Waiting for an acceptance/rejection letter...

"The waiting is the hardest part"
Tom Petty spoke from the heart
Time is passing much too slow
Will I be able to get to go?

Dartmouth and Princeton are the goal
The stress and wait have taken their toll
Acceptance or denial, which will it be?
Are either of the schools made for me?

Thursday is when I'll hear back
If I'm lucky, I can begin to pack
The Ivy League, among the great
Could it possibly be my fate?

These final hours will not go fast
I don't know how I'll last
Either way life will go on
even if that hope is gone

It matters not
I'll still live
forget the whole lot
Eighteen years of prep...the most I could give

A conversation on Carl Sagan's Cosmos

I don't exactly remember when, but recently I discovered a brilliant astrophysicist named Carl Sagan. Despite the fact he died in 1996, I've found this amazing man's messages to be pertinent to life even today. The moment I became hooked on his works was the day I heard his "Pale Blue Dot" speech. Watch now, thank me later. I began to read up on him as much as I could, and I viewed countless interviews and other videos involving him.

Standing out to me the most was his Magnum opus: "Cosmos". First broadcast in 1980, it remains an incredible source of knowledge about the universe. Even the graphics aren't bad, and Dr. Sagan's voice is soothing, transfixing, and even mesmerizing. His ability to explain everything with such intrinsic detail is reason enough to view the series.

After I found the series, I also discovered that they turned it into a bestselling book. Without hesitation, I bought it. Each chapter goes with an episode from the series, and despite having to imagine Dr. Sagan's voice, the book goes into more detail of the cosmos. One might ask why they should care about outer space, and this book is the best argument I could think to give. By definition, cosmos means "harmony in the universe" (the opposite of chaos). It encompasses everything that ever was, is, and ever will be. It's truly a beautiful concept that humans are one with the universe. I really can't reccomomend the book more to anyone who has an interest in life. I thoroughly enjoy the new perspective that Cosmos gave to me.

It doesn't matter what prior knowledge you have before reading, you'll learn as you go. What you get out of it is an awesome understanding of the world around you. I feel it's a must read. For those who are less inclined to reading, check the series itself out, here's Episode one. Give it a watch, hopefully it will ignite an interest in the cosmos as it did to me.

"The cosmos is also within us...we're made of star stuff, we're a way for the cosmos to know itself"-Carl Sagan
<Edited to remove dangler>

Homer and Philosophy

In the podcast, Harvard philosophy Professor Sean Kelly discusses an interesting aspect of the Odyssey in our everyday lives. Homer wrote an epic tale of fate. Odysseus wasn't in much control during his entire journey home. For example, Athena is the one who helps Odysseus up the rocks; he didn't help himself. This is one of the recurring themes of the Odyssey. The gods will our lives. Our decisions are not our own. Kelly argues, that this could be implemented in our everyday lives. We live in a society where the majority of accountability lies within ourselves. You can't kill someone and say "Jesus told me to". He goes on to say that this  influence can be a good thing, or it can be a bad thing. Boiling it down, he's saying that stuff can be out of our control. It's okay to accept that. Having said that, he also makes it clear that we mustn't just everything on a whim. If you find yourself in a position to blend your hand, have enough sense to not do it. Let yourself be controlled by something else, we can't be entirely accountable all the time.

Fate is one of my favorite topics of thought. To me, it's an undeniable truth that most (if not all of our lives) have already been planned. The kicker? That's after removing the whole religious aspect to my ideas of fate. Kelly nailed it. In any environment, there exists an infinite number of variables that control our life.We have no way of knowing exactly what will happen to us next. Not entirely so at least. There universe we live in has the exact same amount of matter as it did when it was first created. That means everything's just reacting right now. Light a match on fire and we know it'll burn out. I believe life is a sort of match. Because it's been lit, it's path has already been set by the variables involved. Kelly was right when he said that fate can take away from our accomplishments because it feels as if they aren't ours. I can also take solace in knowing that my life has been planned. I have no way of knowing what that plan is, but it exists. Cutting my toe on a staple in the carpet may suck, but it could somehow lead to a positive chain of events.

