Metacognition: Reading "Jane Eyre"

Reading Jane Eyre was a difficult experience. To get through the book I had to abandon my cultural upbringing and immerse myself in 19th century dialogue. I had to force myself to look at the events of the book through Jane's eyes and not my own ultra-feminist ones.

While reading the book, I would find my thoughts wandering. My eyes were reading the text, but I was hardly reading; it was the worst during the descriptions. Once my brain got enough visual description to form a basic picture my imagination set to work to fill in the rest and blocked out and more of the eloquent 19th century recounting. I wish my focusing abilities while reading dense text were stronger. I feel like I'm missing a lot of the beauty of literature when I am unable to focus on descriptions, but being a child of the 21st century, my brain immediately looks for verbs and actions.

I had relative easy getting through the conversations. I don't know if it was the lighter text, or my general interest in how characters interact, but I got more out of the conversations by far. My brain would work with, instead of against, the characters. My mind would follow their conversations and arguments all the while forming my own opinions and through annotations responding to the questions they posed.

Reading this book was an interesting experience that allowed me to see the society I've been raised in has shaped my world view.

360 Degrees: Marijuana

Marijuana and its legalization is an issue of much controversy. This debate like so many others boils down to a clash of science and religion. The biggest opposition to the legalization comes from the people who are uncomfortable with the drug morally, because the scientific evidence to back their arguments is fairly weak. They mostly worry that legalizing marijuana will create a society of pot-heads. The supporters of the its legalization point to benefits in the medical field, potentially revenue from its taxation, decreased cost from drug related arrests, and the potential to make the drug safer with FDA regulation.

When I first started doing a little research for this post I was pretty undecided, but after reading around I found my worries were pretty unfounded remnants of the "drugs are bad" speeches I listened to in elementary school. I tend to favor opinions with a lot of scientific backing and there was little to be found against marijuana, other than its role as a gateway drug. But then a thought occurred to me, prescription drugs are legal and government regulated, and they aren't gateway drugs. So why do people go through the trouble of abusing the illegal ones? I support the legalization of marijuana for mainly the following four reasons:

1. State Revenue- Although I generally disapprove of new taxes, this would be one that I would support. Just like we have taxes on cigarettes and alcohol, taxes of marijuana could provide much needed revenue to alleviate the debt caused by our profligate (just had to throw in a vocab word) government spending.

2. Regulation- If marijuana was legalized and corporations took over its production, then the government could step in and regulate it. This could make the drug safer and cheaper, theoretically lowering crimes associated with it such as theft. The cheaper costs could also stamp out the illegal trafficking of it buy putting dealers out of business. If you can walk down to your local pot store and grab a joint, why pay your creepy dealer hiding out by Subway double for poor quality weed?

3. Decreased Drug-related Arrests- Last year in the United States, over 847,000 arrests were made in relation to marijuana, and 89% of those arrests were for possession only. These arrests cost an estimated $10 billion. If it were legal, that would be $10 billion dollars in, wait for it, more spendable government money! It would also put less strain on our overcrowded jails and free up the court systems for more important cases than the "dumb teenager caught with a joint" cases.

4. Medical Uses- The active part in marijuana shows promising signs of being used effectively in pharmaceuticals. Marijuana itself has also been shown to have success when used therapeutically for terminally ill cancer patients. The drug itself is actually far less harmful to our health than we have been brainwashed to believe. Marijuana is less addictive than nicotine and is nearly impossible to overdose on. But legal alcohol accounts for over 50,000 overdose related deaths each year. The only health concerns are related to its long term smoking, but those effects are similar to long term tobacco use.

A lot of the fear surrounding the legalization of marijuana is associated with it getting into the hands of kids. Newsflash, it already is. Countries with a legalized marijuana market, such as The Netherlands and Switzerland, have lower adolescence abuse rates than the United States.

We don't even need to legalize marijuana for anything other than medical purposes, and most of this argument would still hold water. Although I'm uncomfortable with the idea of marijuana being legal, the more research I do the more my fears just look like fears.

An Inconvenient Truth: Small Children

So the title was more of an attention getter, I should probably retitle this post something along the lines of poor parenting or ill-behaved small children. But, many small children fit this generalized mold.

Spring break is supposed to be a time of relaxation. My family went down to the Florida Keys for just that reason. We hoped to sleep in late, lay pool side, and go out to dinner at night. Who knew that poor parenting and angry toddlers could ruin all of this. Conveniently enough, the unit next to ours housed about seven little youngsters, one of whom decided 8 am was the perfect time to have an out of body experience, every, single morning. We had our own vacation alarm clock. Well now that we're up so early we might as well head to the pool and relax. But as luck would have it, non-potty-trained kids and pools are not a good mix, so much for taking a swim. To make matters worse there are now 60 plus angry, bored, tired, and hungry little tots swarming around the pool area. At least we can enjoy a nice dinner together as a family at a nice restaurant, granted this table of seven kids next to us doesn't act up, which of course they do. Not only do they scream through the entire dinner, but they get up and run around playing tag throughout a nice seafood restaurants, while the parents stare at their drinks and pretend its not their kids ruining the peace. We ran into similar problems on the flight back home, luckily the flight attendants drink cart confined the disgruntled little demon to the back of the plane.

I wasn't very fond of small children before this...

What bothers me so much, is that in every instance the parents didn't do anything. In complete disregard of anyone around them, they just let their kids run around and misbehave. Is it so hard to understand that the world isn't one giant playground? I know that I was young once too, but according to my parents I had very few of these disruptive, public meltdowns. On the occasion I did, they left the restaurant/pool as a courtesy to the other people. What does it say about our culture if its the norm for all young children to be ill-mannered?

All it takes is a little preparation on the parents part to keep their children under control. For example at restaurants don't assume they cater to kids, bring a little bag of crayons or toys, just something to keep them occupy them. The same thing applies for airplanes, bring a few snacks and things to distract them with. For the pool, always have your toddler wear a swim diaper, that's just a given. I mean seriously, come on people. Lastly, it is understood that they are only children and not perfect, but if you're child decides it's time to scream, sob, and act out, just take them home, or into private so you can calm them down.