#street-level

Christian: Hey, so, by the way, B.o.B. is gonna be here on Wednesday. Just so you know.

Me: Oh. Alright. Uh, that's cool.

Christian: Yeah.

...

Christian: Mayor Rham, too.

Me: Oh. Damn. We fancy.

“It’s hard to prove that you can do the job if nobody will give you the first one.”

At the caucus, there were interesting topics and unique perceptions on employment and the solutions to solve this dilemma.

The group that I was in was more focused on the young adults who are unemployed than the graduated college people who are unemployed. The people who go to and graduate from college have more education and training that gets them ready for the job world. The young adults have more of a hard time finding jobs because they have less experience. To fix this problem, we suggested that there should be high school courses and/or after school classes that teach teenagers that they need more experience to able to get a job more easily.

  FACT: “13% of young adults are unemployed in the U.S.”

FACT: “27% of young adults are unemployed in Illinois.”

Possible Reasons:

Neighborhood

Criminal Record

Lack of Skill

Education

  There are only certain schools who are able to teach students about job skills to become employable. Other schools have disadvantages, like lack of school funding, that keep them from teaching these essential details for the world. For example, lack of school funding, income, etc.

  1. Where a person lives can seriously affect how much education that person has. Usually, the low income neighborhoods have the schools that don't have enough funding, teachers that don't have enough pay, and/or the teachers might be inexperienced in their field.

  2. The jobs that people apply for usually do not want any type of trouble. They want an efficient workplace for themselves and for their employees, so when someone applies who has a criminal record in their background portfolio, they tend not to call that person back just so they won't get a bad name in their business. Would you want someone in your business who has robbed and killed before? That will really look bad for business.

  3.  Almost no job will hire you if you have no skill. That is why in every job that I have applied for, NONE of them have called me back. They are so busy that they have no time to show you the ropes, unless you want to work in a fast food restaurant. Skill goes along with education. Schools should teach high school students the basic skills that they need to become more employable.

  4. Another reason why teenagers cannot get a job as easily as adults is because us, as modern day teens, need more education to get a job. Education means experience, the more experience that you have, the more likely you are able to get hired for a job. That is why I’ve never gotten hired; I have literally no experience.

In order to create better work environments for us teenagers, our siblings, and their futures in Illinois, we must further educate our generation by giving our schools more funding so that we will be able to learn about job skills to make ourselves more employable in the job world. We can discuss this and more solutions to unemployment at the next NextGen convention. Do this and ensure your and my chance to become more employable.

Natalie Richardson’s poem “Egypt” spoke to because it tells how the traumatic experiences suffered during military service affect not only that person but also their loved ones. Natalie's chilling verses really pull on one's heart strings.

  Image courtesy of Mattel

As a seventeen-year-old with no little brothers or sisters running around -- thank god -- my minimal knowledge of what kids play with nowadays comes from randomly walking by a Toys R Us store on my way to school. I didn't even think today's generation of kids play with actual, physical toys. Barbies and toy cars? Try iPads and Nintendo Wiis.

Apparently, the popularity of dolls isn't completely lost. Monster High is Mattel's hit new line of seemingly "Goth Barbie dolls," who are the daughters of monsters trying to face the challenges of high school.

In an article from NPR, toy analyst Gerrick Johnson said he was surprised when the toy brand took off the way it did, "I didn't think it would work. Why does Barbie work? Barbie works because she's aspirational. Girls want to be like Barbie. Shrek has never worked in toy format, because no boy wants to be a green ogre from the swamp. He wants to be Luke Skywalker."

Trailing Barbie in sales, Monster High is not only the newest hot toy that parents have to fight over during Christmas, but is also raising questions about the message they're sending to young girls. Mattel's Vice President of marketing, Cathy Cline, said, "The message about the brand is really to celebrate your own freaky flaws, especially as bullying has become such a hot topic."

There are a few things in Cline's statement that raise a red flag. First off, the purpose of the brand is to celebrate "freaky flaws". Oh yeah, Mattel. That makes complete sense. Because I'm sure one in three girls in high school right now have ever had the issue of having your dad be a Werewolf. And secondly, since when is bullying a new issue facing young girls?

The fact that girls are obsessed with Monster High isn't that surprising. It doesn't take long for fads to spread -- girls see their friends with new, cool looking Monster High dolls and they beg their parents to run out and buy the dolls -- but just because something is surprising doesn't necessarily mean it's right. Monster High is attempting to bring a toy that isn't the typical, blonde bombshell Barbie into the spotlight, which is something that deserves applause. However, once you actually look at the dolls, it's obvious that Monster High fails to be progressive when they're trying to celebrate "freaky flaws", but the "freakiest" part about their dolls is their difficulty keeping up their daily beauty rituals.

  Jezebel took a look at the biography section of Monster High's website:

Draculaura, daughter of Dracula:

"Since I can't see myself in the mirror, I have to leave the house not knowing if my clothes and makeup are just right."

Clawdeen Wolf, daughter of The Werewolf:

"My hair is worthy of a shampoo commercial and that's just what grows on my legs. Plucking and shaving is definitely a full time job but that's a small price to pay for being scarily fabulous." 

  Once you can get past the ridiculous names -- it took me a good five minutes to stop laughing--you can see why Mattel's attempt to be progressive ultimately fails. The most ridiculous doll has to be the one named Skelita Calaveras. Her body is literally a skeleton with black and orange hair. Her face is designed to look like a sugar skull used in Day of the Dead Celebrations. Not only do they say the doll is from "Hexico" -- I didn't know the country of Mexico was copyrighted--but despite being a skeleton she still has boob outlines on her ribcage.

I honestly don't know whether to laugh or turn off my computer in disgust.