Schools need foreign language focus
By Allison Griner | Aug. 24, 2009Having taken French classes since high school, I am always impressed with someone who has actually learned to be fluent in a foreign language.
Having taken French classes since high school, I am always impressed with someone who has actually learned to be fluent in a foreign language.
Health care reform, Michael Jackson and Lady GaGa's penis. What do all of these things have in common? Together they comprise 99.9% of the news cycle, and I never want to hear about any of them ever again. Under any circumstances. Period.
To all you students who are new to UF, welcome to the next four years of your life. Returning Gators, try to cut the freshmen some slack and welcome back as well.
This past summer, while everyone was in a chilled-out, lazy summer mood, I was the girl armed with her class schedule, 50 fliers, a campus map and the bus schedule. I was the one spinning around wildly with a deer-in-headlights look on my face, trying to figure out where my next class was.
December of my junior year, I was sitting in my friend Jen's apartment drinking Sangria. I was also about to fail my organic chemistry class, which I was taking for the third time after dropping it twice.
Alas, you've made it. Your 'rents are gone, you're already sick of Broward Dining and you may or may not have thrown up in your pillow case last night. (R.I.P. Fall 2006; I haven't eaten pad thai since.)
Although I doubt that I am the first person at UF that you have heard this from, I would like to welcome you to the University of Florida!
This following is an open letter to all new freshmen at UF.
Writing columns for the Alligator was never my first choice-I wanted to be a reporter. I've since realized I have zero aptitude for that profession, but that's what I wanted to do. After trying and failing and trying and failing, I decided to submit something to letters@alligator.org. To my surprise, it was published as a guest column. When I got the e-mail asking for my classification and major, I turned to my roommate and said, "I am going to be opinions editor of the Alligator by the end of the summer." And it happened.
Greetings, oh young and naïve freshman!
It has been my secret dream for three years now to hijack my commencement speech. I had the perfect plan. There was just one problem; there will be no big-name speaker. When I learned this, it hurt. Because, Gators, there are issues we must discuss.
Sunday nights, trash nights, before I roll the garbage out to the curb, I strip off all my clothes and leave them in a little pile on the bench by the front door. Naked, I approach the street with the garbage can, which smashes the grass under its weight. It's one of the busiest streets in Akron, Ohio, during the day. But come 2 a.m., traffic is sparse. After the can is in position on the curb, I don't hurry back to my pile of clothes. Instead, I pace the dew-soaked grass, and I let the night air touch all the parts of my body it normally can't.
KBR, the former Halliburton subsidiary that/s now the Army/s largest contractor, is a threat to the safety of our servicemen and servicewomen.
Glee for green has been a long time coming in this country. What started out as an almost underground burlap sack movement has sprung into a multibillion-dollar enterprise and an entire culture, even generation, of planet-conscientious actions.
Brian Miller/s column in Thursday/s Alligator showed his complete ignorance of basic economics and federal revenue code.
Universal health care.
I miss President George W. Bush, "Dubya" as I affectionately called him. I don't miss his policies or politics, but the material he and his administration gave me as a commentator.
Want to live longer? As it turns out, we may have the answer. A report in the July 10 issue of Science showed a dramatic difference between the lifespan of two different sets of Rhesus monkeys in a 20-year study. The results were so shocking that scientists already began seeking additional funding for another 20 years of research.
Community colleges are colleges, too.
One hundred years ago on July 17, 1909, Sen. William E. Borah (R-Idaho) wrote, " The income tax is the fairest and most equitable of the taxes. It is the one tax which approaches us in the hour of prosperity and departs in the hour of adversity. Certainly, it will be conceded by all that the great expense of government is in the protection of property and wealth. There is no possible argument founded in law or in morals why these protected interests should not bear their proportionate burden of government."