ROHS courses

It's coming. It's approaching fast. It's Scheduling Day.

Oh the choices, the choices! Right? Or is it more accurately stated as the lack thereof...
It seems that we keep have less and less choices of the classes we want to take because the classes we are required to take keep getting in the way. As I explore my options I soon discover that I am very limited with my choices. Next year I'm taking a math, English, science, and history course. On top of that I am taking Choir and Spanish as my electives. So where does the school newspaper fit in or my art class? They don't. It saddens me a bit too because all of the hope I had that I could take the classes that appealed to me are being squashed right in front of me. :(

I obviously know that there are standard courses that everyone who graduates needs to take. It's disappointing that some people don't have enough space in their schedule to take a class they want and might ultimately help them in their job field. For instance, gym and health are two requirements for graduating. Some people get them out of the way in the summer so that they have more space for other classes. Others aren't so fortunate. I'm one of the "others". I had to take health and gym my freshman year along with choir. This meant that I was a year behind in Spanish. This lead to more problems my sophomore year because when I started to pick my classes I was limited to Spanish and choir again. Now of course, Spanish and choir are my choices. No one is making me take them. The thing is, most colleges want you to have two or more years of a foreign language under your belt before you graduate high school. My plan was to take two years of Spanish and be done with it so I could be on the school newspaper or yearbook my junior and senior year. I won't be able to do that now.

As you can see, scheduling is a very difficult and thought provoking process for a lot of students. Their futures depend greatly upon it. A simple solution would be to make the schoolday a 7 hour day. It would eleviate some of the burden of not having too many wanted classes and not enough class slots to fill. Now this plan isn't fool proof, and there definitely are some other alternatives and problems with it, but it seems like a worthy cause to look into. To help kids take the classes they really want to take.

Michigan During Winter

As you may know, Michigan is a state that is located in the Northwestern region of the United States. During the wintertime the sun doesn't shine quite as much, and it's rays do not shine down as strong as in the summertime. Simply put, we have cold winters. The odd thing is, it never occured to me how cold Michigan winters are until recently. I went out to start the car a couple of days ago and the car read that it was 8 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Maybe it's just me, but this winter has been drastically colder than previous winters we've had. It also could be that my coat isn't as warm as last winters'. What I do know is that all the harsh cold, snow, and bleak conditions during the winter are definitely not the type of atmosphere I like to live in. They also don't help with that fact that we still have about 5 months of school left, and most of them will be spent buddled up in the classrooms because somehow the room's thermostats lie to us.

Super-Size Me

In America, its pretty much always been "the bigger the better". We live in a country where food portions are out of control, where a huge majority of the population is overweight and/or obese, and yet we keep the same old habits! I personally live in the suburbs of one of the fattest cities in the world. Now some people may laugh and say "who cares", but that's what it feels like. It seems as if no one really cares that they're, to put it blatently, fat. In Morgan Spurlock's movie Super-Size Me, he conducted an expirement to see what would happen if he ate only McDonald's food for 30 days straight. Surprise, surprise, the excessive fast food eating lead to serious health problems for Morgan. His blood pressure sky rocketed, he gained a ridiculous amount of weight, and he always felt fatigued.

I felt that his expiriment was a tad extreme, because not very many people eat McDonald's for every meal (with a few exceptions). It did provide for some very eye opening finds though. With these findings he made millions of people realize that they shouldn't eat the junk McDonald's serves. Most do realize this of course, but for some it helped the fact really sink in. For me, it definitely did. I don't eat meat, so I never eat the fat laden burgers, chicken, etc. there, but I don't think I will be stopping by McDonal's anytime soon.

"It's the most wonderful time of the year"

"It's the most wonderful time of the year!" -right?

How could Christmas, let alone winter, not be? The 20 degree temperatures, the slippery sidewalk, car accidents, snow slush, and don't forget the excessive gift shopping and spending; all entities I love dearly. Don't get me wrong, Christmastime is one of the main things I look forward to in the year. I love ooh-ing and aw-ing at the pretty lights people put up and the all the nice food around the holidays. You can't forget decorating the Christmas tree!

It just seems to me that Christmas has become such a pagan holiday that I wonder why it is so great sometimes. I mean, the holiday was meant for celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, but yet we rarely see Jesus as the main topic of the holiday. It has gotten twisted enough that all people care about are the presents and Santa Clause. I'm not saying I don't enjoy the presents under the tree or that I never wrote letters to Santa Clause. I just feel that people need to be more informed about the holiday; that's all.

