Fantasy of Being in the Denouement

SW 56 ST, a main Miami thoroughfare that runs right outside
my apartment complex, on a cloudy yet stunning afternoon.

I have a fantasy, which I try to make a reality as often as possible, of being in the denouement of something. It gives me giddy pleasure to be the least one to leave a classroom on the last day of school, the last one to be on campus after everyone’s left to their homes, the last one to witness a coworker’s last day of work, the last one to leave a newly defunct facility or home. I’m not quite sure why, but I’m always looking for ways to be the last one to leave from something.

During the week of finals for the fall semester, for example, it would give me great pleasure to be the last one to leave from the Honors College lounge after the last day of finals.

Maybe the fetish stems from having an appreciation for the feeling of nostalgia, and for the history of something. The most touching part, for me, of the history of a building or society or vehicle or group is its end; I’m always fascinated by how things come to an end, why they come to an end. In doing research for my term paper about public transit this semester, for example, one of the most touching anecdotes I came across was about the night the last trolley car ran in Miami. In the late 1920s, a lonely trolley car rumbled to the car barn as some officials from the transit agency were sitting inside, experiencing the last ride. One of them played his harmonica, lending an overdramatic and picturesque tone to the last night of active trolley service in Miami.

I don’t know why these things fascinate me, but they do. Maybe I’ll find out someday.

Fantasy of Being in the Denouement

People's Fears of One Another / College Acquaintances

I’ve made a boatload of acquaintances throughout this first semester in college. I’ve also learned the

A shot of my ENC1101 class, bright and early at 9am!

I had the privilege of going to the Everglades this semester
with a group of Biology and Natural Science students.
It was a fantastic and confidence-instilling experience
that was made better by the people I went with. 

Right after the Swamp Walk, it was time to
have lunch at the Grove, of course!

Two colleagues of mine engaging in serious discussion.

I also had the opportunity of attending a tour of Coconut Grove
hosted by (unbeknownst to me) famed historian, Dr. Paul
George (who was also my history teacher for the fall semester).
Here's a shot featuring me and some of my pals during the tour!

I'd call this a "transit picture", just because it describes
the day-to-day atmosphere of the Honors Lounge so well
(the Honors Lounge is a computer lab, conference room and
sitting area reserved for us Honors College students). 

Another one of my classmates as we slouch around
waiting for our professor to arrive.

On one of the last days of the semester, I was invited to a
lunch in Downtown with some of my colleagues!
Being the bohemian teenagers we are, we took the Metromover
(Downtown Miam's light rail system) to our destination.

 value of the word “acquaintances”, particularly when it’s contrasted with the word “friends”. While I became friendly with the idea of separating the two terms as far back as when I left high school and felt the wrath of falling out of touch with many people I’d considered to be pals, I’ve really come to terms with it now that a semester of college has transpired and now that I’ve gotten the chance to engage in social interactions which have made the distinction undeniable.

From a logical perspective, people strike friendships based on common interests. Two people that like or do the same things are more likely to strike up a relationship than two people who don’t. The same perspective typically applies to people bound by a common neighborhood or frequently visited location, such as a church or a classroom.

While such a perspective is correct, it fails to account for the fact that such commonalities do not lead to “friendships” but rather to “acquaintanceships”, if you will. Just because I am taking the same class as someone else, or the same bus route as someone else; just because I am sitting at the same table as someone else, or reading the same textbook as someone else does not mean that I am entitled to a long-standing friendship with that person. While it may become easier for me to break the ice with that person given our outstanding commonality, it will not be any less difficult to take the relationship farther.

I feel as though a critic of such a train of thought would immediately call the perspective pessimistic. They’d likely argue that commonalities like the ones described are indeed the way to friendships; that exploiting the activities or circumstances that bring one together with others is precisely the best way to make relationships that will “last a lifetime” (placed in quotes because of the airy, feel-good nature of that phrase).

