Language barriers

I heard about this on a radio show or something, and I figured it'd be something good to expound on. Pat's, Geno's and Tony Lukes are the three cheesesteak places that most people around these parts recognize as the main (and best) cheesesteak eateries. I am obligated to quote SuperGrover as saying "Yeah, I agree with that I guess, but Geno's still sucks so whatever..." Anyhow, Geno's now requires all orders to be made in English. I suppose too many people were gesturing wildly at the menu and/or barking out things in Spanish.

Some say this has sparked a national debate, but I don't see it as sparking anything. I think it simply highlights an increasing tension people have about whether or not English should be the official language of the United States (de facto or de jure, whichever).

My view on this is that it would be an interesting case for the courts. If it were challenged on the basis of being a discriminatory policy, I'm really not sure how it would go. The fact is that you're denying people service simply because they're immigrants. But on the other hand, you're not being discriminatory the way things were pre-Civil Rights era. Whereas a person can not change the color of their skin, anyone can learn to speak a language, at least in a very rudimentary way.

There's a lot of opinions out there. When my grandmother's family came here from Russia, they didn't speak English either (how could they learn, they were fleeing the communists). But once they got here, they sent my grandmother to school and when she came home, they asked her to help them learn English. Not only that, but she was prohibited from speaking Russian casually. Every time she said anything in Russian, she says that her parents yelled at her, saying "Stop it - we're in America, and in America you speak English."

I found an interesting article about how many immigrants don't have time to sit down and learn English. Not being able to find child care is a big cause of this. I have to say, my great-grandparents were farmers, and it's pretty obvious how much time it takes to grow crops. I don't really want to hear how there's not enough time. And my family certainly didn't have the benefit of ESL programs.

I guess what bothers me most is that only a couple of generations ago, learning English was one of the things you put up with when coming here as an immigrant. Now, everyone else has to learn other languages to get jobs in their own country. I realize the life of an immigrant is hard, I've heard enough stories from all of my older relatives about how hard it was for them to work their way up and send their kids to college. But they respected their new home, and they wanted to make a life here at any cost. So they took the time to learn the language and prosper. Frankly, I think it's disrespectful not to, and I also think it's lazy not to learn English in a country where it is absolutely necessary.

In terms of Geno's, I think it's the owner's decision. If he is willing to accept the loss in business, more power to him. It's not the government's job to tell him how to run his business. There have already been talks of bias lawsuits and such, and I'm genuinely interested to see how they turn out. In the end, as the previous article mentioned, ESL classes are brimming with immigrants wanting to learn English. I think this is great. In fact, in a rare move, I would actually recommend that the government increase spending (!) to ESL programs. People really area upset about having to worry about language barriers, and I think it serves a legitimate state interest. It's hard to conduct commerce and other sorts of transactions without a common language.

An (hopefully) amicable breakup

There are times when I reflect on why I decided to play this goofy sport to begin with. I came to GW because I didn't get into Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, BC, or Tufts. I had just earned All-State honors in track, and was eager to continue running. Unfortunately for me, GW did not (and still does not) have a track team. So I came out for ultimate, having played it for workouts quite a few times. That's why I started.

But why did I stay? I stayed becuase I have fun on this team. I stayed, even through the time when I gave serious thought to transferring to a different (and much cheaper) school. Most of my friends are on the team and we have great times together, so although the reason I started playing was because I need competition and physical exertion in my life, I stayed because of the people and the camaraderie. And that's why I continue to play for GW, and will probably continue playing for whatever graduate school to which I go.

This summer I tried out my first club-level ultimate, trying out for a D.C.-area team called Truck Stop. Its leadership is composed 2/3 of GW alumni, and the team consists mostly of college, or recently out of college, players from the Colonial Section. They're a good team, and they've got the potential to be way better than last year with the people they have. I would almost venture to say I wouldn't have made the team with the talent they have out there. That said, yesterday I withdrew myself from the competition to make that team.