Why Read Moby Dick?

Why Read Moby Dick? In the interview, Nate Philbrick certainly puts up a good argument in its favor. From the start, he even calls it the closest thing we have to an “American Bible” Beyond a doubt it’s his favorite book and a "full of great wisdom". Philbrick goes on to explain the many reasons why Moby Dick is such a masterpiece. He attributes Herman Melville’s inspiration to several things such as: Melville befriending Nathaniel Hawthorne and Melville “discovering” Shakespeare. While he concedes that it does drag on at times (such as devoting chapters to topics like clam chowder) or “tangents that can be frustrating”, the rich imagery and deep characters are more than worth it. Moby Dick is the sort of story that will be read for generations to come. The language is poetic at times, definitely due at least in part to Shakespearian influence. Written in the 1850’s it even serves as an allegory to America’s socio-political turmoil that was developing. Herman Melville may have died in obscurity, but his masterpiece put him into obscurity.

Alright, I’m sold. I’ll admit that I have always planned to read Moby Dick. It’s one of those books that should come preloaded on everyone’s bucket list, but I wasn’t sure about it for a few days. When we got our “Melville sampler” the other day (Bartleby the Scrivener), I became apprehensive toward Melville in general. The language seemed too antiquated, but hearing the excerpt sounded like the sirens’ call. It was pure prose. When I was younger, I read a very abridged version of the book, and I enjoyed the story. It lacked any sort of depth though. Having aged and matured a bit since then, I think I’m ready to try it out for real. Philbrick had a solid argument. Calling something the “American Bible” puts all the chips on the table. I feel compelled to see for myself how epic America’s epic is.

A Case for Texting

We live in a world dominated by technology. It is almost literally everywhere, and it plays a huge part in our everyday lives. Perhaps the most important piece of technology to teens across the country is their cell phone. Who knows how many hours of schooling have been disregarded because of the “necessity” of the receiving student to respond to a text.

It seems that teachers are especially against texting. There are strict punishments for any and all students found texting during class. Furthermore, many teachers will argue that texting is entirely unproductive. The texting lingo students use is seen as destructive because it let’s them communicate in grammatically incorrect ways e.g: “omg ur soooo lame”. Also, texting is stripping the youth of their ability to communicate one on one with each other.

I see it differently. Of course students should be spending their time in class learning. A teacher shouldn’t be ignored. Elsewhere, texting is more acceptable. If I’m on a family vacation, there is no chance of me being able to see my friends. A phone call is almost as impossible as physical contact. Being able to text a friend let’s me keep in touch with everybody I’m close to. I’d even say that it has made today’s youth closer to each other because we can communicate with each other at any time.

The largest issue is grammar. For the most part, texting involves informal abbreviations during a conversation. I for one rarely use periods, and my texts become comma splices. I’d also say that by texting hundreds if not thousands of times a day, the youth is improving their language. English is a language that is mastered by repetition.  What would help you’re English more, watching T.V or watching T.V while texting? The practice we get toward our language isn’t perfect during texting, but it is still practice. Words that I used to spell incorrectly have aren’t an issue for me anymore because I’ve used them so many times in a text message. 

This isn’t a calling for all students to whip their phones out during a lecture, but it’s more of a defense towards an often ridiculed pastime.  I know that I’ll never be able to read Shakespeare from reading my friends’ texts (though I do wonder how’d they react to me texting them in iambic pentameter), but it helps more than doing nothing. As an example, running a mile won’t help me become a great soccer player, but it is a lot more productive than eating a bag of chips.

Just my two cents on the matter, you’re mileage may vary.

