Fabric of family

After being home for the Thanksgiving holiday, I came to thinking about what family does for an individual. After seeing cousins I hadn’t seen in a couple years and reconnecting with aunts and uncles who had moved away, it was interesting to see how different people follow different trajectories through life based on their family experience. Family shapes, drives, and changes who we are and how we live.

It’s and interesting thing really, to consider two things: one, that every single human being in this planet experiences a life that no one has before and no one will in the future. Also that, for a very brief moment, we could arguably all be the same. After birth, and I am talking IMMEDIATELY after birth, we all have a common relation. That first time we look at our mother is ground zero. Before our little bodies are acquainted with the real world, we lived inside them for around 9 months. From inception, our mother’s lifestyle influences us, changes us, molds us. What she eats and drinks becomes the energy that grows and sustains our little infant selves. Also, as unborn babies, we influence our mothers. My mom remembers being pregnant with my younger brother, and randomly craving pickles, french fries, and milkshakes at odd hours of the early morning. Maybe the cravings of a college boy might make that normal; for her it definitely wasn’t.

Anyway, we have that moment of “ah hah that’s mommy.” It might be an introduction to a very brief relationship or the genesis of a life long friendship, but that moment is the beginning of our familial bond as an active participant. From there, it is a slippery slope of figuring out life and relationships within the troupe. Parents have a HUGE influence on who we become as little people, then kids, then teenagers, then adults. It’s the little decisions early on that set up trajectories for later on. Who we are raised to be as kids greatly influences who we will be as adults. It’s a lot for parents to take on; it’s a huge responsibility. Toss in siblings, and the mess parenthood just increases exponentially.

Siblings, it turns out, are a great way to analyze what I am getting on about. Twins are an even better example. Whoever has a brother, sister, twin, whatever: are you the same as your counterparts? The answer to that one is always a resounding “NO!!!” There are similarities between siblings most of the time; common experiences tend to weave people together that way. What is different is the take away each individual has from that experience; two people in the same situation respond and remember different things about that circumstance. However, despite our individual take-aways from experiences in our family, our family as a unit has a trend. People are quick to discern the difference between a functional and dysfunctional family; regardless of which one you grew up in, you have take-aways that are big and small.

Behavior and habit are learned traits. We all know that the bad ones are harder to kick than the good ones, which is a different story itself, but by far and away the most difficult behavior or habit to curb is one that started when we were young. Those behaviors are the most formative, and are ultimately what help us define ourselves as we wade through the many identity murky shadows in a lifetime. We are constantly reconciling new with old in the behavior department; from that clash comes personality and character. Whatever behavior wins out determines what kind of person we are. 

All of this comes from family, and observing behavior of family members as we grow up. Whether they are present or not, whether they are good or bad, whether they care too much or too little, it doesn’t matter. Family shapes us the most because those relationships, whatever the condition they were in, are the earliest things we have as human beings. And on that basis, family is the most forming social fabric we have.

What has your family taught you? What kinds of things does family make you do? What excuses do you make for family? Where has family helped you the most? There is a lot to ask and more to answer; as a young man in college they are vital to understand. I can’t answer all of them, and what I can answer I can’t really answer completely. That’s why I am getting started now, before things really gain momentum and might get out of hand in the future. I invite you to join my in this introspection.

 

 

YOLO

There is a growing movement in America today. It isn’t something good; I tend to look at it like a plague. You can see it everywhere: on facebook, in schools, spray painted on walls, on bumper stickers. Its a catchy little phrase someone uttered, probably some rapper, and it caught like wild fire with the teenagers of generation y. YOLO- you only live once. Honestly, it’s one of those things that is so unbelievably basic that, to today’s young drug-alcohol-houseparty bandits, it became a prophetic phrase to rally behind. It’s sad and pathetic, but more importantly, it is starting to rear it’s und head in subtle but ugly ways.

It is one thing to joke around and use this kind of thing for entertainment. I honestly don’t see that as a big deal. However, what I find perturbing is actually two fold: the behavior this phrase is starting to excuse has grown in the severity with regards to abject stupidity. Also, people are starting to identify more strongly with the themes within this social blister than with themselves. Its this last group that I find to be the most disturbing of the two.

