Broken Promise?

Recently Gov. Manchin made a proposal to turn the Promise Scholarship
into a loan if a student leaves the state of West Virginia after
graduation. this is a terrible idea by the governor. the state simply
doesn not have the job opportunities to try and force people to stay
in the state at the moment. people are forced to leave and find work
elsewhere to better their way of life. i personally plan on staying in
the state after i graduate. if this proposal was in place right now
and i planned on moving out of i state, i would turn the
scholarship/loan down. i wouldnt want that burden later on just
because i left west virginia. i just do not think that turning the
scholarship into a loan is a good idea.

--JR

When is it time to let go?

Taking the step of beginning college is a milestone in every person's
life. Moving away from home should be an indication that we are now
able to live on our own and make decisions for ourselves....right? One
would think this, but in a lot of cases I feel like sometimes it is
hard for parents to realize this. In my household I am the first born
child. I am the lucky child who gets to experience the whole "growing
up" process with my parents first. I was the first child who had to
deal with rules on dating, driving on my own at night, allowing certain
curfews, and many more of the steps parents have to take as their child
becomes an adult. Now that I am away living on my own, I feel like my
parents are having a hard time treating me like I actually am. Maybe
it is because I am the first born child and I am the first to go away
to college. Or maybe it is because I am the only girl child and they
feel as though they need to protect me. In any case, I am growing up -
I'm wrapping up my first year of college. They are going to have to learn
to let go. Does anyone else feel this way? How do your parents treat
you? ... When is it time for them to let go?

-- EG

Summer 2008

Now that summer is almost here. YAY!!!!! Has everyone thought about
what they are going to be doing this summer? Jobs? Taking a couple
classes? Do nothing? (man does that sound good) Or is everyone just
concentrating on the last couple weeks of classes and also the most
important thing FINALS!? Even though it seems like summer is still far
off, because of those 5 finals that you have to get done with
first,and that English 101 portfolio thats due. We still need to be
thinking about this summer. If you going to working you need to be
looking and putting in applications before others get there first. Or
sign up for classes, so you can get the best times. Whatever you plan
to do this summer, you need to get on the ball and do it now, so then
you won't be stressing over it coming the middle of May. But whatever
you do, hope its the best summer yet for everyone!

-- EC

DORM FOOD

Being a freshman at WVU, they nicely made the requirement that we have
to live in dorms. Along with this nice rule came this one: live in WVU
dorms, you must purchase a meal plan. Even if one has no intention of
eating off the meal plan, they still have to buy it. How is this fair?
Not to mention that when touring WVU on orientation they trick you
into thinking the food is good by treating you at Hatfields, where it
just happens to be good food that does not count for your meal plan
except for breakfast. The food they serve in the dorm cafeterias for
the most part is not that great, and the things they make that are
decent are not always the healthiest. They always have pizza and
French fries, and than wonder why this and beer make freshman gain the
freshman 15? You would think that with all the money from the meal
plans there would be really good tasting food. Also the ‘meal times’
that work with your meal plans aren’t that convenient and a lot of
meals go to waste.

I know I can not wait to have my own place where I can make my own food and
buy my own groceries and less money will go to waste.


BL

First Year Almost Up...

Our first year of college is almost over. Its amazing how fast it has gone. I know with it coming to an end means its one step closer to being completely on our own. With that said I know I am really nervous and scared to move on with all this. Am I the only one? I sure hope not. Thinking about buying our own houses, working a full time job, making payments on our own is definitely something i tend to think about. Even if some of us go to graduate school, it is so close and it will end before we know it.

Whereupon One of Your Fellow Classmates Rambles On

What is up with people and elevators? Living in a dorm myself I come and
go almost daily and the one way I make it to the 10th floor is by the
common use of the elevator. Seriously, an elevator is the one place
where your personal space does not matter at all. The door opens and
people get in on the first floor. Probably about 5 people get into this
legally 15 cap silent shrine of destiny that rises everyone up to the
vertical limit of their so called "rooms." When the transport ship stops
on a another floor and more people come in, everyone makes room even if
there is none. "Oh sure come on in so we can be a centimeter from
touching each other." Its hot/humid, you are basically face first into
the hair of the person in front of you. 9/10 it is a morning class and
its anywhere between 8-11 am they haven't showered or showered within
the last few days. The stench is unbearable and does anyone say
anything? NO ! This is how A.D.D we college students are. We ALL STARE
AT THE
lil LIGHTS THAT POP UP FOR THE FLOORS. We are in a elevator we are
either going up or DOWN. Seriously people do we think that we are going
to Texas or China" Do we have to look up to see if we are going to the
right place? We KNow where we are going! All you need to do is look up
ONCE!. Or count the beeps do some math in your head maybe that will keep
you away from A.D.D .

So no one talks in elevators. We are all silent as mice in this death
contraption of texting and A.D.D. What are we as a human race coming to
that a simple conversation of "hello how are you" or "The weather is
nice outside" People aren't open anymore no one wants to talk to anyone.
We all have places to go, people to text, and showers (that we aren't
taking). NO NO i dont understand people in elevators its just plain old
weird. We lose are personal space , our minds, and our lives just using
this simple transit up and down...up and down.


~john M.

ARE WE SAFE

With the upcoming 1 year aniversity of the Virginia Tech shooting, I was begining to think are we really as safe as we think we are. I began to think about what kind of things have been done at WVU to ensure that the students here are really safe. Sure we have to check people in after nine and we lock all of the side entrances but what is going to happen in case of an emergency. After the Virginia Tech incident and most recently in my home town at VCU, I believe that every college and university has to re-evaluate their emergency action plan because now we know it is possible that we might be faced with same ordeal. I just want some reassurance that we are really safe here at school and if not what kind of precautions are the university, the university police, and the students of WVU taking to keep Morgantown a safe place to be.

