BSU Scheduling

Ok so all of us have just requested our schedules for the Fall of 2009, and I'm sure most of you either didn't get what you wanted or you got what you wanted just not at the right time. The system doesn't seem very fair to underclassmen, sure for juniors and seniors it works fine because they are going to get what they want no matter what, but for freshman and sophomores it seems very likely that you could miss an important class just because the university doesn't offer enough seats for everyone. The more and more I think about it, I believe there has to be another to remedy this or atleast offer more seats or something.

I know once I'm a junior or a senior i'll realize this is the way to do it since you need certain classes and your nearing graduation so that is justified, but how does screwing the underclassmen work into the equation especially ones that have switched their major around a few times. I know it is a useless rant and I'm sure i'll get over it, but its really aggravating when you've planned out your schedule and when you get it back you get nothing like you wanted, gaps here and there and even some not there at all. It is just ridiculous.

Ok i'm done I had to rant and put my feelings on paper because I didn't get one of the history classes I wanted and I guess there is still a good chance I can still get it, but I don't know how lucky i'm going to get. Hopefully it opens up and i'll be waiting to snatch it up. Other than that I got what I wanted they just couldn't give me the times so I have big gaps in my schedule hopefully I can fill them up =]. Hope the rest of the class had better luck with it than I did, and if you didn't I'm sorry.

Wrapping up

Ok so like many us, I got a sudden realization that I have only 3 days of classes left because I only have school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It is amazing at how fast this semester went and overall my whole first year. It has been a great year and it's going to be sorta weird having a 4 month summer as opposed to all those high school summers where you barely eeked in 3 months. I also decided not to take any summer classes this time around, but plan on taking them later because I felt I could use a break, but it is going to be strange not getting a constant feed of history every week and I'll be eager to get back into i'm sure when August rolls around.

Luckily I don't have many actually finals this semester as far as big multiple choice tests go. I only have one of those and two regular exams and then of course our english portfolio and a research paper which I already completed and received an A on. Hopefully it won't be a stressful end, but it seems it will be smooth as long as I just keep ahead and don't let it pile on.

All in all I wish all you good luck with your finals and wrapping up the rest of your semesters.

MY BLOG AND THE BLOGOSPHERE

Ok so at first I didn't know what to expect when we had to start writing on a blog on a weekly basis. So I figured since the presidential inauguration was on the horizon I would talk about it starting off. This also gave me my name for my blog, Obama Mama, I chose this name because I believed that since it was a little weird, yet funny that it would attract people to read it, rather than just naming it Curtis' English Blog. My posts usually follow a theme in that most of them were either book reviews or about a certain part of the world that was having a crisis or something going on in current events. Most of the time it wasn't written as stream of consciousness but a few posts were me ranting about some problem I came across during the day.

I think my best blog posts were about some of my book reviews. They didn't necessarily receive a lot of comments, but to me they are the ones I put the most amount of time into because I wanted to express my views about the most current book that I read. It gave me a way of letting out my feelings on what happened in the book. The most popular posts however were my ranting about problems I faced in my day. I think it is because most people had either ran across that problem either during the day or at some point in their life, or even that they found it comical because the way I told it was told with a somewhat sarcastic tone. Overall my favorite blog posts were definitely the ones that pertained to either current events/issues or about book reviews.

I believe that the blog was an excellent tool for this English class. I'm being totally honest in saying that because I hate writing about boring short excerpts that you have no idea where they came from. Now on the other hand when you can write on a blog about whatever you want as long as there is some thought behind, it makes writing more interesting and enjoyable. I think it depends on how it is done however, but if you have the freedom to write about whatever you want and not something like what I stated above. I think this can be one of the most effective tools for writing. It seems it makes students get more involved with writing when they can write about whatever they want with no restrictions.

Overall, I enjoyed writing on the blog because it allowed me to express my feelings about current events and to tell everyone about what I have read and what I have enjoyed in my history classes. I definitely hope this is a growing trend in English classes because it is an innovative way to practice writing, as well as express your feelings, and it is enjoyable and painless. Eventually I plan on starting my own blog for history because I want to inform people about history and what I have had the privilege to learn.

Somali Pirates...Strike again and again

Ok so we all know all the publicity the US got when Richard Phillips the commander of a freightliner heading through the passage handed himself over to the Somali pirates to prevent harm to his crew. After a daring effort by the US Navy approved by President Barack Obama Phillips was saved and the pirates were subdued. This I would hope would lead to an increase in security against the actions of piracy since we use the passage to India often.

