Back-to-School tips from a Bookstore Employee

I have been working at my school's bookstore for 4 years. In that time I have become known as the "Textpert" because I have become very familiar with the textbook section of the store, the quirks of certain textbooks, and the easy mistakes students shopping make. Rush season is stressful for everyone, and I am hoping by sharing these thoughts I might make it less stressful for students and employees alike. (Please know that I am writing these tips from my perspective as a student and an employee, not as a part of my job.)

1. Remember most of the employees at your store are probably students too.

We are also getting ready for school to start, moving in, and working more hours that we will likely get for the rest of the year. We know that class starts tomorrow. Believe us, we know.

2. Professors don't always meet deadlines.

If your class doesn't have a place for a book and you know your class should have a book, the most likely reason is that your professor never got around to telling the bookstore that you need books. If the professor ordered it recently there might be a spot for it, but no books. I have had a professor order books the week before class started, and books tend to take time to get to the store. And then there are publishers who lose our orders or send us the wrong book and these problems need to be fixed. Some professors have legitimate reasons for ordering late, new texts sometimes get released over the summer, professors and lecturers get added to classes late, but the bookstore needs time to order books and fix any problems that come up.

3. If you can't get your book, DO NOT PANIC

If we don't have it, you are probably not the only person without it, and we have informed the professor. You will be ok, I promise. (Sidenote: You probably don't need your book in, say, June, and we may not have ordered books in June.) (Further sidenote: my store doesn't really have a way to tag things as prior reading which WOULD BE AWESOME FOR SO MANY REASONS but alas.)

4. Don't treat us as if we are here to take all your money.

The professors choose the books, the publishers set the prices, we have to make a profit. That's just how businesses operate. Again, most of us are students, and painfully aware of how ridiculously expensive books are, you do not need to tell us. Selling books back will not get you as much money as you spent because we need to make a profit. (Sidenote: Amazon undercuts publishers to get their low prices, which is unethical. I know we are all starving students and saved money is saved money, but if you can afford it, try to buy from somewhere other than Amazon.) (Sidenote 2: if you want to compare prices, check our website rather than coming in. If our prices change it will be updated online immediately, so that's the best way to get the current price.) 

5. You cannot purchase a used access code

An access code is just a piece of paper with letters and numbers on it that allow you to set up an account with whatever online program your professor is using. These codes can only be used once. Therefore, a used access code is just a piece of paper with gibberish on it, and you don't want it anyway. Yes they are ridiculously expensive, but the prices are set by the publisher, not me. (At my store, and likely at others, certain packages with the book and access code are close to or less than the price of an access code! if you don't have the book from somewhere else, that's a big save. Unfortunately though, you can't rent these packages because a used access code is useless. Some book-specific access codes have built in e-books but my experience has been that they are hard to use and sometimes don't have appendices that you might need for class.)

6. You don't need to buy everything listed under your class

When we process online orders, we often cancel redundant selections. Often people order the book, the access code, and the package with the book and the access code. You do not need two of everything, and those tend to be the expensive books. There also may be books marked "Recommended" and "Go To Class First." The use of "Recommended" varies, sometimes it's supplemental reading, sometimes it's an option. "Go To Class First" usually means your professor wants to explain something about it before you buy it. If you prefer to buy your books before you go to class, I would recommend waiting on these, unless you know more, (if you've gotten a copy of the syllabus and it explains it, for example) because it's less of a hassle for everybody if you just stop in later and grab it, or order it online for pickup (my store just pulls orders off the shelf, so if you order it for pickup it's almost more like reserve)

7. Understand Online Orders

Ordering online is awesome! If I could get my discount that way, I would order my books online. Also it's a lot easier for everyone if you order ebooks online, at least on the system we use. Here's some pointers on ordering online:

• At my store, orders are pulled from the shelves in the order they are received. If we run out of the book you ordered, we will backorder that book for you. Backorder means that as soon as the book comes in, we will fill that book for you. 
• At my store, and as far as I know, most stores, your card is not charged until the book is processed to your order. Keep this in mind when you order, so that you have enough money on that card until we process the order (my store waits until the month before school starts at most, so if you order at the beginning of the summer you will get your order filled first, but you need to make sure you still have enough money. You might be able to ask your bookstore for a ballpark estimate of when they start filling orders if you are concerned.)
• The reason you are not charged until the order is filled is that we may not have books in the condition you asked for, but we want to make sure you get your book. If you order a used book, but by the time we process your order we only have new copies left, we will give you a new book, at the new price. If you really really wanted a used copy, you can return it, but we would rather people return books than not have books. Our online store will give you the "worst case scenario" price when you checkout, but I'm not sure about other stores. Some stores have a box to mark whether you would prefer to have books replaced with copies in different conditions, however in my experience, people ordering do not understand that this may leave them without a book.

