I don't want to brag (to those who know me know that's a lie) but I read the newspaper every day. Or at least I try to find time for it. It really doesn't take to long to, if nothing else, skim all of the headlines and educate myself a little bit.
I only make the point of saying this because I'm a college student, surrounded by college students. We are supposed to be the best and the brightest, yet on a consistent basis my peers have no idea what's really going on around them. I understand that we are dedicating a lot of time to our school work, learning exactly what our major entails, but my worry is that no one really wants to be educated.
Stay with me, here's what I mean. People hate homework, I get that, I'm the leader of that crusade, but SO many people hate what they are learning about. I don't understand. I mean I know that we can't all find our passion, but this that we are learning right now, is ideally what we are going to do for the rest of our lives. It just worries me. I'm so fortunate to love what I'm doing. Every class, every speech, I know what I want to deliver on or write about. It's great when I "get" to prepare for these things. Then I see others that seem to loath what they are learning, and I just hope they get to end up happy.
I know what you're thinking, great tangent Matt but what does that have to do with reading a Newspaper? Reading a Newspaper, to me, is the need to know what's going on. I'm not going to vouch for the prestige of the Democrat Gazette but we are about to venture into the real world. We need to know what's going on around us. It's just a showing of ignorance when you can't keep up with a conversation of a current topic. If nothing else, 17 percent of Arkansas have college degrees. We are representing a group that should be the best and the brightest, yet we are willing to go into the "conversation" unprepared.
UCA offers free newspapers to all students, they are in bins all around campus. This is not homework, it's a rewarding feeling to know what is going on. To be sitting in a group of adults and be able to state the facts to couple with your opinions. It just worries me.
I hope this made sense since i wrote it at different times. I don't like to go back and reread my posts immediately or I'll second guess myself
Afterthought: Don't you hate it when you open your mouth and a stream of spit shoots out. That's the WORST hahaha
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Oh Television
So my roommate and I don't pay for television. We have an antenna for football games but that's about it. What we do have, however, is internet. I also have a subscription to Netflix. Which by the way, with an antenna, Netflix, and the internet, you can get access to any television that you could possibly want.
About two weeks ago our internet went out. I don't know how it happened, but I'm starting to learn why it happened.
Do you ever feel like your life has become a routine? You go to class, go to work, go home, get on facebook, watch some on Hulu with your girl. Then you go to bed. And then it's the same thing again and again.
Well here's a reality check, time spent watching television with someone, while it may be fun, is NOT quality time.
Last night Ashley and I laid in my bed talking for about an hour and a half. She is hilarious and amazing. :) where have I been for the last couple years??
Couples tend to have a falling out after they spend enough years together. They don't understand, they are together all the time, but feel no connection.
It's because we aren't "really" together. When Ashley and I are together in silence, that's when i remember how funny she is. That when she isn't being shushed for a television show. Sometimes we get so caught up in character's lives that we forget to live our own. I don't think that we need to get rid of television, I'm not one of those bandwagon protesters that think "there's nothing good on television anymore." There's plenty of good on television, and it doesn't have to be some culty show in order for us to be able to brag about enjoying the humor. But that's another tangent that I don't need to go on right now.
I just wanna say that television has scary power. My parents spent the last 26 years "happily" married. But when my sister and I finally moved out, they turned off the television and got scared of each other. Do I think that they were always this way? Absolutely not. But if we aren't careful sitting on our couches life just might pass us by.
About two weeks ago our internet went out. I don't know how it happened, but I'm starting to learn why it happened.
Do you ever feel like your life has become a routine? You go to class, go to work, go home, get on facebook, watch some on Hulu with your girl. Then you go to bed. And then it's the same thing again and again.
Well here's a reality check, time spent watching television with someone, while it may be fun, is NOT quality time.
Last night Ashley and I laid in my bed talking for about an hour and a half. She is hilarious and amazing. :) where have I been for the last couple years??
Couples tend to have a falling out after they spend enough years together. They don't understand, they are together all the time, but feel no connection.
It's because we aren't "really" together. When Ashley and I are together in silence, that's when i remember how funny she is. That when she isn't being shushed for a television show. Sometimes we get so caught up in character's lives that we forget to live our own. I don't think that we need to get rid of television, I'm not one of those bandwagon protesters that think "there's nothing good on television anymore." There's plenty of good on television, and it doesn't have to be some culty show in order for us to be able to brag about enjoying the humor. But that's another tangent that I don't need to go on right now.
