Enough is Enough. Leave Tiger Woods Alone.

For the past week all I hear on the radio is Tiger Woods. OhEmGee guess what happened to Tiger Woods????
I. Don't. Care. The amount it's been on the news, on the radio, you'd think a disaster has hit the world. Ok, maybe I'm exagerating but it's almost as bad as the Jon & Kate Plus 8 scandal. And that was bad. They even talked about making a movie out of it. But that's besides the point.
So he got in this accident. Maybe he cheated on his wife. (I haven't really been following). So I know cheating on someone is bad, but people do it. He's a great golfer, he gets paid a butt-laod to golf, and he made a stupid mistake. One that's done many many times a year. This nation's obsession over it is just killing me. Do we really care that known golfer Tiger Woods potentially cheated on his wife? Does the publicity really help him out? Can't we just leave his life alone? For that matter can't we just leave all celebrity's lives alone?
In this time all he needs is to be alone, and figure this out on his own with his wife. If he cheated, shame on him. But I don't think the world needs to know. Needs to discuss it like it was their brother's doing. We don't know Tiger Woods's personally. So we shouldn't be discussing his personal matters.

I know we'll never stop being obsessed over celebrity's lives. I mean come on, it's great junk reading material for anyone. But it just disgusts me how certain matters get so much publicity. I just wish we wouldn't care. Wouldn't want to care. It's just unfair. It's like he'll never get a second chance, it's all people will ever care about. Oh Tiger Woods? Yah, he cheated on his wife. He's a bad guy.

Farmville Beats All. Facebook Rules All.

Browsing AOL as usual, I had a topic in mind already to write about, but when I saw this article, titled on AOL as "69 million play 'Annoying Game'" I just had to write about it.

As I found out reading the article, 'Farmville' is this 'annoying' game. Now, I don't play Farmville, and I never intend to so I don't know too much about it but I do know that it's addicting. You have to keep watering and harvesting your crops or they die. Gasp? I also found out that this huge surprising number of 69 million players, beats Twitter's number of users. Really?

But another part of the article caught my eye as well. Facebook is taking over the world. Hence the picture. Don't worry world! I'll save you! Anyway, apparently the number of users of Facebook is more than the number of people in the United States. It also has more than the/the same (depending on your source) number of people on Wikepeida, Ebay, and Yahoo. That really shocked me. It really showed me, once again, how much the internet has changed our lives.

Facebook is my life. And it's horrible. If I need to contact someone I might text them, but I might not have their phone number or think they'll get to facebook quicker (and I'm usually right) so I inbox them or write on their wall. I rarely get birthday invitations in the mail anymore. No, I have friends. I just don't get paper invites anymore. I get events, groups, or inbox invitations. I miss paper invites, they're much prettier, but I'll admit it. The inbox and event invites are easier because people can discuss what's going on and ask questions, and everyone can see if they have the same question as well, get it answered, etc.

This worldwide spread of Facebook is daunting. I'm shocked, but I get it, the website's useful, it really is. The Farmville spread however is just too much. There could be users that aren't active in the game or the website, but that still leaves a lot of people. Do you play Farmville? Are you surprised by the numbers? What do you think of the spread of these websites and games?

The Night League Phenomenon

I've never been good at basketball and the whole "Night League" thing never crossed my mind but today I found myself pulled to a game after being recruited randomly by some senior girls I know from cross country. I heard of it being intense but I really had no idea.

When I get there I find teams in the same color shirts, or even made shirts, war paint, sweatbands, all out. Our team had a color but we werne't intense or matching about it. Since we don't play basketball our goal was to just have fun, score a least one point, you know just have the experience. Yet, the team we were playing against was the exact oppostite. They had gotten a pizza place to sponsor them and had gotten sponsor shirts with their name and the pizza place's name on it. Really? You have a sponsor for Night League? I commend the commitment but it brings me back to a reacurring theme in my blog about competition.

To go as far as getting a restaurant to sponsor your school intermural basketball tournament I think is a little insane. Maybe I'm just new to this. What I wonder is where do you cut the line for this? Night League is the talk in school for as long as it runs but how compeitive can we be? What's your view on Night League and the competition drive it brings to the school?

Internet Rights

So I'm sitting in front of the Fox news right now after watching "So You Think You Can Dance" and the first story they mentioned had to do with Michelle Obama. It wasn't quite about her but about a Google Image of her. And the idea mentioned in the was free speech. Which of course, brought me to blog about it, seeing as we have paid so much attention to that right in class right now.

