Girl World vs. Reality

Sunday, March 1, 2020

Alpcour Indoor Bike Trainer Stand Reviews : is It Best?

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Alpcour Indoor Bike Trainer Stand Reviews : is It Best?

Green Elephant Utilitent : Folding Pop Up Tent for Biking, Toilet, Shower

Pocket Hole Jig : Kreg K5 Pocket Hole Jig System

Saturday, October 1, 2016

Get Those Strippers Off Our Poles

Once upon a time, in the very merry old land of oz, a girl I know decided to become a stripper. I know what you are thinking, "My god what happened to this girl to make her think she needed to resort to something so low?!" The answer is she was far from home in another country, she knew she could earn a good amount of money (she of course was not made of money), and she had done quite a bit of pole dancing for exercise and was really rather good. I'm sure at this point you are thinking something along the lines of "Well I suppose she worked out like a whore, so working as a whore is the natural next step." or "She probably showed all those little stripper girls what a real pole artiste can do."

Unfortunately for her neither one of those statements is true. You see, it has long been debated whether you can take the stripper out of pole dancing. Many people assume that a stripper and a pole dancer are one in the same. Strippers on the other hand can become very offended when pole studios make the claim that they "are not strippers". While researching this article I even found one stripper declaring that pole dancers had all the money and were snobby to strippers when they should be opening their classrooms for "real professionals" for free classics.

It seems a bit funny that people get so heated in the argument when the two are neither mutually exclusive nor inclusive of each other. The best thing I can think of comparing it to is pole dancing is like Majoring in Business Information Technology (BIT) and stripping is like double majoring. Now, the basics of BIT can be traced back for thousands of years and so are the basic principles behind double majoring. For a while there was no BIT major on it's own. To specialize in business technology, one would have to double major in both business and engineering. Now we have BIT as a major all its own. Which is easier majoring in BIT or double majoring? Well that really depends on the person and what they are naturally good at and what they need in order to succeed in their life goals. Can someone who majors in BIT also be a double major? Yes, of course. Can someone who is a double major take a BIT class when they want to? Probably, if it is available near them and their schedule allows for it.

Just the same it can be debated that either a stripper or a pole dancer has a harder task in front of them. A stripper can be a pole dancer or she can not be a pole dancer, the decision is entirely up to her. The same can be said for a pole dance becoming a stripper. Although, my friend was not able to cope with the additional difficult tasks of being a stripper, it does not mean that all pole dancers are incapable of taking on the extra things needed to be a good stripper.

For instance, when I was in Thailand, I went to some strip clubs in Phuket to see what it was like. There were general prostitutes on the streets, strippers wiggling on the bars, pole dancing doing some amazing pole work on some pole stages, and even girls in lyras twirling above our head. Now if you had seen a lyra dancer or a pole dancer in another setting you would not have assumed they were "strippers", it was simply that they were working here in a strip club. There once were Chinese acrobat groups that performed moves on poles that were the same as some of those taught in the most complex level at my pole studio. Of course, if you take a level one pole class at my studio, you will learn how to hair flip and booty pop because they are, well the easy things that both pole dancers and strippers do that can get your confidence up.

Saturday, September 24, 2016

Why Snowden Creates His Own Monsters

Last week a friend of mine called me to tell me that I needed to see the movie Snowden because it was so outrageously funny. I had been in Australia when the entire thing happened and for lack of a better word missed most of the public American reaction and witnessed instead the Australian response more prominently.

As I recently told an ex-coworker of mine who was trying to discretely and awkwardly explain that her boyfriend worked for "the state department", I live in DC and it is weirder if you don't know anyone who works for the government. Personally, I grew up as a child of this region. My distant memories are speckled with the interiors of the on base day care of Fort Meade and even getting to see daddy's desk and solve algebraic word problems like daddy does at work all day at a Family day.

Therefore, I could easily spend the entirety of this post stating the obvious Hollywood imagination such as the fact that if the security when entering a government office actually showed all the details of the body such as it did in the movie, my father would not have died from kidney cancer because it would have been caught on his daily check in, the cubicles are not that pretty, nor is the board room in which Snowden skyped with his spirit guide (if you saw this movie you probably thinking, spirit guide... what spirit guide? Don't you mean the director of the CIA? Well, yes that is what he is referred to. However, the director of the CIA has somewhere in the ballpark of tens of thousands of people working under him, does not conduct interviews for entry level positions, does not teach computer hacking 101 to new recruits, would be very unlikely to develop a personal relationship with a new recruit, and certainly would not being spying on the girl friend of an analyst level employee or contractor. This man is merely the figment of either Snowden or Oliver Stone's imagination and is really used as a spirit guide throughout the film.).

