Something That Should Be Illegal

Following around celebrities and constantly taking pictures of them should be illegal. The paparazzi who do this are invading the privacy that everyone should be entitled to. Just because someone is famous doesn't mean you have a right to invade their privacy. For many celebrities, everywhere they go there are people watching their every move waiting for something embarrassing or scandalous to happen. Aside from it being very annoying to a famous person, it must cause a lot of stress worrying about how everything they do is seen and judged by the public. There have been many cases where celebrities lash out against a photographer when they go over the edge. All of the stress (and sometimes violence) can be avoided if always following celebrities and taking pictures becomes illegal. This would give a portion of the population back the rights that everybody else has. It will also deter many people from becoming to wrapped up or obsessed with the lives of celebrities, which is frankly just weird. Making this illegal makes so much sense and I'm surprised that it hasn't already been criminalized.

                               

A Selfish Complaint

School starts too early. Every morning, students everywhere reluctantly roll out of bed this early to get ready for school. It's not being awake at 7:25 that's bad, it's having to wake up at 6 to get ready for the day.  School should be pushed back one hour and start at 8:25. It will give everyone more time to sleep so everyone will be fully ready for the day when they wake up. It's well known that sleep is so good for you, so why not let students and teachers sleep in a little longer? It will get better results by learning and teaching and people would be less likely to doze off during class. It may be a selfish complaint, but I think that it would be really worthwhile.
                             

A Ridiculous Argument

The world is flat. Everybody knows it, yet everyone is afraid to admit it. After all, how many people have actually been in space to see that the world is round? A hundred? Surely not all 6 billion people in all that live in the world. Most people only go so far from where they grow up and never travel far enough away, so they would never know if the world is even round or not. Can anybody provide definitive evidence that the world really isn't flat? Probably not. People spent hundreds of years thinking that the world was flat. Who are we to say that they were wrong the entire time? Ancient civilizations were advanced in a variety of studies like math so why would they be so wrong about this one thing. Maybe it's the people who live today who are wrong. The world is flat, and it is only a matter of time before everybody realizes this once again.

A Difficult Conversation

The scene takes place at a very popular McDonald's restaurant. The manager at this McDonald's, Steve, needs to confront his employee Jimmy and give him some bad news.
STEVE: Jimmy, can you come into my office so we can talk for a minute?
JIMMY: Whatever you want, boss.
STEVE: Jimmy, we need to talk about the way you've been acting towards the customers recently.
JIMMY: Do you mean how I've been getting them their orders and how I need a promotion?
STEVE: No, Jimmy. I mean how you've been charging them more than their order so you can pocket some extra cash.
JIMMY: It's called a tip. It's common courtesy on their part.
STEVE: It's not a tip when they don't know about it. You've also been eating on the job and not taking orders right away.
JIMMY: Maybe if I got more than an hour lunch break than I wouldn't be hungry on the job.
STEVE: Listen, Jimmy, you can't be doing all this anymore.
JIMMY: I'm just doing what I need to do. When you're hungry, you're hungry. When you need some more money, you need some more money.
STEVE: We got to let you go, Jimmy. This has gone on for to long and there is no end in sight.
JIMMY: Fine. I'll just go to the Burger King across the street to get a job. It's not like McDonald's and Burger King talk to each other anyways. Later!

The Life of a Tree

I stand high above the ground. I am a witness to everything that happens around me. From the insects crawling around at my trunk to the majestic birds flying above my head, I see it all. As the wind blows my from left to right, my view of the world around me only continues to grow. Life on this earth changes so much day by day, and I am an eyewitness to it all.

I began as only a tiny seed, and grew into a massive body. My whole life runs in a continuous cycle. In the spring, I am hooded with hundreds and hundreds of green leaves. As the year moves on, however, these leaves wilt and fall off, leaving me defenseless against the forces of both nature and humanity. Year by year, this cycle continues until I can stand no more.

I rely on everything in my environment to survive. I need the sunlight, the water, and the carbon dioxide I breathe if I want my life to continue. It would only take me missing one of these important necessities for my life to end. At the same time, I am very important to everything in life too. I produce oxygen and make more seeds for more trees to grow. Everything in my environment is connected. Everything relies on one another to survive and thrive. Although the life of a tree may seem very simple, it is very complex and important to everything else in this world.

The Ingredients of Enthusiasm: An Inquiry

Enthusiasm can be created by a wide variety of different things. Many factors work together to create an enthusiasm for learning. Even though this is true, nothing is more important to creating enthusiasm than curiosity. Curiosity about something causes a person to to question it and want to learn more about it. A person will not stop questioning it until they finally get an answer, and the only way to get the answers is to learn. Children ask so many questions because they are very curious, which in turn makes them very eager to learn about whatever they are questioning. Curiosity is more likely to take place with interesting topics that students haven't already learned about. When students have to learn about something that they already know about, it eliminates all enthusiasm that they may have previous had for the topic. Enthusiasm for learning is sparked by curiosity, and without curiosity the enthusiasm can be virtually nonexistent.

An Experience with Courage

Courage is something that we all have experienced during the course of our lives. Although courage is not something we experience often, it is clearly recognizable when we do. There is always a handful of moments that you can recall someone showing courage in difficult situations. 

For me personally, I always remember my older sister when I think about courage. My sister was born with strabismus, which  is a condition where one eye is not correctly positioned with the other. For this reason, she had to get eye surgery to fix this when she was only twelve years old. Although she had lived with this condition her whole life, my parents decided it would be best to get rid of it permanently through surgery. My sister was very nervous and apprehensive when she first learned that she would be having the operation, as any kid would be. In the days leading up to the surgery, however, I distinctly remember her no longer being nervous. She was ready to take the situation head on and not be afraid. In the end, the surgery was successful and she was only left with a minor scar on her eye.

This experience really had an impact on me. It showed me both how powerful and beneficial showing courage can be. Going in to a hard time in life is much easier when you have the strength to show courage. Showing courage can also make others feel better about the situation. Even though this is a lesson I learned when I was very young, I will remember it for all of my life.