I Will Stand Up Once Again by Daniel Mulligan

The rain drops pounding the ground,
As I amble across this secluded land,
Remembering the thought provoking fact,
That habitually proves hard to understand.

Life is meant to be a series of trial and error,
Failure, no matter how boundless, ought not to induce terror.

 

The calamities that befall us in our life,
Regardless of their atrocity, from loss to strife,
Are there to impart the knowledge of existence,
And remind us the importance of persistence.  

That no matter how many times I fall,
I will stand up once again and will not stall.

No achievement has ever been attained,
Or any trembling heart of love gained,
Without failing over and over again,
Till you be triumphant in the end.

Talk Show Podcast Episode Ten

Social networking, online communication, and Facebook have become a substantial component of our routine lives over the years to the point where some prefer online interaction to face-to-face ones. 

The current edition of Talk Show Podcast is aimed at elaborating on the notion of social networking as well as providing some background and analysis for the renowned website Facebook. Later in the course of the program, Steve N.B., internet devotee and adept pianist joins us for an intriguing interview regarding the subject matter. 

Alternatively you can download the podcast here

Few moments with Steve N.B.

Artistic soul is something that is assumed to be rare, but when it comes to Steve N.B. this is certainly not the case. Steve is a 19 year-old student of architecture as well as a professional pianist. 

     All you need to do is to listen to him play the piano for a short period of time before you recognize that he undeniably has earned the term professional with all its corresponding accessories. He has begun learning the piano from an early age; as the years went by, he became more and more enthralled by the mother of all musical instruments, and  nowadays he and the piano are literally inseparable.

     I asked Steve to join me for an interview regarding social networking and Facebook, which he so gently accepted. I have to mention at first, that Steve himself uses the internet and social networking websites for about six hours a day grossing the notorious title geek in the process, thus surely he could be dubbed an internet enthusiast with sufficient knowledge and experience in the medium.

     It’s Steve’s firm assertion that it’s indispensable to embrace the new internet movement “in order to be competitive “ simply because the modern wolrd has undergone substantial changes as a result of the internet.  “I believe the internet has revolutionized our lives in many ways, it has changed the concept of communication and entertainment “said he and later continued: “in the mean time search engines provide us ways to search any information worldwide and [the means of] getting up-to-date”.

     Steve maintains that much the same as any other entity, the internet has its own share of advantages as well as disadvantages; for instance, albeit we all can benefit from swifter, finer, and more convenient access to information and communication, we cannot deny the threats of identity theft, spamming, and cyber stalking.

    Nevertheless, the merits of the internet by far surpass its drawbacks and hence it proves essential for implementing the day-to-day tasks. Social networking is a pivotal facet of Steve’s life, and he attributes it to not only a place to catch up with friends, but also an ambit to be submerged in while witnessing a diverse and multi-cultural environment and learning “a thing or two about new cultures or languages”. 

     Like many of us, Steve believes Facebook to be the throne keeper of all social networking websites with insurmountable potentials along with a “super positive atmosphere”.  When I asked him what he thinks of the validity and rigor of friendships on Facebook as opposed to real-life friendships he cited:

     “ Facebook is a means of social networking where you find the opportunity of finding your oldest friends from all over the world.” However, he said: “we should try to make our relationships stronger and better using the power of Facebook”. 

     In due course, I myself truly took pleasure in interviewing Steve for many reasons, from his passionate tone of speech to his rational behavior.   

You can listen to the entire interview at Talk Show Podcast Episode Ten.

Let us reform our educational system

If   we were to determine the most substantial element behind the functionality of the society as well as its long-term outlook, we would be pointing our fingers at nothing but the educational system. 

The current trend of instruction and its inadequacies

     It’s through this hierarchy of grade-based knowledge that many individuals discover their pathways in life, while the others lose the very sough-after clue that they were hoping to find as they entered the school. Whether you like it or not, the current educational system is robbing the students of their creativity due to its lack of flexibility, biased evaluation process that favors conformity, and typecasting all the learners in the same manner despite the immense dissimilarities among every single one of them.

     In a world where the so-called educational inflation, the process in which degrees no longer guarantee employment and the minimum requirements are rising from Bachelor’s to Master’s and from there to PhD, has changed the way we assess our workforce in a way that could ultimately precipitate the manifold stirs that are ensuing at the present time. 

     Global economic crises, insurmountable waste and lack of proficiency, increased level of fraud as well as crime, lower payments and salaries, monetary divisions, general lack of happiness, and most of all, uncreativeness that has led many nations into intellectual poverty are all but few of the repercussions of the aforementioned obsolete academic establishments. 

     Hence, it’s evident that our scholastic needs surpass that of mere evolution, and instead, demand a robust revolution within the composition of our educational systems from kindergartens to universities and in its entirety. 

     The following speech will address the urgent necessity of a reform in the educational systems all across the globe;              

The Rise of Women

The ancient conception that attributed a woman to being the second class citizen, the weaker sex, responsible for trivial matters, unaware of the economic, social and political issues, less thoughtful, and overall inferior to men, whether you like it or not, is but extinct.

Welcome to the new world; the epoch which has brought with itself multitude of women who have proved themselves worthier than heaps of men. Embrace the new world that has seen many women as scientists, politicians, analysts, managers, astronauts, authors, trainers, and even presidents.

Suffice to say that the feminist movement since the dawn of its establishment, has spread the message of unity and self-reliance among all the women around the globe.

We, now, live in a situation in which women in many parts of the world contribute to more than half the income of a given family, and being the sole breadwinner of the household is nothing uncommon for the ladies of the 21st century either. The role of women in our contemporary life-style by far exceeds what it used to be few centuries back.

The aforementioned change in the attitude towards women did not come cheap however, many women, for years and years, persistently fought for their various rights, from suffrage, and guardianship, to equal pay and publicity.

Do not believe me? You can check out the following video that elaborates on the rise of women, and the fact that females have managed to surpass their male counterparts in various aspects:

2011 New Year’s Resolution, by Daniel Mulligan

 

And thus the New Year is upon us once again,
All the buzz, activities, motions, and cheerfulness,
Sitting in the cozy nook near the hearth,
I spell my New Year’s Resolution,

Novelty flows in the air, hostility, but rare,
As if the old globe has been replaced with a spare,

Dear universe, let me set my first desire,  
A world at peace and away from war’s fire,
The year that passed witnessed so much scourge and affright,
Let’s hope that the New Year will impel all that to expire,

 
Dear universe, let me instate my second wish,
Allow me to flow freely and autonomous akin to a fish,
Live free or die well, I heard them say, 
Hence I would play the role of a free man in this play, 

Dear universe, let me articulate my third hope,
Sweet happiness for the humanity to cope,
To live mirthfully, and to make others joyful,
 To knot the people unitedly using this felicitous rope,
  

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
That among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,
These three wishes, also make the Declaration of Independence, 

May 2011 be a year of aliveness, autonomy, and contentment,
That is my sincere bid, resolution, and statement.