Colin's Junior Year Blog

The most challenging part of reading Song of Solomon so far for me has been trying to remember each character’s relationship with all the other characters. With there being many characters and generations, it’s very hard to keep track of which person is related to who and how that might affect the story. This has made reading the chapters harder because I would have to think back to see how that specific character ties into the plot, but the more I read and annotate, the clearer the relationships become between characters. I have addressed my problem by trying to see how each character is related to Milkman because he is one of the characters that we are the most familiar with and he is also the youngest generation of the Dead family. By having the relationships be tied to Milkman, it makes it easier for me to find out what the Dead family tree looks like and how each character is involved in the story. I have also found that reading in a much quieter room is very helpful because th

When I was born, I was given the name Colin Brice Heath. My first name has no family significance as it was chosen by parents from a baby name book. For my first name, my parents wanted a name that was two syllables because my last name is only one syllable, and two one-syllable names would sound odd together. My mother wanted to make sure my name would be the name I was called; she didn't want any nicknames for me. My middle name does have a family connection: it is my dad's first name and is a tradition in my family to have the eldest son's middle name be the same as the father's. My last name is said to have come from England where it means meadow or open field. My father's side of the family originally came from England and Scotland. Unfortunately, my father's side has a complicated background, so much of the Heath family history has been lost. My family ended up in Chicago because my mother grew up in this area and went to New Trier. Her parents stayed in

Gab is a social media platform that allows all types of speech, including hate speech and has been under some heat recently. The Pittsburgh Synagogue shooter, Robert Bowers, posted numerous amounts of anti-semitic messages on the social media. He was allowed to do so as Gab prides itself for being a social media that allows all types of "free speech". Gab's free thinking intentions for the social media were not what they hoped for. It has been a digital gathering for anti-semites and white nationalists, where they can freely express their beliefs. Gab is not the only website that has "free speech" but seems to attract the most of these type of people. Since then, Gab has been shut down by its web hosting provider, Joyent, but hopes to get online soon. Gab's president, Andrew Torba says, "We will exercise every possible avenue to keep Gab online and defend free speech and individual liberty for all people."( Click here  to view the whole article)

In South Korea, their government requires each able-bodied man between the ages of 18-35 to do at least 21 months of military service. The South Korean government has this rule in place due to their neighbors north of them, North Korea, and their recent nuclear threats. There has been a lot of controversy around this topic of required military service globally. At the center of the attention is Korean band, BTS. BTS is a world famous ban made up of seven guys with their ages ranging 21-25. They have two chart-topping albums this year along with taking home an American Music Award for Favorite Social Artist, but all of this does not excuse them from their mandatory service. Some of the rare circumstances that would excuse from your service are athletes who bring home medals in international competitions, acclaimed artists, classical musicians and dancers, while pop stars, filmmakers or actors are not excused. The most recent excuse issued was the South Korean Men's soccer team

Elon Musk, CEO and former chairman of the billion-dollar company, Tesla, has been getting a lot of attention lately. Musk was forced to step-down from chairman after his tweet about taking Tesla private, which ended up costing him a $20 million dollar fine to the SEC (Security and Exchange Commission). Why did this tweet cost him $20 million? Well it was private information about Tesla that he released to the public which mislead investors causing the Tesla stock to skyrocket. Before he released the tweet on August 7th, Tesla was under intense finical trouble after their stocks were down 25 percent. Releasing the company information was illegal even though his intentions were good. ( Click here  to view the whole article) Just one month later, Musk was seen smoking marijuana while with host Joe Rogan, on his podcast. The podcast was filmed in California, where smoking marijuana for recreational purposes is legal. Rogan jokingly asked Musk if he couldn't smoke, "because