Study Tips!

1. Get plenty of rest and stay focused!
2. Keep snacks handy, like a granola bar or ziploc bag of peanuts!
3. Carefully investigate all of the Facebook photo albums of the girl who is in one recent photo with the muscular boy you said 4 sentences to in high school!
4. Take breaks!
5. Watch every video on the Disney Weddings YouTube channel!
6. Acronyms always help with studying!
7. Watch every video on the Disney Weddings YouTube channel again, but this time skip all of your exams and stay in bed with Cake Batter ice cream while watching them!
8. Keep your phone off.

Ways To Look At A Show Program During Intermission At A Show Alone

- Become deeply invested in the familial relationships of the cast members. Ana said in her bio that she “sends HUGE hugs and kisses to Mom, Dad, & Erin! <3″, but there’s nothing to be found in Ryan’s bio except a list of his other musical theatre roles. What’s going on at home for him? Should you invite him to Thanksgiving with your family this year?

 - You brought your origami handbook, right? Good. Fold it into a helicopter. No, not a paper airplane. You’re at “Miss Saigon” for Chrissakes.

- Bring all of the old programs from shows you’ve seen and see how they stack up against this one. Don’t be afraid to scoff.

- Put the program away and stare at your phone.

This Will Be A Temperate GabFest

Girls, I’m so glad you all showed up to my sleepover. You may have been to other sleepovers throughout your elementary school careers, and they may have been uproarious and “crazy”, but I’m hoping to aim for something a little different here. This will be a temperate GabFest.

Don’t get me wrong. We will have plenty of fun. First on the agenda is not a pillow fight, but instead a pillow book exchange. We’ll each discuss our book selections (you all brought your books like I told you to, right? No, Jackie? Fine. Use one from my shelf. Just make sure it’s one that you have some contextual information about. Like, don’t pick “Of Mice and Men” if you have no knowledge about the socioeconomic implications of The Great Depression on American agriculture, okay?) and then have a fun little drawing to see who gets to take whose book home! We can sit on pillows during this process!

Oh, and we will certainly gab. I know Lexi had her first tongue kiss this week, but that’s not really the kind of content I’m going for here. I heard that Mrs. Raymond won the neighborhood Christmas light show for the first time! She took a chance with the choice to synchronize the lights flashing with a mash-up of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” and “Deck the Halls”, having only used one song or the other in past years. Let’s use that as a solid jumping off point.

Oh, um, Sarah? Could you keep your retainer in, please? Thanks.

I’m showing both “Passport to Paris” and “Winning London” in the upstairs office starting at 9pm, but it’s my Dad’s special room, so just don’t bring your sleeping bags up there. Fabric carries a lot of dust.

So, let’s get this thing started! Who wants to be the assigned verb-giver for Mad Libs? There can only be one!

An Open Letter To Math

Dear Math,

Today I am done with you. I completed my final mathematics exam for my college Applied Mathematics for Social and Management Sciences class not three hours ago. We’re through. Your things are on the front stoop.

I’ve put up with a lot from you. I’ll admit, it’s partly my fault because I was fooled by how blissful the honeymoon period was. Being asked to tutor other math students in seventh grade when we began algebra, hugged and high-fived by teachers who loved how neat my handwriting was (I can still write fractions very clearly in only one line of notebook paper, in case you forgot), being asked to take AP Calculus AB my junior year of high school, assuming I would then take BC senior year and earn enough credits to never have to take a math class again in college…

It was all a facade. Empty promises. An empty trunk of withered promises. An empty, decrepit, black AND brown widow spider-infested trunk with saggy, ghost-like, grey and black promises draped on the outside of it. You never told me that calculus was going to be hard.

You knew when we met that I wanted to be in show business. You knew I would have rehearsal every day after school my junior year because I had climbed my way up the high school theatre department ladder to STAGE MANAGER. So why did you introduce integrals into the picture?

No, no, leave me alone. I know you made things better for a few months with Statistics. You always make that argument. We had a lot of fun with box-and-whisker plots. It felt like paradise. Sure, you maybe saw a crazier, more brazen side of me with our nights of passionate confidence intervals in Puerta Vallarta. But I think we were deluding ourselves. We need to face reality.

You’re a mean, little, merciless man. You’re short and acne-ridden. English is a tall, dark-haired, elegantly quaffed wealthy boy wearing a cardigan who opens doors for me. History is the same except he has a beard. You and Science can go watch your Sunday football games at your gross apartment from now on. Not in my house anymore. And don’t even THINK about bringing that imbecile Physics around ever again. He tried to feel me up under the table last Thanksgiving.

