Self-Censorship (Part 2)

Part 1 is over there. It may make this post less confusing if you haven't read it yet.

Anyways, there is a reason why I gave the story of me backing up into someone's car. We can acknowledge that it's a bad situation but in the end, everything is good. No one is hurt, my parents aren't sticking my head on a pole, and my Dad even managed to repair the rear bumper to the point where it's barely noticeable.

And look how worried and stressed Theresa got. Imagine how she'd react to something really bad.

Which leads us to the story how I was accused of plagiarism. And why I waited so long to make a post about it.

Suspicious...

This event took place back in April, slightly after all my papers were due. Anyone else remember what fun I had during that month? The sleepless nights, the constant work, the threat of final exams looming after the papers were handed in.

Anyways, one of those papers apparently resembled the paper of another student. We both helped each other a great deal because there was one section where I had great difficulty in, but she found easy and vice versa. We helped one another out, she finished before I did and so I helped out a bit more by editing her paper.

But our papers resembled each other too much. And thus our prof had an appointment with us to discuss this strange occurance. This happened in around mid-May.

And before I continue, I want to mention, no, I did not plagiarize.

Nope.

Plagiarism is not to be taken lightly. Anything from getting zero on the assignment, to failing to course, to being suspending from the University or even being expelled from the University is possible. None of these options were acceptable to me because I was convinced I was innocent.

And I made sure to share these thoughts with my professor and I thought I did a fairly good job of it.

And then a few weeks later, I get an email from the Associate Dean. He wanted to have an appointment with me as well.

Guess I didn't do a good enough job convincing my Prof.

Finally, my appointment arrives, early June. I had made a mental checklist of everything I had said, and tried to make it more compelling. The Dean would get the final say in whether I was found guilty or not and I needed to prove my innocence.

However, during the meeting, it felt as if the Dean thought I was already guilty of plagiarism. You guys know what I'm talking about, that feeling you get when you're trying to argue with someone but you can tell that their mind is already set. The Dean also showed me a letter that my prof. had sent. Apparently she felt I deserved a zero on the essay.

Yeah, I guess I did a really crappy job of convincing her of my innocence. And the way things were looking, I failed to convince the Dean as well.

Pretty accurate as to how I felt.

As I left his office, I was told that I would be informed of his decision in another few weeks. And if I was found guilty, my last hope would be to file for an appeal. This was not looking good for me. And so I did the last thing I thought I could possibly do.

I wrote.

Well, more accurately, I typed up an email with all my old arguments, additional arguments, rebuttals to his arguments and sent it to him a few days after the appointment. We're talking over 700 words in less than an hour in one sitting. It's another one of the few talents that I possess, being able to write immense and articulate amounts in a short period of time.

Years of training (I thank my English and History teachers) have taught me how to write a lot with little time and prompt. To be honest, that's how most of blog posts get done. An idea pops into my head and boom, I have it all mentally written. All that needs to be done is to type it.

Within less than 24 hours, the dean replies to my email. I had been acquitted of all charges. This happened last week.

WHOO.

And now you can see why I didn't share this Theresa back in April or discuss it on my blog. 2 months of panicking and anxiety attacks. She would have been worrying during her exams, during her Pharmacy rotation, during her trip to China and everything in-between. I'm not saying I didn't worry but I hide my concerns well enough that no one caught on. Calm while under fire.

Some of you like Fang wondered why I'm sharing this now. It's simple, the issue was resolved, everything is good now, Theresa has no reason to panic and if she does, it's going to be greatly reduced.

And on that note, that means any major problem I encounter is not going to be shared until I've personally resolved it or it kills me. This can range medical to academic to personal problems. I simply can't afford to have Theresa going through any more anxiety attacks caused by me. I've caused enough over the time we've dated.

Oh and on that note, Darling, remember how you were concerned about me getting ticketed for parking in that spot? I did get a parking ticket, but I successfully talked my way out of it. Everything is good now. :)

(And yes this post is late. My internet died and I had to resort to stealing my neighbor's...)

Self-Censorship (Part 1)

I talked about my recent writer's block a few posts ago. Not having the motivation to talk about anything. And while that was true there is another reason why I've been having some difficulty writing posts.

I've been censoring myself, limiting which parts of my life to say. Normally that's not an issue, I don't care about being judged by people, that's not the reason why I refrain from sharing certain details.