But there’s a caveat to such an attitude that bears discussion more often than not, and that caveat has been immortalized in modern psychology by something called “the Dunbar number”. In the early 90s, British anthropologist Robin Dunbar proposed that humans can only comfortably maintain 150 stable relationships, a figure above which rules commanding the relationships (and making it less than stable) must be set if stability is to be retained. Dunbar explains that a stable social relationship is different from situations like knowing who someone is but not having active social contact with them (in which case the number might be much higher because the “relationship” becomes just an element of accumulated knowledge and would become dependent on long-term memory size).

In an “Age of Information” where “everything is on the Internet” (according to rapper Lil B), social networks like Facebook who tug at people’s notions of social approval and fame by way of constantly suggesting friends and always reminding you to give birthday gifts to people have also created a difficult set of expectations for people who take pride in their social relationships, like me.

For one, it creates the sense that each and every acquaintance one makes is a friendship waiting to bloom. In other words, every person with whom there is a commonality is a person with whom there must also be a serious attempt made to exact a serious and sustainable relationship. While it sounds like an agenda that could only do more good than bad, it’s actually not, especially when exacerbated by the fact that a person like me is in a situation where meeting new people on a regular basis is the norm. As a college student, I’ve found myself entrenched in tens of different clubs and meetings and rooms with different people more often than not, and the thought of having a responsibility unto myself to try to be “friends” and not simply “acquaintances” with as many of them as possible genuinely tires me out.

Part of the reason why that’s the case is because not everyone takes as much pride in their social relationships as I think I do. There are people – and this has been a truth that’s been difficult to grasp – that do not even think about social expectations like the one I’m having trouble filling, be they a part of the “Age of Information” or not. There are people who are also in situations where they see new faces more often than not, but do not find themselves compelled to strike a relationship with them that goes farther than a “Hello”. In some cases, people even have trouble mustering up the courage or the respect to greet others!

I could analogize my dilemma to a naïve boy who goes out of his way to do something, deluded in his belief that someone will care if he accomplishes it. I see a picture, for instance, of a schoolboy aligning all the chairs in the lunchroom because the teacher told one malfeasant punk to scoot his chair under the table. The boy will have fomented an immutable resolve to ensure the chairs are in order, only to meet a half-hearted “Good job, Johnny!” exclamation from his teacher, who wouldn’t dare pass up the opportunity to reward Johnny for work that is otherwise unnecessary and dumb.

I’ve felt like this on occasions where I lent unnecessary weight to my social relationships … and because of it, I’ve found myself saying “Hello” and not being greeted back on more occasions than I’d care to account for. I’ve found myself honoring commitments when the other person wasn’t really planning on doing so. I’ve found myself sending text messages asking about the other person’s doings and whereabouts, in vain. And though I would typically blame an errant world for all this, I now understand what’s going on.

The tiredness I sometimes feel when my own personality compels me to be a part of as many peoples’ lives as possible is likely the one that other, more rationally-thinking people are righteously trying to avoid. Just like the automobiles of the 21st century, they’re doing their best to be efficient human beings, and as a part of that envelope they’ve decided to very carefully manage their social relationships. They’ve decided to very carefully pick and choose who to add to their growing Dunbar number.

Yet one unsettling thought remains. I don’t think that people make decisions to be so discriminant based solely on concerns of mental efficiency. I think the decisions can also be attributed to fear. Fear of developing friendships with others that - as a result of constantly changing living and working and studying arrangements – might fall by the wayside and end up hurting them in the long-run because of it. I’m not alone in this train of thought – at least two people that I’ve met (initially “acquaintances” but currently on an upward trend) have commented on the same thing.

Truth be told, that’s a pretty good thing to do. It makes me think, hey, I’m only nineteen; if I try to add a lot of people now, I’ll be out of room before I even start my professional career! Whether avoiding heartbreak or being as efficient as a Prius is the motivation, this agenda of managing your number appropriately isn’t so bad. It just takes someone like me some getting used to.