I could also probably dive into the questions of what he actually pulled out which actually, from what I can find, nothing more than what I consider intuitive if you actually think about it a little bit and how if random hackers have the capabilities to trace everything you do, shouldn't your government also have the capabilities as well? Are there possibly shady people working in the government who use this information beyond what they should? Sure there are people doing things they shouldn't do everywhere, but they are also fired if caught using there tools the way the NSA agent showed Snowden while he was working at the CIA. For anyone who thinks that there is "no oversight" on NSA, I urge you to visit the website of the Government Accountability Office (the GAO). Historically, the NSA and the GAO aren't exactly friends, because as people who work for the GAO say "They (We) will not be corrupted." The GAO has the security and the authority to look into anything that NSA is doing and make sure they are adhering to their own standards. Most people don't bother to read these GAO reports for one simple reason. They are really freaking boring with lots of annotations and cited sources. However, they are highly accurate and one of the absolute best sources of information you can find. If something bad is going on in NSA without the public's knowledge, the GAO will find it and they will hold the NSA responsible.

However, what I would prefer to actually turn your attention to is actually beyond all the mess of what one without a security clearance could possibly fully dive into (and even with a security clearance, everyone is on a need to know basis the way that Snowden got so much was by creating a web crawler virus which did steal the information, so how much could we know). I want to look at specifically how Snowden is his own greatest fear. What Snowden wants is privacy in his own world. However, by doing what he did in the way he did, he essentially set off a bomb in a mall in the name of ending violence. He pulled out the privacy of the government and with it potentially the privacy of those working for the government, those privacy of those being watched by the government, and everyone who was picked up as part of information collection. Snowden has essentially lost all privacy personally as he is now on a government watch list and he continuously has cameras pointed at him in order to try to prove to us that we should be worried about the government's ability to watch us.

Snowden is afraid of the fact that we are being watched in the same sense that someone should be afraid of being watched while grocery shopping. If you go to the grocery store, you will notice there are cameras staring at you with their beady little black eyes. You probably really don't care that they are there, unless you are going to steal something. However, whether you have stolen something or not, they are watching and recording so someone can go back and pull the footage in case you do. In the same way, the government is continuously recording information. It would take more people than exist in the United States to watch the population of the United States all the times. They are merely storing the information for when they do need it.

So what is motivating the government to pull this information and watch you? Because they can and they want to feel more powerful than you? Not really, that probably aligns more closely with Snowden's motives than the governments. The reason they pull and watch this information is in order to prevent actual bombs from going off. It would be brilliant to live in a world were we had no fear of a plane crashing purposefully into building, a gun being pulled on us in the street, or even identity theft. Unfortunately, we do not live in a Utopian fairy tale, we live in this reality. In this reality we need people to help watch our back for us, and we call that our government. NSA is absolutely brilliant when it comes to the defense side of the governmental game, but what about the offensive side?

It is often said that the best defense is a great offense. So, what offensive game could the government play to lower the need for groups such as the NSA. The true first step to lowering the rate at which someone has their eye on you, is to actually lower the risk of the world. People don't blow themselves up in the name of god because they have a pretty good life with food in their bellies and warm clothes on their back. In fact, the ancient Romans used to say "an uprising is only three missed meals away." In order to lower the risk of someone attacking, you need to take care of them. We need to look less into pouring money into our defense and look at pouring it into the offensive tactics of our social programs. A second look at that lovely GAO website shows that we actually do have many social programs to help our people, the people of developing nations, and even developing nations themselves. However, a lot of these programs have a lot of trouble getting the funding they need, because we too often are too busy playing defense instead of offense.

Therefore, we as a nation need to come together to make sure the people who represent us in congress know that we want these programs to be a priority. That we want GAO to go in and do reports on whatever might be keeping you up at night at the NSA or any other program you might be nervous about. We need to recognize that we do not live in communist China. After all, we know the terrible things that make up our own history. In China, no one knows what happened in Tiananman Square, because the people who saw it disappeared and everyone is prevented from researching it. If Snowden should be afraid of his government as much as he is, you would not know his name. He would have simply disappeared along with all those working with him. The government is nothing more than a collection of people and in this country we decide who they are. We may have some poor options at times, but at the end of the day, they go into those roles for us and we are the ones who allow them to stay there. If you have a problem with the world, just don't cry about it as Snowden has, instead, come up with a solution, volunteer to develop it, pitch it to your government, and make a real difference for the positive.

Saturday, September 17, 2016

A Little Post College Advice From Reality

I suppose you all are wondering where I have been and why I just didn't keep up with this blog. To be honest, I regret not keeping up with it. I had a ton of fun while creating this blog and loved most of the feedback I received in return. However, once I graduated, I ran head long into the world.

I left my job as a Wedding Coordinator (no you didn't miss a step, I was a Wedding Coordinator while making my way through school and writing this blog), and went backpacking across Europe and Australia for a year. While I was away, I worked as a night cleaner cleaning hostels in London in exchange for free board, a Wedding Coordinator down in Australia, and a waitress in Australia. When I got home I took the first job I could find which obviously was not the job I wanted, then got a sales job, then a marketing events coordinator job, and then finally a full blown marketing job. Yay world I have finally made it to the end goal! I now know exactly what they mean when they say "Everyone hates you when you are 22."

