The life and times of a normal university student

18 January 2010

Seventh Post

At my school, we have these evening activities in the lounge for each dorm. Ours is "Cultural Leaders," which I find rather lame. I'm actually not really sure why that had to happen.
In other news, I actually had my own friends (just because I have a blog it doesn't mean I don't have friends) over to my room. I felt kind of like I had a life. So, to combat that feeling, I am typing up a new post and fighting with an essay that's not due until tuesday. I'm actually kind of enjoying the paper-writing, since it's the first time I've had to write a real paper with correct references and all that in college. I'm a science major- we don't really do that much writing. Just note-taking and lab write-ups, and those don't have citations required. We do have gen-eds required to graduate, which mostly ensures that we are "well-rounded" and fit to go to grad school and med school and make the school look good. I love my school, but that doesn't mean that I'm not cynical.
To tell the truth, I'm really frustrated with the paper. I would try that super cool awesome full screen distraction-minimising feature in Pages (mac word processor), but I need at least three other things up, including the internet to write the darn thing. Therefore, I go on the internet with every intention of looking things up, but it just doesn't happen. I'm extremely unmotivated to write, since I don't really believe in doing assignments before the night before they're due. I think this is proving that I'm constitutionally incapable of doing otherwise; perhaps I should get a start on other tuesday assignments so they don't all hit me at once tomorrow night at about midnight.
Americans- enjoy MLK day. Yay world peace and post-racial life.
There. I've been politically correct and whatnot.
To be honest, I think that a lot of minorities just kind of scrape by because they don't want empowerment, they want free stuff. I don't want to knock the people who have been successful, pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, and changed the world, but I think that anyone who doesn't even want to get a job because they won't get government handouts anymore deserves all that life throws at them. For anyone who thinks I've just been a horrible racist bigot, I am talking about white people, too. I am a true post-racial citizen because I don't care if you're white, black, yellow, blue, green, or red- you should learn to respect yourself and reach for greatness. Not everyone can be president- I certainly wouldn't want to be- but everyone can have a better life than they have now. But the government isn't going to give it to you- you have to go out and find it.

Sorry about that little soapbox speech. It can be argued that this is how boring university life is- I have time to think about all this.

EDIT: This is Raeann from  three years later. I would like to apologize if I sounded like a total prick up there. I still agree with the basic sentiment of what I said, that anyone who just wants handouts is a pain in society's ass, and they make us as a society (and I do mean everyone, especially including people who started in the same place and made something of themselves because they wanted to) look bad. However, having lived a little with people who (gasp) aren't exactly like me since writing this post, I feel that I'm really not a "true post-racial citizen" because I'm basically the product of a society that really, really isn't post-racial. There are little things that I do, that a lot of white people who never went hungry when they were a kid and who can afford to go to college do because society is governed by us, really, that I don't even notice, and certainly didn't notice when I was an itty bitty freshman.
The only reason I came back to this post -- I don't even remember writing that paper, much less this post -- is because it is coming up pretty high on some google searches, and I'd like to not seem like a racist moron in front of the whole internet. Whether or not I am a racist moron is probably debatable, but I just wanted to make it clear that I don't endorse other racist morons.
I mean, wow, do I sound angry then! I've been thinking about freshman year a lot, especially in light of having only one year left before I'm turfed out into the real world, or the world of grad school, and I was a very angry freshman. I scowled and dozed my way through all of my classes. I look back on the year with fondness, but I don't think any of my professors thought I liked them, except in my women writers class, which, incidentally, is part of what made me who I am now. When I wrote this post, I'd enrolled in the class, but hadn't started yet.
Pro (i.e. slightly less amateur) tip: don't be angry all the time. It'll make it that much easier to come back to your accomplishments a few years later without blushing.

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