Because Conformity is Overrated.

In a society that forces both individuality and conformity down our throats, it's no wonder the two are starting to look the same. Everyone tries to sever the similarities with the previous generation, spitting out a new trend to follow, a new disease, a new slow way to poison yourself and still be cool while doing it. We're all slaves to the trends of our peers. We fight for the freedom to speak our minds, but when we open our mouth we don't have anything new to say, anything radical or individual. Why? We're facing the same problem generations before us have faced. In an effort to be an individual, and still be accepted, we thrive on labels. Bisexual. Straight. Gay. Male. Female. Athlete. Normal. Freak. They're unavoidable. Every single time we're asked to describe ourselves, we mumble out the same paragraph people have been reciting for years. We try to make ourselves seem better, stand out, but we're really just conforming to another group: the anti-conforming conformers.
Individuality is overrated. In an attempt to be an individual, you end up conforming to a group of non-conformists. Individuality isn't sold at hot topic, or in your lovely neighborhood urban grocer, or hidden under the 6 layers of eyeliner you cake on to make yourself feel better about your lack of motivation and your general discontent with life.
I have a dream started off one of the most inspirational and quoted speeches of the previous generation. Those four words are something everyone should use at some point in their life. Perhaps your dream is something simpler than ending racism and world hunger, but there's nothing more pure then the desire to achieve something. Perhaps I'm a simple person. All I aspire to do is to be accepted for who I am, and not have my opinions disregarded because of some close-minded bias someone has against women, gays, or anything else they feel the need to judge me based on.
Everyone has something important to say, but in a world as busy and self-absorbed as ours, it's no wonder we're run by the media and government.

Swiss My Chalet

What are you afraid of?
Abnomal/unusual fears are usually called phobias.
For example:
Triskaidekaphobia - Fear of Triscuits
Consecotaleophobia- Fear of chopsticks
Peladophobia- Fear of bald people
Levophobia, Dextrophobia- Fear of the left, right side of the body
Commitmentphobia- Fear of relationship commitment.
Wait, what? A fear of committing to someone isn't irrational or unusual! After watching everyone around you make up, break up, cheat, lie and manipulate the hell out of every single one of their relationships, it's hard to imagine not havign some kind of bias towards them, and a fear that you'll be the one getting hurt instead of the one holding the axe.

Which would you prefer: my finger on the trigger or me face down across your floor?
Fewer words have ever been more confusing or contemplated. Now I'm not saying that Taking Back Sunday, however wonderful and philosophical they are should be written up in the New England Journal of Everything That Should be Thinked About But really, which would you prefer?
To be the one who betrays, or the betrayed? Which hurts less, however long or short term?

Or maybe you're like me, with no conscience to speak of. I'm not exactly known for my high moral values, and my responsibility. I'm more widely known for being impulsive, reckless, and insensitive. So what happens when the people like me find someone who accepts them, flaws and all, and is willing do do something extreme to ensure the relationship works? Recently I've been doing some self exploration (har har har) and getting to know my other personalities, and I realized I'm lucky. Because only half of me is souless, and the other half of me would like nothing more than to go Fightclub on my ass and take out my other side.

As lovely as that sounds, and as peaceful it would be to be a single person, it's a bit impractical to take a gun, shoot myself in the head(at a bad angle, I may add) and hope that magically I become a single, happy and functioning member of society, and an all around good person. So instead, since there isn't a "Take This and go do Marvelous Things With Your Life"pill, I'm going to satisfy my one personality until I can confidently say I'm a good person- while he waits for me, since he wants me to be happy.y, we need to do something to put an end to poverty before it puts an end to us.

With Baby Does Not Come Parenting.

Plenty of Fish. Facebook. We all know them, some of us love them, some of us live off of them. They're a wonderful networking tool for societ..blah blah blah.
They're amazing. We get it.
It has recently been brought to my attention that the large amount of money being made off of these sites is hugely increased by their complete lack of customer service. There is a member on both sites who's twelve and has been posing as a 20 year old, for a game of catch and arrest. Really, this girl could put dateline out of business with the amount of older men she gets and incriminates.

How...

* do I know this?
* can you confuse a twelve year old and a twenty year old?
* And most importantly, why should we give a damn what some irresponsible parents let their children do?


Because I said so. I have a very, very close friend who recently became a victim to her pof image. To be fair, it IS hard to imagine those innocent little twelve year olds in their pink fluffy dresses and ruby red shoes seducing older men just for the fun of it but sure enough, that's the case. I told my mother (obviously replacing my friend with an extended friend) and my sister pointed out there's a girl at her school who does the exact same thing. Being the curious person I am, I went to investigate her Facebook. Sure enough, she's got the typical "Myspace" down-the-top up-the-skirt shots, and a few nudes. To add to the fun, there right on her wall are boys a plenty, older then me calling her baby. Yeah, you would. After all, just a few short years ago she WAS a baby, and she's still in baby school.
My friend got off. Mainly because he didn't sleep with her, and also because the police officer shared that she's done it alot. Where the hell are this girl's parents?
At home, apparently, and totally aware and ignoring their daughter's behavior. Except for the dad, who routinely beats on the people who pick his daughter up and return her in one piece.
So I reported her. To both sites. With no results. Thank you for encouraging the "future" to engage in reckless and honestly, disgusting behavior.
*The organizations mentioned are in no way associated with under-aged sex/other pedophilic illegal behavior. They just don't do enough to stop it.

