Is CIAA overrated in Charlotte NC

Every year the CIAA basketball tournament is held in Charlotte, NC. The people have voted it will continue to be held there for the next six years. The tournament is mainly focused on the college basketball games, which usually began February 20th and end on the 25th. There are also many other events, for example they have concerts, step shows, fashion shows and etc. Most of the family events began in the morning and end around noon.

After the 25th is when all the overrated activities began. I believe February 25th through the 28th is when all the parties and celebrities come and perform.  Thousands of people arrive to Charlotte just to party and see all the celebrities.

 Party entry fees vary from the range of $20 dollars - $150 dollars just to enter the party. Most parties won`t let you in unless you are the of 21 and above. Club capacities vary 400 people to 4,000 people in one party. As all these people are here just to party many hotel are booked. The booking for hotels are so extreme people may place their reservations a year ahead.

 Parking also is a big deal during this event. Parking services and towing services make a lot of money. I believe parking spots can cost up to $50 dollars a night and if your car is towed i believe it`s $250 for the car to be giving back to you. I understand it`s a great experience and lots of fun but is it actually worth all the money being spent? 

Mickey D's

I went over to McDonalds the other day and got myself a double cheese. Boy was it delicious. Now, one might ask,

“Why wouldn’t you just buy the cheaper McDouble? It’s only missing one piece of cheese”.

You say it’s only missing a piece of cheese, I say it’s missing half of its deliciousness. The whole point of a double cheeseburger is to have 2 pieces of cheese. The second piece of cheese is essential to balance of flavor within the sandwich itself. A McDouble only has a single piece of cheese which is usually stuck between two all-beef patties. This mutes the cheesy goodness by sealing off the cheese from your taste buds. Compare this to the double cheeseburger. You have a piece of cheese sandwiched in between the all-beef patties, just like the McDouble. However, a second piece of cheese is draped over the whole thing, adding to the delectability of the burger.  Now comes the second question:

“Would you like fries with that?”

Hell yeah I’d like fries with that! What’s a double cheese without some over salted potato sticks? A lonely double cheese, that’s what. To say if I’d like fries with that is akin to asking someone if they would like to get an A in English class instead of a B. Fries are great with a burger, but is there a way to take both fries and a double cheese to make it into something better? After a long and hard 2 minutes of pondering this quandary, I have come up with the ultimate solution.

Wait for it…

It’s…

Putting the fries inside the burger!

It’s the perfect blend of meats and vegetables all mixed into one super burger that I hereby dub:

“The Double Cheese W/ Vegan accents”

People can finally feel good about eating burgers because of the veggies that are in it.

Old Generation vs New Generation Music

    As time progresses one thing that seems to change is the type of music that people in this generation enjoys. Whenever I talk to my parents about music ( who are in their middle 30's, so they have a good balance of past music and the music today) they always say old school music is better. Their reason for this is because the music is cleaner, it relates to their lives, and it makes them feel good. However, I always reply that the music now does make people feel better or motivated. The music might not always be clean or have a positive influence; however it does make people feel good. But still to this day I can't determine what makes a generation of music better. People who enjoy older version of music, tell me to listen to what the artist is saying and how it can still relate to today. In that sense I do feel as though, that yes older generation of music is better. Despite that, there still are people who believe artists do relate to today's problems and make good music that is better than past music. That statement also makes sense because the technology today, allows for beats and just the sound in general to be better. From my own research there are plenty of songs which are not that good in the older generation. Despite this, to avoid conflict with the argument of which generation of music is better, I just say if the music gets you going and makes you feel good then it's good music. Which generation of music do you prefer?

Boys will be boys

     This is a poem in response to this article about a fraternity at NC State that was disbanded after a notebook full of offensive content was found. And that the term "Boys will be boys" is used too liberally.
      Link to article: http://www.wral.com/nc-state-fraternity-placed-on-interim-suspension-after-embarrassing-scary-book-found/14528066/

Boys Will Be Boys

Boys will be boys
they say

Boys will be boys
even when they’re holding
a gun to someone’s
throat screaming
‘second amendment”

Moldy green journal
filled with their
hearts’ desires

Southern trees that
bear strange fruit

The intimacy of
a cold body

Replacing ‘no’
for ‘yes’

Trading humanity
for lust

Stealing the innocence
of a child
hoping it replaces
their own

Boys will be boys

Their polo shirts
And pastel shorts
smell of
rotting flesh and
decomposing childhoods

But boys will be boys

Flaunting themselves like
mating flame bowerbirds
because the law
will only tickles
them on their noses

Boys will be boys

Boys will be boys
as long as they
don’t paint their
hands crimson
when the cameras
are rolling

But remember boys
will be boys

Who's more stressed?

