The Golden Rules

P.C. is a phenomenon that has taken over our country-- everywhere from preschools to college campuses, from start-ups to retirement homes. Everyone everywhere seems to be looking for some solution to avoid offending others, going so far as to censor language, create safe spaces, and otherwise tip-toe around the rest of society.



There seems like a much simpler solution than going through all this trouble.

When we were all children we were taught a series of rules by our parents and teachers. Looking back they seem silly, just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo invented to keep us kids from tearing each others hair out. But what if there was some truth in it all? Well, let's take a quick review.

1. If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all.
2. Say what you mean, and mean what you say.
3. Treat others how you wish to be treated.

If we take all of these rules into account, the world would be a better place. No one would intentionally harm another with their speech, no one would say something they didn't mean, and everyone would stick up for what they believe in.

If we could only go back to how things were when we were five, if we could only remember the rules that were instilled in us when we were young, we could fix a lot more than a couple of silly insults and "you're stupids" coming out of a child's mouth.

Here's what I'm proposing, let's not change words, let's change attitudes. If we all just tried to be polite to each other, to act like civilized beings, we could change the world. So next time you go out in the world, take with you a few golden rules, everything else should fall into place.

Parcel 11

As we as a class reflected on the environment this past week, I began thinking more and more about a plot of land in our very city. On Tuesday I attended a School Board Workshop to fill my quota for AP Government. What I thought was going to be a couple of boring hours filled with mundane budget proposals a decisions such as whether the toilet paper in schools should be one ply or two, I was pleasantly surprised that while some of those things, the meeting also brought out a passion in this community I didn't even realize existed.

The first thirty minutes of the meeting were left open to be filled by public comments, the Board would not reply, just sit silently as citizens poured their hearts out in front of a microphone. The topic of discussion at this meeting? Parcel 11.



The little section of woods, about seven or eight acres, is going to be sold by the school board to create an early childhood development center-- basically a glorified preschool. And while I have no skin in the game either way, it seems many are strongly against this decision... and those for? Well they didn't even bother showing up.

I watched people cry over the birds, deer, and elusive Bald Eagle that may live somewhere within the parcel. I watched people argue over diminished property value, and the educational value of the woods. I listened to people in their fifties reminisce about playing in the trees, about watching their children play in them too.

Although I had heard about this issue a few weeks before attending the meeting from a friend on Facebook, I hadn't realized how big of a deal it was for the people directly effected. There are 795 supporters on change.org, I am now one of them, and the number is still growing.

It would truly be a shame if the government refused to listen to this outcry of voices, each one protecting something bigger, older, and purer than their self. The people are calling, it is time our board listened.

What a Girl Wants

Women are interesting creatures. Considered to be testy, irritable beings, Girls are also considered the fairer sex, more deeply attached to those, well, deep feelings. To many men the Woman is seen as a conundrum, something abstract, and no matter how hard many of them try, completely impossible to understand. It is true men live in a simpler world, one in which colors are duller and tasks happen one at a time. It's genetics, really.



Where in genetics though, is it determined that Women will live in a marked world and men can bounce around freely between them if he so chooses? Well, in the very base of it, chromosomes, those for Female, and those for male, are different. XX for Women, XY for men. In this case, wouldn't it be the man that is marked? Wouldn't he be doomed to a marked existence? That doesn't seem to be the case. A Woman is judged on what She wears, the amount of makeup painting Her face, and whether or not She chooses to smile at a stranger on the street. A man is judged when he decides to step out of the box, to flaunt his differences. When a man is marked, it is because he chooses to be.

But maybe that is where we have it wrong. Maybe the X is the marked chromosome. As Women, we only have one option, one world, we are marked. As men, however, two options are presented: one in the marked world, X, and one outside of it, Y. Where Miss, Ms, and Mrs, don't determine the contents of a Girls character, where the length of Her skirt does not label her intentions. It'd be an interesting place to visit every now and again, if only we had the option to.

Women in the Weight Room

The Troy High weight room is a place for pumping iron. Football players, wrestlers, and various other sport teams find their way to that sacred place nearly everyday, often supervised only by captains or a single assistant coach. When a group of girls find themselves in the weight room, usually once all of the guys are gone, they are met with suspicion.
As a member of the girls swim team, I often spent practices lifting weights, whether that be deadlifts, squats, rows or crunches. Usually the swim coach will reserve time for us girls to work out, and then he will accompany us there, helping us focus on form. One day, however, the assistant coach, a woman, came with a small group of us, instead of the head coach, to the weight room. Before we had been in the room five minutes, one of the football coaches poked their head in and demanded to know what we were doing. We explained the situation, but he still didn't seem satisfied. He watched us wearily for a few moments before heading back to the field.
Why is it so wrong to find a girl in the school weight room? You'll find girls swarming the public gym every day of the week. So what is so different between one and the other? Sure it might be unusual to see a lady squating 150 pounds, but she obviously has the skill and knowledge to do it correctly, especially under coach supervison, or she would have been injured a long time ago.

