Whether it’s still the calm before the storm or you’re in full-force finals mode, you’ve probably found yourself in that awful position where you simultaneously have tons of free time and also no free time whatsoever. All the normal responsibilities of your schedule are cleared, replaced by the much more intimidating responsibilities of studying or finishing that final paper. We’ve put together a soundtrack to get you through it. It’s not exactly studying music; it’s a soundtrack to reflect the rollercoaster of emotions that finals inevitably bring about.

• Paul Engemann – Scarface (Push It To The Limit) — That moment when you need the power of ’80s montages to get you through a long stretch of studying

• Daft Punk – Harder Better Faster Strong — That moment when you’re working hard, well, fast, and strong, but need a little bit more of each.

• Coldplay – Don’t Panic — That moment when you’re in desperate need for the advice in the title of this song.

• They Might Be Giants – Why Does the Sun Shine? — That moment you realize you need a cheat sheet for Astronomy 101.

• Miike Snow – Animal — That moment when you realize that no matter how much you have to do, your basic needs come first… you know, like eating, sleeping, and urinating.

• Eagles of Death Metal - Now I’m a Fool — That moment you’re looking over your notes and don’t remember even writing half this stuff.

• She & Him – This Is Not a Test — That moment when you freak out from oversleeping, then realize that it’s not even exam day.

• Muse – Hysteria — That moment when you freak out from oversleeping, then realize that, yes, it IS exam day.

• Wavves – Idiot — That moment you need to feel better after an impossible test makes you feel stupid. (Some NSFW lyrics.)

• The Broken West – The Smartest Man Alive — That moment you need to celebrate after an easy test makes you feel brilliant.

• Wu-Tang Clan – I Can’t Go To Sleep — That moment when you’re pulling an all-nighter and you need a song just as restless as you’re feeling. (Some NSFW lyrics.)

• TV on the Radio – Caffeinated Consciousness — That moment you pop open your second Red Bull for the night.

• The Roots (feat. John Legend) – The Fire — That moment you’ve realized too many of these suggestions are tongue-in-cheek and you really need to hear something genuinely inspiring.

• Europe – The Final Countdown — That moment right before the final when you need a shot of transcendent cheesiness.

• Zircon – Warhead — Post final rave!

Sad panda

For some, the final paper is even more dreaded than the final exam. At least with an exam, you can only do so much work in the time given. With a paper, there’s this sinister feeling that you always could have done more. So naturally, you put off thinking about it as long as you can.

I was reading the other day about the Kübler-Ross model, better known as the Five Stages of Grief. I thought I’d overlay the same ideas onto the process of writing a final paper. The comparison was uncanny.

STAGE 1 — DENIAL

“Professor ____ gave us the final today, but I’ve got like 2 and a half weeks to do it. Plenty of time.”

The student engages in a conscious or unconscious rejection of the situation. The disruption of his/her schedule is seen as an opportunity for more active forms of procrastination. His/her sense of time is distorted. The student seeks constant social interaction to avoid engaging with vague sense of impending doom. Bravo reality TV programming suddenly becomes fascinating.

STAGE 2 — ANGER

“What is this crap? 15 freaking pages of this? She barely even covered this in class.”

When the student is ready to engage with the assignment, he/she initially rejects the terms of the assignment as unreasonable. Feelings of outrage may be directed as the instructor, the institution, noisy neighbors and roommates, friends who keep sending emails and texts saying they’re going out tonight, the stupid library, stupid Internet, and stupid Microsoft Word, or perhaps even at the student’s stupid self for signing up for this stupid class in the first place.

STAGE 3 — BARGAINING

“Okay, I’ll start in the morning. One more party tonight, then I’ll get started in the morning, I promise.”

Students may attempt to bargain with themselves, e.g., offering an hour of work in exchange for an hour getting out of the dorm/apartment. They may also attempt to appease a higher power, sending emails to the instructor testing  the flexibility of the page count or appealing for an extension.

