Drunk Driving

About two weeks ago, I did not have second period because of an assembly about drunk driving. That was, at best, uneventful. With a mom whose daughter passed away making speech reading a prepared paper and with some random ladies using scare tactic. After that, my mind did not change even a bit. Well, let's say I am a not a drinker and I don't drive in the first place. In short, the assembly isn't doing the job i want it to have done.

First of all, as i mentioned before, the assembly featured a mother whose daughter passed away two years ago. She talked about how gorgeous and social she was, and how she tried to be in the group. In order to do so, she had to do something more than being attractive. I am pretty sure she is, and I understand how not being "in the group" sucks. Well, she took up drinking and partying to be in the group. her mother knew all that. WEll, guess what she did, nothing. Then on the fateful night, she drunk drove and died.

I empathize and sympathize with the mother. However, if the effect of that part of the presentation is to prevent drunk driving, it is a pretty bad job. The cause of the problem, or at least part of it, is that the mother did not do a good job talking to her daughter. She never did talk to her face to face. When she did, right before she went out, the conversation lasted for less than an minute and the daughter was pissed. She drove away anyway. What would a responsible mom have done? Well, suspend her car insurance, have a daughter to mom talk, ground her for drinking, or just talked to her daugher's friends. there are many ways to solve the problems. In fact, the essential part is that the daughter was breaking the law by engaging in drinking. She did nothing. As an audience, I can't sympathize with the fact that she made such mistakes. And she actually tried to lecture us..... Well, there is no authority.

Then a friend of the victim came to speak too. Most of the speech was negleiable. However, the ending was interesting. She said, "I am not saying that you should not have fun. You are high schoolers. you should have fun. But just don drink and drive."

That part left me dumbfounded. What the heck was that? It is ok to break the law, but just make sure you don't kill yourself over breaking the law. What kind of a message is it sending? Drinking is a prevalent culture in high school. However, in a school assembly, a former public school student endorsed drinking....I was....I didn't know what to say, what to comment.

Then they sat aside. Some people who worked with victims of drunk driving took over and started the real presentation---- bloodbaths, the scenes after the accident, the broken victims wrapped in think bandages, and last but not least, their grieving parents. It sure did scare the crap out of me. However, they concern the victims themselves. It is not the best approach either.

I personally think that if someone drunk drives and gets himself injured, I would say "sux for you," but I would not grieve for him, or feel sadness for him. Everyone, you may call me a callous and cold person, but think about it. Who got him into the accident, him and only him. He did it himself. breaks the law, drives the vehicle..... Why should we feel sympathy for those who bring misery upon thyself?

The better way to present the horror of drunk driving is to bring in someone who did was injured because of the drunken driver. What I am talking about is collateral damage. bystanders on the street, driver in the other class. They are the truly innocent people. If they just talk about how innocent they are, the audience will think "I don't want to be him, my god." Because of that, the audience gets the messange better. They would not engage in drunk driving because not only do they not want to be in an accident, they also don't want to injure random innocent people.

Anyway, the good thing is that the assembly lasted for only an hour. As much as I liked skipping class, I really loathed the presentation. I can only say the presentation is next to wasting my time. I wonder how much good does it do for the audience. Maybe it does ease some of the mother's guilt....

The meaning of life

On 07/08/1987 around 10 P.M., I cried for the first time in my life. On that day, I was born. Almost 18 years later, I become a healthy, semi-intelligent young person. Before long, I will go to college, the first one in my family to do so. As I enter a new stage of life, I have a question to myself: Why am I here, and what is the meaning of my being here?

Since I was very young, I had such questions. Before I could answer it myself, I had my responsbilities. Going to school, learning a lot, and last but notleast, succeeding in school. I was a mediocre student, and not only did I get some scolding every time i got my report card, I felt guilt because I didn't do well. During summer break, school and my dad gave me summer work (yuck). Therefore, my childhood life is dominated, or preoccupied, by my education

Soon, i moved to America. With a bit of work, I had some academic successes. However, I wasn't marginally happier. I found myself still pursuring.

Later, I realized that I have been pursuing happiness. When I studied in my childhood, I was trying to gain acceptance from my parents, mainly my dad, because I believed that his acceptance would translate to my happiness. However, my dad is never happy with my grades. Therefore, I changed what happiness for me means, I studied for the past 4 years in america because i wanted to go to a good college.

Now, my high school study comes to a close, and I seem to understand what meaning of life is, to pursue happiness. Now, what i have to do is to define what happiness for me is, again.

Love, where the heck are you?

"I love you." I hear this word many times everyday in school, as I walk from one class to another class. After hearing this so many times a day, it makes me wonder: do they actually love each other? While I can't give a definite answer to my question, within a month of two, those couples usually say "I hate you" or "let's break up." I guess the quotes answer my question. With so many "I love you," I really can't find love. Love is not in the air....at least for me.

Love is a very valueable thing for me. I believe that love is a permanent thing. When one is in love with one person, one will love him/her truly and inseparably. For me, love usually ends with a marriage that lasts for one's life time. If marriage ends in divorce, in my view, the couple does not love each other.

Maybe because of my very traditional view of love, I am still trying to find love. I am sometimes disgusted by how people use "love" this word so casually. I view that as a form of hypocrisy. If you do not know what love is, don't use it so lightly.

