If I’m no longer a student, does the label “starving college student” no longer apply?
Okay, “starving” is an exaggeration. I still have some ice cream in my freezer.
Not many trips have you hiking up volcanoes near rivers of magma, or traveling by boat from coast town to coast town across one of the world’s deepest lakes or drinking in bars where bottle service costs no more than a tank of gas. These are just a few of the things that UC Irvine’s Hillel’s Alternative Spring Break to Guatemala had to offer students this year. The trip allowed students to explore the lifestyle and culture of Guatemala, while also spending time helping and playing with the children of Los Patojos. Los Patojos is a young organization that provides a place for disadvantaged Guatemalan children to eat, play and have fun. It’s a place for the children to escape the problems of Guatemala and, sometimes, the violence in their own households. In an impoverished society where it’s usually difficult for children who don’t come from wealthy families to make something of themselves, Los Patojos offers them a much-needed setting to develop direction in life.
When we are young, we are all eventually exposed to the bitter truth about Santa Claus. We imagined the big-bellied Mr. Claus along with his little elves, happily working in the swirly cotton-like snow slopes of the North Pole. Yet, this vivid image we carried as children crumbled with every harsh word of truth.
A school shooting is one of the most terrifying events that can occur. Innocent people, many who don’t even know the shooter, are caught in the crossfire, and thousands of lives are changed forever. Preparation for such a sudden and shocking event is nearly impossible; rarely do shooters show outward signs of violent behavior or give any warning or indication of what they are about to do. In fact, it seems like the only way to stop a school shooting is for fate to intervene, and the student to be pulled over or stopped by a teacher for an unrelated reason, revealing their intentions. Lately, however, in the wake of the Arizona school shooting, a movement is gaining traction and beginning to turn some heads on the idea of gun control: by allowing guns on college campuses.
Ai Weiwei. If you asked people in China who this person is, few could answer. But the man and his recent disappearance are highly instructive in understanding something very important about China and its future.
The big U.S. budget battle reached an unsatisfactory conclusion, and both sides are now stuck with a compromise they are not completely fond of for now. Curiously, the potential contenders for the Republican presidential nomination have been silent. This was a great time for them to throw some red meat to their conservative constituents and bolster primary voter support or take an easy shot at the president. Instead, they chose to ignore the issue entirely, and out of all the possible responses, this was probably the smartest.
If you go to UC Irvine, chances are you’ve been to the Newport Beach “warzone” before. The stretch of the peninsula that goes from roughly 30th Street to 50th Street is legendary to student and non-student partiers alike who enjoy public intoxication and random party crashing.
In a free society, people should be able to express themselves and their opinions as they see fit. However, recently in France, legislation has come into effect that effectively bans the wearing of a burqa, the full-body Islamic veil, in a public area or space (wearing a burqa in a public school has been banned since 2004). French authorities say that only about 1,900 women wear the burqa or the niqab, two versions of the full covering with a mesh or slit for the eyes. This amounts to 0.038 percent of France’s Muslim population.
