Fighting

Glamour Magazine's "Are you normal about..?" page of the month discussed how normal women are about fighting. This series presents quick statistics to show readers how they fit in, and the information about women and the arguments in their relationships appalls me.

• 1. Avoiding conflict: only 9 percent of women express their anger to the person who triggered it. The rest stew silently.

THIS IS A PROBLEM. While confrontation is the issue at hand, this says something about women's confidence and self-esteem. If this fear of approach continues, confidence will be on a continuous decrease, leaving our daughters with no hope and always condescended. We must change this.

• 2. You should have five positive interactions for each fight with your partner, according to experts on happy relationships.

One in six exchanges with your significant other, or any friends for that matter should be a fight? Really?! I understand that this is healthy futuristically, but what would be more healthy is encouraging more positive interactions than five in six, or 83 percent. Think about that as you converse with your friends, family and significant others.

• 3. Twenty-one percent of women actually enjoy fighting at times.

Today's women are so competitive and always need to win, and fighting provides an outlet to get ahead in something. Can't get ahead in the workplace, in your relationships with some or at home? Argue and win something for some self-esteem. That's what this is saying. People enjoy the thrill of proving someone wrong, and being the more intelligent one in a situation. Shockingly so, 10 percent of women yell in fights and 56 percent cry.

Let's change these statistics. We can do this by being optimistic and positive with the people we are close to and interact with often, trying to be less competitive as difficult as it may be, and acting confrontational. Don't allow our society to be so fighting-oriented and argumentative that no decisions can be made.

Brain Freeze!

My dad copied a Mar. 7 Newsweek Article titled BRAIN FREEZE- I can't think! for me to read when I came home!

The subtitle and the article: "The Twitterization of our culture has revolutionized our lives, but with an unintended consequence-our overloaded brains freeze when we have to make decisions," accurately describe our society and provide a lot of relevant information.

The most important point I recognized was how our information overload actually inhibits us from making decisions--as our frustration and anxiety increases when the "flow of facts and opinion never stops." Sharon Begley writes- "The booming science of decision making has shown that more information can lead to objectively poorer choices, and to choices that people come to regret."

One observation the article makes that is evident in every experience I have dealt with is that the greater amount of choices people have, the more they are more prone to making no decision at all. I have been in numerous meetings this year with an agenda, and upon leaving the meeting and looking back, realize how nothing was actually decided. We spent an hour discussing every choice, but never having a concrete answer. That's what our world has become. The recency effect of decision making then becomes clear--because the person of authority lets the most recent choice discussed become the so-called "decision" of the group.

The brain's working memory "can hold roughly seven items...anything more must be processed in long-term memory." Ever wonder why you can memorize phone numbers? That's why! So when you are having serious conversations with friends, holding meetings or creating to-do lists, remember not to go over more than seven important things! Unless you have a strategy of implanting them in someone's long-term memory. Also, in the end, people who decide things unconsciously end up being more satisfied. Therefore, rather than providing someone with multiple choices and giving them the possibilities, let them choose. For the record, we are all individuals.

What is a solution to all of this? How can we make indecisive people start to make decisions? Telling them to do so in itself has not and will not just work. The article offers that we be aware of overusing smart phones and outlets that give us the information.

"Experts advise dealing with emails and texts in batches, rather than in real time; that should let your unconscious decision-making system kick in. ...You will do better, and regret less, if you let your unconscious turn it over by removing yourself from the info influx-set priorities."

Thus, set a time to check your phone and laptop for messages. Don't do it sporadically. Go with your gut when you make decisions. Be sure when you walk out of a meeting or end a conversation that a decision has actually been made. And let people be themselves.

News of the week

Upon arriving home from Mizzou and reading my GoogleReader page, I found a ton of interesting articles!

New York Times implements pay wall starting this Monday :(

New words added to the dictionary- Some of these include the "heart" symbol <3>

Mark Zuckerberg officially "in a relationship" Most people follow the lives of celebrities and other public figures, whereas I am a freak and find the finder of Facebook incredibly interesting. His girlfriend of many years if finally in a "Facebook" relationship with him, and my group of friends laughed at the fact that they met in the hallway of a fraternity (AEPi) party.

People to blame for Rebecca Black trending on Twitter for days- This Ad Age story highlights popular figures who kept Rebecca Black being mentioned worldwide for so long.

Erroneous message about gunman warning sent out at U of I- The U of I emergency system accidentally sent out an alert system message that a gunman was on campus...ironically, during spring break. I can only imagine what type of outbreak would have occurred before they corrected it 10 minutes later if students were on campus.

