leave it to teens

Teenagers today can be monsters. It's well known an outrageous number of teens are teased on a daily basis. It's tradgic that the common teasing has led to serious school shootings. So, why is it that a few of the thousands of teasing cases lead to shootings? The answer is all in the is just behind a closet door. The most offensive word you can call a teenage male is gay. Basically, the word takes away their masculinity. Everything that defines them as a guy is destroyed when someone throws the word fag in their face. All of the boys from these school shootings heard those names on a daily basis. Yes, it is horrible that they each had to live like this, but those people who teased the boys were not the ones who pulled the trigger on a room full of classmates.

At Stevenson, I don't think we have a huge problem with teasing. I know it happens, but at Stevenson, there fear isn't hanging over your head to prevent you from stopping the teasing. In other words, there is no "popular crowd". Almost everyone has their own group they fit into and if your friend is having some trouble being bullied, you have no problem standing up for them. I feel because Stevenson is like this, its easier to come to school without the fear of a classmate snapping.

the Man

Ever since we were little, we were told to listen to the teacher, do your homework, and stay away from the "bad kids". Little did we know those bad kids could actually end up having the potential to be more successful than those who have done what they were told. When we read the article about Beavis and Barbie in class today, I agreed whole heartedly what it was saying. It happens all the time that a Beavis in class has the ability to slack off, not do his/her homework, not listen to the teacher, but still be able to pull off as good as a grade that the model student Barbie recieves. Sometimes, kids just have the ability to not do their homework that is ment to be practice and still succeed because they can pick the material up faster than others. I don't think they should essentially be punished for this, but then again I do think its unfair that a hard working, obedient student should get a lower grade than someone who may be a disturbance to the class.

Why is nothing so .. awkward? I attempted the nothing assignment while I was at Lifetime. I thought there would be no better place to do nothing at the place you go to to do something. I stood by the stairs and really concentrated on letting myself go. It was really funny and somewhat uncomfortable to find that just about everyone seemed to notice me. In a room full of people running as fast as they can, lifting to much weight, and stretching until they cry, everyone noticed the one girl who was just standing. Not going to lie though, I would have done the same thing. We rarely see people simply standing because its the best way to draw attention to yourself. It's like walking down the hallway. Someone can bump your shoulder but it doesn't annoy you half as much as it does when someone is just standing directly in your path.

This was one of the easiest and hardest assignments I have been given in my entire high school career. How is it that standing and shutting the rest of the world out such an abnormal action?

coupons anyone?

The American Values reading we did earlier this week related to my family so well it was ridiculous especially when it came to the part about the grocery store. When my mom takes her weekly grocery shopping trips, the first thing she makes sure she has is her coupon binder. Thats right, binder. She has this little accordian folder that she has sectioned off into categories for each group of her coupons. Rather than paying attention to how much she spent on her trips, I think my mom looks at how much she saved from her coupons. There have been times she brought home food my family doesn't eat, but it was such a a bargain she couldn't pass it up. It sometimes makes me wonder exactly if coupons are benefitting us. The coupons say we're saving money, but when we're buying two to get one free or buying something solely because its 50% off what it was two days ago, aren't we defeating the purpose of holding onto our money?

My second cousin came in from Denmark a couple of months ago to stay with my family. On Sunday when the dozens of adds came with the newspaper stuffed with coupons, she laughed. My mom looked at her while she was cutting some out and asked her what happened. She told us she was sorry but she had heard of the ridiculous shopping tactics Americans had but didn't believe they were true until she saw how many coupons we had laying out on our table. I still didn't realize after she had said that that Americans had such a distorted view on spending money than the rest of the world. After discussing all of this in class, it got me thinking about whether or not our country would learn to spend money wisely especially since we're having such economical problems. I think its far fetched to say we will get better.