The other night, I had a conversation with my brother in which I vented to him my worries that I had been a self-involved friend lately. He replied with the obvious: “this entire conversation is self-involved.”

Oh, the irony!

Most people would agree that a little bit of self-involvement is healthy, that being self-involved indicates knowing—and advocating for—one’s self-worth. However, the situation has gotten me to thinking—how self-involved is too self-involved?

About a year and a half ago, two friends and I got into a heated discussion about the term “yuppie.” I had heard it many times before and was pretty sure that I had used it myself a few times. But, being someone who doesn’t like to talk out of her ass, I felt the need to consult with my friends the precise definition of the word before accommodating it into my everyday language.

I should have known that us hashing out the definition of the word was a signal that we ourselves were on our way to yuppieville.

I happen to moonlight as an SAT guru occasionally. Earlier today, I was grading SAT practice essays when I came across one that baffled my mind. In addressing the question of whether human beings needed nature to progress, a student wrote, “Nature is a series of inanimate objects.”

The internet acronym “wtf” is perhaps the most apt term to describe my reaction to this statement.

On February 24, the Hearst Corporation announced the bleak future of the San Francisco Chronicle, chronicling losses in ad revenue, poor circulation and lamenting that it might have to shut the paper down. A mere three days later, the Rocky Mountain News published its last print edition. And on March 17–on St. Patrick’s Day, of all days–the Seattle Post-Intelligencer met its own ironically unlucky fate: it too said goodbye to the print world.

But of course, I’m not telling you anything new. In case you’ve been living under a hole, the future of journalism is largely in question.

IF you’ve ever been around a South Asian family, chances are you can already see where this cultural observation is heading. South Asians, particularly Indians (Indians are the people with whom I am familiar; hence, I’ll pick on them) are obsessed with marriage.

THE inauguration of President Barack Obama, now approaching its one month anniversary, was indeed a pivotal point in history. And for the millions of people who watched or heard the inauguration via the web, television, radio, or standing outside in the cold, it is difficult to argue—unless you are still bitter about McCain losing, and, in which case, highly recommended that you succumb to some peer pressure—that Obama’s first speech as President of the United States didn’t stir a little something within you.

But standing outside there in the cold, in the 20 degree weather that felt like 10 degrees with the wind-chill factor, I would be lying if I said that I didn’t think more than a few times of saying “screw it” to the whole thing and heading home.