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The Center of the Universe

The car in front of me won’t move. We are not in a school zone, there is no one in front of us, but they won’t move. They car starts to roll forward, as if they have just taken their foot off the brake, but they don’t hit the gas pedal, they just creep forward. What are they waiting for? I’m stuck in the rush hour as everyone is heading home. Not me, I am on my way to basketball practice, and if I’m late the whole team will have to run. I hate having to rush in traffic but it’s a common occurrence because I don’t plan for traffic or other inconveniences along the way. Traffic is at a stand still and cars have started honking at the immobile car. I hate honking my horn. I know that it is there for safety purposes, in case someone pulls out in front of you and you have to warn them, etc. But even in those instances I’ll probably just try to move out of their way because I really despise honking the horn. The honking grows increasingly louder, but traffic doesn’t move. You would think
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Water fights, Breakfast, and No homework

Every summer, we travel to Germany to visit our relatives. My brother and I go to school with our cousins for two weeks every year. In Germany, the schooling system is very different than one might expect in America. When you think of schools you probably think along the lines of an organized place of learning. In Germany however, school isn’t usually taken as seriously, one reason being that only 11 th and 12 th -grade count for their Abitur, which is the test that they will submit to universities. Because of this idea, the schooling system in Germany is much more relaxed than the American system. They have block schedules, but usually, their school day ends before 1:00 pm. Every year the Arbiturienten, the seniors, will perform an Abistreich, most likely blockading the path to the school. One year when I was visiting, they posted a couple seniors at each door with water guns to stop any underclassmen and teachers from entering. For some reason, the underclassmen tried to get in
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Under the Hay to Save the Day but Devastation Happens Anyway

Germany was losing the war, why should he go on a suicide mission for them? Ludwig was eighteen now but the whole affair had started when he was only sixteen. The second world war had been going on for a while, but never had they asked for soldiers so young. It began on a cold day in December. He woke up to his mother calling him down to meet the SS officer at the door. He was told to report to the anti-aircraft missile base by the next day. This was not the front, but there was always a chance that the allies would bomb the area. He stayed at the base for two years and then received the order to move out immediately and transfer to the pilot training camp. They constantly needed new pilots because the Allies were purposely targeting all their new planes. For the newly trained pilots taking off was basically suicide. The Germans didn’t have enough time to properly train any of them and constantly needed new fighters because the original pilots had perished. There were still some very
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Insignificance

“What would you like to drink?” asks the flight attendant for the 5 th time. I try to change the beverage every time but now I just want water, we are going to land soon. I look out the window and see all the tiny sky scrapers, the cars, and the people invisible unless in crowds. Looking down from the plane, the houses are transformed into doll houses and the cars into tiny matchbox cars. Is this what the world is? Just a tiny sphere where no one can really make a difference? Whenever I’m in planes I’m filled with excitement and dread every time I look out the window because it reminds me of how little I am in this sizeable world. We are surrounded by people we know and in a town like Urbana-Champaign, it appears that you know everyone and everyone knows you. It is impossible to disappear into a crowd, but this allows for a tighter knit society. In a city like Chicago for example, it is more likely that you will meet no one that you know, than meeting one person that you have met bef
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Past or Future?

Has anyone ever asked you what era you would choose to live in? Most people might say that they want to return to Roman times, the Renaissance, or even the Medieval times. I am usually confused by these ideas. Yes, there were some geniuses during these eras and we tend to learn about the wealthy who seemed to live wonderful lives, but what about the common folk? If you choose an era but not what social class you would belong to, the most likely scenario is that of a poor farmer or even a slave. These people were plagued by disease, there were no sanitation facilities let alone a sewage system, and the average life expectancy was less than 30 years. Many people say they want to go back in time because they don’t appreciate how technology has affected our lives. But the question should be, how has technology improved our lives? Antibiotics did not exist until 1928 and although vaccines were created in 1796, they did not become popular until much later. In high school, we might encou
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The Schooling System

The first American schools were founded in the 17 th century. Now it might be easy to assume that by now we have perfected our schooling system, however, I don’t believe this to be the case. The average student is required to attend school for about 6 and ½ hours daily. The schedule will be the same every day. But what is achieved during these hours? Because of standardized tests, teachers are required to follow a certain curriculum to prepare their students. If they do not follow the corresponding syllabus, their class might do poorly on the standardized tests and therefore receive less funding from the government. Although the idea of standardized testing was to encourage schools to put more effort into their teaching methods, this technique has proven to be detrimental towards the students. If the school requests that a teacher prepares their students towards the assessment, they might start reading excerpts in English instead of books. They will learn how to excel at taking stand
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What Time is it?

“On average, a person has 700,000 hours in his or her life.” I hadn’t been listening to the speaker for a while when this sentence caught my attention. I was at a leadership seminar in Southern Illinois and I wasn’t really learning anything new. I also don’t remember what the rest of the speaker’s speech was about, but that one sentence stayed ingrained in my mind. I had never thought about how much time I had to live before and I didn’t approach this realization with remorse, just with astonishment. Every hour is 1/700,000 of a person’s life. I had never calculated how many hours an average person would live and I assumed it was at least a million. But this finite number made me come to the realization that each hour is precious for the individual. I didn’t suddenly change my entire lifestyle or decide never to relax again, but throughout the next month, the thought remained at the back of my head. Every time I was sitting there with nothing to do the thought would reappear in the ba
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