From Them, Through Us, To You

“Having been raised on gold stars for effort and smiley faces for self-esteem, they’ve learned that they can get by without hard work and real talent if they can talk the professor into giving them a break.”  I have to say, I do agree with his statement in a lot of ways.  That is, we are raised on the idea that if you can get by with minimal effort, by all means, take the middle road and do just that, don’t strive and for God sake’s don’t achieve.  He further justifies this point by sighting that the arguments for receiving a better grade don’t even rely on academic performance or circumstance, and that it is more or less, they are wanted on the basis of want, or need.  The students often go to lengthy and otherwise daft means of attaining this goal, past the time when all the effort was actually needed.  I wish that he would’ve highlighted the other end of the spectrum though, the one that sights the students who actually have just reasoning for the request.  But I think that he is mostly highlighting the students who haven’t had issues, who just haven’t done anything worthy of receiving the grade they desire.  I know now, from personal experience, that there are all sorts of traumatic and otherwise crappy circumstances that can lead to having to try and resolve a grade (wow have I learned a lot in my first semester of college) but I feel like maybe that was a bit underrepresented.  Other than that, he makes a strong point with a convincing argument, put in the work when you have the opportunity, you are responsible for your grades and only you can make them better.

“A common argument within the marketing world is that age compression is being caused by social trends that make contemporary children far more sophisticated than their predecessors.”  I have actually seen firsthand the truth to not only this statement, but to the overall push of this essay.  See, I work at Hot Topic, and we are all about the Twilight Saga push right now, because it’s selling very well.  Not only to our typical 18-25 year old market range, but also to a far younger crowd, down to little girls, like 7-10, coming in to by product because it’s popular, they’ve never even read the book or knew it existed.  But that’s just the thing, the thing I couldn’t agree more with this author on, the media pushes all this on them, and they respond receptively to it, and their parents succomb to it as a direct result of wanting to appease.  It’s really a large-scale problem, and you can’t hope to deal with it at a small level, though I attempt to from time to time.  I ask, “why do you like Twilight?”  And more often than not, I’ve been given the response, “Everyone likes Twilight, it’s cool, and I’m gonna be the first person to have this shirt.”  Sorry sweetie, you aren’t, that’s the third restock on that shirt, and you’re the 1,000 restock on your age bracket.  Let’s dare to think outside of the box a bit.

“Stripped of it’s volunteer ideaology, but still unable to compel service from dissenters, the military would end up weaker and less representative than the volunteer force-the very opposite of the draft’s intended goals.”  What Nathaniel is trying to establish here is that through another mandatory draft, people will still find ways to get out of it, and the people that really want to be there will be forced to pick up the slack from those who obviously don’t.  Given that point, it would, in fact, make not only the military weaker, but also overall morale.  He does find a way to disprove several stereotypes about the current force, but also makes some of them concrete, as far as reflection from military to society is concerned.  I have to say that i agree with his point, that people that don’t want to be in the military shouldn’t, but we agree to disagree on the basis of reasoning.  He is correct though, in that we do owe our support to those who pick up the sword, and we shouldn’t all be expected to.

“This was my first really big step toward self-degradation: When I endured all of that pain, literally burning my flesh to have it look like a white man’s hair.”  Malcolm makes not only a personal but a societal statement here, and basically eludes to this as his thesis.  He sights that black people, since they were born, have been brainwashed into believing that they are inferior to white men, and will go through tremendous ordeals in order to attone to that statement of perfection.  Aside from the race barrier, this also takes a stab at that overall idea of perfection again, the belief that you aren’t good enough unless you do these ridiculous things to be that idea of perfection, when you should be happy with you.

“Just like Mars Candies keeps coming up with new varieties of M&M’s, there are countless varieties of students (even occasional Gummy Worms).  However, the Krispie, the Plain, and the Peanut are three that recur with more regularity than any other.”  I find that this quote summaries the overall flow of this written work, not maybe moreso than others, but it’s a good indicator of the overall point that he is trying to make.  That is, there are 3 distinct types of students he is used to seeing but there are more.  This is more or less an exploration of those three.  I think that the thesis of this, for the most part, is expressing that all students start out alike in some way, and as the class progresses, behaviors indicate otherwise, and can group them into a classification.  I also believe that the author has an affinity for peanut M&M’s, as the candy form too.  I think that this is an excellent and colorful look at student habits.

“Intelligence plus character-that is the true goal of education.The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.”  Mr. King makes a sharply true observation here, but I think the overall point he is trying to make is that you can go to school and be educated there, but if you don’t look at the whole picture, you further your own ignorance.  He supports this idea by stating, “A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and scientifically.”  To this point I further think he adds to the overall point of his essay, in that in order to be truly educated, we must look at education beyond efficiency and invoke reason.

“Gay people are being asked to form a more perfect union.  In the process, perhaps they can teach us something that we casual citizens and spouses badly need to learn.”  I believe this quote to summarize the main point up quite well.  That is, that gay people in America are expected to attain to a higher standard of ideals, and yet they aren’t given the same rights as people that take those rights clearly for granted.  The thing that is most upsetting is that people, take Britney Spears for example, can go to Vegas, get married, and then annul that said marriage the next day.  Yet a gay couple cannot even do the first half of that, get married, in most places.  It’s unfortunate, because in the land of the free, we oppress the very people who would strive to use that freedom to it’s fullest, and its just disheartening.

“Profoundly influenced by the depiction of women by the fashion industry, they had been convinced that the only way to attain love, respect, and personal fulfillment was through a relentless pursuit of physical perfection.”  I feel like this quote is reflective on the whole scale of this essay, and I couldn’t agree more with what’s been said here.  For too long in our society women, and men too, have strived to be something more than what they think they are worth, many a time through harmful means.  It is the media, and certain industries, that are designed to specifically indicate what it means to be perfect, and often times, they are dead wrong.  I think that the author is trying to establish this point throughout the entirety of what she’s written, and I can’t ask that statement to hold more true now.

“It’s no wonder that people with power and popularity remain that way.”  I find this statement to be very true in not only the context of this essay, but also in life in general.  Unfortunately, for most individuals, the ideas of a bully in school will exist pretty much forever, so long as there is a popularity food chain.  The major downfall is that doesn’t just stay at school when school is through, it carries on later in life too, but in a different context.  That is, to say, life is in itself a popularity contest.  You strive to make someone see that you are better than another, whether it be for that big promotion, to get out of a ticket, or to be elected to an office of any kind, it’s still exists.  I think the thesis for this can be summed up in the quote I chose, and I think it sets a good example of indicating truth in advertising, so to speak.

One hobby/life goal of mine is playing the guitar, and my favorite band is In Flames.  The guitar players are some of my “guitar idols” and the coolest thing happened to me at the first show I ever saw them play, in Chicago of all places.  I met them, got my autographs like a nerd, and actually got to chat with them, and then left when everything closed down.  I saw them again a year later, and the singer, Anders, actually remembered me from the Chicago show and I was up on their fanshots page for awhile.

The second thing I have for you is actually about my car.  I totalled the first car I had, a POS Buick awhile back, because I tried to dance with a deer.  What I mean to say is that he charged in front of me, I stopped and reversed a bit, he ran back away, I tried to go again and he kamikazed me, totally took me out.  Needless to say I had to get a new car, and the dealer wanted to know why.  So I told him my story… He thought it was so worldly ironic, mostly because the same thing happened to his kid, but also when he was young too, that he docked the total cost of my car by $5000.