People's Fears of One Another / College Acquaintances

In Response to Miami Gardens Police Harassing the 207 Quickstop

This article is in response to the Miami Herald investigation published here. The story is continually updating; this response was composed shortly after the story first broke.  

The Coconut Grove Metrorail Station.

It’s clear that racism still holds a presence in today’s society, albeit in a different form than it was fifty or so years ago. Last week, I was sitting down on a bench at a Metrorail station when I overheard an argument going on between a Hispanic-looking man and a black security officer who wasn’t letting him through to the trains because he did not have enough credit on his EASY Card. The Hispanic man did notice, however, how the same security officer let another older woman through (whose ethnicity I can’t recall) even though she didn’t have credit on her EASY Card. Visibly upset, the Hispanic man stormed off with his female accompaniment, who was urging him to let the thing go with a combination of body language and spoken words. The man and his woman drew increasingly closer to the bench I was sitting at, meaning I heard it loud and clear when he said, in Spanish, that that security guard was a motherfucking nigger and that had he been black, she likely would’ve let him enter the station.

The security guard won’t be told to sit in the back of the bus when she goes home, nor will she have to endure going to a separate bathroom nor use a separate water fountain when she’s out and about. But she’ll likely endure the often unspoken contempt that people of other ethnicities may have for her and other people like her.

Some, if not all of this energy, likely fuels the encroachment Miami Gardens police have made upon Alex Saleh’s 207 Quickstop convenience store. I’d be hard-pressed to find out that the police officers working the store and working Miami Gardens at large don’t ever find themselves sharing the thought that Miami Gardens is as crime-ridden because of its black population. Certainly, any white or Hispanic police officer (maybe even the black officers) must think this at some point. 

MGPD causing a ruckus at the Quickstop.

I'm not saying they do. This is my opinion.

Add to that the fact that Miami Gardens has indeed been crime ridden for so long (since its incorporation 10 years ago) and you've got a formula for police over-activity.

Granted, the unrelenting arrests of Quickstop clerk Earl Sampson fail to stand the test of any reason. There's a difference between being quick to suspect the business of a man of any race walking around dark neighborhood streets at odd evening hours versus arresting the same man over and over again while he's obviously just doing his job. 

If surface reasoning can't explain something, something deeper must be gnawing at the hearts of the people involved, making them into monsters. If that irate man at the Metrorail station was quick to dismiss the security officer as a black bitch, imagine what a police officer enforcing a zero-tolerance policy is capable of given similar sentiments. The clear breach of common sense that is evident in the occurrences inside Alex Saleh's Quickstop is, quite literally, the sum of all fears. A still prejudiced police force being tasked with turning a crime-ridden and "blacks-filled"city around is immaturely handling a sensitive situation. Since they are the police force, though, it's as if there's no alternative.

Save for Alex Saleh. This wise, wise man now has the power to give an entire police department a run for its money and its prejudice. Those videos of evident police harassment, coupled with formally documented anecdotes of the same, will be the end-all be-all of the MGPD or, so help me, I'll call foul on the entire institution that is American democracy. I sympathize with the MGPD's efforts in attempting to turn the Gardens around, but the Quickstop is an example of inefficient operations. Alex Saleh, licensed to carry a firearm, seems to have the crime situation at the Quickstop - if even existent - under control.

He should cover up the zero-tolerance sign that the MGPD forced him to install on the back of the store with a sign that reads "Days Since Police Harassment: 0". The day he has to change the count is the day that change will come to Miami Gardens.

Quickstop employee Earl Sampson.

One of the sources cited in the article even said it: zero-tolerance policies work only if the area police force is trustworthy. Given their actions, the MGPD could hardly be considered trustworthy or righteous. 

I not only support Saleh's push for a civil rights lawsuit, but also celebrate his pure intellect: installing those cameras was the best thing he could have ever done. You can't get any less partial, less predicted and less biased than a surveillance camera. I also tip my hat to the Miami Herald for their impressive journalistic work. May be the logic of this world be tipped in Saleh's favor.

