VEISHEA

VEISHEA it standS for:

• Veterinary Medicine
• Engineering
• Industrial Science
• Home Economics
• Agriculture

It is an annual event since 1922 that has showcased the great things the university has to offer. It is a weekend where many alumni return to enjoy their old university and current students enjoy the events held in the university during the week, plus the parties going around outside campus. Lets be honest, Ames is a boring town, it is referred by many as Lames deriving from Ames + Lame= Lames!!! Even if our school exceeds University of Iowa, not only academically but in many other ways too. We pretty much fail in the fun department and sports department, but thats another story. VEISHEA is our only week of the year to have some fun, no matter what kind of person one might be, either a bookworm, party type, wild type, smoker, drinker. There is something fun for everykind of person during that single week.

There where several activities for the family, like BBQ at Central Campus, the Parade held on saturday morning, the university village where the different colleges showcased what they did and the Canoe races held in Lake Laverne. For those college students that are the party type, there where countless parties going around in Fraternities, clubs, and Welch Avenue. Many of those ending in great fights or having police arresting kids for underage drinking or intoxication in public places. Held inside the campus was battle of the bands which was pretty fun to watch, but it was an uncomfortable place to be once the best bands started playing because not only the place was packed full but people would start going crazy, so it would not be a suprise if someone ended up with a back eye or a sore limb.

I'll say that VEISHEA was the excuse mostly used last week. For a person that never got drunk and wanted to start drinking, just saying "Its VEISHEA" was just enough to justify what he or she was about to do. The same excused worked for skipping classes, getting wasted everyday, partying everyday or just be out of character the whole week. I know it may have been a pretty poor excuse but who can blame them, VEISHEA is the only big event that ever happens in Lames. For the record, I do love Lames, may be that tranquility held yearound is what makes it so lovely and a nice place to live, and concentrate on your studies.

How technology makes us misinterpret many things in life.

Life if full of misinterpretation. It is our duty to prevent those from happening and if it does happen then we are responsible to fix them. We are humans and mistakes are bound to happen, but what if we don't fix them, what if because we are too proud we don't talk about things from face to face those things will grow and affect us greatly. I for once have had multiple experience when it comes to misinterpreting something because I was not brave enough to talk to that person face to face.

Since we feel shame or embarrassed we prefer to talk by cellphone or most notably by text message, message by Facebook, messenger or e-mail. Sometimes by writing a letter it is easier to express ourselves but if we are not careful our message might be taken the wrong way. Words have more meaning when the human voice uses it rather when it is written on a paper. Sure our ideas might flow easier if we take our time alone to write something but we have to think and put ourselves in the other persons position, how would he see this? How would he take it if he read it in another tone? or How would he react to this if his mood is not as calmed as mine right now?

By personal experience I can say that many misinterpretation have occured because of a simple letter or most commonly text message. It is not a good idea to have aargument by text message, personally everytime I've had one it does not end up right. There might have been a couple of times that an argument has end up in a good way by text message but I can assure that most of the time it does not. Then comes the question of why are we not brave enough to just have the conversatiton face to face. Well there are many circumstances, most of the time one person in not ready to talk yet until later on when the text message is delivered or the conversatiton cannot continue while we see the other person.

Even if it is difficult to talk to the other person face to face it is always important to do it because the internet or the cellphone has not always been there and one has to think back and reflect on when was it that one had a conversation and an argument came up and it was solved quickly and when one argument took longer to solve, I bet most of the times that an argument was solved quickly it was when it was face to face. Another good thing about talking to a person face to face is that, when there is a misinterpretation you have the other person right infront of you, so any doubts that you might have you can ask right away rather than wait to see if the other person decides to text you back.

Drastic Measures

Recently I saw the movie "Watchman", the movie talks about superheroes, the cold war and humanity. In the movie in order to show how cruel and wicked humans can be, they show various examples of murders that kill people for pleasure, vengeance, or to gain something out of it. Why do they do it? Don't they have any compassion for those people that don't have anything to do with their plans. By killing innocent people not only do they take away that persons life but it also affects their family and society. I do not believe of the saying "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" is something that would bring justice but there are other methods that would bring justice to the wrong doings of a person.

As an the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes said, humans are evil by nature, we are always looking for ways to gain new things and even if we have them we will still look for more because we feel that the only way to protect what we have is by gaining more. That applies for everything, not only money. In order to do that humans take drastic measures such as murder and robbery. Many innocent lives have been lost just because a thief that wanted to steal from a store a couple of dollars, not even a bank or a really big store but a small and humble store. Why kill for only a couple of dollars, is it worth being in prison for many years just for a couple of tenths or even twenties dollar bill? There are other cases where they kidnap and ask for ransom or in other countries, they kidnap and take away their organs in order to sell them in the black markets. These crimes should be punished harshly, even if one hasn't been related to something like that one can still try and relate to those people that have been affected by it. What if it happened to your mother, brother or children would you not want justice over those crimes, for the person to be harshly punished.

