To protect and serve

       In my opinion it should be necessary for police officers to face equal consequences for taking the life of another as those who are not on the police force. There should also be increased training for officers on how to handle situations properly and cope with anxiety that causes them to see people as a threat, when they are not. I would place extra training as well as PTSD counselling staff into police forces to help prevent the idea that people are always posing a threat. This should be mandatory, as well as equal penalties for officers to prevent officers from feeling as though they are above the law and have liberty to do what they want without consequence.
      I feel as though while this may be controversial among enforcement officers, it will lead to less controversy over situations such as violence against unarmed innocent people and will help prove when there is a need for violence.

Facing the future

I feel that many of us, especially as high school students, often worry too much about the future and our past. We are still only teenagers who need to enjoy our time before becoming adults, yet many of us rush into it thinking that the future is the only thing that will lead to your happiness. If you worry too much you will not enjoy the time you have in this moment. Yet our society puts many hypocritical expectations on us, we have to go party and cause trouble, but we have to have the perfect grades, a job, do chores, all while still maintaining their social interactions because if you don't do these things you won't go anywhere in life. An over dramatic example of this is telling a kid in school that "if you lose your pencil you can't take the note, if you don't take the note you won't pass the test, if you don't pass the test your average goes down, if your average goes down you won't get accepted into post-secondary, if you don't get accepted to post-secondary you can't get a job, if you can't get a job you can't make money, if you can't make money you can't eat, and if you can't eat you starve to death, so don't lose that pencil!" It is absurd to place so much pressure, yes the future is important, but you make your own future, not other people with their expectations. 

Halloween Rant

Halloween was one of my favourite holidays as a child, and lately it seems to be less for the kids and more for teens and young adults who want an excuse to wear "sexy" costumes when they go out to drink and party. I think this is very sad because, as a child, it was the one night you could be anything you wanted to be, and this is becoming less popular with kids. Whether it is simply less kids in my neighbourhood or who want to participate, I only handed out candy to about ten children. When I was young, it seemed like the streets were packed with kids until nine or ten at night, no matter how cold or rainy it was. I wish that I could see this more among children these days, as it was always such a creative and fun holiday.

Poetry

     Poetry is an art form used to express feelings and emotions that are generally indescribable before put into personification, similes, and analogies. They bring light to certain ideas that we have not yet considered. Poetry is confusing, intellectual, and creative. It is the opportunity to tell a story without giving the history or the future, it is a fraction of the story that says something more than a story ever could. It is open ended but has a set message. It is an oxymoron that makes sense, an idea that has bloomed from the seed of creativity. I have learned to create poems more efficiently and freely, while harbouring certain ideas. I greatly enjoyed this unit because I felt it involved a more unique writing style than previous works.

Student Voice

      I personally do not believe that there is a way to meet your own needs while fulfilling the requirements of assignments in high school. We are told as students that we need to meet the expectations of our teachers, principals, and Board of Education. We are seen as numbers to most, and even those who know our names, do not truly know what we want or need in our lives. There may be assignments with open ends, or the option for creativity, however, many of these are rather stressful. Students are often concerned that their interests and how they convey information is not enough or that the teacher will not understand the explanation. It is almost as if you can follow your interests to a certain extent, but are forced to remove them from your personal life and turn them into something used to describe logic or be turned into some writing experiment where it will be picked at and edited until you do not even recognize it as the thing you loved.

      As for being managers of our education, that is not necessarily true until you enter post-secondary schooling; which can also be quite limited if you know which path you would like to take. In high school we are limited to courses due to the prerequisites, or mandatory courses. This does not even include the stress of needing courses for university or college, the panic of not doing well in them is even worse.  We do not have as much freedom as many think we do as adolescents. We are confined to the policies of schools, as if our life were meant to revolve around school and school alone, like a downward spiral of stress and work. There is never truly freedom in the work you do for others.

Our Generation

Quotation

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” 

― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing 
      Ray Bradbury was an author of many great short stories, novels, poems and many other literary works. He was a prolific writer who won awards, dealt with many pressing issues, such as censorship and the effects of TV on interest and creativity. He was hardworking and dedicated to his writing, publishing almost 30 books, 600 shorts stories and hundred of poems. 
      This quote is important to me because many people have dreams such as writing that they love and enjoy, but if they were to doubt that love, would have reality crush them with things such as "Writers don't make money." "You'll live in your parent's basement forever." and other negative things. It teaches us that we need to find our passion and never let that passion die and fade because of the harshness that reality brings. It represents another side of keeping your imagination alive.