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Show Monday, 10. November 1997' The Daily Utah Chronide int'l from page 10 a poor international student and take me out to dinner in their pickup trucks. It is amazing those gendemen who cannot even guess my nationality correctly can sense my poverty. I have never felt so much love and support in my life! I LOVE THE USA!! Since I have learned how great-- the USA was, I started working to become a part of this great nation. I eat low-fa- t products after I work out. I enjoy Diet Coke. I watch The Simpsons. I drive an American car (even if it costs me some extra for maintenance). I take Prozac blue-eye- s everyday, get a boyfriend who has never crossed Pacific Ocean. I even read my math textbooks before I go to bed, like my friends who read their Bibles. I was working hard to become a part of this nation because I love the USA, the place my dreams would come true. Recendy a small doubt crept into my mind; maybe my love for the USA is a emotion; maybe the USA silly, one-wa- y does not like me. That was the time I received my tuition bill: I could not keep myself from calling the office to ask what my $15.00 special fee was for. I registered my classes during my assigned registration date, so the $15 could not be a penalty for late registration. I could not think of anything special for which to pay $15 extra to' the university. When the truth came out blond-hair-wit- over the phone, I felt a dark cloud pass over the sunny innocence of my dream. The true name of my $15 special fee was $15 "International Student Fee" which supports the international center and provides services for international students who study at the university. Some say that nothing is free in this free country. I should have learned this bitter lesson earlier. For a long time I was convinced that all the services I was receiving from the international center (essentially none) cost me nothing extra since the tuition for an international student is about three times more than that of someone with state resident status. Since we are not US citizens, we have no right to be considered residents. As a result, we end up paying the nonresident tuition until either we complete college or run out of money. Isn't my tuition money enough to pay off the service I am receiving as an international student? I never use it except the infrequent time I renew my visa. I guess not, since they raised the "International Student Fee" from $15 to $25 this year. Who agreed to pay additional $10 for something we barely can take advantage of? Me? Other international students? Or the university who just loves to bill us even more? cares about the fact that my grand parents were taxes to paying Japan 200 years ago, when nobody was obligated to pay tax to the state of Utah? From my great culture and my loving mother I have also learned not to make demands of others. This is how I was taught to show my respect and my appreciation for them. I also learned from the sad parts of history that one person's opinion is like the opinion of a drop of water in the dark blue sea. This time, I can't stop making noise. Hey, listen to me! We are paying too much money to receive the same education. Now you are charging me $15 more? I loved you, USA. Is this the way you love me back? Is this how you show me appreciation for my love? Appreciation is a great part of our lives in Asia. For example, I was taught to give a blessing to food before I eat. It is not to give thanks to God, but to appreciate someone who worked at the rice field, someone who brought rice to our dining table, to someone who cooked for us, and the animals and fish who lost their lives to be eaten by us. To make one simple meal, many lives are involved; it is not a matter of the being who lives somewhere we call heaven. I may sound too Asian or -- learned the great politeness and obedience of my culture well, I did not complain about the tuition. I think my mother me a taught great fact of life: In order to live, we need others' help. It understandable that the university charges us more because our parents did not pay any taxes to this state. Who Every day I give thanks to many people. I thank my friends who write me to cheer me up from Japan. I thank Since I is my math buddies who show me how to prove a continuity theorem via the Internet. I thank the people who clean the classrooms, and the cleaning person who gathers trash from the garbage cans after the library is closed. I thank the system administrators who work hard to maintain u.cc.utah.edu for me, and I thank them for installing the latest release of Maple. I even thank my physics professor who gave me a C. Now I want to ask the university how much they are appreciating their international students. We silently bring you an enormous amount of money every quarter. bur mental stereotype may tell you all Asians are rich or all international students are rich and it is their problem if they cannot afford the amount of tuition the university asks them to pay. But I think we are better than some "Americans" I know who received a student loan and refused to pay it back after graduatioa Look at me. I've never paid my tuition late, but that does not mean I am rich. I am desperate to pay even the $25 for the international student fee. Can you imagine the university without international students? Who pays the enormous amount of money for tuition every quarter? Who but Dear Editor, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 1997, will be a bittersweet day for many students, staff, and faculty at the University