Nikodemus Blog

A Brighter Future's mission will be to fight for every student's right to a great education, regardless of the socioeconomic circumstances under which they were raised. The organization will lobby for changing the public school funding system and transforming it into a system that provides equal opportunities for everyone. The organization will also work to promote critical thinking and fact checking among the youth in the US by doing guests lectures and events at high schools throughout the country. I believe that in order to create real, sustainable change in our society, we need to start at the very foundation. Making sure that every child in the US has access to a good education must be one of the best ways of providing everyone with an equal opportunity to create a healthy and prosperous life for themselves. Therefore, we can no longer accept the fact that some schools in rural or less affluent areas struggle to pay for supplies and competent teachers. These discrepancie...

I feel like the best way to make a difference in the world would be to do something that directly benefits other people and allows you to connect with those who are in need. And as Ms. Novogratz and many others have suggested, you cannot just show up, build somethings, and then leave. Instead, you have to help underprivileged people help themselves---something that is sustainable. I have often thought about that I would love to some day be a mentor, and especially a friend, for a kid from an underprivileged family. I know there are programs that already do similar things, but I would much rather do it on my own. Ideally, it would be a kid who I just randomly come across for some reason. Someone who is obviously a great kid with loads of potential, but who does not have access to some of the things that more privileged kids have. And I would want to approach it as a chance to get to know this kid and make a friend for life, and not as just being paired up with a kid in some program wh...

Now is a great time to be a hockey fan. The regular season for the National Hockey League (NHL) is just about to finish and all teams are gearing up for the playoffs---or at least the teams that actually made it to the playoffs. With only two more games left to play, and a few playoff spots yet to be claimed, the games are becoming more competitive and more intense. That added intensity makes watching the games even more exciting. And the best thing is that the LA Kings made it to the playoffs this year. Last year they missed it by just a few points, and for a while it looked like they were going to end up doing the same thing this season as well, but luckily they came through at the end. I adopted the Kings as my team when I first moved to LA, and there are currently two Swedes on the team, so it has been fun to follow them these past two years. Hockey is a weird activity if you think about it. It is basically a group of grown men skating up and down a rink, slapping around a piece ...