Flying on Memorial Day Weekend = DOOM! Seek Shelter in Awesome Food!

(Be forewarned that the first half of this is mostly ranting and raving but somehow segues into a culinary review of some of my favorite places to eat in Atlanta – nom nom nom! Read on to find out how!)

So obviously within the first week of blogging, I’ve already failed at updating daily. But I have a good excuse, I swear! I have to say that I rarely ever have problems flying. Moreover, the only times I’ve had problems flying have been with U.S. Air which was a disaster trying to get home after a grad school interview. It was their plane that needed maintenance so they bumped me to the next day but did zero for me. No food voucher, no stay at the hotel at the airport, nothing. Nada. Zippo. Instead it was, “Well, you should go back into the city and stay with someone…” which of course was impossible considering I didn’t KNOW anyone in Boston at the time. Since then, I’ve had several people tell me that U.S. Air has a very corporate attiude when it comes to their customers and flights – “You’ll fly when it’s convenient for us, and you’ll like it!” Thanks a bunch U.S. Air. Your one-time stunt helped me never to want to fly on your craptastical airline ever again.

That being said, this weekend wasn’t really any better. After spending a week on the Isle of Palms in lovely Charleston, SC with my parents (who have found a house that they like, though I don’t really see it as a vacation home but as more of a second home - if they want to do that, I suppose it’s fine, but I would never justify spending that kind of money for the house that they’re considering) I was all set to fly back to Boston. Although the trip was technically a vacation, I was actually looking forward to getting back to Beantown. Thanks to my existential crisis as of late, I actually prefer not to be left alone with a lot of time to myself and to my thoughts. All that seems to accomplish is to get me started on an endless loop of what-ifs and maybes about life that only provoke and self-perpetuate anxiety. Apparently throwing myself into work is now my mental vacation – FML. At any rate, as I was saying before I pulled a little raincloud overhead, I was good to go to fly back to Boston, had a nice seafood lunch, got to the airport, said goodbye to my family, and headed through security.

From the time that I checked-in to the time that I got to the gate, the flight had been delayed by 30 minutes. Although irritating, it wasn’t the end of the world. I’d left a little over an hour for my layover at the Atlanta airport, and although Atlanta can be a madhouse, it should have still been easy enough to make my connecting flight. Until of course, the storm of DOOOOOM appeared (extra letters and caps lock have been added here for emphasis and may not be suitable for those under 13). As we were sitting on the runway to take off, we were informed that due to bad weather in Atlanta, incoming flights were having their departure times scheduled from Atlanta to control incoming traffic. While the delay there would have made me miss my original connecting flight, I had already checked to make sure there was another, just in case. So, off we went to Atlanta – whoosh! – only to be forced into a holding pattern (over the city once we got there, mind you) until the weather cleared. The problem then became (as if there weren’t enough already) that the plane was too small to hold enough fuel to circle for too long. Apparently the storm hovered just long enough to force us back to Charleston. That’s right. I was actually OVER the city of Atlanta and had to fly BACK to Charleston where I started from. Oy.

Now, at this point, the trip had already turned into a bona fide fiasco. How could it possibly get any worse you might ask? What could it possible take to make the day into a certified debacle? After getting back to Charleston, there was an entire plane full of people waiting to talk to two gate agents about moving and getting on different flights. Halfway through that line, they announced that all 3 of the Atlanta flights for that evening would now be able to back to Atlanta since they’d been refueled and the weather had let up. That sounds great right?! Except, oh wait, by that time, I would have gotten to Atlanta 15 minutes after the last flight to Boston would have left for the evening. At this point, I found the whole thing too ridiculous to be angry at. I just had to laugh and walk in circles for about 2 minutes while I tried to figure out how to remain sane. Then, I got to talk to the gate agent. Joy. What did that all-knowing, all-powerful gate agent have to tell me? I couldn’t get on a flight to Boston until at least Sunday. That’s right. It was Friday night at 8:30 p.m., I was back in the place I’d started after circling around the city I was supposed to be in, and now I couldn’t get back until over 48 hours later.

Because of the nature of the Charleston airport, Delta really only services two major cities, Atlanta and New York at LaGuardia. The flights to Boston out of those cities, though, were all booked. Fan-fucking-tastic. Even worse? I thought I’d turn the layover into a chance to see some people in Atlanta – and the gate agent told me it wasn’t possible to do a layover that wasn’t on the same day. This is, of course, preposterous. Although making the layover more than say 8 or 9 hours is unusual, I’d seen people change their flights to have 2 or 3 days layover in front of my very eyes. And here I was unable to get home for at least 48 hours, and a huffy, blonde gate agent was going to try and tell me that I couldn’t do something that I’d seen other people flying on Delta do right in front of me? Oh. Hell. No. You better know that I went on all-out only-child-gay-guy-bitch fit. And it worked. Don’t mess. Got it?

Basically from there, I went back to the condo for the night with my parents and got up less than 6 hours later to catch my flight to Atlanta. I booked a pretty nice hotel downtown for a relatively cheap amount (Hyatt Place in case you’re interested – I booked it through Travelocity and it was about $100 a night with a king-sized bed, giant TV, couch, and the staff was great)


I also rented a car through Enterprise and ended up with a new black Mustang convertible. Suhweet!


Now that I’ve plugged various travel establishments in Atlanta, I shall cover some of my favorite restaurants that I went to while I was there. First, Saba (note that the picture is before they finished their remodel).


