Should Schools Require Physical Activity?

A lot of school systems have problems with childhood obesity and they say it's from the school lunches and not enough exercise. They way around this issue is to have an hour of gym or some type of physical activity everyday. There should be an hour of physical activity everyday because that will be all the exercise some kids do at all. The reason for that is a lot of kids don't like sports and don't play anything that exercises you which is fine. But gym should offer games that exercise you but doesn't take to much athleticism so everyone can part take.

Open Campus

In my school nobody can leave school grounds for lunch or for anything unless you are dismissed. You can’t even sit outside to eat your lunch unless you are a senior which is not fair to any underclassmen. Why just because there seniors do they get to sit outside to eat but if you’re not a senior you can’t. This shouldn’t even be a problem because we should be able to leave school grounds for lunch as long as we come back on time and the school is somewhat strict about it and have a sign in and sign out sheet. I don’t see how this would not work. The only argument to this I can think of is students just not coming back but it doesn’t matter because the kids that would do that already just walk out of school anyway. So it really doesn’t make a difference.

One other problem with this in our school would be it does get cold so we couldn’t eat outside but we could still leave and go somewhere and then come back. Unless there is too much snow then we should just have to eat school lunch. But schools in warmer climates should always be able to do this unless the weather is too severe or if there is some type of emergency. A school that is in a cold climate all year round just shouldn’t be able to leave because there is most likely just going to be snow everywhere. Also most schools that have an open campus don’t allow everybody to leave school grounds for lunch. Which is good they make the kids that are doing poorly academic wise or disrupting class stay for lunch.  The student’s that are doing well in class and have good conduct can leave school for lunch in a lot of schools. It would be good if we could do the same at our school.

Good things that could come from having an open campus is that there wouldn’t be nearly as much of a mess as usual and there wouldn’t be many kids to control so more things like fights won’t happen. Also being able to leave school for lunch is almost like taking a break from school for a little while which would be good because then you can relax and come back to class more focused. It also would help the restaurants in the community because they would have more customers which is more money. There are also bad things that can be caused by having an open campus. For example some students will just get the quickest and easiest thing to get since there is such little time. Unfortunately the easiest thing to get is fast food when school systems already have a problem with not having healthy lunches well this would be making that problem more likely to happen. Also school systems have problems with illegal substances in school well this is another way to make that issue more likely to occur. Another issue is students that don’t drive might take a long time and get to class late because they have to walk.

As you can see there are both pros and cons to this subject. I believe that most schools in a warmer climate or schools that have a period with a warm climate should have an open campus.  Just another pro from this is it could be used as a study period to finish work that you need done or if you forgot homework for a class you can get it during lunch because you could go home and come back. I am for having an open campus but don’t get me wrong there are still a lot of cons of having one. A way they could avoid all of this is if schools could have a decent lunch and enough to please the students appetite. Most schools like mine don’t offer or give much for lunch and it doesn’t taste that good either.

Government Problems

Terrorism is a very big deal in our world today especially after 9/11. The CIA, FBI, and all police authority are always all over terrorism and anyone that they think could have the slightest potential to be apart of an attack or group. If they think a journalist or a reporter or editor has anything to do with something they should be all over that person and be learning everything there involved in but not listening in on all journalists, editors, and reporter's phone calls for two months. That's invading people's privacy that have nothing to do with the situation. It's almost like the government was stalking random people and learning about there lives for no reason which I don't think many people would be fine with strangers listening to every one of your phone calls. I understand this is to protect the American people but the government brought this to another level which should never happen again.

Cigarette Addiction

Why do people smoke cigarettes if it causes cancer and kills? Well most people will have a smoke when they are stressed to relax them and it actually does relax them but it's also killing them so why not find something else to relax them? An estimated 443,000 people die from cigarettes each year and a lot get cancer from it and don't usually survive. Cigarettes cause lung, liver, mouth, pancreatic and a lot of other very dangerous cancer's. Cigarette's are one of the hardest addiction's to quit but people need to look at it as either live there life or smoke and die.

Also a lot of parents that smoke don't realize there harming there children with second hand smoke which is very dangerous. Especially if they smoke in the house that makes the second hand smoke get to the children much easier and cause harm to them. That would be another way cigarette smokers could be motivated to quit smoking. Also the commercials you see on television with the older people that can't talk without a voicebox and have problems with there face and skin was all because of ciggaretes and if your addicted you could end up the same way.

Boston Marathon

The Boston Marathon was probably the biggest devastation to ever take place in Boston. When I first heard about it I didn’t even believe it at first, I didn’t think something like this would happen especially to my city. I was in shock when I found out the number of people injured and that 3 people died including an 8 year old boy that’s just so sad. He still had his whole life in front of him and it was taken away by a couple of cowards. I still wonder if there was more people involved even though they say it’s only the two brothers.

