A Poem (because why not)

“If we were all made of diamonds, then no one would be able to move”

That’s what they say

“Keep your actions and soul pure, then the right one will come”

Tried that

“Why didn’t you just stay with her, then? She said she loved you”

But did she really mean it?

Does anyone really mean it?

‘I love you’ has been tossed in my face so many times

And kisses have been shoved onto me so much

I scarcely feel them anymore

For it’s only been used to betray, destroy, and harm me

In such a way that it can never be forgiven

By both family and ‘friends’

Not the good ones, mind you

The ones who know how I feel and how to make me feel better

But the ones who would rather kick me than lift a finger to help

The ones who would rather ground me than let me fly

The ones who would rather stab me than bandage me

The ones who would rather hurt me more

Than heal my broken and dismembered body, spirit, or mind

The ones who would rather push me in a hole

than dig me out of one

Why?

What have I done to deserve this kind of treatment?

When all I attempt to do is help others

To make them feel better

When all I do is work hard at my jobs

So I can get good at them

When all I do is spread happiness

Because I know what it's like to feel down...

Really down....

Almost to the point of no return....

So why, then,

Do they continue to chip away at me

As if I am trying to hurt them?

Why, then,

Do they continue to manipulate others around me

To try and plunge me back into that dark abyss?

Why, then,

Do they try to put themselves above me as if I need their help

When they know I can and have taken care of myself?

Is it really because they love me

As they always say?

Or is it more because they envy me

And try to sabotage everything I've done and will do

Just so they can laud themselves

And cast me aside like always

So it goes....

A Few Things From Q1

A few things I've learned from these past few months of working both in and outside of school are these: Life is full of downs and ups, no matter how hard you work. However, it is also emotionally profitable to keep your spirits high, even in your darkest hour. I've come to realize this in many ways and form many avenues of experience. A major way I've come to this epiphany is through marching band. In several ways throughout the season, I had both grievances and delights (as did everyone else) and the one thing that kept everyone focused and on-track after we had expressed these feelings was our combined spirit for the band's success as well as our willpower to keep the band as successful as it had been through the season. Another way I've found this is not just through events I'm an active leader in however, but also in my own personal life. There have been (and probably will be) several times in my life I've either felt really sad/depressed as well as ecstatic and overjoyed about things. While the sad and depressed parts would obviously throw me off track in life, the overly-happy parts also had the similar effect of losing focus because of things such as over-confidence and feeling excessively luxurious in my ecstatic state. Whether I was in the middle of being up or down in my mood either way would cause me to fall off-track with my overall focuses in life, which would then lead me into a seemingly almost never ending depressed state (since I would come to see this loss of focus as failure). With time, however, I gained an understanding through maturity that whether you're happy or sad does not dictate your willpower to strive for a vision and goals in life. This has lead me on what I feel is a better path than before that could not only lead to furthering my overall maturity and professionalism, but also help to 'keep my head in the game' and never lose focus of where I see myself in the next twenty,thirty,forty,or even sixty years.

Priorities and their Problems

Priorities, the bane of every living human being's existence. A construct of finding out what's most important in our lives and executing these tasks in chronological order based upon that fact. The only problem is, everything's important to somebody (and that somebody is your boss /coach /teacher /parents /etc.).
In all, personal priorities are good to have. They allow you to sort your daily tasks based on what is the most important to you for that day. It allows us to keep on top of things and not let assignments or jobs slip through our fingers and become missed opportunities. The problem with priorities, however, is that people are going to try to manipulate them not matter what they are if you have a conflict in times tasks need to get done. This can get extremely annoying and only causes the stress that having priorities was supposed to eliminate become recreated through pressure from two people who area the heads of certain areas of your life. This has happened to me several times throughout my high school career, especially at school itself. For instance, there was one time where I had 2 advanced placement biology labs due on the same night. Not only was that in itself pretty ridiculous, but what was more ridiculous was that they were due on the soccer team's senior night (which I was still a member of). Now, in terms of priorities this wouldn't have been a problem, simply just put AP biology before soccer. However, senior night WAS MANDATORY FOR ALL PLAYERS TO ATTEND THE WHOLE NIGHT, which ended up ending at 10:30pm EST. I had literally no time to even think about what I was writing down as I tried desperately to do my science labs up until 1:00am the next morning (the only reason I had stopped was because I had other classes to attend and realized if I stayed up the whole night all of my grades would get worse).
Now, the easy way people will find around this is "Well, why didn't you just do it when it was first assigned rather than wait till the last minute?" Well I'll tell you why high school student that is smart enough to be in honors and AP level classes but takes all general or CP classes that has probably never had any problems with this kind of thing: I had five other assignments due throughout the time period I was given from all of my other classes at the school. "Well, then why didn't you use the weekend, like me?" Maybe because my family consistently plans these 'surprise excursions' to Columbus and Niles, Ohio seemingly every bloody weekend AP student who does nothing outside of school other than 1-2 things. The reason I went on this rant is to show one thing: priorities only work for people who do little or very specific things. For me, as a broad-range student who participates in various classes, clubs, and sports, EVERYTHING always clashes with SOMETHING (and it always ends with everyone screaming at me).

