Unquestioned Bias

I have decided that I strongly dislike unquestioned bias and opinions that people take for granted that are just that-opinions. It isn't smart to assume that opinions are facts and that everybody is starting from the same point, and automatically agrees with certain premises that are then built off of to form other ideas and thoughts. It just doesn't work. Most of all, I think that listening to what you are told and automatically believing it because it is supposedly "uncovering the truth" or shocking you into believing something just because you "never knew that" or "had no idea that happened" or just by showing you something shocking or that has a possibility, no matter how slim, of being true in some cases but that you cannot tell what they are just from this one source, is a good source of knowledge. I don't even know if that sentence made sense but I hope so. Most of all, I think not questioning a source that is known to be biased (even if you agree with the biased views) is not a smart decision to make. The specific example I'm thinking of is PETA, and this film we had to watch for environmental justice entitled "Meet Your Meat." It was shocking and somewhat disgusting, and I almost wanted to take it at face value, but then I thought about it. PETA is known to be biased, the video did not appear to be recently made, and it only gave one side of the story and showed the worst parts of the meat industry. It also gave no mention of improvements and more humane ways of killing the animals. Not to mention it automatically assumes that everyone believes that animals have rights, which is a dangerous assumption to make. It assumes that everyone feels the same way about animals, animal cruelty, and animal rights. It is disappointing that at St. Kate's, a school that prides itself on being "open-minded" and accepting of every different view, can be so close-minded and naive (in the sense that people just believe the first thing they hear and what they are told) instead of being open to the opinions of everybody. However, I am sad to say that this is not the first time that 1) I've been in the minority viewpoint (it happens, oh well, good even) 2) I've felt unable to express my views for fear of discrimination, or at least a very very strong sense of disapprovement (or even concern for my grade sometimes, which is even worse-no one should worry that their OPINION affects their grade), and 3) I've gotten the picture that everyone assumes everyone else to hold the same view, regardless of whether or not that is true. I honestly thought, at least coming in to St. Kate's, that this situation would not be one I would find myself in. In fact sometimes I feel that I was freer to express myself in high school. High school. Disappointing.

We're not the ones who're meant to follow.
For that's enough to argue.

Global Warming

For my Global Search for Justice class, which is the required/core class for juniors and seniors, we have to do an extensive research project that includes a paper, poster session, and group presentation. Each GSJ course has a different focus such as women and health, dismantling racism, environmental justice, etc. You choose which class sounds best to you and take it. I chose environmental justice because I think it is extremely important and not as widely focused on as other issues, especially, being at an all-female school, women's issues. I did not want to take a class focusing on women's issues since I feel I get a good background (heck, even a detailed knowledge) of that area in pretty much every other class I take. Anyway, the point of this is I chose environmental justice. Turns out I have an extremely difficult professor (the professors who teach these classes are from other disciplines; mine is a sociology professor) who, since it is a writing intensive class, grades much more difficultly than her other classes (or so I hear). We already had to do our research proposal for the project, and I got 7/10. So did almost everybody in the class, so I guess I probably didn't actually do that bad. I didn't think I did bad anyway, I did everything she asked, but what can you do. Apart from this huge project, we only have to write 2 papers, so I guess for a writing intensive class that isn't so bad. Again, I think it just means she grades harder.

My research project, which we have to have 20 sources for (only 10 scholarly though) is on global warming. I wanted to do it on something less controversial than factory farming and animal rights which a couple people are doing (and as you can see by my previous posts I don't understand) and less typical than pollution or hazardous waste dumping. Turns out something that I thought was simple and non-controversial is actually very controversial. A few degrees of change (actually only around 1 degree Fahrenheit) in the earth's average temperature is a huge change to some scientists and a weak sign of change to others. Whether or not the climate change is natural or caused by human activities such as deforestation and fossil fuels is also debated. Climate modeling is unpredictable or at least a higher than desirable percentage of error. The predicted impacts of global warming are especially debatable. In fact, some people think the earth should warm up to make the world more livable, while many others think it will cause droughts and floods, more extreme weather events (hurricanes, etc.), higher spread of diseases such as malaria. I think I should focus more on alternate energy sources-those are good for a variety of reasons, not just the fact that they contribute less to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which contributes to global warming-or, as apparantly is politically correct, global climate change.

