Hello fellow Whyvillians. I haven't been on Whyville in a long time, I know. But now I'm back, for good.

But to my article now. How many of you have ever fought in school? Or even been in a verbal argument? A lot of you will say "yes". How many of you have been bullied or taken part in bullying anyone else? Again, a lot will say "yes".

There are some things people don't know about bullying. A lot believe that bullying is constantly beating someone up or ganging up on someone. But few know that bullying can mean teaming up with peers and teasing someone. As in, yelling and telling someone to shut up, or tripping someone in the lunch line, and even constantly giving dirty stares.

So, set yourself in a situation. You are the reject. You don't have many friends and people often tease you. One day in class, you are discussing a controversial subject, such as racism. You speak your opinion, and a group of people disagree. They yell, and tell you to shut up and that you're stupid.

Many of you do this to people all the time. You probably don't think anything of it. But to that one person, that gets teased, and yelled at, it means something to him. How would you feel if you were constantly teased? You wouldn't like it. I am strongly against bullying, and any kind of ganging up activity. Fight your battles one on one. Bringing others into it is cowardly.

I stand differently on one on one fights and battles. Sometimes schools over-exaggerate silly little heat-of-the-moment fights. At my school, if you get in a fight, you're suspended for 5 days, and arrested. You go downtown in the police car and stay there for hours, until a guardian comes to get you. I think that is a little extreme.

People need to resolve their issues, and sometimes fighting is going to be a way to resolve them. All this commotion and carrying on is pointless. About 85% of the time people will argue, fight until they quit, and be settled down and over it. I know one time, two people started to fight, and someone else came in, made everyone else but himself leave, and let the two people fight until they quit. And after that, everything was chill. A few weeks later even, they made up and became friends, and forgot about their silly argument.

This is how I feel about things of that nature. Feel free to post any questions, comments, or concerns in the BBS.

Until next time,
Mychemfan