Why Versailles Failed (Part 2)

Because of the blame of the First World War not being able to really go to anyone else on the losing side, Germany was forced to take it even though they hadn't even started the war in the first place. This would then cause the entire country of Germany to go bankrupt due to all the massive war reparations put on it by the Allied Powers. This would then cause German politics to shift so drastically that the kaiser (king) of Germany would resign, creating a power vacuum and allowing for the popular rise of one particular German soldier who tried painting once but instead decided to lead Germany with an iron fist and plunge the world into the Second World War (I'm pretty sure you know who I'm referring to by this point). However, Versailles did not just fail in keeping Germany pacified to the point where they wouldn't want revenge. Versailles also failed in a completely different category with the League of Nations. First off, the League of Nations was basically the early United Nations. It was proposed by Woodrow Wilson, the president of America at the time, and was the one point of his famous 14 points that actually got implemented into Versailles. Wilson also wanted Germany to be treated fairly when losing, which caused the French Prime Minister to laugh as he signed the document that would create the next World War in which his country would crumble to the ground within the first 2 years. Passive aggressiveness aside, the League would be responsible for world peace at any cost. However, it was terribly corrupt and had very little power  to do anything. For one, the League had no volunteer force like the modern U.N. It instead relied solely on treaties and paperwork for promises and had no real way to enforce anything that was written down. This would be seen when Italy would use gas weapons and commit atrocities towards Ethiopia in their second invasion of it. The League was also corrupt because there were only Western Powers that were represented in it, which excluded Asian and African countries altogether. This was why the Treaty of Versailles ultimately failed: it had the ability to have and keep the world at peace, yet only ended up creating higher tensions and revealing weaknesses in diplomatic systems that would have the world go through another world war to finally fix.

Why Versailles Failed (Part 1)

 The Treaty of Versailles. A treaty that has made itself infamous for trying to solve the world's problems and spectacularly failing to do so. A piece of paper that had so much potential, yet completely flopped in keeping world peace as it was meant to and instead having the exact opposite result by sparking the fervor for World War II . So why, exactly, did the Treaty of Versailles fail at its job? Well, there are several reasons. The first and foremost reason, as most can easily find clear, is because it put all of the blame for the war on Germany. Now, any American on the street will tell you that the Germans did, in fact, start the war and they know this because it's the only major country they can remember actually being competent against the Allies during World War I. However, those who think this are sorrowfully mistaken and probably had a great grandfather by the the name of Huey Long. No, the Germans were not responsible for the war's outbreak. Instead, it was actually Serbia and Austria-Hungary who plunged the world into chaos for the first time on a global scale. When Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot in Serbia, Austria-Hungary blamed the Serbian government and began taking offensive action. What followed next was the largest "domino effect" anyone has ever seen. Germany joined their ally's ,Austria's, cause while Russia joined their ally's, Serbia's, cause. France then wanted a piece of the action and joined Russia's cause since they were in an alliance. The Ottomans in Turkey had the same idea and joined Germany's alliance to take back their land from Russia. Later on, when Germany wanted to invade France by going through Belgium Britain was dragged in because they were allied with Belgium. It's this last bit that causes some Americans to think Germany started the war, since America loves Britain and Britain was dragged in because of Germany's inability to see this would mean more enemies. With this in mind, and France wanting to see Germany humiliated worse than they were humiliated in 5 wars against them, Germany recieved most of the blame for the war not just overall, but also in the conference room since they were the only central power still technically alive and since France and Britain were the only two allied "Big Whigs" there (Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans had split up, Russia was in a civil war with the communists, and Italy had switched sides and didn't feel comfortable showing up).