SZA

Sza releases the video for "Supermodel"

This is a must see because SZA is on fire these days! No intro necessary.


Ask Anything: Millennials who will not move out

You have a millennial who will not move out?

Welcome back folks!  The QOTD (question of the day) comes from our nosy friend Robyn.  Robyn listens to the complaints of her co-workers.  She has clearly taken lending an ear one step further than required.

She asks,

" What is your opinion about young adults that choose deliberately to stay with their parents after they pass adulthood? I am talking for people above 22~25 yo that prefer to stay with their parents…I believe it makes you become less assertive with your life…and it is a major turn off as I have seen many of them having trouble connecting with other people."

Just a little shadow and not complete shade

As is customary, before I actually go ahead an answer the question, I have a couple of words for Robyn.

  1. If I were your co-worker, and I found out that you had written in to a website to get an answer to some business that isn't even yours, it would be our last day working together.  YOU FEEL ME?
  2. I assume you mean well, but you are nosy AF, like really really nosy.
  3. Thank you for your question, because I'm nosy too and I would never want to miss the opportunity to get the scoop!  :-P

All young people are different

It is pretty obvious that all young people are not the same.  The problem is, while we know and acknowledge this, we continue to force our youth down a uniform path of development.  Imagine that some children are more artistic than others.  Artists have a very different path to success than those who choose more stereotypical normal careers.

Many artists go to school for 4-6 years to develop their skills in a particular medium, but discovery or  critical acclaim will vary  according to a variety of influences beyond their control.

Others, who decide to attend college for accounting will spend roughly the same amount of time developing their skills, but they will likely find a job before their artistic contemporaries are discovered.

[bctt tweet="Young people are often adversely impacted by those who wield influential power over them." username="wwregg"]

"As clinicians and educators, I think we have collectively failed to monitor our own thinking about this population. We know that thoughts lead to feelings, and feelings can lead to actions. Are we applying this knowledge to ourselves in our work with young adults?

We should acknowledge that we have chosen certain beliefs about young adults and, as such, these cognitive structures are negatively influencing our experience of working with this population.

Who determines what is normal? Struggling is a word often used with this population. They are certainly not thriving and not succeeding like their counterparts, who have not been labeled as “struggling.” Even the term late bloomer, which on the surface seems gentler, indicates that these individuals are not on time in their development."

Real is still real

Does this mean that we should allow kids to stay at home with a clock that never runs out?  That would be a hell no!  There has to be some structure around the choices that young people make.

A free ride is not good for anyone.  This is the perfect age to remind them that the life they live is not really their own.  Allowing them to stay and taking care of them is two very different things.

While you don't want them to be homeless, this does not mean that you have to make it easy.  Don't do their laundry.  Stop buying their favorite snacks from the grocery store.

Remove as many luxuries as possible to make sure that their discomfort is their motivator.  Also, consider putting some timelines in place.  Make sure they know that even though they are not in their chosen profession, the will need a job and an actionable plan.  I think you get my point Robyn.

Now put this in your own words and tell your co-worker, plagiarism is not a victim-less crime.  8-O

Have a question that you need a good real answer to.  Email me!

 


Don't feed us your BS success story

About that BS success story

We are over the “one day it just happened with out me doing anything” narrative that you love to share. Most of you are lying. If you garnered any type of success by publishing a post or an article it was on purpose.

You want us to believe that you wrote for months or years without result and were content to wait for your moment. Occasionally, you tell us that your third article went viral, afterward no one cared and things went back to normal. You continued to write until you were “discovered”. You insist that you didn’t care about the money or the attention, you did it for the art.

We call bullshit.

Most, if not all, of us care about the art, the expression, and the contribution to community. We want the other shit too!

What we think when you talk

You may not want to share your secret sauce but there is a recipe. Maybe it’s one that only works only for you. It could be true, your work garnered more attention than you ever imagined. Regardless, you intended to get a result.

Where are the people willing to be honest about what it takes to have the sort of success that every new blogger wants?

We get it, the mystique adds to the appeal. We want you to know that it also adds to the frustration and does not increase our estimation of your talent nor our admiration for you. Understanding there is no magic spell or wand to wave, that there is no one size fits all, we know there is no one coming to guide us to the literary promise land.

