Texting 101

I’ve come to believe that texting is an art. Anyone and everyone can text, but not everyone can text well. I consider myself to be a pretty good texter, and many of my friends are, too. We can carry out what I call textersations for hours and still have things to talk about. Why? Because we are extremely communicative, and that translates onto our text messaging. We know all about the give-and-take that fuels a conversation—telling stories, asking questions, commenting on what the other said, clearing up misunderstandings, cracking jokes, etc.

Thinking back on all the people I text, whether on a regular basis or once a blue moon, I can point out a few who I wish would never text me again, simply because they have nothing to say. Why do they bother? I would like to offer some advice to the bad texters of the world; you guys seriously need it.  

Tip #1: Ask questions.

I have a couple of guy friends who text me from time to time. Every time I see either of their names in my inbox, I roll my eyes. One time I actually threw my cellphone across the room because it upset me so much to hear from one of them yet again. Yes, the conversation was that bad.

The conversation usually starts with “Hey, what’s up?” I respond with a “Not much, just here/ leaving school/on my way somewhere/wishing you had NEVER texted me in the first place. What’s up with you?” This is the part that I hate. The person responds with “Not much, x, y, and z.” He gives me nothing to make conversation with because I don’t think we need to get into any more detail about the TV show he is watching, the homework he is completing, or the body part/s he is scratching.  I asked a question in my last text massage, and now it should be his turn to ask me a question, right? Wrong. I ask all the questions and he provides the answers, and I am never asked anything.

It’s inconsiderate and rude for someone to just talk while the person at the other end [me] is frying her brain trying to come up with more questions to ask. Ask me questions. Ask me about my day, about how I’m doing in school, about how my weekend has been. Having a little reciprocity in our conversation makes me much less inclined to ignore your text messages altogether, or to just stop texting you after the third message. This first tip goes hand in hand with my next tip.

Tip #2: Don’t just talk about yourself

While it’s nice catching up with a friend and finding out everything he or she has been up to since you last spoke to or saw each other, at some point the conversation needs to shift to you and everything you have been up to. Strike a balance between talking about yourself and asking your friends questions about themselves. If you find yourself saying “me” or “I” too many times in a conversation, chances are the people you’re texting or talking to notice it, too, and they want you to shut the @&$! up.

The perfect way to not talk about yourself too much is to ask the other person questions about themselves. See how that works?    

Tip #3: Don’t text people just because you’re bored, and don’t be boring while texting out of boredom.

Sure, many textersations start because we’re bored and start texting people; guilty as charged. It doesn’t mean that you now have to bore other people to death with your meaningless conversation. If you have something to say and can carry out a decent conversation, by all means, text your friends; otherwise, pick up a book, a couple of free weights, a cheeseburger, a hooker [just don’t get caught]. But whatever you do, don’t pick up your phone.

One more thing, if you’re texting someone out of boredom, DON’T TELL THEM YOU ARE TEXTING THEM OUT OF BOREDOM. This will not sit well with them, I would know. It totally turns people off and makes them not want to make an effort to converse with you. And if you plan on ever texting the same person again, don’t be surprised if they don’t respond for a while.

Tip #4: Use proper grammar

I stopped texting “ur,” “cuz,” b4,” “dnt,” and “u” after middle school. While I severely dislike it when people text using improper grammar, I respect that people think using abbreviations is easier and more convenient than spelling everything out and takes up less characters. However, past middle school it’s time for you to grow up, stop being lazy, and take the time to spell everything out and use punctuation. You wouldn’t write a high school or college paper in text language, would you? Don’t answer that just in case.

Tip #5: Don’t “K” people

Finally, a “K” to signal the end of a conversation is totally unacceptable, no matter the circumstance. I would rather a person not send a text at all following my last one so I could avoid the teeth grinding. Sending “K” to me, or to anyone for that matter, is a waste of a text and a waste of the second it takes to read it. One-word text messages in general are a bad idea. Don’t send them. Period.   

