recordon thethe student voice of k-state salinavolume seven-issue one

ON THE COVERPaul Cain, Senior CMST, glides under the limbo bar at Skating Night during Wildcat Welcome Week sponsored by the Programming Board.

welcometo the new on the record.

our staffAshley Flowers Publication Editor

Eddie DeHerrera IVManagerial Editor

Marty FitzgeraldSubmissions Editor

TJ HearnPromotions Editor

Dr. Jennifer MolidorFaculty Advisor

Contributors

Paul CainKara GodsilJosh JantzJohn R. JohnsonJ. Edward MatthewsTess MastMorgan MilesDavid Swisher

Students celebrate three years of triumph over the faculty/staff after the Faculty/Staff vs. Students Softball Gam

this issue5 The Wildcat Games Photos from the 2010 Wildcat Welcome Week

8 SIFE Victorious K-State Salina SIFE Club earns Grand Champion Title

9 Awesome A.L.F.R.E.D. Library welcomes innovative technology to help students 10 FSHS Interest Group The FSHS Inerest group donates to the United Way

11 Digital Media Center New media center helps students create digital media projects

12 Leading Women K-State Salina introduces new programs to get women involved

15 Teacher Feature Featuring K-State Salina faculty member Dr. Judy Collins

16 Geeking-Out Top 5 Ultimate Geek-Out Movies

18 Arts & Cats Artistic Works of the K-State Salina Community

october eventsBras for a CauseMonday, October 4, 5 pm

NIFA Region 6 SAFECONMonday-Friday, October 18-22

A Mile in Her ShoesWendesday, October 27, 6 pm

Spirit Cats Pep Rally & Club Basketball ScrimmageWednesday, October 27, 6 pm

HallohangarFriday, October 29, 8 pm

K-State Homecoming vs. OklahomaSaturday, October 30,

Trick-or-Treat So Others Can EatSaturday, October 30, 7pm, College CenterWear your costume!

THE

WILDCAT GAMES

1 2

3 4

Each year K-State Salina welcomes new students to campus with Wildcat Welcome Week. This year’s activities were held in conjunction with the common reading program’s selection of ‘The Hunger Games”.

May the odds be ever in your favor.

5 6

7

1 Levi Esses announces rules for capture the flag2 Keyvn Alquist tries to keep his balance while skating3 Jarrod Rathbun gets a feel for the mud during the mud volleyball game 4 Teresa Hartman feeds Lacrista Brightbill chips and sals with her toes as a part of the Silent Library5 Jess Simpson helps serve pizza during the Student Support Services Pizza Lunch6 Morgan Miles readies the mud court for mud volleyball7 K-State Salina students spend the evening getting dirty while competing in mud volleyball

6 on the record

12

8

10

11

13

8 Madi Miles sinks knee deep in mud on the volleyball court9 Allen Manning is covered in mud and ready to serve10 Students show off their mad mud volleyball skills11 Students cheer on their peers during the students vs. faculty/staff softball game12 Felix Tse hopes for a ‘strike’ at Nitro Bowling. 13 & 14 Students hanging out during Nitro Bowling

Follow Programming Board on Facebook for more information about

events and getting involved on campus!

facebook.com/pages/K-State-at-Salina-Programming-Board-Events/

14

The K-State at Salina Students in Free Enterprise team earned the title of Grand Champion at this year’s Walgreens Wrangle business case competition hosted by Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia, Arkansas. Our SIFE team consisted of Kristin Scheele, Oscar Rodriguez, Grant Swinehart, Brett Cooper, Jordan Lewis, Sean McIntire, and Bryan Valliere.

The competing teams received the business case and had approximately thirty six hours to identify a plan, create a multi-media presentation, and prepare a printed report. Each team had seventeen minutes to present their proposal to a panel of judges. The panel of judges consisted of business executives and Southern Arkansas University faculty members.

This year’s case was presented by Southern Arkansas University’s College of Agriculture. The College recently received over six hundred acres of land from an estate, and they are interested in relocating a dairy, currently on campus, to the newly acquired land. The students were charged with designing an agri-tourism concept centered around the new dairy, creating a marketing strategy for the dairy products, and estimating the cost of operation. Among the several recommendations proposed, our SIFE team suggested Laney Farms as the name for the new dairy, in homage to the land donor, former Arkansas Governor, Benjamin Travis Laney. The team also created a logo for the new dairy, and we suggested Southern Arkansas

University construct an ice cream bar, similar to Kansas State’s Call Hall.