I believe that a person that has killed or has committed a crime so severe, should be jailed for the rest of their lives. Many people would disagree, stating that it would put a heavy toll in the taxes to support the prisons, but one has to think, if it is better to have a safe environment where your kids can play safely in the parks or a place where one has to fear the place they live and go to work. Others would argue that what if the person has repented for their crimes and wishes to start all over again, everyone has a right to have a second chance. It is true that everyone has a right to start over again, but there are various things to consider. Firstly, many of the people that are released from prison, are imprisoned right away because they commit another crime right after being released. If a person where to be imprisoned for life for a crime so severe, it would make people consider and double think before committing a crime like that. It is a very drastic measurement, but it is not so drastic as other countries where people are put to the death penalty when they kill or do a crime that is severe. In the past there have been drastic measures done by the government in order to control a situation and minimize the outcomes, this can be considered as one of them. It is very drastic at first but in the end, the results would be positive.

Recent Upheaval in Bangladesh

Recently there has been violent revolts in Bangladesh by the border guards against the Army. They claimed that the Army was not handling them their pay and that the conditions of their service were bad. Their way of revolting was to take the main building and kill many of the military officers that where there. Not only did they kill them, but many of the bodies were hidden in obscure places that people would never imagined that they would be, such as sewers or in mass graves. Their method of killing were also very cold, as they did not go for the clean killing by just shooting them, but they were tortured before hand and their families were also raped and then killed gruesomely. There are many bodies that hasn't been identified and are most likely never to be identified because of the condition that they are in. One of the murder of a family of a military men has been confirmed, it was the wife of the commanding officer. The way she was killed was a very cold way where it gives goosebumps and one cannot but cringe when one hears how she was killed. There has been around 148 either dead or missing which they are presumed to be dead since the border guards have hidden many of the bodies.
Everything started on the morning of February 25 where around 4000 troops gathered in the main building on the capital. It took 24 hours for the rebels to reach a negotiation with the Prime Minister of the country and to convince them to lay their arms and surrender.

Even though I can understand how the rebels felt about their suppression within the Army and not receiving their payments because in countries like that, their payment is utterly necessary for their survival and their families survival, I do not agree in the methods in which they voiced their pleas. The Army did wrong by treating them badly and by holding their payments, but there are always other methods to protest against those injustices. They did not hold any right to kill those officers and less to violate and kill their families in the process, but also do it coldly and hide their bodies. For us, the people that live in industrialized countries that do not see atrocities such as these, it is hard for us do believe that these things still exist in this world, in the 21st century none the less. What this teaches us is that no matter how much we may advance economically, politically or technologically there are still countries that are still behind in those areas and that in effect it drive its people to create problems like that.

killings in school

There has been hundred of cases of school shootings, or simply massacres throughout the years. Even though we don't really hear of it that often it does happen, but the ones that gets our attention are the big ones. The most recent one that is more impacting is the Virginia Tech massacre. Even though it seems very bloody and hard to believe that there has been worst, there was one in 1927, The Bath disaster where a person working at the school implanted several tons of dynamite throughout the school, killing 45 people and injuring 58 people. Whats more horrifying is that the school was for students that were from 7 to 12 years of age devastating not only their families but the whole town. It is said that the reason that Andrew Kehoe, the schools treasurer exploded the school, killed his wife and even wanted to explode his home was because of the high taxes that had affected him economically, thus by closing his farm.

When situations like these happen, one cant help but wonder what drove these people to that point. How can they live with themselves for doing things like that, but then again, they all commit suicide afterwards, may be knowing what awaits them if they don't. They all have different reasons for doing it, wether because they are frustrated with their lives, they have a grudge against some people or they are just mentally instable. Either of the cases I cannot find any justifications for what they have done. What gives them them the right to take other peoples lives, or even their lives.

it has been shown that most of the people that are involved in those massacres have had bad childhoods or have shown t have probems since their early ages, but it is still no reason to just do what they please. I often believe that they may get their examples from the media. There are always safe ways to relieve your frustration, but if they are not informed properly then how can they know how to. I am not justifying them, butI am merely pointing out that Hollywood or pop cuture has influenced them in their decision to do those atrocity.

Marriage Views

Weddings are something that is very important in every culture. It is what unites family, creating bonds, and it is what ensures stability. Girls mostly fantasize about their wedding day when they are little kids and boys usually prefer to evade the thought of it. In the western culture you are allowed to chose your partner but in other cultures such as the ones in the Middle Eastern, marriages are arranged by the parents without the consent of their sons or daughters. Even more radical is the idea of marriage between family members. We can see that as an atrocity, something really outrageous that should not even exist, but that is how it has been done in their culture for hundreds of years.
In western culture marriage is something simple; it is the unity of two happy couples and possibly two happy families. When two persons marry they are full of hopes and dreams, thinking about how happy they are going to be, how many children they would have, how would they be, where would they travel to. It is a happy picture that many people take for granted, many do not realize how lucky they are that they are given that liberty and that it is in them to choose the right person.
In cultures from the Middle Eastern, marriage for a woman can be dreadful. It is a day where she weds a person that she may not love, a person who may be a family member or any person who is close to the family. It is a day when she looses all freedom, if she ever had some, and is enclosed in this jail which was predetermined even before she reached puberty. Why do they do that? we may question, how is it fair for them? Those are questions that forms in my head whenever I put myself in their positions. I cannot imagine the pain and dreadfulness they may feel. But then again they are raised that way since they are little children, who knows if they even question the practice. In my opinion even if you grew up in an environment that dictates the practice, a smart person should be able to come out of that shell and think differently, question everything and not always believe that your parents are 100% right, because like them, they are humans and they are prone to make mistakes sooner or later.