of Utah. On that day, the university will disg card a American tradi- groups and some faculty and staff asking that the decision be reconsidered. The letter writers were not even given the courtesy of an acknowledg- of the receipt of their letters, except for one terse phone conversation in which one writer .was told that the decision would not be reconsidered. The fact that the day is officially ement long-standin- tion and, for the last time, honor Veterans Day as an official university holiday. As the university moves into the new semester system in autumn 1998, Veterans Day will be replaced by a two-da- observed by federal and state employees was ignored by the university's policy makers. This indifference suggests that the y vacation honoring-incredias it may seem the Utah ble Education Association, a political group which has been at best apathetic, and at worst antagonistic, toward the cause of higher education and to which very few faculty members belong. The decision was based on the rationale that such a change would give the holiuniversity community a two-da- y break. day instead of a single-day'- s This change will make it almost impossible for students, faculty and those in the ROTC participate in various daytime ceremonies. When the decision was made last spring, the president of the university, the chairs of the Board of Regents and the Board of Trustees, and the chair staff-particul- arly and members of the Semester Transition Committee were all contacted through letters from several veterans university has no respect for America's 26 million veterans (140,000 of them in Utah), the 650,000 women and men who died in combat, the 487,000 who died of other causes in wartime, and the 1,400,000 who werrwounded. The people making this decision seem to be more motivated by the desire for one extra day of vacation than they are by respect for those who answered their country's call to arms. As a faculty member at the university, I e part-tim- salesmen who push you to buy a lemon. I hope you see my point of view before your car breaks down. Ayumi Ohshita Mathematics - U7 m mm V ' lVi? A Become a Plasma Donor AND EARN UP TO $150 PER MONTH Who Needs Pl&ma? Hemophiliacs, barn victims, transplant and cardiovascular patients who receive products made from the plasma of donors like you. ' Earn at least $150 per month. Professional medical facility and staff for your safety. Donors inactive for 6 months or new donors: Bring this ad and recieve a total of $45 for first two donations within 7 days Edinburgh: "They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old; age shall not weary them nor the years condemn; at the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them." BE A PLASMA DONOR...BECAUSE LIFE IS EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS Robert C. Steensma Professor of English Sera Tec Biologicals 609 S. State St, SIX., UT. 84111 For more information call 363-769- 7 January day honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Both Dr. King and the women and men who gave their lives should be honored for their sacrifices in noble causes. In today's cynical America, where 0 V.6 J I j 1 1 I I I HAPPY HOUR FREE DRYING Tumbling Tutsdays WASH i&s 750WttWtdnttdays SOt Wash Thursdays ant Fridays Bttwttn 2-- 7 pm I w &r IRJ 247 S. 500 E. S.L.C. koJ Muoattan Cwmr' m Come to our Q CAREER NIOHT! TUES 81 THUR9 I at Vf 7pm s- 455 E500S I C,C yfJ tl L-Salt- On On J t(j fcjjj 1 ! I 476 JF a ) I. Quarters for Canines . m dtmafife Uiim- - Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in find this decision unconscionable. To abolish Veterans Day as a holiday is as unthinkable as eliminating the 's animals!'NSv Stonewash portion of our proceeds is donated to Hufnane Society of Utah! r is fI9l' iSjil 'CTjMrl - tradition, heroism, and history are ignored or ridiculed, such a callous act to be expected. But a prestigious university, which is supposed to reflect values, should hold to a higher standard. The University of Utah should reinstate Veterans Day as an official university holiday under the new semester system. Not to do so is an insult to the memory' of our hori-ore- d dead. No matter how much disrespect the university shows for the veterans, those of us who lost comrades in Korea and Vietnam, or family and relatives in other wars, will still remember them in the spirit of the words on the Scottish HER.TAOE REFRESHMENTS BLVD JTl' ,,., Pr5METRIC SERVED Salt lahc lauton Novell J - iTBSTINCl 366-536- 6 773-53- 70 1 g mm Cancelling Veterans Day Wrong 1 cleans your offices at midnight? Who serves you coffee and doughnuts at the Union? Look around. All the minimum-wage jobs are taken by international students who are too intelligent to participate in these menial jobs. Why are they doing these jobs? It is because international students are prohibited to work off campus by the INS. Most of the university part-tim- e jobs which pay above $5 per hour require skills. However, good English-speakinEnglish skills are sometimes very subjectively defined. I say this after having noticed that one of the interviewers I spoke with frequently used double negatives in her "excellent" English. Some jobs at the university ask that you have a relative who works for the university. Unfortunately, most international students do not have such convenient relatives. It would be inconvenient for the university to be run without international students, don't you think? So, please stop overcharging us and show us your appreciation. After all, we need more mathematicians like me than used-ca- r 3 " -- 0CK) |
