jparishy

Hey, everyone.

Ever wanted to search through your old iPhone text messages? Well no you can! On Mac OS X, that is.

Tested and working with iPhone OS 3.1.

I’ve created an application for Mac OS X that parses your iPhone backups for text messages and displays them in an application for you to view/search/whatever.

Download here.

Enjoy!

So I’ve been wanting to do some creative writing lately, so I thought I’d explore the character, Henry Roland, that I created for my end-of-the-year English II assignment.

You can find it here.

It isn’t done, obviously. However, I’ll be writing more and more as I feel like it.

Thanks!

Sincerely,
Julius Parishy

Hey, everyone. I just got an English assignment back today, and I thought I’d share it with you. It’s not too long, so should be a simple read.

You can download it here, because it looks really bad when formatted inside the post.

Enjoy. (Feel free to post any comments in the comments section)

[edit date=may 21, 2009] Hey, everyone. During my daily after-school routine (Ice Tea + IRC Backlogs), a buddy of mine noted that I had a few fallacies and I just wanted to update this post in order set some things straight.[/edit]

If there is anything that I’ve learned from my ripe, old age of 16, it’s that in my youth I was an idiot. I was probably the most stubborn, disobedient, and rude child you had ever met. Along with this came my inherent dose of ignorance, which I used quite effectively.

I used to think I had opinions of my very own. Ideas that I had come up with, and not stolen from one of my elders. I used to think I had experience in this world. I used to think I was always right.

And please don’t misinterpret that; I still have the arrogant, elitist personality. I probably always will. It’s my persona. Just ask any of my friends and the classic response would be something along the lines of: “Julius? He’s a hater.” (This usually gets me pretty angry, however. I’d try to counter the statement, but they would probably just use that as additional evidence so I subdue the temptation.) Anyway, just note that the difference between me now and 5 years ago is that I currently acknowledge my attitude.

I don’t know everything. But I wish I did. I enjoy learning and processing new information. If that includes some minor side-effects then so be it. And I hope that in another 5 years I find this page and read it to myself so that I can continue to understand how I work and continue to improve myself.

With that being said, I just wanted to bring up an old topic of choice: The Pledge of Allegiance.

When I was a young boy floating precariously through middle school I used to come up with opinions on all sorts of controversial topics, be it abortion, the war, and in this particular case, the Pledge of Allegiance.

I know it’s a bit of a early topic from this millennium, but the fact that it seems to have died down is upsetting.

All American schools are required by law to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every morning (or at some point) in school.

There are two clear reasons while this requirement is ridiculous:

1. It wastes valuable time. On average it takes 12 to 15 seconds to recite the PoA. That’s over a minute per week; 4 minutes per month, and 36 minutes per year. Over the course of the average high school career, a student will spend over 2 and a half hours saying the PoA.
2. It is religiously bias.

I pledge allegiance to the flag

of the United States of America,

and to the republic

for which it stands:

one nation under God,

indivisible,

with Liberty and Justice for all.

Cosmetically, the simple statements seem fine. They just constitute the mood for the day: you are in the US, the greatest country ever. However, our founding fathers, as revolutionary as they were, decided to slip in one very important claim: we are a nation which operates under the protection and/or supervision of God. [fix]The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy. It did not become the national pledge until 1942, 50 years after it was written. The words “under God” were not included until the 1950’s.[/fix]

There are two interesting contradictions here. The first being that the implied existence of a god is against the first amendment. The Bill of Rights was designed to take away the power from the government and give it to the people. Part of this was to allow anyone to choose their own methods—or lack there of—of religious practice. For the first time in a large society, religious freedom was a basic right, unlike the rules in Europe at the time.

The second issue here is that this also counters the separation of Church and State. Public schools, and education all together, are state regulated. They are financed by the taxpayers and ran by state officials. Because of the direct affiliation with the government, public schools should not be exempt from the rules. By reciting the Pledge of Allegiance we are allowing de facto traditions of the US that would otherwise be illegal to continue.

And it’s been like this for many, many years. The Constitution was built with the religious tolerance in mind, but they neglected to see that they cannot favor Christianity just because it is the majority. Besides, who knows how long that will last. With massive influx of immigration and emigration and different cultures intertwining with our own, Christians will have their hands full trying to keep up with the changes. One cannot make decisions based on the expectation of one religion dominating another in the years to come.

How the Supreme Court does not understand this is beyond me. If we want this country to get back to its prime we need to take baby steps. One fix at a time; one goal per day. Attempting to go the easy way out will almost always end in failure. Reforming our laws is the way to start. By disabling the Pledge we would just be one step closer to the image of the country we were supposed to be and farther and farther away from the monster we are becoming.

So, I just want encourage you to consider skipping the Pledge of Allegiance the next time your are in school. You are legally allowed to sit out during the Pledge and I want you to do so. The fastest way to make a point is a public, tangible expression of opinion.

Save our country. Skip the Pledge.

