Freedom.

Freedom is the sole reason why human beings are allowed to live in a way that suits who they are. It is what allows us to make personal decisions. The concept of freedom is what the United States is based off of. Freedom is probably the most clear description of the American Dream. Currently, one of the biggest controversies of our country is about whether our populations freedom is still eminent.

When the Bill of Rights was written, our founding fathers believed that the amendments they had created would build a strong basis for our country; an everlasting strong basis. Evidently, amendments would be added and adapted to suit modern times to come but they are very difficult to change. Government officials who take part in the evolution of laws, take into consideration their own ethics and morals. The problem with ethics and morals is that they're hard to change. It is very difficult to convince a stubborn person that opposes you to believe the way that you do.

In America, government is essentially a two-party system. On one side there are the democrats. On other, are republicans. As people, we're all very stubborn no matter how hard we try to avoid showing it. This is where politics becomes difficult; nobody likes compromise. There are always two or more sides to each story. That is why we have a court system. When a compromise takes place, nobody wins. When nobody wins, everybody settles. If a compromise occurs, it is very unlikely that the solution will remain resolved.

When policy and government become inadequate to a population, things will fall apart. One of the ultimate goals of every type government is for structure that prevents things from breaking down. In the book Lord of the Flies, a stranded group of children believe that having a government is vital to their survival. By establishing a ruling system, there were certain rules that each member was to follow in order for the system to run smoothly. Each child was granted certain freedoms including the right to arm themselves; a current controversy in America is over our second amendment which grants American citizens the right to carry a weapon. Looking back on worldwide history, it has shown us that disarming a population grants government too much power.

Is getting rid of or rewriting our second amendment worth the possible negative outcomes? The answer to this question is different to everyone. It could be yes if you are directly related to the person that is harmed by weapons but if you were stand on the other side of the argument, the answer is most likely a no. Tradition takes a big part in our morals and ethics. Like I mentioned earlier, they are parts of us that very difficult to change. Each are formed from experiences, the way that we were raised, and many other factors. Traditions cause us to be opinionated over certain topics. For say, if you grew up hunting, you would probably feel as though gun laws should not be added. On the other side, if someone that you have loved is deceased by somebody holding a weapon, you would probably feel as though more laws or bans should be added.

Freedom or lack of freedom is different to everyone and to every location. Determining what freedoms we should be given is even harder. Freedoms do have their consequences. Whether being granted a freedom is worth it, depends on the populations opinion; do the benefits outweigh the costs?

Quest

Learning is about elevating your thoughts, building upon your experiences, and discovering new perspectives. Quest English taught me how to think. As a student, I was challenged to change my opinions and to look at the world in a way that I had never discovered. As a class, we made broad inferences that became conclusions with evidence beyond the textbook. That is what Quest is; thinking, opinions, and conclusions.

Whether we were reading books based on different cultures such as Things Fall Apart, or a the classic book the Lord of the Flies (which looked in on not taking anything for granted: even blueberries) we had deep discussions not on what the author was meaning or on comprehension, but on what we liked, how it relates to life. I guess Quest is life too.

I have identified so much about myself and about what I want in my life in Quest English. I have been surrounded by people who even if they do not want to, support me and have my back in anything that I want to accomplish. The people in this class have pushed me in the right direction. I was out of my comfort zone the majority of time. Especially when I first started as an eighth grader. I walked into my first class of the day overwhelmed and nervous to be with this group of people. I sat down and waited for class to start. We began discussing fear. The majority of class, I had NO idea what was going on. I walked out of class wondering "does everybody feel like this too?" After the first quarter, I was ecstatic the moment that I walked into English. The people understood me. I soon learned how to look at things in a way that I could almost perfectly express my thoughts. I thought deeper. This class wasn't a class about grammar or about "what does the author mean?" it was about making us better people, students, and thinkers.

I am so grateful that I was invited to experience Quest. Honestly, I can say that I will miss this class and the people that are in it. I will miss my test free classes led by McCallum. But, because of determinism, I am here to write a semi-formal blog that I would have had no idea how to write if I would not have been in this class. I started blogging in fourth grade but I don't think that really counts. From my first blog that I wrote on Fear, to my 20th which I am writing about Quest, I have come so far as a writer. I think deeper now and I know how to look at something from a different perspective. After Quest, I am changed. Changed in a good way that is.

