the answer, my friend...

I FINALLY have my degree. UB took entirely too long to get things sorted out, but i picked up the actual certificate yesterday, and it is much smaller than i expected. i'm pretty excited to have it, though, regardless of size.

some observations:

there really is no reason for the MVA to make so much money on tags and licenses and what not! 120$ is a little outrageous! i am sick of "the man" taking advantage of people where they have no choices. for example: movie prices can go up because people have the ability to choose whether or not to see a movie, same thing with things like furniture and high-end cars. but to raise the price on things like clothes and food is ridiculous. the basic things needed to sustain human life should be avaliable to all human beings. like health care. how can a doctor charge over $400 for a hospital visit in which they spent a total of 10 minutes in the patient's room? (can you tell that this is personal now?) health care should be free, but the problem is that the majority of people who have the ability to make a difference in the fight for universal health care do not care.

think about it. the people who have health care and have always had it are worried that by giving everyone else healthcare, they will have to wait for treatment, and will have to share their doctors and hospitals and oncology labs and mri machines with the population as a whole. why would they want that? why add lines and waiting lists when they already have it fine.

take away their health insurance, let them suffer for a while, and see what they think.

i used to not care. i was as ignorant of the whole problem and exactly how big it is until, as a full time student living with my parents, my insurance provider sent me a letter 5 months after my birthday telling me that my insurance had already been cancelled without my knowing it.

i wonder when i drive now, what if i get into a major accident? is it possible to be in a coma and refuse an air-lift? what if i have a terminal illness right now, but because i have no health care, i have no way of finding out.

i am not a paranoid person by nature, but while i search for a job, i have to worry. every little ache and pain and symptom suddenly blows out of proportion and into cancer, typhoid, tb, pancreitis, appendicitis, and staph. i felt nauseous a few days ago. sure, there is a virus going around that i cannot be diagnosed or treated for, but in my mind, it could be eboli.

we, the middle and upper class, look at the uninsured, lower class as lazy members of an infamously ignorant and uneducated whole: as a group of miscrients who could dig themselves out of their caste if they wanted to bad enough. but now i know that it is not true.

people are trapped by our systems. our education system, our healthcare system, our thought system. we have dug a hole that is just as big as the mass graves the nazis dug, and yet we blame the people that we have shoved into the hole.


how many times must a cannon ball fire?

real world begins....tomorrow

I guess I should blog about this momentous occasion. Tomorrow I begin to enter the "real world." I would argue that I have already entered it, but I guess it is official once i flip my tassel. I will graduate along with 450 other students. I guess it is an accomplishment. I do not feel any sense of accomplishment. I wish graduation was like completing a level of super mario, with the flag pole and the castle and the fireworks. At least, even if it was an easy level that you had to complete just to get to another level, at least it was exciting when you climbed to the top of the random steps because you still had to jump to the flag pole, and it was so awesome if you actually got to the top of the pole and came down with the flag.

to me, graduation is like being so cool that you actually managed, by some flaw in the game, to jump clear over the pole, and got no recognition for it, and then had to jump on the pole from the other side, and only got 200 points for something that was clearly worth a million.

maybe no one else had that experience as a kid. but thats what it feels like.

i guess it comes down to how i have waited so long for graduation, and have always seen it as just another thing to get to, that it isnt exciting. I am not sad to leave UB, i was not terribly attached to any aspect of college life. I dont feel like there is a whole world open to me now, i actually feel that all of my opportunities and possibilities are at a dead end. I am a very good student, but am i good at anything else? will anyone even give me the opportunity to see what I can do?

the best thing i can do is to go to sleep. if i have to walk across a stage in front of a thousand or so people, at least i should do it without looking like the bride of Frankenstein.

Update

Dear blog,

I am sorry that I have neglected you these few months. I promise, that I will be more steady in my affection, and will show you the love that I have hither-to withheld.

In the elapsed time since last we spoke, I published a magazine. Welter. I spent quite a bit of time on it, and now it is finished, and I hold a copy of it in my hand. A major accomplishment.

I am getting a new kitty cat today. and by kitty cat, I mean OS. Leopard. with its stacks and spaces and previews and time machine and grassy bg and new icons.

I turn 23 shortly. really shortly. like Tuesday shortly.