We know you want to feel special, even the most modest writers do. You want us to believe that you are one in a million, that many but few succeed.

What is your truth?

Are you ashamed of never really working hard? Maybe, you are embarrassed to share too much, that the mystifying curtain of pretense will come crashing down, exposing the truth of your “expertise”.

We the masses have had enough of your inflated ego and marginal writing, subsequent listicles and lengthy tirades about the luck that landed on your doorstep.

We really want

For once, we would love for the glittery rags to riches prodigies to say

“I tried really hard and sucked for a long time before I got any traction”.

“I joined a million useless Facebook groups and begged relatives to click-through my site to mask the failing heartbeat of my marooned blog”.

We have come so far from Oz, and we sure as shit aren’t Dorothy, so let’s have some fucking truth for a change you great and powerful wizards.


Artist Spotlight: Goapele

Artist Spotlight: Goapele

Goapele

Before you get started about how she is not a new artist.  Let me just tell you that she is definitely an under served artist.  Goapele is super talented and packs each of her albums with the music that challenges you to think, while also conjuring sexy soulful emotions.  If you don't believe me take a look at this clip!  She has a secret 8-), and it seems like it's a really good one!

https://twitter.com/Goapele/status/884849148192845824

In one breath, she’s urging social change and boldly standing up for righteousness in the face of inequality; the next, she’s guiding her child with a sensitive understanding, hard-earned wisdom, and unconditional love. Finally, she’s as seductive and soulful as ever seamlessly slipping from activist, mother, and poet to temptress. This delicate sonic shape-shifting is a technique she introduced on her now classic 2001 debut  Closer, but she hones it to perfection on Dreamseeker.

https://twitter.com/Goapele/status/817281535804133376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.drum.co.za%2Fcelebs%2Fcassper-nyovest-and-goapele-in-studio%2F

A little info

I became a fan when she released closer.  That song unlocked the door to a torrid love affair with her music and I have been a fan ever since.  The overall sound is like a haute coutoure gown that glides over the body and hugs in all the right places.  She blends trip-hop, traditional R and B, and pop music all into one tidy package.  On the other hand, when she tours, she prices her tickets like she is Whitney Houston, so that is a complete no go for me.  As much as I love her music, she does not put on the kind of show that warrants a 200 dollar ticket just for the privilege of standing in the front.  Grown men do not stand in kiddie pits so we can sing, sway side to side, and light cigarette lighters during the emotional moments.

The  new album, Dreamseeker is a mix of what you would expect from her.  She sings with her normal style that blends her statuesque femininity with her smooth and soothing powerhouse vocals.  Her lyrics are pure poetry, as she takes on controversial topics, and issues relative to her life as well as others.  Many do not know that she is an activist as well as a philanthropist.  Maybe that's why her concert tickets are so expensive.  (Still salty)

Goapele participates in raising awareness. She is active in the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and recently starred in a short film, Where Is Beauty, which covers the pressures women endure from social media and normative standards of beauty.

What you need to know

Overall I rate this album 8 out of 10.  I think she is still going strong and I will definitely be rocking to this.  I do not however, think this is her most creative or relative work.  Some of the tracks are really over done and she does tend to slip into what everyone else is doing with new hooks over familiar beats.  I do enjoy that, but I don't necessarily think its creative.  Stand out tracks: Secret, Bright as the Sun, Stay (feat. BJ the Chicago Kid), and Power.

[bctt tweet=" Stand out tracks: Secret, Bright as the Sun, Stay (feat. BJ the Chicago Kid), and Power." username="wwregg"]

Really, in that order.

Check out some of the songs below and let me know if you agree.  Cant wait to hear your feedback!

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/embed?listType=playlist&list=PLqJ_b8IWlEQPjKhtEAI5_WJmc-iPM9ZCo&v=Q15gwzTd9Zs&layout=gallery[/embedyt]

 


How to Unsuccessfully Spend Your Sunday

 

The madness begins

Sunday evening, I took my daughter to the emergency room at Baylor hospital.  We went there for help with severe dehydration, after not being able to keep anything down for over 12 hours.  This was also having a negative impact on her blood glucose levels, she is a type-1 diabetic.  Before you feel too bad for her, it was her own decision to eat hamburger pizza that she left out all night and part of the next day.  It was also her choice to eat a freshly baked, two-week-old cookie that she hid in her room.

