Happiness

 

 

           Albert Einstein shares his opinion about what it takes to make him happy, but that may not go for everyone. Each individual has aspects in their life that makes them happy. As for myself I have quite a few...

 

 

My twelve year old cat Creamy makes me happy. A nice bowl of cereal in the morning. A good hurdle race. Dancing out my feelings. Spending quality time with my boyfriend. Going home to visit my mom and sister. Exploring the city with my brother. Venting about anything and everything with my friends. Not working a lot, but getting a paycheck. Driving my beat up Subaru Sporty Spice. A pumpkin iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts. Sleeping. Watching endless amounts of Grey's Anatomy. Relieving my week with a crazy weekend. Going to watch the Yankees.

 

 

       I could go on and on about what makes me happy, but I won't. My point is happiness is personal. Everyone decides their own happiness. 

"Be peaceful. Be courteous. Obey the law. But if someone puts his hands on you, send them to their grave." - Malcolm X

Be peaceful. Be courteous. Obey the law. And if someone puts his hands on you, turn and give him your other cheek. This is what Christ says to his disciples. This is what I’m taught and convicted to obey because of my Christian faith. But of course I am human, and I hate and desire violence towards anyone who hurts me or my loved ones. Many times I thought Jesus was unjust. I thought he was being hypocritical. If God can send people to hell, then why can’t I “send them to their graves” too, like Malcolm X suggests? 

But every time I am in a conflict, I realize that I’m also wounded each time. The only way to heal the scars is to forgive people, and myself especially. Forgiveness is something that’s not logical. I guess it’s something of a spiritual act. Revenge is easy, but it’s also the easiest way to dig another grave: your own.

By Jesamine Lee

Be peaceful. Be courteous. Obey the law. But if someone puts his hands on you, send him to his grave. By Malcolm X

If you are provoked you have the right to stand up for yourself. But you should never be the instigator of violence. I’m all for peace and I have a hard time being aggressive but I acknowledge that sometimes being aggressive is the the only way to achieve change.

If you want to change something major in society and go against the system you need to be aggressive. I don’t believe that peaceful demonstrations can achieve major change. Even if some instances of history, like Gandhi, prove me wrong. If you want change be ready to pack a strong punch, especially against oppression.

But aggression on day-to-day life, like being stupid to someone just because they were mean to you first, I don’t believe in that. You shouldn’t let others’ meanness change the way you want to behave.   

Declaration of NYU's Commuter Students

We hold these truths to be self evident that all pupils are accepted on the same basis. And commuting is a financial and personal decision that should not be used against the pupil. We as pupils have the right to speak up and ask for changes that have not been provided. Not only do the unjust circumstances skew our ability to be equal to residential students, but have skewed our ability to do our best in the class. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations reduce us it is our right and duty in accordance with the Bill of Rights and free speech to request these changes. Such has been the patient sufferance of these pupils; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former of systems of New York University. The history of the present New York University is a history of repeated injuries. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused proper transportation

He has denied us adequately priced food

He has neglected to provide spacious working facilities

He has made us subjects to 5 am train rides

He has accommodated clubs to serve only to Residential students

He has denied us our rightful college social life

For taking away opportunities to establish networking sources

For demanding outrageous costs at our inconvenience

For creating a dispersal of funds which are in favor of Residential students

In every semester of these Oppressions we have endured these grievances with humble terms: Our endurance has been responded with repeated denial of adequate treatment. We are NYU students as well, and deserve the right to be treated with compensation of time, fair transportation, and warm meals.

We have, from time to time, made known our presence and important to NYU’s student life. We have reminded the King on multiple accounts the circumstances of our emigration and travel here on campus. We are not, in any pretension, wishing harm to our NYU Housing Brethren. However, the oppressions of the Commuter life have inevitably interrupted the status of our exams and class schedules. Professors and TAs too have been deaf to the voice of justice and camaraderie. We must, therefore, commute in necessity, and denounce the evils that have been burdened upon the commuter nature, and declare our rightful separation from past injustices.

We, the commuters of NYU, therefore have no other choice than to secede from the main campus of NYU, appealing to the supreme leader of the nation, John Sexton, and carry on with our studies into a newly established campus at a more reasonable distance to our residence. We solemnly declare and write out our departure from NYU’s main campus, as a newly established campus we reserve the right to fair treatment and acknowledgement of the NYU faculty. We resolve that as long as we are commuters we shall put forth all of our investments of education into the newly established campus, where it may be our tuition, student loans, or time.

