EDITORIAL Your horoscopes suck! Dear Editor My name is Doug Hoderny. I read (or at least try to read) the Beacon every week. I must say I am quite disappointed with the section of your paper that has Horoscopes. I enjoy reading horoscopes (even the ones that aren't mine) just for fun. But I have found that your horoscope col umn is a waste of ink. Bongo, if all you can do is tell people to get a life, I don't think your readers are going Musin Valentine's Day Ok, so I'm single this Valentine's Day. No big whoop. Alright, yes I'm lying. It sucks. However, I will not be hitter about it. Just kidding, I will be completely bitter about it. All around me I see couples preparing to have "The Best Valentine's Day Ever. - Blech. Oh wait, I am guilty of this in past years, so I can't detest them entirely. But what's the big deal with Valentine's Day anyway. I can't figure it out. It really is the commercialization of an emotion. Love. Ah, love. Make me puke. Cupids and hearts and arrows and more hearts and sickening sweetness. Wow, I am really bitter. Sorry. Just in case you don't have a date for Valentine's Day this year either, I think I should offer a few suggestions to make your day a little bit better. For the girls: Listen to depressing music. Being Mr. nice guy by Adam Shiver Central Florida Future Have you ever listened to women talk about what kind of guy they are looking for? If so, then you have prob ably overheard the same things I have. When they get around to naming qualities they want in a man, they al most always list honesty, kindness, a good sense of humor and chivalry. I laugh at this. I think they're just mak ing all that up. One woman explained to me re cently that I was "too nice." Too nice?! Is there such a thing and if there is, is that any reason not to give a good guy a chance? I don't think so. In fact, I don't think there is enough niceness in this day and age. I open doors, pay for dates and strive hard to be caring and sweet, but none of that gets me very far. But the guy who stands in a corner, aloof and playing hard to get? He's golden. He's got no trouble finding a date. The guy who runs around with his buds, gets drunk and finally thinks to call around 1 a.m., hoping he can spend the night? 'No problem, come right on over, a lot of women say.' They flock to him. I just don't get it. These girls must love being the caretakers of their boy- to read the Beacon anymore. I'm not sure if your goal is to offend every body but why can't you at least make them interesting. Here is a sugges tion, go get some from the Internet or something. I thank you for taking the time to read my letter and hope to see some changes in the future. Doug Hoderny MIS, 04 S • • sucks! Depending on your mood it can be slow and angsty or hard and angry. For the first suggestion I highly recommend Sarah McLachlan. She is the queen of sadness, gotta love her. For the latter, I am thinking a little Korn is in order. Or maybe my personal favorite, The Blood Hound Gang "Lift your head up high and blow your brains out." One word: Chocolate. And not the crappy, ruftly heart-shaped boxes of it that you can buy in K-mart. I am talking some mean chocolate. Make fudge! Then eat it all, or if you feel nice, share some with your roommate. For the guys: Since I'm not a guy, the only advice I can offer you is Quake. Take out all of your aggressions of being alone by blowing away virtual enemies. Fun, right? Just leave the anger there. Of course, you can always rent a friends. They get caught in cycles of always trying to "keep his attention" or "win him back" usually employ ing tactics that involve sex. All of their energy and focus is consumed with trying to hang on to a person, so they fail to notice the nice guys all around them. Instead of trying to hold on to a loser, they could be getting to know all the nice guys who out there the real marriage material the guys like me. I also have another guess as to why a lot of girls seem to settle for whomever (make that "whatever") they come across: They are just as shallow as a lot of men. Oh, looks aren't as important as personality and all those other fine qualities that typi cally make their Top-I0 lists. Yeah, right. So, where does that leave me and all the other "too nice" guys? Well, we're going to continue to maintain our honesty, integrity and charm. We're going to keep on opening doors and sharing our feelings. We aren't going to play games. We'll assume responsibility for ourselves and for any hurt feelings we may cause. We will always try to take care of those whom we care for. And will we have time for women who expect less of us? Probably not. Letters to the Editor: Hey! Send your complaints here! I'll listen, promise! behrcoll2@aol.com Kate Galle 'girlie' movie (no not THAT type of movie) and practice crying and showing your sensitive side. Hopefully all this practice can help you score a girl next year. I recommend Steel Mayno or The Empire Strikes Back (hey whenever Han Solo gets dropped into carbonite, it's pretty darn moving). If all else fails, there is always the good old stand-by. Friends. Hang out with all your other single friends and watch a hysterically funny movie. My ring of single friends plan on watching Warne's World and Clueless. Also since Valentine's Day is on Monday, we can always watch WWF RAW. Yeah, that sounds good. A bunch of big sweaty people rolling around in a ring and heating the crap out of each other. Now that's what I call love. Happy V-day! National Student Commentar Bored teens? Here's a creative solution, de-boot the