What I Learned From the Strike

8 weeks, 1344 hours, 80640 minutes, 4,838,400 seconds.  That is how long our teachers were on strike.  So... what did I learn over the period of the strike?  I'm not talking about my education.  I'm talking about life lessons.  Never in my wildest dreams did I expect something as drastic as a teacher strike.

Sitting back and watching the chaos that ensued was crazy.  One minute we are a regular high school, and the next minute the whole community is divided.  I realized just how quickly people are to take sides.  People are quick to become extremely opinionated.  It's hard seeing students at each other's throats.  The constant arguing was sickening.  It's so hard to have an opinion when the whole world thinks you're wrong and will do anything to prove to you that you're wrong.  Needless to say I tried to keep my opinions to myself over social media.  One misconstrued tweet would be like tying my own noose.

Another thing I learned.  We as students do not have that big of a voice.  Sure, we can have our student rallies and get all Ra Ra Ra.  But at the end of the day it really was out of our hands.  It's hard to say it.  Kudos to the students who fought on behalf of the students.  It was valiant.  Fighting on the front lines with not that much support must have been hard.  It's so hard to rally the students together to fight for a common cause.

Let's get this straight too... The media isn't accurate.  (Obviously).  Yeah, the first day was a bit chaotic.  Was there a massive rave in every class room?  No.  It's high school.  Kids are stupid and they do stupid things.  But most of the time they don't quite represent the majority.

Lastly..... it really is all about the money.  In the words of my Dad, "Money is the oxygen in the room."  Everything really is all about money.  It makes the world go round.  Money is motivation.  Money is power.  What a shame....

Growing Up

I've always found solace in the idea that I would be one day old enough to do this or do that.  We always had something to look forward to as kids.  Whether it was being tall enough to ride a roller coaster, or old enough to drive, or old enough to see a PG-13 movie with our friends.  Age was a barrier it seemed.  We were barred from doing what we wanted to do because of the age restrictions.  As a kid it's tough to look towards the future and be mature enough to realize that with all of these new freedoms comes responsibility.  Cliché, I know.  I regret nothing from my childhood, though.  I had fun and it was a blast.  Those days don't last forever though.  As much as I want to slurp Kool-Aid and watch The Fairly Odd parents for three hours, it just can't be done now.  I hate growing up.  Nostalgia is always there to kick me in the face and say, "remember me?"  Before I know it, my Facebook page will be flooded with pictures of my friends weddings, kids, graduations, etc.  Tell me that's not a scary thought.  The reality is that were going to be saying, "Remember so and so from High School?  They're married now and have two beautiful children."  That day is just around the corner.  Time is funny like that.  Blink your eyes and you miss half your life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuAGGZNfUkU

Special Olympics

Volunteering with the Berea Young Athletes/ Special Olympics was an eye-opening experience to say the least.  The first time I volunteered with the organization, I wasn't sure what to expect.  I didn't know what it was going to be like.  But, it exceeded every single one of my expectations.  We played a different sports every week ranging from basketball to yoga.  Most of the kids have Down Syndrome.  They are the nicest, sweetest, and funnest kids to be around.  Their kindness and smiles are contagious.  The feeling of spending an hour of your time to play with kids is the best feeling ever.  It didn't even feel like volunteering and frankly, I felt guilty taking service hours from it.  They genuinely enjoy playing sports and getting to run around and throw and kick.  It's something that I can learn from.  I am blessed to be in the position to help others.  I learned...

Smiles are contagious.

Life is good.

The World Is Not a Cold Dead Place

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
- Martin Luther King

The world is filled with so much hatred, anger, and suffering.  It is disturbing.  It shakes me to my very core.  I cannot begin to express my utmost hatred for those who are willing to take lives.  It is sickening.    I'm not here to hunt down the cause of these terrible tragedies.  I just want to spread the love.  To every single one of you reading this, I love you.  You mean something to someone.  You mean everything to me.  There's always hope.  No matter the circumstances.  We have hope in this country.  We need to end the suffering.  I think the only way to stop the hate, is to promote the good.  Positive emotion trumps negative emotion every time.  There are great people in this world.  There are great people doing great things. We can all help in some way.  Tragedies like this SHOULD NOT HAPPEN.  Let's look towards the future.  A better future.  But let's not forget the past.  There's a reason the front windshield is larger than the rearview mirror.  We can look forward to the future but we can remember the past.  That's all I got.

"The people that are trying to make the world worse never take a day off , why should I. light up the darkness."
-Bob Marley

The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

Have you ever learned a new word and then hear it a million times soon after?  Have you ever learned a new concept or idea and then hear it shortly after?  This is the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon.  It occurs when one learns a new name or word and encounters the same word shortly after.  An example of the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon would be hearing about the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon shortly after.  Maybe tomorrow during school you will hear someone talk about the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon.  Perhaps you've recently learned about it, and now you're hearing about it again in this post.  Mind-blowing, am I right?

