To Buy Or Not To Buy, That Is the Question

With spring just around the corner, and the sun already shining down on our pale skins, it seems that the girls at Deerfield High School is growing more and more anxious for summer fashions. The media is filled with fashionable celebrities, flaunting the latest trends and the magazines are full of lengthy spreads telling us waht the fashion must haves are for the season. All around us are advertisments for the hot new must-have piece for Spring/Summer 2012. Spring break tells us that it is finally time to update our summer wardrobes, not to mention updating your closet for college in the fall! It is all very exciting and juicy information to chat about during lunch with your girlfriends, and it seems like harmless fun... But then you open your wallet. You remember that you promised your parents you would save up to pay for parking next year at college. You rember the music festival you told all of your friends you would go to with them during the summer. You remember how gas prices are shooting through the roof once again. And you are forced to question where your financial priorities should go. So here is my trick that I have decided to share with any other girls looking to update their wardrobe, without emptying their bank accounts completely or infuriating their parents by the waste of money. Yes this may seem silly and unneccessary, but trust me, these tips could come in hand this year, especially if you are a senior preparing for college.

1. Figure out how much money you have in your own personal bank account and how much you make on a regular basis from working or allowances.
2. Deduct mandatory spending charges such as parking at college or flights to visit friends attending different universities far away and deduct.
3. Decide what events would be the most memorable and special for the summer after graduation to go to with friends (Lollapoluza, Door County, etc) and deduct.
4. Figure out what technology, furnature, and decrative pieces you would enjoy at college. Then elimnate the pieces that truely are unneccessary. Deduct the prices of the neccessary pieces.
5. Create a shopping wish list.
6. Finally, try to only shop at stores that are having sales or at vintage stores, as you will get a much better price, and only buy things that feel like stapes and were on your wish list.
7. Stop shopping and save your darn money for college!

If I Were A Poor Black Kid

I STRONGLY disagree with Gene Marks' article, "If I Were A Poor Black Kid". He puts himself in the place of a young, African American, and impoverished boy. He explains all of the "simple" steps he would take to advance himseslf in society and to become a huge success in life. But it is absolutly unreasonable! He sets incredibly high goals about what will be neccessary steps in order for them to gain success, which requires far more time, effort, and resorces than students in middle class have to put into their education. Even if stuents took all of the steps he suggests to improve their chances of getting into a good college and becomeing a success in any career they desire, them taking these steps and using these resources he talks about such as the computers at the public library, they are taking them away from other students. This means that it would be first come, first serve and if a student lives further away from these public resources than others, they would lose their opportunity to use them and would remain lower in their class. If the student had to work after school and at night because his or her family was struggling financially, as so many are in this time in America, they would not have the time to devote to their studies and to travel to these public resources like other students might. It is completely unreasonable to assume that all impoverished African Americans could just follow his step-by-step plan and end racial inequality in America. It is infuriating to think that someone could be so naive as to think that if an impoverished minority in this country could have just as many opportunities for success as an upper-class white citizen and that any opportunities that they are not qualified for is their own fault. The reason his article caused such an uproar is because most people understand that his ideas are unreasonable and unrealistic. He assumes that all poor students have these resources available to them, that they have the time to spend traveling to and from them, and that they can all achieve this kind of success and end racism and inequality across the nation.