Independent Writing 1 January 11, 2009

What goes around comes around, a popular phrase, but I’m starting to not know why. I have always believed in karma, but over the last year or two I have been questioning my belief in it. It seems like majorly bad things frequently happen to really good people. I have four people very close to my heart that are my reasoning behind this belief.

One of those would be my mom. She’s my mom, so even though she can annoy me until the end stops turning, I love her anyway. She is always thinking about other people and putting them before herself. She gives as much as she can and accepts everyone for who they are. It seems like if she gives so much, she should get more in return. The truth is that the world seems to be a little bit more against her. She was hit riding her bicycle by a car when she was eighteen, and has twenty one knee surgeries because of it.  She got thyroid cancer when I was in 8th grade, and although they took it out, it grew back, luckily it isn’t doing anything right now. On top of all that, in a few years she probably won’t be able to do the thing she loves most in this world, and the thing she does to earn money, read. She has an eye disease that is slowly making her go blind and giver her tunnel vision.

The other three people in my life that aren’t getting what they deserve are some of my best friends. One of my best friends has a rare heart disease that her father has too. She got a difibulator put in a couple summers ago, and in the future may need a heart transplant just like her dad. My other friend has cancer and has gone through rough months of chemo and radiation while still going to school every day. My third friend was hit by a car and is now transporting herself with a wheel chair. I’m not saying that their lives are the worst that they could be, but I am saying that they deserve much better in this lifetime in return for the amazing individuals they are. If things don’t change for these people, I don’t see the justice in that, especially when bad people keep doing bad things everyday and don’t plan on changing. I see what goes around, I’m just waiting for it to come back around.

Grades October 21, 2008

I’ve grown up with grades, all of us have. Thankfully my parents don’t care about the actual letter grade, they just care about me trying. But I look around at my friends and see how much grades means to them and their families. Many people get paid for their grades, and that’s their motivation. I get a “good job”, and the motivation is just for myself to establish that I really am smart, and not a slacker.

I really don’t mind grades too much. The thing is, I mind when they display a worse grade than I feel I deserve. I honestly don’t understand teachers, especially in math, who take the score of the assignment, and not grade it on how much effort was put into the assignment. Because truthfully, if I get a 40% on a math assignent that I tried my best on, I don’t think I should have a bad grade in the class. I understand big assignments though that maybe I didn’t put as much effort into as I should have affecting my grade a little.

It just stinks to see that I try in school and I just can’t always get the grades I hope for. It seems that many of my friends can without trying though and it makes me feel stupid. Grades shouldn’t make me feel stupid though, and my friends shouldn’t make me feel that way based on my grades. People get too wraped up in the letter, and don’t seem to care about anything else. I only care about the letter when it’s a letter that doesn’t reflect my effort. Basically, teachers need to think about what they grade and how they grade it a little more. Some teachers are very fair, but some need to walk a mile in the students shoes for once and give grades a little more thought.

America’s 2008 Economy October 7, 2008

http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=348876&story_id=12342273

With the presidential election coming up in less than a month, America is already very focused on political issues. WIth this economic crisis though, there has been extra topics of discussion conserning the future of America. It is true that we are in a crisis, and there is worry spread across the country. Some are worried that America is going to have another depression, like the one in 1929. In the article above there is statements about either argument. So far, I’m not too sure about what I believe will happen. It’s true, this economic crisis does worry me, but so far I don’t think it has reached the severity as the Great Depression. During The Great Depression, 25% of Americans were unemployed. Currently America has about 6% unemployed, according to the article “1929 and All That.” Although 6% is a lot of American’s without a job, I don’t think that we need to be worrying about reaching another depression quite yet. Although it seemed that The Great Depression happened over night, there was many months of hardships leading up to it. Although America’s economy has been struggling the last couple years, nothing has been as severe as right now, and we need to let things play out more before we start assuming the worst. Just because i don’t think we have reached a depression doesn’t mean that I don’t belive this needs to be paid attention to. Whoever is our next president definately needs to be brainstorming many ways on how to fix this as quickly as possible so that America will be alright in the near future.

The meanest mom in the world September 18, 2008

I admit, if my mom sold my car as a punishment and didn’t tell me, I’d be pretty mad. But the mom gave the teenager fair warning about not having alcohol in his car. The way i read the article, it seems as if the parents gave the car to their son as a gift. If they gave him the car, they have the right to take it away. If he paid for the car with all of his own money I think that it would be unfair for them to sell it becuase the car isn’t theirs to take away.

The mom might have put her name in the add as “the meanest mom in the world”, but she wasn’t being the meanest mom in the world. She was being a little mean, but she didn’t even want to embarrass her son, which means she really isn’t that mean. The rule of not having alcohol in his car is a smart rule for more than one reason. First of all, he is under the drinking age, so it’s illeagle to be in possession or consume alcohol. Even if his parents allow him to drink, he should never have it out of the house. Even if he wasn’t drinking it at the time, and got pulled over and a police officer found alcohol in his car, he would be in serious trouble. If the teenager is mad now, I’m sure he’ll get over it, and maybe work to buy his own car, if he truly wants it.

Goals September 7, 2008

I have many goals for my junior year. A main one is to get better at test taking. If I can do this then I can do well on my ACT and my ap chem and ap lang tests at the end of the year. To go along with that, I should probably get better at studying too, my biggest problem is probably just sitting down and getting to it. I would also like to get more involved with the school. I joined tennis last year, but I’m hoping to maybe join a club or something so that i can have some more extra curricular activities. Also, last year i was able to get all a’s except for one b first semester, I hope that even though I may have harder classes this year, that I can get straight a’s again. For the most part, i would just like to be good in school this year so that it will help me do what I need to do to get into a good college.

Hello world! September 3, 2008

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