Oh Cristmas Tree

Most people do the whole Christmas tree and decorations thing. My family is no different we just do so in the manner of all things Robinson. That is in the most round about manner possible.

On Sunday my family wanted to go chop down a tree. This usually involves arguing for a few hours about getting ready, bundling up, hiking into the backwoods (on our land so it is legal), then picking a tree we like. After we find the tree we like, we travel all over the backwoods in hopes that there's a better tree. We then trek back to the original tree we liked. We hand off my Dad's axe, usually between me and my siblings (occasionally cousins or friends who got suckered into accompanying us). We then drag the tree back to the car (usually done by me and my siblings) and take it back to the house.

Once the tree is back to the house, my dad saws off a bunch of the branches at the bottom and part of the trunk because the tree is too tall. (This year was the only year in history the tree was not too tall.) We then put it in the stand and spend twenty or so minutes telling each other that the tree is crooked.

If we're lucky enough to agree that the tree is straight we then argue about where to put said tree. Should it go  in the corner by the plants? (Trick question there are plants in every corner.) Should it go by the window? Should we remove the coffee table and stick it there? Should we put it by the corner cabinet? Should we stuff in the space between the side table, couch, and china cabinet? (God, there's a lot of furniture in that living room.) Eventually we decide to just shove it in the corner between the couch, side table, and china cabinet. The one corner in the entire room that makes decorating the tree an acrobatic sport.

Once the tree has been properly placed, we discover that it's crooked and spend another ten minutes telling each other this. Then three days later we actually straighten it out.

After we've informed everyone that the tree is crooked, we argue for about an hour on who's going to bring up the giant box of Christmas decorations. This argument involves lots of just a minutes, hold ons, and hurry ups. Eventually I end up caring it up with either the help of my mom or the help of my younger sister. Usually after my dad yells at me to hurry up, then lays down to nap in the middle of the living room floor making the task more difficult.

We then usually end up turning on A Charlie Brown Christmas while we do the decorating. It's usually my mom and younger sister who actually bother to unearth the ornaments. My sister(s) in an attempt to make the tree look "beautiful" usually chastise my ornament placement and selection so I flee to the sofa, where I watch the cartoon, what's going on around me, and generally just be in the way for when they need to stand on something. My dad's usually not in the room and asleep somewhere, or laying in the living room floor and sleeping. My grandma sits in her rocking chair and informs us of how nice the tree is looking. Then, the peanut gallery of whatever relatives happen to be visiting cram into the living room and ask where we got each and every ornament. Eventually however the tree is decorated with minimal yelling. Then we have to clean up all the ornament boxes, paper clips, ornaments not used, tinsle,  and whatever else escaped our giant red Christmas box.

We've finally picked up the stuff then the argument as to who's taking the box down ensues. It's the same argument as before and eventually me and my younger sister end up hauling it down.

Once the tree is up there are a couple scenarios.

1. My dad may or may not set up the train around it. (It depends on whether or not he's fixed it from the previous year.)

2. The dog(s) will claim it as their new sleeping area.

3. We'll finally stick some presents under there, once we actually go and buy them at the last minute. Or we'll just inform each other how we got each other something, but it hasn't come in the mail yet.

4. The cat will either try to climb the tree or, on one occasion, the table runner on top of the china cabinet that the nativity set was stationed on.

5. We'll get around to sticking candy canes on the tree, usually after Christmas when my mom or grandma remembers that they bought some.
Then the candy canes will all be eaten by two or three of the same people leaving everyone else to complain how they didn't get any.
When we finally take down the tree (usually mid February) we discover that there are actually a bunch of them on the back side. Then the same two or three people will eat those.

Everyone's got their family traditions. In my family the traditions that are consistent from year to year are usually the ones making people yell, pout, or in general just be grumpy. Though, we do do a spectacular job of spreading that Christmas cheer to people we're not related to.

What the Hell?

While my family is notorious for ridiculous arguments, the ones that involve my wallet chain usually top the cake. Last night I had been at my parent's (well technically my Grandma's) house for less then twenty-four hours when there was a blow up.

