In Need.

Posted by Unknown , Friday, July 04, 2008 12:26 AM

I've been better, I've been worse. The days at the museum are long and tedious, and my life seems to reflect that now. Nothing's really exciting at the moment, and nothing seems to be positive either.

Then I talk to my grandmother today, and things get worse. I already knew that Medicare faces a 10% cut due to a Republican block in the Senate. I already knew that it was going to have an adverse affect on my family unless people figure out how to fix it. But then worse news came. Gran gives a sort of home health service for the elderly who cannot help themselves. Last week, she lost one of her jobs, but was able to pick up a new one that will take up a bit of the slack. Then, her other couple, whom she's been watching for about a year now, decided that it was time to go into assisted living - meaning she lost that job as well.

I have applied for a few jobs for weekends during the school year, which I didn't want to do but I don't see a choice if we're going to survive. Yet I know what's going to happen if I do this. I'll implode, like I did several times this last year, and I will be at another unhappy point in what is supposed to be the best years of my life. But it's beyond the point of each family member taking care of herself. There is a very tense reliance-defiance relationship amongst each member of my family, alive or dead, old or young. We need each other, but we don't want each other, and the resentment builds with each lent hand, no matter if it's loaning money or paying it back. There's a sense of entitlement that can only be so sincere when people love each other because of blood and few other connections. We are all three different people, with different motives, with different understanding, of how we work.

Now the time has come for me to make a decision. I can save my body, mind, and sanity and hope for the best that my 66-year-old grandmother, with her multiple health problems, can make it without my help, and I will live my own life and look back only to wave and smile. Or I can take the hard route that will burn, hurt, and leave me breathless from now until I'm finally able to leave, whenever that would be. The worst thing about all of this? I know which way I have to go, and it hurts to think of what that means for my future.

I have to help them. Times are tough now, I know that. And I also know that I have no idea how hard they can get, and I'm not prepared. But I know I can't sit by while my grandmother is reduced to eating one meal a day and never going to the doctor. I love her, and I can't bear to see her suffer.

I'm looking for ideas. I can write. I can brainstorm. I can lay bricks. I can do something, and I can do it soon. I want to be able to do something that will give me time with my family, so that I'm not squandering what time I have left to spend with them.

I'm not asking for in-roads and favors. I'm asking for ideas, work, and jobs that I can win on my own merit.

Thank you.

Posted in government, jobs, money, suffering | 1 comments

Filler #2: College Athlete Pay

Posted by Unknown , Sunday, December 16, 2007 10:31 PM

Oh there is so much I want to say here, because many things have come up in recent news that I would like to blog about. Yet time doesn't permit it. My bedtime has past, and I must be at work very early in the morning. However, finals are over (though they may bite me still). You will hear from me very soon.

Here's one of my higher rated articles on Helium. Enjoy.

Q. Should collegiate athletes receive payment for competing in college athletics?

A. No.

The first and foremost reason a person should go to college is for an education. At the college I attend, men and women's university sports take up to six hours of practice per day. This leaves little time for studies and social interaction, but it is something they choose. Why? Because they get a full scholarship.

Yet so many feel that an education isn't enough - that there has to be cash money involved for it all to be worthwhile. Suddenly, expense-free education isn't a payment - it's a perk. This issue goes far beyond the actual athletic side of things. This is about cost-benefit ratio between education and money-efficiency.

In many small towns around the U.S., kids are given an ultimatum: either the child does well in sports, gets a scholarship, and goes on to become something better, or the child can stay in the small town and follow in the footsteps of those before him or her. In cities across American, poor children and their families are given the same option. Sports are important - not just because they provide physical activity and social situations, but because so many view them as a ticket out of an undesirable situation.

Making college synonymous with big money isn't a desirable image. It changes the focus of the university, layers doubt on credibility, and destroys the trust amongst students, administration, and athletes. College shouldn't be a business. Paying students for sports devalues the education process and turns the whole thing into halfway house for those moving between high school and professional sports.

Also, where would the money come from? Tuition fees under "Athletic Salary"? Or from taxes? It doesn't make sense to put athletes on payroll for anything other than - at most - a free ride. Let's not forget why all students are meant to go to college to receive. Sliding greenbacks under the table and a diploma over the top isn't going to improve a collegiate experience, and pretending that it really is that way will only seek to demean those serious students, faculty, and administrators forced to go along.

Posted in athleticism, college, education, ethics, filler, money | 0 comments