State of Illinois selling advertisement space on sides of Highway Emergency Lane Patrol trucks- Take advantage of stranded motorist and advertise on emergency trucks! That's what Illinois will be doing...I wonder what kind of companies will purchase ad space on here. #mediaplanningfreak

Properly appraising social media sites - This Ad Age story discusses how Facebook is valued at $41 billion, and explains that social media sites should be evaluated based on their reach, frequency, advertising strategy and more.

Relay For Life

This past weekend was Mizzou's Relay For Life, a 12-hour event and fundraiser for American Cancer Society. As my sixth Relay experience and second time serving on the Steering Committee, it was a delightful evening and I am happy to say that we raised over $90,000!

I served as the Team Development chairman, and was in charge of helping recruit teams, keeping team captains informed and ultimately--retention for future Relay For Life events. We had 96 teams and 1,132 registered participants! At closing ceremonies, I had the honor of announcing this and reading the Five-Star teams--teams that fulfilled the five goals of survivorship, advocacy, standards, fight back and fundraising. At every team captain meeting since November, my subcommittee has encouraged teams to do this, so it was rewarding to read over 20 team names and know that they will all be back and supporting ACS next year.

A unique aspect of Relay For Life it is not only a social event or a run, but it brings the community together. Everyone knows of someone that has battled cancer, and can join the race to fight back by socializing and fundraising with their closest friends. Participating teams hold on-site fundraisers as well as pre-Relay fundraisers, which become very creative. Everything from baked goods, headbands, bras for breast cancer, plinko games, silent auctions and gift cards are sold. A Luminaria Ceremony is held to commemorate those who have dealt with cancer in any capacity and is the climax of the evening. All in all, Relay went incredibly well and next year we will continue to surpass our goal!

Here are some photos from the entertainment of the night!

Suitemates photo- me, Kate, Kathryn and Laura

My Relay subcommittee and fellow Team Development members- Carie, Colbey and Alex

Sherman and I on the bungee cords!

Group zumba at 3:30 a.m.!
Committee girls on the dance floor :)

It's Friiiiiiiday

I am incredibly embarrassed to say I just listened to the song "Friday" by Rebecca Black. Ten times in a row, actually.

It's incredibly catchy. Very comparable to Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus and other young artists, this is a young star that you grow to dislike, but their music remains catchy so you continue to listen to them. But how exactly did I hear about this girl? Friday was not playing on the radio, on iTunes or anything like that, but I saw her name trending on Twitter the other day.

All around campus and in my classes, I heard everyone talking and tweeting about this "ridiculous song." Curious to see what it was, I youtube-d it (bad habit to nix: making random nouns verbs..) and today, realized it has 27,763,099 plays. In the past few weeks. Twenty-six million. On-the-rise bands can't even do this with their music, so how was a 13-year-old girl named Rebecca from Anaheim, Calif. supposed to spread her song?

This Mashable article explains one possible method- Michael J. Nelson's Twitter, a man with 19,000 followers and a snarky comment about the song. Wikipedia states the following:

The music video for the song became a viral hit, starting on Friday, March 11, 2011, when the video's view count on YouTubejumped from around 3,000 views to 18 million a week later. The sudden surge was attributed to a Tosh.0 blog post titled "Songwriting Isn't for Everyone", posted on March 11. Since the growth in popularity of the song and video, there have been numerous parody videos and remixes. Forbes stated that the notoriety of the song is another sign of the power of social media – specifically Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr, in this instance – in the ability to create "overnight sensations".

This shocks me. It is excellent that news can spread so quickly through the internet, but consequences arise, especially dealing with the younger generation. The older generation is in a state of awe that such things that can happen, and young people do not think ahead of the consequences and potential issues that could arise from their spontaneous decisions. This article from the New York Daily News is Rebecca Black's response, and how she claims to have been emotionally bullied by some of the hurtful comments received?

Guess what hun? Not everyone is going to like you. In your grade at school, in your extended family, nonetheless- on the entire internet. Therefore, I think the spreading of this catchy yet obnoxious song teaches us....