The story was about a disturbing image someone had posted on the internet, which had made it's way to google images as the number 1 photo. The picture is a really horrible and racist photo that has super-imposed a monkey and Michelle Obama's face. The issue of free speech came up with what people are allowed to post on the internet. One woman said that anyone should be allowed to post wahtever they want but if the person it is about does not like it they should be able to do something about this. Many people argued that this is infact Google's fault for letting this image be posted. But how can google monitor all of this?

With such a horrific picture free speech is once again brought up into our country, with a new media and all. It goes to show that even as times change, the rights we have will still come into play.
What do you think about the photo? Should it be allowed to stay there because of the public's right to free speech or should google or someone else have taken it down because it is so offensive? How can issues like this go about being solved?

A New Graduation Requirement?

Any graduation is always a scary, exciting, fun time. It means you get to move on, start a new section of your life, meet new people, etc. Everyone wants to graduate. There are always those few who don't and those few who unfortunately can't, but I've never in my life heard someone not being allowed to graduate because of their weight.

At Lincoln University in Oxford, Pa 25 students will not be able to graduate because as freshman they had BMIs over 30. I found this article explaining what Lincoln University has done. If you are obese as a freshman (i.e. had a BMI of over 30) and do not lose some weight you will not be able to graduate. As first glance, of course I was shocked. How could someone clearly discriminate against certain people? I then noticed that the students also had the choice to take a course if they didn't want to/couldn't lose the weight. This made a bit more sense. At least it isn't "lose weight or else". Still in shock I read on to find that the author of this article commended the idea. He thought it was harsh but great, saying "Congratulations on taking an unpopular but principled stance that reflects a commitment to the well-being of your students".

Now as I thought back over the article I became mildly conflicted. On one hand this is horrible discrimination and can really cause great depression and sadness in someone. Not being able to graduate is bad enough and now it's because of something that is probably very hard for the person to control? Not to mention pressure like this can cause eating disorders. Yet, on the other hand I get that the school wants their kids to be healthy. Graduation is a huge day so it can really get someone moving to help make themselves healthier. I just wish there was some other way they could do it without seeming so discriminant and without putting so much unneeded pressure on students who are already under so much pressure.

Memory Confusion

On wednesdays I've been going to a group after school that is working on re doing "Snowball", this camp-like program revolving around health, etc. Last wednesday we had a hypnotist come to our group sort of as a fun thing and to teach us some valuble lessons.

One thing she taught us was EFT. EFT stands for "Emotional Freedom Technique". This is a type of therapy hypnosis where you have a huge problem in your life and you can calm yourself down about it, allowing your emotions to center around other things, not just that (hence the freedom part).  She went through the process with us and I was following until she came to one point. The purpose of this one point was to "search" for a memory. Here she had us roll our eyes around and up and down, left and right. Her reasoning was that somewhere in your brain you have a memory that you need to bring up (and looking around you are "looking" for this memory )in order to complete the technique.

As she was talking about this I automatically referred back to the many conversations we've had in class about "memory is a construction". We talked over and over again about how you don't just have a file with your memory on it. You re-create it everytime you think it. So I sat there conflicted. Here I was supposedly "looking" for my memory, just "pulling it out of my brain" yet I re-create it everytime? This women (I sadly can not remember her name) was hypnotist of the year. She has used this technique for very serious problems and swears by it. Seeing all the progress she'd made I believe her. But I still wonder about the idea of memory.

Memory in the eyes of the hypnotist is treated as something to look back on. To help you forget, help you problem solve. By here in school we thought of it as a contruction. Are these two ideas completely different Is it possible it can be both??

Resident Priviledges or Plain Laziness?

I was watching the news a couple days ago, something I very rarely do and you could tell it was a slow news day - stories about random new police dogs and video games. But there was one story that interested me.

Apparently seats in Millenium Park are very valuable. Seats there are first come first serve and Chicago residents have been complaining that the good seats are going before they can get to them. They want priviledges because they are residents. At first I agreed. Yah, they live there why not? Until I heard their reasoning. In an article of the Sun-Times I found later on the same issue, a Chicagoan says "You have people from the suburbs who get there earlier and glom onto all the seats. ... They’re putting their blankets across rows and rows of chairs". In the news all these Chicagoans were saying how it's not fair that people from the Suburbs come up ridiculously early and take all the good seats. Ok. Come ON. If these people are driving an hour to Chicago to get their early and get good seats why can't someone who lives inside the city get their early enough to get their good seats? I understand their concern when they say that this is where their tax money is going and it's "not fair" but if people an hour away can get their so early why can't they?