So here is my advice to anyone who is getting ready to graduate college:

1) If all else fails, save all the pennies you can and go backpacking. The people you meet are amazing, the food is incredible, and when everyone is waiting tables to make ends meet, you are at least waiting tables in another country.

While you are there contact temp agencies who hire in the field that you want to get into and/or have experience in. I did not actually do this myself, but one of my best friends did right before I left and it worked out brilliantly for her. She had fewer professional gaps in her resume, earned a higher paycheck than your typical backpacker, and still was gaining all the benefits of travel. Keep a folder on you at all times with a copy of your resume (I also advise keeping this on a google doc so you can alter it and print it at any time), a couple official copies of your transcripts, and two signed letters of recommendations from previous employers or professors (don't give them away make a copy of them). Keep the folder in a waterproof (i.e. ziploc) bag at the bottom of your backpack/suitcase. Trust me looking like the ever ready bunny never hurts when it comes to finding a job.

Many cities offer free walking tours that I highly suggest you go on once you land. It will help you find your barrings and find out what you actually want to do once you get to a city. AKA there is a lot more the Amsterdam than pot and a lot more to London than the Buckingham Palace.

Read the newspaper to find out when economies are going through hard times. When they do buy your plane ticket in the failing countries currency and exchange some cash. Br-exit isn't going to negatively affect your travels, but it will cheapen your airfare. Just be sure that there isn't something actually wrong with the safety of the city. A journalist being beheaded in Syria may drive down the plane ticket price, but you don't want it to end up costing you more than you bargained for later down the line.

Don't listen to people who tell you that you shouldn't travel. Trust me there are plenty of people who told me about how I was about to become the new reality star of Hostel 4, but I to this day, do not personally know of anyone who was brutally murdered while staying in a Hostel. I do know of two boys who drowned in a lake (which I do reflect on pretty regularly) and I do know of one boy who was rufied in a bar and woke up in a hospital, but both of those things actually happened at home for them.

2) If you get a job straight out of school negotiate as much time to travel before you start as you possibly can. Whether it is a week or a month or even three months, it is well worth it!

3) When you first start applying for jobs, apply to as many as you can! Alternatively, if you had an internship which is offering you a full time position use this as a starting point. Once you have one job, then apply only to jobs that interest you and use the salary from the one you have to negotiate a higher salary somewhere else.

4) Don't expect to jump out of college and have your life all put together for you. A lot more people end up living with their parents at some point although the tend to not want to admit to it. Get the cheapest apartment you can find and find free furniture when ever you can. I am currently repainting a once white bookshelf into a very nice black with grey trim. What probably should have cost me $500 in solid bookshelf that goes with my decor is actually only costing me about $50 in paint and brushes ($30 if I had saved my last set of paint brushes).

5) Never stop learning. Go to conferences in your field and get book recommendations from speakers. Actually read the books. This will expand your horizons, keep you fresh, and give you something to talk about at interviews/awkward dinner parties. Also go to lectures in your are that interest you and read books on topics you like.

6) If you find you are dating someone and you do not feel like you are a better person with them (which generally goes hand in hand with if you are generally happy with them) leave. I have far to many friends in unhappy relationships to even site examples on this one. However, you aren't doing anyone any favors by staying in what can be sometimes be described as miserable relationship. It doesn't matter if you have been with them for years, that may just mean that you have been with them one year too long. People grow and change, break ups aren't bad they are a part of life. There are plenty of people out there and one day you too will stumble across someone who makes you happy to wake up in the morning and be alive with them.

7) Reconnect every once in a while with old friends, old coworkers, and old boyfriends. Sure things may not have worked out as you had once hoped, but these people have grown just as you have and the connection you had with them will never fully go away. Especially during the hard times, we tend to avoid people. However, going to one of my best friend from school's art opening right after I had lost my job was better than any therapy I could have asked for.

8) Be honest about your past with yourself and other people in your life. Everyone has parts of their past they aren't proud of, but a lot of people have trouble opening up about it. When you learn from your less than proud moments, you grow. Sharing your growth from a bad time in your life allows people to see your growth beyond it, connect more deeply with people who are trying to grow from their past, and allows them to grow from your experiences. That being said, you must actually grow first and the only way to do that is to be honest with yourself.

9) Know what job you want to have two jobs away from where you currently are. A lot of people get complacent in their current job because they don't know what they want to do moving forward and they don't know how to get there. If you know where you want to go next and where you want to go after that, you will have random evenings of inspiration where you will talk to a colleague, pick up a book, or search through the google machine to figure out how to get where you want to go.

10) There is always hope around the corner. If you aren't dead, there is still life yet. Keep going after what you want even if life knocks you down a bit! There is nothing that you can't do.

Have a beautiful life!
-Reality

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