Congrats to nkuvu!

[Kris]

Originally posted by nkuvu
In effect, you are murdering another human life, one that has no defenses other than our legal system.

I would not use the word "murdering".. Not very suitable, though you do end a human life at an very early age. And that's why it's not an easy decision.

Here, where I live, it was once a bunch of demonstrators outside one of the hospitals. At the hospital, some abortions had been made. The demonstrators stood outside and screamed "murder" and "killer" to the women. It was absolutely horrible. And they talked about respect for the human life.. Ok, one more story, and I'll stop. I know (actually, I don't really know her) a very young girl who has taken several abortions. She even managed to say that it was fun to have abortions (though I doubt she ment it). That's when you know it has gone too far.

Ok. I'm done. Perhaps we should take the capital punishment topic? What do you actually mean by "capital punishment"?


Kris

 

[RacerX]

by nkuvu (while possessed by the Devil)
The choice for an abortion doesn't just affect your own body. You're affecting another life, that of the fetus. In effect, you are murdering another human life, one that has no defenses other than our legal system.

My response to this is that it is not murder when a woman chooses not to use herself to sustain another life. No government, no group of people, no outside counsel should bar a woman from making the choice which is best for her. She can be informed of the consequences (both to herself and the growth within her body), but beyond that, we should not be telling anyone that they must provide their body (at their own personal risk) to save the life of another.

by the good nkuvu, rebutting his possessed self
When exactly does it become human?

I would say that the beginning of life (which is immaterial to the abortion question anyway) can be standardized by what we would consider the end of life. The flesh can be maintained for extended periods beyond the life of a person, but brain activity would seem to be that which defines the difference between life as a person and a collection of cells existing. From this point of view, life would begin with brain activity just as life ends with the lack of it.

Once life has begun, it becomes an argument of importance. For me, the arbitrary importance assigned to anyone (from my point of view) is based on age. Without any other information other than age, if I had to choose between saving the life of an adult versus that of a child, I would choose the adult. A majority of adults represent a sizable investment by our social community. With each year, a human increases in value based on investment and experience (again, a broad generalization, but with the lack of any other qualifier, a good one).

From this point of view (with no other information), a pre-born child represents no investment by the community, while the mother could represent anywhere from 13 to 45 years of community investment and (far more important) irreplaceable experience. Therefore any risk of losing the mother far out weighs the risk of losing the unborn child.

Now, given all that, the process (from conception to birth) should only take place with the full consent of the woman involved. If she is willing to take the risks, then that is her choice. If she is not willing, then we should support her (and our collective investment) completely.

by nkuvu (on a slightly different topic)
Just take a look at public education. Even for children that live with their biological parents the school system does next to nothing to ensure that the children of today become good people in the future.

As a product of the United States public school system, I would take issue with that. I have gone to public schools (including my university) and would be happy to compare any of the institutions of which I attended to any other like institution around the world. I will not hide the fact that I attended the best that the public school system had to offer, but I would point out that these institutions exist within the framework of the public school system, and that others could have been just as good with community support. Any community which doesn't want the best of their school system (be it because the parents are uneducated themselves or the majority of the population is beyond child baring) is not going to have very good schools. The United States offers an education second to none on this planet, you need only want it to have it (and that includes everyone, not just US citizens).

Are you really sure we can't talk about capital punishment of cute little animals?

 

[nkuvu]

Hmm. I suppose the whole abortion issue isn't going to be a hot topic here, since everyone seems to be in agreement...

Posted by Kris:
I would not use the word "murdering"

Nor would I. But even as you mentioned, plenty of others do.

What do you actually mean by "capital punishment"?

Capital punishment is the execution of criminals. Enough said?

Then RacerX said:
As a product of the United States public school system, I would take issue with that. I have gone to public schools (including my university) and would be happy to compare any of the institutions of which I attended to any other like institution around the world.

I'm also a product of the US public school system, but I feel that I was cheated for a majority of my education.

A relatively minor example: When I was in 7th grade, I started taking Spanish. I continued through the first half of 8th grade, when my mom and I moved across country. The new school didn't offer any second languages, and I was unable to resume Spanish until 10th grade. When I did resume the classes, the teacher was so uninspired that I learned absolutely nothing in the next three years of the class. All of the Spanish I know today (which is only a little since I haven't practiced) I learned in my first year and a half of classes. From what I hear, students in European and Asian schools begin the study of not one but many foreign languages at a much earlier age, when it is much easier to learn a new language.

