The Long and Arduous Journey to Academic Excellence

Posted by kmorgan26 on

I have an Aunt that just informed me that she has completed her Associates Degree in Criminal Justice.

I know the knee-jerk reaction of people would be to praise her and tell her how she should be proud of herself, etc. After all, she’s 62 years old, and it’s never too late to get an education. Blah blah blah.

Forgive me for not being impressed.

Not only am I not impressed but it has cheapened the entire concept of a college education in my mind. Before I ramble on too far, let me justify my attitude with an illustration. Nearly a year ago, I received a text message from my Aunt soliciting help. Here’s the conversation:

What do I do with that? Seriously. There was no context given. There was no previous discussion of her studies. In fact, I had no idea she was taking classes. This was just sent out of the blue.

I thought…maybe she could better express herself with an email. It could be the cell phone that’s keeping her back. So I asked her to send the problems via email. I suggested that she copy and paste what the professor has assigned. This is what I got from her:

1.3the exercise #5
You have to multiple and also make simple.
5.) 17/18 3/5
Multiple 17 3 and also you need to multiple 18 5 and this comes up to 51/90 then you need to make this simple 3 goes into every number evenly so you have an answer of 51/90=17/30

ALL CAPS NAME SIGNATURE

She told me that’s what the professor sent to her. Unlikely. It would appear as though she was to multiply and simplify fractions; a task that I believe I learned in the 4th or 5th grade. This doesn’t explain the numbers from the cell phone conversation, but it’s really not the point. What I would like to know is, what sort of institution would find a person like my Aunt worthy of any sort of degree? I know that her daughter finished much of her course work, but were there no exams?

I never heard from her again about anything regarding her classes until this weekend. I have recently become addicted to homemade yogurt parfaits, so I posted a photo of one of my concoctions on Facebook. This was her comment regarding my picture:

It does look yummy wish you could come to my graduation get together on the 12 graudate the 6th

Never mind the Facebook etiquette. Was this a serious invitation? I really don’t know. She only lives 1000 miles away, maybe I could swing by! I then got this private message from her overnight:

Keinn send me a card want to keep them to remember everyone

I don’t mind the misspelling of my name really. But isn’t this a bit audacious? Wouldn’t it be a bit more proper to send out invitations? I’m not exactly Ann Landers or anything, but “hey, send me a card” seems a bit crass for even me. She wants to remember everyone? Hey, I’m on your Facebook. It’s gonna be pretty hard to forget me. What this is, in reality, is a solicitation for money. You’re just gonna have to trust me on this one.

I’m not going to send a card, but I’m not sure what to do. I’ll probably just blow her off.

Day 1- P90X

Posted by kmorgan26 on

This morning I woke up at 4:30AM…about 30 minutes earlier than I have been getting up in the recent few months. I have been walking in the morning with my wife in the park…a 2.5 mile walk.

I didn’t want to stop the morning walks once I started P90X because it’s a good way to start the day, not just for the health benefits, but also to start each day with my wife.

Once the walk was finished, it was back to the house to start my Day 1 workout. I knew that I wasn’t going to finish the first day with ease, but I didn’t think it would kick my ass as much as it did! I’m actually excited that it did though. There is a lot of room for improvement. I’ll be interested to see how I improve over the coming weeks.

The Arm & Back exercises were really nothing new. I was in the Army for 20 years and I suppose I’ve done enough early morning exercises to know what it feels like, but I retired nearly 7 years ago, and my body hasn’t had this sort of wake-up in a long time.

The Ab Ripper-X was killer. I really couldn’t keep up with many of the exercises. I tried to do at least a few of each, but I was so burned already and I felt really nauseous, so it wasn’t too pretty.

It took close to an hour to recover to the point where I felt good again. I showered and had a hard time even reaching up to shampoo my hair! Gotta love it. I didn’t have my normal omelet for breakfast. I only had my recovery drink on the way to work and a few raisins and peanuts along with a cup of oatmeal once I got to work. I’ll survive the day eating my banana and more nuts and raisins with an oatmeal here and there.  I have to get my food prepared the night before or I’ll have to get up at 4:00!

Overall, it was a rough experience. I’m looking forward to Day 2.

SEC Cooler Talk

Posted by kmorgan26 on

I took my wife to get a procedure done at a local hospital today, and while I was waiting, I heard a couple of “good ol’ boys” talking SEC Football. Of course they were talking about this past weekend’s SEC Championship Game, among other things:

Florida just didn’t come ready to play. They weren’t ready to play Alabama, that’s for sure.

If only Urban Meyer had talked to these two prior.

They went on and on talking about SEC football, and how superior the conference was to the others in the nation. One of the guys talked about how there were several teams that were still undefeated going into the bowl games. He listed the teams as:

  • Alabama
  • Texas
  • Florida
  • TCU
  • Boise State

Yes, they listed Florida as one of the “undefeated” teams in the same conversation where they both agreed that Florida wasn’t ready to play on Saturday. Of course, the team that they forgot to mention was Cincinnati, which happens to be the team that Florida will play in the Sugar Bowl. I wanted to turn around and correct them, but what does this Yankee know?

The conversation went on about how TCU and Boise State might be undefeated, but they don’t play in the SEC, so it’s just not the same thing. I will agree with this to a degree, but they took it a bit too far. They both agreed that even the worst team in the SEC could beat just about any of the other conferences’ best teams. (Never mind the fact that Vanderbilt lost to Army this year.)

Sure TCU is undefeated, but look who they play!

Again, I wanted to turn around and ask them if they knew that Utah was in the same conference as TCU…and ask them if they remember how Utah did in their bowl game last year. Does 31-17 ring a bell?

SEC Football is no doubt fun to watch, and I’d agree that they have the best conference in the nation. But I can’t buy into the fact that they are so far ahead of the rest of the nation. The gap isn’t that large really. If anything, the gap between some of the traditionally less  competitive schools and the powerhouses has gotten smaller.

One way to settle it. Let’s have a playoff!

Obama’s Speech

Posted by kmorgan26 on

I watched President Obama make his “case for war” speech while I was doing some cardio work at the gym this evening. I have not poisoned my brain with the analysis of the talking heads yet, so I wanted to put my thoughts down before I read anyone else’s opinion.

What strikes me is the guy can’t stop pointing fingers at President Bush. He seems to take jabs at him as if he’s running against him in some sort of political campaign. He started off the speech by basically saying that we would have won the war back in 2001/02 if we hadn’t been involved in Iraq. He’s up there giving a speech to an auditorium full of cadets as the Commander in Chief, and he puts on a full-blown demonstration of finger pointing.

He seems to always talk about how we’ve done <insert perceived bad US policy here> for far too long, and now he’s going to come riding in on his white horse and fix it. We’ll see.

I’d like to see more focus on the future, and more leadership from our president than playing the political blame game that seems to do so often.