Jump to content

Graditude

Members
  • Posts

    89
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Application Season
    2014 Fall
  • Program
    Rhet/Comp

Recent Profile Visitors

1,361 profile views

Graditude's Achievements

Espresso Shot

Espresso Shot (4/10)

33

Reputation

  1. Dude, that was really weak. Your game is off now. Thanks to everybody, though, for the peek into this world!
  2. You're probably right. Your definition of asshole seems a bit different. Mine, for example, includes people who go straight to insults and profanity while championing Goodness. Are you really glad? How glad are you? You seem sort of cranky, actually. Must be all that Goodness! Isn't this concern-trolling my online personality? Anyway, the Two Champions of Goodness have won this thread, as far as I'm concerned. I will definitely examine my assumptions about obesity while I am in the States, and make an effort to understand more about the causes -- which are much more complex than I had actually realized. I should point out that I've never in my life said an unkind word to a fat person or even made jokes about them, and I don't make sad-sympathetic faces when I see them... so I think all your accusations about concern-trolling may be coming from something inside yourselves? I also reserve the right to say that the two of you (ED and V) have behaved like annoying preachers over the last couple of pages. So you made your point, but god were you prigs about it! Perhaps ostentatious self-righteousness is like a form of moral obesity? Many causes, etc?
  3. Wow! Are all US campuses going to be like this? Ha ha. If anyone asks me, "Middle-Aged Boy Kylie, what do you think of controversial issue X?" I will be sure to maintain a blank expression and ask, "Hm, why don't you tell me what you think first, earnest young American" as I scan for the nearest emergency exit. Man. Exponential Decay, you're starting to badger a bit. You seem to be willfully exaggerating or misunderstanding the points that some posters are trying to make, pretending that someone was equating the obese with serial killers, etc. Anyway, I have to start packing things up for the big move across the Atlantic, so I would like to conclude with an anecdote. Yes, I know anecdotes have little probative value. Let's say that we're in a pub near a uni in the UK: a member of staff is discussing his weight problem (massive beer belly, mostly) with an earnest American student. Of the rest of us at the table, I of course suspect he's trying to apologize in advance for planning to hit on her later, maybe seeing how she reacts. Cue concerned student face. Student explains that it's not his fault: maybe genetics? maybe lack of fresh food within walking distance of where he, um, grew up? The prof is black, by the way, and the student is white. English prof takes swig of ale and says, "Nonsense. It's because I generally eat too much of the wrong type of thing and don't get off my fat arse enough." So my question is, to those who have been steadily downvoting anyone who suggests that obesity is a combination of environmental and personal causes, what would you do as the earnest young student in this case? Would you insist on your multifaceted explanations of the professor's weight problem, or would you accept an intelligent, self-aware person's assessment of his own situation? Would you be shocked, shocked that he was a bit rude and offhand about his condition, and perhaps think he wasn't a very nice person for being so direct about obese people... oh, wait, he is obese. So is that OK now? I think a good feature of US education is probably its emphasis on sensitivity. An equally good feature of UK education is its emphasis on vigorous debate with occasionally shocking humor. This has been an eye-opening thread in many ways,,, Best of luck to all as we start the new adventure in grad school!
  4. It may be that you hold this topic very near and dear to your heart, and that others of us were just enjoying a discussion with no serious consequences. After all, the consensus is that the OP was fake, right? Perhaps it was unnecessary to shake your finger at everyone quite so vigorously. But OK. You have apparently established to your own satisfaction that most of us fail your higher education small talk test.
  5. Certainly what some of us were thinking about, apparently haha. I've just googled it, and now I'm also thinking about it -- thank you. It was the first mankini?
  6. Is it a Dunkin Donuts reference? Did you know that Crunkins are advertised in Spain as follows: Croissant o Dunkin? Pues, Crunkin! Por qué elegir si lo puedes tener todo?! I thought I'd better mention this to provide a bridge back to the topic of obesity.
  7. This is the single most useful thing I have learned on GC! Here the required practice is to stand in the hallways and read everyone's grades aloud! My first exam as a TA would have been my last.
  8. These links were interesting, thanks. I think everyone appreciates the complexity of the problem. But for the sake of argument -- which may actually be the entire point of this thread, come to think of it -- consider alcoholism. It's malady with many causes: upbringing, personality, genetics... And yet, in the final analysis, you cannot get drunk unless you put alcohol in your body. Likewise, obesity has many causes. But you cannot get fat unless you put more calories in your body than you burn. Of course, it's another matter entirely to treat people cruelly because they are fat. But don't you think the biological fact can be lost in all the interconnecting arrows you provided in your diagrams? Maybe the most important thing for people to understand is that they should eat better food and move their bodies. I believe there was once a MAD TV skit on this very topic, so QED. Also, I don't understand why some people here are accusing the Gnome of trolling this thread. I think it's refreshing to hear a grad student who is not sanctimoniously good and kind. I always think that excessively nice people are hiding something.
  9. What a thread! The ¨fat-friendly¨ in the title caught my eye, and it made for interesting reading -- much better than watching people compare their GRE stats in other threads. And the interpersonal dynamics, with all the downvoting and the upvoting! A whole little corner of GC I knew nothing about! Anyway, I want to say two things: First, no way the OP or her question are genuine. It is a trick of some sort. Second, people cannot get fat unless they are eating more calories than their bodies can burn. It really is not rocket science, and doesn´t take an advanced degree to know this. Here in Europe, the only morbidly obese people are in sections of Germany and the UK where life resembles the car-dependent parts of the US. Everywhere else, people walk more and eat differently. It is true that food deserts, ignorance, bad habits, etc are real social problems -- but again... phsyically you cannot get fat without eating more than your body requires for its work. Only certain American scholars try to blur this one basic biological fact.
  10. Tempe? El Paso? Tempe? El Paso? Agghhh....

    1. AKCarlton

      AKCarlton

      Tempe, Arizona?

  11. Graditude

    Tempe, AZ

    Similar question here! How is the area in Mesa just across the city line from Tempe, where the light rail ends? From what I can tell from Gmaps, it has the canal trail, a large Safeway supermarket near a light rail stop, and is still within biking distance of campus. I lived in Phx for a few years in the 90s but don´t remember that much, so current info would be appreciated as I weigh this offer from ASU. )When I lived there, light rail was still just a project that people said would never happen, the Roosevelt artsy district was still basically crack alley, and the metro area was smaller by a million or so people -- so obviously much has changed!)
  12. Wow! It's nice to see that you've all been accepted to so many places over the last couple of weeks! I'm now weighing two admits and making little columns of plus/minus signs for each. I wish one of them would do something horrible or fantastic to tip the scales. Saludos
  13. Sunstroke, cactus allergies, flip-flops related incident... there are any number of perfectly good explanations for their tardiness. Anyhow, I think this is the last day for Grad Cafe and me: moving to Phx in June either way, and have just achieved satori-levels of meh, will be happy with whatever happens. Best of luck with all your apps!
  14. OK, at this point, it's clear that ASU has simply lost everyone's applications and is just hoping that we get accepted elsewhere and never ask. 48 days and counting. I could have just written a thesis while waiting and handed it in by now.
  15. How much does location matter to you? Syracuse is a city that people tend to outright hate or to sort-of love in a conflicted way. The campus is beautiful, but the surrounding area is sketchy. The weather has brief episodes of gorgeousness in spring and fall but is overall very bad: hot and humid in summer, brutally cold and snowy in winter, rainy and grey for long stretches at a time. I've never been to Villanova, so can't say. All else being equal, though (like funding), I would still choose Syracuse for their ranking.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. See our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use