I got my first cell phone at 15. I wasn’t the first kid with one, but I certainly was in the minority at that time. My brother got his when he was 14, even younger than me. My sister Brandiann had a pager in middle school. (Wow, remember when pagers were the cool thing to do?!)

At the time, having a cell phone in school was a very definite “don’t,” and teachers regularly confiscated them from students. My cell phone only ever rang in class one time. AP Calculus senior year. I remember diving at my bag and grabbing it to hit ignore so fast that I almost fell out of my seat.

Today, high school and college students are almost expected to have cell phones. I don’t know anyone in college who doesn’t have one. I also don’t know anyone in college who has a landline. It’s just a cultural thing.

But still, when my sister bought my 11-year-old nephew a cell phone for his birthday in June, I raised my eyebrows. Certainly 11 is too young for a cell phone. But then my sister told me recently, she thinks she’s going to get a family plan and put both my nephews on it with her. My nephews are 11 and 7. What 7 year old needs a cell phone?!

I was reminded of this when I read David Giffel’s column in the Beacon. He brings up the current/possible cell phone ban the Akron Public Schools is considering:

… this is also an opportunity to teach a larger and more basic lesson: What you want is not the same as what you need.

Children want cell phones. In order to keep them during the school day, they will try to convince grown-ups that they need cell phones. Most adults can see through this argument, and most adults understand that children can’t have everything they want.

If you are climbing the Alps, you need a cell phone.

If you are in fourth-period algebra, you do not need a cell phone.

If you are driving cross-country, you need a cell phone.

If you are having lunch in the cafeteria, you do not need a cell phone.

If you are an embedded reporter in Iraq, you need a cell phone.

If you are making a pit stop at your locker, you do not need a cell phone.

Grown-ups know this. They went to school in the 20th century, when children somehow managed to get through six hours of classes without a constant wireless connection to the outside world. They talked to the people around them without interrupting the conversation to talk to someone else who was not in the room.

It’s true though. There is a huge difference between wanting and needing a cell phone. And I can say from experience, cell phones are distracting, and high school students really don’t need any more distractions (what with hormones, college, parents, work, friends, life… to keep them perpetually occupied). Plus, there is the concern over cheating/passing answers to each other. If the instructor is diligent and pays 10 seconds of attention, he’ll notice a kid looking under his/her desk at a phone or heaven forbid the more obvious taking a picture of the test with his phone.

I never had a problem with cell phones or pagers being confiscated in class. They are distracting and unnecessary in class. But let high school students have cell phones. Why not in the hall ways or cafeteria at lunch? Who cares if you choose to talk to someone else then? You’re not distracting from education. As long as you get to class on time, put the ringer on silent and pay attention, who cares who you talked to between classes/at lunch?

There was mention of the cell phone ban issue in Al’s Morning Meeting, including a story from The Milwalkee Journal Sentinal about students cheating with cell phones.

What it really comes down to is this, ban them or don’t it won’t matter. As the MJS story says, “it is obvious to anyone around a high school or middle school — and sometimes even elementaries — that a vast majority of students carry them and use them frequently.” The trick will be balancing the students desire to carry them with their need to stay focused on the task at hand. Making them a forbidden fruit is not going to achieve the desired outcome.

Today was a random day. So, this is a random post of things worth noting. (In list format for easy digestion.)

• To all those who have asked (and consequently scolded me), no I did not attend my graduation this morning. I’m sure it was lovely, and I’m sure Gaston gave a great speech. However, I wasn’t there. I was running around after screaming kids at approximately the same time my name would have been being called. I don’t regret it yet. Give me a decade, maybe I’ll wish I’d gone then.
• Today I had to laugh at a cashier. He dropped an item as he was ringing it up and it fell near my foot. I picked it up and handed it back to him and said, “It’s OK. You’re fine.” And he replied, “Oooh, I know.” I couldn’t not laugh at the 17-year-old guy in the anime character T-shirt when he said that.
• My creative writing grade has been posted: A! This brings my overall GPA back up to exactly 3.77. It will of course go down once my piano grade is posted. My social problems grade is also MIA, but that will be at the least an A-, so I’m not concerned.
• I need to download some more podcasts for my travels this week. I’ll probably grab some more from NPR (even though my sister Brandiann keeps telling me everytime I use a word with multiple syllables or listen to NPR that I’m a “quasi-republican-linqust,” which of course means nothing except that she thinks I’m weird). I’m taking in some new cities and even finding time to stop in and visit some family I haven’t seen in far too long. Brandiann tried to make it seem more fun than it actually is, “It’s almost like traveling, right?” Haha. Almost, but very much not quite.
• I received an e-mail from myself this morning. It was a total surprise. I wrote it about a year or so ago at futureme.org, which allows you to postdate an e-mail to be sent to your inbox in the future. I had completely forgotten about the letter to myself on my graduation. The e-mail was interesting, a few highlights:
  • I wanted to be shipping out with the Peace Corps by now (that plan, though I went as far as the interview, is on indefinite hold as I gain experience in the real world first)
  • My job search is looking far better than my internship search did at that time…
  • My biggest concern at that moment was whether my grades would be A’s or A-’s.
  • My list of things I hoped to have achieved by now included: just wrapping up my term as editor-in-chief (which happened), an amazing internship (well, it was a good experience), having completed an honors thesis (which never came anywhere near happening), still having a sense of humor, and most importantly, “I still have a passion and love for journalism” (which is only more true now than it was then).
  • All in all, however, much of it has come true. As I said in my e-mail, “I hope I become who I have set out to be.” I definitely think I have.