I like someone for a while. In fact, it came to my mind that i should ask her out. I sent her candies, attended the musical (b/c she was in it :P), and walked to her and asked her out. She rejected my offer. After that, I thought I made a mistake. Do I really love her? I am sure i do like her, and have interest in knowing her better. Yet i asked her out, rather than saying "i want to befriend with you." Even if she agrees to go out with me, will i say "I love you" to her everyday like people do?

I found saying that so fake, and I am an honest person. I don't want to say anything fake to someone I like. Therefore, I think i have disagreed the idea of high school dating. First, it is fake. Second, I am an honest, true person, and falsity is not my favorite game. And Lastly, I have better things to do rather than being fake.

Because I have posed myself in such situation, I guess I have a lot way to go to successfully find love. Love.... Where the heck are you?

Education Disparity

As an economic, political, and military leader of the world, the United States should be strong educationally too. Sadly, it is not the case. Our country lags far behind in international testing among many industrialized nations. However, it may be true that many of our kids are not getting a proper education; we can not deny the fact that America does have many intelligent students. Question comes, should we help the kids who are behind, or should we advance the kids who are above?

President Bush set an ambitious agenda to help American students - No Child Left Behind. All 50 states, including my state Maryland, is subject to testing. A few days ago, I took a look at the statistics, and i found out that our school did pretty well. However, i wonder: how valid are all those testings? Do they actually test students' ability? Or are they just another schemes to make the kids and parents feel better by giving the kids some ridiculously easy tests?

While our school gives mandated testing to kids every year, many students take the AP Exams end of the year. Our school has done well. we have a high pass rate and many students get 4s and 5s. Moreover, it is obvious that the school has focused on the "elite" groups, assigns the best teachers to prepare them, and expects good result. It is a good thing, but not when the "elite" group is very small, because the majority of the students are not getting needed help. My school has around 1400 kids. of such big population, 21 are in AP English, 15 are in AP Calculus BC, 18 are in AP Physics, 15 are in AP Spanish. sounds very "elite," right. the good thing is that around 90 students are in AP Psychology and 60 in AP Calculus AB. The numbers seem relatively large, but compared to the school's population, the number is pathetic.

The trend of my school is that there will be more kids enrolling in AP classes while more kids achieve low level of academic excellence due to poor attention given by the school administration. In a way, it is not a bad thing, since there will be more AP students. However, we can't ignore the people that lag behind. While we achieve higher academic excellence, we should not leave them behind. But is "No Child Left Behind" doing a good job. I don't think so. We need some better policies that bring the bad kids up while not bringing down the good kids. and "No Child Left Behind" is bring the good kids down b/c the tests are extremely easy.

Is her death that painful?

Tonight, the Florida Supreme Court has ruled that it would not overturn the decision that Terri Schiavo's feeding tube be removed. As she gradually heads toward the stairway to heaven, her family keeps bickering over if she suffers pain or not. Her parents, in disillusion, hopes Governor Jeb Bush will do something, and the politicians in Washington scramble the take advantage of the situation. People forget what is really important. Is her death that significant that painful?

She has been on bed for 1/3 (or 15 years) of her life. Doctors believe that she is brain-dead. She shows no sign of recovering. What does she feel? Not good, we suppose. The issue comes, should we allow her to end her life? or we have to let her suffer. My answer is that she should pass away.

First of all, she won't ever (or has a very slim chance) become conscious again. Try wearing her shoes, and see how she feels. I seriously do not think there is any meaning of letting her live.

Second, the money to sustain her comes from taxpayers' pocket. In fact, it is not her husband or her parents who are paying for the cost. Even though the cost would be tiny for each person who lives in Florida, will anyone benefit from her living? Someone somewhere in Florida needs the health care, and the chance of that someone lives and be healthy is exponentially higher than Mrs. Schiavo, who has lay in bed for 15 years. If people say it is not humanitarian to let her die, I can argue that it is not humanitarian to let that someone die either.

Third, her husband is not paying anything toward the cost. However, he has been consistently advocating for letting her die. If he loses the cases, he is the one who needs to pay for everything, (the trial, his lawyers and Schlinder's lawyers). Come to think about it, why is he doing that? Though there are evidences of him abusing her a long time ago, we have to admire his living this sad time with her. If your spouse is going to die but hasn't died for 15 years, it is painful for you too. Also, they are married, so this is the business between the husband and wife, not her parents' business, not the Christian Right's buiness, and not the politicians' business. We have to respect that.

In conclusion, it is her life, so she should decide herself. However, since she is unconscious, we have to appromixate how she feels. Everyone, imagine that you were her. and think about it. Is "your" death that painful when you have been in bed for 15 years???

introduction of myself

Good Day everyone

My name is pragmatist, and this is my first time doing a blog. I might not be good at it, but i will sure try to be better.

I am from Maryland, a very Democratic state, or a so-called "blue" state. My political affiliation, as the title of this blog suggests, is independent. Not surprisingly, under the Democratic influence, I used to be a Democrat (not a registered one, since i am still 17). However, I have found that I agree with some Republican issues, and I realize the good thing of being an independent (looking at things objectively, and such). therefore, i sort of changed my political affilication.

I am generally liberal on economic issues. sometimes, i think i am very socialist. I am conversative on some (if not all) social issues. However, as my name suggests, i am pragmatic, so social issues are not my favorite.

I am a high school student, so I might not be knowledgeable as you are. However, i will try my best to learn as i blog. i hope you will see my blogs soon!! By the way, i will talk about all issues. Political issues are just my favorite. :)