Mast blog

2009-10-18T20:04:00.000-07:00

Some of the strangest things you will ever see will happen while you are on a college campus. For some reason getting to leave home for the first time and living on your own seems to give people the right to act completely insane like they never learned how to act in a social setting. The things I've seen can be categorized as sick, crude, strange, and maybe even funny to a select group of people.

For one example I was walking back to class about a week ago when i heard strange noises coming from the second floor of mariner hall. When i looked up i observed three people holding baby dolls and wearing Michael Jackson masks. For some people this may be considered funny. For me it was in ill taste. For others however, it could have been taken as extremely offensive and crude. The people who participated in this event can be seen about once a week outside mariner participating in some random act of stupidity in which they feel inclined to share with the whole campus. This is just one of the strange things i have experienced while living on a college campus.

My College Life

2009-10-11T15:58:00.000-07:00

College seems to be this crazy, unorganized, and unforgiving environment when you first start out. In truth it sometimes is. You are expected to take care of you laundry, clean your room, feed yourself, show up to formation at seven thirty, and overall become independent. This transition is sometimes hard for some people to adjust to and it's visible in their behavior for the first few weeks of class. They are the ones either looking scared and scampering to class or the ones who over compensate and try to be overly friendly or aggressive towards other freshman.

Some people seem to have an easier time adjusting to this new way of life. These people will usually be somewhat early to class, knowing exactly what's going to happen in that class, and will usually have their books read. These people are the ones who on the weekend are out having a good time because they stay on top of everything and don't procrastinate when they have assignments due. The people who are to busy getting their social lives together don't have enough time to get their assignments done. These people are usually miserable because they are forced to study all night without any sleep. This is the normal split between freshman.

Indigenous Rights

2009-09-15T20:34:00.000-07:00

We, as citizens of the United States of America, believe that all persons have unalienable rights. Do we know what we mean by that? What exactly are these rights, and who is there to protect them? People need these rights in order to preserve their way of life.

Indigenous people should have the unalienable rights to preserve their culture, just like most people do. They should be able to share their culture the way they see it and not have it mutilated and then published. Scholars should know better than most people how important it is to portray both sides of the story. They should be illustrating the peoples view as best as possible in their publications. If a people see that the information in the publication does not accurately portray they view their culture, they should have the right to revoke that particular publication.

Indigenous people should also have the rights to the symbols of their culture. the should be able to keep it entirely to themselves if they see fit. Symbols of culture should not be used as a source of profit for by third parties under any circumstances. On the opposing side, if an indigenous people wanted to place their symbols on post cards or t-shirts or coffee mugs, they have that right.

If we as Americans are proud enough of our culture to take it and keep it as our own, we should also allow all others the same privilege. The privilege to take pride in their culture, and keep it as their own.

Autobiography

2009-09-09T09:53:00.000-07:00

Michael Eugene Smith was named after both his grandfathers. His first name comes his father’s father and his middle name comes from his mother’s father. He was born in the town of Lewisville, Texas, but he didn’t stay long due to his father’s job. He has lived on the east and west coasts and loved them both. He currently lives on the Gulf coast where he attends Texas A&M at Galveston.

Michael has entertained many hobbies and sports throughout the years, but three of them stand out the most to him. The first is his love of music. When he was in sixth grade, he decided to join the middle school concert band. Michael was then chosen to play French horn and has never stopped playing since. He was fortunate enough in recent years to march in the rose parade, St. Patrick's day parade in chicago, and entertain many high ranking military officers at the Dallas military ball. Michael’s second love was baseball. He played every position on the field and was usually the most versatile player on the team. Unfortunately Michael spent too much time practicing for baseball that his grades fell, so he was forced to quit. Michael’s most prominent and life changing was, and still is, ancient ocean going vessels.

Michael’s fascination of ships and other sea going vessels started as a school project in second grade. The teacher assigned each student a subject on which they were to collect research and give a presentation on. Michael was assigned the topic of submarines. As soon as he started researching, he knew he had found a lifelong passion. He went so far as to create a scale model of the confederate submarine The Hunley completely out of balsa wood. However, this was only the spark of his passion.

Michael was inspired even more when he began to read novels by Clive Cussler. Cussler’s books were always filled with adventure and almost always involved a plot involving archeological finds involving the sea. Even though these books excited Michael, he knew they were nothing more but fiction. Then Michael read a book that told the stories of actual searches and excavations that Cussler funded with money from his books. Michael knew from that moment on exactly what he wanted to do with his life.

Michael began to map out the course he would have to take in order to accomplish his goal. Cussler had mentioned a few times in his books a school called Texas A&M Galveston, so he looked up the school. Michael then decided that he would anything in order to go to Texas A&M Galveston. He applied to the school and was accepted six days later into the Maritime studies program. This is Michael Eugene Smith’s life thus far, and he has hopes of writing an autobiography of much more interest one day.