What I Learned

In English 101, I have learned many things. Over the course of these few weeks, I've learned how to strengthen my own writing and researching skills, how to effectively manage my time, and how to successfully peer review and take constructive criticism about my own writing. This class is so similar and so different to any other English class I've taken. It's similar in the sense that I am reading essays and writing papers, but I haven't had much experience with a sort of open ended type of paper. It was a challenge to figure out what writing style worked best for me and how to sort all of my thoughts, but I think it was a necessary struggle I needed to go through to help me further my writing and researching skills.

State Trooper

I don't like running, I am. I am running on a treadmill, trying to outrun my own doubts and insecurities. Trying to outrun uncertainty and my future. I am running. I run as fast as I can, but I never move. With distractions in front of me and music in my ears, I try to fool myself into thinking I am winning the hopeless race I am on.
I've never been good at running. I tire to quickly and I am not fast. Fear keeps me running but, when I know it's hopeless to keep going, my legs give up. I stop running and fall to the ground. And I wait. I wait for what I've been running from to catch up to me. And it always does. I sometimes think that stopping would be easier but distractions keep me going. As long as I don't face what I fear and I keep a steady pace, the insecurities and uncertainty will disappear, right? That's how it works, right? Because I'm so tired. This much running is not good for my legs or my body.

Comfirmatio

Throughout research for my paper, I've discovered that my first two points for why Pennsylvania should incorporate a unit on Mental Health education in their heath classes relate heavily on the idea of decreasing stigma of teens with mental illness and the stigma of mental illness in general.

My main points for why mental illness should be taught in public schools are:

• Lessen the Stigma of mental illness in teens
• Create a safer environment for students who are affected mentally ill
• Help students identify symptoms of mental illness for themselves and others and how to help them

In my research, I've found that

• Students who have limited or inaccurate information about mental health have more stigmatizing attitudes about individuals with mental health.
• Common stereotypes include the ideas that individuals with mental illness are incompetent, weak, or dangerous.
• The consequences of stigma can be very serious, including affecting an individual's self-esteem, decreasing opportunities for social interactions, and reducing the likelihood of care seeking for one's mental health.
• Also, teenagers are less likely to seek out help for mental health because of social stigma against mental illness.
• Teenage males are found to have more mental illnesses but reach out for help significantly less than teenage girls.
• Teenage males are also found to be more heavily stigmatized against.

From this research, I've found that teaching about mental health to teenagers can reduce the stigma of mental illness, by providing correct and age appropriate information. This, in turn, will decrease the stigmatizing attitude in the teenagers, which will decrease the amount of bullying or social isolation on the mentally ill teens. Without the social isolation and bullying, teenagers with mental illness (who have not gotten help) are far more likely to ask for and receive help.

Exordium

I have many people in my life who suffer from mental illnesses, my sister and mother included.  I remember hearing about mental illness for the first time and realizing that a lot more people were affected by it than I first thought.  Almost every one of my friends has some form of mental illness, most commonly depression or an anxiety disorder.  All of these people are between the ages of 15 and 18.  I knew what mental illness was, but I didn't know how it showed or manifested itself in individuals or how to interact with them effectively.  I am still struggling with this on a day to day.  Mental illness is a tricky thing to deal with, because it can be different in everyone and there is no proper way to measure if a person has a chemical imbalance or they have emotional issues behind the illness.  I remember my one close friend asked me why our other friend was depressed.  What was the reason behind it.  I had to explain to her that depression isn't always caused by an experience.  Most times, it's either an experience that manifests itself in a harmful way in the brain or it's a chemical imbalance inside the brain.  There's no real way of measuring what chemical it is or how much the brain has, or why it manifest in this way.  That's just how it is.  She still didn't understand.  Her younger sister told my sister, when she was having a severe downward spiral due to her depression and her medication not working, that "sometimes your mood is what you make it."  She did not mean to suggest that the reason that my sister was feeling down was her own fault, but that is what she did.  There have been other time where friends that are close to me make insensitive comments towards other people about their mental illness, because they don't understand the problem.  A lack of education about mental illness has broken ties and hurt friendships.

