Green Sharpener's lost friend

Now even as the sharpener didn't feel or have emotions, sometimes the feelings don't matter in a story. Rather, the story itself is intriguing enough to be told without taking the reader on an emotional roller coaster. So, this would be the category of the sharpener's brother.Brother being used as a term because sharpener's don't roll off the assembly line in nice even pieces, rather they are conjoined by every two. So, were these two sharpeners. Except, they weren't separated by the conventional  blade that separated so many others. Instead, they were separated by an explosion, a robbery. Forever doomed to never find the other, the path these two were condemned to. The brother , the one that was lost, is still lost. One can only wonder if it will ever be found. Everything will eventually be found, right?

The History of A Pencil Sharpener

Every single item in the world, has a history. Whether it be an ancient artifact or a new piece of technology, if an object is created it has a history. So, did the little unique pencil sharpener that had stumbled into a school one day. It too, had a history. No matter how brief, or how insignificant. That object had one, not steamed with mystery or full of exciting events. Rather, a brief, bland one. Yet, it represented so much more than that. So much more that maybe it will never be understood, but I will do my best to relay its importance to you.

The Green Sharpener

Some people may be jealous or envious of a pencil sharpener. After all, it doesn't seem that hard. All a sharpener has to do is sit on a desk and watch its sharp blades take care of any object that could be inserted into it. The sharpener never has to worry, fret, or care. Void of emotion and thought, it can not be difficult. On the contrary life isn't there, so no happiness of excitement can be felt. So, should men be envious of the pencil sharpener? I, myself, don't have an opinion for it raises an eternal question: is it better to have had and lost, or never have had at all??

is College a Scam?

Ringing in the ears of most teenagers and Americans like myself are the words, "Graduates from four-year colleges earn nearly twice as much as high school graduates, an estimated $1 million more.(Clinton). Any American child who hears this, is immediately excited. Who wouldn't be? It sounds so appealing, twice the amount of money and the college experience. Yet, the comparison itself is absolutely absurd. The students who went to college years ago weren't expected to, and the fact that they applied themselves to something like college shows that they were hard workers in the first place. They  went above and beyond, so even if they didn't go to college they most likely still would have done well in the work place. Most kids go off and embark on college, but the most important facts about college are never told to the American people. No one barges into classrooms and tells second graders that in 10 years when they graduate, there will be no jobs for the student who paid three hundred thousand dollars to get his degree in micro biology. 
        With these facts and numbers being pushed into our heads, too many children are taught that success is college, graduating is equal to succeeding in life. Society too openly embraces this idea, and then so do the parents of young children. College is then pushed onto the child it's not suited for, like a child who can work excellently mechanically and will be pushed into going into law. Maybe this student drops out, and is then in hundreds of thousands dollars of debt. Forcing this student to work for less and doing a job that he is worse at. Even if the student went through college and succeeded, what do students really learn in college? For hundreds of thousands of dollars, everyone should think it would be remarkable and exceptionally practical, yet some stats would tell us that now all of it is. "80,00 bartenders in the United States have a bachelor's degree, and 15 percent of taxi and limo drivers have college degress"(Richard Vedder). In Vedder's novel he goes on to explain that some perfectly apt and intelligent students go to college and excel while achieving the degree they wished for. Yet, sometimes the information they achieved isn't enough to work, but quite commonly the kids need to being working right away to start paying off their huge college loans. When they get a job(such as a taxi driver) the longer they stay there the less willing owners are to hire them to do  specialized work as they have been out of the field for a while. Then, the adults are in serious debt and forced to stay at the current job until they can miraculously move up. College can play out many different ways for many people, but the information and the encouragement to go to college continues to be thrown at the youth of America. The question has now become not whether or not students will go to college, but whether or not students should go to college.

No Effort

Recently, it seems a new term has developed on the internet, and I've notice it quite commonly in society. The term is "try-hard" and quite commonly(often in a denotative fashion) to describe someone or something that's trying very hard to accomplish a goal. Quite disturbing in my opinion, as this encourages people and members of society to not try. It seems more and more prevalent and obvious in the school system and especially at Blackstone Valley Tech. I can vividly remember talking to two friends of mine and inquiring as to how they were doing in math class, as I found to be extremely difficult. Both of my friends told me they had grades of seventies and lower, and yet they both also said they could do better if they just did their work. I asked them why they didn't and one simply responded with, "I don't know". The other one told me that he didn't feel like doing homework, and both were very defensive when they heard I had a better grade. Immediately, they insisted they would have better grades than me if they put in any effort, and attacked me for doing well in the class. I was very shocked at the defensiveness and the response, so it's stayed as a vivid memory in my head for a few years. From then on, the trend has been easy to notice. Quite commonly, kids who do well in school are teased for having "no life" because the work load can be tremendous(life referring to social life).

        It's now cool to not try, but even worse than that is that it's looked down upon to try. In school systems, this can not be allowed to go on. It encourages a tremendous lack of effort and often effort is more important than superior intellect. This idealism has even gone into many other aspects of culture, such as video games. Yesterday, I was just playing online when someone heckled me for wanting to win. The point anonymous was trying to make was simply that trying wasn't cool, and eventually he came to completely spending his time demeaning me for trying. As a whole, no one benefits from this type of attitude. As a whole it must be stopped as soon as possible, so giving effort in school can be accepted and students can dedicate their time without being heckled.