The rules of texting are quite simple, and I hope that the bad texters of the world will get a clue; there is even room for improvement for the good texters. With the way technology is advancing,  need to be conscientious of our etiquette not only when having face-to-face or phone  conversations, which are no longer the norm, but when texting and messaging in general.

Something that I didn’t mention in the tips: Having the same conversation with someone over text is not good either. “How are you?” and “What are you up to?” get old after a while. Switch up the topic of conversation; it all goes back to asking questions. You’d be surprised how much you find out about a person by playing 20 Questions over text.  There should really be a course on this.

Nose-picking in cars, getting hit on at Wal-Mart, and chains and whips exciting people

      
  I'm a Wal-Mart shopper. I love it there. Something about Wal-Mart is magical--you stop in for a loaf of bread and bar soap and walk out with a DVD player, a jumbo pack of gum, a new wallet, pajamas, a movie poster, and an engagement ring. That doesn't happen at Publix or Winn-Dixie!
Anyway, I'm browsing through the snack aisle looking to pick up chips for my little brother (that's my story and I'm sticking to it) when a gentleman in his mid- to late-forties asked me--in Spanish--if I needed help. I'm thinking, "Need help with what? Picking up a tube of Pringles?" I kindly responded with a "No, thank you" and was getting ready to walk away, because I knew where this was going, when he asked me where I'm from. -_-
          I can imagine his next question being, "So...do you come here often?" I told him I was from Cuba, and he told me I had a pretty accent. [Remember, this entire conversation is in Spanish] It was getting to be a little too much and he was moving closer to me, which was when I said goodbye, lugged my thirty-pound cart away and walked into the next aisle as quickly as I could.
          When I finished checking out and went to the exit, the sixty-something year-old man checking the receipts told me the color I was wearing, a hot pink, used to be the color of royalty, and that I look like a queen. *barf* Another something else about being beautiful and hoping to see me again and I was gone. You may ask what's wrong with that, and may even say it's nice of a man to say that to a young woman. There's a very thick line between nice and creepy, and both men in their own ways crossed that line. I guess it was one of those you-had-to-be-there moments, but I felt uncomfortable.
          I'm totally not bragging about being hit on here. I'm trying to share a little moral that I'm sure many other young women can agree with: men need to think before they hit-on, especially when they try hitting on a girl who is so evidently younger than he. Chip aisle guy, you're old enough to be my dad. I don't know how fond you would be of another man your age trying to hit on your daughter. Receipt-checker man, you're old enough to be my grandfather. Would you hit on your granddaughter's friend, or want a man your age hitting on your granddaughter? My grandfather would run after you and...I don't know, hit you with his seven-attachment switchblade.
          On the car ride home I stopped at a red light and unfortunately caught sight of the elderly gentleman in the car next to me picking his nose. He was going in there. Like, really in there. He didn't just pick for a few seconds to try to take a little gook out and stop before someone saw him. He didn't even try to pull the nose-picking trick where your index finger goes outside the nostril and your thumb goes discreetly inside [don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about]. He was digging for treasure. He went so far in I thought a piece of brain was going to end up under his nail. It was gross. What is it about cars that make people want to pick their nose in them? The world may never know.
          Another funny thing that happens in cars: people singing. It's not just lip-syncing to whatever is on the radio; I'm talking about full-on putting on a show in your car--air microphone, hair whipping, strange facial expressions, beating on your steering wheel, maybe even booty-dancing in your seat. Yes, we can see all that. And it's hilarious. Leaving school one day, I looked in my rear-view mirror while stopped at a red light and saw a young guy belting Rihanna's new song, S&M. Yes, he had the air mic, the exaggerated enunciations, and the hair-whipping. How did I know it was this song he was crooning to? I was listening to it on the radio and singing along, too.
          Today, while on my way home, I was stopped at yet another red light and saw a girl who could not have been any older than 11 singing along to Rihanna's S&M as well. How did I know? Yeah, I was listening to it again. Y100 plays it a lot. This time it was the remix, though. With Britney Spears. I [kinda] like it, like it. Okay, I'm done. So this girl was jamming to the song and was really into it--like chains and whips genuinely excite her--and the lady driving, I'm thinking it was her grandmother, was looking at the radio with a disgusted and horrified look on her face. She looked at the radio, her mouth agape, looked at her granddaughter, and back at the radio with her grossed-out face. It was amazing. Hilarious. It made my day. Although something about 11 year-olds singing along to Rihanna's kink fest is strange. I'm nineteen and am still asking myself, "Can they really play that on the radio?!"

