day 14 : black friday must be named for evil

While waiting for my hair to dry, I find myself sitting at my computer at 9:46am, mildly depressed and more than a little ashamed. Having just spent 10 straight hours shopping in the madness that is Black Friday, I feel I have thrown myself into the black pit of consumerism and realized belatedly there is no way out. The thing is it was all gloriously fun and lovely, hanging out with high school friends and racing to the mall, but I BOUGHT SO MANY THINGS I DO NOT NEED!!

The shopping nightmare began at approximately 10:30pm on the night of Thanksgiving when, upon arriving home from the family feast, I brushed my teeth and took off to meet my friends at a non-mutual friend's home. Which surprisingly wasn't awkward at all. After that, it was all downhill.

11:15pm - I meet friends at non-mutual friend's house. We chat briefly and then leave in our separate cars to catch the Gap opening at midnight.
11:45pm - We arrive at the mall and make a beeline to the Gap store and get in line. Next door, the Aeropostale line already extends to the opposite wall and curves around ours. I realize that people are crazy. Subsequently, I realize today I have joined the ranks of the crazy people.
12:01am - The doors open! And we flood in civilly. Fifty percent off everything store WOW! But we forgot that Gap is expensive anyways, so it only brings prices down to a relatively reasonable level. Friend shops for coat.
12:30am - Friend gets in line to buy coat.
12:40am - Friend buys coat. We leave Gap and wander the rest of the mall. American Eagle! But they, too, are ridiculously expensive.
1:00am - Friend finds shirt he likes! Friend gets in line and buys his shirts within 10 minutes.
1:15am - No other stores are open. The mall is lame.
1:16am - I realize I am hungry. I announce my state to my friends. We decide to go to McDonald's.
1:25am - We are failing to find the phone number for the McDonald's nearest us to determine whether it's 24 hours.
1:30am - We head to a far McDonald's near a Target, which we believe opens at 3am for more consumer revelry.
2:00am - We arrive at a 24-hour McDonald's. It has a Play Palace. Despite the fact that it is 24-hours, most of the doors to the facility are locked. Even with an adequate amount of sleep, I'm not sure this makes sense.
2:05am - I order a HappyMeal and receive a Hello Kitty watch. I love it!! Then I am disappointed as I discover I could have had a ChocoCat watch.
2:20am - We break out the Monopoly Deal game.
2:40am - We discover that Target actually opens at 4am. Monopoly Deal continues.
3:47am - We have finished at least 4 games of Monopoly Deal and are finally headed out the door to Target across the street.
3:50am - We are thwarted by the crazy people who have been waiting to get into Target for hours. Probably since Thanksgiving started, even. I am reaffirmed in the belief that everyone out to shop on Black Friday is crazy.
3:55am - We redirect ourselves to Macy's, where we know we will find parking and good things to buy.
4:45am - I leave Macy's with a new coat.
5:00am - H&M has a ridiculously long line. It winds through the store. I don't like H&M anyways.
5:15am - I reunite with a former orchestra buddy!!!! We chat about life; I reminisce about high school...damn! But kkiiiiiiiiiiiiib

--EDIT: and this is where I fell asleep at my computer in utter exhaustion--

5:30am - I am wandering around Express, contemplating how a 40% discount is actually very puny.
6:00am - I finally have the maturity to leave Express without buying anything and move on to the Loft, where I attempt to browse for items for my mother, who'd before I left the house requested I buy her an outfit.
6:20am - I leave the Loft with a dress for me and a ill-fitting shirt for her. I'm skeptical that it will win her approval. But the Loft shopping bag is lovely. I meet up with my friends again at Auntie Anne's Pretzels, and we split up. Off to New York & Company!
6:40am - I am a scarf and sweater richer, with another sweater for my mother. Perhaps she will actually like this piece of clothing.
7:00am - J.C. Penney: desperately trying to find a "meaningful gift" for my mother's friend's birthday.
7:10am - I spot a pair of purple boots.
7:30am - I am leaving J.C. Penney with a black pashmina neck wrap that was only $7.50, tax included. I am pining for the purple boots.
8:00am - My arm is shaking from holding so many bags as I scour Macy's once again for something for my mother. I feel I have to justify my spending by spending money on her. Incidentally, everything goes on my credit card.
8:30am - I am fed up with life. I purchase what I have in my hand and leave the mall. As I get to my car, someone is already waiting to take my parking spot. I contemplate again how crazy people are to come out shopping on Black Friday.
9:00am - I pull into a parking space at Target and stare blankly at the beautiful brick exterior. My car is still on, and I'm stalling in a back parking space. I struggle with myself before finally backing out and rumbling out of the parking lot. I am sick of shopping, and my Circadian rhythm is vomiting all over me. It's time to go home.
9:46am - Showered, pajama-ed, and thoroughly guilt-ridden, I sit down at my laptop and decide to record this day in my cyber history to remind myself: never again.