Although it may seem unassuming and the Emory kids have probably come to hate it after eating too much of it, I loved this place when I was there two summers ago and I love it even more now. They recently renovated the inside and it’s awesome! It has an actual bar area and everything else is updated and modern. If you happen to ever go and like seafood, I highly recommend the Penne Grecco. It has shrimp and kalamari in an awesome, slightly spicy sauce, over penne along with feta cheese, kalamata olives, tomatoes, and peppers. AWESOME!

Next is Café Intermezzo.



While I enjoy dinner here as well (the tortellini is great and I did ok with the seafood risotto, though the shrimp either seemed slightly undercooked or were cooked with the risotto in such a way that they turned out slimy), Intermezzo should be most noted for their drinks and desserts. When you can get your own tour guide for the dessert section, you know you’re in the right place. I enjoy their cheesecake mostly, but the others are all worth a go. They also have a drink book that’s about as big as the menu at the Cheesecake Factory. And if you know anything about that menu, all I can say is that you could probably come to Intermezzo every day for a year and not get through half of their drink list.

Continuing on our tour of culinary Atlanta, the Flying Biscuit is the ideal place for breakfast, no matter what time of day.


My favorite is the Clifton omelet which is stuffed with mushrooms and goat cheese. Also, I don’t care whether or not you THINK you like grits, you have to try the grits here. They are completely amazing! There’s cheese melted in them along with being perfectly cooked and seasoned. It’s like a party in your mouth and you’re invited!


Simply put - SHOUT.



I wasn’t actually able to eat there this time around – sad panda =( - but it’s worth mentioning because if it hadn’t been for Memorial Day, I would have eaten there for lunch today. There are a couple of restaurants, including SHOUT, which are all owned by the same people and serve tapas. It wasn’t until I came to Atlanta 2 years ago that I was introduced into the wonders of tapas. If you haven’t experienced the fun and awesomeness of a tapas restaurant, do yourself a favor – go find one and pig out. It helps to go with a friend to pick a variety and share, but you could easily make do by yourself. SHOUT, along with it’s sister restaurant TWIST and third-wheel Noche, all have an all-you-can-eat tapas night (I know Noche is on Monday and I think that the others are as well) for $10 before a certain time. It’s a special chef-prepared menu and only lasts while the food does, but it’s well worth it. Although I like all 3, SHOUT has the better atmosphere in my opinion. Located in Midtown, it has two stories, the upper of which has an outdoor area that, so I’m told, tends to turn into a big dance party. The inside is definitely modern and well done, if not slightly crowded in the front. Either way, there’s something on the menu for everyone and it will be nom-a-licious.

Where DID I go to eat lunch, then, you might ask? Another awesome place – Alon’s.



While Alon’s isn’t really a restaurant per se, you can get restaurant-type food. Mostly, it’s more of a deli/market/bakery, but you can get sandwiches along with pre-made sides. My sandwich favorite is the Asian Salmon. It has an awesome glaze on it and is topped with cucumbers and sprouts. MMMM! Although they didn’t have them this time, I usually get the garlic roasted red potatoes as a side. When they’re in season though, don’t hesitate to go for the cherry tomato and mozzarella salad. You won’t be disappointed! It’s not just tomatoes and cheese as you might expect – there’s a light coating of something that I can’t quite place (it’s not just olive oil unless it’s super high quality but seems to also have some kind of herb or seasoning) that really makes it. They also have desserts, cheese, and bread that you can buy just for your own home.

Now that we’ve been down culinary lane, I’m sitting on a plane, in a tight, cramped seat, doing some writing and actually looking forward to being back in Boston (even if I’ll be starving when I get there now), if only to be distracted. From here on out, the month of June will be my first year paper on the differences in the instantiation of psychological essentialism in natural kinds versus social categories. Sounds like a blast, right? Well, if you’re a nerd like me, then yes, it is. If not, I apologize in advance as you’ll probably here about it at some point. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get back into the swing of things with blogging. The next topic to come up out of my bag of tricks is most likely to be the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal so you’ll get to see my political side. I don’t guarantee that you’ll agree, but if you decide to read it and you have an opinion, you're more than welcome to share it, just at least keep it civil ;-).

Until then, have some good eats and nom nom nom!

On the Importance of Exercise in the Age of Grad School (A Case Study in Tennis Lessons)

Oh grad school. You take away many things from me: a social life, feelings of self-worth, sleep, my sanity… But you also take away something else from me – time to exercise. Now, this is not to say that this is a grad-school-centered phenomenon and if I wasn’t in grad school this problem would magically disappear. For sure, there are things that we all do that keep us from really spending time in the gym, in the yard, or just taking a walk around the neighborhood. There are very few of us who can say that we lead lives that truly have hours a day left completely open for exercise. Yet, as much as we hate to admit it, of the things that we can and do make time for in our day-to-day lives, exercise should be one of them.

These thoughts come from the tennis lesson that I had today. I have to say that I love tennis. Summer makes me happy because it’s the French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open in about a span of 3 months. I get giddy =P. So, when I found myself on the beach with one of the highest rated tennis clubs in the South right down the street, I figured I’d take advantage and fit in a lesson from a pro.


Now, although I love tennis, I have to say that I’m at best highly mediocre. Factor in that I haven’t played more than once in almost a year, and I’m sure that I’m even less than decent at this point. That being said, I’ve always found that, at least for me, tennis is one of those sports where simply the more time you spend playing, the better you will get. Drills and such surely help if you know someone who can help you out, but repetition will be enough for your average recreational player.