How well did your school teach you about history? Geography? Philosophy? It is my impression (which could of course be absolutely wrong) that other school systems educate their children very well in these matters, where a majority of US schools merely get the children to memorize dates and places long enough for the test.


If you feel like talking about capital punishment for small cute animals, RacerX, start right in. I think I've already made my feelings clear on the matter, but I can debate it with you if you want.

 

[Kris]

Well. I'm not a product of the American school system, but since we're talking about school, I wold like to add something.

Did you guys ever feel you really got a chance to learn maximum, and to use your, let me call it; "gifts"?
A possible scenario: Some students are motivated, some are not. (I'm talking high-school-level here, not university-level.) The teacher therefor have to use most of the time to try to put (yeah, put) information into the heads of the un-motivated students. Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying the techers shouldn't help the ones that may struggle in some subjects. But it's the fact they only do that. In every class, with every subject. And the "smart ones/motivated" suffers from this.


Kris

 

[nkuvu]

Ah, you're a perfect example, Kris. How was your school when you were growing up? Were you taught multiple foreign languages? Is English your native tongue? Did your school touch on philosophy or geography? Do you feel that you have a good idea of world history?

To answer your question, no I didn't feel that school was a good place to learn for me. I've always had an aptitude for learning, especially science and math. This doesn't mean that I think I am particularly smart -- I might be if I was motivated to learn, but that's one of my personal flaws. (I mean that lack of motivation is one of my flaws) Anyway, I often felt pretty darn bored in school. Let me take my physics class for an example of the exception to the rule.

When I was in high school physics, I had already taken a number of chemistry classes from the same teacher. I did really well in chemistry, because the teacher made it interesting and I really wanted to learn it all. So when I got to physics, he noticed that I and another student were ahead of the rest of the class. I think one of the reasons he noticed it was because we kept asking for the next assignment. We finished his curriculum for the class about one third of the way through the course. So he started giving us other assignments, and other quizzes. We still had to take the same tests as the rest of the class, but they were really easy since we'd already learned it. We started getting into his college textbooks, and were learning chemistry and physics and their relationship. We got to the point of a really good learning experience where we were discussing the properties of light, and doing experiments to try to determine if light is a wave or a particle, when the course ended. That was my senior year in high school, so I was unable to continue with the same teacher. That was the only time I felt that the teacher really wanted us to learn, and was willing to ignore the "regular system" of learning to be able to teach us.

In all other classes, when I tried to get new assignments, the teacher would refuse and tell me that I'd have to work along with the rest of the class. This really irritated me, and for most of my schooling I was not a good student, because I resented being taught at the same pace as the kid with the perpetual blank stare. Of course knowing what I know now, I would have done things differently, but I guess that's part of being human.

I know that being a teacher must be an awful lot of work, and very unrewarding (at least in the US). Most people I know who are teachers get paid very minimal salaries, and so they really have to love what they are doing. But I also know from experience that it is possible for a teacher to enable students to learn at a faster pace. My physics teacher rarely spent time lecturing us, so it's not like he was teaching a whole new class. All he had to give us was a book and assignments, and we did the work.

Does this perhaps answer your question?

 

[RacerX]

asked by nkuvu
How well did your school teach you about history? Geography? Philosophy? It is my impression (which could of course be absolutely wrong) that other school systems educate their children very well in these matters, where a majority of US schools merely get the children to memorize dates and places long enough for the test.

I would say that my knowledge of history, geography and philosophy rivals (or exceeds) that of almost any member of MacOSX.com (and I would say that our members most likely represent the best of their countries education systems). As that knowledge is a product of my education, I would say my schools covered those subjects very well.

My teachers asked us to write on these subjects and their implications (dates were secondary to relevance of events in my classes). And we were encouraged to excel at our interests (for myself this was mathematics/physics and track). Advanced Placement courses were the norm at my school, not the exception. And as for athletics, I was one of the leaders in my state (California), which produced may of the best athletes ever in my event.

