Thursday, August 11, 2011

Back To School!

Watch out U of M. She's baaaaaack.

That's right. This fall I will be joining the other "returning students" (a.k.a.  kids who totally blew it back in the day and are now trying to claw their way back to finish their degree.) at my alma mater, The University Of Minnesota.

"But, Lynda. I can't believe you don't have your Bachelors degree. You have a flourishing career in advertising."

Yeah, that has nothing to do with being bright.

All you have to do to be a copywriter is watch a crapload of TV as a kid, be super insecure - making you very competitive, grow up in a "unique" family that inspires you to use humor as a coping skill, then have a baby at 18, which propels you into adulthood prematurely but eqips you with an indefatigable drive to provide. Easy peasy.

So why finish? And why now?

It's always nagged at me that I didn't finish. (Remember the insecurity piece?) Plus, I'm a senior (college, not citizen) for Christ's sake and every time I fill out some credit card form or loan application or something at the DMV and it asks about "degrees earned" giving you the choice of either "high school diploma" or "bachelors degree" and nothing in between, instead of drawing the middle finger over that section like I usually do, I can circle "bachelors degree". (No, I can't just circle it. I didn't actually earn it yet and I'm not going to lie. I may manipulate people into buying stuff they don't need for a living but I'm not a liar. Jeez.)

Okay, so there's a bigger reason I want to go back to school. I not only want to finish my degree but I want to earn a Masters. 

What? 

I KNOW! I'll be 60 by the time I finish. But I don't care.

Ultimately, I want to write books about nutrition. (In case you haven't noticed, I kind of geek out on that stuff. ) But unlike advertising, some careers require accreditation.

So one day, instead of shaming people into eating better as a layperson, I'll be shaming them as a Functional Diagnostic Nutritionist. Booya!

And since I'm so friggin' healthy, I'm gonna live to be 117, so I'd better damn well have something to do with my life...in addition to advertising, because I will always love advertising and do it forever.(That last part was for my clients.)

Anyway, my actual point in blogging about this is to tell you how hilarious it has been to get back into the mix, because colleges are designed for late teens and early twenty-somethings, not well-worn adult types.

When I was registering for an e-mail account at the U, the password secret-question-suggestions were as follows:

First car
Best friend
High school mascot

Sure, I can remember all these things, (my former drinking habit only ruined my short-term memory), but they aren't exactly relevant to my current life.

I recommended to my adviser that the secret-question-suggestions for returning students be tailored more appropriately to their lives, like so:

First spouse
Best friend with breast cancer
High school reunion hookup

She reminded me I was on academic probation.

The next day I got a packet in the mail addressed to "The parents of Lynda Crotty" encouraging them to purchase season tickets for Gopher sports on my behalf because, according to the brochure, "students who support their team, take their degree more seriously."

So THAT was my problem the last time?

I thought it was because I had a toddler to feed and I couldn't keep up with school and five jobs as an aerobics instructor. (Yep. Aerobics. Shut up.)

So I called my damn parents and I said, "Listen, you buy me those tickets or the next time you get hip surgery, I will not be changing your wound dressing. You've been warned."

I haven't seen the tickets yet.

If I blow it this time, I'll just have one more reason to hate myself...and them.

But a little more self-loathing will only strengthen my career in advertising.

Go Gophers!

Copyright © Lynda Crotty Radio, Inc

Monday, August 8, 2011

Sucks to be him

I read this story about a month ago but I couldn't let it go un-blogged-about. 

So there's this bear in Tennessee, right? And a couple of months ago he was dumpster diving for food when he got his head stuck in a plastic jar. 

At first, I'm sure the bear was like "Doi. I just shoved my head inside a jar." Then he was probably all, "Holy crap, I can't get this thing off." Then he was likely thinking, "Rachel is gonna kill me!" (Rachel would be the bear in the photo waiting for her food that is NEVER coming.) Then he probably felt some fear, followed by panic, followed by despair, and ultimately, acceptance.

Because this poor bear went for THREE WEEKS with a stupid plastic jar on his head, in the sweltering heat, not eating but drinking by dipping the jar into water, filling it to the point of drowning, then consuming the water fast enough to breathe again. 

The poor dear self-water-boarded for almost a month just to survive! (Rachel must be one, sweet roll in the cave.)

So three weeks, a hundred and seventeen civilian sightings and seventy five pounds later, a wildlife officer spotted and darted him.

They pried the jar off, pumped him full of fluids, got him up on his feet and sent him back into the wild. (Hopefully with some photos to prove to Rachel that his unlikely story was indeed the truth.)

The End
(Not so fast)

Did you seriously think I was going to let you get away without a passionate monologue on the evils of processed food?

What does this have to do with processed food?

Simple.

The only "food" that comes in those ginormous plastic jars are Red Vines, Cheese Puffs or Giant Pickles (that, frankly, Rachel was probably using for anything but eating while her poor, jar-headed beau was out of town.) 

Because when it comes to junk food, even wild animals only eat it when they're desperate, but we humans go to the gas station and stock our cupboards with it.

Why??????

It has become our nature. We don't even think about it. And if someone points it out, we snarl. (Like you're doing right now.) It's okay. I get it. It's not easy to make the shift to real food, but it's possible and I hope you will consider it.

I also hope that until you do, if you should buy any products that come in a big plastic jar, bottle, bucket or are tethered together with those plastic rings, you will cut the plastic to bits before recycling it. That alone could have saved this poor bear from three weeks of torture. Just like eliminating processed foods from your diet can save you from a lifetime of health problems. 

Okay, fine. I'm done. 

But the next time you go camping, if a deer kicks the crap out of you because it has a Mountain Dew bottle stuck up it's butt, don't come crying to me.

That's my way of saying, "I care."

Here's the article on the bear:
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2011/jul/21/tennessee-black-bear-saved-jar-stuck-its-head/

Copyright © Lynda Crotty Radio, Inc