It's because Theresa reads my blog, and there are certain things I'd rather not have her know about.

Mmmmph!

No, I'm not having an affair or secretly a serial murderer. The kind of stories I've been holding back on are bad things that happen to me that will cause her to worry. See, Theresa and I are different in the ways we deal with problems.

When "things" hit the fan, Theresa starts to panic, becomes inconsolable, and if it's really bad, she starts crying. It doesn't matter if there's nothing she can do about it, or if everything is fixed and better, just thinking about that problem sends her into an anxiety attack. Even thinking about hypothetical problems can just as easily send her into one of these frenzies. And these worry sessions can go on for days.

And then you have me. Despite all my physical fragility, I am mentally very sound. Calm, collected and able to see clearly despite the world crumbling around me. It's one of the few talents I'm proud of. Some people might call me cold, I call it being efficient. No point worrying over something I have no control over. And in the rare situation where something does shake me up, I only need 24 hours at most to fully recover.

He who panics is dead.

An example of this is an event that happened the other day. We were going on a date and I went to her place to pick her up. Excited to finally be able to travel faster and further now that I could drive we went on our way.

And I backed into the car of her neighbor.

Not my finest moment.

Not as bad as this though.

Fortunately, no one was hurt, everyone was civil, and damages were mild. Within an hour I was over the incident and it was like it never happened. I felt fine to drive again, I realized it was a silly mistake and that accidents happen. Everything was ok now and my parents hadn't even banned me from driving.

Theresa on the other hand is still unable to get in a car with me 1 week later.

She has a mini-anxiety attack everytime I mention a car, and blames her "over-imaginative" thoughts.

So I've refrained from sharing stories that would cause her to worry about me. Because once she starts worrying, she can't and won't stop. As in, it will ruin everything for her because she feels terrible when she enters her state of worrying.

Stories like when I was almost found guilty of plagiarism on a paper 2 months ago. If I told Theresa this at the beginning, she would have worried non-stop until the issue was resolved.

But, I'll share that story on Tuesday.

We Just Slowed Them Down

Well done to everyone who spread awareness through the Blogosphere about SOPA/PIPA. I personally think that the protest on the 18th went exceptionally well. The media knows we're not going to take this nonsense and so many people are now educated about this.

But it appears our efforts may have been in vain, or rather, we just delayed the inevitable.

Love, Censorship.

For those you unaware, MegaUpload was taken down by the US yesterday. Many suspect it's a response to the SOPA/PIPA protests the day earlier. MegaUpload is one of the largest (if not the largest) file sharing sites available. Many legitimate accounts and individuals use it on an daily basis where large file transfers are not viable by other methods. Associated sites such as MegaVideo, one of the largest streaming sites, was also taken down.

What's more disturbing is that it was taken down without notice or warning, and 4 workers were arrested, from NEW ZEALAND. And what's worse is that MegaUpload is based in HONG KONG.They claim the shut down and arrests are appropriate because MegaUpload was potentially infringing on copyrights.

"Allegedly".

So many people are now asking, then what was the point of the SOPA/PIPA protests if the government is able to shut down sites anyways? How SOPA worked was that it would allow large corporations to point their finger at a site and go "Potential copyright infringement" and the site would shut down immediately.

BUT without it they need to go through the courts first. Turns out MegaUpload case has actually been secretly going on for about a year now before they were able to bring the site down and make the arrests. I personally feel that by having the shut down so conveniently scheduled after the protest it's the government's way of saying "We're not done yet".

Also, everyone from Asia is a Martian.

So what can we do now? Big Brother from 1984 is flexing his arms so to speak. The hackivist group known as Anonymous has gone on a Distributed Denial of Service attack (or DDoS for short) and temporarily brought down many of the sites associated with MegaUpload's removal. But that's the keyword, the damage is temporary. What they're doing is like running into someone's room, tearing down a poster, and running away. You can always put the poster back up later.

Unfortunately, no one else has any better ideas. No one expected a response from the government so soon and not such a drastic response either. The government has heard our protest, and they replied "So what? We do what we want.".

This is a problem that affects all of us. I'm currently looking into what an ordinary individual can do and so far I don't have much. Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated because I'd rather not sit and watch this play out.