I was sitting in my political science class, playing Angry Birds, paying no attention whatsoever to what the professor had to say. The girl in front of me was browsing through blouses on Forever 21 and the guy beside me was watching videos on YouTube. Still, the professor passionately rambled on and on with dramatic hand motions. I never knew so much noise and visual movement could put a young and robust group of people to sleep.

My eyes, naturally, began hurting from playing online games for too long, so I closed my laptop and drifted into my usual reverie, where whimsically profound thoughts emerge. Intelligent and philosophical thoughts that made me feel like if I actually put more thought into my thoughts, I could become some sort of a Socrates or the next Jean-Paul Sartre.

Today, I thought about professors. Professors possess, it seems like, an infinite capacity of knowledge so vast that if their knowledge were tangible objects, even if divided among all citizens of the world, their minds would not be bare. That must be why they talk so much. And then suddenly, my thoughts skipped to a different topic as they usually do in these random daydreams during the middle of class.

Next, I thought about powerful people. Well, maybe not powerful people, but rather people who give birth to powerful things. Ya know, those who engineer rockets and telescopes that can take pictures of planets and stars far, far away from us, or those who have lead revolutions that can turn a society on its head and then bring it right back up to its feet again. People who devise objects that could steal the living breath of thousands of lives under a few minutes and people who invent substances to save millions of lives over a lifetime. Those who make war and those who make peace – where do those people get their knowledge from? This brings me back to my first thought: Professors.

Think of a great leader or a great artist. With the exception of those who were born with a bonus gift of natural brilliance (to the point where it could be considered unnatural), almost all those who appear in our textbooks, those great figures whom we admire and are forced to learn about – who were their teachers? Surely, someone taught them their ABCs and 123s. Someone taught a famous artist how to hold a brush, or a grand musician how to use her fingers. And we read biographies of world leaders and memorize their words, yet we never take the time to ask ourselves, “Who educated Winston Churchill?” or wonder, “Did Clinton fall asleep in his political science class?” and, “Who was his unfortunate professor?”

Professors know their stuff. How many professors have read the news and said to themselves, “These people don’t know what the hell they’re doing, they’re supposed to so and so.” Or, “They need to know that A will not work if they don’t implement B.”

Professors can run the economy, negotiate foreign treaties, come up with solutions to society’s problems and a host of other things. But they’re not running the country; they’re not inventing machines that can change the way we view the world; they’re not creating medicine that can save lives – they are teaching.

And although they have all the knowledge of this world, they neither choose power nor fame, both of which they could easily achieve. Instead they choose to stand, under garish fluorescent lights day in and day out, in front of a couple hundred students (most of whom are not mentally present) with the hope that their words will somehow fall upon good ears.

Why? Well gee, I’m not a professor so I can’t say for certain, but here’s my take.

These old folks that we see standing before us, rambling on about whatever, aren’t afraid to be more than professors. They are not professors because they prefer a dull and predictable lifestyle. That whatever they ramble on about for hours each day is their source of power and we, the students, are their tools.

It is through people like us that professors witness their knowledge impacting the world. So the next time you look at your professors, perhaps a little hunched over, wearing their used cardigans and spewing a stream of words, listen to those words! You are looking and listening to very powerful people, and it sure is nice of them to share that power.

Class ended. I woke up, gathered my things and walked by the professor on my way out. I smiled and thanked him. And I meant it.

What’d you think of my first column? All love letters and scathing vilifications can be sent to MICHELLE NGUYEN at michellen1990@yahoo.com.

Hello there, fellow journalism junkies, wary readers, wandering eyes … I’m happy to see you here! Welcome to my incommodious two-dimensional domain, where words can seize your minds and whisk them to curious places concocted by the imagination of yours truly.

Do your thoughts tangle in sadness or frustration? Has your world withered beneath the shadows of darkened clouds? Well, I’ll always be here for you. I am Zenita Singh, proud owner of 18 dense years of wisdom, which I would love to share.

Today I’d like to talk about warding away summer laziness and transitioning back to school.

It seems to me that summer spoils even the most rational of minds. When you are abruptly jostled out of the comfort of summer languor, even the tiniest of problems seem behemoth; minuscule failures seem to be the apocalypses of your self-constructed realities.

Unfortunately, failure prevails in every aspect of life. While some failures are flakes of pebble that annoyingly flick in your direction, others are rocks that trip and confound you, and still others are ferocious meteors that crush the spirit and imprison you with their might.

No matter how small or large the failure, it presents you with some form of inconvenience. Maybe last year you received an undesirable GPA. Maybe your summer romance was unhappily curtailed. Maybe you were passed over on that job you spent many sleepless nights thinking about. Maybe you lost money, health, happiness, or even blood, sweat and tears over a tragedy that threatens to ruin life as you imagine it.

I don’t know what problems burden you, but I do know that balancing out every bad is a seed of good. With a little support, it could grow into a stalk of opportunity on which you could climb from the depths of despair into the world of success.

But beware: this world is quite precarious. Even once you succeed, the fear of failure will skulk in the dark corners of your mind, reminding you that the fall will hurt more than ever before.

So how do you eradicate failure and its influences? You simply do not. Failure may be many milk-curdling, hair-raising, smile-erasing things, but if you do not permit it to get the best of you, it will teach you to be a stronger person. In fact, it’s unlikely you’ll succeed without journeying the circuitous path of trial and error and receiving many red stamps of “failure” on your worn head. It takes hard work and sweat to wipe them off!

