Should Long Nails in School Be A Problem?

School rules has always been criticized by students. These students seem to have their own arguments and justification to defy the school rules. One that we should think of is the rule saying that students shouldn’t have long nails. This rule has been so common and been there for as long as school has been around that we barely think of the fundamental reason for applying this rule or whether it should be applied or not after all.

School is a place for students to study, not only the knowledge and science, but also social life and how to fit living in our society today. According to the second function of school, school must pretty much show and mirror what it is like in the society today. This concept of living is taught to students not only through theory such as in religious education lesson, but through school rules which must be obeyed by students. On another word, school rules also have to showed the rules / concept living that are applied in the society in order to give students concept of living which will be important when they enter the society. By doing this, students who have to do these rules daily, without excuse,  will finally be accustomed to do these, even when they finally enter the society. By the time they enter the society, they won’t have any problem regarding the obedience of rules which are applied in the society because they have been doing those also in their daily school. Having a short nail is not exactly the concept of living in the society, neither it is the rules that should be obeyed by good citizens. In fact, we can see that lots of people do have long nails. Not to mention the manicure and pedicure service that is offered in the society to keep one’s nail beautiful, and it is not necessarily short. In the big society, having long or short nail is a free option. We can choose freely without getting a major result that will harm us. We’re not going to be fired from job or hated by people because of having long nails, right? These condition in our society implies that long nails isn’t bad at all and against the concept of living in society, which means that school shouldn’t have this rule after all. This rule doesn’t show the real concept of living in the society, it’s even an opposite of the society rules. School has completely no basic judgment to apply these rules, because after all it is against the school’s function itself which is to show the condition of society living itself. These appliance of rule of course won’t give any major harm such as the changing of the student’s perception toward people with long nails, because as these students join the society, they will also learn to adapt with their surroundings. They are not going to hate people with long nails in the society because it is against their school rules. But the problem in here is that the rule of not having long nails have no base at all. And if so, this rule violate the student’s right to have long nails. Students do have rights, just like every of us in the society who has the right to choose to have either long  or short nails. It is actually a human basic right to decide what to do about ourselves. As long as it doesn’t give harm toward our surroundings and ourselves, we’re actually free to whatever it is they want about our nails, our hair, our body, etc. And having either long or short nails doesn’t give any harm toward society or ourselves. This is supposed to be applied in school as well, because after all, there’s no point in the rule of not having long nails. It doesn’t teach students anything in the society. On the other hand, it violates the student’s rights.

If the school worries about personal hygiene or safety and violence in school, it is actually a little bit absurd. High school students, who’s been mentioned as young adults, is believed to have been able to take care about their personal hygiene and safety everyday. They have been able to clean their nails or even cut it short when necessary. How many case of getting harm because of dirty nails and broken nails that we get in school every year anyway? So little, and mostly are just accidents with the ratio of one in a lot. If school wants to do something, it can teach students to take care of the hygiene and safety of nails, not by forcing and harming student’s right to have long nails. In the case of younger students, they do have parents to take care of their nail’s hygiene, or in some case parents just cut their children’s nail short, but that’s all right since these younger students are too young to choose. About the crime, it is actually the school’s job to teach the students not to fight between each other. It’s not the problem of having long nails as weapon since these students can also use other tools as weapon for fighting. It is actually the problem of having fight between one another, and the school should be able to teach them not to do that since it’s of course not the concept of living in society. If the students are taught well and accustomed not to fight with one another, having long nails won’t be problems. No fighting, no using long nails as weapon.         

It is true, that in particular condition, people are advised to have short nails, for example when they have a young baby to take care of. Still, it is an advice and a particular condition, and these students are not in those particular condition which means they don’t have to follow the advice or moreover being forced to do that.

Having short nails doesn’t have to be a rule. It’s enough that students know that short nails are necessary in particular condition and that long nails need to be taken care. But that’s all, let the students to decide the rest, whether they’re about to have long or short nails.   

