Some learned things

So my first semester of college is just about over... exceot for my finals. Adjusting to life has been a little difficult but in the end everything worked out. I mean c'mon I live literally 5 miuntes away but I still have a dorm room. I thought it would be cool if I share somethings I noticed my roommate always complaining about...

1) Clothes aren't dirty if worn once. With the proper strategy and application of Febreeze, you can EASILY coax a week of semi-odor-free wear from those jeans. Wear your shirts inside-out, right-side-out, backwards, forwards. Don't rewear underwear. That's gross.

2) Mom is a GOOD cook. (I always knew, mom, but this isn't about me, this is about college kids OVERALL. Love you, mom.) True, true, it's all-you-can-eat buffet-style dining...the trick is finding something something you WANT to eat all you can of. Think about that....hmm...yea!

3) Bedtime? Bedtime is when the homework is done, the friends are gone, and the hall happens to be quiet. It fluctuates. And never leaves enough time between itself and the commencement of the next day's class.

4) Laundry sucks. How do you all do laundry for like FIVE people or more? Washing clothes for one is enough. I consider it a small victory everytime I mate socks. And have none leftover without mates.

5) Kroger is never closed. That's a beautiful thing.

6) There is no Delta house. Or toga parties (that I'm aware of).

7) If you think your siblings are bad, try getting a roommate. Your siblings (or you) have somewhere to go if you're mad. Roommates don't.

8) Books are expensive. REALLY expensive.

9) 1:30 in the morning is not an unreasonable time to be doing homework.

I'll update and add more as I become infinitely more wise during my college education. Peace guys.

Procrastination sucks big time

Procrastination is no fun and an awful habit that I have. Wish they had something that you could chew or drink or smoke for it! I have become a prime victim of this stress increasing addiciton! It seems that all of my papers and assignments are due at the same time, and it also seems as if I am the only one to blame. I told myself at the beginning of the year that I was going to kick this procrastination perpetrator in the butt! But low-and-behold it snuck up on me and took a bite out of my planned free time. I now spend the time I normally would enjoy kicking back watching soccer, studying, writing papers, and stressing (a bad combination). One thing that I have learned to do when I am “stuck in a pickle” is to talk to my professors. For some odd reason they have this ability to calm my nerves and help me manage my life, while putting their life aside for a moment. One day one of my professors asked me to stay after class because he wanted to talk to me. My first instinct, and I think everyone has this instinct, is to mentally run through everything you ever did or said that might constitute some kind of punishment. Nothing came to my mind and so I was rather dumb-founded and worried to what this meeting would encompass. It turns out that he was worried because he noticed I had been stressing over things I would not normally stress about and stayed after class to talk to me and make sure that everything was going ok. The funny thing was I wasn’t surprised with the conversation. I have had many of the same talks with most of my professors here, which makes me feel not only like I am getting my money’s worth here at Memphis. Talking about this care reminds of my family and that in-turn reminds me of the holidays around the corner. Enjoy your Christmas and the family that cares for you.
Ah….smell that home cookin’!

Bombs Away

A fluffy train is riding the red field towards Imaginatianland. Inside the train, an ugly princess prances the chocolate covered suburbanite, a hole in which she falls and gets shredded into peices by the train. The ugly princess is not missed because honestly when in a fairy tale has there ever been an ugly princess. The gorgeous refrigerator re-enacts an orange monkey. One look, one look. What are you talking about? That would be Zoolander, he's in a model match with the refrigerator. However, the sonic monkey eats a blue instrument. The blue instrument makes a ticking noise! Oh no, what's going to happen! Before you know it though the fun horse pences or robs the university of Imaginatianland into giving all its money to the horse bandits. However, when the horse bandits attempt to jump off the train, th gorgeous refrigerator murders all of them. The ticking gets louder now... and louder. The whole train is engulfed by flames. Everyone dies... including Zoolander. And then there were none. I'm a freak sorry. By the way Julian whipped everone in my group. Go read his now!

Tiger Basketball Players

So, according to various sources, the Tigers this year are supposed to go all the way (Or at least very far) this year. It's really weird that I can see these guys in my classes or walking down the same sidewalk as me, then later that night watching them slam dunk on a basketball goal.

One of my friends says he has Derrick Rose, an incredible Freshman who supposedly may be going professional next year, in his class. He said that Rose is kind of quiet in class but is in no way rude or anything.

This got me to thinking. I wonder what it's like to be one of them. They are famous enough to recognize and famous enough to request an autograph, but are they famous enough to feel the annoyance of fans adoring them? Probably. I heard today there were tours going around the U of M and a lot of the people on the tours ran after a couple of the basketball players just trying to get to their next class. I wonder if they ever thought they would get annoyed by fans.

