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"No, ma'am I do eat."

"No, I am not 15 years old."

"Yes, sir I do eat."

"Yes, I am old enough to serve you this alcohol."

"No, I will not tell you my pant size."

As a server I sometimes get a little frustrated with nosy people. Do you honestly think sir, that a 15 year-girl would be serving you this wine right now if she was only 15? And it's not funny when I tell you my real age. Do you always talk to complete strangers like they're stupid?

I'm little because I was born this way dammit. I eat whatever I want whenever I want and even though I feel like it is a curse at times, I know that it is truly a blessing most of the time. I've always been little and I have alway had a baby face. Have you always been so bald and old sir? Do you ever STOP eating? Well I bet your pant size is up there just like your age!

Doesn't feel so good does it?

Keep your opinions of my size and age to yourself, especially if you comment on them in a sarcastic way. Trust me, you don't want me to let loose on what I think of you. I'm smiling and I'm nice to you. I serve you your food in a timely manner. I dillgently refill you freaken diet pepsi 10,000 without a word of protest (I'm sure your diet pepsi does wonders for your diet with your Fettuccini Alfredo by the way). I don't like to be talked down to like I'm some sort of dumb servant because frankly sir, you really shouldn't mess with people who handle your food.*

*I have never done anything to anyone's food, but I'm just saying...

Cincinnati was once the beacon city of freedom for slaves wanting to escape from their so called masters. People would risk death just to feel the potential of arriving at one of the cities of freedom. Although formal slavery has been long abolished, the racial divide still exists. Especially, in my opinion, in Cincinnati.

I am from Fairfield, a suburb only about 25 minutes north of Cincinnati. Growing up in Fairfield I had just as many black friends as white friends. Interracial dating was sort of the norm. Many of my friends have interracial children today. Not only that, Fairfield High School had a good amount of representation of all races while I attended in the early 2000s. The mixture of cultures is only increasing in Fairfield. Although the white population is still the significant majority in Fairfield, minorities are significantly increasing. In the 2000 census of Fairfield there were 2,557 blacks, 948 Asians, 646 Hispanics and 476 interracial people to the 37,830 whites. According to the 2005-2007 census estimates there were 4,801 blacks living in Fairfield, 684 Asians, 1,467 Hispanics and 682 interracial people to the 38,108 whites. That is a 127 percent increase in the Hispanic population in Fairfield and an 88 percent increase in the black population from 2000 to 2007. My intuition tells me that the increases are only…increasing.

But then I moved to Cincinnati to attend college. I’m not going to be over dramatic and say that moving to Cincinnati was like a culture shock for me because it wouldn’t be accurate. But I will say that I noticed a difference between Cincinnati and Fairfield in regard to the racial divide.

The racial divide at UC in particular isn’t necessarily rigid, but the line is there. Interracial dating certainly isn’t the norm in Cincinnati. People tend to associate more with their own race. Stereotypes are absolutely going strong in Cincinnati and this goes for all races.

At times I felt out of place at UC. I naturally assumed race really wasn’t too much of an issue for either white or black people especially. I was very wrong.

My love for hip-hop was thought of as a joke to some black people. My love for hip-hop was thought of as me trying to be someone I’m not by white people. Although I had quite a few black girlfriends at UC I had no black men as friends at UC. This is a huge contrast to who I associated with in high school. I honestly couldn’t understand why many of the black men I knew at UC had little interest in me (and I don’t mean sexually) and when they did it seemed like because they had this already preconceived notion of what skinny blonde-haired women were good for: a party and sexual favors. I can’t complain about this stereotype too much when Girls Gone Wild commercials dominate late night television, but I mistakenly assumed most could get past it.

And then I started dating a slightly popular black man at UC. There were some black girls that held some contempt toward me because of it. It was like I was the physical manifestation of what some black women believe to be the trend of white women “taking the good black men.” Not all black girls around Cincinnati believe this by all means, but there are a good amount who do.

This didn’t happen around Fairfield to me. Many of the black women did date black men, but they didn’t particularly have a problem with white girls that did…or they at least didn’t show it.

