on my walk home iw as just thinking if i would have been a better or worse person without the influence of media. at my pureist level what type of person am i. like every other individual i have been surrounded by media my entire life. and my being is most likely representative of this media. again like most people i probably spent more time with media than my family. media is there even when ur family is there. if u are havig breakfast with ur family and u pick up a box of cereal there is an an image on that box and that box image impacts ur image of the setting that that graphik depicts. people always argue that media is a negative influence on people and there is too much violence in teh media etc. in fact i am the first one too say that there is tooo much violence in the media. but i am starting to think that the media is in reality a reflection of its target audience. the media (movies, tv, and news as well as advertisements) knows only as much as its audience knows. and in a a violent society it is normal to have violent media. not a good thing in my opinion but it is the truth. i dont think people are crazy or do crazy things becuase of the media, i think the media is crazy in order to keep up with its audience. naturally i believe everything i do is in the best interest of the people i care for and society at large, so how was the media influence i recieved different from that of an ‘evil’ person? perception. the moral fiber that was instilled in me at a young age allowed be to build a paradigm or a window from which i percieved the media. where i naturally recognized evil another may have understood mystery. this shift in understanding is what makes some types of media a negative influence. but in reality its not the media to blame but rather the lack of well built paradigm from which to analyze the flood of influence. reflecting back i would say this is common sense and it is. and all to often people analyze instead of act. i have taken a simple idea and over analyzed it and came up with a simple reason. perhaps it would have been more effective to have not thought at all. just something to think about.

just got back from an extended weekend trip to the west coast to celebrate my cousins barmitzvah. it was quite an adventure 20 min bus to bus station 1 hr bus to airport 14 hr flight to the OC. then back again a couple days later. but in all honestly the time spent traveling is insignificant compared to the amount of enjoyment i had over the few days. i have always felt that there is no better way to spend time than with family. on another note time is flying by. honestly. i feel like i just got to Germany but i am already searching for co-ops. meaning i will be done with my first semester here soon. only a couple more semesters till i graduate college, ridiculous. my new focus is on gaining as much knowledge as possible. there is an overwhelming amount of knowledge at my finger tips with internet and books, i just cant seem to absorb all the information fast enough. a small side project i am working on is a time line of the world since creation, but focused around topics that interest and affect me. it may sound silly, but there is so much information and without a way of putting it in perspective there is no way to truly understand anything. here is a quick example: 4.5 billion BC the earth and its solar system was created. scientists have dated the oldest sign of life to 3 billion BC. then jumping all the to 65 million BC we have the oldest known dinosaur. just try and imagine the evolution of the first bacteria into the eventual dinosaur, hard to image but now consider the billions of years it had time to take place. then tens of millions of years later the first sign of humans show up. as humans we are such a small part of the history of the world. then in 70,000 BC man made fire. and it wasnt till 60,000 years later that man made the wheel. of course these facts are based on the findings of scientists and paleontologists and of course are subject to error, but they are the best figures we have to date based on the collaborative intelligence of experts, and I accept there findings. that was a random tangent….but some food for thought.

keine stimme aber stimmung ESB!

just got back from the the WHU eurosport competition. we left friday morning at4 am. I got about 2 hrs of sleep by the time i finished my work. before we got on the bus we got a sports bag filled with goodies including a full track warm up suit, and warm up gear. I had no idea it was gonna be such a big deal, i was psyched! in actuality when i signed up to play volleyball it thought it was just gor intramurals, then i found it there were tryouts and that i made the team. then i found out it was for this big competetion, it was great. in any case we took the bus up to Koblenz where the competition was. there were about 8 schools there from all over europe (sweeden, barcelona, a couple schools from germany, and a school form prague, and london.) there were about 50 on the bus. we competed in basketball, soccer, cheerleading, volleyball, running and rowing. i was on the volleyball team. we got there by about 9 am. we played and watched each other play all day till about 8. the team leaders from ESB were great. the entire buss ride there we practices our songs, we have about 15 (one of the songs on the sheet was one i made up at integration weekend!). when we got there we made a huge entrance. no one else had any spirit. after and during each match we played there was tons of cheering, it was really something else. a ridiculous amout of positive energy. at 8 we had dinner and then went to this big tent for the friday night party. stayed till about 2 then returned to the my hosts house with my ESB roomates. we got up at 9 to watch rowing. of course tons more singing. one of the other schools asked us to cheer for them as we werent in one of the races. in return the captain of their rowing team had to where an ESB jersey. more sports all day then the award ceremony. we won 2nd place in running and cheerleading and 3 place in volleyball, and of course we won the spirit award. after dinner we went to the satrday evening festivities which began at 11pm. it was a great time, on impulse i lifted the tallest volleyball player on our team on my shoulders (well over 6 feet) it started a revolution soon everyone was goin up on shoulders its was great. we were there till about 5 then took a taxi back and we got up again at 9 to grab the bus back. of course more singing on the ride back. this was one of the best weekends here, better than integration weekend.