Birth Control For Dummies

The pill, depo-vera, the patch, the ring, IUD,etc. Women are rolling in an abundance of birth control options, yet many still rely on men to be the responsible ones in the situation. Men do the same. It's no wonder 17% of all sex results in pregnancy, most accidental, when you think of the amount of people taking it for granted. You miss a pill, the condom breaks, it's no big deal, noone really ever gets pregnant from something like that, Lisa told you so! And she knows everything! Canada is fortunate enough to not only be pro-choice, we're also pro(tection). Yet the majority of girls are misinformed about their chosen method of birth control. The most common and misused form of birth control is the pill. Some common misconceptions are:
So I missed a few pills. I'll just take them all today, and everything will be fine!
The pills are hormone-regulated to give a specifically calculated dosage for each day, to continue fooling your body into thinking it's pregnant. By skipping days, it throws your chemicals out of balance, and could actually increase the chances of you getting pregnant.
I'm on the pill! There is no way I could possibly get pregnant!
Most pills are only 99% effective. Certain other factors can lessen their effectiveness, such as other medications and vitamins you may be on.
I'm on the pill, and since I'm on my period, I don't have to worry about getting pregnant. You can't get pregnant on your period.
People who use the pill often think of it as a fool-proof safety net. It's a very common misconception that sex while on your period will not lead to pregnancy. It's still possible, which is why (along with other hygenic reasons) you should always use a second form of protection while on your period.
I can't catch anything, I'm on the pill!
For whatever reason, women think just because you're protected from pregnancy, you've developed some super amazing immunity to STI's, AIDS/HIV and a slew of other really bad things that you can catch when having unprotected sex with strangers.
Over the years, researchers have been making amazing progress in the ways women can prevent pregnancy through birth control. Up until very recently, there wasn't a lot of progress made into male birth control, aside from condoms and more permanent solutions. With that said, they are currently working on a male birth control pill which is taking some extended time to work out the kinks, such as the male remaining fertile afterwards, and resuming a normal level of fertility afterwards with no long term effects.
For years, women were labeled as the weaker sex. Forced to be housewives, and not do anything deemed as shameful, these new advancements in a womans control over her sexual encounters means we're one step closer to being completely out from under the glass ceiling. No longer are men the only people who rule our sex lives. We now have a say as to whether we use a form of birth control to prevent pregnancies, and for the first time since women got the right to vote, we've taken a huge leap to equal opportunities for everyone, on everything. Women have more choices, but men have an easier method. Women need to count days, get needles, or implants to ensure they don't end up in an unwanted situation. With more and more men becoming no-show fathers, women need every precaution they can to ensure they don't end up in a bad situation alone.
We've been blessed with the ability to choose our own futures. If we don't want children, we now have the power and the access to ensure that doesn't happen. If birth control was food, I think it would be comparable to sliced bread. Pro-Choice isn't just about being pregnant, it's about preventing it too.

Poverty is the New Black

“Call now. Your donation of only $1 a day will save the life of a whole family.” The media constantly pressures us to donate money to help the homeless and under-privileged people in third world countries. The ones where people are dying from things that are easily preventable. At least, in places like Canada and the US (ranked 6th and 8th according to the UK Telegraph's Top 20 Countries for Quality of Life) where medical treatment is affordable, and easily accessed.
But if our country is so amazing why is it that according to the 2001 Canada wide census, on any given day you can find roughly 14,000 people living in shelters, without fixed addresses, and almost half of them living in Ontario? Statistics show that poverty is on the the rise in Canada, yet our media focuses mainly on the despair of countries that are continents away. What is being done to help the homeless closer to home? Canada is fortunate enough to be holding the 2010 Olympics, where several photographers and other artists will be attempting to band together to produce set of nation wide prints showing the despair of homelessness. Ranging from people sleeping on the heating vents, to in the front doorways of stores in blizzards, all labeled around the general theme of the series: “Getting ready for the Olympics.”
Around important statutory holidays, the government and several small-town run food banks and charities collect donations, and food to feed the homeless and money strapped Canadians. Than, they disappear along with th holiday decorations, the trees discarded to the curb, and the rest put out of mind for another year. Thinking back, there are less than a handful of commercials that I can recall being used to raise awareness of our own poverty epidemic:
A bus driver drops a child off in front of their house, with their smiling family waiting on the step to greet the child. The screen cuts to the bus driver sleeping against the side of a building. A teacher smiles and waves goodbye to her children, and it flashes to her sleeping in her car. The end of the commercial reads “Homelessness isn't always obvious.”
A group of people are sitting around a table, with teens bustling around them with brown paper bags. The commercial was run by a small city based food bank which specializes in making sure students have lunches.
Our political groups always discuss tax cuts, and their plans to make things easier for Canadians, yet homelessness and poverty levels are drastically rising on a year-to-year basis, but poverty is still becoming a serious problem. More and more people are becoming fatally sick from causes that could be eliminated if the government actually took the time to come up with a real plan to help stop poverty in it's tracks. As it becomes more harder to afford basic necessities for a family, especially as a single parent, more and more people are relying on government assistance to help survive from paycheck to paycheck. Welfare used to be a thing of social disgrace. It was stereotyped as a last resort for the addicted, or generally dirty lower class citizens. But as more companies are forced to slash their employee numbers to cover basic funds, it's becoming more of a mainstream thing, and much more accepted. People from every walk of life find themselves losing their jobs, their homes, and occasionally even their family. They try the best to provide for their families, but a child growing up as a government funded child is not a happy child.
At Southwood alone, there are very noticable differences between the people who come from the perfect families with money to feed and clothe their children in designer labels, and the students who come to school with the same clothing, and don't eat lunch because their welfare check didn't come in on time. They're the people who skip school to get a part time job, so their families aren't as stressed out financially, and instead end up severely damaging their education.
Poverty is noone's fault, but it's something that effects everyone on some level. As a country, we need to do something to put an end to poverty before it puts an end to us.

