Life, Liberty, and School

I found a very interesting book that was hiding in the back of my bookshelf called The Encyclopedia of Escape. It was a bunch of memoirs written by the students at Louis D. Brandies High School. When we were told to make our blog posts about social justice and action, i figured that this book was perfect. It shows so many different sides to the truth within the lives of others. Many stories stood out to me in many different ways. Some where funny but with deeper meaning and others where really serious and frightening to think about.

The high school process makes everyones life difficult. The pressure to do well and be proud to announce your grades along with puberty really kicking in and family problems. There are also the groups. The popular people and then all of the other groups and they can all be incredibly judge mental. I have realized how it greatly affects our lives. Life as a middle schooler, soon to be in high school, is a really stressful life. To all of those who are going through what I'm going through, i hope it's easier for you and if it isn't, good luck!

Family problems and/or personal problems can take a lot away from a person. Some people complain that their parents are so annoying and they wish they where different while someone else can only dream of what that might feel like and what it really means to be able to go home and say "hi mom, hi dad". Some people can only understand what it means to have to deal with a messed up family through a book but they are really only understanding the bare minimum of it. Some people take for granted what they should cherish most in life.

One story i read was about a young man that was fighting with his father and went to his room. He managed to get stuck behind his bed when he went to hold his dog. It was called "your not greasing me out of here". After he escaped from bed frames grasp with out any help from his parents, who where laughing at him, his father said(speaking truthfully) "Well next time you get stuck, don't even bother getting me". I thought a lot about how a father could and can give up his children so quickly. To be willing to give up everything you had with them, without thinking it over means that you don't really care for this individual. It makes me wonder how many would and how many already have given up on our generation.

One huge problem with society is that they think its wrong to be gay or bisexual. It sounds to me that people think that straight is  the new thing like a new pair of shoes that just came out. I support gay rights and i think that anyone should be anyway they want. Your choice of sex isn't a curse. There have been to many recent stories about gay people killing themselves and being rapped and made fun of just so other people can feel good about themselves, it shows how we, as a community, aren't able to accept gay and bisexual people. As a young girl, i used to think that it was wrong for a girl to kiss another girl or for a boy to like another boy. If thats the way we plan to raise our future leaders, then we aren't doing a very good job. Young children need to know that its okay to like who every they want to and be who every they want to be. I think that if we do this, the taunting and harassment will decrease in the future and more people will feel comfortable with who they really are.

On the cover of The Encyclopedia of Escape, there is a combination lock that has numbers that represent letters. In big bold numbers, 20-18-1-16-16-5-4, is on the cover. I used the lock to find out what the numbers meant. 20-T ,18-R, 1-A, 16-P, 16-P, 5-E, 4-D. TRAPPED. Then i realized that all of the stories in this book where about times when the authors felt trapped and weren't able to escape.