Paying for College

So, in order to keep from having to start selling body parts for money in order to fund college, I've taken on some seasonal work.  Fun, fun, right?

Interestingly, the only place hiring here at home is the bookstore, which is short on employees and then some.  The good news is I get to work a lot, which means I'll get to make some money over this break.  Yeah for minimum wage!  

Meanwhile, the bills from school are starting to make my parents (who agreed to help me pay for college) panic.  Costs add up quick, and I'm not even at the half-way point yet.  

So, my big question is: How do get costs down to a point where my parents will cease to panic?

The answer?  Well, here are my ideas...

• Regain HOPE. (It wondered off at the end of last semester and refuses to come back until I have 60 credit hours.)
• Avoid foreign languages for the time being. (I think Spanish 102 scared off HOPE.)
• Find scholarships that aren't income or luck based. (Grrr... why does land make my dad's income look high?  It's not like you can sell it in this market.)
• Take some transient courses at smaller colleges.
• Work like the Dickens!

Any other ideas?  Because I'm out.  Financial aid was beyond unhelpful with this question.  They told me I should make up a budget in order to pay.  Thanks a lot.  If you get paid $50 a week for part time work, and you owe $300 at the end of the month, it doesn't matter what you do, you are going to be short some cash.

So, I'm almost ready to give in and do something really crazy in order to pay these college bills, like sell a kidney...  I can just see it now on ebay:

1 Kidney in Fairly good condition - Is slightly used and smells a little funny but does what it is supposed to... most of the time anyway.

What can I do?

As somebody who asks way too many questions of random strangers anyway, I decided to go for a degree that would allow me to ask lots of questions once I finally get out into the big bad working world.  The natural choice, for me anyway, was journalism.  

Of course after having made this decision, I have felt the need to one up myself by becoming the best journalist that I can be and, hopefully, one of the best journalists of my time.  The problem with this of course being that I have no idea how to be a good journalist, much less a great journalist, so I turned to Google to answer a few of my questions about journalism.  As always, the variety of results was pleasing varied and there is no shortage of ideas on what to do in order to become a great journalist.  Unfortunately, I don't think that it is physically possible to do everything that was suggested.  

It really comes down to: What can I do with the time and resources that I have?

I guess that question applies to a lot of things though: Family, friends, vacations, school, a place to live, transportation, etc.  I'll admit that the time is more of a concern then the resources part for me in this.  I am presently reading a book on early American journalism and millions of news sources are at my finger tips thanks to the internet.  At the moment, my greatest struggle seems to be finding the time between work and classes (which I will be returning to again, all too soon) to actually read enough of this material to count for anything or, better yet, to actually send out more then the occasional article on this or that to local papers.  

Not having enough time is a lame excuse though, I'll admit.  We all have the same 24 hours in a day, so I guess I'll just have to make better use of the time I have.  For me I guess that means less tv and surfing on the net and more reading and writing.  

It's time to do this.  No more procrastination.  I am taking the leap.  I will be a great journalist.

(The clip may seem a little melodramatic, but that is how I feel when I'm getting ready to talk to an editor for the first time.  It is seems epic when I find solid ground.)

Final Exams

Welcome to finals week (aka - college hell)

So, in honor of all the students who are presently suffering due to sudden onsets of brain cramps and freaking out over how they just blanked on their last test, I decided to make a little test of my own.  Bwahah ha ha!

Here goes.  No googling allowed! (I did give you links to the answers though...)

1. What is the 1st amendment?  

2. What is Obama's stance on the war in Iraq?

3.  What position was Hillary Clinton offered in the White House?

4. Name three holidays that occur in December.

5. What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

Happy finals! :)

College

So, what is the point of a college education?  Why do we shovel out tons of money, often more then we can hope to earn in several years in our chosen field, in order to be in this place?

Why is college important?  I find myself asking this question to myself over and over again.  There has to be a reason why I'm here...

I suppose that I should have prefaced all of this with the fact that I'm presently becoming increasingly annoyed with the repetition that characterizes my classes.  I keep shaking  waking up to realize that I've stared off into space for the majority of the class period in most of my classes.  My grades are still decent, but that's only because so much of the information is review that it doesn't matter that I zoned out.  I'd probably be doing even better if it wasn't for the multiple choice.  Multiple choice is the bane of my existence.  It just seems so much like guessing that I have a hard time taking it seriously.  (My SAT score is a pure and simple miracle of statistics.)  Multiple choice makes all the information seem very trivial.  I even half expect the lights to go down and dramatic music to play like on a game show after I finish reading a question.

Back to the original question though:  Why do we go to college?

No idea, but let me know if you figure it out.  In the meantime, I've got some inner-classroom-space-exploration to do.

Election Day

Here it is.  Election day is here.  Today is the day when we the results of months of campaigning will be made clear.

It isn't just the presidential election either though.  This election is for sheriffs, school board members, tax commissioners, state representatives, and so many others.

Lets face it though: At midnight on Tuesday night, the biggest thing keeping us up will be the presidential results.