The Rosetti Letter

History and romance are what we’re going to get in The Rosetti Letter. This dual story novel of past and present days from Christi Phillips can be considered a major success and a good friend for history lovers. The past days part tells story about the 17^th century Venice, especially events surrounding the Spanish Conspiracy toward Republic of Venice. Phillips did add some fictional character to this part, the main character of the past days part, named Alessandra Rosetti, a famous prostitute of the days. The story, beside entertaining us with the build up of the conspiracy itself, actually majors in the life of Alessandra Rosetti as a woman who was left with no choice but to become a prostitute. Little that she knew at first that her choice was going to take into passionate love, hardship, pain and finally miraculous change to a happy ending. While the present days part tells a story of Claire Donovan, a historian in pursuit of her Ph. D degree who was once heartbroken by her divorce. Connecting these past and present days is Claire’s dissertation material which was all about the Spanish Conspiracy from the point of Rosetti Letter, a letter believed to be sent to the government by Alessandra Rosetti regarding the Spanish Conspiracy. By chance, Claire got an opportunity to go to Venice for her further research. Also little that she knew that at the end of this journey to Venice, she would find not only answers for her dissertation but also a way back to civilized life and love in life.

Judging from the similarity of the two characters of the past and present days, we get the story of two women who had to struggle and went to certain hardship before finally landed on happiness. What differentiate this story from other common romance stories is that the happy ending in here wasn’t all about getting together with their partners but having what each character had desired and wanted in life and changing of life that each character actually needed and that was undone before because of the circumstances.

The story was majorly set in Venice which by Phillips’s description gives us a glimpse of this beautiful floating city with its bridges, canals, festivals and also views in certain time of the day. The buildings, the roads and the places was described really well and certain that we can actually feel we’re being on a gondola trip through Venice canals. For some of us, beside being addicted to Christi Phillips’s work, reading The Rosetti Letter can instantly get us online to find tickets to Venice.            

The way Phillips tells the story in dual mode is kind of keep the boredom away from us, as we might hate reading history or romance for again and again. The dual mode also makes the romance not too much and not too common as romance novel usually tells about the cliche plot of the love, the break up, the pain and the getting back together. While the history part of this is certainly not a boring history book at 20 cm thick because the history part itself is actually made into fictional, only some character, the background history, and some aspects or attributes of it isn’t fictional. Also the way the story switches between past and present days when one part is being so interesting makes us want to keep reading throughout the book until we come across the interesting part again. Also the events and plot of the story is quite unpredictable which keeps us out of boredom as well as making a good companion for the day. The way Phillips writes her words can be considered suitable for young and old readers since it has some humor as well as quotes or expression, little thinking and other adult materials. All of them are brought together smoothly into a story.    

Not only that it’s entertaining in its whole 521 pages, The Rosetti Letter also teaches some good lessons from both main characters which was expressed beautifully by Phillips. We see in this book how life which has been crushed down can be built up again and formed into a better one, following it, is how a person should never give up the world and the love no matter how bad the situation has been because it brings us to a sweet destiny of ours at the end. Also we can draw a little conclusion of how choices in our lives are never actually wrong as long as we take them because of following our desire. Not to mention that it might bring us to some adventure of lives as in lives of Alessandra Rosetti and Claire Donovan.

So, don’t wait any longer to indulge ourselves in the story of life and love in Venice, both in present days and in 17^th century.