2:30pm - I wake up, fill myself with food, and wrap my mother's friend's present.
4:40pm - I hustle my brother out the door to pick up our baby brother to go to see Tangled at 5:30.
8:00pm - We are back at Macy's, and I am exchanging my coat.

I could be out seeing Harry Potter with my friends right now. Instead, I am lying in bed finishing this blog post and wondering whether I can get up the energy to work on homework. That I am this exhausted is ridiculous. Today, I spent over $200 on unnecessary things. Most of them purple.

Moral(s) of the story: Black Friday is evil. People are crazy. Writing is unproductive after over 10 hours shopping. Huddles frozen yogurt sucks.

day 13 : boob jobs

Thought about one? Thinking about one? Think you might start to think about one after a few decades and gravity starts to take its toll?

It's not an unusual consideration. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, there were over 300,000 reported breast augmentations performed in 2009, down from over 350,000 the year before. And if you think about how these numbers represent the people who actually go through with the procedure, the number of people who've given even half a second's thought to it must be at least double.

I'm gonna be honest - I've thought about it too. Thought about and rejected, but considered nonetheless!

The thing is, how could you not? Media is pumped full of fantastic images - women with tiny waists and full, perky breasts. Audiences of men and women idolize the Victoria's Secret models with their sexy curves. Buy a push-up bra, increase your cup size, become your fantasy. All of it is just a surgical procedure away.

Until now.

Check out this product I discovered while reading better health blog:

Are your eyes deceiving you, you ask? Is this product actually called boob job? In fact it is. Marketed by Rodial Body Care products, boob job claims to augment your breasts by up to 2.5 cm when applied twice daily.  For the nominal fee of £125.00, you too can be the proud owner of a pair of beautifully bigger boobs. Rodial describes the product's mechanism as a natural one derived from an "Asian root that has no hormonal activity." Their website doesn't really give any indication as to what it does, but other compounds in the cream apparently help to redistribute fat cells to the bust area and at the same time firm and tone the breasts as well.

Here's a testimonial from one of boob job's satisfied customers:

"After just 4 days of using Boob Job, I have definitely noticed a difference! My bra feels tighter, and my bust seems much firmer! I know longer need to use my chicken fillets!!"

Wow! She know longer needs to use chicken fillets!

Two things seem to be at work here. One, many many women would love to see their breasts fit the fantastic ideals put forth by marketing and media. Two, there's a stigma associated with undergoing plastic surgery of any sort, not to mention it's expensive. A third thing that might be tagging along for the ride is what I always refer to as the "green movement" - eating healthy, buying organic, turning to "natural" products that have previously undiscovered substances and properties that can substitute for all the synthetic junk we pump into our bodies through food and medicine and things like cigarettes.

Snaps to Rodial for putting all these things together and making a product with some relatively unknown compound from the Orient to give women exactly what they want in a discreet and inexpensive way that doesn't expose them to the stigma of plastic surgery...! But it's one thing to ingeniously put all these things together; it's another if the product doesn't actually work. That being said, it's ridiculous that the company doesn't put up more data from product testing. Testimonials are cute. But they don't really say much, especially if your sources can't distinguish between 'no' and 'know.'

