I made the mistake, last night, of turning up to the High School too early to pick up my son. He was in basketball practice, and still had almost an hour left(1). "Oh, silly me!" I thought to myself. There was no point driving back home and then returning later, so I decided to check my emails on my iPhone. Well, most of them were advertising or spam, and after deleting all that I could, I looked around for something to do. The hallway, where I was waiting, was covered in posters that High Schoolers had made. As I started to read them, I could see that they were all about drug addiction. This is a real problem in High Schools. Somehow drugs make their way(2) into the schools, and have become big business. Often students who are depressed or who have family problems, will start taking drugs as an escape. There is pressure also to look 'cool'(3), and to do what others are doing. I think that having informative posters on the walls about common drugs like LSD, Morphine, Crack, and Marujuana, is a good thing. I learned a lot by reading them, and I'm sure that there are many parents, like myself, who don't know enough about all the drugs that circulate in the High Schools. I was pleased to see that each poster had a section called 'drug prevention' which gave advice about avoiding the trap of taking drugs. They said things like: "Just say no," "Stand alone," "Avoid drug users", "Stay busy with healthy activities", and "Talk with a counselor". I talk to my children about the dangers of taking drugs, and how they should always respect their bodies, and never feel pushed into dangerous behavior, even by good friends. Reading the posters reminded me that High School can be a wonderful place of development and learning, but also an environment that has its potential dangers.

1. 'Left' is a word we use with 'time' to show that there is still time remaining. We also use the phrase 'to go' after an expression of time.

a. There are still three hours of daylight left.

b. You can finish writing your paragraph; there are still 45 minutes to go/ left.

2. 'To make one's way into something/ somewhere'. This phrase is used to describe how someone or something can get into/ appear in a location.

a. I don't know how it happened, but the rats made their way into the building, and started to live in the walls.

b. The soldier made his way slowly over the snowy fields.

3. 'Cool' is used, particularly in the U.S to mean sophisticated, confident, fashionable, individual, and a maverick (which means a person who does what he wants to do and is admired/ a person who is confident to go his own way). It is used a lot as slang, and can describe events and places as well as people.

a. Your new bike is so cool.

b. My English teacher is really cool; she's patient, kind, and teaches really well.

 

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