I graduate shortly. not as shortly, but like next Wednesday shortly.


and then i move onto that frightening "real world"

I will need all of the love from my blog that I can get. Therefore, the neglect stops here.

or at least stops after I finish all of my papers that I am procrastinating on.

hello, blog

things are a bit crazy. havnt posted in a while. I dont know why i apologize for it since no one ever reads this, but there it is.

welter. oh, god...WELTER. the magazine is taking over my free time, along with the new hbo series john adams. the series is amazing, and welter is only going to own my life for another week.


sadly, my blog ends here because i feel guilty using my spare time for something as frivolous as a blog when there is a deadline to be met.

i feel like im cheating on welter or something. i hope it doesnt find out.

self-fulfilling prophecy

i am so sick of waiting on other people. my impatience on this particular occasion is brought to you by the Welter staff who are not doing what needs to be done so that my life is not miserable next week.

i have to fit a month's worth of work into one week, and i had no idea that that was the case until this weekend. press day is april23 and i have no cover art, no written work, much less author bios, order of appearance, or logo. now, if this was my magazine, and i could take care of all of that myself, it would be done by now. but no...i have to wait for a democratic decision on cover art that is apparently not even created yet. i also have to wait for 5 people to proof 43 stories, essays, and poems. they are supposed to have them to me by the 17, and as of yet, they havnt looked at them. i have to wait for someone to tell me that i can go ahead and create a logo, but that logo has to depend on the cover art that i dont have. how can i figure out how to incorporate the cover in the layout without first seeing the cover?

this impatience has extended to disliking people who do not immediately respond to text messages, phone calls that are not picked up on the first ring, being left waiting for a response on ichat, especially when the other person is the one who started the conversation, traffic, sitting in class and listening to a lecture when there are so many other things i would rather be doing with my time, havint to write papers instead of reading a book that i would love to read, slow windows computers in the computer lab at school, being in front of, behind, next to, or within a 50 mile radius of a cop while driving, email, having to be nice to people because they are in my class, when i would rather be in charge so that i can enforce the rules and deadlines in a way that ensures they will be done, not being in a position to step on toes when necessary, and having to move from my bed to my desk to connect my macbook to my external harddrive. thats it, for my birthday, i want some sort of wireless or bluetooth external!!!

just because you cant see it...

i cant decide if it is because we, the people who write, are so caught up in our own lives, or if it has something to do with the irregular way life seems to happen lately, dotting time with strange instances and too much rape and pain for the world to breathe healthily again. i'm not certain if it is a trend, or a permanent ocurance, and i sure as hell cant figure out if it is happening all over the globe, or just in the tiny whore-house that is the charles royal building at my particular university.

but the truth, mapped out in so many fonts on too many pages to read in an hour, is that fiction has faded into a fifth genre. if the first is poetry, and the second is drama, and the third is fiction and the fourth is essay, then the fifth is that slurry line between fiction and essay, a fraction of writing, if you will, where the inexperienced writer writes about him or herself and tells a life story, plays with form, and labels it as fiction when it is actually memoir.

everything has become memoir. of all of the fiction submissions to the welter literary journal, only two are actually fiction and not memoir, one of which is mine.


where has fiction gone? has the imagination finally given in and admitted that it cant keep up with how screwed up life really is? or are all of the characters on vacation? living in a place where storys are written about fluffy kitty cats and unicorns? maybe theyre waiting like the romanticists did for the world to turn itself upright again and for the rain to stop falling up. gravity has to take over again and set things right.


in the mean time, do we let them go on thinking that memoir is fiction? perhaps they just dont see the difference, or cant believe what has happened to them. it must have happened to this character that has assigned itself a first person omniscient point of view with which to tell a true story in disguise as fiction.


at least there are submissions. amd im not complaining, im just happy to be around to see it happen. the genre that was not a genre 15 years ago, that is only now being accepted by the literary big wigs, is taking over like it owns the joint, building a work out room in the old nursery and tearing out the flower beds that old aunt eudora took so much pride in. It plans to open up some windows and air out the rooms, finally get rid of the smell of cigar smoke from grandpa earnest and uncle charles. but the carpet hasnt changed, and no one will ever knock down the giant oak in the front yard or dry up virginia's lake.

manifesto for one's purpose

i like to think that there is a purpose to everything that every individual does. if not, then bring on the brave new world. but as a dreamer, i cant settle for what i get.

I have never been so deeply moved, disturbed, actually, by any class I have ever taken. My contemporary Literature class is slowly driving me crazy.