8. If you are waiting to buy books, know how long you can wait

I know that people like to wait until the book actually is being used in class until they buy the book, but sometimes you can't wait very long. Some stores return all of their books halfway through the semester, others wait until the term is mostly over. If you are planning to be buying books through the semester (I have mostly seen this in English classes) make sure you have them before they are returned. My store makes sure to email professors before we do returns. Also make sure you know how late you can return books. most stores will do as much as they can to make sure you know your return deadline.

I hope that helps! Please be nice to us, and good luck this semester/quarter!

I really need to talk about the rape scene in Blade Runner

My Physics in Science Fiction class recently watched Blade Runner and we're talking about the ethics of creating replicants and whether they are mistreated in the movie (yes) and so I really need to talk about the rape scene.

ya know, the part where Deckard leans in to kiss Rachael, she tries to leave, he stops her from leaving. and then *implied sex rape* happens. When Rachael is trying to leave it is clear she does not feel comfortable with the way things are going, and in not letting her leave Deckard is taking away her ability to refuse. The "kiss me. I want you." seems to be an attempt by the writers to make it romantic, but in the context of him keeping her from leaving it comes off as coercion.

"But Rachael is a replicant, not human so it's not rape!" 

No. Stop. First of all, the movie makes it clear that there is not much between humans and replicants that the humans did not intentionally put there. Replicants are living biological creations based primarily on human DNA, and given the same if not superior reasoning and sensory capabilities as humans. They are acknowledged to develop emotions of their own, and their ability to stage revolts indicates a sense of autonomy that robots or drones would not have. We are also introduced to the history of replicants with discussion of their use as "slave labor." The difference between slaves and tools is that slaves are feeling humans denied rights. The introduction text argues for the humanity of replicants.

However, let's pretend for a moment that replicants are not living things but machinery. In that case, replicants cannot consent, because machines cannot give or take consent. Also, if we choose to look at it from the viewpoint that Rachael is property of Tyrell Corporation (I shudder), Deckard is mistreating property (ugh, I hate this sentence). Even if replicants do not have rights, this is an uncomfortable scene.

"But Deckard may or may not be a replicant himself!"

Well then, if we're sticking to this hypothetical viewpoint that replicants are property and not responsible for their behavior, then the blame for the crime is just redirected to whoever owns Deckard. Still rape. And of course, if we return to my belief that replicants have human capabilities and therefore human responsibilities, it was still definitely rape.

it's worrisome because the people working on this movie thought this scene was compatible with a romance subplot. Maybe replicants can get over it, maybe they can regain trust and start a romantic relationship with someone who has violated them, although the behavior of other replicants in the movie do not seem to indicate this.

On That Time It Was Definitely Because I'm a Girl...

A while ago, I got turned down for a tutoring job because I am a woman. There are several layers as to why this experience was so frustrating to me. The first, and obvious, one is that I was denied a job because of my sex, which is absurd yet not uncommon in this time period. Another layer is that the mother who turned me down said that it was because her son “just doesn't respect female tutors as much.”

Now, I know how to talk to potential employers, so I wasn't going to say this to her face, (or however that phrase translates for conversations over the phone) but after hearing a sentence like that I doubt her parenting skills. If your son doesn't respect women, does he respect you? Does he respect his sister or his female classmates? If you haven't managed to teach him this snippet of human decency what have you taught him? In other words, what is the role of a parent to you, if not to teach him to treat others with respect?

This young man will grow up with the idea that women are less deserving of respect, and this idea will likely go unchecked by the people around him. This lack of respect may lead him to disregard or even engage in sexual assault, harassment, or rape of women. The fact that he has this mindset as late as high school leads me to believe that he is already set in his ways and is dangerously unlikely to change, putting many women in danger.

