Month: February 2015

What would you do…

mushuooLeave a comment

… if your passion was so far away?

If the one thing you loved to do more than anything else was inaccessible?

I don’t really know either.

Since I was a toddler, I have been skiing. As soon as the season starts until the day the season ends, I have always taken every opportunity I get to drive up to the mountains. I feel at home on the mountain; I know there is no other place I would rather be.

This year, I have only had a week of ski time in Mammoth.

I guess living in Southern California is not the best place for an avid skier to live.

Photo Credits: statim.guo.uk.com

This brings me to my main point: where would an avid skier live? Aspen? Switzerland? Canada?

In about a year and a half I will be deciding which college to attend for the next four years of my life, which makes me question if I should move out of California and move somewhere I can ski on a regular basis.

But do I really want to move states or countries away from family and friends?

The decisions begin.

Writer’s Block

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As a first-year journalism student, I have the tedious task of producing two blogs a week. They aren’t hard pieces of writing – they have a 150 word minimum and can be about absolutely anything. However, every time I sit down to write one, I find myself with intense writer’s block.

Photo Credit: poetjohndavisjr.files.wordpress.com

It’s not that my life is so boring that there’s nothing to write about, honestly. It’s just that I can never translate it into writing! I never know if I should talk about what’s happening in my day-to-day life or if I should speak more about worldly current events.

The most difficult part of writing blogs is the mandatory aspect. If I sat down whenever I had inspiration and simply wrote, my blogs would be great! However, I’m forcing myself to scrounge up “interesting” material and scrape out 150 words, which just takes the magic out of writing.

I’m not saying that everything I write is dull and completely forced, I’m only introducing the idea that if I were to write of my own accord, my writing would be full of life.

Respect our Speakers

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When a certain well-educated, poised, and cultured Emmy award-winning investigative journalist said that Putin censors the media in Russia, he was probably not expecting a Russian freshman to get up and forcefully contradict him. I guess OVS is full of surprises.

When we invite a speaker to our school, it is expected that we will be polite and kind. However, when Terry McCarthy visited, a few students were upset by what he said and did not hesitate to speak their minds. McCarthy stated that Putin regulates the media in Russia, and then defended this statement by pointing out that stories told one way in the US are told a different way in Russia, and you can see this by watching their news. A Russian kid sitting behind me immediately became upset and started saying things, quite loudly, to his friends. Eventually he grew so angry that he raised his hand and asked our guest how “he could say this” about Russia.

I understood that he was upset, but I thought what he said to our speaker was incredibly rude. Not only was I embarrassed for McCarthy, who was shocked, but I was also embarrassed for our school. In the future, we should be more respectful towards our visitors and appreciate the time they take to share their stories with us, instead of trying to argue with them.


Photo credit: Telegraph.co.uk

The ISIS Crisis

mushuoo1 Comment

We have all heard the horror stories of terrorism – beheadings, genocide, suicide bombings and kidnappings. They happen every single day in many different countries. But when is it time for international forces to step in?

Within the past year, an especially violent extremist group called ISIS has been popping up in my news feed quite a bit, usually with a title including the word ‘beheading’.

Journalists, school-children, women and tourists are the central targets for ISIS kidnappings. These are the most profitable groups of people as women and young girls can be sold to wealthy men, and the journalists and tourists will have families back home willing to give everything for their return.

Often, journalists who are kidnapped at their hands will never return, but the gruesome videos of their death will.

ISIS’s signature horror is far beyond anything any extremist group has bothered to do before: publishing the videos of beheadings and slitting of throats on the internet for everyone to see.

Photo Credits: topinfopost.com

The scary thing about ISIS is the unpredictability of their beheadings. There is no negotiating with ISIS – if they decide to kill a captive, they will.

But why has nobody killed their leader already?

Because extremist groups this large are like a Hydra (to reference Greek Mythology). You can eliminate one leader, but when you do, another will just take their place.

Currently there is no way international powers or the UN can end this reign of terror.

Still want to go hike those Algerian Mountains?

 

Am I Right?

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Photo Credit to www.clipartlord.com

We live in a world where we have to be politically correct at all times to avoid offending others. One aspect of being politically correct is avoiding racist terms. Racism occurs when one race is referred to as being superior or having special characteristics that only they have. Calling an African-American person “black” isn’t considered proper by many people – most would say it’s racist. But is it worse than associating a group of people based on a region even if it has no connection to the person?  Personally, I would much rather be called white than European-American. I was not born in Europe, neither were my parents or my parents’ parents. I’m sure there are African-Americans that feel the same way. Many so-called African-Americans have no association with Africa; is it logical, therefore, to classify people that way? I strongly believe in equality, that all are born equal, but I don’t believe that it is okay for us to say that something is racist when we are simply referring to skin tone. I think categorizing people by region is more racist than calling a “black” person “black,” because you are saying that people with that skin tone are all from one region. This is classifying people as a whole and is still racist.

The Split Mind

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As the day goes on, exhaustion starts to grow. Not that I’ve done anything besides sit around all day, but nonetheless, I feel exhausted.

It all happens unconsciously. I sit down next to two friends and then immediately memorize who’s sitting in the room with us. One, two, three, four, and then five adults. The boys take over the couches, and the girls weave around the snack tables.

The big game is showing on the TV, and I repeatedly flicker my eyes to the screen, keeping track of the score and any big plays that might have happened. There are also people outside playing ping-pong, and I try to mentally mark the people who are outside.

And while I’m so absorbed in the room, I’m also talking to the person to my left. The one that is so demanding of my attention, and I’m thinking about my inability to give it to him.

Photo cred; healthyplace.com

Because my mind and my senses are completely split, there is no way in bloody heck that I can ever pay attention to one thing and one thing only. My ears strain to hear the conversations on the couches and my eyes try to watch and make sure everyone is alright and okay. God knows why my mind just can’t settle down.

So now it’s the end of the day, but I don’t feel like I’m allowed to say “I’m exhausted” because I have literally done nothing but sit around all day.