Trick or Treat

In the spirit of Halloween there will be many of kids out trick or treating with an array of costumes. I can remember most of my Halloweens but there is always one that sticks out or has a special meaning. The Halloween that meant the most to me, was the year I turned 8.

There was a Cinderella costume at Wal-Mart that i just had to have. For weeks i stared at that costume dreaming about what i would look like and how much candy i would get. One day while we were at Wal-Mart I decided to pick up the costume and put it in the basket. When we got to the line my mom didn't put the costume on the belt. I didn't understand what she was doing and instantly I became angry. I couldn't understand how she didn't have the money for something that I wanted.

For weeks i stayed angry until i got what I wanted. Now that I think about it, is a costume really that important? Does America glorify holidays and other events to make money and market things to children. Are the corporations making kids impatient or are the parents just not raising their kids like they need to?

Friends

Do you ever stop and think about what you used to do as a kid? The games you used to play and the people you used to play with. When you are a child you never know that the people you meet on the play ground will become friends for a lifetime. My best friend Kiah is one of the people that I never thought I’d be friends with. We would always disagree and she never liked to play the games that I wanted to play. As the time went on we learned more about each other and discovered we were just alike.

Friends have a way of making you feel good when you’re down and they can help you through any situation. I think the one the things that are essential in life are friends. To have someone you can talk to and tell anything is one of the best feelings in the world. Friends are the people you go to whne your family doesn’t listen. Your friends are there for you to tell your deepest secrets to and tell everything and anything to. Friends are like an extension of yourself.

As I was searching through my food this morning something in particular just stood out to me. As I surveyed everything out one food particular stood out. I had 5 boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch staring me in my face. Its been my favorite cereal since I was little and I feel as though I’m growing apart from it. I think me growing apart from my favorite cereal is a metaphor for pulling away from the things in my child hood: riding bikes, throwing rocks in the lake, or just playing outside for hours.

When you grow up there is always things you leave behind and I feel that since coming to college I have left a lot of things behind and my growth has been steady. Does college make you grow up? Does the influence of a range of ages in the same place that you are influence you to become more mature? I believe that college has its way of making you into a more mature person without your noticing it.

As I was reading articles from an old news paper one article in particular caught my eye. There was an article on the role of women and how working was a “man’s” job. As I read deeper into the article I realized that women had no authoritative role in the 50’s and 60’s. Women were supposed to clean , cook, have children, and cater to their husbands.
I began to think what if the same ideas that acceptable back then were still in place today? What if women were no allowed to work and had to stay home? Personally, I wouldn’t be satisfied being a house wife. What about the women who has dreams of having a big professional career and children later?
Does being a mother means that you can’t follow your dreams? Does being a woman mean that you are not excepted in the corporate world? Aren’t women’s dreams and aspirations just as important as men’s?

I used to think that once I turned 18 things would be different. I used to think that I would be an adult and I wouldn’t have to depend on my parents. As I sat back and defined the word adult I began to see that the title was more than I could handle at 18. Being an adult entitles much more than being called “legal” by the government. An adult is one who takes on responsibilities and is able to take care of themselves without assistance.
The day I turned 18 and the title adult was given to me I was elated. I could go in the store buy tobacco products, lottery tickets, and sign for my own tattoos. I was truly an adult is what I thought. One never bodices what it takes to be an adult until things start to change.
For the first time ever I had bills coming in my name, credit card lenders trying to get a hold of me, and now I was responsible for myself. It made me wonder are you really an adult at 18? I wasn’t able to take care of myself on my own but by the governments standards I was an adult. So should the definition of an adult be redefined or should the age when you are legally an adult be moved?

A topic that has been grabbing my attention for some time now is the issue of defining academic success. In America ones level of intelligence is characterized by test scores. Often bright students get overlooked because their test scores do not show that they are "smart" enough.

I believe that tests are a way to generalize students and not focus in the different techniques and learning styles that each student may have. A student who scores a 1600 on the SAT may bee seen as smarter or more intelligent than the one who scores a 1200. What happened to recognizing individual learning styles? It seems that American education wants to generalize everyone so that every ones learning style is the same.

Is it fair to say that someone who has more math and science skills is smarter than one who has more creative skills? Is is fair to say that a student who takes AP classes and scores high on the test is smarter than the student in the "regular" class?

I believe that America is so caught up in the image of being smart and trying to show academic superiority that they forget what's most important. Everyone has different learning styles and to say that one student is better than the other because they test well or learn differently to me, is bogus. 

what do you think?

Have you ever thought about the words racist and prejudice? Many people use them interchangeably without stopping to think if the words really have different meanings. I believe that there are many differences between the words prejudice and racist. Each word defines a different type of hatred for a people or certain group.


The word prejudice comes from the idea to pre-judge. If someone is prejudice I believe that they have hatred towards a certain group because of pre-existing stereotypes or thoughts. You can be prejudice against a certain group because for so long that group has proven to live up to their stereotype. Take for instance a white person being prejudice against a black person. Many stereotypes against black people especially black men in particular are that they are angry, violent, and aggressive. Their prejudice against black men is based on what has been broad casted and known as the "norm" for so long. Therefore people pre-judge and have hatred or dislike towards a certain group.


Being racist or racism is a term for pure hatred. There is no prejudgment or stereotyping involved in racism. Racist people display hatred on another group just because of their outside. An excellent example of racism is the Klu Klux Klan. The Klan is a racist group that displays hatred for those whose skin color is not white. There form of hatred can be classified as racism because their is no prejudgment in mind. Racism is a form of hatred that requires no thought.


So my question is do you think that racism and prejudice should be used interchangeably or are they two completely different words with separate meanings?

Dreams

Dreams are something that everyone has sometime in their life. Dreams take many different forms and can be about a range of topics. As I slept he other night I dreamt something that was very disturbing. I dreamt that my grandfather had been killed and that I was the only able to prove who could have killed him. As the dream played out in my head it began to surface in my "real" life. As I woke up tears filled my eyes and my pillow was soaked. As i reminded myself this was only a dream, i went back to sleep in hopes that my next dream would not bring such horror. Low and behold the within the next hour i was up again tears filling my eyes. How could something so fake become so real? Many times i have asked myself this question. Are dreams for shadowing what is to come in the future? Was my dream letting me know that trouble was headed my way? I don't understand how something like a dream; which is often seen as a past time when sleeping have such real effects on a person. So my question is, where is the cut off line between a dream and reality or are they one in the same?