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Show OPINIONS VOLUME III • ISSUE 18 JANUARY 16, 2011 WWW.UVUREVIEW.COM Serenity now, or never, it's up to you By JOHN-ROSS BOYCE Opinion's Editor I should have known that I was making a mistake. It was noon-thirty in the food court here at our beloved Utah Valley University, on a Monday. The line for the Pizza Hut was packed. The Costa Vida was stuffed. The queue at Subway was probably the length of fifty five-dollar foot longs. In the interest of efficiency, I chose a suspiciously empty spot amidst the hustle and bustle of the lunchtime. I thought I was lucky. I took a gamble. I bet the farm on "Orange Chicken Bowl." And I lost. Big time. Teriyaki Stix, you've screwed the pooch yet again. I gave them five American dollars and 71 American cents. It's not a king's ransom, I know, but to a struggling, starving student who lives paycheck to paycheck, five bucks and some change can be the difference between going to bed on a full stomach and staying up all night watching the Food Network and eating ice cubes, trying to fool your belly into thinking it's satiated. In return for my money, they gave me a bowl of white rice and a smattering of chick- en turdlets on top. My mouth gets dry just thinking about it. I was planning on writing a scathing little jeremiad about Teriyaki Stix, and, frankly, most of the other chain restaurants on campus. I was going to urge everyone in the company, from the C.E.O. of Peak Brands LLC, to the lowliest of the entry level employees, to take pride in their work and in their product. I was going to do this mainly by insulting their intelligence and questioning their ability to recognize edible, enjoyable food. But then I remembered I don't have to eat there. I don't ever have to go back. No one is ever going to force me at gunpoint to get another Orange Chicken Bowl from that place ever again. And that particular realization, obvious though it may be, left me with a kind of tranquility that glows like a warm little night light, illuminating the darkness in my heart. Recently, I've taken to cleaning house. Metaphorically, I mean. My place is a hovel. But the people and things I allow to enter my home, or my life, for that matter, must pass a rigorous inspection first. And if they don't pass, to hell with them. That's what I've learned. To ■ 61111111 GILBERT CISNEROS/UVU REVIEW What a darn shame of a mediocre attempt at Chinese food that I don't have to purchase or eat. say "To hell with (insert ob- ject, place, institution, person, food item, TV show here)." Again, simple enough. Obvious enough. But sometimes we get so wrapped up in a problem or a tiff or a bad food experience that we forget that we can forget about it. There are some problems that shouldn't be ignored. Those are the problems you can fix. If you're overweight and you don't like being overweight, then start jogging. If something small and busted is driving you up the wall, stop moaning and get a screwdriver. Nothing's on TV? Read a book, idiot. But there are some problems which only plague you because you allow them. The unfixable little hiccups that are always going to be aggravating by their very nature. That "friend" of yours who fills your heart with black hatred every time you see him? You can hem and haw and dread every encounter with him, or you can just let him know that he needs to go jump off a cliff and suddenly breathe easier. Winter got you down? Newsflash — winter happens every single year. If you're old enough to read this, you're old enough to know that no matter how many times you whine about it being cold, the cold isn't going to go away. Get a warmer coat or stay indoors. No one's saying that you don't have the right to express your displeasure. Blowing off some steam in one forum or another is our God-given right and one of the major benefits of having a sophisticated system of both written and verbal language. And sometimes the cure for the daily blues is simply expressing, out loud, how much you hate "Glee" or the President or some broham's ridiculous fedora. But maybe that should be the end of it. TV networks are always going to produce insubstantial schlock. The President is always going to be a major screw-up, one way or another. Every party you go to will feature some greasy imbecile who thinks that a brimmed hat makes him look like Justin Timberlake. There's an old prayer in a rehabilitation center to help bolster the downtrodden spirits of drug addicts and alcoholics. It goes "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference." Addicts have these things called "triggers" — situations or problems that drive them to consume unhealthy amounts of alcohol/ crack/horse tranquilizers. The whole point of the Serenity Prayer