Page 58 - Phoenix2000-01

Thursday, November 16, 2000 ~Page 6 COMMENTARY off the mark A student's perspective on life and its meaning? Nykole Tyson sheds some light on me I Believe Just live life is my motto! the purpose life and how the am not always in a positive mood, but I be- present is all we really have. lieve in all these things. Living in this world and still believing in these things, l think, is Have you ever taken the time to ponder the reason for breathing. life and its meaning? Are you too busy meet- Tomorrow is the future, yesterday is the ing paper deadlines, studying for tomorrow's past, but today is the present. That means test or planning that adviser meeting? that everyday everyone in this world has a Les Brown said it best. "You don't own chance to begin anew, a chance to wipe the the future. you don't own the past. Today is previous day and mistakes of the past clean all you have." and embrace a new beginning-- hard to be- Life is .... Life is full of life, don't you lieve? think? I truly believe life happens and you For many, this may seem like an tmpos- must go with the flow. You must! Or else sible task to achieve. I might say that too, you will be dragged emotionally, mentally but I believe it is possible. Nothing is im- and maybe even physically. Life is not an possible. It may be a challenge, but it is not easy road, but one who feels it knows that impossible. Once you believe in yourself even when you encounter bumps in the road, anything can be achieved. it is still worth the distance to be traveled. Don't get me wrong, just because you When you resist the bumps in life's road, think about something, doesn't mean that it's feelings of confusion, depression, and stress just going to come true without perseverance occur. And I know that many if not all of and effort. you have experienced these feelings. You will get knocked down a couple An example of this would be a relation- times. I sure have. Still, what will you have . ship gone bad, a test you studied for all night, to do? "Get back up!" That's right, because yet still failed, or an internship you were it is not what happens to you that really mat- certain to get but which didn't go as planned. ters. It is how you deal with what happens to Every bump that occurs in your life and you that really counts. This way of thinking is an' turn and interaction MSA,'se!ent sparks debate every unexpected for growth and better under- is not easy to master, please, I have not mas- tered it myself. opportunity Life as I see it, is somewhat of yourse1f. Right now, take a deep standing like a game breath and just relax. of Monopoly. It is not limited to this game, Jeremy Keil explains his concerns some broad category does the opposite. 'Sometimes you can work as hard as you it can be whatever game you see fit-the game with MSA's event-thai was meant It may help foster unity, but only unity want to and still not be successful; nonethe- of Life, Chess. Nevertheless, it is a game to to promote efhnic awareness. within each specific group. That's not what less, you still need to work hard. Do your be played. And like a game after much prac- Multiculturalism is about. That's not why best and forget the rest, I say. tice you can play it better. I think. that il is ridiculous that the people are taking aU these new and more There may be a lot of failures in your life, Life...will never be a "walk in the park;" Multicultural Student Alliance is doing a publicized cultural classes. Let's do some- but what doesn't kill JOU will only make you however, with timely contemplation and re- fund-raiser entitled, "Support your Cultural/ thing that actually helps and makes a differ- stronger. But if you work hard, play hard as flection of past mistakes and situations, the Ethnic Group." I ence. I just went to the WMC web site and I well. Everyone needs a break and that in- one in possession of life will have a better In this fund-raiser students are encour- didn't see one mention of the Multicultural c1udes you. approach. "Oh, that's Broken ATM creates problems aged to place money in a jar with the name Task Force. I hear about all these activities of their favorite cultural/ethnic group on the and then I hear people saying, a front. I do not know what they are trying to (insert minority group here) thing." And they achieve with this fund-raiser, but I don't see don't go. They don't go because they think Jessica Fisher expresses her broken. Although I am sure that it is just my anything positive coming from this. it's not for them. They think it's not for them qualms when it comes to dealing tuck that when I need money it is not work- With all the progress this country and col- because in our country we learn about black with WMC's lone ATM. ing. Then, when I don't need to withdraw lege has made in the past 35 years to mak- history one month out of the year. money, it is in perfect order. Nevertheless, ing a less divided society, I am offended that We're lucky if we hear a mention of Every once in a while r