So, on that note.  Go out and vote this year.  And for the love of all things decent, lets hope for no hanging chads, limited voter fraud and that the Florida results will come in, preferably, before California's.  You've gotta love Florida.

Happy voting!

The Secret to Success is B

So, I was sitting there in my English class on Tuesday when it hit me, mid- well, Midterm. I now know the secret to success in life that the school systems in high school and college have been try to teach us, the poor mis-guided students, since we first came into their "care."

So, here is the secret. It is the only explanation that makes since really when you consider the education system. It is:

Multiple choice.

Shocking, right? And yet I've always kind of suspected that might be it since a teacher first placed a standardized test on my desk at the tender age of 8. That has to be it.

After all, why else would so many schools insist on forcing all students to take so many tests that they could not possibly be fully prepared for, unless that was the secret to success in life? Why else would we need to take SATs, EOCTs, ACTs, Benchmarks, AP Tests and Graduation Tests? Not to mention the sundry of other tests that we encounter along the way in this format. Why would this specific testing style continue to follow us throughout our college careers, unless it held some sort of barring on our future success in life?

That brings me back to the midterm where the options are swimming before my eyes. I know the material, but I couldn't tell you which letter is correct to save my life. So, I close my eyes and choose with a blind pencil. Hmmm... functionalism was the French Feminist that talked about patriarchy... I guess go with b. again. 

So, I flee from the English department after the test over to the Communication department to sulk in the computer lab. This secret has only penetrated a few of the shallower levels of this department, where non-majors still tread. I slip farther and farther away from this great secret of success, but that's ok, who ever wanted to be successful anyway. 

I just want to write.

My Favorite Book

It's been a long day.  Those long days seem to be coming around more and more often lately.  I guess that is just what happens as you get older.  Not that I'm old yet, but still.  

The work that I am supposed to do so I'll maintain my GPA, the work that I should do to build my portfolio, the work that I will go to at 8 am tomorrow morning.... It all weighs on me.  It barrages me with a quickly growing list of people to call or e-mail, things to remember, things to read and things to research.  The list grows until I suddenly try to fight back.  I race through the readings, spend time with people and even make a few calls.  It is only a minor dent in the list, but a dent never looked so good.

So, I escape for a few moments.  I watch House with a friend then, after we've parted, I walk back to my room and pull a book off the shelf.  It is an old paperback that I got way back in middle school.  Its spine shows several clear white lines from where the book has been opened so many times.  This is my favorite book.

I turn to a page right in the middle.  I know this story forwards and backwards.  The page takes me straight to a conversation between the characters and the ref before a game:

"Are the edges on that thing sharp?" the spokesman asked, spying the general's axe.

"Razor," Badaxe replied haughtily.

"But he won't use it on anyone," I added hastily, suddenly remembering the "no edged weapons" rule.[...]

"Oh, I have no worries on that score," Greybeard responded easily. "As with all games, the crossbowmen will be quick to eliminate any player who chooses to ignore the rules."

I skim pages and read over the place where the "hero" accidentally becomes the teacher of an unlikely student then over to a conversation between that same "hero," a dragon, an exceptionally large woman and a scaly green guy. 

What gets me is the comedy of the book.  It makes me smile to read about all the unlikely situations that sound strangely similar to some situations where I have found myself, only minus the scales and the axes, in the not too distant past.  

I consider actually re-reading it for the hundredth time, but then I spot my to do list.  So much to do, so little time.  Maybe I'll read just a few chapters.  I practically have it memorized anyway.

The Meaning of Life

What is the meaning of life?  

Scholars have asked this question since as far back as man can remember, yet no one seems to know the answer.  It seems to be a simple question.  After all, it basically asks why are we here?  There has to be a reason.  Everything has some sort of reason, even if the reasons behind some things are stupid or confused in purpose or ineffective.  There is still a reason.

So, why are we here? On this planet.  In these specific geographic locals where we find ourselves.  Among these people with whom we interact on a daily basis.  What is the purpose of our being here?

There does not seem to be an easy answer in sight, so I find the answer the same way many modern people seek to have their queries answered:  I google it.  The answers display an interesting variety of opinions and philosophies.

The answers are:

• Monty Python
• 42
• God 
  
• Oneness
• Nothingness
• Life
• Love
• It is meaningless 
• 42 (about 70 more times)

There were a few others but that is the basic jest of it.  So, this leaves me back where I started, only with a little more information this time.  Why are we here?  What am I supposed to believe?  How will the meaning of life, affect my life?  But this is a big question, and I should have known better then to expect a simple answer from a big question.  Big questions give you more questions.  That is as simple as it is going to get.  

A few sites were of some help though, in this quest for truth.  First, a philosophical approach then, surprisingly, a pop culture character worked to give insight.

http://www.themeaningoflife.org/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb3GZ5DfaTY

Ultimately, I don't think I was really looking for an answer anyway, so much as wondering if there was one.  I like to ask questions.  I want to know what is there to be known, even if I can't know it all.  Maybe that is the meaning of life: Asking.