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• Caught on Video: Miami Gardens Cops Will Protect and Serve the Heck Out of You
• Police State: Store video camera catches repeated police harassment against employee
• Racial Profiling In Miami Gardens: One QuickStop Employee Arrested 258 Times
• Miami Gardens Police Harassment?
• Miami Gardens defends cops accused of harassing, rousting store's clientele
• Fred Grimm: Miami Gardens police make much ado about nothing in arrests
• Bluesun 2600: Miami Gardens police arrest black man for trespassing 56 times -- at the store where he works - Boing Boing
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• Caught on Video: Miami Gardens Cops Will Protect and Serve the Heck Out of You

In Response to Miami Gardens Police Harassing the 207 Quickstop

Lil B

Lil B is a hip-hop musician from the Bay Area who's earned my respect and fairly loyal following in

Lil B generally uploads very unique (and obviously
photoshopped) pictures of himself to his Facebook page.
This one is but a sample.

A still from B's music video, "Eat A$$".

A very classic and widespread picture of the Based God
in one of his more "rare" outfit. 

the weirdest of ways. To this day, I've yet to compose a homage to one of the most unlikely role models I've come to respect. His name is Brandon McCartney, but the name he's famous for is Lil B 'The BasedGod'. The first part of his name satisfies the nature of standard rapper aliases, but the second part reveals the more interesting part of Brandon's music and philosophy. Lil B regards himself as the creator and, in my eyes, sole practitioner of what he's termed, "based music." Music critics describe it as a "stream of consciousness" style of rapping, but I know it as an excuse under which to produce relatable, thought-provoking music alongside mind-numbing exposes about "fucking bitches" and "going dumb". Just because it's an excuse, however, doesn't mean I don't regard it in a positive manner.

Lil B originally got his music career started through his involvement with the moderately successful, hyphy movement-era group, "The Pack", whose hit single "Vans" constituted an anthem to their cultural surroundings and was also a fairly catchy, radio-friendly hip-hop tune. Following "The Pack's" success, however, Lil B split and began pushing his solo endeavors by posting MP3 file after MP3 file across multiple MySpace pages. Essentially, Lil B came to be through an incessant proliferation of content, some of which was admittedly trash. As the size (but not necessarily the depth) of B's repertoire grew, so did his fan base, and soon he would reach a point where his videos of him executing poor lip-synching whilst accompanied by females who look like they'd rather be doing anything but pretending to be B's groupies,

I'm aware that I'm describing Lil B as a pathetic, amateur rapper with a penchant for producing crap. In some respects, that's true. But in other respects, it couldn't be farther from the truth. You see, Lil B is a duplicitous artist, with the ability to produce fantastic music and the gall to produce music less so. That, in and of itself, is a fantastic quality. In multiple interviews, B has stated that his outlook on life involves being himself and loving others whilst rejecting the naysayers. Often, he expresses this outlook in less than noble vocabulary.

His philosophy is not unique, but his rise to fame and current ubiquity as due to his tantalizing musicianship makes it unique. It's kind of like hearing the same thing from two different people - even though the message is the same, its purveyor might make you receive it differently.

Throughout my life, I've wrestled with the very concepts Lil B seems to have a handle on - understanding who one is, what one wishes to identify oneself with, how one seeks to behave oneself with other people. Lil B, in praising self-esteem and individuality as kindling of a full life, has helped me become more confident about the ways I answer those questions. I don't want to be like Lil B - talking about fucking bitches and smoking “purp”1 and having a heater - but I want to be that which I want to be as ardently and decidedly as Lil B is himself.

That's a little of a tongue twister. I apologize.

Lil B

Extradurable Goods / "Technological Perennialism"

A 1980s Sun Miami cruiser, that used to be mine,
is a wonderful example of "perennial" technology:
still going strong after 30 years.