In the class, we are studying the common themes and concepts behind literature of all genres written in the past 20 years.

common themes include:
1. failure of a character to connect with other characters
2. inability to show emotion
3. disconnection with the world
4. rape, hate, crime, psychotic behavior, abuse, distrust, ect.
5. death
6. the acceptance of the inevitable, example: death is part of life, death makes life
7. the down side of liberation movements
8. selfishness
9. mistrust, and why mistrust is intelligent
10. the lack of value in love and human relationships
11. lack of hope
12. loss of faith, innocence, life, meaning

all of these topics are things that surface in one way or another throughout current writing.


as a writer (i.e., one who writes) I am discouraged. I never thought of my writing as adhering to any of the topics above, and yet I see, after looking at my writing through the lense of contemporary literature, that my writing is overflowing with many of those things.


After some consideration, I see that I have fallen into the trap of becoming a product of my environment. I write what I see and live through. I write about the ugliness of the human race. The downfall of education, the inevitability of death, and politics. I write about the same things that other people write about.


I cant allow myself to believe that this period in which I live will be defined as a theory of literature hundreds of years from now. Students will take some archaic class that covers my contemporaries. perhaps, instead of the Victorian, modern, post modern, renaissance, Marxist, structuralist, classical, post colonialism, semiotic, or new historicism, we will be called the "hopelessists" or "destructionists"

is there any way to change that? no. literature and art reflect the time in which it is created, but also change the time. Picasso painted in a time of great turbulence, and so his painting was chaotic. "guernica" is a perfect example. He painted a war in the most chaotic, and color-symbolic way he could. his painting reflected the war the way the war created the painting. literature is the same way. literature reflects the time, but also changes how people think.


I wish I could be so brave to think that I could change the way literature works. perhaps, in my own small way, I could.


after waking up at 4am this morning from a bad dream, i decided to consciously change my writing.

for a long time, i viewed writing as something that is very much a part of the self. i still think that way, but i understand that, like the self, writing must undergo change. static writing is boring and useless. so i want to change my writing to still follow the way of my contemporaries (because i have no choice in the matter, mostly) but in a way that allows hope.

I am at a point in my life where i refuse to settle into this American hopelessness. I cant do it. I cant look at the world as something ugly and full of hatred. I am a dreamer, and as such, i need to believe that there is a purpose, that there is meaning, that life is not defined by the absence of death.

I cant give up on hoping that the world is beautiful.


I want to write the way I want to think. but when the world around me is going to hell and people are becoming more hateful and self-centered, selfish, disconnected, i need to hang on to what i have and what i know to be possible.

I want to surround myself with beautiful things. I want to write beautiful things.


i cant avoid writing about how ugly the world is, because the world i live in is ugly. no way around it. and a story without conflict is a story without change, is a story without a story, is a story without purpose. i cant write empty stories. everything i write, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or even expository writing, has to have a purpose. I have no time for stories about a cute little kitty or unicorns. i despise fiction about empty subjects.


i want my writing to have the weight of lead, but also a sense of hope. damn the contemporaries for creating a world of writing where denouement is not part of the plot line. nothing should end without some sort of resolution. i see the point of doing things that way, but it is sloppy, and it doesnt leave hope. there needs to be hope. i will not live in a world that has no hope.


so, i have thought about my writing and what i want to experiment with next. what is writing if not experimentation? i change my style every time i edit a story, why not change my style in terms of content? forget adding imagery and poetic device. i want to change my place in literary history. not that i expect to become part of literary history, but i feel that i need to take into account that my writing may (if i am lucky) one day reach beyond the small circle i live in. and if it does, god willing, what will people say about it. where will i fit? writing is something that can easily become a legacy. music is too plagued with luck, and art is too critical, but writing is a possibility for recognition, especially posthumously. the editor of the urbanite said that the first thing you have to do to become one of the greats is not to write fantastic pieces, but to give up the obsession you have with air. who knows where my writing will take me, or where it will go without me. but if it goes even as far as one small college lit magazine, or as far as the new yorker, or to whole books, or just my own portfolio, i do not want to be lumped into the same burlap sack with those who write about a lack of hope. they are dragging us down just as much as the topics they write about.


so. i want to write some stories where the situation is serious and the suffering is great, but the setting and description downplay it. i want to use that hemmingwayish understatement to hide the importance of the situation and to focus on the setting and characters. he was a master. perhaps he was much more ahead of his time than we thought.