Thank you for helping me discover who I am, what I am, and the difference that I make in the world. I have become more of myself the past two years. Quest has given me opportunities I wouldn't have been given if I was still an Enriched English student. I probably wouldn't be an editor for The Hoofprint, and quite frankly, I probably wouldn't be apart of newspaper. Because of Quest, I have met people that I can trust with nearly anything. So thank you for all of the experiences that Quest has given me, and taught me.

Lord of the Flies on Leadership (Post 1 & 2)

Being a leader is a funny thing. Most people expect leadership to amount to happiness, being liked, and an overwhelming amount of appreciation. Leadership is not all that it is cracked up to be.

"The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant." -Max Depree

Depree describes how different stages of leadership can be very opposite of each other. To me, the "in between" is when things fall apart. Each leader has a way that they want things to go. He has already defined this, and spoken to his followers about it. The success of the overall running of the proposed plan lies on the followers. After all, one person with out support, cannot over rule two people with the rest of the world backing them.

Leaders and followers are constantly competing for each others roles. They want "power". Power as described in the dictionary means the ability to do or act and the control over other people. People strive for this. The European Journal of Social Psychology describes this yearning as "strivings to increase one's sense of agency (personal power) by decreasing dependence on others, rather than by strivings to increase power over others (social power)". On page 102 of Lord of the Flies, Jack and Ralph are competing for their position in a hunt to find the beast. Jack tells Ralph "This is a hunters job." Ralph replies by saying "This is more than a hunters job, because you can't track the beast. And don't you want to be rescued?" Ralph reiterates his point many times by saying the simple line "Don't you want to be rescued?" The competition between Ralph and Jack brought strain on the island. People did not know how they were supposed to feel. Deep down inside, they wanted the power that Ralph and Jack were competing for.

On page 117 in Lord of the Flies, Ralph and Jack are faced with the dilemma to give some of their earned power to someone else named Piggy. Ralph made the decision that it was best for the group to return to the main camp and shelters rather than continue searching for the beast. If they were to have continued searching,  Piggy would have been left to watch the small children called littleluns. Piggy would have taken a small amount of control. The earned leadership was hard for Ralph and Jack to give up.

Jack spends the majority of the book fighting for power with Ralph. Jack wants to be chief: he wants the control that Ralph has. On Page 127 in Lord of the Flies, Jack says "I'm not going to play any longer. Not with you. I'm not going to be apart of Ralph's lot- I'm going off by myself. [...] Anyone who wants to hunt when I do can come too." Jack had reached a breaking point for himself. He had mixed views with Ralph on the ways that they should survive. I believe that Jack had finally thought he would be better off on his own where he could control his own impulses and rely on himself completely. This follows completely what the European Journal of Social Psychology states that the yearning for power is. He wanted to have things his way. But he wanted people to follow him and take part in what he believed. Jack was tired of relying on Ralph for guidance and trust.

The Lord of the Flies displays the competition between two similar people. We can not accept to come second as a human; we yearn to be first. It is not possible to not be dependent on other people yet we cannot accept that fact. When a person can not accept being second, power falls apart.

The Lord of the Flies models my assumption that power must fall apart completely. The children try to create a society similar to their previous one: the one that they believe is perfect. The children create rules and traditions similar to those of the normal world. Together, the children began to run a successful government. Jack's inablitiy to not have complete power destroys this government. The children are put in split decisions that none of them are capable of handling. Until they are rescued, they are in a form of war.

A blogger on the Huffington Post suggests that "A service is inaugurated today and four weeks later it already begins to lose quality and is restricted" This is what happened in the case of the children on the island; everything became normal for awhile and then it was not important. At first, the kids strived for normalcy but once it was there, they did not care about it.

As individuals, we strive for power, and for independence. In order for everyone to be happy with a society, it must fall apart. There is no place that everyone is truthfully happy. Author William Golding shows this through the main characters in the book Lord of the Flies; Ralph and Jack.

Role of Fear Vs. Role of Hope

Fear and hope play an important role in the way we live and our everyday lives. Our fears send us in a certain direction in making decisions in our lives, but so do our hopes. Fear and hope intertwine. The society that we live in, instills fears such as punishments but not only do they imply fear, hope in form of reward is always there.

Seth Godin wrote an article about the hope that the market brings us. He says that "What marketers sell is hope. The magical thing about hope is that it makes everything work better, every day get better, every project work better, every relationship feel better." In this blog post, Godin is describing the American Dream . The American Dream requires hopes for better things.This the reason why our ancestors came to America. In order for us as human beings to be happy and successful, we need to turn to hope for encouragement. Whether our encouragement is our salary, a win, a relationship, or the hope for something to not happen.

