El Dia De Los Muertos

                Friday 10/30 I was fortunate enough to attend an event called “el dia de los muertos” or the day of the dead for those without a Spanish background. Initially the title was enough to scare someone off and then the first impression when I walked in didn’t help much either. The altar was full of skulls and candles and in the dimly lit room it gave a somewhat eerie feel. It looked like a somewhat dark celebration, however, when the ceremony began I realized that this couldn’t be farther from the truth.

                The first speaker introduced the main idea of the ceremony. This was not a ceremony of evil and mischief but instead an appreciation of the dead. He had said “This ceremony is intended to open a space where the living can be visited by their loved ones that have since passed.” It was an extraordinary way to view how those who are alive and those who are dead can exist together. It was explained the in ancient Spanish culture death was not known to be a scary thing but instead a check point in existence. They saw it as the spirit leaving the body and continuing to a new level of living where one could visit the earth at any given time.

                The altar was instantly noticeable. It was covered in skulls and paper flowers as well as candles and photos of lost loved ones. The skulls initially looked odd and unnerving but I later found out that this was a part of the ceremony. The skulls were made of sugar and were eaten to symbolize being one with the dead. The flowers and other arts were put out to show the love and care towards the lost loved ones and the pictures were simply to commemorate these people.

                In the ceremony they showed a sample of what would be done in an actual ceremony. They gave a sample of a dance that would occur during the evening. It was a traditional dance between a young pair. There were also two authentic songs about love of family. After all of this anyone who wanted could come up and set a flower on the altar for a loved one.

                This ceremony opened my eyes to a new way to view the afterlife. The way that they showed affection for the lost loved ones instead of mourned was a refreshing way to look at death. Not only was this an interesting view at a different culture but a doorway to a different perception of life and afterlife.

Twitter

                The idea of twitter wasn’t necessarily appealing to me at first, however after using it I could see the purpose of having it. This, like every other social networking cite publicizes the events in your life for the purpose of keeping in touch with friends and other contacts. My Twitter page (http://twitter.com/#!/peytonth) is an example of how it is a good way to let everyone know how your day is going or what you are up to at any given moment but there is another extremely important side to it: The way you are viewed as a professional. It is the topic heard in every college classroom at least once and it is nothing to shrug off. How you look online affects how potential employers view you. Pictures at parties or with illegal substances on things like Twitter or Facebook could ruin someone’s opportunities as a professional. This is where things like Twitter become less about letting the world know you just bought new shoes or finding out what Justin Bieber is up to and more about being successful as a young professional as stated in the following reading (College Students Guide: Twitter 101).

                The hiring process must be very daunting. The idea of having a mountain of papers that are supposed to summarize the person’s life on one page and then deciding on the final candidate after just a few short interviews seems like a risky situation. It is only logical that an employer would want to have the most information possible on potential employees. This makes it important to have at least one social networking cite. Without one account in something like twitter employers could easily be scared off about their lack of knowledge about a given person.

                Even though it is true that social networking cites have become important to help employers find more about potential employees I would like to say that I still find the current system to be somewhat broken. The idea of everyone enthusiastically telling every single detail of their life to as many “friends” as possible was, in my opinion, bad enough but now with employers looking at these web pages it has brought a whole new issue to the system. Now instead of freely speaking about how they feel about things they are censoring everything and getting rid of photos that look even slightly similar to a party. The whole system of looking at a person’s photos (which are completely out of context) and viewing a few pieces of a conversation between friends is no way to find out how someone will perform in the work place and ultimately it is becoming irrelevant in my opinion. Due to all the warnings about keeping social networks clean they no longer have the true personal thoughts of a person. Instead the new system had defeated the purpose and turned it into something similar to an interview where everything just shows the side that people want to show. Ultimately the difference between a bad looking Facebook or twitter page and about half the clean ones is that the person with the bad looking page hasn’t left anything out about his or her self. That, in my opinion, is the ultimate flaw about this system. It credits those who keep all the things that they don’t want anyone to know a secret while discrediting someone who may have done the exact same things as the other person but publicized it due to the new social networking craze.

At My Best

I would have to say that I personally feel like I give a good effort on everything that I do. I’ve made it to every possible sports practice, I try hard in class, and I even stay on top of cleaning my dorm. Through all of my day to day activities I go at things with the intention of not looking like a slacker and, generally I do fairly well. I feel that I owe this in large part to high school football and my coach. After all this is where I learned to stay persistent and hardworking. It showed me that achieving your goal is well worth the work that was put into it. This is why I feel without a doubt that I was at my best in football.

