Big, Bold, and Beautiful

I hate my computer. It has been nothing but a hassle ever since I took it out of the box. I thought it would be fun to finally have my own laptop; instead, I’m constantly restraining myself from throwing it from my top bunk to the tiled floor below!

I had been working on an entry about blogging itself, how it was interesting but not something I’d ever really been interested in doing. I had gotten three, in my opinion, well written, insightful paragraphs down when once again my computer decided I was over working it and would stop working all together. Gods forbid I try to open a second tab in Firefox!

I was trying so hard not to do exactly what we had talked about in class, make it all about me and simply rant. Well apparently my computer had other ideas for this entry. Now I’m writing in Word and making sure to save after every bloody sentence because I can’t write directly in the web browser because it might decide to lose all my work suddenly and crap out!

I have taken my computer to tech services three times now. One of those times I even had the hard disk replaced. Today when I brought it back the nice man told me he really didn’t know what else to do and that it was probably just Vista being Vista.

Are you freaking kidding me??

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t being sarcastic when I called him a nice man, he really is. He really does feel bad that this keeps happening, but if this really is just how Vista is then we have a serious problem. He told me that sometimes you have to wait up to twenty minutes before it will finish whatever it was that it was doing and unfreeze.

I made it to fifteen minutes.

Then I got pissed.

Luckily these two times it froze I was actually able to turn the stupid thing off. Usually I end up having to take the battery out and put it back, it’s that unresponsive. At least the first time I hadn’t made any progress. I didn’t know what to write about still and was just trying to check something on facebook when it decided that was far too much for its little brain to handle went kaput. (Is that how you spell that?)

The second time however I really did almost throw this thing to the floor. Like I said, I was really happy with my progress and even a little impressed with myself, but I guess we can’t have that. If I had smashed this thing I could have simply told the nice people at tech services that I accidently dropped it, or (imagining how much damage I’d like to see come to it) that it had gotten hit by a bus.

“What? You mean it’s so destroyed that I have to get a new one? Oh woe is me! Woe is I!”

The survey discussed in the Jaschik article seemed quite accurate in my opinion. There have been few times in my career as a student when a teacher has forced his or political views on the class. They may have been open to only one interpretation of whatever book we were reading but they almost always refrained from even mentioning their what their own political views were, let alone force them on their students.

We the students however can easily dissolve into a screaming match over a political, religious, or moral issue without much of a push. I am completely comfortable in admitting that I’m usually on one of the ends of those matches.

Part of the reason I chose to come to a college in middle of a city was because I knew cities are almost always have a more liberal mindset. I understand why so many students in the survey say that they don’t want to be pushed on their political views; if they’re anything like me they are simply tired of fighting about it.

I’ve had to defend my views on many different issues much longer than most people. When I was in fifth, and especially, sixth grade I would be forced into debates with my “friends” at the time. I hated it. I knew I would always lose. There were about six of them and only one of me. I am a religious minority and at the time they were all evangelical right-wing Christians who wanted to save my soul so I wouldn’t go to hell. I believe this included the debates partly because they wanted to prove to me that my beliefs were fraught with foolishness and that I just had to see how their way was the only way to enlightenment.

Though in theory their hearts were in the right place it really just made me feel sad, angry, and very alone. I ended up reverting to covering for all of middle school and some of high school because of such negative experiences. However, the one thing it did not do was change any of my views.

Another reason that students are tired of defending their beliefs is because we all know that we’re not going to change anyone else’s mind. At this point in our lives most of us are fairly concrete in our opinions and aren’t going to be swayed by a simple, though engrossing, class discussion.

I can completely relate to the idea of being “intolerant of intolerance.” I am very tolerant of different kinds of people and even those that that have different opinions than my own, but if they begin to express opinions or generally bad mouth people or issues I care passionately about I will become intolerant of their intolerance cannot be held responsible for my actions.

When I was about two years old the remote to the television went missing. My parents tore the house apart looking for it. Back then at least you could still change the channel by using the buttons on the TV itself. Nowadays if you lose one of the many remotes to the monstrous system we call a TV you’re screwed. Finally after six months of periodic looking my parents gave up and ordered a new remote and a little after that it arrives.