When we hope for something to not happen, we are fearing that it will happen. Nobody can be fearless. Not even heroes. In an article written by James R.Fleming about the book What Superheroes Really Tell Us about Ourselves and Our Society, he describes a hero as "someone who rises above his or her fears and limitations to achieve something extraordinary." We can all be a hero. In order to achieve this mass of success, we must discover our fears, defy them, and hope that everything from that point on will come in our favor.

Even though Fear and Hope are opposite emotions in how they effect us, if we have one, we must have the other. In a discussion over the book Hiroshima, Mallory Rabehl stated that "Fear is the initial thought. Hope comes next." she said that "you act first in fear and next with hope that it will be okay." When lifeboats are put on passenger ships, the company is fearing that if there is an accident then the lives on the ship will be at risk. By putting lifeboats on the ship, they are hoping that if something bad happens, the life boats will be there to protect the people. The book Unbroken demonstrates this. This book is a story of survival Louie Zamperini. The plane that Louie is flying in, is going down in the middle of the ocean. Thankfully, the plane carried an inflatable life boat that saved his life. In this situation, everyone of the plane faced death. They hoped for survival. With a mixture of luck and perseverance, Zamperini  makes it out alive.

The world that we live in, influences the hopes and fears that we have. It manipulates our emotions. This is something that we cannot control. We can barely control our personal fears and hopes let alone defy all of them. Our hopes and fears control our personality, whether we are the hero or the bystander, whether we are looking for a positive or negative outcome (rewards, punishment), and the quick decisions that we make in a time of fear. Hopes and Fears are intertwined by all of these reasons. The emotion is unavoidable. 

Growing Old in the Cold: An Observation On a Boys Squirt Hockey Practice

I. Preface (Leighton):

Growing up in a hockey arena has made an inevitable impact on my life. As a child, I learned discipline and commitment from it. It was something that I hated with my whole heart and slowly I learned to love. Hockey is a sport that in order to become good, it takes years upon years and lots of work. Similar to most of the older hockey players in Buffalo, when I enter the Buffalo Civic Center, I automatically recognize almost all of the adults and the people who work there. Spending so much time at one place brings everyone closer together. It’s like a family. Everyone cares for each other.

There is a significant difference between the boys’ hockey program and the girls’ program though. These differences are evident in the ways that boys act towards the game, the way that they are coached, and their different personality towards hockey. Girls and boys are very different and that is inevitable. While observing the Squirt Development Camp, I expect that the practice will be much more aggressive than a female practice and the lines that the boys will form will be relative to their individual skills. I also expect that at the end of the practice, they will play some sort of competitive games.



I. Preface (Jillianne):

When I was younger I would view the sport of hockey as a functional opportunity to get away, and enrich my mind and skills. To this day it plays a big role on my everyday life and I have never strayed away from the idea that it is enriching and developing. The Buffalo Hockey Association is a place where everything is an organized, everyone is familiar with one another and with everything, and everybody shares one common interest, hockey.

As you are at the younger levels, the association is co-ed, the years the genders split, are the key stages in a childs hockey career. I have partaken in the girls program, and I barely had enough time to keep up with my own team, let alone watching the boys. Here and there our practices will share ice time, but the halves divide along with the teams. There is an obvious reason why the genders split, and that is because of the vast amount of difference.

As for the differences, I assume that before the drills/ individual warmups and such, I think knowing boys, they know the abilities that they are most confident in and they will try and show what they can do off. Which means the ones that can skate the fastest will spend most of time skating, and for the boys that have a good shot will sit at the net and keep shooting. The boys that are playing the game for fun will be socializing. I think the superior players and the players with most potential will definitely show. At this young age of developing skills for the future, the kids are more focused on what they can do to make them individually better, not a team. So I believe that in small games or scrimmaging when a kid gets an opportunity to have the puck, he will use it and not think about passing it and letting someone else have a chance.



II. Background Information:

The Buffalo Civic Center has two ice sheets. One of the arenas is referred to as the “new” rink. This ice sheet is the most renovated rink the center has. The new rink was added on to the original complex which is referred as the “Peterson rink”, or the old rink.

