Unseen Tyrants

Could it really be that we’re under the reign of tyrants?
           Could Corporate America be the major controller of our lives and everything that we think about? Well those curly mustaches are awful suspicious. The working man raises a red hammer and shouts justice for him and the damsel citizens in distress. The same old black and white cartoon struggle right? Probably not.  Recently, we watched a movie called Food, Inc. which claimed the food corporations of America were controlling everything we eat (much of which is unhealthy), for the sake of their own profits (Companies such as Tyson and McDonalds were criticized as well as our Government). To some extent, this is probably true, but I find it doubtful that it is that simple. Nothing in reality is ever that simple, especially a big problem like food supply. The way we produce cows is criticized, and rightly so, but if we did everything completely by the book we would have significantly less cows to eat. I agree though, changes for our health and the way the cows are treated needs to change, but maybe not as much as people thing. I think that the manure problem and very potential e-coli problems really need to be solved. The cows need to be cleaned more often and the manure needs to be cleaned up. It cannot be sanitary for the cows to be in that mess and many of the illnesses and disorders can transfer to consumers when we eat the results. So not only is it unnecessarily cruel, it is also a health risk.

                The whole system of laws need to be re-examined to prevent health risks that can come from eating the wrong foods. Laws about how they can advertize food to actual health and safety laws need to be re-examined and reinforced. I shouldn’t have to wonder if the meat I’m eating will kill me or worry that the vegetables I eat may be contaminated. And neither should anyone else.

A One Inch Frame

     I sit down at the computer and open a word processor. My fingers are on home row, but I can't get started. It's like I have two days to build a city and I'm standing in the middle of my land with merely a bucket of cement and a brick. And I'm finding myself on the brink of the impossible. I take a deep breath, and think back to Friday, and the piece that was read to us in class. Anne Lamott, from her essay "Bird by Bird", "Short Assignments, in which Lamott tells us to calm down and start out small. (http://www2.ivcc.edu/coburn/ENG%201001/Diagnostic/short_anne_lamott.htm)
     I build the foundation of the first house, and bit by bit, I find myself writing my first blog entry of the week. One step at a time. It's a lot of homework, but I've got a lot of time. I can do this. I've seen myself write a whole essay in a half-hour, and I can do it again, if I can narrow my eyes. I can make myself sit down, grit my teeth and do this. And so can you. Even if it feels like the waves are going to swallow you up, you can swim. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA8PaIw5gcE)
   Take some breaks too, because life isn't just about working (no matter what they want you to believe) life is about playing ping pong to the white album, learning how to knit, stopping everything else you're doing to tell your friend that she is beautiful no matter what some jerk said, and playing soccer in the snow. It's important to get your work done, but it's more important to play. Have faith, you'll get it done on time, if you just believe and take it one bird at a time.

America: What We Are and What We Were

I’m sorry America, but you’re fat.

                Nearly everyone in this country is obese. I stand at the supermarket and the slim Jims of the past are gone, to be replaced by the fat Tonys of modern America. Honestly, it’s embarrassing. We used to mean something more than a cheeseburger and fries. We used to be about freedom and industry. Now we think we’re about freedom but we’re really about the latest and greatest gadgets, not to mention the new diet fads. What happened?

Well we sent our industries overseas (hey it was cheaper) and now it’s come  back to bite us (yeah we really shouldn’t  have done that) because we just aren’t making any money any more. (Well not much.) The War has drained us, our oil dependency has crippled us, and no one knows what to eat anymore. We’re dying America! We need to do something fast! We need to open our own industries again until it really means something good if it’s made in the US (Honestly Silly String and Stage Light Bulbs aren’t enough to run a country on).   So please, support the guys who make their stuff here and benefit OUR economy, try our best to recover our honor, and put the cheeseburgers down and try some carrots. We can still fix this. We can make it better, we just have to try. As a team.