Boston Strong

What happened in Boston this past week is a disaster. It was the worst thing that has ever happened to Boston. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his older brother Tmerlan Tsarnaev plotted a bombing at the 117^th Boston Marathon and took 3 lives   and one was the life of 8 year old Martin Richard. Clearly this man and his brother have something against the U.S. and are sick in the head if they want to bomb a marathon and take innocent lives. They also murdered MIT officer Sean Collier. After this they were on the run and there ended up being a shootout in Watertown where the eldest brother was shot several times then the younger brother had run him over by accident. Then he wasn’t caught until 19 hours later when he was found in a resident of Watertowns backyard in their boat. 

                 He was under the tarp that was covering the boat and nobody knew until the lockdown was lifted. Then the residential owner David Henneberry walked outside to have a smoke and realized a strap covering his boat was cut which he found suspicious so he went to take a look and saw a puddle of blood and Dzhokhar laying in there. He immediately dialed 911 and the police showed up. They weren’t sure if he had explosives with him or not which he didn’t but just in case they brought in a bomb squad robot to see if he had any and when they knew he didn’t they tossed flash bangs in the boat and eventually got him out and arrested him and rushed him to Beth Israel in Boston.

The crazy thing about this whole thing is he casually went back to his school the day of the bombing and he attended parties and everyone said he seemed calm and relaxed like nothing had happened. That’s what makes him seem like such a psycho. I don’t understand how someone can take four innocent lives and then go hangout with their friends and act completely normal. If one can do that then clearly they have something wrong with them. This whole tragedy is just so upsetting and crazy how it was in our city.

Interview Assignment

             I interviewed my friend Jacob VanDenBerghe on his first year of Norton track and field. I asked him how he likes it so far seeing that it was his first year ever doing track and his response was “It’s fun so far, everyone seems nice.” He also seems pretty optimistic on how their season will turn out by the end of it. The next question I asked was “How do you like your coaches?” He said “I think they are nice and they help out a lot, they especially like to work with you one on one”. The next question I asked Jacob was “What events do you do and how do you like them?” His response was “I throw the javelin and I like it a lot also a lot of the upperclassmen help out and try to get you to perfect your throw.” Then I asked “Is it competitive among you and your teammates never mind the other teams you play?” He answered saying “It’s definitely competitive with my teammates but more so with myself.” He seems he gets along with all his teammates even though they are competitive with one another and want to be better than each other. My last question was “Do you have to be fully dedicated to track to be good?” He answered saying “I don’t think you have to be fully dedicated as long as you compete with yourself and teammates also it really helps to improve my skill with the other sports I play.” Clearly Jacob is enjoying track for his first year and he suggests to everyone to at least try it out because it’s fun.

Malcolm Subban

Malcolm Subban is a back-up goalie for the Boston Bruins but he plays in the Ontario hockey league and is very good. He is only 19 years old and some say in five years he will be the best goalie in the NHL. Currently he plays goalie for the Belleville Bulls and in his second season he finished fourth in the league with a 2.50 goals-against average. Also Subban tied fifth with 0.923 save percentage. As you can see he is a very good goalie and he is only 19 so clearly he has a lot of potential and probably will be one of the best goalies in the NHL one day.

            Malcolm Subban has three brothers and all play professional hockey, one is named P.K. and is on our rival team the Montreal Canadians and plays defense. His younger brother Jordan was drafted fifth overall by the Belleville Bulls in the Ontario Hockey League priority draft. He has just finished his rookie season with them. Clearly the Subban family is just an athletic family of hockey players. He didn’t start playing goalie until he was 12 before that he played defense. Also the reason he wears the number 30 is because of his favorite player Henrik Lundqvist

Cheap Shots-Where are the Calls?

Jack Ledbetter

Do you think what Zdeno Chara did for Tyler Seguin on Sunday against our rivals the Montreal Canadians was the right thing to do considering we were penalized 17 minutes because of it? Zdeno Chara was doing the right thing because Tyler Seguin is one of our youngest and most talented players on the ice and Chara is the captain and was just sticking up for his teammate. Zdeno definitely got the message sent to Alexei Emelin not to lay a hit on anyone on the Bruins like that again. After the hit Chara immediately skated over to Emelin and laid a huge hit on him. After that he just waited for him to get up and unloaded on him throwing vicious uppercuts then the referees broke it up. 

            Another piece of this play you have to take into big consideration is the hit that was laid on Tyler Seguin from Alexei Emelin. How do the referees not notice that and make a call? That should have been a power play for us but instead it resulted in 17 minutes of penalty time for us because of what Zdeno did which was the right thing to do in my opinion. The NHL should have a meeting with the referees just going over that specific play and others like that which were not called. If they do that referees will become more aware of the cheap hits this will result in less injuries and a more fair game.