Where have all the good guys gone?

All throughout high school I couldn’t help but hear the complaints of many of the girls. The most common one being, “Where are all the good guys?” Honestly, I absolutely agree with this complaint; it isn’t very often that you find a genuine good guy in high school nowadays and possibly not in college either. But ladies, there are good guys out there. You just might have to pick through the bad ones to get through to the good ones, which is kind of sad I think.

 At times I become embarrassed to even be a part of the male race. It seems to me that with every year there are less and less men that respect women. This absolutely disgusts me. There are very few other things I hate more than disrespecting women. Now I know that the likely story for most high school and college guys that are disrespecting woman is because they are immature, aren’t we all at times? But immaturity shouldn’t serve as an excuse for disrespect. Disrespect won’t lead you to a good girl, it’ll lead you to a girl that doesn’t care that you disrespect her and that is wrong.

Girls, don’t act like it’s okay for guys to disrespect you, because it isn’t. All women should be treated with respect no matter what. But girls if you don’t show guys that you need to be respected for them to have you; they won’t feel the need to respect you. It’s as simple as that. It kills me to see beautiful girls with guys who completely disrespect them, and these girls are blind to what is going on. I would never disrespect a female the way that I’ve seen other guys disrespect them.

Guys, what happened to being courteous and chivalrous? It has become somewhat of a lost art in the modern world. Make it a point to open the door for her when she’s getting in the car. Take her out to dinner. And pull out her chair for her when you take her out to dinner.  Use every chance you get to show respect and chivalry to her because that will get you much further than being disrespectful. You need to show her that her opinion matters. That you listen to her when she talks, and I mean really listening not just simply hearing what she’s saying. Treat her like she is the most important person in the world, because to you she should be. And ladies if you don’t feel that way don’t stick around because it isn’t worth it in the long run.

Now I’m going to go a little sappy on you guys and talk about a romantic movie. Yes, I have been known to enjoy romantic movies. One romantic movie that I enjoy, mainly because it is my girlfriends all-time favorite movie, is The Notebook. Now for those of you who haven’t seen the movie you likely won’t understand this reference. In the movie, Noah isn’t perfect by any means, but at the end of the movie when he tells Allie to stop worrying about what everyone else wants and asks her what she wants, that is perfect. That is the perfect thing to say to her. He shows that even though he is absolutely in love with her he will let her go if that’s what she really wants. This is what she needs to hear because this is what shows her that he is perfect for her. Noah is showing her respect, respect for what she thinks is best for her. And by doing show he is showing her what is best for her, him.

 For those of you guys that read this you should definitely take a look at how you treat women. Make sure that you are respecting them, because if you don’t things are bound to turn out badly. Girls that read this, make sure that your guy is treating you like you’re special to him. Don’t let his disrespect for you go on any longer. Every woman is beautiful in their own way. And contrary to the beliefs of many, there are good guys out there. You just have to go out there and find them.

-Eric Proulx

Bad Teachers

I’ve experienced some really “bad” teachers throughout my school career, and I’m assuming that’s not going to end until I graduate from college. I don’t know what caused these teachers to not do their one job, teach, but I seemed to always have at least one teacher who was just terrible. When I say terrible, I’m not putting all of these teachers in the same category. Surely they were bad teachers for different reasons. And maybe they weren’t actually bad teachers per say, but they either taught me very little because of their methods of teaching, or not teaching in some cases, or they were just overly strict and set the class up for us to fail.

Bad teachers aren’t always mean teachers. In my senior year of high school I took economics. Going into the class I was excited because it was something that I was very interested in and I figured the teacher would lecture and I would grasp everything, I was mistaken. The class was basically what I’ve noticed my college classes are like. He would put up slide shows and give us information, but the majority of the tests would be from our homework. Essentially, we were teaching ourselves economics. The worst part of the class wasn’t that we were teaching ourselves; the worst part of the class was undoubtedly that I’m not entirely convinced that he even read through our tests when he graded them. I should probably note that this teachers eyesight was absolutely horrendous and I kind of came to the idea of him not reading the tests for that reason. Honestly, I cheated on some of the tests and ended up receiving the same grade as if I hadn’t cheated. This gave me another suspicion because I would write the explanation he gave us word for word the day before and write that same exact thing on the test and get it wrong. I felt like he just had a set grade range for everyone and the majority of the time he just stayed in that grade range. This probably sounds actually ridiculous, but that’s just what it seemed like.

Now I should probably mention that I liked this teacher a lot despite his teaching methods. Yes he told jokes that were very corny and usually not very funny, but he had his moments. I guess I liked him because of all the baseball references he made, especially to Joe Mauer because he was from Minnesota. He would always ask how the baseball team is going to look in the spring and just loved to have a conversation about anything that interested him. He showed a bunch of British movies in class, which I saw as a big relief from all of the lectures. The movies were related to economics, kind of, but they were more for comedy than anything. When it came time to write our research paper he told me to write about baseball, and of course I did. I actually enjoyed writing that paper, which was about the economic effects of building a baseball stadium. Looking back on the class I definitely learned a lot, but his teaching style just wasn’t ideal for me.

