Dear Sassy,
I care for my boyfriend very much, but he has some issues. He gets very upset over miniscule things. He’ll get ridiculously jealous one moment and then he’ll suddenly get depressed. Every time I call him out on his out-of-control mood changes and anger issues, he blames his depression that, he says, runs in his family. He’ll then get impatient with me for not understanding his “condition”. I care for him, but I’m getting tired of riding his emotional roller coaster. What do I do?
Sincerely,
Languished lover

Read the full story

You stare out the window and all you see is gray. The trees are desolate, frail arms reaching towards an empty sky. Faces are pale, wanting, yearning, hoping. And still the winter loves to tease us with its bouts of sunshine when you just know another snowstorm is around the corner.
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is not as serious as it sounds. It is commonly known as the Winter Blues or a time during the winter when depression is a direct effect of the environmental surroundings. It is common in Upper Michigan where sunshine is rarely seen during the mid-portion of winter.
Are you a victim of SAD? Common symptoms of the mild wintry disorder include difficulty waking up in the morning, oversleeping or overeating, craving for carbohydrates (weight gain), lack of energy, difficulty concentrating which in turn leads to depression and pessimism.
Behold! There are treatments for SAD that can prevent the weight gain and “sad” emotions. One such treatment is light therapy, which uses a light box that emits full spectrum light at 10,000 lux.
Some people turn to tanning beds to get their sunlight fix, which can also be effective in the treatment of SAD, though not always healthy.
Of course, there is always the choice of turning to drugs to help lift your mild winter depression, though personally not recommended. I don’t mean like marijuana, I mean official pharmaceutical drugs like anti-depressants. Come on, get your head out of the gutter.
The last and final treatment for SAD is negative air ionization. There is a release of charged particles into the subject’s sleeping environment. It is usually used with another sort of treatment for SAD to make the lasting effect stronger.
Personally, I do not turn to any of these treatments as a means of a cure for my Seasonal Affective Disorder. I look to physical activities to do outside such as snowboarding or sledding. I have found that being outside and participating in an active lifestyle during the winter has helped with the SAD. I also turn to music for help. Rhythms and beats have a powerful effect on my mood. I have found that while in the palm of my music, I am very vulnerable. It is very important to choose uplifting music for this kind of situation.
You will know SAD when you see it. It is like the swine flu, always on the prowl, looking for its next victim. Usually in mid-December it begins to shine its ugly face down upon the campus of Michigan Tech. Students begin yearning for Christmas break and it always seems too far away due to the large amount of end-of-the-semester exams standing in the way like fat bouncers in leather jumpsuits. They cackle maniacally bearing their silver teeth. There is always no hope until that final exam is finished. If you see a friend or a loved one showing symptoms of this disorder, steer clear.
If you are stuck at home, snowed in most likely, and need a means of escape away from the depression, I highly HIGHLY recommend video games. There is nothing like a good round of Call of Duty to cure my mood. Or if I become consumed by a horror survival game, there is no thought of this SAD. Suddenly I am thinking, what depression?

Sometimes I look back and I cannot believe that I am already on the edge of Spring Break during my sophomore year. Time flies extremely fast. It seems I am always looking forward to something whether it be an event happening over the weekend or a period of break during the school year. I wait. And I wait. And before I know it, that break is over and I am back in the mix with schoolwork and exams and the like. Why does time have to work in such a way that when we want to enjoy a specific moment, it is over before we know it? Yet when we are grinding through a period of time that is undesirable, it seems it will never end.
A good friend once explained to me that time is like a bar of soap. We squeeze it so hard to try and hold on to the good moments, but the harder we squeeze, the quicker they slip away from the palm of our hands. If we do not hold on long enough, the moment drags and is forgotten.
I think it’d be best if we do not talk about how fast Spring Break is going to fly by. Instead, we can discuss the contents of break and all it has to offer.
Last year as a freshman, it was always hard to separate from my hall, even if it was for a week. We were lucky enough to share such a relationship with each other. Not all halls have this advantage. Spring Break was typical last year. I rode home with a couple friends and spent the week at home. I guess I was not comfortable enough with anyone to spend break with them yet. I always have this weird voice in the back of mind, usually the voice of my mother, scolding me for choosing to spend break with someone else other than my family.
Spring Break in high school was never as adventurous though. I attended two high schools; I spent three years in one and a year and a half in the other. My first high school was part of a hick town in Missouri where Spring Break typically entailed decent weather and sunshine. No one went anywhere except the two rich kids who flew to Mexico, Jamaica or Los Angeles. In my second high school, everyone went everywhere. Granted, the majority of our students drove Hummers and new Mustangs to school, you know the type.
I liked Spring Break, even in high school. I used to own a LeBaron convertible in high school, my old white beater with a leaky roof and squeaky brakes. There is nothing like flying down main street with the top down and the cool, Spring breeze tangling your hair—for those of you who have hair and can relate. Spring comes at the right time in Southern Wisconsin. By Spring Break, leaves are budding on the trees and the sun makes a regular appearance. The snow cowers away like a frightened vampire avoiding dawn and shrinks into the ground, feeding the imminent green grass. One can truly feel the world awakening from a long sleep with sprouting flowers and vibrantly vocal birds.
Thinking of Spring Break makes me miss summer. But as I discussed earlier, before I know it, the school year will be ending and I would have finished my last exam and then summer is here. It happens. Too fast.
My senior year of high school over Spring Break, I went to a field away from the city and watched the stars till dawn, pointing out shooting stars and listening to the coyotes howl in the distance. In the morning, we saw a family of deer wander into the meadow for an early bite to eat. Eventually, watching them made me hungry for breakfast. I like to do activities such as this to make every moment of my life memorable.
As you depart on your adventurous trip towards Spring Break, whatever destination you have planned, I hope you make memories. Do something crazy.
Even if you aren’t going anywhere for Spring Break and are just going home, it’s okay. That is exactly what I am doing. I am staying in areas non-tropical and in the Midwest. You’d be surprised at how many students don’t actually go away anywhere for Spring Break. I mean, think about it. We’re college students signing over our lives to debt. But you can still go crazy.