Through years of careful observation, I have found that the slap of reality is most effective when administered to those who have recently fatigued themselves and curled up in the comfort of self-pity. So let your tears flow like the Niagara Falls, punch a hole through that beloved HD television, become the tortured artist you have always wanted to be, or crumple up those tissues and throw them down in disgust.

Feel no shame. Emotional catharsis is fine, so long as you don’t make self-pity your permanent refuge.

In the wastelands of failure, self-pity is but a humble shack. We stumble upon it in our fitful wanderings, and it tames our despair into a manageable meekness. It is a trap. While it’s fine to settle in for a day or two, the problem arises when you refuse to leave – when you remain sequestered in this ugly, rotting house, seeing the world through tainted windows, refusing to step out the door and find something new and worthwhile.

Self-pity is the resort (not a fancy one) of those who are afraid of change … so once your hour of emotional turmoil is up, be a futilitarian no longer. Your world may have burned to shreds, but that world was obsolete, anyway. You can create a newer and better one. Stick your middle finger up to failure if you must. Even the tiniest act of defiance – a ghost of a smile or a morsel of determination – is enough to make yourself a celebrity in the wasteland where people do nothing but hide and weep.

Please be a fighter. Do not concede defeat to the dark forces that threaten to penetrate your mind and lead you astray.

Just recite the following: My problems, be they giant, monstrous, hairy or smelly, are solvable. The responsibility to solve these problems is my own. What happened cannot be changed, so I will dedicate my time and effort into creating a better future rather than focusing on the past.

I think adopting this mindset will make your transition back to school a much smoother one, and will help you deal with stressful situations in the future. Good luck!

ZENITA SINGH would love to hear what pesky problems plague your minds at zensingh@ucdavis.edu.

I am no legal expert, merely someone who tries to see the good in situations, in a world that seems to be all about the bad. With that said, I am rather disheartened in the proceedings surrounding Troy Davis’ execution. 

Yes, he was tried and convicted of killing a police officer. However, several key witnesses have recanted or changed their testimonies and said their original testimonies were given under intimidation by police. No physical evidence proving that Troy Davis pulled the trigger exists. 

I have to ask, in a world where we demand conclusive proof for everything and anything, how can we execute someone with the smallest shred of doubt that they were responsible? This case makes me wonder, is the death penalty in America worth it? Other than Timothy McVeigh, have we executed a mass murderer or someone who committed a crime so heinous that killing them in retribution has been a logical and proportionate response?

This time of year in the Jewish religion, Jews everywhere are asking their friends, their family members, co-workers and acquaintances for forgiveness for any wrongs they have done to their fellow man. It is said that on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, the Book of Life (and man’s fate) is written and 10 days later on Yom Kippur, the Book is sealed. The proverbial Gates of Heaven close with the conclusion of Yom Kippur. There are three things that are said to keep one from a decree of death: repentance, prayer and good deeds. 

As a friend of mine said to me about this situation, Troy Davis “was at peace when we went … he has either been sentenced or acquitted by the only Judge who matters, and is receiving whatever treatment he truly deserves for the first time in 20 years. ” 

He continued to say that, eerily, with the execution delay, the Book of Life for Davis was written exactly a week early. Davis asked God to have mercy on the souls of his executioners and that God blesses them.

May we all remember to abide by the saying “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and remember, in this time of year and always, we should engage in repentance, good deeds and acts of charity.

As a member of the generation that learned to enjoy reading with Harry Potter, I cannot help but think about Dumbledore’s famous belief about love and repentance. And in that spirit, it is disheartening to think about cases like Stan “Tookie” Williams, who frequently spoke out against his gang member past and took an activist stance to encourage others to avoid it. Is killing someone who has seen the error in their past ways right? I don’t have an answer here, but it is a question I struggle with.

I struggle with the idea of capital punishment as a justified response to a killing, and I hope that you all do too. It is time we look inwardly on ourselves as a country. According to one statistic, the countries with the most executions recently, in order, are China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Congo, Egypt and then the U.S. Is that really the company of nations we want to be in?

ARI POLSKY can be reached at apolsky@ucdavis.edu.

The California State Senate recently voted in favor of Senator Leland Yee’s (D- San Francisco) Senate Bill 8, which allows for more transparency in public universities across the state.

This new law requires all California higher education auxiliary organizations and foundations that perform government functions disclose financial records, contracts and correspondences to members of the public upon request.

This new law benefiting all supporters of higher education provides a much needed checks and balances system for the University of California and California State University systems.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill into law at the beginning of the month. When the law goes into effect in January 2012, these provisions will allow for more transparency in both the UC and CSU systems, letting students see where their money is being spent.

Even though it’s great that this is now a law, this systemwide openness would have been worth having when it was first introduced three years ago. The idea for the bill came about when a Sacramento State student was trying to get information from the school’s bookstore about how much the school paid for books compared to what students then paid for them.

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he vetoed Yee’s past versions of the bill because he wanted to protect private interests. For a year, he wasn’t open to discussing making any changes to the bill.

Schwarzenegger used an activist veto to prevent this bill from becoming law, in which he valued private interests over the public good.

This new bill does allow for more compromises, offering good protection for private sources, who are volunteers and donors to UC and CSU, to remain anonymous unless the donors are getting something clearly beneficial from the university. The foundations don’t have to declare themselves public entities subject to the Public Records Act as earlier versions of the bill dictated, allowing donors more anonymity. While that clause reduces transparency, the most important thing is seeing where the money goes.

The fact is, there shouldn’t even have to be a bill that makes university spending public; transparency should be something inherent in a public institution.