-- Pickle

A good waste of a million dollars

I have been trying to figure this out for the longest time and I really have made no progress on understanding the reasoning for it. Why would the university spend a million dollars to put a bridge across the road that is so far away from the mountainlair that none of the students will ever really use. They spent a million dollars making a bridge that is basically useless. The reason for traffic being backed up so bad downtown is mainly due to the area in front of the mountainlair. The students always just want to walk in front of every car coming and going becuase it is a crosswalk. Yes that is the legal way to look at it, beucase every single car has to stop for any pedestrian in a crosswalk. This leads to us sitting in traffic for twenty minutes at a time just getting from the rusted musket to the mountainlair during busy times of the day. I just really dont see why they would spend all that money to put a bridge there when if they would have just made a walkway in front of the mountainlair it would have been used much more often, and also solved a large part of the traffic problem here in Morgantown. If anybody can make me see the reasoning, please try. -Nate

Obama; a racist?

As you probably have heard Barrack Obama a candidate for President in 2008 has been placed in hot water recently for his affiliation with Trinity Church of Christ in Chicago. Why does anyone care if he went to church? Well this isn’t any typical church. This church is stuck in the 60’s, literally! It is founded on James Cone’s Liberation Theology which he expressed in his 1969 book “Black Theology and Black Power”. Well what so wrong with this theology? This view is just an excuse for racism. In Cones book he tells blacks that they must “destroy the white enemy” and preaches that God and Jesus are solely black Gods and everyone who is bad to blacks are the devil’s. Hmmm, interesting view for a presidential candidate. But It gets worse, his church published the Hamas (A terrorist cell in Israel and Palestine) Manifesto in their weekly church bulletin! They also gave a life time achievement award to Louis Farrakhan; one of America’s most racist anti-Semitics. Not to mention the church wants God to damn America, thinks the government invented AIDS to harm blacks, calls the good ol’ US of A the KKKA, accuses the government of giving black children drugs, and stresses “black family-community- culture” over all else. Replace black with white and you have the KKK creed practically. The fact of the matter is this preacher, who has since retired, has been the mentor of Obama for over 20 years (Obama admitted this) and Obama even dedicated his book to the pastor. In 20 years with a man who is so loud about his racism there is no way Obama couldn’t have known about it. So now the question is Obama a racist or just complacent with black racism? Either way I don’t care! This is unacceptable, disgusting and the fact the Americans seem to be ok with this!?!?!? After Huckabee was eliminate Obama was someone I was considering, but I dont care if your white, black, orange or purple racism is racism and Im not voting for someone who stands idly by for 20 years and yet talks about change. - Birds of a feather...

Hasn't Helped Us At All!

I cannot wait until Gov. Manchin is out of office. I didnt like the idea of him getting into office in the first place but at the time no one really knew of any opposing candidates. I used to say he has done nothing since he has been in office but the more I think about it the more I realize he really has. The catch is it has all upset the residents of the state. The first strike was making our state slogan "Open for Business." Are we hookers?! That probably did not help the view of the state. Finally he changed it back to Wild and Wonderful but only after millions of state resident complaints and the state legislation still had to do it themselves. And then he decided that he was going to make the Promise scholarship only if the students who used it stayed in the state for two years after graduating college. And he was going to chase down all those students who had already used it and left. That made me personally mad. Yes, I do not plan on leaving the state but many people do. There is nothing here. He has run everyone out rather than pull them in. I'm not asking for big cities because the country side is what I love about the state, but if you want people to stay in the state you need to be able to supply them with jobs. And to do that you have to give the businesses a reason to come here which obviously he is failing at. Hello!...Manchin's own daughter works for an out of state corporation. Milan Puskar does help the university but his corporation headquarters is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Now I read that he is repremanding West Virginia businesses for where they hold their business meetings. What does that matter?! If the company has a business meeting but cannot find a suitable place in the state to hold it at the time that they want it, they should not be told to change the date of their meeting just to stay in the state. That's a load of crap. That kind of nonsense is what runs and keeps businesses out of West Virginia. Joe Manchin has done nothing but hurt us and now that I am able to vote I am pleased to know that I can be a part of hopefully getting him out of office. Hopefully in November we will be saying goodbye to Joe as well as George.-FeFie Burma

Does the thought of suicide ever cross your mind?

The very thought of taking my own life is enough to enough to send chills down my spine and make me nauseous. I have personally never had to face such an issue and for that I’m very thankful, but the truth is there are extremely high numbers of college students suffering from depression. Just recently a person on my floor tried to commit suicide, an optimistic, attractive, intelligent, “has it all together “person. Just because I am not suicidal I ignore that the problem exist, but after this unfortunate incident it got me thinking. Are these football loving, beer drinking, blue and gold wearing, and hard working WVU students sad? I sure hope not! According to the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention 1 in 3 American college students have seriously considered suicide and it’s the second leading cause of death in people from the ages of 18 and 24. Although you might not think you know anyone dealing with these issues chances are you do and these people need help (and yes help is out there). So please if you or someone you know is thinking about it, get them help. I do not want anyone to experience what I and the other people on my floor had to witness and go through.

-- Anonymous

Political Lobbying

Virtually everything requires some source of funding and politics is
one of these things. In order for a politician to have a chance at
success in any race he/she needs money. As a result there is no
shortage of organizations willing to "give" politicians money for
their campaigns and in most cases these donations aren't out of
altruism. Consequently politicians might feel indebted to these
people/organizations and end up making crucial decisions based on that
rather than the greater good. This could be the source for many
problems such as, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
So should there be measures to monitor and/or prevent
such "arrangements" from being made?

E.