Time Travel?

On Saturday my mom showed me an article that really caught my attention. It is a National Geographic article entitled "Particles Moved Faster Than Speed of Light?" The main idea of the article is that a scientific team called OPERA shot particles called Neutrinos from Geneva Switzerland and measured how long it took the particles to reach Gran Sasso Italy. The particles ended up getting to their destination so quickly that OPERA believes that the particles traveled faster than the speed of light which is approximately 186,000 miles a second.  If the particles did travel faster than light it would open up the possibility of time travel and traveling to alternate parallel universes. Before any conclusions are made, there are going to be many other tests to try to back up OPERA's findings.

Connectivity

In American Studies class on Friday, Mr. Bolos presented the question how connected do you feel to the other people in the classroom? On first thought I would like to say that I do feel somewhat of a connection. I see my classmates everyday and that creates a more relaxed atmosphere. The neat thing about being in a class that is mainly discussion based is that you get to know more about people based on their comments and views on certain subjects. In this way you get to know someone better then in a math class for example, where people really only raise their hands when they have an answer to a problem.

This same scenario applies to everyday situations in life as well. I see the same people in the morning everyday when I wait for the train. At first everybody was very standoffish and didn't acknowledge each other. Now though, after a couple of weeks of seeing each other everyday, the people give each other friendly nods and make conversation while waiting for the train.

Good Deeds Done Anonymously

Today in American Studies, the class was having a discussion about the advertisements pertaining to 9/11 on during the football game. The ad that was the most heavily discussed was the Verizon ad. The discussion generally revolved around the idea that Verizon was unfairly using a tragedy to make money. I feel though that this conclusion is not really fair. Why single out Verizon for this act? I feel that Americans as a whole demonstrate the idea of wanting everybody to know about the good deeds that they do anonymously. When someone donates money to build a building, he gets his name on a little plaque for all of the world to see. When someone wants to show how much they care about the environment, she buys a Prius instead of planting a tree or lowering their carbon output. Because of this I do not think that it is fair to single out Verizon for making a commercial when we ourselves are guilty of this very act. The only organization I know of that gives without expecting any return is Barcelona F.C. The club pays UNICEF to have the UNICEF sponsor on the fronts of their jerseys. In the end though, we have to expect this because of the type of society that we live in. One in which a company has to make money to stay afloat because the individual businesses are made up of shareholders that expect a profit to be turned.

Standardized tests

Today I was sitting in my SAT prep class which lasts for about 3.5 hours. As we were going over the proper strategies for the writing section, I couldn't help but think to myself that this was the most pointless activity. Why  do we need to take standardized tests in the first place? Why do colleges need one more thing to look at before they make their decision about who to except? At the beginning of the course, I was told that the SAT is more of an intelligence measure and the ACT measures what you have learned throughout school. I'm pretty sure that one could tell a lot about a persons intelligence from the levels of classes that they were taking and from the grades that they were receiving. Also don't the grades say a little bit about what on has learned in school? If a college wants to know how much you have learned throughout school, well it seems to me that the grades a student received would be a good indication of what a student has learned.

Why is there the need to standardize everything? Classes at different schools may not cover the exact same material so why does the go over the same material. It would seem to me that a test from a math class is a better indication of what a student has learned about geometry. That way the material on the test correlates to what has been going on inside of the classroom.

Finally I don't think that one test should be such a major factor in acceptance. Not everyone, including myself, tests very well and just because someone can't pick which sentence works the best in a paragraph, doesn't mean that they have no writing skills. As I was sitting in class I couldn't help but thinking that grades were the major deciding factor for colleges and the 3.5 hours sitting in a classroom going over grammar was really getting in the way of me doing homework.

The Price of Gas

I have heard people complaining about the prices of gas for a long time now. How gas is hovering around $4 a gallon and that is making it difficult for people to afford to drive their cars. I do agree that gas is expensive but it is a lot cheaper then other liquids that people spend their money on. Fiji water, for example, costs up to $4 a liter. Since there are over 3 liters in one gallon, you are paying triple the cost of gas. Then, of course, there is the ever-present Starbucks where one can easily spend $5 on a cup of coffee. Also when you consider that in the state of Illinois, there is a $0.57 tax on each gallon of gas, the gas companies are actually getting about $3.43 per gallon. I am not saying that gas is cheap, but I am saying that it is cheaper then a lot of things that Americans take for granted.