First, if you really want to start getting better sleep you must first prioritize it. If you say you are going to sleep, actually go to sleep. A growing problem for society today is actually putting the phones and computers away when it is time to sleep. It is hard to stay away from the bright screens when the late hours come, especially when your smartphone is also your alarm. What you might not know is that smartphones actually suppress melatonin. If you are unfamiliar with the term melatonin, it is the hormone in your system that regulates sleep and wakefulness. Therefore it might be a good idea to read a book before you go to sleep. I would strongly suggest reading before you go to sleep because not only is reading the key to success, but will also not suppress melatonin and most likely help you fall asleep.

I think we can all agree that there is not that much that trumps great sleep. Feeling refreshed and ready to go in the morning is the best way to start your day. But getting good sleep is not just about those 5 minutes before you go to bed, but the process actually starts at the beginning of the day. The best way to get good sleep is to have a routine throughout the day, and make sure you are providing your body with the right nutrients throughout the day.

Another great way to enhance your sleep is to have clothes designated for sleep aka pajamas. From experience, I can recommend bamboo pajamas, they are seriously the most comfortable pants of all time and my sleep is way better because of it. Having comfortable sleep helps your body recover from tough workouts, so finding what you like is recommended.

A) Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• 1/4 cup thinly sliced white onion

• 1/2 teaspoon cumin

• Pinch of Salt

• Pepper

• 1 tortilla

• 1/2 cup shredded hard goat cheese

• 1/2 large sliced tomato

• fresh basil or sage

B)Directions to make Vegetable and Goat cheese quesadilla.

• Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. You can add toppings such as unions and sauté until translucent for around 5 minutes. After season it with salt, and pepper. Remove onions from pan and set aside.

• Using the same pan, lay the tortilla flat on the pan in medium heat. Sprinkle cheese evenly on top. Top half the cheese with cooked onions, tomato, and herbs. When cheese begins to melt, fold cheese-only side of tortilla over. Cook for another minute. You can repeat this process for larger crowds of people such as a whole classroom. Each person will want more than one, but it is healthy and taste very good and is also quick.

c) Analysis

Goat cheese is easy to digest for people who are lactose intolerant. You can use a whole wheat tortilla which has fiber. You can also use veggies for toppings which are extremely healthy and have antioxidants.

This is the beautiful thing about making a meal that is from a country like Mexico. In Mexico, most of the ingredients you will find are grown locally and are very fresh. What this means is that the food that you will be eating will most likely not be processed. Goat cheese also contains whey which contains protein. If you are going to the gym a lot, you might want to think about creating one of these healthy quesadillas because you can fuel your gains. Furthermore, you can also eat the veggies from locally grown markets, or you can buy bad veggies. Either way, you know that it will be much better for you than a processed meal.

Lukas Supovitz-Aznar

Advanced Essay #4

When I first started this unit about war I was immediately intrigued about the concept of why we are so involved in war. My first thoughts were that their has to be a method to our madness, but the more I learned the more I felt mislead. While writing this essay I wanted to lead the reader to a more knowledgable reason on how recruitment goes down. I tried my best to keep my opinion out of this topic, and just write with factual content. I think I did that, but still provided interesting content that would make the reader want to keep reading more. In synopsis I am happy I picked this topic because I was enlightened myself.

Hundreds of men stand in front of our flag, pledging their allegiance to this country. This photo is a powerful, yet common photo of a bunch of young men showing their dedication to the country; the same country that betrays them in many ways. In the background is the American Flag, and it shows that they will all fight for the cause. Sometimes the cause is not identified but these men are still willing to risk their lives. This has been a trend, where men who are mislead by their country still are loyal and extremely proud to represent the country. Throughout history, war has been an important topic for all countries.

