Good Food Review

To review “good food” it would probably be helpful to pick a food in specific that is good, as a review of good food overall would be pretty much limited to the sentence “good food is good.” I dislike spicy things, so that helps to narrow the search for what “good food” is in my opinion. Beyond that, there are some ingredients that I dislike (onions, zucchini, etc) that also limit out a significant number of dishes. My favorite foods usually involve seafood in some capacity, and I also like rice very much, so it seems the natural assumption that sushi is good food. Sushi is great because there’s little that can be done wrong. Sushi is such a simple food; the most basic pieces are just rice and fish wrapped in seaweed. Because of its simplicity it can be very easily made at home with few supplies (it’s also a lot of fun to do). There’s a lot that can be done with sushi such as some pieces containing cream cheese and other unusual ingredients. Wasabi is much too spicy for me, however, so I usually stick to soy sauce as my only addition. Sushi is good, I’m not really sure what else to say about it.

King Still King?

I'm not really sure what this prompt is supposed to mean. It's too vague for me to write anything meaningful that wouldn't feel hopelessly contrived. I'm going to take it as a question of whether or not leaders still function as monarchs. There are monarchies in the world I suppose, so some leaders must be monarchs. In other systems a case-by-case analysis is necessary. More charismatic leaders tend to achieve power akin to that of a monarch while others obviously do not.

I'm a Shoe

I guess I'm a shoe.

Edit: I can't say I believe any given shoe is the symbol of some group of people I belong to; I hate that type of thing. In this entry I had a choice between being contrived or barely writing anything. I chose the latter. I'm have too much of an angst-filled, teenager mindset for this type of thing right now.

Winter Poem

Since I have no talent for poetry and the title of this entry doesn't specify whether the poem is one I wrote or one I like, I'm going to assume it's the latter.
My favorite winter-themed poem is probably Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

I particularly like the last stanza of the poem.

Blogalization

Though it's natural to fear the unknown, the globalization of society is usually a change I can accept with more enthusiasm than apprehension. The drawbacks of a globalized society would most likely be a deterioration of unique cultures as well as the obvious outsourcing of labor and its effect on the economies of the industrialized nations doing the outsourcing. However, all of the benefits of a globalized society seem intuitive; a more peaceful world is to be expected when every country has a vested economic interest in the well-being of every other country, and a supposed downside of globalization, a loss of nationalism, would very much serve to bring about world peace. Without nationalism, that basis for hatred and oppression would cease to exist. In the current world economy it is reasonable to fear globalization's ability to undermine unions for the sake of achieving the cheapest possible labor but that is only because we are in a transitional phase. When workers' unions become globalized as well, the laborers in third world countries will have the same claim to superior working standards and human rights as those in progressive nations with the highest quality of life among workers. The benefits of this far outweigh the drawbacks; I have no doubt we will inevitably see transnational cooperation among workers around the world. Sweatshops will reside in antiquity and the disparity between the salaries of the upper class and those in poverty will dwindle as fair trade will supercede free trade; a reasonable, global minimum wage, once established, would eat away at the ridiculous profit margins of the Fortune 500 and an educated middle class would emerge and thrive. Once we reach such a point of globalization, the benefits are self-perpetuating and will constantly improve; never will any governmental or corporate entity overstep its boundries in a world where there was such a risk of a revolt from a capable people, nor will they have the abundant power necessary as they do today. Globalization might very well be the best thing to ever happen to us as a society.

The Lack of Sports in My Life.

Sports are actually relatively insignificant in my life. I’ve never been particularly athletic or even very competitive for that matter. My involvement in playing sports competitively has been limited to a few local activities that I never really maintained interest in. Watching sports has played an even smaller part in my life. I’ve never truly seen the appeal; it has always just bored me. It’s actually kind of difficult to write 250 words on why sports don’t interest me, so this will probably be a short blog entry. It always kind of annoys me when some sporting event causes traffic, which makes commuting more inconvenient. For right now, the extent of my involvement in sports is the occasional swimming I do for fun.

Thankful for Peers

I really am thankful for the classmates I have and have had throughout my time in school. Every one of the ones I’ve known, even those that never became more than acquaintances or those that I have ceased to be friends with, has played an integral role in shaping my development as a student and even more as a person. I am certain that with a different cast of classmates my entire schooling would have been very different, and as a result of those different experiences I would be a very different individual. I am very grateful that I have had the friends I’ve known, I do not take them for granted. I know that a school is a profoundly lonely place when in isolation, and there are many students that never quite come by acceptance, so I’m lucky to have found it. As well as being able to talk to someone in school, it’s nice to be able to have people to spend time with outside of school, even without any particular objective. Having classmates allows someone to grow as a social being, to develop skills necessary to understand those around them and sympathy for fellow humans. Such an association opens doors for every student; it allows them access to the culture of their generation and allows them to play a role in shaping it. The impact of the community on an organism is significant, and should the organism be out of contact with the community, the community cannot possibly exist. Our day to day associations and friendships play a role, however small, in setting the tone for all human interaction.