Narratio

Mental illness is an issue that is very present in many teenagers' lives.  The time surrounding puberty is often when mental illness can manifest in young teens.  There is a harmful stigma tied with teens and mental illness.  Mental illness is sometimes considered a taboo topic among people.  People don't know how to help or interact with mentally ill people, so they just shove it to the side.  Many young teens are told that they don't even have a real problem and they just need to "grow up" or "think positive."  This denial of an issue can manifest itself into bigger problems later in the teen's life.  I think that this stigma comes from people not understanding mental illness, how it manifests in the person and how to understand and interact with them.  Having a mental illness, like depression and anxiety, can lead to problems with motivation and connecting with people.  Isolation is a very common problem for people with mental illness and having peers and adults not know what to do or how to interact with people facing these issues can make self-isolation much easier to do and maintain.  Teenagers can often wrongly self-diagnose themselves or believe that they don't have a problem, because they don't fully understand what's happening to them.  While teaching about mental illness could have a placebo affect on some students, the students who are suffering from the mental illness (whether they know it or not) would gain new knowledge about themselves and be able to communicate the problem to an adult or medical professional.  As someone who has many loved ones who suffer from various mental illnesses, it has been hard for me to learn how to communicate and interact with these people.  Mental illness is not easy for the person going through it or their loved ones.  Teaching about mental illness to people who have loved ones will help them understand and be able to communicate effectively with the mentally ill person.

Bobby Fuller

I have a lot of mixed feelings about the Right to Bear Arms.  In some cases, I am against it and annoyed by the people who defend it.  There have been so many tragedies in the US because of the Right to Bear Arms, but the people who want to commit the horrible acts are not law abiding citizens, so changing the policies on purchasing firearms would not effect them as much.  What really upsets me is when people defend this policy because of a persons hobby.  I personally could not imagine butting one of my hobbies ahead of a person's life.  I personally have no idea how to correct or regulate how people obtain firearms, but something needs to happen.  There has to be a reason why this has happened so many times in America and not many other places in the world.

Grove City Men, Grove City Women

Grove City men are interested in showing that they know how to party, but still come to church every Sunday.  Grove City men show their dominance by way of Adidas shirts and Nike shoes, but don't know how to belt their pants properly.  Grove City men don't know how to conduct themselves in front of the opposite sex, but still claim that they've banged twenty girls.  You can identify a Grove City man as soon as they open their mouths, because what comes out is usually homophobic or slightly racist.  The Grove City men sports star are treated like Gods but have taken Algebra 1 three times.

Grove City women are the queens of being two faced.  Attending church every Sunday, only after they've spent the night out.  Grove City women live off gossip.  If a Grove City women derives from the "norms," they'll have to move.  Grove City women are great at keeping their own secrets, but terrible at keeping others.  You'll never really know if a Grove City woman really likes you, because they constantly talk behind your back.  Grove City women claim they want a ring on their finger, but not if it means that they can't spend every Friday night with their tongues down another persons throat.

Next Right Moves

The main feedback I've gotten was to decrease the amount of background in the essay and increase the actual criteria and why certain elements of the TV series were good or not good.  Honestly, my partner wasn't of any real critical help because they liked most every part of it.  I have been reading reviews on Entertainment Weekly, both about the series I am reviewing and about other cartoons they've reviewed.  It has really helped me hone in on the criteria and the language they use in the review.  Writing a review that is interesting and touches on criteria discreetly is a difficult task, which I have not even come close to perfecting.  I have been adding more varied and creative language to the essay to make it more precise and interesting to the reader.  I've also been taking out the more general statements about the series to keep it from sounding generalized.  I have been having trouble with coming up with specific examples about the series and then integrating them into the paper in a well written way.  That is the thing I've been having the most trouble on.  But I think just reading the paper over and focusing closely on one criteria at a time has really helped me.

Paperback Writer

More Than This by Patrick Ness is an excellent book that I would recommend to most everyone.  More Than This is about a young boy called Seth Wearing.  Right from the get go, you learn that Seth is dead.  The book is so interesting because it spends it's majority with Seth being alone in this Limbo world, which seems boring, but Ness does an incredible job of making a perfect blend of single person dialogue and flashback memories of Seth's life.  The genre is a perfect blend of drama, young adult fiction, and science fiction.

Living Wrong

At the end of September, I attended the Thrival Music and Innovation Festival in Pittsburgh.  Over the course of two day, almost 15 different artists performed.  I attended the first day and watched Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness and Panic! at the Disco perform, along with a few others.  I had never heard Andrew McMahon's music before, but his stage presence and style of music and singing really captured my attention.  His style could be comparable to dance-pop music with elements of folk-rock.  He was almost personal in how he interacted with the audience and presented himself on stage.  His interactions seemed genuinely happy and excited to be there and his fans in the audience were eating it up.  His music was very catchy and very well performed, and I have listened to his albums after the fact.  The way he performed on stage and the way he sounded recorded are very similar, which is nice, considering how different a recorded voice can sound.  After his set was finished, Panic! at the Disco took the stage.  I had seen Panic! perform once before and they are always amazing.  Very consistent in sound, voice, and energy levels while on stage.  Brendon Urie, Panic!'s front man, took live performance opportunity to truly showcase not only his performing abilities, but also his truly remarkable range.  It is safe to say that Panic! is equally as good recorded as they are live, despite the changes in the band's members throughout the years.

