Captured Thought: Extracurriculars

The thought that has been in my head for a while now has been about the future, but more specifically...extracurriculars. And especially homework during extracurriculars. Although I might seem biased because I'm doing this blog while sitting in the theory room during a V-show performance, I'm actually not. This blog or rant will probably benefit most people in our class.

For most things, teachers say that they won't take "I had volleyball" or "I had choir" as an excuse for undone work. If it is something that should have been done in class or was assigned a while ago, then I agree with the teachers, but things due the next day can be reconsidered. May I also assume that most teachers want their students to be successful in life? With that assumption, I will now go on the rant as to why teachers should allow the occasional missed or not done homework assignment.

For us to do well in life, in this era, we must keep every second of our day booked. It could have sports, V-show, dance, or stamp collecting, but whatever it is-our lives are full with it. So that means that on some occasions, we probably won't have time to take our 7 hour and 15 minute life back home with us because we are already trying to get far in life with something else. If my assumption is correct about teachers, then teachers should probably understand that sometimes we can't do your homework assignment because we already have our day filled. We are trying to be successful in our extra stuff as well as school, but to do really well in school, sometimes you have to take out extracurriculars and then colleges write you off as not being well rounded enough.

As well as putting us ahead in the collegiate world, it also could be better for our health. Most sports help relieve stress as well as keep you in shape. Most people I know are now comparing how long they stayed up at night doing homework after all their extra things after school. If sports help relieve stress, then what are we doing trying to put back all the stress by staying up late worrying about all our teachers being upset if we don't have something completed, or not the teachers, just the idea that bad grades lead to bad college then to a bad life so we might as well not be doing anything at all.


I'm pretty confident that most or even all would want us to do stuff during the school day. But when I say day, I actually mean the 7 hours and 15 minutes we're at school. Doesn't that seem like an extremely large amount of time to learn during the day anyway? So why then are we adding another 5 hours afterwards?


I guess what I'm really saying is that I realized that sometimes extracurriculars should come first before homework because maybe going to sleep earlier will help us learn more in class, in fact it probably will.

Welcome to the world of well rounded people that will die 30 years early because we're having more heart attacks on Monday from stress and dying from sleep deprivation.

Connection: Postmodernism and Olympic Phone commercials

I'm not sure if you've seen the phone commercials where they say that you can watch the olympics live off your phone, but I have. I couldn't find a video online, but here's the overveiw of what most of those commercials look like. You hear someone talking while you see their hand and a phone in their hand. On the phone there is video of a figure skater or a skiir doing what they do best. While we're hearing the person and seeing the phone, we are also seeing the surroundings move. The surroundings also move with what the athlete is doing if you pay close enough attention. I found this commercial post-modern in two ways.

The first way is the distant to close feeling. Now, with our phones we can watch something that's thousands of miles away. Sure, we're used to the idea that we can watch the Olympics at home when it's thousands of miles away, but now we can do that while moving around in all sorts of directions. No matter where we are, or what we're doing, we can watch the only Bermuda athlete compete against one of the many American athletes. We no longer have to be couch potatoes to see the olympics, we can be at work or in the halls of school. Just think about it. The world just got a little bit smaller.

The second thing I noticed was the multiple views. We weren't just seeing the olympics through one screen. We were seeing it through 2, and some can argue 3. It can be two screens because we are looking through our TVs and then the phone, but the three views are the TV, the person holding the phone's eyes, and then the phone itself. If that doesn't give you some sort of multiple viewpoint, then what does? Also, when I talked about the surroundings, I was being serious. The way that the surroundings move is very subjective to the way the athlete moves. It's not so obvious that you can tell what sport is being shown by just looking at the surroundings, but it does help give you a more inclusive feel to watching the olympics while on your phone.

I personally feel that although we're living in a postmodern world, some things are just more post modern than others; this being one of them. We can't stop this train now, though.