For the listening exercise, I actually ended up at two places. I started out sitting outside of Olmsted on one the metal benches there and just observed and listened. First off, it was surprising the amount of people outside. People were sprawling in the grass, talking to friends or just soaking up the sun. Nearly everybody was wearing shorts and enjoying the good weather. They talked about senior year, finals, sleep, work, and many more topics.
I also noticed that a lot of people were coming from Aliber Hall after classes and migrating to Olmsted. I had originally planned on just staying outside of Olmsted for the exercise, but my curiosity won over. I walked into Aliber Hall and stood outside room 101, pretending to read a newspaper. People entering class talked about how much they didn't want to be there. People coming out talked about how happy they were to get out of class. Some people did a crossword puzzle, and they had resorted to guessing random words and filling them in to see if they fit the blanks.
At first I found the exercise really awkward. I felt like a creeper, listening in on their conversations. I also at first thought the exercise was failing because people were talking about the most mundane things you could imagine. At first, I didn't think I'd hear anything close to a story. I don't know what I was expecting, to hear stories about a professor who got arrested or something? Anyways, I was disappointed at first because the conversations didn't seem all that interesting. But as I listened, I realized that there were stories here. These are the 25 stories I came up with from this exercise:
1. Senior year- what do seniors do now that they're done with college? Grad school, work, vacation?
2. Senior year (part 2)- where are seniors going to go when they graduate? Will they go back to their hometown, stay in Des Moines, go somewhere new?
3. How to keep in touch with friends after graduation.
4. How to keep in touch with friends just over the summer.
5. Sleep- whether to wake up earlier to accomplish things like homework or showering or to just sleep til the last possible minute.
6. A study on sleep in college. Why do students feel it's necessary to stay up all night? Are they always studying or doing homework? Has sleep become a competition about how few hours you can get and manage to keep your eyes open?
7. How to stay awake in class when you've pulled an all-nighter.
8. Finals- concerns about difficult tests and grades.
9. How do you pass a final if you haven't attended any classes?
10. How well does someone have to do on an exam to raise their grades?
11. Crossword puzzles- maybe just something fun and upbeat about people who write them, people who do them everyday, etc.
12. Alzheimer's Disease- Many people suffer from Alzheimer's and it can run in the family. But there are ways to combat Alzheimer's by strengthening the brain through crosswords, puzzles, chess, etc.
13. How do people deal with a relative with Alzheimer's? What type of strain does that put on family relations?
14. How do people with Alzheimer's go through their daily routine?
15. Drinking in College- how does it affect student grades?
16. How do you sober up after drinking all night?
17. A focus on students who don't drink til their 21 or in college. How do they resist temptation? Why don't they drink (religious reasons or just personal decision?)
18. Summer! What are people doing during break?
19. Summer classes- why aren't there more offered?
20. Are summer classes easier than normal classes?
21. Transferring Students- why are they transferring from Drake? money?
22. How had the tuition increase affected next years enrollment?
23. A girl who is transferring to a different school because she bought a dance studio in a different town in Iowa.
24. Student run businesses.
25. Drake Campus during the summer (I almost imagine this more as a photo article)- what takes place during summer? just classes? do organizations still meet? is the campus more or less dead?
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Democracy or Fascism?
On April 23, 2010, Governor Jan Brewer signed off on the new Arizona immigration law. It was immediately met with protests from many people, and even President Obama criticized it.
However, Most Americans want to see change in America's immigration policy. But is the new law too harsh? In a poll conducted by the New York Times/CBS News, 51% of the participants in the poll thought that the new law was pretty good. 36% thought it went too far. 9% thought it could be harsher, and 4% had no opinion about it [conducted April 28 through May 2 with 1,079 adults, and with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points].
According to the New York Times, critics of law have said that the new law was "the broadest and strictest immigration measure in generations, would make the failure to carry immigration documents a crime and give the police broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally." Opponents have also called it an open invitation for harassment and discrimination against Hispanics regardless of their citizenship status.
Mexico's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it was concerned about the rights of its citizens and their relation to Arizona. Quite frankly, the Foreign Ministry has reason to be concerned. I remember another leader who required a certain ethnic group to carry around papers, and they could be severely penalized if caught without them. That leader's name was Hitler. Cardinal Roger M. Mahony from Los Angeles said that the new power being given to the authorities were like that of Nazism.
A lot of the people in our class voiced concern or anger for the new law. In fact, I think everyone did. While we all agree that the law is too harsh, I can't help feel we are really removed from the situation living in Iowa.
How does Iowa stand up where diversity is concerned? Iowa schools rank 45th of 51 in diversity of students. In 2006, the schools in Iowa are 86% white students, 5% are black, 6% are Hispanic, 2% are Asian, and 1% are Native Americans. In Polk County, 77% of the students are white, 10% are black, 9% are Hispanic, 4% are Asian, and 0% are Native American. At Drake University, 73% of the students are white, 3% are black, 2% are Hispanic, 4% are Asian, and 0% are Native American.
In Arizona, 45% of students in school are white, 5% are black, 41% are Hispanic, 3% are Asian, and 6% are Native American. Look at the huge difference between Iowa and Arizona. Just something to think about amidst the rants.
Sources:
http://www.cappex.com/colleges/Drake-University-153269
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/us/politics/24immig.html
http://projects.nytimes.com/immigration/enrollment/iowa/polk
photo courtesy of http://www.nydailynews.com
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