Have a good one.

-Julius Parishy

When I was younger I always believed that growing up would be a great experience. I was eager to become an adult, to explore the perfect world seen in all the movies and T.V. shows I had seen. I wanted to go to work, to make money, to get started on life as early as I possibly could. Little did I know that when you are twelve-years-old you do not know know everything in the entire world. 

I’ve had the dream of finishing high school with a 4.0 GPA and going on to a fancy, expensive university for a very long time. I’ve always wanted to go on to do better things than the the rest of family, which mostly consists of factory workers and and other small-time jobs. When I was very young I aspired to be a fireman, just like any seven-year-old boy should. After that I wanted to be a writer, then a teacher, and finally a lawyer. My most recent venture into Careerland has been game development, a choice I’ve stuck with for the past three or so years. I like playing games and I like making them even more.

The be a successful game programmer there are a vast amount of topics one must fully understand. They range from problem solving to calculus and from logic to wizardry. Typically, these attributes are the result of a major in Computer Science. So recently I’ve been rummaging through propaganda from various no-name colleges and universities and googling several others. On this voyage I am to an amazing realization that I was completely unaware of until now: getting an education sucks.

Now, let’s clarify. Education itself is a wonderful thing. Knowledge is power and it is important that one soaks in every drop of information he or she is exposed to. There is no point in life if you don’t take advantage of everything this world has to offer. Without knowledge and experience, our lives would be meaningless.

Of course, that’s why colleges and universities exist: to educate the future generations of the world. And I think that as the first schools were created they honored this intent. However, at this point in time I feel that their current motives are much less pure.

So here are list of things that the process of getting an education has showed me.

• Schools only care about money — In this world money controls everything. The rich are the powerful and the rich are never fair. Schools look for candidates that will make them the most money. The schools who cater to the rich will only ever cater to the rich. Schools like MIT and Harvard charge insane amount of money for a “better” education. If education is so important, why make a better learning environment available only to the people that can afford it, rather than the people who deserve it? Surely enough, the phrase “you get what you pay for” comes to mind in situations like this. But how can you put a price on knowledge? How can education be sacrificed to our material value systems? How can a dollar be traded for facts?
• The government only cares about money — As an underage citizen my purpose can be summed up very easily: learn enough to be able to pay your taxes in order to protect the country’s income. It doesn’t matter what I learn, what major I proceed with, or what title I carry. If I am not making any money, I am worthless to the government, and essentially the world.
• Schools are superficial — My guidance councilor has stressed on multiple occasions that I need extracurricular activities. She thinks that I should join a sports team or a club. She has even tried to list a bunch of them that she thought I would like. The list was long, but a few of my favorites were: computer club, writing club, football, or DECA. First off, I don’t like playing organized sports, for various reasons. Second, school clubs are a joke. Clubs exist to appease colleges’ and universities’ requirement for the oh so important extracurricular activities. I’ve flirted with the idea of joining a club several times. However, my final verdict remains unchanged. Clubs are made for superficial people who want have the club on their resume for a superficial school to look at. The way I see it, if I don’t like something and it doesn’t appeal to me then the sole fact that a school will like it is not enough for me to join a club I have no interest in.
• Standardized tests suck — The idea that a single aptitude test is enough to determine the fate of someone’s academic career is preposterous. This world is comprised of so many different, unique people that it is pure insanity to think that a single test is enough to decide if someone should be accepted into a school. Some people aren’t very good test takers and judging there potential based on a score on a test could be detrimental to their future. If a single test is enough to disqualify me as a candidate to my preferred school than maybe that school isn’t for me. Standards are great things, they allow a single way for similar things to be represented, analyzed, and interpreted. Unfortunately, the human mind is not a data protocol and shouldn’t be treated as such.

I’m sure as my search continues I will run into even more issues with my future that I can scrutinize, but I guess that only time will tell.

-Julius Parishy

I live in New Jersey, a predominantly White state, albeit a growing “minority” population. I’ve lived here my entire life. In fact, I’ve never lived outside of the current county I where I reside. When I was younger, I lived in a very, very poor area on the outskirts of Princeton. My mother, sister, brother, and I all lived in a 2 bedroom apartment. It had a single bathroom, and a kitchen that was more like a closet than anything else. The dining room and living room were combined with the kitchen. We had one couch and T.V. roughly resembling this. The majority of the families that lived in the apartment complexes spanning roughly 50 acres were either Black or White, with a few others mixed in here or there. I didn’t have any video games or a computer, and this was a few years before my first gameboy. I spent most of my time collecting and playing with Pokémon cards (Or Pokéman, as my parents called it). My dad was living in a halfway house in Trenton; I saw him on weekends.

The tough issue when it comes to comparing the quality of life is determining who it is fair to compare to. In my current area, an upper-middle class town, many might consider my childhood deprived. However, I’m sure for a considerable amount of others in the country, my past was full of luxary. Stability is what we are all after, right? Well what’s wrong with a semi-stable life, just without all perks of living in an environment were money is generally a nonissue?

