Youth Philanthropy

Can someone be a philanthropist if they're no better than the people that they're helping? That's the question today folks.

Philanthropy is the generosity to improve all people's lives by helping them. Typically this is a financial aid. Typically, the biggest philanthropists are also extremely affluent. My school has a project for all grade 10's in which they have to act as philanthropists and help a local charity. The group that can present their charity the best will win $5,000 to donate to the charity. This made me wonder, what types of people can qualify to be a "philanthropist"? By dropping 5 cents to a homeless man, does that make me a philanthropist? Being a teenager, I am not financially independent yet and neither is the homeless man. Wouldn't it be better for me to keep my money/resources and work hard to earn a living so I can give significant financial aid than to try to give small help when I myself cannot provide for myself? By trying to help when I am not independent, doesn't that hinder my possibility to give a large donation in the future?

So my opinion now. $20 isn't going to completely poop on my life and ruin my future or anything so giving like that is reasonable for anyone to do. But a project like the one presented at my school where it can cause time conflicts, forcing you to choose between commitments. If I chose to stop playing Basketball or something so I have more time to be a "philanthropist", that would have a significant impact on my own life, closing a door of opportunity. To keep this short, I think philanthropy should be more focused on sharing one's wealth, not voiding your own to give to another.

So based off of that, I don't think kids can be counted as "philanthropists" but they can donate or give back to the community. A philanthropist is someone who is able on their own and has decided to share their own wealth.

Easter Ramblings

Rabbits laying chocolate eggs. What is associated with that? Most likely, Easter.

Why?

The last time I checked, Easter is the celebration of the rebirth of Christ. How has something like that evolved (heh, see what I did there?) into rabbits hiding chocolate eggs for children. I mean if it was a chicken or a turkey I would understand a little because they actually lay eggs. But a rabbit?! South Park addressed this strange association in the episode "Fantastic Easter Special", the 5th episode of the 11th season. Their hypothesis is that the Saint Peter was in fact, a rabbit. Aside from rabbit cults, I am genuinely curious as to why this happens. And why stop there? How did Christmas go from the birth of Jesus Christ to a fat man climbing through your chimney's, leaving presents, and taking cookies and milk as payment? In the famous words of Antoine Dodson, AKA bed intruder, "He's climbin' in your windows, he's snatchin' your people up, tryin' to rap 'em" or in the case of Christmas, "He's climbin' in your chimney, he's snatchin' your cookies, tryin' to eat 'em". Is this all a marketing scheme to persuade people to buy chocolates and presents? It would not be the first time something like this has happened. If anyone can recall with me, diamonds are actually not that rare. It was all a marketing ploy in the 19th century after massive deposits of diamonds starting showing up in Africa. They were able to convince the public that a diamond ring is necessary for a wedding, making billions in the process. I'm not so sure if chocolate eggs can make that much money but crazier things have happened. I guarantee you, I'm not a crazy conspiracy creator. "BREAKING NEWS, CHOCOLATE COMPANIES HAVE BEEN MAKING BILLIONS SELLING US CHOCOLATE EGGS. EASTER BUNNY INVOLVED IN PLOY"

So, I would like to hear from you guys, my valuable readers why you think Easter has been associated with rabbits laying chocolate eggs. I must learn the truth behind this. And in the wise words of Antoine Dodson again, "we gonna find [it], home boi".

An Introduction to Yours Truly

Still not sure how to introduce each of these entries,

"Diarrhea is wet" - John Malkovich


I'll get the hang of them soon enough. I thought this entry should be more about myself since I feel that it is easier to relate to something if you can understand where it is coming from. I am in grade 10 in a regular high school in a small city of 100,000 in south eastern Ontario. I'm about 1 hour away from Toronto. Before you close this page thinking "Eh, regular high school whiny kid", I am more interesting than just that. I'll start from my childhood (which I'm still kind of in, haha). I am the second child in my family, I have an older brother who is 8 years older than me. Both my parents worked at the same place and they make more than enough money. In grade 3, there is a secret test to search for intellectually advanced kids for all kids. I remember how the teacher attempted to hide its purpose, I probably should have noticed something then. "Alright class, today we're going to all write this big 8 page test that will take all day. It's not for any class, just a fun test! Alright, everyone take a chocolate bar and let's start!" Oh how we were all duped by sweets. Anyways, I was identified as "gifted" and the following year, I was going to be placed in the program. The program would put all the gifted kids in the same class from grade 4-8 and keep them segregated from normal kids. I didn't really understand this but once again, free food was given at the orientation so automatically it was a good thing. The change wasn't too noticeable except that I would have the same class for every subject for the next 4 years. It was good because we were "entitled" so we could get away with a lot more.