Waiting room blues

During her intake interview with the triage nurse, a middle-aged man came to a grinding halt just outside the emergency room doors.  He then jumped out of his enormous Ford truck, without regard for any of the previously arrived patients, screams “I need help for my daughter and I need it now”!  I’m not surprised by this, especially since it’s an emergency room, pretty much everyone there needed help now.  After spotting a nurse at the desk, he stops her from talking to the current patient, and orders her to attend to his daughter.   He provided her with the details of her “home diagnosis” and her intestinal valve blockage due to pregnancy.

 

No one in earshot knew what that meant. To the credit of the attending nurse, despite his discourteous behavior, she said “I’m gon call someone to come help you now, ok suga”.  After three entire minutes, no one has come and the guy is visibly and audibly frustrated.  Strutting and stomping the entire length of the waiting area, we are all forced to listen to him berate the nurses and the hospital staff.

We were all advised that every patient room in the ER was full and that there would be a wait.  Patients with barely attached limbs caused by a car accident were the priority.  If you were not bleeding or otherwise dismantled, you would have to wait your turn.  You know, triage…

Calmly, the nurse explains again, nobody is available to help him get the patient out of the car. “Bubba” found a wheelchair and gets daughter out of the pick-up.  She wailed with the same intensity as a person on fire.  Still, no nurses have arrived.

Don't you know who I am

He went around to the ER doors and tried to get through, shaking them. No luck “Bubba”. They take her info, and send her back out to the waiting room. “Bubba” is like fuck this, and calls 911. In comes a security guy, and wants to talk.  Satisfied with “Bubba’s” story, the security guard walks away. “Bubba” is still not for the song and dance going on in the ER!  Daughter says, I’m feeling sick.  “Bubba” tells daughter “just throw up on the floor, they aren’t helping us anyway”. During this madness, his truck remained right in front of the ER doors. No ticket given, no request to have it moved. No ambulance arrived.

911 doesn’t understand why “Bubba” is calling from the ER, requesting an ambulance to take him to a different ER.  Imagine that.

“Bubba’s” privilege had successfully impeded the progress of my daughter’s treatment.  All the disturbance he created prevented the head staff nurse from starting an IV for my severely dehydrated child. She left to contend with security and soothing an irate father.  I could not believe his arrogance.  I understand the concern that a father has for his child, believe me I do.  After all, I was there for the same reason.

Most Parents

My primary concern in this moment was securing help for my child.  Everyone in that ER had the same things on their minds, but submitted to the “order” of things except “Bubba”. After having time to check the details of the day, I realized that all the interference disparate treatment we experienced comes from 3 places.

  1. The confidence and entitlement “Bubba learned as a child has permeated all aspects of his existence, thus giving him the unmitigated gall to act so during his emergency.
  2. The vehement declaration of his rights convinced all the non-white female hospital staff, that attending to his demands outweighed their procedural training and good judgment.
  3. Simply, our race made us less important during challenging moments.

[bctt tweet="“They made you an Amendment and convinced you it meant 'American.” " username="wwregg"]

What's left

I can show the problem, and convey my sentiments, but the necessary solution is a global one. All I have left is an observation that continues to mystify my understanding of humanity. Many believe that privilege is an abstract topic best in the halls of academia, while those that live with the adversity daily know better.

This lighthearted conversation covering a serious topic  denies that concept, by illustrating one of many scenarios occurring daily.  It's not that I think that I am coming from a place of no privilege, what I am saying is that mine isn’t quite inalienable.

Please leave your comments below, let me know your thoughts.  Talking about it is the only option.

 


Falling Down Is O.K, Staying Down Is Not

 

Never Forget Why You Started

Deep breath! Roll your eyes and plaster on a smile that is as close to genuine as possible, and remind yourself that today is another opportunity to make a positive impact on those impressionable college youth that has come to learn. Over and over again you repeat to yourself, "Falling down is OK, staying down is not an option and you carry on".

How it begins

We all have that thing that we love to do, even when deep down inside we are not sure why.  We do know that we cannot live without it. It is equal to being hooked on a drug, except it has a positive outcome and you get to keep all your teeth. That is what teaching college students feels like to me. If you are lucky you will get at least one section of students that are actually there for themselves, to learn, to grow and not as a prerequisite to keep mamma from kicking them out of the house.


