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Think A Journal of Essays

Volume II

2012

Nashville State Community College Nashville, TN

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Think A Journal of Essays

Volume II

2012

General Editors

Michele Singletary Michael Kiggins

Copy Editor

D. Michelle Adkerson

Editorial Board Betty Broz

Emily Bush Brian Curtis

Megan Donelson Phyllis Gobbell Aggie Mendoza

James Needham Laura Orr

Harlan Pease Kathy Sorenson Elizabeth Stein Bridgette Weir

Think: A Journal of Essays is a nonprofit journal published with funds from the Quality

Enhancement Plan’s Critical Thinking Initiative by Nashville State Community College, 120 White

Bridge Road, Nashville, TN 37209. ©2012 NSCC

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Cover Art:

Brush & Ink

The bird in the center is the Egyptian cypher for the Bennu (sans the fire), a mythological creature that shares the same mythos of the Phoenix. It symbolizes renewal and rebirth. The flower encompassing the bird is the Lily. The lily holds a wealth of symbolism. In Judeo-Christian mythology it is said to have sprang from Eve's tears when she was thrown out from the Garden.

In China, to dream of it foretells of approaching happiness and prosperity. The lily grows and thrives in almost every corner of the world and has been depicted in art for over 3,000 years. It is the symbol of hope and longevity.

These two symbols represent the future we all desire for ourselves even beyond our physical self. Those who came before us too sought symbols in their own lifetimes, pointing the way towards a future that we now enjoy.

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Preface

The primary expression of thoughts, ideas, and arguments for over three hundred years, the essay remains the communication tool of choice for most college courses, as well as magazine articles, newspaper editorials, and weblogs. The origin of this at once humble and magnificent form can be found in the French term essayer, which means to try or to attempt. It is the essay by which we most frequently attempt to communicate our ideas, beliefs, and principles to an audience. The essay is what we celebrate here. In our new publication Think: A Journal of Essays, we publish the best work by Nashville State students, alumni, faculty, and staff. The theme for this second volume of Think is one that invites speculation: The Future.

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Contents

Introduction Michael A. Kiggins……………………

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Forks in the Road Earnest Walter………………………… Who Holds the Key to Your Future? Jason Pepper…………………………… Ethanol Can Replace Fossil Fuels in America Michael Bouser………………………… The Future: Of Fear and Expectation Flo Paris Oakes………………………… Thirty-Year Mortgages Justin Cutler……………………………… The Future of Iranians

Ayda Porkar Rezaeieh………………

Living in Time April Star Cartwright………………… Untitled Carson Dunn…………………………… Old News Jacob Martin ……………………………

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12

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25

28

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38 42 48

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The Future Samantha Webb……………………… Untitled Michal Pan……………………………… Dear Me Adam Shelby……………….…………

53 57 61

A Future without Restraints Alesha A. Alexcee ……………………...

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The Change Nicole Lynn Flately…………………… The Future is Now Kristen Davis……………………………

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Future Tense Margaret Faye Jones …………………...

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Contributors……..……………………….. 94 Acknowledgments ……………………….

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Introduction

The future is a cipher—a blank slate onto which we have always projected our greatest hopes and worst fears—but it is also a palimpsest. This is a piece of parchment or paper whose original writing had been removed so it could be reused. Occasionally, however, the original writing would bleed through, confusedly juxtaposing the pronouncements of past authors with those from the present. One can imagine that these lines, imperfectly erased and imperfectly retained, could make for muddled ideas. Likewise, while every generation prefers to believe it has discovered truths long known, it always takes from the past those pronouncements which have bled through and incorporated them anew in their favorite tropes about “The Future.” For example, consider how many people in America have grown up with

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hopes or fears relating to the Eschaton, which comes to us from Greek and means “the End.” For such people, life is to be understood as inexorably heading toward the End of Days, when history will culminate with a final judgment that irrevocably balances of the scales of Justice. While this may sound good, religious beliefs that emphasize the linear nature of time typically do not end with a whimper. Instead, there is a bang, one which is preceded by widespread calamities and the overturning of every different status quo. Heaven is coming, this view holds, but there will be Hell on earth before Paradise arrives, and there will be more causalities than there are rescues. All the proof one needs for this worldview is the popularity of that Evangelical cash cow, The Left Behind series, which has sold more than 65 million copies. For those with a more secular world-view, the future may be thought of in more optimistic terms, with humanity at

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long last freeing itself from the chains of prejudice, greed, war, poverty, and famine. We can call this the Star Trek view of the future (or: Ayn Rand’s worst nightmare), wherein humanity is united in raising the standard of living for people everywhere. As a result, this view fantasizes, the accumulation of wealth has lost its singular grip upon our collective consciousness. Others in this group, however, are more pessimistic. While we become more and more technologically advanced, we will most definitely not need our sunglasses: our future will not be bright. In contrast to those with the Star Trek view, these people—pessimists, realists, or pragmatists, your pick—focus on the creeping rise of the average global temperature and its myriad projected effects (larger and worse storms, drought, ice melt and sea-level rise, the spread of diseases once contained by different climates, etc.). Or, they may focus on the rapidly but

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steadily growing number of people living on this increasingly small world, and how resources are going to be stretched too thin to maintain the lifestyle to which we, here in the West, have not only grown accustomed, but also believe ourselves entitled. Or, they may look at a world that has become and is continuously becoming much smaller and increasingly interconnected because of swifter travel and communication. In such a world, which is a realization of some of H.G. Wells’ once-science-fictional conceits, a novel infectious agent can spark a pandemic just as quickly as an inflammatory amateur video uploaded to YouTube can precipitate violence. As you read through this collection of essays, you will see quite a variety of responses to the prompt. Some writers examine the future in more concrete ways, thinking about which discrete steps they need to take to help bring their personal and career plans to fruition;

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some do this through the lens of tragedy, whether it is Hurricane Katrina or drunk driving. Meanwhile, some consider facing the future after abandoning any millennial hopes for the Eschaton, while one considers it from within that perspective. Another examines what effects the Internet will have on how human beings interact and what information we will no longer feel the need to keep private. Last, three ponder more speculative scenarios that consider the place of America in a less stable world, whether the focus is on instability in the climate, economy, or availability of fossil fuels. Clearly, this collection of sixteen essays has something for every reader, and it represents a continuing commitment to the encouragement of our students’ critical thinking skills.

Michael A. Kiggins, Co-editor

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Forks in the Road

Throughout my life, I have encountered many forks in the road. Most of the decisions I have made at these crossroads have never been anything worth talking about. Using profanity in kindergarten, toilet papering houses in elementary school, smoking weed in junior high, getting expelled my freshman year of high school, and going to prison at the age of 21 are just a peek at the results of my decision making. Who would have guessed I would decide to pursue a career as a social entrepreneur (an individual who uses his business to help those in need)?

However, now at the age of 27, I am working incredibly hard at maintaining a 4.0 in the beginning of my college career, and, every single day, I envision the incremental path of my future as a convicted felon and determined social entrepreneur.

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All the self-inflicted hardships I experienced growing up brought me to the defining moment that, ultimately, determined the rest of my life. I was sitting in a court room filled with unfamiliar faces that were accompanied with an eerie silence that seemed to last forever. The tension I felt was like that of phobic individual anticipating a needle. When the gavel came down and the proceedings began, the tension I felt melted into shame. After the particulars of my sentence were explained to me, a woman approached the stand. It was the wife of the man I had killed nearly two years ago in an alcohol-related car crash. As she stood there fighting back tears, she described the love she had for her husband. Just when I began to go numb, she made this final statement, “I hope you take this time to make a change for the best.” These words spoke directly to my heart, and, in that moment, as the numbness began to fade away, I knew this statement alone had changed the

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direction of my entire future. This was more than support for my rehabilitation, it was an invitation or, as a matter of fact, a challenge to change and make a difference in the world. Over the next few years, I began soul searching and writing down all my ideas that resulted from brainstorming sessions. This generated a few solid ideas for different products and services with great proprietary potential and, most importantly, a truly unique model for a non-profit. What I am striving for is to reach the long term goal (within ten years or less) of mass distributing a certain product or service successfully enough that I can comfortably step away and begin dedicating all my time and energy to building a non-profit organization that I could spend the rest of my days working for happily.

However, my first step in the direction of this long term goal is to continue my education. I am going to college for a business degree with an

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emphasis on marketing, and, if all goes well, I will be accepted into a social entrepreneurship program. Aside from my own personal ventures, I plan to use the skill of public speaking to inspire change, especially in regards to the negative effects of drunk driving and the potential for success after prison. These messages of hope I would like to begin conveying to people in need in the not so distant future. During the period of time that I was soul searching and developing ideas, I came to the realization that if I was going to accomplish these goals it was going to take my blood, sweat, and tears to make it happen. In other words, the path ahead must be taken with the understanding of all the sacrifices and healthy doses of failure that are an integral aspect of achieving success. As for sacrifices, there will be many that have to be made. In the next five years, I will have to neglect any attempt at having a social life, because in order to maintain

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my GPA, thoroughly grasp the concepts I am studying, and, at the same time, carry a fledgling business on my shoulders through the process of getting established, I will need to be laser-focused.

