In my humble opinion # 1

Okay, here is a fact: On average, about two-thirds of bachelor's degree recipients borrow money, and their median debt is about $20,000 by graduation. Here is another one: California’s t public university and community college systems educate about one in eight full-time college students in the U.S. And here comes number three: The University of California system is considering fee increases of more than 30 percent by next year.
In what world would it make sense to increase tuition by 9 percent when the economy has gone down? Average tuition at four-year public colleges in the U.S. climbed 6.5 percent, or $429, to $7,020 this fall, according to an annual report from the College Board. However,, during the period covered by the report, consumer prices declined 2.1 percent. So the latest tuition increase at public colleges was closer to 9 percent in real terms. So instead of following Maryland and Missouri states’ example of freezing tuition, the state of California is encouraging double-digit increases.
As a San Jose State undergraduate student, currently paying over seven thousand dollars PER SEMESTER, I’m outraged. How are students not supposed to feel that college education is out of reach when very soon, only rich kids would be able to afford school. Because students have a lot more to worry about, from rising textbook costs to the expensive software and supplies most classes require. Then most teachers complain that students have jobs and choose to go to work over going to school. I hate my job but if it’s what pays for school then I’m going to do what I have to do. Because when tuition goes up again next semester, what are my choices? Get another job or move out on the streets maybe? I’ve even heard several girls say they are seriously considering stripping in order to make money for school. So are state legislators trying to test our limits, checking to see how far people are willing to go in order to financially provide for their education? In my humble opinion, what is happening is absurd.
As a comparison, in the UK, the maximum tuition fee amount that can be charged to EU students is £3,145 a year. In Ireland, students only pay a € 900 registration fee and the rest of their education is free. In France, all universities are public; none charges tuition fees; undergraduate enrolment charges are a tiny €165.

Word of the week # 8

1. Admonish
2. Found it in my media law textbook
3. "We are admonished that refusal to provide a First Amendment reporter's privilege will undermine the freedom of the press to collect and disseminate news.
4. Verb. Means to advise or caution, warn strongly; put on guard; take to task
5. Many bloggers have been admonished for posting inappropriate content on their websites.

word of the week # 7

1. Recalcitrant
2. I read it in "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere".
3. "Suddenly I was hard-bitten and recalcitrant, the kind of kid who took pleasure in sticking pins into cats; the kind who chased down smart kids to spray them with mace".
4. Stubbornly resistant to authority or control; A person who is recalcitrant; marked by a stubborn unwillingness to obey figures of authority; hard to deal with or operate
5. During the riot, police had to spray the most recalcitrant demonstrators with water.

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

Z.Z. Packer has a very fresh and unique style of writing. I read the chapters where Dina meets Heidi at Yale, and they become friends. Packer describes their relationship in a vivid and interesting way, using a lot of scene-setting. Packer is also very brave and unusual. For example, the part where they decide to take a shower in the dish room and spray each other with the squirt gun, comes unexpectedly. The author is also comfortable using words which may seem vulgar to some readers. Her characters are very different but they share similar life stories. Dina is black and came to Yale as an honor student from Baltimore, and Heidi is a white Canadian from Vancouver but they have both lost their mothers, and they're both going through an identity crisis and dealing with being outsiders. Dina has to see her psychiatrist Dr.Raeburn while Heidi gets on a podium to announce that she is a lesbian. "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" is written in the first person which makes it very personal and it helps her exposition. What is uniques to Packer's style is the fact that her short stories have open ends, the reader is left to guess what might happen with the protagonists. She uses comparison and contrast to describe her protagonists, for example Dina compares Heidi to a beautiful dolphin, etc. Packer's description makes readers use all their senses to understand her story. For example, she uses the metaphor of drinking coffee elsewhere to explain her protagonist's need to escape from pretending and fitting in everybody's expectations. She writes: " I remembered the morning of my mother's funeral. I'd been given milk to settle my stomach; I'd pretended it was coffee. I imagined I was drinking coffee elsewhere. Some Arabic-speaking country where the thick coffee served in little cups was so strong it could keep you awake for days. Some Arabic country where I'd sit in a tented café and be more than happy to don a veil."

NPR Radio Interview Analysis

I listened to an interview on NPR's Fresh Air with Jason Segel, talking about the mysteries of guydom. The interviewer was very well-prepared with information about Segel's characters in his latest movie "I love you, man" as well as his previous one- "Forgetting Sarah Marshall". She had read a lot about his acting career and she had picked the right scenes which matched her questions, and she knew how to describe them in a way that would convey all details from the scene to the listeners as if they were watching the scene instead of just listening to it. She asked good follow-up questions which also showed good listening skills. She asked Segel if he agreed with his film's premise about how guys make friends with each other and that "buddy movies" allow men to open up. A couple of times Segel was describing a scene and it sounded a bit unclear and that's when the interviewer stepped in and explained what he was trying to say. She was also very comfortable talking about his naked scene in his latest movie. She asked him what he did to make his privates look good. And then she asked what his mother thought about that scene. She built up to questions using information she had read from her research on Segel and her follow-up questions targeted the most interesting things he had mentioned, for example how he became an actor and how he used his Drakula musical in one of his movies. The interviewer and her subject appeared to have a friendly relationship, she knew what questions to ask and how to follow up on the answers, and thus made the most of her 40-minute interview. Having picked the right scenes to play was a successful strategy because it gave direction to the interview. What I learned is that it's important for the interviewer to be in control in terms of how the interview would go, and preparation is key but asking the right follow-up questions is also very important. Therefore good listening skills are a must. She also wasn't afraid to ask some intimate questions and got some good answers out of them. So being brave is also a good strategy.