Have you ever said, "Wow, that's so weird I just heard about that?"  You just got Baader-Meinhof'd.  I find it happening in my daily life all the time.  The timing is uncanny.  I will learn a new word from someone, and then for the next week it seems I encounter that word in every book, sign, tweet, etc.  It's a weird experience and I know others surely feel like this too.  I find it wildly amusing how our brains can detect patterns in words and new concepts.  Our brains process so much information on a daily basis.  It's understandable that our brains are exposed to the same information sometimes in short amounts of time.  Our brain recognizes this as information it recently came across, and it gives the information a form of priority.  This new "interesting" data is given more attention resulting in this phenomenon.  I would compare the Phenomenon to a form of deja vu.  Wow, I just learned what deja vu meant the other day ;) Talk about getting Baader-Meinhof'd.... ;)

P.S. I do not know how to pronounce it.  I just say it loud with a German accent.

The Butterfly Effect

The butterfly effect: the phenomenon whereby a small change at one place in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere.

Its crazy to think that every decision we make and every action we take can forever change our future.  Something so infinitesimal can change the outcome of your entire life.  One decision has a ripple effect.  The one change causes a chain reaction causing other things to change and so on and so forth.  This idea is called the butterfly effect because it started with the theory that a butterfly flapping its wings could do something monumental like cause a weather pattern shift in Chicago.  People encountering each other will cause them to affect more people in a different way, which causes those people to affect more people in a different way and so on and so on.  It's almost like every single event that we witness or feel serves as an inspiration to our next action, that next action spurs more actions, etc. etc. etc.

To whoever is reading this, you chose a certain set of actions to get you here.  You did something to think about going on twitter, and you chose to click the link on my twitter account.  Maybe something you did earlier caused you to think about going on twitter. You are now reading this.  Who knows, maybe this will spawn an idea in your brain.  This idea, no matter how small or how large WILL effect you.  You could hate this post and stop reading it now.  No matter what you do, you decided to read this.  Your action will lead to another action.  That action, no matter how small will effect more than yourself.

We could also imagine a scenario where you are born just one minute later.  You arrive one minute later at the hospital.  You're born in a different room.  You have a different doctor.  Your parents have a different conversation with this different doctor.  Your parents effect this doctors life.  He now goes home and tells the story of your birth to his wife.  His wife takes the time to listen to his story.  Both are late for an event somewhere.  If they had been one minute earlier, they could've been in a fatal car accident that they drive by.  Through your birth, you have saved the doctor's life.

Every single experience we have contributes to the future.  Every single decision we make has a ripple effect far beyond what we could ever imagine.  For this reason it is so hugely important that we make the right decisions.  Our decisions do not just effect us.  We as humans are so interconnected.  It's crazy to think about our actions, because their effects can be monumental.

Correlation Between Logo and a Business

I cannot fight the notion that there is a correlation between a brand logo and the company it represents.  The brand logo has become so important.  People want brand name products.  People want to wear clothing that looks good.  I'm not going to go out and buy a golf shirt with a skull and crossbones on it.  I want a Nike one.  Why?  The Nike logo looks good on just about everything.  It is universal.  It has dawned on me that most successful companies have globally recognized logos.  The first logos that come to mind are Nike, Apple, Adidas, Under Armor, Gatorade.  There's plenty of others with recognizable logos.  All of these logos have one thing in common.  Simplicity.  Less is more.  A sleek and sexy logo is the best.  These logos help capture and establish the brand's core.  The logos have memorability, sustainability, and usability.  A logo helps create a vision for the company.  For example, the Apple logo is a globally recognized symbol.  Its sleek, it pops, it looks good on products, its simple. I really believe more stock should be put into developing a quality logo.  I think its important.  I hate to say it, but I would buy anything with a Nike logo on it.  I'm sure there's more of the "gotta have it" type  people like me.  When it comes to anything Nike, I gotta have it.  A brand's logo is important.  I mean, it cant that hard to invent a logo.  The CEO of Nike, Phil Knight payed 35$ for his world famous logo.

The Strongsville Strike

We are entering the sixth week of the Strongsville City Schools teacher strike.  This has brought upon controversy and has drawn national attention.  I started to think more in depth about this strike.  It has brought about many questions.

What if the strike had been 10 years ago?  Would the strike have been more or less effective than today?  The biggest difference was the lack of social media ten years ago.  Nowadays information is spread so quickly over social media.  Information from the negotiations can be found as it is happening.  This information can be shared exponentially through Facebook, Twitter, and even YouTube.  Ten years ago we didn't have full access to the internet over a cell phone.  We hardly even had phones that could take clear pictures!  All of the "chaos" in the school might not have been shown as easily.  But now with most students having smartphones, a picture could be taken and sent to the news in a matter of minutes.  The lack of social media ten years ago would have kept the students from being at each others throats over social media.  I think it would prevent fights from Pro-Board v. Pro-Teacher people.  Students couldn't organize protests, rallies, etc as easily.  Maybe the teachers would have had more support if their actions weren't plastered over every website.  I think that social media was a huge downfall for the teachers.  In a way, they revealed their true colors to the public.  It was blatant that they quickly lost the respect from many students.  Their "propaganda" backfired on them.  I'm not trying to take a side, but some of the teachers made a bad name for themselves very quickly.

This brings up my next point.  Should teachers be viewed as role models?  For many students, teachers are looked upon as very good role models.  There are so many respectable and hard working teachers in Strongsville City Schools.  Yes, some teachers helped me become the student I am today.  I just don't know how some  of the teachers making bad names for themselves could ever be looked upon the same way again.

Go Mustangs...

Edit: Spelling