In case you didn't know, today, Tuesday April 14, 2009 the Somali pirates struck again and captured another ship crew and a 35,000 ton Greek carrier. The crew was thought to be unharmed, but once again an effort to save them must be done because negotiating with the pirates is a dangerous option and most countries do not like to deal with terrorists or in this case pirates. As if this wasn't enough to deal with...

Later today, yes the same day another ship was captured, this time a vessel from Lebanon. Its crew and a 5000 ton Togo ship was captured. This is beginning to become a trend as though it looks. The country of Somalia has been a harbor for terrorism and piracy for years since they have no government. The public has not heard much about these acts until now, but it has been going on for years and millions of dollars have been stolen.

As of now NATO has anti piracy mission called Operation Allied Protector where US ships are planning to patrol the coastline, but little is known about this. Regardless of that, it seems that something needs to be done about this. By no means am I suggesting a war or even a conflict, no no no that would be ludicrous. To me it seems that a simple tightening in security policy would make matters difficult for the pirates.

I know as I'm saying this someone is going to come along and immediately critcize this idea, but if we just had some Navy seals on these ships sailing through these harsh areas, then maybe it would deter these acts of piracy. I know this will not stop it by any means, but it would slow it down and increase the chance of the crew defending themselves against the pirates.

This issue is similar to terrorism, but we cannot take military action against them, in my opinion a simple deterrance would slow the rate of occurence of these actions. It seems all to simple but these will continue to happen until some country shows they are tired of this shit and put an end to it, otherwise it won't stop because it is far too easy for them to make millions at our expense.

BSU E-mails from students regarding missed notes

Ok so i'm sure all of us have gotten atleast one email from someone that is in a class with you that needs notes from a day they either were "sick" or they were just off dicking around. I know it seems a little harsh, but it is so frustrating to me because I want to help the ones I can out but i've got enough to do as is. It's really frustrating to me also because most of the time it is emails from the same people, which makes me think they don't care or want to learn anyways. It is aggravating because i'm a social studies education major, which I guess account for me getting mad with all the emails from students not attending.
This probably seems like a useless rant to everybody, but it is just ridiculous when you pay for college you better go to the classes. No one cares if you don't show up because it is your responsibilty to make up for it. It is a deterrence for skipping class. Don't get me wrong I have missed a class before, but I don't send emails out begging people to help me when I just skipped a class for no reason. I understand that is my decision and I am accountable for it.
One last thing, when people need help with homework of any subject I try to lend a helping hand because if I was in that situation I would want help from a student as well. It does become a bothersome nuisance when the person you help doesn't show initiative to even try to learn it. I am by no means a teacher yet. I still say to everyone if you have a problem, question or query take it up with the professor and don't send a forward email to the class because more than likely it will be selected with other BSU spam and deleted!

Sorry for the Rant, by no means am I specifically targetting anyone in this rant.

Verizon Store Continued:Online Edition:Dare or Voyager

Ok, so my dad lost his phone a week ago and he has no idea where it went. So we decided to go to the Verizon store and get him a new one. Our plan was ending in two months so we decided that all of us were going to get new phones.

Im still debating whether to get a dare or a voyager. Anyways we were going to do it on the internet because for some odd reason the store doesn't have the same deals as the internet. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, so after we decided that later that night me and my mom sat down to work on it. We tried and tried to order them, but we weren't getting the discounts we were told we were supposed to get, not to mention we were getting charged an extra 80 dollars in activation fees that were not suppose to be there. Needless to say we gave up frustrated. After trying everything customer support phone line, chat online, etc. 

This morning I tried again and still to this moment have no idea what I'm suppose to do, hopefully my mom can figure it out when she gets home. My point however is that, these stores make it so difficult to make an order its ridiculous. Not to mention even in person you can easily spend hours in the store. It doesn't seem to be a very good business tactic when most of your customers are leaving pissed off. Regardless if anyone has opinions on which phone I should get the Dare or the Voyager...I'd appreciate it, i'm not sure what i want.

The Stock Market: Bear or Bull

Ok, so this week I decided since the stock market seems to be going on the uptrend, (knock on wood) I felt obligated to talk about it.

Recently I just started a Roth IRA, an individual retirement account, yeah super early I know. Since the market has been at all time lows in the past month, I decided it was time because in my opinion the market is so low how could it get any worse. I know as soon as I say that someone is going to get on here and say of course it can get worse. Well anyways you know what I mean. I'm being optimistic in that I hope by the end of this year or the beginning of 2010 the stock market will be going strong again, and after yesterday's 500 point raise in the DOW, things are looking good.

