Did blogging help my junior theme?

Looking on Bolos/O'Connor's blog, I spotted something interesting on the del.icio.us page. It was an article titled Blogging Helps Encourage Teen Writing. It talks about how having a blog is beneficial to writing. The survey was conducted by Pew Research and "teen bloggers, however, write more frequently both online and offline, the study says." Blogs can not guarantee that a teenager's writing skills improve, but it does prove that we write more. Blogging is also beneficial because it helps bridge that gap between formal and informal writing. The article says things like ;), LOL, and <3 have crept into formal writing. Blogging is also good because teens can write about whatever they want. They are not writing for a school assignment (mostly) so there is no pressure. It is a form of creative writing instead of a research paper for instance. Another reason blogs are so popular is because teens like writing for an audience. Around February, I added the Visitors to my Blog application with the blog. Recently, a bunch of hits popped up and I have around 15 hits from around the country. I think it's really rewarding that people who I've never met from places I've never been want to read what I have to say. Overall, I love the blogs, and AiS classes should do them next year. =)

Parenting?

Today on CNN there is an article called 8 Ways to be A Happier Mom. It talks about how a mother with a child under the age of three is moody and a strain on the emotions. Although this article is interesting, it got me thinking about parenting in general. There is so much information out there about parenting. When I plug "parenting" into Google, i get 87.9 million results. But who is a real authority on parenting? And is there a right way to parent? Trying to find the answer to these questions, I found this article called Shortcuts: How to be a Parent. This article touches on how to be a "modern" parent. With so many options, you could mold your kid to do acting, karate, piano, basketball, painting, singing or whatever you want. This idea is very scary. In the past, kids were left on their own to play outside and walk to school. Now kids have schedules and commitments. The first notion that changed this was Dr. Spock. He was a pediatrician, but he didn't even have children. When he married his second wife, he had a stepdaughter who was already 11 at the time. So other than his medical experience, what gave his knowledge to write his book? Why did thousands if not millions of women trust him when it came to raising a child if he never did? I think, when having a child, you should trust your instincts and know that you're going to mess up sometimes. I wouldn't listen to other people because every child is so different.

Train Tracks

Before today, I never really thought of thought of train tracks as a marker of social class. I knew that Winnetka's tracks were below ground, and I always just assumed it was because they didn't like the noise or the sight of the train. I never knew the whole story. But when we were discussing it in class, I realized that it is a very obvious marker of social class. Seeing a big ugly train roll through your town everyday blowing the horn very loudly is unwanted. In a small rural town, people probably wouldn't think much of it. But in Winnetka, the train was a nuisance. When I was sitting in class, a story I heard on the news struck me. It was about a two year old autistic boy in Gary, Indiana who crawled away from his mobile home and was hit by a freight train thats tracks were right behind the house. Here is the link. As tragic as this is, it is a marker of social class. Because the circumstances are different, I don't think something like this could happen around the North Shore. Most people in the North Shore don't live within crawling distance of a train. It would be disruptive and I don't think people from around here would put up with it.

Class System Globally

In class, we've been discussing class a lot lately. But what if, instead of a class system in America, there was a global class system with each country representing a person. For example, would America be upper class? What about Mexico, the country right below us? Even with their close proximity, would they be lower class? What about China? They come from poverty, but they are on the rise. Would they be fulfilling the "American dream" of moving from one class to a higher one?

I think that if we looked at class from a global perspective, many things are the same as the class system in America. One example mentioned today in class would be how the rich can avoid the poor. In Great Gatsby, the ash-area is right next to the eggs, but the rich are never really exposed to it. If the world had a class system, I think America would ignore Mexico or try to separate itself from the poverty in central America and the Caribbean as much as possible. We do this even today. Americans may see a clip on the news about a hurricane in the Caribbean, but then switch channels and completely forget about it.


But would American claim itself as "middle class" as most upper class people tend to do? I think we would because there are certain responsibilities with being on top such as providing affordable health care to other countries. By not admitting we are on the top, we would avoid these responsibilities.

Another aspect of the class system is happiness. According to Newsweek, we are the 23rd most happiest country. Here is the list:


Country: population, life expectancy, GDP per capita
1. Denmark: 5.5 million, 77.8 yrs, $34,600
2. Switzerland, 7.5 million, 80.5 yrs, $32,300
3. Austria, 8.2 million, 79 yrs, $32,700
4. Iceland, 300,000, 80 yrs, $35,600
5. Bahamas, 303,800, 65.6 yrs, $20,200
6. Finland, 5.2 million, 78.5 yrs, $30,900
7. Sweden, 9 million, 80.5 yrs, $29,800
8. Bhutan, 2.3 million, 55 yrs, $1,400
9. Brunei, 380,000, 75 yrs, $23,600
10. Canada, 33 million, 80 yrs, $34,000


23. America, 303 million, 78 yrs, $46,000



Of all these countries, America has the highest GDP. Yet we are #23. Bhutan, the poorest country from the list, is 15 places higher. This once again proves that money does not equal happiness.

Kent State

Yesterday, May 4th, was the 38th anniversary of the Kent State shootings. For those of you who don't know the history behind it, here's a brief overview. On May 4th 1970, students on the Kent State campus were protesting the American invasion of Cambodia. People feared it would turn into a violent protest so the Ohio National Guard was brought in. The national guard ordered the crowd to disperse, but instead, the students threw rocks at the soldiers. The soldiers began to advance, and shots were fired. After the chaos died down, four people were pronounced dead and nine were wounded. Two of the students killed were participating in the protest, but the other two were walking from one class to the next. Although this event may seem like a long time ago, it is relatively recent in America's history. The Vietnam War was something our parents' generation fought to end. When I look back at the 60s, I think it was a great and terrible time to live. Everyday people were protesting and making a difference. This makes me wonder about our generation today. What are we doing to make a difference? It's not that we haven't had the opportunity to. The Iraq War today is very similar to Vietnam, with the exception of the draft. The president used indirect means to invade. War was not officially declared by the Senate. The war today does not have public support. But there are no large Iraq War protests. Students at colleges across the nation are not staging rallies. There is no large movement to protest. I'm not trying to advocate dissent. I just think our generation should step up and work to make our world a better place.

Baby Names

This week, when I got my local newspaper there was an article that interested me. It talked about the trends in baby names. It also related with the discussions on social class we've been having. The article reviewed the top baby names in America in the past four decades. One aspect of baby names is the way the media can influence them. For example on the TV show Friends, Rachel named her baby Emma. In the next two years, the name Emma exploded.
Another aspect of the baby names is the way class plays into what name you choose. For example, In Gatsby, when Nick listed all the names of the guests in Gatsby's house, they were not very average names. They had a certain air to them, and they were not common names. This is also true with celebrities today. Babies of celebrities are getting names like Apple and Suri; not really names you think of off the top of your head.
Now the interesting thing is that names have a tendency to trickle down the economic ladder. The name Amber for instance, started out as a upper class name. But over the next ten years, it trickled down and became a pretty common name for anyone to name their baby. Will names like Apple and Suri trickle down?