LEADERSHIP

My father always tells me that leadership should be one of the most vital personality traits in an individual. He prides himself on having being descendant from a cast to whom leadership have been thrust upon for generations. “Leaders are born, not made. And I believe you are a leader.” That’s the first thing he’s ever told me every time whenever I approach him with an application for a post in school. And although I respect my father’s opinions and I do pride myself for coming from such a distinguished family, I disagree with the statement “leaders are born, not made.”

I strongly believe that leadership is one of those many human attributes that are developed during the course of a life span. A person’s environment and the people in his or her life influence their, in this case, leadership qualities more than anything else.  More often than not, leaders have responsibility handed over to them by force. People who actually take up responsibility of their own accord are generally very few, such as my father. But even then, I highly doubt that it is because they were born with it. There could be a lot of external causes such as certain affection for said matter.

Nevertheless, this is just an opinion – simply another approach to a well versed topic. Whatever said and done, it still remains essential for a person to develop and hone skills and abilities as a leader.

AWE- wait for it - SOME!

Before I write anything further, I want to make myself very clear. I absolutely ADORE How I Met Your Mother, and yes, I do think Barney Stinson is the “awesomest” person living. Just so that, you know, I don’t get any hate mail in future. : P. Because this isn’t about the show or its characters. It’s just about the word AWESOME.

I can confidently say that on an average, most people, including me, use the word AWESOME to describe just about anything. “Oh did u see that movie? It’s AWESOME! Have you seen my new shoes? They’re AWESOME! I just scored full marks in my assessments. Isn’t that AWESOME?” and then awesome this and awesome that, and it just goes on and on and on. Personally, I think that awesome is a fantastic word to express awe, admiration and amazement. But that’s exactly my point. There are so many other words out there, wonderful words that can describe awe in countless ways, but all we do is narrow ourselves to one single word. What happened to the times when people would use such gracious words such as excellent, fabulous, impressive, brilliant, striking, superb, etc.? And it doesn’t help either that one of the funniest characters (in my opinion at least) use it as his pick up line.

So, in conclusion, I would like to say that we should all try and use a more varied vocabulary - not just in replace of awesome but other words in general. Fun fact? I just used the word AWESOME ten times in about 200 words. Isn’t that AWESOME?

OVER PLANNING = DISAPPOINTMENT?

I think that it’s pretty fair to say that we all plan something or the other everyday of our lives. I, for one, am obsessed with planning and preparing just about EVERYTHING all day. And a couple of days back it just hit me that maybe, just maybe, that is the reason I feel disappointed and dissatisfied almost all the time.

I’m not going to lie here and say that I’m the happiest person alive and I have everything I’ve ever wanted and so on. I haven’t. I am honestly unhappy with the ways things turn out most of the time and I can recollect exactly two occasions when things have gone the way I’ve planned. But that may just be the problem. I plan everything in my life to every minute detail, be it on paper or in my head that all that ends up happening is that I remain malcontented. And this isn’t just for me but it is for all the overly organized people out there.

On the other hand though, you absolutely cannot disagree with the fact that planning is necessary. Many people I know tell me off every day for planning so much because for them, “the best occasions are the ones that haven’t been planned or prepared”. And to an extent, you could agree with them. But think about it – what would be the relied success rate of unplanned events? Personally, I would go with 30%. But that’s just me.

In conclusion, I feel that planning is a vital part of our everyday lives. But sometimes, we tend to go overboard with our heads, and ultimately all that happens, is that our head produces an event in paradise, and what we face finally is, well, an event on solid earth.

IS IT ACCEPTABLE FOR TEACHER'S TO INTERFERE IN A STUDENT'S PRIVATE LIFE?

This is something that has been a big issue in school recently what with students all over the place complaining about how teachers interfere too much in their personal lives. This, and one of the blog posts on the English blog about how school faculties in the U.K. are given permission by the Education secretary to discipline pupils "any time, any place, anywhere".  I personally think that this is maybe going a tad too overboard.

During school hours and in school premises, it is the duty of a teacher to supervise and maintain discipline at all times. But that doesn’t mean that teachers can monitor or step into what are students private time. About two weeks back there was a huge issue in school about students being caught smoking outside of school. I’m pretty sure everyone must have heard about how these students were not only threatened of being followed after school, but also other pupils who had absolutely nothing to do with it, was involved and questioned. This is just wrong. It would be understandable if these students were smoking in school uniform or anything, but just otherwise because the teacher simply recognizes the student to be of the same school is just bothering.

The same goes for students who are “advised” to not keep friends with a certain people in the fear of being badly influenced. I have been personally told by a teacher that I shouldn’t be hanging out with a friend of mine because he comes off as “bad”. I mean, if a parent came in with a  complaint or if a student’s grades/attitude has been receding, then it is perceivable, but just because the student doesn’t have a good reputation with the staff in general does not mean that they, the teachers, can tell us who or who not to hang out with.

I know that if any teacher were to see this they would give me the cliché of “But we do it because we are concerned”. And I totally get that. It’s just they shouldn’t go overboard with it, for example to the extent of threatening, with it.

UNDERGE SMOKING

What is it in a cigarette that is so addicting and makes it unputdownable? Well the answer to that is pretty obvious, the nicotine. And not is just addictive but it also wrecks your lungs, stains your teeth, makes it hard to breathe, causes various types of cancers, etc. But even after knowing about all the innumerable health hazards why is it that not only the number of smokers are rising every year but a considerable portion of those numbers tend to be minors?

So what is that draws a teenager to smoking at raw ages of 12-16? The government of the UAE states that 18 is the minimum age at which tobacco can be sold and so do the governments of the majority of the countries around the world. Yet almost 70% of students in high school smoke and the numbers keep rising. In most cases, I feel that it is peer pressure that constitutes the major cause of this. At such vulnerable ages, students can tend to be influenced by their friends and they may take up smoking to keep up with their friends. Another leading cause is when children pick it up from their parents or family. There are umpteen cases when children start smoking at very young ages because the parents smoke and in some cases even encourage smoking among their kids. Other reasons include being curious or a desire to try it. But what they don’t realize is that they try it once and then again and again and again until they get addicted.

Personally I feel that smoking should completely be banned. There are absolutely no positive effects to smoking at all. People all over the world are aware of the disadvantages and health concerns of smoking but they prefer to turn a deaf ear and continue smoking. But this is just one of those farfetched statements as banning smoking completely is not something that we are going to see any time in the near future. But taking strong actions against underage smoking will go a long way in benefiting their lives. Smoking is just one of those things that profit manufacturers and corporate staff and that is also a vital reason as to why it is encouraged promoted.