If I feel in any way cheated, it would be by myself for not having taken full advantage of the bounty that was offered me. If I didn't like a subject (or I was preoccupied with other aspects of teenage life) I didn't spend much time on it. Languages are a good example. I have a learning disability which makes languages (including English) hard for me to learn (specifically, I do not make a connection between the written word and the spoken word, there is no inner voice associated with reading/writing for me). Given this (and my enjoyment of science) I didn't take advantage of the language program offered. In high school I had 4 years of mathematics, 3 years of physics and 2 years of chemistry, and dropped out of French, German, and Spanish. These were my choices, and the instructors of the language courses were in no way at fault. In retrospect, maybe I would have done some things different (actually, maybe not... I did enjoy my high school coursework ). The point is that it was up to me and in some areas I took full and complete advantage of what the school was offering me.

 

[Kris]

Originally posted by nkuvu
Ah, you're a perfect example, Kris. How was your school when you were growing up? Were you taught multiple foreign languages? Is English your native tongue? [...]

Yes, I were taught several langugages at school. English, French and my mothertongue (I could also chose Spanish if I wanted too). I've always done well in English and very well in my mothertongue. French on the other hand, never caught my interest.
Anyway. The problem with school was the noise in the classes, and not the subjects. People talked too much. Mostly about boys and parties, but never, never, about school or the subject we were doing. This was extremely frustrating. I must add, though, that there were other people like me, but the majority didn't care much at all. They were happy if they even passed the class. I have no idea why they were even there! But in i.e my math-class it was much better. People were more motivated, and therefor calmer. I learned a lot there.

Another problem I found was the number of subjects you could chose. Many people would chose subject like media or travelling. Yeah, travelling. While interesting subjects, such as biology, were not even a subject.


Kris

 

[nkuvu]

It sounds like you got a very good education, RacerX. My only lament is that I was not offered similar experiences.

As I mentioned, my school was definitely not the best. I took one AP course, out of two offered. I took two years of chemistry, one of those years being AP chemistry. There was only one physics class offered. Four years of math, and I already described the language course. German was also offered at my school, but it was worse than Spanish. I had friends who took three years of German to get easy A's, but they couldn't form a proper sentence.

I feel cheated by myself as well as the system, basically because the lesson I learned most in school was that to learn you have to go out and do all the work on your own. If I wanted to accelerate my learning, I got absolutely no help from my teachers (with the exception of my physics/chemistry teacher). In fact, I feel that I was restricted from learning since I had to maintain the pace of all of the other students in the class. I cheated myself by not realizing that I could learn things outside of class. Personally I learn best when I can discuss the subject with someone who knows it better, so learning on my own is not as easy as a class. Maybe it's the same for everyone...

Basically I felt that I took full advantage of what my school had to offer, but when I reached out for more they told me I couldn't have it.

 

[RacerX]

Yeah, of the AP classes offered, I only took the AP Physic B & C, Calculus AB & BC, and Chemistry and of those I only took the actual exams for Physics B and Calculus AB (junior year), Physics C Mechanics and Physics C Electricity and Magnetism (senior year). We had a ton of AP and IB courses at my school, and things like philosophy and psychology.

I, by no means, believe that this was the norm (very little of my high school years were in any sense normal... specially after I started dating one of my instructors ). My only point was that both my high school (Coronado High) and university (University of California, San Diego) are part of the public education system. A system which provides (or doesn't provides depending on your point of view) a full spectrum of education environments. Much of these institution's offerings are determined by cities or states (and should not be used a measure of the nation as a whole). Remember that the United States is roughly the size of Europe, with 50 individual states with their own interest, yet all working together for the common good of the nation (on a good day of course ). We have short comings (like health care), but few other countries (if any, actually) have it any better in other areas.

You know what they say... The grass is always greener on the other side of the border (excepted for me because I can only speak the English, and even then, not that well ).

 

[AdmiralAK]

I took AP physics in high school (when I was a senior). The teacher was teh coolest cat you've ever met! Even though I got good grades I never took the AP exam for college credit.

I wonder if there is a CLEP exam for physics

I attend a public university, where the tuition is cheaper than most universities if you are a resident of the state. The problem is that people who work there are state workers. Professors are nice but the staff get more apathetic as time goes by. Whenever I try to get something done with other departments(I also work for the university) I get infuriated at their apathy and slow responce, the stupid beaurocracy and teh general conditions --- ah.... what can one do ?


Admiral

 

[nkuvu]

[SARCASM]
RacerX, you should do some traveling. Go see Europe and Asia and all those fun places. Who cares if you don't speak their language? They should speak English, right?
[/SARCASM]

I really hate that Americans tend to expect that everyone will speak English in other countries.