What does a student do when the teacher is basically setting them up to fail? The other type of bad teacher that I have experienced is by far the worse of the two. I remember in one of my math classes, which I was taking at college placement level, not honors; the teacher decided it would be a good idea to give us all honors tests. Of course the majority of the students, including me, totally disagreed with it, but there was nothing we could do about it. So we did the best we could, which wasn’t always great but it averaged out pretty well. Honestly, if I wanted to takes honors tests I would’ve just taken the honors class.

I have always been opposed to teachers like this. I thought that the point of a class was to teach you the information needed to do well and challenge you once in a while, not challenge you so much that the class is essentially set up for failure. And again we revisit the fact that I could’ve taught myself the material and do just as well on the quizzes and tests. Of course it is much more effective for the teachers to provide you with the materials you need to succeed, but teachers rarely do this. Although I didn’t enjoy the challenges of teaching myself the material and working harder than I wanted to while it was happening, I look back on it with a sense of relief. It’s beginning to seem to me that college classes more often than not take this shape. I can’t tell you how many times I heard that you have to be “self-driven” in the first week of classes.

Becoming self-driven, to an extent, in high school definitely helped me prepare for college. Of course, I doubt that this is what the teachers were trying to do. Whether they were or not, they did. If it weren’t for the teachers that I have had in the past I think that it would have been a much greater struggle for me to get used to college classes. Now, here I am almost two months in and self- motivating myself rather successfully.  

Did I have bad teachers in my schooling career? Of course, everyone does. But even though these teachers were bad in my opinion, they weren’t bad in every aspect of teaching. They were just bad for me at that specific time in my learning. These teachers did teach me lessons beyond the curriculum, and they did prepare me for my future. Personally, I would rather be prepared for my personal future than simply for the tests in a class. Teachers don’t always have the most fitting teaching methods for you personally, but it is these teachers that teach you to become independent, to push yourself harder, and essentially become the person you are supposed to be.

-Eric Proulx

Siblings are the perfect best friend

 Do you have a brother or sister that is your best friend? If you said yes, you’re lucky. Having a sibling as a best friend is amazing because they’ll always be there for you, no matter what. Regular friends are able to come and go out of your life as they please, but family can’t. Family is everlasting, and why wouldn’t you find a best friend in a sibling? Siblings likely have gone through some of the things that you are going through or will go through in the future, so they have first-hand experience to give you advice.

My best friend is, and always has been, my sister Lizzy. She may be eight years older than me and some of you may think that it would be hard to connect with an age gap that big, but it isn’t. My sister always gives me advice from experience and she is really easy to connect with. It was easy to deal with problems in school or anywhere else with my sister there to help. I feel as if as a child I was weak, and it was okay because I had so many people around me, especially my sister, who were being strong for me. And that is why I continue to get stronger.

As a kid you don’t have to be strong because of the people around you. But with the strength around me I learned to be strong earlier. Not too long ago my grandfather died of cancer. He had been going through the pain for a while and it gave a sense of relief when he passed away because he wouldn’t have to go through that pain anymore. For most of the family, this wasn’t easy at all. I told myself in my head that this was the time to be strong. This was the first time that my strength was tested, and I knew I was ready because of how strong my sister had been in past situations. I idolized her strength.

My sister taught me a lot as I grew up. Not only did she teach me how to be strong, but she taught me how to be honest. A select number of you, probably mostly just my mom, know that whenever Lizzy needs an honest opinion on clothes before she buys them she comes to me. I’ve been around her so much that I know what looks good on her and I can tell it like it is. Not too long ago she was going to a wedding and had narrowed her dress search down to three. She and my mom weren’t exactly sure which one to pick. So what do they do? They bring Eric along. I’m sure some of you have been to dress barn and know that seeing an 18 year old man there isn’t very common, but I agreed. To make a long story short, I picked out the dress for her to wear. Not only was it cheaper than the other two, go figure, but she also looked absolutely beautiful in it. I don’t beat around the bush though, I told her within five minutes what dress I liked and I made sure that she knew why. I guess I’m some sort of fashion guru…just kidding.

Lizzy often acts like a second mother to me, which is understandable because she’s eight years older than me. When I was younger I absolutely hated this to be honest with you. She seemed to always be the one to discipline me and I didn’t like that. As I got older I began to appreciate it more because I realized that her intentions were always good. She simply wanted to make me into the best man that I could be and her way of doing this was to make sure I knew that I did something wrong. I thank her for doing that and helping shape me into the man I am today.

If you and your siblings aren’t close, you’re definitely missing out. Being best friends with my sister has showed me that I’ll always have a friend there for me. And I’ll always be there for her too. Through it all, I have a friend. I encourage you all to try to have this relationship with your siblings. Give them a call just to see how their day is going or grab lunch and just spend time with them, show them you care. Remind them that you’ll always be there if they need someone. Because when something in your life changes, such as where you live or your job, you might lose some of the friends that you have met. But you will never lose that friend that you have in your sibling. 

-Eric Proulx

What is happening to these kids?