We were getting ready to leave for a dinner/choir event my younger sister was participating in at the high school. We were literally moments away from leaving. I grabbed my wallet like people do when they go places. I put barely any thought into it. It's habit for me when I have my wallet I have my chain.

I had just put it on when my dad informed me that I was not wearing my chain. I said that I was an adult and I would dress how I pleased. My dad shut up for a moment after that statement. I continued about my business. Then my dad realized he could make a big deal about it. He threw a tantrum.

As I've noted (see Problem Solving), arguments in my family suffer from shear ridiculousness. They are very rarely actually about anything important. My dad's tantrum consisted of this. He started off just being pissed off and yelling. He then stormed upstairs and started to change out of his dress clothes. He wasn't going to go if I wore my chain. While he was throwing his tantrum my family took up the cause as well.

My mom told me that I was barely dressed up as is. (Note: When we actually got to the dinner, I was actually complimented on the niceness of my sweater and it took every muscle in my face to avoid being a smart ass.) Then my dad came down without his jacket and yelled at me some more. Then he headed back upstairs. Then my aunt took up the cause. She informed me that my dad was embarrassed by my chain. My dad then came back downstairs with his shirt unbuttoned and without a tie to yell at me some more. He then went back upstairs. my younger sister joined my cause and said that my dad just didn't want to go. My dad came back downstairs with normal clothes on and yelled some more. He then went back upstairs. Then the guilt trips were laid on my grandma was talking about how she never would have disobeyed her father. Then my aunt said that they make my cousins take off their chains as well. Then my mom started arguing about with my dad telling him to get dressed again.

It went on like that for twenty minutes. There was various levels of arguing, guilt tripping, and yelling. As well as my dad going up in down the stairs in various levels of clothing. It was beyond all else ridiculous. Eventually I did just take off the chain. It was more for the reason that my sister was going to be late than any other reason. I would have been perfectly fine having not gone and would have out stubborned my father had it not been for my sister needing to be on time. (It would be nice if my dad didn't always get his way.) Growing up I was late to all manner of things because of arguments, so I knew where she was coming from.

I'm not saying that I reacted in the best way possible or even that I wasn't just being a stubborn jackass, but there are a few things said I call total bullshit on.

1. That my dad was embarrassed.  If my dad is so embarrassed by a strip of metal that he won't be seen in public with me, that's just shit. Sorry, but honestly I'm the one with the jingly ass. It really doesn't affect you.

2. That my wearing the chain was disrespectful. Sorry, but no it's not. My chain doesn't attack or damage anything. (Not counting the occasional chair that get's scratched. Sorry chair.) It doesn't say or do anything offensive. To be honest, it's more disrespectful for you refuse to go to something based on the way a person is dressed.

3. That my wearing a chain was the equivalent of me wearing too much make-up or a skimpy bikini. Once I'd removed the chain and we were waiting for my dad to put his clothes back on, I got the lectures. My grandma informed me that when she was a teenager and she'd go out, her father would inform her to wipe off lipstick if there was too much on. My aunt lectured me about how she once bought a bikini and her father refused to let her wear it. A chain is for the purpose of my not loosing my wallet (plus I like jingling). It actually has a practical purpose. It's not for the sake of looking sexy or pretty and I'm not trying to impress anyone by wearing it. I'm also not showing any part of my body off. (And what's the big deal about a bikini anyways?)

4. My father wanted to be proud of me. I would just like to know how my clothing in anyway shape or form should affect how proud someone is of me. 

I think the most absurd thing is what happened next. After the lectures and the redressing, we finally all crammed into the car. This of course means my dad sat in the trunk because he was too cheep to spend the gas on driving two cars so everyone had a seat belt. (It should be noted my family does this a lot.) While we were all packed into the vehicle, my aunt decided to get all worked up about how my dad would die if we got into an accident. (By this point an accident actually didn't sound so bad.)

Somehow though we got past all the whining and praying for a meteorite to smash into the car and actually were having a legitimate conversation about religion. Religion. We can't diplomatically decide whether or not  I should wear a wallet chain, but we can discuss religion and no one was even grumpy. What the hell?

Even Jesus found this funny.

