Hello. I am a typical student. Most of my day is spent complaining about my life. Tests, studying, my parents, friends, women, that jerk who cut me off, parking, etc etc. Like, zomg, I has to study for all my classes, and like, teachers assign sooo much homework, and sooo many tests, its not even fair. Also, in typical ignorant idiot fashion, I am either quite unaware of how awesome life is, or choose to ignore that said fact. ‘Cuz, you know… tests? My life sucks, F.M.L., and Vie de Merde. Okay. That’s probably a gross exaggeration. But nonetheless, some of it holds true. We all know that high school life has its ups and downs. Yeah, somewhere along the lines, you’re going to do not so hot on a test, a class, college apps, scholarships, who knows. In any case, yeah, it’s inevitable. But high school students tend to forget the grand scheme of things. Yes, I understand that you don’t understand the concepts of pre-calc, or grammar, or whatever. Yeah, I’m sure your heart is totally smashed to pieces because that one girl won’t talk to you. And yeah, it’s the end of the world because your parents scream at you for some reason you’ll never understand. But let’s put this into perspective. Most, if not all of us here are damn lucky. We all currently attend Ames High School, which regardless of personal opinion is a damn fine school. We all currently live in the United States of America, objectively the most kick-ass nation in the world. I say objectively the best, knowing full well there are many people out there, perhaps even at this school who hold an anti-America feelings. But honestly, the only reason you can hold such an opinion is because the U.S. is awesome enough to allow freedom of thought. In other places having anti-country sentiments could very well get you killed. Let’s continue… We have access to clean water, whenever we please, we have electricity, heating, and best of all, literally infinite food. What’s funny here, is that we have all these benefits through luck. I don’t care about your justifications, but nobody here deserves any of this. Literally, all you’ve done to get all these benefits is being lucky enough to be born where you were. All of this was given to you through your parents’ fine work. While we sit around complaining about 10 page English papers over stupid books considered “literary works of art,” or about how foreign languages suck, or how parents don’t understand, or how conservatives, or liberals are ruining the country, or religion, or how America is an awful, awful place, there are people in the world starving to death, people who don’t have access to clean water, people who don’t have access to the basic benefits we all take for granted. This is America, nobody can dictate what people can or cannot say. Just remember, the next time you start talking about how much you hate writing 10 page papers (shut up, we’ve all gone through that class), how much you hate religion (shut up, you’re 18, you know absolutely nothing about anything), how unfair your parents are (shut up, chances are you’re just like them), or how your love life sucks (shut up, disregard women, acquire currency), Geometry proofs (STFU EVERYONE ELSE HAS HAD TO DO THEM, TOO), remember to get off your high horse and realize you have a damn fine life.