So, I went home last weekend and I was having a conversation with my family about how school is going, the classes I'm enrolled in and also telling them that I have a pretty heavy workload this semester. As I'm explaining my classes and giving examples of the assignments I'm having to do, my uncle abruptly interrupts saying: "Jocey, you have it so much better than we had it growing up! Kids kill me nowadays thinking that they're stressed out, you haven't experienced stress until you have a family to take care of and bills to pay." Now, I'm not the type to disrespect my elders, especially members of my family but the things he was saying just really got under my skin. This type of thing always happens when I talk to him and a few of my other family members. It's like my stress isn't significant enough to talk about. I feel like if I'm stressing over school or feel like I have a lot on my plate, I have the right to feel that way. I don't understand how others fell as though they can judge how intense things are, especially for us as a younger generation that doesn't get the credit we deserve for how hard we work. Many people are quick to assume that because I am a part of this generation where technology advances have quickly taken over, that I don't know what it's like to work hard. My questions regarding this topic are: Do you feel that we as a generation have it way easier than the last? Do you think the work load for college has increased since then? Do we think about how bad other people may have it, or simply assume that no one is worse off than we are?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/education/27colleges.html?_r=0
Above I have attached an article I thought was pretty interesting. It's about college freshmen and their level of stress. I've never really taken the time to think about the things that we as freshman go through. There's leaving home for the first time to start a brand new chapter without all of your friends and family that you've been around for 17+ years. When you finally get to college some students take on responsibilities such as an SGA position, band, ROTC, etc. Making the transition somewhat more difficult being that then a trait of time management is even more essential. Do you think that college freshmen stress more than college sophomores or juniors? (I would add seniors, but I think their stress level regarding graduation is more than enough.)

How the Internet gets into our heads

 Read this article first, then my blog post response:  Google Search Results Can Influence an Election 



Someone sent me a link to this article about how Google can influence an election and I found it to be a little frightening. We are all so connected to our devices these days, that I think we forget that the constant stream of information coming at us can affect the way we think about things without us even realizing it. I know for a fact that Facebook has done social experimentation on its members. They admitted as much in 2012 when they altered the feeds of 700,000 member to see their reactions to a variety or negative posts. (Facebook's Not-so-secret Mood Manipulation Experiment ).

I've also heard rumblings about the"gay marriage rainbow profile filter" app that was made available to Facebook users following the Supreme Court's decision to uphold gay marriage. Rumor has it those were a social experiment too. I've read various reports that never definitively corroborate or disprove that it was, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if it were true. Can you imagine what an immensely powerful tool that would be to have access to the thoughts and feelings of a wide and varied range of the population? Old, young, conservative, liberal, crunchy, hipster, religious, atheist, ethnic, white...they're all represented on Facebook.

To be fair, marketers and politicians have always tried to figure out which ways work best to sway us, so none of this is really new.  There have always been polls and surveys and even controversial social experimentation, like the Obedience Experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram, but I think there's a fine line between trying to figure out what makes humans tick so you can learn about human nature either for purely academic reasons or to hopefully persuade them to choose something, and controlling people with manipulation. Some of this stuff just plays out to me a little bit too much like some of the dystopian literature I've read (Fahrenheit 451, A Handmaid's Tale, Nineteen Eighty-Four etc). What are your thoughts? Do you think the "powers that be" are using our Internet activity to manipulate and control us (or at least working hard to figure out how to do so)? If so, what can one do to counter it?

PS: I promise I was not wearing a foil-hat while writing this.  :)

Respect or trust?

I attended a conference meeting Friday, and the speaker was demonstrating how you can respect a person even though you do not trust them and vice versa. He displayed his theory by asking a female student to sit in a chair, then to stand up and fall back into his arms. As she began to fall into his arms, she seemed a little nervous. After that, he asked her “How can you trust the chair before you trust me, even though I am the human being?” He then proceeded to present another example. He said “If someone told you they were going to kill you; would you respect them or trust them?” A lot student said they would trust them but not respect them. One student was not having it. He felt as though respect and trust are the same, and if you respect someone then you also have to trust them, because when you trust someone you also respect them. So the question is, can you respect someone without trusting them? And, do you think that trust and respect are the same?