In grade 6, I remember one day at home, my brother asking my mom if "she had told me yet". I instantly was curious and asked. It turned out that my dad had the choice to relocate to Shanghai, China and work as expats for 2 years. His mission was to set up a new firm there and expand the business to China. Little kids never like change so I was initially against it. Everyday, I would ask him what were the odds that it was happening, completely unaware that it was all his choice. It started out at 10%, then it increased by 5 every day until I knew we were going. We went there in the summer between grade 6 and 7 to scout out a school for me, and a house for my family. The school we picked was The Shanghai American School Pudong Campus, which is an international school. This meant that the school was extremely rich and was separated from regular society. The curriculum was all American, everything was in English and overall, it was like attending a prestigious American School. The Pudong Campus has the middle school merged with the high school so the facilities were god like compared to my small public school in Ontario. I'm sure I'll write more about it in later entries since this has been the highlight of my life thus far so I'll blot out the details.

To sum it up, I completely changed during the stay in China even though it was for only 2 years. It was Pokemon evolution time pretty much. There will likely be an entry dedicated to my experience there and it'll be a fun one to write and read for sure. So now, I was all big boy mode and I came back to my city in the summer between grade 8 and 9. It was very hard adjusting back to a small city from one of the biggest and most urbanized mega cities in the world. And that change made me miss and value the experience that I had. So now I am back in the small city going to high school. A lot of my friends are those that I made while I was in the gifted program and a lot are ones I made in the past 2 years. Since I am in a small city, the people who go the my high school knew a lot of each other before in high school whereas I was pretty much starting from scratch. It was tough but it's all kewl now.

Sorry for the long post, had to give a little background to myself.

Hello World!

Hello everyone!

It is difficult to start a post so I guess me stating that will be the introduction.

Anyways, I am an just another ordinary 15 year old who decided to start a blog to see how long it can last. I did something like this a while ago but that was in a Word document. Doing this on an online blog feels more exciting, like anything else that is public; except pooping. It might just be me, but going to the bathroom anywhere other than my own washroom is very difficult and stressful. It's even worse when there are people around. For example, I can never lay a big mud monkey in my friend's house because if I am too quick, they might question whether or not I wiped or whatever. Take too long and then everything thinks you have constipation. This could just be my strange social anxiety considering that I also have a hard time blowing my nose in a room with other people. Most of the time, in consideration of others, I try to tone down the volume of my blowing. Normally when I'm alone, my nose clearing sessions sound like someone drowning mixed with the big bad wolf blowing down poor piggy's house. As a result of this, I can never shoot out all the luggy onto a tissue, it usually gets the the front of my nostrils and gets stuck, forcing me to spend around 5 minutes standing above a trash can with a handful of tissues. The worst is when someone notices my struggle, "You alright there Nick?", "Uh yeah, I'm uh, just - PFF pFF pff. Just got allergies or something", "It's the middle of December, what are you allergic to?", "Like pollen or cold or something, I'm alright I swear, I can blow my nose".

Yes, I am very very awkward.

Anyways, enough about that, I'll try to keep each of these blog posts relatively short. I'll update whenever I have a story or have something on my mind. Probably once or twice a week, you wouldn't think that a high school kid has that much to say eh?

Oh and if you're wondering where the name of this blog comes from, my family and I went to ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) recently since we live fairly close to Toronto. There, the Aboriginal Exhibition had a lot of information on Wigwams. I thought it was a funny word and "I entered the Wigwam" sounded all artsy and silly so it kind of just stuck.