Where concerns about the world getting warmer
The people thought they were just being rewarded

Plato

I spent a good two hours straight writing a paper on the Pythagoreans and their influence on Plato. And it wasn't even the easy Pythagorean stuff, the math stuff. No, it was their philosophical teachings (obviously, since I was writing about Plato as well) some of which are just weird. I did not expect to spend so much time doing that, and now I have a headache. Oh well, that's what you get. The worst part about it is that I still have another paper that I was expecting to get done, but I didn't think the philosophy one would take more than an hour, and I still don't think the other one will take more than an hour. But really, who wants to do homework after 9 on a Saturday night? For that matter, who wants to do homework after 9 any night? Unfortunately for me, I have to write this paper by Tuesday, and Sunday, which is pretty much any college students normal day to catch up with homework and whatnot, I have cross country at 12 and I have to work for this girl since nobody else can and she has her sister in laws baby shower which she's throwing. I have never worked a Sunday in my life and I'd prefer not to, but that's how it goes. So between those two things most of my Sunday is gone. I wouldn't really care, except this professor is a really tough grader-we had to do a research proposal already, I did everything she asked and my writing didn't suck, and she gave me a 7/10. I was not happy, and now I'm worried about the rest of the class because it's a stupid required class for all St. Kate's students, the whole idea behind the class is ok but sortof lame because it ends up being the professors (and the students) just get to opinionate (is that actually a verb for that?) the entire class period and then we have to write papers like crazy because it's writing intensive. It's a justice based class, and mine is Environmental Justice which is cool in theory, except she's really opinionated and thinks animal rights goes hand in hand with environmental issues, and she's a vegetarian trying to turn everyone over to that too. We had to watch a PETA video which 1) was outdated, 2) is extremely biased, and 3) completely ignores what's good about eating meat and the fact that animals do not have rights like humans do. I don't even know why that's even a controversial issue. It's frustrating, obviously. Well, that's my rant for tonight.

Is everybody going crazy?
Is everybody going crazy?

Family Dinner

Anyone and everyone in the immediate Novak family-I know there was some discussion between some of us this summer about taking mom and dad and the whole fam out to dinner for their anniversary. Is there still some interest in this? Matt, are you and Laura going to be in Minnesota anytime before Christmas or is there no hope in that? If you guys aren't going to be around, I don't think we should take them out to dinner-it sortof defeats the idea of the whole family taking them out to dinner. I don't know if we can really count it as an anniversary thing anymore since it's October, but I still like the idea of the whole family going out to dinner, whether or not it's before the Christmas season doesn't really matter I guess. Anybody have any thoughts on this, like it, hate it, whatever? If yes, when are people going to be around? Feel free to leave any comment-I didn't send out an email because I needed to write another blog too, and this was it. :)

We are family I got all my sisters with me
We are family Get up ev'rybody and sing

MCAT

I thought my schedule sucks-turns out my roommates is slightly worse. She has to be here over j-term for an interim class and to do an MCAT prep course. Plus the MCAT test date is Holy Saturday. Since she lives in Madison, that means she won't be able to go home for Easter. Sad.

I feel like I would like
To be somewhere else doing something that matters
And I'll admit here, while I sit here
My mind wastes away and my doubts start to gather

School

For some reason or other, this semester I am much busier and have fallen behind on homework, something I haven't really ever done. I'm not entirely sure of the reasons behind this change. Part of it could be the fact that cross country is more demanding than ever-we have a new coach who has us running more mileage than last year and at a later time in the day, thereby pushing my dinner and therefore the rest of my evening plans back later in the evening. Part of it could also be that I have harder classes with much more reading and much more difficult reading, therefore causing me to spend much more time than previously on homework. Part of it could even be that I'm planning a wedding, although that one is much less likely, considering we are taking plans slowly, yet as of late surely. Part of it could also be that I am working 2-3 hours more each week this year. Whatever the reason, I occasionally barely get my homework done in time, I see Eric less than I did last school year, and I have a feeling of unproductivity that I have never felt before. Of course, it isn't getting any easier-from now to the end of the semester, I think I have 1 week where I have nothing major due (major being a test, a paper, a project of some sort). Not to mention I have to read 2 more books of the Republic for my class on Tuesday, along with a 2-3 page research proposal due Thursday where I have to have 5-8 of my 20 sources found. Whew. I love college.

Last night I had to study for this test
I forgot man I'm dead
And now my brain is bursting out of my head
I can't think I can't breathe
Once again