2007
Yearly Archive
Wasted Dollars
George Metz 17 Dec 2007 | : Opinions
So I was laying (lying, not sure) in bed thinking about teachers’ salary instead of what normal people think of like “Oh I wonder what I’ll do tomorrow?” or “I love my girlfriend, Jan Levinson Gould”. I thought, “Where could we get money to raise teacher salary without raising taxes?” And then it hit me, we could have gotten so much out of the money we have spent in Iraq. Let’s face it, we all know George Bush is a retard and prides his strong will as a quality befitting a great leader instead of just admitting he’s stubborn. According to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, the total cost of the Iraq war to date is $477,702,329,915. Also, don’t forget an estimated 4,000 U.S. soldiers killed, 60,000 wounded, 700,000 Iraqis killed, and 4 million displaced. All of this and we have done nothing but give radical fundamentalists another reason to hate us. What George Bush doesn’t realize is that you can’t defeat an idea with the military. Sure, we are fighting the so-called terrorists all over the world and especially in Iraq but what we are really fighting is an ideology. I could go on for pages about the Iraq war which I disagreed with from the start. The day we invaded I knew it was a bad idea. You can believe me if you want or don’t, but when the national mainstream media started reporting that they spotted Iraqis in chemical suits about to use chemical weapons the student teacher of my 10th grade American History class was eating that shit up. This was a man right out of college that was supposed to think critically and not just believe what Fox News reports.
Down with gringos!
George Metz 11 Dec 2007 | : Uncategorized
You know, for all the negative connotations and stereotypes we give to people south of the United States, I would have to say sometimes I respect their cultural ideals more than ours here in the U.S. Maybe it’s just because of the type of person I am. Let me explain what I mean. For all the terrible political and economic turmoil that we think of someone mentions Central and South America, people really like to party down there. People take life slower down there and pase lo que pase, which pretty much means whatever happens, happens. They don’t have to plan every single moment of their lives out. They have crazy carnivals and wild parties all the time. Sure, I have not personally traveled around down there yet but I intend to. From what I have learned people of the Spanish-speaking world just takes life as it comes.
Events in passing
George Metz 26 Nov 2007 | : Personal Life
A couple weeks ago I was angered, tired, and distraught. I wanted to be done with the boundless amounts of work that had been bestowed upon me by 6 college courses. I was tired of doing group projects and papers, the mind-numbing repetition of daily live that was submitting lesson plans and creating materials. My mind was focused on a singular week of time that was Thanksgiving vacation. It really is quite odd how the holiday season is laid out for college students. In the spring semester it makes sense to have spring break exactly half way through the semester. You don’t work an 8 hour shift only to get put on break 6.5 hours into your shift (unless you happen to work in the fast food industry or Wal Mart). This is what the fall semester is like. You go 11 weeks without a break and then you get an entire week for Thanksgiving, and then you have 3 more weeks of class until you are done with the entire semester.
Don’t get me wrong, I am surely not complaining about it. Thanksgiving vacation has come and gone now. Aside from about half a dozen large ordeals, that will no doubt consume my life, the semester is over. The largest determining factor in a typical collegian’s life is their final exam layout. We here at Penn State pride ourselves on being able to throw everyone into a computer and spit out their final exam schedule. While this may be the simplest way, it is also the most painful. What I mean is, you have no choice in when your final exams will be even though it may make no sense. If you are unlucky enough to have 1 final and it is on the last day of finals week, you spend 4 days going insane because everyone you know has to study. Some people have 6 finals, and some people have none…it is up to the professor and the luck of the draw. I hit the semi-grand daddy of all final exam schedules second only to having zero finals. I have 1 final and it is on the first day of finals week. This instantly gives me 4 bonus days of x-mas vacation.
A lack of responsibility
George Metz 01 Nov 2007 | : Opinions
Most of the time the things that trigger thoughts in my mind are sensory in nature. I see them, touch them, or even smell them. The topic I have today was just something that randomly came to me whilst sitting on a CATA bus, which are the lovely public transportation buses for main campus. My topic involves the passing of blame in our society. Going to a liberal arts university has done nothing but pump my mind full of excuses for actions, for states of being, for everything.
“Oh, he killed that whole family with a steak knife because his father didn’t talk to him very much as a kid, poor him.”…What? I have taken a lot of classes that show that there is always a background story to everything. That no one is every truly to blame for anything, that it is always something else. In theory, you could probably give me any situation and I could make excuses for it. But sure, to clear things up right off the bat a lot involves children and reasons for their actions. Kids cannot control their own destinies yet and therefore I wouldn’t hold them responsible up to 18 for their actions unless it is capital in nature. But I mean really, is anyone willing to take responsibility for their actions?
Two Worlds
George Metz 15 Oct 2007 | : Personal Life
This past weekend I returned home to the small, quiet town of West Middlesex. I skipped my classes on Friday because I only skip when I plan it out. I never just get up one morning and go “You know, I don’t think classes are for me today.” and then go back to sleep. Perhaps I justify my absences via saying I deserve a break. In any case, I arrived back at home Thursday evening where I immediately went to Denny’s with Jeremy and Julie. I was starving and I missed them so it was a good combination.
I’m not going to devote this entry to going over in mind-numbing detail what I did over the weekend, because when people do that I just want to kill myself (figuratively of course). But I do want to say I got to see the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra play and it was spectacular. I knew that they would play Wagner and Beethoven, and I eat that classical shit up. The piece from Beethoven that they played was his Symphony No. 5 which probably everyone in the world knows. It was just such a treat for me to hear and see professionals play a classical music piece that I’ve heard shitty recordings of for years. The musicians really got into it, too.
