Dialogue Story

“Hey Mark, Where you been? I have not seen you in over a week.”

“Man after that party last weekend I got arrested.”

“Arrested, what the hell did you get arrested for?”

“When I was walking home last weekend, I heard a crash and a woman screaming coming from              
 a house.”

“So what did you do?”

“Well naturally I ran towards the house to what was happening. By the time I got to the house where all the    noise was coming from all I could see was a person in dark cloths running down the street and the door to the house hanging wide open.”

“Man that’s crazy.”

“That’s not even the worst part, since the door was hanging wide open I yelled into the house to see if everyone was alright, but no one answered.”

“Dude, please don’t tell me you went into that house.”

“Unfortunately I did and the next thing I remember is waking up on the floor and being surrounded by cops.”

“What the heck happened when you went into the house? I’m guessing the homeowner must have thought you were the burglar. “

“Yes she did after I walked into the house she hit me upside the head with a baseball bat.”

“That must have hurt like hell.”

“It did believe me; look at this lump on the back of my head.”

“Damn, so how did you convince the cops you were not the burglar?”

“Luckily for me the real burglar went and sold some of the stolen goods to a local pawn shop that the lady reported stolen and the cops were able to track him down.”

“You got lucky that the thief was not very smart.”

“I sure did, I’m guessing that I would have went to jail for a crime I did not commit.”

“Thank god thieves are not the smartest people on earth.”

“True dat, I’m just glad to be a free man again.”

“I’m glad you’re alright. So are you coming to my party tonight?”

“I would not miss it for the world bro, I’ll be there.”

SOL Testing & No Child Left Behind

     Being an education major as well as having a wife and many friends who are also teachers in the public school systems, I feel like talking about the Standards of Learning Tests (SOL's) and the No Child Left Behind Act and perhaps get a few other peoples opinion on this topic. The SOL testing is a Virginia Public School school program, it sets forth learning and achievement expectations for grades kindergarten through twelfth.  These standards are a direct result of the No Child Left Behind Law that was passed by President George W. Bush back in 2000. The tests measure student performance in English, Mathematics, Science, and History. In order to graduate from high school students must pass a specific number of SOL tests in each of the four target areas, in order to pass an SOL a student must score a 66%.
     This is where my first problem with the SOL testing arises. Its not very hard to pass a multiple choice test when you only need a 66% to pass test. In every school I have ever been enrolled in a 66% is at best a D if not an F, and in my opinion neither of those should be a passing grade. The purpose of No Child Left Behind was to ensure that all students receiving public education are receiving the same type of education. What type of message are we sending to children if you are telling them that they can pass a test with a 66%?
     My other problem with the SOL testing is that the entire school year is spent teaching to the test and not necessary focusing on aspects of the course that may help the child later on in life after graduation. The school systems only care that their students pass this test so they do not lose Federal funding. To me if your trying to make sure that "No Child is Left Behind", it would make more sense to teach the children things they will actually use in their life's rather than something that is only going to help them on a standardized test.
   These tests are so important to the schools that they are even willing to let students who have failed a class, receive a passing grade for the year if they can pass the SOL testing for the class. Yes, you heard me right, a student who failed all four nine weeks will be given a passing grade for the year if they pass their SOL. As I previously mentioned my wife and a lot of friends are teachers in public schools and I know of more of than one school that this has occurred at. What does it tell a child when the school administrates are willing to let a child who failed a class simply slide on by just because they were able to get a 66% on a multiple choice test. When something like this happens it appears to me that these children are still being left behind, but its being covered up by the administration because they are not really learning the material. I don't claim to know the answer to what needs to be done with public education, but this clearly is not working.

Luck

     I'm not a very superstitious person nor did I used to believe in luck, but recently I have began to think that there are people who are unlucky and some people who are just lucky. I'm an avid poker player, I usually play a few times each week, whether it be in tournaments and/or cash games. As of lately though I have been on a terrible run which is what made me start to think some people are just more lucky than others.
     Those of you who play poker, or know anything about the game, know that it is considered to be a game of skill. Whether you try to read your opponents body language or pick up on some type of tell they may have to help you gain information about their hand. The goal is to take your opponents money, or chips. The game is not as simple as people think it is; it's a numbers game that involves a player knowing their percentages of hitting a hand or even how many cards they have left in the deck to win with.
    This is why I think some people are lucky and others are just unlucky. For the last month or so, I have been consistently losing hands in which I'm statistically supposed to win. When your supposed to win so many hands by such large margins and I'm losing them all of the time, a person cannot help but wonder how much of a factor luck is. Now I'm not saying that poker is all about luck, because when you're playing with thousands of dollars on the table thats different than playing for a few hundred dollars. I don't consider myself a lucky person at games or anything which is why I'm wondering how other people feel about luck. Let me know how you feel about the subject of luck.

Amount of Money Professional Athletes Make

     As I have already stated on my blog I'm a huge sports fan. There are a couple of interesting issues currently going on in professional sports recently that have caught my attention. The first of which is the pending strike next season for the National Football League (NFL) and the other is Albert Pujos's contract negotiations with his current baseball team. Both of these issues have one thing in common, they are all about money.

