Lavery-log

“I’ve become a cartoon,” the notoriously eloquent Paris Hilton told The Sunday Times in July, “Nobody gets that how I am on “The Simple Life” is a character. I play dumb like Jessica Simpson plays dumb. But we know exactly what we’re doing. We’re smart blondes.”

Not that I believe for a second that Hilton is shrewd - catching up on her reading and pondering the state of the world when the bulbs stop flashing - but her claim that it’s an act disturbs me more. Faking stupidity in the hope of notoriety is sadder than actually being an idiot.

Dumb-blonde jokes about Hilton and Simpson have become stale, and adding to their criticism would accomplish little. Both are millionaires, both widely-believed to be gorgeous, and both appear about as intelligent as a well-trained poodle.

However, according to them, they’re laughing all the way to the bank.

Hilton is the poster-girl for a celebrity-obsessed generation. Her eminence far outshines many that actually earn their iconic status - listing the reasons I find her fame worthless would take up far too much space.

And yet, she continues to find ways to piss me off.

Christina Aguilera has shocked the country with her provocative videos and attire, angering feminists and spawning several drrrrty wannabes, but I can’t recall her ever not seeming in control. She never faked dumb or talent and, instead, challenged stereotypes of women and the tolerance of uptight grannies.

In October’s issue of Jane Magazine, Aguilera calls Hilton’s smart-blonde affirmation “sad,” adding that “it’s not moving anything along for women.”

Hilton might be a multi-millionaire, but the rest of us only make 75 cents to every man’s dollar. Had she achieved her fortune through savvy-business skills rather than from posing with a Chihuahua and dancing on bars, I might be able to shrug it off.

According to an article in the Khaleej Times, Hilton says, “I haven’t accepted money from my parents since I was 18. Since then, I’ve worked on my own. It feels good that I don’t ever have to depend on a man or my family for anything.”

Hip, hip, hooray, Ms. Hilton. Except, I get this pestering feeling that without your grandfather, your “royal” last name or your very public tumultuous romances, you would be forced to wise up to achieve any kind of success.

If women keep dumbing themselves down to fulfill a feminine expectation, the rest of us not born into an uber-wealthy family will find ourselves in a tough spot. Whether it’s an act or not, playing dumb just makes you look stupid.

Even though she does stylishly oppose the Canadian seal hunts and encouraged youth to vote in the 2004 election, she routinely wears fur and has never even registered to vote. Hilton’s political faux-awareness does little for her dumb-blonde image, or for aspiring heiresses everywhere.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Hilton is a complex icon for post-feminism. She surely avows her right to riches - her cars, clothes, and entertainment empire rivaling any man’s - but, perhaps, she just makes blondes everywhere look bad.

After the bra-burning, the approval of birth control, and other landmarks of the women’s movement, maybe what’s coming next is an army of spray-tanned, bleach-blond, Chihuahua-toting Gloria Steinems.

Is Paris the front runner for the next post-post-post-eighth-once-removed wave of feminism?

God, I hope not.

My right brain definitely wears the pants in my head.

I cannot remember ever understanding math. Ever enjoying it. Ever having an “a-ha” moment that wasn’t inspired by an answer from the back of the book. Am I just math intolerant or was I just never given the chance?

I have had a few good teachers during my education thus far - and by good teachers, I do not just mean the work was easy and I got an A.

I’m talking about teachers that truly and intensely affected my life. Psychology, English, Journalism - the ones I remember made me want to be a writer; made me want to think about the world around me beyond the superficial.

And then there are those that I dread, whose lectures make me struggle to keep focused while my hand throbs uncontrollably from copying down page after page of notes from a prefabricated, perfectly formulated lecture.

I do not learn anything from them. I memorize a lot of useless dribble, but it never once sinks in why I should care about it, why the material should mean more to me than a decent grade on a test.

Teaching is, in my opinion, one of the most underrated, vital and profound professions in the world. We don’t have enough teachers, and yet, half of the ones we do have want us in and out of that class as quickly as possible, want good grades on tests purely for their own good-graces, want to have as little interaction with their students as possible.

Doesn’t anyone teach the teachers how to teach?

