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Show on oin TT" The Forum Staff, Fall 2009 Editor: Krista Smith Assistant Editor: Walter Denison Production Manager: Ashley Gober Business Manager: Ann Green Online Manager: Lindsay Kavanagh Adviser: Fred Fogo StaffWriters: Brittany Marsden Christie Porter Denise Kabonic Ernesto Negrete Feli Anne Hipol Forrest Bennett A letter to the editor Anahi Villegas Education Senator People like to criticize institutions. That is just a fact. I have heard numerous accounts and complaints regarding ASWC. People saying we are just a clique, we dont do anything and we waste money. Unfortunately most people that say such things are ignorant to our duties and our efforts. In reality ASWC works hard to do their best job for the students. You dont realize how difficult it is to please everyone until youre actually trying it. Nonetheless we welcome smart and comprehensive criticism. If you have come to one of our meetings, understood how ASWC functions and still believe we are a dique or we waste money, by all means fill out a comment card with your ideas on how to fix our problems. We are ecstatic when we see any Heather Atkin Jeff Sparrow Jeffrey Chipian Jennifer Soto-AllrJulie Erwin ASWC Senators are working hard ed Mathew Wennergren Samantha Jacobson Sarah Pike Stefan Stathopulos Victoria Garland Whitney Roseborough The Forum is published every other Tuesday. Its circulation is 1,000 newspapers. The first copy is free of charge; additional copies may be purchased for 50 cents. We encourage students, all faculty, staff and other readers to provide feedback. letters to Krista Smith at forumeditorwestminstercollege. edu. Only signed letters will be accepted. The Forum reserves the right to edit all submissions. Views expressed are those of the writers and are not to be considered those of The Forum, the faculty, staff or administration. entries in our comment box. I will be first to admit that ASWC has a few flaws. Yet we make up for it all with our motivation to initiate something great for the student body, whether it is educational, events or causes. Senator Hill and I do not communicate very often, but I observe with great respect all of the amazing projects he creates. In my point of view, hes the humanitarian of ASWC. His ideas for creating better service projects and fundraisers non long IS TUAT VERMIN OF V0UR5 GOING TO DE IN OUR E-m- ail f HOUSE? OUST A FEW DAYS. TLL TAKE HER PACK WHEN I'M FINI5UED WOV MV EXPERIMENTS. WELL, THE SOONER THE are full of thought and compassion. There is also Senator Woodward, who has established her own committee altogether. Senator Woodward and the First Year Student Committee plan exciting events among other projects they have. My hat goes off to you Senator Woodward. Senators like Hill and Woodward instill in me a motivation to exceed my standards. Dear reader, as I am describing to you these Senators amazing accomplishments, I want you to realize that they are full-tim- e, busy and hardworking students. It is difficult to appreciate such dedication to Westminster and the student body unless you actually learned about it and practiced it yourself. Therefore I ask that you take my word for it when I tell you that Westminster and ASWC have amazing people working hard to make sure you are the happiest of all. That is why mindless criticism annoys me most of all. In my opinion thoughtless criticism devalues every hard working Senators efforts. So please, learn and research before you criticize. Thank you, Anahi Villegas Education Senator J' YOU KNOW, YOU'RE REALLY FETTER. ACTING SILLY. SHE'S MORE AFRAID OF YOU TUAN YOU ARE OF HER. YOU MEAN SHE HAS NIGHTMARES OF ME DEVOURING HER AUVE? SO SHE'S OUST AS AFRAID OF YOU AS YOU ARE OF HER. OX, ( 2006 John Kroon www.lde-onlmo.co- Giving thanks this holiday season How change taught me gratitude Krista Smith Editor Im the luckiest person in the world. At a gathering of friends, we enjoyed The idea is to have a big dinner with everyone contributing something before going home to the craziness that is traditional Thanksgiving dinner with the family. I was lucky enough to have friends old and new at my home for a wonderful evening of food, drink and conversation. No one who achieves success does so without the help of others, said Alfred North Whitehead. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude. Although I would hardly claim to be a wise person and often find myself teetering with thoughts of my own inadequacies, it is certainly true that I would not be where I am today without the help of many people. I have amazing friends who would do just about anything for me and are more than willing to help me when I need them. We have been through incredible trials together losing old friends, making new friends, helping each other through illness and supporting each other in times of trouble. Other friends have been in my life temporarily and are people I have come to respect. As we sat around a makeshift table surrounded by couches and chairs, I was touched to realize what a tremendous group of friends I have. These are the people in my life who I go to when times are tough. These are the people I have had some the worst and best experiences with. These are the people who in some ways mean more to me than I can explain. These are the people who are my friends regardless of the mistakes each of us makes every day. I never thought I would be where I am when I opened my acceptance letter four years ago. And now looking back I can hardly believe I am the person I am today. In some ways, I feel like Im an entirely different person from the shy, insecure, gangly girl I was when I arrived at Carlson Hall in August 2006 and in other ways the 18 -- year old version of myself is only a red sweater, jeans and a away. Im not entirely sure how I ended up here and I suppose there could be some searching to find the path that brought me here. I dont know if I would take it back, I dont know what I would change or if there are things I would change. Even the difficult and negative experiences have taught me lessons Im grateful to have learned regardless of past pain. Life should be an adventure or as Mark Twain said, Twenty years from now you mil be more disappointed by the things you didnt do than by the things you did do. Like that long ago August day, now seems to be another time to slow down, reevaluate and start over. Thats an advantage to having a break come up maybe Ill even be able to catch up on some of my homework while reevaluating life. Change is always difficult for me no matter how often I think I ve learned an important life lesson. I believe every new experience should be viewed as an opportunity to learn something new, but for me its the learning thats difficult. Looking back I see times of personal trial as t-s- See GRATITUDE on page 5 |