After 1 month.....

I still haven't followed through with any of my plans, but I'll get back to that later..... As of right now, we're actually more than 1/4 of the way through the semester, & (as of next week) 1/3 of the way through it..... Ever since I published my recent post complaining about the still-unknown whereabouts of my middle school yearbook, I've honestly felt even more of a longing for those days than I did this summer, or even back in June! I guess this is just me complaining (yet again) about my current situation, but I've never felt as apathetic &/or uninspired by anybody or anything as I've felt on that campus! At least during my K-12 years, there was "school spirit" to the point where even events that got almost no publicity outside the schools managed to @ least find out about those events from other students &/or parents! That "school spirit" didn't just show up during any planned events, however; when a fire engulfed 1 of the 3rd-floor bathrooms in the middle school back in June 2009, just weeks before yours truly & the rest of the class of '09 graduated from that place & moved on to high school, you might something like that would deflate everybody & derail some of the excitement of those activities, but quite to the contrary, it seemed to bring everybody together even more than before that fire! In fact, now that I mentioned that, before I go back to how so many of us from that class stayed together throughout high school, I'd like to mention how that suddenly re-entered my mind the evening of my high school graduation: It was my 1st time back in that building in over 4 years, & considering everybody was split up into various rooms throughout the building (& arranged in alphabetical order, but I'm sure that's "standard operating procedure" @ those ceremonies in general!), I was sent to 1 of the rooms right down the hall from that burnt bathroom, & for the 1st time in forever, I suddenly remembered the fire & how the initial feelings of fear & surprise that I remember everybody having & how those feelings turned to unity soon after the fact! In between those 2 dates, though, the feelings of unity that carried us through the last 2 weeks or so of middle school seemed to carry over throughout high school, obviously with less of an impact later on in our high school years, but, @ least from what I noticed, whenever somebody made a comment along the lines of "Remember when -such & such- happened", usually referring to something that occurred in high school, & if there were 2 people who attended the same middle school together, 1 of those people would usually tell the other person "You think you've known -so & so- that long? Well, I've known -so & so- since middle school!" & so on & so forth..... My point is, that I've always believed loyalty, trust, & perhaps most importantly, lifelong bonds, among other things, only tend to manifest themselves earlier on in peoples' lives; that is, in places like elementary, middle, & high schools throughout the country moreso than people tend to reach those levels with people they meet in college & the experiences they go through during those 4 years..... I know this won't become possible 'til time travel becomes possible (if it does so.....), but eventually, if that does happen, my K-12 years would be the 1st years of my life that I would revisit, since following up on my aforementioned "point" (see above), I believe that the 12 years in which you're virtually guaranteed that you'll see those same people almost every weekday between September & June are almost always more special than 4 years in which you'll almost never see @ least 75% of those people @ all, never mind occasionally! 

I haven't been able to find any of my school stuff recently!

     In my 2nd (non-"welcome"/football) post here, I commented on how I was (& still am) glad that the vast majority of the approximately 850 people with whom I graduated from this place last June have decided to start their college years in-state instead of out-of-state, thus allowing them to remain close enough to their homes to be able to return for weekends/holidays/breaks/etc. without having to fly in from another state to do so! While I'm glad they've moved on with their lives to the extent that most of them don't seem to be as "homesick" as I (still) am right now after slightly over 12 years (@ least in my case) of being involved with that school district in 1 form or another, I just hope they've managed to preserve more of their memories from those years than my household has been capable of preserving..... As you people can tell by the pic above, that is the front cover of the (50th anniversary, not that anybody else was willing to acknowledge that fact!) yearbook that I & 99.99% of the rest of the grad class received last June (slightly ahead of schedule, as a matter of fact, but that's another story for another time), & naturally, I did what any sane person would do: got as many students/teachers/other staff members/etc. to sign that yearbook somewhere, mostly within the front & back inside covers, & for the most part, they did so, but aside from that & my middle school's class of '09 picture, that is the extent of the stuff from my K-12 years that remains in my household..... Ever since last June, I've occasionally searched all over my house for my middle school yearbook, which I distinctly remember taking the exact same process with-the messages from many of the people with whom I attended that school with, & taking that home for my family to check out, but ever since June of '09, I haven't been able to find that anywhere in my household, which I find somewhat weird, considering I still sort of remember what that looked like-a mostly blue front & back cover, with all kinds of patriotic-looking images throughout both the front & back covers! The morning after my high school's graduation, I noticed most of my pre-high school stuff lying around the house in random locations, & shortly after that, I noticed that my aunt was the 1 storing all that stuff somewhere..... Now, IDK where that "somewhere" is, but I have a feeling that my middle school stuff is still somewhere in my household..... I honestly don't think my own family would just toss my school stuff without consulting with me before doing so!

