What To Do About The State Of The World

So I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. This is a tough decision. Well actually a series of decisions. First of all I need to figure out what I'm doing after this summer. Sometime in August I hope to have a job and a place of my own, preferably in Indianapolis. I'd like to be out on my own, I miss the semi-autonomy of college life. The thing is, with crappy dial-up internet here at home I can only do so much job and apartment hunting when I sit and wait for 10 minutes for each page to load. That may be the epitome of frustration. I've recently discovered that Monster.com is a useful site, and so I will more fully utilize it when I get the opportunity. Then comes the even bigger question: what am I going to do with the rest of my life?
This is a question that has haunted me for the entirety of the summer. My undergraduate degrees were in classics and archaeology, neither of which are practical or conducive to living in anything better than a cardboard box. So the question becomes, what do I want to do if I don't want to do those things? I got interested in classics to begin with mainly because of Greek and Latin. I'm fascinated by languages. The cultures intrigue me as well, but the languages are my primary interest. All throughout high school I took Spanish and was pretty good at it according to my grades and comments from the teacher. That was the start of my love of languages. Most recently I started to learn German by taking entry-level classes my senior year but that attempt was marred by a high level of apathy known to most physicians as "senioritis", meaning literary the inflammation of the senior. Of course this disease has many symptoms such as skipping class, not doing homework, and just not caring. This very disease is to blame for my average performance in my endeavor to learn German. And even though it was hard to care about it, I was still interested in learning the basics of the language. All these examples make me wonder if maybe I should go into linguistics in grad school. I don't know what I would do with it, but it is a subject I really enjoy so maybe that's a start.
Another field I've been contemplating is history. I would want to deal with Greek and Roman history, which may very well still fall under the large umbrella of classics still. So maybe that does me no good, because one of the reasons that I want to get out of the classics field is because there isn't much of a job market in that, or so I've been told. I just want to find something that is interesting and that I enjoy doing, but can also make me money. Otherwise I'm just pursuing a hobby until a go too far and find out that I've gotten a degree and can't reallly do anything with it.
You might be wondering what the title of this blog has to do with anything. After all, I've really only been talking about my world, not the world at large. But I'm getting to that. Everyday I've been realizing more and more that the world is in a sorry state and needs help. Looking at the news even casually you see reports in any given country of political unrest, civil wars, famines, floods, earthquakes, illiteracy, poverty, rape, murder, genocide, and the list of humanity's struggles and evils could go on. Looking at all those things I want to do something, but I don't even know where to start. I wish that I could do something to right all of the wrongs in the world; however I realize that I am only one man with definite limitations. I can't single-handedly provide food for all of the hungry; I can't stop wars and spread peace on my own; I can't abolish poverty, nor can I erase the loss that comes with a natural disaster; again, I am only one man. But I want to do something, anything that I can to help anyone who is in need. I'm trying to discover just what I can do for humanity in my own way. When I look at how little some people have and what kinds of injustices many people have to live with, my own personal struggles seem to lessen in comparison, and I get a somber reminder that I have it better than most. And as Uncle Ben once told Peter Parker: "With great power comes great responsibilty." Which is why I want to do my part to help humanity. I just have to figure out what I can do and how I can help. That is my dilemma.

Good News For Obama Supporters Like Me

I'm very excited about how much closer to the nomination these 2 primaries put Obama. Both candidates have fought hard, and mostly admirably. But read this article and then try and tell me that Clinton does not sound more and more petty everyday. I'm an Obama supporter (if you couldn't tell from the title of this post), but all throughout this race I haven't entirely dismissed the possibility of voting for Clinton of she would happen to get the nomination. But after all of these primaries, the more and more I see about her makes me rethink that scenario. If nothing else, the issue of the Florida and Michigan delegates makes Clinton sound whiny and petty every time she brings it up. "Why aren't those states being seated?", she says. Because they broke the rules! They moved their primaries without the sanction of the Democratic National Party, but yet they expect to still get the thumbs up?! Clinton is grasping at straws at this point. She knows that she has very little chance of winning, and so she is trying to come up with whatever scheme she can in order to take the nomination by force rather than by electorate. That's a great precedent to set, letting people break the rules and get away with it if it helps her case. Granted I'm not saying Obama is perfect. He's got his baggage and faults just like she does. It's just that when I see the way Obama has carried himself all throughout this election, I see a more honorable candidate in him than in Clinton. I still have some respect for her, as she is probably better than McCain at this point, but still, her methods are questionable and I'm not sure if I would chose her as the next president. And that's my $0.02.

