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?