My I.B. History I.A. is about Hitler's ideologies within "Mein Kampf" and how they were implemented in Nazi society and policies. I picked this topic because I'm interested in it, but while thinking about this I began to consider something else. What is so interesting about Hitler and the Holocaust? I know a lot of people who find this topic very intriguing and it makes me wonder why everyone seems to be interested in such a gruesome, horrific subject. The ways the Jews were tortured and killed are an example of evil within society. Often in class the topic describes the details of their extermination and shows videos that show real footage from the Holocaust. What is it about this horrible event that interests people so much. I can't even answer the question for myself; I have no clue why I enjoy learning of something so horrific.

With the upcoming elections, the majority of the commercials I see on t.v. are political advertisements. And something that I've noticed is how they mostly consist of general statements. Each candidate says what they will and will not do if they were to be elected or they bash their opponent. However a lot of the evidence they use is just political jargon that has been twisted to serve their purpose. Although the facts themselves are true, they're said in a way that influences the viewer to support their points. This is an unethical way to gain votes and further ones campaign. What do you guys think?

Something that irritates me a lot is when boys make sexist comments about girls. Even if they say them as a joke, it's still offensive. Telling me to "go make me a sandwich" and saying that "girls can only cook and clean" is rude and sexist, and it doesn't make me an extreme feminist when I tell you to stop. Another thing that bothers me is when boys use disrespectful words to describe women. A lot of rap songs especially annoy me because they promote the objectification of women. Women should be treated with respect and not as sexual objects that only serve to "cook and clean".

I don't know if anyone else has blogged about this, but I wanted to blog about the sub that we had last week! Something that really bothered me, was her attitude towards us. I understand that we're in high school, but that doesn't mean we're children. The way I see it is if you call us children and treat us like children, then we'll act like children. Treat us like adults and we'll be more inclined to respect you as a sub. Even when we explained that we were an IB class, she continued to patronize us. What really upset me was when she called us kids, Jackie and Mackenzie brought up that they were 18, and she still dismissed them and made excuses. Just because we're in high school doesn't mean we shouldn't be treated with respect! Also she completely offended me when she started bashing on the U of M and saying that it didn't matter if any of us were accepted, that we needed to wait for the interview. It didn't help that this was said in a very condescending manner. I honestly hope we never have her as a sub again!

Today I saw something that really bothered me. I was on Twitter and I saw someone who had tweeted that people shouldn't tweet about the death of Mitch Lucker, a vocalist for a screamo band, because the devastation of hurricane Sandy is more important than him dying. I couldn't believe someone would tweet something like that. Of course hurricane Sandy and the people it affected is a serious topic that deserves respect. But the death of a person beloved by many fans deserves respect too. Saying that his death is insignificant because a greater tragedy happened in the world is disrespectful not only to him, but also to his family and the people that cared about him. I'm not disregarding that hurricane Sandy wasn't horrible, but I do want to emphasis that all tragedies have an impact and telling people that they shouldn't tweet about what impacts them is not ok.

I don't know about you guys, but between our IA, our EE, and college applications, I'm definitely feeling stressed out! It kind of got me thinking about the workload we have as high school students. Monday through Friday we go to school for six and a half hours. We then go home and dedicate the majority of our night to completing homework for our classes. A lot of the time we have so much homework that we stay up late to finish it. I know for the past couple of nights I've been up until 1 or 2 in the morning just trying to finish everything. I know colleges want to see hard courses for our applications, and I know we're in IB and more homework is expected, but how are we supposed to be involved in extracurriculars, finish ALL our homework, get to bed at a decent time, AND maintain good grades? Maybe you guys think differently, and maybe it's just the time of year that's making it seem this way, but I'm just super stressed about all of this.

The Right to An Opinion

Today I wanted to blog about something that has really been bothering me lately. I'm a little nervous to post this because I'm diving into politics. I've been noticing that there has been a lot of hypocrisy within the "vote yes/no" arguments that I've been seeing on Facebook and Twitter, especially tonight. One particular status I saw struck me. It said that everyone's opinions are important, but for this specific topic, to vote yes was wrong and to vote no was right. They said that everyone has rights and that you have to defend those rights no matter what their sexuality. The hypocrisy was so blatant that I really wanted to comment back and had to restrain myself from doing so. I'm not stating my political beliefs, I was simply noticing an issue within his argument. If everyone has rights and subsequently, the right to their own opinion, then why in that particular instance is everyone who votes yes wrong? By saying this you are disregarding their opinion and their right to state their opinion therefore infringing upon their rights. It seems that in today's society, the individual is always correct to themselves, and no one is able to admit if they are wrong, or think about topics objectively. I felt that this was a good example of I.B. and its positive ideals because it teaches you to form your own opinion, but to also be conscious of other points of view, which is something this person could have done when they posted their status.