Sports at Napa High School: A Corrupted Story

At Napa High School we are very proud of our athletics. It is a chance for the whole school to come together and rally behind a common goal. While football, basketball, baseball, and softball are all popular and beloved by students, they are certainly not the only sports teams offered at Napa High. So then, in an atmosphere dominated by the huge and popular sports, where can we find these smaller sports who do not receive the attention they deserve?

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 Track and Field, the Original Sport.Track and Field events were part of the first Olympic games. Held in the Spring-time for Napa High School these diverse and athletic events are dwarfed by Baseball and Softball

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Tennis, held in the fall for women and the spring for men.. This sport of speed, power, and agility is sadly played on a weed ridden court with not even a place for spectators to watch if they were to come.

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Wrestling, possibly the toughest, most technical, and most physical sport practices in this beat up looking building on the outskirts of campus. Although the team is very successful, they still have a hard time drawing crowds to their matches.

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Swimming, Diving, and Water Polo. These aquatic sports practice year round in the heat, cold, rain, and hail. Although the United States is home of world leaders in aquatic sports, these sports are ignored and overshadowed by more popular events all year.

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Spirit Leading. Hands down Napa High's most dominant club. Many take their numerous National Championships for granted and do not give them their deserved credit. The Spiritleaders have won 8 National Championships in a row and show their numerous trophies in the window above their room.

The Homeless in Photos, The Faces of L.A.’s Skid Row

The photo essay that struck me as the most interesting was "The Faces of L.A.’s Skid Row: A Photo Essay" by Equal Voice News. What I thought the author(s) was trying to get at in this essay is how close the homeless actually are to us in our lives, and how much we attempt to ignore and cover up this problem. When I first saw this set of photos I was reminded of the movie Looper. This movie, which takes place in the future features a scene where the main character drives through the city and sees a whole homeless civilization on the streets of a huge city. There is a huge divide between the rich and poor in this movie and the poor practically own the streets, with no attempt to control or enforce laws on their civilization. In this movie it seems as if they simply gave up on the problem. There are several striking photos in this essay which I copied below. In one it shows tents pitched on the city sidewalk stretching down the street, with downtown LA looming in the background. All of these photos share a similarity in that the streets are deserted of foot traffic and dominated by homeless. It is a neighborhood in the middle of the city that no one dares to enter or attempt to open a business. It is like a slum in the middle of a developed city.

Credit: http://www.equalvoiceforfamilies.org/the-faces-of-l-a-s-skid-row-weekend-photo-essay/

Stoic

A lot of people say that I never show any emotion, or mention that I am a stoic. When I researched to philosophy a while ago I discovered that on the outside from other points of view, I do look pretty stoic. I'm not very outgoing or eccentric, and I'm fairly introverted. I also discovered that there are many points to this philosophy that are helpful and that I try to implement into my life.

To me, stoicism means that we should not waste energy and time on dangerous emotions that will do nothing for your situation. This does not mean you should avoid involving emotion completely in your life though. For example if you get a bad grade on a test, there are no benefits on wasting energy to cry or moap around and complain, as doing this will not magically change your grade or prepare you to do better on your next exam. This method of not letting certain insignificant things effect you, and only putting energy and attention to the important things in life is very beneficial to one's well-being. Now there are exceptions and it would not be possible to implement this philosophy into everything in your life. If there is a death or tragedy or something very important it is necessary to express emotions. Another example of breaking this philosophy would be involving positive emotions in your life.

I think that living by a philosophy is very beneficial for someone. For me it took away loads of stress and created who I am today.