There are several unimportant reasons why I made that choice, and at least one important one. My only hope is that my teammates won't think any less of me for having pulled myself off of Truck Stop. I hope you all know how much this sport means to me and how much of my free time I dedicate to not only playing and practicing, but figuring out behind-the-scenes stuff that very few of you even think about. I hope you know how badly I want to get better, and how fed up I was with myself this spring season for being out of shape for the majority of the time. I don't enjoy being an average player, and I'm going to use the summer to get in better condition, work on my throws, and be at every recruiting session I can conceivably make.

All that said, the reason I stopped playing Truck Stop is because I wasn't having any fun. This is not to say that the Truck Stop guys aren't fun guys -- they are. I mean, the best party I'd been to all year was a party mainly composed of guys now playing for them. I guess club ultimate may not be for me, and it's disappointing that I've come to that conclusion. To anyone out there who is thinking of playing for Truck Stop: do it. They're good players, and they're good people. Maybe it's club ultimate, maybe it's just their team dynamic, but something just wasn't for me.

I learned a lot from high school football, and I like to think I'm applying one of those lessons here. By the time the last month of the season rolled around my senior year, I just stopped enjoying going to practice. For that month or month-and-a-half, I wasn't happy. I just plain wasn't. And I really don't want to sour on ultimate as much as my opinion of football soured in that last month. For that reason, I'm going to stick to pro league and corporate, and extend a heartfelt thanks to the Truck Stop guys for allowing me and encouraging me to try out.

Intelligence indicates...

... that Pitt found my website some other way than was previously thought. Sneaky hobbitses... We tried to shank down one of their underlings for information, but to no avail. Intriguing indeed.

Come and get your money

It's summer, and the sweaty weather has brought with it financial crisis. I'm living off campus with my teammates in their $800/month apartment (which has been described as "reasonably" priced, to give you an idea of how out of control D.C. housing prices are). It's not cheap. Lucky for me, though, one of the people at CLLC found a job for me. The aim of this post is to give you a glimpse into the absurdity of the place where I work.

It's a good job. I get paid $12/hr for doing some pretty menial stuff, and they don't care that I have a summer class right smack in the middle of the day. I work at a patent law firm called Sughrue Mion, PLLC. I do bitch work, which so far has consisted of cross-checking their entire docketing system, which they just migrated from one system to another. Jay, one of the professional staff at work, got me the job because he used to work there as an undergrad and keeps in touch with the HR person. I am eternally thankful to him for getting me this job, else I would have had to have mooched off my parents even more this summer.

Good things about working here include 2-block proximity to where I'm living, ample lunch choices, and nice people (though not attractive). I also work with Ryan, a former CLLC colleague, so at least I can chat with him if all else fails (all else has failed on at least one occasion when the whole system went on the fritz). Also good to divide the work and bounce ideas around. Another perk is that every day is Casual Friday, especially Casual Friday. I never have to dress up penguin-style or anything. In fact I wear jeans and sneakers pretty much every day, and some sort of shirt. Yet another perk is that the soda machines vend sodas for $0.25, as well as bottled water for the same price.

This is not to say that working at Sughrue Mion has not had its share of shenanigans.

The first one occurred on my second day of work, when I was attempting to bring my canceled check down to Accounting so that I could get direct deposit. After determining via advance recon (i.e. going to the wrong floor) that Accounting was on the 6th floor, I decided that taking the elevator from the 8th to the 6th floor would be a rookie move. Thus, I found the door labeled "Stairs" and with a big stink-cloud of self-satisfaction hanging over me, I embarked down the stairs. I get to the sixth floor and walk straight into the door, thinking it would be, well, you know... open. But it wasn't. Neither was the seventh floor. Or the fifth. OR ANY OF THE FLOORS. Why would you label a stairwell "Stairs" if they don't lead anywhere? Even at the ground floor, the door was alarmed. So here I am in a smelly stairwell, with no way to get out. There are cameras all over the place, so if the security people were laughing at me going up and down trying every door... I curse your existence. My cell phone didn't work, so I couldn't call anyone and ask them to open the damn door for me. I eventually pounded on the door hard enough to get the attention of one of the yokel office staff, who, prior to opening the door for me, asked "Who's there?" THE PRINCE OF FUCKING WALES, YOU MUCKER! Jesus, what an inane question to ask. 15 minutes later I was released from the stair-prison, with knowledge to never try and eschew the elevators again.

