General Education Fee's?

What is the deal with the "general education fee's" SMU is charging us? I looked online yesterday at next semesters bill I'm going to have to pay and I was shocked. For one semester of classes I'm paying close to $2,000 in fee's! Personally i rather have them throw that cost in with tuition and not even tell me about it. I've already accepted the fact I'm paying a small fortune on tuition and I'm OK with that, but something about the word "fee's" doesn't make me want to cough up that money. It makes it sound like I did something wrong and this is there way of getting back at me, I don't even know where what money is going. Tuition is paying for my classes. Room and board takes care of my sleeping and eating. What else am I doing on campus that is costing me that much money? We pay for our parking permits, sports passes, books, Greek life, just about everything has a cost tied with it already. What else is there to pay for? What are these fee's going towards?
Part of me believes its the unknown of where this money is going, and what it is getting me that upsets me. If only it had a break down of what it got me and why i was paying for those service. It's this unknown word "fee" that is getting under my skin. Anyone have answers?

Ups and Downs

I got a letter in my PO Box today advertising for SMU in Taos. If you ask me it looks like a blast, they have mountain biking, classes seem to be outside in the sun, mountains are everywhere to be seen. And best of all, in my opinion, all these things mean fresh mountain air ( http://smu.edu/taos/ ) . There is only one problem. For the most part this experience is for liberal arts major's only. Besides the two perspectives I still have to fulfill, none of their classes are geared towards my major. Is this fair?
In my opinion I can't answer that question. Part of me says no it's not fair, while the other part of me say's it is fair, the cost of implementing more classes there would be too expensive to justify doing so. But I can't say whether it is fair or not, all I know is in the end it isn't unfair. I can be upset that I can't go, but I picked my major and with it comes awesome advantages as well as disadvantages. It's important to realize these things in life, too often I get worked up about the things that get me down. If we remember the things that get us excited, the short comings of life don't seem as bad.
Life can suck at times, grades might be a little to low. Or family issues just aren't that awesome. But I guarantee that those things don't out weight the great things about life. Friends, mentors, mountain air. So why get down on life when there is so much to cheer us up.

Pick-a-Prof

Pick-a-Prof is an interesting website. It allows students to rate their professors. I won’t go into any more detail because I can almost promise everyone reading this has used it. And I would go as far as to say that even our professor has checked it. (Prof. Stephens, if you haven’t I will have you know you have excellent evaluations on Pick-a-Prof. That why I got into your class originally, but more over I know this cause I have been in your class the whole semester and my writing has improved. ) This leads to the next question though. Do the ratings on Pick-a-Prof really mean anything? Besides warning each other over and over again of a teacher and their hard to understand accents, it is my opinion Pick-a-Prof is something to look at for opinions, but for that only. Nothing can be taken as fact. And anything that is read in a review should be read with discursion. A liberal art’s major is more than likely going to give a chemistry teacher a bad review, or physics major might give their wellness teacher a low review. But that doesn’t say anything about the teacher; it only gives the students opinion of the classes’ difficulty to a certain person, not as a whole.
This might be a no brainer for some of you, but I wanted to write about it. I’m not going to say Pick-a-Prof is a bad thing. I use it. But I will say it requires consideration when using it to pick a professor. It’s a great thing to be able to find a teacher whose style fits your learning best. But the website is used to find the “easiest” teacher by some people, and then other people are using it to rate the teachers who taught them the best, and not bases on a grade. The fact is the website is broken. And because of that, in my opinion, the ratings mean nothing more than an artificial opinion of a teacher’s class. If anyone wants to find the teachers who will be best for them, they will need to dig much deeper then the ratings.

