Inadequacey

My disappointment towards Hollywood, celebrities and their egotistical personalities never seem to lessen. What I hate the most is the way women are portrayed on magazines and adverts. It has made the image of a young girl seem insecure and not worthy of the world based on her looks. A long time ago, I realized that Hollywood is dead.
A young girl sits in a waiting room and looks at the front of the magazine. The blonde-haired model has perfect ocean-blue eyes, beach-tanned skin, mid-toned pink lip gloss and a bikini. She sees how her skin is perfect, not a flaw to be seen. As a matter of fact, all of the other young models in the magazine have long hair and slim bodies.
In today's society young girls are feeling inadequate about their bodies and image. They are constantly dieting, comparing themselves with stars and models in the magazines. These models and stars do not look like that in real life. Most of their pictures are photoshopped, airbrushed and cover their faces with tremendous amounts of make-up. People would be floored to see celebrities without their make-up (some look like two different people). No matter how beautiful a person is, their portrait is not being truly displayed around the world. The team of workers behind a photo shoot are always going to find something wrong with their models no matter how they look.

Can lyrics to a song change our perspective in life?

Many songs nowadays contain lyrics filled with profanity and swear words. Personally for me, I usually don't like it so much, but there is this one song that I really like that has one curse word in it. I told myself, Oh, this is no big deal. There is one curse word and you can't even tell she sings it by the way she enunciates the word. Some songs are worse. I have been listening to this song for weeks and the beats and music get stuck in my head. I started singing the song and I would never say the swear word. When I sang it a couple more times, I didn't realize that I actually swore. I mean, this isn't the biggest crime on earth and it's nothing to get all up in arms about, but it got me thinking. Is it really necessary to have swear words in songs? Can curse words in songs lead us to curse more in our lives? I think you can have a song with good writing and music without the curse words.
This doesn't regard only to songs with swear words. Listening to any artist or group can influence the way we look at situations and life.

What is the true meaning of the holidays?

Over the past couple years, especially around the holidays, commercials want you to"buy this" and "buy that". They have "limited sales for only a week, so you better buy it for that special someone before it is too late!" There is always that commercial where someone unwraps a gift with excitement, which turns out to be a sweater or pair of socks. (Maybe they are not the greatest gifts in the world, but it is the thought that counts, right?). These commercials and television programs get us stressed out that we have to put the Christmas lights up outside, send Christmas cards, get the perfect sized tree, make sure we get everything off of the Christmas Wish List and that the turkey is cooked right, but those are only bonuses. For any holiday, the most important thing to have is family, because without them, it would be a lonely and sad holiday.

Ah, the good ol' days!

Today, children have more stress about school than what children had over two decades ago. You have to worry about standardized tests, SATs, ACTs, and getting a college degree. There is a great emphasis on good grades, sometimes getting all As, and getting a perfect score on each test. Many students lose sleep at night over exams, university essays, scholarship money, placement tests, and try so hard to be on top. Some students make themselves sick with fevers over school!
Two decades ago, there was very little pressure on education. As long as you did well in high school you were fine. You could graduate with a high school diploma and get a good paying job at the age of eighteen. If you want to go back another twenty years, you didn't even need a high school diploma to get a job. Most kids dropped out of school before eighteen and worked all their life.
It is amazing how much education has changed over the last thirty years. Sometimes I wish testing wasn't such a big deal, and if it were taken away, then maybe kids would have a better perspective on school.

Technology is taking over our lives!

Children today are spending most of their time on the internet, cell phones or watching TV, instead of reading a book and going outside for fresh air. It seems that interacting with people drains this generation out. They feel more comfortable using social outlets to make connections and stay in touch. They find Angry Birds, Candy Crush, Cookie Clicker, etc. a lot more fun than hanging out with others. Just about everything they do is inside.

Years ago kids would go out early in the morning and wouldn't come home until late at night. They would play games such as Red Rover, Jacks, Dodgeball, Halfies, Rin Tin Tin, Block Ball and so on. These games teach you to wait your turn, how to lose and still stay friends, and get plenty of exercise and interact with different personalities all at one time.

With these computer games, you do not get any activity. You are not interacting with anyone. These games give you short attention spans. You make more memories laughing and being a part of a group outside than you would on the internet. I wish to see children outside playing dodgeball or some type of game where they get to use their imagination rather than staring at a screen that strains their eyes.

US Education vs. England Education

A lot of people in the US get up in arms about going to college to finish their education, and sending their children off to University. What is it like for those in England? Do they worry about student loans? How much money do they pay a year for University?

England's Education:
• College: Free. (This is similar to the US Community Colleges).
• University Away: $24,000 • College: 2 years (16-18 years old).
• University: 3 years (depending on what your major is (18-21 years old).
*The tuition and money that you pay for college is all according to your parents' income. By the time you are done your schooling, if you make over $25000 a year, you pay a $36 tax every month that goes towards your school loans. If they money is not paid off in the next 25 years, the payments stop*.

United States Education:
• Community College: $6000 a year.
• University: $35,000 a year to board (sometimes more).
• Community College: 2 years (ages 18 to 20).
• University: 2-4 years (ages 20 to 22). *Pay loans for the rest of your life*.

When you calculate it, US students have to pay more loans than students in England. Wouldn't it be nice to not stress about student loans for the rest of your life? The decision to go to college seems to be much more easier in England, than the US due to financial reasons. While students are doing their junior and senior year in high school in the US, students in England are already taking their core classes and preparing for their "A Levels" (the placement test for University). They get their degree by the age of 20. I would love it if I could be done schooling by the age of 20. SATs are not required to attend to University, unless English students decide to go to school in America. Their classes over there would be compared to taking AP classes all day. Just imagine that! They seem to make it more easier to go to college and University. Education over there seems to be more of a priority than what it is in America. The fact that you don't have to pay high interest rates and loans for the rest of your life, makes it more appealing to go to University. The US should implement some of their programs and maybe we would have a better standard of education in this country.

Why didn't Harry Potter die?

The question I get asked among most Harry Potter fanatics is “If Harry stabbed Tom Riddle’s diary with a basilisk tooth in the Chamber of Secrets then why didn’t it kill the part of Voldemort inside him? Why did it take until his last year for Voldemort to be purged out of his soul?” This question baffles Harry Potter fans and it is more of a “self question” than anything else. There is no definite answer, but we can use some of the events in the story to back it up. In the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort cast the Avada kedavra spell on Harry in the Forbidden Forest, hoping that it would kill him, but it killed the part of Voldemort inside him instead instantly. In the first book we are told when Voldemort planned to kill Harry, his mother’s love was so powerful when she sacrificed herself that the curse backfired and gave Harry the scar then. All the horcruxes need to be destroyed instantly in order for Voldemort to die. When Harry stabbed the diary, Tom Riddle immediately died. So why didn’t Harry die? Fawkes, the Phoenix bird, had tears that provided healing powers for him on his arm. We can only guess and say that his mother’s love was so powerful that it saved him from death.