is that the problems which plague you may be fixable or not, but that doesn't matter. What really matters is your attitude when confronted with your daily demons. This semester, I urge all of you to fix that weird noise in your car or seriously work on that weird personal tic that makes you really self-conscious. I also urge you to accept some things as they are. Homework is mostly going to be tough. It's always going to be either too hot or too cold. Mostly, I urge you to know when you need to take something head-on or kick it to the curb. To know the difference and to act accordingly. I'll make my own Orange Chicken Bowl and bring it from home if I get desperate enough. `Switch-Day' saves spring break By CORIN ROBINSON Opinion's Writer Let's get it out of the way now and talk about this semester's 'Switch-Days.' Because there has been some divisive speech about it. Some people are worried how it's going to affect syllabi and workloads. Some people are excited for multiple Mondays spent sleeping in. Most of the students, I suspect, are apathetic or are not even sure what the hubbub 'Switch Day' is all about. Let's set the record straight. `Switch-Day' is a blessing, people. Here's why: spring semester is full of holidays and plain old days off. Jan 16 marks Martin Luther King Jr. Day and barely more than a month later, we have President's Day on Feb 20. Following less than a month after this, everyone's favorite, Spring Break, arrives. This is a lot of Mondays, and a lot of material that both teachers and students have to cram into another day. In case you don't know, this year is the first in which we will be getting an entire week for Spring Break. Yes, CONTACT: that's right, an entire week. A lot of backbreaking, voicelosing efforts were involved in turning your three days off into five. Your fellow students fought for those two days, and without 'Switch-Day,' their efforts could have been lost. Speaking with Eva Bernfeld, Director of Academic Scheduling/Curriculum, I was informed that the first solution to this holiday problem was cutting back Spring Break to make up for the days missed. Fortunately, this idea of switching one of those holidays with the proceeding Tuesday was conceived, and birthed into this blessing we call 'Switch-Day.' Thank your administration! So this is what you need to know: following the President's Day holiday, Monday classes will be held on Tuesday, Feb 21. Tuesday classes will be canceled this day. Initially, when I heard they were going to mix Monday and Tuesday classes together on the following Tuesday I said, "Who came up with that brilliant idea! ?" But after getting my facts straight, I realized this is definitely a good thing. Good for the students, good for the faculty and good for the uni- versity for this year and many more to come. This is not the first time this method has been used. In fact, UVU had tried something similar about 10 years ago. It either just didn't stick or wasn't necessary to be used again until now. And BYU among many other schools has been using this for a long time and it has worked great for them, and still does. Some are worried it might affect their schedule when Feb 21 does roll around, but I think teachers should have plenty of time to plan for this, and if they let 'Switch-Day' affect their students too much, they're doing something wrong. After talking with a couple students and faculty members about the new schedule and getting some brief opinions, I found that everyone had pretty much the same thing to say. One student told me they weren't too concerned about it. Another student observed that it was too early in the semester to know how it's going to affect us. The response I heard the most? "It's just another day off." The bottom line is, there doesn't seem to be too much concern, especially when people are given the right information. Personally, I think it is a great idea. With my schedule, I will be missing all those Monday classes for holidays, and I can see the pressure it puts on the students and the teachers to cover the material. By switching one Tues- day with a holiday-Monday, it definitely balances things out a bit. More importantly, when two days of my Spring Break are in jeopardy, it's the greatest idea I have ever heard. No one, and I mean no one, is keeping me from my Remember, come February 21, Tuesday is actually Monday. OPINIONS EDITOR ASST. OPINIONS EDITOR OPINIONS DESIGNER jrboyce@gmail.com felicialartey@gmail.com tjmendenhall@q.com FELICIA JOY JOHN-ROSS BOYCE • TARALYN MENDENHALL Vegas vacation. I think we can all agree, we'd rather have `Switch-Day' than sacrifice any of our Spring Break. Besides, by the time Wednesday, Feb 22 comes, 'Switch-Day' will just be 'yesterday.' TARALYN MENDENHALL/UVU REVIEW |