In order to really get back into the game though, I thought it would be a horrible terrific idea to spend an hour doing drills with a pro to work on my shot consistency. Did he have some good advice? Definitely. He reminded me of things that I already knew a bit and showed me some things that I didn’t. I got a good reminder on getting under the ball and using topspin to keep it in the court – something I already knew – along with making sure to bend ze knees for more power. One of the things he showed me was that I wasn’t getting all the way around the ball when I was hitting it. Of course, I was being a bit lazy and keeping a bit of an open stance when hitting. This basically kept me from getting much power on the ball, even with bent knees. If you can’t swing around with it, much like baseball, where is the power going to come from? So, all of that being said, he definitely helped my game.


What wasn’t useful was my bright idea to schedule the lesson at 1 p.m. in the afternoon on an 80-something degree South Carolina day. Thank God for ocean breezes. Moreover, I haven’t worked out in about the same amount of time as I haven’t played tennis – about a year. And the latter is what really got me. At my weight, I’m already stressing my heart. Throw in intense aerobic exercise out in the heat with a huge stress on my core and it’s a recipe for disaster. And a disaster it was. After the first set of drills I was already having trouble catching my breath and my heart was pounding – probably over 180bpm. When you hit over 200bpm, you’re really at a point where you’re overtaxing yourself. 160 is supposed to be a really good aerobic range. If only I could have been there. Oy. Instead, even after taking about 8 or 10 minutes to slow down and get somewhat back to normal, the next set of drills killed me in about half the time. Flash forward and I had to take another break before really getting too far into the third set of drills and inevitably ended the lesson about 10 minutes early. Sure, that gave us plenty of time to pick up the balls littering the court, but it was more because I was completely spent than anything.

Now, although it was definitely intense and it was hot outside, to be so completely drained after about 45 minutes is not a good thing, especially when I was taking 5 or 10 minute breaks every 15 minutes. After already being on high-anxiety mode over other perceived health problems this summer (note that I said perceived – thanks existential crisis for sending me to near-hypochondria land), the fact is that my blood pressure is high, especially for someone my age. There were times were being on the tennis court was almost more painful than enjoyable.

Given all of that, I have resolved to join the gym near my apartment when I get back. Why I haven’t before is mostly a mystery. The sad part is that the gym is literally a block away. There is zero to no excuse why I shouldn’t be able to take advantage of it. What it comes down to is that the heart is a muscle and it needs to get a good workout. The more important thing is that it’s the little muscle that is pretty essential to life. Sure we can’t really do without any of our organs (save for that pesky appendix or one of those flakey kidneys or that gallbladder thing that I hear about once in a while), but we can’t really work out the others either, save for maybe the brain. That is to say, you can’t work out your liver to make it work better (contrary to many of my college friends’ who were in fraternities beliefs). There are of course things you can do to keep from harming those other organs, but the heart is unique in that exercise will decrease risk of heart disease, lower your blood pressure, and really increase it’s quality of functioning. Isn’t that worth it?


Coming from a family that has a history of diabetes and heart disease, I have always told myself that I wouldn’t let myself fall into that trap. And yet, here we are: I’m 22 years old, far overweight at 250, and bordering on being clinically diagnosed with high blood pressure. I refuse to let that happen. Instead, I will make the effort to get myself back to being someone that can be happy with. After all, there are cosmetic reasons for wanting to lose weight as well. Let’s face it, gay guys can be quite superficial (not to stereotype, but hey, the stereotype has to come from somewhere). Of course, exercise isn’t the only key to losing the weight and increasing overall health. That comes from diet as well, which certainly can’t be ignored. The first step, though, is making all of this habit. I’ve talked up a big game, and I hope I can live up to it.

Lady GleeGlee aka Glee goes GaGa for GaGa

Alright, I'm just going to come out and say it. Tonight's episode was probably my personal favorite of Glee so far.

Now, I know there are a lot of people who 1) Dislike GaGa (how dare you?!) 2)Dislike Glee and/or 3) Will dislike this particular episode of Glee regardless of their Gleek status. I acknowledge number 3 while anyone who falls within numbers 1 or 2 should reevaluate their feelings and come back (Note: if you return with feelings still in-line with numbers 1 and 2, repeat and try again). You may be asking yourself, "Why does he like it so much if he's willing to acknowledge #3 for other people?" The answer is relatively simple: this episode strikes an emotional chord with me even though a lot of its storyline is kind of lame.

Before we move on, note that there are some decent SPOILERS ahead so this is SPOILER ALERT for those of you who haven't watched the episode or even haven't been keeping up with the last few. SPOILER ALERT, SPOILER ALERT, SPOILER ALERT! My job is done here. Now, on with the theatricality.

Let's start with the latter part of my answer. Face it. The "high school dress code squelching individuality" premise that leads us to the awesomeness of GaGa is rather weak, though perhaps not totally unexpected when you're dealing with a show that relies heavily on archetypes and severe stereotypes to make its point. That reliance isn't necessarily a bad thing (though I know a lot of people see it that way), you just have to take it for what it is. Remember, the show is a raging satire. You have to take it that way. Taking it too seriously is to doom it to failure. There are way too many things in life to be serious about. Glee is not one of them. Take it easy and enjoy the ride.

