Basking

Its finally here. Spring break. Ok, its wednesday of spring break but it arrived so I am technically correct. I should be out cavorting with my fellow collegiate interrupters but alas I am at work, and indeed I am working hard for the money. If by hard you mean a mere 5 hours shift on which I have participated in two scintillating conversations with co-workers, surfed the internet, facebooked, myspaced, got coffee, drank coffee, got my new bus pass, and wrote a seemingly uninteresting blog about my uneventful work day. So what may you ask am I pondering today? Life? The existence of God? The purpose and unequivocal efficacy of the death penalty? Close...but no cigar. My source of ponderation is something that makes, breaks, stabilizes, and conflicts every society on earth. Food. Besides the fact that it is tasty and it causes that obnoxious rumble in your tummy, food literally sustains and creates life, a fact which has largely been overlooked by modern society. America has an obsession with food which I cannot seem to understand. Everyday you see an new ad or promotion for a product, plan, or pill centered around weight loss or appetite suppression and yet, on the very heels of these you will undoubtedly see a fast food commercial, or a grocery store pitch. We see food as a commodity, a good to be bought or sold, but is this its true purpose? Of course not. 

We are known as the fattest country in the world, and yet we have the highest incidence of eating disorders.  The majority of us could drive less than 2o miles to the nearest farm or orchard and yet we have the highest grossing convenience food industry on the planet. How did this happen? What is the cause? I think that Americans have lost their ability to eat. 

Now obviously everyone eats (or everyone should eat) but we, as a society, have lost sight of the beauty and enjoyment that can be found in food. Instead of eating, we consume, so much so that I'm sure if you stood on the deck of a ship in the middle of the pacific ocean and faced towards the state you would hear the gentle sucking sound of the American food consuming vortex. But I digress. We have come to the point of revolution where we as a society need to make the decision to take back the food industry and once again be able to appreciate the things that find their way onto our plates. 

The next time you bite into your fast-food salad or your applebee's hamburger, think. Think about where it came from, savor the low quality beef and hot house tomatoes and ponder how much better it would have tasted if you had spent a little extra to eat local or grow your own. Examine what you buy the next time your cruising down the aisles at the grocery store, look at the labels, not just to see the fat, calories, or sugar content, but to look at the ingredients and really think about what your putting into your body and how it effect they way you live and feel. No. You don't have to become a snob who judges yourself and others for every mis-step or bad choice, and you don't have to participate in the self-deprecation that is touted by the diet industry or the corporate green "movement". No. We aren't perfect and we can't and won't choose the right thing all the time, but maybe if we all choose to savor local or homegrown every once in a while over the easier choice of convenience and guilt, we could start our revolution. And maybe we won't start a revolution but you might at least get a little health and happiness out of the deal, right?  

I'm now going to dismount from my high horse fashioned from used soap boxes, compost, and discarded dreadlocks to make myself some lunch...

How ironic...

My mental exercise

So as I was enjoying my period of self-reflection, list making, and general observation time on the bus this morning I got to thinking about this country and I came to the glaringly obvious and mostly recognized revelation that America has a confidence problem. Now what lead me to this 'light bulb above my head' kind of thought was the constant pondering I have over my own future. Recently I have been struggling with the reality that after 4 years of hard work, stress, and disappointing payoffs I get to face a job market in which people with PhD's are competing for entry level office administration positions. Lucky me. So what to do, what to do? Grad school? Expensive and mostly only useful if you actually have clue of what you want to get your degree in. Internship? Thoroughly unglamorous, unpaid, and unavailable , especially when every other post-bac student in America is hoping to score one as well. Nursing School? Would be wonderful if I had the sense to participate in anything slightly resembling science or math since my sophomore year in high school, but alas will require a short stint at Concorde career institute and a possible bridge program, most of which sounds like a lot of work to ultimately fail at something I have no natural ability in. Americorp? Seems like a great idea, besides the crappy pay, but is mostly unknown to anyone I bring it up to which makes me suspect of the idea that they are "well renowned" for providing good in-field job experience. Just working? Is the most attractive option at this point considering the fact that the thought of going back to school after working for 16 years makes me want to run for the nearest toilet, but the thought wasting that 16 years and getting pigeon-holed in an area that I will ultimately be both stuck and unhappy in doesn't make me to happy either.
So, where did all this come from? you may ask and what the hell does this have to do with the confidence of a nation?

Over the years we all have seen in an increase in the amount of students who receive a higher education and while for many this is a positive there is a definite negative side. It seems, now a days, that without a degree of some sort you are basically viewed by society as a failure. I guess I'm not sure how to say this delicately or with any kind of literary flair, but why do we suddenly everyone in this country is entitled to a higher education?

After 4 years in school I have seen my fair share of, well, idiots who didn't belong in any kind of college and in turn I have seen plenty of those who got there by working hard, studying hard, and valuing their education and I have seen both type of people fail. But when did it suddenly become practical, or logical to create a country full of people with college educations. We need people to do things like work office jobs, and be plumbers and there are people out there who WANT to do that but don't thinks its "OK" because they will be looked down upon. If every child in America attends college who will be left to work the jobs that they don't want? Now normally I am an all for one, one for all kind of liberal who thinks that we all deserve basic rights and the access to things that provide a healthy and happy life, and for some that may include college, but you know what? for some it just won't. There was many a time, especially early on, in college that I wanted to quit. I wanted to go to cooking or pastry school and start my own little restaurant, I wanted to go to massage school, I wanted to do lots of things that didn't include sitting in a classroom for 6 hours a day 5 days a week. Now. I realized very quickly that those things weren't going to be right for me, but who's to say they aren't right for the kid who falls asleep next to me in class everyday and never turns in his homework or the girl who studies so hard and still manages to pull C's on her tests who ends up in fits of tears every finals week. Who knows. But I do know that I'm sick and tired of hearing kids saying that they are going to college because they "had nothing better to do", well Jesus I wish I had nothing better to do than to waste upwards of 20 thousand dollars a year too but I guess we can't all be that lucky. I'm not saying you shouldn't go to college if you don't know what you want to do we all change our minds, but honestly we all have at least an idea of what our strengths and weaknesses are ultimately those are what end up determining most peoples field of choice (or it should at least).

This country continues to to flex its muscles like an over-roided Mr. universe on the world stage but eventually its going to suffer the consequences of its drug use and those muscles are going to disappear in a very painful and public festival of disintegration and when they do we are all going to have to take a good long look in the mirror and ask ourselves if it was really worth it to pretend to be something we were never meant to be?

Introduction...

Alright, so this may be the thousandth time i've tried to journal/blog but I am giving it one more valiant try in order to maybe restore what is left of my already marginal writing skills. And lucky for you i'm doing it in an extremely public way so you can read and ridicule as much or as often as you which.