Who likes to chill in toilets?

Last week in class, at the marketplace of ideas, I saw a stand that's topic was "Binge Drinking". This idea was very interesting to me and after seeing the stand and the Haze video, my views on drinking has changed so much. the quote I was most shocked by was when one of the kids said that "when pledges were puking, we would continue to pour beer down their throats". This was really shocking because the kids could have died easily but the older kids continued to push them further. Obviously there really isn't a solution to this problem, due to the fact that both the greek life, and alcohol are both associated with college. History has just put all 3 of these things in a category, and now its impossible to change that. My only answer would be if kids went against the rushing part of the greek system, because honestly who likes to chill in toilets.

Closing Time

4 years, and now I am faced with my last day of school. Obviously the only word to describe this is, bittersweet. Obviously I am very excited to get out of high school and start the next chapter of my life. But the sad part is that I am leaving all the memories I made in school. Ive been with the same kids for most of my life, and after tomorrow, I probably wont ever talk to any of them again. Although that is sad, I feel like high school has been going on forever, and its time to move in. The next chapter of my life will still hold many friends and there will be many new memories made. So I guess that there are a lot of perks to being in high school but also a lot of perks to leaving high school. With the memories made, the friends made, and the teachers met, I get to leave high school and start a new chapter of my life, which I am looking very forward too.

Pads Shelter

      In class we had a Marketplace of Ideas, which highlighted many of the issues we see around the world today. My issue was on the homelessness in Chicago, and I was quickly shocked by all the facts on how many people are homeless. The thing that I found very interesting is the Pads shelter, which helps take people in off the streets. The Pads shelter has 4 different houses to accommodate different types of people. The first house is the Veterans House, which takes in any homeless veterans off the streets and provides them with dinner and beds for the night. Next is the Safe Haven which is  a house that is there to accommodate anyone with mental or physical disabilities. Also is the Family Center which houses families of all kinds, and lastly the ssesment Center which is where people stay before being assigned one of the other homes. Pads is a great shelter for everyone and allows people to have a place to stay for a month and also helps them get on their feet. Pads is partners with many local businesses and helps get the Pads residents jobs. Pads is a great place and if you are looking to help by either donating or volunteering, you can go to their website for more information.
http://padslakecounty.org/about-us/

The Fall of Chicago Sports

What a horrible year for Chicago Sports! constant let down after let down, due to injuries. Starting the bad luck was the Chicago Bears. With an excellent start to their season, many of us fans believed that they had a chance at making a run in the playoffs. All until Jay Cutler got injured making a tackle, after an interception. If that wasn't enough to make a Bears fan lose hope, shortly after, running back, Matt Forte got injured. With their 2 best offensive players injured, the Bears quickly kissed their season goodbye. Next came the Blackhawks. The Blackhawks had a good season going, and made the playoffs again. But towards the end of the season their captain Johnathon Toews got a concussion that sidelined him till the first round of the playoffs. As good as it was to have him back, it would have been better if he was at 100%. With a injured captain the Hawks started their push in the off season, until game 3 when all-star Marian Hossa got hit in the head and had to exit the series earlier than planned. With 2 teams down, the last hope for Chicago was the Bulls. Going into the playoffs with the one seed, they were predicted to do very well. All until the fall of their captain Derrick Rose, who tore his ACL in game one of their opening series. With little hope, the Bulls continued, but ended up losing Joakim Noah a few games later and eventually losing the series to the Sixers. 3 teams up, 3 teams down, as a Cub fan, I again will have to "wait till next year".

Affirmative Action

Both affirmative action and racism have to do with discrimination against a group or individual. In a sense, affirmative action uses racism to fight racism, and as every child learns growing up “two wrongs never make a right.”Affirmative action is just another form of racism and is promotes judging people based on their color. Martin Luther King Jr. had, “a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Affirmative action completely opposes Dr. King’s dream that his kids would not be judged by the color of their skin. Martin Luther wanted to put an end to racism and make it so that when his kids applied for college they would be judged appropriately. In 1978 Allan Bakke was a white male who got rejected two separate times by a medical school that instead accepted less qualified applicants strictly because of their race. Since Bakke felt cheated, he took it to the Supreme Court, and in turn “The Court ruled that inflexible quota systems used by affirmative action programs violated the law, yet, in the same ruling, upheld the legality of affirmative action programs” (Stewart, Chuck). Now how is it fair that minorities are getting spots which others who are much more qualified are getting deferred from? 

Practice makes perfect

After reading the article, “If I were a poor black kid”, I have mostly agreed with the author. He was very specific throughout the article and give different situations, and how he would approach each situation. I don’t think that race is greater than hard work, and I think that if someone works very hard, they will get out of any situation they are in and succeed. I feel like that there are many kids that have the opportunity to get ahead but for one reason or another, they choose not to. The kids have the resources to work hard, but not everyone has the resources to succeed. Although the article made it sound very easy for everything to fall in to place in order to succeed, I don’t think that everything will just fall into place. But I think that hard work goes a long way, and if someone keeps working at something then they will succeed at it.

Guest Speaker

Recently in Issues, we had a guest speaker come in and talk to us about wrongful convictions. Terrel Swift was a member of the "Englewood Four", a group of men who were wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of a Chicago woman in 1994 after confessing to it as juveniles. Terell talked a little about how it all happened and life after prison. The most moving activity we did was the one when we first walked in. Everyone just signed the piece of paper without even wondering what they were signing. Although it wasn't severe, it did get its message across. The only reason that everyone signed it I think is because we were told to sign it as we came in and everyone was more concerned with sitting down than reading what the paper said. It is crazy to think that there are so many people who actually get tricked by cops to sign a confession for something they didn't do. I look as Terrel as a role model because he is going out even after he had to serve time, and trying to put an end to wronful convictions.