Reverse tangent and back to the point. The storyline here isn't incredibly coherent and you can tell that we're in the doldrums leading up to the season finale with the culmination of a nearly a year of awesome with the much anticipated regionals episode ("Journey"). We do, however, see the convergence of several story lines coming to a somewhat reasonable conclusion: Rachel meets, talks with, and gets some closure with her mom, Kurt and Finn explode on each other (mostly Finn being an ass - more on this later), and Puck finally learns what it means to have fathered a child with Quinn. These are all things that have been brewing in the "back nine" of Glee and we've all been wanting to know what would happen. Yet, throwing them altogether at once makes each one of them slightly less satisfying to see. The whole episode could have just as easily been about only Rachel/Shelby or Kurt/Finn and it would have been stronger. That being said, I still enjoyed everything story-wise, perhaps just less than I would have otherwise.

Now on to first of the two parts that made me really love this episode. Simply put - GaGa.



I mean, how can you not love Glee going GaGa? Bad Romance was fantastic, complete with decked out GaGa attire (we have a jumper!). All of the ladies of Glee looked fierce and totally worked it! Can we talk about how Naya Rivera's (Santana's) voice has been the best kept secret on the show? Or how Dianna Agron can bring it like nobody's business? Perhaps most impressive was Chris Colfer rocking the GaGa heels. I mean, I don't know how he did it quite honestly. I know that some of the best gays have taken turns in their mother's heels, but not those ferocious foot monsters! At the end of the day, the Glee Cast version of Bad Romance will be rocking my speakers for quite a while. As far as Poker Face goes, I know that a lot of people have hated it. All you have to do is search Twitter with "Glee" and "Poker Face" to find that probably well over 1/2 of the people who commented thought it was sacrilege. I, however, think it worked well in the context of the show. I saw a lot of similar comments on the iTunes page for Glee: The Music, Vol. 3 - Showstoppers. Everyone thinks that Glee ruined Poker Face. First, it's pretty much inspired by a version that the Lady herself often performs live as opposed to the original version:



Here it seems to work to remind us that Shelby and Rachel, while mother and daughter, won't hold back when it comes down to regionals. Show choir is srs bznss after all. And while "I Dreamed a Dream" from last week's episode was technically a duet between Idina Menzel and Lea Michele, this takes on a different quality because we can actually singing to each other instead of simply about each other.

This brings up an important side note about the songs of Glee. While we can listen to them on iTunes and usually buy them a bit in advance, often it's the emotional attachment and response that comes with the story that we see played out in the episode that really makes these songs worth listening to. Sure, they're great on their own, but when they remind us of what it was that accompanied the song, they're that much better. Just sayin'.

Without much more fanfare, I also have to say that I loved the guys of Glee doing "Beth." Along the lines mentioned above, it takes on a different meaning when you understand why it is that Puck is singing it (and can we mention how hot Mark Salling is? I mean, come on. Puck sundae? Yes, please and thank you).






We finally see him take on some redeeming qualities that we haven't seen for a while (since his attempts to raise money for Quinn and the baby). Also, entirely unrelated to the singing itself, Dianna Agron keeps bringing humanity to Quinn that I would have never thought possible at the beginning of the season. Her facial expressions during the song made me want to run and hug her. However, that would have resulted in an awkward moment with my TV screen, so I simply teared up instead.


Now, on to the second part of what made tonight's Glee one of my personal favorites. In a way it's rather bittersweet, but the Finn vs. Kurt storyline really made this episode connect with me. Perhaps this is because I just identify with Kurt on a lot of levels. While I was never flamboyant in the way that Kurt is portrayed, I shared a lot of fears, loves, and trials. I was lucky in that I never had overt issues with any of my friends when I came out to them (at least not in an in-your-face kind of way) in much the same way as Kurt did. I'm fairly certain that a lot of this had to do with selective friend-picking. Yet, the Kurt/Finn explosion when they start sharing a room really reminds us that it's not always kitties and rainbows (no pun intended... or is it? no, not really) even when things look okay on the surface. Up to this point, Finn had seemed to be kind of comfortable with Kurt being gay, and flamboyantly so. Sure, they had awkward moments, but nothing that suggested a blow-up like this was coming our way. When we see the worlds of gay and straight collide in a closed space, though, the tables turn and we see the real issues spring up.

The truth of the matter is that, like Finn, I've seen so many straight guys that are comfortable with their gay friends only up to a point. There's like an invisible line that you toe where it's okay to be gay as long as you aren't letting it show too much, as though simply being in the presence of "the gay" risks exposure to the gay cooties. I experienced a lot of this in college. Whether or not it was real or perceived doesn't make a ton of difference. Simply the perception that it exists means there's probably some truth to it. Moreover, it's even harder when you feel like you can't really be yourself around someone you consider to be one of your closest friends and even worse when you're trying to suppress feelings for said friend because you're trying to respect them (a la Finn and Kurt). All of this I know from personal experience and all of it is echoed in tonight's episode (and some of the one leading up to it). Then to see Finn finally explode was both painful and heartbreaking because it somehow seems to confirm what can be lurking under the facade of calm "tolerance" that many straight guys seem to express. Remember, there's a big difference between "tolerance" and "acceptance." Does that mean all guys are this way? Not at all. This is a fictional television show, after all. But it's one of those deep dark fears that it taps into.

