Prelude to a Storm

I am at a loss of words. I really am. What is this world coming to? I shall explain in a nutshell.

I am a student at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez. I work directly with the General Student Council (even though I’m not officially part of it) and it’s been a while now since the construction of a highway has been wreaking havoc among students, professors and administrative personnel alike. The highway is supposed to go straight through the campus’ Finca Alzamora, which is the area where the students of Agricultural Sciences use for research, class, lab classes, etc. It is a real shame that it is being threatened by the construction of said highway, and as such, the students are raising their voices (pretty loudly, might I add) and asking to be heard. As a means of letting the administration know their presence, they’re motioning the General Student Council to call for an assembly and see if the student body wants a 24-hour strike or not. This is all fine and dandy as I myself am against the destruction of said area. However, in my opinion, a 24 hour strike will resolve next to nothing and other measures should be taken.

It seems the group that wants the strike is not getting the results they want and are basically grasping at straws to see what they can come up with to belittle the General Student Council’s power because, according to them, they’re biased towards the non-striking crowd. As a result of this, my best friend’s (Ivy) blog was targeted. She expressed her thoughts on the whole ordeal in her blog, and now they’re questioning the GSC’s integrity and neutrality regarding the Finca Alzamora issue. What the hell? Regardless of her position on the issue, she has no representation in the voting process! She only uses her blog as means of expressing herself to her fellow friends (of which only a handful of us visit and very well know her stance). There’s no propaganda involved, there’s no influence on the resolution of the problem at hand so what’s their damage?

Another thing is that all her entries are in English and the people questioning her usage of her blog are misinterpreting her posts for their own convenience. Sure, some things can be lost in translation, but you can only manage to mess it up so much. So much for Puerto Rico having both Spanish and English as official languages, huh? As Ivy would say, “this island is bass ackwards”.

It is situations like this that make me question people’s intentions when it comes to finding a way to reach their goals. Whatever happened to freedom of speech? Why should we be censored in matters like this? Since when is it a crime to stand up for our beliefs? It doesn’t make sense what so ever. They cry and moan “freedom of speech” and yet want to censor anything that doesn’t embrace their views.

Tomorrow will be pure chaos. I’ll be in charge of looking out for the GSC’s table instead of mic detail, like last Tuesday. About 3 years ago the then president was physically threatened and chaos ensued all around campus. I only hope they don’t behave like hormone-driven howling monkeys and decide to take a civil approach to the issue…but knowing better only the former will take place. 

Let the 3-hour-long hell unfold. *sighs*