I spend way to much on way too little.

I'm really quite surprised at how expensive college has been even so far. I knew that I was getting myself into a financial pickle when I walked onto campus, but I didn't analyze it. That was before I watched the numbers in my bank account fall. Now, I look at what I have, and I am slightly confused. 

I have a room that I share with another person. Don't get me wrong, my room is better than most size-wise, however, there have been four wasps. It's located next to a staircase where drunk people carousel in the night. It has a door to a hallway that is inhabited by drunk people who wander in and hit on me then insult my friend. It has a communal bathroom down the hall that currently has a sink in pieces on the ground and yesterday had vomit splattered near the stalls. So yes, money well spent.

I have books. These books were mandatory for class, yet not supplied. When you look at them, they're paper and cardboard composite and glue, with ink everywhere. But the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts, and I spent hundreds of dollars on my books. And I haven't purchased next semester's books yet. In high school, books were provided for class. Even private high schools provided books, as the students were paying for their educations there. Again, I feel like my money was put to the best possible use.

Oh--and laundry! Laundry is a joy. My clothes are always completely clean when they come out, because of how very nice the washers are. The dryers are even better, my clothes come out completely dry in forty minutes. And that is very convenient, because my laundry load runs at about thirty-five minutes, so there's no time at all where I have wet clothing not in a dryer. I also always have quarters, making the lack of quarter machine a distant worry for the day that I miraculously run out of quarters. This, of course, can be lumped into the living expenses category of money I've spent, and I would spend it again for the joy of using our laundry room.

And the campus is certainly putting my money to use on things that apply to me. I live in the "W", pumping iron day in and day out. All of the sports stadiums benefit me as a spectator because I have yet to miss a game. 

I hate that it costs so much for something that other countries have for free.

Today's discussion was interesting to me; no one liked how the role reversal was portrayed. Complaints ranged from "it perpetuated the 'bad' sterotype that black people have to deal with.

That's not necessarily how I saw it. Yes, I was uncomfortable with the portrayal of the rich ethnicity--what would normally be white people--as cold and uncaring, but I didn't see it as placing another black actor in a role that demeaned his race. 

If Travolta was portraying the stereotypical black ethnicity and many of us were disgusted by his character, then the rich factory owner was portraying the stereotypical white person. I know the movie is slightly outdated, but I'm not comfortable with that. I'm curious as to if it still is a stereotype, and uneasy about all of the stereotypes out there that apply to me that I haven't heard of.

The Downside of Student Loans and the Plus Side of Degrees

As a student in college, it is perhaps a little hypocritical of me to say that I don't believe that everyone here should be here. And that sounds very hypocritical, but let me explain.

Not every job requires a degree. Not every mind is equipped for college. Yes, if you have the desire to go into a profession that requires a degree, you should be welcome to it. But there has been too much emphasis placed on the value of a degree and not enough respect placed on the jobs that don't require degrees.

Personally, I am a fan of vocational schools and apprenticeships unless you have a specific degree that you need for your job. Especially with the price of schooling, it seems ridiculous to spend money on a degree when you could have a job suited to your skill set and receive the training from someone who has been doing the job long enough to become a master at it.

Hearing about how Germany handles "blue collar jobs" makes me wish that our country had the same approach--the world needs street sweepers, and there is no shame in that.

This being said, I am a hypocrite because I am paying gobs of money to go to school for Bio in order to be a doctor. I know that it's what I want to do, and I know that in the long run I have the potential to rebound from the expenditures of college. Many people go to college because they know it will help them make more money in the long run. And they're usually right. I just wish it wasn't the case.

It's for the children...and because of health care?

About an hour ago, I was of the mind that welfare is a necessary evil. Let me explain.

This summer, I worked fifty hour weeks. And found time to spend with my family, help my grandparents with flood recovery, volunteer, have a social life, and, yes, I even slept adequate amounts. Most of the time. When my parents were growing up, they were similar to me; they both helped out on farms, had jobs, and understood that if you want something, you have to work. As in have a job.

I'm a big believer in work ethic. So, even though I don't want the poor to be suffering, I had slight feelings of misgiving when there are people taking unemployment. There is no shame in having a job if you are providing for those that you care about. I know work isn't an option for everyone. I know that minimum wage isn't enough money to live on. However, I have the firm belief that if you are going to take help from the government, you better be contributing to our communities in some way. And on top of all of these thoughts, I can't not condone a program that helps feed children. 

So an hour ago, I was more concerned that the people on welfare put more effort into giving back to the people and communities that are giving to them than I was concerned about the environment that may have put them in a situation where they needed assistance. Basically, my viewpoint changed when I watched a video that my sister linked me, which coincidentally is on the Scholar's Facebook page. And I got mad at what our government isn't doing for us in regards to healthcare.

I am overwhelmingly upset about how high healthcare is in the United States, which was put into perspective quite nicely by the video. I can apply it personally, or to a hypothetical case, and be equally apalled. What would my knee injuries have cost if I didn't live in America? And what of that hypothetical family that is in need of help because their child has a medical issue that they can't afford? That's not their fault. It isn't their fault that healthcare is unnecessarily high, and it definitely isn't their fault that their child is sick.

My new opinion: If you are on welfare because healthcare is too damn high, you can have my taxes. You deserve them. If you are on welfare because you don't have good work ethic, shame on you because there are people who need the resources that you are using. And...if you are on welfare and you have children, take care of your children and teach them how to live a life where they can give back to those who have helped them. Become contributing members of society. Whatever you do, just please don't use resources that others need.

