The End! (Or is it?)

This blog is assigned as kind of a conclusion to the semester. I am supposed to give my final thoughts on keeping a blog, advice to other students, etc. The thing is, I don't think I want this whole blog thing to end; I really enjoyed it!

I think that a blog is a very fun and interesting thing to keep, especially when you have a captive audience who is supposed to comment on your thoughts. I really enjoyed sharing my music, and spreading my political ideas around as well. I do think that students should keep a blog, and I definitely think they should comment on other student blogs as well, it's a wonderful set up.

I don't think I am going to let this blog end here, and I hope you all feel the same way. It's been a great semester, in part because of this blog. I hope that you all got as much enjoyment and information out of it as I did!

Back to the Grind (a.k.a. I was told to write this)

So, back to writing about topics mandated by my English teacher. That little angry rant was fun, but it's not really the purpose of this blog, now is it?

This assignment entails describing the town of Normal, IL. Rather, advertising it if it is worth advertising, which I really think it is. I really love this town, to be perfectly honest. I come from Champaign, and I must say that while I love my hometown to death, after eighteen years, I got a little sick of it. Normal feels like Champaign 2.0, really. Champaign-Urbana, Bloomington-Normal, they are both double-cities that still aren't that big. There's plenty to do, but it's not a big city. The campus of ISU is similarly balanced. There are enough people here, and the campus is large enough, to be a significant place for socializing and a stand-alone area, without being U of I size, meaning unwalkable.

The town itself is really nice too, though I haven't been to downtown Bloomington much. It's nice that there are places just barely off campus that offer lots of entertainment for everyone who goes here. One of the most popular among these isn't really an entertainment spot, but a place to obtain entertainment for later: The Movie Fan. It has a great selection, including a good selection of gay and lesbian films, so much so that some friends of mine used to have a "Gay Films Friday" every Friday.

Right across the street is the Normal Theater, which is a restored retro theater that plays lots of independent films; at the beginning of my Freshman year, Hot Fuzz was playing as part of a series of foreign, independent films. Hot Fuzz is my favorite movie, so how could I miss out? Today through Sunday, they are playing Milk, which I sadly have yet to see and will probably miss on this showing.

There is also the wonderful ice cream shop, Emack & Bolio. It's ice cream, what more do you want from me?

Honestly, I haven't been all over yet, but I really love this town. There is sufficient entertainment to be had without having to drive or catch a bus anywhere, and the atmosphere here is just wonderful!

Unrelated Rant

This is completely unrelated to our blog assignments, I just really felt like ranting and venting, and I figured what better place to do this than a blog, right?

So, anyway, in the process of researching for my paper, I must read sources with views opposing mine.  This is sometimes informative, and very often frustrating.  Right now, I am incredibly frustrated, having read one specific article that really rubbed me the wrong way.  After reading, I have this to say:

Why is it that no one understands how cloning works?!  Geez, this is worse than the evolution discussion!

The writer of this article suffers from a viewpoint that I have witnessed before, but that I had erroneously assumed was not very widespread.  He seems to think that therapeutic cloning will involve creating an entire human being who will then be killed for the sake of medicine or medicinal research.  This is utterly idiotic.  Therapeutic cloning involves creating organs or specific tissue.  It's not like we create a whole human being with functioning organs, take the organs we need, and go "see ya!"

Why is this totally backwards view so prevalent among pro-lifers?  Why do they use such false analogies?  I understand thinking that abortion is wrong, and to an extent, why stem cell research using embryos is therefore bad, but defend it on more solid ground, people!  It's not that hard!  Rather than attacking scientists and the well-chosen words they use to describe their fields, stick to things you know, like religion.

This writer really does equate a cluster of cells that will, if in a womb, eventually grow into a human, to a fully formed human being!  Why is this so accepted?  He uses an utterly false analogy which I shall quote for you now:

"If I have a bad eye and you have a good one, can I forcibly take your good eye to make my bad one better?"

Well, no, but this is not in any way the same as taking cells from an unused embryo created by in vitro fertilization, one which will not be used and will be destroyed anyway, and creating a good new eye for me.  How is this in any way the same?  No, an embryo is not a fully formed or distinct human.  Hell, it's not even an independent life form!  Why is this so hard to understand?!

As a closing non-sequitur, I find it interesting that being pro-death penalty tends to accompany being pro-life.  I sarcastically surmise that activist pro-lifers really just want to keep everyone alive until birth so they can kill them later.

How important is an Embryo?

So, my topic for this research paper will be that of stem cell research, which will of course include the gargantuan controversy surrounding the topic. Doing initial readings on it, however, there are many things that confuse me about people being anti-stem cell research, and I do understand parts of the argument against embryonic stem cell research, but there are things that just boggle my mind, namely this issue:

It's just an embryo!

And embryo is not equivalent to a human life! It would be very easy to turn this into an abortion argument, but an embryo is even less of a human life than a fetus! And people don't even want to use the embryos created in in vitro fertilization for research?! Most of them are going to be destroyed anyway, why not use them to try and help people?!

One problem with the argument against embryonic stem cell research is the question of where do you draw the line of what is and is not human? I hate slippery slopes as much as the next guy, and they are indeed logical fallacies, but it is worth thinking about that embryos are not humans, they simply have the potential to turn into them. So you know what else has this potential? Sperm and eggs! By this mode of thinking, masturbation is essentially genocide, killing thousands of potential human lives, and even sex for procreation isn't 100% efficient! Many many sperm die in the process, what about those potential humans?! No one is crying for them!