You Might Be A Film Student

Over the last few months I've discovered things that are very much characteristics of film students. Here are a few.

• If you have the IMDb app on your phone.
• If porn bothers you because of bad lighting
• If you hate a movie's story, but watch it anyways because the production design is beautiful

Exhibit A

• If you just don't eat because there's no food aloud in the lab
• If you you can't sleep because you can't remember where you've seen the actor playing that minor character before.
• If you randomly spout off information about how to set up a scene
• If you actually watch the DVD extras
• If you hate the Star Wars prequels
• If you willing stand in the snow for hours for snack foods
• If you willingly stand in the rain for hours because it looks cool on film.
• If you bring three umbrellas and none of them are for you.
• If you don't jay walk because you are concerned about the film equipment you are carrying and how much it would cost to replace it if a car hit you.
• If you see giant chickens in the hallway and think little of it
• If Halloween is the most bad ass day of the year.
• If you have forgotten what sleep is

 

To be fair you might just be a college student.

• If you get that one obscure reference in that one movie that no one has ever seen
• If you get that one obscure reference to a film no one's ever seen in a movie everyone's scene.
• If you spend any free time you have watching movies.
• If you think in film clips.
• If someone says, "The new trailer for The Lone Ranger came out," and the entire class crowds around their laptop. 

 

These is the looks we had when we watched the trailer for Twilight

• If you can recognize films you've never seen by name.
• If you can recognize where a movies from based on the cinematography style.
• If dubs on live action moves are unbearable.
• If you changed your original story because the acting wasn't good enough to fit the original script.
• If you have had debates about special effects.
• If you appreciate even the worst movie because you know how much effort it takes to make them.
• If you can recognize the difference between bad acting and bad writing.

 

 

 

This is bad acting.

This is bad writing.

• If you are annoyingly good at figuring out what happens next.
• If you've been bludgeoned, beaten, or harmed in anyway for your annoying ability to predict what happens next.
• If you have punched, thrown, or kicked things, because you predicted the big twist.

Bitch, shut up! I want the movie to tell me Bruce Willis is a ghost!

I'm sure that there are more, but for now these are all the ones I can think of. I'll post more later if I think of them.

A Message From The UWA

In the future, women get so fed up with men and their macho additudes that they take complete control of the USA. The United States of America is renamed the United Women of America (UWA). The national anthem is replaced with I Am Woman by Helen Reddy. A Matriach takes the place of the President.

Men are discovered to be inferior to women. Men are 70% more likely to die in a car accident than women. Married men live longer than single men, so it's determined that men need women to survive. Whereas single women live longer than married women.

For their protection, men's driver's licenses are revoked and they are confined to the protection of their women family members. A man can't travel without the consent of their wife, mother, or elder sister. They take to staying at home. They take care of their screaming children, do dishes, and make sandwiches for their wives. Eventually head coverings and dresses become standard wear in their society.

Since the founding of The UWA, there has been no participation in war. Conflicts have been resolved with diplomacy. It is determined that men shouldn't serve in the military because they are too likely to cause conflict. The military's budget has been cut drastically and the remaining budget has been better spread to benifit veterans and serving members of the armed forces.

Health care has been socialized and covers contraception as well as abortion and midol. Sex education in schools is actually informative as to the actual effects of having sex. Maternity leave is rarely an issue in any buisness field. Research in the medical field has increased and many different diseases have been cured.

Education has improved. The UWA is a world leader in education. College has become more affordable and more jobs are available upon graduation.

Scientific research has helped to find cleaner fuels and develop less waste. Polution in North America hasn't been this so low since before Europeans stuck their nose in its business. Most everything comes from a renewable resource. Products are once again built to last. Technologies have been built to improve efficiency and productivity. The economy rises until The UWA is in fact the best country in the world to live.

This has been a message from The United Women of America.

This was the idea behind a utopian/distopian society me and my friends created for our English class my senior year. We actually researched all sorts of statistics in order to create effective propaganda. We started our presentation by playing our national anthem. Then I, the Matriarch gave a speach. There was then a news cast filled with propaganda (and a reference to the Hunger Games because the other girl in the group would not let it go). Then we finished with the two guys dressed in skirts and head covering explain the basic life of a male in our society. The goal was to be as sexist as possible and some of the statistics we found helped a lot with that.