Young kids make bad decisions and silly mistakes. It’s called growing up. However, what becomes problematic for kids AND for society is when the kids, who don’t have any other social standards or fabric to cling to, stop making mistakes and bad decisions because they don’t know any better, and start doing dumb things on purpose. It can be for a multitude of reasons: attention seeking, adrenaline rush chasing, popularity. Bottom line, when you start seeing kids who are 15 smoking, doing drugs, drinking, engaging in overt sexual activity, getting ridiculous and pointless tattoos, you aren’t seeing harmless behavior anymore. You are looking at dysfunction on two different levels. Individual dysfunction, as the kid clearly has offset morals and a messed up sense of normal/excusable behavior. Social dysfunction, a big engine for this sort of malfeasance, occurs when society makes excusable and popular behavior that is otherwise abhorred for a host of reasons.

Bottom line: YOLO is, in itself, harmless. What isn’t harmless is the trend it’s setting, and the direction that trend wants to take kids.

The Pregame

I introduce you to the bar called “the Pregame.”

Available from 7-10 pm as a bar where people are allowed to rent tables for parties between 6 and 12; each table can choose a package that allows patrons to get a number of punches per card (6 drinks on a red card, 8 on a yellow, 10 on a red, etc.). Alcohol could be purchased by the handle. Underground parking is provided for each table; keys are turned in to a valet. After getting comfortably drunk, the patrons are escorted from this bar to destinations of their choosing via a private limo/party van owned by the bar for the whole evening. They can return the next day to get their keys and their cars from the establishment.

After 10, it is an open, “regular” bar, or could be available for rent should a large party desire the entire place for their event. 

This would be expensive; consider, however, the cost of an evening if one were to buy a table at a club, pay for taxis, and fund a large pregame at one’s own place. No longer would someone need to host an event in their home, apartment, condo, dorm, etc (no clean up, and no noise complaints); instead, the entire evening is had at a place designed from the ground up for such an evening. 

Think about this.

How awesome would it be if there was such a bar. 

It makes sense.

Someone do it.

Mustang Spirit and the new Residence Halls

Where does school spirit lie? Is it in the tenacity of a sports team as they compete for victory? Is it under a tent during a Boulevard? Does spirit lie beneath the roof of a Fraternity or Sorority house? Or maybe it can be found in the many classrooms and buildings devoted to learning?

No- SMU school spirit lies within the relationships each student and faculty member has with the school and with the student body. It is so very hard to describe concretely, for how fluid are such relationships? I can tell you that my own personal school spirit fluctuates; the average is good, but we all know the palpable difference between exam week and Homecoming Weekend. This fluidity, this seemingly liquid concept that we sometimes can’t quite put our finger on, is what brings people to this school, and is what ties those of us who are here together. It is not something to take lightly nor is it something that should be left for people to discover. It should be a concept that we can highlight and broadcast. It is a bonding and binding fabric; it is vital for everyone to know what it is and how to nourish it.

This is where the new Residences will be an integral part of SMU’s social weave as the project comes to a close. As students and faculty alike are going to be allowed to live in the new halls next year, there are many new opportunities for SMU Mustang Spirit to grow. With the new opportunities to live on campus, there will be a chance for many new relationships; relationships that would otherwise not have an opportunity to flourish. Along with the new buildings come new rules for on campus living: This years freshman class marks the start of a required two years living on campus.

As a student who moved off campus a month before the end of my freshman year, I am very familiar with the differences of off campus and on campus living. While being off campus has its perks (fewer rules, etc.) there is a large part of the SMU experience that I know I am missing because I am not in the thick of things. It works fine for me, but I know that there is a big difference in the life I have now versus the life I would have if I stayed on campus. Spirit lives where the students are, and the more students there are living on campus, the warmer the Mustang Spirit will be.

As the ribbon cutting ceremony comes closer, we should all embrace the excitement and wonderful opportunity this new residence commons offers. And, let’s be honest, who can’t wait for more parking?

Pony Up!

 

 

 

Bullying

Earlier this week, or maybe a couple days ago, I came across a story about a 12 year old girl in Florida who killed herself by jumping off a tall structure in a construction site. It was later revealed that her jump was a response to severe bullying from a group of girls at a school she used to attend. The bullying started after the girl supposedly made it public knowledge that she liked the boyfriend of one girl in the group who would end up harassing her.

Obviously, both schools, parents, police, and lawyers are now involved to sort out what happened and who is responsible for what happened to this poor girl. The principals of both institutions have remarked on the unusual severity of the bullying and how quickly it escalated. The girls who bullied are now in prison, and some of their parents are in jail too while charges are being pressed and lawsuits arranged. The parents of the victim made her switch schools before her death; however, through phones and facebook the bullies were able to keep up their assault on the girl.

