The Office

Do you know what? I caught up on years of The Office. I admit it. I feel guilty every time I watched it because it's so much time I could be using for other things. And there are a lot of things that aren't so clean or respectable on there.

Anyway, I've noticed something.

The Office, no matter how hilarious or seemingly close to characters we encounter in our workplaces, it will never be like real life. After each situation, things wouldn't get "back to normal" in a real workplace.

After Pam's painting gets dissed, Gabe is called names, one birthday is celebrated but not another, etc., people would stay mad. There wouldn't be any of this "everything is okay again" mentality that seems to be the status quo at the start of each episode. Michael would be the hated boss and people would quit. He probably would have been fired long ago. Dwight would be complained about and HR would look into doing something about him. And so on. Don't you think?

I guess it's the fact that the conditions just continue that makes it funny (the kind of funny where you groan), but if we were working there, we would be very dissatisfied. Rambling . . .

What in the world are they going to do without Michael next season?

Test Preparation

Yesterday, I took my first GRE practice test. I did horribly. Absolutely, fantastically, repulsively atrocious--even though I thought I did well. That has been my problem with test taking my whole life. I feel confident about my work and then I get graded and I wonder why I felt confident. I guess I can at least see now what I need to work on (ahem, everything).

Going over the answers, however, I don't agree with some of them! They are inconsistent. How are you supposed to pick the answer that the test writers chose if it differs from one question to the next. For example:

"Estrange" and "Flagrant" are set as having "endear" and "barely perceptible" as the correct antonyms, as opposed to "familiarize" and "modest." After reading through these examples, I said to myself, "Okay, each of these has a spectrum. The GRE People want the complete opposite, not the moderate opposite." Can you see what I mean? Estrange-familiarize-endear, flagrant-modest-barely perceptible. "I should pick the word on the end, not in the middle." But then during the practice test, I came to this:

RAIL:
A-conspire
B-compromise
C-tout
D-esteem
E-acquiesce

So I say to myself, "To rail is to really yell at or criticize someone. 'Tout,' 'compromise,' and 'conspire' can be eliminated straight away. The middle word would be acquiesce, and the word on the end of the spectrum would be 'esteem.' Yeah, instead of to criticize, to praise." Well, I was wrong, though it's not a problem with my vocabulary! "Acquiesce" was considered right. But doesn't that seem inconsistent to you as well? I know I can't explain my logic to the test or fight with the ETS people. So how can I tell when to go moderate and when not to? Lame-o!

Anyway, here's my analytical writing issue task essay:

“Government should play no role in subsidizing or otherwise supporting the arts; it should be left entirely up to individuals and private entities to do so.”

The above quotation is an opinion that would be best left behind. Whoever said it must not have realized that the government subsidizing the arts can help the government itself.

Governments that have restricted (rather than supported the arts) have failed miserably. The communists of East Germany burned artwork, banned many artists, and basically made it hard for any new ideas to flourish. But this is not to say the arts did not continue behind closed doors. However, the people were dissatisfied. They wanted to be a part of the arts; they wanted to let their human creativity blossom, and this restriction of their freedom caused them to reject the communist form of government. A successful government sees the need to be creative, to freely express one’s self through the arts. And what’s more, they help fund it in order to see a happy people.

One thing that is overlooked is that government, by educating its people, is already supporting the arts. As students learn about history and cultures, they learn about the arts. They take dance classes and they see movies. They read great literature and behold famous paintings. All of these things contribute to the great thing we call “the arts.” Many students who learn about these ideas embrace them as their main subjects. They, in turn, create their own forms of arts, and the cycle continues. Unless the government were to become completely unsupportive of education, it must be said that the government is already paying for some form of support of the arts.

As for further support besides that of normal education, extra funding is a good idea. Countries that have flourishing arts have flourishing economies and happy people. People invest in the arts and entertain themselves by attending performances, visiting museums, and buying artwork. Artists thrive in their work, use their earned money in the economy, and continue to use their creative talents. If the government helps the arts become all that they can be through subsidy, the people will in turn be happy with their creative outlets, the economy, and the government.

The economy is not only boosted from within when the government supports the arts. When people from other countries look interestedly at visiting the US, they do not think about visiting suburbs or looking at business buildings. They want to see the manifestation of the culture in the arts, so they find out about famous musical and visual artists. They go to the ballet and to the theater; they visit museum after museum. In short, they pour foreign money into our economy. A government that supports the arts does so in its own and its people’s interests.

Some might say that private entities would be enough to make the arts an exquisite part of America. But would that not stop short of making the arts really succeed if they had more funding? Citizens who see their government using their tax money to support the arts will only want to take advantage of the arts themselves. To really acknowledge the arts as part of a country’s culture, the government should be involved. It shows the government is well-balanced and aware of its people’s needs. Private entities might be able to financially support the arts themselves. But less Americans would be involved and the arts would struggle to maintain the rich part of culture they inhabit.

If the U.S. government were to completely stop supporting the arts outside of public education, what would happen? The arts of America would have lesser outlets. Museums would fall into disrepair and their appearance and ratings would discourage visitors with their foreign money. Theaters would struggle. Public buildings would not have fresh new artists’ paintings on their walls. And the U.S. of A would not look like a great place to visit anymore. Discouraged artists would stop feeding their creativity, and more people would be out of jobs—jobs they liked. The people would no longer have the arts to entertain them, so their money would stay locked away in drawers and banks. Soon the entire economy would feel the results of a lack of artistry.

