Mr. Compton and his crap

Me. Compton brought up some very valid points in his presentation and in his documentary, Two Million Minutes. However in his search to scare the hell out of Americans, he scewed and stetched his support and evidence so to the extreme, and in my opinion well out side the line of acceptability. The schools that are chosen in India and China are both public schools, Carmel High School is a public school. The city of Bangalore is the 3rd largest in India with over 5,000,000 inhabitants, thats quite the pick of the litter in my opinion for one school. The city of Shanghai has more that 14,000,000 inhabitants, way more than Bangalore and 217 times more than the number of people in Carmel, Indiana: 64,400. Granted I would have accepted the information if he had choosen two students from say New York Cities top preperatory school. Undoubtably the differences would be much more minute. Also the charter school visited in Shanghai is funded by a the Xiwai Corporation. If thats not biased than I don't know what is.

Christmas time is here.

I love Christmas time. Its the time of the year when everyone enjoys cpending their money. Its the time of the year where it starts to get a little chilly and then all of a sudden you wake up one morning and unexpectedly there is snow on the ground. Well, maybe not around here. Its the time of the year when the clothes begin to layer and the brains begin to fire on all cylinders for the imminent finals week. Coming from New York, where the Christmas meal is planed for a month in advance. Where there are more cookies than there are counter space to keep them. And where there are more cooks in the kitchen than there are cooks. Christmas time is when the world slows down a little at the end of the year, getting ready for the next one, bringing up the caboose of the holiday train. Christmas time is a time to reflect upon one's self and plan on what you could do differently or better for the next year, the next christmas.

Two weeks forward

There is only two more weeks left in this semester, and only this week is in actual class where next week is reserved for finals administration. This is the first time in a while that I'm both worried and calm. Im calm because I have actually cared about my grades, for the most part, for the whole semester (a task normally half-heartedly attempted however never accomplished) and have good grades to show for it. I am worried however because I have cared all semester and some kind of phenomena forces me to worry more and more with every passing day that goes without studying for my critical Bio Lab final the week I come back or the term paper due for English 1101. I am glad I have developed this uncanny "phenomena" to care about my grades and their outcomes because for the first time in my long standing academic career I feel like the grades actually represent an outcome in the immediate future. In four years these grades could either mean I go out and get a job, I get a nice job offer, or I continue my education at a higher level. Hopefully the care I have "cantracted" this year for my grades will play out for the next three years and if I'm lucky enough through the rest of my life.

Thanksgiving: Boro style

Last night, my roomates and I hosted a small Thanksgiving get together, about ten people. It was alot of fun and different because all the dishes were made by college students, and from personal experience nothing tastes better than turkey and the works all made by your college friends. We all sat around the table and destroyed the food but there was plenty of left overs. I love the hollidays. When the holiday time of the year rolls around, you see people hold the door for others more often, people donate more to the Salvation Army santa's; everyone puts a smile on this time of the year, as long as it isn't so as blustery as it was out this morning. All our friends gathered around our upturned beer pong table and ladened it with food; we did it more or less pot luck style where the roomates made the turkey and everyone else brought a dish with them. As the turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, baked beans, macaroni and cheese, bisquits, pumpkin and banana bread. It was a feast for kings, even though I doubt kings ate at ten o'clock at night. All the boys then went into the living room and began the movie "Elf". Then the girls cut up dessert for the guys and sat down and made themselves some smores. It was like we were a big ole family, just hanging out after thanksgiving, like we had done it years before, and will hopefully continue to do in the future.

Election Schmelection

Who wants to vote for either of these candidates? John McCain is a mid-seventy year old veteran who, during all three debates, just stood there and pointed fingers at Obama and was nasty to him the whole time. McCain wants to help people stay in their homes by more or less butchering the value of America's homes. He then wants to fix health insurance by letting small businesses decide if they want to give health insurance. If they don't, which many will not if not forced. Obama wants to give everybody a $5,000 "credit" to help float the average plan of $5,800. This seems like a promising plan to me, no matter what your financial situation you will still recieve $5,000 you can get yourself either a basic by just adding a thousand dollars or so or a better plan by adding say $10,000. I only see two big problems: Where is this money coming from and how are these credits going to get payed back. Many people are going to take the credit on the basis they can't pay it back, thats exactly how we go into our financial crisis now, bad home loans.
I also haven't heard a thing about new fuels. I have heard alot about the heated debate between the two senators about off shore drilling; drilling that can only deliver about 5% of our consumption. McCain says we need to do it and do it know, "we need to show the world we have our own fuel supply." Well we do need to show we have our own fuel supply, but we don't have one! And we never will with off shore drilling. I think that Bio-Fuel or another alternative resource be thouroughly developed right here in the United States. That way we will own the means of production for the new world. No more polluting the air with the drilling of oil in the Middle East, and no more supporting governments simply for their means of oil. Instead of consuming 75% of a product that is killing our earth and making massive amounts of money for a foreign power we need to be the top manufacturer of an alternative fuel. An alternative fuel or means of energy found, developed, and produced, in the U.S. would create hundreds of thousands of jobs and in the same stroke lower all prices (assuming that all prices are based on the inclusion of shipping and transportation costs). This would create a BOOMING economy, one the world has never seen before. But hey, what do I know, Im just a college freshman writing a blog.