There is obviously a lot of pressure on these guys. ESPN picked this team to be #1 this year; not to mention a whole city is supporting them and hoping they do well. Also, I got to thinking. In professional sports, if you lose a game you can seclude yourself in your huge house and just lie low until next game or practice. However, college sports athletes still have to walk to and attend class with fellow students. With a prestigious reputation like the tigers, it may be extremely awkward to walk to class if you just lost a major game knowing everyone is talking about how close the game was, but obviously trying to avoid the subject if a basketball player comes near.

(More going to be added later.)

Connections

Hard work is like cleaning my room.

Think for a moment about hard work. What comes to your mind? Sweat is what comes to my mind. Doing something that makes me sweat is cleaning my room. But the act of hard work incorporates more; going through the motions is not enough. In order to accomplish "hard work", you have to succeed in what you're doing. whether it's studying for a test or writing a creative essay, if you do no make the A grade then time has been wasted. Hard work is like cleaning my room. Cleaning the dust specs in the random corners of the room are just as important as clothes lying on the floor. No bias should be shown to where your hard work ends. I believe hard work dissuades humans to be naturally greedy, evil, and lazy.


Column A Conclusion

I can really say I believe in myself. I am proud of where I came from and where I am going. My parents set a foundation for me with values such as religion, family, hard work, and exercise, normal beliefs that other parents attempt to plan in their children. With this foundation set by my parents, I was trained to be able to use hard work and brains to climb the ladder of society. I could say I am also goal oriented. I have to win anything and everything. I enjoy soccer and chess, though that makes me nerdy. But I like to have a good time also so I am not some hard line Communist person.

Incompetent people cause the University of Florida.

Here we can say incompetent people make up most of the university administrations in the country, but I would especially like to talk about the ones at the University of Florida. Letting a student get tasered when Kerry was giving a speech was a very cheap move. How connected to politics is the university that it has to quiet its students for asking legitimate questions. The administration was scared. That's why they are incompetent people. The whole University of Florida is incompetent for letting Steve Spurrier leave the school for only to come back and lead South Carolina. Stupidity is like the University of Florida.

A-ha

I totally agree that there are those times where you discover something that just brings out a passion in you. Once you find that passion, you're like wow where have I been my whole adult life. Well, Wendy had one of those and I had one of those at the beginning of July.

I was in Oklahoma City playing in the National Region III Youth Tournament when my literally second dad told me to play college ball for Memphis. I had the notion all along that I wanted to play in college but I never knew about division 1. I had this notion that division 1 was really something special. Like I wasn't good enough for it. It wasn't until I played the #20 team in the country that I noticed the difference between some of the best in the country and a country Memphis team. There's not that much different. Sure my team is #43 in the country but top 20 I thought was a another level.

This same notion I had for the Memphis team. Part of what discouraged me to want to play at Memphis was that 30 people were already on the team with only 1 senior. I doubt he was going take anyone else. Well, over the summer something drastic happened. About half the team transferred out and five new freshmen came in. It was totally bizarre. So what did I do. I got my ass into shape. My friend who went to Cornell for cross country got me in shape in about a month. September 3rd rolls aournd (day for tryouts) and I make a good impression on Richie Grant. He wants to see me in the spring. How kick ass is that! My hardwork payed off. Son in the end Wendy, your hardwork will also pay off in numerous ways. Lexi will get better and you'll become so rich off wiritng novels that Bush has to insert a new tax bracket for you! There you go.

Pakistan and Middle East

What's going on in Pakistan? Literally, Pakistan is just as unstable as Iraq or Afghanistan. President Musharraf is the United States puppet; that's the only reason he's still in office. If the Pakistani people are given a chance, they will oust him like the Iranians ousted Shah Pahlavi in the end of the 70s. There are quite a few Pakistanis that are Shia Muslims in Memphis. Most of them are well respected doctors. Consequently, Pakistanis are well educated. Consequently, the Pakistanis as a whole are well educated.

In fact it's so bad in Pakistan the Benazir Bhutto, who was basically kicked out of Pakistan at the end of her Presidency, is actually back in Pakistan and has a following. It reminds of the situation in Iran about 30 years ago. Ayatollah Khomeini was exiled in Paris, but returned to take power. I don't think the citizens in Pakistan want what happened to Iran to happen to them also. But the U.S. is playing on the wrong side of a fine line. The same fine line they played with Iran. So if the Bush administration is not careful, they could end up with anther Iran, a country that hates the guts of America.

All this brings us to the discussion of the Middle East. World issues seem to revolve around the Middle East. Since the beginning of civilization, the Middle East has been at the forefront of the world. It’s no different now. But can we say that this modern era of political turmoil started with Great Britain? It’s a growing theory that if after WWII the U.K. hadn’t granted parts of Palestine for Israel. This might not have started at all. I’m not sure but it’s something for me and everyone else to research. I know though from talking with one of my professors that countries such as Russia were in Persia in the 1800s doing horrible things. Part of this is my fault for knowing my own history. As a result, I encourage my fellow comrades to read the history of the United States. From there you can find a good identity of the kind of American who built this country. Then read the some world history and compare the differences and why this might result in the world policies of the present.