1998 Volvo S70 (Photo credit: merfam)

Playstation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

IPad Mini (Photo credits: Best Buy)

English: The "Boro Eye", photo 1 of 4. Taken at dusk on an Apple iPhone 3GS. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here, I’m talking about a particular perspective I have on the nature of technology – that of “technological perennialism”. I’m also discussing the source of that idea of mine – my own experience with technology.
I have a fascination with a certain perspective about technology that would be difficult to make a reality in the current technological climate. Have you ever, or do you currently, owned a piece of technology whose workmanship was of such a caliber, and whose purpose was of such relevance across time, that it has “lasted all these years”? I can think of a few examples that people might own – a refrigerator, an air conditioner unit, a car, a house. These items are not just durable goods, they’re “extra-durable goods”, because they’ve been able to be used, in fairly unmodified and unrepaired form, for very many years.

Compare that to the current throw-away ethic dominating the cellular phone market, one that is familiar to the hundreds upon thousands of people that are always looking for the cheapest and most efficient way to get their hands on the next best smartphone. Is it the fault of the consumers, for being unappreciative assholes and not respecting the time and dedication that goes into designing and manufacturing each smartphone, or is it the fault of the manufactures for not creating sufficiently durable and reliable end-user machines?

Here’s another possibility: are the manufactures simply hell-bent on being assholes themselves and getting people to buy subsequent revisions of their hardware by doing the revisions on a very regular basis? Sooner than later, today’s hot and handy smartphone becomes the model that was hot and handy six months ago, and in an economic climate where people are both counting their change and are fascinated by having the latest thing, it’s an injurious practice to be constantly feeding the materialistic flame.

While all the heretofore described possibilities are, well, possible, I think the consumers are most likely at fault. I, for example, own an iPhone 4 alongside a 1983 Sun Miami touring-style bicycle. Both are perfectly serviceable, but both are “last year’s model” (more like “very many years ago’s model). The car that I drive – my dad’s 1999 Volvo S70 – hums along nearly perfectly at over 200,000 miles, whilst my friend’s year model car had to be brought in for repair.

Here’s my proposal to the technology world at large – let go of that throw-away ethic. In fact, throw it away. Then, create its antithesis: the dogma of technological perennialism. Much like the Sequoyah tree is described as a perennial, so should as much currently existing technology as possible (unless it’s designed to be disposable or single use, of course). Going back to the iPhone; imagine if you could buy the iPhone 5 today, and have it last you 10 years. Surely you’d have to maintain the thing by defragmenting its flash storage every now and then, backing up the contents of the storage every now and then… but the thing would last you ten years (unless you’re malicious towards it). You could take pride in taking out your iPhone in public, or feel incredible anger and frustration when it’s stolen. It could literally last you until it becomes obsolete, not way before (Apple’s iPhone 3GS, released in 2009, is still supported, four years later).

But other concerns likely govern a company’s decision to feed the throw-away ethic, one of the largest likely being a company’s desire to “stay fresh”. Perhaps, if Apple had manufactured the 3GS and not released a new model until now, people would’ve lost interest in the company as a symbol of innovation and would’ve regarded it solely as a place to get your immutable and unchanging and eventually boring 3GS, repaired or replaced.

I guess it’s just a personal frustration to see perfectly good technology be dismissed as useless crap, especially when it’s confronted by a prettier-looking or better-performing newbie. That frustration, in turn, likely stems from my own challenges growing up.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been into technology, of all sorts. It likely began with my first video game console (SEGA Genesis) and continued with the computer, then dial-up Internet, then DSL, then the smartphone. For as long as I can remember, it’s always been hard to obtain new things, especially expensive technological goods. Each time I did, then, was a momentous milestone in my growing collection of technology. Each time I would get a new item, I would evaluate, in my head, what I would be able to do with it that I hadn’t been able to do previously; I would then regurgitate this, in vocal form, to whomever was next to me and had ears, “Now that I have this, I can …”, or “Now that I have this, I’ll be able to …” To think such thoughts of opportunity always put a smile in my face, akin to the expression of boyhood wonder that one may witness on the face of a young child playing with his toys. Regardless of what else I would have to do – homework, chores, family bonding time – I would do my absolute best to get it done quickly, or not do it at all, in order to get some alone time with my new technology. I never humped the things or kissed them or gave them pet names, but I developed connections with each item, that I happily reminisce upon, in one way or another, to this day.