When it comes to the reality of failure, I am not so naïve as to think that everything is going to be as easy as I have probably made it seem in this essay. I am prepared to persevere through whatever lies ahead of me. The only time there is such thing as an absolute failure in life is when there is a loss of enthusiasm to pursue greatness, and this is not a characteristic of the man I have become. I spent my youth chasing wild nights, which resulted in inevitable tragedy. This at first seems to be a gloomy story until one can see the miracle that has come from it. I went from being a wandering soul to transforming into a straight A college student with detailed goals for the future. One thing I can say is that I have come a long way in my

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decision making. I would even go as far to say that my decision to pursue a career as a social entrepreneur is something that is definitely worth talking and even writing about. Today, and in the future, the man I see is grateful, passionate, and determined to take on the next fork in the road.

Earnest Walter

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Who Holds the Key to Your

Future?

This story describes a college student’s journey to find the real “Dr. Pepper,” a journey that visits the past, present, and future while explaining how to experience an awesome journey for oneself. This “older” college student loves music, English, and Art; the reference to “older” student derives from being a 28 year old freshman when college began. This late start in college resulted from over a decade of work and travel before the contemplation of higher learning. This freshman represents a military veteran of five years, a Tennessee Correctional Officer of five years, and a volunteer firefighter of eight years who loves college deeply, and believes college was his smartest decision ever made. College has already shown him that the future will only become what he decides to make it.

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In the future, everyone calls this student “Dr. Pepper,” a humorous fact, since all through middle and high school people constantly asked him, “Are you going to be a doctor when you grow up?” followed by sneers, giggles, and chuckles. Still, he always answered these people, saying, “NO!” in a loud and embarrassed voice. Humorously, this student now pursues that which embarrassed him many years before.

In five years from now, this student receives a Doctor’s Degree in Pharmacy from Belmont University after marrying his fiancée, by then, of eight years. In less than five more years, he owns a midnight blue Kawasaki Vulcan motorcycle covered with shiny chrome, and works full-time in a pharmaceutical laboratory to test and experiment with medical marijuana for safety and health regulations. This doctor successfully owes no other debt than a few leftover federal school loans, because his two rental properties, personal home, vehicles, and

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midnight blue motorcycle have all been paid for without the use of credit.

He eventually reflects back on the beginning of his journey to see a young and confused teenager making horrible financial and life decisions, a teenager living ever so contently without any goals or ambitions for development. He quietly asks himself, “Did that kid really become a doctor?” then he laughs and shakes his head in disbelief. I am this man at 40- years-old and my name is Jason Pepper, but you can call me Dr. Pepper.

Many things can enlighten one to the path of a better future like: listening to inspirational music, engaging in critical thinking, controlling will power and persistence, managing time efficiently, and anything else that inspires personal goals. Critical thinking remains an extremely important device for one’s future success, but most of all, a true and integral desire to mold one’s own future must be obtained for ultimate success.

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This desire can only be acquired by individual perspective and constant self -development. I have seen life, I have been close to death, and I have lost many close friends along my journey. In 30 years, I feel like I have done more than many people will ever do in a lifetime, but I continue to grow more humble and appreciative of my past experiences every day.

I am not better than anyone else, but my life experiences give me an upper hand in will power since hindsight proves to always be perfectly 20/20. The clarity within hindsight still blows my mind to this day. The greatest part of all remains the fact that I will experience as much of life as death will allow me to, and I refuse to let anything or anyone, other than myself, mold the future ahead of me.

The future of the real “Dr. Pepper” now looks inevitably successful and brighter than the closest rotation our sun has ever made to the Earth. How bright will you allow your future to be? A very

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wise friend once told me, “You have to aim for the moon, because even if you miss; you will still land amongst the stars.” We, as critical thinking adults, the future itself, and the champions of natural selection, can only proceed to those points in life at which we aim.

Dedicated to: “A Father Never Forgotten”

SGT Randy E. Pepper June 1962 – May 2012

Jason Pepper

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Ethanol Can Replace Fossil Fuel

in America

Expanding the use of ethanol as a domestically manufactured renewable fuel source is an effective way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Our dependence on foreign oil means we rely on other countries for a major portion of our energy needs. If any of these countries object to United States foreign policy they have the ability to apply pressure in the form an embargo that would disrupt an American society that relies heavily on fossil fuels. This type of action would affect many areas of American life as an increase in fuel prices would drive up the cost of many important commodities. Ethanol as a fuel source would protect the United States from this sort of an attempt at manipulation or retribution. This meddling by foreign powers has occurred in recent history. According to the U.S. Department of State’s Office of

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the Historian website, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) enacted an oil embargo against the United States of America, as well as other Western countries. This embargo lasted from October 1973 to May 1974 and eventually caused the price of oil per barrel to quadruple. The Arab members of OPEC announced the embargo in response to the United States of America resupplying Israel during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. This caused increased costs for consumers world-wide and resulted in long lines at gas stations and gas rationing for American consumers (U.S. Department of State).

The United States imports a staggering amount of oil from overseas suppliers. In 2010, the United States imported approximately 9.2 million barrels of crude oil a day and the same year used approximately 19.1 million barrels a day (U.S. Energy Information Administration). This represents a major reliance on the world market to keep our

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society’s appetite for crude oil sated. This reliance could be reduced substantially by increasing the domestic manufacture of ethanol. This would result in increased energy security for the United States.

A renewable fuel source is an important part of the solution because it represents a long term or perpetual answer to the issue of dependence on oil imports. If American petroleum production was expanded, it could possibly replace foreign oil imports. The problem with expanding production is that underground petroleum deposits are finite and will eventually deplete. This would leave us in an even more vulnerable position regarding oil imports. Ethanol represents a viable long term solution to this problem because it’s derived from a source that is harvested and replanted. It is essentially an infinite resource.

According to Amory B. Lovins, the United States spends approximately $2 billion a day buying oil overseas (Lovins

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134). This represents approximately one-sixth of the national gross domestic product (Lovins 134). This is a truly significant amount of money leaving the country. At a time in which there is concern over strengthening the American economy this is an alarming amount of money traveling out of the country. Ethanol production would increase the amount of money that went back into the American economy because it would be solely domestically sourced. It would also create more sources of employment in the farming and ethanol production industries.

Additionally, fossil fuels are a significant cause of air pollution in the United States. Two-thirds of the crude oil consumed in the United States is used in transportation, and two-thirds of that fuel is gasoline (U.S. Energy Information Administration). Currently, ethanol is used as an additive in gasoline in an attempt to make it burn cleaner. One of the ways it does this is by increasing the

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amount of oxygen in the fuel. This makes the fuel burn more efficiently and decreases the emission of polluting gases, including carbon monoxide (Hrubovcak 17). Ethanol can also replace several other toxic octane-enhancing additives, decreasing the health risk from tail-pipe emissions and vapors at filling stations (Hrubovcak 19).

There is a product available called E85 that is a mixture of 85 percent ethanol. This is gaining popularity as a fuel option, and there are more than 20 foreign and domestic automobile lines available that can use E85 (Jossi 18). It is similar to gasoline in performance and convenience with the added benefit of being safer for the environment.

Ethanol is made from various biomass sources from within the United States. While corn is currently the most popular, another viable source is sugar. Ethanol can be made from sugar cane or sugar beets, as well. There is discussion about facilities that will make table sugar

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and ethanol in a “parallel” process. This means the materials supplied to the factory would be diverted into either sugar production or ethanol production. This would use current supply and processing and require only a relatively small expansion in capability related to the ethanol production (Jacobs 27). An advantage to using plant sources for ethanol-based fuel production is balancing carbon dioxide emissions. When plants grow, they absorb and incorporate carbon dioxide into their structure. This removes an important “greenhouse gas” from the atmosphere. If the plant is used for fuel, its carbon emissions are offset to a great degree by the fact that the next crop of plants will remove carbon from the atmosphere while they are growing (Hinman 30). Petroleum based fuels only add to the carbon in the atmosphere. Interestingly, a by-product of ethanol production from plant sources is a high protein meal suitable for feeding

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livestock. This meal is called “dried distillers grains and solubles,” or DDGS. One of the complaints about ethanol is that it consumes a feed crop in order to produce fuel. Critics are concerned this will cause food prices to increase and possibly cause food insecurity. This is largely offset by switching from corn or soy-bean feed to DDGS (Hrubovcak 19-20). This gives the plant sources the ability to fill a dual role, both as fuel source and feed source. Ethanol has many advantages as an alternate fuel source and can answer several questions related to energy dependence in the United States. The United States has the capability of supplying itself from domestic sources, removing the ability of foreign powers to manipulate our foreign policy. It is an environmentally sound choice for a fuel in its own right, and an even better choice when compared to fossil fuels. It is currently used as an additive to make fossil fuels less polluting. Ethanol as fuel

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would benefit America by increasing the number of available jobs in this young and growing industry, and keep billions of American dollars in the American economy.