During the fight, Finn drops "faggy" all over the place and this is perhaps what stings the most. A lot of people use "gay" or "fag" and try and justify it because they say it's harmless and isn't derogatory. But, especially today, you would never use the "N" word casually (unless maybe if you're black - there's a stage where minority groups will recapture derogatory words for themselves and gays are getting there with "that's gay" and "fag" but that doesn't mean that it's okay for the majority to use it, especially when it maintains the negativity) or "retard" when talking about someone who is mentally handicapped. It's the insinuation behind the usage that makes it hurtful moreso than it being directed at a particular person (in this case, Finn never calls Kurt a "fag" but it doesn't matter). If someone is doing something and you say, "Pfft, that's gay," you've probably said it because you think that person is doing something dumb or out of place or distasteful. The insinuation though is that it's all of those things because it's gay. Thus, there's an underlying belief that being gay is a negative thing. Is all of this conscious? Probably not. That doesn't mean it isn't hurtful, though. Sure, you can say that we're always having to be politically correct, but if you're saying that, you're probably in a majority group where you never have to worry about your feelings getting hurt. Wait until you're on the other end of it and see how it feels and then we can talk.

The two ways the episode digs us out of that hole is with Kurt's dad and Finn at the end of the episode. Kurt's dad here personifies what I've always wanted in a friend - someone who would be willing to stand up for me no matter who or what I was with the utmost veracity. It left me speechless and puts Finn in his place. Lastly, Finn's appearance in the red GaGa dress at the end to come to Kurt's rescue was both priceless ("That's why I'm here... in a shower curtain...") and heartwarming. As a bit of GaGa trivia, it was the dress that she wore when she met the Queen (of England). Fitting that Finn should wear it to come to the defense of his gay friend =P. Why is it that you can break my heart and mend it in under 25 minutes? Why, Glee? WHY?!?!

Anywho, until next week remember to watch out for jumpers!

Social Media and You – Out of the mouths of Lawyers (Part 2):

First off, if you didn't read Part 1, this one might not make a lot of sense at least initially because I wrote them together. That being said, we left off skipping down the merry lane of Facebook (and social media in general) privacy issues. Here comes the whole "why" of the Part 1:

Now of course, you might be saying to yourself, “I don’t have any family on Facebook and I would never be as masochistic as to go to grad school and TA for a 300 person psychology class where someone’s bound to add me on Facebook, let alone end up in a position where I'm going to have lawyer scoping me out so why should I care?” The simple fact of the matter is that if you are employed, applying to school, or have any concerns about future social image, you should care about your Facebook privacy settings. Why is that exactly? Because, at the very least, employers and universities can and do check Facebook profiles of applicants. Is it right? Well, we’ll get to that. Is it a reality? You better believe it.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find the article that had originally made me realize the lengths that especially universities will go to when it comes to Facebook. In the particular one that I can no longer find, I believe there were two smaller, religiously-affiliated schools (maybe even Duke?) that ended up revoking admissions from students based on pictures that they had posted on their Facebook pages prior to starting in the fall. These may have been schools that had specific conduct policies that students were supposed to adhere to, but again, I unfortunately can’t remember and can’t find the article (if anyone happens to know what I’m talking about, send it my way). However, I was able to find some other examples of how schools are using Facebook pages to their advantage. Oxford University administrators took a break from afternoon tea to take a jaunt through their students Facebook pages. Not only did they do that, but based on what they found, they even started issuing fines to students:

"After exams, students at the venerable English university traditionally drop their serious ways and indulge in a spasm of "trashings" — rowdy revels that include dousing classmates in foam, eggs and flour.

In recent years, students have taken to posting photos of the mess on Facebook, the popular online social networking site.

Disciplinary officials at Oxford have caught on — and have begun e-mailing students fines of $80 to $200 for breaking campus rules, said Martin McCluskey, president of the Oxford University Students Union."

Source

Another article by the Wall Street Journal reveals that university admissions counselors are more than willing to look at potential students’ Facebook pages. In fact, for some universities, it may even be routine:

"A new survey of 500 top colleges found that 10% of admissions officers acknowledged looking at social-networking sites to evaluate applicants. Of those colleges making use of the online information, 38% said that what they saw "negatively affected" their views of the applicant. Only a quarter of the schools checking the sites said their views were improved, according to the survey by education company Kaplan.

... Some admissions officers said they had rejected students because of material on the sites. Jeff Olson, who heads research for Kaplan's test-preparation division, says one university did so after the student gushed about the school while visiting the campus."

Source

None of this was much of an issue when I was applying for college because Facebook was mostly limited to college students who had already been admitted (since you already had to have a college email address to register), but I probably didn’t think about it as much as I should have when I applied to grad school. Could it have affected my admissions in certain places? Probably. Did it? The world may never know (like how many licks it takes to get to the center of Tootsie pop). For me, of course, the point is inevitably moot because I ended up somewhere that I was happy with and have a good working relationship with my advisor who is pretty open about anything personal that would have shown up on my Facebook (the man puts HRC equality stickers on anything and everything in the lab). This isn’t to say, though, that you should assume that everyone will be that way. In fact, they’re probably not.

I have to say that even I’m guilty of having looked up undergrads on Facebook who were applying for a job in the lab. To me it was just a bit of extra “time” with them in a way and didn’t really influence my opinion at all (though there were some that I thought would fit better personality-wise in the lab but professional experience was more important). However, there was one applicant that I absolutely turned down on the spot after seeing her Facebook page. This had nothing to do with the content located in it, but reminded me of my personal interactions with her. I had found her to be fairly obnoxious and irritating in person but didn’t actually know her name until I saw her Facebook page. As soon as I saw that, she was done.