As a young scientist, if he chooses to continue in physics or another male-dominated field, (I was going to tutor him for physics) he will inevitably encounter female classmates and coworkers, and based on the lack of regard indicated by his mother, contribute to the issues I and my friends have already experienced. These range from exclusionary atmospheres about female classmates, assumptions that they're going into teaching, and gender segregation in labs (true story). He will continue to cause the problems that I have faced, am currently working against, and would never wish upon the next generation of female physics students.

Also, perhaps a third level, part of the reason this tutoring position was interesting to me was that he was diagnosed with ADHD. This hit a personal chord with me, as I was also diagnosed with ADHD, and struggled with the symptoms which made it more challenging to pursue my interest in the inner workings of the universe. I had hoped to help him from my personal experience, teach him tools that have helped me, and let him learn from my mistakes.

This mother mentioned that her middle-school daughter was going into an advanced class that would be studying some calculus and physics, and that she would call me back in the fall if I was interested. I was interested, especially since this clearly bright young woman was probably not getting much encouragement from a brother who “doesn't respect female tutors.” I could encourage her through the additional pressures of being female in a STEM class and tell her about all the female scientists and mathematicians left out of textbooks. However, she never called me back, resulting in a fourth level of irritation over this whole situation.

Anyway, I guess I'll just put on my apron and cook dinner, because that's what women are for, right?

Let's talk about the Friendzone

Today seems as good a day as any to talk about the friendzone. The friendzone is defined as when you want to date someone, but they only want to be friends.

The problem with the friendzone is it makes it seem like the person whose “zone” you are in is actively keeping you there. This allows the person in the friendzone to blame them and get bitter about it, believing that they are the passive participant in this social exchange, that this is happening to them. However, if you are stuck in the friendzone state of mind, it’s your fault. You can stop being friends with them, you can try and stop feeling that way about them (fake it ‘til you make it, amirite), there is something you can do to get out. The person “friendzoning” you is only acting according to their feelings, which will not be changed by your complaints about the friendzone. Men and women have found themselves in the friendzone, and if they deal with it like responsible adults, no one gets hurt.

Many men complain about being “stuck” in the friendzone of a woman and don’t think of these ways out. Men often have a sense that they “deserve” women, “deserve” to have sex with them, regardless of what the woman wants (because that is what society and media have taught them from childhood. The hero always gets the girl after all that hard work, because he deserves her, regardless of any reason the “girl” would want the hero). This leads a man “stuck” in the friendzone to believe even more strongly that it is the woman who is causing the problem, because this is the sex he deserves because he has worked hard feigning friendship and must deserve it by now, right?

What has actually happened here is that these men are no longer stuck in the friendzone as they believe. (In fact, if his understanding of their relationship with this woman and his entitlement have become even a little bit apparent, the woman might not even want to be friends anymore.) The man has moved past being interested in friendship and only wants a romantic and/or sexual relationship. On Tumblr, this has become known as “Girlfriendzoning.” The man cannot perceive the woman as a friend but a potential girlfriend. Notice that here, the active verb is given to the subject who actually does the action.

This can also be linked to what I like to refer to as “Nice Guy Syndrome,” where a man believes he is being a perfect gentleman yet gets turned down at every attempt to “get the girl,” leading him to believe that “girls only like douchebags.” Little do these men know, often their behavior reflects this attitude, ironically making them douchebags.

Unfortunately, sometimes this entitlement and need to prove that they “deserve” women leads men to violence. This violence is often attributed to mental illness, or- our favorite scapegoat these days- video games. The women involved may even wrongly get the blame for it. The real problem? Toxic masculinity. Men are told to “man up,” which apparently means assert their strength through violence. This results in shootings because “I deserve girls much more than all those slobs” or stabbings because of a rejected prom proposal.

(If you need more explanation on how those translate, I encourage you to watch the documentary Tough Guise, or its sequel Tough Guise 2, unfortunately not available on Netflix at this time. A ten-minute intro can be found here, and Jackson Katz’s Ted Talk on men’s violence can be found here.)

