JB's Blog

               Throughout all the years of evolutions animals have gone through, one trait seems like it would've gone away: sleep. When an animal sleeps it's voluntarily putting itself at risk of being attacked while completely unconscious. The only reason this is a common trait among most animals is because the risk to reward is worth it. Humans often underestimate the importance of sleep compared to other animals. For example, no other species is only getting half of their recommended amount of sleep due to school or work in the morning like us.      We are recommended 8-10 hours of sleep per night; however, many people who have obligations in the morning will not get a full 8 hours all the time. The problem with sleep depravity though is the fact that one cannot "catch up" on sleep, and one night of not enough sleep will already have an effect the next morning. Despite this, however, we are the only creatures who voluntaril...

     The 2008 drama series Breaking Bad starring Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul is one of the greatest TV shows in history. It's a unique storyline that follows Walter White, a science teacher, and Jesse Pinkman, one of his old students, as they become two of the most successful meth cooks in the Southwest while dealing with their own personal problems. Not only is the character development of White and Pinkman some of the best in all of media, but the cinematography is stunning. The way the directors use camera angles to highlight the importance of the scene is amazing and something that’s not done well in other shows. Where the show really shines is its character development on top of all the action and suspense that the show creates. Following White throughout the series makes viewers question their moral boundaries as White slowly falls into darkness. On the other hand, Pinkman, who starts out as a teen who was an addict, uses the opportunity to try and get his life ...

     Visual literacy is the ability to interpret and make meaning from an image or other forms of media. Good visual literacy means one is able to explore the deeper meaning and make connections with images. This skill is important to have because it allows for further understanding of a piece of art. Without it, only what’s seen at first glance can be comprehended when there’s much more behind it.  A great example of when one would need visual literacy is when looking at images such as the one above, from the Great Depression. When looking at this photo at first, it just looks like a group of people, maybe a family, sitting down; however, after analyzing the photo just a little bit one starts to realize the true conditions these people were living in. Just by looking at their facial expressions, it reveals a whole different meaning to the photo.

  When thinking about the most popular sports, one will often name sports such as football, soccer, basketball, and hockey. These of course are the most played sports at least in America, but which sport has the most growth among youth athletes? Volleyball, especially for men, hasn't been that popular until maybe around a decade ago. Until I was in middle school I hadn’t even heard of any boys that played volleyball and the team wasn’t that big either. Now though, around 7 years later, there are exponentially more boys’ volleyball clubs in the Midwest and each club has way more teams than it used to.  So what allowed volleyball to grow among boys, especially in the midwest where there’s no beach to play sand? The biggest thing that will influence a kid to start a sport is their parents and their friends. If your parents don’t put you in volleyball, and your friends don’t play volleyball, how would you know to try it out? Many players come from a second sport, like basketball...

  A scene in the movie that got to me was when Grigory had to leave his family behind in Russia to move to the U.S. This got to me because it was definitely the most emotional moment in the whole movie, and I was going into it only expecting it to be about sports. In order to be safe, Grigory had to leave his family behind which isn’t even something I can imagine having to do. It’s insane the lengths that the Russian government would go to.      I was surprised by how deep the corruption was in the Russian government regarding doping. It wasn’t just certain athletes who were seeking out PEDs on their own, it was government funded which is crazy to me. Usually, when there’s a cheating scandal in sports it’s just one team or player, not the whole country. It’s also shocking how long this had been going on before it was uncovered and how Bryan Fogel, a random cyclist, played such a big role in it simply because he was interested in the effects of doping.    ...

     So far college hasn’t been too challenging or anything when it comes to school and sports. The first week was fun getting to know my teammates and everyone else on campus, especially when classes hadn’t started yet. Also, the workload for most of my classes is lower than I expected, especially for Math and Psych. No tests are super challenging that I have to study super long for so the only challenging part has been just making sure I know what homework I have. It can sometimes be hard to keep up with, especially in classes where the homework isn’t on the syllabus. Other than that though, my experience at North Central has been pretty positive so far.