Diversity

The United States of America is, at it's heart, a nation of immigrants. While Native Americans do live here, the vast majority of the population came here, at some time or another, from a different place. They came to make better lives for themselves. Whether they were escaping religious persecution, famine, or simply just looking for better lives for themselves, they came.
This led to a great diversity in our country. We are in fact, known for our great diversity. Look around at Americans and you see all colors, beliefs, personalities, in this regard we certainly aren't limited.
But we also come with a dark past. As a people we have committed hideous crimes. We massacred the natives of this beautiful land, enslaved African Americans, persecuted, in a kind or cruel irony, many different peoples for various reasons. And yet, we have made progress as well.
This progress shows in our schools where children of all races and beliefs playing together without worry. It shows in our tolerance of others when we listen, however grudgingly, to opinions and beliefs that differ from our own. It shows in our politics, in our rights and our new President Elect.
The 44th president of the United States of America, a country that clung to slavery long after many had abandoned it, will be a black man. He, like many others, has brought reminded us of a very important fact. That true tolerance, true acceptance, true diversity, doesn't come from celebrating our differences. Human beings as a rule, do not understand people by finding the differences in each other. We connect by finding that which is the same. Love of other people comes from knowing why they feel how they feel. It comes from seeing what we have in common that makes the other people human as well, no matter how they see things. The truly great thing about our country isn't how far we've come, it's how far we will be able to go.

Favorite Place in the Country

Gosh, this is such a hard question. One of the problems with living in such a large country is that there are so many places... This of course leads to lots of amazing places. Let me think.

I love Austin, it's amazing. But I love it the way you love your home town, it's not like exotic or anything. I suppose if I had to choose, I'd say Boston. It's a beautiful city. Also it's filled with so much amazing history. It has this amazing feeling partly because it's old, for an American city anyway. It feels like you could be there forever and never run out of things to do, places to go, ideas to explore. As an added bonus it has a subway. I love subways. To me they speak of freedom. It may be different once I can drive... Until then, at least, subways are a symbol of self-sufficiency.

Boston is also a religious center for me. The discoverer and founder of Christian Science,Mary Baker Eddy, lived in Boston for a long time. It was in Boston that she founded the Mother Church. Boston is important to me in many ways.

Terrorism

Here in the United States, we have experianced terrorism. The most well-known attack in (semi) recent years was the September 11th Attacks. They occurred on September 11, 2001. On that day 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners. They flew them into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Passengers on the fourth plane realized what was happening and were able to overcome the terrorists and fly the plane into a remote field instead of its intended target. Over six thousand were injured during the attacks and 2,998 were killed.

Other terrorist attacks have taken place but none so well known as those of September 11. People attack our country for various reasons. One of the most prominent is that our country has a tendency to make other people mad. Many disagree with our foriegn policy and, occasionally, disagree with it strongly enough to attack us. Many people also attack for religious reasons.

The best example of how the U.S. responds to terrorist attacks is, once again, the response to 9/11. Like most people around the world, fear tends to bring out the best and worst in Americans. Immediately after the attacks, many people showed great courage by returning into the affected buildings to search for survivors. Some of these rescuers, many of them firemen, did not come out again. At the same time, many people responded with hysteria and paranoia. To this day, some people believe that Muslims, even Arabs in general, are not to be trusted.

The response on a higher level was, basically, tighter security. Everywhere. Airline security got so bad that some people now show up for flights hours in advance. Security got even tighter after attempted terrorist attacks in Europe. Now, not only will one's nail clippers be confiscated, but one's shampoo will be taken away as well. The government also responded to the attacks by sending troops into the middle east, beginning a 'war on terror'.

School

As I've said before, I attend Anderson High School in Austin Texas. School goes Monday through Friday, from nine in the morning to four fifteen in the afternoon. I have to be there at seven thirty for band practice and normally leave at about four thirty except on Mondays, when I have band until seven that evening.

Our school has a wide variety of clubs most of which meet anywhere from weekly to monthly. Some of these clubs include the Darfur club (working to end the genocide in Darfur), the GSA (Gay Straight Alliance), Mu Alpha Theta (Math club), Spanish club, French club, Key club, and Anime club. The main reason we have so many clubs is because its relatively easy to start a club. All you really need is enough interested students and a teacher sponsor. In many ways, the variety of clubs reflects the personalities and beliefs of the students on campus.