Michael Bouser

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The Future: Of Fear and

Expectation

Hope. Deliverer. Finish line. Challenger. Adversary. Thief. We name the future with every expectation we make, whether plausible or not, practical or irrational. We are inspired and encouraged to create extraordinary goals for ourselves that we might find purpose among mankind. The hero story has become all of our stories, each of us going valiantly into the world, leaving behind our families and pokey little towns in search of greatness. In our youth, this is our future. We believe them when they say that glory lay beyond the gates but feel defeated at the first pang of homesick-ness. Was Odysseus homesick? Never! Rachel Vinrace? Luke Skywalker? Frodo Baggins? Our journeys are not this extreme. None of us has been asked to carry a magical ring to the center of Mount Doom, but we all accept the

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burden of greatness like chains around our necks. What about the post-adventure-years? The future, once a blaring siren song, has settled each of us down into different corners of the world, where we have become lost at the office, in monotony, in laundry and diapers. We rock our babies, keeping a watchful eye on the future--that wily future, which looms outside the bedroom door, threatening to snatch our sleeping cherubs and turn them into young adults. There is nothing wrong with aspiring to greatness. It is the promise of the future that pulls us out of apathy and molds heroes out of little boys and girls. Neither is there anything wrong with being mindful that our time here is fleeting. Centuries of grandmothers have offered their advice to worn out mothers, “the days are long but the years are short.” In this way, the threat of the future keeps us in check. We remember our priorities; we remember to kiss our

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children and not to take anything for granted.

True to its name, the future comes. The challenge is to live neither in fear nor in expectation—to go ahead and make our grand plans, and to rock our babies without obsessing over moments that haven’t yet been given or gauging our worth by the number of miles traveled. There will be glory and dragons for a few, but for most of us the future simply means putting one foot in front of the other, investing in our small towns, loving our families, and letting our little ones go when it’s time. So, we take heart in the present, finding purpose in the midst of our stories, whether a thousand miles beyond the gates or right on the other side.

Flo Paris Oakes

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Thirty-Year Mortgages

Most would agree that our modern world is enlightened. This past twentieth century was undeniably a period of radical departure from almost every previous area of human activity. We have seen, and are continuing to live in a time of unprecedented scientific understand-ing. For example, it was only in 1905 just over 100 years ago that Einstein published his special theory of relativity. Einstein’s theory of quantum physics radically changed the worldview of scientists.

Today the world over, children have at their disposal communications technologies that would have been the envy of kings less than 100 years ago. To put the pace of advancement in perspective, it was only in 1901 that the Italian Marconi sent the first transatlantic radio signal. Forty years later, in 1941, commercial television was born.

Undeniably our twentieth century has seen a remarkable shift in the way

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that vast numbers of people live. This shift has been a direct result of a litany of technological, medical, social, ideological, and political innovations. In the area of transportation alone we have seen staggering changes. Transportation advances transformed the world in those hundred years more than any time in the past. Horses, and other pack animals, were humanity's basic form of personal transportation for thousands of years before they were replaced by automobiles within the span of a few decades. The twentieth century started with steam powered ships as mankind’s most sophisticated means of transport and ended with the space shuttle. Today, the future seems to be anything we would like to make of it. We have within our reach much greater opportunities for education, leisure and recreation endeavors than ever before. Almost anything we would like to know about we can simply look up on our computers.

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Nevertheless, I would suggest that our world is in dire trouble. It was April 1909 in the pages of The Westminster

Gazette that the term “World War” was coined. Then, in 1918 the Spanish influenza killed some 50 to 100 million people. Over approximately 18 months 2.5% to 5% of the world’s population ceased to exist. Following in 1943, just after the birth of commercial television, a legal scholar introduced the term “genocide” to our vernacular. Two years later, August 1945 saw the term “nuclear warfare” enter common usage and become an influence on the lives of everyday people. War, in general, has reached an unprecedented scale and level of sophistication; in the Second World War alone (1939-1945), approximately 57 million people died, mainly due to massive improvements or technological advances in weaponry.

Shockingly, in the 2005 United Nations World Drug Report, the value of the global illicit drug market for the year

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2003 was estimated at $322 billion U.S. If this amount of money is added to the amount spent on legal drugs the world’s population spends more money on drugs, legal and illicit, than on food.

Most importantly for the first time ever, any individual can influence the course of history no matter what his background. You, I, or a disgruntled person from what was once a distant land can affect us all on a global scale. If you find that statement too bold just think about it the next time you are at the airport taking your shoes off. It was one individual, Richard Colvin Reid, who changed the way we all go through airport security. The social and economic ramifications of that one individual’s actions are enormous. Henry Kissinger famously stated, “Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed.” Today everyone can have a platform, form a group, and advocate for a cause. The barriers and vetting process that used to exist are no longer.

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Regardless of how specialized and esoteric your cause might be you are now able to find and connect with likeminded individuals. Unfortunately, these goals may not always be altruistic.

The self-same advances that have thus far lead Malthus’s predictions from coming true have created massive interdependencies. The political and economic systems seem at times to be almost paralyzed. Europe is suffering under the burden of their quasi unified currency. For most of recorded world history we had dominant world powers such as the Babylonian, Egyptian, Roman, and British empires. Today we see much greater granularity and autonomy. Although I’m a huge fan of self-determi-nation, has this refinement led us to a state of non-cohesion? I believe that in the near future the governments will give greater authority to the United Nations.

The question that led me down this path was “Where do you want to be in ten years, and What do you need to get

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there?” I can’t imagine that the funda-mentals of our world ten years from now will be the same as they are today. Who would have predicted the depth and breadth of the real-estate correction of the past few years? With all the fundamental changes occurring, how do you assure you don’t become the modern day buggy whip maker? People strive for success and achievement in various fields. Nonetheless, our history books are full of forgotten heroes. To be ready for 2022, I need to be able to recognize what will bring me lasting happiness, for the wisdom of 50 years ago is foolishness today and wealth is transient.

Justin Cutler

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The Future of Iranians

Today more than 70 percent of the Islamic republic of Iran’s population is under the age of 35. These young people have no future in this country. The Islamic regime has destroyed the future of all Iranians, especially the younger generation. They have isolated Iran and ruined its economy. People cannot survive the sanctions, and the regime seems careless. If things do not change, unemployment, crime, and drug addiction will be the dark future of young Iranians.

Unemployment will be one of the biggest issues for the future of Iranian people. When there is not a job for a newly graduated doctor from one of the best universities in Iran as of now, there will be no point of going to school in the future. People will stay uneducated and will do anything to feed themselves and their families.

The income of the people who already have jobs will not cover their

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monthly expenses. The price of food and rent will be way too expensive for a guy that works seven days a week to just feed his family. A full-time job will not even pay for the ridiculously high rents in Iran. If they do not pay for their rents, they will be kicked out and thrown onto the streets. They need to choose between safety and food. They either will have to watch their families get raped, killed in the street, or they just will just have pay the rent and find another way to feed them.

When finding a job and making money in the right way is impossible, people will start to commit crimes to survive. It will not be safe for children to go outside and play, or for young girls and boys to go to school. There will be stealing, kidnapping, rapes, killing and many other horrible things happening in the streets of Iran.

How are people going to live without safety? Are they even safe inside their homes? Nobody cares about the

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dreams of these young Iranians, but all they want is to have a job with a decent income, so that they can start a new family. The Islamic regime of Iran will be thinking about building more prisons for these criminals instead of thinking about a solution to help its people.

All these pressures and problems will lead to depression and other health problems. It will leave people with no hope and any dreams. Suicide will become very common, and people will try to forget about all these problems with alcohol and drug usage. Currently more than half of young Iranians are addicted to some kind of drug and this number will be increasing every day.

It is going to be a very dark future for Iranian people if things do not change. The government seems to have no interest in helping its own people, and it makes things worse for them every day. Torture and prison will be the future of those that try to speak up for their rights. This is the

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sad future I can see coming for my home country if things do not change.

Ayda Porkar Rezaeieh

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Living in Time

The future is now and the past is only where the present was a moment ago. The future has taken the place of the present in just a fragment of time. Where we live is the choice of the mind that’s living. I live in between two worlds. When I think about what the future holds I battle between spirit and flesh. I can only say that in my future I hope to relish each moment as it comes. Life, either good or bad, is still life. It is a mystery and a gift. My future is a moment ago, a moment away, and it is in this moment.