I think the unfortunate fact is that the only reason not to perform embryonic stem cell research is religious in nature, and Christianity has stood up vocally against every major scientific development in recent memory. Those who would disagree with me on this would do well to remember that Christians stood up against astronomy, which is a pretty basic science. They were also against organ donation when it first started, something my Christian friends find odd only because they were raised in a society in which organ donation is not only considered okay, but encouraged.

These same people are often strongly against human cloning, and generally these views are supported by gross misinformation. A friend of mine had the detrimentally misguided idea that the way human cloning would be used, in a scenario in which someone had an organ problem and needed a new one, would be to clone an entire human, take the organ, and then kill the clone. There's no way around it; such an idea is just stupid.

I guess what I am trying to say with this long and disconnected stream of consciousness is that defining what is and is not human life is tricky, and also that religion should never stand in the way of medical developments that save lives.

It's just unfortunate that it so consistently has.

Improv Mafia

I attend a campus event every week called Improv Mafia, which is an improvisational comedy group. Think "Whose Line Is It Anyway," but far funnier. They have a variety of games that they play involving suggestions from the audience, and each member goes by a nickname, like Nick "Klahsio" Klahs, or Mike "Commodore" Norris, or Jared "The Wolf Man" Mason.

The general format is alot of fun. It starts at 8:00pm every Tuesday in the CVA. The Mafia plays short comedy games for half an hour, followed by a half-hour longform that often forms some sort of story or is linked in some way. The short games consist of things like "Shoulda Said," where two improvisers act a scene while two others watch on the sidelines. If the watchers don't like what the actors said, they say "shoulda said," and the actor has to make up a different line in place of what they just said.

The night is always opened with three short games designed to get the audience energized and involved. The two that remain constant in those opening games are "I like my men/women like I like my ," and "Sex is like ."

The longform varies in structure from week to week, and sometimes they have a special theme for it, like last month wherein they involved other performance groups on campus, or last week, in which the longform was a TV sitcom. Audience members were encouraged to bring props and costume pieces to use for the duration of the sitcom. The audience suggested the title, which was determined to be "Halloween Costume Store," and a moral for the episode, which centered around friendship.

Improv Mafia meets every Tuesday at 8:00pm in CVA 145, and it's free, and it's hilarious, so you owe it to yourself to go!

Regina Spektor

So, a friend of mine burned me a data disk of Regina Spektor's entire discography, and all I have to say is wow.  Just wow.  I mean, I knew she was incredible before, because "On the Radio" and "Samson" are awesome and very moving, but I had no idea of the extent of her awesomeness until this morning.  I say "this morning" because I have not slept since Monday, but who needs sleep when you have Regina Spektor?!

Honestly, I can't get over it.  If you haven't listened yet to Regina Spektor, stop reading, go do it, and get back to me.  She is a great musician, in terms of her skill on the piano, but she is not only that, but also is an amazing lyricist!  And when I say amazing, I really do mean it.  Her style varies alot, but almost always features piano, sometimes played in a very poppy "Not the Same" (by Ben Folds) kind of style, but other times it slows down alot, and then we get some beautiful tunes like the aforementioned Samson.  

Spektor tells amazing stories with her music, seriously.  Her lyrics can be wonderfully moving, and she is a great enough musician that it all comes together in a wonderful final product.

This is not the most eloquent I have been about music on here, but like I said, I haven't slept since Monday, so give me a break, please.  So, go check out Regina Spektor.  Later, internet!

"If I Had a Million Dollars" (okay, not quite)

So, this assignment asks what I would do if I had all the money required to pay tuition at ISU, and was required to go out in the world and spend it.  Before I say what I would do with it, I would have to figure out the amount of money I was being given.  The Illinois State Accounts website sets $316.40 as the per credit hour rate of tuition.  We shall assume that I would have taken fifteen credit hours per semester for a total of eight semesters.  This adds up to a grand total of $37,968.  This is not including room and board.

That's alot of money.

As has been demonstrated by the content of my free blogs earlier, my interests, and my field of study (speaking of which, I got accepted into the Arts Technology Music program!).  Therefore, if I got this kind of money, I would spend it on my music production equipment.  This includes midi keyboards (probably more than one), a new computer, Mac Pro of course, and the full versions of all the programs I have ever wanted.  This means Logic, Reason, Cubase, Sibelius, Sonar, and maybe a drum program for good measure.  I would leave enough money to support myself for a while, during which time I would write and produce music and attempt to get picked up by a record label as either an artist or a producer.

The irony, however, is that had I never gone to college, I would never have discovered my interest in writing music, or at least not until much later.  The first music program I used was one called GarageBand, one that comes with every Macintosh.  It is a basic program, not really meant for serious music production, but it is what got me interested.  The whole reason I had the Mac in the first place was because I started college as an art major.  I got it as a graduation present, and my parents talked to people at the university first to see what they should get me. 

I started writing music on GarageBand, and as I got better, I realized its limitations.  I got Logic Pro as a result of this, which is a much more powerful program.  I finally realized that I loved writing music far FAR more than making visual art.  However, were I not an art major, I never would have become a music major.

I guess what I am saying is that I know at this point what I want to do, but if I had not gone to college, I have no idea what I would have been doing at this point.  So in light of this, the question is not one I can really answer.  Our experiences make us what we are, and I cannot imagine what my life would be like if the last two years had been that different.

As an addendum, though, I would not give up my college experience for the world, and not just for the academic and artistic benefits I have received.  You see, college is where I met my boyfriend, someone I am quite confident I can spend the rest of my life with; someone I could not live without at this point.  If I changed my history, no matter how successful I may have become, I would be sacrificing the love of my life, and that is something I could never do.