As Vast as the Ocean

               It is a universal fact that Gregory Peck has been a heartthrob for the last century, and I am no exception. However, unlike many of his devotees, I believe there is a limit to how much we should obsess over him. For example, in the movie “The Keys of the Kingdom,” Gregory Peck is a missionary priest in China and takes care of an ill child as well as works with a trio of nuns as he realizes what the faith is truly about. The film concept is terrific, but the number of fans losing their minds over Peck wearing a cassock rather than the meaning of the film is a little too high for my liking. It makes one wonder, are people   into  that? And if so, how did we as a people (with great taste or not) end up here? In the third century, Christianity became legalized by Constantine I. In the fifth century, the fall of the Western Roman Empire allowed the church an opportunity to bring society together again during a time of poli...

     How much caffeine in a cold room is really legal? My friend and I have studied at Panera for 8 hours on many occasions, and we were shaking. But the real question is if it was from the cold, the scary workload, or from the caffeine in the refillable drinks with 200mg caffeine in each charged lemonade we were guzzling down at the moment? And how long would we go on pretending we weren't going crazy from it, the workload, cold, and caffeine as one?      Whether it be Panera, Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, coffee shops, or the library, it’s no coincidence that the most popular study spots for students sell caffeine. It is seen as a necessity, since drinking coffee is like proving socially that “you do so much hard work that you need coffee to keep doing it.” But is it really necessary to ruin yourself and your environment just to prove you are as sophisticated as others your age? It’s always been a metaphor that your body is a temple, so respect it. But w...

  (Q8) “A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers but borrowed from his children.”   -          John James Audubon   Dear Mr. President             It’s an honor to write to you, I’ve never written a letter to someone so important before. But I should clarify that ‘important’ isn’t the same as ‘respected.’ I may be a high school student and you might’ve just tossed this letter aside, but I’m already working on seven other copies of this that I plan to send to you biweekly!  Now, the reason I, as the sole member of our school environmentalist club, is writing to you, is because of what you’ve done. Or rather, what you haven’t done. No one cares about the environment anymore! Our generation’s inspirations, our role models, have stopped caring and therefore influenced us not to as well. Look at Taylor Swift, facing no repercussio...