Since the beginning of the United states, we have always been very involved in all different kinds of war. Recently war has come under attack, specifically by the United States recruitment system.  Army recruitment happens all around the country, and these recruiters come to thousands of high schools to get kids who are not yet ready to sign up for war. An important topic to note is that most recruitment goes on in towns of poverty, or where not much goes on. Kids are often lured into a lifestyle that they are not yet ready to live, and the recruiters know this but it is necessary for them to do to keep the strongest military in the world. According to the New York Times article “Army recruiters say they feel pressure to bend the rules” it states “He has been bending or breaking enlistment rules for months, he said, hiding police records and medical histories of potential recruits. His commanders have encouraged such deception, he said, because they know there is no other way to meet the Army's stiff recruitment quotas.”  This shows that recruitment is often unfair and this idea of a quota to sign people up is wrong. Although some recruits are not interested in serving for the country, others are. “By the Army's own count, there were 320 substantiated cases of what it calls recruitment improprieties in 2004, up from 199 in 1999, the last year it missed its active-duty recruitment goal, and 213 in 2002, the year before the war in Iraq started. The offenses varied from threats and coercion to false promises that applicants would not be sent to Iraq. Many incidents involved more than one recruiter, and the number of those investigated rose to 1,118 last year, or nearly one in five of all recruiters, up from 913 in 2002, or one in eight.” To be sent to war in an unfamiliar country without actually having any motive to do so is unjust, and one out of eight is a pretty large portion. Yet still many kids grow up with the dream of joining the military, and that is something to be proud of. The real crime is the lies that the recruits are told, such as “College will be payed for”- New York Times. This is very unfortunate, and for many they end up resenting how they served in the military because they were lead to misconceptions through the recruitment process. For a promise like college being payed for to be broken is very tragic, so most suggest to get everything in writing before actually signing up for the military.

Finding yourself vs. Creating yourself.

I often hear people say “Throughout childhood you spend most of your time trying to find yourself.” They say this is the reason that childhood is so hard, but to that I disagree. To me, the idea of finding yourself is synonymous with a having a destiny. I believe that you spend your life creating yourself and your future, it is not found, and you are not born with specific purpose. There is no short cuts in doing that because creating and molding the person you want to be takes hard work. Naturally you are born with a certain amount of personality and talent through genetics, but success is created after you are born, not before. The search for real self is fiction, your personality is not waiting to be stumbled upon one day. If the search for true self was reality, when it is finally found you would become static, without any real reason to be ambitious, because anything out of that comfort zone would be considered “Not being yourself.” Although having your own opinions are unique to the specific person, having a destiny is not real. Everyday you create yourself with thoughts, actions, and dreams. It is a life experiment to mold what you like and what you don’t like. The rest is up to the person, and the people who influence that person. The people that influence you play a extremely vital role in creating yourself. What is considered as finding yourself, is misconstrued with having society’s restrictions define you. The influence that society has on a person's spirit is stronger than anyone would like to admit, and even the broadest categorization of humans are made by our society. This is shown in the article from The New York Times "Race and Racial Identity Are Social Constructs.” The article states that:

Race is not biological. It is a social construct. There is no gene or cluster of genes common to all blacks or all whites. Were race “real” in the genetic sense, racial classifications for individuals would remain constant across boundaries. Yet, a person who could be categorized as black in the United States might be considered white in Brazil or colored in South Africa.

This proves the idea that society has created broad guidelines for people's lives. I believe that these constrictions make people afraid to overstep boundaries for fear of “not being yourself.”

Real life must be taught.

By Lukas Supovitz-Aznar

In schools throughout the United States, most writing skills that are taught are not useful for careers. The skills that are useful post-high school are left unclear on how to integrate into a student's future. Although creative writing is important, it is a form of literacy that is overrated and often useless in most professions. Kids should learn how to write professionally for business fields such as persuasive writing, emailing, templates, and sales pitches; which are geared to excel in. These fields have obvious connections to real world material so they would be beneficial to our success. The skills that are useful in schools are the basics, however kids are not taught how to apply it to the real world so these topics are rendered useless.

I have always been open to learning about the different ways of writing throughout my English classes over the years. Unfortunately the curriculum for English seems vague and weak, so it is up to the teacher to help their students excel. Each year the English teacher is a new one, so the tools we learn are often repeated. The product of this system is students having very little “real life” skills. The important topics that are taught are not explained on how to use. For a student to actually apply the skill, the teacher has to put the tool in the description. If the student is not blatantly told to use this skill, it is useless to them. According to Kyle Wiens, a CEO of a software company “I hire people who care about those details. Applicants who don’t think writing is important are likely to think lots of other (important) things also aren’t important.” Coming from a CEO of a very successful company, this shows that kids are not taught to use tools when they go out into the world. In other words, when kids leave school they fail to understand that the tools that are learned are not exclusive to that assignment.