I dont pretend that i will ever become a great writer, or that i will even be recognized for my writing. i actually doubt that i will. but the point is that i need to look at my writing more seriously, or else i have wasted my degree before i have even gotten it. and in that sense, i need to write something that makes me feel as though i have done something good. and if writing a story every now and then that has a little bit of beauty and hope in it is as far as i can go, then thats all i'll ever need.

gone gone gone

i finally recieved my certificate and pin for Sigma Tau Delta. Nothing like a pin telling you how special you are to make one feel a bit less discouraged by the hateful institution of education. The STD honor society really doesnt mean very much, not as much as the Alpha Chi society, but it still feels good to be acknowledged.

Tonight is a lunar eclipse. the moon is currently red and completely covered by the shadow of the sun. How awesome is that? I have never seen one. Ever. I wish I had a better camera to take a pic of it. I have m Holga, but I doubt the picture I took will turn out right. but we shall see.

Spent some time with Heather tonight. She's an awesome chick. I hate girls, so it always amazes me when I can sit and talk and laugh and fee completely comfortable with another girl. I had a fantastic time, and it really felt nice to get out of the house and stop feeling sorry for myself and being sad about Troy being gone. We do have quite a bit in common, right down to a hatred and subsequent crusade in Highschool against a hateful coach/english professor. Aparently we were both telling him about himself in the same year (semester, perhaps) and didnt even know it.

It feels good to make new friends.

I think thats what I love so much about my classes this semester. I feel like I have college friends. I had them at Carroll, but that was closer to Highschool than College. I do miss those friends though. Some more than others.

I have never been a fan of Zeppelin, but this robert plant/allison krauss cd is amazing.

I havnt had a "troy is gone" song this time. When he was in Mexico, the song was Ava Adore by the pumpkins, but this time there is no ipod, and very little music in general. I think that has been part of my problem. more music starting now. though I will still refrain from picking a song. Ava Adore is ruined. It makes me sad. (but I still love it). I have been listening to quite a bit of Sigur ros, but thats not new. They are the only band I consistently listen to at all times and no matter what.


I am finally cleaning this garbage disposal of a bedroom. It makes me sick to sleep here. I have no idea where the energy came from, but I am gonna get back to the beast before I lose the little bit of motivation I have.

Speaking of motivation, I finally made some sort of painting. I guess it would be a mixed media painting. Fairly simple (though it is reversed in the picture) I'm pretty happy with it. It is a terrible Oprah club book that was horribly written, cut up, water colored, and modge podged to canvas. The idea came to me in a dream, to be completely honest. It feels good to have one of the many floating images out of my head and off my chest. I have accomplished something, even if its something small and trivial. I love how something so simple can still be pretty and art, and is still an expression of myself and what I feel. I call it "A Novel Romance"


Love it.

this is it.

the day has arrived. i am sitting on troy's couch waiting for him to shower. we're leaving for dulles in a little bit. im going to drop him off and return home alone.

as was expected, the day for this scary trip (my first ever driving by myself in, over, around, near, through dc) has turned out to be quite the fun, warm, pleasant, sunny, peachy day.

and by that, i mean i just spent a good hour scraping a layer of ice from all sides and surfaces of my car. and i was soaked. it wouldnt be bad if the temperature would rise. but the ice will turn to rain and the rain will turn to snow while i am on my way home.


thrills.

troy doesnt seem worried that the weather will be too bad for me to drive in, so i guess i shouldnt worry.


but then again, my car stalls out and starts smoking in deep puddles.


i need a new car. first item of business after graduation and new job.


in the mean time, i had a fight with my mother over sheets this morning. i had a fit because the sheets I bought (for over 50$) were given to my brother to use. my mother said i shouldnt take my problems with troy leaving out on her. i think she missed the point.

she doiesnt understand that i basically confine everything i own to one room. i buy all of my own things. the only public domain items in my house that i use are water, electricity, and food. i buy and wash my own sheets, towels, clothes. i use very few dishes, and wash them when i finish.

i swear, i was not made to share a house with five other people.

but graduation is around the corner. i cant wait.

so i got a little sidetracked.

the point is that i will be stuck with her for three weeks telling me any time i am angry that i should go yell at troy or that i shouldnt take my anger or frustration at his leaving out on her. she loves to rub this sort of stuff in.

i finally gave troy the big project. i hope he doesnt think it is dumb. i hope he appreciates it and likes it for what it is. i hope the whole thing wasnt a waste of my month and a half.

i skipped school yesterday. my department head/faculty adviser said i made the correct decision. i feel a little less guilty now.


im hungry. i took troy's word that he was going to make us breakfast. somehow i think our plans have changed.