However, women are not prizes. You do not “deserve” to have a girlfriend. Stalking is not an acceptable response to rejection, nor is harassment, nor is murder. Threatening women with violence is not the way to their hearts, it's the way to avoidance and a restraining order. Blaming women for not responding favorably to these threats puts them in danger.

Elliot Rodger may have had some mental health issue (ETA because I couldn't figure out how to word it: mental health issues are more likely to result in self harm than outward violence), but his actions were not caused by the actions of young women. His actions were caused by a society that tells young men that they deserve sex, that to be a virgin at 22 is a tragedy, and that men must prove their manliness through acts of violence. 

The Women I Never Learned About

When I was younger I was a huge fan of Marie Curie. My elementary school class did a "wax museum" where we all did a report on someone and dressed up as them. I naturally picked Marie Curie. The reason I was so stuck on Marie Curie was because at that point she was pretty much the only female scientist I had heard of, the only woman in science that had come up in my elementary school curriculum. This is interesting, considering the important contributions women have made.

• I learned about Watson and Crick discovering the double-helix shape of DNA in middle school. I didn't learn about Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray photos were used without her knowledge or permission, and who was not credited with this large albeit unwitting contribution.
• I only heard about Lise Meitner because I wrote a report in high school about the atomic bomb. She discovered nuclear fission, and should therefore be at least mentioned next to the Manhattan Project that used that concept, but instead it took me some digging to discover her.
•  Mary Anning was a palaeontologist who discovered many "firsts" of dinosaur fossils. I only learned about her because I stumbled upon a small book about her when I was bored and out of things to read. She revolutionized palaeontology and most people have never heard of her (unless they were curious about the google doodle that reminded me I had a subject to rant about today)
• Computers are a guy thing, right? Wrong. Charles Babbage may have built the first computer, but Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer programs. In fact, computer programming was first considered a woman's job, until male programmers decided they wanted less competition for jobs. Grace Hopper (another person made slightly more well-known via Google) developed the first compiler, as well as popularizing the term "debugging."

This is hardly a complete list. In fact, these women are mostly white, meaning I will have to dig deeper to learn the names of female scientists of color who have been even more obscured by ignorance. Ignoring the achievements of people who are not white men is incredibly prevalent in many fields. I read a back-of-the-book summary on an H. G. Wells book proclaiming him the father of science fiction. An interesting title, considering Frankenstein was written (by Mary Shelley, a woman) nearly fifty years before H. G. Wells was born. (Interesting how a genre effectively created by a woman is now considered a male-dominated genre, and any women who express interest are accused of doing so for male attention... but that's a whole other post.)
In science, many women who made discoveries received no awards for them or had co-workers steal their work, and then were ignored by history. This is absurd, as it makes it seem like female scientists are rare and unusual. This is wrong, because it dismisses the advances that women have made in science. This is unfair, because it takes away potential inspiration from young women like me who have an interest in science. So when people learn I'm studying physics, it's virtually unheard of for them. They are impressed that I'm studying a field that women rarely go into, when they should be impressed that I am in a field that makes it difficult for women to succeed.
One of my professors, when introducing a concept, often says "we love famous dead people, because they've already done the work for us." Unfortunately, it seems all the love is given to the famous dead white men.