STAGE 4 — DEPRESSION

“I can’t do this. This is impossible. What is wrong with me? Why did I wait until today. Guhhh…”

The student becomes silent and stares blankly at his/her monitor. Posture is slumped. Head may be flat against desk or keyboard. In the earlier stages, comments may be left on social media networks looking for sympathetic responses. In the later stages, acts of procrastination will no longer feature any elements of fun. The blank Word document will be opened and stared at for an indeterminate period of time.

STAGE 5 — ACCEPTANCE

“I haven’t slept in 36 hours. I’ve eaten three consecutive meals of Kraft mac n’ cheese and Dr. Pepper. I have no idea what I wrote. But it doesn’t matter. It’s done.”

After realizing he/she doesn’t even have the time to be depressed anymore, the student begins the assignment. Without any energy to devote toward emotional reactions anymore, the student pours out a series of stream-of-consciousness thoughts onto his/her keyboard. Stray glances at the clock only confirm that there isn’t time to look at the clock. Upon completion and submission of the assignment, the student receives an inexplicable surge of energy, later followed by an exhausted crash. Sometimes this happen in reverse.

The odds are pretty good that you won’t hear at least one name you expect to. Some people just plain don’t want to walk.

While the majority of you probably wouldn’t even consider skipping, a number of your classmates have no interest whatsoever in attending graduation. A few of them might even take off as soon as finals are complete. Justifications will vary. Some will say they’re just sick of school and can’t wait to get out of here. Some will be taking off out of obligation to their vacation plans (that they easily could’ve scheduled later in the first place). But whatever the argument, the people who don’t want to walk simply don’t see much value in pomp and circumstance.

And that’s totally valid. If you’re one of the minority that would rather just take off as soon as you’ve completed your last final, then by all means, take off. If the ceremony isn’t for you, then it isn’t for you. No need to feel guilty about it.

That being said remember that only about 10% of the ceremony is actually intended for you and the rest of the graduating class. The rest is for your families. So before you make any rash decisions about skipping, run it by your parents, siblings, grandparents… whoever plans on coming. And defer to their judgment. Just as you only get one chance to walk, your family only gets one chance to see you walk.

Photo courtesy of the One Laptop Per Child Wiki.

Kids are smart. Much, much smarter than we give them credit for. Most kids have an inherent curiosity, a craving for knowledge and a greater patience with the learning process than most adults. And curiosity is the most powerful force in education.

That was the hope of the non-profit OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project, an organization that provides educational resources to kids in the poorest communities. For this particular project, they shipped a box full of Android tablets to a rural village in Ethiopia. The town was illiterate. The kids had no concept of written language. Yet they were suddenly gifted a box of English-language tablets. No instructions, no instructor, just a powerful device.

The old axiom tells us that teaching a man to fish is better than giving him a fish. But what about giving the man a fishing pole? OLPC wanted to see how well these kids would perform if they simply had access to better tools. Would the kids’ curiosity be enough?

The answer was yes, but to a much greater degree than anyone expected. These kids went from having never seen the printed word to accessing hidden and disabled features on the tablet in months.

It’s an amazing story, but kind of a bittersweet one. There is limitless potential inside kids who haven’t yet had access to education and millions more who will never have access to education. There aren’t many causes as noble as providing that access.

For more information on OLPC, visit laptop.org.

“In each case, drivers took about twice as long to react as they did when they weren’t texting,” Christine Yager, who headed the study, told Reuters. “Eye contact to the roadway also decreased, no matter which texting method was used.”

Now, being distracted behind the wheel is obviously a serious problem for a lot of drivers, so I don’t want to cast doubt on the accuracy of the study, especially if it could save a few lives. But I do have to take some of the conclusions with a grain of salt. There are two other things Yager said, one I totally agree with, one which I’m not so sure.

Totally Agree

The biggest concern is that the driver felt safer while using voice-to-text applications instead of traditional texting, even though driving performance was equally affected, she said.

This may lead to a false belief that texting while driving using spoken commands is safe when in reality it is not, Yager said.

