Opinions
20 February 2009
three
3
Conforming to society to get to college
T
he world that teenagers live in today is nothing like how it used to be. The expectations for youth are continually growing bigger and bigger and with it the pressure upon teens is becoming greater. For me, my life has been split in two: employee and college-bound student. In today’s economic downfall it has become much more competitive to find a job, even for teenagers. I searched for the bare minimum of a decent, minimum wage, blue-collar occupation and was surprised when I received a phone call offering me a job from the store I applied. It’s definitely not something I plan on doing for the rest of my life, but when I need to pay for all my debts each month, any work helps. I become enveloped in the work force, only working to pay for necessities not wants. Precious time that could be with friends or family is spent on making coffee and smoothies. Now, I’m not complaining about having a job, I just think it’s too bad that I have been forced by society to get one to pay for things I need in order to be “successful”. Having a cell phone, a car, and many other “necessities” have compelled me to the work force to pay for all of my “needs.” And when I’m not blending coffee or swirling yogurt, my time is taken by the other leech of life: school. When I say school, I’m not just talking about the literal six hours every day I spend
here at Davis, but also the countless number of days I have spent doing everything humanly possible to be successful for college. Extracurricular activities, sports, community service, clubs, banquets, college visitations, orientations… the list goes on. Just trying to get accepted into a college has become an extremely complex task for me. Colleges now are not only looking at grades, but also the hundred other activities one has on their application. The bar keeps raising and so does my stress level. My time has become completely and wholeheartedly devoted to trying to meet expectations from everyone around me. If you have ever seen the TV show “24,” it’s a very close depiction of how I feel. The main character, Jack Bauer, has some daunting task to accomplish in a mere twenty-four hours, all the while dealing with protocols and demands from everyone around. Some days I become so overwhelmed with things to do, I can’t even think straight. It almost feels like my life has become nothing more than a droning, robotic routine that drives any ounce
of fun I might have right into the gutter. Whether it’s working, doing homework, staying late afterschool, completing a project or essay, or participating in an extracurricular activity, the price of perfection always seems to be rising. Society tells us that we need to be this smart and should behave this way in order to be successful. Now, I don’t consider myself
with the use of caution tape to protect the growth of grass. Well, I guess this would have been fine for a month or so, but it has been five months. And another cause for questioning the whole tape is what’s going to happen to the grass when the tape is removed? This can already be seen in the hallway section near the entrance of the girl’s locker
upon before to help. This help becomes necessary because the two women who operate the cart can’t always handle the influx of students. “I’ve had to go down there a few times to give the evil eye sort of thing,” Sawyer said, smirking a bit. According to him, his cart doen’t suffer the craziness of the other food station. “Our kids are really polite as they stand in line and wait. They know we alternate one there and one here,” he said. This would be fine, if it was true for all the food distribution sites. But it isn’t. At the cart nearest to the gym, a system of going from one side to the other isn’t implemented. These side lines are simply too unorganized to allow any kind of order. I have to sometimes flag down the operator with my cash to get her attention! If there was a single line, things would be more orderly and more fair, and the change could be made easy enough. And if some students decided not to follow the change and continue to gather on the sides, the operators could just ignore them. These different scenes I have mentioned are a nuisance, but there exists at our school a place of chaos so advanced, just entering it I feel my life is threatened. This place is the student parking lot after school. Right-of-way, signaling, a speed limit of 5 MPH, yielding to pedestrians; all of these are rules of the road that mysteriously don’t seem to apply in the parking lot. The journey to my car is half the battle. Upon entering, I know that even within
it’s even better for us to grow creatively and mature when it’s our time, not because our parents or teachers told us to. Yes, they are only trying to do what’s best for me, but sometimes I just need to be a kid for a while and open my mind to better things than just straining it with useless information that I really only remember so I can get out of high school.
CONNOR JOHNSON Managing Editor
a nonconformist, but I believe that a teenager shouldn’t spend his or her time constrained under the pressures of the world. I understand that it’s for our own good to go to school and learn to be independent, but
Adaption is key to survival in high school
JAKE DUFFY
Corinthian Staff
room. Tape has been removed, and the grass is dead. Dirt and brown, shrivelled remains of organic matter is what’s left. The caution tape in the rest of the school is futile. The second it is removed students will begin walking on it to avoid the crowds, and in turn killing the grass underneath. We need this walking space, and the administration would be wise to open it up to relieve pressure. Now, a separate scene in which I have needed survival skills is trying to get my lunch from the food carts. These carts, there being two, are operated by two people. There seems to be the two “regular” lines that start in front of the operators, and also some side “lines” that form to the sides of the carts. I get into the regular line and watch in slight anger as the operator goes to the line on the side, resembling more of a crowd, four separate times before taking a single order from my line. Where is the fairness in that? I start to wonder if the operator can even handle the situation. George Sawyer, the operator at the “nacho” cart, has actually been called
“
my steel refuge I’m not safe. After being cut off three times, I get to the exit of the parking lot with just one car in front of me. I breath a sigh of relief until I notice he has his left blinker on. In case you don’t know, there is a sign to the right of the exit that clearly states “Right turn only”. The driver of the car in front of me must be able to read, yet they chose to not follow the sign. As I said before, the rules of the road don’t apply in the parking lot. No surprise it takes four minutes for a gap to open to allow him to make his left turn, and he’s on his way home. Good for him. The parking lot needs some supervisors to oversee the ordeal, and to hopefully have a strong enough presence to intimidate the other drivers into doing what they should be doing, the responsible thing: following the rules. After going to Davis for two years I have learned one truth: adaption is key. Learning to deal with the stress the school’s layout throws at you has been essential, otherwise school would just be too much to handle. However, even with my adaptions and learned skills, the school remains the hectic, chaotic place it was the first day I stepped on campus as a freshman. If people started to walk without stopping, realize what a line is, and put themselves through the excrutiating ordeal of reading a sign with three words, the school would be a far better place. Then again, these demands are quite difficult aren’t they?
In fact, I have actually had to adapt some skills just to manage through the day.
“
I
’ve been going to Grace Davis for more than two years, and one thing has been made abundantly clear: the school isn’t orderly at all. In fact, I have actually had to adapt some skills just to manage through the day. One such skill has been what I call “crowd dodging”. Throughout the school day, there are eight passing periods during which time the 2,400 some odd students all occupy the halls to get to their next class. The bell rings and the horde disperses out of the doors, into the three minor hallways and the Main Artery of the school: locker row. I turn a corner and see the lockers that occupy the sides of the row, but also the enormous crowd already forming. Now, if students would only continually move and stop only at their lockers ,it wouldn’t be so bad. This isn’t the case. I start to walk and see a group of students gather right in the middle of the hall talking, not moving a single inch. Congestion - similar to that of traffic on the Bay Bridge - starts to form. Time to think fast. Go to the left? No, there is already three students stopped dead cold trying to get past. What about the right? There had been a gap there, but a group of students similar to the one in the middle begins to form, a trap if I try to get through. That leaves one choice: time to dodge my way through. I start to quicken, lower my shoulder and burst in, then a quick change in my footing allows me to side step a freshman. Half way through and a burst of speed allows me to begin to see the end of the crowd, and finally, by stiff arming someone texting and not watching where they are going, it’s finally over. If that isn’t bad enough, the hallways, or veins, that stem off from the Main Artery have been reduced into a third of their original size “I’ve come to be a little more aggressive I guess.”
“I have to be more friendly.”
“I have to walk faster because its so crowded.”
“I don’t know, I just do my own thing.”
Alexandria Hill
David Huggins
Maria Martin
Marcus Pavon
Junior
Freshman
Sophomore
Senior