Heritage and Immortality

When we die, what remains is our stories and our children.
In this way we all live on after death, regardless of belief in an afterlife. Everyone lives on for some time after death in the way we have touched the lives of others, even if they don't remember our names. The homeless woman with two dogs that I shared lunch with one afternoon in Golden Gate Park will be alive in my memories until I lose them, and even then anything I do that is slightly affected by her will affect others who will then interact with others until this one woman whose name I can't even remember will have touched the world.
When we are born, we are made of the genetic information of our ancestors and shaped further by their stories.
My understanding of human behavior is that some part of our personality is born with us, as a part of our brain's "factory settings" if you will, and our responses to the world are caused by these "factory settings" and other experiences which constantly develop into our fuller personality (fuller because it is never complete and is always changing a little from experiences). The "factory settings" must come from genetics, then (but probably from a combination of several genes rather than a simple-punnett-square-able process) and our initial and most influential interactions with the world are usually connected to our family. To me, heritage is a part of who I am, both sentimentally and logically.
There is such a thing as psychological hand-me-downs. I have a stubbornness that I learned from my mother, who was told what she could and could not do on account of her gender, and I picked this up from her before I was fully exposed to gender-based discrimination. It is also possible for fragments of these "psychological hand-me-downs" to be conserved for generations and centuries, so that we don't know it, but we have a trace of our ancestors thinking. Perhaps I have a trace of the Celtic warrior woman, the Viking shield maiden, the Sioux woman, the Amazon hiding in the recesses of my mind.
And now I am here in this America, living in the world built on the corpses of my ancestors killed by my ancestors trying to escape the persecution of my ancestors. Or famine or somehow else they were trying to find something better, and by all accounts took the Better from the people already here.
Heritage is important to me. It is an extension of the importance of family boosted by a desire to know where I came from. Oh, and let's not forget my addiction to stories. Let me tell you the stories I have been told as long as I can remember, any time we pass a certain stretch of train track or a significant place. Let me learn the stories my parents have forgotten, let me try to piece together the little stories that have passed out of living memory, or perhaps just out of the family mythology. Let me tell you about how my ancestor fought in the Texas Revolution and others left Oklahoma for California in the Dust Bowl. Let me learn how much my family is tied up in history.
*This rambling is brought to you in part by thoughts I had while reading Linda Hogan's People of the Whale*

The Problem with Skinny, By a "Twig"

*Disclaimer Time* Before I start in on this, I want to make it clear that here, I am discussing problems I have had because I am skinny. A lot of these problems come from the glorification of thin-ness, the same place as other, more threatening problems than mine. This does not make my problems more serious than others, but it does not invalidate them either.
I had been thinking about writing this for a while, and recently I came across this video which helped me get around to it.
I have been skinny my entire life. As early as elementary school I can remember being told that I could be a model. That didn't seem right to me. I was told I could be a model more than I was told I could be a scientist. I was being told (in elementary school) that my weight was more important for a career choice than my intellect, mostly because I was a girl. The thing is, I couldn't be a model. Besides my uneasiness at promoting a franchise that makes people I love uncomfortable with their own bodies, I twitch when I put on makeup, I wouldn't be comfortable in some things, high heels would kill me, and I wouldn't be willing to ensure that my body continues to conform to waist-measurement standards.
When I was in middle school, the doctor decided that I was underweight and needed to make some changes to my diet in order to gain weight. I had not gotten to that point by starving myself, I had gotten there by eating relatively healthy food and minimal exercise (muscle weighs more than fat so...). I was skinny, I was not healthy. I started drinking 2% milk and I was finally weighing in over 100lb.
I have had people joke about how my parents starve me, how I have a hollow leg, how I'm skin and bones, how I weigh like 20lb. I have learned to brush them off, especially from friends. I have seen an organization that is supposed to focus on promoting health rather than appearance post a picture of a girl from a magazine and ask "is this a healthy image to be showing girls?" The comments flooded with "she looks sick," "somebody get this girl a hamburger." I thought she looked like me when I'm a little tired. I get self-conscious in my Karate class because the uniform shows off my collarbones but it's obvious by my push-ups that I don't work off my food on a regular basis. Do they think I throw it all up? I don't. That's right, the twig feels uncomfortable too.
If you feel like you need to be shaped a certain way, allow me to throw you a few reasons starving yourself is not worth it. You might not have heard some of them before, and even if you have, here's me affirming them:

• Clothes will not fit you. It may be hard for you to find clothes that fit you right, and it's hard for me too. I am shaped like a mannequin, but they don't make clothes for the mannequins. They make clothes for more common body shapes, and pin the clothes on the mannequins to make them look better. So yeah, they push for a certain body shape, but don't actually make clothes for that body shape. (actually, the stores that actually sell clothes that might fit me tend to be the kind of company that burns out of season clothes rather than donating them)
• It will not make everything better. I have been skinny my whole life, but I have not been popular. I have only had one boyfriend (and it's debatable whether that one really counts?) and generally not the girl the guys fight over. Thinness is not a magic solution to social problems, no matter how often people pretend that weight is what pushes people out.
• You will always have something to pick at. Even if you can completely change your body type, there will always be that thing that stands between you and perfection. Me, I feel like I have a mountain range on my forehead (which I have been told no one notices), and funny-shaped thighs (which have never been commented on). That insecurity is never going to be gone.