The folks at Grammarlogues have a guest post up in the NY Times’ Learning Blog: 5 Easy Ways to Learn Grammar With The New York Times. I totally do this! I’ve done this for years, actually. My own version involves not so much practicing, as it does utilizing the NY Times when I’m in a must-know-now situation.
While I seem to be able to teach myself any subject an institution of higher learning can throw at me (including calculus, which I’m sure will come in handy when the apocalypse comes), I have never found a grammar how-to manual that explains the concept and then shows you several examples so you can understand how it works in actual situations. I need to see the example if the concept is hazy or has too many variables.
What I really require is a university English department to have a 24-hour help desk so I can hand over my sentence and have a professional help me to understand why the correct form is right, and why my version is the equivalent of a six-year-old making “soup” by dumping every spice in the kitchen cabinet into the bathtub.
When the manuals and the online grammar help sites fail me, I turn to the NY Times. I Google “NY Times” and the pertinent portion of the sentence that’s stumping me. The NY Times is the well-edited-newspaper version of an infinite number of monkeys whanging away at typewriters: eventually one of those monkeys is going to hammer out Shakespeare, word for word. Somewhere in the NY Times’ archives there’s a sentence chunk exactly like mine (only with correct grammar and punctuation).
Do you know who Carmen Ashurst is? She’s the former president of Def Jam Recordings and Rush Communications, and is the author of the forthcoming book, Selling My Brothers: The Movement, The Media and Me. Ashurst also appeared in the documentary, Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes.
The ideas/points/questions/answers the conference[link] aimed to cover:
Music has long served social movements as a sound track, as a means of communication, and as its own arena for activism. While multiple generations of feminists have used music in these ways, it has played especially vital roles for those born since the 1970s. This conference will explore the ways in which young feminists have defined and expressed politics through music and musical cultures and communities. Among the questions we will ponder are: How does music reflect sites of agreement and conflict among different groups of feminists? How have movements like Riot Grrrl and Hip Hop feminism attracted young women to feminist activism? How do young feminists’ uses of music compare with those of earlier generations?
While we’re on the topic of student loans and the lifetime of debt college grads will face, here are some informative articles and resources to peruse (find a paper bag and try to remember to breathe slowly and evenly).
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan explains why direct student loans are better for everyone but the banks, and why the banks are pissed about losing all those government subsidies. I’m siding with college students and direct loans, and will be far*ing in the general direction of the banks and their elderberry-scented mothers.
Under current law, taxpayers provide as much as $9 billion each year to subsidize guaranteed student loans issued by banks. The banks earn profits on the interest; if students default, taxpayers take the loss, not the banks. In other words, working Americans pay while bankers get rich.
Meanwhile, educators, engineers and computer scientists — the backbone of the new economy — face crushing debt from six-figure college tuitions. A study of national postsecondary student aid found that in 2008, two-thirds of college seniors graduated with debt averaging more than $23,000. That number will rise as public and private college tuition costs escalate.
…The Education Department has issued more than $187 billion in student loans since the Direct Loan Program was created in 1993. The number of universities participating in the program has more than doubled, to 2,300, in just the past three years. There is no justification to continue wasteful subsidies to banks. It is time to complete the shift to direct lending.
The president’s proposal, which has passed the House and awaits Senate consideration, represents the ideal hybrid of public investment and market-based management. Through direct lending, we get a bigger bang for taxpayer bucks while using competition and private-sector expertise to improve customer service.
The world order has finally reconciled itself! Barbie no longer thinks “Math class is tough!” Now she’s lighting up cubicle jockeys with her smokin’ bod and her tight pants! She will be fetching lattes for no one.
I actually like Barbie, to be honest. I know she’s supposed to be evil and make little girls feel badly about themselves, but I had about 20 Barbies when I was an impressionable young thing and I’ve never had body issues. Besides, how can you not respect a girl who can maintain that posture and walk around 24/7 on her tip-toes with a rack like that? Barbie’s a badass, I don’t care what the angry hippies say.
