Open the Doors

Good Morning from New Hampshire!

That's right, dear readers, I'm in New Hampshire!  Following yesterday's report, I took off to the granite state in order to support my beautiful, talented sister in her quest to become the Miss of it!  Tonight marks the first of the three night event, but that doesn't mean I'll leave you reportless... Just that the report will come later in the day, apparently.  (I embraced the opportunity to sleep in.)

Yesterday's report garnered a great deal of response throughout the day.  One reader offered an interesting article on the South African perspective, while also noting the increasingly prohibitive cost of college that demands a certain degree of realism.  Another observed that, beyond the misspelling of "political scientis," how many Political Science majors do we know who go on to be whatever a political scientist is?  Johnny A, Investment Analyst, gave a very analytical (and mildly snarky) approach, including a similar piece from the Wall Street Journal with a much more dynamic and interesting to play with sorting system.

However, the piece that is going to compose much of today's report is not by any member of our readership.  From my nightstand at home in New Hampshire, I was browsing through a handful of old notebooks (English Major!) and stumbled upon a piece of poetry written by a friend almost seven years ago.  Given the impassioned responses to yesterday's Report, I felt that this piece would be an appropriate one to share as the report today.  Here it is:

Open the doors before you, around you-

Venture onto the path you feel is right,

Not necessarily the one less taken-

Not necessarily the one travelled by so many-

Choose the path in time that is your own direction.

Open the many doors not with fear,

But with the confidence that so many dream of having with each turn

From one knob to the next.

The one to guide you when ready to take on the world.

Continue to face all that is to come

With the excitement once held as a little boy.

On that snowy Christmas morning several years ago

Or when meeting your new invisible friend Bob.

Do not become discouraged
If what you do discover is a pair of red hand-knitted socks

From your aunt who loves to pinch your cheeks til they become

A nice rosy red,

Or a simple pair of grey long johns with its own back trapdoor, or,

If and or when you finally discover that Bob has not spoken

Or understood English as long as you've known him.

Even so, Bob's been there through the happy and the sad.

Just one of the many remarkable doorways.

Make all that you can of THE path-

The rocky, the smooth, the sunny - the path so challenging, so incredibly worthwhile.

Accept the challenge-

Become stronger within

Know this
Accept this

Welcome it.

Constantly grow and learn with eagerness.

Discover your place.

Reach high.

Discover yourself.

Make a life completely filled with the abstract-

Happiness

Peace

Love

Pride

Confidence

Friendship.

Allow your set of delicate wings to spread in all their glory

To lift you freely off the path-

From your cocoon-

To soar, high above the bustling world, again,

To soar, to venture forth into your life's choices-

The ones most desired.

Continue to fly.

Bob won't mind.

Oh, yeah, don't forget to wear your red hand-knitted socks

And pinch your aunt back.  Why not!

-September 7, 2005

A lovely and related piece of poetry for an April day.  The past reaches forward and finds our present problems and reminds us that we knew things once that we forgot, or the present reaches back and pulls things from the past to remind us.  Serendipity.  Why not!

And for those who are more visually minded:  Explore like this, enjoy like this.

Til tomorrow, where we will have news of the first day of pageantry and reflections of childhood wonders.

Happy World Intellectual Property Day!

Minor Majors (A Rant) and Calming Corgis

Today, we transition out of puppies and Starbucks and into the college scene.  (A change that one reader recently suggested that a certain subset of college students are familiar with in the opposite direction.)  We also transition into a little rant.  Based on a recent study by Georgetown University (the school currently pursuing the world record for largest doghouse built to resemble an on-campus building), Newsweek's The Daily Beast recently put out an attention-grabbing list of The 13 Most Useless Majors.  I promise that I will generally try to avoid both preachy-ness and profanity on the Report (especially given that my mother is among our readers), but what utter fucking bullshit.  Granted, I say this as an English Major (#7), so perhaps I'm a little knee-jerk defensive on this issue... But seriously?!  How are we defining "Uselessness," Newsweek?  (I suggest using the level of descriptiveness in your headline as a baseline.)  An algorithmic amalgam of average salary and unemployment rates?  No doubt these are the only factors that merit consideration, since no one ends up in jobs outside of what they majored in!  Speaking of which, what's with the ridiculous "Related occupation" postings?!  A history degree leads to a historian, English to writing... Though my favorite has to be the Political Science degree producing a great "Political scientis".  A+ editing, Newsweek.

Perhaps I'm going to come across as more of a starry-eyed dreamer than a Jimmy Stewart character in a Capra film, but readers, a challenge:  Find value in your major (whether a current student, a recent graduate, or a retiree) beyond the dollars and percents that Newsweek assigns.  Let it be something you explore.  Something that colors your worldview, if not your wallet.  When someone says, "What are you going to do with that?," ignore them, especially if they have as narrow and one-to-one a view as Newsweek regarding "Related occupations."  Because chances are your occupation may not be totally related.  And chances are neither your occupation nor your major will be the words you choose to define yourself in life.  (I am so many things before I am a technical editor.)  But when those people keep asking louder and louder what your plan is, don't worry.  One of the wisest people I have met (and I say this sincerely, not just because he is the most Buddha-esque member of our readership) told me that much of where we end up, particularly in occupation, is serendipity.  So go ahead and toss on that John Cusack film.  Wander.  Wonder.  But don't worry.  A college major is actually pretty minor.