I must admit that, this point, I turned away from the story. It was just sick and evil. The violence, the language of the young girls bullying, the insanely vanilla response of a bureaucratic public school system, and the death of a 12 year old girl were just too much. It definitely grabbed attention.

Every time I see one of these stories, and it happens quite often I must admit, I just get a huge sense of sadness and disappointment. But it’s not for reasons you might suspect. Yes, I am saddened by the things that children have to put up with these days. Not having kids of my own, I can’t imagine what it must be like to try and coach a child through a bullying situation. No, my anger comes from how society tries to defend the bullies. How many times do you hear the phrase “the bully-er is from a broken household and needs to be helped out of this situation” and find that very lenient punishment is levied on the offender in such a situation?

It happens more than you think.

I remember being in grade school, and as a smaller 1st grader, some of the taller and bigger kids thought it would be funny to mess with me. The first time, it was just name calling and teasing; not the end of the world. I do remember going home and complaining to Dad about it, and his response was “you have every right to defend yourself.” He was prophetic; the next day, while playing soccer, one of the kids pushed me down, and started laughing at me as kids circled up above and around me. I remember getting up, and as he went to push me again, I punched him as hard as I could right in the face.

I spent the rest of the day with this kid in the principal’s office with this kid getting lectured about violence and how the school doesn’t support such things. My Dad saved my butt by coming to school as soon as the office called him and explaining in direct but calm language that these kids had been bugging me, and that he gave me permission to defend myself and that if the school took any action against me he was going to “deal” with it. He took me home and let me watch TV the rest of the day.

Now, that was about as perfect a bullying story as they come; it was a huge growth development for me. What the 12 year old girl experienced was not. What she went through was not bullying; it was verbal harassment and assault. Bullying does not make a girl kill herself; bullying is when a tough kid on the playground messes with you a little and you fight back. But in today’s culture, the aggressors in many situations are given a sympathy that I don’t think they deserve. It all comes down to discipline.

Today’s culture is so determined to be a soft and forgiving place to live in that it sacrifices the hugely powerful benefit of discipline. So many people, especially young people, are given quite a large legal leash when it comes to “misbehavior”- be that misbehavior drugs, sex, violence, drinking, theft, or vandalism- and they use every inch they get. If that behavior grows up with them, then society has a bunch of real problems in its fabric.

Stop coddling the villains of this world, be they playground bullies, terrorists, gang leaders, or militant groups. The world, on any scale, should be ready to lower the boom on anyone willing to take advantage of a fellow man; that the world wants to help the people away from such behavior rather than deter them from such behavior at all is how we end up with the story that was the genesis for this piece. The majority needs to grow a spine and stop taking it from the minority that seeks to advantage or entertain itself through such behavior.

Tech and Stress

Young people have a lot going on: between a busy social calendar, a rigorous academic curriculum, and a constant pressure to improve, succeed, and win, they are always going. It can be very hard to make, let alone find, time to relax and not worry about anything, even if its just for a few hours. There is always the “next thing” to worry about; it may be a test, a paper, a party, a rent payment, a job interview but regardless of the magnitude of the particular matter, there is always something looming in the near future. It gets to be quite a lot to balance.

Yet, often times, the healthiest thing to do is to unplug for a while. Giving the brain time to relax, outside of sleeping of course, can be a very revitalizing break from the constant activity; often times, a break can induce a higher level of focus for later tasks. Yet, some activities we do during a break/for recreation may not be helping reduce stress or allow the mind to unwind.

Tons of people turn to media to take a break from whatever they are doing. If it was possible to record computer activity in a normal night in the library, I would be comfortable making a wager that nearly everyone gets on facebook, shops online, or looks up something on youtube at least once every hour for about 15 minutes. It’s not a bad thing, merely an observation, and something I myself won’t pretend to be immune to. But does it actually help.

It has been shown that interfacing with anything that has a screen actually increases brain activity. Your eyes have to constantly interpret what they are looking at; with today’s technology there is a lot of detail, and your eyes have to perceive it all. Your brain also has to interpret everything the eyes are observing: colors, words, textures, movement, etc.; there is a lot going on. There are sounds that the brain interprets as you listen to that new Miley Cyrus music video. The list of things your brain does while you use technology goes on and on and on.

This activity has been shown to prolong the process by which we sleep. The brain has a complex sequence that it goes through in order to fall asleep; the heightened activity from using technology makes the steps take longer, thereby making the time it takes for a person to reach unconsciousness increase. So, by the time you finish that awful paper or are done studying for that monster of a test, and are finally ready to go to sleep, it is going  to take longer for you to finally pass out. 

