I Suck At Going Through Crap

Yesterday, Karen attended the annual American Dietitic Association conference. The conference this year happened to be held in Boston. For a dietitian like Karen, this conference is a big thing. Of course, this particular conference is even bigger for Karen because she was selected by her peers to present at the conference.

I don't think Karen, however, is happy about presenting. And truthfully, I probably would not be either because it seems like presenting at the ADA conference does not offer any perks. From what I have been told, presenters do not get any discounts for the conference or any other benefits. I find that a little bizarre. After all, as a dietitian, what would be the benefit of presenting at the conference? I know that if I were given a choice, I would prefer to simply attend the conference and not have to present anything, but that's just me.

Nevertheless, with Karen off to present at the ADA conference, I was given the chance to spend some quality father-daughter bonding time. So naturally, what do I do for quality father-daughter bonding time? I took our baby daughter (Briana) shopping.

I did not go out to many places while shopping. Shopping, however may have been a little too tiring for Briana because she fell asleep on the car ride home. So while she was asleep at home, I began to organize a few things and go through some crap. Now, I suck at going through crap.

Recently, my mother has been cleaning her attic. Unfortunately, my brother and I both have boxes and boxes of items still stored in her attic. Naturally, in her effort to clean and organize her attic, my mother has started to unload all of the crap onto me (which is rightfully so). She has been bringing boxes of my belongings every time she has visited.

To date, I have only gone through one of the boxes that my mother brought over. I think the count right now is that there are eight boxes to go through. I'm sure more are coming. The first box that I went through seemingly contained every single note I took in class while in high school. Most of the contents of that box have ended up in our recycle bin already.

The box I went through yesterday contained most of my notes from college. It's interesting looking back at those notes. Again, at the time I thought that keeping these notes would serve as a reference for me later in life. And again, I was quite mistaken. After all, most of my notes were in subjects like Anthropology, Philosophy, Psychology, and Sociology. (Yes, I majored and minored in as many useless subjects as I could, which is interesting considering how my current profession uses none of those subjects.)

It actually took a while to go through that one box of college stuff. After all, at the time my student identification was my social security number. And as much as I would have liked to have just chucked everything into the recycle bin, I couldn't because many of the pages contained my social security number. Damn you college! I'm sure a lot has changed since I've been in college because I can't imagine that they would still use your social security number as your student identification.

Speaking of how a lot has changed, it was interesting to see how I had some dot matrix printouts and whatnot in the box. The printouts were back when schools had a VAX (virtual address extension). Some of the items in the box could actually show the progression of computer technology as printouts improved throughout my college tenure. Thankfully, computers have gotten a lot better.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting to go through some of my college things. In the box were things like my varsity letter for baseball; papers that I wrote for sociology (like the one I titled "Me So Horny" after the 2Live Crew song, which was about gender relations); the history paper I wrote the day before its due date which received a pretty high grade. I think my friend (Kelley) who was taking the class with me was a little perturbed by that because my paper had a better grade than hers.

Other things that were interesting in the box were photocopied readings for classes. Like the big ripoff known as textbooks, most of my professors had students purchase these photocopied readings directly from them. The photocopies were then used as required readings. Big waste of money.

Speaking of big wastes, there was a paper that I wrote in the box that cracked me up. Group projects were always a big thing in college. Normally, I'm all for group projects as it theoretically divides the workload. There was this one sociology paper that brought back some memories. At the time, groups of two were randomly chosen. As it turned out, I ended up with the short end of the straw because my partner was... well... non-existent. I could probably excuse my partner, were the class an intro level course, but this was anything but an intro level course.

Needless to say, the project spanned a good chunk of time during the course. The professor would give us an assignment in regards to the main project, which was a research paper, and our group would have to work on it for that time period. Every time the assignment was given, I ended up working on the project by myself because my partner was either too busy, or she forgot, or she just simply never got around to it. When it came time to pass in the portion of the project that was assigned, my lovely partner would simply sign her name on the assignment that I prepared. It drove me nuts.

So naturally, when the final project was assigned (to actual write the research paper), I again did all the work. Knowing that my partner would simply sign her name on the paper again, I decided to type a disclaimer on the paper saying how my partner has done none of the work despite numerous attempts at trying to work with her.

Well, my partner took the paper and simply signed it. Apparently, she didn't even want to look through the paper. If she did, she would have seen the disclaimer I wrote. Regardless, I ended up getting a great grade on the paper. My professor even commented on how he enjoyed reading the disclaimer and how he would take that into consideration for my partner's grade. It cracked me up.

Anyway, I think the things that I enjoyed the most while looking through the box were my philosophy notes. I was actually inspired by one of my philosophy professors. Interestingly enough, that professor may be one of the reasons why I became an "instigator" of sorts. It was through one of his classes that I began to always question things; to ask things even when asking wasn't the most tactful of options like my man, Socrates. Although really, who am I kidding? I would probably instigate even if it were not for my studies in philosophy.

All in all, it was a nice trip down memory lane. And now, there is one less box of crap to go through that is sitting in my garage. I can't wait to see what is inside the other boxes.