This part makes perfect sense to me, and seems to me like the most important thing to take home from this study. If drivers are just as unsafe using voice-to-text software as thumb-typing, it’s not because of the inherent danger in using a mobile device, but because of a misplaced confidence boost. Drivers need to be educated and disciplined enough that they keep their focus on the road. As terrible an idea as texting while driving is, only the most reckless of reckless drivers wouldn’t be aware of how dangerous they’re being while they’re doing it. Maybe that actually leads to an extra layer of caution drivers using voice-to-text don’t have.

Not So Sure

“You’re still using your mind to try to think of what you’re trying to say, and that by proxy causes some driving impairment, and that decreases your response time,” Yager said.

While I’m not doubting this from a technical perspective, I’m not sure what conclusions we’re really supposed to take away from this. I mean, I use my mind all the time while driving. It’s how I keep from dozing off during my hour commute into work. I listen to music or audiobooks. I think about stuff I’m going to do that day. I daydream. If I have a passenger, I talk to them. But if something comes up that requires my unbroken attention, I’ll stop doing those things and refocus.

I guess I’m just not entirely convinced that all types of distraction are inherently bad. There has to be a benefit to keeping your mind active while doing a monotonous activity.

Everyone needs to remember how new and unpolished this sort of technology is. As it gets better and as we get more comfortable using it, there will be less fiddling with the device, less need to make corrections, and less false confidence that it’s 100% safe. Then our phones will do a better job at helping us get through a long drive instead of distracting us.

(Always remember, college students, Wikipedia is not an acceptable citation, but it is a pretty great springboard for primary sources. Scroll down to “References.”)

• Pony controversy. People tend to get passionate about their hobbies.
• Hockey player Zach Parise officially elevated to “hero” seconds after scoring a goal in 2010 Olympics. At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Zach Parise scored a game-tying shot 24 seconds before the end of the gold-medal match between the US and Canada. Canada would eventually secure victory in overtime, but for several minutes, Parise was king in the eyes of Wikipedia and all Americans watching.
  
• Gary Oldman is a really, really good actor.
• Lunar eclipses sound pretty dangerous.
• One editor is not impressed with pirates. Pirates and ninjas were de facto internet memes before internet memes were even really a thing. Pre-Chuck Norris facts, even. The fact that I remember all of this makes me feel both old and kind of embarrassed for my generation.
• This is what MS Paint was made for.
  
• Batman. Far more informative than the complete article.

• Stephen Colbert keeps Wiki editors on their toes. The host of The Colbert Report started torturing Wikipedia since 2006, when, during a segment on “wikiality” (the concept that something becomes true if enough people agree to it), he pretended to edit a handful of articles. Only he actually had made those edits and pushed them live right before airing the episode. He encouraged his viewers to edit the page(s) on elephants to claim their population had tripled in the past three years, thereby solving the problem of dwindling population. (I can’t embed the video of his 2006 call to democratize knowledge, but you can view it here.)

• …and again during the 2012 election. Following a 2012 news report that speculated about a correlation between Wikipedia editing and vice-presidential candidate buzz, Colbert again encouraged viewers to make edits to VP candidates’ pages, leading to a lockdown of those pages. (The VP discussion starts 3:00 in.)

Photo of Roger Ebert from this 2010 Esquire profile.

I’m probably a bit older that most of the readership of this blog, so I’m sorry if I sound too much like an old fart in this post. For people college age and younger, I don’t know if there’s much of a sense of who he was or why so many people are eulogizing him.

I watched his show At the Movies only a few times as a kid. I probably knew him better from parody than from reality. (Animaniacs and The Critic come to mind. What can I say? I really like cartoons.) The parodies always depicted Ebert (or Ebert-like characters) as an impossible-to-please curmudgeon who enjoyed tearing things down more than appreciating them.

If you’ve read any of his writings, you know that’s pretty far from reality. More than any other critic I’m aware of, he tended to evaluate movies as emotional experiences. Sure, he could tear something down, and did so with some brutally hilarious put-downs, but it always came from an honest place. A bit of dialogue from the movie Ratatouille, between a young chef and a food critic, comes to mind:

LINGUINI: You’re thin for someone who likes food.

