Palin

This is going to sound a lot like a rant, but it needs to be said.

Many people are now supporting McCain because he picked Sarah Palin as a running mate. Why? Because she's a woman. A younger, good-looking woman who has a son in the army and another child who has a disability. These facts do not, however, make her fit to be vice-president. People are losing sight of who she actually is and what the position of vice-president means. They gloss over the fact that a month before she was picked as VP, she didn't even know what the post entailed, she said so in an interview. It is incredibly hypocritical of the Republicans to say that Obama is young and has no experience to then pick a VP who is even younger than him and has absolutely no experience on the national level, or even in politics for that matter. Her record in Alaska hardly does her credit as well. She supported pork-barrel legislation, her claims that she refused perks is false, and her opinions of abortion and global warming are alarming enough to make anyone see how extreme she is.

If McCain were elected, he would be the oldest president, whereas Obama would be the third youngest, hardly a comparison. If something were to happen to McCain, Palin would then be president, and everyone must take that into account when voting. She has virtually no experience and would be entirely lost if she were to make any big decisions. We need a president that knows what they are doing, and although McCain's policies aren't the best, they certainly aren't the worst. But having Palin as a running mate makes me frightened as to what they could do to this country. If there was anyone that could be a worse president than Bush, it would be Palin.

So people need to stop being mesmerized by the fact that she's a woman and see her for her policies, not for her gender. If you didn't want to vote for Clinton for her views, then don't vote for Palin for hers, not cause she has boobs.

East Jabrew

My roommates and I have a phrase that we use to describe a particular part of a parking lot that we call 'East Jabrew'. The phrase is used to describe something that is incredibly far away. So far, in fact, that there's no actual geographic location to describe it, so we call it 'East Jabrew'. The parking lot for our dorm is incredibly small, so they have an auxiliary parking lot that's a block away that we can use. The parking lot is incredibly big, and the way that it's structured makes it so that there is a stretch of the lot that goes really far back. This part of the lot is termed 'East Jabrew'. I invite you to use this term as you will.

Post-It Wall

So I'm back at SCSU and had my first week of classes. The best part, however, is this new project that my roommate, Angel, came up with.

Last semester she had a lot of quotes from the Bible up on the wall to inspire her. This semester, however, she has decided not to put them up and instead we are creating post it spirals all around the room.

Let me explain how it works. We created a list of rules. Basically, each of us has to try to create one post-it a day, if possible. The post-it must be a phrase, sentence, drawing, etc. that is inspirational, thought-provoking, motivating, or just funny. No unnecessary profanity, and once a post-it is made it cannot be thrown out and must remain on the wall. The post-its will be put up when they are made and made to create a spiral pattern. Once we fill up the wall space above her desk, we will expand to other areas of the room.

I like the idea, it's a way for us all to express ourselves and what we find meaningful in a creative way that we can all share. The post-its are all different colors, so it will make the white walls more colorful. And she's planning to eventually make the post-it spirals into permanent inspirational posters.

Twilight

So I recently finished the book Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, and I thought I'd share my first reactions.

I was able to read it in about three nights, so it really only took me a couple of hours. I thought the flow was nice, and once I started reading it went by so quickly. It seemed like a much bigger book than it actually was.

Overall I thought it was a good storyline, kept me engaged. However I found it to be a little superficial. Although the character development of Bella and Edward were good, the rest of the world just didn't come alive for me. I know a lot of people compare it to Harry Potter, which I think is unfair. When Meyer is interviewed she distinctly says that she wasn't writing to make a statement or to do anything, it was just for her pleasure, and it shows. There's no real message or morals or hidden symbols in the books, which makes them less interesting. With a lot of other fantasy books that I read, I like revisiting the characters and hearing their thoughts over and over again, because I feel like they're live people just waiting for me to visit them. Especially with Harry Potter, I get transported to this other world that I feel I will never fully explore. With Twilight, she even admits doing no research on vampires, and the fact that they play baseball alone is a little off-putting.

It was a good read, I might go and read the other copies just to see what happens, but it's definitely not on par with J.K. Rowling, Tolkien, Lewis, or other contemporary fantasy writers. And I probably won't read it over and over again, which says a lot.

Smartpen

OK, so there is this really awesome pen that I would give anything to have, although I know I'm not getting it anytime soon. It's from Pulse and it's called a smartpen. you can check it out here. And I really suggest you do. Take a look around the website and look at the demos. It's frickin amazing.

Basically, it's a pen that records everything that the teacher is saying while you write, and records what you're writing at the time. So when you review your notes, all you have to do is press the play button with the pen on the paper you used, and it'll playback what the teacher said. You can even tap on your notes at a specific point. This way you never miss anything. Also you can upload your notes and the recordings to your computer. You can share them online with friends. It's really awesome.

Of course, the cost of something like that is, well, a lot. And it isn't a necessity. So I'll just have to wait until my parents are feeling generous one Christmas in order to get it. And besides, I'm not going to be in school for that much longer (crossing my fingers). It would've been awesome to have that in high school though.