East Coast Ramblings of a West Coast Girl

Can you smell it in the air? Take a deep breath. Inhale. That's right...I know you smell it. The sweat of thousands of students worrying about mid-terms.

Ahhh...it's that time again. Mid-term season. Luckily for me, I only have two actual "midterms". On the other hand, I have an essay due approximately every two weeks. Give a little, take a little. I prefer writing papers by far because I feel like it actually puts to test what you've learned. Do you understand what you're doing? Good -- so that means you can write a paper about it. It's nice, and I am pretty decent with scheduling in my time to write papers, which is not as stressful as studying and test-taking.

The bulk of my essays come from Media Criticism and my Propaganda class. Not that I'm complaining, of course. Both are extremely interesting. Media Crit is always so engaging, and I always feel so enlightened after coming out of it. Take, for instance, our talk on Monday about large corporations and their ownership our media. There are few corporations that are in control, fewer corporations means a fewer variety of opinions, which in turn means that even though we (people, readers, etc) are using the means of journalism as a democratization tool (as our founding fathers would agree), the fact that so many of our newspapers, news channels are owned by big corporations, there is actually not so much of a democracy going on. (And I used to/still do love/idolize Walt Disney...little did he know what a monstrosity of a company would form under his name).

Hopefully you can see me as part of the resistance. Through the power of blogs, reaching out for truth, to avoid censorship on the Internet -- one of our last means of, hmm, how shall I say this... "freedom" in a sense. No regulations, it's open to everyone. We're able to be individuals here! And not be a mass. Of course, you are all my mass. Reading, and all.

Uh, it seems I've gone too far for this blog, but it's surely something to consider. What comes with great thoughts like this, and contemplation of things larger than just "what does this film mean?" comes from really passionate and great teachings in classes like this.

Since I've got this individuality, there's something else I'd like to share.

Parents' Weekend/Day. That's great, you know, to commission a day for your parents to visit you in your cute little dorms and experience your cute little college lifestyle (insert frowny face here). I know it's super to have your parents visit and have them look at your room, check out the library, and all that jazz. But, I have just one beef with this whole thing:

Why take them to Sunday Brunch? They are slow, they don't know the system that we've so matriculated through the semester. It's sweet, yes...

Go ahead, show your parents around! I was really happy when my parents came to move me in, and really happy to show them around the city. I know it's always tough to assimilate into a new environment (especially a big, new city). Parents help, they do. I like talking to my parents on a daily basis, they soothe me. I know you will want to show them around the campus, but just please, please, please just curb your parents at Sunday Brunch.