Age 18 is considered adulthood -voting and making decisions that are beneficial to one’s survival.
At this age, knowing and choosing right from wrong becomes an individual’s lot in life.
I have always viewed an individual’s commitment to a college education as a sign of growing up or as an assertion of one’s maturity.
The Holy Bible (KJV) sums up maturity like this: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man [woman], I put away childish things,” (1Corinthians 13:11).
But, when I think about the filth I encounter every time I enter Tucker Hall, it makes me wonder just how grown up each female student truly is (or is not) when I use these facilities.
Never in my life have I seen such disregard for cleanliness as is shown in the women’s bathrooms in Tucker Hall.
There is always trash on the countertops and on the floor near the trash receptacle, many of the toilets aren’t flushed nor can I find a sanitary napkin that has been disposed of in the proper manner.
Whoever coined the phrase, “cleanliness is next to godliness” never took a look at the campus of Florida A&M University, in general, and Tucker Hall, in particular.
Personally, it angers me to see the lack of pride in keeping our campus beautiful. I bet one cannot say the same thing about Florida State.
As a female who knows how to handle personal hygiene, I’m embarrassed for those nasty females who were never taught about the care of their body during their menstrual period or how to dispose of their sanitary napkins, tampons or panty shields.
Even my 14-year-old daughter knows what to do with her used sanitary napkins.
As the single mother of two children, I forbid them (and myself) to throw trash out the car window or on the ground. My explanation: that’s why we have garbage cans.
As a family, we recycle. My 5-year-old son’s daily chore is to put the newspapers, cans, bottles and all plastics in the recycle bin
My daughter’s chores consist of making sure that both the garbage can and the recycle bin get to the curb on pick-up day.
If my family can make this small contribution to cleanliness, why can’t all the adult females who attend FAMU do the same thing?
It also amazes me that the journalism school has broken ground on a new building when no one is being held responsible for keeping the old one clean.
And on top of that, I cannot believe that other schools/colleges on campus are casting lots as to who will move into Tucker Hall after it is vacated, but a top journalism official assured me that “people are just waiting to move into this dump!”
How will cleanliness fit into something “new?” when it hasn’t been a top priority in the “old?”
Ladies, we are all supposed to be adults. Right! Then why not be your own watchdog -pick up that piece of paper you dropped on the floor and find a trash can, flush that toilet you used and dispose of that sanitary napkin by wrapping it in tissue and placing it in the trash.
Think about it: if everyone dropped one piece of trash on the ground, this world would be a very unsanitary place!
S. D. Gomilla, 37, is a senior print journalism student from Punta Gorda. She can be reached at sdgomilla@hotmail.com.