moment of contemplation #1

Normally, around this time on a Wednesday, I would be taking a class @ my current campus, but since this is 1 of those nights on which class has been canceled due to various computer glitches on campus, I might as well occupy the next 20+ minutes with something "blogworthy"! It might not seem like it right now given my general overall lack of ambition to do much of anything in recent weeks & months (in other words, this past summer), but my 2nd interest (incidentally, behind anything business-related) has been the "inner workings" of the brain/mind/soul/etc., so I guess you would be correct in assuming that my top 2 favorite subjects are 1) business/economics/finance/etc. & 2) psychology/psychiatry/etc.; although for the most part, I've focused more & more on the business side of those areas moreso throughout my educational years, having taken 1 business-related class per year throughout high school, while constantly hearing about, yet never actually taking, any of the psychology classes they offered there! Now, I know that now that I mentioned that, some of you people might start questioning my actual career goals, but having noticed more people breaking into the workforce as certified public accountants/financial regulators/tax attorneys/human/public relations people than psychologists or psychiatrists, but considering all the people I know who've always considered that stuff their top interest instead of 2nd or 3rd interest, I think I'll most likely stick to my original plans to major in business & possibly double major or minor (most likely minor) in 1 of those fields to perhaps pull "double duty" as 1 of the few psychologists/psychiatrists employed by a financial firm instead of a clinic or hospital! That being said, I think being surrounded by a bunch of current & quite a few future psychologists/psychiatrists throughout my K-12 years might end up influencing me sometime during my remaining 3 1/2 years of college! Even though I've yet to actually take a class in anything psych-related so far, doesn't mean I wouldn't be able to succeed in that capacity in the workforce even with minimal classroom/lecture hall exposure to those topics - After all, I'm sure that many of you have heard about all the former & current sports stars who either didn't start playing their sport 'til H.S. or college or who played 2 sports @ once throughout their H.S. & college years only to eventually stick with the sport that would make them world-famous & current or future hall of famers in their particular league or sport! I'm sure that if all those people were able to "break in" to their future careers later on in their lives than most other people who chose that career practically from birth, then I'm sure I would be able to start officially start learning even more about those topics sometime in the near future & still be able to succeed in the workforce despite such a late start!

Our military academies seem like propaganda tools to me!

(appears @ #8 on the "college city gets low grades" list, #5 on the "stone-cold sober schools" list, #5 on the "least happy students" list, #15 on the "is it food?" list, #13 on the "is that a dorm?" list, #17 on the "got milk?" list, #8 on the "scotch & soda, hold the scotch" list, & finally, #1 on the "don't inhale" list)

