They Are Among Us.

This has been a weekend for decapitating my faith in humankind. Here are three instances within the last two days:

Uno.) I was walking to my car from the Student Center at the UVU, listening to the conversations of people that I passed (because I'm obnoxious like that). This is one of the quips I overheard:

"...I'm going to be shot down for another job. They're doing the background check today, and when they find out about my FELONY, they'll tear up my resume for sure..."

Uhm. Yeah.

Dos.) I was meeting with my research group, discussing which faculty member we were bringing on board to be our "mentor" (because you have to have a professor's name to publish research). Merlin, the guy who is leading our group, is telling us that we need to be careful of which faculty members we let know about our research at all. This, he explains, is because professors are known to steal research information, measures, tests, and assessments and sell them.

"Are you serious?" I ask.

"Yeah," says Merlin, "I made an assessment to measure depression last year, I let Prof. So-And-So know about it, he stole it and sold it to practitioners in California. It hasn't even been tested for validity! It's undergraduate research! And there's nothing I can do about it."

Who would've known that there was an Underground for psychology research? Apparently I'm a bit naive.

Tres.) At the end of the day at PC, a couple of us were chatting in the corral, unaware of the spectacle that had just waltzed in. Jon walks up to me and loudly makes small talk and then very quietly says to all of us,

"Check out the woman with the blond hair over by the gate..."

So, of course, we all glance over. There, standing just 20 feet from us is this "woman", whom I'm not convinced at all is a woman, that, I kid you not, looks like she could be part of the band KISS. She had a huge blonde wig on that made her head and body look like an 80's Bratz doll, and her entire face was painted! She had put white make-up on her entire face and neck, like a geisha, and had precisely painted her lips bright red. She had fake eyelashes on that resembled black toothpicks springing from her lids and bright purple eyeshadow that reached past her drawn on eyebrows.

"Good L..." "What the..." "Whoa."

"There's no way that's a woman. She's got to be a transvestite." I say, almost pleadingly to Jon.

"No. I'm serious. She's here to pick up her son! Her husband is right next to her!"

And he was. A rather dumpy looking guy too.

I'm still not convinced she was a woman. It just doesn't make any sense.

They are out there my friends. People that make you lose all faith in mankind.

Happiness is...
~ Not being a felon looking for a job
~ Getting work at PC
~ Merlin's homemade dinners- from scratch!
~ Watching completely random and weird movies with my research group- like horribly filmed zombie movies and RockNRolla
~ James Taylor and Billy Joel on vinyl
~ Uh... not being a transvestite from the 80's.

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the former."
~ Albert Einstein