ANTON EGO: I don’t “like” food… I LOVE it. If I don’t love it, I don’t swallow.

Analyzing something with a critical eye doesn’t mean you don’t like it. Rather, it means you care enough about it that you want to pick it apart.

That’s a good part of Ebert’s legacy. He became synonymous with the word “critic” in the popular conception by writing conversationally and intelligently. He was an easy person to disagree with, in that I could read a review of his, completely disagree with every conclusion, but still find it full of smart, intelligent, and valid points. Now that the web has given each of us a potential audience of strangers, we should all aspire to that same level of discourse.

That potential audience really a fantastic thing. It’s allowed criticism to become more of a two-way street, not confined to late-night TV or an article buried in the Style section of the newspaper. There are hundreds of great websites where like-minded people can find each other to intelligently and analytically discuss whatever form of art they care about. Just remember, while you and all the other aspiring Eberts are going back and forth over the merits and demerits of a particular movie, that the people who disagree with you have just as much right to be in the conversation as those who agree.

One of the “perks” of getting apps through the App Store is that, unlike downloading desktop software from a random website, Apple screens and approves each and every one of the hundreds of thousands of available apps. For better or worse, that means Apple gets to decide what’s fit for consumption and what’s not.

Most of the time that means blocking copyright violations and pornography, but every once in awhile something will get flagged for reasons that are a bit more unclear.

A bitingly satirical iPad game called Sweatshop HD was recently yanked out of the App store because, according to LittleCloud, the studio that built the game, Apple was uncomfortable with the game’s themes. LittleCloud resubmitted the game with an added disclaimer that the game’s intent was primarily to educate people on social justice issues, and that it was designed with input from the Labour Behind the Label campaign. Apple still wouldn’t lift the ban.

I checked out the game myself (still available as a flash-based browser game) to see just how offensive, beyond the title and premise, this game could be. The game opens with a brightly animated and stylized opening, where customers swarm to grab “Le Shoes” designer sneakers. The camera then pans rights to the shoe warehouse, right again to a fleet of shipping freighters, and finally back to a sweatshop conveyor belt, manned by tired, dehydrated, injured, and underage workers.

You play as a member of middle management, who needs to hire and position workers to handle the flow of materials down the conveyor belt. You’ll routinely get yelled at by your boss to maximize profits and approached by a wide-eyed Dickensian child worker asking for basic things like water. Naturally, since it’s a game, your competitive side will encourage you to cut corners in any way necessary to get the highest possible ranking, usually to the detriment of your workers.

It’s all fairly tongue-in-cheek until you start completing levels. Each time one ends, you’ll be presented with two paragraphs or so or real-life information and statistics about life as a sweatshop worker. These jar you out of the fantasy of the game every few minutes, and set the project pretty firmly on the side of satire, not just gallows humor.

While developed by an independent studio, the game was produced in part by Channel 4, a British commercially funded, but publicly owned, broadcasting network. That fact lends a lot of credence to LittleCloud’s claim that this game was intended primarily to be educational. As a piece of publicly funded entertainment, this is basically Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

So why was Sweatshop‘s brand of educational satire considered inappropriate, but the casual, maniacal violence of, say, Grand Theft Auto III acceptable?

LittleCloud points out that Apple’s developer guidelines are somewhat vague, and grant Apple a fair amount of leeway on what it will and won’t allow. LittleCloud highlighted one line in particular from the weirdly casual guidelines:

“We view apps different than books or songs, which we do not curate. If you want to criticize a religion, write a book. If you want to describe sex, write a book or a song, or create a medical app. It can get complicated, but we have decided to not allow certain kinds of content in the App Store.”

I understand Apple’s need to give themselves carte blanche in making judgment calls, but personally, I find this statement more dismissive and offensive than anything in Sweatshop. The patronizing tone of “If you want to criticize a religion, write a book” is pretty bold insult to the countless game designers who’ve tried to make games with goals loftier than killing time.