By:

Georgie Fu

Wendy Tigre

Nikki Herrick

Maggie

"Two Birthdays, Two Lives"

It was my religious birthday a couple of weekends ago. My religion follows a lunar calender which pulls each annual event 11 days back from its Gregorian date. That gives me "two" birthdays every year, for the rest of my life. Two days for cake, for wishing, for copious amounts of phone-calls. Two days for celebrating and family dinners. This dichotomy between my religious life and my life in the outside world has always created this constantly shifting barrier that I haven't really gotten to understand. Its this deep method of role play that forces me to take two instead of one before every choice I make in life- looking through two totally different points of view at any time. I know what's expected of me in terms of my religious point of view. I know what conservative ideals I'm supposed to follow every day, and I do follow what I grew up learning- I pray every day, I attend events, I look to God for understanding. But the enticement of the open world reels me in with questions like "why am I doing this?" or "what does this do for me?" But then the tight cables of the religious world keep me grounded to the comfort of the old school ideas. Then again, the curious tendrils of the human world are always there giving me food for thought mysteries to figure out, among other dilemmas. Its that push and pull that I'm caught between; its that middle ground I'm searching for.

- AliAkbar M. Hassonjee

"Success has many fathers. Failure is a bastard."

Failure is inevitable. People are bound to make mistakes and occasionally hit rock bottom, maybe we may even hit the bottom multiple times within a short period. Failure might be a bastard, but it is there to provoke success. In an obscure way, failure might as well be one of the fathers of success. Success is not something that people are motivated to achieve unless failure is there to prompt action because one definition of failure can be inaction. A taste of failure is what makes success so sweet, so glorifying, and so right. Failure should not be looked down upon as often as it is because even the most successful still fail, as well as the smartest, the best looking, and the most talented. Failure is a great tool and guide to humans; it is a giant manual, personalized to fit every single human being. Failure is not only a father, but it is also a teacher. It teaches us who we are, who to become, and who to strive to be. Failure allows for improvement, discipline, and progress. Often times failure should be recognized and thanked because without failure, the world would be moving towards failure and stagnant on failure. I guess what I am trying to say is that success is dependent on failure, and failure is something so great and so humble that it exists only for the sake of success and probably nothing else.

- Georgie Fu

Success



 

     Success is the ultimate goal. In every aspect of life I strive for success; in school, my job, track, and my relationships. Some would call me a perfectionist based on my obsession with reaching success. I cannot even argue. I even call it a curse myself.

     Freshman year of high school is when I can say I was cursed. My whole academic year I did nothing out of the ordinary. I went to class, did homework, and studied for tests. At the end of the year I received a letter from the school inviting me to an honors banquet that named the top six students in class rank. "I must be just making it, that's nice," I thought to myself nonchalantly. I had always gotten good grades but I never perceived that I had the best grades. That is until I attended the banquet, and was notified that I held the first ranking, number one in the class. The second I saw that number one next to my name I was cursed.

     From then on I had a goal of keeping that rank. I wanted to be the best. I was neck and neck with the boy in the number two spot, Colby, a computer science engineering genius. The kid built computers for fun for god's sake. I was in for hell but I did not know it then. The next three years I spent slaving over my grades. They had to be perfect. Yet after all that time and effort I finished with a GPA of 101.39, behind Colby. I was the salutatorian of my class but does that mean I did not reach success? 

Our Declaration of Independence

When in the course of long nights up, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the educational bands which have connected them to with another, and to assume among the powers of earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self evident, that all students are not created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Sleep, a Social Life, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Homework Limits are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of students. That whenever any Homework  Load become destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Homework Standards, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Sleep and Social Life. When a long train of abuses and sleep deprivation, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Zombi-ism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such standards, and to provide new Guards for their future sanity. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Exhausted Teenagers; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Loads of Homework. The history of the present College Professor is a history of repeated injuries and deprivation of sleep, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these Students. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has subjected us to lack of social development.

He has destroyed our eyesight with long hours staring at a computer screen.

He has deprived our bodies the proper amount of sleep we need to function at a normal level.

He has tired our hands with countless hours of writing.

He has filled our brains with pointless knowledge we will never use.

He has forced us to do the same problems over and over to seemingly no end.

He has made us carry backpacks filled with books heavier than our own bodyweight.

He has trespassed upon the borders of school and infringed upon our lives at home.

He has prevented us from connecting with the world on Facebook and Twitter.

