Welcome to Thinking Out Loud, a blog that contains postings from The Tampa Tribune’s Editorial Board and from various Tribune Community Columnists. Unlike the unsigned editorials that represent the newspaper’s institutional voice, the blog postings offer personal perspectives on the issues, personalities and events of Tampa Bay.
We invite you to participate by posting your comments. We’ll do our best to respond.
Contributors:
Joe Guidry
Joe Guidry is the deputy editorial page editor of The Tampa Tribune. He is a Tampa native and a graduate of the University of South Florida. He is married and has an adult son.
Jeff Stidham
Jeff Stidham grew up and lives in Bartow. He has been with the Tribune for nearly 22 years, the last 10 on the editorial board.
William Yelverton
William Yelverton is a Tribune editorial writer who has worked for the paper nearly 22 years. He lives in the Dade City area.
Jim Beamguard
Jim Beamguard is a Tribune editorial writer. He is a native of North Carolina and a graduate of Davidson College. He and his family live in Brandon.
Jackie Papandrew:
Jackie Papandrew is a freelance writer and editor. Her syndicated humor column appears in publications in the United States, Canada and India. She lives in Largo with her husband and children. Visit her website at www.jackiepapandrew.com.
Camille Beredjick
Camille Beredjick is a senior at Chamberlain High School, an avid musician and a scribbler with a quirky sense of humor. In the fall, she will be attending Northwestern University to study journalism, political science and music, and she plans to pursue a career in journalism.
Jim Harnish
Jim Harnish is in his 17th year as Senior Pastor at Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa. He and his wife, Marsha, have two daughters and two grandchildren. He is a graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary and received the honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Bethune-Cookman University. He is the author of six books and numerous articles and studies. He enjoys playing with his grandchildren and cheering for the Florida Gators.
Angela Hunt
Angela Hunt is a novelist living in Pinellas County with her husband and two 220-pound mastiffs.
Sheryl Young
Sheryl Young was a Tampa Tribune Community Columnist in 2005-2006. A freelance writer since 1997, including the Tampa Bay Business Journal, Tampa Style Magazines, St. Pete Times and nationally in Better Nutrition, Today’s Christian Woman and more. She’s received a First Place Amy Foundation national "Roaring Lambs" Writing Award, and has lived in Tampa Bay with her family for over 20 years.
Christie Gold
Christie Gold teaches English and journalism at Freedom High School in Tampa where she advises Revolution, the school newspaper. She has been both the Hillsborough County Teacher of the Year and Florida Journalism Teacher of the Year. She lives on a small farm in Wesley Chapel where she trains as a competitive equestrian.
Natalie D. Preston
Natalie D. Preston is a karaoke singing, only-child pouting, Seminole Tomahawk waving, newlywed bride blushing, 50-state traveling, girlie girl who loves to shop, read, run and jump up and down on her soapbox.
Fernando Figueroa
Fernando Figueroa is a researcher, educator and lives in Riverview.
Gary Beemer
Interests include humor, politics, economics, community and world affairs, finance, people, religion, music, sports, current events, the arts and education.
Nicole Yunger Halpern
Nicole Yunger Halpern is an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, where she studies everything she can get her nerdy little hands on. Desired major: life. No, not necessarily biology. Life.
Kris DiGiovanni
Kris DiGiovanni is a Tribune Community Columnist, Huffington Post contributor, Daily Kos diarist, and teacher, who recently moved from NW Hillsborough to another planet - a small beach community in Pinellas County. She also blogs at www.sandscript.wordpress.com
H. David Braswell Jr.
H. David Braswell Jr. is an Information Systems Professional. He is a native New Yorker and a lifelong NY Giants fan. He attended college in California (Cal State Northridge) and moved to Tampa in 1998.
Sean Marcus
Sean Marcus teaches creative writing, journalism and reading at Chamberlain High School. He has one son and is
expecting a daughter in early March. He can be reached at wuizabug@gmail.com
In Defense Of Bedtimes—Yes, Even on New Year’s Eve!
Posted Dec 30, 2008 by Nicole Yunger Halpern
Updated Dec 30, 2008 at 09:54 AM
In a getting-to-know-you game, I once shared a constraint I had overcome. One participant described settling into college; one, earning his driver’s license; and two, defying bedtimes.
My turn came immediately after the last revelation. And I stood that revelation on its head. I proudly claimed to set my own bedtime and stick to it. A bed-time of ten-thirty, no less.
What rebelliousness! What defiance! The authorities will have to keep an eye out for this hot-blooded youngster!
Sarcasm aside, bed-times do shatter rules—they shatter social norms. Friends tease me about hitting the sack earlier than my grandparents (not true, I’ll have you know!), and late-night movies exclude me from inside jokes. On the other hand, I tease back about enjoying early mornings after a night’s rest, instead of with blood-shot eyes. I even tease myself for rising before others don pajamas.
As it turns out, the stereotypical teenage lifestyle satisfies many night-owls little. Upon confessing that I wake between seven and seven-thirty even on vacation, I receive congratulations along with sympathetic yawns.
Why trade the excitement of midnight for the loneliness of sunrise? According to one hypothesis, my pineal gland, nature’s Nyquil factory, has gone haywire. Rather, if teenage nocturnality represents a normal, daytime-favoring pineal gland gone haywire, then mine is a haywire version of the haywire version…which somehow loops back to daytime-favoring normality. Either way, psychology reinforces the biology: how much work one can accomplish after a night’s rest! How refreshing to pound the pavement before Florida sunshine bakes it to a crisp! Remember those scenes from Disney classics in which the woodland creatures chirp to the princess’s song as they draw back the curtains and tend her hair and ready her for the day? Although my alarm clock has failed to find me such PETA-protected pals, it evinces a similar atmosphere.
To tell the truth, I miss the explorations of God and morality and reality and whether-you-even-exist-or-are-you-a-figment-of-my-imagination?-or-am-I-a-figment-of-your-imagination?-either-way-I-think-we-ought-to-stop-here-before-I-end-up-scared-and-lonely-and-crying-in-a-fetal-position characteristic of teenagerhood that evolve most naturally at night. Then again, perhaps a clear head would filter nonsense that infiltrates those conversations.
So on New Year’s Eve, party away. Watch the ball drop. I begrudge you not the entertainment from whose absence I will earn the title of Most Boring Teenager In The World. Because although you might speak the first words of 2009 in the wee hours of that morning, I will execute the first actions during that day.
