The New America

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Photo Credit: http://blog.collinsflags.com

It’s 2015 and all the good values in Americans are dead. This generation is disrespectful, uninformed, more interested in what’s trending, and drinking overpriced coffee, than finding success in life. There was a time where Americans took pride in their work, when they respected the President, and families talked about their day at meals.

What happened to the hard-working American? The ones that took pride in their work and came home each day satisfied and tired? Nowadays everyone complains about their work; they think being a barista is a career, and that their life’s so hard.

60% of United States citizens don’t graduate college. If anyone from that 60% says life is hard, they are full of crap. They do less than the 40%, and they complain just as much. How hard can their job be?

If anyone comes home from work not tired, they did it wrong. This is America, what was once the best nation in the world. What happened to this generation? How did one generation completely ruin all American values? I am ashamed to be a part of the worst generation in American history. What happened to the good old American ideal that we could always do better?

The lazy baristas and interns aren’t just bad employees; they are just plain disrespectful. Everywhere I go, I will see at least one kid being extremely disrespectful. There’s a difference between teenage trouble making and pure disrespect.

The disrespect is  rudeness, like knocking stuff down and not picking it up because it’s not their job. It’s okay to not agree, but to disrespect publicly is wrong. Everyone from my generation, including me, does this. I’m not proud when I do it, but it’s just something everyone does now.

This is the generation of social media where we can say anything without repercussions. Free speech is great, but what no one understands anymore is just because it can be said, it doesn’t mean it should be. I would classify myself as a Republican, but I don’t trash talk Obama.

In fact, I think Obama has done a damn good job. Obama is a great example to show what’s wrong with the nation. When I say that, I don’t mean the government; I mean the people in it. What is wrong with people who think it’s okay to question whether Obama was born in the states?

What happened that made it okay for the media to falsely state Obama’s plans? The biggest incident was post Sandy Hook, when the news was telling everyone Obama is taking their guns away. But in reality, he has done more for gun nuts than against.

I’m not saying it’s the parents of this generation to blame. It’s the biased news that is viewed by everyone, manipulating the public. It is the uninformed social media users spreading non-factual crap that makes the government look like a joke. What makes this country so bad? It’s the people who say the country is bad, but don’t realize that they are the ones who need to change it. They are the ones who make America bad.

I hope that someday people once again look up to the President with the highest level of respect, even those that don’t agree. The people make the country, not the government. It’s the whole damn reason the government was designed the way it was.

Having a Conversation

thebeigegirl

A boy thought he was good at persuading for his age.

He almost always succeeded to change his friends’ disagreeing opinions, so he had been satisfied with his persuasion skills.

However, as time went by, he could see people not changing their opinions in his favor although he still had good reasonings.

Looking back and thinking carefully, he could figure out why.

He was not actually persuading them.

He succeeded to change their opinions but failed to change their minds.

The people could feel him being indifferent to their opinions.

He would only listen to their opinions to find the holes in them, to prove their errors.

He talked to them on the premise that his thoughts were right.

He was not having a conversation with them. He was giving them lectures and forcing his ideas into them, which no one asked for.

PC: http://sourcefed.com/how-do-you-argue/

In your life, you are the main character. You’re the protagonist, the hero, the heroine. However, you are just a passerby in others’ lives.

Whether an opinion is right or not depends on what perspective we see it from. An absolute idea in history can be the most ridiculous thing in the future; someone might not like what I like; a homeless person can be happy while a girl thinks him to be unhappy.

No one can guarantee the future, and not one opinion is absolutely right. Therefore, the point of conversations lies on sharing different ideas.

So, why even bother to talk to people if you know that you will not consider their ideas as an option and only emphasize your idea again and again?

In fact, you are bothering them.

 

The Gender Pay Gap

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You’ve heard the rumors about feminists, the “Man-Haters”.

But the worst is when anti-feminists begin to discredit real issues, for example, the pay gap.

According to the US Census Bureau women earn 78-cents to the white mans dollar, and this is just white women. It becomes less and less through the races.

In case you are having issues visualizing this, take a look at this data provided by salary research company pay scale.

Screen Shot 2015-10-20 at 3.22.29 PMScreen Shot 2015-10-20 at 3.22.53 PM

Let’s look at how this works out in some other cases.

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This chart comes from the research organization AAUW.

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This is a graph from the US Bureau of Labor.

At this point you may think, “yeah, but like, women take maternity leave and don’t get into as many high paying industries.”

Even if all of these factors were taken away, women would still only make between 93-95% of what men would, according to CONSAD’s analysis. Sexism at its finest, folks.

So yeah, unless us “man haters” control the government and world-renowned research organizations, it’s a pretty real thing.

 

Hello Adele

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This week Adele was a Phoenix.

photo credit: gettyimages.com

She came up from the ashes and built herself up again.

In 2012, Adele left the world of music and took an almost 4 year hiatus to focus on herself.

She took time to have her stranded voice rebuild and for her to build a family.

This week she has brought her name back into the tabloids, by revealing that she is going to release a new album, named “25” and she released a single from that same album called “Hello.”

The music video for “Hello” already has 11 million views and counting in the first day.

photo credit: rollingstone.com

I was walking by a group of people talking about Adele’s all-mighty comeback and they said something that struck me, “I thought that she was going to be skinny when she finally came back.”

Adele is amazingly talented and even though she isn’t the media’s picture of beauty doesn’t mean that she shouldn’t be celebrated

So take a listen to “Hello,” and you will hear how she has perfectly encompassed the emotions that so many of us have experience.