When asked about being a part of the Wrangle, Brett Cooper, junior in Technology Management, said “Competing at the Walgreens Wrangle was a life-changing event. It helped me learn valuable information and how to interact in a professional setting.” Kristin Scheele, senior in Technology Management made this comment “The development, not only of our project, but our team was astonishing. I am honored to have worked with my team members, and be able to defend our title two years in a row. GO SIFE!”

K-State at Salina SIFE Team Named Grand ChampionsSIFE Team

“Competing at the

Walgreens Wrangle was

a life-changing event. It

helped me learn valuable

information and how to

interact in a professional

setting.” -Brett Cooper

8 on the record

The library team has a new addition this year, and it’s A.L.F.R.E.D. The only catch with this new teammate is that A.L.F.R.E.D. is a machine! A.L.F.R.E.D. stands for Automated Library Feature Reproducing Electronic Documents, basically the latest and greatest scanner for the library. This scanner is up-to-date with the neatest tricks and does more than your average scanner. It has recently replaced the copier and scanners in the library. For every student’s use, you can now scan any sized document, and

customize it for your needs. You may scan anything from large books and maps, to DVD cases, photos, and notes to your average standard paper documents. Everything is scanned face-up, relieving you of the hassle of holding any documents face-down. The best thing about the new scanner is once an item has been scanned, you can save the items as a Searchable PDF or JPEG to a flashdrive, email the images to yourself, or print off the images straight away to our black/white or color printers, all

in a matter of minutes! All of this is done via touchscreen, without having to log into a computer! Also, before taking any of these actions, you are able to edit, crop, fix the brightness, and make other edits to any of the images you select. After editing, you can view the newly made images on a preview screen before saving, sending, or printing them. A.L.F.R.E.D.’s use is free to any user, which will save patrons money if they want to make a copy but don’t need a physical printout.

Awesome A.L.F.R.E.D.Tess Mast

Dying to check it out and find out what it can do? Stop by the

library and have one of the staff members show you how!

Over the summer, the Instructional Technology Dept

set up a Digital Media Workstation that is available

to students for creating electronic media projects.

The station was established using equipment

donated by Continuing Education, with funding

for the software and capture devices and workers’

salary provided through the Education Opportunity

Fund, which is administered by SGA.

The resource provides a one-stop “lab”

environment where any student working on a

class or club project can:

• Produce and edit videos,

• Edit, crop, & retouch photos,

• Scan pictures, slides, & negatives,

• Add multimedia to PowerPoint,

• Design graphics & logos,

• Create webpages, and

• Create Flash interactive projects

Digital Media Workstation DebutDavid SwisherInstructional Technology

10 on the record

The Family Studies & Human Services Interest Group held a free will donation pancake feed to benefit the Salina Area United Way during Orientation Weekend. We collected $259 and presented a check to the United Way Monday, September 20.

Left to Right Raju Dandu, Leslie Duke, Ramona Newsom, Lindsay Leaton, Kimm Sanchez, Mindy Markham

The station is equipped with the full Adobe Creative Suite (including Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere, Encore, Dreamweaver & Contribute, Fireworks, AfterEffects, Flash, and Soundbooth), as well as Camtasia (a screen and tutorial-recording program), Audacity (an audio file & waveform editing program), and numerous video players. It is PC-based, but Mac-trained staff and resources are nearby for when cross-platform exchanges are needed.

In addition to the computer and software, the station includes an iRecord Pro MPEG capture box, which make it possible to capture footage from older analog camcorders such as 8mm, Hi8, and even filmstrip devices, as well as a VCR, DVR, cable box, or TV as a high-quality MPG video file. The station also boasts an ATC5K action cam, a rugged and small hands-free videocamera with multiple mounting options that is designed for sports and action video; it can be mounted to a mini-Baja car, helicopter, rocket, umpire’s helmet, or any number of other creative places to obtain extreme “point of view” footage. There’s also a scanner which can save documents as a variety of file types as well as PDF and JPG, with advanced tools and features to handle red-ey, remove creases, merge photos, and even scan negatives and filmstrips.

