Thoughts

I'm in an episode of anxiety right now, and sometimes I beat my head thinking there must be something I haven't come to accept. That if I could just accept that last thing, anxiety would be gone. But the reality is I have already gone through so many milestones in acceptance with anxiety as a teacher. And those things lesson the duration and extent of anxiety. 1. I've learned to love myself WITH my anxiety.  I've always liked myself as a person. But I had this warring tension in my body when I tried to love the part of myself that felt broken, and felt unlovable. That part of me when I am in an anxiety episode. I wanted to shuck it away and not tell anyone and just wait until it passed so I could be myself again. But the reality is, part of me is that anxiety. It's not a fun part, but it's a part. I practiced drawing a heart on my leg and saying "I love you anxious pants" and I would cry so hard because I wanted to hate that part of myself. It fel

Chancellor Blank has taken a bold move of leadership this month, as she pushed the dialogue of corporate-civic relations in her piece “A Stronger Civic Sector” published by Ford Forum. Blank warns against unregulated economies, and stresses the need for the civic sector to ensure companies are working toward the common good. She pays tribute that “ Markets are very, very good at looking at cost of production and demand and getting people together, finding a way to sell goods or sell services” but she warns “but they don’t do anything beyond that.”  Blank sums the piece up simply when she says “Markets alone can’t solve social problems.” Blank uses this framework for her argument. She pushes the need of a strong civic sector to regulate markets because sometimes “it isn’t in the best interest of the company...to invest in the community”. She outlines tools that the civic sector has to influence the marketplace, including it’s ability to influence a company’s reputation, and affec

There's a song that captures my feelings of involvment in the Madison 350 community more than any other, and that is Stand By Me by Ben E King. If you're up for it, give the song a listen while you read. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9kyGMvfZqo&feature=youtube_gdata_player When people ask why I'm involved with 350 and the UW Fossil Free Student Coaltion, I'm always a little hesitant to answer because I do not know how to articulate it. I can articulate the rational part of my involvement: the want, and need to actively do something to attempt to ensure the future of the planet. There's another part though, infinitely more powerful, that is too difficult to put into a rational string of words. And that is what this song conveys. For those who are forced to study it and see it everyday, there is no denying the gravity of our future. It is a burden we all live with everyday. I am being completely real when I say there's a good chance I may see this wor

1. You will never have enough time to user test.  God do I wish I could user test forever. User testing is putting your product in people's hands and getting feedback. This is extremely important because you may think you're products  the  shit, but in reality, it may just be shit. By user testing, you find out early one what people like, what they don't, and what they find confusing. If users don't like your product, they are simply not going to use it. I wish I could do endless user tests and feel confident about our product, but the reality is there is writing to be done, budgets to be made, and networking that has to get done. When you do get that precious time to user test, hit it as hard as you possibly can. 2. This isn't academia In academia I was taught to point out every nuance in my argument, and to endlessly elaborate every god-damn point. Business is nothing like academia. At first it feels weird to sell and not drone on about methods and literature.

This semester, the Governor pushed a notorious budget for the state of Wisconsin: 300 million gutted from Wisconsin's public education, Wisconsin Public Radio wiped off the map, 1.3 billion borrowed for transportation infrastructure, and 250,000 for research on the health consequences of wind energy. It might seem disconnected, but let’s dial the clock back a little bit. In November 2014, there was a little amendment put on the ballot called the Transportation Fund amendment, which would deliver more funds to transportation in Wisconsin. The Daily KOS warned “Watch out for ALEC on your ballot” outlining the amendment’s ties to the group, The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which somehow keeps its non-taxed non-profit 501(c)(3) status despite being a political lobbying group that is funded by some of the largest corporations. ALEC was a major player behind legislation that helped dismantle Wisconsin unions, and increased funds for fossil fuel transportation.

When the 'strong is the new skinny' campaign first started, I was pretty excited about it. The first article I saw was a woman who used to be what she considered anorexic. She said she was weak, and barely ate. She fell in love with weight lifting, and said it gave her confidence, strength and courage. She explained how before lifting she was taught to deprive herself, to lack confidence in her body, and be weak. After lifting she felt proud of her new strength, could eat (and was supposed to eat) more, and felt a sense of progress towards muscle, versus progress towards being smaller. She posted new photos of herself showing she didn't look much different (she didn't 'get huge'). Her photos though were fairly normal looking. She probably had a healthy 10-20% body fat, and you could tell she had some solid muscle. Her muscle, however, wasn't rippling out of her skin, and it isn't supposed to be. There are two main types of weight training I want to tal

            Her name was Ashley Atkinson. She held the experience of compassion, hardship, and hope that communities bared in the worst of economic times as she paced in front of the classroom. She had seen the dogged faces of families who were food insecure. She had shaken the hands of those that worked tirelessly to bring not only produce to their communities, but hope and celebration too. Passing her eyes along the classroom, she explained the severity of agricultural uncertainty. She let loose the burdens of her mind; the scarcity of future water, the uncertainty of climate change and drought. “Only one percent of the United States population farms” she said, “and of that one percent, forty percent is fifty five and older”. She looked to us with a half humorous, half melancholy smile and asked “am I scaring you guys yet?” The head of the horticultural department was sitting in the middle of the room. She raised her hand and it peaked into the air above the crowd. Her face wa

Terms and use of text: Text can be used to email the Wisconsin Board of Comissioners of Public Land. It must be kept in entirety or taken by paragraph. It must keep the same tone and if not, it must be quoted. Hate speech of any kind cannot be incorporated into this text.  ___________________________________________________________________________  As a resident I want to express that I am disappointed that the Board of Commissioners of Public Land has decided to ban work and discussion on climate change. First and foremost, I am disappointed that the board is justifying it's actions as banning 'political' activity. Which rests on the assumption that the topic of climate change is political. The topic of climate change is no more political than the theory of relativity, or gravity. It should be delegated to the realm of fact, and current phenomena. It would be insidious to ban the discussion of upcoming major storms or wildfires, or worse yet, the farmers alma

When someone you love is struggling with an episode of mental illness, it can be hard to know what to do. Here are some things that most people in an episode like this will appreciate. And moreover, it will remind them that they have people that are wonderful and beautiful in their lives who care about them. 1. Remind them that you love them, exactly as they are in this moment. And you think that they are brave, courageous, and you think more of them for having the willpower to struggle through it. When an episode hits, we don't feel like ourselves. We feel broken, and that makes us want to change it even more. But the more you struggle to change how you feel, the more trapped you become. Accepting yourself exactly how you are is so important for coping with an episode of depression or anxiety. The best thing you can tell them is that you think the world of them for going through it and you love them for who they are, and having an episode doesn't change that. 2. Make the

(This is my original work) Abstract: This paper seeks to discover how the use of heterosexual hierarchical masculinity as a tool for domination might affect younger players’ abilities to learn in Team Fortress Two, and what implications these barriers to learning might have in school settings. Game interactions were observed using YouTube clips, noting in particular the use of satire and ostracism by older members against younger members as an attempt to eliminate younger players from the game space. Results indicated that older adolescents utilize heterosexual masculinity to ostracize younger players from the game space, often by feminizing the victim based on childlike appearances, and asserting their own heterosexuality and dominance by undermining the masculinity of younger players. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) are onlin