I just wanna say that television has scary power. My parents spent the last 26 years "happily" married. But when my sister and I finally moved out, they turned off the television and got scared of each other. Do I think that they were always this way? Absolutely not. But if we aren't careful sitting on our couches life just might pass us by.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Last Night
Last night was like any other night. Had home-made chicken burritos with Ashley, watched an episode of Bones, and then saw Spike Lee and Minnie Jean Brown-Trickey discuss the Little Rock Nine crisis.
Wait what?
What a way to celebrate black history month. The shortest of the year. Spike Lee came to campus last night and of course I had tickets to it. He was pretty great. He was real though and I think that rubbed a few people the wrong way.
When a television show tells you, "follow your dreams or you'll be sad," and then the character never does, and they are sad, so then they follow their dreams and it works out and somehow they make a ton of money doing it. Ya that's always nice
but unrealistic
But here was this man, who did just that. He was going to direct films. And he did. And you know what he told us, "follow your dreams." :). That is who needs to be telling me this. A man, who despite "more african american males go to prison than graduate from high school," he graduated from high school, then college, then film school. A man who despite, "two percent of teachers in the United States are African American," is a professor at NYU and before that Harvard. That is who needs to tell me to follow my dreams.
but here's his controversial statement of the night. The statement that even though mothers throughout the audience audibly praised him the entire night, were silenced when he said it. Followed by the applause of, in my opinion, semi-ignorant students.
He said, "parents are the number one destroyer of dreams." I hope I didn't misquote him as he went out of his way to say it three times, "because we're in Arkansas." :)
I can't imagine how heavy the hearts of the parents in the audience felt while their kids sat next to them applauding. It makes me realize how fortunate I am. My parents never made me be anyone. I was left to decide who I was. Yes their opinions were known, however the decision was ultimately mine. What I wanted to be in college, high school, even that awful mop top hair in middle school. My parents knew that ultimately I had to be who I wanted to be and all they needed to do was love me. When I got to college they didn't care that I had no major freshman year, or that I ended up changing the one I picked. When I decided this year to be a fifth year senior they told me, "We're paying this off together, do what you gotta do." They always told me, "these couple years are nothing compared to the length of the rest of your life. Make the best decisions for you, because you have to live it."
So I guess I don't really know what it's like to have parents who squash your dreams. I am blessed for that. Thank you Spike Lee for that revelation.
I think I'll go call my mom :)
Wait what?
What a way to celebrate black history month. The shortest of the year. Spike Lee came to campus last night and of course I had tickets to it. He was pretty great. He was real though and I think that rubbed a few people the wrong way.
When a television show tells you, "follow your dreams or you'll be sad," and then the character never does, and they are sad, so then they follow their dreams and it works out and somehow they make a ton of money doing it. Ya that's always nice
but unrealistic
But here was this man, who did just that. He was going to direct films. And he did. And you know what he told us, "follow your dreams." :). That is who needs to be telling me this. A man, who despite "more african american males go to prison than graduate from high school," he graduated from high school, then college, then film school. A man who despite, "two percent of teachers in the United States are African American," is a professor at NYU and before that Harvard. That is who needs to tell me to follow my dreams.
but here's his controversial statement of the night. The statement that even though mothers throughout the audience audibly praised him the entire night, were silenced when he said it. Followed by the applause of, in my opinion, semi-ignorant students.
He said, "parents are the number one destroyer of dreams." I hope I didn't misquote him as he went out of his way to say it three times, "because we're in Arkansas." :)
I can't imagine how heavy the hearts of the parents in the audience felt while their kids sat next to them applauding. It makes me realize how fortunate I am. My parents never made me be anyone. I was left to decide who I was. Yes their opinions were known, however the decision was ultimately mine. What I wanted to be in college, high school, even that awful mop top hair in middle school. My parents knew that ultimately I had to be who I wanted to be and all they needed to do was love me. When I got to college they didn't care that I had no major freshman year, or that I ended up changing the one I picked. When I decided this year to be a fifth year senior they told me, "We're paying this off together, do what you gotta do." They always told me, "these couple years are nothing compared to the length of the rest of your life. Make the best decisions for you, because you have to live it."
So I guess I don't really know what it's like to have parents who squash your dreams. I am blessed for that. Thank you Spike Lee for that revelation.
