TRADITIONS

In midst of the holiday chaos, one of my favorite things involving Christmas is hearing the traditions that each family holds individually for the holiday. Hearing everyone's personal stories, (as to if their little brother wakes them up at 5:30 screaming at the top of their lungs for the whole house to wake up, or the traditional "you can't open your presents until we go to church", or if they're the type of family where everyone sleeps in past 12:00 for a lazy Christmas morning), is somehow something I can always rely on to calm me down, despite the craziness of the holiday season of stressing over presents and family drama. Sometimes, people seem to get too caught up in the presents and the craziness of the holiday to sit down and relax and remember the real reason of Christmas. Hearing everyone’s Christmas traditions is so exclusive, making it extremely interesting to listen to. Every family is so unique in their own ways, and have traditions that get passed down from every previous year and from when they themselves were the children. It’s pretty cool how traditions work. The traditions I do now as a 17 year old, will someday get passed down to my future children, where they will pass it down as well. Whenever I hear of traditions, I actually think of our school which may sound quite random. The standards we set now will forever be passed down from one class to the next class and so on. Right now, it may not seem like a big deal for us at all, most kids would rather complain and whine about our school then take the high road and see how unique of an opportunity this is for us, the first graduating class. I mean, when we are graduated from college and have started our lives ten years from now, revisiting the halls of Newark Charter to see what traditions are still living inside of this building will be incredible if you really think about it. Who else do you know gets to say the traditions they set their 4 years of high school sets the standards for students attending in the future generations?!

Notorious P.I.G.

While at the gym this morning, it was like any other day. I put my clothes in my locker and proceeded to walk to the fitness room to get my day started. On the wall, I noticed a “Winter Incentive Program” being hosted at my gym. Basically, you write your name on a winter themed piece of paper, and every time you attend the gym you place a sticker on your sheet. The goal is to workout at least 13 days out of December and have 13 holiday stickers on your name plate to encourage families to keep healthy during the holiday season. I immediately thought of how great of an idea this is for families. Offering incentive programs is a great way to keep people motivated, especially when times can be rough when you're around sweets and enticing foods during the upcoming holiday seasons. Incentives like these should be performed year-round to keep people motivated to keep in shape. As everyone knows, the obesity rates in the US right now are at an all-time high. Perhaps the main reasoning behind this is because unhealthy and non-nutritious foods are so insanely cheap right now. Heck, I saw on Main Street yesterday that Burger King is selling 3 pancakes for 89 cents! 89 cents! You get 3 pancakes for not even 1 dollar! You can get 15 pancakes at Burger King for not even $5. Better yet, 20 chicken nuggets for $4.99?! Is that serious??? Why are the causes of obesity rates even being argued in the world we live in today when fast food restaurants are having these cholesterol breakthroughs?? No wonder we are the obesity nation!!