My Powell Alarm Rant

The other night I was sitting in Powell Library, studying (cramming) for my next early morning Organic Chemistry Lab. At a certain point at night the library turns into night Powell, where only a part of the library is left open for the studious/crammers. NOTE: You Must Be a Student with A Valid ID, or you risk being TASERED at night. Well the UCLA community officers come around at this point in time to check IDs and lock the doors. Well this "officer" decided to demonstrate the alarm door to the new recruits. So he decided to trip the door in a hall of studying students. The noise that followed was a consistent and abnoxious:

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

What made it all the worse is that I was at the table closest to the door. The community officeres walked off nonchalantly off to protect the world (library) from hobos crashing the nigth at the library. The alarm stoped only when a lady janitor came and used her key on the door, to the releif of many students.

I can't belive how some people have so little regard for other people, and yet how others have so much capacity to do good even in the face of such arogance.

My Rhodes Inspiration

I came across the Rhodes Scholarship today. It's an amazing scholarship that provides the 32 US recipients a chance to study any post-undergrad discipline they choose at Oxford, all expenses paid for. The scholarship judges applicants at four standards:

-literary and scholastic attainments
-energy to use one's talents to the full, as exemplified by fondness for and success in sports
-truth, courage, devotion to duty, sympathy for and protection of the weak, kindliness, unselfishness and fellowship
-moral force of character and instincts to lead, and to take an interest in one's fellow beings

With former Rhodes Scholars going on to become powerhouses in their respective fields the Rhodes Scholarship bar is set high. This is all to apparent looking at the 2008 batch. Among them Isra Bhatty, a Muslim Pakistani American is an all-star. Having completed her first year at Yale Law she will be going to Oxford for a year. She also knows six languages and has worked as an interpreter at Gitmo, to say the least of her achievements.

Although it is probably to late for me to be a Rhodes Scholar, it definitely encourages me to excel in academics and community service.

Moments in Venice

Photos taken all Over Venice, Ca by Keith Baggett

Poetic Resonance

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain but for the heart to conquer it,

Let me not look for allies in life's battlefield but to my own strengths
Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved but hope for patience to win my freedom

Grant me that I may not be a coward, feeling your mercy in my success alone; but let me find the grasp of your hand in my failure.


-Rabindranath Tagore, Fruit-Gathering
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabindranath_Tagore