This post was recovered from an old livejournal blog that I had while going to college at Oregon State University. I’ve only updated misspellings or dead links, but left any cringe worthy things or immature thoughts. I’ve decided to leave them as a snapshot of who I was and to see how far I’ve come. Any photos have been freshly edited and so are not the same as what was originally posted. Over the years I had several blogs, most lost to time, and I wanted to recover some lost memories and reflect on my life.

omething awful is happening here at OSU. The university has proposed budget cuts to the already in debt foreign language department. This really pisses me off and I’ve already sent out a letter to the president of OSU. Here’s a copy of what I sent:

Dear President,

I’m writing this letter to express my extreme dissatisfaction with the university for making budget cuts to the foreign language department. I’m currently majoring in Mechanical Engineering and Minoring in Japanese. I’ve realized in the past year that I’ve learned more in my Japanese classes than my engineering classes. How could a program with so much information be cut?

A foreign language is not some useless thing you learn in college, a foreign language CAN be used on a day to day basis. Will I be constantly solving integrals when I’m an engineer? I doubt it, my computer will do it for me, but when a company needs to collaborate with another company in Japan I can be of great help.

Oregon State University is suppose to be the best university in the state. How could we call ourselves that if we lose such a useful program? I’ll make sure I spread the word about this budget cut, I won’t let it go unnoticed. I hope you and the people who make budget decisions realize what your doing. Your only hurting our great institution and our state. I ask that you please lobby for the repeal of the proposed budget cuts and fight for a budget increase. If this doesn’t happen and the program slips away I could be forced to attend University of Oregon or some other institution. I hope it never comes to that.

Please forward this e-mail to any faculty member of interest in this budget cut fiasco. I’m looking forward to a reply.

Sincerely,

Curtis Barnard

I’ve also created a face book group containing the e-mail address of some people to e-mail. If you’re a student at OSU then please contact the president and others and tell them how you fell. I also went to a mock funeral the other day. The budget cuts would completely wipe out Italian and during the funeral they had a casket to put Italian to rest. To the right you can see the casket along with an Italian instructor.

I just don’t understand how they could cut true educational courses, but leave other shit course and increase funding to athletic programs. I understand that athletics is a big part in encouraging people to attend your school, but it’s a SCHOOL for Christs sake. Academics should always come before sports no matter what some may say. That’s all for my rant now, but know that I’m really pissed of at you OSU.

-Curtis