Anyways, I was listening to the radio this morning and heard that some are arg

uing that the bull market is in and could encourage the market to rise even more day by day. The difference between bear and bull markets are the bull is good that means that the buyers are optimistic and buying, the bear on the other hand is pessimistic and thats what some same we are still in and could be in with the current "recession".

Regardless of what people are saying in my opinion, things can't be any worse now than they were in the depression. I'm a firm believer in the fact that the depression was a one time slip up and we could stop another one from happening after FDR enacted that the market will close before it crashes. Ok I'm done ranting on. No malicious comments please haha.

MARCH MADNESS!!!

Ok so it's that time of the year again, time for the big NCAA basketball tourney. As we all know anything can happen. I wanted to bring to light that in the past 5 years the overall number one see has only won once and that was UNC. This goes to show that even the so called best team in the tourney can be upset. Me personally I hoping my team the Wisconsin Badgers can win atleast one game. They play a tough 5th ranked Florida State. For my bracket though I have to be realistic. I Had Wisconsin beat Florida St, but that was all. One can't be too risky when money is on the line. Regardless of that I'm always willing to root for the underdog and not afraid to put faith in a team that has little to no chance of making it. 

One thing I find truly interesting about this year's tourney is that there are 7 Big Ten teams in the tournament. Michigan, Michigan St, Illinois, Purdue, Minnesota, Ohio St, and of course the Wisconsin Badgers. In my bracket personally I put a lot of faith in this conference whether it will work out or not remains to be seen, but I only have one of the 7 teams dropping out in the first round and that is Minnesota, sorry nothing personal, but their chances against Texas are slim. As of right now my view on this is holding true.

I know this seems like ranting about how everyone should put faith in the underdog, but it pains me to see the same freaking UNC in the tournament every year as a #1 seed. That is ok, but I love to see them get beat because someone else deserves a chance. No off

ense to any UNC fans.

Verizon Wireless Store Mini-Review

A Critical Analysis of the Verizon Wireless Store in Muncie Indiana

On a cold windy morning in Matthews, Indiana I woke up for an exciting day in the metropolis of Muncie. I woke up and rolled out of bed and had no idea that the impending doom of the Verizon store was in the future. I went to my advisor appointment at nine while my mom did a few errands. She picked me up and we then went to Lucina Hall to do a get some information about financial aid. I then figured out that my mom had not yet gone to the Verizon store yet. I let out a sigh of agony because I knew the way the Verizon store worked. A disastrous method of waiting in line for long periods of time and then while your waiting in line you can look at all our latest models. What a marketing method.

After a short drive we arrive at the dreaded Verizon store. Before we get into the store my mom and I were nearly mowed down by an older woman in her big silver Chrysler van, I cursed to myself and we entered the store. My mom tells the lady at the check in desk that she came in a week early and told the girl to put the pictures on her cell phone on to her new picture card which is in her phone. Needless to say the girl didn’t do that the first time so she had to return to do this. I knew that we were going to have to wait forever even if it was a simple fix. The fact that they have a check in desk and a high definition TV with the waiting list on it meant a long wait. My mom said let’s look at phones.

So we begin scanning and touching all the new models of phones. After looking at every model they have we decided to see where we were on the list on the TV. To our amazement we weren’t even on the list! We stormed back up to the front counter and told the woman at the checkout desk. She responded I’m glad you brought that to my attention because sometimes that happens. I’ll get you in after Latoya; apparently that was the person at the top of the list. So after waiting a couple of minutes we finally got to the front desk. My mom ran into the same girl that took care of her last time. She stated that the last time my mom didn’t tell her to do that, but anyways she begun transferring the pictures to the card. My mom had 82 pictures on the phone and the women at the counter stated it would take around an hour to do because she had to do one at a time. So she asked us if we could wait. Meanwhile next to us we could hear an argument ensuing between the clerk and an older lady. They were arguing about her pre-paid payment she was making. I found it hilarious, but ignored the engagement. We told our clerk we would go to lunch, so we went to Buffalo Wild Wings down the road.

After a delicious helping of spicy garlic wings, we returned to the dreaded Verizon store. We bypassed the check in desk. There was no one there anyways to our amazement. We waited by the front desk for a few minutes until we finally told someone we were here to pick up my mom’s phone. The girl that had helped us before came out from the back and handed my mom her phone and told her that the picture card now had all 82 pictures on it. We both let out a sigh of relief. My mom got a discount because she works at the hospital and got a small refund. We both darted out of the store and more or less complained about it the whole way home. This whole trip to the Verizon store sucked because their whole system sucks period. Everything is wait, wait, and look at our new products. To me this is no way to conduct business and has a high rate of disaster due to people being pissed about waiting forever and having difficulties with their expensive phones.

