The Unusual

Lauren: Well, i have business law until 9 but then, sadly, predictably, i’m going to the grove.  Listen, it’s not like I’m psyched about it.  But go I must, and go I shall.  First though, I have to go home to Merrick and spend about an hour and a half making myself look like all the other girls at El Sitio.  This involves ironing my hair, wedging my feet, jean shorting my ass, and loose shirting if I feel fat.  Then I’m going to force five shots of Skyy down my gullet before stuffing myself into a cab with five other drunk girls.  If I’m not drunk enough I’ll have to pretend I’m having fun.  If I am drunk enough things will kind of take care of themselves.  I’ll follow my friends wherever they go.  They will want to go wherever the boys go.  This will end depressingly at around 3am when I will try and fail to not eat pizza.  Chances of puking?  0%.  Chances of falling in love: -100%.  Chances of hooking up: -50%.  Chance of waking up before 10am on Friday: 15%.  Chances that I am wasting my life:  Higher than I might like to admit. 

Luna:  I’m going to be working on my grad school applications.  I’m applying to fifteen different programs in twelve different subjects.  I have no idea what I’m going to do with my life and I can’t afford to experiment in the real world.  I’ll be working on my personal statement, and when I can’t bullshit any further, I’ll relieve the existential despair by watching House Hunters International.  At four am, my roommates will return from the Grove drunk and hungry.  They will wake me up by baking a cake.  I have a 9am class. 

People on campus are always claiming their residential college is better than another.

“Hecht has a nicer lobby!”

“Mahoney is so much better”

“Stanford is my ‘hood” 

But let’s get down to business.  Nobody cares about your lobby.  Nobody gives a hoot who wins Sportsfest.  When it comes to UM, there’s only one thing that matters—hot bodies and beautiful faces. Is your RA sexier than mine?  That, my friends, is the only question that matters. If you’re going to get written up, you might as well enjoy the view.

So who are the most attractive RAs on campus? I don’t know, I think Derek from the UV is pretty cute, but my boyfriend keeps me from voting more than once. What do you think?

The UV

Derek  

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In whatever you do, try to be present, fully present. As Satchel Paige put it, “Work like you don’t need the money, Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching.” You gotta be all in. This means leaving your technology behind occasionally and listening to a friend without half of your brain preoccupied by its inner longing for the red light on the Blackberry. I have gotten some glimpses of modern learning: In many college classes, laptops depict split screens - notes from a class, and then a range of parallel stimulants: NBA playoff statistics on ESPN.com, a flight home on Expedia, and a new flirtation on Facebook… I know how good you are at multitasking. You have developed the modern muscle set… But I promise you that over time this doesn’t cut it. Something or someone loses out. No more than a surgeon can operate while tweeting can you reach your potential with one ear in, one ear out. You actually have to reacquaint yourself with concentration. We all do. We should all become, as Henry James prescribed, a person “on whom nothing is lost.”

—Samantha Power, 2011 commencement address @ Occidental College

Signs like these have been posted all around campus. According to STAND, the student organization posting these signs up, Chartwells employees are only making $8-10 an hour and cannot afford to get healthcare for their families, since health insurance would cost them half their paycheck. They are looking for students to join them in their “stand” so these employees can renegotiate their contracts “without fear.”

A visit to their website led me to a video about the UNICCO protests in 2005-2006, when the UNICCO workers fought to get benefits (health insurance, paid vacation, etc). I think that the concept of organizing together to work for something you believe in is great, but I’m not so sure about how successful this Chartwells protest could be. When UNICCO went on strike, the economy was at its peak. Right now, Chartwells would have no problem replacing their employees. Another question is where would these employees go? There are not many places hiring and I really don’t think this is the right time to try and get this movement going. It sucks that they can’t afford to pay for their health insurance, but how would they afford it without a job? Even if they are able to find a job at another place like Chartwells (a Wendy’s, Sushi Maki, etc), what are their chances of affording health care?