Sorry, I digressed there for a moment.

I took the AP chemistry test, and got a 3 (out of 5, for those not familiar with the tests). Which meant that I could have gotten some college credit, but it was only worth one class. By the time I got to college, though, I really needed to take that class and refresh my knowledge. So the test wasn't really worth it to me.

 

[RacerX]

I got all 4s on the exams I took. I don't think I could have gotten as high as a 3 on the Chemistry exam which was why I didn't take it. And I was paying for my own exams by my senior year, and I couldn't afford both the Physics C exams and the Calculus BC exam (plus I thought I was going to major in physics at that time also).

Actually I didn't take Chemistry after that (wasn't required for me and I hate lab work), so I guess the credits wouldn't have helped anyway. And I would have a hard time listing all the math and physics courses I've taken sense high school. I loved school!

 

[nkuvu]

I'm not ignoring anyone, just had problems with my ISP. The curious people can read about it in the B&G.

I will probably be posting a lot less this week, since we have to get ready to move. Cleaning and packing and moving and cleaning and unpacking. Joy!

It will be nice once we're moved, but until then....

 

[Kris]

nkuvu: Where are you moving? To a new city, or just changing residence?

Oh.. and talking about tests and exams.. Anyone got some advice on how to not stress, or how to stress-down?


Kris

 

[nkuvu]

Just moving across town. We'll be living closer to the university, which is very beneficial for both my roommate and myself. My roommate because she goes to college (technically she goes to the community college, but it's right next to the university) and myself because I drive her to school since we currently live so far away. Her classes start at 8:00 am this quarter, so I have to get up even earlier than I normally do so I can get ready to go to work and still have time to take her.

I tried writing about how I relax for tests, but when written out it sounded strange and bizarre and not like something that would relax anyone.

 

[RacerX]

My physics teacher in high school gave us a party the night before the exams so we wouldn't think about them. The day before a test like that, there really is very little more you could do. Remember, very few things in live can't be fixed. Exams have never held me back when I did poorly on them, they only required me to apply my efforts somewhere else to continue on my path.

Maybe that isn't the best advice for everyone though.

Besides, at that time I wasn't a very good student. I hardly ever showed up for classes (mainly to take the exams) and almost never did homework. My ex-wife used to tell people how I would be doing take-home exams (which we had a week to complete) in the car as she was driving me to class.

In retrospect, it is amazing that I even graduated from high school (considering that I was hardly there my senior year). I know that some of my teachers excused my absences because I was a star athlete. From what my ex-wife told me, she couldn't walk through the teacher’s lounge without my other teachers coming up to ask her if she could get me to put in even a little effort into my school work.

I guess you can see why I feel I cheated myself while I was in high school.

Anyways, I hope your move goes will, nkuvu. I know how much I hate moving.

 

[RacerX]

We now have another good example of a good congrats threads. Note how it fixes so nicely into the Anatomy of a Good Congrats Thread.

 

[nkuvu]

I knew if I talked to myself long enough I'd get over five pages. And even better, someone else came in and started talking to me! I guess you (plural) couldn't stand my conversations with myself.

 

[AdmiralAK]

lol racer, I did your ex ever badger you with the this reason: "Seriously racer, honey! could you put a liiiitle teensy weency more effort into your schoolwork? My weener colleagues are bothering me about it constantly!" hehehe


As for teh anatomy of a congrats thread.... now that is exceptional


Admiral

 

[nkuvu]

In regards to the move, it is worse than I expected it to be. My roommate's original plan was to move out on her own, since she's never lived alone and wanted to try it. So for months she started stocking up on household stuff. Our current place is pretty packed with boxes, all hers. On top of that, I haven't been preparing to move at all, since I thought I'd be staying where I am now.

A week and a half ago she asked if I'd move in with her again, since she really didn't think she could afford to live on her own, and was having a hard time finding any place that would take her dogs. Three days later we found a place, and now I have to scramble to get everything packed and ready to go.

It's not as bad as it could be -- since I hadn't given any notice to my landlord, I paid rent for all of June. So we have a month of overlap between the two places, so it doesn't have to be a mad let's-move-eveerything-today kind of rush...

But yeah, I hate moving in normal conditions. I'm a very "rooted" kind of person.