I think this is the first day “off” I’ve had in at least a year. At least.

Technically this summer I had two days off a week. But they were hardly off when you consider that being off just meant having time to drive two and a half hours back to Akron/Kent for meetings, birthdays, etc. or spending all day working on and planning the fall Stater. Plus, I didn’t even take breathing room between the Stater and the Courier. I literally finished the Stater, took exams (and to add to the craziness, we published two extra editions of the Stater during exam week), moved my stuff to Findlay and started that following Monday. I came back from Findlay with one week to prepare the office and get everything settled before my staff returned and we started putting out the paper.

Even when I was off, I was never really off. I just wasn’t at work doing my “job.”

This fall, I did take a “breather” every Saturday. I made it a point to take my dog to the park (the metro parks, not just down the street to a swingset) on a walk for an hour or so each weekend. I needed the time to refresh from a hectic schedule and break the weeks up. But she needed it as much as I did. My mom doesn’t have the time or energy to take her out on daily walks. But Shadow’s a very hyper and active dog (shepherd & lab mix), and she misses me terribly when I’m away (which is most of the time) — so much so that when I walk in the door she literally leaps into my arms and refuses to get down until I’ve held her like a baby for a minute or two. I am not joking. It’s the cutest thing ever.

But even on those Saturday walks I’d still be “on.” I remember recently I was at the park for maybe an hour and received no fewer than three calls about the Stater. Mostly they were just, “I sent you a brief for the Web, when can you get it up?” or “So, thus&so happened, but so&so won’t talk to me, what should I do…” Even on Thanksgiving and throughout that weekend, I had stories to upload and comments to approve. I guess I could have ignored the calls and e-mails. But I’d still have to deal with them anyway. And thus, I was never really off. I was just out of the office and away from campus.

But today? Well, I am no longer responsible for the Stater. So, although I wouldn’t, if someone called and asked me for advice, to post their stories or to do them a favor, I could legitimately tell them to call Seth, Rachel or Ryan instead. I’m not planning next semester and trying to arrange schedules and training week speakers, as I was doing at this time last year, when I was M.E., and this past summer, when I was editor. I’m not even worried about getting a headstart on research for my next story or about how Monday’s budget and layouts are shaping up. I don’t even have that nagging, “exams are coming up” or “I should work on that project due Tuesday” feeling. I’m not worried about work or school or any of that. I’m off. Completely off.

So on my first day off in as long as I can remember, I’m going to take my nephews, who sadly haven’t as much of me the last year or so as they’d like, out to lunch and then have them tag along with Shadow and me on our weekly walk. Then, I’m going to unpack a few boxes, sort out everything I’ve accumulated the last three and a half years and probably kick back and read one of the 20+ books I’ve bought but not had time to read in the last year.

Mostly, I’m going to relax. For now at least.

My younger cousin was at my graduation party tonight. We usually discuss technology, cell phones, cameras, computers, etc. I think I’m the only other person he knows who is really interested and passionate about new technology. Usually it involves us gushing about the latest items on CNET or talking about the pros and cons of Mac vs. PC.

Tonight, perhaps because my family kept asking me about what job I am looking for, we ended up talking about the future of journalism.

My cousin said he had wanted to join his H.S. newspaper staff but that now “it’s stupid!” I asked why, and he said, “It’s only on the Web.” So, I asked him what was wrong with that, printing a newspaper is expensive and is the biggest expense for a paper. And he said something that is a disconnect for anyone in our generation but especially for someone so interested in the Internet and technology, “I don’t know, I just prefer to read something on paper. Reading on the computer is annoying.”

This from a 16-year-old, self-proclaimed computer geek. Definitely an interesting/different perspective than we’re used to hearing.