Dear Sassy,
Spring Break is right around the corner and I don’t know how to spend it. My friends invited me on a trip to Jamaica, which would be so much fun. However, I feel like I should go home and start looking for a job for the summer and get caught up on studying. Should I take the trip or buckle down?
Sincerely,

Read the full story

In the Wadsworth hall lounge, several students were eagerly discussing plans and possibilities while behind them, other students were drawing. Muffins had been baked as snacks. It was a meeting for the fledgling student organization A.R.T., which stands for Art Revolutionizing Tech.
A.R.T. is a student organization dedicated to increasing the level of culture presented and available at Michigan Tech, as well as the creativity and appreciation of art within the student population. In the words of President and co-founder Sarah Piccard, the purpose is to counter the stereotype of boring engineers and “show more of the artistic sides.” Through this, they also hope to create a more friendly and more open campus as well as a greater feeling of community in the halls and academic buildings.
The organization started last fall semester when five students in the Pavlis Institute came together. One of their assignments in the course of their work in Pavlis was to design a sustainable project, and the desire for more art was a common calling to all of them. They created plans for the creation of the organization, and when they were finished they found that they felt strongly enough about the cause to execute the plan. They created a constitution and procured the proper funds, and created A.R.T.
The organization is very new, and as such its current projects are relatively small. Currently, they are in the process of obtaining postal-themed artwork to display near the mailboxes and placing a display case in the Wadsworth Hall lobby and cafeteria. However, these projects are not without challenges; much more planning is needed, as well as art contributions from students.
“We’re looking for people with art that they want to display around campus,” said Public Relations officer and Co-Founder Joe East. A.R.T. States that they have the means to display artwork and are willing to order prints and display artwork with or without name at the wishes of the sender. In return, willing students would be able to have their art displayed and receive visibility and publicity on campus when they otherwise might not be able to.
The criteria for art that is to be displayed is that it is appropriate; the hall or building manager must approve of any artwork. Within those conditions, however, Joe said that the organization is “looking for any art.”
So far, A.R.T. has had some success and some plans that could not be executed. One of the ideas that A.R.T. had was to set up bulletin boards in the cafeteria that anyone could post artwork to.
However, that was dismissed due to difficulties obtaining permission in addition to problems protecting students’ artwork and maintaining the board. However, A.R.T. has also gained some influence; Housing asked the organization to help provide artwork and input for the new residence suites that are in construction behind McNair Hall.
Joe encourages students to join A.R.T. He says that work is on a volunteer basis, and students can expect to get out what they put in. “If dedicated, [students] can do incredible things.” He extends an invitation to everyone to come to a meeting, which are regularly held every other Wednesday in the Wadsworth Cafe at 6:00 PM..