High School Lover

High school is supposed to be about finding yourself. Who are you? Where are you going in life? Are you a leader, or a follower? It's about becoming an individual, with your own thoughts, values, morals, and setting yourself above the rest. Graduating year is a rat race against your friends, in an attempt to get into the best school possible for the career you've chosen.
Career you've chosen? Throughout the whole 4-5 years of high school, there is only one mandatory ½ credit career course that is supposed to magically point you in the direction you should be heading for the rest of your life. Other than that, you're stuck in a boat without a paddle. The counselors have no better knowledge of the industries than you do, and you're flailing about trying to make a life long change while trying to find yourself.
High school is supposed to be the first big step towards adulthood, the first lick of freedom. You get to chose your classes, go out for lunch, have your own personal locker. The people you come in with aren't necessarily the same people you leave with. The boy in your grade 8 math class that everyone picked on because of his size becomes the captain of the football team. The couple you were sure was going to be together forever because they were so great together breaks up because he discovers he prefers the company of other men. Your best friend, who never kissed a boy and wasn't going to until she got married drops out in grade 10 to have a baby on her own, because the dad is a deadbeat druggie she dated to spite her super strict parents.
How do you keep your head above water, when everything around you is threatening to swallow you whole? Term papers, exams, group projects, extra ciricular, it's overwhelming. More and more students are leaving high school just as confused as when they came in. They have no idea where they're going in life, and they're okay with that. Because we all can't be rocket scientists, and someone needs to fulfill the starving artist quota.
High school sucks at some point, for everyone. But some people go out of their way to make it hard on people, and some people can't handle it. Noone wants to be the bullied student who tried to get help and didn't get anywhere, so they got bullied worse. Noone wants to be the student who slips through the cracks and only resurfaces as that random 10th grader who committed suicide when really, noone meant any harm.
With all the holes in our school system, all the leaky faucets, it's not exactly the easiest environment to find yourself in. You ask questions that noone knows the answer to, and you think you're the only one worried about the future. It's almost like the whole staff if under some kind of confidentiality code, where everything is on a need to know basis. If people were more open, maybe there would be less confusion. Perhaps some people would be more open to the idea of talking about their problems, rather than resorting to more drastically permanent measures.
Maybe we could teach our students that homosexuality is okay. That being different is okay. That people get depressed, and people graduate all the time with no idea what they're going to do with their life. It's not the staff's job to instill basic morals and values into the students, but since they're the future, shouldn't we do what we can to help them get on the right path?

Not all Freedoms Observed

The past is never forgotten. As a Waterloo Region District School Board student, we're faced with the pressures of normal teenage angst. The pressure to succeed, find a good job, "be the best you can be".

A few years ago, the school board launched alternatives to daily schooling: online, evening courses, correspondence, all aimed to help "customize students for success".

Especially those who were struggling with normal high school. I feel I stand alone as one of the students who has tried to make the most of their experience, and hit a brick wall. For many students, the issue is not the mandatory subjects, it's the content.

Even with our "freedom to choose our electives", we are severely limited in the choices, and apparently, the quantity as well. Entering what I hoped would be a very busy final year, I approached my counsellor about taking on three more courses each semester, so I could graduate with my classmates.

I had hired a tutor, got parent support, as well as teacher support, ready to sign on the dotted line.

Instead, I had my self-confidence shot down, every error I made tossed into my face, and a suggestion that I was more than welcome to leave the high school, if I was so dissatisfied.

After several attempts to see what other choices I had, I was told that "I seemed unfit to handle the extra workload" and they didn't feel comfortable signing me up for another course.

Instead of graduating on time, I am now forced to graduate with students much younger than me, without the support of my school, because the past lives on in the future.

A lot of students make mistakes, fail courses. In fact, the Grade 11 applied English course has about a 73 per cent failure rate, the first time around.

I hope the other students who are trying to reconcile their past errors get better treatment and reception than I did.

Published on Sept. 09/08 in the Cambridge Times.