Friday, August 12, 2005

The problem with vacations

I have a problem with vacations. The problem is not that I am away from home, nor that I am (generally) in some obscure part of the country living life as cavemen did (you know, with propane stoves and little tiny portable DVD players).

No, my problem with vacations is that my parents like to take them, and often take them when I'm unable to attend. This in itself is not much of a problem because, as I said, I'm not a big fan of the whole caveman experience. (Besides, I like home and rarely have a desire to "get away from it all.") The problem is that when my parents leave, they leave me in charge of their little restaurant. Oh, apparently they tell all of the refridgerators and freezers down there that they're out of town so that they know when it's time to break.

It doesn't help any that the person who does all the maintenance on them "conveniently" scheduled his vacation time to coincide with my parents'. What's a guy to do? I'll tell you when I figure that out for myself. In the interim, I think I'm going to go defrost the coils again to see if it'll help.

Friday, April 08, 2005

My love of all things Senate

I must say, when it was first proposed to me that I might be good for Senate, I responded positively. In retrospect, this may not have been the best idea in the world. First, this is going to be my busiest semester at school ever - before I took on the responsibilities of Senator. Second, before this, I knew nothing about Parliamentary Procedure or any of the other myriad things that go on within the sacred doors of the Senate Chambers.

I suppose that with regards to the first one - it doesn't really matter because I managed to fit it in and it isn't like Senate takes that much out of me. The second one is where my education really took off this semester, though.

I am now learning that it is not what we can do to serve students that distinguishes us as Senators. It is what we can do to further our own agendas (or even the agendas of the few students we individually represent). Senate isn't about taking student money and putting it to work for the students, it's about hoarding that money for some future date when every student will agree on what project Senate should undertake so that every student is benefited with something the he or she will appreciate and make use of.

I was all wrong all this time. I thought that the MSC-3 little theater renovations might not be the most impactful thing that Senate could do, but I had no better ideas. I also believe that if these renovations are done, students will find more use for the little theater. But I can't believe I was so wrong as to actually VOTE for something that some students might not care about (even if these students that are against it aren't part of my constituency). I can’t believe that I represented the majority feelings of my floor over and above the feelings of dissidents on another floor. Most of all, I can’t believe that we actually took this bill to a vote and passed it because the vast majority of senators representing their floors believed that the majority of their constituents were in support of this bill.

We were so wrong; we should have listened to that dissident minority who felt the money could have been used elsewhere. I think I may recommend that an amendment be added to the constitution that any further senate legislature must be passed unanimously. This will help prevent the minorities from feeling left out, right?