The Equations Behind Popularity

I am currently reading the book Paper Towns, by John Green. The most interesting character, I think, is Margo Roth Spiegelman. She is popular, but she does not seem to care what anybody else thinks; she just does what she feels is right and says whatever she is thinking. One day, she decides that since her boyfriend is cheating on her and her two popular “best friends” are pretty mean, she is going to play a specialized prank on each one of them. She does not even think that this might jeopardize her status at school. In fact, she became popular because she was confident and didn’t really care what people thought. It’s kind of ironic if you think about it: the people that are always trying to fit in are the ones that are the most insecure about themselves or always struggling to find themselves. The people that don’t really care as much, and are always just out there, are the people that end up higher on the totem poles of popularity.

In the story, Margo takes her friend Q along with her to break into SeaWorld. Why does she want to break into SeaWorld? For the sole purpose of breaking into a large aquarium at night. That’s it. When Q and Margo were driving away, narrowly avoiding the security guard, Q said something I found very interesting. “Margo’s beauty was a kind of sealed vessel of perfection. Uncracked and uncrackable.” She is Margo. You cannot change Margo, you cannot copy Margo, and she will always be Margo. Her unbreakable self-assureness is something that she won’t lose, something you can’t steal or copy. Even if you tried to imitate her, you would not be able to because she is so purely herself. Many people, even subconsciously, mold their personalities and who they are around society’s expectations. They wear what they wear, say what they say, and do what they do, almost always, because it is what will make them be viewed higher amongst their friends and other people. And every time they do this, they lose a part of themselves to society.

The reason Margo is popular and so well-liked is because she draws people to her like a magnet. They see her, and how she is 100% Margo Roth Spiegelman. Her uniqueness shines out from all the other superficial people in her school. She is unique because she lets herself be. The more you think about how you should act and say in order to raise your popular standings, the less likely you are to accomplish your goal. I think that this is a very confusing psychological topic, and I suppose if you decide to ponder the true meanings and formulas for popularity, the less likely you are to become popular.

 I'm sorry if some of the sentences I wrote are grammatically incorrect or just don’t make any sense, but this is kind of a hard topic to write about and make your points sound clear. And now, I guess, that I have observed the true meanings of popularity, by my new found understandings, the less likely I am to achieve it. Please feel free to comment. 

Privacy violation? or Essential tracking method

Are You Being Tracked? By Patricia Smith. Upfront, Scholastics the New York Times. Sept. 3 2012

I read the article “Are you Being Tracked?” It is about how the government as well as State officials have been using people cellphones in order to track them. This can be very helpful in the event of a kidnapping or a murder and has, no doubt, saved many people’s lives. The controversy lies in whether these electronic searches violate the constitution. While they have been essential in saving the lives of many people, Police also used GPS trackers to find drug suspects, without obtaining a warrant. Many people argue that the tracking of peoples’ phones violates their right to privacy.

When I first began to read, I saw that the author had opened the story up with a summary of how phone tracking had saved to people—one from prostitution, and another from a kidnapping. My first reaction was “Wow! How useful! Good thing they were able to track their cell phones.” She then started to show the flip side, and how tracking of people’s cell phone can violate their right to privacy.  I think that the author did a pretty good job of tell both sides of the story, but after every counter-argument, she included a brief story of a successful cell-phone tracking. I think that she really wanted the readers to see that the advantages of GPS tracking were, for the most part, beneficial, and essential to fighting certain crimes. In her last paragraph, she said “The legal uncertainties are outweighed by real-life benefits.”

After finishing the article, as well as reading about the advantages, I also read about the legal misshapes that may also occur. According to the ACLU, more and more people are getting tracked, and with less caution, or disregard for the persons privacy.  “Congress and about a dozen states are considering bills to tighten restrictions on the use of cellphone tracking.” Said an ACLU lawyer.

I think that tracking people’s cellphones is very useful, and should not be banned or restricted.  If it is being used to save a person, or the police are absolutely sure that their suspect is a terrorist, then I think is should be alright to use the GPS tracking. If the police are less sure, or the matter is not immediately urgent, then I think they should have to get a warrant. While these tactics are useful, I don’t believe that you should compromise a person’s constitutional right to privacy. 

When Will it Stop?

 My book, Nineteen Minutes, by Jodi Picoult, is about a boy, Peter, who is socially harassed; slammed into lockers, his head flushed down the toilet, his books trashed, and called fag and homo. Finally, one day, he brings a gun to school and starts shooting. He kills or harms over 30 people in 19 minutes. In those 19 minutes, he irreverently changed the lives of everyone who was linked each of his victims. Throughout the book, you struggle with feeling sorry for him being the victim of horrible physical and mental abuse, and being angered by his actions, asking how someone could do such a terrible thing. You cannot believe the pain he suffers every day he sets foot in the high school building, and how little the teachers are doing about it. Each character in the story is reveled throughout the story in small flash backs until all the layers are peeled away and you see how everything took place. From Peter’s first day at kindergarten, to the day he attempted to kill those 30 something people.