Welcome to week seven! Are you still fighting for your exams or papers? Throw your books away for a couple of minutes and enjoy another culture shock!
I hope you guys liked the Traditional Chinese Medicine articles I wrote the past two weeks. There is still lots stuff to talk about, but due to my knowledge limitation I have to stop there for now. Traditional Chinese Medicine is still a developing technology and it is borrowing knowledge from Western medicine. We do have some medicines that combine Chinese and western medicines together. They work efficiently on your body and don’t have many side effects to other organs.
Before starting this week’s topic, we need take a quiz first. Have you guys ever noticed that there are two words very similar to each other? China and china. Do you know how this came to be? In ancient China, China was famous for china and silk. They were exported by enormous amounts every year. Because of they are so popular and the way to make them is so unique, mid-eastern merchants named china from the country that made it. However, the Chinese meaning for my country is not just a kind of porcelain. In Chinese, it means the “the center of the world”. Maybe it sounds arrogant, but it does tell something about China 600 hundreds year ago.
During the 14th and 15th century, when North America was still a mysterious land, China was the most powerful country in the world. It was the economic center of East Asia and its products were shipped to the entire world. After a couple hundred golden years, the leaders of the Chinese empire were too self-confident to learn new technology from other countries. When western countries were having an industrial revolution, China was still making handmade silk and china.
The efficiency of machines made a huge challenge for Chinese traditional manufacturing. Compared to western advanced technology, our own technology seems to be falling behind and the production speed is much slower than machines. Many of the manufacturing business went bankrupt and lots of traditional manufacturing skills were lost. My grandma was a tailor, but she lost her job after companies imported machines. When she lost her job, her fantastic sewing skill was also lost and didn’t get a chance to be passed to others.
As China becomes more and more involved in worldwide business, the Chinese culture is changing slowly year by year. At the beginning of 21st century, China began to worry about losing her traditional culture. Nobody wanted to learn old-school stuff anymore. The Life style has changed and the culture is becoming more and more westernized.
Culture shock is everywhere and it is somehow changing the world. People from different cultural backgrounds respect each other and make their life better by taking benefits from other living styles. I think the diversity of culture is the key to making the world colorful. Do you agree with me?

Welcome to a new week! I know some of you guys are still busy with exams, but don’t be upset. Take a break and learn about some Chinese culture!
I hope you enjoyed the article last week. As I said, this week I’m also going to talk about Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). There are over 20 different methods. I think acupuncture treatment is the most famous one you are familiar with.
Let us do a very quick review and background. TCM is largely based on the philosophical concept that the human body is a small universe with a set of complete and sophisticated interconnected systems. And those systems usually work in a balance to maintain the healthy function of the human body. TCM has a unique model of the body, notably connected with the meridian system. Unlike the western anatomical model, which divides the physical body into parts, the Chinese model is more connected with function. In this complex human model, the body is divided into a couple hundred points according to their functions. Chinese ancestors named all the points and passed this knowledge from one generation to another. Now I wish I had been born in a doctor’s family…
That is the basic theory of acupuncture. Since the human body is defined as having many kinds of bodily fluids going through it, humans would get sick if these fluids couldn’t escape through certain points. That’s why acupuncture was invented, to dredge those points and refresh the fluids.
Acupuncture is the procedure of inserting and manipulating needles into various points to relieve pain or for therapeutic purposes. Acupuncture is an amazing physical treatment and nowadays technology still cannot explain some of its concepts.
At the beginning of 20th century, as modern, western medical treatment methods were introduced to China, fewer and fewer people actually learned this skill. In my hometown, as far as I know, there is only one doctor who knows acupuncture and he’s already 80 years old. Compared to western medicine, it takes more than three times the amount of time to learn TCM. People prefer to take pills when they are sick instead of putting a bunch of stainless steel needles into their bodies.
Why don’t we have an example here to make it more clear? Let’s say one of your friends has a headache because of four exams in a row and he studied too much. In Western medicine, the typical treatment will be an analgesic, such as aspirin, to dilate the affected blood vessels in the scalp. But in acupuncture, a common treatment for such a headache is to stimulate the sensitive points that are located roughly in the center of webs between the thumbs and the palms of the patient’s hands. These points are described by acupunctured theory as targeting the face and head which are considered to be the most important points when treating disorders affecting the face and head.
Although Western medical theorem replaced most parts of TCM, the medical system between China and America is still quite different. When I was filling out a safety form for my spring break trip last week, I asked my friend what a family physician is. He was surprised that I don’t have a family doctor. Only rich Chinese citizens can afford private doctors.
Well, that’s all I know about acupuncture and I hope you at least get some idea from my explanation. See you next week then!

Dear Sassy,

I am terrified for Valentine’s Day.  I really don’t know what to get my boyfriend.  I thought about planning a romantic date, but every idea I have seems worst than the last.  I’d like to avoid cliché gifts as much as possible.  Can you help me pull off a romantic, unforgettable Valentine’s Day?