What’s even more interesting is how exposure to a community of “superior” people, financially, can build an immense amount of jealousy. When I was under 10-years-old, the only time I had ever used a computer was in school, because I was able to partake in the Princeton public school system. They had the money to afford several original eMacs, including the all too popular Oregon Trail. However, because I didn’t have a computer at home, it didn’t phase me. My limited exposure to the technology was negligable in my preadolecent mind. When I look at myself now and realize how completely dependent I am on my computer it is incredible to see how the change happened over a timeline of just about 8 years. In my 16 years on Earth, I’ve evolved from poverty into a young adult with many luxories that I wouldn’t even have known existed 10 years ago.

However, my situation is not of the utmost important for this though. Instead, it’s more about the people around. If I had to estimate, I would say 95% of the people around me are composed of entirely, or mostly, bullshit.

When I lived in Princeton I was exposed to a wide array of different people, some who could possibly be declared clincally insane (had they been able to afford to) and some who were perfectly contempt with their lives. Many of those perfectly contempt people had known nothing else, so why shouldn’t they be happy with what they have?

Since I’ve moved into an upper-middle class environment I’ve become very disappointed with the actions of the people around me. People whose families make enough money to support them and a stable home. People who take every single thing around them completely for granted. One of the most interesting things I’ve noticed about high school is that if you were to line up every kid in the school, just about every other one of them were abusing drugs. I’ve always been morally against drugs and alcohol. I don’t smoke, nor do I drink. But that is besides the point, because for the sake of fairness, my motives are bias. However, that’s a story for another day. Now, back in the 7th grade when the D.A.R.E. program visited my school in regular intervals, I thought it was a waste of my time. I thought we had all heard this enough before and that me and my classmates were most definitely going to “stay above the influence.” I see now why they make such an issue of the problem. What used to be merely a ridiculous stereotype of my generation has mutated into fact. Everyone around me is on drugs.

However, that still isn’t the problem! People will do drugs, and the chances are won’t be able to stop them. What’s far, far more interesting are the reasons doings drugs:

• “Because it’s cool.” This doesn’t really hold up as much as parents would like it to. There are few stupid people out there who will respond with this crude statement, but it sure isn’t the most popular.
• “I do it for the high.” A slightly more intriguing answer. This is the one I hear the majority of the time. What I don’t quite understand is what is so wrong with your life that you are dependent on a drug to make you feel good. There is a lot to life. And if you take out all of the opinionated issues, such as religion and similar associations, life comes down to one thing: experience. The more you test life the more satisfying it is. Everything you do and everything that happens as a result is built into a manifest of human experience. That is the meaning to life. And it’s true that drugs are just another experience, and I accept that as a valid point. But in the end, what really matters is that you make it through life experiencing everything you can. And for a lot of people, drugs will only hold them back. You don’t need drugs to be happy. If that were so, we would be living quite the pointless, uneventful life, no?
• “What else are you going to do on a Saturday night?” This one is my absolute favorite. I don’t even want to go into the insanity of this quote (Yes, this is taken word for word from a classmate).

The biggest part of this is that the people in my school who do regularly do drugs don’t have defining reason, trama-wise. In many movies and books, the people that abuse substances, be it alcohol or whatnot, are usually portrayed as troubled, helpless individuals using drugs as a way of screaming out for help. What may seem like a noble cause is not what is in the real world, from what I’ve seen. Instead most people seem to do smoke or drink just because they can.

Where in Hell is the satisfaction in doing something just because you can.

Additionally, drugs aren’t the only abuse I’ve seen more so in schools in my area. Education seems to be failing, and it’s doing so quite fast. However, I think that the adults have missed the bar when it comes to the cause. Teachers and funding are not the issue!

The reason that education rates are declining is because kids generally don’t care. Obviously, the number of students who do have this attitude are limited, but from my experience in public schooling, the number is gaining power every year. Schools need to step up and find ways to motivate students. Without proper motivation and reasoning, many kids will find no reason to “waste” their time with mandatory education.

I don’t believe that the attitude could be attributed to laziness, either. Laziness is myth. At the ripe age of 12-18, people are in their prime for physical and mental activity. Motivation is the key to success, no matter how cliché that may sound.

I honestly wish I could say I like my high school, but the unfortunate truth is that when I go to school, I don’t feel like I am being educated. It’s more along the line of a dictatorship. If schools really want their kids to succeed, they will have to understand how kids really learn, and not how they want them to learn. Education needs to be versatile, changing for the needs of different generations. A happy worker is an efficient worker, so if they want people to do well, they aren’t going to have to kick the fascist attitude out the window, and start working with the kids, not against them.

Have a good one.

-Julius Parishy

P.S. Honestly, this was not intended to target anyone. I wouldn’t try to do that. I simply wouldn’t to convey my thoughts. These issues are important to me, and I hope you will see where I am coming from.