Around my junior year of college me and several of my friends (both white an black) would frequent club Exchange in downtown Cincinnati. We liked Exchange because they played good hip-hop music to dance to. We liked the aurora of the club. But some of the black girls at the club definitely didn’t like us. Trips to the bathroom had to be as a group and required us to be on our toes. One time a black girl called us out in the bathroom sarcastically telling us, “I wish I was pretty like you white girls.” An argument ensued and it left me angry at the world. That time was the last time for me, I never went back.

I know I am not alone with these feelings. I bet there have been many black women out there who felt that way toward white people at times. I know there are some white women out there who feel that way toward black people at times. How can this be the case when Cincinnati’s racial demographic between whites and black are almost even (51.4 percent white to 45.8 percent black in 2005-2007 census estimates)?

“I don't know about it being segregated, but is it a bad thing if it's self-imposed? I don't think so. I only go to places in Cincinnati that I know are safe, and I haven't noticed much "segregation".. I see about as many blacks, asians whatever as I do white people. People tend to stick with others that they associate with, which causes self-imposed segregation. Look at public schools, there's always 'cliques' everywhere (essentially segregation). If it makes people happy and we aren't being forced into it, I see nothing wrong with it. It makes the people happy.” -Caroline T. UC journalism student.

Should we just accept this ‘self-imposed segregation’ like Caroline suggests? Is it truly self-imposed? Or are we as a city in a sort of denial of this informal form of segregation? Maybe it is some mixture of both…maybe we silently do it consciously and unconsciously in order to accept the notion of the need for ignorance and underexposure of other races in the nasty ‘Nati.

"Cincinnati is very segregated and very classist. Take the communities of Wyoming and Lockland for instance. On one side of the railroad tracks that divide these communities, there are tiny row houses, broke-down hoopties, clothes lines strung up, and poor black people sitting in lawn chairs on the sidewalks. Cross the tracks, and you think you are in a totally different city, like the neighborhood from the TV show Desperate Housewives. Sprawling mansions, hybrid SUV's, Jaguars, etc. How is that possible? Just an observation." -Cheryl McDonald UC journalism student.

I agree with Cheryl’s observation of the Greater Cincinnati area. Look at Hyde Park and then look at Avondale. Poor black people represent a disproportionate amount of the low income class in Cincinnati and the areas are often highly segregated.

“I was born and raised in Delhi. I'm pretty sure I never even really talked to a black person until I started high school. There are still only 1 or 2 black families in my neighborhood, and 1 Asian family. I live right by Price Hill, where I feel that there is a pretty diverse variety of people: whites, blacks, Mexicans, Asians, Jewish people, homosexuals, etc. Price Hill is pretty much a melting pot, and I see this through my pizza delivering experiences. I think places like Bridgetown, Cleves, Hyde Park, and Indian Hill are also very segregated. On the flip side, when you think about places like Norwood, Avondale, and even parts of Clifton, you think about African Americans living there."-Matt Knochelman, UC journalism student, white

A lot of my friends-both white and black-feel that Cincinnati is segregated. They come from Dayton, from Cleveland and even Columbus and feel the divide here.

“Yes, I feel that Cincinnati is very segregated and that there is still a lot of prejudices against minority groups. In some areas you can really feel the tension, like you are not welcomed. I am an African American Female, Third Year Journalism major.”

Well at least black and white people are not really segregated in their opinions of segregation. The one thing that I see that splits the divide is the agreement there is one.

Why Cincinnati? If we expect to be able to put our city on the map again and bring people back to living in Cincinnati we need mix the pot up. How can a city grow when neighbors are ignorant of each other? How can a city grow when half of it’s population does not feel welcome in a different environment?

This is one of the many reasons why Cincinnati still sucks.

As I sit in the TUC cafeteria I look around and see a lot of new faces. I no longer see the many familiar faces that I once looked to for company. My lunches are mostly ate alone, but I’m not really complaining.

When I see all of the bright new faces I see myself in them. The uncertainty and excitement of college seems to make people glow at times. Some people do not even truly blossom until college and I feel like I was one of them. Even the Magic Card nerds have found their own place in TUC. Who hasn’t cracked a small smile at the long table of Magic cards and computers near Wendy’s?

