With Hurricane Matthew still fresh in our minds, we need to talk about our governor’s behavior regarding the hurricane.
I remember my very first tattoo — a crude rendition of the word “baby” on my right bicep. I got this done in my senior year of high school. My buddy Cameron had been tattooing a lot of our friends ever since he bought some sewing needles and India ink. I kept seeing people I knew showing off their small new tats, usually small doodles of things like birds, clouds or crescent moons. After seeing that none of them got infected, I decided it was high time for my own.
Becoming an adult in college is a more emotional experience than we are able to appreciate. Between due dates, job applications, extracurricular activities, laundry and studying, being a part of university life seems quite stressful.
Last Wednesday, the editorial board of the Alligator wrote a column titled “Religious self-reflection is necessary,” in which it took the instance of a British Muslim school educating their girls that to be beaten by one’s spouse is permissible as a reminder that we all must reflect on the nature of religion. Mr. Editorial, as I will call this unnamed author, said we must recognize that “The Bible, the Torah, the Quran … are the words of the gods you believe in, but they were written by man, and man’s way of thinking has come a long way since those initial writings.” He consequently reminded us the books and the religions they have created are inherently flawed, and we must not simply “cherry-pick the pieces that you like and ignore the pieces that you don’t like.” Thus, the example from the British Muslim school is a classic case of a primitive religion that needs reform and needs to come to a more rational understanding of the social context in which their religion started.
This past week I received my first graduate school acceptance letter, and I was subsequently hit by the realization that this will likely be my last year in this wonderfully bizarre town. I was always aware of this possibility in the back of my mind, but without substantial proof to back it up, I merely rested on the assumption that I would be in this town, well, forever. When your future is so devoid of any certainty, it’s easy to fill in the void with your present life and assume that every day will simply be a repeat of your current one. Now, imbued with the knowledge that my time in Gainesville is finite, I can feel the nostalgia creeping up on me as it colors my perspective of this town ever so slightly.
I’ve developed a habit of taking every pun as a personal attack against my intelligence.
Today’s student is someone who has to balance classes, a number of extracurricular activities and, last but certainly not least, find a way to pay rent. Students who have multiple responsibilities other than their classes are two times more likely to drop out as opposed to those who don't. This statistic is startling, because it is clear that almost every student has outside obligations to balance. Our view of what the average college student looks like is generally far from reality. Forty percent of students in the U.S. attend college on a part-time basis, while the average student works 19 hours a week. About 40 percent of students are above the age of 25, and the number of students in minority groups attending higher education institutions is on the rise. These statistics prove the laws and practices in place pertaining to students and college need to be re-evaluated and changed. A shift in policy to represent the ever-changing college student would assist millions of individuals throughout the country.
An aspect of parenting we usually like to avoid is the birds and the bees. The beasts with two backs. The dirty deed. Dipping the wick — OK. No one says that, but that’s the point. Have you noticed how we have so many euphemisms for sex? That shows just how much we try to avoid the conversation, but it’s necessary in order to be healthy and safe.
Journalism is a pretty conservative field. The Associated Press Stylebook has yet to accept that “they” can be a singular pronoun and The New York Times still uses Mr. and Ms., which reinforce the gender binary. Student journalists are taught to be objective, to get both sides of every story — present the facts and tie them together.
Who decides what is OK to talk about? How do we all just seem to know what a taboo topic is? If there is a yearly workshop, I wasn’t invited. But somehow, I’m still aware of what we are supposed to avoid talking about. At a party, we’re told to steer clear of discussions about sex, politics, religion and the like. I don’t know what parties these people were talking about, because every party I attend somehow turns into a spirited political debate. Regardless, I maintain that this is a commonly used list of topics to avoid. Another common addition to this list is health. We’re told that no one wants to hear about our recent ailments or your visit to the doctor, and this may be true. People often get weird when others share personal information. Further, there is one topic that makes many people extremely uncomfortable. If you want to quiet a room full of people, bring up your mental-health struggles.
I read an obituary for the Great Barrier Reef a few days ago that stated the reef had died after a long battle with bleaching. This bleaching was caused by stress from climate change and indirect human interaction such as toxins from oil spills and sediment from runoff. It didn’t seem right to me that I had never heard of the website that posted the obituary, so I did some quick research and learned it was just something meant to grab people’s attention in a dramatic way. The good news that is the reef is still alive. The bad news is it’s dying at a rapid rate and will most likely be completely destroyed soon if something isn’t done to slow the rate of climate change.
Ready for a challenge? Make your smartphone a “dumb phone.”
As a student and faculty member, I have had offers to study and work at several highly ranked institutes of technology.
The late movie critic Roger Ebert once said he didn’t have a favorite movie but that he had many favorites. In terms of music, I feel the same way. Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones, the Doors, Sam Cooke, Prince, Michael Jackson, Ice Cube — depending on the day and how long the car ride is, I will listen to any, or all, of these artists with glee. Please do not ask which is my favorite. Did Voldemort have a favorite Horcrux? No, he needed all of them. So, too, do I need the variety of sounds, styles and emotions that each of these artists offer in their music (Sorry, that was an awful “Harry Potter” analogy).
The other night I went to High Dive to catch a tribute set of my favorite band of all time, The Smiths. The cover set was played by the Ordinary Boys, a band whose only function is to replicate the sound of The Smiths, as well as Morrissey’s solo work (yuck).
Life is a rough experience filled with ups and downs. Since the moment we are born, expectations of greatness are placed on us. Our parents look at us and say, “I hope he becomes a doctor,” or “She will be a movie star.”
Quite a few things happened this past week that have forced me to reflect on the dichotomy of high and low culture. Perhaps you’ve already heard of the first event: Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize in Literature, and thus becoming the first musician to do so. As an unapologetically devoted fan of both music and the written word, it goes without saying that I was thrilled to see Dylan join the ranks of Toni Morrison, Gabriel García Márquez and Samuel Beckett. Unfortunately, countless academics, authors and journalists vehemently disagreed with my opinion, citing a variety of reasons but often reaching the same conclusion: Songwriting simply cannot reach the level of artistic achievement pure literature can.
One of the most common freshman mistakes is being in classes from noon straight until 3 p.m.
Self-deprecating humor is pretty commonplace. It’s easy to pull off, and no one can be offended, because you’re only disparaging yourself. It’s a great way to look humble and witty at the same time, and a self-deprecating joke makes everyone around you feel that much better about themselves. This style of humor is a useful tool, certainly. But, like I said, it’s pretty commonplace. People have a knack for selling themselves short, because doing the opposite makes them look arrogant. And there are a fair number of societal norms that ask us to think poorly of ourselves, including social media and beauty standards. We’re all pretty much in agreement, though, that being humble is more noble than being boastful, right? I like to think so. It’s just the polite thing to do, really. When it comes to comedy, though, self-deprecation gets tricky.
Hearing about the current demand for science, technology, engineering and mathematics majors is nonstop. From high school onward, the STEM vs. liberal arts dichotomy starts to heat up and continues beyond college. Although it may be true that people with these skills are desperately needed, being a STEM major does not mean you are inherently more hardworking than others, and a liberal arts major is not lazy just because the answers to liberal-arts questions might be more open-ended.
Solutions by The State News