The struggle in Darfur: Darfur Diaries

Ok, so last time I was talking abou the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia and the genocide that happend there. 

This week I've began reading a new book called Darfur Diaries Stories of Surv

ival by Jen Marlowe with Aisha Bain and Adam Shapiro. It's a documentary of the accounts in Darfur a region of Western Sudan as indicated on the map to the above. The state of Darfur has been fighting a deadly civil war since 1983. Many countries await agreements between the North and the South Darfur states because of the Oil reserves that lie in the country of Sudan.  To no avail the war still wages on and it seems like nothing can interfere with this conflict not even the stranded refugees on the Chadian border in the Sahara desert.

In this book it describes the horrible accounts of raping, killing and pillaging of the Darfurian tribes houses. Some of the horrible conflicts involve Arab militias called, the Janjaweed. They would roam the states burning harmless citizen's houses to the ground and killing and raping unsuspecting refugees. Even though this is only the surface the torure that this tribe administered to their prisoners was unbelievable. The Jajanweed would heat up stones until they were unbelievable hot and insert them into their prisoners genitals be it man or woman, which is unbelivable. There is no way to explain how horrible it is on paper. Words cannot describe what happens in Darfur. 

The refugees struggle just to make it in Darfur let alone do other things like edcuate their children and have a normal life. The UNCHR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) try to assist the refugees, but the number of refugees are only growing and there are too many of them now. Other NGO's (Non-Governmental Organization) also send aid through food and other necessities they may need which helps, but the weather is harsh since they are in the Sahara desert or very close to it. Darfur Diaries is unbelievable descriptive primary source of the tragic events that have and will continue to happen in Darfur. The crooked government in Sudan only contributes to the violence and until they overthrow

n it will continue.

Sources Cited:

Darfur Diaries Stories of Survival. Marlowe, Jen

History of Iran

Ok so this week I read in time magazine that Mohammed Khatemi claimed that he was planning to run for president again in Iran against incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Khatemi claims that drastic political changes are needed to prevent further harm to Iran's economy and international image. 

First off, starting back in January 16, 1979 Mohammed Reza left Iran for the U.S. at the time the U.S. had a very good standing with Iran. Not 3 weeks later Ayatollah Khomeini returned to office. Khomeini feared that the Shah, Mohammed Reza's, attempt to westernize Iran would lead to a loss of religion. The Shah had banned turbans, beards, and veils. In between this time the U.S. embassy had been captured

 and 60 U.S. hostages were kept for a year and a half during the extradition of the Shah.

Ayatollah after coming back began many senseless

 battles where he would send children out to fight armies with deadly weapons, he would send these child

ren out with only sticks and after all the sensesless battles 100,000 were dead and Iran was bankrupt. While in office Khomeini exceeded power by Iranian president and installed law by religious rule. On April 7,1979 Iran became a Theocracy.

 10 years later summing up a lot of history that happend in between. 

The Ayatollah died in 1989. Mohammed Khatemi was elected as president and quickly wanted to establish a nuclear arsenal, which is why I do not understand why they would want to

 elect him as president again. Isn't that why the U.S. started all this conflict in Iraq for. It was just to "check" for nuclear weapons. Iran's history is truly interesting and has A LOT more to it than what I summed up in a few paragraphs.

Survival in the Killing Fields

Ok so I know not everybody is as interested in history as I am, but I'm currently reading a book for my history 198 class called Survival in the Killing Fields by Haing Ngor. It is the story of this man's true account in Cambodia during the revolution that resulted in the Khmer Rouge-Pol Pot Regime.

Naturally, Cambodians are very gentle they almost have a lazy sort of attitude, Haing Ngor describes his regular life until the Khmer Rouge and the Lon Nol with U.S. backing are at civil war near the South Vietnam/Cambodia border. Most of them think that if the Khmer Rouge win then life will simply go back to the way it was. Then their old leader Sihanouk will come back to power and everything will be fine. It doesn't happen this way the U.S. describe the spread of communism by the "domino effect" and that is exactly what is happening. When the deadly civil war ends the Khmer began evacuating the major cities and forcing the "new" people or the city people to harsh work and punishment. Horrible racial discrimination against the Chinese, Chams (Hindu worshippers, typically farmers), and Vietnamese are among the groups that were almost certain that if their origin was found out that they would be executed.

