This Is Sickening

This morning I awoke to Mike and Mike in the Morning. During their breaks, Sports Center has 2 minutes to spit out all of the Chicago sports team's scores. However, instead of scores, the first thing the man on the radio barked that Derrick Rose had someone else take his SAT for him so he could get into Memphis. I think that this is an overlooked blow to Memphis, U of Kentucky, NCAA basketball, the NBA, and even the Bulls. There's no excuse for a substitute to take a test for anyone else, no matter who it is! Is anyone supposed to be above the law? NO! Is Derrick Rose an immortal god? NO! There is no reason at all that both he and his former head coach should not be penalized, fined, and suspended to the fullest extent for this type of infraction. Academic Integrity is more important than Athletic Integrity any day of the week. This is an insult to all of the basketball world and reinforces this sport as the most corrupt sport in America.

When I Read

When I read a book, I want to read for the story and not pick apart the story. I'm very much enjoying Gatsby, but every class we talk about the book, I feel like we tear the book apart to the point where it is no longer fun reading the book. I know that in English class, we are supposed to read critically, but to me it tears the book apart when we shred away the story and look more for meanings than understanding the novel. We look for every parallel, contrast, symbol, and foreshadowing meaning we can. To me, it ruins the book because people start making predictions about the story and then the book is not fun anymore. When we read Huck Finn, to me, it seemed like a more relaxed read and that there was not much reading into the story as it was making sure everyone understood what happened in the last few chapters. I'm fine with saying that "this" represents "X" and "that"represents "Y," but I really do not want to read into the book so far that I can see the fibers that make up each page. I want to see a story for what it is and not making interpretations for what "opening a window" means. In the end, I think that some connections that have been made are very far fetched and have started to make Gatsby very undesirable to keep picking up.

The Last Full Week

Well here we are. This last full week will be the hardest week due to the amount of work that we will receive in the next few days for a last-minute boost to our grades. I'm not sure how to react to the upcoming summer. I mean, we've been in school for so long and have learned a lot, but we haven't had a lot of time to ourselves. How will you respond to all of the free time you are about to receive? I'm definitely looking forward to turning off my brain and not looking at the world critically for the next seven weeks. Honestly, through the whole school year, I haven't understood the meaning of looking through the world critically. I just look for what can be improved. I'm not a huge "why"question asker or thinker. Don't get me wrong, I do have my moments of brilliance, but I just don't see myself asking why to people all summer long.

Why Are We Still In This?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

A couple days ago in Iraq, an American soldier, from Texas, opened fire and killed five other American soldiers. The U.S. Army has announced that this is the single deadliest soldier-to-soldier conflict since the initial mistake of invading Iraq. I don't understand why this happened. I mean, he was at a mental health clinic in Baghdad and they let him have a gun! Is our army stupid or something?! When a junkie checks themselves into a rehab facility, do the doctors let him keep the drugs? NO! Secondly, according to the New England Journal of Medicine, one in six soldiers come home with post-traumatic stress syndrome. In addition, many of these people, such as this killer, didn't receive help which he clearly needed. I strongly believe that we have made matters worse for us in the middle east and that we have destroyed Iraq and it will only be rebuilt by the Al Queda. In the end, this is truly a disaster that could have been avoided.

My Flag

While playing sports when you grow up on the north shore of Chicago, you start to accumulate ribbons and trophies and other memorabilia of seasons that you have played on different teams. So what does this have to do with the flag being important to me? I saw a documentary on the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team and realized how much the U.S. needed to win that game to pick up American spirits. I have these medals hanging just inside my room and whenever I see them, I think of that great game which boosted our pride in America and started to throw us into the America of today.

I truly love these medals. To me they mean more than any trophy I have received over my years. The ribbon makes me feel as if I'm out there on the ice with the 1980 team because of the American "red, white, and blue" on it. However, like I have said in class, though I don't have any pictures of it, when I see the full American flag, there's only one thing I think about and that is the firefighters raising the flag over the wreckage of 9/11. I feel mix emotions of happiness that this flag has brought to people, but sad because I know what terrors this flag has flown over like 9/11. 

On a different note, when I have traveled to different countries, I notice that there are still more American flags per square feet on the little patch of land that is the U.S. embassy than the surrounding country has in its entirety. I'm not sure what it is with Americans and our flag, but we seem as though we just cannot get enough of it! Next thing you know, people will be sleeping with their flags. Seriously though, U.S. citizens take so much pride in the stars and stripes that it makes me feel proud of this country, that we can all agree on one thing, we have a pretty cool flag.

Today in class, we talked about the American Flag and what it means to us. When Walt brought up the O'Reilly Factor, he said, and supported the statement that we should support the government no matter what they do. I think I may have blogged about this subject before, but I cannot even begin to agree with this statement to say the least. You see, our country was formed on disagreeing with our mother country, England. You cannot tell me with a straight face that we should blindly follow our government into anything and anywhere just because "if you disagree with what your government is doing, you're unpatriotic." That's just not true. If people believed this in the 1770's, we would all not be here today. Also, people that truly believe this statement truly fall in the category of a communist because in communist countries, you cannot speak your mind. In addition, our country was also founded on debate so why should we discontinue debating on our government? We shouldn't and this statement is out of line and very foolish. END OF STORY!