And not only are some of them lackluster, some are, it seems, thriving on a twisted power trip.

I had several teachers in high school - a few in college, too, actually - who got their jollies watching cheeks turn red in embarrassment, from making public any screw-up, unintentional and minute, one of their pupils made.

During an in-class essay once, I referred to a literary character as a “tableau rosa,” meaning a blank slate. Ignoring the fact that I was merely attempting to correctly use a Latin phrase in a high school English class, this devil-spawn of a teacher read my essay aloud, pointing out my misspelling of the phrase, telling her students not to attempt to sound smart if they can’t spell the word right.

Even more, some teachers have the audacity to write into a college newspaper purely to criticize an aspiring journalist, purely to ruin his or her confidence.

I just do not think that is what it is all about.

I guess I am just a dreamer. I know every single professor I come across won’t have the ability to change my life or point me in a new direction. Heck, I don’t even expect them all to teach me something I’ll remember in five years. However, I suppose I just expect them all to try. Just like teachers demand that their students give it their all, we expect the same from the people we’re paying a fortune to learn from.

I want to be asked to think, to discuss, to analyze. I want to be told how to be better, how to be more educated, how to go into a career with confidence.

I don’t want to be made to feel like an idiot for an honest effort. And I definitely don’t want to leave the class armed solely with the ability to write notes at a mile a minute and to ignore throbbing hand muscles.

At a Passover Seder years ago, I brought along a friend who wasn’t Jewish. She knew some of the other Jewish community members-we went to school with Lon Nuell’s son-but she was still nervous about participating in an unfamiliar ritual.

She met Lon beforehand, who welcomed her-as he always did-with open arms. And during the Seder, Lon called on her to read aloud from the prayer book. She did, giggling at her mispronunciation of the Hebrew words, and Lon smiled back at her.And every year after that, she asked to come along.

Lon Nuell was the backbone of Murfreesboro’s Jewish community. We’re a small group, but Lon never failed to make us feel like we had a voice. With his guidance, the Jewish population of Murfreesboro didn’t feel so slight.

At Lon’s funeral Sunday, every chair at Congregation Micah was filled with a person who loved him. People who were touched by him. Helped by him. Taught by him.

Because of Lon, there is now an art teacher in each local school. Because of his help advocating children’s nutrition, the Murfreesboro School Board has received numerous national recognitions for its School Nutrition Program.

During the funeral, the floor was opened up to anyone who wanted to share a story about his or her relationship with Lon.

John McDaniel, the dean of MTSU’s Liberal Arts College, was among those who spoke.

McDaniel called Lon a “fixer,” claiming that he never ceased to find something that needed improvement.

Anyone that knew Lon knew that he always had a project underway. He had the capability, it seems, to look so closely and compassionately at his community that he couldn’t help but see something that needed attention.

Lon’s legacy in Murfreesboro will be mighty. Through his commitment to building inter-faith relationships, he instilled in us a vision of tolerance. Through his work with the school board, he instilled in us a desire to make the community’s schools the best they can be. Through his presence in the community, he instilled in us the idea that we can do more. We can always do more.

Lon Nuell will be missed terribly by all who loved him. But if his death infuses even a fraction of his benevolence into those who miss him, I can’t even imagine the lasting influence he will have.

I’m guilty of filling out those mind-numbing Myspace surveys. After all the huge decisions your 20s pose, there’s something satisfying in breezing through 50 self-defining questions for the entire Web-world to see.

In a mere 15 minutes, every bored soul browsing Myspace has a clear idea of who I am and what I’m all about.

The surveys would be a much different experience if the questions were, instead, important - What job do you want after college? What kind of person do you want to be? How do you feel about global warming?

In college, we’re so quick to package ourselves. There’s such a rush to determine every detail of our future that we can’t help but to seek solitude in simpler decisions. Long after the days of high-school cliques, we still find comfort in belonging to a certain group.

I, for example, “hate” country music, but find myself suppressing enjoyment to the umpteenth million songs my country-loving friends force upon me. Why do I hate it? Because I genuinely do, or because I feel that I am supposed to because it doesn’t fit my chosen image?

