1. They give kisses, not handshakes.
2. They take naps and close down all stores for official nap time. 3. They don't use leashes for their dogs; the dogs just follow them because they're that cool. 4. They always wear cute outfits. If you're not wearing a cute outfit, you're clearly foreign and thus uncool. 5. They eat gourmet food every day and are somehow smaller than all of us. 6. They say what they mean without adding pointless words to be polite or vague. 7. More dogs exist here than children. 8. Their version of "Black Friday" is an entire month (right now). 9. It's cheaper for them buy a bottle of wine than a glass. 10. They prefer all elbows to be on the table. If your hands are under the table, you're sketchy, foreign, and uncool.
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I want to start this out by saying I know this will be much, much harder when I'm actually graduating. But that does not take away from how I feel right now. My dear Columbia, we aren't over....we're "taking a break."
When we first met, I was young, confused, and a freakishly unnatural shade of blonde. I fell for you at first sight. Jones Hall pulled me into the fast-paced hilarious story that was freshman year. Pi Phi gave me the foundation of family and belonging with the most genuine and powerful women I've ever met, not to mention made me laugh uncontrollably on a daily basis. The people I surrounded myself with made me who I am. We learned from each other; how to care, how to cope, how to go out on a Monday night and ace the exam the next day. So I made myself at home. The years went on and our bond became stronger. Whether I've been running on the MKT trail or shopping downtown, watching the game at Bengals, cranking out projects at the J School, having breakfast at Main Squeeze or chilling at "The Cave," I have been shamelessly in love. I still love seeing the Columns every day, and I love that my house and my friends and my classes are within a ten minute walk of each other. I'll miss the comfort of you in my life, Columbia. You truly have been my home. Through the past couple years, I think you've made me grow up a little bit. You've showed me great times, incredible people, and a valuable education I couldn't have found anywhere else. What I'm trying to say is...dear CoMo, It's not you, it's me. It's time for me to step out of my comfort zone and into Alicante, Spain. A younger, more attractive college town. I'm ready to see the world and learn what it has to teach me. As much as I'll miss you and your English-speaking, Bud Light-drinking ways, Columbia, I think some time apart is for the better. It's not goodbye, it's hasta luego. Renee What makes headline news and what trends on Twitter is not always or even usually what is most important. Not enough people realize that. News stations market and manipulate people just like advertisements, and they aim for popular demand. Social media just spreads that popular demand and makes everyone hop on board whether they understand the current events or not. What I'm getting at is that the Trayvon Martin case should not be such a huge national discussion...it's not a race issue. It's Florida's ridiculous laws and lack of evidence. Our country legally permits us to carry guns and kill people under certain circumstances. When laws like that actually come into play, everyone flips out....wonder why.
During the course of the trial (June 10 - July 13), while CNN was coming up with dramatic headlines and everyone was protesting and tweeting their fingers off about Trayvon and racism, 54 people were shot dead in Chicago alone (according to a Huffington Post article), most of whom were male and many who were under the age of 19. I could pull up the article again to recall the percentage that were black, but it just really doesn't matter. Why are we still bringing race into every case? The point is that there were 54 lives just like Trayvon's lost to gun violence in just one city that all go unnoticed by national news in the shadow of a heated headline-winning case. What happened to Trayvon is tragic and in my opinion, unjust. But it is in accordance with the law. Under the "Stand Your Ground Law" in Florida, when a person feels that their life is being threatened by someone else, they are allowed to choose not to run away and instead fight back and kill the person. That's pretty messed up to me, but that's what Zimmerman did. And due to lack of contradicting evidence, it seems like what he did would've been legal in any other state too under self-defense. Therefore, the jury ruled him not guilty. It's sad, but our pro-gun society makes situations like this inevitable. Those 54 people in the past month are a small sample of the gun violence happening throughout our country, not to mention the major national tragedies like Newtown and Aurora. Zimmerman owned his weapon legally and was protected under self defense. He made an idiotic decision when he shot Trayvon dead and was probably a racist prick for following him in the first place, but where is that going to get us? It's over. Time to turn our heads toward why this is happening. Those 54 people in Chicago, were they killed by legally owned guns? Probably. Anyone can get a gun these days. James Holmes ordered insane amounts of ammo off of a well-known gun supply company that pops up right away on Google (claims to be based in St. Louis by the way...great). And I bet many of the killers behind those 54 cases got away with it, and many of them probably could have under protection of law. Because you know what's ironic about all of this? There was only one state left where it was not legal to carry a concealed firearm with a permit, and that state just recently passed the law so that it is legal. That state was Illinois. CCW is supposed to provide more protection, so that someone with the permit for a concealed weapon could legally take action in case of emergency, but that was technically exactly what Zimmerman did. He was utilizing his right to kill the boy with the Skittles. Do you see why we shouldn't assume to fight fire with fire? Or firearms with firearms... I'm going to backtrack. The Trayvon Martin case is a tragedy and is showing how one lawyer can be better than another and how lack of evidence screws over everything. Zimmerman should be in jail because he's an asshole, but he's technically not a proven criminal. But how this turned into riots across the United States about racism can be blamed on the media. The stations are incredibly biased. Even if most of them are geared somewhat toward my views, that's even worse because I need to be wary of the facts they're leaving out. Several news magazine covers compared Trayvon Martin to civil rights activists and blacks that were lynched in the South...that's an extremelely unfair comparison in my opinion. And like I was saying about the popular demand thing...this case is nothing compared to the Mexican drug lord/human trafficker that was just captured or the devastation sweeping Egypt. This is one kid. Americans need to get their heads out of their asses (and/or their Twitter feeds) and see what is happening around the globe, because with our gun-happy nation's ignorance and constant criticism for the president we could very well be next. Majors are a funny concept. What seems like a second ago we were little kids and we had a "favorite subject". Math and I didn't get along and science didn't go so well either. I liked art and English. When we were in high school, all of the sudden talking about our favorite subjects turned into a heated rush to figure out what we were possibly about to do with our lives. I still liked art and English. So to put it simply, I listened to my proud alumni parents and wound up at the University of Missouri, the first journalism school in the world and one of the top journalism schools in the country. When I came here, I had not the slightest clue what journalism was. I thought I didn't like news. That sentence in itself is hilarious to me. News isn't something to prefer or dislike, I've come to learn, it is a responsibility. It interconnects our entire world in a constant story, with twists, turns, death, drama, war, and crises as well as heroism, success, and entertainment. It educates us and gives us something important and real to discuss. So that's news...but journalism is a much more complicated concept. In a broad sense, it is the strategic investigation and presentation of current ideas. I think the "current" part of journalism is what has been so grasping to me lately. It is constantly changing.
So how can I use my website as a form of journalism? I'm doing it right now. Whatever my fingers type away and send out for the world to see might not be considered "newsworthy," but it certainly contributes to the constant intertwining of ideas that is the Internet. And even if this blog only benefits myself, at least my thoughts are becoming part of a visual record instead of forming and evaporating one after another. So I'm going to practice finding my "voice." Some posts might be comical or satirical like my Campus Basement articles, while some might be insightful, informative, or critical. I'm not exactly sure what's most appropriate for a blog like this, but I just know I can use it as a collection of what I've always been interested in - art and English. |
Renee Fleddermanncopywriter Archives
June 2016
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