Those last two years of high school were the most trying of our time together. The ease of a giant college lecture format made me temporarily forget your selfishness. But now that I’ve finished this last exam – which had a very unfair question about domains on it, by the way (you think I don’t notice these little things, BUT I DO! Like when you don’t clean up your orange peels from the counter) – I’m a stronger person.

I know myself now. If I have to thank you for anything, it’s that I learned a lot about how much I’d rather analyze the veiled greedy intentions behind the trading of Suez Canal than try to solve you.

You’re gonna have to go solve yourself from now on. Or get that slut in our building, Biomedical Engineering, to solve you. I heard that she solves everybody. Use protection.

Sincerely,

Liz

Objectivist Playground Equipment

Bridge To Success

Luck Lasts Forever Balance Beam

Wooden Castle Maze To Your Secretary’s Vagina

Concrete Jungle Gym

Teeter-Totter In My Direction Because I’m Better Than You

Altruism-Free Handlebars

Slide Away From Your Family

A Frustrated Chief Executive Engineer Addresses His Staff Entirely Composed Of Disney Imagineers

I’ve gathered everyone in the lobby this morning to address some ongoing issues that are difficult to bring up during the day-to-day hustle and bustle. Being hired at Stantec Incorporated means that you are achievers. A lot of civil engineers apply for this firm. You are the special ones.

Unfortunately, and I don’t know how this completely bypassed me during the administrative process – I’ll speak with my HR intern Cindy after the meeting – you all are fresh graduates of the exact same system. Now, the Disney Imagineers program was a great experience I’m sure. And I’m sure you learned a lot about the velocity of water rafts and about how to make a robot dinosaur open its mouth so that it doesn’t actually hurt anyone but for a second you think he’s going to eat you and it’s really exciting, but we build bridges. Literally. Stantec Inc. is a civil engineering firm that builds bridges for eighteen clients in and around the Sumter County region. That’s it.

Geoffrey, you’re our star. You’ve made a lot of high-profile deals with city departments who desperately need bridges. However, your delivery is a little bit different. Wakulla County now has a secret grotto that transforms color and emits sparkly fog every hour on the hour. No bridge.

Lori. The Bushnell causeway – again, let me note, a BRIDGE – was supposed to be just that. Nothing more. The city comptroller didn’t say, “Hey, Lori, you know what’d be great? A bellowing Medusa sound byte when people drive over the causeway smiting all male sailors who pass.” Or, “Lori! When you’re done with that causeway, could you add a special lane for a haunted doom buggy?” He said, “Can Stantec build Bushnell a causeway?” He did NOT ask for a Chamber of Ghouls.

Imagineering was a fun time for you all. I can tell. But all I’m asking for is basic engineering skills. Stop trying so hard. Drop the games. Drop the confetti. Literally. Cindy, put the silver confetti back in the Orbit FutureWorld Room. God, that used to be my coffee break room. While you’re in there, please take down the galaxy dream charts.

I’m really asking you guys to just jump back into the box. I’m sure your time out if it was pleasant, but the humble town of Starke needs a bridge. What they do not need is a Backwoods Barn Hall Jamboree light and synchronized tambourine show.

Again, Cindy, I don’t know how we missed this being listed on every single one of their resumes.

You all can get back to work now. And please, don’t chant about “believing” as you walk down the hallway to your offices. Just close your doors and turn on your iPods.

Math Problem Dialogues

SALLY: But really, I thought there was only a 1:5 probability that you would draw a green chip out of the sack. I swear it!

TOM: Well, doesn’t matter now. Into the fire pit I go.

-

JEN:  The one thing you promised me in this relationship was that 3/8 of this pizza was mine. We worked it out in the chart and everything!

RICK: That was true…until I met Nancy. I have a new pie chart now.

-

TRACY: The car stopped moving for more reasons than simply its slope of zero here on the graph.

JOHN: Honey, I accepted that the car stopped moving a long time ago.

But Did You Notice “Active Member of Smash Mouth’s Street Team” In The Special Skills Section Of My Resume, Sir?

Sir, with all do respect, you really should rethink your decision to not give me this job. I’d be a great administrative assistant for your real estate company. I’m professional on the phone, I can work with Excel, and I’m on Smash Mouth’s street team.

It’s a really demanding position. I’m not just on the street team. I’m an active member and have been for almost twelve years now. I’m in charge of organizing the general Broward County area Mouth Heads. You’re probably wondering why we don’t call ourselves All Stars. Mouth Heads was just one of my many initiatives with the nationwide street team. All Stars is SO obvious. We’re smarter than that.

