The Reality of the Birthday Card

Every year, my high school has an amazing retreat program that is meant to relax, open up, and place smiles on the faces of every child there. In my freshman year, I was 'recommended' to go from my social worker. Let's just say, I loved it so much I kept going back every year. Finally progressing to the position of staff, I am placed in charge of teenagers my own age after months of weekly training sessions. During the week, we participated in quite a few activities, but the only activity we did that wasn't focused on creating better relationships between each other and with ourselves, was the community service. One of the adult staff was the army, so we were given the opportunity to write to service members that protect our country. During this community service time we were given the opportunity to right birthday cards to those who happen to be in the hospital on their birthdays and to write letters to Santa at Macy's because each letter sent is one more unprivileged families receive holiday gifts. Each participant has the opportunity to send sufficient time at each table. I spent a majority of my time at the table to writes to people who spend their birthday in the hospital. I have personally never had the misfortune of being in the hospital especially not on my birthday, besides when I was born, so I can only imagine how upsetting it is to spend a day that is meant to be surrounded by friends not the white walls and dingy curtains of a hospital. Whether it is just for some blood work or for a broken bone, those who are in the hospital on their birthday days deserve something nice. I make my cards as creative as possible. One of the cards I made had three googly eyes with cartoonish mouths and large sticker umbrellas singing different parts of "Happy Birthday!" In the middle I drew a large detailed cake. I put so much effort and detail into the card because if I was in the hospital on my birthday I would want the card that was given to me to be one made with heart and effort not one that was thrown together because someone made the creator do it. Even though I was only able to make a handful of cards, I believe those few will help to put a smile on the faces of those who have had the misfortune of hospitalization on the one day of the year that should be their own. In most countries those who are injured aren't able to visit a hospital due to a lack of health insurance or even any medical opportunities. Those people become sick and die because of the lack of social equality in the health system. Those people don't receive get well birthday cards. Those people may not even make it to their next birthday. When I put it into perspective, a birthday card to those in the hospital may not fix health care around the world but it sure puts a smile on the face of those being helped here.

Colors versus The Black Canvas

Ever since 1989, when Denmark became the first country to legalize gay marriage, the world is becoming revolutionized. There has been a larger and larger acceptance of equal marriage rights within every community, but not everybody is as ready to change their preconceived views to the LGBT community. I am an executive board member of my high school's GSA (gay-straight alliance) and each year we hold multiple educational opportunities that are opened up to the whole school. Our club sets up tables in the lunch room areas and pass out pledges to stop bullying, pins, and of course, the big take away, chocolate. Our purpose is to educate the adolescent public on what it means to be an ally to the LGBT community and what it means to be in the LGBT community. People have the ability to come up to us and ask questions that have anything to do with GSA and LGBT communities. The preparation for this day is both internal and external. On the outside, we spend two hours planning, printing and creating pledges, pins and a massive poster. Internally, I always make sure that I am fully prepared to answer questions and that, although I stand by my beliefs with the force of the iceberg that stopped the Titanic, I am able to answer all questions with a mature mind and not be forceful towards questioning teenagers. One of the main purposes is to get signatures of those who support the LGBT community, they receive a rainbow bow pin and sign pledge to stand up for those who are being bullied or harassed due to sexual or gender orientation. Sitting at the plastic table that separated me from the room of socially stimulated children, I searched the crowd for a friendly face of someone who would come up to the table but all that would happen is group of kids would walk past the table, glance at what it was for, then hurry off. Maybe it was because there is this unspoken idea that those who associate themselves strongly with the LGBT community must be gender or sexual not within the 'norm' and they didn't want to fight the current of assumptions of teenagers. But I quickly realized that in order to give people the opportunity to show support I had to bring the table to them, so to speak. I turned to the boy sitting at the table with me and asked him if it was okay that I got up. After I gave me the green light, I grabbed one of the clipboards full of signature sheets and tucking it under my arm, grabbed a handful of rainbow ribbon pins and a handful of chocolate and stalked off towards the masses of high schoolers. My tactic of approach and attack worked out quite well actually. Never forcing, never pressuring, I handed out 15 pins, all the chocolate (no surprise there), and received around 25 signatures over about a 15 minute span. It felt amazing to not be caged in behind the table with the stigma of having people feel like they were on display when they walked up to the table. I was given the chance to help others do some good, even if they weren't strong enough to walk up to the table themselves, putting their pen to paper in solitude was more than enough.