Growing up in the South forces you to either embrace its stereotypes or to explicitly reject them. Until high-school graduation, I made sure everyone knew I was getting out of this small town and doing better things. Once I began living in New York City, though, I missed the South tremendously. It turns out people there don’t often hold doors open for you, strangers don’t ask how you are and $20 barely lasts you an hour. So, I found myself back where I started, eating my words day after day when asked the question, “I thought you moved to New York?”

I’ve never been able to stick to one classification - I have been a cheerleader, an academic, a hard-core feminist, an aspiring fashion designer, an avid reader, a die-hard ‘N Sync fan, a Jew, an agnostic - the effort to define myself has been bumpy and inexhaustible.

We don’t really know ourselves that well, it seems. Imagine having to sum yourself up with one measly description - check Box 1 for all-American, 2 for intellectual, 3 for party-animal, 4 for anti-conformist - the decision is obviously far from being that straightforward. Somehow, certain stigmas have become intertwined with certain “genres” of personalities; if you’re unconventional, you hate anything mainstream, if you’re a so-called-typical, beer-loving, party-going college student, you steer away from anything deemed too taboo or cerebral. How can we evaluate what we really like or don’t if we’re so quick to pass judgment?

Author Bill Vaughn writes, “If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it’s another nonconformist who doesn’t conform to the prevailing standards of nonconformity.”

Rebellion from the mainstream has become a version of conformity in itself. Those trying desperately not to appear as sheep end up following a rule book all their own; the “anti-conformist” has almost become less original than your “average,” pop-music-loving, Lindsay Lohan-emulating 20-something.

I thought originality was for its own sake.

I thought escaping the mainstream was so you could deem what’s good or bad based on trial-and-error. But then again, I also used to think ‘N Sync was God’s gift to the earth.

See, here I am falling prey to what I’ve been writing about all along. To this day, every time I hear ‘N Sync’s “Bye, Bye, Bye,” I sing at the top of my lungs, dance my heart out and love every second of it, and I’m not afraid to admit it.

1) Like an idiot, I’ve been forgetting to publish my posts the past month. I’ve been hitting “save” instead of publish, and didn’t realize I had about 10 unpublished drafts stacked up *cough, cough, Kent, cough cough*

2) The aforementioned internship interview has been resolved. I heard back from them today, and my interview is NEXT Thursday. I feel really silly, and probably messed up my chances. Now, I’m the girl that wrote down the wrong date. Sigh… Hopefully they’ll forget by next week.

1) My car was broken into yesterday. In the driveway of my home, nestled in a very safe, boring neighborhood in Murfreesboro. It’s the kind of neighborhood that doesn’t demand constant vigilance. Half of the time, like an idiot, I don’t even lock my car door.

But here’s the really odd part: I woke up at 6 a.m., walked out to my car to get my school notebook, and saw that all my car doors were opened. I immediately rushed to look in my console, where the only thing of real value–my iPod–was stored. It was still there. All of the CD’s that were stacked on top of the iPod had been removed and strewn across the backseat. Empty cigarette packs that littered the floor of the passenger seat had been, it seemed, torn open and thrown into the backseat. The glove compartment was still open, its contents also thrown into the backseat. But they didn’t take anything. They didn’t take my iPod–and they definitely saw it, because they removed everything that had been on top, hiding it.  I’m still baffled.

2) I got a call the day before yesterday from my absolutely favorite publication. They said I was a finalist for their summer internship–actually, a fellowship under one of my journalistic idols, their main investigative political reporter. Needless to say, I was absolutely thrilled. I know this publication like the back of my hand–their history, their famous contributers, their distribution, their writing style. It is my dream place to work. The interview (via phone, they’re located in NYC), was scheduled for yesterday at 2 p.m. central time. I rushed home from class, shoved my dogs out of my room, locked the door, turned the TV off, chugged some water so my voice was clear. 2 o’clock came. Nothing. 2:30 came. Nothing. 3 came. Nothing.

They never called.

At 6, I called the HR department and left a message. I also sent an e-mail, just to make sure I got the time right.

The thing is, I’m 99% sure I got the time right. So, now, I just feel a little rejected. And confused. Even if, worse case scenario, they changed their minds about me, or already filled the position, they still would have called, right?