Competition

The function of competition in our society today and even in the past has been to be at the top of the chain from everyone else by having a large amount of wealth. We see this in many companies and stores around the world striving to become the best at what they sell in order to gain the most wealth from others. Sometimes, there are companies like Blockbuster and Red Box that have competed to sell movie rentals; however, Red Box has become a lot more successful than Blockbuster is now on the verge of closing down. People may not see this as a big deal, but this shows how competition can get strong enough that it can bring down an entire company.
Competition for something is one of those things that has certain levels of healthy and unhealthy. For example, if a Cross Country race is about to commence for the CIF Championship, the competition for everyone to run as fast as they humanly possibly can is healthy because there is no cheating involved; however, if someone purposely injures another team’s runner for the advantage to win the race is unhealthy because not only was someone physically hurt in the race, but there was also cheating involved. Competition is not healthy once a person or a group of people are physically and/or emotionally hurt from the another or others, or vice versa. Only when someone is fair and does not hurt anyone or him/her own self in order to win, then competition is okay.

Back in Time

If I could go back in time and be someone in history, I would like to be Frederick Douglass. I understand that he was a former slave and lived a difficult life, however, if I could move as many abolitionists that he did in the North, then it would be worth it. He helped reveal the negativity of slavery to the blinded Northerners and influenced many anti-slavery groups to stand up against the pro-slavery people in the South. Therefore, since he brought slavery awareness to the North, he was able to influence Lincoln to end slavery after the Civil War. He was also a very intelligent man because of the way he learned how to read and write by asking little white children. Not only that but he was also able to escape with a well thought out plan and fortunately succeeded.
If I could make an enormous movement like he did at the time and succeed on helping the southern slaves to gain their freedom from their slave owners, then I would be able to die in peace and happy with myself on my great accomplishment. I would have actually done something for the world and be someone instead of being someone that did not do much. If I had that many followers that Douglass had and that much fame, I would have also tried to establish other movements in the world of issues that are occurring today like going green and volunteering in helping those in need.

Cell Phone Release

If I could introduce a material thing to a primitive culture, I would show them a cell phone. The reason why I would show them this is because a cell phone provides a much greater communication system nowadays for everyone. This would save them a lot of time from sending messages through a letter or having to walk long distances or paying for transportation to meet one personally. Also, if someone was in danger, one could call whoever functions as the police in the society right up and get the criminal behind bars. This would also work for the times when there is a fire somewhere and call people to turn it off; and, when someone would be injured, one could call the medics to heal the wounded. Even in times when it is cold and no one wants to walk or stand in the cold to speak, or even when it gets too dark to go out, one can just stay at home warm and safe by speaking on the phone. Or even if they wish to speak to friends and family that have left far away from the area, they still can if they each have a cell phone: and, that way everyone is more free to get out far from the area and still be in contact with their people.

I am Me

I believe that the best advice that I have received is to be myself. The reason why I say this is because one can only be fully happy when they are completely acting like themselves and not care what others say or think. I have learned from the few years that I have been alive that it is difficult to be your self and do what you enjoy to do without being judged; however, people have to understand that that is part of life and is inevitable. You will never be able to please EVERYONE because there will always be that one person that will judge you for the smallest thing you do that they dislike or think is wrong. As long as you are happy with being yourself, then there is no reason why you should care of what others think of you.
I have also learned that there is no reason to be fake in front of certain people to be “cool” of “popular”. So what if you are not “cool” and “popular”? The whole point of life is to enjoy it and be yourself. I remember when Phillip Chbeeb, a member of a very inspirational dance crew called IaMmE, once said, “You only get so many moments in your life that if you are not afraid to be yourself, you can make your wildest dreams a reality.” The reason why he said this is because in the past, he would be judged for dancing and called a girl; however, because he was himself and did not care what they said, he has become a great icon in the dance community.

Letter to my college roomate

Hello roommate,
My name is Rodrigo Paredes and I come from a family of three: me, my mom, and my sister. I am one of those people that they call a “nerd” because I do my work and strive to get straight A’s, but I don’t really care what they say because I know that I am not a “nerd“. I am just trying to succeed in life and get a well paid job once I am out of college to keep on living a great life; however, some people do not understand that. I also run Cross Country and Track distance events and plan on joining the college teams once I get there. I love to run because it lets me clear my mind from any stress I have and lets me forget for a while, so maybe we can go for a jog if you are up for it one day. I am also a big NFL fan, preferably a Packers fan, so you will probably see me screaming at the screen from time to time during football season. I am kind of new to hip hop dancing and crew dancing but I am a huge fan of it; for example, my favorite dance crew is IaMmE because of their unique connecting style and I hope to become a great dancer to make a dance crew like them one day. Not only that, I also play the guitar and I love music in general because I do not think that I could live without it and it is a great way to express oneself. And well I like to be myself at all times so you will probably never see me as a fake. Well we will talk later I guess.

Sincerely,

Rodrigo Paredes

A Cross Country Life

Cross Country has become a huge part of my life now and it’s a funny story of how I joined the team. In 9^th grade I joined the football team as a wide receiver; however, I was never that great and did not get much playing time. I stayed with the team until the season ended and I was going to join the team the following year because I really wanted to become a lot better. At the time, I thought Cross Country was a joke because I found it pointless to join a team in which you just run in. However, once it was 10^th grade, I decided to take a history of art college class in which students met after school on Mondays and Wednesdays from 3:10 to 4:30. In football, if you came late to practice, you would lose a lot of practice and would not have playing time for the 1^st half of the game. Since many of my friends were in Cross Country and I was probably not going to do football that year, I decided to join the team in order to gain endurance and speed for football on the following year.