Live by Curiosity, Not Fear

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Friday October 23rd my parents and I made the relatively strenuous drive at 8:30 at night to Redlands University to see my brother at his college Homecoming.

To be honest, I couldn’t care less about football. In fact, I chatted the whole time and not about the plays being made on the field.

But, on Saturday, the day of the largely anticipated game (admittedly, not by me), I went to see something truly unforgettable.

A few hours before the game, Redlands hosted a guest speaker and that speaker was Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love.

I read the book a few years ago and loved it, so I was looking forward to her speech. The main idea of Gilbert’s speech was her desire to live a creative life, her journey to attaining that life, and to encourage others into also living this life.

First of all, she was very clear: to live a creative life, you must follow curiosity rather than fear, and the two are closely intertwined.

This deeply resonated with me, as I am the type of person who thinks of every bad side to a situation and lets those (usually improbable) reasons sway me from not doing something.

Gilbert was inspiring, intuitive, and an amazing speaker. The speech was definitely worth having to watch a football game afterward, though I did leave at halftime.

How can I focus on anything but grades?

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“Don’t focus so much on your grades.”

Teachers have said this over and over again since I started high school.

They constantly tell me to not focus on the end result, but to focus on the material, to develop an interest and study it out of enjoyment, not because I want to get a passing grade.

I don’t understand that at all. Why am I being told not to care so much about my grades or to not study only because I want a good grade, when in reality everything comes down to “intelligence” being perceived from a grade.

Photo Credit: http://rootsofaction.com

They say that the grade you get isn’t the important part, so why do we get grades at all?

For a teacher to tell me to calm down and relax and not concentrate or obsess so much over what my grade will be, is hands down the most frustrating thing a teacher can ever say.

Photo Credit: http://cdn.quotesgram.com/

It is simple, if teachers don’t want me to focus so much on the grade, then don’t “reward or punish” with a grade.

Happiness

thebeigegirl

I hear a lot of people say, “Why is my life so hard?”

And I want to ask them back is, “Why do you think that your life shouldn’t be hard?”

People, including myself, have a tendency to perceive hard lives to be unhappy lives.

However, if you change the way you think a little bit, you can be happier than before.

PC: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/23/chasing-happiness_n_5197699.html

There are tiring parts but there are still fun parts in our lives.

If you don’t love all your tough challenges and uphill battles, you are not loving your own life.

Love your entire life, even the hardest parts of it.

Happiness will then come to you.

PC: http://deliveringhappiness.com/reasons-for-living-its-the-little-things/

 

American Football Meets Crumpets

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October 25 marked the thirteenth NFL game in London’s Wembley stadium since 2007. The less than disappointing bout between the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars was witnessed by over 84,000 cheering Brits.

Picture Credit: “www.usnews.com”

I hope that they know they are cheering for the Buffalo Bills and the Jacksonville Jaguars…

Regardless of what low echelon team plays in Wembley, the soccer loving British will always find a way to fill the seats.

They have managed to hold two sell-out games in two weeks. The Bills versus Jags, and the Kansas City Chiefs versus the Detroit Lions.

In the 2015 season there are three scheduled games in London, next year league officials have told London fans that there are to be four.

This growing popularity in pigskin slinging in London has encouraged London officials to encourage a permanent team in England.

The most popular NFL team in London are the Jacksonville Jaguars – yeah I know.

NFL representatives are optimistic that a team could be moved to the crumpet-munchers around 2022.

SAT TESTING ROUND TWO

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Photo Credit: http://www.educationnews.org

Today I came home to hear some of the best news I have all week.

President Obama hates standardized testing almost as much as I do.

The Obama administration has come up with a new plan for standardized testing; capping standardized testing to 2% of classroom time.

Someone finally understands the pressure.

I have spent the past week agonizing over my latest SAT scores.

After receiving a score that I believe it so sub-par to the standards set, I sat in my room for hours and considered my options: maybe I won’t get accepted to any colleges, maybe I should just give up now, maybe I should spend an extra three hours a day studying for this test.

For this is a test that does not demonstrate the magnitude of what I have learned throughout the course of high school, but a test that displays how well I can adapt to it’s irrelevant questions.

Questions that are completely meaningless in the grand scheme of things, questions that do not reflect how intelligent I am, or how successful I will be in my college career.

Rather, this test gives college admission teams the ability to put my knowledge into a category of advanced or average.

The pressure I have felt throughout the past four years of my life to meet the “above average” score of this test is obscene.

I have spend countless nights laying awake in my bed wondering if the work I have completed in the last four years will be dismissed because of an average test score that I have earned through sitting at a desk for four hours.

The standardized system is flawed.

There is no standard anything for a million adolescent brains that function at different paces and in different ways.

Talking to you

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I want to talk to you at three in the morning, when I’m laying in bed, with waves of emotion rushing over me. I want to talk to you when I wake up from a bad dream – drowning in my thoughts, suffocated by my imagination.

When I can barely talk, overrun by emotion – I want you to be there, welcoming my grievances. Listening to my rants, my aches and pains, and my worries.

When all I see is blackness, and all I feel is pressure, I want to talk to you. My support – a shoulder to cry on, someone to vent to – you are who I turn to.

I have a lot of thoughts. Good and bad, light and heavy, they consume me. And when I wake up in the middle of the night and every inch of me is devoured by these emotions, it is you who I want beside me.

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