VIEWPOINTS

Staff Editorial
Garage will Fix Parking Problem

So far this year, we have published several articles in “The Wichitan” concerning parking problems on campus. The police issue several tickets daily due inappropriate or illegal parking. Much of this is as a result of the shortage in conveniently located parking spaces.
The parking lot on the north side of the Fain Fine Arts center is reserved for students who live on campus.        
So, commuter students who drive 50 miles to get to an 8 a.m. class in Fain may be late because it took them five minutes to get from their cars to the classroom. However, an on-campus resident can roll out of bed, drive across the street to class, and park right outside.
On the other hand, on-campus residents need to move belongings and groceries, so they really need parking close to home.
Much of the reserved space is set aside for faculty. It doesn’t seem to make sense that faculty members get all of the nearby parking spaces when they arrive early in the morning, stay in one place most of the day, and then leave.
Most students have classes in numerous buildings across campus and many have only a short amount to get from class to class.
However, the faculty has to work all day and should not have to expend energy which they don’t have at the end of a long day.
A solution to all of these problems could be a parking garage. The parking lot of the Liberal Arts building is a fine site, though there are others.
A garage would facilitate six or seven times the amount of parking which fits in that space now, and many more people could park close to their destination. An elevator, with which most parking garages are equipped, could assist the elderly and disabled.
Without this addition, people will eventually be parking a mile or more from campus. Though in town and on-campus residents can walk or bike to school, students who live in other towns don’t have that option.


What Life is like to be just one of the Guys
Jennifer Tavlian | Sports Editor

It seemed like a good idea in the fifth grade. I decided to become a sports journalist, and knowing about sports was a way for my shy, awkward self to talk to guys. It’s too late to turn back now, since my job is my passion and my life. Unfortunately, what seems cool to other girls is my reality and, at times, my curse.
I am one of the guys.
I was told a couple of weeks ago by a friend who said he was going to be nicer to girls, that I “don’t count” because I was one of these creatures. This was followed up by a hearty slap on the back by another guy. If we had been in football uniforms, he would have made a play for my butt. This is my life. The few girl friends I have try to convince me that I’m lucky to be able to get
along with guys so well.
For the most part, my guy friends are great. There are times, though, that they sit across from me in the cafeteria and try to shove an entire hamburger in their mouth or comment about every single girl who walks by.
Or comment about every single girl that walks by while trying to shove an entire hamburger in their mouth. It is at this very point in time that women sigh and bat their eyelashes, and men are at the peak of attractiveness. Apparently it shouldn’t matter to me since I “don’t count.” These are the same guys who are surprised that I have a favorite flower and a  favorite perfume. This summer I was chastised for wanting to see “The Notebook” which is a “girly movie.”
My friends from high school are either getting married or are already married. The ones who are getting married have countdowns going on their personal Web sites or instant messenger profiles.
Good for them. I’m happy they found love. But do they have to mention their significant other in every third sentence they write or say to me? What about the girls who are single with no real prospects? I thought about making a countdown of my own, but instead of saying “158 days until I am Mrs. Smith!” I will say “Five months, three days, still single!” True, this isn’t something to hang your hat on, unless that’s your thing. I am single because guys think of me as “The Sports Chick” or their little sister. My mom tells me it’s my fault, that I put myself in the position to be every guy’s friend.
When I was younger, I was incredibly shy and didn’t know how to talk to people. There was a boy in my sixth-grade class who was from Detroit and loved the Lions and Michigan Wolverines. I stumbled over every word I even thought about saying to him. I figured out that one way to overcome my shyness was to talk about sports. And, apparently my solution to a social phobia haunts me years later.
Don’t get me wrong. I love each and every one of my guy friends and might even claim them in public. One reason I love guys as friends is that they are hilarious.
Let me give the girls out there a little peek into the mind of most guys, or at least basically every single guy I know. They actually think they can get any girl they want.  They believe this can be done in a variety of ways; by flashing one of those award-winning smiles or driving a loud truck. One of my favorites is when a random guy walks up behind a girl in the student center and says, “Hey hey, girl. Tell me what your name is, girl. Got a man?”
Ooh. Let me tell you how quickly the girls swoon over that line. And after years of developing crushes on some of my guy friends, or having crushes that just end up being friends, I have figured out why there is confusion. Girls do not understand guys because we make things too complicated. We can’t comprehend the fact that something can truly be that simple. Most of my guy friends are very cut and dried; no hidden meanings or messages. I have learned some things. For instance, a girl’s bathroom contains an average
of 174 products, most of which a guy hasn’t heard of and/or can’t even spell. Guys have a razor, soap, toothbrush and, as one guy friend admitted, a towel from the dollar store.
A girl goes into a relationship wanting to change a guy and, of course, he never does. Guy go into relationships wanting girls to stay the same and, of course, they never do. A group of girls get together and call each other by their real names. A group of guys get together and all of a sudden, it’s like a scene straight out of Top Gun. There are no real names anymore. Mike is now Maverick, James is now Flash and so on.
So why is it that with men and women being so opposite they could be different species, I am caught in the middle?
After many years, I suppose I am used to it. Each and every one of my guy friends is special and I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world.