5 years from now

Where is my life going? Where is your life going? A few months ago I knew what I wanted to do, what I wanted to be and I knew the answers to most of the important questions I kept asking myself. But I just don't know anymore. It seems the idea's I once had no longer are the right answer.
Not anymore, one day I want to be apart of something huge. Something bigger than myself, then the next day I want to see the world. I want to feel small and experience life as it unfolds, experience life one day at a time. But then my mind goes towards money. How will I ever make a living that way?
My mind is torn between what I want to do with my life. And what I want to accomplish in life. Where will I be in five years? Will I have graduated from college at that point? Will I have a job? Will I want to have a real job? All these things are flouting around in my head and I don't know what to do with them. Should I even worry about these thing? Is it even reasonable for me to be worries about these things? As for know I have no answers for these questions. I share them with you for advice. If you are in the same boat as me I feel for you. If you've experienced this... Well let me know how it ended up. Does it fade away? Did you find an answer? Did it work itself out?

Only time will tell where my future takes me.

Into the Wild...

First off this a great book I strongly encourage any guy to read. I would encourage a girl to read it, but I don't know if you would like it. I'm not saying you wouldn't, I'm simply saying I haven't the faintest idea what your thoughts about it would be. But that's not what I'm trying writing about. In fact the idea I'm writing about is only a mere shadow of that i took away from reading Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer.

Why does life have to come with so much baggage? When i finished reading Krakauer's book I asked myself that. It doesn't really have much to do with the overall topic of the the story but none the less I thought about it. Christopher McCandless, the main character, escapes from everyday life. The worries and troubles of his life slip away and a new set of concerns arise. Where will I sleep tonight, what will I eat, how will I earn my next paycheck? These questions weren't forces upon him, they simply seemed like the lesser of two evils to Christopher. He needed to get away from his original life, and the new life he chose gave him the change he needed.

Everyday the idea of dropping everything in order to do what he did crosses my mind. The idea of utter freedom with no plan ahead of you except to continue on a uncharted course is beyond appealing to me. But then I lose my gut when I think of modern day repercussions that weren't an issue in the 70's. The issue of money, shelter, transportation. All these problems pose as a fear of the unknown for me. Would they be an issue? Or could I simply get away with not worrying about them?

Either way I still a far fetched idea of mine. Maybe one day I'll escape from the worries of modern life. Politics. War. Money and so on. Maybe one day I'll go Into the Wild.

Apollo, STS, Ares.

The Apollo program was what got us to the moon and helped set in motion the "super power" identity of America. The Shuttle (STS) is what's keeping America at the top of manned space missions. But what is next? How will we stay one step ahead of everyone else as the leader in space exploration? Well the future is here. NASA released last week a article about the Ares 1 rocket, the first of many rockets in the Constellation Program. NASA brought in more than 200 companies from all across America to help construct the engineering marvel. Cheaper to launch then the shuttle, and with a larger cargo capacity the Ares will quickly become worth the money spent on it. And with the completion of each stage in the Constellation Program, America, and human kind will become one step closer to deep space exploration and a Mars landing.
( http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/ares/nations_rocket.html )

Cuban Rocket Crisis?

While surfing threw the "Sci Tech" section of the online version of Fox News. I ran across an interesting article. (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,424067,00.html?sPage=fnc/scitech/space) It was about Russia, and there resent involvement in Cuba. There is a possibility of a space center being built in Cuba. Not by the Cubans, but by the Russians. Sound Familiar? The Cuban Missile Crisis comes to mind. But is this possibility really a threat to America? If Russia was looking for a strategic military station near America would it matter anymore if it was “close” to us? It did during the Cold War, but today’s technology is far beyond that of the Cold War’s technology. The difference of a few hundred miles versus a few thousand almost doesn’t make a difference when today’s military missiles are involved. Not to mention the fact submarines can do that if that was their real intentions. Skeptics might not agree… But when looking at Russia’s decision from a scientific view there are advantages. Cuba is near the equator. NASA launches its rockets from Florida for a reason. So why is Russia considering building a space center in Cuba? For Military reasons? I really doubt it; but the idea has to be addressed. For scientific advantages? Much more likely, but along with this is another possibility. Are they simply being a thorn in our sides? Their actions in the past few months might point towards this. These are just three possibilities, and more than likely it’s a combination of the more than one reason. And after I post this more news will likely surface regarding this issue and opinions will change…