Dr. Nield, of The London Clinic, was quoted in a news article expressing skepticism of the product. I agree with the need for very vocal medical scrutiny in a sketchy product such as boob job, but I think Dr. Nield could have taken more consideration in forming her comments, especially now that she may become part of a libel suit with Rodial. It is of course imperative that she makes her concerns known, but I think we have to consider the conflict of interests here. Dr. Nield is a consultant plastic surgeon. Would she want to see her patients go elsewhere for their breast augmentation treatments? And really, who are we kidding when we see a product that safely and effectively increases the size and perk of any part of the body? Maybe this cream isn't exactly safe, but is putting silicone in your boobs any safer?

When you look at it from the free woman's point of view, it's all a mess of ridiculosity. Be yourself, love your body, love your boobs - and keep them the way God gave them to you. The best way to go would be to just leave your boobs alone! 'Nuff said.

day 12 : the "good" parent

I've been doing a lot of reading lately (trying to buff up on current events, particularly in health and medicine), and I stumbled across this article from the most recent issue of Scientific American Mind: "What makes a good parent?" Interested, I clicked and read about the "top ten skills" ranked and correlated to how well incorporation of these skills in the parenting scheme can predict a "strong parent-child bond" and a child's "health, happiness, and success." Here's what were found to be the "Parents' Ten":

>> 1. Love and affection. You support and accept the child, are physically affectionate, and spend quality one-on-one time together.

>> 2. Stress management. You take steps to reduce stress for yourself and your child, practice relaxation techniques and promote positive interpretations of events.

>> 3. Relationship skills. You maintain a healthy relationship with your spouse, significant other or co-parent and model effective relationship skills with other people.

>> 4.Autonomy and independence. You treat your child with respect and encourage him or her to become self-sufficient and self-reliant.

>> 5. Education and learning. You promote and model learning and provide educational opportunities for your child.

>> 6. Life skills. You provide for your child, have a steady income and plan for the future.

>> 7.Behavior management. You make extensive use of positive reinforcement and punish only when other methods of managing behavior have failed.

>> 8. Health. You model a healthy lifestyle and good habits, such as regular exercise and proper nutrition, for your child. 

>> 9. Religion. You support spiritual or religious development and participate in spiritual or religious activities. 

>> 10. Safety. You take precautions to protect your child and maintain awareness of the child’s activities and friends. —R.E.

This list is striking to me not for what it puts on top but for what it throws at the bottom. Life skills, behavior management, health, religion, and safety - these are things that are less essential than love and affection, stress management, relationship skills, autonomy and independence, and education and learning. On the one hand, I can see how stress management would be an important tool for maintaining composure in parent-child interactions; on the other, I struggle with the applications of this list - these qualifications for parental "competence" - to a low-income setting. This list of qualities is cute when you consider the potential audience for Scientific American. Of course life skills is not nearly as high as it should be, and safety seems a small concern when the biggest potential threat to your child's health comes from playing in the street in your gated suburban neighborhood.

What about the families living in the South Side of Chicago? What are the most important factors for "parental competency" when your struggles go beyond checking that Timmy has done his homework and gets a kiss before bed? Can we say "all you need is love" when Timmy lives in a food desert and walks everyday through gang territory to get home? Maybe doesn't even have a stable home?

Of course, love and affection are necessary, and sure, modeling healthy relationships in front of your kids is important for allowing them to internalize and emulate these kind of relationships throughout their lives. But I think there are some preconditions that need to be qualified before anyone can make a top ten list of parenting skills. Even beyond the acknowledgment of social disparities that impact family life and child development, I feel like there must be some recognition of the fact that children are also very different in their needs physically, mentally and emotionally. How is a child's "health, happiness, and success" reliably qualified, and how do you measure the strength of the parent-child bond? By and large, it seems like to raise your children in a "competent" way as described by the "Parents' 10" presumes a formulaic end goal of "health, happiness, and success." These vague terms say nothing to me. In fact, if anything, they suggest that there is some ideal child I should strive to raise, and this offends me.

