There's No "USA" In "Recession"

I love opening my gmail account and looking at new mail. "Fall 2009 Registration" let's see what this says, "Due to the budget problems in the State of California, San Francisco State has reluctantly had to cancel a number of Fall 2009 classes." God dammit! I fucking hate these budget cuts. I had just spent the whole day figuring out my schedule for next year, like solving a confusing crossword puzzle. Success, seventeen units that I actually look forward to taking. Awesome teachers, awesome times, awesome classes; everything a college student desires. This is the ultimate schedule, the government better not screw this up or I'm going to be pissed. I look at my email and get a message from SFSU regarding cutting classes and immediately look at the class schedule. I am praying to God, Mother Mary, Jesus Christ, Gandhi, Buddha, whoever, whatever, "I'm begging you...do not cut my classes."

I'm logged in, type in my first class and what do you know? It's cut. Type in my second class. Cut. Things aren't looking too well. So I type in my third class. Cut. I was 3/6. That's 50%, horrible.
"Mom!!!!"
"What is it?"
"Look at this email."
"'Due to the budget problems in the State of California, San Francisco State has reluctantly had to cancel a number of Fall 2009 classes.' Again?! That's two semesters in a row. That's ridiculous."

"Yup, and they're raising tuition."
As a student at San Francisco State University I totally feel the effect of the budget cuts. Many classes have been cut, unfortunately, and registration has been postponed for about a month and many teachers have been forced to resign. SFSU is a very liberal school and the students absolutely hate what is happening not only to our school but other state schools of California. Students have protested almost everyday of the school year demanding the government to do something, anything, to change this crisis. After my first semester a lot of people dropped out like flies because they could not pay the tuition. I wonder how it's going to be like next year considering the increase of price. When registration time comes, it's very hard to sign up for classes because they fill up so quickly. It was not like this during my first semester at all because there were definitely a lot more classes and professors. This economic crisis needs to be fixed quickly for the sake of our education.

I remember the day my father was laid off by Intel like it was yesterday. It was during the end of my senior year in high school and class ended at 2:35. I usually got back home at around 3 to an empty house because both of my parents were out working. I pulled up to the drive way and noticed my father's car parked in his usual parking space, I could tell something was up. I glanced into his car and there were boxes filled with what seemed to be his office supplies. Did he get fired? Was he moving to another company? A ton of thoughts were coming all at once for the fear that I would hear the news that my father was let go after working twenty-five years at Intel. I rushed upstairs, dropped my back pack, my anticipation was running high. I needed to know the news. I opened the door of my parents' room and peeked in to see if my dad was there. My dad was sitting in silence waiting to tell me the news.

"Intel let me go today," he said.
"So what now?"
"I guess I just have to retire." [ this is a fairly understated description of a scene... I don' t know if you should leave it there.... if you do, drop down one space for effect]

I could not believe it. My dad and my family couldn't believe it either. After working at Intel for twenty-five years, you're kicked to the curb in one day. My father decided to take a break from the corporate world for a while and help out with my mother's business. Whoever said that couples shouldn't work together is right. They have different working styles and get into a lot of confrontations with each other on how to manage business matters. After about a year my dad decided to start applying for a new job. One of the cons of trying to get back into business was that because it was the start of the recession, it was extremely difficult to find a job. He worked so hard to update his resume and he sent it to a lot of engineering and car companies. He received no responses. Until this day my dad has no source of income but my mother. We're lucky to have my mom who owns her own business, works hard, earns every single penny she gets, and at the same time supports her family.

Just this summer, my family and I were fortunate enough to travel to Dubai. Dubai is the capital of tourism and commercialism in the UAE (United Arab Emirates). Visitors, like us, from all over the world travel to Dubai annually to visit the desert city that is redeveloping from head to toe. We saw breathtaking buildings such as Burj Dubai, which is still being built today. It's supposed to be the world's tallest building and when it is finished it will have 120 levels and will stand at 380 meters high. That is almost double the size of the Sears Tower and the Empire State Building. The cost of this project? $4,100,000,000. Another project we saw was the Palm Jumeirah. This is a man-made island which will be apart of two other islands; therefore, being apart of the Palm Islands. Palm Jumeirah is an island in the shape of a palm tree that includes the trunk and the crown with seventeen fonds. [wow!] The Palm Jumeirah currently has the Atlantis Hotel, luxurious apartment buildings, and multi-million dollar estates. This island will be the smallest out of the three. The cost of Palm Jumeirah? $12,300,000,000. These are only two out of hundreds of projects planned for the unbelievable city of Dubai. The people making this happen are the hundreds of thousands construction laborers from all over the world that work around the clock to make these projects complete as soon as possible. On our trip we learned that since the economic crisis started to affect the UAE, despite their richness of oil, redeveloping started to decrease and Dubaians became more conservative with their money. The construction workers started getting paid even less to ten dollars a day; therefore, hundreds of laborers quit and moved back home.

What do I think of this economic crisis? I think it is absolute horse crap. Yeah, I said it. I feel like I've witnessed history. The rise and fall of not only America but the whole world. Big time corporations filing for bankruptcy, people who earned a Masters, BS, MS, MD, PhD, etc. and still can't find a job, more and more hard workers being laid off, and the list goes on. People are suffering as it is and I believe with this crisis it has made every human being suffer as well.