Instead of creeping on facebook or doing whatever else you fancy, find another way to take a break. Take a short walk around the room/library. Eat a small healthy snack. Talk to someone you are with. My personal favorite is slamming a redbull and taking a 10 minute nap; waking up after that 10 minutes makes you feel so energetic because you wake up as the caffeine takes effect. It feels like you have sets of wings instead of just a pair. The goal here is to maximize retention: a good night’s sleep is as important as all the work you do to prepare. These little things help

So, as exams approach, find a new way to rest as you prepare. It might just make the difference.

 

 

Curves and how they are screwing the system

Recently, I had an exam in a class with a lecture and a lab component. Woah, heavy surprise I know. The real kicker came when we got the tests back for each of the sections… and discovered the averages for both were 43 and 40, respectively. The best part was that the teacher and the TA kind of lost their tempers when handing them back, saying that we obviously hadn’t performed well (thanks for clearing that mystery up) and that we are not spending time studying this stuff because the material should have been second nature.

Yet, the exams asked questions that involved the students to draw from a base of knowledge and use this knowledge to answer questions that were derived from the information we “knew”. This is fine and dandy, except that the prof just handed out packets of information for us to read, that were very dense and not very good at explaining anything, and didn’t spend any time discussing what it all meant. Clearly, no one understood what was going on, despite the week and a half that MOST of us, not all of us, spent preparing for it. And if a student goes to office hours asking for clarification, and the teacher OFFERS a list of material to focus on, why wouldn’t that material be on the exam in any capacity? Pardon me for being, well, pissed, for asking for help and getting assistance that was totally irrelevant. I spent the night before studying that list YOU provided very carefully.

So, here’s the deal. Why make tests incomprehensible? We want to do well! We want to know whats going on! I actually don’t like curves for classes; to me its just a way for teachers to save themselves in this kind of situation. I have asked students who have taken this class before; they said they failed all the exams and ended up getting A’s and B’s mysteriously. I don’t think that means students are getting their money’s worth from that class. Why not instead just EXPLAIN this stuff rather than curving it.

This is how curves tank the education system. Students who don’t understand material shouldn’t be able to pass. And teachers who can’t/won’t explain material that they are passing out maybe shouldn’t teach that material. This is how education systems get in trouble; in no other system can you just “fake” performance numbers and be successful by “curving” the numbers so they look pretty.

college exclusivity

We all know that the best, most prestigious, important colleges and universities are also the ones that are most difficult to get accepted to. Yet, once accepted, students at these schools find that the competition doesnt stop once they walk through the proverbial door. The progams students apply for and major in are even more selective, making the end product of 4 years of education something both impressive and usefull for the graduate as they move on to different endeavors. Often, these students enx up relying on thre things when applying for jobs or post graduate education: grades/GPA, the letterhead on their diploma, and networking. 

Exclusivity is nearly as important as the education.

Because of this, top-tier colleges become an interesting business model: they represent patterns expressed by companies who produce luxury goods. There is a well documented consumer trend towards “it” products, or companies that have achieved the holy status of popularity via production of luxury, trendy, popular products. People will choose the product with te right label, as opposed to a product which might actually test better in consumer/quality tests.

Louis Vuitton takes this to another level: to keep their products both desireable AND exclusive, they destroy any luggage, bags, belts, etc. that are not sold in a given year. There is nothing wrong with the product other than it did not get sold in time.

Sound familiar?

How many students have been told that there isn’t any availability in a class, only to find later on that the classroom the lecture is held in may only be half full? How many times in a 5 year period do the requirements for a major intensify and become harder to attain? Schools, to retain their exclusivity, create artificially low availabilities and very high standards to ensure select students get to graduate with a degree. Sure, the students who get the degree are top notch; this isn’t a criticism of them. My point is that, for a school, the operational cost of having more students in a particular major isn’t that great. They have every right to maintain standards for their programs and degrees. Its just interesting that some seek to produce an “exclusive batch” rather than an “elite crop” of students who graduate with a particular degree.

The Murky Unknown

After the career fair yesterday, I couldn’t help but notice an interesting trend that presented itself through the proceedings. Wandering from table to table, talking to representatives from a multitude of different companies and different career fields, it seemed that there was a common thread that wove through all the conversations I had.

“What do you want to do?”