I know this is UM and these students want to see fair treatment of every employee on this campus, but the problem is so much bigger than just our Chartwells employees. This is a structural problem with our society. It sucks that people can’t find a good decent paying job and be able to get healthcare. It sucks that chances are the kids of these employees don’t have access to the best education and meanwhile, they work at a university most of their kids won’t be able to attend. It sucks. What can we do about it?

“And what about you - the rest of you - did you notice the scars you left behind?

No. Probably not.

Because most of them can’t be seen with the naked eye.” 

When I started reading this book, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was afraid this would end up another book meant for middle school kids, too focused on delivering a message and not enough on creating the story. I was completely wrong. I was so engrossed in the story that I finished it in one evening. The book is the story of Hannah Baker, told by her on tapes she made before her death. It was the hardest book to read, yet I couldn’t put it down. I felt the pain and hated knowing how it would ultimately end. I wanted to save her. 

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Registration is here again and all around campus students are asking each other… “Do you know an easy (insert subject here) class I can take?”

We’re paying $50k a year to go to this University, yes?  Then how come so many students do their best to do as little work as possible to get by?

The main guidelines for an easy/desirable class appear to be…

1. Grades are based on exams, which cover test material only from the lectures.

2. Lectures are all on Powerpoints that are posted on Blackboard. 

3. No book required.

4. Attendance is not required, nor is it taken.

5. The class only meets twice a week.  A class on Friday?  You must be joking.  

What’s the purpose of going to a university? Are we only here for the diploma, and the handshake from Sebastian?  Does anyone care about leaving here with some knowledge, some kind of skill?

Do I?  Do you?

The University of Miami Housing Department claims their goal is “to make your stay as comfortable as possible and assist you in being academically successful.” In order to make sure you’re comfortable, they have to charge you a lot of money. On the cheaper end, you can pay $6,706 dollars for eight months of sharing a room with a roommate in one of our residential colleges where you’ll have the pleasure of sharing a bathroom with 40 other freshmen.

On the other hand, you can pay $9,630 to have your own room in a 4-bedroom apartment in the UV for 8 months. It’s another 2,000 to stay for the summer.

The latter option comes out to about $1200/month per person. Housing will tell you this includes all utilities, satellite cable, and 24/7 maintenance.  At the start of our on-campus living experience, we are told about the “friendly” maintenance line you can call whenever you have any issues. What they don’t mention is the disregard for students that has been experienced by so many students when dealing with this office. 

For the past three weeks, a junior named Lauren and her three roommates have been dealing with a disaster in their UV apartment. On Sunday, October 16th, the weekend of the never-ending rain, Lauren noticed her carpet was soaking wet.  Maintenance came and used a machine to suck up the water… this went on and on, since the rain did not stop for three days. The wall between her room and the living room started changing colors, filling with mold. It took maintenance until October 28th to finally come back to check that out.  At which point they had to tear out part of the wall to get the massive amounts of mold out. 

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On Sunday, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said that Planned Parenthood should be called Planned Genocide. He claims the majority of Planned Parenthood clinics are located in black neighborhoods, so they can kill black babies before they are born. He’s basing this claim on the history of Planned Parenthood, which was started by Margaret Sanger. Sanger was a supporter of eugenics, a movement that aims to “improve” the human population, mostly by encouraging “good” traits (i.e. white babies), and getting rid of bad traits, like those that supposedly lead to crime, poverty, “feeblemindedness”. So Herman Cain believes that Planned Parenthood locations are chosen to encourage abortions in black communities. What he fails to mention is that only 9% of Planned Parenthood clinics are in predominantly black neighborhoods, with 63% located in neighborhoods where the majority of residents are white. 

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When I think back to my high school years, I have more memories of watching other people’s sweet sixteens or quinceañeras (at 15) on MTV than I do of my own birthdays. I did not have the fancy party, coming-of-age ritual that has become so popular in the Latin-American culture. Here in Miami, quinceañeras are more popular than ever. The ever growing hispanic immigrant population has supported an industry that ranges from party planners, dress makers, photographers, travel agents and cake makers. The growth in popularity has also been influenced by MTV’s Sweet Sixteen show, since it first aired in 2005. So I was a surprised when I began reading Julia Alvarez’s book, Once Upon a Quinceañera, since I did not expect it so close to home.

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