In my earliest memories, I recall learning about the end of all things as we know them. Prophesies of spiritual warfare, antichrists, and persecution were all waiting in my future. I was taught that one day I might be asked to deny my faith or die and that death would be the only road to take. Growing up was never in my plan. My family and I would see the second coming of Christ with all power

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and glory. We would see the completion of creation and God would wipe away all evil in the world.

My family and I ran like a pack of wolves. We were bound by a code of loyalty that ran deeper than any ocean. One look and we knew what the other was thinking. I never planned to see my sisters have children. I never planned to see the white in my father’s beard or the thin lines around my mother’s eyes. I have watched things foretold unfold before me over the years and trembled with excitement and fear.

I have wrestled with this world like a tornado ripping trees from the earth. What should I do? Should I invest in a future that may never come? I have watched my babies grow into children. I have never told them the secrets of my struggle between worlds. I have seen the white creep into my hair and felt morning’s stiff fingers in my spine. Time keeps on passing by. I have traveled around the sun 33 times now, and I am

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still here. I am in college to achieve what I

never thought I would have time to use. I plan to use my education to improve the lives of as many as I can. My mind is fascinated by all the new things I have learned over the last year alone. I teach my children the ways of the world, so they can have a good life. I teach my children the ways of the Lord, so they can have a great life. All the while, I watch the heavens and the Earth for signs of my Creator’s return.

Where do I see myself in five or ten years? I see myself in time, loving each moment and enjoying each breath that I am in existence. I smell the fragrance of my daughter’s hair as I braid it. I see the sparkle in my son’s giant blue eyes when he shows me something new. I feel the soft rise and fall of my husband’s chest while he’s sleeping. My plan is to continue to cherish the family that I have, the world around me, and the life I have been given so long as there is breath in

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my body. All the while, I will be watching for my Creator to come and take me home.

April Star Cartwright

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Untitled

The questions we form, form us. Humans, as evolved intellectuals, are problem solvers who see through illusion, connect globally, conceptualize time in a predictable manner, and communicate in a growing number of ways.

However, this did not happen all at once. Hunters and gatherers started to appear around 15,000 B.C. From this primitive social structure it is over 10,000 years till we see the emergence of Hammurabi’s Code which has been traced back to 1,772 B.C. The invention of the wheel occurs somewhere between 8,000 B.C. and 3,500 B.C., when the first man-made wheel was found to have been made by the Sumerians. Democracy appears in Greece around 200 B.C. It takes humanity until the early 1900s to build a car and establish the modern concept of an engine. Yet, it takes less than a century to build an engine which would propel an individual to the moon. The crucial

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functionality of developments, however, is that they build on each other in an exponential way.

It is always and has always been the unknown which hurls us into the future. That is to say, it is where we have yet to go that gives us the inspiration to get there. The idea of exponentiality can express this rapid development and trace it through time. But do consciousness and thought progress in the same manner? The ancient world of our ancestors--strewn with open land, trees, mud, brick, and simple structures--is drastically different than ours. Our current landscape now has intricate plumbing structures, highways, telephone lines, electricity, and is built out of compounds and synthetic materials reliant on geometry, trigonometry, physics, and an advanced understanding of architecture. Is this drastic landscape change equally reflected and apparent in our minds? It would seem ever apparent with concerns of global warming, pollution,

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overpopulation, energy crises, technological warfare, and an ongoing global economic breakdown that humanity has created quite a few problems in our attempts to solve certain problems and to develop further.

Is humanity’s potentials for destruction, chaos, excess, and greed intrinsically embedded and manifested in progress? Are technological advance-ments and societal development simply magnifying primitive qualities or are we changing as a species? Are instances such as the Dark Ages, The Crusades, Racism, Genocide, and other horrific crimes against humanity an inevitability which simply marks the crests and troughs of an evolutionary change? It is important to recognize the volume and speed at which development occurs. For instance it is only in modern history that the issue of privacy from a government or the public has even become conceptualized as a serious threat to humanity. However, there’s no denying that our generation

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has either voluntarily or otherwise conceded its inherent human right to privacy as was present in all of humanity up until now.

We’ve accepted a state of fear based on comforts that are provided by the loads of information gathered by organizations that we trust to find the people we don’t. This submission, however, has lead us to a world of cameras/screens everywhere we go, satellites in the sky, social websites to document our on-goings, and digital/traceable monetary transactions. It is considered rude to turn our cell phones off, inconsiderate not to be constantly accessible. Humanity has reached a point in its development where we must now reassess what is thought to be inherently right in a world that only recently--through an evolution of language consisting of writing, letters, books, newspapers, then telegrams, telegraphs, telephones, and most recently a global network known as the internet--can

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potentially connect anybody in the world with anybody else instantly. It is, in nature, impossible to predict the outcome of a system like the Internet, which holds in its processes a comprehensive and current account of humanity. If consciousness and communication are exponential in the same way that physical development and technology is, then the Internet is where the changing landscape has taken place.

The impact of a globally connected world has not even begun to take place. This network is in its infancy comparatively speaking to any other technology we have developed. From the wheel roughly 10,000 years ago man has constructed a way for the world to have an ongoing conversation and documen-tation of itself and its interests. This is incomprehensible, and the changes that will occur from it in 10,000 years are even furthermore incomprehensible. The president my kids vote for will have his entire life documented online. Assuming

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the nature of social websites, Wikipedia, and other online archiving tools, it is safe to say that any pictures taken of this person from birth could be public domain. Status updates, religious beliefs, friends, events attended, trips taken, and times sick will be documented and traceable online. If the questions we ask are what ultimately make us, I’d like to ask just one.

Is the privacy we concede a threat against our personal rights or will this comprehensive pool of information simply be a medium of sharing and understanding the human experience in a way that will unite us as one?

Carson Dunn

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Old News

I became acquainted with the newspaper when we moved into my grandparents’ house. My grandfather had a ritual before we arrived. He would enjoy his coffee and paper by himself. No one was allowed to touch the paper before he had finished. Unfortunately for him, he soon had to contend with the voracious reader in me.

My grandmother first introduced me to the comics. My father occasionally bought me a tome centered on a singular cartoon. But this was all you could eat buffet. Their senses of humor ranged from slapstick to sarcasm. I would sit in a room illuminated only by a musky incandescent and the red LED on the coffee pot. We had an octagonal table with plenty of room to spread pages. The chairs had wheels. I could push my chair around the kitchen like a Flintstones car and chuckle at my funny pictures.

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This did not bother my grandfather incredibly so. He was mostly interested in reading the world news and the sports page. He did, however, like the crossword which was printed on the flip side of the comics. I was slowly chipping away at his established tradition. Gradually, he became lenient.

My grandfather got me interested in more serious issues. He told me he wanted me to start reading the letters to the editor. At first, I was apprehensive. I did not care much about adult issues. Over time, my critical thinking facilities matured. I eventually warmed, like my grandfather’s morning pot of coffee.

Things started to change. My grandfather laid out the comics and the front page for me. I had broken the camel’s back. In fact, I became the one who was grumpy if someone took the paper before me. We now had a mutual ritual. He drank, I ate, and we both read.

The paper started to change, and so did I. The paper started to splash more

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and more ads where content used to be. It also got leaner. I got older and had to start thinking about my future. Puberty set in and my “baby fat” got more evenly distributed.

There was a remodel done on the kitchen. I was cavorting around with my first girlfriend at summer camp while this was being done. When I returned, the kitchen was sleek and sterile. It had been gutted and flayed of its personality. The octagonal table was gone, and so was the musky light. In their place were inlet fluorescents and a table which the paper barely fit on. Everybody except my grandpa and I were eating their meals on the new marble island. The ritual demanded it for the two of us.

The paper is almost nonexistent now. Everyone reads their news online. We have high speed internet. We even have an iPad. I have used it, and it is not the same. I feel as though I am tracing circles in a creek when I scroll on it. I have a loss of affect. It lacks the tactile

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sensation of cheap pulp. It lacks the crumpling sound when I move on to the next article. It lacks the sense of progress and accomplishment.

As the years go by, the paper disappears section by section. It sometimes is miles behind on reporting breaking news. My grandfather used to be a robust man, but in his old age he has grown gaunt and emaciated. He often cannot hear when people are talking to him. The ads have taken precedence over the news itself. My first girlfriend asked me to run away to India with her. I broke it off in order to go searching for college and career prospects. The octagonal table dwarfs the new table by a wide margin. As I grow older, my perception of a great big world seems to contract more and more. The fluorescent lights provide more clarity than the old incandescent did. As I accrue more wisdom, the world becomes more defined but less mysterious. The paper will soon be obsolete, and so will my grandfather, my grandmother, my

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mother, my sister and myself. I have dug my heels into the ground and tried to prevent the unpreventable future. So far, it has worked about as well as the time I tried to stop a 2,000-pound truck. I would elaborate, but that story is old news.

