Every time someone I love dies, I cannot help thinking of the impermanence of life and what I must do to strive to prolong that inevitable moment or at least expire due to less problematic reasons. My most recent loss is my father, William David Baker. He was only four months shy of his sixty-fifth birthday and had given up hope of becoming the success that he had envisioned for himself. As a result, he began the slow suicide of...

College is important to me because proving one's knowledge is a must in today's workforce; plus, it was a goal that I set for myself decades ago, but never accomplished. When I was a teenager, it wasn't that difficult finding decent paying jobs with a mere high school diploma. Most likely because of advanced technology and increased competitiveness in big business, proven education is a requirement for some of the basest jobs. For example, I inquired on an online job-matching...

I used a combination of funding resources to pay for college. Had I had the foresight to see how difficult it would be to make a comfortable living, I most likely would have finished my education when I was young and my mind was not bogged down with the stress of working jobs beneath my...