[from my myspace] Geography, the Cop-Out Major

[intro]
I used myspace.com blogs for the past few years for my randomly-spaced blogging. Therefore, I am jumpstarting my blog here with most of those blogs, lightly edited.
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Original posting: Thursday, February 01, 2007, 9:45 PM
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I decided to be a minimalist for this blog ... well, as far as the subject goes anyway. I felt like putting "Timmy's Rants" was really unnecessary at this point, so I dropped it, hence, my minimalism.

Anyway, as far as sizing things down goes, I have a point to make a note upon: eyes. Apparently, big eyes are viewed by society as more attractive. I have never thought this; in fact, I like smaller eyes. I pointed my preference out one time, and my friend just looked at me funny and informed me that I was in the minority. I promptly replied with a confused, "What?"

Ever since, I have been trying to find a like-minded individual. Well, I haven't looked high and low, left and right, all over the globe ... but when a situation arises in which it's not completely random to bring eyes up, I inquire my fellow conversater(s). It turns out I have indeed been alone.

So I asked myself why. Why are big eyes more desirable? And why am I not on this bandwagon of people who enjoy the larger eyes??? In my mini-non-quest for the answer to this enigma, I have noticed that here and there, people everywhere have tried to make their eyes larger.

For example, Asian women do this. Asians tend to have squinty eyes, so perhaps the huge Western influence on the world has caused Asians to look up to the "pretty white person" and his/her generally larger eyes. I have relatives who have gone back to Vietnam to do what they can to have prettier eyes, cosmetic-surgery-wise! That's right: they go under the knife to look prettier! I completely disagree with this. Unless you've been in a major accident or want to drastically change your face, it's not really necessary. Especially if it's the EYES.... The thing that they get done is get eyelids. I know what you're thinking now. But think about it: Haven't you noticed that Asians tend not to have noticeable eyelids? I mean, there are exceptions, but generally, Asians don't have pronounced eyelids.

I recall seeing a news documentary on MTV once about this. Yes, I know .... MTV..... But it was MTV News, so it's a bit more credible, perhaps. Anyway, SuChin Pak (or whatever her name is/was) was the reporter for this particular story. I forgot the exact details, but the thing I remembered about it that I want to share is the following: When SuChin was smaller, she too noticed that all the other girls had distinguishable eyelids. Then, so to look like them, she would tear a small thin piece of some scotch tape, color it black, and put it on her upper eyelid ... to make her eyes stand out better or something. It is a definite issue among the Asians....

Anyway, back to big eyes. My friend actually asked me once if it ("it" used to protect the gender and identity of my friend) should get surgery to get its eyes larger.
Side Note: Wow, using "it" to refer to a person is really really strange....
Anyway, I told it that I didn't think it was necessary because I found its eyes were really pretty as they are. It decided to decide this issue later on in life when it had more money.

I guess I haven't figured out why big eyes are, on the whole, deemed prettier than smaller eyes. I find the smaller eyes sexier, hotter, more beautiful, and so on and so forth. Large eyes are just kind of ... creepy. Maybe I'm an eye-guy. I've noticed that I tend to be turned off by people who have a slightly lazy eye when they're talking to me. It's distracting. I don't have anything against the person ... it's just that, at that moment, I feel a lot less attracted to them as a potential romantic partner. Hahaha, I just said "romantic partner"; I was just trying to put it delicately and "romantic partner" came out. I should be shot for that. Oh well....

Hm, so I haven't addressed the subject I gave myself for this blog. I meant to only briefly discuss the eye thing (since it related to my joking "minimalist" statement at the beginning ... minimalists minimalize, and smaller eyes....). Now for GEOGRAPHY!!!

I just wanted to say that geography is a very all-encompassing field. There's physical geography (for science-y freaks), GIS (for technical, possibly math-y people), cultural/human geography (for more liberal artsy or anthropological aspects), cartography (for artistic types or analyzing peeps), globalization (a kinda business-y side), biological geography (again, for science-y people wanting to study epidemiology or such), cultural geography (I know I mentioned this, but cultural geography is a very large field....), urban planning (political and local aspect), the environment (for tree-hugging people), earth science, meteorology, conservation, computer cartography, historical geography, ....

I know I repeated myself slightly in my listing, but geography is just ... amazing. I learned today that the Department of Geography and the Environment at UT-Austin will be trying in the next few years to add a B.S. option for geography for the science-y side of geography.

I just can't say anything negative about geography! Essentially, what I want to say is: if you're undeclared or want a career change or something, do geography! You'll love it!!! If your school doesn't offer geography as a major, then don't worry ... geography has been in an upswing in the past few decades.

Before WWII or something, geography was a fairly common available major. After things got tight financially in the '30s, '40s, and '50s, colleges had to tighten up ... and geography was one of the majors that went because in today's society's mind, the field of geography is pretty vague and "useless" (Ouch ... a little part of me died after typing that out....). However, since then, geography as a major has been steadily increasing its presence in today's colleges and universities. That's a brief history of the geography major; I'm not sure how I know that actually.... I think I was informed of it by a professor or guest lecturer or something.... Google it or something if you want to know more.

Oh, right, I guess that reminds me of one possible downside of majoring in geography: When people ask you what your major is and you say geography, you'll probably get a response like, "Like geology? You're studying rocks?" or "Geography.... You like maps?" or "What do you learn about ...?" or some other confused, ignorant remark. Hm, that sounded hostile. Well ... I guess it was meant to.

The end!!! (Like in that cartoon online about nuclear missiles that starts, "Hokay, so here's the Earth....")