Having games criticize real-world themes isn’t exactly a revolutionary concept. Bioshock was a retro-futuristic sci-fi that doubled as a criticism of Objectivism. Spec Ops: The Line criticized the fetishistic way most games idolize modern warfare. Another browser-based flash game, Darfur is Dying, intended to spread awareness of atrocities committed in Sudan by letting you manage a virtual refugee camp.

The developer guidelines’ blanket condescension of games’ ability to address serious issues is entirely unfair to both the people who want to make, and to play, games about something more than, let’s say, throwing birds at pigs.

You can play the game and make your own call here.

You might want to consider adding one of these activities to the day’s schedules. Of course, there’s no rule saying you can’t add a glass of Guinness to any of items on the list below, we’re just providing options for those who’d rather not. These will either keep you from being bored or, if you don’t intend to abstain from drinking, keep you from falling asleep on your friend’s couch by 4 pm.

1. Read up on St. Patrick himself. Aside from the legends (banishing snakes and whatnot), he was a pretty fascinating guy. Here are a few facts worth knowing:
   • He was a born to a Roman family living in Britain.
   • When he first came to Ireland, he was a slave.
   • He’s also the patron saint of Nigeria.
2. Bake some Irish soda bread. It’s actually quicker and easier than many kinds of bread (as long as you have access to an oven). Nowadays people have mostly tried to dessert-ify this ultra-practical dish, so as long as you’re not too worried about being super traditional, you can play pretty loose with the ingredients, adding fruit, honey, or whatever else you want to the mix.
3. Cook up some corned beef and colcannon. What you normally hear is “corned beef and cabbage,” but if a big plate of steamed cabbage leaves doesn’t sound too appetizing, colcannon (buttery mashed potatoes with a bunch of leafy greens mixed in) might be a tastier compromise.
4. Irish rock karaoke. There’s something about Irish rock bands that works perfectly with horribly awesome karaoke renditions.  I’m pretty sure the only way to sing “Zombie” by the Cranberries and “Pride (In the Name of Love)” by U2 is belting it out with a bunch of other people who don’t know all the words.
5. If you’re living in a city, there’s probably a parade. The odds are even higher if you’re in an east coast town.
6. Dress some poor dog, cat, or baby up like a leprechaun. I’m by no means condoning this kind of behavior, I’m just saying it’s technically an option.
7. Irish movie marathon. Not just movies that touch on some Irish themes. I’m talking about legitimately Irish movies, with Irish actors or by Irish creators. Movies like Michael Collins, My Left Foot, Once, Waking Ned Devine, or The Commitments.
8. …Or just movies set in Ireland. Classic films like The Quiet Man or Ryan’s Daughter might not be as authentic as the above movies, but they should still count for the purposes of your marathon.
9. …Or movies about Irish-Americans. Of course, The Departed is a great gangster flick, but Gangs of New York is probably a better fit for the day, since it focuses on the immigrant experience. If you’re looking for something that doesn’t have the bloodshed of those two, there’s always the more low-key In America.
10. …Or maybe just movies with Liam Neeson. If you really just want an excuse to watch Darkman again.

Oryx and Crake — Margaret Atwood

The premise: In a post-apocalyptic world, one of the only remaining survivors reflects on how his best friend brought about the end of civilization.

Why film it? Look at The Hunger Games. Dystopian sci-fi is in. Look at The Walking Dead. Apocalyptic sci-fi is also in. With Oryx & Crake, you get it both ways: a frighteningly believable and self-destructive future society and a planet after a disaster rapidly being reclaimed by animal and plant life. Plus, while the book can stand on its own just fine, there is a sequel (The Year of the Flood) and a third book due out later this year. And movie studios love franchises.

Who’d make it? It would be great if somebody like Terry Gilliam could make it. Despite the bleak material, the books are pretty funny at times and it would need a director who would be comfortable with some of the more unhinged parts. But there’s no chance a studio looking to make a franchise would let someone that out of control near it, so my guess would be Alfonso Cuaron, who brought a lot of visual flair to another more down-to-earth sci-fi movie, Children of Men.

