Ughhhhhh��..It�s Monday. It�s Monday and Monday comes with all the wonderful-ness that is Monday. I find it funny that I�m about to complain about the things that I�m going to complain about, but when your life is rather even and unchanging, only the details can be talked about.
Anyway.
This Thursday is B�s company�s holiday party. My company holiday party was a couple of weeks ago. I think I�ve written about it somewhere.
Well B�s company�s holiday party is, unfortunately for me, on a Thursday. Even more unfortunately, it is at 5:30 in the evening. This, of course, means that I have to take time off early in order to get ready for it [thankfully, I�m not your typical girl who needs 6 hours to get ready for such events]. The result of all of this is that despite the fact that I have the following day [Friday] off, I�m going to have to come in for the couple of hours that I need to take off.
Of course, I�m bummed. However, this may be a blessing in disguise. Perhaps, in those two hours, I�ll manage to get a lot of very very important things done and impress my boss by Monday.
Hopefully?
I�m looking forward to donning a black dress and makeup again, but I only wish that I had managed to make it to the gym in the past couple of weeks. I feel lazy and heavy.
It�s going to be a bit weird for me, to walk around on the arm of my former supervisor with my former fellow coworkers all there [minus the contractors, boo!]
So first negative for the week: having to come into work on a Friday.
I realized, yesterday, while watching Alias that it is December, and it has been December for something like a week. Previously, when I was at school, I was always aware of what month it was, especially considering I usually had finals or some kind of major project due in December. As I was watching Alias last night, an advertisement for the second season on DVD came on. I turned to B and said, �I�d love to get that, but it�s not out until December.�
Duh.
December means that Christmas is coming. This, of course, means that presents are coming [not for me though]. That means that I have to go Christmas shopping. That means that I have to go shopping.
Ughhhhh�.I hate shopping. I hate crowds. I hate people who are also shopping. It�s like holiday shopping brings out only the dumbest in people.
Well, my mother was discussing with me what to get for my grandparents. It appears that the easiest and most thoughtful gift for them would be a gift certificate to one of the restaurants that they like. I can live with that. She was telling me where one of the little hole-in-the-wall restaurants was that they enjoy, and her description was this: �It�s past [insert store name here].�
Me: �Past? What does that mean? North or south of [insert store name here]?�
Her: �I don�t know north or south.�
I thought about the advantages of explaining to her that each mile road signified one mile further NORTH of the Detroit River. Therefore, 15 Mile is 15 miles north of the river, 16 mile is 16 miles north of the river, etc. So, it�s quite easy to figure out north and south from there�.and hence east and west. But, despite the fact that my mother is intelligent, she would only ignore everything that I said because she has no DESIRE to learn directions. She would rather confuse people with references to �past� or �right after� with no reference point.
I really don�t understand how people can get through life and get to places outside of where they have been with no semblance of what �north and south is�.
Anyway, I took the easier route and said, �Mom, I don�t know what you mean. Past if you were going toward which road?�
She, again, emphasized that she had no idea which direction was which, only to point out that she hadn�t been listening to what I was saying. I wasn�t asking her with way was north or south; I was asking her what �past� meant if you were driving toward a common destination. I asked again, and she finally realized what I was talking about. Grrrrrr.
Second negative for the week: people who have no idea what direction they are heading in and make explaining directions inefficient.
I was reading in the paper that the good people of Michigan may have the chance to vote on amending the state constitution with regard to Affirmative Action. This would, of course, supercede all admission and hiring policies of various colleges and companies.
I think that I�ve gone on and on about Affirmative Action and how much I hate it despite the fact that it�s supposed to benefit someone like me the most: a white woman in a male-dominated field. I have no idea why white women would benefit the most, but I have yet to see the benefits.
I didn�t get preferential admissions to schools based on my sex or race [race, ha! Race doesn�t even exist according to geneticists]. I didn�t get any scholarship money either. I got into the schools that I did simply because I was a 4.0 student at one of the top math and science schools in the country.
I didn�t get my job because I was a woman [at least, I didn�t think so]. I got my job because my specialization is rare and I did well in it. I got my job because I interview well and I knew what I was talking about.
To me, Affirmative Action doesn�t �fix� the inequities that minorities face. Instead of �helping� what racism puts asunder, Affirmative Action promotes racism.
I have gone to many a seminar about Affirmative Action. I�ve been �educated� on my �ignorance� of what Affirmative Action really is. According to the seminars I have been to, AA is not a quota system. It does not �take the space� of a deserving white student and instead give it to a minority student.
I, however, was not convinced. It is a quota system. When questioning the president of my alma mater during one of our student government meetings, he explained it as this: [he being an AA supporter]. He said that they merely promote attending the college in cities where more minorities reside. However, what actually happens is this.
Say that 10% of Michigan [the state, not the school] graduates are black. That means that of all of the students that graduated high school this year, 10% of them are black [I�m not saying that�s the actual percentage]. Say, also, that 50% of this year�s high school graduates were white. Say that the other 40% was made up of other minorities. What Michigan State does, instead, is produce a makeup for a freshman class. If there were no AA, the makeup should equal the graduation percentages. There should be 50% white kids, 10% black kids, 40% other minorities. However, because of AA, and �promoting diversity�, the University admits a higher number of black HS graduates, thus making the proportion of them in the freshman class higher. So instead, there would be 40% white kids, 20% black students, and 40% minority [granted, the other minority students would also be proportionally higher, but for the sake of simplicity, I�m leaving it alone].
By lowering the percentage of white students, some, inevitably, are going to get turned away. They may or may not have better grades or applications statuses than the minority students admitted. However, by that argument, that is precisely a quota system. The president [and others] pick the percentage makeup that they want, thus creating a quota that needs to be met. They may have worded it differently, but it�s still the same. Some spaces [in my example 10%] that would have ordinarily gone to white students don�t, and instead are filled by minority students.
Quite frankly, I don�t really care about the percentages really. I got into all the colleges that I applied for and that�s all that mattered to me. However, I can definitely see how a system such as that would promote racism in itself. Instead of getting angry at the proper people [the idiotic administrators who institute the policy], the students who are rejected get angry at the students who get in.
It�s a dumb system in my opinion. It�s a fix too late in the game. If you want more minority students to succeed in the world to balance the scales, you have to �fix� things much earlier. You need to fix the secondary schools, such as the Detroit Public School system. You need to educate the parents so that they can encourage their children to do well. You need give money to the city to promote growth.
It�s a huge overhaul and one minor tweak so late in the game WILL NOT fix the problems that minorities face.
I think that AA should be eliminated. If you want equality, don�t ask for special privilege.
Third negative of the week: Affirmative Action.
Hmmm�what else went on this weekend? I got my kitty cat, and he seems to get along with Bandit decently well [especially after only two days]. I hope that Bandit can be happier with a friend sharing his space. We can only hope.
I think that�ll be it for now.
