Student author accused of plagiarism
As much as I am for the individuals who write their own works, I have to stand up for this young girl... Now I know that she most obviously stole work from the other author, but I doubt she ever expected this book to be published.
I am a music person. I love to walk around with my Ipod shuffle and blast my strange selection. If you were to pick it up and turn it on, your ears may be assaulted with anything from Buddy Holly to Breaking Benjamin to Toby Keith to Cindy Lauper. My taste in music is so broad that it would shock me if I couldn't find one song for every person I met on my Ipod. The thing I can't imagine is getting persecuted for my taste in music.
I write this while I'm at work... a poor college kid trying to make a buck so I can buy a pizza on a Friday night. I really do try. I work in my college's library... that's right, I'm a librarian. I work in the media department, where no one ever comes in, because people don't realize that they can borrow things like camcorders or digital cameras. So I come to work every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 7:45 AM to 9:00 AM and sit at this computer. In my two week pay period, I make just about $40... and that's usually because I cover for someone else. I guess what I'm trying to say is that as a college kid, sometimes it's hard to make a buck. Pennsylvania state minimum wage is $5.15 an hour. I'm from Connecticut, where our minimum greatly surpasses $5.15 with a whopping $7.40. It may not seem like much, but for a college kid, that extra $2.25 means a night at the mall or grocery shopping. I'm a kid who has a lot of medications to take, and $5.15 an hour just doesn't cover two $50 medications. So I suppose this is why I'm going to college. I work now for minimum wage (or just above due to a ten cent raise activated this august). I'm going to work over the summer for minimum wage at home, or at least I hope. I need a car, and to pay for the car and the insurance on the car, I need AT LEAST 2 jobs when I return to school. With all that work, I won't have money, or time, for a social life. When I'm not working, I'll be studying. But what I get told is that when it's all said and done, my $30,000+ a year education will pay off. I'll be rich!!! Or so I hope. But what is a measly teacher's salary going to do for me? That question I can answer. A summer off of work to be with my kids. A chance to give a child the love of learning. A chance to better myself by staying in college and working towards higher goals. A chance to be the mother that some children just don't have. A chance to help those kids get to where I am now. So years from now, those kids will be complaining about making $10.15 as minimum wage, and I will sit back and smile because I helped them get there. Right now, money stinks for me, but all in all, I'm proud of the work that I do and my $5.15 an hour.
I'm not new to blogging. I'm also not the best blogger in the world. I will say that I enjoy letting my opinions be heard. I worry about blogging. I worry about my opinions being "wrong" and my writing being bad. I worry about the silliest things. Mostly though, I worry that as I post this, it will get shoved to the wayside and no one will ever look at it, with the exception of a few close friends and my fiancee. So the question is, why blog?