Another topic has concerned me about the "holiday season" or more specifically, Christmas; the stress. I don't understand the reason why adults would want blow their brains out to keep up with the Jones' and try to buy everyone they know expensive Christmas presents. Obviously, this is mostly hypothetical, but I know people who do it. I know this is expected of people, but it is most definitely not helping me in looking forward to being an adult. I have seen my parents frantically try to decorate and buy things for Christmas parties and people and its not very pleasant. I just hope that this year won't be the same and that it can be a more enjoyable and relaxing holiday- haha, yeah right.

Career Aspirations

Recently, our high school held Career Day like it usually would. I only made the last 20 minutes of it, but from what I could see it was the same old career day that I had been to a couple times before. There were tables set up with different companies and organizations trying to lure students in with candy and give aways in order for them to see what they have to offer. Students would walk around with a sheet to fill out about the people they interviewed. It was pretty straight forward. Our Honors English class took a different approach on it. We made up our own questions and surveys and asked the workers at each station in hope to get some great feedback that would help create reliable statistics.


Amidst all the hullabaloo I started to really muse over what career pathway I would go down. One can never be sure at this point, and I definitely am having a hard time deciding. It seems too early to be deciding what I want to do or be when I get older, but in perspective it really isn't because by the beginning of our senior year we need to practically be done with applying to colleges. That means we have to have a pretty good idea of what career pathway we need so that we can apply to colleges suitable for that choice.



Currently, I have narrowed down my choices for career fields based on my likes, dislikes, etc. I know I couldn't handle being in the medical field because I get queasy when I'm near needles or see lots of blood. I think that's very helpful. I'm not very "artsy" so it would be quite odd if I even attempted to major in something that has a high relevance to art skills. Other than that I am very open to many other careers. I find the ocean and environmental issues riveting, so that might help me a bit, but other than that I haven't experienced enough to even fully comprehend what I'm going to be when I'm older.

ROHS Mock Election: Reflections and Recommendations

Last Thursday Royal Oak High School held their own Mock Election. Students would go up to the voting boxes and fill in their candidate of choice along with a "yes" or "no" about Proposals 1 and 2 for Michigan and our own school's Proposal 1. This was a trial run of the event and the ultimate turn out was pretty decent. All in all, Obama won our school by quite some votes, but McCain hung in there with a small percentage. I think the question here is, was this a fair representation of the ROHS student body?



I think it was a fair representation, but I believe that it could have been better. About 700 people voted, but I think that we can do better. Our school hosts 1,800 people and I think it is reachable to make sure than at least 1,000 vote in our next election. Of course, this was the first time we had done it, but with a few modifications I think that we can have an even better mock election.

First off, I think that there should be more voting slots so that the lines aren't as long. This will draw more people in because I heard that people didn't vote because they "didn't want to wait in the long line". I think that in shortening the line and the time it takes to actually vote, we will get more voters.

Secondly, I think that the students should be more informed about the ballot. People had said that they weren't sure what both Proposal 1's and Proposal 2 meant, so they did not fill in their scantron for that section. To get a more efficient and accurate standpoint on the proposals I believe we needed to better inform people so they would know what they were voting for.

I believe these additions and moderations will greatly benefit our future mock elections. I know they will continue to be a great success.

Of Mice and Men: Banned

Recently, in our Honors ELA 10 class we read the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Our teacher informed us that the book was banned in some school districts. This somewhat surprised me because I had never heard that this book had ever been banned before. As we began to dig into the book I came to realize why.

I think one of the main reasons for the banning would be the language used or more so the swear words used in the book. Very often there were curse words in the writing, specifically starting on page four and continuing throughout the whole book. There was also the violent and graphic scenes that occured in the book, such as Lennie and Curly's fight and the killing of Curly's wife. Both were detailed and disturbing.

This makes me wonder though. Why censor students, and mainly older ones at that, by banning certain books? It's not like we have never seen or heard that graphic language and violence. I think that in trying to preserve how naïve we are, the officials overdue it a bit and refrain students from being able to read one of the most popular pieces of literature in our history.I believe the district(s) that have banned this book have taken it a little too far in that sense.