The “N” word not a “bad” word, but a part of history

Mark Twain scholar and editor Alan Gribbin has publicized that a new version of one of Twain’s most notable works, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, will replace the word “nigger” with the word “slave.” Gribbin states, “After a number of talks, I was sought out by local teachers, and to a person they said we would love to teach (‘Tom Sawyer’) and ‘Huckleberry Finn,’ but we feel we can’t do it anymore. In the new classroom, it’s really not acceptable.”

First and foremost I would like to ask what “the new classroom” is, as well as the difference between the old one and the new one. The new classroom appears to me to be an environment in which students are kept from learning about the injustices of the world, reading the classics, and gaining a realistic perspective of our surroundings. America’s desire for political correctness has gone too far. I am not and have never been in favor of banning or challenging books, and I am certainly not in favor of desecrating a classic. I feel that challenging or banning books, or doing to books what Gribbin is doing to Mark Twain’s work, is an underhanded violation of freedom of speech and should not be allowed in the United States.

Every ethnic group has a derogatory term used by others to describe or address them. Spic, kike, honky, terrorist, wetback, Jap, chink, and greaser. While neither of these terms have been used as often in history as the word “nigger,” they strike just as much of a chord with the other ethnic groups when coming from the mouths of those who don’t belong to that group. The word “nigger” carries negative connotations and memories of lynching, slavery, inequality, and overall abuse, as Oprah Winfrey states, but the word “kike” also carries painful memories, like those of gas chambers, branding, being packed in trains, and families forever lost; we’ve all heard the stories. Every pejorative term has weight for the group the word pertains to. To erase the word “nigger” from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or from any other related period piece, is to erase a piece of history. I am in total agreement with Whoopi Goldberg’s stance on the issue. We need to teach children about the injustices of the world; they need to learn about all cultures and the troubles they faced before they were accepted in society. The United States had several dark moments in its history concerning the civil rights and liberties of certain groups of people, particularly people of color and Japanese background in the wake of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. It would be appallingly narcissistic of America to only teach people about the good times in its history.

Rapper Jay-Z argues that “It’s [the N-word] just become part of the way we communicate. My generation hasn’t had the same experience with that word that generations of people before us had. We weren’t so close to the pain. So in our way, we disarmed the word. We took the fire pin out of the grenade.” He argues that what gives the N-word power is the speaker’s intention. There are some people who say *n-word* after every other word, and there are those who refuse to utter it in any context. To some, the word is now a term of endearment. However, on the flip-side, if it were a term of endearment, does that mean that people of Hispanic, Caucasian, Asian, and Native American descent are free to throw the n-word around as they please? I think not. If the fire pin really has been taken out of the grenade, why is this controversial word free to be used by some and prohibited for others? The word nigger, much like the words kike, Jap, spic, honky, chink, and terrorist have been methodically used to humiliate and hurt the groups those names address; they inflict serious emotional distress.

With this being said, disparaging terms do in fact humiliate, hurt, and enrage, but under our First Amendment rights there really is no word that we as Americans are not allowed to say, nor should there be. This, like many issues we are facing today, concerns the ethics of the individual. In the case of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, what we need to consider is that the novel is a period piece, and therefore written in the language that reflected the time and social context. It does not necessarily reflect the views of Twain as a person, nor is the language meant to offend. It is the language of the period.