Keeping all of that in mind, let’s backtrack to my interaction with the lawyer on my flight. She said that the first thing that she would do when taking on a new case would be to look up the defendant on Facebook and that had let quick calls to the opposing counsel to talk about a settlement (presumably due to incriminating evidence). Universities are obviously using Facebook to check on their students. The question then should be, is it appropriate for schools or employers to, in a way, intrude on the personal lives of their students and employees? The answer is that there’s no easy answer. Ha! How about that evasion? Here’s why: On the one hand, if you’re stupid/willing enough to broadcast everything about your life into a public forum, you have to be ready to accept the consequences. On the other hand, people have always had a life outside of work or school that their employers didn’t know the details of which wasn’t in any way fundamentally changed simply by the existence of Facebook (i.e. people were going out to bars and getting hammered long before Facebook came along). The only difference is that now employers can potentially gain access to that information through the internet, if they’re so inclined. But should they be?

While I’m barely in a position to be able to think about checking up on potential hires through Facebook, I have to say that personally if I were an employer I wouldn’t care about what my employees did after hours as long as they were completing their work on time and it wasn’t affecting my business. If you’re at a point where, as an employer, you’re wanting to screen for employees that aren’t of a particular ideological affiliation, religious affiliation, of a particular sexual orientation, don’t drink, or don’t do X, Y, or Z, then maybe you can take the liberty to really care about what people are putting on Facebook. Similarly, if you’re a potential employee who gets turned because of one of those criteria, maybe you shouldn’t really want to work for that employer anyway. Yet, that’s only a slight comfort in this day and age when people are looking for jobs in every nook and cranny of the economy.

This ultimately boils down to how “live and let live” an employer should be or wants to be. And unfortunately, that’s nothing that we can control. So, as the peons of the world, it’s best to make sure that your privacy is protected. Plus, why would you want to immediately broadcast that to someone you don’t know anyway? Yes, we should be able to live our lives openly, but at the same time, why would you walk up to someone and give them your whole life’s history? Don’t we usually hate those people anyway? If you want to open your life up to people later, go for it. But for the sake of trying to get into school or finding a job, take the necessary precautions.

Other overt issues of privacy aside, another one of the other major concerns about Facebook is that you should make sure that you stand by what it is that you’re putting up there. Why is that exactly? Because nothing on Facebook ever really goes away. Yes, there’s a limited amount of stuff that you can access on a person’s page at one time, but everything, EVERYTHING is maintained in Facebook’s database. Even if you were to delete your profile, it doesn’t go into the void of the internet. Instead, it goes into a giant Facebook filing cabinet that they still have access to and others could potentially gain access to as well. Certainly, this is not ideal. The fact that we don’t have total ownership of things that we post on Facebook kind of sucks. Yet, given that we’re all Facebook junkies and probably aren’t going to go cold turkey tomorrow for fear of withdrawal, it’s necessary to just be aware of everything that you’re putting out there for the world to see. If you’re willing to post it for the world, make sure it’s something that you’re going to be able to stand behind. We all draw ideological lines in the sand. This isn’t news. However, if you aren’t willing to hold the line, then don’t put yourself in a position where you have to and keep it neutral. On the other side of it, if you’ll fight to the death for what it is that you have to say, then have at it.

However, all may not be so doom and gloom with Facebook in the near future. Because of pressure not only from users but even from Congress, Facebook and other social media sites are having their privacy practices put under a microscope. Due to the pressure, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, has issued some statements regarding privacy controls on the site:

"Mr. Zuckerberg, in an opinion piece published in the Washington Post, admitted the social network had sometimes "missed the mark" with its privacy controls and would take steps to make it easier for users to manage their personal data on the site.

... Facebook will "add privacy controls that are much simpler to use," Mr. Zuckerberg said. He added the company will also allow users to turn off all third-party services. He didn't elaborate on what such services are, but they could include games and functions that let Facebook interact with other websites.

... In the opinion piece, he said the company is learning as it goes. "Our intention was to give you lots of granular controls; but that may not have been what many of you wanted," he wrote."

Source

So, there you go. Social media isn’t going to go away. In this age of technology, it will surely keep evolving and morphing, but these are issues that we’re all going to have to keep dealing with. Enjoy your social media and make it work for you. Just remember – user beware!

"Theatricality"

Ok, I was thinking I'd try and keep the blog posts to one a day or slightly less. In this case, I'll make an exception. I just finished buying my Glee: The Music, Vol. 3 - Showstoppers (Deluxe Edition) and it made me so excited for tomorrow's episode of Glee!

If you've been living under a rock and haven't heard of Glee, I cannot in good conscience allow you to continue on in such a sad, sad existence. As an intro, here's the teaser for tomorrow night's episode "Theatricality."



More awesomely, here is the video of the Glee cast, who is currently on tour (sad panda that they're not making it to Boston. NYC road trip anyone?) performing Lady Gaga's - Bad Romance, complete with full on Gaga attire!



Now, although I believe that everyone should be involved in this awesome phenomenon of Glee, I wouldn't personally recommend hopping on the Glee train if you haven't been keeping up. The characters' storylines are at a point where they'd seem even more preposterous than they always are if you hadn't seen where they started.

