hey, did you do the homework?

Oh really? Can I see it? Yeah, if you can't tell already, my topic of choice for this week's post is cheating. Inspired by Sutherland's recent blog post on the topic. I'd have to admit, a lot of cheating goes on in Alameda High. There's usually a lot of bickering between friends finding out whether or not they can or can't copy some homework. It's not just homework either, it could be classwork, tests, quizzes, and maybe even more. The amount of cheating that goes on around school is probably staggering, but not exactly surprising. With the 'fill-in-the-blank' type work, cheating would probably be more common, because it's the easiest to copy. Could you really call it cheating though? Could it be just students working together?

Why do we cheat in the first place? It's probably because we are too lazy to do it ourselves, or a person has done the work already and the cheater just wants the easy way out. No matter what, there's always a circumstance. Whether it be a person didn't have the time to do it, or if they were just too plain lazy, that person will always have two choices: Get no credit for that assignment or copy the assignment, but sacrifice the knowledge. Most of the time that person will try and find a way to copy, just because they don't want their grade to be lowered. But even if they aren't caught cheating, the consequences show up later when you're tested on the material and don't know how to do it. Because they copied it brainlessly.

Another idea I got from Sutherland's post was the awareness of our very own teachers. Are they really aware of how extreme the degree of cheating is around the school? I asked Sutherland that question when he posted it up on his blog, and a couple minutes into the conversation he asked his colleague the same question. He said that he was pretty aware, but he has took his own measures to minimize the cheating that goes on in his own class. But he raised another point. If the teachers are aware. what can they really do to stop it? I personally don't think teachers would actually take the time to crack down on every single cheater in their class. It would be too time-consuming and it would ultimately result to no benefit.

In fact, the above paragraph reminds me of an idea I was introduced to not too long ago. Natural consequence. A teacher would know who was cheating based on the test/quiz results of a student. Let's say a student has 100% on his homework, but his test grades are down the toilet. That has to be an obvious sign of cheating. It wouldn't make sense for a student who does all of their homework to do bad on a test. So I would also consider that an option as to why teachers don't exactly do anything about cheating even if they are fully aware. It would take too much time to crack all the cheating down, it would have little to no benefit, and natural consequence would take its course. It all makes sense.

power of failure.

I hate spacing out when I have blog posts due. I just end up being crunched up to the deadline or a little bit after when I realize what I need to do. Anyways, beside the ramblings of being late, I've chosen to talk about failure.

We often see failure as a bad thing. In general, if you fail at something.. you shouldn't exactly be proud, right? It means you have to improve and do something different next time to better yourself at whatever you failed at. So, when do you fail? Often times it's because you didn't try hard enough, or in physical cases, you're incapable and unskilled. But again, what does this tell you? Improvement is necessary.

When you fail, it's not just a horrible 'Aw shit.' kind of thing. It's also a learning experience as well. Every time you fail, you can look back, trace your steps, and see where you went wrong. By doing this, you know what you need to change or work on. This is basically the concept of learning from your mistakes. And we all know that already, don't we?

I'll give an example with an anecdote. Recently, I've been doing pretty bad in Math. Failing a few tests, slacking on homework, etc. I found out my grade and it was a shock. I knew I was failing, but by that much? Yeah. It hit me. I needed to reform my study habits in that class. I already knew what I was doing wrong; that was sleeping, not paying attention, and honestly, copying homework. I never learned the material, so when it came down to tests, I would just blank out and have an unwritten piece of paper by the end of the period. Upon realizing this, I was determined to make an extra effort taking notes, do my homework myself, and all the other things I was doing wrong. Hopefully things get better by the end of the quarter.

In a nutshell, failure is a learning experience. Fail and know what you did wrong, and better yourself for next time.

learn how to scare me.

Spiders. Spiders are the scariest things on Earth to me. It's like they're tiny monstrosities walking on eight little legs. To be honest I have no idea why I'm so afraid of them, but I'm afraid up to the point of calling it a phobia. It doesn't make sense to me either, because when I was a little kid I was fearless of bugs. I actually welcomed them and played around with them. But I don't know what happened while I was growing up that made me so afraid. Was I bitten? What happened? I'll never know. It isn't just spiders too, I'm equally afraid of cockroaches.

My phobia noticeably developed around when I was eleven years old. Every time I would see a spider in my house, I would always drop what I was doing and run to my mom so she can kill it. In fact, the last time that happened was about two nights ago. I finished taking a shower and as I got out I saw a spider on the wall. I panicked, went out to the living room in my towel and called my mom to tell her to kill it. And another time, I was sitting down using the computer and I noticed this HUGE daddy long legs crawling down the wall right behind the computer monitor. Again, I panicked because after a while I couldn't find it. So I decided to just sleep for the rest of the night. It was about 11pm. I never sleep that early on a weekend night. Damnit, spiders.

I really would like to know what made me so afraid. I have the knowledge of knowing that most house spiders aren't very harmful, but I still freak out like a little girl at the sight of one. Even the smallest spiders could scare me. Massive dislike of my phobia.

crisis of faith.

a crisis of faith: I was born and raised as a christian back in the Philippines. as a child I was always told to pray before I go to sleep to thank 'God' of all the blessings he gave my family on that day. I never really questioned why we had to pray, or who this 'God' was. I just accepted the fact that I had to do it or this 'God' would be mad at me. at least that's what my parents said. They always took me to church and again, I never really understood why. I just went with what they told me to do. As a kid, you can't really do much, right?