Bottle of White

Let's talk restaurants.  I am not a huge buff for going to restaurants, but I do know good food when I have it.  A restaurant that I frequent is Bobo Rice Bowl in Grove City.  If you like good Chinese food, you should take up Bobo's.  Their food is always delicious and hot.  You can order online and schedule a time to pick it up.  Granted, it's not the cheapest food but the portions are big enough to feed two people at least.  I do not know a lot about Chinese food, but I have had a lot.  American Chinese food is not always the best, but Bobo is always consistently delicious and the service is very friendly and efficient.  They serve a variety of dishes and also include vegetarian options, which I have heard nothing but good things about.

Racing in the Street

When evaluating and reviewing music, whether it is an individual song or an entire album, there are specific criteria that a reviewer usually uses.  They usually start with talking about the specific band or artist who preforms the album or song, like what kind of genre they are, how long they've been around, and how many other albums/singles they've produced.  Next, they would start with evaluating the album on it's own, like what style of music it is, is there an underlying message/story to the piece, is there flow to the album/song, the actually performance of the song and is it interesting/does it capture the attention of the audience.  If one song from the album is the "title song" or has gained extreme popularity, the reviewer might go into close detail about that specific song.  They might talk about the specific lyrics and musical aspects of this song and maybe talk about the cultural impact of the song or why try to ration out why it became so popular.  They might compare it to the artist's other works or other popular musical artists songs (whether it's similar or different) and talk about how successful the album has been in the charts.

Flaming Lips

The Legend of Zelda; Ocarina of Time is by far the best game I have every played.  The story line follows a young boy by the name of Link, who lives in the fictional forest of Kokiri.  In the beginning of the story, he meets Princess Zelda and she asks him to help collect the Spiritual Stones to help fight the power of the antagonistic, Lord Ganondorf.  The remainder of the game is searching and collecting the Spiritual Stones.  The game has an excellent sense of story and cinematography.  It's like watching a movie that you can interact with.  While it is a puzzle video game, and I am awful at puzzles, the plot kept me coming back to play.  Because of the personal aspect of the game, as you play as Link and he meets and helps people, a real sense of connection to the characters is created.  That is also due, in no small part, to the realistic dialogue between characters.

English, do you speak it?

Over the summer, Disney Pixar released the film Inside Out.  This film features a young girl named Riley's emotions in her head as she moves from Michigan to San Francisco, California.  The film was a truly excellent portrayal of a young person's thoughts and emotions throughout this transition.  At one point in the film, Riley falls into depression and her emotions cannot control her anymore.  In the end, what was understood, is that it's OK to be sad about change and growing up and that life won't be just one emotion at a time but many emotions all together.  I felt that this movie was truly ground breaking in how society and individuals view depression.  However, Riley's depression is solved in the movie by talking to her parents, which is not accurate because, in most cases, depression doesn't just go away all at once.  I really appreciated that depression in young people is now becoming a mainstream topic of discussion because that topic really hits close to home with me.  The portrayal of a person's thought process, interest, and experience of emotions was truly excellent.  I also loved seeing the contrast of how Riley's parents' emotions behaved and how her emotions behaved.  There was also this portrayal of becoming more emotionally fluent as the emotions in Headquarters got a bigger "control panel."

Love Sick

I have never been in a romantic relationship of any kind.  Not even close.  Don't get me wrong, I have had interests in people and people have been interested in me.  However, the people who I seem to attract I am not attracted to.  They are always a little odd.  A little awkward.  Or just down right unattractive to me.  There was one particular incident with a boy named Hayes.  Hayes was my friend and he was interested in my other friend, Bri.  Bri did not reciprocate those feelings.  After being asked out by Hayes, Bri fake cried and turned him down.  Not five minutes later, he texted her asking, "Hey, could you help me get Rachel?"  I have so many problems with this statement.  One; It shows a complete lack of actual romantic attachment to Bri, which could hint at him not having any romantic attachment to anyone.  Two; What? You just declared your love to Bri and now you immediately want her friend?  Three and most importantly; I am not a think to be "got."  Let's make that very clear.  So, for the next two years of awkward friendship and constant hinting at a closer relationship, after I shut him down many times, Hayes graduated.  Or, at least, he left high school.  I still see him from time to time because he works at Walmart.  And the utter indifference and slight annoyance he gets from seeing me give me such satisfaction.

