This being my last semester, I have not had to take as many classes as before. I have until this point taken 16-18 credit hours and worked one or two jobs. Now that I am finishing my second degree I have most of my classes taken care of, I can finish off with a more relaxed semester.

Yes, only 15 credit hours this semester and I get to relax! Wait… actually this hasn’t been the case. I am finding that I finally can put more time into my homework. I can take my time reading through the book and actually answer the questions at the end of the chapters. I can go to study groups and work with other students in the class.

Along with the classes, I have been able to put more time in at the Torch. This semester I have worked towards having more productive staff meetings by having speakers come in or having the advisor talk at the meetings. We have started working in individual sections (News, A&E, Sports, Opinions) in hopes to improve communication and build a team atmosphere.

The Torch functions as a large group project – there are about 30 staff members that range in duties from staffing the office to selling ads to doing all of the story writing and photos. We all must come together to produce one final project - in the form of a website and a printed newspaper. Anything that can be done to improve our cohesiveness and our communications is a great help.

Although I am finding that not 100 percent of my efforts are paying off, I am getting a greater sense of satisfaction than I have in years past. I am not expecting to end up with a 4.0 GPA this semester, but I am finding that I can get a lot more out of my classes than I have in the past.

Yes, some can finish school in less than four years. It has taken me five years (two degrees), but I feel that I have been able to get much more out of the experience when compared to some others. In taking fewer credits this semester I have been able to put more time in to my obligations and I am just as busy as before.

The word “qat” is one of my favorites. This little three-letter dynamo is worth 12 points and, when placed tactfully on a “triple letter” square, it can be a great play. “Qat” is also a great way to use the letter “q” without its partner in crime, the “u.”

A few weeks ago when I went home to visit my parents and square off against my Dad in Scrabble. I ended up the victor and the play that ultimately won it for me was the synchronous formation of the words “opiates” and “ems.” The “s” adjoining them fell onto the “triple word score” square.

Beating this man, my father, in Scrabble is no easy task. He and I commonly have games scoring over 250 points, and I cannot say that I end up the winner with any great frequency. He knows most of the “Q’s no U’s,” tons of little two letter words that are never seen in daily life, and he can play the board like a champ.

This being the case, when I do end up the winner, I know then that the thousands of dollars, endless hours spent studying in the library and the weekends void of parties but full of paperwriting have all been worth it. The next time I am bunkered down amongst text books, old coffee cups, and crumpled up pieces of scratch paper, I can at least chant to myself, “All for the betterment of my Scrabble gameplay.”

Perhaps I can use a similar premise to further motivate my scholarly pursuits, as I have yet to even come close to beating my father in a game of chess, checkers, or Risk. He somehow manages to get Australia every time, despite my best efforts to prevent it.

On a more sincere note though, being able to surpass one’s parents (if only temporarily) in some pursuit has a very bittersweet feeling. It is novel to see one’s father, mother, or otherwise important figure as a peer. Even if that feeling lasts only a brief period of time.

I found my first Scrabble victory against my father to be staunchly humanizing. I have always idolized my parents and still do with relative consistency. Being on a peer level to my father in some small respect allowed me to see and examine the pedestal I had more and more firmly cemented him on throughout the course of my childhood.

This is not to say that parental admiration and appreciation is ill-founded, but quite the contrary. The gratitude and amazement I feel towards both of my parents has nothing but increased. They are only human, just like me, and they still were able to accomplish all that they have.

As someone who considers herself in the infancy of her role as a completely independent person, I find this encouraging. It is nice to know that by taking things one day at a time, step by step, I will progress into my role as an adult. I like to think that this revelation is one that others will find both comforting and motivational.

To prevent from misleading the reader, let me clarify. I still look to both of my parents for life advice on a regular basis. Tax season is coming up and my mom is certainly on the speed dial for this process. I have found though that over the course of the past couple of years, the regularity of calls like this have decreased, hopefully in reflection of my “grownup-ness.”

The road towards maturity is filled with bumps that we usually call “lessons”, and these have all the pleasure of a whack on the head. Luckily enough though, one of the pivotal steps towards adulthood and self assuredness for me involves an hour-long war of words complete with tea, arguments about spelling, and engraved wooden tiles placed strategically on brightly colored squares.

Odds are we’ve got one and if we don’t, someone pretty close to us does. I’m talking about cell phones and their continued rise in use, but also in necessity throughout the world.

In late 2007 Reuters reported that 3.3 billion cell phones were actively being used throughout the world. While the distribution of these communication devices is hardly balanced; centralized mostly around densely populated areas and understandably less in remote regions, that equates to roughly one cell phone for every two people on the planet.

I got a cell phone my junior year of high school. I was allowed 300 minutes per month and the idea of text messages was far from my mind. Flash forward to the present and you’ll find me an owner of a Blackberry Curve complete with a data plan. This data plan allows me to check facebook, my bank account, the weather, play Sudoku, and have e-mails instantly redirected to wherever I am standing. Also, I can use the GPS system and Blackberry Messenger (an instant messenger between Blackberry owners) to my heart’s unlimited content.

My ‘device’ is neither a phone meant solely for calling Mom to thank her for the care package nor a miniature personal computer allowing me instant access to communication and data needs. Rather, it is an appendage. I cannot leave my apartment without it and the seemingly unending epilepsy that alerts me to current activity around the world reminds me that at no time am I unreachable.

While the Blackberry is intended primarily as a media through which business can take place, the Apple iPhone updates applications daily that serve no purpose but to entertain. With ease your iPhone can become a lightsaber, a pond of Japanese coy fish, or a flashlight (the screen just lights up).