The Unexamined Life

unexamined, So here I am at the end of the year, these are the last few days in my undergraduate career. It is both a happy time and a bittersweet time. I'm happy because for almost a year I won't have to do anything academic, which I desperately need. I've discovered this semester that I just don't have the energy or desire to do much scholastically. I need this time to just get into the habit of a 9-to-5 or whatever kind of job I can find and be a worker-drone. So the end of papers and tests and studying (ha, as if that last one ever happened anyway) is a welcome one. It's the social part I'm going to miss. This past year and a half has been an interesting one. Ever since getting back from Harlaxton, it seems like there have been a lot of changes. I've gained new people in my life, and some of them have become the best friends I could ever ask for. Other friendships seem to have grown apart. People come and people go, but the important ones will always be around. I think that in essence my entire college career has been one big transformation for me. I came into college a backwards, shy, mild-mannered reporter, well, or maybe just the backwards and shy parts. I was a pretty strict conservative fundamentalist with regard to politics and religion. I never questioned what I believed in, I just believed what I thought that I was supposed to. But throughout these past few years I've been challenged to examine my life, questioning what I believe in and why. I think it's an interesting coincidence, but I was thinking about something the other day. I started college reading Plato's Apology as the second book in the reading list of World Cultures. One of Socrates' most famous quotes from that work is that the unexamined life is not worth living. Now here at the end of college we translated the Apology in Greek class, and thus I revisited that same quote. When I came into college I wasn't true to that motto. My life was thoroughly unexamined and I didn't much think about it. But here at the end, there's been a great amount of examination, and I think that I'm a different person than I was when I first read those words. When I came to college, politics and religion were connected for me. I was a Republican because that's what my church told me to be, somewhat indirectly. I've gone through lots of changes, however. First on the chopping block was religion. I'm not exactly what you would call a religious person anymore. I believe that there's a God, I believe that Jesus was a good teacher, in the same vein as Socrates, but there are a lot of questions that I don't feel are adequately answered through that route. Now I'm more interested in actually helping people, not just praying for them and hoping that their problems go away. I'm not saying that religion isn't authentic for some people, I think it can be. But not for me. Maybe that makes me a heretic, but I'm willing to do the best that I can to be a good person and help my fellow human beings and then leave things up to God. My politics was then the next thing to change. As I said before I was a Republican because that's what my church told me to be. I'm not saying that all Republicans are religious nuts, that would be an untrue extreme over-generalization. I just feel like the Democratic party is more in line with my views at this point, with the most important thing being the common person and their well-being. I'm not saying I'm tied to the Democratic party forever, if their views ever change and don't meet up with mine, I would be with whatever party embodied my views. In all of this, I've seen that the words of Socrates are more true than I understood them to be four years ago, that the unexamined life isn't worth living. Everyone really needs to know who they are, what they believe in, and why. Otherwise I don't think that you're being true to yourself or anyone else. What the future holds, I don't know, but I do know that I will always be trying to understand myself and sorting out what I believe. And more importantly than that, I will always try to help people in anyway that I can, because if we don't help each other, who will?

Stairway to Grown-Up World (not Heaven)

If anyone actually still reads these (other than Olivia, my one faithful reader, even though she probably already knows everything that's gonna be in here before she reads it, lol), here's what's going on in my life.