Personal insight from the meeting with state legislators

The news story from the informational rally was easy to write about. What is important to distinguish is the difference between an informational and persuasive meeting. Because even though his AB 656 bill is good for students, Torrico was trying to win the support of people. I noticed that not much time was given to students to ask questions. It was easy to conduct the interview with a teacher because all of the faculty members who came were interested in the topic, and they are also personally affected by the budget cuts. I had to put an extra effort into trying not to be subjective when I wrote my article, because I honestly think that this bill, as good as it may sound, has very little chance of passing because the oil companies have very strong lobbies in Congress and local governments and they are the once who influence legislation. This bill also comes a little too late and it's not going to change much when tuition has already gone up and many teachers have lost their jobs or gotten a pay cut. Another thing that was important to notice from the perspective of a reporter, was the fact that some of the teachers had an agenda. For example, a lady who teaches at SJSU, sat on our table and started talking right away, and shortly after gave us the support cards which she expected us to sign when we hadn't even gotten any information on the bill yet. So as a reporter, it is very important to be able to tell when people have an ulterior motive for talking to you. 

Alberto Torrico Story

Informational rally for the proposed California Higher Education Fund was held today at San Jose State. Students joined Alberto Torrico, Silicon Valley’s 20th Assembly District Majority Leader, to learn about his AB 656 campaign. The goal of the campaign is to get 100,000 people to support the bill in 100 days. If it passes, AB 656 would create the California Higher Education Fund with funds from a new 9.9% oil and natural severance tax. According to Torrico, this tax would raise over $ 1 billion in revenue for the state’s higher education. The AB 656 Campus Kick-off week started with CSU East Bay, San Jose State, and CSU Sacramento. Torrico will visit CSU San Diego and San Marcos on Oct. 13th and CSU Dominguez Hills and CSU Los Angeles on Oct. 14th.
California remains the only major oil producing state that does not impose an oil severance tax. Other states, such as Alaska and Texas, reportedly charge anywhere from 2 to 25 per cent. If passed, the AB 656 bill would create the California Higher Education Endowment Corporation which would allocate the tax revenue to the three college systems, based on the following formula: 60% to CSU, 30% to UC, and 10% to Community Colleges.
The proposed bill is a response to student fee increases, faculty furloughs and inadequate funding as a result of the economic crisis. According to a recent study by the Public Policy Institute of California, the state’s need for college educated workers is outpacing its ability to produce them, and that gap is expected to widen in the future. Torrico explained that with the decrease in college educated workers, the supply of workers with a high school diploma would exceed the economic demand which will result in lower wages and fewer job opportunities. “That’s why the goal of this campaign is to get enough people angered so they demand change from Sacramento”, he added.
Roberta Ahlquist, professor of secondary education at San José State University, said she attended a union meeting in LA where she found out that CSU San Bernardino has already closed its foreign language department and the music and arts programs in many schools are also threatened. In response to the budget cuts, Ahlquist said: “I think they are brutal and devastating, and an attack on the master plan.” The 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education established the UC and CSU system with the goal to admit and offer a place to every eligible California high school student. Under this plan, all UCs and CSUs are expected to plan adequate spaces for all eligible students. In reality, however, under the current economic conditions, there are fewer courses offered, fewer students are admitted, and many faculty members have already received a near 10% pay cut.
The AB 656 bill passed in the Assembly Higher Education Committee on July 7, 2009. It will go through a hearing with the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee in January, 2010. The bill is strongly opposed by the Western State Petroleum Association, the California Independent Petroleum Association, Cal Chamber and Cal-Tax.

Word of the week # 6

1. Propinquity
2. I read it in a sociology article by Zhang and Van Hook, titled "Marital Dissolution Among Interracial Couples".
3. "Among the explanations for homogamy, geographical propinquity and personal preferences were found to be the two underpinning factors.
4. Noun. 1. proximity: the property of being close together ; 2. In social psychology, propinquity (from Latin propinquitas, nearness) is one of the main factors leading to interpersonal attraction. It refers to the physical or psychological proximity between people.
5. The office's propinquity to the Italian restaurant made everyone spend their lunch breaks there every business day.

Mystery Character Blog # 5

His name comes from a Hawaiian word which means "cool breeze over the mountains". The 45-year-old actor usually plays in action and adventure movies as well as romantic comedies. In one of his popular movies, he had to wear heels with his trench coat outfit in order to look taller even though he is over six feet tall. Many describe him as a "tough nut to crack" because he never reveals any details from his personal life to the press. What he does reveal is his great sense of humor, even though he is a very modest person. He has dark brown eyes and hair and a well-fit body due to rigorous training for most of his movies which involve multi-fighting scenes and heavy use of weapons. He confesses to training his body by immersing himself in a bathtub full of ice. Several of his recent roles, however, required him to look a bit hirsute with untrimmed beard and unbrushed long hair which he still keeps. He likes to use various accents because he has a multinational background. He dresses casually for almost any occasion, and likes to wear dark-colored clothes and sunglasses which make him less recognizable in public.

Word of the Week # 5

1. Salient
2. It was in the article "Fear of Black Strangers" by Tamara Heald-Moore".
3. "To the extent that race of strangers encountered in public is more salient in cities with higher crime rates and larger black populations, our results for Oklahoma City should provide a conservative examination of the questions we have posed."
4. Adjective. It means outstanding or prominent: having a quality that thrusts itself into attention; (of angles) pointing outward at an angle of less than 180 degrees
5. The building, with its salient features, is a popular tourist destination.