Now that I think about, it sounds a bit like the premise of a bad 1950's horror film.

In The Name of Education

People do all sorts of things in order to get a good education. In America people do all sorts of things to bs their way around a good education.

Everyone remembers those projects in school that seemed so endlessly boring until you and your friends came up with a creative way to get credit while doing very little actual work or doing plenty of work, but designing it solely for the purpose of pissing off the teacher (or in my case to piss off that one kid in the back of the room).

My older sister's boyfriend once put together a business plan for a Baby Farm. I'm talking in the style of A Modest Proposal. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, your English classes sucked or you were asleep.) That's right him and his friends put together a legitimate project on selling babies for food. They had to get full points for doing the project, but completely pissed off the teacher.

My freshman year of high school I had science class with two of my best guys friends. We had a truly pathetic teacher. He was one of those teachers that was there for coaching and nothing else. We spent the entire year having doodle battles in his class, we were responsible for his aversion to the term "blast off", and we turned in the same assignment for every one due and still got full points. I actually once answered the question "Where does lightning come from?" with "God doesn't like people so he shoots lightning at them." When it asked me to draw a diagram of this, I drew a picture off God zapping people with lightning. I still got full points. This teacher hated us a lot. Our sophmore year when some of our freshman friends had the same teacher we'd bother them before class started. We actually got physically banned from ever entering his classroom again.

My sophmore year of high school I took world history with a couple of my friends. I actually liked this class, but was no less lazy because of this fact. When the teacher would give us layered curriculum, I'd do enough of the super simple D and C projects so I would pass no matter what. Then me and my friends would make a video for the A level. We'd then turn it in without doing any B projects and still get an A because the teacher couldn't figure out how to calculate it. Also she was never quite sure if she just lost the project I did.
A Side Note: these videos were really bad yet historically accurate as far as the facts. They weren't so historically accurate as far as the portrayal of modern teenagers playing entire countries, potatoes, mold, continents, plagues, and just about anything that could lead to us tackling my friend, Veg.

My junior year of high school for psychology class me and my friend had to conduct a study. We decided to see how people might react to a survey taker based on how they were dressed. After standing in front of Wal-Mart all day wearing camo, a pirate costume, and regular clothes, we discovered that people don't want to take surveys period. If you're dressed funny they are likely to just runaway (literally). We were supposed to do several days of this, but since we are lazy and procrastinators we waited until the last minute and did it only once. We then just shoved everything together to resemble data and then did a presentation where we just described some of the better reactions we received.

My senior year of high school while we were reading 1984 in English class we had to come up with a distopian society that relates to the one in 1984. Me and my pals did a matriarchy. We actually got quite into this one and ended up doing way more research and work than was necessary. It turned out totally awesome and we even got the teacher to try and convince the class to argue for it being a Utopia (The Fish as we called him was quite awesome). Also we managed to piss off that one kid in the back.

Now that I'm in college I still bs projects. (Mostly English essays which I still get A's on.) I, however am far more dedicated to most of my classes than I was in high school. Yesterday I was an actor in one of my classmate's short films. Since it was a mock mad scientist horror movie I played the experiment. I spent three hours duct taped to a bench that was ripped out of the back of a van, in the basement of an old church. My friends (the crew) of course couldn't pass up the opportunity to torture me once I had no way to evade their attacks or fight back. My feet were slapped repeatedly. While, I got to lay there and do nothing for most of the shoot it wasn't exactly comfortable. (Seriously, try it sometime.) I felt very much like I was abducted, by jerry-rigging aliens. I had people standing over me holding boom mikes, cameras, and tripods (not to mention their constant poking) My forehead was dabbed repeatedly with a mysterious smelling cloth that was dipped in a bowl of teeth filled water. I'm either going to die from some mysterious disease or gain immortality. (Result are pending.) If I wasn't a film student I would not be doing this. If I wasn't dedicated to this I also would not be doing this.

The things we do in the name of and education. Or rather the things I do for an education.