(DISCLAIMER: In my previous post, I told you I would mostly stick to showing my support for my state's educational institutions, but considering that there's somebody in my own family who apparently believes that this is my only possible future, I might as well unload some of my frustration(s) on these places just to prove my point!) The other day, I came to you people with another report of a crime on my current campus, then after I stopped complaining about the latest crime, I told you that I would be doing this, so here goes! Most of you people who live outside of this state most likely notice all the community colleges/state schools/universities that only reached that level within the past 2 decades or so/division 3-level athletics/etc. & think that those places seem rather focused on "tricking" their people into needlessly & unnecessarily supporting them, but if I may say so myself, I think our nation's military academies do even more brainwashing/influencing/indoctrinating/etc. than all the schools here in N.J. combined! Case in point: The states aren't even willing to provide their own financial aid for students who either graduate H.S. in that state & decide to remain there instead of starting college in another state or those who decide to start college in another state, even considering all the costs of moving to another state, yet our bloated federal government decides to pay 100% of the costs for students willing to accept a future, or lack thereof, upon their college graduation by attending 1 of our nation's many "prestigious" military academies! According to The Princeton Review, all of the military academies appear @ least once on almost all of what I like to call their "negativity lists", where some of the more negative aspects of college life are listed, & as with their positive rankings, the top 20 schools in each category are ranked!

(appears @ #9 on the "stone-cold sober schools" list, #4 on the "least happy students" list, #16 on the "is that a dorm?" list, & finally, #6 on the "don't inhale" list)

(doesn't appear on any of the lists, but so what? It's still a military school, after all!)

(appears @ #5 on the "this is a library?" list, #4 on the "college city gets low grades" list, #8 on the "stone-cold sober schools" list, #1 on the "is that a dorm?" list, #20 on the "got milk?" list, & finally, #2 on the "don't inhale" list)

(appears @ #1 on the "professors get low grades" list, #2 on the "least accessible professors" list, #3 on the "this is a library?" list, #3 on the "administrators get low grades" list, #6 on the "town-gown relations are strained" list, #2 on the "least happy students" list, #1 on the "is it food?" list, #3 on the "is that a dorm?" list, #8 on the "least beautiful campus" list, & finally, #8 on the "don't inhale" list)

RE: my (former) school district peeps:

If I may get (somewhat) personal here, I would like to send a request out to all of the approximately 850 students with whom I graduated late last June: Like me, you're probably officially starting your post K-12 lives this week, after a summer that was (if it was anything like mine) probably filled with all kinds of emotions, especially sadness, nostalgia, frustration (mostly college/university-related), & even a few get-togethers with your people most likely for the last time for the foreseeable future..... If you don't mind letting me remind you of some stats here, I'll gladly show you a few of those! 1: 44% of you will be attending 4-year schools, 2: 35% of you will be attending 2-year schools, 3: 18% will be entering the workforce straight away, 4: Quite a few of you decided to attend community colleges & trade schools, which I won't hold against those of you who chose that path, but I must warn you of this: you most likely won't be graduating in 4 years, assuming you do decide to move on to a university once you finish your studies at whichever C.C./trade school you choose! 5: $1,712,320 worth of 1-year grants/scholarships & $6,186,271 worth of 4-year grants/scholarships were awarded this past school year simply because you people worked your you-know-whats off to obtain those grants & scholarships! I know I just reiterated a bunch of stats, but I'm not concerned about those stats the most; nope, I'm encouraged the most by the fact that the vast majority of you decided to @ least start your college years within this state! Among the N.J. colleges & universities represented by you people: NJCU, TCNJ, FDU, MSU, Rutgers (all 3 campuses!), Rowan, Rider, Kean, & many of our community colleges, among others..... Obviously, not all of you decided to remain with the rest of us here in N.J., so among those colleges & universities, I've noticed the following represented by @ least 1 of you people: NYU, Columbia, Pace, UPenn, Penn State, UConn, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, RPI, Fairfield, Lehigh, Hofstra, Maryland, & Delaware, among others, & those are just some of the neighboring states represented by you people! My point in mentioning all of your choices, however, is this: I'm glad most of you people decided to attend colleges/universities either in this state or in neighboring states, since I believe that shows your commitment to both your college/university as well as your continued commitment to your school district..... Now that I've mentioned all of that, I'd like to issue a (sort of) challenge to all of you to re-visit this district @ least once during the fall, a few times in January (if you end up having the majority of that month off), @ least once during the spring semester, & during June (if you get any chances during that month)! I already decided my plans during the near future, so I might as well make the same request of you people as I made to myself earlier this summer in order to @ least let you people know that I hope you people remain somewhat committed to our school district even after graduation!