So, my sister, my mom, her friend and my nephews are having a serious discussion about God. My 7-year-old nephew, who had been sitting there silently just blurted out: “What if God is the devil, and the devil is God, and he’s just tricking all the angels?”

He’s only 7, and he’s already thinking all philosophical and deeply considering his religion. That kid is way ahead of his time.

My father is a cab driver in Akron. He’s been driving cab for most of his life and all of mine. (In fact, he met my mother when she was a dispatcher at the cab company.)

So, today when I read “Cab slams into downtown restaurant” in the Beacon, I didn’t even finish reading the story. I just called him up to find out what happened.

That photo is crazy. The cab was apparently hit by someone who ran a red light and thrown through the window of the restaurant. And the witness said it sounded like “a bomb going off.”

When I asked my dad about it, he just laughed. The driver, a friend of his, is OK. Apparently though, he was joking with her earlier about the accident. After checking to see if she was OK, he asked if she wanted to go to lunch, he heard there was a new drive-in restaurant downtown. Hehe. That’s my father for you. I definitely inherited his sense of sarcasm.

If nothing else, the driver has another great story for her kids/friends. One of the best parts about having a cab driver for a father is the awesome stories he hears and the things he sees. Seriously. If you wanted to do participatory journalism and write a book about a city, becoming a cab driver would be a great way to do it. You get to mingle with everyone from coked out professionals to drunk college students to the normal working class people. Hmm. If I had the guts to be a cab driver (and I didn’t think my parents would kill me for considering it), that would actually make a great book.

As this Beacon story (Smoking drifts back into area businesses) notes, several area establishments have quite literally been ignoring the new statewide smoking ban, which went into effect last Thursday.

I actually debated this with my father on Sunday. He (a smoker) pointed out that everyone was (and will continue) just ignoring the ban, so it didn’t even matter. Apparently, the bowling alley I used to work at (which was always a sort of shady place) is just telling smokers to pack the back party room and smoke there because they don’t want snow being trampled in all night. The smoke in the bowling alley alone probably took a year or two off MY life just because I had to breathe it constantly every night I worked. I remember guys would come up to the counter to smoke cigars. Cigars! I would literally choke while taking their order thinking “now, is that necessary?”

My father went on, “You think the bars in Kent are enforcing it? You’re wrong. Nobody is.” To wit I replied, “The ones I was in Thursday didn’t have a single smoker, and Ray’s yesterday and BW3’s today… nobody was smoking in any of them.” Perhaps because Kent was so close to its own ban, the bar owners resigned themselves to the inevitable. My dad’s argument to continue flaunting his cigarettes in public places was that it was a basic right. My reply? And not being exposed to pollutants that literally decrease the length and quality of my life, that’s not a right of mine? He then went into the old well “fast food is bad for people but they haven’t outlawed it” argument, and I quickly put that one to bed as well with a retort, “Well, if I chose to eat at McDonald’s then so I harm myself. I’m not hurting innocent bystanders or forcing it down anyone else’s throat.”

It’s not that my family and I don’t see eye to eye on most things, we do. It’s just that I am the one who sticks up for my position even when everyone else disagrees — probably because I’m the most informed. But seriously, as the article points out, enforcement or no enforcement, choosing to continue smoking is breaking the law.

In other unrelated news, this panda video is adorable.

My life is not a sitcom, or a drama, or even one of those horrible made-for-TV Lifetime movies. But sometimes I swear it seems like it. I have these moments where I’m stuck doing something or standing somewhere and I think to myself, “If I ever write a book about my life, this is definitely getting included.” Last night I had one of those painful moments.

I went to Akron last night to grab dinner with my mom and go to Border’s. Everything’s fine on the drive there. Everything’s fine on the drive back. As soon as I pull into a parking spot on campus, however, I start to smell something faint like maple syrup. As soon as I put it in park, it starts smoking. Clouds of white smoke pour from the right side of my engine. I turn the car off and get out in the pouring rain (because in all great car trouble scenes there’s pouring rain).

I hit the release button on my hood, determined to see if I can figure out the issue. (Yeah, right.) That was my first problem, I didn’t even know how to open the hood. I call the Stater to find someone to help me. (Take into consideration that we are by nature not car people.) Then I call my dad, who is my go-to on car problems. I know when I call my dad and say, “Dad, I just had an accident,” or “Dad, my car won’t come out of park,” or “Dad, I know it’s 3 a.m., but we have a flat tire and we’re on some random two-lane road in Cuyahoga Valley, and we don’t have a jack or know how to change a tire,” he will answer and either calm me down or say, more often than not, “I’ll be there in…” But he doesn’t answer. So, I stand in the rain and wait, looking like an idiot to the dozen or so people who walk past me because while my car’s hood is still smoking, I’m just staring at it, immobile.

