MLK Library

I cannot understand for the life of me; why the library is consumed with weird people. First and foremost every section in the library was full; I have never seen the library like this, there were literally no seats. My sorority sisters and I decide to go downstairs to the lower level. As we get downstairs we see an empty table; we proceed to take a seat and study. Now mind you we noticed someone’s belongings there. The students next to us informed us that the items were there for a total of an hour and an half. Two hours after we sat down to study a man comes over to us with an attitude grabs his items call us squatters and walks off. Oh my God all I could do was fall out and laugh. The things you see in the library.

Lexical order

n

(Linguistics) the arrangement of a set of items in accordance with a recursive algorithm, such as the entries in a dictionary whose order depends on their first letter unless these are the same in which case it is the second which decides, and so on

·         zeitgeist

noun, often capitalized

: the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era

Lord Have Mercy if it's not one thing it's another. Sometimes I feel like I can't win for loosing. I have faced so much this semester that it's starting to weigh down on me at the end. I thought I was doing things the correct way but I guess I was not. Lord I give it to you. Your word says that no weapon formed against me shall prosper; but you never said that a weapon will not come. I know for a fact that you will not put more on me than I can bare Lord.  I leave it your hands. 

acquiescingpresent participle of ac·qui·esce

Verb:

Accept something reluctantly but without protest. Destiny: Noun : something to which a person or thing is destined : fortune<wants to control his own destiny> 2 : a predetermined course of events often held to be an irresistible power or agency

Men Vs. Women

1.      When it comes to public speaking and interacting in a public setting, women use conversation to build rapport; while men tend to talk to report or give information. Women talk for interaction.  Communication is a way to show involvement, while listening is a way to show interest.  For males, conversation is how one negotiates his status in the group by showing dominance. Conversation is used to preserve ones independence. Females, on the other hand, use conversation to negotiate closeness and intimacy; talk is the essence of intimacy. From even these simple observations, one can see the potential problems when men and women communicate. Women create feelings of closeness by conversing with their friends and lovers. Men don't use communication in this way, so they can't figure out why women love to talk. Often men just tune their women out. Through the lens of a man a women’s language is seen as powerless; while the language of man is powerful. Women constantly find themselves as being framed one down rather than one up. When men do the majority of the talking in meetings women feel that they are dominating the current situation which inhibits them from participating: women often fail to voice their opinions because of the consequences she might face. Women often take more of a ‘backstage’ or ‘backseat’ approach; in other words women are more likely to be reserve while men are more likely to be the vocal ones.  These differing styles can affect women in a myriad of different ways depending on the perspective (males or females point of view). If a woman is constantly dominated by her male counterpart in a work setting it may result in a loss of a job promotion or an invention for other men to treat her with disrespect. From a women’s perspective her communication skills allow her to take 'center stage' because she knows the appropriate times to change up her way of communicating. 

Prevaricate: be deliberately ambiguous or unclear in order to mislead or withhold information.

Forficate: adjective: Deeply forked.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elizabeth Cady Stanton had a very modern way of thinking during the 20^th century. Elizabeth had a very assertive and passionate personality concerning the many injustices facing women and African Americans.  Being that her father was a lawyer she was fortunate to have an insight on laws and the legal system. Elizabeth and her father did not agree on a variety of different issues; the main issue was women suffrage. Elizabeth was first introduced to the idea of abolishing slavery while visiting a cousin. Her cousin informed her that his house was one of the stops on the Underground Railroad. Elizabeth was able to meet and talk with Harriet Tubman; during that time they exchanged different views on slavery and women’s suffrage. In 1868, Elizabeth worked with Susan B. Anthony on the Revolution, a militant weekly paper. From there they formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) in 1869. Stanton was the NWSA’s first president. At that time the organization merged with another suffrage group to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Stanton served as the president of the new organization for two years. Elizabeth often traveled to give lectures and speeches. She called for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving women the right to vote. Besides chronicling the history of the suffrage movement, Elizabeth took on the role religion played in the struggle for equal rights for women. She had long argued that the Bible and organized religion played in denying women their full rights. Elizabeth and her daughter Harriet Stanton Blatch published a critique, The Woman's Bible, which was published in two volumes. The bible received considerable protest not only from expected religious quarters but from many in the woman suffrage movement. As she began to age she became less concerned with suffrage and more interested in divorce reform and other matters during her last years. Elizabeth was able and willing to speak out on a wide spectrum of issues from the primacy of legislatures over the courts and constitution, and women’s right to ride bicycles. Elizabeth was extremely zealous on the women’s suffrage.

Overwhelm: upset, overthrow

Plebiscite:  A direct vote of the qualified voters of a state in regard to some important public question

Mandatory minimum sentencing

Many Americans want to believe that everyone is treated fairly under the law; when it comes to our judicial system many African Americans are not. Mandatory minimum sentencing was implemented to reduce judicial discretion, allow for equally sentencing, while continuing to be tough on crime. Unfortunately this is no longer the case, many African Americans especially drug offenders and addicts have become victims to this system: Their criminal background, role in the crime, and life circumstances have all been ignored when they are given a harsher sentence for a minor drug offence. The ineffectiveness and inequality of the mandatory sentencing has resulted in overcrowding in jails, sentencing disparities, and racial discrimination when it comes to sentencing African Americans in drug related offenses.