Another incident occurred with the vending machine. The inner machinations of that contraption were crafted in the fires of Hell by Beelzebub himself, my friends. Week in and week out it eats people's money. This is evidenced by the numerous Post-it notes with dates, amounts, and phone extensions that clutter up the top of the snack-viewing window. It ate my money not once, but twice, and there are unconfirmed reports that someone else had a 3 Musketeers bar on my dollar. I demand vengeance! Anyhow, I dutifully posted the monetary injustice that was done to me via Post-it note and had completely forgotten about it when I got a mysterious phone call.

-Hello?
-Come and get your money.
-Ummm... excuse me?
-Come / and / get / your / money.

If you don't immediately think that this is someone nefarious calling the wrong number to try and close some shady deal, you haven't watched enough television programming or motion pictures. My mind immediately went into what-the-fuck mode, while the person on the other line hung up. It dawned on me after a couple of seconds what was going on here (reimbursement for misappropriated cupcake-related expenses vis-a-vis the vending machine) and so I set out to get my quarters back. Unfortunately, halfway down the hall I realized I had no idea where I was going, or who the nefarious voice was. I called my supervisor who sighed and said "Oh yes, that's our wonderful secretary Gloria," and added that down in the Docketing department, they affectionately call her the Dragon Lady. So I approached the Dragon Lady, who said "You'd think after losing your money the first time you wouldn't put more in." I was so completely taken aback by this, I made some funny comment and walked away. I stopped mid-stride in the hallway on my way back though, because the only explanation for what she just said was that she thought I put in a dollar after I lost my initial $0.85. I didn't bother mentioning to her that it took my money TWICE on TWO SEPARATE DAYS.

So she's the Dragon Lady, and the woman who works in the cube outside our office is the Radish Queen. Why? Because she is short, has a round head, and really short hair, which was spiked up in the back Alfalfa-style the first day I saw her. Thus, she looks like a radish, and thus, she is the Radish Queen because she is clearly able to reason more effectively than her namesake vegetable. Hey... coming up with semi-retarded nicknames is what I do to keep sane. They firewall the internet on our computer so the only thing we can look at is the US Patent Office website. Slacking off is damn near impossible. I'll let you know how I eventually beat the fun police but for now, I am just and underground slackjob.

The problem with plagiarism

Let me start off by saying that I have never plagiarized anything. If you don't know that I am the type of person who would frown on any type of cheating, you don't know my very well. Point is, I am completely against cheating. First off, college isn't that hard, and if you're cheating it's because a) you're a dumbass or b) you're a dumbass. No sympathy there. If you don't have the balls to take a zero for fucking up an assignment, you need to go on a vision quest or something.

I will say, however (Cate should be proud of me for not starting this sentence with "however") ... anyway, I will say that the GW Code of Academic Integrity scares me. The professor of my summer class is a big-time anti-plagiarism guy. We talked a bit about it during class, but every time I get a professor like this, I am a bit befuddled by the whole anti-plagiarism push, especially when it comes to citing lecture. Our professor wants us to make sure we cite him when we use things we learned in class. The idea that I would have to cite things I learned in lecture is the crux of my point about plagiarism. I believe that this is absurd.