The trial on this issue ended with my viewpoint winning because of Chicago's idea to treat all tourists as if they were Chicagoans but their were still some strong viewpoints on the other side. What do you think about this? Should the priviledge be their because they are paying the taxes or is it a free-for-all for whoever gets there first? Both points I think are very strong but in my opinion I just think the residents are thinking lazily (if that's possible). I'm all for their point on their tax paying but when it comes to getting there early I think they can do that. It's not that hard.

New Definition of "Kids Movie"?

Semi-recently I went to go see the movie "Where the Wild Things Are". The book seemed to attract more boys than girls so I had never actually read it as a young kid, but what drew me in was the artistic feel and intensity the trailers showed. It looked "cool".

Coming into the movie I had no idea what to expect. Yes, there was the feel that it would be intense in some aspects, but it came from a kids book, it shouldn't be anything TOO dramatic, right? Boy was I wrong. *spoilers within* The movie opens up to a sweet image of the little boy Max, building an igloo, only to end abruptly with yelling and the destroying of his sister's room when she abandons him for her friends, after they jump on his igloo. The audience quickly gets a feel for Max's imagination, but also for his anger and sadness he feels. Once Max is with the monsters we expect all good things would happen. Even they turn on him. I found myself cringing though deeply engaged the whole time. The movie had such strong elements of sadness and even scary scenes! Once the movie ended you could feel the emotion of everyone in the audience. It was just silence. We were all trying to digest it.

Even with the sad, scary, intense moments I fell in love with the movie. I could connect to the emotions, the movie was so strong and powerful. But then I float back to my original thoughts. Kid's movie? It was a kids book but with such intense scenes I couldn't even imagine a young child watching this.

With that I decided to check the trusty internet to see what people were saying. Surprised, I found articles contrasting my beliefs and saying that kids love it! And I even found one saying the movie is good for kids. This article addresses the question, "But what if that intensity, that asymmetry, is exactly why kids should see Wild Things?" It then goes on to explain that kids face all these hardships in life and are never prepared. The movie helps show them what they are up against in the world. In another article a man brought his 5 year old to the movie who sat there the whole time deeply interested and loved it. Then in a third I found addressed my concern when the actor who played Max said that kids said, "I don't want to listen to this" and that they "covered their ears or their eyes".

As I thought about it I started to agree with the first article. That maybe it's a good thing for kids to be introduced to an intense movie at a young age without the aspect of swear words, sexual content, or gruesome violence. But at the same time my heart gave out to any small child who saw the movie and  was frightened by the monsters and by Max's lashes out at his mother. If you've seen the movie what do you think about it? Kid friendly or artsy teenager friendly?

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/12/where-the-wild-things-are_0_n_317908.html&cp"

Save Animals to Save Fat People?

While thinking about what to write for my blog my sister mentioned a new PETA billboard that was causing controversy. As we talked about it I immediately had reactions so I decided to write about it.

The billboard declares "Save the whales. Lose the blubber. Go vegetarian" Then pictured is the back of a fat woman in a bikini. I was blown away right as I saw this. How on earth could a company be able to post something that degrades bigger women so much? My sister argues that bigger women are degraded all the time in magazines, TV, movie, you name it, and that really this was no different. Yet, in my opinion I see it much differently. These women might not be represented and smaller bodies are always portrayed as "better" but to announce them as whales, publicly, for the world to see, I think is completely outrageous. Feministing.com wrote an article about this as well, including a quote that left me heartbroken:
"I was planning on taking [my family] to the beach to enjoy the beautiful day when I saw a billboard that made me want to cry...We all sat there and stared at it for a minute and everyone in the car was silent. No one wanted to mention my weight. I laughed it off as usual, but it really had made me so embarrassed, so self-conscious and so ashamed of my weight that I dropped off my family at the oceanfront and left to go home, making the excuse that I wasn't feeling well"

This woman was so distraught by the poster that she couldn't even spend a lovely day with her family at the beach, where the billboard's setting is.