It wasn’t really surprising; a career fair is for people who want to get a hold on a job in a field they know they want to work in… but as a 18, 19, 20 year old college kid, how much do we really know? All through high school i was a someone who wanted to go the Air Force Academy, be a fighter pilot, travel the world, and find that special girl before I got deployed… Seeing as I am a Geology student at SMU, none of that ever happened. I don’t have regret the different path my life has taken, but I have learned that flexibility is key to enjoying and having a happy life.

Also, let’s be honest, how many people end up working in the field directly tied to their majors? How many engineers run and own businesses; how many scientists end up working on different research than they planned on; how many people in any major work for the same company for the entirety of their career? To me a career isn’t and end; its a means to an end. A career should lead you to a happy and successful and comfortable life; I don’t make myself a slave to the career, but I understand that to attain the things I want to achieve it’s going to take some very hard work. I am more interested in getting my hands dirty and seeing where work takes me; I know better than to plan things out so far in advance because how do you account for the one thing that mystifies us all:

The Murky Unknown.

 

Ending the Plight of Minorities………

My friends and I were all at lunch when we got the email. We were expecting something juicy, something tantalizing, or indeed something remotely entertaining. Rather, we discovered a plain report outlining what appeared to be minor vandalizing of a student’s property. The details were scant; but one thing was repeated a couple times throughout the dull text. “SMU student reports property damage in dorm; possible hate crime”. This is what got the ball rolling, despite a really Jane Austin report of the damage.

Why do we specify crimes against minorities as “hate crimes” and heighten the punishment to whichever fool found it appropriate or necessary to deface or ruin someone’s things. If I, as a generic white dude from the Midwest, came back to my dorm and found that someone had broken in, broken a TV, ran off with my computer, and smashed my stuff, I would want a huge consequence leveled on the person. Why would the consequences of this third party get heightened if I had darker skin?

This is what really got my friends and me into the furious discussion. It is something sweeping across this country in many different arenas under several different disguises. We see it in Greek Life, with the all-black fraternity. They are accepting of non-black members, but can you IMAGINE the lawsuits and outcry if some white guys got together and made an A.W.G. (All White Guy) fraternity that didn’t shut it’s doors on non-white pledges?

Or what if there were all-white scholarships. Lord knows the NAACP would have a field day with that one. Indeed they are probably waiting for such a juicy chance to emphasize the plight of the African American in today’s society. Indeed there was a school which experienced this a few years ago; located in the very poor coal mine region of Pennsylvania, a trade school made a scholarship for white kids born into the impoverished coal-mining communities. The NAACP took them to court within a month of the scholarship’s birth. However, they took the school to court on the wrong grounds. They saw the title, which basically said “poor white kid scholarship fund” and had a huge, multimillion dollar lawsuit written up in a few weeks. They didn’t read the scholarship, or if they did they didn’t recognize the literature therein because, in court, with a panel of expensive lawyers waiting, they watched amazed as a professor from the school walked in. He was no lawyer; he was not even an instructor for a pre-law class. He simply handed a copy of their scholarship and a copy of the scholarship the NAACP has for colored students to the judge. The judge read both carefully in silence and dismissed the case after about 30 minutes, without even allowing the proceedings to commence. Outraged, the NAACP demanded an explanation, which the judge promptly delivered: the school, in creating their scholarship, had taken the NAACP’s scholarship and removed the “black” and inserted the “white”. The two scholarships were EXACTLY the same, except for that one key difference. The NAACP should have sued them for copyright infringement, rather than for racism and discrimination.

If Minority Rights activists wanted TRUE resolutions to their “plights” they need only make two distinctions: one, demand that society quit making allowances for minorities. Demand that society accept the color of their skin and MOVE ON.
Two, understand that all crimes, regardless of what colored “jersey” did what to whomever, understand that all crimes are filled with hate, desperation, lack of judgement, etc..

The NAACP is not the only group where such language and behavior are noted. Many feminist, race, and even economic “equality” groups make such gaffes; and they all end up shooting themselves in the foot with the same gun. Trying to get “compensation” does not make people “equal”. Bringing the ceiling lower for a majority does not raise the floor for minorities. You cannot engender equality for one group of people while hating the larger populace DOES NOT WORK. Gaining equality for a minority group by hating and degrading a majority does not work. Yes, there are people who remember when women didn’t get certain jobs or paid as well. Yes there are people who remember the KKK. Yes there are those who recall what segregation felt like. These things have long past. It is never appropriate to forget, but now is the time to move on. Beating a dead horse will not make that horse get up and walk.