Taylor Mali's poem

So like, here it goes:


In his poem, Taylor Mali asks a simple question in a creative way. He wants to know why people don't speak with more conviction. Instead, we add in “filler” words or phrases such as like or ya know. This makes the statement sound less convincing and even less meaningful. Often times too, a speaker will turn a declarative statement into an interrogative one, i.e. they’ll make a question out of something that clearly isn’t one. Because of this, nobody is sure of anything. He ended his poem with by saying “we can’t just question authority, we must speak with it”.

His poem hit home in a few ways. I know a lot of people who could turn the truest facts into a question. “Two plus two equals fourrrr?” To me, it instantly begins to discredit what they’ve just said. To top that off, there’s plenty of people I know who insert so many likes into  a sentence I can only pay attention to every time they say it. I for one try to speak with conviction as often as possible. Sometimes people will listen to you because you sound like you know what you’re doing, not because you actually do. An infantry officer in the USMC would tell his men to “flank left now”. It’s imperative that they do so. His men would realize that and they’d comply. If he said “we should like flank left?” the sense of urgency is lost.

Unfortunately, I’m guilty too. I often catch myself saying like when I don’t need to or adding an umm or ugh when I don’t have my next words ready. Sometimes, when I’m giving an answer, I’ll say “isn’t that when the BLANK did BLANK?” It took me until now to realize why; we don’t want to be wrong. By not being sure, we can’t be punished for being wrong. Having said that, there’s a time and a place for speaking with conviction. If I’m with my friends, I don’t need to hear “ya know what I’m saying” after each part of their story. We're all equals here, you can act like you know what you're talking about for a few minutes.

The Term Paper Artist

Nick Mammatas is a very talented writer, and he's lucky enough to be able to make a living off of his talent. Unfortunately, some would argue that he used his "powers" for evil. For a couple of years Nick was a freelance writer who specialized in writing up term papers for college students. He would receive his assignments through a broker and then craft the term paper on virtually any subject. It's important to note that as part of the contract, the papers were supposed to serve as only a model of sorts for the client. The paper wasn't for them to hand in as their own, yet of course some of them did. The entire process is legal under our first amendment rights. The business had three main clientele groupings: "DUMB", one-timer, and foreign. The "DUMB CLIENTS" (as they were referred to by the author) were students who weren’t very smart. They lacked the creative thinking necessary to successfully make a term paper. Whenever he would be assigned to one of these clients, Nick would know to make it as simple as possible, so he would raise less suspicion. The one-timers would use the service for a plethora of reasons. Whether they were swamped with classes, an English major in a physics class (or vice versa), or their mom wanted them to, all were welcome to pay for a paper. The final classification is the foreigners. The language barrier prevents the client from being able to write their own paper. They are usually brilliant in all other aspects.



During the interview, Nick came off almost exactly as one would imagine a writer of his kind would. Having even equated his craft to the same kind of freedom as those expressed by neo-Nazis, he didn’t seem too remorseful. If a client would give him a hard time, Nick would send it to the professor. The fact that the students were cheating themselves made him okay with writing them. As he put it, “karma has a way of working in my favor”.



At first after reading the article and listening to the interview, I was deadest in thinking that Nick was a little arrogant punk. I even imagined him writing the papers in a cheap apartment and typing away sinisterly. My opinion changed the more I thought about it. He was the stereotypical poor writer. I have nothing against a man trying to make a living. For the most part too, he was giving model for the client to rewrite. If a client is going to plagiarize the paper and break the contract, they deserve to be punished. Other than that, I don’t find anything wrong with the system. I’ve had writer’s block before and wasn’t able to articulate concepts I know to be true into words. Does that mean I don’t know the Krebs cycle works? Absolutely not. In my opinion an entire class shouldn’t be decided upon by how well you can write your ideas down. It doesn’t show whether or not you really understand what was taught to you. Nick‘s job was to circumvent a faulty method of grading for his clients. The bad guy isn’t Nick, it’s the professor who summarizes a semester of learning into 10 pages.