David Swisher, the instructional technology & multimedia specialist

who led the effort to establish this, notes that “while Salina faculty, staff, and students are ‘technically’ eligible to use the Manhattan campus’ Media Development Center in Hale Library, it is seldom practical or feasible to do so due to distance and class schedules...the few who have used the Media Development Center resources on the Manhattan campus devoted half a day to accomplish that task, and few have unrestricted development or schedules to permit that.” So he set out to create a smaller version of it on the Salina campus, gathering an interdepartmental team of supportive faculty which applied first to an internal grant source and eventually to SGA for the EOF funding. The Digital Media Workstation is available from 8:00am - 5:00 pm every weekday and evenings and weekends by appointment. RSVP’s are encouraged for 8-5 timeslots and required for after-hours timeslots. Students who need to work on a class or club project need to bring: (1) the assignment guidelines, (2) a USB flash drive or portable HDD to store their project between visits, (3) any videos, audio, or music that they hope to include, and (4) copyright permissions for the media & talent releases for people who are featured (DMW and instructional technology staff can assist with explaining and obtaining necessary permissions and releases).

To reserve your time on the Digital

Media Workstation, email media@

sal.ksu.edu or call 826-2628.

“I’m really excited about the possibilities for students who use this new equipment. There are programs available here that students don’t have access to elsewhere on campus. This should be a great resource for digital media students, or anyone who wants to communicate using digital media.” - Bill Genereux, Associate Professor

#1 Rae Ives, Senior#5 Jennifer Hutfles, Sophomore#8 Kelsey Adams, Freshman#11 Dawn Ramp, Senior#13 Nicole Lordeman, Sophomore#14 Deanna Pacheco, Freshman#15 Jennifer Abbott, Freshman#16 Danielle Howard, Sophomore#17 Megan Powell, Freshman#22 Erica Riffel, Freshman#23 Jennifer McLean, Sophomore#24 Whitney Spaulding, Sophomore#32 Megan Henderson, Sophomore

Club Advsiors: Levi Esses & Eric Brown

12 on the record

Club Softball

The members of Kappa Sigma Alpha realize cancer affects everyone in some way, shape, or form. Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month they are raising money for Making Strides Against Breast Cancer, by having a Bra Decorating Event. Kappa Sigma Alpha will provide all the decorating materials: you can furnish your own Bra and give a suggested donation of $5.00 or you can give a suggested donation of $10.00 and will give you a Bra to decorate. The event will take place on Monday, October 4th from 5:00p.m. to 7:00p.m. in the College Center Conference Room. For more information contact Ashley Flowers (President) or Morgan Miles (Vice-President).

This fall, K State Salina welcomes its first sorority to the campus community. Founding members Ashley Flowers, Morgan, Madi Miles, and Chelsea McChesney, have established Kappa Sigma Alpha to address the challenges women face on our campus. The sorority is dedicated to helping women overcome these challenges, and encourages professionalism, confidence, positive attitudes, and healthier lifestyles. Kappa aims to help women excel and develop skills that allow for the best possible college experience, through sisterhood and social activities, as well as campus involvement and community services.

Kappa Sigma Alpha is delighted to make K-State

Salina history and looks forward to the unique

opportunity a sorority has to enrich campus life!

kappa sigma alpha strength through unity

If you are interested in becoming a part of Kappa Sigma Alpha or would like to find out more about the organization you are invited to attend a chapter meeting held Wednesday nights at 8 pm in Tech Center 108 or by contacting the chapter president, Ashley Flowers, at amarief@k-state.edu.

Kappa Sigma Alpha Inaugural Induction, September 26, 2010

If you didn’t know by now, K-State at Salina has a hip shakin’, leg kickin’, toe turnin’ dance team! That’s right. A dance team. Envisioned last spring, the K-State at Salina Spirit Cats was formed mid-summer. Current members include Kelsey Adams, LaCrista Brightbill, Kara Godsil, Madi Miles, and Erica Riffel. The girls come from majors ranging from business to family studies and even aviation. So far, the team has had five performances both on campus and within the community.

The mission of the Spirit Cats is to provide an opportunity to dance and perform and reach out to a historically underrepresented demographic on our campus. We also serve as “spirit spreaders” for

K-State at Salina and with the new Club Basketball team, games are sure to be exciting!

