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loveatfirstwriteblog · 3 years

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The Stress of Students: Behind the Curtains

The other day, I was doing a BuzzFeed quiz to see how much random knowledge I had. I got a 9/10, for answering questions about obscure things not many people know, and certainly not things I learn about in school.

They were things I searched up on my own, because I was interested to know. The different organ systems of the human body, the painters of the Renaissance, the legend behind the Taj Mahal.

I love to learn. I love learning about new things, soaking up all the new knowledge. It’s one of the main reasons I hang around Tumblr and Reddit, because I learn something new everyday.

What I don’t enjoy is studying. What I don’t enjoy is being forced to drag myself out of bed at six in the morning, sit for a class where teachers don’t even try to make concepts interesting (their favourite dialogue being “You better listen to this, it’s going to be on the midterm”) and end up writing exams that our entire lives depend on, on concepts we pretty much never use in real life.

Can I blame a singular person for my inner turmoil every time I look at my physics textbook, or join a Zoom class? Can I blame my teachers for being so focussed on how we do on exams that they forget to make classes fun, to make concepts interesting? Can I blame my parents for being so college-focused, for reminding me of my GPA and how much I need to score on my next test to increase it? Can I blame everyone on their drive towards grades, towards extracurriculars, towards Ivy League universities, that they forget to learn, instead of study?

The answer is no, not really. Because the system is designed that way, because the system is more dedicated towards itself than any student.

People love to wax poetic on how grades don’t matter in real life, it’s the memories that you remember. Yet that’s the standard for admitting students into universities, anything less than a 3.0 GPA isn’t acceptable.

Science has proved that adolescents’ biological clock is thrown off during puberty (due to the slow sleep drive of teenagers, and the fact that the sleep hormone, melatonin, is produced later than usual, and this affects the circadian rhythm and sleep-wake cycle). But any adult’s solution would be “sleep early! You’ll be able to wake up for school in the morning then.” We genuinely can’t. I could go to bed at eight, and lie awake and stare at the ceiling until midnight, because I can’t fall asleep. Then I’ll roll out of bed at six the next day for school, still exhausted from less than six hours of sleep--and scientists insist that teenagers require a bare minimum of six hours of sleep a day. That will result in me barely functioning the entire day, because I’m too exhausted to listen to class from weeks of lack of sufficient sleep.

Not to mention that we can’t go to sleep at eight, or ten in the night, due to the sheer amount of responsibilities we have. Let’s take a look at the timetable of an average high school student.

Every single teacher assigns something--that’s solving problems for math and physics, drawing a diagram in biology, writing several equations in chemistry, and studying for that English test the next week. That’s around 3 to 4 hours of homework. Before doing that, though, we have to study the chapters on our own. That’s another 3 to 5 hours. That’s a total of approximately 6 hours so far. Next, we have to study for entrance exams, whether it’s the SAT, ACT, UCAT, etc. Sometimes, it can be three or four entrance exams at once. That’s another 4 hours of work, which gives us a total of around 10 hours.

Hang on, the schedule isn’t over yet. We have extracurriculars and college applications. Let’s take it as 2 hours of work. Plus, mealtimes, taking breaks, texting/calling friends, etc, gives us another 1.5 hours.

That’s a total of 13.5 hours without online school. If we have online school till one in the afternoon, and start studying at two, we’ll finally be done at around three in the morning. Sleep. Wake up. Repeat.

All this, plus maintain a decent social life. Others may have familial issues, friend problems, and face bullying/harassment. They’re grappling with their sexual identities, having trouble finding their very own identities, starting to realise what adulting is like.

You begin to see how the average high school student has the same amount of anxiety as a psychiatric patient in the 1960s. Of course one would logically think “well if it’s this bad why don’t they ask for help?” That's another problem. Once a teacher’s online class is over, some teachers think that's all they need to do, everything is left up to the students. And when we do ask for support, sometimes they don't even respond. Now of course this isn't reflective of every school or student , but it is concerning. Not many teenagers/students are comfortable asking for help from their parents or their friends, simply because they might think their problems are superficial, and their parents might reinforce that idea.

