What Word Do You Use?

So this blog is for a school assignment in which we have to talk about a word or words that we use most often. When it comes to the way that I talk it depends on what I am doing. When talking to friends I tend to say “bonus” a lot more than normal people do. I picked this word up from my sister-in-law, because she says it all the time. I use this word because I can change the way I say it depending on what is going on. If one of my friends found out great news, I say “bonus” in an excited voice. But if something bad or just not so good happened, I tend to say it with sarcasm. However, if I am texting or talking to someone online I never use the word “bonus” it is always “lol.” For all you non-texting people, mom, that’s laugh out loud. I am not sure why I use this so much but I think it is to keep from having an awkward silence. Whenever a friend types something and you feel like your suppose to respond, but not sure what to say…that is when I put lol. I have no idea of any one person that I picked this “lol-ing” up from, but I use it more than a normal person should. Maybe it is just because my friends are not normal and bring on a lot of awkward situations, I don’t know. So those are the two words I tend to say a lot around my friends, “bonus” and “lol.” These are two things I would never say or type to a professor, however. The most common word there would probably be “thanks” or “thank you,” because that is always how I end e-mails which is my main form of communication with professors.

Just People

So today I had a two hour break in my schedule with nothing to do, which is unusual because I always seem to have a ton of homework I need to work on. In this two hour window I did what most college kids do and “surf the web.” This kept my attention for all of thirty minutes. As I tried to pass the rest of the time I found myself ‘people watching’, which is something I tend to do when there is nothing better. As I sat in the glass Passover on campus, I could see not only the people around me, but also people who walk by and that are outside. I would like to note that this weekend is parent’s weekend so people may have been acting more civilized than normal. Inside the crossover there is a girl reading and book and a guy on his laptop reading off of the EReseve site campus has. The other side of the room is filled with this couple who, in my opinion, have odd dynamics (but who am I to talk about odd dynamics in a relationship). He seems to be the care free kind of person who relies on others to get by in life. He is wearing shorts and a short sleeve t-shirt, its fifty degrees out! She is bundled up like we live in the Antarctica and very adamant about getting her assignment done. He keeps on telling her to stop working, eat something (because he went downstairs and got her a sandwich, which she paid for). She then whines about the sandwich saying that it is too big and didn’t have enough lettuce on it, it was a regular. What is with girls at this school and not eating anything? I mean don’t get me wrong, there are days in which I eat like a bird (small amounts but lots) or when I am in deep concentration with an assignment that I eat nothing. However, if someone brings me something that I did not have to obtain myself I am not going to whine; you say thanks and eat it.

Next I want to talk about the people who think they can ride a skateboard, but really they have no control over it and just run people over or fall on their ass like one kid did. In addition to those skateboarders, were the bikers. What is with some of them riding down the sidewalk and thinking they can’t take their bike in the grass, but you should walk off and clear room for them? I also don’t get the people who feel the need to yell across campus at the wrong person or at a person who has no idea they are even talking to them. For example, if you yell the name Emily, like fifty people are going to look.

In addition to all this, we have the support tables. These are the tables that people set up to get people involved in their cause, but the people working them are not aggressive at all. They just sit there and talk to each other, they don’t talk to those walking by or even stop their conversation when someone approaches the table; HELLO no wonder your still recruiting people! Well I guess I could go into the people who are still a little drunk from last night or wake up three hours before class to get ready when no one really cares that they are even there, but I won’t. I’ll stop here and head to my last class of the day. =)

Religion and/or Spirituality

So for this blog I have to talk about my religion and/or spirituality, but before I begin I would like to reiterate that these are my views and I am not pushing them on anyone so as a favor please don’t push yours on mine. However, I am always open to a good discussion not a lecture!

When it comes to my religion and/or spirituality I have no real hard stance. I believe in people’s rights to practice a given religion and am always open to experiencing them as well, but I don’t observe any one religion. As a child my family and I went to a Methodist church. I attended Sunday school every week and was active in Vacation Bible School. During the summer, going from fifth to sixth grade, big drama broke out within the church family. People began to act as enemies and talking about people when they didn’t have the facts. This drama drove my family to not attend this church, but my parents never found another church for us to attend. Then when I was in high school I took the liberty of finding another church that I enjoyed attending, this one was a Baptist church. I attended this church on my own for about two years until my family moved. These are the two types of churches I attended the most, but I also went to church with friends every once and awhile. I do not have strong ties to any religion or denomination, but I do believe that there is a higher power although I don’t observe it.