Venezuela is still in turmoil..... Can ANYBODY or ANYTHING save it at this point?

http://globovision.com/articulo/reportan-apagon-en-varios-estados-del-pais Usually, I don't report on other countries on my other social media pages, but 1 country I've followed ever since its highly elections during the middle of last April has been the seemingly always-collapsing South American country of Venezuela..... Now, I will admit that I supported the Democratic Unity Roundtable candidate (Henrique Capriles Radonski) over the Great Patriotic Pole candidate (Nicolás Maduro), but I'm sure that if the continued socioeconomic collapse there doesn't take down the socialist government that Maduro largely inherited from his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, then honestly, I don't know what will..... There's something else that bothers me about the ongoing collapse, & that is my desire to visit that country constantly getting crushed by the socialists' stupidity! If Capriles had overcome the fraud & won the April 14 elections outright instead of having to deal with the fraud over the following weeks & months, I would've most likely been making plans to visit that country, but since the fraud battles have gone on since April, & the socioeconomic collapse down there has been even more noticeable since then, I won't be making any plans to visit that country anytime soon!

Just an ND-sized follow-up to my previous post:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzzC2k_jZEw (This commercial was the commercial that ND aired [or should I tell you that they "gave us" this commercial?] last season, even in the midst of their national championship drubbing at the hands of Alabama last January..... As soon as I saw they had officially retired this commercial during the 4th quarter of Saturday afternoon's game, I figured I had to give my take on this commercial, & that was exactly what I did on FB immediately after I saw their new commercial for the 1st time: "Call it religious propaganda, call it "shamelessness", call it whatever you want to call it..... To me, that commercial was not only a way for that university to keep its Catholic tradition(s) alive, but it also had an uplifting message embedded within it..... The reminder that as long as you keep people in your thoughts and prayers to a reasonable extent, the more likely you'll be to see them somewhere down the road..... No matter what you think about the commercial as a whole, I think you've got to admit that that message is more uplifting than anything else!")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8jReR9qfu0&sns=fb (As previously mentioned, this was the commercial that both (1) debuted Saturday afternoon & (2) led me to give my [somewhat emotionally charged] opinion on the previous commercial; while this commercial doesn't try to get people emotionally worked up [FULL DISCLOSURE: That never happened to me, for some reason!], it does provide people with the idea that the university is committed not only to its own future, but to the future to all parts of society on which the university has at least some influence in..... While I would prefer to still have 1 of the few modern day religion-focused commercials remain on the air to this day, I most likely won't mind seeing such a hopeful, forward-looking commercial airing weekly between now & the last weekend of November!

NCAA week 1 CFB results

I figured I would (officially) start this blog of mine with the typical "welcome"/"my life" post, but instead of doing that, I'll let those of you who've already met me either in person or online find out some more about myself over the upcoming days, weeks, months, & (hopefully) years, & I might as well allow a few new people on board here to allow me to turn this into my "personal part of the Internet"!  For this 1st post, as you can tell by the title, I've decided to start something that I hope to turn into a (hopefully) weekly feature from now until the weekend after Thanksgiving, & that would be college football results..... Now that I've established that, I might as well establish something else: This will be top 25 results & opinions only, at least throughout the regular season..... srry, FCS school supporters! On that note, without further ado, here are the top 25 teams' results from the 4 days spanning 8/29-9/2!