So I took my first steps today entering into the grown-up world. They may seem insignificant to anyone else, but I feel like it's a big deal. I'm talking about apartment hunting. Now maybe I only sat in front of my computer and looked at Rent.com for 15 minutes, but I still feel like that's a big step towards becoming an adult. It made me feel adult, anyway. Although maybe it didn't, because according to all of the signs we saw on the way down to Florida on Spring Break, "adult" only refers to the dirty sex shops that you see along the interstate. See I'm not talking about dirty interstate sex-shop adult, I'm talking about 9-5-no-more-homework-live-on-my-own adult. There's quite the difference there. So my plan thus far has been come graduation (on May 10th), I will move back home for a little while, work at my summer job that I've had since summer 2005 (Jay-Randolph Developmental Services where I work with young men who have physical and mental disabilities) for a month or two, and then move to Indianapolis for the rest of the time until I would go to grad school in the fall of 2009. Why Indy, you ask? Well, because I like to think that there will be more opportunities to find a job in a city of almost 800,000 people rather than in Smallville (Winchester) with a gigantic population of about 5,000. Also, maybe I'm just out to prove to myself that I can survive on my own. Granted, I'm sure I won't be entirely financially independent, as I will have to start paying off my student loans until I enroll in grad school. Also, my grandparents and cousin will probably be right around where I end up living, so help won't be too far away. But in a way, I'll feel like I'm on my own. This adult world is a scary place. You have to do things like maintain a budget, pay rent, go to work at the same time everyday, go to bed at a decent hour, and (shudder) do your own taxes. But I guess it won't be so bad. I'll only live in the Grown-Up World for a little under a year (if all goes according to plan), and then I'll be whisked back to the magical world of higher learning, where I can hide in Academia and not actually grow up, as I told a friend recently. But maybe, just maybe, I can be ready for Grown-Up World, if only for a little while.

Insomnia

So I'm not sure why this is happening or what I can do to stop it, but I can't sleep. I've been sleep problems for a few months now, but in the last few days I've discovered that even when I am physically and mentally exhausted I cannot lay down and go to sleep. This past Monday I only got 2 hours of sleep that morning. I thought for sure that in the break between my 9am and 2pm class that I would be able to take a nap like I usually do. Nothing. I laid down, and I just couldn't fall asleep, even though I was exhausted. Then that night (last night) I felt sure that I would be able to go to bed and sleep for a while. I laid down at 11pm and tried to go to sleep, only having had 2 hours of sleep before. Still nothing. I laid in bed for probably an hour and a half before I got up and read some and played a computer game. I then feel asleep around 2:30am. I don't know what's wrong with me. Even now, when I had about 5 hours of sleep last night, you would think I would be so tired that I would just go to sleep. But that's not happening. Whatever is going, I am fated not to go to dreamland, at least not for very long. Maybe I should become a nocturnal crime-fighter like Batman. At least then I'd have something to do with the time during which I couldn't sleep. But I'm out of shape and I have no money to buy expensive Bat-planes and such, so that probably a no-go on the Bat-idea. Oh well. I'll figure something out.

How Can I Make a Difference?

