2008 Woodie Awards
Bow your heads and give thanks
Jason Klein
Issue date: 12/2/04 Section: Op/Ed
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Thanksgiving with the Klein family is always an adventure, as I'm sure it is with every other family known to man. Thanksgiving is the only holiday when one of the vital preparations is violating a turkey with fistfuls of stuffing.
At my house, besides my sisters and I getting yelled at by my mother, we continue one other tradition every Thanksgiving; we go around the table and say what we are most thankful for.
I am sure that there are some other families that do the same thing. Only in my family, however, will my grandfather ruin it for everyone by thanking "Viagra." I respect my grandfather for his honesty, and it got me thinking: what am I honestly thankful for?
I am thankful for professors who do not make attendance mandatory. These professors realize that we are no longer in high school, and if we fail to show up to class, it will be our test grades that suffer.
I am thankful also for those professors who believe in papers and take-home examinations instead of tests. Most of the information that we are forced to memorize for an exam is information that we will never need again, and yet some professors feel that this transformation is the most important we will ever learn.
Take-home tests and papers test understanding of a subject and the ability of a student to apply it, without the stress of an examination and the pointless memorizing of useless trivia that is not even on Jeopardy.
I am thankful for Instant Messenger. Without this amazing application I do not know what I would do with my life. There is no better way to procrastinate than to check away messages over and over again.
Without Instant Messenger how else would we be able to "stalk" our old high school acquaintances that we haven't spoken to "in forever", but keep on our Buddy Lists "just in case."
Speaking of stalking, I am thankful for "The Facebook," which takes the art of stalking to whole new levels.
I am an honest person, I know that I only have about four friends (on a good day), but according to Facebook, I have over one hundred! I have people from high school I did not even talk to back then listed as my friends!
I am thankful for Thanksgiving break. I love being home (free laundry and home cooked food). I am thankful that fall semester is almost over.
As a senior, looking back now is weird. Has it really been three and a half years? Sometimes, one prefers not to look back. If we live in the present, we avoid the future.
But as the semester winds down, and each day brings me another day closer to graduation I must admit I am thankful for every second that I have spent here at Muhlenberg College.
I know we all complain a great deal about this "bubble" we live in, but this just might be the last opportunity for some of us to be in a bubble, and that's a scary thought.
Freshman, Sophomores and Juniors: trust me, the time flies and these are the years that you will always remember. It is truly important that you cherish them, and be thankful.
At my house, besides my sisters and I getting yelled at by my mother, we continue one other tradition every Thanksgiving; we go around the table and say what we are most thankful for.
I am sure that there are some other families that do the same thing. Only in my family, however, will my grandfather ruin it for everyone by thanking "Viagra." I respect my grandfather for his honesty, and it got me thinking: what am I honestly thankful for?
I am thankful for professors who do not make attendance mandatory. These professors realize that we are no longer in high school, and if we fail to show up to class, it will be our test grades that suffer.
I am thankful also for those professors who believe in papers and take-home examinations instead of tests. Most of the information that we are forced to memorize for an exam is information that we will never need again, and yet some professors feel that this transformation is the most important we will ever learn.
Take-home tests and papers test understanding of a subject and the ability of a student to apply it, without the stress of an examination and the pointless memorizing of useless trivia that is not even on Jeopardy.
I am thankful for Instant Messenger. Without this amazing application I do not know what I would do with my life. There is no better way to procrastinate than to check away messages over and over again.
Without Instant Messenger how else would we be able to "stalk" our old high school acquaintances that we haven't spoken to "in forever", but keep on our Buddy Lists "just in case."
Speaking of stalking, I am thankful for "The Facebook," which takes the art of stalking to whole new levels.
I am an honest person, I know that I only have about four friends (on a good day), but according to Facebook, I have over one hundred! I have people from high school I did not even talk to back then listed as my friends!
I am thankful for Thanksgiving break. I love being home (free laundry and home cooked food). I am thankful that fall semester is almost over.
As a senior, looking back now is weird. Has it really been three and a half years? Sometimes, one prefers not to look back. If we live in the present, we avoid the future.
But as the semester winds down, and each day brings me another day closer to graduation I must admit I am thankful for every second that I have spent here at Muhlenberg College.
I know we all complain a great deal about this "bubble" we live in, but this just might be the last opportunity for some of us to be in a bubble, and that's a scary thought.
Freshman, Sophomores and Juniors: trust me, the time flies and these are the years that you will always remember. It is truly important that you cherish them, and be thankful.