One More Year To Remember
Dan Lukiv

january 1

late this night, while
my family sleeps, i lie
awake and dream

january 2

i toss and turn--
our hamster runs on its
squeaky wheel

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Short Essay on Postmodernism and Its Implications
Kim McCann

Introduction

The rise of critical questions on the deductive nature of modernism that delimits various manifestations of the phenomena eventually lends itself to the utilization of a new conceptual development in the philosophical field. The advent of postmodernism is then perhaps inevitable as well as expected for a better theoretical development of searching for truth and knowledge, inclusively involving more subjective and critical approaches. This initiative formulation of postmodernism based on critical reevaluation of modernism thoughts, however, has created the misconceptions of postmodernism understood as a simple bifurcation of modernism rather than as a continuum of modernism (Mumby, 1997). Such a reduction of the relationship would prevent us from not only seeking an insightful understanding of what postmodernism actually is, but also the expedient values postmodernism possibly offer in its philosophical implication to the pragmatic field. Taken this notion, this essay mainly attempts to address the prominent characteristic presented in postmodernism throughout the postmodernists’ projects. Based on an analysis of the characteristics of postmodernism, this paper further identifies how postmodernism valorizes cultural singularity in which individuals’ identities are relatively shaped within the localized system of the given culture and history in order to substantiate its implication to cultural studies.     full text >>>

Postmodern Politics and Financial Aid in Higher Education:
A Brief Case Study of One Student’s Dilemma
Collette M. Bloom
Hailey L. King    

Case Narrative

Jeremy Foster, a senior at Carl Albert High School in Midwest City, Oklahoma is a typical 17-year-old male who spends his time hanging out with his friends, participating in extra-curricular activities, and doing enough schoolwork to pass all of his classes.  Jeremy comes from a middle-income family; his mother is a stay-at-home mom, and his father works at the General Motors assembly plant nearby.  Neither of his parents attended college.  Jeremy has 2 younger siblings, Jennifer and Jonathan, and the family’s total income is roughly $40,000 per year.  Midwest City is a suburb of Oklahoma City with a population of approximately 55,000.  Carl Albert High School is a part of the Mid-Del School District which is considered to be above average in terms of academics, test scores, and student graduation rates compared to other districts in the state.
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The Mermaid
Madeline Sonik

Celeste cast off her steel walker and settled like a fallen leaf in the field’s robust grass.  Beginning where the gravel road grew vague at the end of Monica Street, the field spread  lake-like. It opened past the dying maples, the reedy swamp, the abandoned and twisted mufflers of the car graveyard, past a grey shack, out in waves of swelling stink grass, to the sooty oil-soaked spines of the railroad ties.
Beyond this, a farmer had built his house, and just beyond that the swelling city had constructed a highway, with a strong white line running through its middle, straight and black as a skunk all the way to Toronto.
Celeste had never been beyond the limits of this field’s small world. She had never gone to school, never made a friend. The heart of the earth beat restless through her. As a cinnamon-brown meadow locust sailed above her head it purred, and she considered her body, the part that extended below her waist, one long shapeless limb with feet as flat as fins at its base.  Neighbors gawked when she tottered past.  Children called her names, but in fifteen years she had never felt sorry for herself.     full text >>>