Concepts like business proposals are important, but are not taught in public schools. It often feels like many students are held from there potential in literacy. This is because there are two types of students; the student who realizes that the things being taught in school are to improve your future, and the students who do not see past grades. The students who do not see past grades do not have the prerogative to find out how important other forms of writing are to their future. In other words, the students who do not see past grades are ignorant or lacking knowledge. Kyle Wiens, the software company CEO states “On the face of it, my zero tolerance approach to grammar errors might seem a little unfair. After all, grammar has nothing to do with job performance, or creativity, or intelligence, right? Wrong. If it takes someone more than 20 years to notice how to properly use “it’s,”then that’s not a learning curve I’m comfortable with. So, even in this hyper-competitive market, I will pass on a great programmer who cannot write.” The curriculum is to blame that teachers teach for these learning curves, because students potential is not tapped into.

Learning is poorly defined, and often becomes foggy to students. Students often confuse temporarily obtaining information with learning information.  Now let this be clear, do not put blame on the students. The teacher’s curriculum is at fault for keeping these tools exclusive to the class/assignment. A student cannot see past grades because the prerogative to do so is non-existent. There is little real world application to the material taught, which makes the student unknowing that there is any. If kids were taught the real world applications there could be more motivation to try to learn these topics”I put my head down, why did I have to learn this? When was I ever going to use creative writing in real life. I felt like throwing my book on the floor and walking out of the room, but I couldn't because if I didn’t get good grades then I would not be able to do what I wanted in life; baseball. I knew that I had to get good grades to play baseball in college, but I felt like everything that I was learning was useless. Everything that I had done in life never led back to school subjects. I felt like everything that I used on a daily bases I had taught myself. “This is stupid!” I yelled out.” This is a prime example of a student who can not see past grades. Since there is no real world examples shown, it is hard for the student to actually apply the material to their lives. This structure leaves a majority of the classroom in a hole when they get to college.

If students had real world applications they would be motivated to learn, but the curriculum does not include that because those students are classified as useless. It is important to learn how to write in different lights and careers. If students had this, schools would be a more intuitive, and positive place for kids. CEO’s agree that many applicants do not know the importance of writing, that is because kids do not see how it can help them when they step out of school. If curriculum changed to include real life connections, the kids who are classified as “hopeless” by the system would be productive and would succeed.

I was happy because I was supporting what designs my favorite artist was making and I was watching his dreams play out as I see mine doing in the future. I think it is very important to have some sort of role model as a kid. Sometimes parents do not give you all the support you need so you look to other places to mold you. You are your role models, because you aim to be like them. You are inspired by their actions and often you try to be more like them. Kanye West was a big role model for me because he always stood up for what he believed in. His ideas are never compromised by those around him who always try to tell him what to do. And I believe that thoroughly; If you have something to say, you must put it out there in the world so that it can become more than just a thought. The world can always use more ideas.

Kanye once said: “Nothing in life is promised except death.” To me this is very inspirational. What this quote means to me is that if you have a purpose in life you need to give it 100% because failure is not the worst thing in the world. The worst thing in the world is dying without having anything in your life to show your success. That is why it is important for you to work at the things you love, and never give up. The only thing that you can know is that you will die. You do not know how anything will pan out. So in this time you are given you have to take advantage of it and really live it to the fullest. This is why I always feel like I need to hurry up and make my dreams come true. I constantly am anxious that I am running out of time.

Artist Statement

During this quarter, I definitely felt more comfortable with my artwork. I really enjoyed doing some of the artwork that was required of me this quarter. One of my favorite pieces of art work was the assignment where we were told to edit a photo and show the before and after. I enjoyed this because it gave us a chance to do a different kind of art which I enjoyed. When I was doing my college, I wanted to pinpoint something that I saw a lot in modern magazines. And while flipping through some pages I realized that most of the ads pinpointed one demographic; Americans. This was perfect for me because not only do I love the United States of America, but i felt like it would make for a cool collage. I cut out all of the things That I saw that seemed like it was being pointed towards that demographic, and I came out with this collage.