The crazy surge in med school applicants has finally triggered several new medical schools to come into being. Apparently there was a dry spell during the 80s and the 90s. Now is the time for every new and terrified college grad to take a good look around, figure out which professionals manage to avoid being laid off (garbage collectors and doctors), and decide whether to get a job now (not the best plan, I heard even 7-Eleven isn’t hiring) or kill some time in medical school while the economy works itself out.
It seems there is an actual shortage of physicians in this country, as well as a shortage of medical school spots. Starting up a few more medical schools seems like a viable option. But let’s not go overboard. Printing more money doesn’t save anyone from an economic crisis (have we learned nothing from all this higher education?).
I’m all for more doctors, especially if it means more people to help who are worth a lot less money (we can’t pay all the doctors six figures…I hope). But my spidey senses are tingling about the less-than established medical schools letting everyone in and churning out Twinkie-shaped doctors. Oh, well. I’m sure America’s lawsuit fettish will finally pay off and the physicians educated at MD mills will soon be weeded out.
Wait! Here comes the optimism (better late than never). The new medical schools will be less fraught with tradition, status, and red tape and they will work hard to teach their med students well. These new and excellent doctors will go on to stellar residencies and splendiferous careers in medicine. Babies will smile and Baby Boomers will be cured of their age-related ills. The soundtrack will rock and the montage will be poetic.
For a tragedy-less college student, there is nothing worse than utterly failing an exam. Having to hear some know-it-all’s advice on how not to do that again sucks as well. One always hopes to learn deep lessons from one’s mistakes. Oddly, the more mature a brain is, the quicker it learns not to ever do that again.
Which is all to say I know from experience (read: I’m a pain-in-the-ass, know-it-all b**ch) that undergrads have to see their exam-failing lives pass before their eyes a few times before they figure out how to never have a day like that again.
WorldWideLearn’s blog has an advice-filled post up about how not to torpedo yourself with one badly executed exam moment. Taking advice, learning one’s Social Security Number, and mastering the art of acquiring free beer, food, and furniture are some of the key bits of priceless information college students are expected to take away from their higher educations.
Any monkey with a camera and a laptop can shoot and edit their own video. Which means college students should have no problem accomplishing this goal. There’s money in it for the top three video entries, and who needs cash more than a monkey? College students. Which begs the question: What the hell are you waiting for?!
Herman Miller, the designers/builders of the best desk chair ever are holding a video contest with the goal of better understanding college students and where they have their best studying moments. This view into the study life of the American college student “will help promote discussion among higher education professionals about the rapidly changing needs of students and how higher education facilities can respond to those needs.”
I hope this means that non-studying adults won’t be blindly revamping the study facilities without some input from the humans who actually clock hours in those rooms, desks, and chairs.
Who is eligible: Current, full-time students of 2- or 4-year colleges and universities in the U.S.
Cash possibilities: The top three video documentarians will receive a $2,500, $1,500 or $1,000 Visa gift card.
Go here to read all rules, regulations, information, and submission guidelines.
Obama is upgrading the higher education system in this country (we hope), starting with an increase in Pell Grant award amounts. What does that mean for Pell Grant applicants? Who qualifies and for how much? Basically, the results of the FAFSA number-crunching are what determine a student’s eligibility.
…there is no “one size fits all” recipient.
Keep in mind, the Pell Grant is awarded to undergraduates with a high degree of unmet financial need; most Pell money goes to students with a total family income around or below $20,000. But, students whose families have a total income of up to $50,000 may be eligible too. In 2005-2006, students with family incomes of less than $20,000 accounted for 57% of Pell Grant recipients.
…Pell Grant qualifications can be affected by a student’s enrollment status as well as income earned through employment, too. Think about it – if you are enrolled half-time, your tuition is less and therefore you will require less aid. Undergraduates who work while they are enrolled are more likely to have incomes that decrease their eligibility for federal need-based aid (ahh, didn’t think of that, did you?). Some low-income students may even find themselves ineligible for Pell Grants because they are enrolled part time at very low cost colleges, or they work while they are enrolled, or do both. More…