Since the transition to online classes during the pandemic, students’ lives have worsened. Day after day, we sit in front of laptop screens, eyes glazed over, staring at the elaborate diagrams our science teacher is drawing on the Google Jamboard, or the complex equations our math teacher is solving, and not learning a thing. We try to take notes, lose their thought process after a few minutes, and their pen slacks off. We try to at least pay attention, but the teacher’s lullabic voice forces our already-exhausted eyes, from gazing at a computer screen for hours, to drift shut. Our sleep cycles are disrupted and when we do manage to sleep, it’s disturbed and restless. We promise ourselves we’ll sleep early that day, and then suddenly it’s three in the morning and we still have to do math homework.

Not to mention, the lack of social interaction during online schooling. Students socialised every day at school, whether it was asking the girl who sits in front of us for a pen, or laughing and joking with friends over lunch. Now? We just interact with their friends through tiny pixelated squares on screens, watching them scroll through Instagram or Tiktok.

Online classes and isolation have destroyed students’ abilities to concentrate and their motivation. Their mental health has gotten worse, and their stress and anxiety has increased. They’re mentally and physically exhausted.

Contrary to popular beliefs, high school/university isn’t as glorified as it is i movies and TV shows like Riverdale. For one thing, students simply don’t have the time to go catch a murderer. They have college apps, extracurriculars, a GPA to maintain, identity issues, and other various troubles that depends on the individual student.

Don’t blame teenagers. They’re doing their best, with their messy, complicated, adolescent lives. They’re in a period of their lives where they’re transitioning from adolescence to adulthood, and adults don’t help them by treating them like children but expecting them to act like adults.

And never, ever say “teenagers have it easy”, especially to a teenager’s face. It discourages them and makes them feel like their problems aren’t real, and are just superficial. Be better, guys! Try to understand them instead of just brushing them off and pretending you’re better than them.

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loveatfirstwriteblog · 3 years

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What, exactly, is the meaning of life?

Isn’t it funny, seven billion people on this planet and we all want the same thing: for our lives to have purpose, for our lives to have meaning. It means different things to different people, one person could just want to invent a cure for cancer, another may just want to get into university, and another may want to just live their lives to the extreme. But ultimately, we’re all searching for a purpose. We’re all searching for something to do, so that when we die, we die with no regrets.

Philosophers dedicate their whole lives to finding the meaning of life, to find out what we are in this whole massive universe. When a butterfly flaps its wings, does it cause a hurricane somewhere else? Similarly, do the achievements of humanity actually mean anything, or are we just a tiny speck of dust in this vast, ageless world?

I’ve gotten a lot into philosophies and there’s all types of thinking people have about it. Usually this is in terms of whether or not there is meaning at all! This type of thinking is pessimistic and strange for some who may think “well obviously there has to be meaning”, but there are some methods of thinking where life has no intrinsic meaning (which may/may not mean life has no value, but we’ll get to that later maybe).

For example a popular theory/mindset is one called nihilism. This mindset states that there is no meaning in life and it’s useless to try and construct new meaning at all--a skepticism of existence in general. A nihilist believes that there is no inherent meaning to life, and reasons we create to live--a hug from our favourite person, that upcoming promotion at work, spending time with friends and family, etc--is an illusion and a distraction from the truth--which is that finding a purpose to life has no effect on an existential level. You will die, your life will cease, and your memories will disappear.

Nihilism is not the only one. There’s even existentialism and absurdism stating these things, even if it is a little less, well, depressing.