Most hockey players, ameliorate themselves, by following a certain path of levels in the hockey association. The first level is called Mini-mites. In mini-mites, you stay local by only playing in your city. It is meant for kids age 7 and under. Mites, is very similar to Mini-mites, but it is designed for kids that are 9 years old or younger. Traveling hockey begins after Mites when you reach either Squirts, if you are a boy, or U10’s if you are a girl. Skaters are at this level for two seasons. For most people, their Squirt and U10 season occurs while they are 9, and 10. After this, the boys move on to Peewees and the girls will advance to U12’s. Alike the other years, players stay at this level for two years. During the seasons when they are 13 and 14, boys will play bantams, and girls will move on to play U14 hockey until they are 15. Some, choose to play High School Hockey when they reach the U14 level depending on their preference.



III. Observations:

When we first walked into our local Buffalo hockey arena, we were immediately surrounded by cool air. We made our way up the bleachers of the new arena, to the top of the stands and into the observing bench. The players had just gotten on the ice, and were coming on the ice one by one. They were doing individual warm-ups. We first noticed that a few of the players have a different colored hockey socks then most. Two players had red socks, and one player had blue. We presumed that this meant that these players may have partaken in an out of season team prior to this practice. We then noticed a girl in this squirt practice, which was very unusual. She was skating around by herself, and we noted her as the ‘Lonely Girl.’ Everyone else on the ice were males, including the coaches,

During the individual warm ups, the net would slowly fill up with pucks from the players shooting the. When there were no more pucks left to shoot, the players would go into the net and grab a puck just for themselves, even though they are already in the net and could easily take out the rest. We presumed that the players only worry about benefiting themselves as a player.

There were five coaches on the ice. One coach blew the whistle and all of the kids gathered around him. He was bearded, and held a clipboard so we assumed he was the head coach, and we called him the bearded coach. The bearded coach was making hand motions and drawing on a white board, and then motioned for the kids to line up against the wall. Once all the kids were in their places, the bearded coach blew his whistle and the kids started their first drill.

The first players started to skate, and then we heard someone yelling. We noticed that a coach in a grey hood was already yelling at the kids to “GO!” we labeled this coach as the ‘yeller coach.’ Looking at the players lined up on the board a few of them were talking to one another, and the lonely girl budged someone in line. Lonely girl found a friend now, and she keeps talking to him smiling, and laughing. When the boy she was talking to closes the conversation she stands back a few steps and stares at him. When she was backing up she tripped and fell, a sure sign of a 10 year-old crush. It is now the lonely girls turn to start the drill and she doesn’t know what to do. She then has to restart the drill, which is one of many side effects of a crush.

After this drill that took up the entire ice, the bearded coach blew the whistle and everyone met in the middle. He called off names and everyone he called off went in a separate spot on the ice. Each of the four stations did different drills and had different coaches. When the players reached the yeller coach’s station, their body language was much different than it was at any other station. The kids at this station began to mess around and show a disinterest in the drill they were taking part in. Yeller coach continued to yell as the skaters went through the drill. At all of the other stations, the boys were attentive. We then concluded that the players had a lack of interest in the coach, rather than the drills.

While observing, we noticed that while the players were waiting in line for a drill, most of their focus was spent on messing around. Many kids were tripping each other, throwing punches, and just conversing. We made the assumption that because these players are only 10 years old, that this behavior was their way of having fun during a hard practice.

At the end of the practice, the players took their jerseys off, and met in a huddle to do a cheer. We assumed that the cheer brought unity to their team. Once the cheer was over, coaches and players stayed on the ice to pick up pucks, and move the nets. When the zamboni backed out onto the ice, both the players, and the coaches got off of the ice.

IV. Conclusion:


Watching a squirt practice, brings out very many differences between a normal girls’ hockey practice and the average boys’ hockey practice. Most girls at age 10 would not be doing particular things that the boys took part in. Our practices were run from one end of the ice during a skills clinic rather than using the entire ice during the whole practice. Boys actions during their practice were much more aggressive and competitive than any practice that the two of us have taken part in.

The Squirt players all proved to us that they are still deficient in their listening skills, and their attention spans. The players cared about the drills that they were about to attempt, but waiting in line patiently, posed to be a problem. There inability to pay attention while waiting, was something that we looked past when we were making preconceptions. We assumed that it would not be a problem. Even though the players were corrupt to each other during their practice, they all left as one team.

Buffalo Hockey Association has allowed for everyone who is a part of the association, big or small, to be brought together over the common bond of hockey. No matter who can be seen in the Buffalo arena, there are always people there that genuinely care for the sport.

Insecurities

Bigotry and judgment are the height of insecurity.