Rome wasn’t built in a day but it wasn’t destroyed in one either. We are on the downward slope and we need to find our way back up.  We’ve pulled through hard times before and we can do it again. We have to make things here, even if the people making them aren’t legal citizens and sell these things to foreign markets. Everyone in China should be reading “Made in the USA”, not everyone in the USA reading “Made in China”. Things can still get better if we bring more of our interests back home. Iraq is all well and good but America needs our people and our money back. We aren’t going to save America from terrorism by rendering it a poor desolate country. Improve our defenses instead of hunting them down. It’ll save time and effort, not to mention lives. If we spend money on our defense it will benefit our economy and protect us but we need our army back here to do it. We need to examine our expenditures and make sure what we’re spending is really worth it.

There’s a lot of discontentment with the Government but it’s not entirely their fault. We let this happen too by not spotting the danger sooner. We didn’t think that the availability of preserved food would make us eat more of it and we didn’t think that cutting costs by globalizing would mean cutting future profits. America is slipping but we can still catch ourselves. We’re not the nanny of the world. We need to look out for ourselves. Let’s build up ourselves before we help other people. We need the recovery if we’re even to help them ever again.

Let’s do it America, let’s prove that we are (as we claim) number one. Let’s show them our strongest asset is the American spirit, to always come back from the worst. No matter what.

Volunteering

When exactly did Volunteering become the next necessity for college?

I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t want to help people it’s just that I’m very busy as it is, and would rather not be forced to volunteer just to receive grants and the like for college. Being a top academic student of today means taking advanced placement courses. Advanced placement courses mean work. Work means a lot of homework in order to improve your skills. Getting the grade means getting into the school of your choice. Getting into school period requires money. Money is obtained from wealthy parents or a part-time job. Part-time jobs mean another time constraint. Now if you’re wealthy you probably have enough time to volunteer and are probably wondering why this entry is even relevant. But, if you’re like me, you’re probably nodding your head in agreement. Now, if there were a way to volunteer instead of meeting your time constraints all would be well and good and we would have unicorns, faeries, and no money would be necessary (meaning that volunteer work would be more or less unnecessary too).

However there isn’t so what gets cut? My precious next-to-non-existent free time. Now, having some free time to pursue interests is good because it makes you happy and able to cope with the time spend unable to pursue your interests. Although, volunteering makes you feel good about yourself as a person, work is work, and by the end of the day you’ll probably have more aches and pains than anything else to show for your work. But you’ll get that piece of paper that promises you helped sandbag the neighborhood which will eventually help you get into college. Hopefully you’ve also managed to accumulate money and a decent grade to get you there too. If you have that’s great and you’re scot-free until they ask you one tiny question:

“What’s your major?”

That’s when you realize, you don’t know what your interests are anymore (aside from getting into college to get a good job). You never had any time to pursue them! So you don’t know much about yourself because instead of living your life, you were out there volunteering, working, and doing your homework.

So I say, volunteer as little as possible in high school, and probably college too. Wait until you’ve got your bank and your life established before you try to improve others too much. That’s the perfect time to volunteer, you’ve got more time, and more money to dedicate to doing so. So quit forcing us to be even more stressed out and let us be ourselves. If we really want to help the community, (which most of us probably will) we’ll do it when it’s best for us.

Preschool

Preschool; should taxpayers have to pay for it?
    Well there are a few things to consider about it before coming to any conclusions. First off, preschool is currently recommended not required. Though many parents make the decision to send their children to preschool in order to benefit their future education, it is not deemed a necessary step. Not necessary enough to force parents to choose this route anyway.
    Secondly, preschool isn’t cheap. It is not offered in public schools and therefore many parents are forced to pay expensive tuition up to $5000 dollars a year (Tyagi,Why Women Have to Work). For something that they could surely teach their child if they knew all that they had to.
    So, with these things in mind, I say that the state should not pay for preschool. What they should do, is provide an ideal curriculum and a standardized test much like the test that Texas has for getting into school. It’s not on our backs for just a suggestion; but the parents should receive some help for their child’s education.

Christmas

Christmas is a beautiful time of year. Everyone feels the obligation to be a bit nicer and thinks about the people they love. If they’re religious they probably think about Jesus, and the values he represents. All of these are great influences on a person’s character. The bad part is the financial strain and stress. Oh and the CONSTANT Christmas carols that follow you. Is it worth it?