Eventually, after we open the hood and I am satisfied nothing was actually on fire or anything, I calm down. Sean says it was probably just overheated or something. But that makes no sense. My car has never done that before, and isn’t the coolant, which I had replaced the day before, supposed to prevent that? The smoke came from the area where the coolant is at, which leads me to believe a) the guy who changed the oil and coolant spilled some on the engine or b) he screwed something up when he was working on it. Either way, I have to go back today or (probably) tomorrow to figure it out. It definitely shouldn’t be doing that.

You know, my dad asked me last week if I’d want triple A for Christmas and I told him it was probably a good idea because I’d be moving away soon and wouldn’t know anyone. Maybe he knew something I didn’t.

My mom called back later (she was my call after my dad), and I explained what happened. She asked her friend who used to be married to a mechanic what that might be. Immediately her friend replies, “Oh, maple syrup? That’s bad. That means your heater core’s going bad.”

So, whatever a heater core is, I have to add that to the list of things to be checked and fixed when I’m done with all these papers, projects, exams and classes — basically, when I graduate and have a little free time. It really is sad that I look forward to a real job where I’ll work 40 hours a week instead of 60+ on top of five classes. I might have time to read all the books I buy at Border’s, or take up another hobby… maybe working on cars?

After I dropped off the last $300 Kent State will ever squeeze from me at the Bursar’s Office this morning, I decided I’d stop at Starbucks and then grab lunch before going back to the newsroom. As I was leaving Starbucks, I happened to notice the oil change sign, and it reminded me that I needed to get the oil changed in my car. Needed is actually an understatement. I absolutely had to.

My father actually yelled at me — my parents have never yelled at me — last weekend when he took my car for a few hours to get new tags for my license plates and get it e-checked. He noticed the sticker I’ve been avoiding eye contact with all semester. The sticker that reminded me I should have taken my car in about 2,200 miles ago.

It’s not that I’m a horrible car owner. Well I’m not the most responsible one, as anyone who knows about the window that wouldn’t roll up can attest. I kind of let it chill for a month before I had time to take it in for repair only to have the shop tell my mother, who told my dad, who called and laughed at me, that it wasn’t working because the window lock was on. (I still contend that when they fixed the issue with my gear shift they bumped something that fixed the window. There is no way it was the window lock. I tried that and everything else just about every day I got in my car.) I just don’t have time to worry about things that don’t actually prevent me from getting from point A to point B. So, I try to ignore them as long as possible, which is why I took my car to get an oil change today.

I pulled into the oil change place and popped my hood. About five minutes later, I noticed the one guy step back and say, “What the heck is that?” Now, you know it’s a bad sign when the man working on your car deems it necessary to call “hey look at this” to two other people. I gulped.

Apparently, as I learned today, your coolant is supposed to be neon green. He held up a container with some of mine and said, “Your coolant is brown, and it smells bad.” I just looked at him and asked how much.

Add an extra $80 to the oil change and factor in the Starbucks and the Bursar’s office, and I easily spent between $400 and $500 dollars today. Gulp. Considering that’s half a month of the editor’s salary at the Stater, I’m pretty much screwed.

Still, I guess it’s better than the last time I got my oil changed. That was the day they told me my back struts were broken. I still don’t know exactly what struts are or how they break, but I do know that they cost about $500 to replace, even when your grandpa hooks you up with one of his friends. In fact, I’ve only recently finished paying my grandparents back for that one.

Sometimes not knowing is better. It’s easier to ignore, which is exactly why I avoid getting my oil changed.

Sí y no.

Hablo un poco Español. But I wish it were more.

I just popped a bag of popcorn for the first time in a long time. I didn’t want to be that girl and make the fire alarms go off because I left it in too long, so I read the instructions to gauge the right amount of time. The only problem was the instructions were in Spanish. At least the ones in the back where instuctions normally are. I had to flip over the find the English directions.

Granted most packaging sold in the U.S. remains predominantly English, I have a feeling this transition toward bilingual packaging is definitely gaining popularity not losing it. Not that it’s a bad thing. As my sister, the Spanish teacher, is quick to inform me when I point out this trend, “In a decade there will be more Hispanic than European people in the U.S.”

It makes me wish I hadn’t been so zealous to end my Spanish training when I realized I could choose between math or a foreign language. What used to be pretty good when I graduated from high school is now pretty spotty. Although I still put up with my sister talking to me in Spanish when she doesn’t want other people to understand her comments, my own abilities in the language have deteroriated a lot. But, as I know she is right, I’m thinking I’ll be dusting off those “Learn Spanish” CDs she used to teach herself when she was in high school. ¿Por qué no?