Finding Some Meaning in Valentine's Day by Saina Srivastava
That time of the year has rolled around again; when people young and old are disgustingly in love. And here we are, quietly munching our chocolates in solitude. To all those people that want to find some meaning in this holiday, here are my 5 tips:
Love is more than just romantic: Take this day to do what you love: painting, dancing, writing, reading, playing video games, and more.
Spend it with those that you love: It’s a day to celebrate the love you have in your life. Spend time with your family, pet, or friends that feel like family. It’s a day of appreciating all the love you have in your life.
Movie. Night.: You’d be surprised how emotionally gratifying it is to just curl up into a blanket and watch that movie you wanted to see. More fun if your friends are involved. If there isn’t a movie that comes to mind, watch your favorite TV show. Who said Valentine’s day was only for couples?
Self-care: Self-love is still love. Take a long bath while listening to soothing jazz music or isolate yourself and just read. Do that skincare routine you’ve always wanted to try or treat yourself to your favorite restaurant. It doesn’t have to be that elaborate either. Going to sleep early is a form of self-care too.
Eat good food: This is solely a personal choice, but good food leads to good moods. Eat that amazing lasagna that your mom makes, or bake your favorite cake. And once again, it doesn’t have to be fancy. Sometimes eating Oreos in the middle of the night while watching your favorite TV show works better than anything
It’s just a day that symbolizes love. It isn’t inherently romantic. Valentine’s day is what you make of it. And to those that want it to mean something, well, make it mean something beautiful to you. It isn’t a day just for people in relationships, because quite frankly, all of us love someone. So, make it a day to spend it with them. Family, friends, self, we all love. And we all are loved.
CollegeBoard is a Monopoly by Ava Grant
For some students the pressure of life outside of high school takes hold sooner than others. For some students, high school is not about the parties, friends, or having fun, but rather a stepping stone for college. For some students, college seems like an escape. CollegeBoard uses and manipulates these thoughts, these fears, to make a profit from testing. CollegeBoard is a business who claims that they allow their students to have “educational success and opportunity,” but if that is the case, why is there a disproportionate amount of success in the affluent compared to those who are less well-off (“Doing Business with College Board”). According to Forbes, both standardized testing (SAT) and AP exams show that people of color score lower than Caucasian students showing that their claim of caring about giving all students success and opportunity might be questionable. The main focus on this monopoly on education is if CollegeBoard truly cares about students' success more than their success as an industry. As more colleges are joining the “growing ‘test optional’ movement,’ the necessity of CollegeBoard becoming more uncertain; however, if that is the case, then the question of why students still care so much about standardized testing and AP exams becomes more prominent (Adams). Students who are afraid that their future might be on the line as a result of access to higher education creates this fear that will push them to have the best AP scores or SAT scores so that they will have access to more opportunities. For students who want to be able to be independent from their families and not rely on financial support, who want to be able to leave the place they live to seek new opportunities and experiences, and even students who want to be able to go to a certain university feel like they have to be able to present themselves as the smartest, most wanted candidate, for a college CollegeBoard seems like an excellent way to do that. This results in students pressuring themselves to be the best, allowing CollegeBoard to take advantage of that fear to be able to become a powerful business. Although these fears are irrational, CollegeBoard promotes them in order to be able to flourish rather than focusing on how it affects high school students. This workload on students becomes “time-consuming and overwhelming,” but students push through it in the fear that not doing such things will deny them the opportunities they want in the future as CollegeBoard presents such success as key to opportunity for admissions into higher education institutions (R., Gabriel Marquez). They additionally control “tests and test preparation prices” that allow them to control the amount of money they get by instilling a fear that students should retest to get the test scores that they think colleges want (R., Gabriel Marquez).
Works Cited Adams, Susan. “The Forbes Investigation: How the SAT Failed America.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 17 Dec. 2020, www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2020/09/30/the-forbes-investigation-how-the-sat-failed- america/?sh=68ca347053b5. “Doing Business with College Board.” Doing Business With Us | College Board, about.collegeboard.org/doing-business#:~:text=College%20Board%20is%20a%20mission, all%20businesses%2C%20including%20diverse%20suppliers. R., Gabriel Marquez. “The College Board Profits off Students' Anxieties about College Admissions.” Daily Trojan, 16 Sept. 2021, dailytrojan.com/2021/09/16/the-college-board-profits-off-students-anxieties-about-college-a dmissions/.
Book Banning Across the Country by Saina Srivastava
In recent years, a lot of books have been challenged in academic settings. One of the most famous ones was To Kill a Mockingbirdby Harper Lee. However, what are the implications of this? Many supporters of book-banning claim that some books expose children to graphic materials such as sex, drugs, violence, and more. But on closer inspection, one realizes that many books in danger of being banned or have been banned either deal with racial or sexual profiles or written by colored authors. The New York Times explores this in their article “Why Book Ban Efforts are Spreading Across the U.S.” They find that in places such as Wyoming, prosecutors of a certain county are considering pressing charges against the librarians stocking banned books. In Oklahoma, there is a bill proposed aiming to prohibit books discussing sexual content, sexual identity, and gender identity. Similar efforts are echoed across the country. Books, first and foremost, are an author’s story, imaginative or real. Laurie Halse Anderson’s book Speak, regarding her sexual assault as a teenager, promotes fellow survivors to feel empowered and delineates their experience. Books that tackle situations like physical violation, racism, abuse, and more allow for the conversations around the topics to be less stigmatized, helping both the survivor and the community. Banning such books limits the author’s voice and creates a volatile environment for others. Secondly, books give their readers the opportunity to understand different perspectives and can be instrumental in self-discovery. Many children may feel alienated for their feelings and experiences. Books, especially the books up for debate, contain content that may provide fellowship and a sense of camaraderie that may not be available in an environment. Furthermore, there is ample opportunity for conversations and normalization of many sensitive topics. The concept of these books have been politicized, obstructing a way to create solutions. No matter where a person stands, to limit the narrative that can be introduced to the younger generation is problematic. And ultimately, it is a decision that must fall on the person who is reading the books, no one else.