The real difference is gender stigma. When you think of a school weight room you think of jocks, of big muscular guys doing bicep curls with unbelievably large dumbbells. When you think of a public gym, you see girls in short-shorts jogging on the treadmill. But there are girls who use the weight room for weights. So step aside boys, it's our turn.

What Happens in Vegas

We've all heard the saying, "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas". It alludes that Los Vegas is somehow outside of the real world, or that a quick trip to the Nevada Desert will transport you to a place where time and space are just laws, and laws are no matter. But aside from this otherworldly idea that is the Strip, Vegas is also home to a considerably questionable practice.



Vegas is the place of Bachelor and Bachelorette parties, where the happy couple goes to stay separated for one fantastic weekend, never to be spoken of again.

Aside from the more traditional practice of living out ones last days single in Vegas, many people find it the perfect local for the wedding itself. The faster, and the cheaper, the better. And with some of the loosest marriage laws in the country, these weddings are some of the easiest as well.

But these commercialized strip weddings, usually short lived, take the marriage out of a wedding ceremony. Sure, all you need is love, but when love is pulling up to the equivalent of a McDonald's drive through, standing out the roof of your white limo in a sweater and slacks, and repeating your vows as told to you from the guy behind the counter, is love really what you have? Go elope if a quick and easy wedding is what you want, at least you'll leave the courthouse with your dignity firmly intact.

If you love someone, how, when, and where you get married shouldn't matter, but it should reflect your love and commitment for that person. "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas". So have fun. Spend your dress money on slots, lounge by the hotel pool, leave every silly, stupid, amazing memory behind, but you shouldn't have to leave your wedding behind there too.

Stepping Outside of Myself

I have never been out of the country. (I mean, I went to Canada once but that doesn't really count.) So I really have been quiet limited in my exposure to different cultures. Sure, Troy is a diverse city, but it is still a suburban town in the United States with a shopping mall and many well off families. I've never really gotten the chance to have a first hand experience with a culture so opposite of mine.

In truth, I've had quiet a sheltered life in that regard.

I've never been on the outside looking in. While I've found things other people do as strange, it was never so foreign to me that my mind could not grasp around the idea of it. Though I have studied the Aztecs and their ritual sacrifice, I never got the chance to see it happen. Though I have been through reservation land, I have never witnessed a Native American ritual. Though I have taken German, and through my teacher I have been exposed to even the most subtle of cultural differences, I have never been to Germany and lived as the Germans do.

I cannot imagine what it must have been like for the Natives when the English came to settle along the coast. What it must have been like for two cultures, sitting on opposite sides of the spectrum, to meet for the first time.

We cannot understand how different we are, until we step outside of ourselves.

My mom said that. And isn't that the truth? How I have lived my life so far has kept me from noticing, and appreciating, the idiosyncrasies of my own culture, and how it varies from others.

So now I imagine I am from some jungle tribe, standing at the doors to Somerset Mall in wonder. I see thousands of cars lined up in rows, I see shiny glass and light brick stretched up toward the sky, I see people, shopping bags in one arm, Starbucks in the other. I do not understand it, this magical, confusing sight. People staring at their phones, talking into them when hundreds of people surround them. It is beautiful and terrible. It is awesome and overwhelming.



For the first time I have seen my life from a perspective outside my own, and I do not know whether to be proud, or embarrassed. But I have stepped out of myself, and gained a deeper understanding of my own world from it.   

Wrestling with MY Father.

In class this week we had to read "Arm Wrestling with My Father", a piece by Brad Manning. While I went into the reading with little hope of any deeper takeaway, (I mean the piece is titled "Arm Wresting with My Father"), I came out of it in tears. As I read I found myself sinking deeper and deeper, until Manning's words could have been my own.

When I was young I used to play a game with my father, he's a wrestling coach so it was much to his strength, where he would lock his arms around me, and intertwine his fingers as tight as he could. My goal was to break this hold, and free myself from his grasp. I would giggle and smile as I tried, sometimes fruitlessly, to escape. At the beginning he would always let me win, after some struggle and squirming to be sure. But later, when I grew older, my efforts would grow meaner; it was no longer simple fun that made me strive to break his grip. I would win, but there would be no giggling, no smiles. Eventually the game stopped all together, and our relationship withered with it. I began to see his flaws, his misgivings, more than his virtues, and some part of me resented him.

I did not plan a falling out with my father. I do not consciously try to snap at him. But like our game, once fun and silly, where I would run back into his arms laughing, "Again! Again!" our relationship is no longer the same.

I wish there was some way for me to close this gap between us, to play the game again in that same childish manner, but I don't think there is a way. Surely we can mend our wounds, but I am grown now, neither of us are the same.

While reading the piece in class, the words could have been my own. And I cried because of it.