The day it arrives I am sitting on the floor of the living room by the back of the recliner giggling to myself fervently. When my parents are thoroughly confused at the cause of glee I pull the back cover of the recliner away and pull out the long lost remote.

“Is Google making us stupid?”

What an absurd notion. No, Google is not making us stupid.

In the article Carr talks about how since using the internet for about a decade he can no longer bring himself to be fully engaged in a book anymore. He claims that because of he is used to accessing material at extreme speeds his brain cannot calm down enough to immerse itself entirely in a book, especially a long one.

The book that I am currently reading, for pure enjoyment I might add, is 754 pages long. I have been flitting to it anytime I have some time to myself, frustrated I can’t stop everything and simply read.

I understand what he is talking about, about flipping from cyber page to cyber page without reading the entirety to find information. But is that really a bad thing? If I am looking for the average weight of an adult giant panda then should I have to read an entire book on them?

Just to test that out I searched in Google “average weight of a giant panda.” Google’s search time took a total of 0.23 seconds (it shows you on the page), I went to the second page listed because I could see it came from the Atlanta Zoo, a seemingly reputable source considering the material in question, once on the page I hit CONTROL F which searches the page for whatever word(s) you put in, I put in “weight,” and suddenly I not only had the average weight of an adult panda, 175 to 275 pounds, but also that of a newborn, adult males and females in the wild, and the fun fact that “males weigh an average of 10-20% more than females, indicating sexual dimorphism.”

It took me far longer to write the above paragraph than it took to conduct that entire search. I wanted information, and I got it. How can that be bad?

Time is something very few people these days have, and this goes double for students, of any level. Each year students are taught a higher level subject at an even lower level. In sixth grade I was learning the basics of something (I believe it was economics) that my mom told me she hadn’t even touched on until college. This was also true of the course load of homework I brought home with me each night.

Why should I have to suffer through the hassles of a library when I get every bit of information I need online? If it saves me an hour, or even hours of research to simply find reputable sources on the internet instead of thumbing through pages of books that may or may not help me, then shouldn’t I be allowed to have that small luxury?

Carr talks about how everything we do is faster, as if it’s a problem. It almost sounds like the “stop and smell the roses” argument. My generation does things faster because we have to. If we weren’t as fast as we are no homework assignment would ever be turned in. But getting school work and work work done at a faster rate is not the only reason that things being faster is good.

As many adults know, and envy, is the fact that my generation is adept at multitasking. When I am writing a paper I usually write a couple paragraphs, become bored, check facebook for a little bit, then my e-mail, all three of them, watch the newest movie trailer on YouTube, and then go back to write some more of my paper, and all while listening to the radio. Having fast access to all of these things is the only reason I can pull all that off without spending forever on said paper. If, for instance, my internet was suddenly extremely slow, I would become so frustrated that I’d be forced to nothing but my paper, however, not having enough things to focus on, and seeing the one thing to focus on is probably pretty boring, I would instead be zoning out quite often and for unknown spans of time. Having so many different things to experience keeps my mind focused while still giving it a reprieve.

In second grade my teacher wanted my parents to have me tested for ADHD, attention deficit hyperactive disorder. She thought I was incapable of concentrating on my work; the truth was I hated having nothing else to do. While doing my work I wanted to interact with my friends, talk to people. She on the other hand wanted a silent class and hated when I not only talked, but left my desk to talk to someone. Happily my mom was flabbergasted at her “request” and flat-out refused. She, unlike my evil teacher, had seen me sit for five hours straight playing Monopoly with my grandmother and then be upset that she didn’t want to play anymore. I had no problems focusing, as long I wanted to. If I’m doing something I don’t want to then I better have other things going on at the same, so that I am both focused and distracted simultaneously.

My last thought on the article is about how he and another man say they can't read books anymore, specifically the man who said he could no longer read “War and Peace.” Perhaps it is the format in which they are attempting to read that is causing the problem. I am able to read much longer articles and stories online than I am on paper. It’s purely psychological, if I see a giant packet of papers I will cringe at the thought of reading, but if is a matter of continuously scrolling down it’s much less of a problem. Of course this doesn’t always apply and I still have to be at least somewhat interested in what I’m reading. Still, it helps.