Exploring goes along with college experience
To transfer, or not to transfer? That is the question.
Spiritless
Letter to the Editor
Holiday meals, the easy way
The Nagging Mother: Zen of the commute
Exploring goes along with the college experience
Elysha Dukeman
Staff Writer
Exploring comes along with the college experience, and many KCC students challenged their art perspectives on their exploration to the Grand Rapids Art trip on Friday, October 3.
Generally, students didn’t know what to expect from the art trip. Some went because it was a required assignment in their class, and others joined because they thought it would be an interesting trip.
Students rode an orange charter bus to Grand Rapids. Upon arriving at the museum, some found just what they expected: sculptures, paintings and so on. But, on the other hand, many others really didn’t see what they expected to be as art. As a required assignment the contemporary art survey class went to the UICA down the street from the GRAM and saw some very creative objects from installations to abstract sculptures.
Many lesser-known artists created works very different from what the usual. KCC student Jay Black said, “Art is a concept of ideas, interpreted through one’s eyes as an artist.” Students found their perspectives concerning art changing. KCC art instructor Peter Williams said, “Since the days of Paleolithic cave painters, art has served as a means to communicate human experience to others. In today’s world, images dominate our culture, from computers, TV, movies, print media, etc. Now more than ever, it is important to consider the techniques and symbols that great artists use to express their ideas.” Many believe that art is important to this society for various reasons as artists make their way through the world.
To transfer, or not to transfer? That is the question.
Mike Travers
Editor-in-Chief
For many students, Kellogg Community College is just a stepping stone in their path of education. Many are trying to figure out where they want to transfer to after they get their associates degree from this fine institute of knowledge. Many are trying to find that high paying job so they can finish up after two years and start working. For those who are thinking about working and not trying to get a higher degree, reconsider.
The job market is frozen right now because of the bad economy. If you think you will be able to make 70K or more a year with an associate’s degree, given that your field is not acting or anything like that, you’ve got another thing coming. School should be the most important priority in people’s lives. The higher the degree you earn, the more money you will make. Sure, money is important and it is nice to have, but with an associate’s degree, you will make FAR less than what you could make with a bachelor’s degree. After finishing up at KCC, it is only four more semesters until you earn your bachelor’s degree. Make the right decision, stay in school and earn the big degrees and do not settle for less than what you’re capable of getting.
Spiritless
Jon Jones
Sports Editor
When the gym is all set or when the soccer field is already prepared, the players and coaches will already be there. Water bottles are in place and the athletes are warmed up and ready to go. But wait, something is missing, and that would be the fans. KCC’s most recent sports seasons, soccer and volleyball, experienced bad seasons. But as an athlete, I know firsthand how good it is to play in front of a crowd. The players and coaches don’t make the atmosphere, the crowd does. No one is asking students to come to home games with “K’s” and “C’s” painted on their chest, but the more people who support the team usually the better they will play. The majority of the crowd should be KCC students, staff, and student athletes. As a reminder with a current KCC I.D you get in the games free! With soccer and volleyball over, everyone still has a chance to redeem themselves. The men’s and women’s basketball teams will be starting shortly and will probably be the most anticipated season of all the sports this year. So the next time you want to talk about how bad a team did one day, you need to ask yourself “ Hey was I even there showing any support?”
Letter to the Editor
I am writing to complain about the people who don’t have the sense to stop at the intersections of the parking lot. The last few weeks I have been in four different close calls with people who just float right through the intersections not even bothering to slow down or look. Eventually someone is going to get hurt my question is what the administration is doing about this if anything because the painted stop signs on the pavement don’t seem to be doing any good.
~Michael Waidelich
Holiday meals, the easy way
Takala Williams
Staff Writer
Spending time with the family, good food, and football games are all staples of Thanksgiving. Well, long gone are the days where moms spend countless hours slaving over hot stoves to prepare a grand feasts for Thanksgiving. The internet has totally changed the way that people are eating during the holidays. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is a matter of opinion.
There are many places online that will prepare a Thanksgiving feast and send it directly to your door, giving you more time to spend off your feet and with your family. Today, virtually anyone can log online to sites like www.sendameal.com and order a 10 pound turkey meal with all the fixings, including green bean casserole and whipped sweet potatoes.
Many of the places online send the meals fully cooked, requiring only heating. There seems to be just about something for everyone’s families. Most of these places online feature discounts and coupons. The discounts make these meals more than affordable for that person who doesn’t feel like spending hours or sometimes days in a hot kitchen just to burn or undercook the family turkey
The Nagging Mother: Zen of the commute
Elizabeth Kerlikowske
Staff Writer
As a child, I learned from books to identify horses and cows. I learned their sounds when I pulled the string: “Moo said the cow. Cluck said the chicken.” I learned the names for hoof beats but never spent much time in the presence of horses. Deer were big dead rugs strapped on the hoods and roofs of cars around my grandfather’s birthday. We had a dog, but she was only wild when it thundered. Now I have a cat, also not wild. Consequently, I love wild animals.
This semester my teaching takes me from Kalamazoo to Coldwater and Hastings; animals I see on a daily basis differ greatly from my city squirrels, which come in three colors: brown, red, and black, and two sizes, large and extra large. Just outside of Coldwater, there is a spot where wild turkeys range in the fields and sometimes cross the road. (Do not make chicken joke.) I stopped the other day as they paraded in front of my car, so close I could see the red on their wiggle-waggles. I unsuccessfully planted turkey decoys in my urban yard trying to attract them, so you can understand my excitement. Not speaking of chickens, I turned a corner outside of Hastings, and a rooster and chicken having a heated conversation, oblivious to my car. In Kalamazoo, a rooster and chicken on a corner would likely be college kids in costumes advertising The Chicken Coop.
Any animal not in a house counts as wild for me. Horses graze just off 1-94 west of Galesburg, but for longhorn steer viewing, I recommend the Fehsenfeld campus which faces a field of steer. I could hear their horns clacking as they were herded by their dog, a working dog that isn’t nervous and barky from being cooped up all day. The calves ran after their parents down by a stream; it was like a scene out of a cinemascope western. When I walk to my car at night, the cattle are actually lowing. My first time in Hastings, a bull was loose in the parking lot.
I know where the deer move at night on the roadside just before the third stop sign on my commute. I’ve seen the strangely reflected eyes of possums and raccoons on the sides of the road waiting for their chances to cross, and I’ve scraped the evidence of their miscalculation from the undersides of my Jeep.
Outside of Tekonsha near exit 31 in early October, all the sugar maples around a small lake had turned bright red, way ahead of anything else. The blue of the lake was a deep eye looking back at me and semis on I-69. One night on the drive home when it was still warm enough to have my windows open, I catalogued these smells: cow manure, lemonade, home permanent, detergent, brownies, mint, spaghetti sauce, wood smoke, skunk, and carcass. Cars and trucks disturb those smells and fold them into the smoky batter of autumn.
It is possible to see for miles instead of a block. Two huge pine trees at a farm beside Chief Noonday Road seem like markers, visible for two miles. That must have been how travelers reckoned distance in the old days, by natural landmarks: the turkey crossing, and the neighbor’s goats.