a five on the Psych AP test, I wouldn't have had to take the intro psych class at Davis. If I'd gotten approx. 1 more question right on the PSATs (or if I'd lived in a different state, like Michigan (yes
kcm, I'm still ticked about that)), I'd have made National Merit something or other.That one is mainly just ego, though.
I guess the only other thing would be to find the motivation to stick with martial arts.
I got thinking about this subject while thinking about the idea of regret and responsibility. This stemmed from thinking about this article. It seems to me that if 1. people were taught to take responsibility for their actions, 2. less emphasis was put on guilt over sex, and 3. people were taught to establish boundaries they were comfortable with and be open and assertive about them, there would be less false accusations of rape (which is what the article being discussed in that LJ entry is about).
Teach people to take responsibility for their actions, and they're less likely to go getting other people in trouble for their actions. Get rid of the guilt, and they won't feel the need to go blaming other people in order to repress it. Teach people to establish/assert boundaries, and they're less likely to get into the situation in the first place.
Ok, sleep.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
heh
Date: 2002-03-19 10:37 am (UTC)what would I do differently?
1) Take on less responsibility as early.. being VP and house manager and everything all in one year, my sophomore year no less, was way too much. My sophomore year grades are still hurting me even though I've had around a 3.4 for the past 4 semesters.
2) I'd play the game a bit better. I thought that as long as I learned, grades weren't as important. Plus, I had NO CLUE about getting to know profs. and doing research early and all those things that help you get into grad school.
3) Less IRC. Duh.
no subject
Date: 2002-03-19 12:58 pm (UTC)It's in a little tiny yellow jar (maybe 3 inches tall, and 2 inches in diameter, or something like that).
Re:
Date: 2002-03-19 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-03-19 06:35 pm (UTC)The other is in South Davis, at the corner of Mace and Chiles (Mace is the last overpass if you're heading east from Davis).
The proper way to eat Veggie
Since vegemite is rich in vitamin B it's an excellent way to recover from a drinking session.
Trust me on this.