America- The Land of the ...

Why is America so great? Is it because we have a huge GDP? Or is it because we can vote? Or is it because of our great military? Or maybe is it because of our huge mesh of cultures? Well sure we have a tremendous GDP for the population of our country but the majority of that money is funneled towards big business executives, most of the countries working population is in a credit crisis and are struggling to hold on to their houses from day to day. With our GDP so high we purchase 25% of an indefinite fuel supply that powers everyday essentials such as cars, buses, and airplanes, petroleum. Consuming so much drives up the price of petroleum for the third world countries who don't have a GDP able to support promising research on alternative fuels, something the U.S. could easily fund. Voting. This is an election season and personally i believe we have two incompetents running for office. Barack Obama has served only one term in the Senate, no experience, has plans of increasing the US budget, poor economics, and plans to cut taxes. He wants a change without explaining how his is really gonna work. John McCain on the other hand would rather sit at a debate and repeat himself time and time again with his housing market "buyout" and then point fingers at Barack and say nasty things. McCain might as well read George Bush III supporting almost identical funding planning as the Bush Campaign, keeping taxes off the wealthy. Our great military is fighting a ten billion dollar a month war that most people believe is to hunt down the people responsible for 9/11. They are confused. The bulk of this money is spent in Iraq which we first entered seven years ago under the suspicion that Sadam Hussein, who I believe is dea, was hiding nuclear weapons, which we have. Well if its none of those it must be our huge mesh or cultures, right? One in every five black men is in some phase of the correctional system, one in seven of hispanic men. Gangs once formed in means of protection are now soliciting illegal activities and substances that flood the streets of low income city areas into battle grounds and trafficking networks. Im not being racist but simply trying to say that if this is what so called "minorities" have to do for oppotunity than something is wrong with the equality system. I still want to know what makes America great.

Home Sweet Home

I had some friends from Roswell come down this weekend to visit the roomates and I. We love having company come down because it isn't too much of a hassle to have them in our townhome. Whenever family or friends come down it makes me long for home: my two dogs, my huge queen sized bed, my windowless room, the bigscreen, my back deck... I miss the privacy I guess would be the central theme. In Roswell, however, it is not always so private. Whenever I drive my red sports car through my neighborhood, even at the speed limit, I am always eye balled by the parents who are walking letting their children ride their bikes a hundred feet in front of them and yell at me when their kids veer out into the road. Teenagers are hated in Roswell by many of the young parents. I can't blame them because many people moved here when Roswell was featured in a few magazines as one of the top ten cities to raise a family in the U.S., but then again there are thousands of students in the area who work, spend money, and help the economy as much as the young parents. There are maybe four or five highschools within fifteen minutes of my house and regulations such as no Junior/Senior war and ten o'clock curfew for minors are in strict effect. After I think about all the balogna that I went through before I left leaves me just a little less home sick so that when I do get to go home, I'm glad im only visiting.

Some one has to cut the grass

Having been interrupted during math this morning, my friend turned to me and said "I don't walk in front of him while he is trying to cut the grass. Why doesn't he come in here and try and not have to cut the grass while I bother him." "Some one has to cut the grass," I say to him, "and I bet he makes pretty decent money and if he learns the business he could open his own up and be successful without having to through all this trouble learning math." I pondered upon my comments for the rest of the day. I was thinking about the diffence between making money and not liking what I do or not making alot of money and love what im doing and more than likely enjoy life more than work through life. My first thought was what would I like to do that naturally make alot of money?... I couldn't think of anything, not one field, career or even job I would enjoy doing. So I decided that I wouldn't make as much money but do what I love doing. I am perfectly fine with that. Who needs alot of money when your major activity in life is what you love doing? Only people who don't like how they make their money need the money to buy lavish things that allow them to get away from their tough, time-consuming, emotionally draining job. I continued thinking, there must be something else... Ah! Hah! No mattter if you are a waitress or a mechanic, if you are good at what you do, you will make plenty of money. I want to do something with a History degree. There isn't a whole lot of money to be made with one but if your good you could make a big find or write a phenomenal book and be set for life. I guess the wealthiest man makes his money through passion than makes his passion through money.