Now that the semester is becoming more routine, we are slowing down. This pace change is an awesome opportunity to look into joining! Whether you rocked out on your high school dance team or haven’t been on stage in years, we encourage those with an interest to join us.

We are excited to offer this opportunity to students and appreciate all of the encouragement and support we have received! In the words of Lady Gaga, “JUST DANCE!”

5...6...7...8... Kara Godsil

Spirit!

14 on the record

From left to right: Madi Miles, Kelsey Adams, Kara Godsil, Erica Riffel, and LaCrista Brightbill

Nestled in the heart of the Tullis

building you will find Dr. Judy Collins, Professor of English. She teaches courses in technical writing and

professional communication. But don’t let these precise subjects and their methodical subject matter fool you… Collins hasn’t lost touch with the creative world. She is at once professor, poet, photographer, and naturalist.

In fact, Collins has found a way to bridge the gap between the creative world and the technical world through her involvement in the Smoky Hill Audubon Society. Recently, Collins became the president of the organization and is responsible for creating monthly presentations to promote the group and their activities.

Her participation in the Audubon Society has led her to a unique position. Collins has the opportunity to combine her working skills with her non-academic interests, while continuing to cultivate her passion for photography and creative writing. She balances field manuals with creative poetry and image making, thus teaching her important lessons about art and science that add a new dimension to the experience at K State Salina.

According to Collins, there are two views on birds: they are these beautiful creatures all around us, completely immersed in their own world, but also birds are objects of science which can be studied and classified. In photographing the birds she has been fortunate enough to find moments where the two aspects of the birds are the same.

It is in this light that Collins sees and appreciates the students of K-State Salina. Backgrounds such as Engineering and Aviation give K-State Salina provide a distinctly ‘technical’ feel to the college. Appreciating the artistry behind the problem solving skills and the focus displayed by the students is one of the main factors of Dr. Collins’ continued dedication to the campus.

She finds appreciating the works of Salina students quite like capturing the perfect photo of a bird. “Birds live an invisible world-an unseen dimension. Start noticing them and it changes the way you see the world. Nature is looking at us-making us more aware.”

“Birds live an invisible world-an unseen dimension.

Start noticing them and it changes the way you see the world.

Nature is looking at us-making us more aware.”

Teacher Feature: Taking Flight with

Dr. Judy Collins

5ULTIMATEGEEK-OUT MOVIES

16 on the record

that Have Withstood the Test of TimeJohn R. Johnson

“Hold onto your ass, Fred!” because here are the top five picks of flicks that have breached the barriers of awesomeness and defied the mundane. They have become classics and have a following spanning great numbers of multiple generations and yielded a whole slew of offshoots, spin-offs, sequels, prequels, action figures, video games, books, and good old-fashioned, all around “geekdom”. So listen up all you straight-laced American Idol fans.

You’re about to get an education.

#5 Transformers: The Movie (1986)

The perpetual battle of good and evil roars across the galaxy as the Autobots take on the Decepticons in this epic masterpiece. This pseudo rock and roll video/feature length action cartoon features the voices of Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, and even the great Orson Welles. If you were a boy of seven at the time this movie came out, you witnessed a tragedy that would make Antigone look like a PBS morning program for children. I won’t ruin it by telling you—well, you know, if you haven’t seen it by now, I don’t much feel sorry for you—the heroic death of the one and only Optimus Prime was the gunshot heard by pre-pubescent kids ‘round the world. The battle rages on to this very day with two live-action feature films, a recent animated series, a new series starting this fall on The HUB, and every boy and his dog begging Santa for a Transformer for Christmas. Even the atrocity I will call “The Revenge of Michael Bay,” couldn’t spoil this gem! “Autobots, Roll out!”

#4 G.I. Joe: The Movie (1987)

Along with Transformers, the other hottest franchise of the 1980’s was a “real American hero.” After the original G.I. Joe action figure line died out in the 1970’s, Hasbro, with the help of Larry Hama, reinvigorated the franchise with a new line of 3 ¾” scale action figures featuring a plethora of new and unique characters and stories to go along with them. The line was a huge success and was supplemented by a comic book series, and a cartoon series, which led up to G.I. Joe: The Movie. New recruits are added to the ranks of the Joes and put to the ultimate test against Cobra—“a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world”—if you didn’t already know. In 2009 we saw the live-action film G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, helmed by Stephen Sommers. While it was a less than spectacular affair, the movie and endless G.I. Joe products all round us, a mini web series titled G.I. Joe: Resolute, and another animated series slated to air this fall on The HUB, it goes to show that the love for G.I. Joe is alive and well. “Yo Joe!”

