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about me
oh so useful
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Tuesday, May 8
This Fall, I start the last two years of my undergraduate
degree at University of Houston – Clear Lake.
This university is helping me to reach my goal of getting my Computer
Science degree and allow me to stay local.
I have always been close to my family, and it’s exciting that I will not
have to sacrifice academics. A lot of
schools today have a lot of extra stuff – I’ve even seen schools with spas and
rockwalls. That is just way over the top
for me, and it seems like that would contribute significantly to tuition. UHCL has completely reasonable tuition but
doesn’t sacrifice a nice campus. I’ve
always loved hiking and being outdoors, and UHCL is completely surrounded by
nature trails and trees. I can
completely envision taking my school books and my computer and studying outside
– but the campus is far enough away from a large urban sprawl that I won’t be
completely worried about my safety like I would be if I were taking classes in
downtown Houston. Right now, I work at
Best Buy Geek Squad and teach piano to children. I’m excited to start the next phase of my IT
career, especially as an IT analyst for one of the several surrounding
petroleum companies. My father used to
work as a programmer for a company downtown when we first moved here, and it
would be pretty fun to follow in his footsteps. Because he wants me to work for what I have, just like he had to, I'm paying for my college out of my own pocket, which is why scholarships and low tuition are so important to me. But ultimately, my journey now is about paving the way for going back
into school for my graduate degree in neuroscience. With how much neuroscience and the technology
field are beginning to converge, my undergraduate degree at UHCL will be
perfect for me to lay a technological foundation for my long-term goal of being
a research scientist in the neuroscience field.
Being able to program or understand the inner workings of how a computer
works could help enormously with my ultimate career field, and I have already
opened communications with professors at UHCL who are interested in the same
convergence of fields and are willing to work with me to better customize my
time at UHCL to lay that foundation that I crave. I don’t think I’d get that at a larger school
that isn’t local to me now.
This scholarship is sponsored by CenturyLinkQuote.com.
Ember [
18:56 ]
Thursday, October 4
Thomas More's vision of the perfect society, Utopia, has been widely praised by a variety of readers from diverse political and religious persuasions. What present-day governmental and religious institutions are most in agreement with the society that More outlined?Man’s Utopia “Utopia,” in a word, describes the perfect society where every body in the community exists to fulfill a purpose and attains constant happiness. But attempting to describe utopia within the confines of a human society compares to humans attempting to fly autonomously to machines. The term “utopia” comes from Greek roots collectively meaning “no place.” Utopia can only be achieved if infallible individuals constitute the community. Humankind as it exists today is anything but infallible. As Thomas Paine stated in Common Sense, “[society] promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, [government] negatively by restraining our vices.” Paine also points out that society, as it grows larger, naturally forms a government. Since society and government must intertwine, defining one defines the other. Therefore, to define man’s most achievable form of utopia, man must define a specific type of government. Consider a dictatorship as a utopia for one. The most efficient form of government, one person defines the rules which all persons in the society must follow. Objectives become fulfilled quickly and efficiently without any form of bureaucracy to advance through. Every person in the society thinks the same way (or must appear so) to avoid conflict. This style of government solves many social problems, such as crime and unemployment, to the sacrifice of freedom. The distribution of wealth depends on the ruler; potentially, the ruler will distribute the wealth unevenly, favoring himself over others. The majority of the common people will feel oppressed and unhappy. As a result, the whole of mankind cannot find utopia in a dictatorship. Socialism defines the other extreme of the governmental spectrum. The modern socialist party claims that government in the ideal socialistic state will take on democratic characteristics. In theory, the government evenly distributes wealth throughout the common people in the form of benefits such as health care, higher education, and unemployment benefits. However, people will come to depend on the government to the extent that they may stop working, possessing the ability to survive solely on the governmental benefits. The free-market democracy places itself between the two aforementioned administrations. This style of government provides the greatest amount of freedom for as many people as possible. The free-market economy procures opportunities for those who work the hardest. This provides motivation to work, and will thus sustain the economy. Government, which “is produced by our wickedness,” as Paine writes , won’t hold as much power as in the socialistic system. Companies or other private groups retain the right to give out benefits to their employees. Everyone in the society secures freedom. Although not all people will claim complete happiness, they claim freedom and opportunity. Different style of government, the dictatorship, the socialist democracy, and the free-market democracy, provide different types of “utopia.” A dictatorship provides utopia for only one: the dictator. The socialistic democracy may provide all working people a utopia, but if people do not work and simply survive on the governmental benefits, the economy suffers. A free-market democratic style of democracy promotes the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people for the longest period of time. The American Heritage Dictionary describes utopia as “an ideally perfect place, especially in its social, political, and moral aspects.” Mankind recognizes the fact that utopia cannot yet exist on Earth and the only explanation lies within its own fallibility. Ember [
15:23 ]
Thursday, July 19
Not Submitted:Round One: HPV vs. Liberty What is the role of government? This question lies dormant underneath the original question asked, “Should states enact laws that would require girls to be vaccinated against Human Papillomavirus (HPV)?” Without considering the first question, the answer to the second sounds easy – of course the government should require it; after all, the vaccination could protect hundreds of lives nation-wide against cervical cancer! But the question extends further than simply whether or not the vaccine may potentially protect lives. The government should provide its citizens protection from outside forces, like murderers or careless drivers, not protection from themselves. [ ] The strain of HPV that can lead to cervical cancer cannot spread as a result of ordinary physical contact but through sexual encounters, most commonly vaginal, anal, and oral intercourse. Obviously, this means that the child (in most states that have enacted legislation, the minimum age is 11 or 12), except in the case of rape, would deliberately make a choice to contract HPV through deliberately making a choice to have sex. However, many women - much less young girls - do not know about several STDs beyond the few commonly talked about on TV or in movies, like AIDS or herpes. In 2004, a study by the American Social Health Association (ASHA) suggested that a leading reason for the spread of STDs, especially those lesser-known like HPV, resulted from the American community’s general lack of awareness. “…noted James R. Allen, M.D., M.P.H, president and chief executive officer of ASHA... ‘people's lack of awareness about the various STDs only underscores the need for continued education to prevent the spread of these serious diseases.’" (American Social Health Association, Inc.) If the government wants to get involved, perhaps it should start with better public awareness about more STDs than just AIDS and herpes. If the youth of today understood more about the risks involved, perhaps the amount of unprotected sex of minors would decrease. This strategy certainly could prove useful by making the public more aware of the dangers of STDs and letting them make their own decisions rather than forcing them to take an inoculation that may not be required for each girl at the age of twelve. The answer cannot lie in more governmental funding to simply patch up today’s cracks. The issue of government's role in the peoples' lives notwithstanding, the choice to enact a law may not even seem as well-founded now as it might have in the past. According to the Redundancy cannot serve as a solution to the country’s problems. The government cannot attempt to amend a wrong by adding layers of bureaucracy and pages of laws into an already infinitely-thick book. And yet, this is exactly what they do. No one can fight for this issue and stay within the realm of common sense - to fight for this issue relies upon pure feeling, unadulterated by reason. We must strive for a half-way point between pure logic and pure feeling; but the want to enact this law falls no where close to this point. While the government should make the inoculation available to those who do not ordinarily have the means obtain it, such as those of low income or those without insurance, it does not have the right to mandate that junior high school girls must take a needle straight into the cervix because they may have sex which may lead to the contraction of HPV which may cause cervical cancer. Ember [
09:54 ]
Monday, July 16
Link to Scholarship InfoOut of time - more to come. Ember [
11:21 ] |