In elementary and middle school, our generation read several challenged and banned books in class, among them Bridge to Terabithia, Fallen Angels, Flowers for Algernon, The Giver, Of Mice and Men, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Before beginning these books in class, the school would send release forms home to parents asking if the children were allowed to read the particular book, explaining the controversial content. I can’t remember one instance in which a parent did not allow their child to read a book because of a little controversial content. Schools need to change their stance on banning Huckleberry Finn and all others; sending a release form home has proven effective. Now granted, reading Lois Lawry’s The Giver or Roald Dahl’s The Witches in an elementary school setting is not the same as reading Judy Blume’s Forever, which is filled with sexual content inappropriate for children of that age, but ultimately it is a parent and child’s (of a certain age) mutual decision to decide what the child can and cannot be exposed to. Parents can take the time to research the book, tell their kids about it, explain why the school is asking if it is acceptable for them to read it, and ask the child how they feel about it. If elementary and middle schools consider it inappropriate to have children read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with its 219 n-words, an alternative would be to have the novel be a part of the high school curriculum.      

  

My mother has always considered reading important; especially reading the books that have made history, the books that have made people want to ban them, the books that get people talking. She wanted me to be exposed from a young age to different kinds of thinking and literature. She says that once we start limiting peoples’ ability to expose themselves to all kinds of knowledge, we are opening a clear path toward communism.

To put it all into perspective, banning the word “nigger” from one of Mark Twain’s most acclaimed works is taking political correctness too far. While the word may still be offensive, it acts as a portal to a significant part of American history. It holds painful memories and connotations, but it has also shown the struggle of a particular ethnic group who has risen against adversity and been accepted in society. It would be unfair to alter the original, intended language of such a notable piece of literature; it would be unfair to alter the original, intended language of any piece of literature. When we change the words of a work, we also change the voice, put aside the historical context, and ignore what the writer wanted to make of his or her piece. To erase “nigger” from Huckleberry Finn, or from any other related book, is to erase a part of history.

       

Momma Knows Best

Kelley Williams-Bolar, a mother of two from Akron, Ohio, was recently arrested for toying with the education system by falsifying records and lying about her home address to get her girls into a better school. She was sentenced to ten days in prison and will have to serve two years' probation, as well as complete 80 hours of community service.

This is not strange news; growing up I knew a few kids who had to memorize two addresses--their real one, and the one they wrote on their documents so they could attend a particular school. I never told anyone, and I knew it wasn't a good thing for those kids to have to do. It was ultimately the decision of their parents.

Growing up I was in a similar, but not equal, situation. I live in a city that's about 30 to 40 minutes north of any family I have. When the time came for me to start elementary school, there was no one to drop me off or pick me up from school; my mom was working in a law firm in Downtown Miami at the time, and my father worked (and still works) for FPL. It was impossible for them to leave work at the time I finished school. I have no family close to where I live, and therefore could not attend a school in my area. There is an elementary school just minutes from my grandparent's house; my mom was been able to drop me off at my grandparent's house for them to take me and pick me up from school. Here's the problem: it wasn't my home school, so there was the possibility that my parents would have to lie about our address. My mother, ever the honest woman, instead fought long and hard with the Miami-Dade County School Board to get special permission for me to attend a school whose district my family and I were not a part of.

As I said before, this is a somewhat similar situation, but in no way completely analogous. William-Bolar’s primary concern was for her girls’ safety, whereas my mother’s concern was that I had no one to care for me during the time she and my father were at work. According to Williams-Bolar, her house in Akron was once broken into, and after that she felt it was her “duty” to work on getting her girls a better life and education. Here’s a little background information on her and her family that I pooled together from different sources: Williams-Bolar and her two girls live in an area of subsidized housing in her town of Akron. According to her, the three of them live “part-time” with her father, and she is currently working on attaining her teaching license. She works in a special education program for students with disabilities and is on public assistance. As of yet, her teaching license may be in jeopardy because of the felony charge against her.   