     Professional sports has grown into a multi billion dollar industry over the years in which the athletes are making billions of dollars each year just to play a game. I understand that these people are elite athletes and that it is their job to go out and play a sport that millions of people watch on television or see in person person, but do they really need to make upwards of 30 million dollars a year to do that? The answer is no, they get to play a game for a living which is fun. There are billions of people who have to work "real" jobs, most of which are not fun and most of them wont make as much money in a lifetime as these athletes make in a few years.
     As for the owners, they would like to expand the NFL regular season by two games. The prime reason for more games is more games means selling more tickets and longer television contracts. Perhaps the funniest thing about this with this is how the NFL was trying to make player safety a top priority in this past season. Would making the players play more games in such an impact sport be better for their health? Once again the answer is no and its all about making more money. If these athletes and the owners of these teams would think about the game and its integrity  more than they money, it would make the games more enjoyable for the fans.

    

RLS 311 Pop Culture Music & Hinduism Part 2

Success Songs:

DRAKE & LIL WAYNE, TREY SONGZ, “Successful,” Rap , 2009

Pink Floyd, “Money,” Rock, 1973

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkhX5W7JoWI

DJ Khaled, “We Taking Over,” Rap, 2007

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmXaMUvM0Ko

Jennifer Lopez, “Jenny From the Block”, Pop, 2002

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sob1LcGkdMg

Fat Joe featuring Lil Wayne, “Make it Rain” Rap, 2006

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_asu7n6QUc

Liberation Songs:

Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Free Bird,” Classic Rock, 1975

Beyonce, “To the left,” Pop, 2006

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EwViQxSJJQ

The Clash, “Should I stay or should I go,” Rock, 1982

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqH21LEmfbQ

The Beatles, “Free as a Bird,” Classic Rock,  1995

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqHjXF1gUWU

Deborah Allen, “Break these chains,” Country, 1994

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjSksm-bNLE

     The two aims of Hinduism we are looking at here are success and liberation. Just like with the first two aims we looked at, which were pleasure and community service, one of these aims was by far easier to find music relating to it. This time that aim was success, which includes anything related to wealth, power, and fame. I cannot think of anyone who does not want to be successful at something during their lives so a lot of people sing songs relating to success. Oh the other hand, I had a lot of trouble finding songs related to liberation or being free from something. As I already stated the reason for this is because everyone want wealth, power, and/or fame.

      In Hinduism worldly success is something that everyone attempts achieve at some point during their lives, which is basically the same in Western world. The major difference however, is that people in the Western world are willing to do almost anything to achieve their wealth and fame, legal or illegal. People who practice Hinduism will follow the laws of morality while trying to achieve their success. This aim is definitely the more important of the two to both Hindu’s and the people of the Western world. Just that fact that everyone achieves success and one point or another in their lives, but not everyone achieves liberation proves this.

     Achieving liberation or Moksha, is not something that people of Western culture usually concern themselves with. This is why songs regarding liberation are not nearly as popular as songs about success. The songs I did find regarding liberation or feeing oneself were not even concerned with freeing ones soul, but rather freeing themselves of some unwanted person or thing. In Hinduism Moksha is the ultimate goal, although everyone does not achieve Moksha everyone is striving to achieve it. Liberation in terms of American culture has nothing to do with freeing oneself from the cycle of life, death, and rebirth.

Why does Richmond not have a professional sports team?

     I like many other Americans am a huge sports fan. I watch hours of sports each week, I watch football, hockey, baseball, basketball, so if you get the idea I will basically watch anything sports related. So why does Richmond not have any major professional sports team? I grew up outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania watching the Steelers, Penguins, and Pirates. So a few years ago whenever I moved to Richmond, I started to wonder and even asked people who were from this area why are there no professional sports teams here in Virginia? I mean Richmond is the capitol of the state and one of the largest cities.

    Some of the people would give me the answer that there are professional teams here in Richmond. At the time there were the Richmond Braves, a minor league baseball team and the Richmond Renegades, which was a semi-professional hockey team. To anyone who has ever been to a professional sporting event you know that the atmosphere is totally different than that of a minor league baseball game or that of semi-profession hockey game. Yes Richmond does a major NASCAR track, but I’m talking about the four major sports in the United States.

    Other people would give me that answer that Richmond was not a big enough city to support a professional team and some people would even say that if there was a team here it would not be completive enough to draw fans. Remember I’m from outside of Pittsburgh, the Pirates have not been a competitive team in over a decade, but they are still making money or the team would have left a long time ago. The rely on the more competitive teams coming to town and drawing crowds of fans to come watch their super stars play. So you don’t have to have to have a winning team to have one.  

    That only leaves the other answer I was given, that Richmond is not a big enough city. According to 2009 statistics the population of Pittsburgh was roughly 311,000 and Richmond was 204,000. So yes Pittsburgh is bigger than Richmond, but you have to remember that a lot of the major cities in the north have professional sports teams. So if Richmond had a team it would draw more people from the surrounding areas to come watch a professional sporting event.