It seems to me that, in reality, parenting competency should be about anticipating, meeting, and reflecting on a child's needs, whatever they may be. Culling skills and values from this list seems like a cop-out for the real job of parenting: discovering the life that is your child and assessing and re-assessing what exactly it is you need to do to cultivate it.

day 11 : marks marx left on me

Do we like the punny titles? I do.

It is once again a late night post, and a time when I should be strongly considering my priorities. Lot yet to do and an early start tomorrow, I should be in bed. But here I am. Reflecting, at least, on something I'll have to address in a paper for my Self, Culture, and Society class. It's somewhat productive, right?

So we started the quarter with a work by E.P. Thompson on the development of time, not only in the concrete but also in the abstract. In the concrete, he gave a rundown of the history of clocks and clock-making, the invention of the wristwatch, and its implications of the possession of such objects. Abstractly, he sketched conceptions of labor time and leisure time and the role that time played in instilling a sense of work-discipline - of "time is money."

We blasted through Smith and Rousseau - traveled through the period of early manufacture and the breath (yes, breath) of time that separated it from the spark of Modern Industry. I personally experienced Smith as a primitive analysis of our life and times and saw man and society, tragically, from the eyes of Rousseau. Man is interdependent. Man wants. Man cannot conceive of himself without the Other. All fanciful pictures, painted with the intellectual's brush, looking backward, making guesses, imagining a space to justify human nature and the human condition.

And then Marx.

The Communist Manifesto, the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, Grundrisse, and Capital. Intense analysis focused on historical fact and based practically on man as embodied in his activity and his consciousness of such. In a cogent treatise, in a philosophical discourse, in streams of consciousness, in an omnibus of empirical definitions - all capturing a passionate and unorthodox viewpoint couched in the inchoate grammar of a righteously indignant man.

Capitalism is the perpetuation of want. When the end goal is wealth and the intermediary desire is to minimize necessary labor time - when wealth wants value and more and more surplus value - how can the end be achieved? Marx says capitalism creates the conditions of possibility for its own destruction, but decades have passed since the time of his prediction. Capitalism as we know it is still thriving.

But things have changed. The world doesn't look so bleak as it did when Marx lived, at least not in this country. In places that aren't here, things probably look worse. The labor serves the wants of those thousands of miles away, and the conditions of possibility are worth nothing when those kind of obstacles must be overcome. When will the whole world hop on the capitalist bandwagon, and when will the market finally be saturated to the point where the communist revolution might occur?

What bothers me is that I don't think the communist revolution is ever going to come, and even if it did, it seems an impractical thing. Why should we only produce what we need? What would be the "capacity for experience of the men who have this undirected time to live"? The idea to me is inconceivable - a dream of a passionate man driven by the suffering around him. Communism simply cannot be achieved in this capitalist world. We move forward more and more quickly, and the gap between the richest and the poorest is one that becomes more monstrous every day. There's no way everyone can be accommodated to his need and more. No flippin' way. We're already at carrying capacity - probably beyond, even.

As beautiful as it sounds, there's just no place for communism in this world, and despite what Marx seems to think, there never will be.

day 10 : 5 most wonderful things

As I close a rollercoaster week of ups and downs, I can't help but reflect on some of the things that help keep me sane. These are the things I can turn to to brighten my day, no matter what the situation - the things that pull through for me when no one has time to be around, or when I just want to make peace with my karmic space in the world.

P.S. I really enjoy lists. And spreadsheets, for that matter. =]

Sun-dried tomatoes. These are at the front of my mind tonight as I muddled through an evening with friends I've neglected to keep in touch with for a while. About six weeks, to be exact. The food at the Medici is generally uninspiring, but their Mediterranean pizza is straight from the pearly gates of heaven. One of the reasons I like it so much is, of course, the sun-dried tomatoes. Even the tiniest morsel of this shriveled fruit explodes with flavor - all the sun-ripened goodness of a tomato in one bite. The kind I get probably comes from a stolid factory farm that picks and dries its tomatoes by the thousands in some mechanized dehydration process, but I like to think that I can taste the sunshine in every bite. It's a burst of happiness.

