Erin’s Blog

I am graduating college in one month.  After 15 and a half years, 6 schools and numerous teachers I have no more school to attend.  While I am thrilled to see my life change, I am terrified of what I will encounter, what I will be doing and where I might end up.

I will finally leave my home, Auburn, for the first time since the first grade.  While I have visited other places of course, I haven’t lived anywhere else since I was 5 years old.  What will I encounter?  Where will I live?  Am I ready for all that independence?

While I know that I have been taught what I need to know to succeed, am I ready to leave the guidance that my teachers have given me for so long?  Am I ready to leave all the help and support that my parents have given me?  I know that they will all still be there when I need them, but it will no longer be the same.

I know that I am ready.  I know that I have the skills I need to succeed.  I know that I will one day be a great employee for a company.  I just feel a bit scared about it all.

Is it normal for a 21 year old to be afraid of what is to come?  Is it normal for me to be sad to be leaving my university?  Is it normal for me to wish I had just one more semester?

While I know it is silly, I know that all of those concerns are on the minds of all of the graduating seniors.  We all know that when we walk that stage in 33 days, we are walking into our new lives.  We will be starting fresh yet again.

I feel like I have only been in college a short time.  It feels like yesterday that I took my first college class.  And yet, as fast as it began, it all comes to an end.

I want to be sad, knowing I am leaving behind a lot of friends and a lot of fun.  But while I am leaving behind those things, I am taking fond memories away with me.  I am taking all the lessons learned and using those to shape my life.  I want to be sad, but I know that this is only the start to a great future.  A future full of new challenges, new obstacles, new celebrations and new opportunities.

While my college days may be over, my journey had just begun.  I will find a great job, I will help a great company do wonderful things.

On December 19, I will not be sad, I will be proud.  I will look into the faces of my mother and father and know that I have done something great.  I will know that I am ready and I will be just fine.

Facebook, a word, a site, that everyone seems to recognize.  From junior high students to establish professional, you can find almost anyone on facebook.  MySpace, another networking site, one that attracts different people yet still has great diversity.    While I am one of the many students you can find on one of these sites (facebook), I have recently found myself questioning these social sites.

I know that networking is so important, but this kind of networking is different.  These sites allow you to network with people that you see on a daily basis.  While most people are “facebook friends” with people in other schools, the vast majority of “friends” are in your specific school or workplace.  While it is great to have an informal way to talk to friends, it can also be a danger.

I often times log onto facebook to find status updates that give me a specific location and time to find someone.  I can sign on at any time and see at least one friend saying something like “David is at Wal-Mart.”  While it may be nice to know where people are sometimes, it can also be a danger.  A lot of facebook and MySpace users have not set their profiles to a safe privacy level.  There are some accounts that anyone can look at and be updated on.  While a status may be fun to update, it is also a great way to let a stranger know your location.

Maybe I am just one of those people who are extremely cautious.  I don’t travel alone, especially at night, I keep doors locked, I don’t update my status to let people know where I am and I definitely have my facebook account set so only specific people can see.  I have done this all for some time now.

After the whole incident with Lauren Burk last spring, I thought that Auburn students would be more careful.  I thought that girls especially would be smart about how and when they do certain things, but sadly it didn’t seem to faze some.  I drive at night sometimes and see girls running alone down dark streets.  I get on facebook and find all sorts of information that could be viewed by anyone.

I don’t doubt that everyone remembers what happened that day to Lauren, and I doubt that they are trying to be so unsafe, but it’s the little things that people forget.  Facebook is a popular website.  Everyone seems to be on it.  Private information like residence and cell number are often times posted.  This wouldn’t be such a bad thing if only your “facebook friends” could see it, but that is often times not the case.

Sites like facebook are meant to be fun.  They are meant to help people keep contact with friends and classmates that they don’t see all the time.  It was meant to be a way to share information and updates about life.  It was not supposed to endanger those who use them.  I just wish that everyone paid a little more attention to the things they put out on the World Wide Web.  I wish that they would protect themselves by increasing the privacy function on their page.  There are a lot of bad people out in the world, prowling on those who let them.  It’s a dangerous world, but we can try to make it safer by first protecting ourselves.

With the 2008 election just two days away, I find myself thinking that this election did not come soon enough.  Maybe it is just the fact that I am finally able to vote and am paying more attention to the news in regard to the election, or maybe its just that I finally am understanding all of the intensity of the election, whatever the reason, I’m tired of it all.

I know that this election is particularly important considering the economy and the War in Iraq, but I feel that some people have lost sight of the election and have now just become rude to other people who do not agree with their specific view.  I feel as if this particular election has brought out the bad in people, republicans and democrats alike..  They get all worked up and argue, listening to no one other than themselves.  They get worked up enough so that they even seem to lose sight of why they are arguing in the first place and begin to just talk and cut down others.

It is not that I just don’t want anyone to not care about the election, I simply just wish people would calm down just slightly. Everyone seems to get so overworked about it all. It gets to a specific level where points are not coming across correctly.  The people are so wound up that they can’t even voice their opinions in a clear and concise way.  Don’t get me wrong, I think people should be passionate about the election, but I also think that there is such thing as being overly passionate. I think there is a there is a fine line between supporting a candidate and being a complete pompous jerk to people about their candidate.

If I have learned one important thing in my life it would be to respect others.  With this in mind I find myself questioning those who just forget the importance of respect.  I feel that if a person really wants to make a point, they need to approach situations a little less hostile and respect those that they are talking to. People immediately shut down, stop listening, and go on the defense when people are rude to them. It’s a fact of life. People are now at the point of being rude and have lost their ability to change minds or even make a point because of that disrespect.

While some may find my views apathetic, I completely disagree.  I care who wins this next election, I have a particular candidate that I am supporting and I even talk politics with people.  However, I don’t feel the need to be one of those hostile individuals. I will do my campaigning in a different way, one less hostile.

People have become so serious about the election and act as if there can be no humor (unless of course they are watching Saturday Night Live). The whole election and the election coverage is a huge deal, but I highly doubt that when the first thoughts of the election came about in our country, that they were hoping voters would become hostile, hateful, and mean.