Before people start getting on their TV soapbox, the important thing to remember about Glee is that it's completely over-the-top satire whose stereotypical archetypes only exist to meet that end-goal of poking fun at anything and everything about high school. At any rate, if you're a Gleek, tune in tomorrow. I usually miss the TV airing of it, but I'm sure it'll make it into Wednesday's blog post after I get a chance to watch this episode that I'm about to pee my pants over. Until then, watch out for jumpers, and get your Gaga on!

Social Media and You – Out of the Mouths of Lawyers (Part 1):

(Upfront, I apologize for the length of the post and that it turned into a bit of how-to. This certainly won’t be the trend, but as you’ll read, this is something that’s come up enough recently that I thought I’d spend some time on it. Plus, I just got carried away =P)

For my first non-introductory entry, I thought I’d tackle some of the issues surrounding social media, specifically Facebook but also equally applicable to a site like Twitter – partially because I love both of them and also because I don’t want you to run away screaming when I start waxing philosophical… yet. You might be thinking to yourself, “Geez, I’m on someone’s blog, of COURSE I know about social networking sites!” However, this conversation has come up several times for me recently, including yesterday with a nice lawyer I was sitting with on the plane from Boston to Atlanta (ironically while I was writing yesterday’s inaugural blog post) who mentioned that the first thing she does when handling a lawsuit is to look up the defendant on Facebook. She went on to say that more than once what she’s found on someone’s Facebook page has prompted her to call the opposing counsel to see if they already wanted to settle. Have your attention yet? Good. Now, there are some really simple things you may be overlooking that could be very important when it comes to your social media.

The main issue with these kinds of websites is privacy. The first thing to note is that with social networking you basically have none. That’s right, I went there. NONE. Stop to consider that for a second because it’s kind of a big deal. Well, at least it’s as big of a deal as you make it insofar as how much you want the world to know. Facebook is probably the biggest example and convergence of internet privacy issues to date. In a world where we are constantly linked-in to the internet with laptops, netbooks, iPads (which are so freakin’ shiny!), smartphones, and the like, a site like Facebook is literally at the world’s fingertips at the drop of a hat. This in and of itself is not a problem, but it can become a huge one if you’re not aware of what it is that you’re doing.

I guarantee you that 90% of the people you know have never even looked at their privacy settings in Facebook. The privacy settings allow you to limit what other people can see at varying degrees of freedom away from you (i.e. your friends versus friends of friends that you awkwardly know because of that one time at that one party with that incident on the table that you don’t like to talk about versus other people in your network that you’re not friends with at all because they’re total creepers) and can be found under the “Account” drop-down menu.


From there the most important options, at least in my opinion, are found under Personal Information and Posts.


When you get inside that menu, you can see that you can hide almost anything on your profile page. What might be slightly more surprising is how much you haven’t hidden already (unless you happen to already be technologically conscious and if so, congratulations. Have a cookie!).


Keep in mind that most people on almost any Facebook network can see anything that’s not specifically hidden. Even if you have your different posts and photos limited to within your network, this is no longer even a guarantee. Waaaaaaay back when, as in when I started college in 2005, Facebook used to only be for those who had access to valid university email addresses. Moreover, a specific email address would only gain you access to that particular university’s network. These days, however, anyone can join pretty much any network if you a valid email address. And I mean ANYone. What this means is that if you want to keep your Facebook profile relatively private, you HAVE to limit access to your content to pretty much just your friends.

This is not to say that people who aren’t friends with you yet won’t be able to see anything about you when they search. It just means they’ll be able to see significantly less than one of your friends. If you want to check and see what different people can see, the “Preview My Profile” button up in the corner.


From there you’ll be able to see the default page that people within Facebook see when they search for you, say if they were going to add you as a friend. Take a look around and see what it is that you’ve left open. Make sure to pay special attention to your different photos and albums. While the other privacy settings are fairly straightforward, your pictures could turn out to be a disaster. In order to hide all of your pictures, you have to go through and set the privacy settings for each individual album. That means if you have 20 albums, you’re going to have to go through 20 times and set the privacy for each one to only be for the viewing pleasure and ridicule of your friends.

Another thing that you might want to do is to take a look at what specific friends see on your page. You can do this by typing a friend’s name into the box at the top of the preview page.


This is especially useful if you want to marginally but not completely limit access to certain people. I’ve found this to be an ideal fix for parents and family members who have ninja-ed their way into Facebook. I say ninja-ed, of course, because when I first started using Facebook it was limited to only college students, and it was a big part of the college experience that’s supposed to be getting you away from your family. At any rate, you may feel bad for rejecting the friend request from your mom or even your grandmother (oh yes, there’s a good chance that at least one of your friends’ grandparents is on Facebook and yes, it boggles the mind) but there may be certain things that you don’t want them to see. Using the preview button, you can take a look at what it is that they can see on your page. If there’s something that they have access to that you DON’T want them to see, you can go back to the privacy settings and make an exception for a particular content area. For instance, you might let all of your friends see the posts on your wall, except for your mom (would you believe that this was the first thing that I did when my mom added me on Facebook? Of course you would!). You can make that exception through the drop down menu. You can also create full lists of friends to make an exception for. This is also useful for those of us in grad school who have students that we TA for who are just trying to be friendly and we don’t want to reject but want to maintain professional distance as well.