Frozen yogurt. Not the sugared kind that's basically ice cream with 20% less calories but the kind that actually tastes like yogurt. Tart, rough on the tongue with tiny ice crystals, and delicious with mochi bits. This is food I could eat for a lifetime and never tire of. Honestly, I want it every day of the summer and sometimes make a pilgrimmage up to the Berry Chill on State Street just to get my fix, even in the winter. A friend from New York introduced it to me about a year and a half ago, and I've been hooked ever since. I was outraged to discover there were no Red Mangos or Pinkberrys within reasonable distance of Chicago. I can only be grateful that Berry Chill was here to save me from a fate worse than death.

My vacuum cleaner. Of course. This had to be on the list. There's no better cure for a shitty day than getting to suck up all the shit on the floor to beautify your humble abode.

Christmas lights. Blinking, monochrome, icicle, or the works, Christmas lights remind me fresh snow, warm living rooms, and a beautiful sense of peace and comfort. There's nothing better than walking into a heated room after trudging through snow and wind, but when I see Christmas lights, no matter how cold I am, it's a different kind of warmth that settles in my chest. Christmastime is my favorite time of year, and nothing makes it feel more like Christmas than the millions of lights that go up around stores, on sidewalk trees, and all over peoples' houses. I'll have to make a special effort to put some up around the apartment this year.

Fluffy things!!!! I think there is an ingrained mechanism for squealing at cute fuzzy things. It is actually built into our genetic code. You cannot help but want to reach out and cuddle anything that looks like it has more fur than it can handle. Or just has four furry feet. I love furry feet! Fluffiness is the stuff of happiness. Just to give an example, this puppy makes my squeal every time.

One my note: there are no credit cards or shopping sites in this post. Huzzah!

day 9 : as balls drop

Week 6 of the quarter is always a bitch. These past few nights punched my midnight bedtime in the face and left me bruised and wounded for the rest of the week. Perhaps it need not be said that one of these past nights was occupied by frosting two dozen cupcakes in preparation for a fortnightly meeting with a group of volunteers. Anyways, the week is thankfully almost over. I dropped the ball - rather, many balls - on a lot of things this week. At least now I can pick this one back up.

As everyone in the world knows, third year is super-special-important in the life of an undergraduate, and this week (of all weeks) seemed to be the kick-off for discovering why that is.

Chicago Careers in Health Professions: Application Seminar I - the first in a series of five mass meetings that aims to lead me, the needy but motivated pre-medical student, through the long, treacherous timeline of medical school applications. Today, I was given the proverbial now-or-never for my future in the deceptively innocuous question: is it the right time to apply for medical school?

The anxiety is two-fold. Am I ready to apply? I have to get my ass movin' if I'm going to. If I apply next year instead, what will I be doing in my gap-year? Adding another dimension to the great wake-up call, I have yet to tell my parents of my decision either way.

Our pre-med advisers ask us for a personal statement by January, MCAT by mid-June, and recommendation letters by yesterday. There are application fees and prep courses and the long and daunting process of cultivating relationships with credible and successful people who will "provide evidence" that I am, in fact, the perfect candidate.


I am at once enchanted and disenchanted by the process. It is thrilling to imagine building this image of myself that will endear me to an admissions committee and potentially secure my ticket to the intellectually and emotionally rewarding experience that med school promises to be. An acceptance would lay the tattered red carpet for the next half-decade of my life and finally, finally put me on the path to becoming a real person. But all the hurdles I have to jump. Playing to pre-med advisers, courting faculty for recommendations in science courses and non-science courses and outside activities, standardized testing...and even harder than all of that, maybe, having to articulate to a panel of people (who've surely heard it all) why medicine is a good fit for me.

It's all very scary to think about. So, on the eve of yet another midterm (physics this time) and a biochem quiz looming tomorrow (today), I'll leave it at that - let it simmer some more.

day 8 : do you really need that many...?

