Space

The space in my house is just enough room for my family. We have three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, two bathrooms, and one really big basement. There is a room for my parents, a room for my sister and a room for me. When i’m not there my room becomes extra storage space.  We have a really nice size kitchen that i think was specially made for my family because on Sundays everybody comes over and helps cook. Our living room has enough space for my dad, my uncles and my cousins for when there is a game on and they come over to watch it. We have two bathrooms in my house, which in my opinion was the greatest invention ever! For some reason my family always has to use the bathroom at the same time so having more than one bathroom is perfect. Another really spacious part of the house is the basement, which i really love because my sister and i love to throw parties for people. Our basement is the perfect party place. We have just moved in this house about a year ago and we’ve thrown lots of parties and it’s never over crowded. The most spacious part around my house is the backyard. We have a really big backyard and it’s mainly for my little sister. She loves to run around and play.  Whoever designed this house was really conscious about the space in it and what the different rooms would be used for.

                                                                                        Tamika Dailey

Space

I attended a program during this pass summer called trio sss,, they paid for us to stay on campus and attend classes. I stayed in Ghafari Hall and had to share a room with another person, which would have been fine except the space was very small. The room was so small that one would think that it would be a single person room but it wasnt. The room consisted of two wardrobes, two dressers, and two desks. We were only allowed to bring a microwave and fridge. My roommate and I were really ezcited to be there and at first we spent most of our time in that room but aftre a while we just couldnt take it anymore we had to get out. the space in the dorms were so limited that if we had five visitors it would have have been extremely crowded. even though I really enjoyed my time staying in the dorms and being away from my parents I wouldnt spend eight thousand dollars to stay in a cramped space with someone else for eight months.   

                                                                                                             -Tamika Dailey

                                                           

Relationships

Relationships
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> A boyfriend and girlfriends is very complicated.A relationship can bloom from a friendships, aquantance, just pure first site. Many relationships start with getting to know each. You ask numerous questions. What do you like to do? How was your childhood? , or even what is your favorite color? We ask these question to better understand what a person has done through a course of their life.
> Boys and girls go out on dates and introduce one another to their families hoping that the families approve of the relationship with this other person. We as people care a lot about what others think. so getting the approval of family and friends is important to us. The boy and girl will decide to kiss and touch each other as the relationship progresses through time. At a certain moment in the relationship we figure out if this other person is the right one. Does this other person fit into the list that we have made in our minds as the perfect man or woman. In real life there is no such thing as the perfect mate.Me and my boyfriend have been together for almost two years. We meet through a mutual friend. We decided to meet and get to know each other. Through these past two years, we have had a lot of fight over stupid things, but in the end we just make up and forget that it even happened. I figured out that i loved him the second month into our relationship. I need help, n he!
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> was their, right next to my side. He was like my prince on a white horse.But even though we have our problems we always come back to each other. we lean on one another for help and advice. Even through a relationships can get hard, we try our hardest to make them work, because we hope that the other person will become person on that list that we have in our minds

                                                                                             Tamika Dailey

The Real Lessons of College

                It may be common misconception that people go to college for an education.  Although they do learn things like calculus and chemistry while there, it’s the hidden lessons that mean so much more.  It’s the situations and trials that help us discover the lessons of life, how we apply to them and, in turn, find out exactly who we are.  I find it hard to believe that ten years after we graduate we are going to remember or care how to do a titration curve or discuss the deeper meanings behind a Shakespeare play.  But discovering our values, work-effort and other personal traits will still be with us no matter what we fill our days doing.  It is my belief that we get homework for more than the shallow purpose of beating the meaning of a derivative into our heads.  We get homework, and more importantly stress, from every class we go to because it helps to teach us so many more things than the words on the papers could ever do.  Are we going to go above and beyond to make sure we get the best grade?  Or are we going to push it off until midnight the night before it is due so we can go out and party with our friends?  Or better yet, what exactly are we willing to sacrifice in order to accomplish our long term goals. 

