“This term is going by so fast, yet so slow,” said everyone about every term ever.
It’s week seven! You’re probably at that point in the 10-week term when you’re oozing with confidence in one class, but ready to switch to the pass/no pass grading option for another, all while you’ve made it a goal to not skip another yoga class.
As a senior who has gone through the trials and tribulations of about 12 full-time quarters, one of the greatest feelings I’ve experienced is when a class proves to be applicable in the real world. This last week, I got to put my GEOL 306 Volcanoes and Earthquakes knowledge to use when updates about Mount St. Helens hit the news.
Over the last eight weeks, “a swarm of more than 130 earthquakes has been detected” beneath the volcano in Washington, as reported by The Guardian. Scary, right? Most of these shakes have been extremely weak, at 0.5 magnitudes or less. The largest, so far, was at a 1.3-level on the Richter scale. The U.S. Geological Survey said this week that these baby-earthquakes are “steadily increasing” with about 40 being located each week.
It was May of 1980 when St. Helens erupted most recently, but all these minor convulsions don’t mean she’s about to blow again, necessarily. It is believed by seismologists and volcanologists (and me since I’m a volcano-earthquake expert now) that stores of magma are recharging, and this can happen for a long time without any eruptions. As Frank Sinatra and Ariana Grande once sang, “you’ll never know.”
But in this world, devastation is more often brought on by people than natural disasters, which is what’s happening in Brazil right now. The country’s capital, Rio de Janeiro, was chosen as the site of the 2016 Summer Olympics, and as it usually goes, preparation for the international Games is costing Brazil a lot of money, effort and lives.
There’s chaos occurring within Rio’s infrastructure. The Zika virus and pollution in the local water are extreme health risks. There’s more and more violence breaking out in Rio’s favelas, or shantytowns, with each new day leading up to show time.
A little commotion has been going on in the States too, and it’s not all surrounding the upcoming presidential elections. Since mid-April, a number of employees belonging to Verizon Communications Inc. have been on strike because of their contracts, and on May 5, the protestors crashed Verizon’s annual shareholder meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Others protested in various cities across the U.S.
The No. 1 American wireless service provider is shortchanging its Internet, telephone and television network technicians and customer service representatives, which is why nearly 40,000 of these workers who have around $1.3 billion in Verizon’s stock holdings have been on strike for four weeks now. They are fighting for offshore call-center jobs, job relocations and healthcare coverage. I’m all for unions that combat maltreatment from corporations like Verizon. I mean, for the amount my parents pay for our family plan, Verizon should be including health benefits for its customers, too #VerizonCare.
You know what — for the amount we students pay for UO tuition, we should be provided with health insurance as well. Or maybe just some free food for students here and there? But our athletic program would be neglected if we common folk were fed, and events like the Oregon Twilight meet wouldn’t be possible.
On May 6 at Hayward Field, high school and college students and alumnus athletes threw discs, contorted their bodies over bars and did air-splits to overcome hurdles for the 2016 Oregon Twilight Invitational meet. It was an absolute (track and) field day!
The event was also the Oregon Ducks’ last regular-season meet and senior night. Olympic gold medal decathlete and ex-Duck Ashton Eaton was in attendance. The star surpassed the 400-meter meet record at 45.78 seconds, and that was only for second place, following former Oregon All-American Mike Berry.