    I understand that it costs money to build a stadium or an arena for a team to play in and someone has to be willing to buy the team and move them here to Richmond. So it does take money to get a team up and running, but professional sports is a billion dollar industry no matter which sport it is. The smaller market teams are even making a profit thanks to the profit sharing methods that all of the leagues use. I think if Richmond brought a professional team to this area it would give the economy a boost with all of the people it would draw to the city. That is just my opinion on this subject and if you can think of any other reason why Richmond does not have a profession sports team please feel free to let me know.

24 hrs. Without a Source of Technology

     After some careful thought, I decided that I would give up using Facebook for this assignment. This meant that I had to change my internet homepage from Facebook to something else  before going to bed on Tuesday night so I could start the assignment on Wednesday. It was actually easier to go an entire day without Facebook then I thought it would be. The only things I missed were messing around with some of the applications and knowing what all of my friends and family were doing. Since I was unable to use Facebook, I actually got more school work done and even had time to study, imagine that!
     It was a little weird the following day when I logged back onto Facebook and had to catch up on what everyone had done in the previous day that I missed. That was probably the first time I had not checked Facebook for an entire day since I  made an account there. Going 24 hours without the use of Facebook was no where near the end of the world and it actually a good feeling having that extra time. However, if I had to do this assignment again I would try to find something that was much more difficult to give up.

Poem following Raymond Carver's Theme in Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-Second Year

July, It's evening in this wonderful place.
I stare at the water shooting into the air
as well as the lights and their reflection off the water.

Behind the water and the lights
You can see the enormous building towering into the sky.
You can tell that the lights water, lights, and the building are meant to draw ones attention.

This is the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas.
It is a magnificent site, and perhaps the nicest Casino in the town.
Man do I want to go back to that place.
When will I see Las Vegas again?

RLS 311 Pop Culture Music & Hinduism Part 1

Pleasure Songs:

Ludacris, “Whats your Fantasy,” Hip Hop, 2000

Keith Urban, “Only you can love me this way,” Country Music,  2009

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXr6geMms5E

Limp Bizkit, “Nookie,” Rock, 2000

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTMVOzPPtiw

Marvin Gaye, “Lets get it on,” Soul/ R & B, 1973

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKPoHgKcqag

Meat Loaf, “Paradise by the dashboard light,” Rock, 1993

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmPMMitJDYg

Community Service Songs:

Black Eyed Peas, “Where is the love,” Hip Hop, 2003

Band Aide, “Feed the world,” Pop/Rock, 1984

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDo-2LE1nd0

Michael Jackson, “We are the world,” Pop, 1985

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcwblvqir-s

The Beatles, “Help,” Classic Rock, 1965

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU7JjJJZi1Q

The Temptations, “Lean on Me,” Soul, 1972

                     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVatt3BplaQ

     The two Hindu aims we are looking at here are Pleasure and Duty/Community Service. My personal opinion is that Duty/Community service is the more important of these two aims. Pleasure is definitely the more enjoyable of the two, but it takes a better person to be willing to help another person than to participate in something enjoyable to them. As well learned, not every Hindu accomplishes the Duty/Community Service aim because of this. While searching for songs related to pleasure and community service I learned that in American culture related to music there are far more songs related to pleasure than there are related to community service. This is probably related to the fact more people are interested in pleasure then they are in helping others.

     The Hinduism belief is that a person can have or do whatever they want to as long as they follow the basic laws of morality and they seek their pleasure intelligently. This differs from the songs sung in American Pop culture in a couple ways. The first difference is most of the songs relating to pleasure merely just focus on the pleasure they receive from doing something. The other difference is they don’t worry about doing it intelligently. All they care about is the pleasure that they receive. No matter what the cost or costs that are associated with receiving that pleasure.

     In relation to duty/community service, I feel that American culture places far less emphasize on this then the people do in Hinduism. Just the fact that there are so few songs relating to this topic proves that we do not emphasize this enough. In addition, more people in our culture are self focused on themselves rather helping others. Everyone who practices Hinduism is not interested in duty/community service either though. This is why not every Hindu reaches the third and fourth aim.

Event In My Life

How I met my wife:


     One evening while bored out of my mind at my parent’s house, I was chatting to one of my friends online. My friend lived in a different town than I did, so we had a lot of different friends that the other did not know. I asked my friend to give me the instant messenger names of some girls that he knew so I could chat with them. My friend kindly sent me a few names and I started talking to them. After a few weeks of talking to the one girl, one day she had an away message up that said she was at class. Me being the smart ass that I am, I left her a message that said “no body at IUP (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) goes to class.” Well, when she got back to her dorm, her and her friend saw my message and her friend started talking to me. We talked for a little while and they invited me to come up and visit them one weekend. I chatted back and forth with them for the rest of the week and eventually agreed to go visit them over the weekend. As it turns out after meeting both of the girls I liked my friends’ friend better and shortly after that we started dating.

     After doing the first part of the assignment, I had a conversation with my wife about her recollection of the how we met. She had a slightly different memory of how we met. She said that it was me who wanted to go and meet them, but it was only after seeing a picture of my now wife. She also added that I was primarily going to meet her because she was the one that I was interested in. She thinks that the friend who gave me the first girls name, whom she also knew, gave me that girls name to be funny.