I’ll never forget, for example, the day my dad bought me a PlayStation One. It was a rainy day; one of those Hollywood thunderstorms replete with ferocious wind gusts and torrential downpour that didn’t seem to let up. We drove to the Best Buy store by the Dadeland North Metrorail station, ascending the spiral slopes to the third floor parking lot and parking as close as possible to the entrance of the shop. My dad, attempting to counter my excitement with nonchalance, walked in with me whilst pretending to be more interested in the musical instruments department, erected at the complete opposite side of the store, well away from the video games section. Being a child of about nine or eleven years of age, I saw no recourse but to grab him by the shoulder and steer him clear of any foreign influences. I wanted us to make this transaction quick, so we could dodge the raindrops outside and get back home. As I drew closer and closer to the video games section … there it was, in a compact black box with screenshots of the system’s then-most popular games on the back. It was beautiful. After we bought the machine for a whopping fifty bucks plus tax, we hurried home and I plugged it in to the television set. This set was also top of the last year’s line – a sixteen inch tube cathode ray tube television atop a wooden bookshelf enclosing Cosmopolitan and US Weekly magazines that my mom would often leaf through. I unboxed the thing with unprecedented excitement, only to find that the television set didn’t have audio/video inputs.

Had I been older, I would’ve said “Fuck!” But my then-innocent mind simply dawdled over to my dad, who was sitting at the dinner table, snacking on yesterday’s leftovers, happy that he’d made a purchase that made me happy, and told him my dilemma. Also the technology fanatic, he quickly acknowledged the problem and proposed the solution - an RCA to RF converter was necessary. We drove to the nearest Radioshack, bought the damn thing, and came back. Finally, I was able to connect my new plaything! One of the first games I played was Driver: You Are The Wheelman, a racing game which has the player filling the shoes of undercover cop Tanner, as he infiltrates criminal gangs by pretending to be a hot-shot getaway driver. The game featured the recreation of four American cities as its playing environment, one of which was my very own Miami, Florida. I recall being taken aback by one of the graphical effects in the game, the sun shining down on the lustrous hood of the Mustang look-alike that Tanner drives throughout the game. It was so unfathomable to me, back then, that a game could look and feel so real … nowadays, it’s the norm.

I have other tales of my appreciation of technology – my most outward being the time I cried when my parents set aside what little money they could and bought me an iPhone 3GS, complete with Apple earphones and an Otterbox case – but I think the point’s been driven home, away and home again. It irks me when people dismiss technology they own as being crap when it’s compared to something newer. I’ve spent a lot of time, for example, figuring out how to retrofit older technologies to fit modern standards. The very computer I’m writing this on is a ten-year old Dell PowerEdge server, which, as per the nature of technological progress and as per the very dogma of the company who manufactured, should be considered “obsolete” by now. But how could I consider it obsolete, when it’s accomplishing the very task I need it to accomplish – typing this journal entry?

Granted, some things do need to be thrown away or recycled for building materials (a computer any older than this Dell, for example, might cringe at the thought of having to run a word processor) but in my experience, people do so sooner than later, and it’s wrong. Always, always, always be willing to give your old technology, or someone else’s old technology, a second chance.



It might just work out.

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Extradurable Goods / "Technological Perennialism"

Common Slacker Identity / High School Recallings

Some of the elements of this tale are fictitious, but it's based on a true story.
At my former high school, there was a "classroom" in the building's television production studio that

Myself and some of my pals from high school. 

was situated behind the room where the technical direction equipment was installed. The place had seen better days, clearly - now it was reminiscent of a closet, with vintage lighting equipment and rusty screws dispersed atop the tiled floor. But the attractive quality of it was its seclusion from the rest of the television production studio - a perfect place for students to get away with any and all sorts of mischief.

