Looking around school I notice that our peers have all but stopped reading compared to the generations before us. Seeing everyone on their phone's looking for the next five second clip to make them happy saddens me. Do you think the introduction of mobile phones and the internet has stopped kids from reading as much? 
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I absolutely think that my peers have stopped reading as much. Back in elementary and middle school other kids read just as much as me, it helped me feel challenged. Now with us being seniors in high school I see no one (minus the select few) actually reading anything besides their friend's Instagram post. It's not  even kids who have stopped reading with reports saying that 50% haven't read a full book in a year. This is a dilemma that is affecting everyone but not enough people care to try and put the phone down for the day. 

We hear people talking about their “spirit animal” quite often, and how they relate to certain animals, but why is that? It can be comforting for some people. Animals have their own personalities just like humans do, so what animal do you have similar characteristics with, and how?

Since I was a very young baby everyone in my family has always called me a monkey. When I was nine months old I grew to love climbing out of my crib constantly everyday, and I even climbed on top of the fridge around the same age. Not only this, but I did gymnastics and I was always hanging on things and doing crazy flips like monkeys do. Since it was neverending for me to be doing some sort of monkey move, that nickname has always kind of stuck with me throughout my childhood. I have a lot of similar characteristics to monkeys, but I would say my personality is most like a monkey because of how I was always flying around like one.

1. When reading the right thing, anyone can have their life changed by the perspective brought on by a book. So, what book have you read that has been the most influential on your life? 

Novels can offer such a huge impact on the lives of others, a novel that has brought this experience for me is,  The Glass Castle by Jeannette Rankin. This novel was the first novel I truly digested in a analytical matter, which was eye opening for me. It illustrated to me that writing is much more symbolic than I considered beforehand. Moreover, this novel showcased a scenario of true poverty and how it can effect children so heavily. I sympathized with the characters and questioned things such as, “How could parents be so neglectful? How did the system not catch this? And, could I  make it through a situation like this?” Overall this read was incredibly eye opening for me, I compare it to nearly every other novel I read or have read. 

Looking into our world today, almost everything is technology based. Communication, learning, or even showing people who we are. Technology is taking over and who knows what the future will bring. Do you like how much technology is present in our world today?

I personally dislike the role technology, phones specifically, plays in our society. If everyone didn’t rely on phones to communicate I would choose to not have one. Phones have made me worry too much about my self image, worry about what’s being posted, and make it hard to communicate in person. I don’t like how it’s “scarier” to talk to somebody in person and it’s easier to just send a text instead. I would rather have somebody tell me a cool story instead of reading it on Facebook. I think technology has its benefits and can be super helpful in some situations. But I think it plays too big of a part in the way our society functions.

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