But the campus that almost felt like a second home no longer feels like a second home. I no longer run into many familiar faces I once knew. I no longer find myself spending leisure time on campus like I used to. My face is no longer fresh and bright-eyed. The uncertainty and excitement has turned into routine and tediousness. I used to live close to campus, now I live 30 minutes away. Before that I lived 10 minutes away and before that 5 minutes. I’ve been almost slowly distancing myself from UC so that the impending graduation won’t be so hard. Like a relationship that has lost it’s fire, I am only going through the motions, I no longer do things for the sake of passion. It seems like UC has found new people to replace me. Anymore I practically have to drag myself to campus.

I have become so anti-school that I have found myself slipping in my studies. I find myself more concerned about my financial situation and my next job more than I am concerned about class. Frankly, I don’t have the passion anymore. My passion has changed to making money and moving on to a career. I never used to have to worry about money in my first few years of college and now it is my sole form of motivation. College has drained me of so much money and so much time I’m a little bitter about it. School loans and credit card debit has left me mentally and physically exhausted at times. I just want to leave.

Even so, as I sit here inside TUC I realize that my time here was truly worth it. My anti-school disposition may be some natural feeling that everyone gets when graduation is looming. As I look at the new faces I realize that if they make it through the experience, they will end up just like me-looking at the fresh new faces in moderate jealousy. One side of me wants to be like these new students again: young, naïve and enthusiastic. I want to party hard again and come to class hungover. I want to meet a ridiculous amount of new people again and party with them. I want to somehow pull off doing well in school and doing well in my social life. But then another side of me realizes that that time for me is over and a new inevitable transition is approaching. No more thirsty Thursdays. No more being able to handle a hangover and work.

Time to move on.

This university holds so many crazy, wild, interesting and humbling experiences for me and I will forever be thankful to it for that. I learned so much about myself and gained so much confidence by being a part of the college experience. To think I almost didn’t make it to college; that would have been the biggest mistake I ever made.

UC, this is my break-up letter to you. The ride was great, but it’s over now. I am no longer the passionate fresh faced student that I once was, others have taken on that role in my stead. And, like a significant other who agrees with the break-up, I know you won’t necessarily be too upset either.

All I want now is my things and I’ll give you your things as well. Take my money and give me my degree.

Bye UC, maybe I’ll see you around.

On the rare occasion I buy gum, I noticed a little warning on many of the labels: Phenylketonurics: Contains Phenylalanine. I can’t even pronounce these words aloud yet they’re all over my gum. Am I chewing some kind of poisonous chemical that I should worry about? I’m sure there have been others who have read that vague label and wondered about their gum. Hopefully this will help the other curious gum chewers who furrowed their brows and squinted their eyes at that ominous warning.

Phenylketonurics are actual people; contrary to what I would have assumed. Phenylketonurics are individuals with a genetic disorder that prevents them from metabolizing phenylalanine-which comes in several forms, one being aspartame. Aspartame can be found in diet soft drinks and apparently my sugar-free gum.

Phenylketonuria has been associated with severe childhood mental retardation, but a low phenylalanine diet can prevent some of these cases from developing into retardation. Even so, Phenylalanine is essential to even PKUs (just in lower amounts) as well as non-PKUs.

Basically, unless you have Phenylketonuria, you don’t necessarily have to worry about that technical label. Phenylalanine is actually an essential amino acid that is needed for children to grow and for protein metabolism for both children and adults. You can find it in such things as milk and eggs.

Aspartame, though, is a manmade version of Phenylalanine. There has been some debate as to whether aspartame is safe, citing risk of cancer, neurological damage and weight gain as possible downfalls to the calorie-free sweetener. Despite the opposition toward the artificial sweetener, the FDA has stood behind their original findings of the safety of the product.

The jury is still out on whether this prevalent sweetener actually causes cancer and even with the FDA standing by it, I’m not going to hold my breath. I’m still going to avoid the manmade version of Phenylalanine as much as I can. After all the FDA did let Vioxx into the market…

Being a broke college student is no fun. My eating habits are often erratic and unhealthy. Bills are often not paid on time simply because I cannot afford them. Every once in a while I am able to scrounge up enough green paper to treat myself to something nice like a new pair of tennis shoes. This only happened because I visited my mom one day in a busted pair of tennis shoes, which made her pity me I guess. I certainly wasn't complaining.

