I'm Back

Ok so I haven't posted for a while, but I was pretty bogged down with school stuff. I finished the winter quarter so now I get a short break before I start up again. One of the things that has bothered me in my classes is that I feel like there is no room to disagree with my professors. Sometimes I think they are flat out wrong, or they are expressing one of their personal viewpoints that I don't agree with. My problem is that I don't think it is safe for me to say anything.

Example: my professor for Organizational Theory and Behavior doesn't seem to like big companies like Walmart or McDonald's because of some of the problems they can cause people, Like put people out of business, force people out of jobs etc. I acknowledge that stuff happens but I am not totally soured on big corporations, I just think some slight management changes are needed. But in the class it felt like we had to listen to 2 hours of coporation bashing each night. What is weird is that it is a management class yet it is basically discouraging us from trying to work for a big corporation. So my gut instinct is to speak up when I don't agree, but I felt like saying anything would be opposing him in a way that he would take it personally.

I'm open to thoughts on this situation. While I realize that a professor can't always disconnect to a point where their personal beliefs don't bleed into the course content, however I have frequently gotten the distinct impression that if I confront them too much it will affect my grade in the class, and some of these professors I have to have more than once.

What happened to my friends?

I was thinking today about the guys I grew up hanging out with. When I was in elementary and Jr. High school I spent most of my free time outside in the neighborhood hanging out with the other guys that lived on my street. There was myself and 7 other guys that basically hung out everyday after school. Our crazy variety of activities included the following: football, baseball, ball tag, gastopo (not sure how that's spelled but it implies the german people who arrested jewish people), anything you could possibly do with bikes, playing war in the forest, building forts, video games, computer games, board games, role playing games, shooting bee bee guns, trying to make money however we could, trading baseball cards, plum wars, water wars, making rope swings, river running, wrestling, fighting, joking together, pondering life's mysteries, cutting each others hair, going to movies, paintball, padded sword fighting, sleeping over, camping outside, disc races (you'll have to ask me for an explanation), playing sardines, hiking and most importantly getting in trouble at each others houses. I'm sure we did other things too but those memories have unfortunately faded. What is interesting is that of those 7 guys I really only have contact with one of them now. Two of them I have a general idea of what they are up to but the rest of them I have absolutely no clue where they are or what they're doing. What's weird is that there was never any sort of falling out, and no one really moved away. In high school some guys just stopped coming around to hang out, the group dwindled to 3 of us with an occassional 4th and once I finally left for college I really only talked to one of the guys.

I take solace in the fact that I have developed some new friendships that I really enjoy and intend to do everything in my power to maintain regardless of things like distance between us. But it is really interesting how sometimes we will just let things that were such a huge part of our life fade without ever noticing until they are long gone.

People are getting crazier!

Here are a few things I've noticed recently that would demonstrate the craziness of people in our world.

Al Gore got an academy award for pointing out that there is a problem in the world, way to go Mr. Brilliant, problems are a dime a dozen, its solutions that we should give awards for.

I have recently been watching morning shows while I eat my breakfast and I'd say a good 90% of the "news" is about what celebrities are doing. Why is it important if Brittany Spears shaves her head? Amazingly this is considered pertinant information that needs to be given a 7 minute segment on the show, while things like the medical care our troops are receiving, or the state of our economy and the stock market get like 30 second snippets or less. It seems like if people wanted to know about the personal lives of other people they would be interested in people like their brain surgeon or maybe their accountant, they do a lot more for us than any celebrity ever has.

I recently read a case study for school detailing how PETA (people against unethical treatment of animals) was going after KFC for how chickens are treated before they are killed. While I don't think that animals should be kept in torturous conditions I think PETA is a ridiculous organization. Their ultimate goal is to eliminate the meat industry because they feel that animals do not exist for us to eat, wear or be entertained by. Anyone who thinks the USA would stop eating meat is absolutely crazy. Furthermore I think they know their aims are crazy because they don't require their members to be vegans, if they did they would probably see their membership of 750,000 drop to something like 5,000.

More to come on the craziness of people.

Politics in the USA

As far as I know the next presidential election is still a good year and three fourths away and yet it seems the time to start campaigning is now. It is always interesting to me that politicians can now stop doing their job and start trying to make people like them again. Barack O'Bama recently had a speaking event in Los Angeles to try and rummage up support for himself in the Democratic primary race. I believe he's a senator presently but not for the state of California, so it seems like his constituants should be a bit frustrated that he is not working for and representing them right now.

My other frustration with politics is this: O'Bama, along with most other politicians I've ever heard speak take on this crowd pleaser act of saying only things that sound good. Like "Our schools need to be improved, our public education systems is a mess and we can't cripple our children like this." or maybe "Our healthcare system is out of control, quality care is not readily available to all citizens, prescription costs are through the roof, and 35% of our citizens do not have adequate coverage" (I made this stuff up but it sounds like maybe I could pass as a politician.) So the natural response would be "hey O'bama, thanks for telling us how crappy our country is but what are you going to do to fix it? and if you say you're going to look it over, get all the information and come up with a plan then point me to some one with a plan so I can vote for him/her." However, that is not the response that comes. Instead people applaud and cheer and put bumper stickers on their car because for some reason they aren't able to remember the last time they heard a politician speak and say the exact same things. Its absolutely ridiculous!!!!!

Everytime I think about possibly getting into politics I have to stop and remind myself that I would never make it because I don't have it in me to tell people exactly what makes them feel warm and fuzzy all the time. Honesty and action seem to have very little place in our political system, but we only have ourselves to blame, we're the ones that elect these dorks.

Posting Comments on my Blog

Hey everyone, if you post a comment on my blog I would appreciate it if you would type your name at the end so I know who it is that's talking to me.

Thanks.