Each character is connected in some way to Peter, and each character has their own unique complex emotions. Peter’s father, who uses math in an attempt to figure out formulas for happiness; his mother, who tries to help everyone and has forgotten to help herself; his friend Josie, who joined the popular crowd and now seems to hate him; Josie’s boyfriend, who loves Josie so much, he hits her; and Peter himself, who shot over 30 people in just 19 minutes but is not sorry for it. When he was arrested, the first words Peter spoke were “they started it.” This is something kindergartners say when put in time out. But as you read on, you start to realize, they did start it. The whole school made his life a living hell (sorry about the curse word). Josie’s boyfriend, Matt, beat him up daily, once until he was nearly unconscious. Peter then looked up opened his mouth, closed it, and then called Matt a really bad name. Peter got a broken nose and gravel embedded all up his arms. When Josie, asks why Matt hit him so hard, he says “did you hear what that *bad word I am not going to write* called me?” aside from the fact that Matt calls Peter multiple horrible names each day, Matt started the initial fight because “if there was no them (the losers) there would be no us (the popular kids).” So Matt is automatically justified in beating the pulp out of a bunch of other kids for absolutely no reason, just so he can maintain his status in high school. Well now. Maybe they did start it.

Another problem you begin the see, as more and more of the story is reveled, is how the teachers expectations of Peter fail to meet what they expected. And though many of them witness Peter being locked into a locker, they do almost nothing. One gym teacher just didn't like the look of Peter. “He was one of those smarmy guys who rubbed Dusty the wrong way. Probably could barely field a ball, but smirked when you tried to teach him how, as if he already knew he’d be making twice as much money as Dusty one day.” So because Peter gave Dusty a bad first impression, he was stuffed into a locker and his books torn, but Dust only made a halfhearted call to the principle. Most teachers did not make any attempts to talk to Peter, even though he obviously was getting bullied, to the point of bringing a gun to school.

This book has many layers and depths of each person; I could probably write a blog post on each person in the story. The most obvious message of the story would be not bully and if you see something, say something. But I honestly do not think that, even though the school holds assemblies, even though there are posters all around, it does not really matter, people are just cruel sometimes, and they won’t pay attention no matter what you say. This book is effective in how it shows the real life consequences of you actions. I really hope that people will start to tune down the level of bullying they inflict. But do I ever think it will come to a total stop? No I don’t. But please just think before you call someone a name or talk behind their backs, or shove them into lockers. Because when you become the victim, it really hurts. 

Until The Well is Dried Up

I finished the story Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs. It was different from many other books because it contained unaltered vintage photographs. It is about a collection of peculiar children, all with special talents, who are condemned to live the same day over and over again. They live in what is called a “loop.” A boy whose grandfather used to live in it finds the loop. Jacob has to choose between living in the loop and save the peculiar children, or leave his life forever. He learns about sacrifice, and goes through events that a sixteen year old should never have to encounter. This book did not have one obvious theme, but I think that the author is trying to show you how sometimes the most important things are right in front of you and you have to see them before the slip away.

In the story, the Wight (a sole-eating monster) disguises himself as multiple people in order to observe and control Jacobs’s life.  He is his bus driver, his lawn-mower, his neighbor, and finally his psychiatrist.  You would think you would recognize it if all of these people were the same, but Jacob does not, until it is too late. I think Riggs was trying to show the reader how some things may seem very obvious, but when put to the test, we are oblivious to them. All of these people did not have a very big impact on Jacob's life; the bus driver, the lawn mower, the neighbor, but his ignorance to them almost got his sole eaten. In your life, it may be as simple as the common:  boy who sat behind you all last year and you never paid him any attention until he was no longer interested in you scenario. Or it might be how you never really realized how important friends are, until one day, you had none. Maybe it is the small things we take for granted that end up hurting us the most.

But what would happen if you cherished every common thing or action as a gift? Would that just make the loses greater? Or would it open your eyes to the wonders of our world? I think in order to see everything that is good, you really have to become a wallflower and just observe.  I think if for one day, you did not say or participate in anything, you would be able to see exactly how the world worked. You would see the boy sitting behind the girl trying to catch her eye. And you would see as the group of friends slowly stared to exclude that one person.  Do you think you can be social and still read the world? Is it one or the other? This reminds me of another book, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Charlie starts out as a wallflower. He watches. He sees. But at the end he has friends and he still sees. I think it is possible to do both, but you need to be aware. Like constantly trying to lift a very thin veil over your eyes, and never letting it slip. 

can you hammer in a heart?

In class, we just finished reading three children’s book; The Lorax, a story about greed and its affects, Freedom Summer, a story about segregation and Fox, a book about giving in to temptation. I think that while each story had many underlying themes, the main one in all three is that once you do or say something, you can’t ever take back or undo your actions.