I understand that PETA wants to save animals and that maybe as a whole America could lose some weight but to use someone's weight against them to try and force them into being a vegetarian isn't worth it and could produce the opposite effect. If I saw PETA degrading my body type like that I'd most likely try to lose weight another way just so I can prove to them that I don't need their "program". (PETA offers a starter kit program for vegetarians and says "studies show that vegetarians, on average, are about 10 to 20 pounds lighter than meat-eaters")

Crayons of the World

In class we were asked to write what we thought race was, what our definition of it was. It turned out to be harder than we all thought. The initial reaction in my head was skin color. Yet, I didn't write that down. It felt, well, racist. When asked how many people write down skin color maybe 3 people raised their hands, I not being one. I wondered how many other people had done what I had. Here we were in class, saying things like "nationality" and "background" were race.

Now every time I visit my own blog I see that picture of all those crayons and in class, reading Fredrick Douglass and talking about race, that picture isn't just crayons anymore, it's a representative of the people in the world, of race. Now I'm not comparing race to a happy coloring book filled world of crayons because race is not a happy issue like that. But as I look at the picture more and more I see new things. One particular part of it that's interesting is the color white. It stands out. There's no doubt about it. In the original picture (re-inserted at the bottom of the blog post) there is one white crayon in about the middle of the picture that clearly stands out. Yes, white traditionally stands out as a color but that made me think more and more about superiority. All the other colors are "darker" than this white and kind of blend together if you squint your eyes. Is this how we used to think, how some people still DO think? All those people, over there, if you ignore humanity, squint your eyes a bit, they blur out, like they don't even matter anymore. All that matters is that the white people, they still stand out of a crowd.

So maybe I'm over analyzing a picture of crayons but all I know is that it sparked something in me about race. About color of skin. No one wants to admit it, but that's what race is all about. If you squint your eyes all you see is color, the person themselves don't matter anymore. It's this that shaped the history of slavery. Not seeing the African Americans as people, only as "blacks".

All the colors of crayons versus "flesh" colors. What do YOU see?

Bagel Snob

So I live in the NorthShore. As part of the "NorthShore stereotype" I would be materialistic, a brat, have a huge house, have a giant overflowing closet of designer labels, and just downright be a rich snob.
I like to pride myself on not being these things. I might have many nice things but I do care about others in the world and I wish there would be more equality. I take so many things for granted and I like to think I could do better with less, and then came bagels.

Here at our school there are "bagel fridays" where an advisee brings bagels for the rest of the advisory. Having a Panera and an Einsteins near us the bagels are almost always from one of the two. Now, yesterday I had a skating practice. Being early in the morning each girl takes turns bringing breakfast. Today someone brought bagels. Yay! A very exciting treat indeed. When the bagels were taken out I realized I didn't recognize the brand. They weren't Panera, nor were they Einsteins, they were a grocery store brand. Then I saw the cream cheese, using the plastic knife to scoop some out I noticed how hard it was. This was so fancy whipped cream cheese like I'm used too, it was normal cream cheese, one I haven't seen in forever.

As I sat there eating my bagel, not really enjoying it's white-bread texture and dense cream cheese I thought to myself, "Wow, I'm a bagel snob" The realization was strange. I don't care what food I eat, as long as I have it right? Apparently not. I mean, the bagel was still good, it just wasn't great. I looked down ashamed. Here I was priding myself in not being the stereotyoe of "NorthShore" and I can't accept a bagel that isn't "Designer". It might just be a bagel but to me it meant a lot. I wondered then what defines a "snob". I certainly don't want to see myself as one. There are very many definitions of poor and rich in all cultures and countries and me and my bagel certainly wasn't too big of a deal but it made me change. It made me see once again how much I take for granted and how much it should mean to me. From now on I'll think more about my life and not worry so much if it's not what I'm used to seeing everyday.

Sliding Doors or Revolving Doors?

September 22 our AiS class talked about these poems labeled as "sliding doors". I found them both to be extrememly interesting; one to talk about a tiny choice about taking a newspaper effecting the whole world, and one commenting on all these time ghosts living ahead of you.


As I think about all the random or maybe not so random choices I've made in my life I can't help but wonder how my life would have changed. The second poem about the ghost ahead of the writer stricks me as interesting and I wonder something. He wrote that "there is no catching him,/no way to slow him down/and put us back into sync". When I first read the poem it made a lot of sense and these kinds of things really interest me. Yet when he wrote that I actually dissagreed. He is implying that the ghosts ahead of him will never make choices he otherwise wouldn't have. Maybe this ghost ahead of him would have chosen to go back for another book when the author in real time did not, putting them in sync.