Jacob Martin

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The Future

The future ahead of me as I see it at this time of 25-years-old, only seems blurry and vague. If the future is a reflection of your past, which I cannot alter or change, then my future will be filled with heartache, gloom and disappointment in myself and others. In order for me to properly envision my future within the next ten years, I reviewed my senior memory book from almost ten years ago. I saw myself married, with children, a nursing degree and the ability to live, laugh and love as we often see plastered on home décor. I could not have gone further from what I expected from myself. I am married, but have no kids, no degree, and have switched to education, and now realize that living, laughing and loving only makes profit, not changes.

I have found new heartache with the passing of ones closest to me. I have failed, in my opinion, more times than I have achieved. My mother loves to

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disagree with me; I do not know if it is out of relation, or that she truly sees something that I have not. I have developed a new love for tears; they are the future of much heartache to come, God’s “Holy Water” for healing. The future is so very unpredictable; to make a plan for it I can almost hear God laughing at me. The future may be compared to the spokes of a bicycle tire: unexpectedly someone throws a rock into it causing a skinned knee and wailing, screaming fit home to Momma; at this age I still sometimes find myself seeing comfort in that. So, for my next attempt at planning my future, I will put nothing in stone, but I will only promise to try.

In five years, I hope that I have figured out what I want to be when I grow up, and I will try to be very successful at whatever occupation that may be. I will try to have a little family to watch grow and to nurture the way that my mother and mothers before her have done. I will try to find out exactly what

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living, laughing and loving does for the soul when happening simultaneously, and if I do find virtue in these words, I will purchase this plaque and hang it in my living area as a reminder that I have figured it out. I will try to bear heartache in a manner that is more soothing and less reckless. I do not want to say that my future is not sunny, but it seems so far away, yet right around the corner; it can be compared to that of a strobe light, flashing continuously as opposed to just being bright.

As for where I would like to be in ten years, I would rather be famous and living in a beach house, roaming the streets of Rio, but I’m afraid of flying so we can scratch that completely off the list. In ten years, I will be 35, and that almost leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Not that I think the age is defined as “old,” it would just mean that my future will more than likely be a routine from then on out, just wishing retirement was right around the corner. I would like to be attending

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softball games, cheering on my youngest child at his first football game, admiring the roses that I transplanted from my mother’s garden, enjoying sweet tea on a front porch with my significant other, hair still wet from a shower, and being so exhausted from watching my offspring grow and develop. At this point, my own future will not be the concern, but the future of my children.

To get to all my goals in life will take strength and courage that I know is affixed in my genes. Accomplishing a goal is all about ambition and about how much I am willing to take, suffer and sacrifice to get there. The future is something to be feared yet desired; this is why we close our eyes when we kiss, cry or dream.

Samantha Webb

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Future: that one word has inspired millions of works of wonder and dread, from the Mayan prediction of destruction, to the boyish dreams of racing through space at light speeds with Captain James T. Kirk. We, as a race, have contemplated the future ever since we have had the ability to create complex ideas in our brains. And those ideas of the future change as time progresses. But no matter what new direction our musings take us, the one idea that will never escape the future is our personal future: the future of what we are going to do with our lives, whether it’s tomorrow or the next decade.

Yet we cannot begin to develop the topic of our future until we ask ourselves “why,” that being, “why do we care so much about the future?” The answer is simply because it is unpredictable. That unpredictability is a clean canvas upon which we paint our ideas of the future. Ask anyone what they think our world

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will look like in the next 100 years and you will most likely get completely different answers. However, this presents another question: “How come we tend to look at the distant future more than the practical closer future?”

I think the reason people dream more about the distant future is because we are scared of looking at the responsibility within our personal future, scared to think of what could happen to us tomorrow or in a week. We like to dream about hover boards and space warps because these ideas are spectacular and won’t affect us negatively. However, we tend to stray away from the thinking: “is what I’m doing with my life right now helping me achieve my future? Am I certain I’ll have a future? Do I even know what I want for my future?” And who can blame them? Humans have had it tough these past few years-- the collapse of the global economy, jobs and homes being lost, war running rampant in the Middle East-- it’s no wonder people are scared of

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looking at what tomorrow holds. But no matter how dim the future

looks, you can find peace in the fact that there will always be heroes to give us hope. Heroes will always withstand the test of time, whether it was George Washington in colonial America or Seal Team Six who went in and took down Osama Bin Laden just last year. However, don’t let me give you the impression that heroes are only men with guns. Heroes don’t have to be brave or courageous or even strong; heroes are people with the heart and mindset of changing the world for the better. Scientists who spend every day trying to come up with a definitive cure for cancer or AIDS are heroes. Musicians who invent exquisite music to bring beauty into our lives are heroes. But don’t think of this as an excuse to be lazy, thinking “Oh I don’t have to do anything because there will be somebody else to do it for me.” Instead think of this as a sign, an encouragement to strive for that heroism. This is the signal for you to

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start looking at your future and what kind of hero you want to be. It may be fun to daydream about the distant future, but you need to start looking at your own life and making the right choices. As American taxpayers, we invest in your education because we believe in heroism of future generations.

So, please, take up this honor and start to look a little closer at your future because we need you. And we’re counting on you to make the future a brighter and happier place.

Michael Pan

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Dear Me

Dear Me, This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, so listen real close. I am writing you from the future, and I am you. I know it sounds confusing but trust me/you (now I am confused). I do not have enough time to tell you everything, and I really do not want to tell all, you know how you like surprises. So much is going to change in the World, in America, and for you over the next twenty years. The world as a whole is very different now than it was in 2012. I will not get into specifics, but everything came crashing down. I guess you could say nature is cleansing herself, and in this case, a large percentage of the human race was washed away. In 2032, we do not have “a slight chance of showers,” we have super storms. Hurricanes, thunderstorms, and tornadoes on steroids would be the best way to describe these

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super storms. The icing on the proverbial cake is that along with these super storms, there are electrical blackouts worldwide for months at a time due to solar storms. The world has adapted because we did not have a choice; nature forced her will on us, so to speak.

Now there is a new world government called The World Parliament (T.W.P). The leaders of the world are more like congressional representatives now. Every decision that affects the world is put to a vote in T.W.P. However, there is a Chairman of the Parliament, or a C.O.P. There is a new C.O.P every three months so no one has the chance to get power hungry. There are no super powers.

Due to Global Warming, Brazil and Canada are the new breadbaskets of the world. Northern Canada is the new frontier; gold mining, farming, and shipyards are drawing people there by the hundreds each week. Yes, I said shipyards. The polar ice caps melted

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opening new shipping routes and freeing up land for farming and gold mining. All of the mining is done the old-fashioned way, with a pick and ax, no more stripping five acres of land for one ounce of gold. The currencies used worldwide are gold and food. The use of gasoline is illegal. Oil drilling is still happening but on a very small scale. Gas is now used for heavy machinery only and even that requires a permit from T.W.P. There are no more airplanes. The only forms of mass transit available are ships if traveling by sea, or electric trains if traveling over land. I know that this all sounds like you have stepped back in time instead of into the future, but the world has changed for the better in my opinion. America is an entirely different country. The U.S. is no longer the only super power. I realize I already mentioned this, but imagine if you told an American in 2012 that the United States would no longer be a super power in

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fifteen to twenty years. The American ego has been crushed. The majority of the American population is gone; hundreds of thousands of people died in the first string of super storms and from the effects after these storms that wallowed through our country like pigs in mud destroying everything in their path. Thanks to an organization called GoreGlobe, an estimated 12 million Americans were saved.

GoreGlobe was founded by Al Gore and is still run by his descendants. People laughed at Al Gore and even made fun of him on Saturday Night Live in your time, but thankfully many people listened to him. First Mr. Gore pleaded with America to change her ways. When that failed, he told us to run. He told Americans to head to the Rocky Mountains and America’s northern border. You know how you always say that you hate Colorado? Now you love Colorado! It is a good thing that everyone that is dear to you in 2012 just so happens

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to live in Colorado. They finally talked you into moving to Colorado. Because of that move, you will dodge a huge bullet, mainly Armageddon. America is still an advanced country. We have joined forces with Canada in all aspects: economics, politics, technology, and transportation. America has still maintained our independence in the process. Something that is definitely not in your future is floating cars. That is a little sad, right? However, we have found ways to get from place to place in our daily lives. There is this completely new concept called walking! People, even you, walk, ride bikes, and drive electric cars. I really do not want to make the world sound like some kind of “Green” utopia, but in a sense, it is.

After two years, the super storms slowed to a crawl in the northern states and a few countries had civil wars. There were whispers of war and looting in what was left of America, everything was chaos for black, white, brown, the rich, and the

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poor. In the quiet after the super storms turned our lives upside down, Americans came together, and, as a collective, survived. We are becoming a better nation in spite of all our country has been through in the past 256 years. America has changed for the better in my opinion. Let me start out by saying that you are happy. As I am writing this, your house is full of family and friends. Your grandson is running around your bed chasing the dog, your wife is watching the two of them play and laughing that laugh that warms your heart. Your wife. Wow. All I will say about her is that she is the best thing that ever happened to you. You have a strong, tight knit, family. You are a success, maybe not successful in the way that you define it in 2012, but successful nonetheless.