When I was about four, I immigrated to the united states with my family. Things were pretty much the same from back home, my parents would always tell me to pray right before I sleep to please this god. But one thing changed, and I think it was the vital part in which I changed faiths. That one thing was the fact that i stopped going to church. I don't know for sure if that was the real reason, but it sure could be a contributing factor.

Another reason could plainly and simply be, that I was growing up and forming my own opinions and views regarding the world. That was my point in life where I actually started questioning everything. Who is this god? Why is he here? At around the same time, I was hearing other people's voices and opinions about the same topics. To me, their opinions were much more logical than the ones I've heard. My belief was on the basis of logic, and of course I started to agree with other people's opinions because they were logical. The enforcement in going to church stopped as well at around the same time. All of these things weakened my Christian faith and eventually made me become apathetic and carefree about religion in general.

The things that made me lose my faith were overpowering. The questions I asked myself along with what I was reading helped me decide what I truly believed in. Of course it didn't happen just like that, but after much thinking and reading I finally set beliefs in new ground.

As of now, and a end result, I believe religion to be a collection of stories that people believe in so they can find a higher strength to depend on. See, when people are in trouble, they have religion to turn to so it could save them. All religions are basically the same thing. They all tell the same story, just worded differently. Religion is basically a guideline people believe in and follow to better their lives. There is no god, and all the stories in bible are in there to teach us a lesson about life. God only 'exists' as a tool to strike fear into a person. And as well as fear, it also gives a person a sense of relief.

But I can't really say what religion I follow now. Obviously I can't be in a religion that requires me to believe in a higher being. And I'm not sure whether or not I could say that I'm atheist either because I don't really push my belief that there is no god. To be honest, I could care less about religion. People can believe what they want to believe in, I won't stop them. I just know what my position is on this matter and I'll stick to it unless I get an epiphany or something.

I guess it's a bad thing that I haven't told my parents yet either, but I'm afraid of what they'll say or what their reaction would be. It's definitely something I'd be deathly afraid of because my mom is pretty religious. My dad is not very religious but he still wants me to pray each night. I don't know if I will ever tell them, so they could be worry free and not have to freak out despite the fact that I'm not Christian anymore. I think they could live without knowing that I lost my faith. Because I'm pretty sure they would question me a lot and look at my differently. They'd blame it on my friends and would freak out. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I won't ever tell them.

And that is the story of how the change of my faith came to be.

the big question.

If anyone asks me what I would want to be when I grow up, I could honestly say that it would be an extremely tough question to answer. I would either not answer it at all, or just reply with an "I don't know." That point in life seems so far right now, but at the same time it seems like its just around the corner. I honestly do not know what I want to be when it comes to pursuing a career. I'm not very aware of my talents, so trying to figure out a career with that is virtually hopeless. I do however, know my interests, but I don't know if following that career will suffice in the future.

My parents have a good idea of what they want me to be career-wise, and they've been constantly reminding me from time to time. They want me to be a nurse. When I first heard of the idea, I quietly laughed to myself because it was so stereotypical. I've heard of almost every Filipino parent wanting their kids to go into the medical field. Whether it be a nurse, doctor, pharmacist, whatever. But the thing is, I'm not very fond of.. medical related work. It just doesn't seem to be my thing.

I feel like I have nothing to aspire for when it comes to my future. I tend to live too much in the present, and seldom think about what and where I would be in a couple of years. The thought of that scares me. No matter how much I try and avoid it now, it's going to be inevitable. So for the rest of high school, I want to find a career to pursue. One I can set my sights on. Because now, I need a dream.

generosity.

This idea popped up from reading Alvin’s final. I came across a part that somehow made my head bounce around to this.

Generosity is pretty spiffy. It definitely comes in handy sometimes when you’re with friends. The best example is when you’re low on cash and you’re hungry. Your friends can usually spot you so you can get some food, right? That’s usually the case with me and my friends. We all have each other when it comes down to money.

A while ago, I went to go eat with some friends but I didn’t have enough money, so I didn’t order anything. My friend next to me offers to buy me some food, and I wouldn’t have to pay him back as much. I kindly refused, even though I was practically starving. Reason being because I feel guilty when I benefit from other people’s kindness too much. I already owed him some money because he paid my bowling fee once, and he even pretended that didn’t happen because he didn’t want me to pay him back. I admire generosity like that. So thank you, Shuan.

I owe another friend money, because he’s spotted me so many times. One day I’ll just give him my week’s allowance. I can’t even remember how many times he spotted me either. I remember he gave me ten dollars once because I was going to Lovefest. And another time when he just gave me five dollars to get some lunch. I admire that too, so thanks Rayman.

But hey, some people owe me money too. ALVIN. haha. But it’s alright. You don’t have to pay me back. In the long run, we all end up paying each other back. So from now on, whenever I give money to someone or just buy some food for them, they don’t have to pay me back. Just don’t take advantage of that. Please. Haha.