                What exactly are our long term goals?  Are they merely pipe dreams we hope to wake up to one day?  Or are they the first thing we think of when we wake up and before we fall asleep?  Everyone wants to have fun in the here-and-now.  But everything comes with a price.  And one thing I’ve realized is that everything has a price on it.  We can either earn it before hand, or we can pay for it afterwards.  It is as simple as choosing to party or study.  If we work hard and complete all of our dreaded homework, we earn the right to have a good time.  But if we go to party and neglect to do our homework, then we pay for it when we see our grades begin to fall.  Everything in the world is available to us at all times.  We can have an amazing and wonderful night being high or drunk and pay for it the next day when we sleep through class, forget to go to work or potentially have legal consequences that will really screw up our lives.

                So what does college teach us?  It teaches us exactly who we are.  Sure it helps to know how to analyze a poem or find the height of a ball 4 seconds after it’s shot from the moon, but it means so much more to find the balance we all individually have between work and play.  We are all different and we all have different goals and ambitions.  It’s here, in college, through all of the stress, available activities and responsibilities that we find out exactly what it is we want out of life and how hard we’re willing to work for it. 

Andrew Reid

Very Interesting

I have become more and more interested in Tupac’s death. I have never really been interested in Tupac at all. I think it may have mainly been because I was never exposed to him. When he was alive, his music was not what I was particularly interested in, besides, my parents had the most control of what I listened to and rap was not a part of their ongoing interests therefore it was not a part of mine. After reading about Tupac’s death in class I quickly became very interested. I never truly knew why so many people continued to say that Tupac was still alive. Some people may have just been saying it just because other people were saying but there are real reasons why other people were saying it. I have found myself now questioning whether or not Tupac is still alive. It seems that there are far too many clues and signifiers that are clearly unclear, questionable, or just too much of a coincidence. Because I have never been a Tupac fan, I will not to take a biased approach on the whole situation. Tupac may still be alive but he could also be dead. The fact that many of his lyrics suggest that he knows that he is dead or going to be dead when the album drops rises suspicion. Was his death planned? If so why would he want to die? He may not be dead right? So he staged his death? The death may have been staged just for marketing purposes. That is understandable but after that marketing and money making technique no longer works, Tupac will have no more opportunity to make money off of his talent. This is an extremely interesting topic to investigate. If I was into investigation. By the way, if he isn’t dead where in the world could he be and what is he doing?LaTasha Moss

ADVERTISING

In todays society advertising is trully everywhere. I honestly cant think of anywhere I can go without seeing some sort of advertising, whether big or small. If u drive down the street, drive on the freeway, go to the grocery store, go rent a video, read the mail, your guranteed to see advertising. Sure its definately not the worst thing in society but its quite noticeable. Its to the point where as you grow up you learn to ignore it but it seems to have begun getting annoying, at least to me. I cant drive two minutes without having some big billboard cathcing my peripheral vision. Sometimes i wanna stop the car n find a way to rip the billboard down. That seems a little overboard but it explains how tired I am of seeing advertisements such as billboards. Especially since many of these products disgust me or i have no use for. Some may see it as selfish but im just saying how I see it. Dont get my wrong I understand that companies have to advertise to be successful. In fact I am a major in business major so to be successful i will also have to advertise. However, the fact still remains that these constant advertisements are very much annoying. Although I say this now, ill be honest, I may very well be doing the same thing in ten years or so. Maybe by that time ill be more mature and the overflow of billboards wont annoy me to the degree that they do today. Although this is true, I admit it is very much petty to be so bothered by a bunch of billboards. This is because there are much bigger problems in society than billboards so maybe i should start paying much less attention to petty stuff in life and focus more on the big picture. Looking at the petty things and failing to see the big picture will get you nowhere in life but failure. Surely none of us want that. In fact, i am not the only one who sometimes doesnt see the big picture in life…many of us do this. Its as if we look at what happens tommorow rather than months from now that is why we often times encounter rough times. However, hopefully we all can begin to see the big picture, I know I will because as I said earlier, without the big picture one cannot be successful. -Alphonso Mack