1. How video and news can spread so quickly and virally on the internet

2. How anyone can become a "superstar" in today's world

3. To be careful what you post and with the reactions you receive

4. The sensitivity of teenage and pre-teen girls.

Other shocking news of the week

• AP Style has officially changed the expression of the word e-mail to email to be the most correct. As a journalism student, this is very exciting. Ironically enough, AP was not the source to report this story, hooray to journalism biases and ethics! This rule will be published in the next edition of the AP Stylebook.
• Diet Coke is now the second most consumed soda next to Coke, rising ahead of Pepsi. Although they are all in the same category of soda, this expresses how two types of soda from the same brand have entirely surpassed another brand, therefore questioning accuracy, numbers and more. Congratulations to Coca-Cola for marketing Diet Coke so well that it surpassed something that was not its core competitor (Coke-Pepsi, Diet Coke-Diet Pepsi).
• Mizzou's tuition will increase, but the university as a whole and member of the UM System will experience a shortfall in the budget.

St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day from everyone at Mizzou! Here are a collection of photos to share from some socials this week!

Alex, Courtney, Emily, me, Shelley and Emilia

My "parents"--Nick and Shelley
My sorority's house mom, Susan, has a new grandson named Jacob! She was kind enough to recognize college students' deprival of seeing children, and brought the cute 3 week-old over to the house!
Amy, Laura and I :)
The boys

Internet Findings

In January, Hannah bought me a book for my birthday called Whoogles: Can a dog make a woman pregnant? ...And hundreds of other searches that make you ask "Who would Google that?" The book provides screenshots of the dropdown bar of most Googled things as you type words in, and I got quite a few laughs out of reading it--along with the commentary on what appears in that image.

Therefore, when I noticed some funny "Whoogles" on my own, I had to take a screenshot and share them. I have a bad habit of writing notes to my friends while in classes where you can use laptops. A student in one of my courses said something fairly irrelevant, and I began to type WHY DO WE CARE. Here's the Whoogles I found and some commentary:

WHY

• That many people REALLY ask why the sky is blue and the ocean is salty?
• Carrots look orange because they ARE orange.
• People (eh hem...women) answer their own questions here. Why do men cheat...why men cheat. Good job figuring that one out.
• If you must Google why you're so tired, why don't you go sleep instead...?

WHY DO WE CARE

• Egypt seems to be relevant due to current events, understandable.
• But some of these things really concern me about America: why that many people presumably don't care about obesity...?
• The cotton gin and gross domestic product....interesting!
• Whoever types that about celebrities: thank you.
• I hope no English characters see this...because I feel like every high school student is curious as to the relevance of characters in literature

Look forward to future whoogles!

Current Events

No offense to Northwestern friends, but you guys have been in the news with way too many negative stories lately. See here. Mizzou's J-School wins here.

Site seeks to forge casual connections at U of C: This Chicago Tribune story is about a new website created by a University of Chicago student called UChicagoHookups. Essentially, it's a Facebook or social network posting site that "connects people looking for a no-strings attached hookup," solely at the University of Chicago. It plans to open up the site to other schools in the future...but what does this say about our society? All this shows is a negative change and diminishing of our own values--morality, our bodies and the role of other people and friendships. I know some might say things like this about dating sites, but this just takes it to a whole new level and is completely unacceptable.

Springing forward!

A visual update of the past week

Abigail and I (President and vice president) at the Founders Day banquet!

The 303-302-301 hallway crew at Founders Day
I snagged some tickets to see Dave Coulier at Dejavu on Friday night, aka Uncle Joey from Full House! His stand-up comedy was fairly humorous and the opener's was as well!
Helen and I toured campus after I picked her up from outside of St. Louis to visit Mizzou!
Helen and I <3 onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30yvLn8JEIy_za9iujZJ_9ifvcfmx-GWv105eUncbut7Oiu-il53dYOWxCqTFSog-YNQFe83LdV_Oo2KWJ54L1Au2Sni7_mbvSwU7VaH1rQsXSvKCb9gg733s8AifmopMluGsR8aD_W7D/s1600/profpic.jpg">The Greek girls with the flag of Greece!

The typical awkward photo---it's been too long. Sherman, me and Andrew

Hope you all remembered to lose an hour of sleep last night and put your clocks forward! Yay for brighter days!

The Intern Queen!

This Tuesday, Lauren Berger, also known as "The Intern Queen," came to speak at Mizzou's Trulaske College of Business for the professional development program. Some of our chapter members realized that Lauren is a Phi Mu alum from Florida State University, and invited her over to the house.

Lauren gave an hourlong presentation about the importance of internships, while incorporating her experiences working 15 internships in her college career. She had fascinating stories demonstrating the significance of persistence and follow-through, which I truly admire her for. She gave advice on sending e-mails, telling people you value their time and saying thank you, as well as discussing proper interview etiquette for the phone, Skype, in-person and Starbucks interview settings.