Crack cocaine became ubiquitous in the mid 1980’s due to the crack epidemic and the death of Leonard Kevin "Len" Bias. Len Bias an African American college basketball star who was signed with the Boston Celtics overdosed from powder cocaine just two days after his signing. Len Bias’s death brought forth a swarm of media attention as well as the Len Bias law that was enacted by congress in 1986 in response to the death of two all star college players. This law implemented mandatory sentences for many drug related offences.  Since many believed that it was in fact crack-cocaine that caused Bias’s death, crack-cocaine received the strictest regulations. If you were convicted of dealing crack-cocaine you received the same five year minimum sentence as a person who was dealing 500 grams of powder-cocaine.  The law was written with the lack of knowledge regarding the potency of crack, how the drug trade worked, and ways to fix the crack epidemic.  Instead it presented the citizens with an error prone racially bias quick fix. 

To evaporate is to fade away or to literally turn into vapor. If you leave a glass of water out and the water slowly disappears, it's not being consumed by elves; it's evaporating.

Discomfit is occasionally used as a noun to mean embarrassment or distress, but discomfitureis preferred:

Listening

The Art of Listening

Listening (verb) used without object) Means to give attention with the ear; attend closely for the purpose of hearing; to pay attention; heed; obey (often followed by to ):to wait attentively for a sound (usually followed by for ): to listen for sounds of their return: or to convey a particular impression to the hearer. (Dictionary.com)

Learning how to listen effectively and efficiently is an important skill. When one listens one can learn and pick up importation information. Listening includes obeying, paying attention to the person speaking, whether it is picking up on their body language, gestures, expressions, and other non-verbal clues; allows you to know what they  are saying both verbally and non- verbally. Listening shows a sign of respect and that you’re paying attention; everyone loves to be listened to. When you listen you can learn a lot about a person; his or her likes and dislikes, behaviors, etc.  This in turn makes dealing with this particular individual fairly easy.  Listening benefits both parties of the conversation listening allows the other individual to reason with themselves and deal better with the problem they are facing. Most importantly it gives the other person a different perspective or opinion.

Hearing is a physical ability while listening is a skill. Listening skills allow one to make sense of and understand what another person is saying. In other words, listening skills allow you to understand what someone is "talking about".

Words of the Day

criterion n. A standard by which to determine the correctness of a judgment or conclusion. 

 
      crucible n. A trying and purifying test or agency

Time is of the Essence

I guess it pays to be on time. I walk into class today 10 minutes late, now mind you I always take the seat in the far back so I can charge my computer; I look straight to the back and someone is in my damn seat. I have been sitting back there for five weeks straight; now all of a sudden you decide to sit back there. Having a laptop with a charged battery is essential in class especially if you are taking notes.  Unfortunately for me, I did not bring a notebook or pen so I guess I’m shit out of luck, until one of the plugs become available.  I just hope it is soon because as I am typing this my battery is extremely low.
Words of the week:
decapod adj. Ten-footed or ten-armed.
diatribe n. A bitter or malicious criticism.

Tired

As I sit in my 9:00am class, I begin to drift.
To drift off in daze, in realm where subliminal images fill the room
As I look around, I wonder if this could be reality.
I see a few familiar faces but something just doesn’t add up.
I begin to explore, exploring to see what this unusual world has to offer.
Until I am abruptly awaken, my head flips up as my elbow hits the desk.
I was sleeping the whole time.

Vocabulary Words:
approbation n. Sanction.
azure n. The color of the sky.

Maturity

Maturity

I'm not sure if it was due to the fact that my head was hurting or simply because I wasn't feeling the whole vibe of the day; but my 100w class was irritating the shit out of me on Tuesday. It all started when I woke up that morning, I had a terrible headache and was running late to class. We were greeted by our ever so perky and oh so enthusiastic professor; handing us a quiz. Now mind you the quiz is on grammar and punctuation so obviously there is going to be grammar and punctuation issues. Ten minutes in to the quiz my peers decided to poke fun at the sentence that had the word AINT in it. Now let us keep in mind this is not the first or last time some of them have heard the word. A joke or two, a HE-HE-Ho-Ho, and chuckle is fine: but to keep talking about the damn word for fifteen minutes is irritating as F*&k. Wait Wait Wait that's not all, someone had the nerve to ask if the person whose sentence it was, was from the south or if they went to a community college. I felt as though that person was trying to say that person who used the word was uneducated. I was highly offended. One should never generalize or over or under estimate any human being. Just because you live in a southern area does not mean you cannot form  a sentence correctly. Just because you attended community college does not mean that you are not educated. The punch line of it all was that the same people that were poking fun at the other persons sentence failed to realize that everyday is two words every day and not one hahahahaha. What I learned is that some college students are just as immature as kids, people from the south, or community college.

Words Of The Week:
aggrandize v. To cause to appear greatly.
altruism n. Benevolence to others on subordination to self-interest. 

Sticks and Stones

One will never know how their words affect the next. “Oh girl, look at her hair; that is a hot mess”.  “Her fat ass needs to stop eating and join a gym”. Statements such as those can be extremely detrimental to one’s self esteem. Unfortunately the person, who is talking about the other, really doesn’t take that aspect into consideration.  I never realized how my words could affect someone until the other day.  I guess it wasn’t until it hit home when it affected me the most.  So I guess my mission this year is to limit the negative statements I may have to say about others.

Words of The Week:

accost v. To speak to. 

abase v. To lower in position, estimation, or the like; degrade.

Social Intercourse

Social intercourse is a form of intercommunication. Due to the technology era; humans have become so in tune and so attached to their gadgets that they have become disconnected from reality.  A simple “Hello, How are you doing”, is no longer sincere it’s a form of social intercourse. The greeting has now become more of an exchange. It is a form of common courtesy, but in all actuality the person who you are conversing with really doesn’t care.

Words of the week:

Substrate (Noun): Something that is spread or laid under something else

Coruscate (Verb): 1: to give off or reflect light in bright beams or flashes : sparkle

2 : to be brilliant or showy in technique or style