As a child, we think of the world as....beautiful, and interesting, and just amazing....but what changes that when we get older? As a child, I grew up in Memphis, TN, and there were fields of green grass, wind-blown dandelions, and mystical flowers that bloomed and glowed every where we went. In the mornings, the air was always damp and moist, by the evening, all you could see was children playng outside and running and jumping around "the ghetto" as we called it, and by night, beautiful lighting bugs would swarm fields and were all you could see. I lived in a place called Goodwill Village. It was as bad as any apartment complex could be in northern Memphis. Each night we had at least 3 shots fired. There were candy ladies across the walk from us and we had children with out mothers or fathers living near us. This was home for me, and in my heart still is. More northern, we had houses that were huge and amazing. And other apartment complexes that were violence-free. This was the place most of my family lived. They didn't like the danger zone, and neither did I but this was home to me, so I accepted it. I saw everything as wonderful, but soon, I realized I needed new glasses.

The world for me was no longer beautiful when I began to accept the truth. My great-grandmother was and still is a nurse. She told stories of people dying because of cancer, and her helping her patients, stories where firemen went into burning houses, but didn't make it out i time before the flames ingulfed them, stories where she had to be near and watch as sergeries of cutting people open were performed, and all f this was too real for me, I felt as if I needed my fairy tail escape, the one where I saw everything as clean and beautiful, but clean turned to filthy and beautiful turned in to ugly as could be. My world could never be the same. Now, instead of looking at my father and seeing a loving Dad wo was playful and hilarious, I saw a weed-smoking, dred-headed, jail bird. I still saw the good, but I saw the bad more clearly then I could ever see the good. My eyes began to tell me, "Akiah, there is no good in anything," and I accepted it with no hestitation beacuse who was I to argue with facts, proven before my very eyes. I was no one. So I didn't argue.

Our thoughts as a child are now different from before. I'm still a child, but when I was smaller everthing was viewed as perfect, and now, I see the flaws in every creature. I thought I loved the world, but it turns out I really don't like it. I went from seeing trash on the ground by my house, to seeing pictures of pollution all around the world, but do you know how I was able to see these thing, what gave me the ability too look them up? Our school system did. 

Schools taught us how to read and write, how to check and send an e-mail, and how to research a topic and finish a project. They taught the same people that made technology, the technology that hurts our society. Becuase even with all that knowledge in cures, scientists can't even cure the one thing that plaugues us most.....cruelty.