I have been looking forward and dreading this day for a little while now. I was more than certain to move on from my undergraduate life at Stevens and into the next stage– but I had no idea it would involve me moving back up north to Canada. I was never sure how to make such a decision and how much I would debate it from the moment I know that I might have the opportunity. Slowly but surely, more and more people I know have begun to find out about the next chapter in my life that I have decided to accept employment in the great city of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. It wasn’t my first choice but in the end, it was my best choice because of where I wanted to progress professionally.

The last decade that I have spent in the Garden State has been something remarkable. I was never a big fan of moving down here in the middle of 7^th grade but I have since grown fond of this place. I may not have always liked the political decisions made here, their sports teams or even their lack of Mars chocolate bars, but the people were a different story… and seriously, why aren’t there Mars chocolate bars here?

Dating back to 2001, I decided to go to the Middlesex County Academy for Science, Mathematics and Engineering Technologies (MCASMET) for high school which was only in its second year of existence when I first started. I like to think, that along with several people from our class, I had some sort of influence in the way things developed in that school. This is the place where I learned to question facts and not take them at face value. This is a place where I learned to be disciplined while debating with a classmate who was fundamentally incorrect. However, this is also the place where I got into trouble for not being “patriotic” enough during my freshman year but this is also a place where I made a best friend who I rarely go the stretch of a full day without making contact of some sort.

I had first heard about him back in 10th when a teacher of mine, Ms. Pfeffer (who I still consider as one of the two best teachers I had of all time), introduced our class to a chapter from a book called “A People’s History of the United States.” I had never heard of either the book or the author named Howard Zinn prior to that moment but I can safely point to that day in 2002 that changed me. Until earlier today, I don’t think I ever thanked Ms. Pfeffer for that brief introduction but I took care of that and let me thank her here again.

I think we only read one chapter for our class regarding how the farmers of the Shay’s Rebellion should be considered the real heroes in the true history of the United States of America. It certainly peaked my curiosity and I went on to read the whole book which questioned why the initial union organizers did not receive much credit over the course of history or why the founding fathers, for all the good they did, still were considered with such glamor since they were slave owners themselves.

At a time when few politicians dared even call themselves liberal, “A People’s History” told an openly left-wing story. Zinn charged Christopher Columbus and other explorers with genocide, picked apart presidents from Andrew Jackson to Franklin D. Roosevelt and celebrated workers, feminists and war resisters.

During the civil rights movement, Zinn encouraged his students to request books from the segregated public libraries and helped coordinate sit-ins at downtown cafeterias. Zinn also published several articles, including a then-rare attack on the Kennedy administration for being too slow to protect blacks.

So I have been thinking about doing such a feature on my blog for a little while now and I have finally figured out a schedule for it. There will be more features added on as I develop a more scheduled routine but the first one is going to be a monthly blog recommendation. On the second Friday of every month, I plan to recommend one new blog that I will endorse not because someone told me to but because it is one I follow regularly and it is something you guys should read too.

The first recommendation is going to be of a blog called “Predator Fitness” started by a couple of kids who went to high school with me once upon a time. It is relatively new, started a couple of months back, and I just added it to my blogroll but it has some quality information for pretty much any lifestyle and how to go about it in a little bit more healthier and hopefully fitter fashion. Pulled straight from their About Us page, it states “Predator Fitness was created to provide our readers with an interactive site to share the latest workouts, health news, nutrition tips and exercises in order to become as functionally fit as possible!”

At first I wasn’t exactly sure how this blog would turn out but it has had pretty decent posts since its startup varying from different types of exercises to recipes to even one of the author’s personal recommendation on how to get over a cold/sickness in a matter of days.

Well it wasn’t going to last forever and a Middlesex County Academy for Science, Mathematics and Engineering Technologies that has been led by Principal Glenn Methner will come to an end later next month. I had unofficially heard about the news a little while back and had it confirmed by people in the school earlier this week. What was disappointing in this whole ordeal was that I had waited to confirm it before approaching him, yet when I asked Mr. Methner whether he was leaving or not, he completely dismissed what I said as an unfounded rumor and even went out of his way to say “they would have to drag me out of here” for me to leave the Academy. It is a shame for an outgoing school principal to still resort to the same old smoke-and-mirror type political approach that some students became accustomed to while in school for their four years of high school.

Regardless of what you thought of him, coming in and being a principal of a school from inception is no easy task. There are growing pains on both the administration side and they exist on the part of the students as well but that is something you learn and adjust with over the years. From what I can tell, Mr. Methner did just that as an overwhelming number of current Academy students, if not all, were saddened to hear the news of his departure. On the other hand, I’m not sure you can state that same case with the older alumni although there seems to be a unanimous concern towards the next principal who comes and what their vision of this school may entail in the future.

So this is just an amazing story out of my high school of roughly 140 kids where they have collected over 14,000 lbs. of food for M.C.F.O.O.D.S., the Middlesex County emergency food network to help 60 different food pantries and soup kitchens all across Middlesex County.

I have heard there were some incentives academically but nothing is confirmed so I won’t comment on that yet but I think anything you do to urge kids to raise more to help the needy is a worthwhile cause in my mind.

If anyone from the Academy has any more details on this, feel free to comment or let me know and I’ll put it up here and credit you of course.

140-something kids did that. What has your high school done? I don’t care, I’m not ashamed to say that I went to the Middlesex County Academy for Science, Mathematics and Engineering Technologies.

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