college

[Celinra]

Is there anyone else who goes to college and is completely stressed and/or annoyed and needs to vent about it? If so, do so here.

As for me, I have two projects due on the same day. For one of them, the teacher never specifies what is to be done on it. Is it a research or opinion paper? Do I need a bibliography and footnotes? Should it be all in the form of a question? I wish he would be more specific.
My 'mental breakdown' this week didn't help matters, either. I got so stressed when I started to work on the paper, that I started crying. That's how frustrated I was with it and it's generality.

[Dark]

Most of the time I am very stressed when I have to finish a homework (and the language doesn't help). I do my homework in a chaotic way, I take out every single sheet of paper that contains information that I need and spread them all over the room, I take out my diccionary, and some blank paper. Then I look at the mess I just did, get sick of it, take a bus to the nearest mall and sit somewhere and start doing my homework there. Most of the time, I get distracted and start drawing, so I go back to my house and start homework usually I finish til 2 am. If I'm lucky!

[Celinra]

I probably have his email somewhere, but I have no idea where. It'd be better to ask, but I don't like talking to people really, I'm pretty shy about talking to people (which is probably partially how I ended up as a librarian).
I think I get the assignment now. I realized the sheet said it had to be MLA style, which implies footnotes, and he mentioned researching, so... yeah.
It's for English. The assignment is a 3-5 page paper of "How does advertising affect the current culture?" I can probably pull something together that's 3 pages long.
For this, I am grateful to my high school, who offers a thing called 'SIRS,' which is a database full of magazine articles about various subjects. I am also grateful they didn't change the password for it since I graduated from there.

[timartwonis]

i hate school. i get sooooooo much homework that all my books don't fit in my backpack which weighs ~30-35 lbs every day and im only 85-90 lbs!! I get ~5 hrs of hw and im only in 7th grade. stupid catholic school. i also get a LOT of french hw. all of my teachers act like their subject is the only one we'll get hw in. me and the rest of my grade and most of the parents complained and all they told us to do was "get a rolly backpack" and "use folders instead of binders" and they told the teachers that we should get 10 minutes at the end of the class to start our homework and only one of my teachers does that and he only does that if we have a double period

* ~= one of ~ on top of the others or a squigly equal sign. if i try to do that some weird symbol shows up

[Celinra]

You should tell your teachers that rolly backpacks can also do damage, because they twist the arm around weird or something like that... unequal stress on both sides, I think, is what the problem is. It's true, I read it in the newspaper once.
I remember being in that grade, I would get a lot of homework also. Especially in French, and that was mostly 'copy each word down 3 times in French and 3 times in English' which didn't really teach anyone anything and could take close to an hour. I disliked that teacher...
When you get to college, you still get heavy books, and you have to pay for those heavy books. Fortunately, in most classes you're pretty anonymous (since each teacher has several different classes, and sometimes even more than one subject), and in bigger classes you don't have to worry about bringing your book because the teacher can't keep track of everyone anyway, so you really only have to carry around a couple books. Plus, no all your classes are on one day, usually, so it's only a few books at a time.

In other news, I'm coming along well with the paper, I just needed a small break before the last stretch (i.e. I am a procrastinator). I think I'll post it here when I'm done, so that I can have the opinion of other people, if no one minds.

[timartwonis]

Celinra said:

You should tell your teachers that rolly backpacks can also do damage, because they twist the arm around weird or something like that... unequal stress on both sides, I think, is what the problem is. It's true, I read it in the newspaper once.
I remember being in that grade, I would get a lot of homework also. Especially in French, and that was mostly 'copy each word down 3 times in French and 3 times in English' which didn't really teach anyone anything and could take close to an hour. I disliked that teacher...
When you get to college, you still get heavy books, and you have to pay for those heavy books. Fortunately, in most classes you're pretty anonymous (since each teacher has several different classes, and sometimes even more than one subject), and in bigger classes you don't have to worry about bringing your book because the teacher can't keep track of everyone anyway, so you really only have to carry around a couple books. Plus, no all your classes are on one day, usually, so it's only a few books at a time.

In other news, I'm coming along well with the paper, I just needed a small break before the last stretch (i.e. I am a procrastinator). I think I'll post it here when I'm done, so that I can have the opinion of other people, if no one minds.

I have to pay for my books!! i go to private school so they dont suply them. tolly backpacks lso hurt a lot when you run over your fot and htey dont fit iin the aile(sp??) of the school bus!! and to get htem of you have to wear it like a back pack so it hurts even more b/c like...10 lbs are added. thats y i dont have one. at myschool we have a weird system where we have cycles and each day is a letter day (A B C D E F and G) so the classes are spacedout a bit but we still get LOADS of homework so i stay up till 1 am even on the days that i don't procrastinate!! it's terrible!

[Celinra]

TImarTWOnis said:

I have to pay for my books!! i go to private school so they dont suply them. tolly backpacks lso hurt a lot when you run over your fot and htey dont fit iin the aile(sp??) of the school bus!! and to get htem of you have to wear it like a back pack so it hurts even more b/c like...10 lbs are added. thats y i dont have one. at myschool we have a weird system where we have cycles and each day is a letter day (A B C D E F and G) so the classes are spacedout a bit but we still get LOADS of homework so i stay up till 1 am even on the days that i don't procrastinate!! it's terrible!