When I say “at my best” I don’t mean that I was the most talented. I was starting varsity for the last three years of high school but I went to a school that, in the four years that I attended went winless until my senior year. What I mean by at my best is that I left everything on the field. If I was getting pummeled in a matchup I wasn’t taught to give in but instead be persistent and keep trying until I get success. This was especially true on the homecoming game of my senior year.

With our coach in his second year we were starting to turn the program around that year but it was only just the beginning. We started the season off with two non-conference wins that boosted our confidence but since those first two games we had been unsuccessful and were starting to get discouraged. By the time homecoming week came any possibilities of winning the playoffs were gone so we had nothing to play for but our pride. As we warmed up I started to get the right mindset and focus. We were playing our rivals, Keokuk; a team that won the state championship in division AAA just two years previous. I knew it was going to be a tough game but if we all kept it together and gave it our all we could come out with a W.

When the game started I was up against a ridiculously fast and somewhat agile defensive end (who I later found out went on to be a part of the Hawkeyes.) It was one of the biggest challenges I faced that year in football. In the beginning I got burned with quite a few pass rushes in the beginning of the first quarter, a couple of which resulted in a sac. I was getting discouraged but I was determined to correct my mistakes. After a touchdown by the opposition I was back in on offense and I was ready. We ran the ball more than usual on the second drive which lead to success on my part and on the team’s part as well. It resulted in a touchdown that caught Keokuk off guard. Ultimately, however, they didn’t get too rattled as they were up two touchdowns and a field goal at half. This seemed like the story of every football game that season. We didn’t give up however and responded with a touchdown as soon as we got the ball. We continued to go back and forth, with our team slowly catching up, until the fourth quarter. With a little under three minutes left we had time for one more good drive. At this point I was dead but I kept at it. I could tell that the person I was matched up with was exhausted too so this is where my discipline came into play. I fought the fatigue and we got a touchdown pass within a minute left. It was a truly amazing display of hard work and the drive to do great things.

It sounds foolish to hear someone talk about a high school football game as if it were the deciding factor of one’s life but it really is more than just a game. Playing football taught me hard work, how to learn from mistakes, how to work as a team, and how to refuse to give up. If you ask me those are the keys to success. Football is just the class to which we learn how to be successful and the games are just the tests.

The class of 2014

                I was reading the “The Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2014” and it brought about quite a few different thoughts. One thing it made me think about was, oddly enough, the importance of history. It seems strange but it prompts the question “are we going about business in the right way or is our generation just blindly walking through life?” It seems that in this generation everything is expendable. New versions of the “newest” phone or game system come out within the same year. This is a reflection of our time as one of constant advancement and not necessarily in a good way. This constant change gives something only temporary value because in the next week the “new thing” will be out and make the previous item not good enough.  Whether or not the future will be shallower or not one thing is for sure, this generation is in a completely different world than the previous one.

                The most evident difference is the advancements in technology. One of the first statements in the list was “email is just too slow, and they (our generation) seldom if ever use snail mail.” This is something that I personally notice every day. When email was first created it revolutionized the communication world and the same obviously applied to regular mail but with texting and cell phones even email seems to be a hassle to us. Advancements in music such as mp3s have caused traditionally good music to get old in a week. Also, video games have become a staple in the lifestyle of every kid in our generation to prevent any chance of boredom.

                All these instantly gratifying devices have made everything ultimately less valuable because they can simply be replaced with a new video game or a new smart phone, and instantly. Instead of saving up to buy the newest cd our generation gets any song for just over a dollar. This is a step forward in music distribution but it makes people less appreciative for what they are getting. It is making our generation look like the spoiled rich kid with everything available but a true appreciation for none of it. Ultimately it is giving us a bad image and weakening us if for some reason our country would go into debt because we wouldn’t be able to afford all the useless things that we buy.

                Even though we now have an image of being a spoiled generation who is paying attention to their xbox’s and ignoring the current issues we can still redeem ourselves. If we just open our eyes to the problems at hand we can fix all the issues and stabilize our country. We are living in a post-recession pre-global warming world and it is a perfect opportunity for our generation to fix these issues. It is our duty as the future of the world to better the problems that have been created due to the human race. Now is the time for the class of 2014 to work at making a more environmentally friendly world. We have the capabilities to stabilize our economy if the future businessmen and women are honest and work for the betterment of the company as opposed to the betterment of their bank account. If we as a generation can pull together and work on these issues we are sure to have a great reputation and a more prosperous future for our children and grandchildren.