           

The Good Side of Loneliness

Loneliness for a better life…

What kind of person saying that ? A loner ? Who wants to be lonely ? And how come loneliness become important to life ? These all questions may emerge to our mind when we hear this statement. First of all, loneliness is not always only for loners who like being lonely and spend times doing loony things. Second of all, we need to start seeing everything in a positive way, even feelings that we have. Every feeling that we have is basically good, whether it’s sadness, anger, or loneliness. It’s just the matter of how we express in the right way, at the right time, in the right place, and to the right person. Now, back to loneliness. Feeling lonely doesn’t always mean that we’re alone. We can feel lonely even though there’re lots of people around us. It’s just our feelings, we don’t feel they’re into us, we feel we’re on our own, we feel others are away from us, we simply feel we have nobody. This can happen if we miss friends or relatives from far away or if we’re in the middle of the crowd whom we don’t actually know. On the other hand, alone doesn’t always make us feel lonely. When we’re aloe, we can just simply mind about others, believe they’re all there for us, know that we have them and therefore feel surrounded. Regarding the statement above, believe it or not, there are actually three ways that loneliness can make our lives better.

First, loneliness reminds us to appreciate friends and relatives. There’s an old saying that’s very popular that we all have heard it at least once, it says pretty much like this “Everything become more precious once it’s gone”. Loneliness helps us to prevent this from happening, prevent us to lose our love ones, friends and relatives. When we feel lonely, it’s usually because we feel we’re on our own, having no friends or relatives there for us. It doesn’t mean they’re gone already, it’s just that we don’t feel they’re around, maybe out, maybe away from us for some reason like working. Even this is enough to make us kind of lonely, especially when we don’t have things to do. However, this loneliness will make us think about how importance our friends and relatives are to cheer up our lives and to make us not feel lonely and how bad our lives will be if they’re really gone forever. Moreover, we can give more appreciation and love toward them when we still have them instead of see them as the ones not needed by us. Loneliness gives us a chance to learn and realize the importance of them and avoid from falling into a deep regret after losing them forever. It’s like it prevents us from saying in regret the old saying about.

Second, loneliness gives us time to think for ourselves. By being lonely, we can use some time to think about ways to solve problems, future, and steps we’re going to take. By being lonely, we can consider these issues carefully and deeply in our mind, including the risk of each option, and finally make the decision based on our conscience. It’s true that we can feel loneliness around a noisy crowd, but once we’ve felt lonely, we won’t mind what they’re talking because we simply feel it’s not for us. And therefore we can keep focus to our thoughts. However, when we’re around friends or relatives, we tend to unable to concentrate toward our thoughts or take decision that’s really based on our conscience. Because those around us will keep talking, giving suggestion, etc that makes us hard to concentrate. At that time we possibly take a decision because we’re only following our friends or relatives. This can end up bad. Because when that decision turns out to be disastrous, we will tend to blame others and therefore destroy our relationships. On the other hand, when we take decision based on our conscience, no matter how bad it will turn out, we have no one to blame because we make it on our own, we’d thought it deeply before, including the risk of each options. Therefore we won’t be surprised of the result. That’s just simply what we think to be the best. We often hear people say that they need sometime to think. Actually we can take loneliness time to be this time to think.

Third, loneliness makes us evaluate ourselves. In the two arguments above, loneliness is talked about as simply a condition of feeling while in the third, it’ll be talked about as a condition of being unwanted and left behind, the exact condition why we see loneliness in negative way. But even negative thing can be seen in positive way. A condition of being unwanted and left behind can make us start evaluating and introspecting ourselves. We will start thinking that the reason we’re unwanted and left behind is actually because of ourselves. Maybe we have some bad habits or bad characters that make others annoyed. And with loneliness also giving us time to think, just like at the second argument, we can consider deeply in our mind about how to solve this, whether we want to change it, keep it that way because we don’t think it’s something wrong, or other solutions. No matter what we decide at the end, it’s going to be based on our conscience that we won’t regret. If we decide to change it, we can renew our relationships with others and not become lonely anymore. If we decide to keep it that way, we might still be the unwanted and left behind, but we’ll already make peace with that and accept it fully as the risk of our decision, so that it’ll not bother us anymore.

So, next time we feel lonely, we’d better use the time to learn, think and evaluate instead of to be angry and piss because no one bothers us. Therefore we will make a better life in the term of relationship with others, making decision, and being a person with certain character.  