Detroit Soil by Mark Suchyta

It is funny how a single space can be symbolic. Detroit, to me, is one of such spaces. Let’s face it, as much love as I have for the city, it has issues. I mean, I have faith in the quest to redevelop it, but if you look at the city as a whole, it is more-or-less dirty, vacant, and a mere ghost town of what it was in the 1950s. Regardless, the significance of this city to me is monumental. My family roots are here, and without this city I wouldn’t be alive today to write this blog. My great-great-grandpa lived here, my father lived here, my parents met and fell in love here, and now this city is my place of work and play. The family values I have grown up on have been established here and much of my future dreams are rooted on these city streets.

            I think another thing that attracts me to Detroit is it’s unique culture. First off, a lot of people are scared of Detroit, often overreacting, something that seems to make Detroit seem more and more like “my city”. Despite the “mean streets”, there are a lot of good-hearted and unique people, people so unique I would have trouble finding such people in New York City. Detroit also offers a unique variety of vintage shopping, bars, and music that are second to none. Detroit rock has a special place in my heart. If I lived anywhere else I would thirst for the local music scene that I have been a part of here. Through all the good experiences (and the bad, for that matter) I’ve had and all the influential people I have met, just stepping foot on “Detroit soil” fills me with excitement. When I spend a lot of time away for the city, I get a borderline sense of nostalgia. Even just driving on the infamous Eight Mile Rd. gives me an anxious feeling, letting my nerve system know that I am truly in a “special space”. At times I can take myself there without even physically being there, just through the use of my imagination. Detroit is more than just a place; it is a state of mind.

-Mark Suchyta 

do we really want to be treated equal?

As I was doing my research about women in rap, I thought back to my blog that was about gender. I realized that women have been trying to do everything that men have done. Think about it, rap was a men-dominated genre of music. A few years later, women become interested in rap also. We can also look at other examples like soldiers and pilots. Before, there were only male pilots and mostly male soldiers, but now we see more female soldiers and female pilots. When did this start. It definitely was not an over night thing. Women worked very hard and in the long run this is what happened…women wanted to be looked at differently. They wanted to be treated equally, so they worked the same jobs as men, so why do some women get less money for doing the same job as men?? This is a very debatable question. I read an article about why women get paid less and it said that women choose a lowers paying job because they do not want to do the dirty work!!! But that is not true, like I said women are doing the same work as men. Even thought we are not 100% equal to men, we are very close. But do we want to be? Yes, it would be awesome getting paid more at certain jobs, but what about life in general. For example, I can not imagine asking a guy to marry me (although some women have done that) if we were treated equally then asking a guy to marry you should not matter. It would not matter if guys asked girls out or vice versa. It would not matter if a girl opens the car door for a guy and buys him roses on a first date. This is why men and women are not treated equally; because I think it is really weird if a girl buys a guy roses on their first day.  Women have gotten so far and are almost treated equal to men. But honestly I would rather be not completely equal to men and have the guy take care of a first nice date J but that’s just me!

 

R.M.

should smoking be banned in public places??

 