TOP

#3

Aliens (1986)

While James Cameron has pretty much achieved the status of box office godhood with movies like Titanic and last years Avatar, few of his works delve into places much more terrifying than Aliens. The sequel to Ridley Scott’s Alien is seen by many as one of the greatest action movies of all-time, and justly so. What’s not to love about a group of overconfident space Marines hopelessly outnumbered by a swarm of deadly alien life forms with acid for blood and a tendency to use human hosts to gestate their young? This edge-of-your seat thrill-ride is unparalleled in its genre. The film and its characters spawned several sequels/prequels, comics and graphic novels, multiple toy lines, and video games. Sigourney Weaver and B-movie legend Michael Biehn are just icing on the cake. “Stay frosty.”

Hello to all the otakus out there reading this right now, and I do not mean just the otakats on campus. I would like to bring your attention to the kinds of shows that you watch. You tend to watch shows that have a theme, or category, over most others. Have you noticed a degrading aspect to the anime you love to watch?

While flipping through websites to find shows I like to watch, I have come across quite a few varieties. For each season released from Japan animation studios there are different types to appeal to different customer niches. You are bound to have the following themes in every season, as some combine differing genres. Historical, samurai, espers, supernatural, modern day, mech, war, and

school based shows.

Going back to previous seasons, I found that the majority of shows, publicly aired, tend to mosaic or avert references to social indecency. One show makes light of the fact it is indecent and has really mild acts blocked by an icon with a board saying, “due to viewer protection, we can’t show what is happening”. Lately that trend has become the opposite. It seems shows aimed at children (Mitsudomoe is about 5th graders) continuously depict suggestive actions and are pulled from the gutter. Mitsudomoe purposefully drags viewer’s minds into the gutter with their portrayal of the main characters and their shameless interactions with other characters that would leave little to

imagination from the viewer.

I would like to challenge you to analyze the shows that you are watching to see if it is socially acceptable. The ones that seem socially acceptable would your parents of let you watch when you were a child, or would you let children watch them? Take the ones you have left, not that many, and figure out which ones you would write about and post to On the Record, so that other people can understand why you like to watch anime.

If you don’t want to post, it goes to show you that what you watch isn’t good enough for you to share with faceless strangers.

Anime and AudienceT.F.B.

#2 Ghostbusters (1984)

The wacky group of university scientists turned paranormal investigators and eliminators had audiences scared out of their wits while laughing hysterically at the same time. What was only supposed to be a comedic “going into business” story, revolving around an extremely unlikely profession, exploded onto the screen and resonated with audiences of all ages. A Saturday morning cartoon series, yielding a highly successful toy line, and a sequel in 1989 had everybody quipping “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts.” The 25th Anniversary of Ghotsbusters brought about a long-awaited and well-received video game, and a new collector series of figures sold exclusively by Mattel. There have been many talks and rumors over the past decade of a third installment of the series. Whether it will happen or not remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure… when things go bump in the night, “who you gonna call?”

#1 Star Wars (1977)

Unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock for the last thirty years, you probably saw this one coming. The classic tale of good and evil rivals most ever told by man. Whether you’re a fan of the entire saga, or you’re an original trilogy purist, or even if you’ve never seen it, (if this is the case I pity you and envy you all at once… wait until you see it and you’ll understand) there is no person in existence, with more than half a brain that can tell you this uncanny blockbuster from the late 70’s is any less than a masterpiece. Creator George Lucas has released, re-released, revised and edited new releases of re-releases of the orignal trilogy and supplemented the universe with the prequel trilogy in 1999, beginning with Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. With Lucas raking in the coin on residuals and licensing rights coupled by the success of The Clone Wars animated series on Cartoon Network, and more toys, action figures, comic books, novels, video games, and other novelties made than for any other property in existence, the Star Wars franchise speaks for itself and shows little signs of wearing out in the next thirty years. “May the force be with you.”

