Is Your College Douche-y?

Mine made it onto GQ's "America's 25 Douchiest Colleges" list. Did yours?

It should no longer perplex anyone why no straight girl attending Vassar College ever had a boyfriend during her undergrad years.

You Run Like a Man

Perhaps you've been reading about the case of South African runner, Caster Semenya, who won the 800 meters at the track & field World Championships on August 21st in Berlin. She crushed the women's field by over 2 seconds.

Basically, due to Semenya's masculine appearance, and ridiculous speed (she won in 1:55.45. I was psyched to run an 800 today in almost twice that!) the IAAF (International Assoc. of Athletics Federation) is conducting an investigation into whether or not Semenya is, indeed, female.

Aparently, a trip to the loo doesn't cut it anymore. They're getting all fancy and scientific, looking beyond the obvious junk-or-no-junk evaluation into blood tests, and tests conducted by an gynecologist, an endocrineologist, and even a psychologist. What's the psychologist going to ask, "Do you think you're a girl?"

(For a full evaluation of this incident, including it's implications in the World's apparent prejudice against South Africa, check out this NYT article.)

I realize this is a sensitive matter, not only for Semenya, but for her family and for her country, but I have one thing to say:

If someone thought I was so ridiculously fast as to accuse me of being a man, I'd gladly take the compliment while grabbing my air balls and flipping my accuser the bird.

What do You Suffer From? Need a Cure for Cankles?

A friend recently sent me this WSJ video. Unlike yesterday's WSJ article, this "health" video serves no purpose to help further your well being whatsoever. Kudos to WSJ for trying to serve up lighter fare, but when you start insinuating that people "suffer" from things that might just be annoying, your video may be ridiculed.


Perhaps if you have "cankles", you might have felt compelled to watch this video. Far from being an ailment, however, it's simply a body feature that is most likely 85% inherited, and 15% fixable with a good calf-strengthening / body-fat reducing routine. (Numbers based on no scientific data whatsoever.)

What bugs me is the suggestion that there's something wrong with a woman in the first place if she doesn't have well-defined, skinny ankles.

Fitness guru, C.J. Ong, Jr., worries that the fitness industry's exploitation of the "the desperate, overweight American public" is only perpetuating the American health issue of being overweight, by constantly "feeding upon the lost consumer as the proverbial cash cow." Probably by making them think they "suffer" from issues that do not actually cause suffering.

A person can suffer from arthritis, for example. She cannot "suffer" from being tired when she gets up in the morning. Although I'm sure something will be marketed for that "ailment" before too long.

Society's Silence

I read this WSJ article on our society's lost art of communication this morning and it got me thinking about how much I let modern technology influence my emotions.

The answer: Way to freaking much.

I realize what has got my underwear all in a bundle lately is, at once, a need for quick communication and a depressing disgust with it.

Let me explain. As a journalist, I propose articles. Articles are either favorably received, and I get a job, or they're not, and I either reformulate, send to a different publication, or scrap the idea and start anew.

This all requires 2-way communication.

I never get upset when an idea is rejected. In fact, if it's rejected with any inkling of a reason why, I'm quite grateful for the info--it could help me write a better proposal the next time around.

I get really upset when I receive NOTHING.

And here's the double-edged sword: I rely on quick communication to keep my work flowing. But this type of communication has made it easy--and even acceptable--for people to completely ignore each other.

I hate that. When my proposals are rejected, somebody has acknowledged my existence. I am thankful at least for that. When absolutely nothing comes for weeks on end, I cry for humanity. And for myself.

If society still favored "slow" methods of communication--a phone call, for instance--I doubt many editors, who I am sure are usually totally decent people, would give a caller the silent treatment. Rejection? Sure. But not a total lack of acknowledgment of the caller's efforts at communication.

Should I ever be in a position where people are proposing ideas to me, I vow to send a response to every one of them. Even if it only says: Thanks, but no.

Should someone put effort into a proposal, and put themselves out there for an editor's scrutiny, the least the writer deserves is some acknowledgment of their existence. Not only does it make the writer happy, it gives a more favorable impression of the publication's ethical standards, and reputation as a publication worth pursuing.

Yoga for Dummies- The 3 Commandments of Yoga

I am getting older.

I can tell because the days when I thought people were crazy for expending any extra energy before workouts and races "warming up" are over.

I had convinced myself while on the high school swim team that every extra 100 yards of race day warm up was sapping me of potential forward thrust in sprint freestyle events.

That belief has been crushed by injury and age. The ominous hambutt injury from last year has left my right hamstring quite tight. Still unmotivated to stretch alone, I decided it was time to try yoga. Thus, over the course of an hour, I loosened up my hammie and discovered some very important truths about the ancient activity.


The Yoga Commandments

1. Thou shalt not wear short shorts or loose t-shirts. Unless you want to lay out your nether parts for all to see, wear something capri-length on bottom and form-fitting on top. That way, you won't offend, or eat your shirt.

2. Thou shalt not eat too much fiber before class. Should you disobey this commandment, downward dog will haunt you forever.

3. If seeking tranquility, or your own personal zen, thou shalt not practice yoga in a free class at 24-hour Fitness, where you will be separated from the meatheads by a paper-thin wall, and subjected to hearing their evenly-spaced grunts and the subsequent slam of heavy weights on the ground while you are in the (somewhat morbidly named) final resting pose meditating on the hour you have just spent with your bum in the air. (See commandment #1.)

Happy trying-to-achieve-your-teenage-flexibility!