NFL Draft

With the NFL draft nearing quickly, teams are getting ready to go on the clock and make their picks in high pressure situations. I can only imagine how much pressure a general manager is under during draft day. In the first round each team gets ten minutes to make a selection that can potentially make or break a team. But yesterday, the Miami Dolphins locked up Jake long for five years. I think teams should not be allowed to make their picks before the draft. I feel like in theory, the entire draft could be done before draft day. Now that Miami is off the clock, St. Louis is on the clock and has 96 hours to deliberate who their first round selection will be. But the Falcons at three don't know who will be available when draft day rolls around and they only get ten minutes. The NFL should not allow any player to sign before draft day. It's the only way to keep things fair.

Fountains

The fountains are one of the nicest features about our campus. The weather has been beautiful now for over two weeks and yet the water of the fountains is no where to be seen. We have the fountains for a month in the fall and even that seems way too short. If they turn the fountains on today, we would enjoy two weeks of fountains before the semester ends. What are they saving it for? I don't get it. I would love to sit by the fountain but obviously, that can't happen right now. It is located at one of the nicest spots on campus--overlooking the lake and usually the fountain just adds to the ambiance. Why do we even have a fountain if we never use it?

Shuttle System

This post is in response to Chris's post about implementing a shuttle system on the Ithaca College Campus. For one, this would greatly improve the parking situation which we all know is disastrous and seems to be getting worse. Two, this would be an excellent gesture in terms of how "green" we are as a college. Even though many students would bring their cars to school, they would definitely use them less if they knew they could take a free bus from the circles to one of the academic buildings. The third reason is that this would make the streets of IC safer. With students knowing that they could go from the dorms to the circles, students would ride rather than drive which would prevent drunk driving. We're paying over $40,000 a year. How hard is it to get us a free shuttle?

Floor Programs

In response to Evan Schapiro's post on Floor Programs I couldn't agree more. I haven't been to a single one this year. It's almost like a vicious cycle. No one ever goes, so RA's don't spend time on making them all that much fun. This results in nobody going. I think a huge benefit to Floor Programs would be for the RA's to use the school's money to supply free food to the students. I realize some Floor Programs do provide the students on the floor with free pizza, ice cream, etc. but it is never advertised that food will be there. Evan's right. Friends get together, order food, and watch a movie all the time. So why wouldn't you want to do this with all expenses paid for by the school? I think RA's should let the students know that the school pays for everything because I don't think everyone knows that. The fact that attending Floor Programs isn't the cool thing to do also plays a role, but I wouldn't care if it's the school paying for delivery.

I Know my Kid's a Star

I saw two episodes of the VH1 reality show I Know my Kid's a Star earlier today and was amazed. The show combines the talent of a child with the managing ability of the parents. Hosted by former child star Danny Bonaduce, this show seems to have the potential to go multiple seasons. At first I felt myself asking ‘why am I watching this?’ But after the first five minutes I was hooked. This show is awesome. From a viewers standpoint that is. These parents are out of their minds. And the kids reflect it. Each potential child star is more screwed up than the next. The parents push their kids to be the best and because of this, the kids usually end up hating their parents. I'm sure the point of this show was to be like a younger version of American Idol where people watch to see how talented these kids are. Instead, it has turned into a Real World type of environment where the majority of the viewers watch to see if any of the mothers kill each other. I love it. But it seems unfair to these kids who deserve parents who care about their kids rather than their kids' careers. I would never want my kid to be this focused on a career at this early in his or her life but if it’s other people’s kids—who cares. I love this show.

Class Registration

Quite possibly the most stressful eight minutes of my life. This system has got to change. There should be an alternate form of priority other than the current "whose internet works the fastest." The worst is the time leading up to that dreaded 7:00 am. My heart was pounding because it's such a stupid thing that ends up molding four months of my life. One falter and magically... next semester sucks. I don't know what a better system would be but I do know that it has to change. I have so many friends that didn't get the classes they wanted and are still searching for one and even two classes to add to their schedules. Something's wrong here because it's all luck. A student shouldn't be penalized because they click SUBMIT three seconds later than another student

More Weather

In response to my own post, I think there is another benefit of suffering through a long winter. I don't want to speak for other people, but in my mind, I almost feel immune to the cold. Immune in some sense-that is. As of right now, a day in the low 40's feels like a 60 degree day would have last year. Today is topping out in the high 50's and I feel like it's 70 degrees out. Last summer, if there was a day where it was 58 degrees people would be wearing pants and sweatshirts complaining of the cold. Today, everyone is outside wearing shorts and talking about the beautiful weather. Just seems like we've all built up a tolerance which is going to eventually reward us.