Sorority and Fraternity

I am really happy that I chose to rush earlier this fall. Sororities and Fraternities are a great way to meet people at such a large school. I met so many people through my sorority and it really helped to know people in some of my classes and just have a group of girls that I know well and can depend on. A lot of people think of Greek life as always and only partying but in reality there is so much more. It is truly really like a family, and there are education and GPA requirement as well as philanthropy events that we participate in, in order to help different charities. There are some commitments that come with sorority and fraternity life. Also Greek Life does cost money which a lot of people do not like but in the end it is really worth it. There are also a lot of stereotypes that go along with sororities and fraternities but there is a lot more than just partying and you really do have friends for life.

Just An Idea

I was thinking about how I wanted to learn about the economy the other day because when my parents or even other college students talk about it I feel so clueless. I was thinking I must not be the only college student that doesn't know a lot about how the economy is doing. So I was thinking that the Daily Illini should make a section in the newspaper that is just a quick glance at the Nation's economy. In addition I think it would be helpful if this section was a sort of "dumbed down" look at the economy. This way more people would understand it and want to pay attention to the economy. Also because it would just be a quick look at the economy then it would not take a lot of time at all to read this section. I feel like if we had something like this I would definitely read it and it would help me be able to interact in discussions about the economy. Also I would know what I could do as a citizen in order to try to take my part in helping the economy. I was just thinking how this could possibly be a good idea and helpful to many college students who are rushed for time, yet still want to be in "the know" for different issues in the economy.

Parking

So I plan on going home for Easter in 2 weeks so rather than take 3 bus rides in the course of 2 weeks I decided that I would drive my car down here and keep it here until the end of the semester. I planned on buying a permit except they are closed on weekends so I have to wait until tomorrow in order to purchase the permit. So I was driving around campus tonight for almost an hour trying to find a parking spot on campus that would allow me to park overnight without being at risk for a ticket or even worse being towed. There are NO available parking spots on campus and if there are then they all have really weird time restrictions like "No Parking between 2am and 5am." What am I supposed to do? Go out at 2am and move my car, which wouldn't even be possible because there would be no place to move it since all the lots and meters have this 2am to 5am rule. I think U of I needs to work on having some visitor parking lots. I had my friend who visited the other week park in E14 which is very far from the quad and she got a 50dollar ticket. I would be willing to pay for a visitor lot if U of I would make one which they haven't. I think it would be a very good investment, and be fairly easy to do. An easy way to do this would be to have a lot devoted to visitors and have a little booth with someone working in it during the day who could take like 5dollars a day for parking I actually think many students would use it as well.

Spring Break

Spring Break is now over and several hundreds of dollars have just been spent on five or so days at the beach and all that is left are faded tans and memories on a digital camera. I was thinking while I was on spring break if any companies suffered this year because of the economy. I went to Puerto Rico with my roommate and it seemed like the beaches were overall pretty quiet and so were the airports which was very different from previous spring breaks that I have experienced. Some of the airlines increased prices due to the decreased number of travelers. I will be interested after the spring break season to see if this helped the companies or made their situation worse. Half of me would think that by lowering the prices for airfare more people would be interested in traveling during the spring break season. I was just thinking about this as I was traveling this Spring Break and I thought it would be a good topic to blog about and possibly get other people's opinions about it.

Media

I was thinking about the media and the effect that it has on celebrities lives and I have come to the conclusion that it would suck to be a celebrity. Every aspect of your life is shown to the whole world. I just don't think that is fair. All the money and fame must be nice for the celebrities but there is definitely a loss of privacy. The most evident case right now of this is Rihanna and Chris Brown. I am definitely against relationship abuse but there have been countless articles on this subject and I just feel like you should not write something that you don't have all the facts on. Now people are saying that they got back together, which I think is great and fully support. It is not other peoples' job to critique every move that celebrities make. If Chris Brown and Rihanna want to get back together even after everything that has happened then I really don't see what the big deal is. All of this coverage could just hurt their relationship even more. Just like how the media and paparazzi made Britney Spears go crazy. Luckily she has her life in much better order then she used too but you can't even blame her, if people wouldn't have been tracking her every move and critiquing it then she would have never cracked. I think the media should leave celebrities alone. I know we all love reading gossip magazines, but everytime we do, think of how annoying and humiliating that must be for them. I hope the paparazzi realize the damage they have done and are still doing and realize they are hurting people and should just leave them alone.