Whew!  Apologies for the ranting and raving.  Goodness knows I need to calm down now... Here's some Corgi(f)s to turn the Arghs into Awws.  I promise that Reports like this will be few and far between, and that the rest of the week will be reserved for cool stuff, funny stories, and cute animals.  And just as we will return to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow, you may now return to your regularly scheduled morning.  I assume you were all celebrating the 73rd Anniversary of the first appearance of Batman in Detective Comics #27.

Starbugs, Hot Dogs, and Crossed Corgis

Keep the responses coming, especially when they are things like "You're too cute" (Thank you!) and "Are you famous?" (Not yet.)  Of course, topical replies are also great.  Very jealous of one reader's friend who is going to be in London for some of the Globe to Globe performances!  And maybe if you're lucky, a response will end up serving as a transition item to the next day's stories...

One reader continued the Moby Dick chain of thought established by the story of Iceberg (dead ahead!) the white whale, tying the story to Captain Ahab's first mate Starbuck, who was not named after the coffee chain.  (Rather, the chain was named after the sailor.)  Starbucks, too, has been in the news lately for a story related to both animals and unique coloring.  News broke recently that the famous supplier of caffeine addicts worldwide has been using some beetle-based food coloring to give its strawberry drinks that tasty pink tint.  Vegans are, of course, having a (completely unharmed, free-range, rights protected) cow.  (That was one of my favorite moments from the early reports.)  But the most interesting reaction I've seen yet has to be that of Daniel Stone, who suggests more consumers go the way of Starbucks and chow down on creepy crawlers.  Now, in my lifetime I've eaten a cricket, a packet of cheddar flavored little wormy things, and a worm in a tequila flavored lollipop.  But I'm curious:  How many of our readers have eaten bugs?

And Starbugs isn't the only piece of animal-eating news that's been in the spotlight lately.  President Obama is under fire for a passage in his book Dreams from My Father, in which he reflects on growing up in Indonesia, writing "I was introduced to dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper (crunchy)."  Oh dear!  Given the choice between transporting Fido on the car roof or in the stomach, I think most people (and certainly most dogs) would choose to travel the Romney way.  But either way, we can all be thankful for the memes that have resulted.  So much visual wordplay with wiener dogs!   Reminds me of what I am told is one of the first jokes I ever told... "Why did the frankfurter jump in the pool?  Because he was a hot dog!"  Even from an early age, I recognized the power of the pun...

To close out today, more dogs.  Specifically, some long promised corgis.  More specifically, hybrid corgis.  Oh my.  I don't even know which one to choose... The dachshund is adorable, the beagle so perky, the chow regal (despite being the breed most likely to turn on its owner), the cockapoo precious, and as for the Australian Shepherd... I can't think of a word for the combination of stupid and cute that describes that face.  (Wordplay challenge!)  But, as anyone who has seen my recent canine Facebook post knows, my loyalties lie on the plaid couch next to that super-cute, sad-eyed, lovable German Shepherd.  But if anyone wants to persuade me otherwise, I'm all ears (not unlike the Jack Russell).

Enjoy the rest of Barbara Streisand's birthday!

White Whales and Willy Shakespeare

Happy World Book Day!

Last Friday's multicolored menagerie was very well received, with the purple polar bear and pink squirrel receiving particular attention.  Obama riding a space corgi was also a reader favorite, and has even become an iPad background.  (Told you he was loved!)  And speaking of iPads, one reader offered some fantastic puns for the Apple product fragrance.  Anyone for some iPadfume or Macologne?  They would certainly sell better than his final suggestion of "Steve Sweat."

To transition us out of last Friday's issue and into this Monday (and there is no weekday transition more difficult), we have another story of an oddly colored animal.  Scientists have spotted an adult white orca off the coast of eastern Russia.  While the evidence of its existence is nowhere near as adorable as last week's animals, it does have a name, which is super cute.  Iceberg, though, is not the most famous white whale; that title, as the article notes, belongs to Melville's Moby Dick.

Which brings us to more news of World Book Day, scheduled today (at least partially) in recognition of William Shakespeare's birthday.  This birthday celebration, in conjunction with the upcoming London Olympics, is being used to kick-off a Global Shakespeare festival.  The centerpiece of the festival includes "Globe To Globe," a series of stagings of all 37 of Shakespeare's plays in 37 different languages, including a hip-hop staging of Othello and a British Sign Language interpretation of Love's Labour's Lost!  Theater field trip to London, anyone?

That's all for now!  Stay tuned as the week goes on for continued corgi coverage (sorry, Kevin) and some dated playground equipment.  Breaking my promise of anonymity here to call Kevin out as the leader of the anti-cute animals movement.