Alright. So there you have a good background guide to Facebook privacy. Again, sorry it turned out to be a bit how-to-ish. In part 2, we'll look at the more practical side of why it is that you should care about your privacy at all instead of letting it all hang out for the world to see.

A Brief History of the World (of Me)

Before blogging took off to become the way in which everyday people shared their supposedly “prolific” (though usually mundane) thoughts on the world or Perez Hilton appeared to entice us with all of the celebrity gossip that we never really needed to know or aspiring political pundits took to the web to espouse the most radical viewpoints imaginable that never have been and likely never will be suitable for any other forum, people simply wrote to pass the time and engage in an activity as cathartic as the most relaxing vacation or life-examining conversation with life-long friends. In the past, writing has provided that outlet for me, and now I hope it will again. Will anyone listen? I doubt it. Does that matter? Absolutely not. In my teens, creative writing along with some journaling helped me come to grips with who I was and where I saw myself in the world. Yet, as of late, I’ve found it somewhat difficult to find a handhold on the passage of time - to slow down and enjoy the simpler things in the tiniest moments that are nested in the day-to-day hustle and bustle of big-city life which is only exacerbated by the pains joys of graduate school. I hope that by forcing myself to sit down and examine different things with the intent of writing about them, I can regain some footing in the overly-busy world I’ve created for myself.

Don’t get me wrong, I asked for and usually enjoy the life that I’ve chosen to live at the ripe old age of 22. Could I have chosen something to go into something more lucrative (like business or medicine) or something easier (like a basic office or computer job)? Of course. However, I’ve never really aspired to underachieve when it comes to my academic and career goals. Other than that brief, ungodly stint where I thought I not only wanted to be but would enjoy being a doctor, I’ve never even really considered careers with high-paying salaries. Now of course, this paints me into a corner where I’m theoretically working way too hard for not enough money. Welcome to the reality of grad school. And yet, for some reason, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Grad school is all of the following: difficult, stressful, full of failure, abound with overly inflated scientific egos, five years of your life sucked into a black hole, a roadblock to personal relationships and a social life, and a guaranteed financial stress. Of course, you may be sitting there thinking, “Who on earth would possibly subject themselves to that?!” The answer is quite simple really – masochistic nerds. Yet, the thrill of discovering something new even if it’s only exciting to you and no one else (as is usually the case in academia) is enough to make the entire process worthwhile. Keeping this in mind along the way is often difficult, but that occasional glimmer of light at the end of the scientific tunnel is enough to keep us going.

Grad school aside, I certainly never had to move to a city like Boston. Well over 1,000 miles from my friends and family, a move from the South to New England’s and one of the U.S.’s largest cities didn’t have to be part of “the plan” (read: occasionally drawn out life goals that constantly change, often to the dismay of the parental units). Why did I do it, then, you might ask? I’ve always felt more at home in a cosmo/metropolitan area. People tend to be less judgmental and much more “live and let live.” Of course, even in the largest city in the South, you have people who still want to know all about your business. In many ways, Louisville was the largest small town you could imagine because it retained that rather undesirable southern trait. Over a million people? No problem! You can still go out of our way to find out anything about anyone if you’re really interested and/or motivated enough.


New England, at large, seems to find a way around this problem. It probably has something to do with being more liberal in general – and thus, in many ways less judgmental – than many areas of the South. Yet, it also comes at a bit of a cost. Although it’s not clear which causes which, the “live and let live” attitude of New England comes along with a social aloofness or isolation that you’d never find in the South. In the South, you can walk outside, wave at someone, and end up with a new friend before the day is out. In New England, if you do the little awkward wave that says, “I’m just walking by but I’d thought I’d be nice and let you know that I simply acknowledge your existence” to someone you’re likely to be given a really weird look and/or eyeroll. This is not to say that people in New England aren’t friendly, which is the common misconception held by those hailing from the U.S.’s more southern latitudes. I’ve never had an interaction with anyone in Boston where they were simply flat-out rude. There just seems to be a difference in opinion as to how energy should be expended with respect to other people between those in the South and those in New England. Now, what does all of that rambling mean? The point is that it’s somewhat more difficult to establish a friend-base in a larger city, especially one like Boston. This, of course, perpetuates some of the worst qualities of grad school like social isolation or overworking. When it’s that much harder to make friends, why not spend all of your free time trying to find that scientific breakthrough that’s always just out of reach just around the corner!

So, after all of that, you can see that the portrait has been painted of an overworked, underpaid, slightly masochistic graduate student who’s made it even more difficult to maintain the relationships that he has by moving 1,200 miles away from most of the people that he considers the most important and is in a difficult position to create new relationships thanks to both his choice of career and location. Fantastic. Now you can see hopefully see a bit of where my perspective comes from and why taking the time to do something as simple as writing a blog would be therapeutic and perhaps necessary to remain sane.

From here on out, I’ll be providing my thoughts on lots of things: life, politics, pop culture, technology, music, all things gay, or anything else. It’s all fair game if I happen to find it interesting. Does that mean that YOU will find it interesting? I won’t even come close to trying to guarantee that. Luckily, that’s why a search bar exists near the top of your browser to get you as far away from here as quickly as possible if you wish. That being said, when I do make new blog posts, I’ll try and inject my own brand of humor so that hopefully if you suffer through this with me, you might at least get a tiny chuckle here and there (don’t hold your breath for total LOLs).

For now, all I can say is stay tuned and watch what happens.