Reaction to Environmental Justice Topics

Last class was not an easy class for me. We split into our separate classrooms and shared our topics, so half of the scholars don't know what one of us is going through. Kelsey shared her topic, then veered into another, more relevant one.

Kelsey is from Colorado. Specifically, she is from the part of Colorado that has been in the news this last week for catastrophic flooding. Our classroom discussion focused on what is happening in her home town, and it was so very hard to keep from crying the entire time that she was presenting.

The week after I graduated from high school, my home town was hit with storm after storm after storm. My grandparents had a farm that has been in our family for one hundred and fifty years, and recently the area around that farm has been restructured so that, when those storms hit, the creek near their house left its banks. In the past, the creek has risen to the point that it has been around their house, but this year, it rose above the 100 year floodplain by three feet and flooded their house. Then, it flooded their house at least three more times within the two weeks after the initial flood.

I know from this summer how hard it is to clean up after something like that. This weekend, I went home and spent parts of Saturday and Sunday cleaning the furniture that we salvaged and helping my grandparents move into their new home. Because of this summer, I feel very passionate about helping the victims of the Colorado flooding. I feel that we have an obligation to help them in any way that we can, and the fall service trip seems like an excellent way to do so.

Environmental Issue (or really just a complaint)

In the movie Good Will Hunting, the main character, Will Hunting, criticizes students matriculating at Harvard University for spending copious amounts of money on an education that he received by spending a few dollars in late fees from the local library.  The annoying frat boy that Will says this to is then suitably ashamed and Will gets the girl and life is great, but that's another story. The connection I'm attempting to make is that I never knew to be ashamed of my lack of education until now. Scholars has been fantastic about showing me what I never thought to learn--I never knew how much I had in common with the privileged frat boy.

As a recent graduate from a small town school, I knew that I was poorly educated in many regards--I knew that my math classes were a joke (as in I held study sessions where I would teach students the material because the teacher did nothing), my science classes were a joke, my music training was joke...I could go on, but the point is that I am painfully aware of how little I know the longer I am at Wartburg. But I never considered my lack of personal knowledge on the subject of the environment to be one of my shortcomings until we started Scholars.

While our country's education system is something that I could have long-winded, passionate discourse on until I ran out of listeners, until recently I never would have thought to clump environmental issues into the pile of things that are going wrong with education. I'm starting to realize how important environmental education is, and I'm also starting to realize how few of the people from my hometown have knowledge on the subject.  We have a rudimentary recycling program--and in class, if you recall, I shared the story of how our recycling program in my hometown is apparently just another storage container that goes into the trash pile--we have a biology club that is freshman run and does nothing, and we have a lot of cars that have bumper stickers proclaiming things like "Corn Fed Hick" and "Proud to be Corn Fed." And we were content.

My grandpa owns cattle. He's proud to feed them corn, he likes the flavor and tenderness of his beef, and there is next to no chance of him changing his ways. I understand that most of the older generation of my community will not change. But I like to think that my generation would. I would like to see change implemented in my community. I don't need drastic; baby steps are encouraged. I want to see the students of my old school learning about recycling before they get to college. I think it's reasonable to ask that the local restaurants buy produce locally, especially with the surplus of farmers that we seem to have in our community. The baby steps add up. Before we know it, we're running.

I think that part of this was addressed in An Inconvenient Truth. Many people don't know the facts, don't know what they can do to help, and don't know what things that they are doing that are contributing to the problem.  In that regard, I think that An Inconvenient Truth had good information. However, I am very aware of how ineffective that particular mode of education would be on my hometown. I am even more aware of how ineffective that particular mode of education was on me--paying attention to Al Gore as he gives a lecture for over an hour, when it isn't even live, is perhaps too much to ask out of anybody, but most especially of ten college freshmen crammed into a small, hot room.

Dream of the Future

It seems that no matter how close to the future I get, it always seems like an ethereal, abstract concept, hazy and not quite in focus. Plans are tentatively put into place, but outside influences and personal changes keep sidetracking me from where I saw myself even a year ago and where I see myself now.

I know that I want to be a physician of some sort. It isn't about the money, which everyone seems to say but few truly mean. For me, it's about the environment. I spent afternoons of this last summer volunteering in a hospital. The feeling I had when I interacted with patients--even though I was quite obviously a lowly volunteer who could do little but help them with getting around and distract them from the pain of their radiation treatments--had me convinced that I was in a place where I truly belonged. I feel self-fulfilled in the clinical environment, and the people I worked with were the type of people that I can only aspire to be.

While I felt at home in the hospital environment, I want to push myself further. Since middle school, I've known that I wanted to participate in a humanitarian effort at some point in my life. It's only been in the last few years that my hazy someday-I'll-be ideas started to take on a more corporeal form. After I'm certified to practice medicine, I want to be part of the Doctors Without Borders program for a few years.

After that point, my dream is impossible to pin down. I see myself working in a private practice, or being one of many physicians in a large hospital. I want to live in a metropolis of a city, or perhaps in some rural town that few have heard of and fewer can tell you where it's at. I really don't know what I want, but that's part of what I'm doing now; I'm forcing myself to make decisions and question what makes me happy. I'll have kids someday. Maybe I'll retire early and open my own small business. For me, the point is not knowing everything. I know what I want to do for a significant portion of the next fifteen years of my life. While structure is a nice support to lean on, I don't want to know what makes me happy before I experience it. I want it to sneak up on me and surprise me with how much I love it.