Responses concerning this issue range from ardent outrage to regrettable apathy. My initial reaction is too complex for words, but I can’t help but argue first and foremost that Williams-Bolar took the wrong approach to handling her predicament. As an aspiring educator, she more than anyone should know the repercussions of trying to “cheat,” as most like to put it, the school system. As an aspiring educator, she should be aware of the procedure one has to take to enroll a child in a school outside of their district. We cannot argue against the fact that in Ohio, what she did is considered a serious crime. Period. Had she spoken to the principal of the school she wanted her girls to attend, or had she discussed her situation with the Akron Board of Education or the Ohio State Board of Education, I dare say this could have had a more fortunate ending. Had she taken the legal approach first, there is a possibility that she could have been granted special permission to put her girls in a better school. Now, if she took the legal approach and was denied permission by her district or state’s school board, this denial would be sufficient justification for her to place her girls in the school she so desired, against the command of the school system.

By taking the illegal approach from the get-go, Williams-Bolar’s “crime” cancels out her good intentions and casts a dark shadow over her actions in the eyes of some. Williams-Bolar lives in a publicly subsidized home, she lied on signed and sworn school registration documents, as well as on applications for free or reduced lunch and other official forms, and she used her father’s address to enroll her children in a school district for which they do not pay taxes. To express the view of Conservatives, in how many ways and on how many levels is she going to try to circumvent the system? In the words of Bob Dyer from The Beacon Journal, “Fraud is fraud.”

Now on the Liberal side, this is woman who works in the special education system and is seeking a teaching degree and is being disparaged for attempting to provide for her children a better life. There are noticeable racial undertones to this story—about 72% of the students in the Copley-Fairlawn school district are white. There are currently about 30 to 40 cases similar to that of Kelley Williams-Bolar being investigated by the Copley-Fairlawn school district, but her case, the case of a colored family, happens to be the only one that has been taken to court and received nationwide attention. Is she being made an example of? Is Kelley Williams-Bolar the Hester Prynne of fraud?

The media’s presentation of this news piece is skewed to one side or to the other. For example, the title of Good Morning America’s report is, Ohio Mom Kelley Williams-Bolar Jailed for Sending Kids to Better School District. Just by reading the title we can tell whose side Good Morning America is on. Journalism shouldn’t be about taking sides, but about presenting information clearly and fairly, showing all sides of the spectrum. A more fair title would have been, Ohio Mom Kelley Williams-Bolar Jailed for Falsifying Records to Send Kids to Better School District. This title presents the crime she committed and her concern for her daughters’ education and well-being, not just one or the other. The Good Morning America clip greatly informed the public of the measures taken against Williams-Bolar during and after the trial. It didn’t give much background information about her and her daughters or even her father. It is more than clear that this case has become an outrage and that many news outlets are playing up the argument that she’s a mother trying to do what is best for her children. I would have liked to see a more lengthy news clip featuring the thoughts of parents and educators in that school district, as well as a superintendent explaining what measures could have been taken to help Williams-Bolar get the education she wants for her girls, if any.

In an interview, Williams-Bolar stated, “This is not a murder trial.” I am in full accord with her claim. Wanting to protect her children and give them a better education and life is not a crime. When certain crimes are committed, like an actual murder for example, many factors are taken into consideration before indicting or even convicting someone of a crime. Was it a murder for hire? A crime of passion? Was it in self-defense? Was the person mentally ill or under diminished capacity? Was it premeditated? After asking these questions, some form of sentence is given. Some may argue that in a fraud case, no external factors should be taken into account. It doesn’t matter that she’s a mother of two receiving public aid. It doesn’t matter that she helps people with disabilities and is seeking to be an educator herself. It doesn’t matter that she wants to give her daughters greater opportunities than what they can get in their hometown. She lied and cheated and robbed the Copley-Fairlawn school district of $30,000 and she should be punished. Is this my view? Certainly not. Do I think in her case external factors should be considered? Absolutely. If I were a mother would I do what she did? Only after taking the legal way first, and if the legal way failed me, then yes, I would.

I admire Kelley Williams-Bolar for fighting against the system as opposed to just taking her children out of the school like other parents did. However, there are ways of doing things, and then there are ways. I still maintain that she should have tried to resolve her issue by going to the school board and getting permission; with a case like hers it would be difficult to deny it. In the same fashion that children do their homework to learn and be prepared for class, parents need to do their homework before making such potentially life-altering decisions.