The Illywhacker

I have never been unable to find a textbook in my life. I am usually the person who can find a copy cheaper and earlier than my classmates. I feel as thought the University gods have chosen my number: it is my time to suffer.

I was supposed to have read 33 chapters of this damnable book by tomorrow afternoon. Not going to happen.

The university bookstore informed me that the publisher is out of stock, the UB library has told me that they gave their last copy to a student this morning. Not a single Barnes and Noble in Maryland or Southern Pennsylvania have a copy. Neither Borders nor Greetings and Readings have had a copy in the past two weeks.

Lets not mention Villa Julie, McDaniel, towson, Goucher, St. Marys, all of the community colleges of Marlyland and the University Circuit.

Oh, but they do have a copy in College Park.

Yes, let me drive to college park for a textbook. I'll do it right after I get out of class tonight at 10:45pm.


Well, what can I do? I guess this means I get off easy. Oh happy day.

What the hell is an Illywhacker, anyway?

According to google definitions, an illywhacker is " a novel by Australian writer Peter Carey"

Wikipedia also says it is a novel, but adds that is an australian slang name for "a stick for hitting a child with". aside ending the definition with a preposition, Wikipedia also says an Illywhacker is "not allowed anymore." Now, I ask you, does that mean the word is not allowed "anymore" or the use of a stick to hit a child?

either way, the peer reviewers at Wikipedia have begun to slack and the book has vanished from the face of the earth.

Meanwhile, this computer lab (in the student center) smells like old, greasy popcorn and the keyboard on which I am typing is nasty. I think I shall walk to Starbucks.

Side note: why is Wikipedia not in the dictionary that governs typing online?

lets ramble.

i havnt written since the first day of school. it has been one of those weeks where alot happens but i dont feel like talking about anything, or nothing feels worthy of typing, so i have decided to just start typing and be done with it. i have to blog, right? any excuse? i told myself i was going to be all over this blog business to keep myself writing, so here i am, writing in my blog. but what about? i'll tell you one thing, i will not be grammar or spell checking this post. i simply do not feel like it.

how about the guy that was murdered at the video store on 140? pretty pathethic. so Tiffany is a girl i work with, and i found out that the guy was someone close to her. i dont know the relation, but what the paper isnt telling people is that the guy was beat to death with a fire extinguisher for a measly $1000. seriously. is it worth it? is that money so important that people must die over it? the guy's wife and son were waiting for him that night. he didnt come home at the normal time so they went to his video store to see what was up. they found him dead. can you imagine? i cant. i dont want to, and i never want to know what that is like.


i know i go on about this often, but i really do not understand people. as a whole. how can one human being feel that they are so much more important than others? do people think it is okay to do things like that? murder, scream at cops, hurt other people, destroy property, steal...do the people who do these things really think it is okay? or are they delusional? is there somethign wrong with them? i cant understand it.

i am sick of greed.

all i want is enough money to be comfortable: pay of my loan for school and not struggle to survive. thats not too much to ask. but i will not go out and destroy a family, take a life, and possibly land myself in jail for some extra cash.

i cant understand the things people do for a little bit of money. i am ashamed enough that i have to wait on people and serve them food for money. that is degrading enough. when someone murders for money, do they feel as though tthey are stooping really low? or is it something they enjoy?

do you have to enjoy killing to be a murderer?

i do the best i can to keep my temper under control because letting myself get angry is slightly embarrassing. are people embarrassed when they lose control to the point that they murder someone? do they feel good? do they feel anything? do murders feel bad for what they have done? do they regret it?


people make no sense.


but thats enough depressing news.


im pretty happy about my classes. i find myself having trouble getting into the swing of the semester, but then again i have only had two days of class so far. i guess it will be easier. i dont feel like doing work though, thats for sure. i like the classes, but im getting lazy. senioritis? seriously. i still have to buy two textbooks. and pay my application fee for graduation. and buy a cap and gown. though i wish i could find a way to see the cap and gown and compare it to the cap and gown i already have. oh, and i still havnt paid the sigma tau delta fee. gotta get on that. everyone wants money. i hate money.