None of the hard times that you will go through, and have already gone through, will break you the way you feel like they will sometimes. Those hard times have been your best lessons and

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will aid in you and your family’s survival in the times to come. Most families in America live together, in the same house or the same street. People from Nashville live in a town called New Nashville in a state called New Tennessee. New Tennessee is located in an area that is known in your time as southern Wyoming.

It is almost like man has been stripped to his essence and now is forced to see the things that kept us all apart; now love, faith, respect, and family have replaced money, power, disrespect, and self. I sometimes think that it is a shame that the world and America had to be almost wiped out before humankind could see what is important. I am writing you from my/your deathbed. I am not sharing the future with you so you can change it, or try to cheat death (you already know that cannot happen). I am sharing all of this so you can remember to cherish each moment. I may not live to see tomorrow.

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Do you want to know what I am thinking about right this minute? I am not thinking, “I should have made more money.” I am not thinking, “I should have partied more,” and I am not thinking, “I should have watched more ESPN.” I am wishing I had one more day with my family. You have changed for the better, in my opinion.

Sincerely Yours, You

Sincerely Yours, You

Adam Shelby

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A Future without Restraints

My future is my new beginning. It is a future that will create boundless possibilities for me, and my dreams will finally be realized. I will reach the day when my past no longer haunts me. The nightmare that was my past will have receded into the back of my mind. The turbulent effects of it that were so thick and strong in the beginning will have weakened. The future will present itself in a way that becomes my new identity. I will no longer be afraid of the unknown. I will arrive to a point in my life, when I look back into the darkness, stare it in the face and say, “I survived.”

For 18 years I was trapped in a dystopia. Fear was ever-present and I was afraid of questioning my belief system. My reality was distorted. The outside world was a forbidden poisonous fruit, and I, along with the rest of the Pentecostal church, was warned to stay

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away from it. God did not want the members of my church to fraternize with the outsiders. It was etched into my mind that we (my church) were right and everyone else was wrong. Moreover, my imagination was fueled with images of an unsympathetic God who could readily cast a soul into the fiery pits of hell. Through his sermons, the pastor would always remind his congregation of what was in store for them if they were to die that very day and did not repent of their sins. Those fire and brimstone sermons gripped my heart.

Along with the fear of Hell, which was embedded in me, came a paranoia. I was always aware of the possibility that God could kill me in an instant. He might allow his angels to take my soul and throw it into a fiery pit that was already reserved for me. I would lie awake at night picturing my soul burning for eternity. I was indoctrinated by the pastor that I should strive for perfection. If the day came for me to meet my maker and I

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had one small imperfection, then I would not be allowed to enter the kingdom of heaven.

I was also a preacher’s kid, so not only did I have to be perfect for God, I also had to be a perfect young lady in church. There was a dress code I had to abide by. Since I am a female, I was required to wear skirts and dresses with stockings. The pastor wanted order in his church, and he would reiterate this at every church service: girls were only allowed sit in the second the row, boys in the first. I was the eldest girl; therefore, the pastor’s wife thought I should lead by example. It was clear that I If I did not follow the rules, I would be considered a disobedient child in the eyes of God who was in need of punishment.

There was a hierarchy in my church as well. My pastor called himself an Apostle ordained by God. He was also a bishop, appointed by higher bishops, and lastly a modern day Prophet. Prophecies were frequent in my church.

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When the pastor said to form a line, the members had to do so if they wanted to hear from God himself. I was always anxious when waiting to hear a prophecy. There were occasions when the pastor would humiliate me in front of the whole congregation. His reasoning was that he had to warn me and “set an example” so as to deter anybody in the congregation from following in my footsteps. A person was fortunate to get a prophecy of prosperity. By giving a sacrificial (monetary) offering, a person would get a better prophecy than the rest of the congregation.

Nonetheless, I felt that there had to be more to life than what the church was practicing. Even though I tried to accept what was being preached, I still found it hard to follow that restrictive lifestyle. I would beat myself up for not giving into the will of God. Unfortunately, I was a part of a lineage of evangelists and prophets: I, too, had to adhere to my calling. God, prophesied by the pastor,

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had given me the gift of “laying of hands,” “casting out devils,” and “raising the dead.” I did not want that kind of power, the kind of power that the pastor seemed to possess. The pastor and both of my parents declared that I was chosen by God and I could not escape my calling. Gradually my mentality about life began to transform. I became more accepting of diversified people. I no longer thought of people in terms of saints or sinners. As my faith in God started to wane, I began to question the church structure as well as the Bible that the people in my church desperately clung to. Taking A.P. U.S. History also helped refined my critical thinking skills. It was not enough for me anymore to accept the pastor’s words as final; I was determined to look at the church from a different angle.

In the months before leaving the church, I started researching the history of the Pentecostal movement. I read stories of ex-Pentecostals who went through the

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same thing as me. It was apparent that I had to leave, but I knew it would not be easy. I decided to bide my time in the church until I went to off to college.

Instead, I was brought into the pastor’s home for an intervention. The pastor and some of his immediate family proceeded to call me crazy for wanting to leave the pastor’s covering. I fervently tried to defend my stance on leaving, and I tried to prove why the church was so toxic, but the pastor, his wife, and the pastor’s daughter wanted me to be committed to an insane asylum. I was accused of being a white supremacist (I’m African-American), and that I should not go overseas because I would endanger America.

Finally, when I would not accept his argument, the pastor told me that education was “messing up my brain,” and that I should not go to college at all. Those words burned me to the core, and for a bit, I considered dropping out of school, but I decided that I would not let

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the pastor win. My world was shattered, and I felt

terrified and lowly. When I did muster the courage to leave home, my mom tried to lock me in the house so I wouldn’t get out. The only way I could leave was through my bedroom window. I had nothing but the clothes on my back and the will not to turn back. I found a place to stay for the remaining months of the school year, and I graduated on time with an honor’s diploma.

I am still trying to get through the shock of it all, but I know that any place I go will be better that what I have endured. Therefore, I look to the future for hope. I am confident that my time spent at Nashville State will help me realize my potential to go far, despite the fact that by leaving the church I am expected to fail. I anticipate the day when I can smile at what I have accomplished. I will be completely liberated from my past.

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My future is my own, and it will no longer be dictated by a man who calls himself a “man of God.”

Alesha A. Alexcee

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The Change

Going back to college after a ten year “summer vacation” was not an easy task. A late 20-something woman with responsibilities, a husband, an overweight dog, and a mountain of bills at home is definitely not your average college student. I doubted my ability to juggle four classes and a hectic work schedule, and truthfully, I worried that my classmates would notice my graying hair. But somehow I swallowed my apprehensions, stopped procrastinating, and finally got through registration. I took a deep breath and walked into that first class. The reason I re-entered the world of education was simple: I caught a glimpse of my future, and I was afraid of what I saw. In 1999, I began college, the first time around. I was the quintessential, “Does not work to her full potential,” kind of student. Young, vibrant, and possibly a little boy-crazy, I thought I

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knew everything. As soon as I graduated high school, I spent two semesters at the College of Charleston. This was about a semester and two months longer than I wanted, but my mother pushed, and that fiery red-head lived only four miles from my apartment. I had tasted the college life and knew with absolute certainty that it was not for me. So, I packed up my Honda Civic and drove down to New Orleans. I rented an apartment exactly 778 miles from my parents’ front door. I had officially dropped out of school.

The first few years were a blur. Upon arrival to the Big Easy, I did what many uneducated men and women do: I began working in a restaurant. Day after day, night after night, I tied back my locks, put on that scratchy blue Oxford button-down shirt, straightened my horrendous tie, rode a rickety street car full of tourists into the city, and shoveled sweaty cash into my apron. I scraped greasy, disgusting leftover food into trashcans and to-go boxes and watched

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co-workers in horror as they ate the disgusting leftovers. On more than one occasion, I was yelled at by customers and by a chef or two. Every day I was forced to be at the “beck and call” of the some of the most wretched individuals, only to be given a five-dollar tip on an $80 food bill. But regardless of my perspective, the shifts kept coming, the people were always hungry, the chefs always angry, and the years were systematically slipping away. And then it happened.

Hurricane Katrina blew through my city, down the street car line, and she washed away my home, a few of my friends, and my job. The sobering reality of the situation was hard enough, but when I looked for a new job, I found myself reading the “Hospitality and Restaurant” section of The Times Picayune. It was all I knew. If I did not make a change, and fast, my future would consist of slinging drinks, smiling and nodding when I want to be screaming and

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choking, and using my artistic abilities to construct a tinfoil swan to house your leftovers.

