META POST

It's the end of the semester and the school year, and I am here to wrap up my year of blogging with another META POST.

There has been a lot of improvement on my blog as the year went on, especially comparing first semester to second semester. Since January, I have actually made an effort to continue blogging every single week, which is something that I definitely did not do first semester. I have 16 or so posts this semester, which is substantially more than my 10 posts first semester. More times than not the posts have been spaced once a week, which is great because it shows consistency (which was not seen 1st semester). At the end of the year I don't feel the need to cram in an extra half dozen posts in less than a a week (unlike some classmates), which is always a great feeling.

Not only have the quantity of my posts increased, I feel that the quality has as well. In an early second semester post (my favorite) titled "NFL Concussions: Something has to be done", you can really see an improvement in the post as a whole. The post is about a very current topic that is being talked about almost daily on ESPN and other news channels. I was interested in the topic, so I decided to blog on it. After reading articles online for about 15 minutes, I found one that I could mention in my post. I was able to mention the article in the post, and also discuss my feelings on it, which I believe add up to a good post.

The NFL Concussions post is a great way to summarize how my second semester blogging went. I really feel that I improved on the quality of posts, as well as the quantity. My growing ability to talk about current topics and "joining in a discussion" is very evident with several of my posts. All in all, I am very happy with how I blogged second semester, and had a fun time the entire year blogging.

Truth about coffee

I've noticed a recent trend in this school of people starting to drink coffee. Personally, I have drank it since 2nd grade (I even did a project on it in 5th grade and brought in samples. No one wanted any). Many people have told me that I should quit drinking because coffee is bad for me and my health, so when I read this report that was published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, my heart jumped. The report analyzed coffee-drinking habits of over 400,000 people from age 50 to 71. The 400,000 people made it the largest study of coffee ever.

Previous studies have offered different results on the relative benefits or harms associated with regular coffee consumption. While coffee contains caffeine, it also has hundreds of unique compounds and antioxidants that may confer health benefits. Further confusing much of the research into coffee is the fact that many coffee drinkers are also smokers, and it has been difficult for the researchers to judge the different health effects of coffee and cigarettes.

The researchers were able to differentiate the effects of smoking and coffee, and thee data showed that the more coffee a person consumed, the less likely he or she was to die from a number of health problems, including diabetes, heart disease, stroke, infections and even injuries and accidents. 

Not to think that drinking coffee will be able to save you from a freak accidents like car crashes or drowning, at least I can be happy that my morning cup won't be the death of me.

Gender equality in sports: a one way street?

A couple of days ago I was reading an article on ESPN about a girl who was playing on a high school baseball team. The reason that this got some much attention from the media is because the opposing team forfeited the game before it even started because this girl (Paige Sultzbach) was playing on the baseball team. In all of the different articles I read from ESPN, Yahoo!, and other sources, the media outlet has tried to make the opposing team look like the bad guys for forfeiting. I think that decision to forfeit by the opposing team was completely warranted for many reasons.

Wie practicing before a PGA Tour event

First off I want to say I am completely for what Title IX stands for (gender equality in sports). I think it is necessary for schools to be fair with the amount of money and equality put towards both men's and women's sports. Title IX came up because women were fighting for equality in sports and behind the idea that they should get everything that a male athlete gets. So, after hearing this, you may think it's fair for the Sultzbach to be playing for a men's baseball team, but I don't.

By the logic that women and men should have equal opportunity in sports to the point where women can play in a men's sports, why shouldn't a male be able to play in a women's sports? Why would it be unfair for me to try out for the women's softball team, but when a baseball team doesn't want to play against a team with a girl on it, they get scrutinized? This "equality" that women are fighting for seems like a one way street.

Let me give you another more popular example. Female golfer Michelle Wie was a phenom since she was a teenager. She was thought to be so good that feminists and other supporters believe that she should compete on the PGA Tour (top men's professional golf tour). At the time, she was competing on the LPGA (top women's professional golf tour), and because of all of the support she got, she got sponsor's exemptions to play in a couple of PGA Tour events (she missed almost every cut). The feminist movements worked, crossing the gender line that they believed leads to equality. But, once again, by their logic that men and women should have equal opportunity in men's and women's sports, why can't Tiger Woods play on the LPGA? Some may say that is ridiculous and unfair, but if there is such aforementioned gender equality in sports, then it should be fine and uncontested.

To me, this whole gender equality in sports issue seems to be a one way street. Women are able to compete in men's sports, but men aren't able to compete in women's sports. It just doesn't seem fair. The solution is to keep sports in the sections where they belong, men's and women's. I am completely for the equality in support for both men's and women's sports, and I think Title IX is fair and I support it as well. But things like what Sultzbach and Wie have done might be going a step too far.

Overschooled?

As May comes around I can't help but feel the end of the school year approaching. Only one more month of waking up at 6am and working from 8:40am-3:25pm, plus homework. Thats 6 hours 45 minutes of schoolwork, plus about 2 hours of homework everyday. So 8 hours and 45 minutes of every school day is spent working. Add that to 8 hours of sleep and 1 hour of preparing for school, we students only end up with 6 hours and 15 minutes to spend on our own (give or take). I may be alone on this, but I feel like school is taking up to much of our time, and I realize this during the summer when I have all the time in the world to explore my actual interests.

So I raise the question, are we being schooled too much? In my opinion, I think so. My life literally revolves around school as it takes up the most time in my day for 9 months of the year, and I have been in classes for the past 11 years. Because of this ridiculous amount of schooling, I am heavily leaning toward taking a gap year, but thats a different subject (see: To Consider a Gap Year by myself). After reading what I have written so far, you may completely disagree, but bear with me. I have a couple ideas of how to reduce the schooling and stress that comes with it, allowing students to truly explore their interests, not what the school wants them to be interested in.

Two day weekends feel short to me, so whenever we get a Monday or Friday off any reason at all, I become ecstatic. The weekend feels so much longer, and I am actually able to catch up sleep that I may have lost during the week I spent doing schoolwork. What if we extend the weekend to include Friday? Having 3 days to spend as we wish would be a considerable change, and I feel that schoolwork would improve because students wouldn't be as stressed or overworked as they are now.

The other solution (which I feel would be a much better idea), would be to completely eliminate homework. Students (especially at New Trier), end up with 3-4 hours of homework every once in a while, and that astounds me. That is basically as if we extended the end of school from 3:25pm to 7:25pm. Are you kidding me? That leaves nearly 3 hours of free time per night, and then you have to wake up early to do it all again. Eliminating homework would solve this problem. Once school ends for the day, the student would be able to relax and spend time doing things that they enjoy. In a book by Nancy Kalish and Sara Bennet, they write " [Homework] robs children of the sleep, play, and exercise time they need for proper physical, emotional, and neurological development. And it is a hidden cause of the childhood obesity epidemic, creating a nation of 'homework potatoes'." I couldn't agree more.


Now, in respect to length of the this post I will conclude it by saying this. I haven't done much research about what I have said above, but as a student at a very competitive school like New Trier, I feel my opinion is as valid as anyone else, and I hope that some change occurs by the time my children go through the school system to make them enjoy it more and develop their interests naturally.