When It’s Difficult, You Can’t Breath, That’s How You Survive.

That’s pretty much the words said in one episode of famous TV series, Grey’s Anatomy. What’s the meaning of this statement ? Isn’t difficult situation that makes us barely breath supposed to crush us down ? Then why it says that it’s the way to survive ? Well, there can be two ways of interpreting this statement.

First, is the easy one. We can see the difficult situation that catches us now as the a lesson and a practice for us in the future. When we’re faced with a difficult situation and we finally make it out by keep holding on or finding the right solution, we’ll become a stronger and smarter people for the future to come. It’s like we’ve already got the strength to face the difficulties that might catch us in the future because we’ve got the practice at present time, we’ve built the strength and willpower from now. Just like a butterfly which has to thrive to get out of its worm forming order to be strong enough to fly all the way using its soft wings. So, next  time we find ourselves in a desperate situation, think positively about how it’ll help us in the future.

Second, is the more complicated one. If at the first one we see the statement in the term of future, in the second one we see it in the term of present time. Study shows that when we find ourselves at the top of one problem and our personal limit, we’ll tend to think smarter, act quicker, hold on longer, become stronger and even be capable of doing something we thought impossible for us to do before. It’s like the depressing situations become motivation for us to find a way to finally get out of it and reach our goal, the depressing situation push us to do beyond our limit. We tend, as what’s been stated before, to act smarter and stronger than before in order to get away from it because it’s so depressing.

For course, it’s not something easy to do. Some of us, when faced with this kind of situation, prefer to give up and surrender. We think it’s the easiest to get out of it. The truth is giving up is never supposed to be an option to get of problem. Because giving up only makes us a loser and the wrong choice will forever haunt us. It’ll give us pressure even more from the regret of not choosing to fight further. Unfortunately, regret always comes at the end and because of that we can’t no longer go back. Even worse, regret doesn’t go away soon and it definitely won’t give us the happy life which we thought would be reached once we gave up. So, when faced with problem, always choose the otherwise, choose to fight and keep working.

Every situation has a way out, even the most difficult that crushes us to ground and tears. Deep down inside, we know there’s a way, there is a right solution to solve this. It’s just sometimes the solution seems to be too far, too difficult, too frightening, too impossible and too wrong. Well, all of those are just our excuses. There’s no solution too far, too difficult, too frightening, too impossible and too wrong if we’re committed to it and do it right. The process of doing it won’t be easy, but again, we’ll find our problem as the one to give us strength to do it. For instance, a couple who are separated but love each other will gave the strength to hold on to their love no matter how much the pain and the suffering because they know that someday they can reunited and the way to reach that goal is by keep holding on. The strength to keep holding on is given by the pain that might already reach the limit of each other. Another thing is a woman who kept sadness because of the death of her lover finally let go of him. The strength to let go of it is given by sorrow that she can barely take anymore so that she can live a peaceful life. Letting go doesn’t always mean surrender and lose. The difference relies on the result. Letting go as the solution, like the example, will lead to happiness, peace and calm. While letting go to surrender leads to regret and unhappy life. So, think further to the result before letting something go.

In the book called “The Art of Racing In The Rain”, one character named Denny, fought until the end to get the custody of his daughter. The situation was never nice to him. He had to sell his house and moved to a small apartment in order to pay for a lawyer. At the point where he thought he no longer had choice and almost gave up, he finally went back up and got the strength to continue until the end when he finally got the custody and his dream. We see that at the point where he’s most pressed, he found a greater strength to keep fighting and holding on to get what he wants. A strength that got him out of the situation, a strength greater than before that he finally got away from the difficulty. We also can see that if he chose to give up at that point, he would live the rest of his life regretting that he couldn’t get the custody only because he was too weak. So, never choose to give up, look those situation where we can barely breathe as the key for us to get out of it, to survive. Remember, when it’s difficult, you can’t breathe, that’s how you survive.