There you have it. If you

haven’t seen any of

these movies, it’s high

time you had. They may

not change your life, but

they’re a whole hell of

a lot of fun! If you have,

go to your DVD shelf or

update the Netflix queue,

break out the lightsabers,

pulse rifles, and proton

packs, pass the popcorn,

and get ready to relive

the best of the best!

ARTS AND CATSPublishes the artistic works of the K-State Salina community. Submit your prose, poetry, photography, sketches, comics, and other creative explosions to otrsalina@gmail.com. Any work submitted can be published anonymously.

Where does this go?how do real poets do it?what to put wherenames, idioms,and dictionpunctuate it and make it beautifulthey talk about the moon without ever mentioning the moonor even looking up past the salamandersnoticing the once-in-a-lifetime-occurrence:a drifting featherthe inner down of a Canadian goosethat chap who passed long ago overhead calling, chatting, and punctuating with his fellow poetsJ. Edward Matthews

arts and cats

Summer Mash-Up:Photography and design

by Ashley Flowers, junior in

digital media technology and

technology management.

18 on the record

I believe that most people experience periods of their life when they

become fixated on changing “WHO THEY ARE”.

It could be something belonging to the person; their mannerisms,

their thought patterns, or the way they behave.

IF PEOPLE WERE

It could also be the circumstances they experience, or the people they are around. At the same time I have often heard of the difficulties of change, or how people are incapable of change. Let’s imagine the world is simpler, and people could be compared to the elements. If every person was a single atom, then we would see many different forms of diversity that we already see in humanity; size, shape, density, response to stimuli, attraction and many other properties. Keep in mind this is simplified. On a more specific note, let’s talk about electrons. On their outermost level, some elements are already full and content, they are complete. Others go to drastic measures to bond with anything near them. Some react a little slower, but still change over time. When an element makes a bond, it’s the bond that determines how dangerous or beneficial the final product is. Also, the availability of other elements is going to help explain why the bond happens. Much like the elements, the relationships and commitments people bond to are going to fill them up until they have reached their individual limits. Also like an element, this is also dependent partially on what kind of life is available to the person. The more anyone experiences, the fuller and more complete their life will become.

Having the characteristics of being complete doesn’t make a person good or bad. It just means that they are full of whatever they invested themselves in. Returning to the discussion of elements, trying to bond a new

element to one that already has a full electron cloud is impossible. In order to bond the new element, you must sever or alter a previous bond that the full element has. Achieving this takes much more work than a ready and willing lone element that needs the full electron cloud to be complete, which is a lot more automatic. For people, over time we gain so much knowledge and behavior that learning new things, or changing becomes a much larger challenge.

It is no longer a process of picking

up something new; it’s a process

of losing something old.

As time passes, this continues to occur and so far, we all have to face mortality at some point.

Throughout life, many of us strive to learn, grow, and change. The bonds we make as people determine our future successes, failures, goodness, evil, meaning, personality and so much more. Nobody is just a product of their environment; they are also a product of their decisions. The bottom line that I would like to express: There is finality in life that we can all forget, and some choices cannot be undone. Be picky and wise about who you become, and do it with the best intentions.

E L E M E N T S : A L I F E A N A L O G YJosh Jantz

cats & psychology

cats& psychologyPaul Cain

I think it would be nice to be a cat. Think about it.

They’re small, agile, and good at hiding.

One of their survival advantages is that they can hide from their problems.

Additionally, they can sit atop some tall piece of furniture and

pretentiously observe the feeble humans fumbling about here

and there in life. Don’t you ever wonder what a cat thinks when

it is sitting there watching you? Maybe it is thinking: “Meow. These humans are effing crazy. I’m just glad they keep feeding

me. I surmise that letting them use me as soft, fluffy pillow

when they’re feeling down is a fair exchange for the food and

shelter they provide. Meow.”

I wonder if cats have mental conflicts or if they get all the

conflict they need from watching the humans get caught

in between their rational Mr. Spock brain and their primitive

neutralize-the-threat-or-GTFO brain. Maybe in some ways a

neutralize-the-threat-or-GTFO mentality is a logical mentality

to have. Instantaneously establishing whether a situation is

threatening and whether the owner of the brain should fight,

run like hell, or attempt to use reason to resolve the situation

presents a difficult for the human brain. My favorite is option

2 because I’m a ninja, but I think the last option is probably

the most dangerous if one’s immediate physical survival

is in jeopardy. The brain cannot see into the future, how is

it supposed to know what to do? Sometimes the situation

demands an immediate response; other times the situation

requires one or both parties to stop and think.