For an American school, our academics are fairly rigorous. We are an IB school which naturally causes our classes to be a little harder. For all our core classes (Math, Science, English, and Social Studies) there are two levels of difficulty. For Freshmen and Sophomores there are regular and Pre-AP classes. Juniors and Seniors have regular and AP classes. Pre-AP and AP (or IB) classes are significantly more challenging then their regular counter parts. There are also many electives that can be taken as Pre-AP or AP classes.

This year I am taking all four of my core classes Pre-Ap. I normally have anywhere from one to five hours of homework on weekdays and about two to twelve hours on weekends. Band and homework fill up my schedule pretty fast. Currently, we normally have a football game every Thursday or Friday and a competition almost every Saturday. Games take up pretty much the entire night and competitions normally take at least five hours.

While I feel pretty busy most of the time, I enjoy Anderson. It's a lot of hard work, but it's still a lot of fun. While I sometimes wish was taking easier classes, I need them to be competitive and I get a lot out of them.

Illegal Immigration

We have illegal immigration in the United States. The majority of the illegal immigrants are from Mexico. This is because of two reasons. Firstly, there are only two countries that border the U.S, Canada and Mexico. Canada and the U.S. have higher standards of living then Mexico, so it’s easier to make a better life for oneself in the U.S. then in Mexico. Because Texas is on the U.S.-Mexico border, we have more illegal immigrants then many states.
There are many problems with illegal immigrants. Firstly, it is currently easier to get into this country illegally then legally; which sets a very bad precedent. Not only that, but also these immigrants often do not pay taxes and yet rely on government-funded resources such as education. Also many illegal immigrants have a fear of law-enforcement because they are, after all, breaking the law. Because of this, areas that have large numbers of illegal immigrants also tend to have higher crime rates since no one will call the cops. To a large extent our country debates over what to do about illegal immigrants rather then doing anything. However, we do have border patrol, which deports illegal immigrants when they’re found.

What I did this summer

This summer I went to camp in Missouri for the seventh year in a row. It was a lot of fun. I got to water ski twice, which was really cool. I also got to climb on lots of things. This included everything from the high ropes course to a couple of cliffs. I also got to go spelunking, which was very muddy and very entertaining. It was easily the most exciting two weeks of my summer. In comparison, the rest of my summer was rather dull.



I sat around the house, read, watched TV, played video games, hung out with my friends. All the normal summer things, I guess. My friend, Evie, and I attempted a huge project which ended disastrously. Otherwise I generally hid from anything that remotely resembled hard work and half dreaded, half looked forward to band camp.



Band camp starts a few weeks before the end of school, in July. It's a lot of hard work but it's needed if we don't want to embarrass ourselves once marching season starts. We went from eight in the morning to five in the afternoon. Four the first four hours we marched out on the school parking lot learning everything from basics to the show. Then we had an hour or so for lunch, which was really nice. Then, after lunch, we went inside and worked on our music.

So I went to band camp for three weeks or so and attempted to learn to march. Then school started and summer was over. In some ways it was really productive, in others it wasn't, but it was fun.

Introduction

Hi, I'm Angela Lupher. I'm a freshman at Anderson High School in Austin Texas. I live with my mom, dad, and my eleven year old brother, Michael. My mother is an aspiring writer so she spends all her spare time on her laptop. My dad is getting an engineering business off the ground so we don't see him much right now. My little brother just started middle school and I think he likes it. I have a overenthusiastic dog, Pooh, and a hamster.

I really love to read, especially fantasy and science fiction. My favorite book in the world is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. If you haven't read it, you really should. I also really like Harry Potter, anything by Jim Butcher, Bloody Jack, Ender's Game... Well, you get the idea.

I'm also a band geek :) I play baritone and I'm in marching band. It's a lot of fun and my section is easily the best (although Mellies are a close second). We have practice every morning and also in the afternoons on Mondays. We play at football games almost every Friday. It's really fun, even though it is a lot of hard work.

I have lived in Texas my entire life although I really love to travel. I go to Missouri every summer and I've been to California and Wyoming several times. I got to go to Europe a couple of years ago, which was a lot of fun. Basically, other places really interest me.