U.S. Pride: Where has it gone?

Being in the war has caused a lot of turmoil in the United States. People argue for it or they argue against. In this post, I do not want any of that argument. I want to show that no matter what, we are all Americans.

I went to New York for spring break and we went to ground zero. There was a display containing pictures from 9/11 when the tragedy struck, a time line of that day, and plans for the memorial being built. As I gazed upon the pictures of the burning towers and tears falling down innocent people’s faces, the emotions from that day came back to me very vividly. We were all upset that our country had been attacked and innocent people had been killed. After that day, the United States came together. We put differences aside and had a sense of pride and unity in one another and in our country. Every year when September 11 rolled around, almost every person wore the colors red, white, and blue. We were truly proud to be Americans.

Where has that gone? No one wears our colors anymore in remembrance of innocent workers, policemen, firefighters, or anyone who lost their lives on that dreadful day. It seems we have forgotten the day of September 11.

Presently, we have American’s throwing homemade bombs at the U.S. Army recruitment center in New York City. We have people saying they are ashamed of our country because of the war. Once again, I am not here to argue for or against the war. I am not going to say my opinion on that matter. What I want people to realize from my blog is when we put politics, republicans vs. democrats, or beliefs aside, we are all still Americans. However, we don’t show it. I think that is terrible.

We should be proud of where we come from. Maybe the war isn’t something you want and you are ashamed we are in it. However, we ARE in it and there is nothing that we can do about it as individuals. No matter if we agree or disagree with the government or each other, we need to stand by our country and its decisions. At the end of the day, we are all Americans.

Friendships

Check out Audbloggers blog. It's a great post about quality vs. quantity of friends. I wrote a comment...you should too!

Worker vs. Workaholic?

I was very bored as I waited in the LaGuardia airport in NYC to come from spring break. I had finished my book and I had nothing else to do so I started people watching. I noticed a similarity between the majority of people sitting in the gate with me. They were all concerned about their jobs.

The woman sitting next to me had her laptop out writing e-mails while talking on the phone about getting different phone numbers to contact other business people. Her husband and son were sitting next to her in complete silence receiving no attention from the woman. While talking, she told a story about how she had her son write an e-mail for her while they were on a road trip together. I think this is ridiculous. There is no reason for a mother to make her son write a business e-mail for her while they are on vacation together.

Shortly after this, a woman walked around frantically trying to find a seat at the gate while she talked on the phone making sure she had her facts correct before she presented her idea to her bosses. She spoke loudly and violently rolled her suitcase behind her, running into people as she passed by. This woman had no consideration for the people around her.

Next, I noticed a man standing against a wall clicking away at his blackberry. Not long after he stopped typing, he received a phone call. One of the first things he said was “Yes, I just sent the e-mail. Let me know in the office on Monday what you think.”

Honestly, I couldn’t and still can’t believe what I had seen. I don’t understand why people only focus on their jobs. I think it is wrong to ignore a family, run into people, or be glued to a phone all because of work. Society centers on working and money that people become caught up in it and don’t leave room for anything else in their lives. People should be able to enjoy their families, vacations, or alone time without thinking about work. So why do people only think and breathe work? How does this bring happiness in life?

Newspapers vs. Websites

The blogger wisco88 wrote a very interesting blog about newspapers vs. the internet. I wrote a comment on it. Write your opinion and see what I wrote Here

Losing TV

A fellow blogger wrote a great post about TV and what happens when we lose the ability to watch it. I left a comment so see what I wrote....TV...an addition?

I'm at Lefty!

Throughout elementary and middle school, I was always very strong in English. I was very good and reading and writing; however I dreaded math and science. Math required much more studying and hard work than writing did. I used to be able to sit down and write about anything without a problem.

My brother, who is four years older than me, was the exact opposite. He was always very strong in math and science but struggled in English. He could solve any math problem that was given to him, whether or not he had seen that material before; but he had problems writing papers.

Now that we are both in college, we have traded places. He loves to write and is very good at it. In fact, he is an English major at the University of Texas at Austin. As for me, I love math. It makes sense to me because it has an exact answer and there is no room for debate. I’m looking at being an accounting or finance major.

So how did this happen? I find it interesting as we grow our thinking completely changes. I have moved from right side of the brain to the left. It is very hard for me to sit down and write this blog, for example. To be honest, I have been sitting in my friend’s room for three hours with my laptop in my lap with a blank word document open the whole time. For my friend, she is an excellent writer. It comes very naturally to her and she writes fantastic blogs.

So how do math people make a good blog? I have written other blogs but they have not been very good. I have tried but nothing seems to bring out good conversation. Any tips?

U Wanna Txt?

I find it amazing that there was such a technology boom in my generation. From the years 1989-present, technology has soared. My brother owned the very first Nintendo in about 1990 and now in 2008 my family owns the Nintendo Wii.

Texting also shows the advancement of this generation. Walking around campus, I see everyone either talking on their cell phone or texting. Don’t get me wrong, I am a texting addict. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard my parents ask me “Why don’t you just pick up the phone and call someone…it would be so much easier!” But parents don’t understand that just sending a quick text is so much easier than picking up the phone. My logic is that calling someone just to ask what time the movie starts would be a waste of a phone call and honestly an awkward conversation.

To give the older generation some credit, my parents have learned how to text message. They still don’t understand the concept of a text message but at least they know how. What I find funny is that they treat it like an email, always signing it “love, mom” or “love, dad”.

We bought my granddad a cell phone just in case of an emergency. It is a very easy phone to use considering this model isn’t made anymore. We taught him everything about the phone and he understood perfectly. However, do you think it is out of the box yet? Of course not. He still prefers to use his phone that still has a turn dial.

There are just things in life that older generations will never understand about us (texting/cell phones, for example). Maybe that is why our generation is always criticized for doing something good, as Greenberg states in his article. Critics don’t understand why we do what we do, like play on the computer or text. It doesn’t make sense to them so they criticize us for it.