Life seems straightforward to many, and yet everyone wants to “live a life of fulfillment” or “do new things''. If you considered life to be a series of steps, it would go like this: Number 1-be born. Number 2-learn how to walk, how to talk. Go to school. Study well. Make friends. Get into college/higher learning. Study well. Make new friends. Get a job. Work well. Try and get promoted but inevitably end up in the rat race of life. Raise a family. Work, pay off loans, work, family. Eventually you retire and hope our kids can achieve the dreams you once had because you couldn’t. Die with multiple regrets. The end.

I think, as pessimistic as I might have put it, we’re all aware of this process of life. It’s sad, it really is.The universe is 90 billion light-years long, in terms of diameter. In that, earth is a small planet , almost insignificant. You then consider the fact you're one of 7.8 billion people on this small speck, and honestly it feels like life is meaningless. It’s depressing, you know? What’s the point?

Well, for one, it’s about the experiences. For me, life is an endless pursuit of knowledge. You can't experience everything, right? Like do everything the world has to offer: it's way too much for one person to do in one lifetime.

Every choice we make dictates the sort of experiences we have. I mean I would have liked to have a girlfriend in middle school, but now I'll never have that experience! I wish I had a role model other than my parents and friends but I don't have that (though maybe it might change).

So, in short, experiences in terms of people we meet, places we go, things we do, are definitely limited since there's an unlimited amount of stuff to do. But I had usually found solace in the fact knowledge is limited, and I could eventually learn everything about everything.Of course, over time I've found that that’s not possible too. I want to know a lot. I want to know everything about quantum chromodynamics, I want to know everything that goes on in our bodies, I want to know how to prove a millenium prize problem, I want to know about conflicts throughout human history, I want to know enough to trade like warren buffett, I want to know everything about the history of violence, domestic or otherwise.

But I can’t know all of that! No one can, and so that makes me sad. I do realize though, that it’s about priorities. I think life is about that. Like the answer to that question "why do we live/why are we put on this earth" would be we need to learn that we can’t know or experience everything, and the things which we choose to do end up defining us and our lives and that is absolutely beautiful.

Ultimately, I think the meaning of life, or the purpose of it, is to live. It’s to live like your life means something in the end. It’s to live like you’re going to die tomorrow. It’s to live like the world is ending. It’s to live like we matter in this whole unexplored universe of grey matter and planets and stars--maybe it does, we don’t know. Maybe a butterfly flapping its wings does set off a hurricane on another planet. What we do know, is that our lives matter, to our families, our friends, our colleagues, our employers, and most of all, to ourselves.

No one remembers what your accomplishments are in seventy years? You do, even if you’re dead. Your corpse might have rotted, and your memories are mere dust mites in the sun, but you did it. You got that promotion you wanted, you told the person you were in love with your feelings, you went on the best vacation of your life. You lived. You lived when you had the chance, and at the end, I think that’s what matters most.

So, ask yourselves. Ask yourselves: Do you try a little too hard, laugh a little too loud, speak a little too soft, answer “I’m fine” when a person asks you are, and you are fine, because your whole life is a long series of fine?

Are you breathing a little and calling it life?

#life #nihilism #absurdism #existentialism #do we matter #a speck of dust #memories #experiences #live to the extremes #the meaning of life #does life have meaning?#idk you tell me #live like you mean it #live like the world ends tomorrow #live like you're going to die soon #no regrets #die with a smile

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loveatfirstwriteblog · 3 years

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A Complete Analysis of Harry Potter

Like a lot of kids, we probably grew up on Harry potter. We were obsessed and rightly so. The universe created in the world of Harry Potter was, and is, a hugely successful one because of the fact it gave kids a world where magic exists! It seemed to be a great world to live in and it made even better with the fact that it included elements of empowerment, Whether it be showing girls can be just as successful if not more in various pursuits(Hermione), or the fact that even if you have a history of bad events, you can have a good heart(Hagrid), Harry Potter teaches us a lot.