im worried about filing taxes. i want to do it and get it over with. i just dont want to owe. thats all i really care about. i wish there were people who could direct you at tax time but not charge you hundreds of dollars. I have quite a few questions that i would love to ask. complicated, personalized questions. everyone gives me different answers. i think the whole thing is designed to be misleading. im convinced there are no answers. that even the irs has no idea what people should do. its just funny how each person does what they can and cheats the best they can to get as much money back as possible. meanwhile, the irs tries to cheat us out of as much money as they can. the only difference is that if a person gets too much money, the irs can chase them down and punish them. if the irs cheats me out of money, all i can do is hold a grudge against them and be angry that tehy are such a ripoff. how unfair.

i have alot of reading to do. too bad i have to wait till tomorrow to buy one of the books i need to read. i will buy it tomorrow, and then i need to read through chapter 33 of said book by tuesday. this is what i dont like about college: everything is excessive. they dont just make you pay money, they make you pay excessive amounts of money. they dont make you read, they make you read tooooo much. and writing wouldnt be bad if i just wrote alot. but i write more than alot. i write non-stop. excessively, if you will.

but the world is still spinning, and there is supposed to be an ice storm tomorrow. im not sure how thats related, but im hungry.

first day and beyond

Yesterday was my first day of school. I had a good day, but it was the start of my last semester, and I am nervous.

In spite of being such a good student, inspite of my accomplishments as a student, I have major misgivings about my ability to function outside of the academic world.

I have been a student for as long as I can remember. Like most of my peers, I have never known a world without school. Now, I face having to find and succeed at a job after graduation. Scary.

I watch so many people pick up and move on to the perfect job and I wonder if I can do the same. I have worked so hard for so long to ensure that I can get a job, but I honestly wonder if I ever will.

Employers do not care about my accomplishments as a student. They only want to know if I am qualified for the position. Most employers seem more worried about years of experience in the field than an actual degree. I have no experience.

Times like this I feel the need to override my goals and plans and just jump into Grad school to avoid the struggle of making it in the real world. But that goes against everything I want.

I was looking at Grad School possibilities last night. I am still stuck on Emerson for some reason. They have two parallel programs that look awesome. I love the location. I love the city. I love the idea of going to a school that centers around the arts. I am sick of going to a business and Law school.

But I want things before Grad school. Things like kids and a job and a house and travel experience.

But I also want the security of having a higher degree than most people in the market. I want to know that I can do whatever I want.

I really just hope I can land a great job. Maybe my first one will suck, but I want a job. Without that, I can kiss Grad school goodbye.

This blog has depressed me. I'm gonna go clean something.


As a side note, I think I am going to use my blog for class assignments. That seems like a good excuse to write.

In other news, I am working on a pretty big project. I hope to finish it in time. In time for what, you ask? just in time is all. It has not left the planning stage, but when all is said and done it will be a compilation of those things I love to do most.

So it goes.

SkiLiberty

After years of seeing Ski Liberty in the distance from the giant hill on 97, I finally got a chance to go there. We (my family, troy, and Aaron) went tubing last night and then stopped at Tony’s in Tawneytown for some pizza. I expected tubing to cost more than $16 per person, but by the end of the night, I changed my tune. 16 is reasonable, but the lines to get up the hill and then back down are so long that you really only have time to go down four times.

On a week night, or any night when it is not so crowded 16 would be reasonable, but the crowds made the lines move so slowly that it really wasn’t worth it.

I find it ironic that on a crowded night, like a weekend night, the cost is $16, but on a weeknight, when you will get more chances to go down the hill and the overall experience will be better, it only cost $12. Makes no sense. In the future, I will want to go on a weeknight.

I loved the snow machines. It was awesome watching them blow snow high into the air, but the snow would hit you in the face on the way down.

It really was not too cold last night, either. I did not start getting cold until the end of the night. Other than my face, I was warm.

I took many pictures with my Lc-a, but I am worried that it was too dark for them to turn out correctly. If I could be sure, I would just double expose the whole roll, but I also took some direct sunlight pictures, and they would white out. I often miss having a display screen to preview my pictures. But I guess that’s part of the game. The nature of the beast, as Troy would say.

Today is my last free day. I plan to do nothing. Nothing. I am going to wear pj’s all day and a hoodie, and my Ugg boots. I plan to not go anywhere and sitting around Troy’s house all night. Maybe watching a movie. Gonna be a good day.

Now, if my parking pass could be here today, that would be great.