People always debate about whether smoking should be banned in public places or not. Smokers of course do not see why it should be banned and non smokers say that it should be bad because secondhand smoking is very bad for their health. Personally, I am not a smoker but I believe that it should not be banned from public places. I mean yes smoking is dangerous but I am sure almost every smoker knows that and yet they still do it. I think that banning smoking will not do anyone any good. People will still smoke no matter what. Weed is illegal but people still smoke it! Drinking under 21 is illegal but teenagers still drink. If smoking is banned, what is next? Not being able to drive your car because it will cause air pollution which also causes cancer! I do not think that it is fair to smokers. Can you imagine not being able to drive you car? I mean smokers pay taxes when they buy cigarettes; I think that they should be allowed to smoke in public. Banning smoking will not solve the problem; it will just kind of silence the problem. I really think that if smoking is banned in public places then you will barley see any people in public, because according to a quick research that I did a lot of people are smokers. Restaurants, bars and clubs will seriously go out of business. To be fair, smokers should be able to smoke in public places. I actually think that some restaurants do a good job at separating the smoking area form the non smoking area. I go to champps all the time and we always sit in the non smoking area and I never really smell or see any smoke. Yes it is true that secondhand smoking could cause cancer, but like I said, many other things out there could cause air pollution which also causes cancer. If you think that nothing but secondhand smoking is bad for you, then you can always sit in the non smoking section of the restaurantJ. It is almost impossible to divide all public places into smoking and non smoking sections because these places, bars for example, are for people to go to and just relax and have fun not to be separated from other people. As far as I know most (but not all) bar tenders are smokers so I don’t think that they will be bothered by secondhand smoking. Basically, people should know that there are other things out there that can be bad for their health. I mean the air is already polluted from cars and factories and that can cause lung cancer also. I think that if smoking is banned in public places, people will not go to bars or restaurants or they will still smoke even if they know it is illegal, so banning smoking will not work 😦

 

R.M.

 

Gender Issues within a Culture

Everyone has different views on the issues of gender. From my culture, being Indian and Pakistani, the roles of women are very different. If in the U.S., people feel that women are not treated equally, well you haven’t seen anything yet. In my culture, women are mostly seen as just doing things around the house and it is very unseen for men to ever make dinner. Things are different in recent times but years ago, it was worse. I still know of some families that don’t even allow their daughters to attend college because they are just going to receive an arranged marriage and be a housewife. I feel lucky that my dad doesn’t view things in that sense. He feels that it is very important for me to receive a good education and be able to support my family. Many families are like that now but there are still those few that are not. For example, my relatives are very old fashioned and when we go to their house, the men are always sitting on a couch talking in a separate room then the women. The women are always cooking and serving and the men don’t do anything. I feel that this is unfair because I know that in the future, if I had to get an arranged marriage, I would not want my husband to just think he can sit and do nothing while I cook the food and take care of our kids. I know that I will have a job as well so he cannot make excuses that he is tired from work. I believe that in the household, men and women should have equal roles. Women should be treated equal not only within their own homes but in the workplace as well. It is not fair at all that till this day, in some work places, women don’t get paid as much as men. There is no reason for this because if they are all in the same positions, doing the same job then they should get paid equal amounts. In my culture, it also a custom that women and men should not converse with each other if it is not on a level of something serious or maybe concerning an issue at work or school. For example, girls and guys are not technically even supposed to give each other casual hugs or high fives. It is kind of hard to explain but basically, there just shouldn’t be too much contact between the opposite sexes. In this generation however, things have gotten lenient. Some parents are more strict then others but my dad is pretty strict when it comes to that. He allows me to talk to boys if it is at school or something but I cannot talk to them on the phone or hang out casually. This brings me to my next point, which I find unfair in my culture. It is ok for guys in my culture to talk to girls but it is not ok for girls to talk to guys. Also, it is ok for guys to go out for as long as they want but for girls, we have to be home before it gets dark or even in some cases, we cannot even go out at all. For example, if I hang out with my friends one Saturday afternoon, I am not allowed to go out for the next few weeks because my dad feels like it is too much for me to go out even for just a few hours every weekend. Also for girls, lets say I wanted to go out to dinner with friends one day; I can’t even do that sometimes just because my dad doesn’t want me to. I just find it unfair sometimes that girls of my culture are at a mature age and we can’t even do simple things such as go to a movie or go out to eat at times. Boys however can do anything they want just because they are boys. I am not sure if everything I have discussed makes sense because I guess it doesn’t sound as bad unless you have actually been in my shoes but it can be ridiculous at times. Overall, cultural differences have a major impact on gender issues and I believe changes need to be made because it is not fair that men have advantages over women.

~Seeron Ali~