Times are definitely changing, and they seem to be changing for the worse in children. Kids are becoming something that they have never been and something that in my opinion they shouldn't be. Children are growing up way too fast and no one makes a point to say that they shouldn't. People simply discipline, or sometimes don't discipline, children for the things that they are doing and it often doesn't teach them to stop doing those things. Is this the main cause of rebelling against parents and other authority figures?

I have seen many kids  rebelling against the people in authority over them, especially in high school. I am sure that in some situations the child will go against the parent because they don't agree with them and they will do something wrong and learn from it, but children definitely are beginning to do these way too often in cases that it shouldn't be happening. The parents are likely not doing anything wrong, but the children are trying to grow up and be independent when they have no right to do so yet.

As a teen, doing things that adults are doing is cool to them. This is exactly the mindset that is hindering a good childhood for them. They don't understand what they're doing to themselves and to their parents. Their parents can't stop them from doing these things because they aren't often seen as authority anymore. Independence feels good to them, but they don't understand that they aren't independent at all. They are doing things that they want to do, things that they aren't supposed to do, and there are sometimes consequences for these things. Their parents still provide for them and help them if they get into trouble, but they don't get any respect. Kids are lucky that their parents love is stronger than the hurt they feel from the disrespectful behavior.

Bad habits are coming earlier and earlier in life. In high school, I would see kids younger than me becoming sexually active and doing drugs and I just did not understand it at all. They have a whole life ahead of them and they are ruining the best time of their life. Whether they want to believe it or not is a different story, but childhood is supposed to be the most fun part of your life. What I don't understand is why do they need to do these things now when they have a whole life ahead of them where they can do whatever they want? When you turn 18, you're an adult and you make your own decisions, but not now in the time of your life that will shape your future.

The worst part about all of this is that it is happening to more and more kids. The kids that don't do the "cool" things are seen by the other kids as different now. It is terrible to think that this is the norm for kids now. Innocence is no longer an option in pre-teen years and even early teen years, unless that child wants to be looked at as different. That child may even be bullied, which is also beginning to be a huge problem in schools and will likely be one of my future blog topics.

Parents, take a look at your kids behavior and try to figure out the source. Try to figure out why they are doing the things that they are and try to tell them how it makes you feel. If they want to do things that adults are doing show them how being treated as an adult really is. This is merely an idea from a college kid who doesn't have any kids, but something needs to be done. Kids aren't kids anymore and it's sad. These kids are going to be this countries future, and that future doesn't look very promising to me.

-Eric Proulx

Laughter, it's infectious

Laughter is quite an amazing thing when you actually think about it. There aren’t many things in life that I can think of that are as infectious as laughter. Think about it. You’re with a bunch of friends watching a movie and one of you laughs. Even if that part of the movie wasn’t funny it is still hard not to laugh. Everyone laughs and it is a great thing that brings everyone together. No matter what you’re going through, laughter will be good for you.

In my opinion, a baby’s first laugh is one of the most beautiful sounds to hear. How can you not smile when you hear that? It’s something that will be part of them for the rest of their life, and it’s a part of them that shows happiness. No matter how horrible your day is going it is almost impossible not to at least smile when a baby laughs. Baby’s laughs are heartwarming and unforgettable. Even in Peter Pan you can see that a baby’s laugh is an amazing thing. The author of Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie, writes, “When the first baby laughed for the first time, his laugh broke into a million pieces, and they all went skipping about. That was the beginning of fairies.”

When anyone around me laughs I often have a smile on my face or I laugh. Usually it isn’t even because the joke or whatever they are laughing at is funny; it’s more likely because their laugh makes me laugh. I love being around people when they’re happy, and especially if that includes laughing together. More often than not, if people aren’t laughing and don’t seem to be having fun I try to be my weird self and make people laugh. The most fun I can have isn’t going out to the movies with my friends; it is hanging out talking and laughing at things that only we think are funny.

It can be understood by anyone. They say that music is a universal language which is quite obvious, but the way I see it laughter is the most distinct universal language. No matter what language you speak you can understand laughing. Everyone associates laughter with happiness and everyone enjoys being happy, so therefore everyone enjoys laughter. And why wouldn’t you enjoy it?

If your friend is feeling down, or even someone that you just notice doesn’t look too happy or looks upset, try to make them laugh. Not only is laughter infectious, but it is the best medicine. When I’m upset and people make me laugh it automatically makes me feel a little bit better. Don’t ever underestimate the power of your own laughter. Once you start laughing it’s usually hard to stop and frankly you shouldn’t try to stop because it is helping you deal with whatever you’re going through. Whenever you’re down call some friends and ask them to hang out. I know that if I’m not too happy with something that I have no control over I tend to hang out with my friends and just have fun laughing and doing dumb stuff.

No matter who you are or what you’re going through laughter is good for you. And the first step before laughter is smiling. It’s the little things in life that make us smile and this brings me back to a baby’s laughter. When you’re down think of something that makes you smile every time you hear it or see it. For me that is my godson’s first laugh. My day could be long and boring, but if I listen to that one time it can change my whole mood around. Find yours, it’s worth it. I will leave you with this; it takes about 45 muscles to frown and only 17 to smile. Smile everyone, and I hope that that smile turns into laughter.

-Eric Proulx