He has caused us innumerable migraine headaches and anxiety attacks.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms. A Professor whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the educator of students.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our student brethren. We have warned them of our struggle to keep up.We have reminded them that there is more to existence. We have appealed to their desires for Social Expansion. They too have been deaf to the voice of reasonability and of necessity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in Classrooms, in Night Clubs Friends

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united Students Against Homework, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the legitimacy of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of these Classmates, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Students are, and of Right ought to be Social and Well rested; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the College Professor, and that all educational connection between them and the University, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent Students, they have full Power to go out Friday Nights, conclude their weekends with Sleep, make new Friendships, get Jobs, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent Students may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

By: 

Vermont-

Catherine Pratt

Massachusetts-

Lily Jones

California-

Sydney Maynard

Caleb Su

New Jersey-

Keith Ferrara

Price of Life

For the past few days, I have attended two of all the events in the Price of Life campaign. The campaign is to raise awareness about human trafficking, whether it's labor or sex trafficking. It is happening right now in different places, not just places like Thailand and Indonesia, but here in Manhattan. This wasn't the first time I heard about it, but hearing from a survivor of sex trafficking and people working against the two trafficking, I start to wonder what I'm doing in my life, and that got me really frustrated. Sure, I got into what I like to do because of an experience I had in the industry and it's suppose to be something I'm passionate for. But the reality is this: while I'm enjoying my time here and learning in the most expensive classes in the United States, there are people suffering and being trafficked in all parts of the world. I just suddenly think we're so spoiled and selfish, to be enjoying such luxury when there are people basically living in hell. But what can I do? Nothing I do will bring about change that'll last. Nothing I do will suddenly change the course of others' lives and save them. What can I do?

-Adrienne Chan 

"It is not the will to win that matters, it is the will to prepare to win that matters"

Slow and steady is the pace, but determination wins the race. No matter how good of a talent someone has, someone that puts in more time and effort is more likely to surpass the talented. I once heard that it takes ten thousand hours to master something. However, in this generation no one including myself wants to put in those hours, they just want an immediate perfected end result. We have no patience and no will to prepare to win. However, we always feel like we can win but with what attempt? We want the good luxury to be covered in luxury and goods but never want to do good without luxury. Many kids spend their time painting the big picture when they are missing out on all the small details.

"How You Do Anything Is How You Do Everything"

          Although this quote is thought-provoking, and I could probably write an entire page on my thoughts, I won't. And that is because I simply cannot focus. Why? I cannot focus, not because I have a calculus midterm looming over me, and not because it is freezing cold out, but because in three days, I will be on a train back to Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, back to my home.

          Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, or what my friends and I like to call 'Cheta Sprangs' or 'Narnia', is a quaint, suburban town 45 minutes west of Philadelphia. No, it is not 'Pennsyltucky', but yes, there are plenty of greenery, farms, trees large strip malls, Wegmans and Targets, some things you don't get in the city.
          For much of my life, I always admired the city. Philly. Boston. DC. New York. The hustle and bustle of people, cars and information excited me and was such a stark contrast to my mundane life at home, where walking meant hiking on a trail, and the subway was a fast-food chain. Every time my family and I traveled to the city for the weekend, or even for a day, I felt a rush of excitement being immersed in something so fashionable. I never understood how people could live in suburbia when the city was full of so much opportunity.
          I've been at NYU for 6 or 7 weeks now, and although I've enjoyed myself, my time here and the city, I've never missed Cheta Sprangs more. The comfort of being able to look out my window and watch the color of the leaves evolve with fall, or the ability to smell freshly cut grass are just two things I took for granted. Obviously, I miss my family, my friends and my car, but it's the daily, little things that I miss the most. Snuggling in my jammies in bed on a rainy day, or dinner with my parents. In 3 days, I will be on a train back to Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, back to my home. 

Paul Bear Bryant prompt

Prompt
"Is not the will to win that matters, it's the will to prepare to win that matters." -Paul Bear Bryant
This quote reminds me of another quote by a famous sociologist who studied how the criminal mind worked and the reason for their actions. "You can get in trouble if you put too much emphasis on the goal and not the means to your goal." In most of people's lives, our goal is money. If you do not put the means to get to your goal, what other way are you supposed to succeed. If you do not prepare yourself to get to that goal or to reach that success what other way will you achieve it. Being that the goal is money, many people have the option to take the easy way out the way gamblers, prostitutes and even drug dealers do. These are career criminals, people who make it to that goal, make that money but they never had to do any kind of preparation to get there. Putting emphasis on the means to your goal is having access to the things that will prepare you to reach it. Having access to schools, jobs, internships. These are things that will prepare you for the win. It is the preparation that matters, not the goal being that you've got the win.  