I Never Dreamed I'd be writing about Go-Karts
Amanda Carr | Copy Editor

"I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee, clouds in my….." Wait a minute, this isn’t like any dream I’ve ever had. Through the steam rising from my coffee cup, the North American Karting Championship zoomed by.
 Karting, as in go-kart racing, is my new gig. I know, I know, it cracks me up too. As of last May, I am the first copy editor "WKA’s Karting Scene," the official magazine of the World Karting Association, has ever had. That fact shocked everybody. My friends and family were shocked because they know I can’t even pretend to care about anything to do with sports. I was shocked that someone was going to pay me to write, and my new coworkers were in shock at the idea of someone telling them they are wrong on a regular basis, especially a girl from Texas who had never even been to a race, a point well taken.
 Weekend before last, I was absorbed by that metastasizing mass whose tentacles choke the metroplex: the DFW airport. I had never flown before. I was nervous about maneuvering through the terminal and making sure I was at the right place at the right time.
We proceeded uneventfully through security. Mercifully, my travel companion had remembered the Exacto knife in her camera case right before we got to the metal detectors. My wheelchair and I had to be patted down, and I had to explain, in great detail, the various internal screws that hold my right ankle together. The guy who accompanied me through the process, was amusingly intrigued by my hardware.
 Even more amusing was the aisle chair. For those of you without this experience, an aisle chair is a practically microscopic chair that theoretically allows those of us with limited mobility get on the plane, narrow enough to fit between the seats but not nearly wide enough to support the backside of anyone over the age of 10. To compensate for its inability to accommodate the average-sized butt, the aisle chair is over-equipped with safety belts. Strapped in by a belt over each shoulder, one across my lap and still another around my legs, I made my Hannibal Lector-like decent upon the Charlotte-Douglas airport.
 My boss, who I’d never seen before, was to meet me at the airport. If he was there, I missed him. As it turned out, I also missed him at the rental-car station and the shuttle stop. He caught up with me an hour later at the hotel, not the first impression I’d intended to make.
 After a steak dinner we headed off to the racetrack. Lowe’s Motor Speedway was buzzing with karters from age four on up. Everybody was scrambling to get ready for that night’s 300-lap race. All around me I heard the names of racers I had interviewed by phone but never seen.
 I met the magazine staff; those whose work I’d been editing for the past six months, and one or two whose stories had been reassigned to me at some point for whatever reason.  I was under the gun; these introductions were moments of truth. Some complimented my last article, a controversial story no one else wanted to be responsible for, others didn’t look me in the eye while they mumbled some sort of trite greeting to the dirt. In the end, I discovered my instincts were dead on in the matter of who wanted me there and who didn’t.
 We moved on to where the sponsors were pitted. Row after row of travel trailers were surrounded with scales, tools and various racing equipment. I met the men whose logos and ads filled the magazine. I was in a daze by that point, realizing these were names I needed to remember. It was a bit overwhelming. "Your Amanda Carr?" a man asked as he approached my golf cart. He introduced himself. What I anticipate to be the biggest story of my WKA experience is embodied in this man. I’d been trying to get an interview with him for months. He shook my hand and I got my interview, a great victory for my fledgling journalism career.
 I’ve just survived my first official business trip, my first flight, my first go-kart races and met my boss face-to-face for the first time. That’s a lot of first to fit into an overnight trip. When a finished copy of "WKA’s Karting Scene" arrives in the mail, my first thought is "I can’t believe I work for a motor sports magazine," followed swiftly by "I can’t believe I have the kind of job I’ve always wanted."