I stayed in New Orleans for a few years after “The Storm,” but my dreams of a successful and happy life were beginning to fade. My future was scraped into the trash with every plate and poured away into every glass. Even worse, the years of perpetual mind-numbing work and long nights were beginning to take up a permanent residence on my face. My soul was tired. I was in desperate need of a change. I packed up my husband, one of the happier chefs I met in the industry, and moved to Nashville for a fresh start.

So here I am. A full-time student in the pre-nursing program at Nashville State Community College who loves school! I have somehow managed to maintain a 4.0 GPA, all while holding down a 40 hour-a-week job, over-feeding a dog, and running a household. It has not been easy, but my happiness and self-

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worth is something to fight for. Because of my choices in life, it will take me longer than most to have my proud parents watch as I walk across the stage in my cap and gown. But it will happen. Today my life may not be exactly how I imagined it as a child or what my parents envisioned as they guided me. But I have taken the steps to make the change. And as far as my future is concerned, I am wholly optimistic.

Nicole Lynn Flately

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The Future Is Now

The future always held a sacred, unfathomable place in my heart. I clearly remember spending the majority of my teen years and early twenties dreaming of what my future would eventually hold, while grasping tightly to those precious years, certain they were far from ending. I learned quickly that the excuse of being young and dumb is readily available. The most surprising thing was that this seemingly invalid reasoning worked in a lot of situations.

When you are 21 and make a poor decision, you most likely understand the potential consequences. For some reason, the powers that be are quick to let these bad choices go without further judgment, understanding that the perpetrator is just young and dumb. It becomes easy at such a point to continue down a path that your conservative mother disapproves of. While I was never engaged in terribly devious behavior, and never got

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in any real trouble with law enforcement, my lifestyle was reckless. I was truly uncontrolled and oblivious to the fact that my actions back then could have such an impact on my future. Now that I am 29, older but not yet “old” by society’s standard, I see that my current place in life is not where I once dreamed it would be by this age. I look back and realize that I always put the emphasis on making good decisions regarding my future on the back burner. I had an unrealistic vision that one day, when I was ready and the time is right, every dream I had would magically happen. I never put any consideration into the notion that while I may have not been concerned at the time about a professional career, one day, I would be nearly 30 and still bartending. I do not intend to degrade my job by saying this. There are great people that love working in the service industry and plan on making it their profession. I am not that person. Bartending was a fun and exciting

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way to spend my early twenties. Fast forward nine years, it does not shine like it did back then. I always considered it to be a means to an end, not a 12 year restaurant career. This brings me to the present vision of my future, a more realistic one than the naïve version of the past. The difference is that I am now taking a concerted effort to make my future what I want it to be, instead of expecting it to fall on my lap. I now realize that my dream job will only happen if I am willing to put forth the effort.

At times, the fact that I am in school and work at night and on the weekends behind a bar, while my friends enjoy their professional lifestyles, is unsatisfying. I can only move forward from this place.

With every new semester, I feel closer to the idea of what I want my future to be. This is what propels me into what will soon become my thirties, when

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I will make the dreams of my younger days come true.

Kristen Davis

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Future Tense

College students have the future pressed upon them at every turn. They are told they must study now so that they will make good grades. They must make good grades, so that they will graduate with a stellar grade point average. They are told they must have a stellar grade point average, so that they will be accepted at a good graduate school or hired for a good job. And they must get into the right graduate school or the right job, so that they can make enough money to have a family, a house, a yearly vacation, and save enough money for their retirement. Then, they must press the same anxiety onto their own children.

It’s no wonder many students always seem so stressed or think of each class as a life or death operation. It’s like the future lies at the top of steep, ice-covered mountain, and any slip off the one path available to it will plunge you to a life of unhappiness and failure.

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As someone now old enough to have seen goals both achieved and squelched, I feel somewhat qualified to give advice about planning for the future. Actually, there are really only two things necessary to know: 1. You should plan for it. 2. There’s an excellent chance you’ll be changing those plans on a regular basis.

If I happened to run into one of my old college friends on the street, he or she would be impressed about how I’d achieved my goal of becoming a librarian. “Goodness,” this person would say, “that Faye Jones always knew what she wanted to do with her life. ”

What would not be obvious to such a person is that there was a period lasting decades when I wasn’t working in a library at all. The road to the library turned out to be one with many side streets, and I may have taken every single one of them.

I had always felt more at home in libraries than in any other place. I was sure that was where my vocation was.

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During my senior year of college, I filled out the paperwork and was accepted to library school. But I never went. To be honest, I can’t remember exactly why. I know that I was offered a graduate assistantship that required me to conduct orientations for freshmen students, something that scared the life out of an introvert like me. (Of course, that doesn’t quite explain how I then became a teacher.) And I’m sure it also had something to do with money, since the assistantship did not pay for everything. Plus, people pointed out to me over and over again, if I liked schools so much, then I should become a teacher. After all, schools had many teachers, but only a few librarians. As the first person in my family to go to college, I may have thought the right thing to do was to get a job as soon as possible and be sure that job was as secure as possible.

So, I became a junior-high teacher at a Catholic school and earned a graduate degree in reading education,

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taking classes at night and in the summers. After completing that degree, I sent out resumes expecting to become a reading specialist in an elementary school. While I was looking at Atlanta as my new home, I also sent one to a little two-year college in Nashville, Tennessee, a state that had just started a remedial/developmental program. I didn’t hold out much hope for that one; after all, my college teaching consisted of running workshops in The University of Alabama’s learning center. But the college hired me, and I moved to Nashville.

I planned to stay in Nashville three years and move on. But I never did. I started teaching remedial reading, but, after a reorganization, I was moved to the English department. While there, I also served as a coordinator and chair of our fledgling online courses. Then, after another reorganization, I became the Dean of Learning Resources, and one of those “resources” was the library. So a couple of decades later, I was doing the

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job I imagined as my career back when I was a junior in college.

There is nothing wrong in making plans and setting goals. The future favors the prepared. I made good grades in college, which allowed me to apply to graduate schools and get hired. I worked hard at my various jobs so that when new opportunities presented themselves, I had a chance of taking them. So I was setting myself up for the future, just not the future in the way I imagined it.

There is a problem with thinking of the future as a mathematical problem: If I put in effort and major in this, then I will have a financially comfortable and happy life. There are always just too many unknown variables for that to be true. And the future is not a straight line ahead. It is crooked path full of brambles and detours, and sometimes just plain wrong turns. And people can give you advice, but, in the end, there are no hard and fast rules for predicting what path

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will lead to success and happiness. And, believe it or not, there’s more than one path that will lead to those goals.

In fact, for every person telling you that something can’t be done, there is someone who is actually doing it at that moment. A friend tells me she can’t go to graduate school now because she’s just had a baby and she’s too busy. But another acquaintance is going to graduate school with newborn twins. Her reasoning: This is the quietest and the least mobile they’re ever going to be. If she doesn’t do it now, she may not have another chance until they’re eighteen. Who’s right? Probably both. In the end, you can only decide for yourself what you can do and how you can get there.

And there will be times when you do everything right, and it still won’t work out. The sister of a friend of mine, a woman in her 40s, decided to return to college to become a nurse. Her husband and kids accommodated their schedules. She took the prerequisite courses. She was

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accepted into nursing school. She did the required placements at hospitals. When she graduated, she was sure she was ready for her new career. She was hired in a hospital. Three months later, she quit. It just wasn’t right for her, and, despite her and her college’s best attempts, she couldn’t know that until she was in the job every day, all day. She’s now looking for another path.

So here’s the lesson in all of this. Plan for the future and work hard to achieve your goals. But if your goals don’t work out, don’t give up. Just take in what you learned from this detour and move on again. And again plan for the future and work hard for your goals. But always be aware that things can change in an instant. And sometimes you’re the one who will do the changing. As Maya Angelou writes:

Each of us has the right and responsibility to assess the roads which lie ahead, and those over

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which we have traveled, and if the future road looms ominous or unpromising, and the roads back uninviting, then we need to gather our resolve and, carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that as well.

It is the nature of life that things, people, and places change, and we must change to accommodate. A college education should not prepare for you a trip on one steep, straight career road up a mountain. It should prepare for the closed-off roads, the detours, and the circle-backs. It should also prepare you for what happens when you decide this is not the mountain you should be climbing. And you should be preparing yourself, as well, because it’s a life-long journey.