Once I thought of this I wondered if maybe there is more than one choice that will still give you the same outcome. Everyone of us has made a lot of choices in our lives but are there some choices that don't change our lives? Maybe there are even some big choices that may change some things but later in our lives we would have still done something.
Out of all the choices I've made, which have made significant differences in my life? Which have changed others and are the bigger choices necessarily the most influential?

Grades Turned Ugly

So even though I just posted about grades, school, and competition I just stumbled upon an article that stunned me.

I sometimes like to browse around aol.com and find random interesting things going on but when I found this article I was shocked. After reading Molly's blog about a teacher asking kids to give her money for extra credit and then thinking about competition in my own school I've come to realize how serious grades really are. This article explains how a 14 yr old boy gave his teacher a death threat over raising his grade to an A++.

The annoying part of the article was that was the only information it gave. I wanted to know why. Why did this kid feel the need to raise his grades with such violent efforts? I wonder if the parents were strict, if the kid was hard on himself, or maybe if he had some mental issues. All this would have changed the story completely. Reading how a 14 yr old made death threats automatically makes me think he is some psycho jerk. But learning that his parents pressured him, or he has mental issues I would have more sympathy towards the kid and the life he is living.

Did the writer simply leave the story short to make it more shocking or was that all that was known? How competitive are schools these days? Death threats, bribery, grade crazy students, the news is everywhere, what can we do about it?

The Competitive Edge

A couple of days ago in class we were talking about Obama's speech on health care and at one point he explained,  "My guiding principle is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition". In my head I substituted "consumers" for "students". I started to think about the competition at New Trier and how that affects our lives.

Going through New Trier competition has always been huge. The thing is New Trier likes to claim they "don't care". Teachers all focus on how grades "don't matter, only learning does". And this all may be true, but do students really listen? Of course not. The obvious wondering question here would be, why? Why don't students listen to this? Yet, being a student myself I know how others feel. It's not the fact that Oh well my teachers say all they care about is learning so if I do bad on a test it's ok! It's more the pressure of the common dialogue heard at NT.
Student #1: "Oh my gawd, that test was SO hard. I did SO bad. What did you get?"
Student #2: "Ugg, it's bad, a 78%"
Student #1: "Oh well I got a 93% but I swear we never learned that one question!"

Now that student #2 has heard that "doing bad" for student #1 is an A- he/she is now thinking to himself/herself that they are doing horribly and they have to do much better, even if it was just one test. This affects everyone. I won't lie, I feel pressured by my peers to do well. Teachers constantly tell you not to share your grades, but no one listens, they either want to brag about how good theur score was or surprisingly how bad it was.

There is also the college factor. ACT and SAT scores, where people are applying or have gotten in to college, and their extracurriculars flying though the hallways like it's everyone's business. And people purposfully make it that wat. Once it's out there, the competition is at a high.

In my opinion I feel that New Trier just needs to accept the fact that they are a competitive built school. Some teachers don't allow kids to see what grade they got on a paper, many don't give out progress reports, and some jsut plain ignore grades all together, driving some kids bazookas. I feel if New Trier just ignored the "grades don't matter" policy it would actually stress kids out less. In my experience not knowing what grade I got on something because a teacher wouldn't tell me has actually stressed me out much more, not less. Kids should get a choice on whether they want to know their grades or not at any point in time.

Your thoughts?

A Secret Box

I've always been one of those people who isn't very open but lately I've been thinking about secrets.

People all over the world look for places to post their own secrets anonymously: websites, magazines, newspapers, etc. What I wondered is why they do this? If they really didn’t want to share their secret why post it somewhere the whole world can access it? I mean I guess in this way the people they are close to can’t tell who it is and coming from my own prospective this is better but then I think back.
Whenever I share a secret to someone close by to me it always makes me feel happier. Letting something out to another means a lot to people and to my own self and in the end it was the right thing to do.

If someone keeps something from another this usually causes issues later when the secret is later discovered. What is usually said then? “If you had told me earlier it would have been OK”. So why don’t people take this advice? I would like to know what the world would be without secrets. What if everyone knew everything? Would that be too much or would the world function better? Secrets cause anxiety and stress but would no secrets be too revealing? When does the line between knowing “too little” and knowing “too much” cross in the perfect balance? What don’t we know about our president, our teachers, our parents? How would our lives change if we did know these things? Secrets are really quite powerful. I know I’m a hypocrite in my own belief of sharing but I still wonder.

My First Post! Hurrah!

So this is my first post. This is me, typing, in a box.