You hope you will get this

 

 

 

 

 

What you really get.


Here is what I have learned about being a college professor so far:

  1. I know measurably less than I ever considered:  I was severely under-prepared in the area of communication, mostly because I am only a novice at speaking millennial.
  2. I'm not nearly as flexible as I thought I was: When I grabbed that shiny graduate degree, I was ready to be an academic boss. (click for dance break)  I laugh to myself as I type this, because it is the kind of thing that you say to yourself and never admit the private hubris you feel, publicly.
  3. People almost never respond the way you think they will:  I had all these grand designs, all these inventive ways I would change the face of learning! #fail
  4. Being liked and being respected are not mutually exclusive:  At first, you try being a hard ass, then you try being the cool young professor, in the end, it's really a blend of both that will help you get the job done.
  5. Don't be afraid to watch your students fail themselves: I kept assuming that if they failed it would somehow be my fault.  The truth is  mostly all they are good at so far is manipulation and avoiding responsibility.  It's the leftover "nurturing" from high school. Just make sure they know how to be successful and stand back.

You have to remember

College has a way of making you feel like the world will open up and lay itself at your feet. Once you complete your rigorous curriculum, you feel entitled to select the job that fits you best, demand decent pay, and most importantly they are lucky to have you! In reality, you have completed the bare minimum for someone to hire you.  If you are lucky you don't have to go to work armed, and in my case, you can find a car that is cheap enough to afford, big enough to ride in for more than thirty minutes, and nice enough that security doesn't think you are a students and give you a citation for not having the parking pass.

I can do this

Don't think any of what I have said applies to everyone, but in most cases, all professors experience some version of this. Falling down is O.K, staying down is not. I do still believe teaching is rewarding, I am doing my best. I do not feel bad, by any measure, for taking the wrapper off one of my dreams and finding that it is nothing like I expected.  Eventually, I will be able to mold this dream into something that goes far beyond what I initially imagined.


This is how your tuition dollars are used” Unprepared for College

 Where are the students

I have worked as a college professor, in one capacity or another, since 2011.  Until last fall, I was consistently optimistic about the progression of my skill level as an instructor, and the quality of the student population.  I imagined there would be some disconnection between the high school curriculum, and opportunities to bridge gaps in knowledge. I always want to send a new batch of students on their way to academic success.  I'm not foolish or self-important enough to believe that I will have an impact on lives of all my students, but that does not keep me from giving it a shot.

I usually inherit a room full of young people (intermingled with actual adults) who have been delivered to the higher education system fresh out of  f**ks and unbothered. Colleges are overrun with groups of young people, super confident in their skills and sorely lacking in their performance. Before you  deep breathe, slow blink, or offer an obligatory eye roll, please take a moment to recognize that this is an “in the trenches assessment” from someone close to the issue.   This does not apply to every student, but the majority of first-time students go on break prior to clocking in for work.  

Why students are failing themselves

As near as I can tell, anything adjacent to an explanation for this decline in student preparation can be categorized into three areas
  1. No one told them excuses made in high school are now void: Bottom line, no one cares that you were sick, that you were hung-over, or that you forgot that it was due. Figure it out!
  2. No one ever made sure they had adequate adult coping skills: Believe me; I understand that we love our children, however, the parade of second place prizes and pep talks ensuring them that they were still winners even though they lost just were not the answer. If you lose, you are a loser. “If you’re not first you’re last and all that sort of thing”.  It’s ok to not be the best, it builds character and determination.
  3. Life up till now has been pretty convenient: Not everyone was wealthy, got it, but most people have had access to modern conveniences.  Cell phones, computers, on-demand T.V. , have all helped to cement convenience as a custom or expectation.  The reality is that work is, well... work, or we would call it something else.  Learning is often not convenient, occasionally not easy, and never done exactly your way.
  4. Bonus reason Below:

Seriously!

So what do you do?  The only thing that I have found that combats the apathy of some student is consistency.  When students have a routine, it helps feel a measure of control over their chaos.  If all else fails, there is always scaring the shit out of them.CollegeJust kidding!! (mostly). So parents/guardians, fear not, there is hope for your spoiled little ball of raw potential.  They can come out shiny new and full of...well I am not exactly sure what they will be full of, at least they will have a set of skills.