I'll stop explaining the story, but this book is very interesting in that these people had their culture stripped away, and that was everything to them. The Khmer persectued so many in this horrible holocaust. Over 1,000,000 died during this period for no reason but racial discrimination.

I'm not by any means trying to force feed this to anyone, but I just found it interesting the stories that this man recollected over these years and the horrible torture that these human beings went through.

Google Earth?!

Ok so I don't exactly know a whole lot about what exactly you can do with this program Google is providing now, but I think I have a general idea.

In the past week i've heard and seen many students/adults/etc all messing around with Google Earth. I don't know why so many people are so fantisized by the fact that you can examine cities, states, and countries that have been there for many years. Don't get me wrong, the close view of the cities such as seeing what is there as far as properties and such is definitely a revolution in technology, but has our society gotten so lazy that we don't even bother to use maps, globes or other geographical tools. Instead we use the internet to virtually spy on other cities.

I find it funny that as I sat and wrote this in Bracken library a student sitting next to me was using Google Earth for who knows what. Will the next step be adding moving people live stream of what is actually happening in that city at this very moment. Who knows maybe it already has happend.

Even so much as my mom was asking me about this last night, which is what gave me my inspiration to write about this. Is a Big Brother operation in the near future?

The Dreaded BSU Bookstore

Ok, so for this semester I ordered my books on line from the BSU bookstore. Well I changed a class so when i went to exchange my books for the new class, the old books were worth more so they credited me that amount back to my mom's credit card no problem, ok remember that.

Well also when i exchanged them there were two books on special order, I should have seen that coming, but I didn't so I waited three weeks each week going in to check to see if they were there or not. Each week they told me that they'd be in next week.

Well finally I got fed up...

I went to the Cbx bookstore in the village and they have 17 copies of Darfur Diaries and a bajillion copies of Survival in the Killing Fields so I thought i'll buy em here and return the special order forms to the BSU bookstore and all will be ok...hahaha I dont think so.

So I go in there, having already been there once today and I say " I already got these books so I just need to be credited back for their amount, no problem right?"

Nah no problem...haha woops are computers just crashed?!?!

I was like you've got to be kidding me...needless to say I comeback on Thursday since I only have class on Tues and Thurs.

So I go back to the internet order counter and remember last time they had no problem crediting back the amount to the credit card. Well this time the story is different. They give me a paper and tell me to go up front and i'll have to get the credit card number somehow. Well I go up front and the girl up front didn't know what I was talking about and told me to go back to the back again. I told them I had been sent up here by them! Finally after 2 or 3 girls go back and forth were close to proceeding further. The girl attempts to call my mom...well guess what their phone lines are down. O gee how much better can it get? So I call my mom on her cell phone and ask her for the number. She responds well I dont know it and I'm in New Castle with your Dad getting his tooth pulled and I don't have it with me.

GREAT!



I settled for store credit!!!!!!!!!

Post Inauguration Day!

Well as you all know everything went well yesterday. There were no mishaps which was the crowning achievement of the day. Barack Obama was sworn in at 12:05 as the 44th president of the United States.



All the usual suspects attended this huge event past presidents and vice presidents, senate members, house representatives, and supreme court members as well.

Another truly history making event is that how many past presidents are still with us today, which usually doesn't happen because of the way the system is. George H.W. Bush attended as well his wife Barbra Bush. Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn, George W. Bush and his wife Laura, Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Rodham-Clinton. Of course there are many other notable guests, but that would take up a blog on its own.

The sights and pictures from this event are truly amazing:








Sorry, I did have a video of Obama's Inaugeral address I was going to include, but for some reason I'm having difficultly putting it on here.

Well I hope everyone had a history making Inauguration day. If you have not seen the festivities yet, I would highly recommend you seeing atleast some of them it is truly amazing.


Thank You



Curtis Clock

Inauguration Day!

Welcome!


It's finally Inauguration Day. This is a history making day for all of us. The United States first african-american president will be sworn in today at noon. We all hope it will be a wonderful event.

In the same regards today is also a record breaking day for attendance for security. There are over 18,000 police and national guard stationed at the event today. Saying the security levels are high today would be an understatement, but needless to say this will be a huge inauguration.

Coming soon Recent events

Soon, I plan to post more info about the upcoming events that will be happening in Washington. The upcoming inauguration and many other events and I will keep updates on here weekly. Sorry for the lack of depth, but it will continue and get deeper.

Curtis Clock