feel like giving we do need to fix the problems with the we have regressed to "voting" for our favor- women in history other than Molly Pitcher myself a break from the Glar food here at machine. ite race. [am also dumbfounded as to why and Joan of Arc. college or doing a little shopping on [he I think one way we could solve the prob- one of the groups founded in the past few And you'd be hard pressed to hear about weekends. tern with not being able to get our money years on our campus to promote diversity is any other group that has been 'completely Since r never seem to have cash on me, lout at certain times, is to have another ATM using a fund-raiser that can only promote fac- written out of our history books and con- always have to end up getting some out of on campus. If we did, then everyone would tionaliss~mL· S§£ClQ;o!!luS""nc"sLs._!ItQ'sUthi>!;s1Jump!1!b'1!;nu:g.",·ng_gt!Mhat creates the ATM. One weekend, about a month ago, not have to rely on just the one machine. It I am also dumbfounded as to why one of the my roommate and I decided 10 order out. We would be a 10{ more convenient having IwO called up Pizza Hut and got a large pizza 10 machines. groups founded in the past few years on our split with our friends. Afterordering we wen! Along the same lines, I think we should down to the ATM outside Decker Center. have more bank options than just Better campus to promote diversity is using a fund-raiser Once we got there, we realized that we Banking and Trust (BBT). Unless BBT is that can only promote factionalism. were going to have a really hard time paying your bank, you get charged $1.50 every time for our pizza since we had no way of getting to use WMC's ATM machine. In addition to I always thought the purpose of creating the mentality of us and them. It's this men- our money. That is right, once again the ma- that charge, your bank will charge you for a diversity task force, founding minority tality that makes white people think MSA, chine had a message on it that read that it using it as well. College students are already based clubs, and hiring a director for Women's Issues, and other groups are only was temporarily out of service. Normally I strapped enough for cash. We do not to add multicultural awareness was to create a for minorities. would not have been so mad, but I had a pizza these various bank charges to the many greater sense of community. I think the ac- And it is this mentality behi~d the fund- on the way and no way to pay for it. things we have to pay for while here at col- tivities and posters raising awareness about raiser by MSA. At first, I did not think anything of it. lege. people of varying heritage on this campus This fund-raising is not raising aware- Then, J started hearing my friends and class- If all of this was done, then I would not are great ideas. Let's face it, this college is ness. It's letting me know that it's all right mates talking about it. They also had stories have to worry about calling up my boyfriend predominantly white. andjust because of its to think that people fall into either "minor- about how they could not get their money to borrow $15, so that I can get my pizza. location will probably stay that way for a tty" or "white," because it's telling me that when they needed it. I started hearing com- Not to mention, the pizza man was literally long time. that's how minorities see themselves, too. plaints about it all the time. ' outside holding my pizza forme. Thankfully We do need to clue people in to the pres- I think the MSA seriously needs to re- Since I had been hearing so much about he did lend me the money. I did not have to ence of minorities on campus. evaluate the methods they are using to pro- it, I became curious. I started looking at the go through the embarrassment of not having We do need to create a better sense of mote diversity because as far as I can tell screen of the ATM machine every time I enough money to afford a pizza on the week- community between people of different cul- their current method is vastly self-defeating. passed by it. I realized that it was tempo- end. I have learned two lessons from this tural and ethnic groups. Posters and activi- I say enough with all this compartmentaliz- rarily out of service frequently. However, experience. First never order or plan to do ties and new classes that announce, "HEY! ing. when I hear the word "temporarily," J think anything unless you have the cash in your Not every one on campus is white and from It's about time we started challenging the to myself just a day or so. I do not think that hand. Second: never order anything unless Western Europe" do just that. But putting basic assumptions of our soci~ty that ere- the problem will last for three days or longer. you have checked the WMC's only ATM- ,., •..• ~·~yowr,spru:e..change-into.a. fi:an..labeled-with- _..ated.the.need fiJr-MSAirhthe firs~ place. ~ .••• ~·It-seoms·as·tboligh the machine is always. c screenbeforehend, ...to ...... ,. ........ to _ .......... ,.. ....... ~ ..