Sara Callif: Blog Crasher

“The children are our future.”

Given that I was trapped in Jewish days schools, where indoctrination was key, from the ages of 2½ through 13, I’ve heard that saying about a gajillion times too many. However, I had never truly thought about its significance until the other day.

It all started with cereal. I pulled out a box of Honey Nut Cheerios and found this:

Just a box of Cheerios, right?

Wrong!

Look a little closer.

It comes with a prize. *gasp*

But wait…there’s something wrong with this…

Even though the prize is a credit card, it says, "CA$H" on it.

This raises a huge issue. Any child who eats General Mills cereal has seen this “cash card.” Those poor kids won’t be able to tell the difference between cash or credit – even paper or plastic! And before you can say supercalif(heylookitsalmostmylastname!bythewaythisissaracallifwriting)ragilisticexpialidocious, the world will overflow due to poor people and pollution.

To sum up this rant, if the children are the future, and they eat General Mills cereal, then we, as the present (or are we the past?) are screwed. No human can save us now. Our only hope is prayer – to FSM.

And just in case that doesn’t work, I’ll be buying a one-way ticket to Hell. Feel free to join the party.

rAmen.

~Sara Callif

Hurray! Sara Made It!

Please welcome my sister, Sara, as the new co-author of this blog! She's young, smart, and sassy; I'm sure you'll love her posts.

How I'll Have My Bachelor's Degree At 19

Anonymous commented on a previous post:

"lmfao. one of ur best postes ever callif.
btw, wut year r u in college? do u hav credits to graduate early or anything?"

First of all, thank you! I try :)

Also, I am a junior in college (18 years old), but I will be graduating in about a year and a half.  How's that for early! I don't want to blow your anonymity but I'm just going to assume you're in either high school or college, and if you are, this post will be of great help to you!

(Anyone else in college or high school reading this should be paying attention right now)


This is the way I did it, but many people seem to think they wouldn't be able to follow in my footsteps.

I dropped out of high school, basically just bumming around for a little bit.  At that point I was learning a lot on my own, but not getting good grades, so we figure the best option would be to stop forcing me to go to high school and let me teach myself whatever I wanted to learn; homeschooling.
That's the part most people seem to flinch at.
Personally I think everyone is capable of it, you just have to realize that high school is not a good representative of pure learning, and if you were allowed to teach yourself whatever you wanted however you wanted to it could be a lot more fun... but that's besides the point, even if I could convince you highschoolers to homeschool, I doubt you'd be able to convince your parents... so we'll move on to the easier part.

CLEP tests

According to the website linked above, CLEP is the "College Level Examination Program."  Basically it's a bunch of tests designed to let you go to college cheaply, efficiently, and quickly.  Each tests takes about 3 weeks to study for (4 months for a regular course), costs $70-$120 with the textbook ($1000-$1500 for a regular college course and textbook), and is anywhere from 3-12 credits (A one semester course is 3-4 credits).  At least some of these tests are likely offered and accepted your local college.  Go to the CLEP page on the College Board website (link given above) and follow the instructions on their page.

If you do plan on trying out some of these tests you should do a couple things.  First, make sure that the specific test you want to take is accepted for credit at the college you want to attend.  You would probably have to visit the website of the college to get that information.  Second, make sure Amazon,  eBay, or your local book store carries the REA Study Guide, which is by far the best way to prepare for a CLEP (the REA website also has them for sale, and although they're more expensive you get tons of money off if you buy 3 or more).  These books have a great study schedule set up for you, as well as 2 practice tests to give you an idea of how well you'll do on the real exam.

Once you've done all that it's just a matter of taking the test and getting the credit for your newly gained knowledge! You don't have to be in high school or college to make this work for you either.  Adults looking to further their education should take this offer into consideration as well!

If you have any questions feel free to e-mail me, or leave a comment! Happy learning :D

Hehe...

"Whats better than hearing Richard Dawkins say evolution? Hearing Richard Dawkins say boobies!"
-Sara Callif



Wouldn't you love to see some posts from her? She's like a tiny, female male version of me!

Okay... SOME Parts of College Rock

My Child Psych course is a pretty standard 200-person lecture class. It's a prerequisite for almost every other psychology course, and is fairly low level. I'm pretty bored with it, but I'll deal. My problem is that the people aren't exactly the brightest bulbs. The other day we were talking about prenatal genetic testing for heritable diseases.

The professor asked what the moral and ethical implications for prenatal genetic testing were, so, of course, a (slightly) older gentleman in the front row raised his hand and said:
"You could test for a disease, then get an abortion based on the test results."
And the teacher agreed; prenatal testing could lead to horrible things like abortion. It is true that this is an ethical issue that we should contemplate, but I am inclined to disagree with my professor's sentiment. There are many diseases that would cause a child to be better off dead. We could argue about this all day, but it would be missing the point of this post.

Two days later we were talking about the spread of HIV and AIDS through breastfeeding, and the same guy asks:
"Is there a law against breastfeeding if you have AIDS?! There should be! It's murder!"
This statement missed the obvious fact that all childbirth is murder, not even mentioning the multitude of horrible genetic deformities and diseases that can drastically decrease the quality of life (and lifespan!) of those who inherit them... All of those could be easily avoided. Through what you ask? Abortion of course.

Later on in my discussion group the T.A. asked what the ethical implications of genetically engineering children could be. One particularly perky girl (this class is at 8 A.M... No one should be perky at that hour lol) answered in a spectacularly thoughtless fashion. She said:
"Well, if we make perfect humans we'd be interfering with the way God made us."
Thank Pasta it was so early in the morning, otherwise I probably would have smashed my forehead into my palm.

Oh well! I guess I'll just have to focus on the positive... like, I'm in college! I have my own house! I love learning!

Poorly Considered Argument

Rudeness abounds in YouTube debates!
It started with a comment made by some Christian bigot.
He said something along the lines of:
"Stop having sex with holes that are meant for excrement!"
To which I responded:
"Vaginas are used for excrement."
So he said:
"Vaginas are not used for excrement asswipe, WTF is wrong with you? move the hell out of the US if you like gay, sickening perversion loser!!"
Really?...
Someday the world will be filled with intelligent discussion, or I'll be dead. Either way works.

Ray Comfort... *sigh*

These people are fucking moronic.

"An atheist believes Nothing made everything."
"help to pull the plug on the rising tide of atheism"
-Ray Comfort

And this guy thinks he could take Dawkins in a debate... are you fucking kidding me?

YouTube Sucks!

After writing a lengthy and disparaging response to a Christian troll via comment I proceeded to click "Post Comment" but to my despair, when I clicked the button, instead of showing the usual "Comment Posted!" it just said "Post Comment" again! Even worse, that incredibly long comment I posted couldn't be highlighted! No copy and paste for me... So I refreshed the page and wrote the comment again. I figured it was just a fluke, so I didn't even bother copying my post... I was wrong. This time I refreshed, wrote my response, copied it, saved it in a word document, then pushed post. Still nothing. After about twenty minutes of troubleshooting, and posting, and copying, and blah blah blah, I got an error message at the bottom of my screen.
It looked like this.



Of course, I was absolutely horrified! First you don't let me post a comment (on my own video even!), then you insult my intelligence so directly and personally? Perhaps you missed it. How dare they insinuate that I "Can't read?" Those obnoxious bastards! Do they really think this kind of thing is a user error!?!

Well needless to say, YouTube has caused me too much frustration... I'm afraid I can no longer visit that wonderful (on paper) website.
;)