The Four-Year Stigma

As seniors look forward to walking down the aisle during commencement ceremony, the fast approaching reality of graduation throws many students in a quandary, while graduates visit with family and friends and celebrate their benchmark achievement. Seniors stew in the knowledge that their so called “victory lap” may not be so victorious.
The number of awarded bachelor's degrees awarded from 1987 to 1997 rose by 18%. In the year 2003 the U.S. had 37.4 million citizens between the ages of 20 and 29. In the subsequent years these statistics have grown. The rise in number of these “twenty-somethings” with a college education has led to a phenomenon of depressed young adults that is commonly called “the quarterlife crisis,” a term applied to the period of life immediately following the major changes of adolescence into adulthood that causes feelings of depression, inadequacy and confusion of identity.
Many psychologists recognize QLC as a real problem among young people, and it is often compared to the mid-life crisis of adults 40 to 50. All these statistics can be found at quarterlifecrisis.com, a site dedicated to literature and statistics related to alleviating this problem.
Although QLC is usually found in college graduates, the issue is more commonly being found in all students nearing the end of their collegiate career. The general belief held by many Americans that adulthood begins at age 26 may further the problem.
The quarterlife crisis looming above our heads, the thousands more dollars of debt we will accrue in the following semesters trying to finish our degree plans, and the constant hassling of others over when and why we are not graduating on time. It would seem to be a grim outlook of life for my fifth year compatriots.
Though suffering from feelings of embarrassment or depression from our inability to finish our collegiate journey, we may take comfort in a report by The Education Trust put out in 2005. It shows UMHB’s six-year average graduation rate is only 41.2%.
This statistic may bring us encouragement. The simple fact that we are still in school and close to finishing, should spur us on to no longer furthering the statistics.
We are ahead of the curve. We must focus on the prize at hand by putting our nose to the grindstone and putting away our slacker-like ways. Together we can show the incoming freshmen not born in the 1980’s how it’s done.
If we focus on graduation in 2009, it will not only help keep our mind off of our busy senior schedule, with robing, midnight march and all the last experiences of our collegiate experience, it will also then be less likely for us to think ahead toward the great unknown of the future ahead.

Water

Rain slowly drips from the clouds like a leaky faucet, a light mist fogs the windows as a small grouping of droplets form into a community. Together they slowly conform to one single unit, one mind, one soul, one spirit. Yet each droplet is its own being. Its own personality. Its own consciousness. One individual thought in a sea of flowing rain. As one they are nothing but a drop, a speck in the large scaled existence of the universe. As a unit they comprise a driving force capable of causing the untold tragedy of entire planets. We need it for survival. It sustains the erratic system of life on which we cling and is the very fabric of our being. The majesty of its beauty holds spectators breathless as it dances through nature a holy trinity three in one. Immersion in its depths will awe those who brave it, many fall victim to its might. This deadly temptress of navy and gray may also heal those who thirst for its power. Then all at once the time will come when the sun breaks through the clouds and everything will fade into nothingness.

What happened to the American Dream?

As I listen to the two presidential nominees argue against one another as a way to somehow win the hearts and votes of the populous, I can't help but wonder what happened to America?
When the Founding Fathers laid down the Constitution for the United States, they did so with the great ideals, hopes of freedom and dreams of liberty. Their stance against the tyrannical monarchy of oppression, from which all colonists fled, was a radical new idea. The idea that all are created equal. When were Liberty and hard work replaced with the socialistic ideas of governmental control and handouts?
The current administration as well as the upcoming administration that is to be elected in November have much more in common than they would have us believe. The so-called partisanship of Washington fades away when citizens see the voting records of those running. Both John McCain and Barack Hussein Obama have voted with the Bush administration; they have also both voted against it. When will the American people wake up and realize that the freedoms they once enjoyed in this country have been traded away for a false sense of so-called, “safety?”
Benjamin Franklin once said, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
The Founding Fathers would never have agreed to things like the recent government buy out or the Patriot Act of 2001. These blatant power grabs are just two examples of the extent of corruption that the powers that be have jumped into.
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy,” James Madison said.
Our government has scared its people into blind submission through threats of terror and foreign enemies. They have policed the world as a way to slowly leech our liberty.
They have perverted the very foundation of our nation – the Constitution – into some kind of living document that should be changed instead of followed.
“Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government,” Madison said.
The First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press as a way for the government to be held in check. Constitutionally, the media should be having a field day with this current way the government is being run. Why is the media so slanted towards push one party's rhetoric or the next? Those who would say that the media should not criticize and critique the government are not in agreement with the Founding Fathers.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the president... is morally treasonable to the American public,” Theodore Roosevelt said.
These are just some examples of how far the United States have fallen from grace and how very close we are to becoming a completely socialistic society. Short of a violent revolution, which none truly want to see, the only way to change this reality is to lobby and vote for the men and women who do hold to the values the Founding Fathers held.
In the words of John Quincy Adams, “Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”

Woo-hoo for yoo-hoo

Yoo-hoo chocolate drink is by far the best beverage that has ever existed. Often when I write I will not be able to continue until I have made the trip to a local grocery store to grab at least a six pack of yoo-hoo and some Little Debbie snacks.
It is no secret that college students frequently eat unhealthy snack food and highly caffeinated beverages during late nights cramming for exams, papers, and the like. But not one of those midnight snackers can compare with yoo-hoo.
For those who are unfamiliar with the drink, yoo-hoo is a wonderful chocolate milk alternative.
According to the company's official website, the drink got it's start in the early 1920's by a man named Natale Olivieri, owner of a bottling company in New Jersey which made fruit drinks.
Olivieri believed if he could create a chocolate drink that would not spoil in the bottle, it would be a major success. After many experiments, he finally found the correct mix of natural flavorings and bottling methods, and yoo-hoo chocolate drink was born. Today yoo-hoo is still headquartered in New Jersey and is bottled and sold throughout the United States.
Yoo-hoo is often label as a chocolate milk alternative. Some critics point out that it does not traditionally score well on purely taste-based chocolate milk comparisons. It is true that good chocolate milk is very tasty and does taste more like itself than does yoo-hoo. However, leave milk on the counter for a day in an unopened container and come back and taste it then, or leave a chocolate milk in the refrigerator for over a month and try it again. Now do the same thing with a yoo-hoo.
Compare the two again.
Does the milk taste different? Yoo-hoo doesn't.
Yoo-hoo not only boasts of no preservatives and no left-over growth hormones from some mistreated cow, its nutritional facts blow away opponents.
When compared against any of the most popular chocolate milks or soft drinks on college campuses yoo-hoo stands strong. Common sodas and energy drinks are loaded with calories and mass amounts of sugar and caffeine. Chocolate milk is high in fat, calories, cholesterol and sugar. Yoo-hoo, however, not only has fewer calories and less sugar than sodas, energy drinks and chocolate milk but also is 99 percent caffeine free and 99 percent fat free.
Yoo-hoo is a delicious alternative to the usual junk drinks that are consumed on a daily basis. So, next time tempted with the high in sugar high in caffeine drinks or fatty calorie stuffed milk, reach for a yoo-hoo instead. Don't forget to shake it.