Writing Strategies Blog

Waking up at 6:15 in the morning is never fun. That's particularly why when I wake up at 5:40 a.m. I feel even worse. Blindly climbing down from my loft, I try not to wake my sister as I also skillfully avoid the ceiling light that I hit half of the time. Make that most of the time. I trudge sleepily through the hallway; I try not to step on the floorboards that I know will squeak, groan, crack, or a combination of the three. Usually I don't succeed and my mom calls out quietly to be more careful. I walk to the bathroom sink to wash my face and as I wipe off the water I look in the mirror and think how much I wish I could crawl back into bed. It all starts out innocently enough before it turns into a vicious cycle. Waking up Monday morning early isn't so bad because you were most likely resting a little over the weekend. You come home after sports, clubs, or whatever and put off your homework, mind somewhere else, for a while. Soon it's nine o' clock and you are a little worried. But hey, that paper's not due until Friday, so you put it off for tomorrow. Wake up tired, go to school, come home and find out that your friend won tickets to a basketball game so you go. You come home a little late but finish your work and put off the paper for one more day. Wednesday seems like the worst day to get up, but you do it anyway and go to school. Same routine and you come, laden with books and papers, home to find out that your favorite show is having a five hour marathon. You pop some popcorn and let school troubles fade away. Zzz... You wake up at 10:30 a little confused as to where you are when you remember your homework and finish around 11:30. We all know that late-night, school the next day feeling, and right now you are feeling it. You go to bed exhausted. Waking up on Thursday is gross, but you tell yourself that Friday is only one day away, to hold on. Almost leaving, your teacher yells not to forget the ten page paper due tomorrow. You stop in your tracks and groan. We have all had this scenario play out in our own lives, and have hopefully learned from it. I believe we should stop this from ever happening again though. We should take what we have learned and voice it: no papers due at the end of the week ever! Yell it from the rooftops. Some say that it is our own fault for blowing off the paper, but I believe that our well-being of mind should be important too. We have to have enough sleep, yet still have social lives and hobbies while adding a little school. Long assignments at the end of the week just increase stress and make people sad. Maybe, just maybe teachers have social lives too, and on the off chance that they do, they might sympathize with our complaint. They most likely don't like grading the long papers, yet they still assign them, so here's a solution: don't assign them! Young high schoolers are still growing and need a lot of sleep, so adding homework endangers their health. It would be so much better for all if we just got rid of papers and assignments. It would help the environment, the economy, and probably world peace too if we had more time to help the earth, work, and promote peace, but alas we have that terrible assignment due on Friday. 'Tis truly shame.

Food for a Thought...

How many of you daily buy the lunches that the school provides? Though cheaper and more efficient than brown-bagging it everyday, is the quality of the meal the same as what you could make and bring yourself? To be honest, the school food often looks appalling to me, and not at all nutritional. Processed potatoes with condensed meat-based gravy? Yuck. Though some of the food is bearable, like the pizza, almost none of it is health conscious. Yes, Stevenson offers some healthy alternatives like salad and fruit, but most schools don't have that luxury. They are forced to purchase the cheapest and largest quantities of food that they can serve to their students, often processed, soaked in high fructose corn syrup, and/or frozen to be microwaved. And parents are left wondering why the obesity rate of children is quickly rising. Is this the kind of example we want to be giving to the children and teenagers that buy lunch? All these artificial additives and preservatives we put in our foods are perfectly fine and eating your fresh vegetables and fruits aren't important? I think that if we want to have a healthier generation, it should start in the school, where kids learn not just math, reading, and science, but habits they will have for life.

There is a blog that I am following that addresses this exact issue: http://fedupwithschoollunch.blogspot.com/. It follows a teacher that uses the pseudonym Mrs. Q as she eats the food that the school she works at serves everyday for a year. It includes pictures, descriptions, and is a very interesting read. I would recommend anyone who is intrigued to read, because like stated before it is very interesting and really makes you think about what we are really doing to make an impact on kids' health and their lives.