In The Lorax, the Once-ler starts off with a small business cutting down truffla trees to make thneeds. Soon, his business expands and he ends up poisoning the land around him, with no regard to the animals, until there is nothing left but a barren wasteland. It was quite easy for the Once-ler to destroy the land, but it will take much longer for it to recover. Though the boy receives the last truffla seed, he cannot reverse the damage done to the land. He cannot grow back hundreds of trees overnight and he cannot erase the harm done to the creatures that lived there. Though the Once-ler can try to make up for his mistakes, he will live with his actions for the rest of his life. You cannot ruin the lives of so many and merely make it up overnight

The Once-ler, I think, represents the large corporations and business owners, so swallowed in the prospects of wealth and self-gain, that they hardly pay any attention to the people and places they are leaving destroyed in their wake. You never see his face, just like you never actually see who is behind the powerful businesses that are eroding our economy. With the Once-ler, he does feel horrible for what he has done, but only after there is nothing left and now he can fully see what he has done, but by then of course, it is too late.  I think Dr. Seuss is trying to send a message here. By the time we have used up all of our oil and coal, our environment will be in deep trouble. Only then, will the owners of the gas and oil refineries see what they have done.

This does not go just for companies. While people can try to mend the broken pieces of their life, caused by greed, temptation, they will never be able to turn back the clock and erase their actions. Unlike mechanics, the environment is very fragile. You can’t fix it with a hammer and some screws. And just like the environment, your emotions can also be easily broken. You can’t take back words and actions; they will always leave scars, no matter how you to try fix it. 

An innocent murderer

In the book “Ten Little Indians” by Agatha Christie, there is a man, Wargrave, who, ever since he was a little boy, liked causing death.  He grew up and became a very well-known judge, taking pleasure in freeing the innocent and convicting the guilty. “To see a wretched criminal squirming in the dock, suffering the tortures of the dammed, as his doom came slowly nearer was to me an exquisite pleasure.” He says. He decides that wants to, as his last major act, commit his own fantastic murder. He gathers ten people, guilty of murders themselves, and one by one, he kills them off, each dying the same way as the Indians in the nursery rhyme Ten Little Indians. Even though Wargrave is not a sane person, he was able to fulfill his death wishes without any innocents suffering.

You can tell, by the actions and desires of Wargrave, that he has many of the qualities of a serial killer. As the book continues, you realize that he actually could not help himself in the killing of others. He literally had to kill, the same way you have to eat. But yet he looked down upon the guilty defendants who had murdered innocent people. I think he felt himself to be better than them. He was able to master his impulse by ruling immaculately in court, and then when he could not control himself, he moved on to murder of the guilty. He was almost like a fair killer, even determining who should die first and not have to suffer through the suspense of waiting to die.

While Wargrave is certainly not an innocent man, nor is he a sane one, it was interesting to see how a judge dealt with a lust to kill.  He never says what he is doing is an act of justice, always calling it a murder, but he does not seem to feel any qualms (though they are guilty) about taking the lives of nine living people. He ends up killing himself at the end of the story, but not because he feels regret, or even because he is afraid of getting get caught. He kills himself so that there will be no explanation on how 10 perfectly healthy people die on an isolated island.

This is not a response that I, or hopefully anyone can really relate to or empathize with, but it was different, trying to think about the way a killer thinks. It is sad, that there are people like this, who actually enjoy killing others. If we lived in a perfect world, everyone would be sane and rational, but there are people that have bad childhoods, grow up poor, or teased, or are just crazy. We can try to make the world a better place by just being kind to others, so hopefully, they will as well.

I am currently reading the book What Happened to Goodbye, by Sarah Dessen.  I think that the main theme of this story is coping with change. Mclean’s parents get divorced after her mom cheats on her dad, and as each person goes their separate ways, you get how each one deals with their sudden new life.

Mclean has gone from living happily with both parents to being constantly on the move with her father, and trying to avoid her mother. Her way with dealing with change is to avoid it entirely. With each move, she adapts an entirely different persona, complete with a new name. She welcomes each move as a chance to create a new character but she never actually is herself. After the first move, she says “I wrapped up and put away 16 years of my life and was born again.” Whenever she leaves, she never says goodbye, she is just there one day and gone the next. I think that when Mclean finally settles down, she is going to have a hard time just figuring out who she really is. Now it feels as if she is living in a play, like she is on the world instead of in it, never really living.

Her mother deals with change by leaving it all behind, and starting her new life, but she starts to lose perspective of the things that matter. She does not even acknowledge the hurt and pain she inflicted upon her daughter and her ex-husband. She moves into her new house with her rich husband, and two baby twins. She seems to forget how she hurt the people around her and instead focuses on what she wants.  Soon after the split, she wants Mclean to live with her year round, not even caring that this will hurt her father even more. She does not understand why Mclean wants to live with her dad when she can live in a huge house and have really anything she wants. When Mclean comes over, she says that she misses the homemade dinners (they now have a maid), the old vacation house, her mom’s old cloths, and the quality family time they used to have.

Mclean can’t move on or accept , so she just avoids it completely, while her mom leaves her old life so fast, she does not even try to make amends for her old mistakes, or remember the things that really matter, like spending time with your family, or making homemade meals. I think that change is a difficult thing to deal with. You can’t forget it altogether, but you cannot stay stuck in it. Different people deal with it in different ways. How do you deal with the past and change?