This is a question Boyfriend asks me often, and almost 100% of the time, it's "YES, in fact I do!" I haven't really considered the ramifications of this affirmative, especially when the question is about shoes and wallets and bags. At last count, I had over 20 pairs of shoes in my closet. And that doesn't even include the ten or so pairs I leave at home. Luckily, that is the most extreme of my collections. Bags, I have around ten. For wallets, I count a bare five or less.

I'm excluding clothes from the conversation just because...well, because. Okay, that's probably an indication that I should think about it a little bit.

On the one hand, I recognize that on some level my acquisition of shoes (and clothing, I suppose) is somewhat excessive. I justify purchases to myself with thoughts like, "This is cheap!" or "This is a basic item. I'll need to get it eventually." Rarely am I thinking of how something would look with another item I own - I don't really shop to put together outfits.

If I could break down the thought process behind my accumulation of clothes and shoes, I imagine I'd find some very useful information. What would be terrifying is if I didn't find anything at all. That, I think, would be a shining beacon for a path to shopping/buying rehab. As it would happen, I think my hoarding can be explored.

What puzzles me is that I love every step of the shopping/buying process. Whether it's online or in-person, I thrive in the act of browsing - whether I'm looking for a specific item and adding my search constraints to an online engine or picking through a clearance rack in search of a good deal. The funny thing is, once I've picked out things I like, I put very little practical effort into deciding whether I should buy them. Trying things on takes about ten seconds per item. Sometimes twenty, if I decide I need a second look. It's the decision process that drags on for ages. Literally standing at the rack and asking myself, "Should I?" The whole process is something I could do for hours and emerge from the store with nothing. When I do buy something, though, I'm giddy as the price rings up and joyful when I thrust forth my shiny plastic card (a beautiful Amex Blue) and scrawl something resembling a signature on the crude touchscreen terminal.

And then I'm proudly toting my paper-or-plastic bag, emblazoned with the store's insignia, and ready to take public transit home to admire my new purchase in the fluorescent lighting of my apartment. Sometimes I end up not liking what I buy; sometimes I do. I'm not exactly sure what changes from the magical interior of the store to the very real interior of my home, but there's really no rhyme or reason to what I eventually decide to return. Often, I just don't like the way an item looks. But why didn't I figure that out while I was trying it on?

I think ultimately what drives it all is my desire to have choices. It's not uncommon for me to buy something, throw it into my closet, and forget about it for the next month. When I happen upon a satisfying purchase, I'm delighted! Occasionally I'll receive my credit card bill and curse my love of pretty things, and then occasionally I will reconsider the shoes bought recently but only worn once or twice without great love. Maybe I'll return them. They aren't exactly what I wanted...I was enthralled by how cheap they were and persuaded by the fact that they yeah, they look pretty good at that price. Maybe it's not something I need, but like I said, it does look pretty good...

So maybe that wasn't very productive. I think maybe, though, it boils down to having choices - but not just any choices. Subconsciously, I'm building a wardrobe that will never do me wrong - that I can purge of unflattering pieces and replace with things that are actually nice. As I write this, I am saying to myself, "Erica Ting, you are so full of shit."

Okay. So maybe I'm actually just groping around in the dark. I'll just end with a list of my favorite purchases:

• a pair of gold Tahari sandals (my very first gladiators!)
• a pair of b.o.c. wedge slides
• a pair of New Balance sneakers I got on clearance!
• a white scarf from New York & Company
• two plain solid-color V-neck T-shirts from NY&Co
• one white and one black cardigan, Nordstrom Rack
• a black wallet from the Coach factory outlet store
• a pair of dark-wash Bayla skinny jeans from Aeropostale
• a brown leather belt from Aeropostale
• a hot pink (they called it "coral") sheath dress from NY&Co
• a pair of DKNY jeans from Macy's (clearance!)

I do love things on sale. I do. Actually, I now notice that everything on the list was on sale, with the except of the b.o.c. wedges, and god love DSW, but those things were never going to go on sale. I think I got them from Famous Footwear, actually.

Maybe I should consider throwing out everything but these favorites. Maybe it'll give me a better conception of what to buy. But then I'd need to replenish the wardrobe. Haha, I'll have to think about it.