The crew of kids that ran the show in that closet of a "classroom" was indeed students that, whilst perfectly capable, weren't always very applied. They spent the majority of the time of their TV Production class hanging out in the back discussing heaven knows what. But in doing so, they formed a second home. To get to class was to sit in the actual classroom for roll call and then make the clandestine pilgrimage to the back room, away from the teacher's eyes.

How she never figured it out is beyond me.

These kids would do all sorts of less than noble things in that room. None were perverse but a few were questionably legal. Among the more easily digestible ones were cutting out a square piece of red construction paper which was then placed under the large fluorescent bulbs that lit up the room in order to a create a darkroom effect; another was the removal of a few floor tiles, which created a safe hideout spot for when the teacher would make her rounds.

Throughout the course of my high school years, I wouldn't applaud the crew for the mischief they engaged in, but I would always recognize the unifying power that something common can have. These kids - admittedly slackers - wanted a place where they could slack together. In searching for and then finding that room, that place where their purpose could be shared between one another; they stumbled upon a strong human bond, as facilitated by that room.

You might call this reflection insipid or inconsequential, but it's special to me for a couple reasons. For

Graduation 2012 at FIU!

Winning Prom King!

one, it reminds me of the fun times I had in high school. Secondly - and more importantly - it illustrated for me, at a very early stage in my academic development, the concept of groupthink. The reason why the mischief that occurred in and around that room happened in the first place was partly because the group's constituents fed off one another's motivation for an initially bad idea.

I remember just how the red light idea was born - one of the members of the group proposed the plan,

Myself and a friend of mine, Samantha, on one of the
last days of senior year.

and the rest quickly dismissed it as hard work that had no place in their "slackosphere". A few days later, though, another group member recalled the idea as part of a larger list of ideas he was expounding. The other members of the group - hungry for ruckus - realized it'd be a way to satisfy their hunger. Despite the plan's opposition to their work ethic, each member fed off one another's latent desires to cause a mess, and hence the red light room was born.

This train of thought - not individual, but rather composed by many people - is the kind of thing that was most gripping about this back room society. It was like they were parasites unto one another, motivating themselves to do bad things. However ignoble the ends, the way the group worked together, both on the red light project and other endeavors, was simply beautiful.

And to think it was all because they wanted to do nothing.

Common Slacker Identity / High School Recallings

Room for Success

A shot of Miami Dade College's Wolfson Campus,
taken on a sleepy Saturday afternoon. 

The college experience heretofore has been fantastic. Wonderful people, from the faculty to the friends


I've made; incredible resources, ranging from the technological to the social; and more.

But looking to the future, one thing concerns me. Being in an Honors program, there's a degree of pressure fomented by the faculty, as well as the nature of the curriculum, to succeed academically with the objective of pursuing a prestigious post-A.A. (associate's degree) education. This, combined with the idea that "we're all a family" in this humble yet far-reaching academic collective of no more than two hundred students at a time (the Honors college), produces a sense of claustrophobia for me.

In an educational atmosphere where limited university admission quotas, limited scholarships and a limited availability of jobs (even with a college degree), how can I expect to be successful along with 199 other equally successful students?

So many people attend college, and many want to achieve
success. But is there room for everyone to do so?

Granted, not everyone will meet the Honors College's expectations, but the philosophy remains.

Such a feeling of claustrophobia comes from a sense of being in a small vector of perceived "success" along with many other success-driven/oriented kids that are seeking the same outcome.

A shot of my MAC1105 class this fall 2013 semester.

Essentially, the whole of it is akin to an accelerated version of society’s misuse of limited goods, a dynamic so often discussed in conversations about sustainability. Here, though, it feels much tenser.

It feels that way namely because of that map of American colleges and universities that adorns the foyer of the Honors College lounge, regularly attracting gritty students thumbtacking their next destination.

Every day, the map gets smaller. Or so it seems.

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Room for Success