What are the odds it’ll happen? 5/10 — There’s a chance nobody wants to touch this series until they see how it wraps up when the last book comes out this year. There’s just as good of a chance that nobody wants to touch this series at all since the last film adaptation of a Margaret Atwood book, The Handmaid’s Tale, was pretty poorly received.

The Yiddish Policeman’s Union — Michael Chabon

The premise: A noir detective tale set in an alternate history where, instead of Israel, a Jewish state was established on the island of Sitka, Alaska.

Why film it? The plot more or less follows the expected template of a detective story like The Big Sleep or Chinatown, but the setting is wildly imaginative and begging to be put on screen by someone with a knack for atmosphere. The book’s definitely out there, but it’s out there is in a very approachable way.

Who’d make it? For awhile there was a rumor that the Coen brothers wanted to make this movie, and really, I can’t think of a more perfect match.

What are the odds it’ll happen? 4/10 — The film rights were purchased over a decade ago, before the book was even written. Yet nobody’s touched it. If it ever gets made, it would have to be a passion project by the creators. And those creators would have to be someone like the Coens, who have enough pull as creators that they can get away with weird and ambitious projects.

What Is The What — Dave Eggers

The premise: Story created from the memories of real-life Sudanese refugee Valentino Achak Deng, a survivor of genocide who fled on foot from Southern Sudan to Ethiopia, eventually making his way to the United States.

Why film it? It’s topical, it’s based on a true story, and it’s about atrocities most people are shamefully unaware of. The hero of the story is put through hell, yet remains incredibly likeable, relatable, optimisitic, and human throughout.

Who’d make it? Director Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, half of Cloud Atlas) has already expressed interest in making this into a movie. He probably wouldn’t have been the first name to jump to mind, but I liked Cloud Atlas a lot better than everyone else did, so I’m going to say that this is a good thing. Also, I guess the hero runs a lot, so there’s your Run Lola Run connection.

What are the odds it’ll happen? 9/10 — For whatever reason, I find it easier to not dismiss this as a rumor because, unlike the Coens with Yiddish Policemen’s Union, that doesn’t sound like the first idea a fan trying to start a rumor would come up with. The fact that South Sudan has now become an independent nation would put a nice coda on a story that otherwise has a fairly open-ended conclusion.

Heart-Shaped Box — Joe Hill

The premise: An aging rock star, fascinated with macabre collectibles, buys a ghost in an online auction.

Why film it? It’s an original idea for a horror film. If there’s one genre of movies that’s desperate for original ideas, it’s horror. Plus, Joe Hill is Stephen King’s son, and as filmmakers eventually inevitably adapt all of King’s books, they’ll need to expand to new sources.

Who’d make it? Someone who understands horror and hard rock, which naturally makes me think Rob Zombie, but the book redeems its hero too much for a Rob Zombie movie. So instead I’ll suggest David Cronenberg. If nothing else, he’d effectively render the festering infections each major character gets as the haunting gets worse.

What are the odds it’ll happen? 7/10 — Joe Hill’s second book, Horns, will get a film treatment later this year, directed by Alexandre Aja and starring Daniel Radcliffe. There’s a reason Horns was adapted first: It’s a better book. No doubt Heart-Shaped Box‘s fate as a film is directly tied to how well Horns does.

Super Sad True Love Story — Gary Shteyngart

The premise: In a hyper materialistic future, a romance between a middle-aged Russian-American man and a young Korean-American woman is told through his journal entries and her text messages.

Why film it? Because, unless you count The Social Network, there are no good movies focused on social media. For something that takes up such a large portion of our modern culture (and such a huge portion of our time every day), there aren’t too many writers out there really trying to get a handle on it.

Who’d make it? My dream pick would be Edgar Wright. He’s funny, he’s hyper-kinetic, he gets the current generation, and he’s capable of finding a way to replicate the feeling of something without directly copying it.

What are the odds it’ll happen? 2/10 — Trying to adapt a book that’s half told in text messages is a hard sell.