My Old School

There have been several times in my schooling career that I have realized that I was a favorite student.  I also realized the advantages.  I was picked on and bullies many times throughout school.  A few time my temper got the best of me and I acted on it, like when I tried to stomp on a boys foot and then kicked him in the shin when I missed.  There was one instance where I discovered just how much I could get away with.  It was during Freshman health class.  Noah, a boy who was a known terror among the students and faculty, was picking on me for reading Harry Potter and being a fan.  Once he turned back around in his desk, I raised my roughly 500 page hardback book and hit him on the back of the head as hard as I could.  Granted, it really wasn't that hard, but the sound it produced was quite impressive.  The teacher, almost reflexively, asked, "Noah, what are you doing?"  There wasn't even a thought that I had done something wrong.  The fact that I was a "good student" and he was a "bad student" effected the outcome almost entirely.  After this, I used my "good student" title to my advantage, which sounds awful, but it did work out for myself and others.  After alerting the teachers to the rowdy behavior of some of the other students, the school year and learning process was much more enjoyable.

Even Burt Reynolds

This past summer, I went on a road trip with two of my best friends.  Ten days, 5 different locations.  The trip took us down south into Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.  I have done road trips before, but nothing this intense.  On the third day of our trip, we arrived at Cape Lookout, North Carolina.  It was 100% humidity and approximately 1000 degrees, well, it felt like it was.  After walking half a mile in the sun and sand and carrying heavy backpacks, we were all exhausted and suffering from heat stress.  After cooling off, we had a lovely time that night.  However, the next day held much of the same from the day before.  Again with 100% humidity and with very high temperatures, the ferry ride back to shore was unpleasant at best.  We arrived at the car and my friend promptly vomited from heat exhaustion.  I had experience some anxiety and fear while traveling, but the reality hit me like a ton of bricks then;  We were over 700 mile away from home and had never done anything like this before.  While calling my mother, I told my friends, "I'm going to cry now and I hope you're OK with that."  And I did.  I cried and cried.  I even began hyperventilating because I was sobbing so hard.  We drove to a hotel to spend the night and I just laid in the back and cried.  I couldn't stop.  I never expected my anxiety and emotions to get the better of me like they did.  I think that moment, and the moments to follow, really started my struggle with anxiety and keeping my emotions and thoughts in check.

Words of advice for young people

I imagine that Tessa Violet would offer me some advice, pertaining to my current academic and life situation, similar to the following, "I think that going to a community college to figure out what you want to do is very smart.  I would encourage you to go out of your comfort zone and don't be afraid to explore classes and careers you've never thought about before.  As for your anxiety and difficulty transitioning into college life, just give it time.  You'll figure it out and find a schedule that works for you.  Things will also get better once you get involved in activities around campus.  I know it's hard going from high school to college, when you were so involved in high school and you had your specific peer group and niche.  Just do what you want to do and you will gravitate towards people with the same interests and vice versa.  Feeling anxious about a new phase in your life is not unusual.  It's perfectly normal .  You'll figure it out.  Also, don't feel like you have to rush in to choosing a career or a major.  If you find one quickly, great!  If you graduate and still don't know what you want to do, don't worry!  Just keep moving forward.  The right path for you will open up when the time is right."

Carol Okana

My younger sister is very dear to me.  She is turning fifteen this September.  Every since she was little, she's always been a melancholy kid.  Kind of somber, introverted, and quiet.  I often wondered if she had depression because of her severe mood swings, reluctance to go out, and just her general state of being.  I had asked my mom about it and she said that the mood swings were mainly based on her ADD, because severe mood swings are a common sign of ADD in teenage girls.  I accepted this explanation and moved on.  During these last few months, I discovered that my suspicions were correct and my sweet baby sister was diagnosed with clinical depression when she was in sixth grade, almost three years ago.  When I found out, I wasn't really surprised.  I was mostly sad that it was actually true.  Especially because I have a friend who's been in and out of hospitals because of severe depression and anxiety.  I don't want that fate for my sister.  I try to be supportive, but it's hard when I've never battled with depression or anxiety.  But, I'm still going to be there for her.