Do You Feel Safe Yet?

Last year in one of my English classes, modern lit, we had to write about a "hot" issue. I wrote about the school IDs which they now make "mandatory" to wear. And last night or the night before, I was looking through all of my old homework on the computer, and I found it and am particularly proud of it (mostly), so I thought I would share. My dashes represent the school name, btw.

For the safety of the students? Yeah right.

As you walk through the halls of ------- High, what strikes you the most? The well-kept building? No. The school-spirited students? No. The amazing teachers? No again. How about campus security stopping students to demand, "Where's your ID?" Yes, yes I do believe that's it. The students being badgered all day about those little plastic cards with a picture. And why? To keep our school safe, of course.

Because those little IDs really cut down on school violence, don't they?

One Wednesday morning, actually, I was stopped by one of the deans. Where's your ID? In my pocket. Put it on.

Lesson number one: ------- wants you to be miserable. I was in a good mood that day, my morning had gone really well and I was just headed to hang out with friends, so apparently I agreed with a little too much enthusiasm. He immediately turned around, "That's it! Come to the dean's office right now!"

"But I'm putting it on..." Which was probably the first time I'd put it on since school started.

"I don't care, come on!" I went, because the fight wasn't worth it to me, but later when my parents found out, they were pissed. At the school. For punishing me while I was complying. They even came down to talk to the deans and try to fight it, but to avail.

Because according to district policy, students must display ID cards at all times on school grounds and at school activities. If they don't, warning first, then lunch detail, Wednesday school, and finally suspension. But anyone refusing to wear their ID won't care about having to pick up trash during their off hour. And a suspension would be welcomed for a chance to sleep in.

The main problem, however, is this: I wasn't caught for easily a month and a half into school. For that long I had been not wearing my ID. Aren't these supposed to make you safe by preventing strangers from roaming the halls? Granted, I'm not a stranger and I do attend -------, but that's a full month and a half that I would've been free to attack the school. And there are some students who still haven't been caught without IDs.

Do you feel safe yet?

It's not even just those not wearing IDs. Some students simply don't like their picture, so they cover it with stickers, effectively turning the ID to a random piece of plastic. Other students switch IDs with opposite sexes, even with other school's students. A complete stranger could come to the school with a lanyard and a random plastic card, and they're in.

Do you feel safe yet?

The problem doesn't even need to go outside our own school. Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't Harris and Klebold students at Columbine? Couldn't they have shot up their school just as easily while wearing their IDs on a school-issued lanyard?

Do you feel safe yet?

If we all wear our IDs, does that honestly make the school a safer place? Maybe our time should be spent learning about not discriminating and accepting others' differences instead of being wasted by wondering where our IDs are. Maybe, for once, the school should focus on winning the war, not the battle.

Happy Friday the 13th

This is me spilling salt on the ground to celebrate. We also broke a mirror, and stepped on many cracks. Unfortunately, we failed to find a ladder to walk under and a black cat to have cross our path. Oh well, there's always May 2011.

And no worries, we made sure we got the glass from the mirror all swept up.

Don't worry, we have a pocket knife. And an Indian.

So, as I'm sitting here reading an awesome new blog, I really want to tell someone about it, but I got the awesome new blog off of MJ's blog, and so pretty much everyone already knows about it.

But then I realized that I've got a few of my own friends, (a whole 1 person comes to mind) and so everyone should check out this new blog :)

And since I stole that from MJ and the majority of the people reading this probably already know about it, I'll tell you about our hike we went on really quick. Last Tuesday, I wanted to hang out with some of my friends and do something awesome and free, so we went hiking in Boulder. It's this random little place, but it was really pretty. It's 3 miles up and 3 back, and it runs along a little river. And we saw a lady on a horse coming down the trail as we were going up. It was really pretty.

We didn't get a chance to get to the top, though, because Ally had to get back home by 2 or something, but we're gonna try to go up again sometime in September or maybe October, so I'll let you know how it turns out. :D

I gave Sara a pine cone, which she later threw into the river.

It looks kinda like we're standing on a green screen or something, but we're actually standing on a little ledge on the side of the mountain.

Looks like someone left an offering for the Gods.

We didn't actually see a mountain lion, no worries.

James Bond meets Matrix

So Inception was really good. It blew my mind on many levels, and I think I wanna go see it again. Just so you all know.

I haven't heard anyone say that they didn't like it, either. Except for Alli, but it was a little over her head.

We went to see it for Sara's birthday, and her parents paid for all of us, which was really cool, but it was a really good movie. There weren't too many "slow parts" and the parts that were less action-y weren't boring. So, I recommend seeing it. There's nothing after the credits, though. So you don't have to wait there all sadly, hoping they'll throw in something else to blow your mind.
Haha.

Shadow of the Game

In case anyone doesn't know, my favorite book ever is Ender's Game. I have read it 6 or 7 times in the past 4 and a half years. We read it for class earlier this year, actually, and I had read it more times that the teacher had. I know the story front to back, and I could probably tell you every detail about it, if you asked. I have a hard back copy of it which I've underlined things in it and boxed off passages of it. It's (probably more than) a little crazy of me.

Regardless, Ender's Game has a parallel novel- Ender's Shadow. And Ender's Shadow has it's own little series, which I've been reading for the past few weeks.

So, that being said, this post will make more sense if you've read the Shadow Series, and if you haven't, there are slight spoilers, because this post is about why I don't really like the series.

I mean, I think the story line is alright, but I wouldn't read any of these books again. I really didn't like how Bean will be sitting there thinking about possible solutions to a problem or something, and he'll get a random and stupid idea that he'll tell himself can't possibly be true, but deep down he knows it's right. And it is. And this all happens fairly instantaneously. I know he's a super-genius and whatever, but it still seems lame.

But I think the thing I like least about this story line is that it was written years after Ender's Game was, and when Card wrote Ender's Game, he didn't really plan to have a parallel novel and series to go with it. So in Ender's Game, Bean is just a little kid, who is also smart. And Peter didn't get into Battle school because he was too dangerous and aggressive. And Ender's parents didn't have any idea that Valentine and Peter were actually Demosthenes and Locke (although I think that's unlikely, that they'd have no idea).

[[these are my slight spoilers]]
That's how the story actually goes, the end. But in the parallel series, Bean is actually genetically altered, and his condition is going to make him a giant someday. And Peter didn't get accepted because he's not lovable. And the Wiggin parents knew everything all along, they just didn't want to hinder the progressions that Peter and Valentine were making with the world.

I think that if you want to write sequels to your books, that's fine and I hope they do well, but I firmly disagree with altering the original story so you can have your sequels still fit in well with the story. Maybe if you had to change it so much, you should've just written a different story.

And you could argue that there's premises that are vital enough to each story, that Card could've have written the both and not have them come from the same original story, so in effect, Ender's Shadow is the "different story" for Ender's Game. But if that's the case, then I think it was stretching it a little too far to say that Peter wasn't too aggressive for Battle school, since that's actually a really important detail in Ender's Game.

Mmm. Maybe it's just me.