JKR has written a mind-blowing plot in a world of magic, wizards, witches, wands, potions, friendship, love. Our inner-five-year olds--and actually most of our young adult selves too--jumps around excitedly at the beautifully penned words that creates an exit out of this world and into one where magic does exist.

As you get older, though, you begin to think of Harry Potter in a more critical fashion. The thought of “oh my god, it’s magic” no longer completely overrides my mind, but more of “but what are the laws regarding this? Can people just do this whenever they want? Are there no ethics?”

No matter how much we’re going to expose the flaws and plot holes in HP now, we’ll always love the books--we grew up on them! But some things just niggle you as you get older, and that’s what we’re going to be focusing on in this post.

Something I adore about the HP books is that everyone, including the “good guys”, has flaws. Harry has a “save the world alone, do first, think later” complex, a driving force that makes him go save Sirius, Ron is very, very insecure to a point where he ditches Harry twice, probably when Harry needed him the most, Hermione is a judgemental, narrow-minded nag (her thoughts on Luna, divination, Trelawney, basically anything that doesn’t fit her black and white world), Molly Weasley is misogynistic and blatantly favourites her children—probably being one of the main factors behind Ron’s insecurities, Arthur is condescending towards Muggles and makes several comments you cringe at while reading the books as a young adult/adult, Sirius, Snape, and Lupin still haven’t let go of their childhood grudges and hatred, etc etc etc.

These flaws are what make these characters so three-dimensional, so layered, so human. But the problem was, most of these flaws are never intentionally acknowledged. And honestly, that could have been such a good character arc, because the main characters are mostly students. No student is the same through their teenage years—they change, they evolve, they get over their flaws, they try to better themselves. I would have loved to see Ron becoming his own person, Hermione opening her mind up a little, etc.

Neville is not one of my favourites, but I love his growth and development, from someone who was scared of his potions professor to a man who faced down Lord Voldemort. Ginny Weasley could have had character development, from the trauma she went through in second year, but that was never written in. She went through this terrifying ordeal when she was only twelve years old, and jump to a year or two later and she’s absolutely fine, with no transition from her trauma whatsoever.

Some of JKR’s characters are brilliantly written and fleshed out, but some of her others lack the structure and complexity that usually comes with being vital to the plot—Ginny Weasley for one. Her internalised misogyny also plays a huge part in the way her female characters are written. We see this again in the case of how she wrote the character of Ginny.

Ginny Weasley is not a favourite of ours (if you don’t know that by now). She feels a lot like a convenient male daydream—when she waits for Harry to notice her by dating other guys, gets annoyed by Hermione “not knowing quidditch”, etc etc—and fits the “not like other girls” archetype too much, almost like she was made for it (hint hint). She’s portrayed to be strong-willed, spunky, and independent, and I love the idea, but I really don’t see it. To me, she’s a very shallow character, the least fleshed out one.

Just like James Potter wasn’t necessarily redeemed just because JKR said he was, and Ginny isn’t interesting just because JKR writes that she is.

Hermione also fits the archetype, but she’s JKR’s self-insert, so we really can’t say much about that.

To make things worse, Ginny and Hermione are pitted against each other in a very subtle way. Ginny is the sporty, pretty, flirty girl who’s never single from book 4. Hermione is the not-conventionally-attractive, nerdy girl who’s had a few dates here and there but never a relationship. They’re very different characters (the only thing they have in common is the archetype) but they’re against each other in the defence of Harry.

Another place where JKR’s misogyny shows up is the way other girls are written. Lavender Brown is shown as vapid and immature, just because she likes clothes and boys and didn’t know how to handle her first relationship. Cho Chang is perceived as shallow because she’s emotional. Pansy Parkinson is seen to be throwing herself at Draco Malfoy. The Weasleys hated Fleur because she was beautiful and sexy and French, and that was ever really resolved in the end (Molly accepted her, but we never got Ginny’s and Hermione’s opinions again). You see where we’re getting at? The typical “girly girls” are portrayed as insipid, shallow, emotional, and boring, while girls like Hermione and Ginny are seen to be fun and multilayered.

