Picked up a new crafty book!

It’s the end of the semester and so, book buy-back time. I didn’t have very many books this semester, so I was just expecting to sell back my books and get some lunch with the money they gave me. Before I left the house this morning, though, I grabbed a book I’d never returned from a class I’d taken probably 3 semesters ago.

So on campus, 5 bucks for the first book, $7.50 for the second book and a whopping $28 for the oldy oldy book! I wasn’t expecting that much. With some extra cash I went and checked out what the bookstore had to offer. I picked up LOTR: RotK widescreen version for only $4. Sure, Return of the King is like, 4 years old, but that’s the one DVD of the trilogy that we didn’t have, and it happens to be my fave one.

I also bought a cute little planner for next year, and a book from a Smithsonian show called “Captive Passage: The Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Making of the Americas” for only $8, it was like, 60% off. It looks really interesting and Dad and I have been trading Black History books lately, which is really cool. Makes for good discussions.

The final thing I got was a more recent release title Subversive Seasmter.

I saw this book earlier in the semester when it was first released but I was flat broke. So I’m totally glad I could pick it up today. Another awesome point is that their Store, Stitch, is located in San Francisco! I go to school in The City! I live here in the Bay Area! I totally want to go there now and check them out.

The projects in the book look so fun(ky) I can’t wait to try them out. After I finish my last paper of the semester tomorrow. I’ll be going to bed now, though. So good night!

Stupid Trend That Just Won’t Die: Cartoon Backpacks

I first noticed it about three years ago: teenagers… high school kids wearing backpacks covered in cartoon characters, made for little kids. It was dumb… boy, was it dumb. But obviously, it was a trend; one that I hoped would die, not a slow and painful death, but the quick and merciful kind. I was wrong.

The next fall I started seeing the phenomena on the SJSU campus. That’s how I could tell they were freshman. Walking around campus with these little cheap-o plastic backpacks on. Fast-forward to present day and they are still.freaking.here.

I’m thinking it’s just a trend in California, and more specifically, the Bay Area because the only place I’ve gone out of town lately is to Columbus. I haven’t been to LA recently and when I Googled the trend, I couldn’t find ANYTHING except for this little blog mention here and I know how to boolean search the mess out of Google.

I know it probably has a lot to do with wanting to feel like a kid again, when times were less stressful and you didn’t have any resposibilities… I mean, who doesn’t want to feel like that every once in awhile, that’s what Disneyland is for, but when you get to college, congratulations, it’s time to grow up!

Walking into class with a plastic backpack on sends a message to your professor that you’re not really serious about your higher education. That backpack can’t hold your books and papers and all that stuff you’re supposed to carry in a backpack. It makes you look like you’re not ready for college.

Also, you end up looking like a total jerk because to everyone else on campus it says that you think you’re extremely cool because you’re up on the latest trends, yet no one past their first year is wearing them.

I just think it’s really dumb and for it to last 3 solid years (and I’ve seen new freshmen wear them for 3 solid years), is just insane. This trend should die. If any cartoon-backpack-wearin kid is reading this: put the backpack down. In fact, burn it as a remembrance of the carefree life you will never have back. Just stop looking like an idiot.