For future employment, would I do it for money or happiness?

I’m scared. I’m so scared of taking a job where I’m doing it to support a mortgage and utilities and not to enhance my life. I would love it to do something where I have some talent, and then do it for the sake of my own happiness, but I’m sure that’s incredibly selfish. I argue with my mom at times about my conundrum, and my family’s point is clear. Work for the money, happiness comes with stability.

I worry if it’s my teenage rebellious attitude disagreeing with her.

Then again, I’ve never really considered money to be that big of a deal. I save when possible, but it seems like the dying dollar has not been my concern. All of our families are being negatively impacted by a problem that loaning has caused. Even some of my friends haven’t even felt the recession, spending more than usual. I’m part of this crowd. This is one of the reasons why I always feel like money is a problem in friendships and et cetera.

The worst part is that I don’t know the value of a dollar. I’ve never worked a day in my life, and I’m way too carefree with my wallet. I don’t care about buying my yearbook a bit late, but my mom does, and no matter how beneficial it would for me to try I can’t get it through my head that ten dollars does indeed matter. Even when my mom tells me that money for dinner is scarce, I understand what she’s saying, but I’m still not taking it in. Maybe I’m avoiding the problem.

So I’m stuck in a conundrum. Should I get a job where I’ll be happy, and develop skills for a job where employment is risky and it depends totally on practice and talent, or do I find a job where I am guaranteed some sense of stability?

It is incredibly easy for me to say, Yes I will do what it takes to study what makes me happy, and to do whatever it takes to make sure I am satisfied with my work, but sometimes I feel like my call to happiness is too romantic to work. At times I believe I’m too naive to know what happiness actually is. Maybe bliss is a house I own, and all debts paid off.

I’m working on scholarships and whatnot, but still the matters of economic welfare haven’t hit me yet. I’m going to college, I just don’t know what to do when I get there.

Skyline High School recently had a unsuccessful after-school rally. It was a repeat of the previous years where misbehavior left seats bare. Last year, thrown water bottles ended the fun, and this year it was from unwelcome guests making an appearance.

However the bigger problem may not even be a short end to a rally of wide mouth cheerers amidst a crowd of dull, emotionless Skyline students; the problem is with school spirit.

Students get a ride, take a bus, or walk up a hill to a school they feel no real pride for. We hear of the university cheers: Go Bears, Go Bruins, Go Aggies. There really is no “Go Titans,” save for the end of the daily announcements over the PA system. The ending cry of dying spirit is only anticipated because it is the end of the PA’s assault on the ears.

Before school starts and during lunch, most students find their respective cliques and clubs and chat for about 30 minutes. Energetic, culture-specific music is blasted from two speakers from a student DJ who plays to schools of fish who speak over the music to their friends. A select few students dance to Jackson and West as students see the dancing as an embarrassment or to others something out of their culture.

It is normal Skyline fare until a fight breaks out and students rush to gawk like a wave of birds, beautifully in sync. Three to five minutes later, after campus security intervenes, the students return to their cliques. The lunch time excitement is back to dull, much like the students’ distaste of the slow week at Skyline High School.

The only school spirit that can be attributed to the students is each one’s own bitter distaste to how the school has changed. From seniors finding the freshman troublesome, to the sophomores’ new-found arrogance for not being the smallest, the only thing that the students can rally behind is their age. During the rally, the seniors shouted loudest and the decibels decreased as the microphone signaled the other classes to cry back.

The disconnect of the students from each other in cliques and class attribute to the lack of unified Skyline Pride. When one sees the Spartan image brandishing a sword and shield, one may remember history class or Odyssey, and Skyline students think of the same. The mascot of war and power may be a call back for the sports teams to remember, but even with a victorious football game, the halls aren’t echoing victory. They are echoing footsteps and clangs of lockers being shut. After P.E., students throw their uniforms back into their cubbies, and the embroidered mascot of Skyline Pride is shoved back into a tiny, cramped, and locked prison, silent.

Sure, Skyline High School has a problem concerning its status and accreditation as a learning institution. But the school shouldn’t let the morale of the place fall by the wayside even when it’s easy to do, even when an after school rally goes to ruins as students crowd outside an empty stadium of silent posters and a static prone audio system.

What do you say to the bored masses that mash away on their cellphones in order to match colors on Bejewel or try to get a higher score on Tetris? Does one approach the puzzle gamer nonchalantly and ask “Why?” or does one just ignore the scene?

This is not an attack on people who have found a way to kill time. But the idea of a video game, where the motivation is to keep playing for a high score, may remind one of school. Does the student who plays Tetris do so in order to get a good score? Does a student read and research in order to get a good grade rather than to learn?

I was talking to a person I just met while taking a psychology class during the summer semester at Laney. She took the class mostly to raise her G.P.A. at Berkeley High. Honestly, I was surprised. She was too, when she learned that I was taking the class out of interest in the subject and for the sake of fun. I would never guess that one would care so much about mere numbers. I tried to comfort her by telling her that despite my good grades, she attended Berkeley High, and I attended humble Skyline High, an Oakland Unified School District public school. She had already one-upped me.

Do grades matter this much? I’ve never believed that getting an A was that big of a deal. I was angry when I receive Bs, but it wasn’t because I thought it didn’t represent my progress in a subject, but rather I was distraught because I didn’t do that great. I didn’t get a high score. I saw my class rank go down. It wasn’t about accessing education, but rather seeing a number go down or not. It didn’t matter what that number alluded to, whether it be U.S. History or Calculus. I could care less about how much I knew about John Locke or whether Sigmund Frued committed psychoanalytical incest. I wanted to see my student stock rocket.

Frankly, I see that I was conditioned to get good grades. In elementary school, it was a competition to see who could pull off consecutive A marks. To get a D would be the ultimate shame, the time when an academic samurai would commit seppuku. Going below a B is much akin to slapping one’s honor with a back hand. It didn’t happen in my group of friends, and even if I left them from elementary to middle to high school I found similar people for whom an A was something that one could use to compare, and to determine who falls on the class rankings.

Nowadays, I try not to care so much about grades, and to do the best I can and to appreciate the education I can get, but one can never escape their selves. I am what society has made me, and society has made me addicted to 100 percents and gold stars. I’m not complaining, the nice SAT score and the good GPA has given me an easier time when applying to colleges. It’s just that, it doesn’t really mean much in terms of education.

Should the process and importance of grades be lowered in importance? Is it an overly liberal thing to say that a school and teachers should evaluate students in a less general way? I believe some sort of progress could be made to stress the importance of an education one cares about. This would necessitate a change for more parent, teacher involvement, or even a change in how one is raised. However, this solution isn’t very realistic, and their are different issues that are being looked at here.

My philosophy teacher at Laney College has said that if one is doing anything one doesn’t like (school) for payment of some sort (credits, grade), then that makes the person a whore. That makes me quite a grade A whore, now doesn’t it?