I also would like to point out that although I believe in a higher power, I don’t feel that laws should come from what people believe, especially religiously. People believe all different things and you cannot expect everyone to agree with everything. I feel that people should be tolerant to all religions because that is why people came to the Colonies in the first place, in a search of a new life and religious freedom. If we don’t accept that people have religious differences and we are always trying to push our religion on to others, then are we not ignoring one of the reasons immigrants came over. I have always wondered this and want to toss it out there, are missionaries going against religious freedom by trying to push their religion on those of poor countries? Just a thought…sorry if my views confuse you, but I kind of have mixed views.

What to Change?

So for this blog I think I just want to vent about my stress. I really feel like school could send me off the deep end this semester. Before fall break started, I spent the whole day in the library looking for sources so that I could write my ten page legal philosophy paper, which I finally finished at ten o’clock that night. I also had to come up with something for my English paper, because I didn’t realize that I needed a rough draft on Friday. Writing this paper would have been easier had I been able to focus and not have to fight with my rude roommate who I wish would go away. Now that I have re-read over my rough draft and had more time to think on break, I think I want to change my topic, but I am not sure if I can. If I were to change it I would make it about fire safety with Smoky the Bear. I don’t know what to do. So, now that you know those two papers going on, I am having trouble figuring out one of my logic problems and still waiting for my Jurisprudence teacher to post my online mid-term paper, which was suppose to be up by 10 AM today, Monday. When that gets posted I need to get to work on that and prep for my Constitutional Law mid-term which is stressing me out more than anything. I just have no idea how I am going to juggle everything; but somehow it all always seems to fall into place.

Does anyone out there know what I am talking about? It seems like everything seems to go downhill at the same time, it can’t ever be one thing at a time. Alright well I guess I better figure out what I am going to do…to change the paper topic or not? Any ideas?

Campus Proposal

When it comes to issues on campus, we have a lot; but what campus does not? Our group came up with things such as needing better bus routes for the on-campus shuttles and making scantrons free on campus. However, the one I want to talk about deals with enforcing the twenty-five feet rule. The campus has done surveys on the number of students who think this is a good rule, I think it is somewhere around 80%. What is the point in having it if no one enforces it? According to campus rules, this rule says that you may not smoke within twenty-five feet of a building entrance, but most students do not care to follow this. I propose that our campus place a fine on those who do not follow the twenty-five feet rule. If we have cops walking around and handing out twenty-five dollar fines, then I think more people will obey this rule and those of us who don’t smoke can attempt to avoid it.

Now some of you may ask, “Where will these cops/smoking enforcers come from?” Well, as we mentioned in class, there are a lot of undercover cops on campus, which most of us including me find a waste of money. Not that we do not need cops, but I do not think they all need to be driving around in cars. That brings the problem of spending more money because we need more cars for them; more cars mean more money for gas. If we take some of these cops out and place them on bikes or just walk by foot, it would help save money and benefit our environment. These police could go down Chancellors walk and have easier access than just having to follow the roads. While these cops are walking around, they could hand out smoking tickets. These smoking tickets could help bring in more money so that we could hire more teachers or even allow for teachers to make more copies so students can have more than just copies of tests.

I think that, by imposing a fine on twenty-five feet, it can only help to benefit our campus. Wwe will, in a sense, be gaining more money than we would be spending by saving on cars and gas that campus police waste. If we do not enforce this rule, then what is the point in putting it in place? We have spent money on making posters and t-shirts to support this rule, but nobody is really supporting it. If we wished to take it one step further, we could make designated smoking areas like a lot of places have. This would help make enforcing the rule easier because cops would not need to guess what twenty-five feet is the area would be marked. Designated areas would also allow for non-smokers to not have smoke blown in their face; it is never fun to breathe in smoke from someone who is walking in front of you or riding their bike by. It is forcing me to breathe in their bad habits that I do not wish to endure. In addition, I think theses enforcement ideas would make it harder on smokers to the point that some of them might even quit, which would mean we have a healthier campus. By enforcing this rule and possibly assigning designated areas for smoking on campus, it will benefit not only the students, but also the college’s budget.