I’m in a perpetual catch-22. I could work more and pay off more of my debt, but then I’d be putting my school work in jeopardy (which I have already had to do). I could focus more time on my studies (and do better) while working less, but then I wouldn’t be able to pay my bills. At times it feels seemingly impossible to balance the two extremes. At times I’m mentally and financially exhausted. At other times I feel like just giving up all together.

Now, with all this extra debt that I have put myself in for the sake of doing well in college, I sometimes find myself in lose-lose predicaments. Most of the time with Fifth Third Bank.

I often do not have enough money to pay my rent. I live by myself and pay all the bills by myself. Sometimes I have to suck it up and drop my check off at the drop box knowing damn well I don’t have enough to cover the check in the bank account. Even though I often do not have enough money in my bank account on the first of the month (when the rent is due) I often manage to work and get the money together within a couple of days. Most of the time I deal with the overdraft charge as a necessary evil- the price I pay for making sure my rent gets paid.

But for one unlucky month in December, I was hit with a seemingly endless row of overdrafts.

When I make a transaction on my 5/3 credit card the transaction takes at least two to three days to go through, but for some strange reason, these transactions took OVER a week. So when my rent check went through the transactions from over a week ago came through as well, right after my rent check went through.

When I went to Walgreens for a little over $13 in purchases over a week before my rent check was cashed (or even written for that manner) I had enough money in my account. Over $500 enough. When I made a payment toward another bill for $100 I had enough to cover that as well. I paid another bill during that fateful week as well for $100. Now, with what I consider to be a couple of hundred available dollars in my account, I dropped of my rent check on the first of the month.

The check was cashed on the 2nd of the month...magically at night. I knew I would overdraft, but the $37 fee was nominal to me; I knew I would have the money to cover it all the next day.

Boy was I wrong.

Not only did my previous transactions from over a week before not go through until AFTER my rent check went through on the 2nd (the Walgreens purchase and one of the bill payments went through on the 2nd with my rent check), but my deposit of over $200 IN CASH MONEY the next business day (the 3rd) meant absolutely nothing. I was still charged an overdraft fee for a bill payment that went through on that same day, thus overdrafting my account again. $160 in overdraft fees later, I finally caught up by the grit of my teeth-with only $17 to my name.

Then, not too long ago I was charged again in overdraft fees when my account never overdrafted in the first place. For some reason unbeknownst to me, the bar I went to for a bite to eat preauthorized my debit card for $35 when I only purchased about $7 in food. I had just enough money in my account to cover the $7 and anymore or less would have put me in the hole. When the transaction finally went through for the correct amount, 5/3 still charged me an overdraft fee. I actually had to call them to get the fee removed and the daily charge reversed and do you want to know what they told me? This is a one time courtesy reverse. One-time? Um, last time I checked if I don’t overdraft my account at all I shouldn’t have to pay an overdraft fee ever. EVER. No matter how many times the same incident happens.

What is even more fun is the fact that 5/3 has a class action lawsuit pending on them because of their overdraft policies. They have actually manipulated a man’s transaction times to maximize their overdraft fees. Should this really be legal guys?

”This past December I had a fraudulent charge made to my account while I was out of town. A few days after I got back I checked my account, as I do regularly every few days, and noticed the charge. The $80 charge ended up over drafting my account costing me a a total of of $146. (the charge + the overdraft fees)

I called 5/3 and after getting the run around and talking to half a dozen people over the corse of half a week I finally made a claim. Over a week later they reimbursed me the $80 charge. They told me after the investigation of the charge was over I would then be reimbursed the $66 in overdraft fees.

Well, it just got cleared a couple weeks ago, and they have yet to reimburse me my the overdraft fees that were directly caused from the fraudulent charge. In fact, no one at 5/3 seems to have any explanation for why I have not been reimbursed for the overdraft fee, but at the same time no one has done a damn thing to fix it. They all pretty much forward me to someone else until I eventually go around and around in a big circle.