Margaret Faye Jones

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Contributors

Alesha A. Alexcee is a freshman at Nashville State Community College studying Foreign language. She loves all things eccentric and whimsical and hopes to travel around the world. Michael Bouser is a native of Louisville, Kentucky that has lived in Tennessee since 1994. He is a veteran of the United States Army and has served his community on an ambulance as an EMT and a Paramedic for the last 15 years. He hopes to continue his education in order to further his professional goals in the field of Emergency Medicine. April Star Cartwright was born in upstate New York and grew up in between there and everywhere else. She has the most amazing husband in the history of marriage. Her children are the living joy that warms her heart. She sees the hope of future generations in their eyes. She comes from a family that is full of passion, humor, and creativity. She is thankful for the words that fill her mind and spill out onto paper. Her goal in this life is to reach her full potential as a human being and

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to bring a little bit of light into every life she touches. Justin Cutler was born here in Nashville, but he has been fortunate enough to travel quite extensively. As a young but eager person, when he turned 18 he backpacked solo through South America. He returned home to embark on his working career in the distressed debt sector. In that capacity, he has been active in the purchase, resolution and financing of distressed loan pools across all 50 states, Canada and Mexico. Knowing the “Back End” of the loan business and real-estate, he next became involved with land development. Then, when the country entered a recession, he thought that it would be a good idea to go to school and earn a degree. Therefore, he is currently attending Nashville State. He plans to continue his formal education and transfer to a University. Kristen Davis is a 29-year-old Nashville native and recent newlywed. As an unsatisfied bartender who recently returned to college as a social work major, she has enjoyed a new perspective and drive to succeed in school. In her limited down time she enjoys working with the Alliance for Recreational Empowerment (A.R.E), a non-profit she has been with since inception.

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A.R.E is dedicated to providing resources, education, and emotional support for children and adults living with disabilities in Middle Tennessee, including a week long summer camp, where she serves as Activities Director. Kristen’s passion for volunteer work has shaped her life and led her to working towards a career in service to others. Carson Dunn: no biography was submitted by the press deadline. Nicole Lynn Flatley is currently completing the last semester of her Associates of Sciences Degree at Nashville State Community College. She hopes to attend Belmont University School of Nursing in the fall of 2013 to complete her Bachelors of Science in Nursing Degree. She lived in the historic city of Charleston, South Carolina for most of her life. After high school, she moved to New Orleans, Louisiana where she met her husband, a classically trained chef born and raised in the Big Easy. In 2005, she and her husband unfortunately lost their home and possessions in Hurricane Katrina, which forever changed her perspective on life. They moved to Nashville shortly after. While she is thankful to have found such a wonderful place like Nashville to call home, her heart will always remain back home with her parents, on those warm, salty Carolina shores.

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Margaret Faye Jones works in the library at NSCC and writes the blog, The Jolly Librarian. Jacob Martin was born in Tampa, Florida. However, he was a self-described military brat. His early childhood years could best be described as "nomadic.” He never claimed a geographic area as his home. When his father was stationed in Korea, he moved into his grandparents' house in McEwen, TN. This eventually became his permanent residence. He was a little bit of a misfit. He had grown up around highly mobile city dwellers, so someone in his life was always moving away. McEwen, though, is a bit like a roach hotel: Once you get in, you don't get out. He floundered for a couple years, but eventually became socially adept when he entered high school. He is currently completing his senior year of high school and taking dual enrollment classes, courtesy of Nashville State. Flo Paris Oakes, a California native, singer/songwriter, novice gardener, and backyard chicken farmer, is an English major at NSCC. She lives in East Nashville with her husband and two daughters. Michael Pan was born on 1994 in Gainesville,

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Florida. He was an average American child: grudgingly went to school, complained about doing homework, and argued with his parents like any normal 10 year old child. Then 5th grade hit and his whole world changed. He was pulled out of public education and became homeschooled. It was hard at first but through homeschooling he learned to enjoy school and learning, which is how he came to duel enroll in Nashville State when high school came around. It was probably here where he found his passion for writing. As he grew up he found his mind buzzing with ideas and thoughts that he never really knew how to get out, and he found writing. Writing is the gateway into the human imagination and psyche which is why he loves it, and he is glad to see people enjoy his writing. Jason R. Pepper is thirty-years-old and holds a 3.7 G.P.A. while majoring in Medical Technology and Molecular Biosciences. Before he began college at the age of twenty-eight, he was a military veteran of five years, a TN Correctional Officer of five years, a firefighter of eight years, and a cable technician of three years. Today, he is a member of the National Society of Leadership and Success and the Honor Society. He is raising a wonderful six year old step daughter, and is engaged, for 3 years now, to her mother who remains his best friend and

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the greatest provider of his educational opportunity and inspiration. Above all, he feels life is too short to be fake or ignorant, and he tries to remind himself everyday of this. He believes that music, reading, and writing provide much sanity in an ever growing insane world. Ayda Porkar Rezaeieh was born and raised in Tehran, Iran and received her education through middle school there. She was young and couldn't really understand the problems in her county. Her father was a medical doctor and her mother was a housewife. Her education was very important to her family so they decided to move to America for a better future. Getting an American VISA was not possible for Iranian people. In September 2005, they applied for an American green card lottery and were one of the eighty people that won from the whole country. It took one year to fill out all the paper work and interviews in Turkey and finally they arrived in Nashville, TN on September 9, 2006 and started a new life. She received her diploma from Hillsboro High School and is currently studying at Nashville State Community College. Adam W. Shelby is from Southern Illinois and is a father of two. A long-term goal of his is to obtain a Bachelor’s degree in digital marketing. He is currently incarcerated, and a

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student at Nashville State Community College. The Tennessee Higher Education Initiative and Nashville State Community College have made it possible for him to attend a program at the correctional facility where he is currently housed. He has the same instructors as a student at NSCC and feels the program has changed his life in a huge way. A year ago, he felt his future was looking pretty grim, but now his future is looking pretty bright. Earnest Walter, a benefactor of the Tennessee Higher Education Initiative, a college program for incarcerated individuals, is a freshman at Nashville State. Since starting his college career in the challenging circumstances of prison, he aspired to support the non-profit that made it possible. Also, he plans to acquire skills that will be helpful as a motivational speaker and social entrepreneur. Deciding to pursue a career that is full of so much potential for good is something that he finds to be worth spending the rest of his life committed to, happily. Christopher Walton a recent NSCC student. He is currently studying Psychology at Lipscomb University with a focus in Spiritual Development. He is currently working on his first illustrated book and will see it published Fall of 2013. He would like to Thank

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Professors Kiggins, Singletary, Mc Roberts, Knox, Buc, Ruff, and Dr. Phelps for the part they have played in spiritualizing his life. Samantha Webb: no biography was submitted by the press deadline.

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Acknowledgments

Many people contributed advice, time, and resources that helped us get this journal published. The editors would like to extend a special thanks to the following members of the Nashville State community: x George Van Allen, President, for his

encouragement for our special projects.

x Kim Estep, Vice President, for her ongoing support and encouragement of this project.

x Valerie Belew, Dean, English, Humanities & Arts, for her interest in, encouragement, and endless support for all the extras faculty do in addition to our teaching.

x D. Michelle Adkerson, Professor of English, for formatting and copy-editing, for her leadership of the QEP, and for her willingness to help us in any possible way we could think of.

x The Editorial Board, who dedicated their time to reading and selecting the essays included here, while still tackling their own responsibilities for the classes they teach.

x Flo Paris, Student Worker, for doing whatever we asked of her with an

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attention to detail and a never ending source of energy that was nothing less than inspiring.

x Susan Tucker, Secretary, English, Humanities & Arts, for always being there to help with whatever we needed, including last minute updates for us.

x Marian McNeil, Administrative Secretary, for her administrative support and guidance, especially regarding all of our purchasing questions.

Above all, we thank all the writers who took the time to write the essays and share their beliefs, experiences, and ideas with us.

You are a great inspiration.

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Tetrahedra

Submissions due February 1

Tetrahedra is an independent, nonprofit journal published annually each spring by Nashville State. The journal recognizes the artistic talents of the Nashville State community through the publication of selected poems, short fiction, essays, art work, and photographs. Our goal is to promote the humanities and to offer our campus community the opportunity to share their work. Current students, alumni, staff, and faculty are encouraged to submit manuscripts and artwork/photographs for review.

Guidelines for Submissions: 1. Include a brief autobiography. 2. Submit written work in 12-point font as

an attachment using Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) or Rich Text Format (.rtf).

3. Send art or photographs as a .jpg or .jpeg attachment.

4. Limit poems to 50 lines. 5. Limit essays and short fiction to 1,000

words. 6. Each person may submit a maximum of

six entries in all media. 7. Email submissions to the Tetrahedra

editor, Phyllis.Gobbell @ nscc.edu 8. Submit on or before Feb. 1.

For more information, call 615-353-3531.

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Think about your passion! Think about your future!

Visit

ww2.nscc.edu/Think!

Nashville State Community College is a TBR institution, an AA/EEO employer,

and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability or age in its programs and activities. The following person has been designated to

handle inquiries regarding the non-discrimination policies: Director of

Human Resources, 120 White Bridge Road, 615-353-3305. ©2012,

NSCC 105-13

Printer: Sow the Seed Ministries, 3556 Cross Plains Road, White House, TN

37118, Quantity 500

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