Junior Year Blog for Sahil

The reading challenges that arised from the book Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison for me are the time switches throughout the book where time passes. In addition, the connections and relationships  between the characters in the book. When reading the first part of Song of Solomon I found myself confused on how each character knew each other and the certain actions some characters were doing. Furthermore, the confusion kept adding on as the book skipped several years ahead with a small amount of background information. The characters that caused the most confusion in my reading was Macon Dead II, Milkman and Hagar. The time switches made me confused on the relationship between Macon Dead II and Milkman. The relationship between Hagar and Milkman caused confusion as I didn’t know how Hagar knew Milkman. I addressed the challenges by annotating the time switches whenever they occured causing me to be more aware on when the time switches happened. Also, I tried figuring out where ea...

My full name is Sahil Siraj Bharwani, and my parents named me Sahil because they thought the meaning for Sahil was very meaningful and significant. Sahil means “the bank of the river” and the name exemplifies being a “guide” or “leader”. My last name, Bharwani came from my great grandfather who’s first name was Banji and they made a slight modification changing it to Bharwani. My middle name, Siraj is my dad’s first name and it’s common for children to have the same middle name as their fathers first name in India. My parents originally come from Pakistan and my parents moved to America for more opportunitities, freedom, a better education and better jobs. My dad started off as a factory worker and it was very difficult on him physically and one day he ended up losing part of his finger from a machine. Later, him and his six brothers decided to go into the hotel industry and  they ended up being successful in that industry. Now, my dad is enjoying life and still working in the ho...

Some colleges are making changes in student applications by not requiring students to submit their ACT and SAT scores. These colleges will more be looking at students GPA’s and extracurriculars they pursue. As some colleges are dropping ACT and SAT scores overall, many colleges are not requiring colleges to submit SAT writing scores. With these changes occurring in student applications of some colleges it may lead to a different future on student applications. Colleges are said to look at GPA more because it determines the grit of student and how hard they work. For example, one college is George Washington University and they determined that high school peformance has a positive correlation with college performance.  CLICK HERE  to read more about George Washington’s University experience on making ACT and SAT scores optional on student applications. Do you think all colleges should make SAT and ACT scores optional on student applications? Do you support these changes? Do...

American Football is a sport that recieves excessive amounts of popularity each year and with popularity comes many people to play football at all sorts of levels. But, football is a vigorous contact sport that causes many injuries which causes some people to question if football is worth the injuries. Each year around 264,000 high school students suffer from traumatic brain injury (TBI) and mental impairment. Also in a study, 87% former football players have Chronic traumatic encephalopathy which causes memory loss and behavioral changes which may lead to physical violence. As awareness grows about concussions some National Football League (NFL) players are retiring from the sport early causing the NFL to think over their concussion protocol more often and making the protocol more strict.  CLICK HERE  to learn more about injuries that are caused from american football. Should football be discontinued if these TBI rates continue to grow? Should the NFL continue taking the ...

The Mendocino Wildfire burning 304,402 acres keeps rolling as it becomes the largest wildfire in modern California history. The fire started July 27th and combined with another wildfire during August 9th making the wildfire enormous, the fire caused many to leave their homes in Mendocino. The California Wildfires are usually caused by humans and not naturally caused. These Wildfires in California causes enormous amounts of damage to people in California. According to Accuweather, the total cost of damages caused by California wildfires in 2017 is 180 billion. Wildfires can be stopped in California if people extinguish cigarettes and campfires and care more about the wildfire incident. To read more about the damages of the California wildfires  CLICK HERE . Do you think residents in California should be more cautious about these wildifires? If you were a resident of California how would you spread the prevention of wildfires? Should laws be made to prevent California Fires? ...

Video games are globally played from people of all ages but they may cause many effects on the minds of adolescents. Many video games promote violence and aggressive behavior. Also, the longer adolescents play the more migraines they receive and video games also have a positive correlation with depression.( CLICK HERE  to find out more negative effects of video games) There are also many positive effects to video games which may outdo the amount of negative effects provided with video games. Many parents may be unaware of the positives associated with video games, For example, video games helps you to resist distractions that may keep you off track. Also, they increase your creativity and also increase problem solving skills which are very important skills to obtain. This TGN video ( WATCH HERE ) talks about the more positive effects of video games. Do you think Video games helps or hurts adolescents? As a parent would you allow your kid to play video games? Why or why not? ...