It cannot be said enough: a government that supports the arts does its job: it supports its people.

Office Episodes Pulled?

I'm upset! I fly all the way to America to watch full online episodes of The Office, and all but four episodes are taken offline a few days before I can catch up with the season. What is this?!?

I Miss Dwigt, Or Maybe I Just Need A Distraction

Dashed into the ground! Lamenting that I haven't been able to see The Office this season to a trusted friend today, I delightedly accepted the news that this season of The Office can be watched online. Having days of homework to do (all the professors decided to send things to do this week as if we can fit it all in before Monday), I of course decided I would have to wait until my essays were done waited a few hours before deciding I could take a look. Finding the episodes, it took me only a few minutes to decide which one to watch first. I clicked eagerly on the image and my heart pounded as I waited for it to load. Then this came up:

"We're sorry, this episode cannot be viewed from your location. Please select another episode."

What the dumbos forgot to say is that none of the episodes can be viewed from my location. At least an explanation would have been nice!

In better news, like a good citizen, I sent in my absentee voting application and did a bit of research on the crazies who want to be criticized in the office that is the president's.

Wow, and who knew that I already had a "The Office" label on my blog?

What I Like About You and Life

The last few days, guiltily enough, I have been watching the second through the fourth seasons of What I Like About You. It started out innocently enough, I just wanted to bond with my sister who loves the show (anyone who knows how much I love TV knows that that's true). Unfortunately, after a while, she didn't have time, so I continued watching on my own because I have to finish things I've started and because I had other things to do on the computer that were boring (like copying and pasting all my old Wordperfect documents into Word-darn Word!-and gathering addresses for a partay). Eventually, I felt like I was wasting so much time that I began just listening to the episodes while I worked on the documents and addresses. Once I finished those, I had no choice but to watch them by skipping ahead every few seconds as soon as I knew what was going on, so each episode could be finished in five minutes. I know, don't tell my sister.

However, I couldn't help but make some connections in the show. There's this guy that she likes, but the timing just never works out. They fight about dumb things and try to be friends, but one of them always likes the other. Then, when they do date, they have trust and thus communication issues. Before things can be worked out, he moves to Chicago of all places! At least, he went. But he came back. At least if it were mentally . . .

Entertainment Week

How did this week turn into entertainment week?

Check this out:

Monday: Oly baseball game
Tuesday: Dinner at TGI Friday's
Wednesday: The Namesake movie
Thursday: Concerto Night
Friday: 337 Art Project, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Charlie Chaplin Organ Show
Saturday: Dinner and laser tagging
Monday: Bee's game

Lucky me!

My New Favorite Office Quotation

("Quotation" is used instead of "quote," which is really a verb, in honor of Professor Horwitz.)

"Last year, Creed asked me how to set up a blog. Wanting to protect the world from being exposed to Creed's brain, I opened up a Word document on his computer and put an address at the top. I've read some of it. Even for the intranet, it's pretty shocking." -Ryan

April? AAAAAAAAAH!

(Transferred from my old blog on 18 August 2008.)

So I am doing Spring Semester at Brigham Young University. It's like a two-hour bus ride. Whew. I'm not very excited for that, except that at least I can get homework done. I figured that since I'll be down there three days a week anyway, I should just take the classes I was planning on doing independent study before August - German and contemporary American literature from 1960 on. I have so much to do before this semester ends! Plus, my next semester starts before this one ends, so I've got to hurry and tie everything up. No one told me it was April already. It's not fair.

I went to "Slipper and the Rose" with Mom, Heidi, Grace VanDenBerghe, and Sica yesterday. It was kind of lame, but there were some funny parts. When the prince first sees Cinderella when she has the shoe (or slipper), it's a mad house at the town square. Everything goes slow-mo as they play "Moonlight Sonata" and he swirls around people trying to get to her, and the shoe gets passed from person to person as they beat each other up. It was so funny!

I saw Boo McDonald (I don't even know her first name, that's sad) and I asked her how she likes being an aunt to Morgan and Aaron's baby. She said that the baby just turned one and Morgan is four months pregnant. Whoa! I told Mom and she gave me like three examples of people who have closer kids.

Whenever I think about Janice, my piano teacher, I feel badly. I'm sure she hated having me come because I NEVER practiced. That's why it took me like two years to learn my last piece. I think that she just enjoyed talking to me. Oh well. I've been practicing a lot lately. Isn't it funny how once you don't have to you have more motivation, or if you've got something like homework to do, you find more time to play? Last night I just opened the Classics book and played random songs. I liked them a lot.

Yesterday, Mom was driving me to school (very generous of her), and we were talking, having a jolly old time, when I saw something next to me. I looked over, and a black and white spider was coming down from the ceiling! It landed next to my knee! There was nothing I could do and nothing Mom could do because she was driving. I was screaming as it jumped around (it was one of those weird-movey jumping ones, and a big one, I promise). I finally wiggled my way into the backseat and tried to hit it with the scraper, but it connected with its web first, sending it flying somewhere! I stayed in the back the rest of the ride. Sica found it later and brushed it outside . . . in Bountiful, thank goodness! My carrots are HUGE! I thinned them out yesterday. On Thursday, it got up to 70 degrees and there was a nice breeze, but yesterday, it rained like it would never stop. All the rain we've been getting has been awesome. You should see Temple Square. It's SO BEAUTIFUL! I love the purpley-blue flowers with the very spring green.