What has happened is the cell phone has lost that need for reachabilty from one person to another and instead segmented and introverted users to limit meaningful communication. Texts where whole words are absent and instead a parade of acronyms is meant to demonstrate our appreciation of humor (lol) or our astonishment at an event (OMG) has become the norm. I spend more time massaging my QWERTY keypad reminding myself to attend events or buy birthday cards than I do communicating with real live people.

Which is why I think it’s important to, from time to time, throw off the bonds of technology and actually sit down with another human being. Look another person in the eye and establish a connection that isn’t based off of a 3G network. Coffee and the latest news being pushed to your phone is great, but coffee with the latest news from a friend is better.

All the world seems to be becoming a small one after all, and it’s easier to get in touch with another person than ever before. But if we lose the ambition to actually touch another life, to truly reach out, it doesn’t matter how many minutes we have per month. We’ve wasted the bond that endures where contracts end and left ourselves to a world managed by battery life and signal strength.

I don’t know about you, but for me the right song can brighten any day. My introduction to music was in a church pulpit and for a number of years those songs satisfied my musical interests.

But as I grew older my tastes in music grew to include country music and more. In my small school I kept my interest for country music to myself. Simply because it was looked down by my peers who preferred pop and rock. That was enough to keep me quiet.

Throughout the course of high school I discovered pop, rock, alternative, contemporary Christian and Christian rock. My desire for music led me to quench my “musical thirst” by any legal means possible. That didn’t leave me with many options to say the least.

From there, my musical interests only further diversifiedinvestigating the tastes of friends and siblings, listening to songs on the radio and when all else failedlooking up stuff on YouTube. I spent hours listening to music videos because that is the only way I could have any hope of getting a song out of my head.

Then I enrolled at Ferris and the day after I got my valid college email address I set up my Ruckus account. My brother tipped me off to the free music downloading site and I couldn’t wait to get started.

Granted, Ruckus have its downfalls, such as not being able to burn the files to CD or sync them to music devices, not having every song you could ever want, and having licenses that needed to be renewed periodically.

But what Ruckus did have were plenty of files that I could download and listen to without having to be online or paying for them. By the end of last semester I had over 900 songs in my Ruckus library and if you walked into my room at any time I guarantee I would have music on.

Then on Feb. 6, 2009 my world of music bliss crumbled as I logged onto Ruckus with the intention of downloading my latest musical craving. What I found when I attempted to log on was this simple message “the Ruckus service will no longer be provided, thanks”.

“What? This can not be happening to me! This must be a cruel joke!” I thought in a panic.

My worst fears were confirmed as I began to search for answers online it became evident this was no hoax. My entire music library was useless.

With Ruckus gone I have started the search for an alternative source for music. The best site that I have found that is comparable to Ruckus is a site called Spiral Frog. This webpage is like Ruckus in that you are able to download songs directly into windows media player and don’t have to be online to listen to them.

Unlike Ruckus, however, anyone, not just college students, are able to set up a free online account. Spiral Frog has over three million songs. This is about the same amount as Ruckus. But what I have found from my short experience with it is there are not nearly as many “popular” songs.

Ruckus was geared towards college students and therefore had a wide variety of the genres of music that college students enjoy. Spiral Frog has a large selection of country artists and older artists but not as many rock or pop artists.

For now I suppose that I will simply have to settle for what I am able to get from Spiral Frog. The alternative would be to acquire music via LimeWire, other illegal sites, or have to pay for my music. None of which currently seem appealing to me.

Politics: it is considered one of the most taboo topics in our society today. Nobody likes to talk about politics because they either do not want their views known, or they are afraid that they will upset somebody else. This should not be the case. Politics is a main part of our nation’s government, and usually, in some way, shape, or form, affects each and every one of our lives.

When it comes to politics, one thing that upsets students the most is when professors start to share their own personal political views in the classroom. For some, this does not bother them, especially if they share the same beliefs. Those students that have the opposite views then usually feel uncomfortable with that professor.

For a person such as myself that is very active on campus with the Democratic Party, I am looked down upon by several of my professors. This past fall when I told all of my instructors that I would be absent on Election Day, and I told them why, they all just looked at me like I was a waste of space. Yes, I already knew I hold the exact opposite views that they do. This should not matter when it comes to excusing a student from missing one day of class.

Since President Obama was sworn into office, I have been looked at and treated like a freak by some of my professors. This is absolutely ridiculous, especially when I am paying $900 to take their class. One of my professors uses the hour and fifteen minute class sessions as his personal soap box time. I have a severe problem with the fact that one of my instructors stood in front of 40 students last week and said that our economy is stable and strong. Before he said this, I respected the man for all of his knowledge and guidance he has given me.

What is even worse is that I, or anybody with the opposite views, are not given the opportunity to engage in a civil discussion with him. After he made that comment, I have lost all respect for him. I don’t even feel like going to his class anymore.

It does not matter what side of the aisle professors stand on. They should treat all of their students with fairness and respect. Yes, I know that most instructors here at Ferris, and most other universities, have liberal beliefs and that they make them known. I do not totally agree with that, but for the most part, they have an open mind when some of their students hold conservative beliefs.

In a few of my courses, the instructors have come right out and said what they stand for and their reasons behind their beliefs. Usually a few students will get upset by this, and then the professor will allow these students to share their own beliefs. This is known as a civil discussion of politics. Many people do not think that this is possible in our country, but shockingly, it is. I have taken part in several civil discussions myself.

I do not necessarily have a problem with my instructors voicing their opinions in class, but I do have a problem when they try to shove them down my throat. One purpose of higher education is to broaden our views of our world and society. An easy way to do this is by engaging in civil discussions of problems that our nation is facing today, not by causing more divide and disgust, especially in the classroom.