Schedule for the semester:
Monday:
Writer As Reader- 5:30-8:00
Archeology Of Language- 8:15-10:45

Tuesday:
Publication and Performance-2:00-4:30
Seminar in Writing: the Modern Tradition- 5:30-8:00

Wednesday:
Work.

Thursday:
Work.

Friday:
Contemporary Literature- 2:00-4:30

the answer to the war against terror.

A friend of mine figured out a way to fix all of the world's problems with the click of a button.

Lately I am upset with the Baltimore City School Board. They have decided to pay students for increasing their individual test scores by 5%. The board is prepared to spend thousands of dollars bribing high school students to work harder to pass state tests.

I attended highschool in Baltimore City for two years. Terrible place to learn. I am living proof that Standardized tests do not prove a student's ability to learn or to think. I failed my Math SAT two times. Not for lack of trying, but because I am not good at taking test. After feeling stupid and inadequate compared to my peers, I gave up on school and my GPA dropped. When I moved to Carroll County, I learned that standardized tests really mean nothing, that they are a way for school systems to compete and earn money.

I began taking classes that focused on thinking and writing, and my GPA jumped to a 4.0, and has not dropped more than .1 since.

Now, while I am one of the top 10% of my University, many of those students who scored well on standardized tests are either college drop outs, did not attend college at all, or gave up their academic life for retail and other minimum-wage jobs. I have nothing against those people, I do not look down on them. I understand that, while they scored well on tests, they were never taught to think or solve problems.

Success in the real world does not depend on answering all of the questions correctly. Success is measured by the ability to solve problems. Not problems given in paragraph form with one variable missing, but real problems scattered haphazardly throughout larger problems.

Even a student who scores well on a math test might not have the skills needed to create and maintain a budget. Students who can find the "main idea" in a paragraph, or the "subject" of a sentence may be incapable of constructing a well-written essay.

There are seniors at my University who cannot construct a paragraph. Many are my age and have completed the same amount of school, yet cannot write a proper sentence. They may understand the definition of a "compound-complex sentence" but cannot create one.

I wish standardized test could be eliminated from the curriculum.

Why does education have to depend so heavily on people who have no idea what makes a child learn. Why will school boards never listen to the teachers who actually interact and care about each child?

Do other countries have this problem? Or is it just this mass of land we mistake for the most powerful and wealthy country in the world?

injustice and a croched hat

Yes, the economy rises and falls. While that is true, the economy has never fallen in my lifetime, and that makes the possibility of a recession scary. In a world that relies so heavily on money, a dearth of money, or an excess of worthless money can be detrimental to those of us who are just now graduating from college and beginning to establish ourselves as members of the economy.

I worry lately about finding a job. I have a fear that I will have a nice, shiny new degree that will be nothing more but a useless sheet of paper, much like what the paper dollar may become.

My manager at work bought a BMW yesterday. I wonder, with the economy being the way it is, how can people spend frivolously? His reason for buying it was that he wanted something flashier than his Acura.

Maybe I am too cautious. I wont take that as an insult. I know that an economy cannot turn itself around in a day, and that decades of bad habits and over-zealous credit card companies cannot change overnight. I doubt we have hit close enough to rock bottom for change to even be possible at this point. Life has to get much worse before change can happen.

I would not call my mother a very wise woman, but she made a really good point: people on the other side of the world can die every day, and no one will care; a hurricane, volcano, fire, flood, tornado, terrorist attack, can destroy a neighboring city, and no one will care. But if you attack someone’s wallet, you will have his or her undivided attention.

A recession in such a selfish country is the only injustice that people will feel.

Meanwhile, I worry because that’s what I do, and I wonder how long it will be before I can be financially stable. Kids are out of the question for at least a few more years. Even a House will be next to impossible if money keeps killing itself off. Student Loans alone will be my constant companion through these hard times of economic tragedy.

Troy doesn’t seem to be worried. Maybe he is right. But the truth is that I would rather worry a bit and be prepared for something ten times worse than what happens, than to ignore the signs and be unprepared for even the slightest hardship.

When credit card companies cant afford the consumer’s debt, something is wrong.

On a lighter note, I learned to crochet a hat. I finally made one that I am satisfied with. I’ll post a picture of it in a day or so. It still needs some work and a matching scarf ☺

Until then, its textbook buying time. Another waste of money and trees. All textbooks that do not necessarily need color pages should be printed in black and white, and cheaper paper. It should be the law. Its all about making students spend more money than they have to, isn’t it?