She founded The Intern Queen two years ago after working at an agency in Los Angeles, as a database for current students to find internships. Right now, it is completely free and companies pay the organization to post internships there. Lauren travels and has spoken across the country, but is based out of southern California.

Since she was a Phi Mu alum, some of our members stayed after to take a picture with her and thank her for the presentation. I chose to stay until audience members finished asking her questions, realizing that we had no idea how she would find our sorority house by herself, nonetheless park and maneuver campus. We got in her car and I asked her what she thought of campus, and she hadn't even seen it. We proceeded to take a driving tour, take some cell phone pictures to picture mail them out and tour Chi chapter's home.

Lauren and I posing by the fireplace

It was a great opportunity to not only hear Lauren speak, but hang out with someone so professional and receive internship advice!

My First Surprise

Tuesday morning, I was surprised for the first time in my life. As a naturally curious (or nosy) person...and a journalism major, it's hard to be surprised at things when you're constantly trying to discover them.

Four people stormed up the stairs around 5 in the morning, but I had no idea what time it was, where my phone or glasses were or what to wear. They screamed "CONGRATULATIONS KATIE, YOU MADE HOMECOMING STEERING COMMITTEE!!!" as they dragged me out of bed...literally. Kidnapping is the thing to do at Mizzou for campus activities, so the rest of the morning was surreal.

After spending the morning with the new and former steering committees, it took going to class, 45 wall posts, 12 texts and two phone calls to realize that this was it. It was such an accomplishment to receive something I applied and went through two rounds of interviews for. To have the opportunity to serve on the Centennial Homecoming Steering Committee--I still don't believe it.

For future reference, here is the Mizzou Homecoming blog and here is the website. If you click steering committee, you'll see the names and some bios!

I look forward to sharing my experiences with you, but more importantly....buying a whole new wardrobe of black and gold business attire :)!

More news of the day

I just have to share these.

The state of Illinois abolished the death penalty and cleared death row!!! Here's AP's version and here is NPR's.

Make fun of me all you want, but I just think Kaskaskia is a really cool name of a place to live. This article talks about living in small towns and Kaskaskia, Ill.'s growth.

I really liked this article from Mashable about "How journalists are using social media for real results."

Enjoy!

News of the day

Warner Bros. to offer movies through Facebook- A great example of effectively reaching the target audience through inter-brand promotion. If people will pay for movies on Facebook because they are too lazy to get up and go pay for it, so be it. Interesting idea Warner Bros.

The house from UP was built as a real house!- This is just unbelievable. The house below from a Pixar movie was actually created.

And from the Missouri School of Journalism: I am following live tweets about a convergence journalism student attacking his professor as well as another J-School senior. As obscene as this is, it's ridiculous that the senior student who was "attacked" is finding time to tweet about what's going on rather than live it.

Edit: Here's the Missourian article.

Back to a busy and rainy day here in Columbia!

Lent begins!

We are almost approaching the one-year anniversary of this blog!

When Lent begins, I think of something I can give up that will help me as a person. Unfortunately, giving up meat and dairy won't do that. So for the past two years, I've given up Facebook. Not just to not be there, but because of the time it gave me to do more valuable things. It made me less focused on what was going on with people I might not be close with and more focus toward the people I am. It was a sacrifice and a disconnect, but it helped. Many people looked down upon me for creating a blog during this time, but you can see now what that has done. Given me an outlet to express thoughts and feelings, share news (and pictures) with the world and helped me improve my writing. Selfish? Moderately, but helpful? Yes.

As much as I would love to give Facebook up again, I can't. It has become a huge means for communication for college students. Organizations I'm with such as Relay For Life share information and reminders on Facebook, people don't know how to publicize an event without posting it there and inbox messages are sent instead of e-mails about important things. Because I cannot fully take this sacrifice, I'll be going on Facebook just once a day (this is improvement).

When thinking of what I wanted to give up for Lent, I thought of what my weaknesses are and what I spend too much time doing. I discovered something that was making me rude and inattentive....text messaging.

I've made this a goal before, but Lent just provides more inspiration to do so. I found myself texting about situations in which I could call just because that's what other people did, and I don't do that--I'm a caller. My group of friends tends to text each other across the room to share 'secret' information--that everyone will find out anyway. If I received a text message about something moderately important during class, my focus in class greatly diminished and I would freak out about the message's content. So I believe the sacrifice to stop texting will help me focus more on the tasks of being attentive to the people I am with and the things I am doing.