(1) ALA 35, VT 10 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/christion-jones-leads-no-1-005415489--ncaaf.html)

(2) OSU 40, BUF 20 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/buckeyes-roll-early-hang-beat-192525442--ncaaf.html)

(3) ORE 66, NICH 3 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/no-3-oregon-handles-nicholls-235606626--ncaaf.html)

(4) STAN - off

(8) CLEM 38, (5) UGA 35 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/boyds-5-tds-lead-no-040059462--ncaaf.html)

(6) SC 27, UNC 10 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/clowney-6th-ranked-gamecocks-win-030436655--ncaaf.html)

(7) A&M 52, RICE 31 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/manziel-throws-3-tds-lead-204520742--ncaaf.html)

(9) L'VILLE 49, OHIO 7 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/no-9-louisville-dominates-ohio-225738827--ncaaf.html)

(10) UF 24, TOL 6 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/no-10-florida-beats-toledo-193910737--ncaaf.html)

(11) FSU 41, PITT 13 (http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/florida-state-seminoles-pittsburgh-panthers-201309020012/)

(12) LSU 37, (20) TCU 27 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/no-12-lsu-opens-37-045153274--ncaaf.html)

(13) OK.ST 21, MSU 3 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/walsh-helps-no-13-oklahoma-230722588--ncaaf.html)

(14) ND 28, TEM 6 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/rees-leads-no-14-irish-230204817--ncaaf.html)

(15) UT 56, NMSU 7 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/big-plays-spark-texas-over-033243376--ncaaf.html)

(16) OU 34, ULM 0 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/knight-runs-no-16-oklahoma-023754672--ncaaf.html)

(17) MICH 59, CMU 9 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/no-17-michigan-routs-c-231018223--ncaaf.html)

(18) NEB 37, WYO 34 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/no-18-nebraska-holds-off-034012643--ncaaf.html)

UW 38, (19) BSU 6 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/washington-routs-no-19-boise-051633395--ncaaf.html)

(21) UCLA 58, NEV 20 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/brett-hundley-leads-no-21-053544377--ncaaf.html)

(22) NW 44, CAL 30 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/no-22-northwestern-beats-cal-063306239--ncaaf.html)

(23) WISC 45, UMASS 0 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/no-23-wisconsin-stifles-umass-190824154--ncaaf.html)

(24) USC 30, HAW 13 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/no-24-usc-opens-30-065822563--ncaaf.html)

(FCS) (3) EWU 49, (25) OR.ST 46 (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/e-washington-upsets-no-25-022053515--ncaaf.html)

Now that I've gotten the results out of the way, I might as well tell all of you people upfront: I do not, have never, & will most likely never, support any college sports school over any other, especially since I'm stuck over here in NJ, which is full of division 3 & minor conference FBS schools (outside of Rutgers)! Since I am, however, looking to keep this going from now through November, I might as well provide some opinions of my own, so here goes:

CHAMPIONSHIP HANGOVER? Alabama routed Notre Dame by 28 last January, but they couldn't quite replicate that success in their season-opening game, defeating Va. Tech by 25 instead of 28+..... I'm not saying that Alabama won't turn this win into another championship run to (mercifully) close out the BCS era, but.....

BACK ON TOP, & THEN SOME? ..... Notre Dame scored twice in the 1st 4 minutes against a Temple team making its 1st-ever trip to ND's hallowed grounds, but after that (& I guess I can say this, considering I stayed on NBC all afternoon on Saturday instead of "channel surfing" to some of the other games ongoing at that time!), both teams seemed to stall almost entirely, especially N.D., which decided to complete its whacking of Temple midway through the 3rd quarter, then just stall from there! On a side note..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8jReR9qfu0&sns=fb http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzzC2k_jZEw are that university's 2 most recent commercials, & while I believe they each provide their own unique messages, I believe they're both unique in their own ways; I recognize that some of you might consider this "homer-ism" on my part, but I just find those 2 commercials to both be brilliant! On a totally unrelated note:

FCS UPRISING: 8 FCS schools won games against FBS opponents over the long weekend, breaking the previous record of 6 in both 1985 & the following year; while that might not impact the affected FBS teams in future seasons, it will affect their 2013 seasons, considering aforementioned Notre Dame went undefeated last regular season, thus disproving (at least temporarily) that "1 loss is the new undefeated"..... If ND could pull off what they did last season again this season (& I'm not saying they will!), then I believe that'll disprove that notion even more than it did last November!

IT'S A NEW BEGINNING!

WELCOME!

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ghoward/welcome.gif