I joined Cross Country for a week and I felt like it was too much for me since I did not have much endurance, so I quit for about 2 weeks. For some reason, when the team had their first race, I kind of wanted to join the team again and so I did. At first, it was very difficult for me to even run 3 miles non-stop or complete the workout without walking at least once. When I was on the team, I was eager to become Varsity and did not even think it was possible for me since everyone was so much better than me. My first 3.1 miles race I ran in 21 minutes with 10 seconds, which is a very slow time; however, I trained through the season and ended up running an 18:52 at the end of the season to become one of the top 10 runners of the team. At the end of the season, my coach decided to give me a Varsity Letter. After the season was over, I decided to run Track and run during the summer to become a better runner for the upcoming year for Cross Country. This year, I suffered through many injuries that impeded me to run my best; however, I became our 4^th best runner of the team with my fastest time of 17:23. Now that the season is over, I plan to train over the winter, run Track, and train over the summer for my last year of Cross Country to win League, CIF, and qualify for State.

Stress

A personal issue that I have encountered for most of my life is school stress. Ever since elementary, my mom pushed me to do my best in school to get the highest numbers, which were all fours back then. She told me to be responsible at all times to get my homework and class work done. Because of this, there were rarely any times when I did not do my homework. Perhaps I did not do my homework only about 4 times in my elementary school years. When I began 7^th grade, my sister explained to me that EVERYTHING counts for my grade so I have to do great in everything if I want to get an A in the class. Not only that but since my sister was able to get straight A’s in 7^th and 8^th grade, my mom expected me to get straight A’s as well. Middle school years were somewhat difficult at first; however, after a while, everything began to feel a little easier as time advanced.
I am now an 11^th grader and I have noticed how difficult the years get each year of high school, yet I got straight A’s for my 9^th and 10^th grade years because of my mom pushing me. Now that I am an 11^th grade, everything has become a lot more difficult for me. My whole life in school, I have struggled to get the grades that I want, which means that I have EXTRA stress to handle from most of the people in the school. I have noticed that many people only care of passing their classes and making grades to be eligible to play sports, which makes me kind of sad and disappointed. I am glad that my mom has pushed me all these years to get to where I am, have straight A’s and do my best in school; however, it seems like a B is an F in her eyes and that I am not trying my hardest so I get grounded until I get my grades up. She does not understand that my sister and I are COMPLETELY different and have a different mentality for things so it makes me angry to have to hear when she compares me to her all the time. It also seems like she does not understand that as each new school year gets harder and harder. It seems like she is saying “if you have gotten straight A’s for the past year, there is no way that you can’t get it this year.“ Of course I understand that my mom wants me to do my best in school to succeed and be someone in life; however, I do not think that she should get angry at me to the point of grounding me for getting a few B’s.

Change on Campus

If I had the power to change something in my high school campus, it would be to have everyone throw their trash away in the trashcan. It is striking to see trash flying all over my school campus everyday because some students are not mature enough to walk over to a trashcan and clean up after themselves. There are many students in our school that do not care for our school environment and decide to throw their trash right on the floor. Students probably think that just because the janitor will clean up their mess, that it makes it okay to litter; however, I do not see why it is so difficult to clean up after oneself. I doubt they do that at their house, so why do they choose to do it in our school. They have to acknowledge that if janitors did not clean after the students our school would be a trash fest, the whole school would be filled with trash everywhere. I don’t know about the student body but I know that I would not want that to happen because I would like to study in a clean environment where I do not have to encounter trash anywhere unless it is in a trashcan where it belongs.
Another thing that I would change would be to raise our school spirit. There has been recent events at Castle Park High School that has made our school seem horrible. Like our principal Mrs. Sandoval-Johnson said, all those events are individual issues that do not define Castle Park as a whole. It seems as if the media only looks at the flaws of our school and not the accomplishments we have achieved as a whole. Because of these unfortunate events, a large number of our student body has been induced to believe that our school is horrible and have lost their pride. I believe that we should have a little more assemblies to unite our school and regain our pride because if no one is together, then everyone will believe what the media tells them to believe.

Mandatory Attendance

I strongly agree that school attendance is very important and should be mandatory in every school. The reason why is because not only does it give schools more money for the students‘ materials and school environment, it also lets students learn more because they would not be missing any days of school or any assignments. School is meant to educate the students and prepare them for the following years of school; therefore, the more educated someone is, the smarter they become and the greater success they will have in life. This means that if we have a larger number of stronger educated individuals, then that means that we will have the right people doing the jobs that help everyone; however, this means that there will also be a lot of competition for a certain job.
Today, since school attendance is not necessarily mandatory, there are more and more students that are held back or do not attend college because they do not show up to school. This sometimes makes students fail classes because of missing work they did not make up and some just do not care for school anymore; however, it seems like those students do not think of the future and what they will become in the future.

Animal Communication

Animal Communication

If I had the ability to communicate with one animal, it would be mammals, specifically aquatic mammals.  Since dolphins are one of my favorite animals, I would be fascinated to learn from them. I want to know how they feel just living underwater with all the other species randomly swimming by and how it feels to have to hunt for fishes everyday to eat. I am honestly not a swimmer because of my near death experience when I was 6 and almost drowned; however, it would be interesting to know how it feels to be underwater at all times without being able to live on land like us humans can. I also want to know how they communicate with each other and if they can communicate somehow with other aquatic animals. Dolphins are also known to be a very friendly and intelligent animal that causes no harm to humans and I would like to know what makes them so happy. It is also said that dolphins are a popular choice of animal-assisted therapy for psychological problems, like schizophrenia, and other disabilities because of their calm and peaceful aura. I am not necessarily sure if it is true; however, I would really like to find out if it was, if they had some type of method to be able to do this.