Whats with the world these days?

Gas prices have fluxed nearly a dollar because of Hurricane Ike ripping through Texas, destroying an oil refinery. The prices have seem to come under control around here but my room mate found out yeaterday that you can hardly get gas back in Roswell (my home town, a suburb of Atlanta). People are waiting in lines for hours to only be allowed to get about ten dollars worth of gas. Now rumors have begun about school being closed tomorrow due to the drought. If school gets closed how many people can't get to work either becaue they have to take care of their kids or they simply don't have to means of getting there with the shortage. That means that business' can't operate at their best and when business' are slow the stock market crashes and the chain continues from their. The point of all this is one question. Are we stupid? We have the highest generated GDP in the world and we can't manage to out grow petroleum? Brazil has done it. There is something like less than five percent usage of petroleum in Brazil. They use alternative fuels and natural gas. How can a country who has no issue with cutting down the largest rainforest in the world say "Hey, lets keep the tree's healthy before we cut them down" and we can't say "time out! were taking two weeks break from the war to invest that wasted money into an alternative fuel source." The only people I hear trying to do something about it are the oil companies and really, do you think they are gonna "find" a new solution until the old one they make a ton of money with, runs out? I don't think so. The presidential candidates need to be saying "I have a plan, a plan that will save you thousands of dollars a year, a new fuel source." A new fuel source would work miracles for these candidates. Your saving the voter money, your cleaning their enviornment, and your promoting a new school of thought, being effiicient. Not just the highest output or cheapest way, but the least polluting, the most eco-friendly. Now that is a bright new future to promise.

Where do I belong?

Yesterday my bestfriend came home very upset. He is Pre-Dental, a Bio major reccomending sixteen hours this semester, he is locked in his room for hours on end studying for both Chemistry and Biology among his three or four other classes. He had met with his advisor and she had told him that it would be average to get a 3.7 gpa or higher to get into a good dental school. He knew he would ultimately fall short after giving up so much time and effort to this field of study and be left with a Biology Degree that he only wanted to become a dentist. This got me thinking. Im a History major and honestly I am pretty good at it, but am I that good. I wonder how well rehearsed in my specialized area I am going to have to be in order to make some use of my schooling. To write and make a living you must be distinct and moving, to teach and make a living you must be interactive and personable, and to travel and research, what I want to do, you must be the best. Am I the best though? No. Who is the best? No one the way I see. No one will be, there will always be someone wittier, or someone more persuasive, or someone just down right more knowledable than you, but thats the point. Life is a challenge and to see life anyother way is immature and ignorant. So you take what you do have (your knowlege, your wit, and your persuasion) and you play your cards right. You play the game of Life as best you can and if you don't quite make it, thats okay, not everyone can hit a homerun, but just make sure you atleast get your cuts; you can't hit a homer (or a triple, double, or single) if you dont step up to the plate and play the game.

Decisions Decisions

It is Friday now, that makes my stay in Statesboro only five weeks now. Whoever should read this probably thinks im going to start expelling all the upset and emotional feelings I have had in the last five weeks on this screen... i'm not. I'm actually going to tell you how much I have enoyed myself lately. I have had to and will continue to make basic decisions everyday of my life, that I have never even thought of before. One of those simple decisions would be- what to get when I go to the grocery store: How much bread should I get. It won't fit in the freezer and I know it will start molding in about a week or so, but I really want both toast and sandwich rolls. Everyday I make split second decisions that I have just never thought of making before because I would always just ask for a parents/someones opinion. It's not that I can't make the decisions easily on my own, I have just never had to make them. Other times throughout the day also rally my memory cells for their advice such as: should I stay on campus till my next class or not? Do I have enough time to go to the gym today with my Bio test at five? I dont know is usually my answer until it comes time to actually make the decision and do something, but thats okay because I think that learning on the fly means living on the fly, and that will make you prepared for just about everything.