Jasmine Guy

The book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe describes how life is all about your insecurities and how it is important to overcome everyone one of them. But before you can overcome insecurities, you must discover them first. This book, shows the life of Okonkwo and his struggle to discover himself.

Okonkwo, is a well known man in his tribe who had both wealth and status. Along with his status, came many wives, many children, and many problems. He hid his insecurities the same 
way as modern leaders do today. On page 144 of Things Fall Apart, Nwoye betrays his father by saying “He is not my father.” Okonkwo kept this to himself and did not tell anybody about this experience. He wanted to hide all of his insecurities and everything that made him feel like a failure.

Life is about discovering the person that you are, and following the set of values that you create for yourself. Many people find out what they believe in during their adolescent years. I believe that this is the time that people discover how they feel about the world and every problem in it. You begin to discover your life, because you have begun to experience it. You begin to understand all of the horrible things that can happen to yourself and other people. At this point in your life, the actions that you make, have consequences.

Being a child, consists of copying idols, wanting to be exactly like your parents, and learning from the mistakes that you make. As a child, in most cases, you have very little responsibility. As you grow up, things that were told to you in your childhood are put on display. Some of these things have different meaning now. You set different goals for yourself then your parents had for you. Your adolescent years, are about discovering these goals. Okonkwo discovered his goals for his life a little bit earlier than most people. He described his father as a failure. On page 13 of Things Fall Apart, Achebe describes this by saying "[Okonkwo's] whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness." The rest of the book follows about revealing the person that Okonkwo was.

The entire plot of Things Fall Apart describes how a person finds himself. Okonkwo pushes his goal to never be a failure or to be somebody who is was lazy and opinionless to the maximum. Slowly but surely, he begins to fall apart. He tries to make his son feel the guilt of not being a true "man". The culture that Okonkwo was raised in, made him believe that because his father was not the most powerful, and although he did not always speak his honest mind, he was not a man. One of Okonkwo's sons begins to follow in his fathers footsteps and he has difficulty dealing with it. This was one of Okonkwo’s insecurities.

Life is short which means that by the time you find yourself, you have little left to live. It is not possible to be your honest self when society and people that you love are constantly expecting change and better things from you. Society causes you to become more insecure with your struggles within yourself. Everybody has a clear destined path, but it takes time and experimentation to find out which path that you belong on. Every mistake that you make on your quest to find your path can become an insecurity if you let it. Overcoming insecurities, requires you to be 100% devoted to the goals that you set for yourself. Being confident in yourself, your likes, and your goals, is most important about being secure with yourself.

Ethnography Preconceptions

Jillianne Hovland and I will cooperate together in the completion of our ethnography project. The main focus of this project is to observe the differences of our experiences throughout youth hockey. Both Jilli and I grew up playing hockey in Buffalo but as we have gotten older, the program has changed dramatically. We grew up playing girls hockey through the Buffalo Youth Hockey Association. Girls and boys programs are completely different in this association.
The goal for the project we are beginning, is to identify how the Squirt Player Development Camp is run, how the boys react, the atmosphere of the people playing and observing along with their comments, and also the ice sheet and how it is used. To complete our observations, we will be observing their practice and conducting interviews with three to four of the boys and also two coaches. We will be in contact with the coordinator of the Buffalo Civic Center as our broker.
As I have grown up in the association, I know how much of the girls program is run and how it works. I do not have any brothers or any relatives that play boys hockey for our association. USA Hockey has implemented  ADM  (American Development Model) into youth practices. Both girls and boys use this model in certain practices that are usually done weekly. Another thing that happens in youth hockey is that before tryouts there is a series of practices that are considered "clinics" to prepare you for tryouts.
I have many preconceptions as I begin to think more about how this observation will go. First off, I believe that at the beginning of practice the boys will come out and show off all their moves and spend the beginning of their practice socializing with their friends. The better stronger players will line up towards the front of the lines. Next, I would assume that because it's a development camp, the majority of the practice will be individual skill based. I believe that at least 10 minutes of the practice will be competitive games and races. When we interview the players, I feel as though some will feel stressed with the thought of preparing for tryouts and finding out the teams that they will spend their year on, where as other boys will feel excited for the season and not have a worry in the world to which team that they make. The coaches that we interview will share a different take on these camps. They will notice all the incorrect forms and "bad" things that the kids they are coaching are doing wrong.
Overall, I feel prepared to start observing and learning about the boys youth hockey program. I have quite a few preconceptions that may or may not be true. Playing girls hockey, I have a background that will help me piece together what is happening on the ice and understanding the reactions with different people.