My Memory of My Father's Memories

When my father is not too tired, I like to ask him many questions about his childhood and mostly information I am curious about. For example I will ask him why we do not use diesel if it is cheaper, and the answer, thanks to my father, is that diesel is mostly used by trucks because if all of the world used diesel, it would be very harmful to the environment. My favorite memory is when my dad and I were sitting in the living room and talking about his childhood and his teenage years. It turns out that my dad was one of the cool kids. Not like the stupid jocks, but more like the mischievous musician. Of course he did play soccer, with his father as his coach, but that was normal for the kids in Armenia. If a kid did not play soccer they were either disabled or... that is the only excuse for why a child would not be on the team. My dad's team was the champion of Yerevan, and he said that the only reason they were not the best in Armenia was because the team opposing them had kids over the age limit. When I asked him why they did not report the team, he just laughed and told me that they were doing the same thing, but with fewer players. Another story he told me was about him getting an A in chemistry which he was clearly failing the class. My dad had made the front cover of a famous Yerevan newspaper because of his bands performance for his school. Because of all the typical pranks he had played on his poor teacher; putting a pin on the teachers chair and generally goofing around; the teacher hated him as a student, but after seeing how my father had brought up the schools reputation he wanted to reward him with an A for the semester. This taught me that even my father was a teenager once and he actually was a pretty fun guy. Now if only I could get him to understand that I should not be punished for the same things he did at my age...

How Not To Be A Mother

Los Angeles Times
Rick Rojas
November 6, 2012
A woman named Juana Perez Valencia decided to get pregnant, have her baby on the dirty bathroom floors of a Mexican restaurant, suffocate her newborn, healthy, six pound, seventeen inch baby, put her dead baby girl in a plastic bag, and use a dumpster in the back of an alley as burial grounds. Then, being the genius she is, Juana went to a hospital for help and denied giving birth, even though the doctors knew she was lying. The hospital contacted the police. That was when police found the cold, lifeless baby by the restaurant. On September 28, Juana was sentenced to fifteen years of prison with second degree murder and child assault charges. Why have a child if you're going to kill it? Abortion is one option, or an even better solution would be to use protection in the first place. If she was unable to pay for abortion, she would at least tired to give the baby up for adoption or give her to a friend or put the baby on the front porch of the police station. THAT would be better than to murder your own child, who has not  lived for over an hour,  in cold blood, with your bare hands. At twenty-one years old, Juana Perez Valencia managed to break every link that kept her human. Her sentence was too short, but hopefully her stay in prison will not be a fun one.

Virtues

Benjamin Franklin had decided to follow thirteen main virtues for him to be able to reach perfection, but both for him and me, it turned out successful and unsuccessful at the same time. I picked Resolution, Sincerity, and Tranquility for my experiment. 
The first virtue, Resolution was very helpful because I always do things part-way and never finish anything. This made me do my homework fully, without skipping any math problems that I had beforehand decided that I was unable to solve. My mom liked this particular virtue also because it involved me doing my entire family's laundry instead of doing just mine. It completely killed my Saturday, but I ended up finishing all of my laundry, when most of the time I end up leaving the blacks or whites in a pile on the floor.
Sincerity is something I truly respect and expect from people. Most of the time, I try to be honest and I wanted to see just how sincere I really was. This virtue was hard because I ended up telling my mom that her dress actually did make her look fat, but I realized that it was better that I told her than to have her come out terrible in pictures. That is what I would have wanted my mom to do if the situation ever arose.
The hardest virtue to follow was Tranquility. Hotheadedness and aggressiveness is in my genes, not making me a tranquil person. When my sister was getting mad at me for something that I still do not believe was my fault made me very mad and resulted in us having a fight. After the fight I decided that I should probably apologize, but since I am also too proud to come outright and say sorry, I folded all of her laundry and vacuumed her room. She might not acknowledge my apology, but I know that I did my part.