"Its not the will to win that matters, its the will to prepare to win that matters"

I see the will to win as just trying your hardest while I see the will to prepare to win as a key to being more successful. In life, trying hard isn't good enough anymore. The only way to truly get ahead is to strategize while at the same time, prepare for its outcome whether its a win or a loss. Just because one has a will to make it, doesn't guarantee its going to happen. Observe all your obstacles and embrace every possibility that builds to your victory.

The will that matters

" It is not the will to win that matters. It is the will to prepare to win that matters".  With these words spoken by Bear Bryant I think of  the struggle a person endures to succeed. An athletes struggle with food, brutal training, and drive to surpass the body's limits. A college student who works and studies hard in order to survive and graduate, stepping closer to his goal. So I believe Bryant when he says it is not the will to win, but the will to endure and conquer the struggles to win, that matters. Gandhi once said " that strength does not come from physical capacity but from an indomitable will". With this in mind, I think of all the strong people who do not aspire to win but aspire to get better and push pass their limits because those are the people who know what matters and have incredible strength.

"Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent."

"I wish I was famous" many people say. Others say be careful what you wish for. This quote is saying that being a celebrity is a terrible burden. I disagree, I think it is a responsibility. You do not have to be part of an Empire but you do have to mean or represent something when you are being looked up to. You should always be an idol and model of righteousness even in your mistakes, not twerking on a married man on national television. You have to always be a symbol for something. Andrew Carnegie once explained the unwritten or unspoken job of the wealthy in his speech, the Gospel of Wealth. However, many celebrities take their wealth and use it to show how imperfect they are. Being a celebrity is not a burden, it is a blessing, you have the ability to set trends and make the world a better place. However, no one really chooses to do that. Maybe, one celebrity can use their voice or actions to make a difference.

"Would you believe in what you believed in if you were the only one who believed in it?" -Kanye West.

          There must be some degree of truth and proof in what I believe; I most certainly don’t want to come across as stupid and delusional. I believe there is a god, I believe in Christianity; I believe there is a divine being looking down on me. I have seen things happened in my life that I cannot explain. I have seen miracles happened when the doctors said, “you have only 6 months.” It most certainly didn’t happen from a “big bang!” This to me is a different degree of belief. I don’t care if I was the only one, I believe in my religion and that is something no matter what people say I will never deny and I will stand up till the end. 

          What about this then, I believe I am of some authority. I am superior and better than everyone sitting here today. I am so wealthy I can do what the hell I want when I want, how I want because I can. I believe I have the authority to oppose whoever I want because I am the number one it thing in this town, Obama got nothing on me. I believe I stand for the truth and I can say what’s on my mind anytime I feel to. I can ruin lives because I can. Now what a stupid belief, I must be the only one believing this shit. This is the belief of a self centered, vain, egotistical, small-minded fool. Such a strong believe but yet so harmful to even bring a bullet through the head for being a big mouth. A belief that belittles another person, and does no good. This is not what I would stand up for.

          I would most defiantly change what I believe in if I am the only person believing in something foolish or believing in an action for the wrong reasons. Hey, look around this is 2013, we must grasp by now what is foolishness and what is worth fighting for. Lets think about the 9/11 attack for a second. At some degree whatever happen had to be because of a belief. Whether it was terrorism or a government conspiracy the actions taken were because of a belief so strong that there was no other way but this way sad to say. Not to be judging or discriminating against anyone in particular, but come on man, you got to believe in something that makes sense, and not hurt innocent people.

          It all has to do with what you believe in and what you stand for. You can’t just be stupid about it and throw out empty words. Think about any scientist who developed a theory and is so famous today. All these famous scientist and psychologist had strong beliefs in something while being ridicule for it. The difference was these beliefs were to help people, they were educated about what they stood up for, and they even proved it. Can this be said about what you believe in? Does your belief bring about good without hurting and bringing down people? What difference can your belief make for the world? Can this be said about Kanye and what he stands for?

        

      By: Nicholl Pinder

"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world"

A world is nothing without analysis. We all live in some form of surroundings, but we can't make sense of them without materializing our thoughts. Now, thoughts in themselves are such abstract things that I suppose they'd exist even without the support of a language: It's just tendency to have baseline reactions in at least the positive or negative, even without the sophistication to articulate. But articulation is necessary. Once we pin down our thoughts to fitting vocabulary, we give our lives necessary definition -- We own these worlds that we inhabit by describing them, by analyzing them, by engaging in higher level thinking that is accessible only by language. And the transmissions of our thoughts, what we make out of these respective worlds we live in, are what intertwine our existences and permit essential communication. Without language our worlds become confined to our own minds and only our own; Language gives us sophistication and relation and allows us to optimize the meanings and opportunities that we find around us everyday.

-Sonika