A Memoir of My Own

In 2010, I decided I needed a change in my life. This led to my decision of changing schools for my high school years. After attending Pilibos for about ten years of my life, I went to Clark Magnet High School for a year. At this school, I felt not much different than I did at Pilibos, except I was not surrounded by the amazing people that were at Pilibos. Yes, I met new people, but they were not the same as my Pilibos friends. I tried comparing them to one another, but that did not work out because they were completely different people. My new school was not a public school, nor was it a private. There was no specific uniform, but instead an extremely strict dress code. We also had "odd and even days". This meant that we had every odd period on odd numbered days, and even period on even numbered days, except for our every day seventh period. There was also a period of enrichment which was about an hour a day, where we could go to whichever teacher we wanted to (and got an "Enrichment Pass" from) and get help from them. It could be for a club meeting, receiving help for homework due the next day, or possibly even exercising by heading to the gym. I enjoyed my year at Clark, but I realized I missed my Pilibos family too much, and I had to return. My experience at Clark was different than my entire life at Pilibos, and I learned that not all schools have same family vibe that you receive from a little private school like Pilibos.

It Matters if You are Black or White

-"Blacks Twice as Likely to Die of Coronary Heart Disease as Whites"

-Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times

-November 6, 2012

-http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-blacks-twice-death-rate-coronary-heart-disease-as-whites-20121106,0,5490002,print.story

A study done by doctors from University of Alabama shows that African-American men and women are twice more likely to suffer and die from coronary heart diseases than whites. There is actually a huge difference between the statistics for whites and blacks, even though the rates have dropped since the 1970s. The drop was more for the whites than the blacks. Between 2003 and 2007 almost twenty-five thousand were tested to see if they had coronary heart diseases, and were tested again in 2009. They found that about 659 people were diagnosed with having these heart diseases, and black men had a fifteen percent higher chance of suffering, and black females had forty eight percent chance over white females. Even though they were all the same age, the black men even had a higher chance of smoking, having diabetes, low kidney function, and high blood pressure and body mass index. Even fifteen thousand Latinos, with South American, Mexican, and Cuban backgrounds that participated in another study, showed that eighty percent of the men and seventy-one percent of women had at least one risk factor leading to a heart disease; twenty-five percent of Puerto Ricans had at least three. Even if the percentages are low for whites, they still must be careful to stay away from these diseases.

Three Virtues

The three virtues that I chose to follow from Benjamin Franklin's list of thirteen were temperance, frugality, and cleanliness. I have been trying to follow these three for the past three days, and in my opinion, I had done them successfully.
Temperance: The reason I had done this successfully was because first of all, I do not drink alcohol. Second of all, whenever I would eat, I ate until I was full and not until my stomach was overfilling with food. Even though for two days in a row I had eaten the same thing, I still ate it to a point where I was full, and not about to vomit from having too much food in my system. If I was not hungry, I would not eat. It was not that difficult to keep myself from eating too much because that has never really been a problem for me. Even after having all the saved up candy from Halloween, I did not eat them all at once, but instead a couple each day.
Frugality: I truly believe that I had not wasted anything this weekend, except for some time. I took naps on Saturday and Sunday, and that time could have been spent doing other things. For this reason, I had less time to do other things with my day. In the sense of wasting money, I feel like I had not done that because the only time I actually went shopping was Saturday night. I purchased only what I thought was needed which were clothes and a cupcake that had part of the proceeds going to the Success for Kids foundation.
Cleanliness: This, along with temperance, was not difficult to follow because it is just a part of my routine. Brushing my teeth twice a day, washing my hands before and after eating, washing my face, and taking a shower every other day are things that I am already used to doing. However, cleaning my room was not a part of my routine, but I still did it to follow this virtue. Although right after cleaning my room, I found that a day later, the mess slowly started to reappear. Other than that, I felt I was successful in this virtue.