Moral of the story: Screw Fifth Third.”-Mary Archambeault, UC journalism student

Misery loves company and when it comes to 5/3 I love hearing about other who feel like they’ve been screwed as well.

“I have never heard anything good about fifth third bank, ever, everything has always been negative. I was on my way in to open up a checking account when 3 customers came out talking negative about the bank and encouraged me not to go in so I didn't and took my ass to US bank. US bank cool, they just have high fees though.” -Denise Thomas, UC journalism student

When visiting ripoffreport.com, a website where people can vent about feeling ripped off by a company, 339 reports show up about 5/3, many of them about the overdraft policy.

“That bank has got to be some forgotten 5th horse of the apocalypse. Conquest, War, Famine, Death and Fifth Third. Pure evil. Those overdrafts have screwed me out of a pretty huge chunk of cash earlier this year. I suspect the whole thing was caused by changes they made in my account and they only notified me in tiny print on some statement I didn't have time read carefully.

What I really hated was that they seemed to stall charges and deposits to maximize the overdraft. Plus it seemed like they made it as hard as possible to get info and were slow to update things. Plus, after everything was "fixed" and all the fees were paid, I still had to spend all sorts of time on the phone just to get access to my own money. The whole idea of charging someone for not having money seems a little predatory in the first place. Not my favorite folks right now.”- Geoffrey Dobbins, UC journalism student.

I’m ready to leave 5/3 needless to say.

Eye shadow has always been something I don’t use very often. I know the basics, but I can’t get very extravagant with it. I have a couple of eye shadow palettes, but I can’t say they’re of great quality. I always wanted to buy the big palettes that have every color in the rainbow, but the decently priced ones are chalky and tacky in color while the high quality ones are too high in price.

And then I found this baby:




This 88 shimmer eye shadow palette is one of the best additions to my make-up collection ever. The eye shadow comes from a pretty unknown company, Coastal Scents, but don’t let it deter you. I found this little gem on a you tube video. Fafinettex3 does make-up tutorials and was my savior when I needed to quickly do some smoky eyes for New Year’s eve. I came back to her videos later to see her other fabulous looking eye shadow tutorials and later found a video with the 88 Coastal Scent Shimmer Palette. Based upon her recommendation I went to the website and found that the 88 eye shadow palette was only $24.95 and impulsively bought it that moment. This has been one of the few good impulsive buys that I’ve made.

Not only is it at a good price, but the shimmer eye shadow is of great quality. The shadows aren’t chalky and dull like some of the cheap ones. The colors are highly pigmented (some of the dark colors are so pigmented that it stains my eyes) and the texture is just right for easy application. Although the separate colors are about dime-sized, a small amount goes a long ways so the size doesn’t matter. Not only that, the ingredients are all natural and listed on the back of the box it comes in.

I plan on trying the mineral foundation as well, which retails for $21.95. Many of the reviews liken the foundation to the Bare Minerals, only cheaper. I’ll keep you updated on the next buy from Coastal Scents.

I’m sort of a vain person. I’m very conscious of how I look and dress at times and it can even get a little tiring for me. The hunt for the perfect face wash or the perfect pair of jeans is one that I tell myself will one day magically end when in reality its a bottomless pit. A lot of my vain habits have put me in debit as well.

I thought I had it bad until I stumbled upon this woman on one of my favorite blogs: idontlikeyouinthatway.com.






Her name is Shauna Sand and she is what I like to call a hot mess.

What is most interesting about this woman is the fact that she did not always look like this. She did once look a real woman who was attractive as well.



What the hell went wrong here? Who let this woman outside and told her she resembled an attractive human being? How in the world do her breasts and lips not burst open from all that synthetic material?

Honestly men, do you want really want to kiss collagen? Do you really want to look into the eyes of someone who resembles an alien from outer space and travels on one of those stupid looking hovercrafts?

Could you imagine someone trying to approach on you on one of those things?

Anyway my point is that I felt much better about my vain habits after looking at this woman. I’d rather take the couple of zits I have on my face over what that woman willingly did to her face.

But I have a theory of why this young woman looks this way and-correct me if I'm wrong- why she chose to be this way. The Barbie Doll Syndrome.

More on this later...

Ashley Monk,
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009