Volume 4 Issue 4 Page 4
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Ladies and Gentlemen, Of the Class of 1999
Wear... sunscreen!If I could offer you only one tip for the future... sunscreen... would be... it! The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.
I will dispense this advice... now.Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind... You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in twenty years, you will look back at photos of yourself, and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how good you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine. Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind... the kind that blindside you at 4:00 PM on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing every day that scares you.Sing! Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours. Floss! Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometime’s you’re behind... The race is long. And in the end, it’s only with yourself. Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.
... ... Stretch...Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you wanna do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at twenty-two what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting forty-year-olds I know still don’t. Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they’re gone. Maybe you’ll marry... maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children... maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at forty. Maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken at your seventy-fifth wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half-chance. So are everybody else’s. Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or of what other people think of it; it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.
DANCE... Even if you have no where to do it but your own living room.Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them. Do not read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly! Get to know you’ll parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future. Understand that friends come and go, but for a precious few who should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle. Because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.
Live in New York once... but leave, before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once... but leave, before it makes you soft. Travel!Accept certain inalienable truths: prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old. And when you do, you’ll fanaticize that when you were young: prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children... respected their elders. Respect your elders. Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you’ll have a trust fund, maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse, but you never know when either one might run out. Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you’re forty, it’ll look eighty-five. Be careful whose advice you buy. But... be patient with those who supply it. (advice is a form of nostalgia — dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts... and recycling it for more than it’s worth)
But trust me on the sunscreen...
(permission to reproduce http://dissension.coml )
Congratulations Class of 1999 |
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Markela Cici: Kosovo Profile
Katy Kocin
Markela Cici, a freshman Management Information Systems major at NDC, has a very close connection to what is happening now in Kosovo. She has family in Albania, in the city of Korrce, on the border of Macedonia and Greece. Ten thousand refugees have been sent to Albania and families there have taken them into their homes to help them. The government is trying to decide what to do with these refugees. Markela’s father’s factory has been taken over by the government and some of the refugees are being housed there.
Prices of products have risen and Albania’s currency, the lek, has dropped in value. People are panicked and afraid that the war will spread from Kosovo to Albania. Settling the refugees is difficult because there is not enough food and war to sustain them. The development of Albania has stopped in order to help the refugees that are there.
Markela says she would like to be therewith her family to help them and the other Albanians and Kosovo refugees. She says all people around the world need to help in the Albanians’ time of need, to provide supplies and aid. Activities have been planned just to get their minds off the atrocities of war happening all around them and to make their lives easier.
People’s belongings and identities have been taken, people have been killed and others supposedly have been put in concentration camps ( or so the kosovars have been told). No reporters are allowed in Kosovo- news comes here from the Albanian reporters and people and any U. S. a group there to intervene in this terrible war.