Read the full story

Rail transportation. For so many in this country, the phrase has left an utterly hollow ring in their ears.
Although the products that so many Americans depend on to fulfill their wants and needs depend on the freight rail network of the U.S., the passenger rail services provided within the U.S. over the past 50 years have been obsolete. The main service provider, Amtrak, has been (for the most part) an extremely inefficient means for the average American to travel.
This may indeed be changing, however. In conjunction with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, President Obama recently announced the granting of $8 billion dollars towards the development of passenger rail corridors across this country.
Among the notable corridors
to be receiving money towards this effort is the Tampa-Orlando corridor, which will receive $1.25 billion dollars towards the development of a high speed rail corridor with trains capable of reaching 168 mph, as well as the California High Speed Rail Corridor, which is a planned high speed rail line that will eventually connect San Diego to Northern California, via Los Angeles.
Regionally, money was granted in the Midwest towards the development of a high speed rail corridor between Chicago and St. Louis, as well as $800 million towards the development of a high speed rail corridor linking Madison and Milwaukee within the state of Wisconsin.
Overall, this funding has coincided with the beginning year of President Barack Obama’s term. While plans to develop regional high speed rail networks have been in the works for years, Obama’s administration has embraced the development of such a network, pinning part of his legacy on the success or failure of its development.
“It’s the boldest move I’ve seen since Eisenhower proposed the interstate highway system,” Mehdi Morshed, who is the executive director of the California High Speed Rail Authority.
The benefits of such a system could very well be abundant. Environmentally speaking, providing a robust system of high speed rail domestically could reduce the use of oil by close to $100 billion per year. In large part, this will be because short trips between regional metropolitan areas, such as Minneapolis-to-Chicago or Los Angeles-to-San Francisco could be undertaken efficiently without the use of an airplane.
Overall, those who work within the current infrastructure believe that the Obama Administration has had a mostly positive effect on the rail industry as a whole.
“Clearly, Obama likes rail — be it transit, Amtrak, HSR, even freight — given the carbon footprint issue and the inherently cost-effective infrastructure,” said Tony Hatch of ABH Consulting, who will be the keynote speaker for Michigan Tech’s Railroad Night on Feb. 16, sponsored by the Railroad Engineering and Activities Club.
“As they get up to speed, I think they’ll shape a sensible transportation policy that includes increased opportunities for passenger and freight rail.”
However, this move towards high speed rail undertaken by the Obama Adminstration, while important in the development of a viable passenger rail system in the U.S., is a drop in the bucket compared to what it will take to finalize such a system.
“Obviously, for high speed rail, it is a good development,” said policy analyst Jack Schenendorf. “But it will take a lot more money to get these systems built out.”
At this moment, it seems that America may be poised to make the largest move towards the development of a new, innovative transportation system since the Interstate Highway Act was signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. But it will take time, patience, and willpower for such a system to have a chance to work. However, the country will make up for it in increased efficiency and a reduced dependence on foreign sources of energy.

I hope all of you had an awesome Winter Carnival last week and are ready to switch the gear back to studying. I know this week and the week following are exam weeks for most of you. Work hard and get a score that you deserve to have.
I apologize that I didn’t have time to continue my column last week. I was busy with my school stuff and tried to finish them before Winter Carnival. Are you ready for this week’s?
When I was in class last week, I felt a little bit sleepy and took out a small red container. “What’s in it?” my friend asked.
“Smell it.” I open the cap and handed to him. He smelled it and bent his brows.
“What is this? It smells weird,” he asked again.
“My mom sent it to me. It is a Chinese medicine. It can help you stay awake. You want to try it?” He gave it back to me with his head shaking. Are you curious about this? This is just an example about Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
China is a country with 5,000 years of history. Medical care is a big reason that China has survived in East Asia for thousands of years. Much of the philosophy of traditional Chinese medicine derives from the same philosophy that influences Taoist and Buddhist thought and reflects the classical Chinese belief that the life and activity of individual human beings have an intimate relationship with the environment on all levels. Based on this, Chinese academics of various schools have focus on the observable natural laws of the universe and their implication for the practical characterization of humanity’s place in the universe. Chinese doctors usually spend their whole life trying to discover new medicinal plants. They travel through the whole country and test unknown plants on themselves. Some of them even lose their lives because of poisonous plants. The most famous Chinese index book of herbs is Bencao Gangmu. It includes over 3,000 plants with their drawing and medicinal functions.
Even now, TCM is still popular in China. Approximately 500 Chinese herbs that are in use today, 250 of them are very commonly used. Rather than being prescribed individually, single herbs are combined into formulas that are designed to adapt to the specific needs of individual patients. An herbal formula can contain anywhere from three to 25 herbs. This is a complex theory. We even have TCM major in Chinese medical colleges.
Compared to western medicine, TCM is a long-term treatment. However, because it’s 100 percent natural, it has fewer side effects to the human body. Western medicine can heal your body very quickly, but those combined chemicals will stay in your body and harm your organs, especially the liver and kidneys. My grandma has had nephropathy since her 40’s and she has been taken prescription medicine for 20 years. Her kidneys are still in a good condition and haven’t had any more trouble.
The Chinese medical care system is a combination of science, philosophy, and culture. Herbal medicine is just a small part of it. To most Americans I think acupuncture is most familiar. Want to know more about it? I will follow up the TCM in the coming few weeks. I really want to introduce this great culture to you guys. Hope you like it and I will see you next week!