I think I'll go call my mom :)
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Our Movement
The other night I was sitting in a classroom with my fellow seniors and I overheard a conversation that, while I hear it all the time, pushed a couple of my buttons.
A group of people were talking about a new Hilary Duff video where she tells people not to say the word "gay". The immediate question that arose in the group, "Is Hilary Duff gay?" The determined answer, "she must be because she supports gay rights".
In this month, black history month, we can't stop but think, "what is our cause, what is our struggle, what is our movment?"
It's staring us right in the face, but we disregard it because it doesn't effect us directly. The American mindset. In that same class we happened to watch Dr. King's I Have a Dream Speech. How relevant. I would never trivialize or minimize what the things that Dr. King and other civil rights leaders did to change rights for African Americans in our country. However, you can't help but think it took a lot of white people in the background to really make it happen. So why would white people care? A white person is never going to be black.
It's about the injustice. It's about rights for everyone. Is that not what America stands for? Equal rights for all people. White, black, male, female, straight............
and there it is. Our movement, our cause.
Gay people are just that, people. People who deserve rights, people who deserve respect, people who deserve to be treated just like me.
I won't get into all of my individual problems with it, because I'm far too opinionated and it would take a LOT of pages. I do want to point out that civil unions, which are even accepted in the majority of states in the U.S. still aren't sufficient and are virtually an insult to everyone.
I understand if people of faith don't want to "corrupt" what they believe marriage is. I understand that, "marriage" has a certain connotation to it that I have no problem with the Christians keeping. The problem lies in the separation of church and state. Marriage is more than the wedding. It has a ton of laws attached to it and you have to pay to get a "license". These laws are what gay couples deserve equal rights to and these laws aren't being provided through the civil union.
Gay couples can't visit their dying partner because they are not their "husband" or "wife". Gay couples don't have automatic rights to their partners estate when they pass away. If I were to pass away and have had children, and I had a gay sibling or even parent, they could not adopt my children. Instead they would either be given to a stranger or be stuck in a shelter.
Gay people are people, and it takes all of us gay and straight to stop this glaring injustice in U.S. history. When our children look back in history class at who we were during this time period are we going to be the leaders of a movement that was past due or the Bible thumpers who said that gay rights were wrong (sounds a lot like the excuse used for suppressing the blacks)
Food for thought.
A group of people were talking about a new Hilary Duff video where she tells people not to say the word "gay". The immediate question that arose in the group, "Is Hilary Duff gay?" The determined answer, "she must be because she supports gay rights".
In this month, black history month, we can't stop but think, "what is our cause, what is our struggle, what is our movment?"
It's staring us right in the face, but we disregard it because it doesn't effect us directly. The American mindset. In that same class we happened to watch Dr. King's I Have a Dream Speech. How relevant. I would never trivialize or minimize what the things that Dr. King and other civil rights leaders did to change rights for African Americans in our country. However, you can't help but think it took a lot of white people in the background to really make it happen. So why would white people care? A white person is never going to be black.
It's about the injustice. It's about rights for everyone. Is that not what America stands for? Equal rights for all people. White, black, male, female, straight............
and there it is. Our movement, our cause.
Gay people are just that, people. People who deserve rights, people who deserve respect, people who deserve to be treated just like me.
I won't get into all of my individual problems with it, because I'm far too opinionated and it would take a LOT of pages. I do want to point out that civil unions, which are even accepted in the majority of states in the U.S. still aren't sufficient and are virtually an insult to everyone.
I understand if people of faith don't want to "corrupt" what they believe marriage is. I understand that, "marriage" has a certain connotation to it that I have no problem with the Christians keeping. The problem lies in the separation of church and state. Marriage is more than the wedding. It has a ton of laws attached to it and you have to pay to get a "license". These laws are what gay couples deserve equal rights to and these laws aren't being provided through the civil union.
Gay couples can't visit their dying partner because they are not their "husband" or "wife". Gay couples don't have automatic rights to their partners estate when they pass away. If I were to pass away and have had children, and I had a gay sibling or even parent, they could not adopt my children. Instead they would either be given to a stranger or be stuck in a shelter.
Gay people are people, and it takes all of us gay and straight to stop this glaring injustice in U.S. history. When our children look back in history class at who we were during this time period are we going to be the leaders of a movement that was past due or the Bible thumpers who said that gay rights were wrong (sounds a lot like the excuse used for suppressing the blacks)
Food for thought.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)