Everyone learns about the world through experience. No one emerges from the womb with a categorical knowledge of 5th centrury Hindu archetecture. You have to learn it from somewhere. So when my history professor is insisting that we quote things from lecture, I just don't understand it. Where did he learn about North Korea? I know for a fact that he went to Harvard, and last time I checked, they go to a lot of class up there and read their fair share of books. So why isn't he citing every little thing he has ever learned in his lectures? This quesiton I know the answer to... BECAUSE IT'S A PAIN IN THE ASS!!!

It's just as much of a pain for me when I have to cite retardedly simple things in my paper. My professor said at the beginning of the course that he expects most people to come into the course with very little knowledge about North Korea. For me, this is true, I knew virtually nothing about North Korea. Granted I know a lot about the Cold War element of it, but not much more. I don't want to say that all I ever knew about North Korea I learned from Team America, but aside from knowing that Kim Jong-il wears women's sunglasses and is insane, I don't know much.

Point is, in a class where you aren't expected to know anything, everything that ends up in your fucking paper is going to be gleaned from some other source. By the logic laid out by my professor and by GW, my entire paper should be composed of citations. This is ridiculous for the two above reasons. One, professors have to get their knowledge from somewhere, so as fellow scholars, why are they not bound by the same rules? Two, they expect us to cite the information we gain just by listening to them in class when they simultaneously carry the assumption that we don't know anything about the subject. Then, when you overuse citations, they yell at you for not being original enough.

I'm all for strict punishments for those who are too lazy to put any thought into their assignments and instead use someone else's words. As a student who puts in a lot of time to succeed, I would be pissed if any of my friends ever took a paper of mine (or anyone else's) and passed it in as their own. At the same time, however, all this academic integrity talk from GW and the professors inspires a completely unnecessary culture of academic fear. I suppose that my fears are unfounded, as I have never met anyone brought before the Academic Integrity committee, but every semester I let these professors scare me with their "cheating" talk. And every semester I think of how absurd it has gotten.

A few words on gypsies

First of all, if any of my readers should happen to have a story about gypsies they would like to share, please post it in the comments field!

A former roommate pointed out that I have created a little motif of throwing things at gypsies. Mind you, I am certainly not a racist. I have just heard from enough people who have been in Russia and Eastern Europe to know that gypsies annoy the shit out of people in the city. By no means am I saying that all gypsies are a certain way and deserve to be hit with gallons of rancid milk. But I will say that I have heard some interesting stories about them. As a shout-out, a lot of these stories come from a guy in my Russian class who lived there for an extended period of time (not sure how long, I think around a year or more).

Firstly, any travel guide to any major Russian city advises foreigners to look out for packs of gypsy children. What may look like a poor mother with a gaggle of dirty children may in fact be a band of skilled pickpockets willing to use extrodinary means to relieve you of your money, passports, gold fillings, and possibly, anal virginity.

Secondly, the gypsies in Russia (as it has been told to me by people who have lived there) refuse to attend public schools and actually inbreed a fair amount.

Thirdly, I will describe to you some of the ways I have heard of gypsies trying to rob people on the Russian metro. My friend in Russian class told me that he knew of a method they used involving a cabbage wrapped in baby clothes. A crafty mother will pretend to slip and fall and chuck the "baby" at an unsuspecting passerby. When the person catches the "baby" out of reflex, the gang of dirty ragamuffins will empty the pockets of the passerby, leaving them nothing but empty pockets and a smelly gypsy cabbage. Another technique he told me about is that gypsy children will sidle up to you and poke you with little pins. Alarming indeed considering the HIV rate in Russia has been skyrocketing in the past several years. After you bend down to clutch your leg/side/whatever, they will rob you.

For these reasons and more, when people in Russia talk about gypsies, they will generally not use the term "gypsy" without a preceding equivalent of "fuckin'" or "goddamned." Again, I have no personal reason for disliking gypsies, but I have heard so many horror stories from people in Russia that I'm beginning to think like them (at least in terms of gypsies). Thus the references in the blog. Thanks Scott, for giving me the idea for this post.