Tonight I watched Tears of the Sun, a movie that I recently purchased out of the $5 bin at Wal-Mart. I knew that I had seen it before, in high school, but I really bought it because it was $5 dollars and Bruce Willis is in it. Mr. Willis is one of my favorite actors, probably because most often he plays someone that we can all identify with: someone who doesn't go looking for the choice but is ultimately made to make a difficult decision between right and wrong. Even though his characters want to do the right thing, they always have baggage attached that makes it difficult for them to make the choice. Back to Tears of the Sun. I watched the movie, and remembered watching it the first time. It's a good movie overall, but very intense. It's a movie about a Navy SEAL team that gets sent into war-torn Africa to extract some U.S. citizens before a rebel group comes across their path. Bruce Willis' character eventually makes the decision to bring along the natives under one of the U.S. doctor's care, even though that will hinder them in their efforts to make a rendezvous point. The movie brings up a lot of good moral questions. What do you do when you know the right thing to do but someone in authority tells you that it doesn't matter? Also, when is it ok to think about yourself rather than other people? These are both tough questions, and there is a different answer for every person. However those questions aren't what I thought about, for the most part, during the movie. It was more about Africa, and the state it is in today. I've seen many movies and documentaries about how bad it is in Africa. Granted, movies are made for entertainment, and documentaries are made with a specific agenda in mind. But both do also have the agenda of education and activism, even if those goals are secondary. I think about The Invisible Children documentary that I saw at Harlaxton; I think about Blood Diamond; now Tears of the Sun can be added to this list. These films all made me consider what it must be like to live in a situation where there is no stable government, and everyday you take your life into your own hands, not knowing if you will live to the next day. I can't imagine how scary that must be. I sit here in my college dorm room with all of my food and books and movie and electronics, typing this on my own personal laptop, and what troubles do I really have? Term papers coming up that I'm not prepared for. A disease that makes it so I can't eat most grains without screwing up my intestines. Do I really have the right to complain about anything? I have a family who loves me, a wonderful girlfriend who is the love of my life, great friends; I can afford to go into debt to go to college and receive an education that not all people have the opportunity for; I have all of these things, and I am grateful. In having these things, I have what most people in the world probably don't. It makes me feel guilty, that I basically live a life free of want and violence, and I want to do something about the people who don't have anything remotely similar. I don't know exactly what I can do, or through what avenue, but I want to do something. If our government wasn't so busy fighting wars over matters that are shady at best, maybe they could offer some aid to these people. But at this time the aid for the most part has to come from individual groups. Don't get me wrong, I know that the government does do some things, like trying to help with AIDS relief and providing food and medication sometimes, but it could do so much more. People argue, shouldn't we take care of things at home before we try and do anything abroad? I think it's a little late for that. We've gotten our hands into so many situations world-wide that there is no way we could become isolationist again and solely tend to our own matters. Like it or not, we are an actor on the global stage. And rather than fighting wars that we have no business being in, why not wage a war on terror on all fronts? Why is it that only Islamic extremists are terrorists? Military leaders in "backwards" nations overthrowing the government and committing genocide apparently don't rate on the terror- scale. This country needs to take a new direction in how it operates concerning global-affairs. If we don't step in and do something in the name of human rights, we're going to be too late for even a "post-emptive" strike. If we start this as individuals, those governing will have to follow. I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea what to do, but I have the ambition to do something. I want to make the world a better place, in whatever way that I can. Now to just figure out how............

What's Wrong with Me?

So I've been feeling really crappy here lately, off and on basically since school started. I've been sick off and on, and I've never been like this before. It seems like it all started happening after I was diagnosed with Celiac disease, but I don't exactly know how there could be a connection to the two events, as theoretically I've always had Celiac disease, and being diagnosed just meant that now I know that I have it. This school year I've had a few colds, which I don't normally get. I also had a case of shingles about 2 months ago, which surprised the school nurse because apparently young people don't usually get that unless their immune system is really over-taxed. Looks like my immune system is working overtime and failing. I also have trouble getting enough sleep, but not in the usual way. I can sleep for 10 hours straight and still wake up feeling tired. I've also been told that I grind my teeth when I sleep, so I am apparently stressed. Well, the culmination of all of this came on Monday when I went to the health center here at school. I thought that maybe I had mono, and so I asked if I could get the test for it. I was told that I would have to come back later when one of the nurse-practitioners would be available. When I came back and saw said-nurse she said that she didn't think I had mono, but wanted me to get tested for anemia and possibly thyroid problems. She said that perhaps that Celiac had led to anemia, because basically when someone with Celiac eats products with gluten in them, the gluten wears down the villi that normally absorb nutrients and such in the intestines. Thus anemia can follow because if the villi are worn down enough, iron among other things can't be absorbed. So later that night I went and got 3 vials of blood taken to be tested for mono, anemia, and thyroid problems. I'm still waiting on the tests to come back, but I almost don't want to know the answer. It seems like every month some new problem comes up. I feel like I'm falling apart. I used to not get sick, but now I'm sick and not feeling up to par a lot. It's like I've finally discovered my Kryptonite.