computer. "I' m bored, Mom." "I' m bored, Dad." There isn't a parent who hasn't heard this whine from his or her chil dren. Usually, we just ignore it and, usually, that's good advice. But when 40 percent of this year's college fresh men report that they were "frequently bored" with school when they were high school seniors, that's a warning that can't be ignored. That 40 percent figure is a record, according to the UCLA Higher Edu cation Research Institute, which has been asking freshmen this question for 15 years. It's nearly twice as many students who reported being bored with high school back in 1985. What's the big deal, you almost certainly are wondering. I'm bored a lot of the time at work, you're think ing. And I surely remember being bored back when I was in high school, you recall. But the latest research into young people and the major unhealthy risk behaviors they face alcohol, drugs, sex, tobacco and violence suggests that we should be very con cerned. The federal Add Health survey, the largest study of adolescent life ever by Shepherd Smith Knight Ridder Why is Behrend in three time zones? Dear Editor Can I just ask why they decided to build Behrend across a time zone'? Well, maybe it's not that bad, but the five minute difference from one end of campus to the other makes it re ally hard to get to class on time. Al most every day I haul it from the Nick building to the Academic build ing to find that the not even five minute walk has taken are ten. I have even had an occasion when I was late due to the time gap and class being conducted, surveying more than 90,000 teen-agers, found that adoles cents who don't feel connected to their school, who don't feel as if they're really part of school life, are at risk for unhealthy behaviors. They are more likely to engage in violence, smoke cigarettes, use drugs and alco hol, and engage in early sexual activ ity. Certainly, being bored at school is a pretty good sign that a young per son is feeling at least a bit discon nected from school. So kids being bored is nothing to ignore. That almost half of America's high school seniors are bored should be alarming. We ought to do some thing about it. I have a radical idea to offer. But first, let me admit some thing unheard of for somebody writ ing a newspaper column: I'm nowhere near 100 percent sure this will make 4 difference, though obviously 1 sus pect it will. My idea? Turn off the TV and computer. That's right, turn them off for a while. No, I'm not a techno-Luddite. The computer and television are wonder ful things. In fact, I used an online dictionary to make sure Luddite (one who is opposed to technological change) is spelled correctly. I'm sim- FEBRUARY 11 2000 THE BEHREND BEACON PAGE 9 held over for one minute. It's not just the students, most of who agree with me, that are rushed by Behrend's discordant clocks either. One of my professors complains al most daily about the time gap and not being able to prepare for class before it starts. I understand that it is nearly impossible to synchronize every clock on the campus and that no one really has the time to do it, but limiting the gap would keep us ply making the point that the omni presence of these technologies, par ticularly the computer, marks the be ginning of a new era in the way chil dren grow up. Children will think dif ferently. They will look at the world differently. They will be intellectually stimulated differently. Their attention span will he impacted. Nearly anything can be well used ... or abused. When we as parents or educators depend on televisions, and now computers, to both entertain and inform, we better be darn careful. Computers, particularly, have the po tential of cheating young people out of many positive life experiences. Great pleasure often comes after hard ship or hard work. When youthful curiosity and edu cational inquiries are made too easy through "answers.com," the challenge and joy of learning can easily turn to boredom. And when we eliminate debate or conflict by depending too much on machines and not people for our intellectual pursuits, conflict reso lution and interpersonal skills suffer. If that's the case, and findings from our own focus group studies suggest it is, then we need to rethink how we use this powerful technology. Plus, in from speed-walking everywhere and save us from the "are you going to he this late everyday'?" look. Gretchen Lokey CHEM 02 our focus groups young people corn plained that, while they appreciate the tremendous gains technology has pro vided, they see it as contributing to the accelerated pace of their lives, thus increasing their stress. It's as if they're spinning their wheels, but don't know where they're going. One thing's for sure. This genera tion of young people is attracted to the computer, is in love with the com puter, even more, it seems, than the television. The downside of all this computer experience and expertise will, undoubtedly, he less time spent in activities demanding social inter- action. And less social interaction means more boredom So, if we're alarmed by the latest data on bored high school seniors -- as I believe we should he we need to give our children a little more di rection, and tell them to de-hoot the computer and boot up the world out side their front door a little more of ten. Because teaching our children how to explore the world through low-tech experience is just as important as un derstanding the nuances of Web surf ing. And on occasion, a lot less bor ing or stressful.
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