Woo! I got second place in the contest! Not bad for my first essay contest...now back to the books- I have an exam to study for and a research paper presentation to work on for Comp II. Man, I hate research papers...
Carry on!
Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
College Algebra Test 2
I hate taking tests. For some reason I tend to freeze up during tests, especially math tests, even after I studied my ass off. Take my last test in College Algebra, for example. I know the material back and forth, but during the test nerves take over. As a result, I made some stupid mistakes on a few problems. They were very minor, true, (I still got an A on the test) but it was enough to make me a little disgusted with myself. I guess the key is just to slow down and take my time as much as possible...and just relax.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
The Dream Fulfilled Essay Contest
Being one who more or less likes to write, I had to try my hand at the essay contest being held at SJRCC. I don't know if my entry is what they were expecting, but here it is.
Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream of equality, true equality, for his people. Now, some forty years after Dr. King’s dream struck the spark that ignited a people’s passion for freedom and equality, we have an African-American president: Barack Obama. Has his election fulfilled Dr. King’s ultimate dream of true equality for all? While it is most certainly a giant step in that direction, I must submit that it has not. I do not believe that there is true equality yet, and maybe never will be, at least not in our lifetimes.
The reason I believe this way is simple: as painful as it might be to admit, we are all still racist to some degree. I don’t mean the cruel, hate-filled connotations that one usually associates with the word, such as Klan members in their white sheets, or Black Panthers rebelling against whitey (although unfortunately, remnants of these out-of-date philosophies still hang on), I mean the way we look at and refer to ourselves in the most fundamental manner. We tend to classify ourselves by and be proud of our heritage, whether we are Black, White, Asian, Native American or whatever, which is fine in and of itself, but we don’t see a man standing in front of us, we see a black man, a white man, a red man. Even though we are well on our way to judging a man not by the color of his skin, but by his accomplishments and his character, we still see the skin. We are still in a stage where we remind ourselves that it is the first African-American coach to win the Super Bowl; the first African-American man to lead the Republican Party; the first African-American President of the United States. We still rely on affirmative action programs to project the image of equality for not only African-Americans, but for other minorities and women as well, even though the programs are not meritocratic in nature. We live in a politically correct, hyphenated society. We are still at a point where we put our ancestral heritage above our nationality, and the hyphens not only divide the terms with which we describe ourselves, they also divide us as Americans. In the war for racial equality, we still live in a new, nervous cease fire.
I recently read an essay by a man named Eric Liu titled “A Chinaman’s Chance.” In it he said, “Growing up, when other kids would ask whether I was Chinese or Korean or Japanese, I would reply, a little petulantly, ‘American.’” That one sentence sums up the attitude I’m talking about. We are one people and one nation and should learn better to behave as such. Am I proud to be an English-Irish-German-Native American-American? Of course! But I am even prouder to be just a plain old unhyphenated American. I think Dr. King would have liked it that way.
Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream of equality, true equality, for his people. Now, some forty years after Dr. King’s dream struck the spark that ignited a people’s passion for freedom and equality, we have an African-American president: Barack Obama. Has his election fulfilled Dr. King’s ultimate dream of true equality for all? While it is most certainly a giant step in that direction, I must submit that it has not. I do not believe that there is true equality yet, and maybe never will be, at least not in our lifetimes.
The reason I believe this way is simple: as painful as it might be to admit, we are all still racist to some degree. I don’t mean the cruel, hate-filled connotations that one usually associates with the word, such as Klan members in their white sheets, or Black Panthers rebelling against whitey (although unfortunately, remnants of these out-of-date philosophies still hang on), I mean the way we look at and refer to ourselves in the most fundamental manner. We tend to classify ourselves by and be proud of our heritage, whether we are Black, White, Asian, Native American or whatever, which is fine in and of itself, but we don’t see a man standing in front of us, we see a black man, a white man, a red man. Even though we are well on our way to judging a man not by the color of his skin, but by his accomplishments and his character, we still see the skin. We are still in a stage where we remind ourselves that it is the first African-American coach to win the Super Bowl; the first African-American man to lead the Republican Party; the first African-American President of the United States. We still rely on affirmative action programs to project the image of equality for not only African-Americans, but for other minorities and women as well, even though the programs are not meritocratic in nature. We live in a politically correct, hyphenated society. We are still at a point where we put our ancestral heritage above our nationality, and the hyphens not only divide the terms with which we describe ourselves, they also divide us as Americans. In the war for racial equality, we still live in a new, nervous cease fire.
I recently read an essay by a man named Eric Liu titled “A Chinaman’s Chance.” In it he said, “Growing up, when other kids would ask whether I was Chinese or Korean or Japanese, I would reply, a little petulantly, ‘American.’” That one sentence sums up the attitude I’m talking about. We are one people and one nation and should learn better to behave as such. Am I proud to be an English-Irish-German-Native American-American? Of course! But I am even prouder to be just a plain old unhyphenated American. I think Dr. King would have liked it that way.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Blog's Away!
I'm over 40. I'm back in college after 26 years. That's it. That's the premise of my blog. But I'm not alone. There are plenty of over fortyers taking the plunge and going back to school. Are we all crazy? Are we just gluttons for punishment as we do Algebra problems till the brains leak out of our ears? Of course! But it's a good kind of crazy. I don't know about the rest of the crazies, but for myself, the reasons are simple. At first I did it because I want a degree and a better job. But as I started getting back into the routine of being a student, I realized that in spite of the mental exercises involved, I was rather enjoying myself! I like working with new computer applications. I really like working on writing assignments, this blog being an example of that- I guess I don't get enough of it during class, so it had to spill out of my brain and puddle up here. I even like working on those endless damned Algebra problems to an extent, although I still don't know where they're come in handy in real life. Through the haze of x and ys and complex numbers and square roots, I can see a higher purpose than just a better job or a diploma. I can see the value of an education for the love of knowledge. The more I learn, the more I want to learn, and that feeling is a miracle in itself. If we can instill in our children the love of learning for learning's sake, our society would take off like a rocket. Knowledge is the key to enlightenment. We must take our children and give them the desire to flip the switch that will light their lives. I wish I had found that switch twenty years ago, but at least I have found it now, and I will be illuminated for the rest of my life.
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