Note: This is not meant to be a burden on other people. I'm just trying to decrease overcompensation and lack of focus so my responses may not be as immediate as before, but they will be sent at appropriate times.

Below is what I have hanging up in my room as a daily reminder. I encourage you to do the same thing!

Recap of the past few weeks

Last weekend, Kathryn, Laura, Shaina and I went to Kansas City and stayed at the Davison residence!
The middle schools in Shawnee had a mixer at Shawnee Mission Northwest, and we went to chaperone as Laura's mom is PTA president!
Sunday morning, I went to Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Kansas City, Mo. and was shocked at its resemblance of Sts. Peter & Paul! Red carpet, open altar, the iconography- it was scary how alike they are. The service was ran the exact same in terms of English-Greek too!
Laura and I celebrating Mardi Gras!
Saturday morning was the Mizzou-Kansas border showdown for men's basketball. As this picture shows, we got ahead of Kansas at one point! We easily could have won, but only made 22 percent of our baskets. There's always next year....or every year in football.

At the game

Amy and I went to Les Bourgeois Winery for one of the nicest meals we'll eat...ever! It was a great birthday present and a nice time to enjoy rural Missouri.

That's that!

Inspiration of the Day- 3/2

I have this theory that if I save the paper slip from fortune cookies at Chinese restaurants, the fortune will come true.

That being said, I found this fortune in my wallet today:

"The world will soon be ready to receive your talents."

If that's not inspirational, I don't know what is.

Also this afternoon, I saw a friend post a link to my sister's Facebook profile, titled list of children of clergy on Wikipedia. I don't know who or why someone felt the need to create this page, but it is now one of my goals to do something worthy enough to be on it!

Kraft's Yiayia ads

Kraft's Greek grandmother ad draws criticism- This article from USA Today contains a 30-second Kraft commercial for Athenos Hummus. In the clip, the Yiayia insults her granddaughter by telling her she "dresses like a prostitute." There are three slots for Kraft's hummus commercials with a Yiayia and her granddaughter, all deemed offensive.

Here is a direct quote from the USA Today article: "While Granny doesn't approve of her granddaughter's attire, she does approve of one thing: the brand of Greek hummus the young woman is serving- Athenos. (You can find more of the Athenos ads here).

"These commercials are not appropriate from a Greek perspective," says Maria Anagnostopoulos, program director at The Greek Institute, a non-profit cultural center. The article says that she wants them pulled. It adds, "Brand expert Martin Lindstrom calls the ads a desperate attempt to generate attention and predicts they will be axed."

I agree with the decision to pull the prostitute advertisement, but not as an offended Greek American. First of all, in my Principles of Strategic Communication class, we learned that the three qualities of good ads are as follows: strategically sound, creative (with a strong concept) and well-executed.

A Yiayia (or any grandmother, for that matter) calling her granddaughter a prostitute does not fulfill any of these. Kraft's director of advertising says in the article that "people will see them for the light-hearted fun they are having." ..."Any Greek Americans we ran them by thought they were really funny."

And I must admit, they are really funny. Of the 3 slots- one is on apparel, one on parenting and one on relationships. But to advertise Athenos hummus, is using such a derogatory term to a woman--nonetheless, a relative--necessary?" I did not consider until the article pointed out, children might see the spot and ask their parents what a prostitute is.

Therefore, I give Kraft some credit on their creativity. It's an amusing campaign to directly show Greek Americans when advertising a product primarily associated with them. But I advise them to thoroughly think through the various aspects they include in the ad and their necessity.

OTHER NEWS OF THE DAY:

Columbia professor says he's behind @MayorEmanuel- I will never understand humans' fascination with creating Twitters and taking on the persona of someone they are not. They are amusing to others, but I don't see the incentive or purpose.

New York City Hypocrisy Highlighted by Anti-Abortion Ad- This ad reads "The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb."

Columbia's new 10-story parking garage- It's kind of embarrassing how the practically tallest building in Columbia, Mo. is this parking garage. In fact, one of my sorority sister's is on an assignment from the Columbia Missourian right now driving through and filming the facility for a clip. Considering its location downtown and so far off of campus, I really don't see the necessity.

Hickman could change to block scheduling- Coming from a high school that had block scheduling, I think this could be very beneficial to Columbia high school students. And want to credit Shaina Cavazos for doing a great job on her article :)