Augh. That sounds awful.
I had a schedule like that in school, but it was just A, B, C, and D. For a while they expiramented with block scheduling, but that seemed to just confuse everyone because no one's classes ended at the same time so the bells really didn't matter to anyone, so by the time I left it was down to just day 1 and 2, and it really only determined which day you had the every-other-day classes on (i.e. P.E. and chorus).

[Celinra]

Now, I'm gonna post my paper, as no one has begged me not to:
In recent years, advertising has become a major part of society. It can be found anywhere, from television to radio to clothing. It has become largely ignored by people, who would rather go find better things to do than sit and watch a commercial while waiting for a program to come back on. Ergo, one would think that advertising has little effect on the culture. However, it may be that the opposite is true.
First, one must look at advertising and how it is changing. In years past, there were of course commercials on television and the radio. Also, there were endorsements for products in movies, such as when Reeses Pieces are used in the movie "E. T." Stars of radio shows would often support certain products, such as bonds or coal.
In recent years, advertisers have come up with new ways to spread the knowledge of their products. With the rise of the Internet, there was also the rise of pop-up advertisements and banners. Clothing designers also started putting their names on their products, so that people would advertise them while wearing their clothing. Buses often have advertisements of schools, radio stations, or car dealership painted on the sides. In addition to this, there are often small ones on the back, which advertise various places, the bus, or even bus advertising.
Even more recently, advertisers have had to create more new ways to display their brand name. Becoming more popular is product placement on television shows, something previously reserved for movies. Examples of shows that use this are "American Idol," which advertises Coca-Cola, and "The Restaurant," which endorses Coors beer. (Rohan, 1).
Since people have learned to turn off pop-up banners before they have a chance to load, and to ignore banners on web pages, new tactics had to be made for Internet advertising. One such method is making online games for children involving certain products, or offering prizes to them for filling out surveys about these products. (Snider, 1)
How do these advertisements affect culture? First is probably the most obvious. They tend to subconsciously determine what is accepted in society. When they see certain commercials, such as those with famous people drinking a certain beverage, that beverage becomes more accepted, because the drinker feels it will make them more like that person.
Similarly, clothing with the brand name on it shows what people wear. This affects what other people will then wear. If someone sees another person, who they consider to be a role model wearing a shirt that says, "Abercrombie & Fitch," they're more likely to go buy from that store. Conversely, if someone they don't like has a shirt that advertised The Gap, they are less likely to wear that brand.
Next, advertisements are usually aimed toward children, probably the most impressionable target audience. When a class of sixth graders in Toronto was tested, it was easy for them to recognize characters such as Tony the Tiger, of Frosted Flakes, or Snap, Crackle, and Pop, of Rice Crispies. ("Television", 1)
Because children are easily influenced by advertising, they're likely to ask their parents for products they see, whether it be a certain snack or a DVD player to go with their new vehicle. In Canada, children between ages 9 and 14 spend about $1.7 billion and influence how their parents spend about $20 billion. (Snider, 1) This is especially true with the Internet games that involve certain products.
"A commercial will last for 20 seconds or so," says Jeffrey Derevensky, a child psychology professor at McGill University. "An adver-game will last for 20 minutes. The more kids actively engage in something and the more feedback they get, the more likely they'll ask their parents to get something." Moreover, when kids are fixed on their computer screens, they enter what's called a flow state, a trance-like absorption that researchers say renders them especially vulnerable to suggestion. "It's all designed to get them to tell Mommy, 'Look how much fun I'm having,' " says Derevensky. (Snider, 2)
Effecting what their parents buy may seem to be the only thing that aiming advertisements towards children does. However, there is actually more. Studies show that such advertisements may be leading to obesity in children. This is reflected in a recent lawsuit, in which a group of people sued McDonald's for causing them to become obese. They said this was because their advertisements were aimed at children, and so made the food seem healthier than it was. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 15.3 percent of children ages six to ll were overweight in 1999 and 2000. This is very large, compared to the average of 4.2 percent of children being overweight from 1963 to 1970. It is likely that advertisements for food were a major cause of this trend. (Ives, 1-2)
As shown here, advertising seems to have a greater effect on culture today than it did many years ago. It affects many more aspects of one's daily life than it could have in previous years. Now it helps determine what is in fashion, what brands one should buy, and even one's diet.

Works Cited
Ives, Nat. "A Report the Possibility That Ads Contribute to Obesity in Children; the Industry Begs to Differ." New York Times, February 25, 2004, p. C3. Reprinted in SIRS, 2004, pp. 1-3.

Rohan, Virginia. "All Those Brand Names on TV Are No Coincidence." The Record, October 26, 2003, n.p. Reprinted in SIRS, 2004, pp. 1-6.

Snider, Michael. "Hey, Kids! Let's Play Adver-Games!" Maclean's, December 23, 2002, pp. 36-37. Reprinted in SIRS, 2004, pp. 1-3.

"Television Ads and Children." Toronto Star, October 21, 2002, n.p. Reprinted in SIRS, 2004, pp. 1-3.