Social Class of The Masses

No matter how much each of us believe that social class shouldn't dictate how our lives progress... it does. Beginning in preschool, children will receive basically the same education up until high school. In this stage in the young adolescent's life, the pathways of each social class: lower class, middle class, and upper class. Up until this point the only differences may be the prestige of their public and private school, no as high school may near its end, many students within the lower class will struggle to reach graduation while middle class and upper class teenagers will find it unacceptable to even fathom dropping out of high school. While the lower class may go off to community college but will most likely enter into a manual labor job that does require much schooling. Middle class residents will move on to college and enter into either a "white-collar" field where they will become a skilled laborer or if they are upper middle class, will enter into a field of highly skilled jobs. Upper class will attend college and graduate school which will allow them to become some of the most influential and well educated people on the planet. While the American dream does place the idea in the world's head that no matter what class you are you can always work your way to the top. But in reality there is a very small percentage of American society that has the ability to move up in the social scheme of things, but it requires a lot of finesse and ingenious. On the other hand, moving down in the American social takes nothing more than a dip in the economy to cause a loss in job and eventually a loss in house. In other countries such as India, people don't have the luxury of even attempting to work up their social ladder, but at the same time, they are secure in the class they are in knowing they can't possibly fall down. In India, the caste dictates not only the type of education you receive but the friends and people you associate yourself with. In the US, social class truly only starts to matter on an interactive basis between people, after high school when the educational train takes off for some but leaves other behind. People are completely restricted by their social class in India from birth until death, while in the US, we are a tad more free to do as we please up until a certain age. In high school, kids are just beginning to notice truly disparaging differences in social class but it hasn't yet affected them as badly as it does with adults, who seem to be the 'judgiest' of people when it comes of the deciding factor of social classes. They constantly strive to be associated with a higher social class of people while simultaneously shunning those even a step below them. There is no possibility that anyone can say that they don't take social class into account no matter where they live. The lower class always wanting to be higher and the upper class looking down at the little people below. Is this really how our world should be working? Or should we be elevating ourselves above the stereotype that social class dictates all?

The Budget of Idiots

I never really understood the full weight of budgeting until I was forced to do it myself. To my unexperienced mind, a budget is a balancing of rent money and transportation money for spending money. But of course, that would mean I was a nudist who survived off of looking at the blank walls of my empty apartment. There is so much more that is added and compressed into a budget than I initially realized. Everything that we touch, feel, and see is paid for using a budget. Clothing, food, electricity, heating and cooling, utensils, cooking ware, appliances, entertainment, transport to and from work, gas money if you have a car, and of course housing. And these are only the basic things that almost every person in America has, not including a gym membership, going to the movies, getting a manicure, haircut, going shopping, eating out, library card, things that every middle class and upper class resident takes for granted are factored into the elusive 'budget'. In a class organized simulation, my 'family' and I were given a yearly salary, a number that equated to the cash in our savings account and the free reins on where we placed our hard earned money. We were an upper middle class family of four with a yearly salary of $200,000, around $17,500 a month and about $210,000 in our savings account. We started out slow, not exactly knowing how to attack a budget, did you come from the front? Go around the side? Deciding to start at the beginning of the list with housing we initially wished to live in the city, close to the workplace, but quickly realized it was cheaper to live in the suburbs and commute. We spent our entire first day discussing the pros and cons of buying a house that was a little more expensive and skimping in other areas or buying a middle class house and being able to spend more money else where. We settled on a middle class suburban house and moved on to cares which took just as long. I could only image being in a situation where my life and well being depended on making the right decisions that would inadvertently affect my entire life. As a group we had trouble deciding merely on what car we wanted, in reality, its a lot more than what a car looks like that factors into the purchase of a car like its practicality for the number of children you have, the trunk space, the gas mileage. I was continually astounded by the unthought of question that arose in my mind upon merely mimicking that of a family. Later, I discovered costs that had not originally entered into my mind such as putting money away for college and allowances for the children, twice as much because there was two of them. Averaging all costs out and adding them up, we were left with over $12,000 per month. Then came our first "Life Happens" card. It stated that we had been audited for $15,000. That was when I got my first shock of really life. We not only ended up finishing off all the rest of our monthly reserves but our savings account to pay for the last $3,000. I realized that this actually happen to lots of people, that life does happen and we are given unexpected gifts and curses, whether that be winning the lottery or needing to call a plumber for a busted pipe. Life happens and sometimes, it sucks!