On Blogging and Spring Semester 2011

Well, this is new. Blogging, that is. I like this unconventional approach to a Writing and Composition class. Last semester's ENC course was oh so boring. We went to class and our instructor wrote journal questions on the board pertaining to the chapter we were on. That's about it. No class discussions, no reading interesting material. Just sit, write down journal questions, and zip through the chapter to try to finish them. It was not a particularly effective way to run a class, and I wasn't exactly thrilled about going to class every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. ENC 1102 is a breath of fresh air--blog and all.

I must admit, I had my doubts on the first day of the semester when our instructor...errr...instructed us to create a blog. I'm not particularly savvy when it comes to computers, so I thought, "Ugh, how am I going to pull this off?"  The night I was creating the blog, the "Three Simple Steps" weren't "simple" enough. -_- Yeah, it's that bad. And to top it all off, the pressure of having to come up with a blog name! (Okay, so maybe it's not that much pressure, but you get the idea. ) "Can't I just skip this step and sleep on it?" The answer was,"no." Hence my somewhat original blog title--a title I feel is not "me." Sure, no one else came up with it, but to me it lacks creativity. Not that I didn't stare at my computer for an hour hoping for a pop-up window to show me the light. It just never happened.

So. I, Alexi Cardona, an eighteen (soon-to-be nineteen) year-old attending Florida International University have a blog. In essence, an online diary. Only I most likely won't be writing on a daily basis, nor will I be writing about who broke my heart or who's cute in school or what my family members did to stress me out. Or will I? Let's call it a journal. It sounds less elementary school.

Seeing as this is a requirement for Writing and Composition, my blog is simply something that is required of me--for now. For now I will respond to the prompts my instructor assigns and make them as interesting as possible for her to read. I don't know how I feel about making this open to anyone other than her, or you, because you're the only one reading this, Natasha. I think. 

I find myself wanting to write this entry in closed-form prose. Every paragraph with a topic sentence and transitions to each new paragraph so they flow and make sense. I should stop.  Blogs aren't about that. Although they could be. I'm sure I'll get used to it. Is there any sort of criteria to blog-writing? Is there a good or bad blog? There must me. If this were Microsoft Word it would kill me for all my fragments. I'm not entirely sure how to go about this. I'm having a stream of consciousness thing going on here.

Aside from being new and unexpected, I'm thinking the blogging world will be exciting, especially since I'm not just going to be writing fluff. This seems fluffy to me but I'm sure the next ones won't be. I remember having a diary when I was little. I would write in it every day and apologize to it when I missed a day. Or several. Having one didn't last long--it becomes tiring keeping a diary. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks that.

Although they are a pain to maintain, diaries/journals are good for looking back to see how much you've grown and matured as a person. If I were writing this blog in middle school, it would have TONS of abbreviations and acronyms and text speak, all things I refuse to use now in any context. I don't even use text speak when I text, even if it means I have to send 3 messages to get my point across. I used to have a notebook in which I wrote about all the troubles I experienced in a past relationship. I went back and read those entries 6 months later and I made myself sick. How could I have written all those things? I sounded like a Toni Braxton song. (My apologies if you like Toni Braxton) It was bad. I laughed at myself. I was appalled with myself. I tore each entry to pieces and--literally--flushed them down the toilet.

I think I'm officially done with my rant. Despite my reservations about this blog, I can already tell I'm going to like it. It's not very often I get to share my thoughts with something that can't talk back. Sometimes we all need that. I feel somewhat special having my own URL. It screams, "Virtual world, I am here!" By the same token, it murmurs, "So are millions of other people. Calm down." If I ever find out how to really work this thing, I'll make it pretty. And maybe, just maybe, I'll make it public. I have my reservations about doing that, too. Ooh, maybe I should find out where the security settings are. And how to change the background. Is that what they call it? A background? How about an "About Me" section? Is that only on Facebook? Oy.