The problems with Harry Potter don’t just stop with non-fleshed out characters. There are plot devices that go unacknowledged, issues like blood purity—which is the basis of Voldemort’s tyranny—are never really resolved, huge Chekhov’s guns that aren’t fired.

A common misconception, which if cleared up could probably expose a load of problems in wizarding society by itself, is that the wizarding world is racist. It’s not racist. Muggles and Muggleborns are not a different race, they’re a different class, at least according to pureblood wizards. Mudblood is a classist insult (a direct reference to nobility blueblood and aristocracy).

Another factor that wasn’t talked about but made the HP world so complex and realistic is the inherent classism in every single pureblooded wizard, including the Weasleys.

The “Light” wizards all operate on the notion “at least I don’t kill or torture Muggles”. The Weasleys refuse to talk about Molly’s squib cousin who’s an accountant, the Longbottoms were so desperate for Neville to not be a squib they nearly killed him trying to force magic out of him, Ron makes fun of Filch for being a squib, thinks house-elves are beneath him, and confounds his driving instructor in his mid-thirties, the ministry workers kept obliviating that muggle at the quidditch World Cup, etc.

This could have been a metaphor for how small prejudices and microaggressions (kind of the wizarding equivalent of white privilege) enable discrimination and murder, if JKR had actually acknowledged it.

The parallel to Nazi Germany is very twisted and definitely shouldn’t be taken too far, but the Nazi ideology grew on the basis of everyday antisemitism, “that’s not that bad” little things. Voldemort’s circle and army grew because the wizard superiority complex festered and blew up in some people, egged on by a deeply classist society.

Ultimately, Harry Potter has very, very shoddy worldbuilding, the kind of worldbuilding that’s obsessed with answering the “what” of the wizarding world, rather than the “how” or the “why”, which is strange, considering that fantasy or dystopian-era novels’ driving plots and conflicts are usually answering the questions the worldbuilding raises--The Hunger Games and The Shadowhunter Chronicles are two of the best examples of brilliantly written YA fantasy and dystopian novels.

In HP, however, the main plot just avoids the questions the worldbuilding brings up like the bubonic plague.

Voldemort’s agenda is built on prejudice towards Muggles and Muggleborns, but the plot just validates the negative perception of them—at the end of the day, being a wizard is what’s special. The Statute of Secrecy is the foundation of the main concept—blood supremacists believe wizards shouldn’t be hidden away—but only vague, barely-there answers are given to why it exists (a Chekhov’s gun that was never fired).

There are love potions that function like date rape drugs (even Harry was given one by a girl who wanted him to ask her out), potions that force people to tell the truth, potions that literally let you disguise yourself as another person, but the ethics are never talked about, and the laws are so lax that three twelve-year-olds broke them and were never caught.

But at the same time, the worldbuilding is so authentic, because it transforms the wizarding world into straight-up fridge horror. The everyday horrors are just accepted and rolled with. A corrupt government, constant obliviation of Muggles, slavery that isn’t even talked about. These things aren’t obvious to us as readers, or to the wizards as characters, because they match up to the real world, which is filled with things that are horrifying if you dig deeper. The multiple, normalised forms of abuse, police brutality, the violence in prisons that nothing is done about, the glaringly obvious cultural problems we have with consent, etc.

The abusive authoritative figures in HP, like Rufus Scrimgeour, Cornelius Fudge, Dumbledore, Umbridge, etc, are so authentic because real-life politicians and people in high places of power behave that way, and their abuse is excused.

The wizarding world is just like the real world. Corrupt, prejudiced, messed up, but if you’re privileged, or at least have certain privileges, you’re probably not going to notice. The ultimate problem is that the plot doesn’t acknowledge a lot of fridge horror things are messed up either, which is why it miserably fails.

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