750 Words

I have started dabbling with the website 750words.com. It comes from the idea of the artist's pages - that if you write three pages in the morning, every morning, without stopping and without thinking, then you get a chance to look into your subconscious and you get to cleanse yourself of your thoughts. It is also meant to help you do other writing and creating, by writing three pages without thought or concern, then you have more freedom to do other forms of creating - a way to combat writer's block.

Another nifty little feature of this particular website is that it analyzes your writing. And today, my writing was: introverted, negative, uncertain and thinking. I must say that it's spot on. I have to sign, or not sign, my lease today on my studio apartment. I must say that I do love my little place. I have it fixed up and decorated to my liking, and it's just me. I don't have to worry about crazy roommates, etc. But I wish that I could just pick up my apartment and move it somewhere else. I live in a city that I don't particularly like and work at a job that I don't feel passionate about. Yet, I have no idea as to what I would do if I were to leave. And I would have to figure that out in the next 36 hours, before my lease has to be extended. I have to sign a year lease, there is no month to month option or 6 month option.

I have some ideas as to what I would do over the summer, and yet, that all involves traveling and spending money. It doesn't seem particularly responsible or sensible to leave with no idea whatsoever as to what I would do. While I know that sometimes things shouldn't be planned, etc., I also know that having to move back in with my parents because I've run out of money, isn't a smart option either. So I want to be smart about things, but thinking of staying here for another year seems exhausting. But I don't have any idea of where I would want to go or what I would want to do if I left.

New Jersey, I have to quit you

Chris Christie, the round but not at all jolly new Governor of New Jersey, has decided the best course of action for the budget crisis is to cut funding to education. Over 500 school districts will have funding frozen, and higher education is facing massive multi-million dollar cuts. It seems like time to abandon ship. There is no incentive or security for any position.

The cuts will inevitably lead to higher tuition, larger classes, fewer instructors with an actual passion for their subject. And as someone who has had exposure to the level of education held by a wide variety of New Jersey students, it seems like the very last thing that the system needs is for cuts.

There are students, and not just a few of them, who cannot identify a correctly written sentence. The reading level of college students is hovering somewhere near what seems to be a 7th grade level at best. Teaching becomes more about explaining why you can’t write, “I is good at school” as a correct sentence, compared to discussing and writing about complex ideas and higher level thinking.

Granted, this is not the case for all students, but for a surprising number of them, they really can’t write at all. I don’t know how they got into college, and I find it endlessly frustrating to teach 4th grade level assignments to students who are supposed to hold at least a high school degree, which should mean they can read and write with some level of proficiency. And now, the schools will have less funding? It can only get worse.