                Yes. The spirit and the family connections are beautiful. I love giving. I really do. I love the look on the person’s face when they open up my present, especially the ones who absolutely love what I get them. It makes me happier than receiving gifts, which is fun too, especially when you get something completely awesome you didn’t expect.  So to all of you Christmas supporters, smile, tis the season to enjoy yourself. Merry Christmas.

Stress, stress, STRESS!!

      College. AP. Part-time job. Friends. Holidays. Homework. Homework. Homework. Test. Test. Test. No money. No game plan. Sports. Volunteering. Clubs (the school kind). HELP!~
       This is the reality of the average teen, living under a blanket of pure stress. Free time is a thing of the past, because that paper isn't going to write itself. Honestly, I wonder if they shouldn't have psychiatrists seeing people over the lunch hour. It's really ridiculous. There's so much pressure to go to college and be successful that some students don't even make it to college. If you can't handle the burden you won't succeed. I can't wait to have only a job! I'll have free time again, and no more homework, oh it'll be Heaven. Sure, there's a huge load of responsibilities, but at least I don't have to care about what some dead guy says anymore. Don't get me wrong, I like learning, or at least, I tell myself that. But the workload and stress of school are unbearable. I spend most of my waking hours doing something school related, which seriously limits my ability to become famous.
         How can I become famous if I don't have time to practice my art? I used to draw during class, but now I can't because if I don't pay attention I will surely fail; mostly because I don't have time to study. If it's not due the next day I won't do it, not because I'm lazy, but because I just don't have time. Although there is this annoying habit I have...hmmm...what's it called again? Oh yeah! Sleep. Yeah...takes up quite a bit of time really.
       On a slightly more serious note, I'm definitely not the only one who feels this way.
(http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6221872) Many of us don't have a serious mental disorder from the stress, but we're not doing our health any favors. We gain weight, we get even less sleep than the approximate four hours we're allotted (we'll if you're in AP anyway), and we have regular mental breakdowns. Maybe I'm biased, but this is not ok! School is about LEARNING, not filling out forms and praying you'll get a good enough job to afford that expensive school you wanted to go to.
      I'm sick of watching my friends cry, and I'm pretty sick of crying myself. The stress is bad enough until you reach Christmas time. The roads are awful and most of us have to drive on them. There's presents to be bought, which is expensive, so you have to work more (because you can't afford to miss out on a single opportunity to raise money for that huge bill coming up), not to mention get all of your homework done in between that. Oh, and most families have several holidays, and not just Xmas. So instead of being the most "wonderful time of the year" it's the most stressful. Once again: HELP!
       I've thought about it, and the main problem is this: AP Classes. I think we should ditch the idea entirely. They are NOT like college and they DO NOT really help students learn anything! What good is a test geared class really? College classes do NOT meet everyday, so when you're assigning the same amount of homework a college kid would get, you're not thinking about how much more TIME the college kid gets. And another thing, yes college tests are hard, but they are not as intense as AP. I have relatives who have just recently graduated and they cannot believe my workload from only TWO AP classes. So...why take AP? Well, for one, your school pressures you into it. They send you letters and telephone you in the summer, encouraging you to take them. They hand out special awards so the poor overstressed kids can feel like it was worth it. They give you the it'll prepare you for the next level excuse and they make the other classes PATHETICALLY non-challenging, and thus, boring. The problem is, they all give you a huge workload. Now, most of my classes I WAS warned, so I was expecting this, but the poor Sophomores aren't! Somebody needs to tell them what they're really signing up for.
    That isn't to say challenging yourself is bad, but putting yourself in a ridiculously difficult environment that isn't like most college courses are. The tests they want us to take are absolutely ludicrous, and they act like they are going to shave our college bill by a ton, which I swear, they won't. You might be able to skip one single semester, but it's not going to save you as much money as you're going to spend trying to take the test, between workbooks, material costs (papers, pencils, and computer ink), buying more medicine to fight stress-born illness, and the cost of taking the test.
   Why can't students learn in a stress free environment and still feel challenged? Can't something be done to make this less of an emotional turmoil?