Laundry sized drama

 Finding your clean clothes have been taken out of the dryers of your apartment complex and thrown onto a dirty counter is not a great start to a Saturday.

 Living in an apartment complex gives people the pleasure of sharing laundry facilities. You enter at your own risk. 

 Sometimes there is bleach left over in the washer from the previous user. Your clothes come out of the dryer with bleach stains. It's a surprise for your wallet. 

 Sometimes the washers or dryers are broken. So, you have to walk a mile to find ones that actually work. A nice surprise for your patience when you are carrying two loads and a heavy bottle of detergent.

 On this particular Saturday morning, I had two loads of laundry. On each apartment building there is a laundry room with two washers and two dryers. It was early enough not to worry about anyone wanting to use the laundry room on my building. So, I continued with my two loads.

 Of course, I was proven wrong on this theory.

 Usually, I set an alarm for when the laundry will be done. But, I was multi-tasking with breakfast. So, I waited an extra couple of minutes to get the laundry out of the dryers.

 When I went down to the laundry room, I found that both of my clean, dry loads of laundry had been piled on a counter opposite to the dryers. 

 Someone had taken my clothes out of the dryers and started their own loads. According to the timer on the dryers, it was only two minutes prior to my arrival. 

 If this person would have waited two minutes, this whole situation could have been avoided.

 I threw my laundry into my laundry basket and took it up to my apartment, cussing the whole way. After placing the laundry into the apartment, I stormed back down to the laundry room, opened the bottom dryer, slammed it shut, and wondered how this person will like wet clothes. 

 I know I reacted very childish, but I would never take someone’s clothes out of a dryer and leave them on a counter. If I was in that much of a hurry, there is another laundry facility on the next building a couple feet away.  

 In 2007, a man was arrested for stealing women’s underwear out of several apartment laundry facilities in Washington. An employee at one of the apartment complex's called the police and explained the man's suspicious behavior. The employee also provided a license plate number. 

 

 Police removed 93 pounds of underwear out of 24-year-old Garth Flaherty’s bedroom. Flaherty was charged with one count of first-degree theft, 12 counts of second-degree theft and was sent to jail.

 Even though none of my underwear was stolen, it still grossed me out that someone had touched them.

 If they had been stolen, I wouldn’t want them back.

For the full story on Flaherty visit http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/193232/man_steals_over_1500_items_of_womens.html?cat=52

Long distance relationships on the rise

Any relationship is hard to preserve when long distances are involved. When you are in high school, you have a list of friends. Once you move on with your life and continue on to college in a different city or state, those friends start to dwindle. It gets harder and harder to count the number of people you once called friends on one hand.

The same reason for this is why most long distance relationships don’t work. Effort must be factored into these situations. The more effort you put into your relationship, the longer it lasts.

The Center for the Study of Long Distance Relationships concluded that more than seven million couples in the United States are involved in a long distance relationship, 4.4 million are college students. 

Long distance relationships are becoming more popular due to job opportunities. Because of the failing economy, people are forced to go where ever the jobs are. 

According to David Coleman, the “Dating Doctor”, 90 percent of all long distant relationships end within a year. There are several reasons why this situation can lead to a relationship’s demise, such as infidelity, loneliness, jealousy, lack of stability and not enough effort. 

Infidelity is a touchy subject, but it is brought upon by lack of physical closeness. The best thing to do is visit as much as possible. However, this can get a little expensive. The alternative is to use technology to your advantage. Set up online dates with web cams. Seeing the person is better than just hearing their voice over the phone. Sometimes things that are said can be taken the wrong way, but with seeing their facial expressions nothing can be misinterpreted. 

Loneliness is inevitable, but keeping yourself busy with friends and family can be a great help. Make sure that every day has an activity. It is easy, as college students, to drown yourself in homework, but make sure you set some time aside to contact your significant other.

Jealousy can tie in with insecurities about your relationship. Trust is essential to overcoming these insecurities. The “what if he or she cheats or finds someone else” is going to come out, but you must fight it off. When you bring up these insecurities to your significant other, it can make the situation worse by instilling doubt into the relationship. This leads back to finding distractions with friends and family because the only time these insecurities arise is when you are alone pondering about the “what if” situations.

Lack of stability arises when the communication is inconsistent. Setting up times to talk or meet by way of web cam every day can help with this situation and form a sense of reliability. Sharing the events of each other's day can ease the tension of being apart.

Effort is key. Without effort you don’t have a relationship. Writing letters, calling, dating through web cam all takes effort. If the relationship means anything, there will be a common effort. Effort shows whether or not the relationship will last. Only you can decide whether your relationship becomes just another statistic.

Sac State professors and students rally against fee increases

“They say cut back, we say fight back” echoed though the quad of Sacramento State Wednesday by angry students and professors. 

For the Fall 2009 semester tuition has skyrocketed, leaving some students unable to make the payment. Sacramento State has been know as the cheapest university in the state of California. This may not be for much longer with the increase in tuition of 32 percent. 

Many students are also finding that some of their classes have been cancelled. These classes include those needed for graduation, such as Coms 26 for Digital Media majors and minors. An email was sent out in July to students, who were expecting to take this particular class, to inform them of this cancellation. 

Of all forms of communication, they chose to send an email. A nonchalant way of screwing students in the ass before they are expected to graduate. The email did ensure students that the class would be available in the Spring 2010 semester. Of course, this is not a guarantee. 

For the first time, professors are also expected to choose furlough days during expected class time. This is added to the frustration of students. Not only are fees increasing, but now students are receiving 10 percent less class time.  How are Americans supposed to get the economy back on track when the next generation is unable to afford an education? 

During the rally, students and professors expressed their feelings about this situation. Many blamed CSU Chancellor Charles Reed and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, while others explained their story and asked for their fellow students to ban together to fight back. ASI President Roberto Torres suggested a march to the state capitol this spring. 

No matter who you point the finger at, nothing is about to change any time soon. It can only get worse from here and it is expected that tuition will keep rising. 

Tuition had been increasing over the years, but students could not have prepared for it to rise at this explosive rate. It has been said by Reed that tuition will continue to rise in the following year to about 5,000 dollars a year.  

There is no reason to stay and watch the university crumble. But, will it be a bigger hassle to transfer to another university or suck it up and pay the increasing tuition? Only the students will decide which is the greater hassle and we will watch as the population of students changes. 

While professors and students sang “The Furlough Blues”, CSUS President Alexander Gonzalez was no where to be found. In 2007, it was well known of Gonzalez’s raise that angered many CSUS students when they first started to see a slow increase in tuition. According to the Sacramento Bee’s state salary database, Gonzalez’s 2008 income was 368,584 dollars. 

This puts in perspective the saying “the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer”. While professors are losing health benefits and pay and students are struggling to further their eduction, administrators are driving their Mercedes and sleeping in their mansions. When are students going to see the light at the end of the long, dark tunnel?