The human brain relies on the pre-existing personality, which

is a mixture of genetics, personal experience, and externally

introjected values from parents and others. Sometimes

threatening things get internalized and persist in the mind of

the threatened party long after the threat is gone, causing

manifold emotional distress and coping behaviors. All of this

totally makes sense in the context of classical and operant

conditioning (for those who haven’t taken Psychology, think

Pavlov’s dog).

There’s no need to worry though. Monkeys are irrational too.

Joel Matthews, our award-winning Psychologist here on

campus once told me about a monkey experiment where

monkeys could choose between a food source that always

gave 2 grapes or a food source that sometimes gave 1 grape

and sometimes gave 3. The food sources were rigged so that

the 2-grape food source ended up giving out more grapes

overall, but the monkeys fell for the scheme by taking self-

defeating option of the 1 or 3 grape food source. I told Joel

that the monkeys should chart out the number of grapes from

each source in order to determine which food sources were

better, but he said “monkeys don’t make charts!”

Where is this going? Simply put, I’m demonstrating the value

of both cats and learning Psychology. When you’re feeling

down, a cat will let you use it as a soft, fluffy pillow in exchange

for food and shelter, and you can give it all sort of cool names,

like Admiral Meowmamoto or Great Mystic Meowstradamus.

Secondly, learning about Psychology allows for better

understanding of people, which enhances survival by giving

the brain more information with which to work in a threatening

situation.

20 on the record

Anytime I’M EVER ASKED to share a

story, or talk about some special moment, my mind

immediately rolls to one in particular story involving

my younger brother, O.p. My siblings are the most

important part of my life. O.p. is seventeen and has all

the destructive force of a rebellious seventeen-year-old

boy, bless his heart. My sister, Amber, is sixteen and

has moments where we can relate and have normal

conversations. But we also have those moments where

we could be from different planets, mostly because of the

age gap.. and her liking of the color pink or fluffy little kittens

and stuff...

Despite our differences, my siblings and I are, and have

always been, a team. When one of us is in a fight, we’re all in

a fight. When one of us is happy we’re all happy. When one

of us is miserable, the other two are rolling up our sleeves,

developing plans to bring significant harm tothe bringer of that

misery. Home is turbulent and the three of us have been well

aware of it from a small age. So, we grew up filling our time with

adventures in creek beds or building tree forts or having mud

slinging competitions.

Being the oldest means that I’m the pack leader on most of these

projects and I’m not particularly good with being vulnerable around

my siblings. However, last fall (when I was running around trying

to come up with ways to burn down Salina) I wasn’t so good at

hiding my frustrations from my brother. His response was a glorious

representation of his wonderful personality. He left a comment on my

Facebook wall that I hope to never lose or forget:

“bro wts poppin... and y is a bitch

asss lion bout to eat yo head off in that

pix man.. thats scary lookin and the lions

eyes are dialated like a bitch is he on

something.. well shit..i better go to bed ill ttyl home

skillet biscuit buritto cinnamon twist chiken salad.. lol..

idk l8r” It’s a little offensive-and a lot hilarious. The lion he refers to

comes from an old profile picture I had been using where I

had Photoshopped the lion from Luna Lovegood’s Gryffindor

mascot on to my head. Op’s comment provided just enough

surface time from my own little sea of fire to realize how

important it was for me to be doing my best to laugh and see

the humor and life’s obstacles.

There’s also an acknowledgement of the fact that it can’t

always be in your face “hey bro wts poppin,” humor.

Sometimes it’s subtle. Sometimes it’s the bunnies running

around campus or the feral cat (our own literal Willie

Wildcat!) that hides under the grates in the cement or the

noise fall leaves make when they’re blowing across the

sidewalk in the fall. Being able to have good days where

I can laugh and be happy is a luxury you won’t find me

taking for granted.

the

blacksquirelc o m m e n t a r y o n l i f e b y

Ashley Flowers

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