This position requires me to make posters, organize group lunches every other Thursday at P.F. Chang’s, and run the notoriously rowdy Broward County section of the message boards. People skills are vital to administrative assistance, and I believe that my experience with online forum management has given me just that and so much more. Whether it is approving who can and cannot be included in the secret, password-only section of the board called “The REAL Astro Lounge” or deleting hundreds of pages of porn, I have grown and learned a lot from this demanding side of my job.

Your office is really bare. Do you want a 2000 tour poster? I have a stack in my trunk.

No, I don’t get paid. Street teaming is more than just a “volunteer activity” or “an embarrassment”, as all 2 of my exes call it. It’s a life choice. You’re either in or you’re out. And I, sir, am most definitely in. Just ask Steve Harwell. He signed one of my sneakers once. Look!

Oh. If you do give me the job, first request is that I can wear sneakers in the office. Please?

Facebook Notifications I Keep Checking For

Anderson Cooper and 5,999,999,999 others like your status and your general disposition, opinions, sense of humor, and life choices.

 Oprah Winfrey invited you the event LIVE WITH ME FOREVER: I’LL TAKE CARE OF YOU!!

Paul Rudd, Ryan Gosling, and Christian Bale have shirtlessly listed you as their wife.

Zooey Deschanel approved your request to join the group People Who Get To Do And Be In Fun Things All The Time

Alan Alda and All Noble Horses/Steeds want to be your friend.

The Internet In Therapy

THERAPIST: Tell me, what’s been getting you down lately?

INTERNET: She just…she expects so much from me.

THERAPIST: Well, let’s talk about this. You’ve been letting her treat you this way for about how long now?

INTERNET: Well, she started using me about twelve years ago. First it was just to play her Nickelodeon online games. Innocent stuff. Like where you collect candy on a skateboard. This was maybe three times a week after school, for only about thirty minutes at a time. We were having a great time. But now…it’s…it’s horrible.

THERAPIST: Take your time. This is a safe zone.

INTERNET: I just can’t give her what she wants anymore. It’s this constant neediness. God, what am I?! A GENIE? No! I’m the goddamn internet! I can’t handle her refreshing all three of her email accounts, all open in three different tabs, at the exact same moment on a 4-minute loop for hours at a time. It’s an emotional workout.

THERAPIST: Have you tried to talk to her about this? Maybe show her how you feel?

INTERNET: Oh believe me, I’ve tried. I’m really slow now. I made her install a new version of Flash even though the old one was perfectly good. I even froze just as she was posting a message on her crush’s Facebook wall, making it post multiple times, hopefully embarrassing her. But she doesn’t get it. Now she has excellent video quality and that incident is a fun inside joke between her and her crush. I can’t get through to her.

THERAPIST: Well, let’s think about her for a second. How have these twelve years changed her? When did you start to notice something was different?

INTERNET: AIM was the first red flag. I could tell she wasn’t being herself. Her away message quoted the movie “Drumline”.

THERAPIST: And it only got worse?

INTERNET: That’s an understatement. She just started spending so much time with me. Okay, I did offer MySpace. I know that wasn’t a good decision on my part.

THERAPIST: You were an enabler.

INTERNET: Yeah, that was a really rocky time. She started to spend hours with me. Blogging about her freshman year of high school.

THERAPIST: A 14-year-old writing their deepest thoughts assuming people wanted to read it? You actually let her get away with that?

INTERNET: I SAID IT WAS A ROCKY TIME.

THERAPIST: Okay, okay. This is all really important. We’re breaking through.

INTERNET: Then it was every single day after school. And weekends, don’t even get me started.

THERAPIST: Did dating get in the way of any of this?

INTERNET: No. It made it worse. Poems.

THERAPIST: Oh dear…

INTERNET: Yeah. And now, she checks me every day. So many times. For notifications.

THERAPIST: To fulfill some void inside of her?

INTERNET: Yes…yes! It all makes sense now! She is using me to fill a void! Oh god…

THERAPIST:  Again, this is a safe zone. Use all the tissues you need.

INTERNET: But she also needs me to do her homework. Her professors make her use me. It’s a cycle I can’t break free from. Maybe someday! Maybe in a few years people will realize what a vacuum I am and stop making me a necessary part of their day!

THERAPIST: …I’m afraid your session time is up. But next week let’s exclusively focus on your crippling delusions.