School however, is a fantastic source for random blogging post ideas. Now that I'm back, you'll probably begin to see a closer interval of posts being put up. So get ready to kick back and read your favorite source of random unapologetically American outlooks.
So where do we start?
Well I suppose we could start with ridiculous pricing.
What do I mean by that?
Friendos, for those of you in college, do you ever feel like your money shoots right down through a bottomless pit into the fiery sulfuric lakes of Hell? With the ridiculous pricing for one semester alone, one has to wonder why the school of your choosing decides to stiff you on money everywhere.
Now let's relax...I'm not going to protest college payments like the toolbags at NYU that barricaded themselves in the school. "This is what Democracy looks like!!!"
(Uploaded by the Associated Press)
I'm going to side track here for a second---Democratic process? Take a look at their own vid--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q6KAg6qEGY
I'd say the second you start barricading an establishment and calling NYU staff members "fucking dirty snakes" peaceful democratic protest has been thrown out of the window. "We need to collectively decide on how to proceed!" "We need to look at the power hierarchy here guys."
Yeah that is hilarious. I wouldn't be caught dead protesting like these morons.
But I digress. While the tuition certainly is expensive, my parents and I were fortunate enough to only have to pay for one year before the Army started doing the heavy lifting. Still however, college likes to screw you out of your money on everything.
I'm extremely thankful that the Army gives me $600 per semester for books, as I had to spend $440 this semester, not including my Physics text book which I haven't gotten yet. Do I think the books are a litttttlllee steep on the prices? Sure, but that's not nearly as annoying as trying to sell them back to the bookstore you bought them from. Lets say I bought a book for $130. Alright, try to sell it back to the book store...they'll at best probably give me back $70. Alright what about a much cheaper $15 book? Ah...probably about $7-8. Even if I hand it back in pristine condition and had never opened it I'll get ripped off.
What about food? Unfortunately I don't have a 'one swipe-and you can get whatever you want' style cafeteria. Well that probably increases the quality of the food then right? That's debatable, I often find that I don't want to eat anything they have to offer...especially when all of the meals look exactly the same on certain nights. Not to mention, they charge you for every single thing at my school. For instance, lets say its beer-battered cod and penne night. The cod comes out to be around $5, the penne will be another $4, if I get a drink thats another couple of bucks. If I get a monster energy drink that's $4.25. If I get a to-go container or to-go cup that's an extra 30 cents. What ends up happening is that if I try to eat like a normal person, I'm destined to fail--I'll run out of money on my meal plan a month before I want to.
So what do you do? You can try and cheat the system and avoid the extra costs. In order to avoid the extra 30 cent cost of getting to-go I'd often buy 'for here' and then just leave with the container if it came in a throw-away paper bin. But the school caught on to that one I guess--they replaced the paper bins with reusable black baskets. Of course, most students said to hell with that..the school bought 250 of these things and within one week they were down to about 10.
Facepalm worthy (Source)
In terms of schools trying to preemptively combat students creating costly damages, my brother told me of a particularly pathetic money scam on behalf of his college: Villanova University.
He told me that students were up in arms after they found out that as part of their fees, Villanova had charged all of their students $200 preemptively to cover costs from predicted stealing. Of course, when students found out about this, they decided 'well what the hell...since I've already been fined preemptively, I might as well start taking stuff from the school.'
Villanova: Teaching Sound Business Ethics since 1842 (Source)
Can anyone be surprised by that outcome? I guess, in a roundabout way, the school made a sound decision in covering the cost of stolen property....but that only occurred on a wider basis than usual because of the school's directive in the first place.
I have no idea how to end this post. I'm not going to advocate NYU-like action against "the man", or try to rally you to protest. No, I'm afraid this is just one of those pet peeves that is annoying..but isn't going to change..not even with a petition campaign (because those really make a difference in the world don't they???).
So since this is The Grog...and I can't do something else too uplifting, you can just watch the nyan cat. That'll make you feel better about your student loans I'm sure.
It's so addicting. (Uploaded by LagoverLP)
If that doesn't work. Please Refer to Epic Sax Guy.
--Fin--
