{"id":689,"date":"2017-01-10T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2017-01-10T17:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/inside.gcschool.org\/gracegazette\/?p=689"},"modified":"2017-01-10T12:00:14","modified_gmt":"2017-01-10T17:00:14","slug":"what-a-year-to-be-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/what-a-year-to-be-here\/","title":{"rendered":"What a Year to Be Here"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This New Years all I heard was how terrible 2016 was. Now don\u2019t get me wrong, I love me some David Bowie, and I am not too excited for the next four years with Trump, but I find it foolish and closed-minded when Buzzfeed refers to this past year as \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeed.com\/krishrach\/people-are-sharing-this-inspiring-list-of-good-things-that-h?utm_term=.nmd8k4a9L#.eb3oXlqr8\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">trash<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u201d A<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/history.howstuffworks.com\/world-war-ii\/the-battle-of-the-bulge-timeline11.htm\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">world war<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> has not broken out, there was no<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.history.com\/topics\/black-death\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">plague<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the world did not end, so why is 2016 receiving such hostility? Why should we dwell on what has gone wrong this past year, when instead we could celebrate the great achievements that took place throughout 2016. If you find yourself feeling down about this past year, I hope the events below will restore a little confidence and remind you of only a handful of 2016\u2019s great accomplishments.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/sporting-scene\/simone-biles-becomes-the-greatest-gymnast-of-all-time\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Simone Biles took Rio by storm with four golds and one bronze medal. She was also called the greatest gymnast who ever lived.<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/m.mlb.com\/news\/article\/207995060\/cubs-win-world-series-after-108-years-waiting\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Cubs won the world series after a 108 year old curse.<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beyonce.com\/album\/lemonade-visual-album\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beyonce\u2019s album, Lemonade, was released.<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cfr.org\/cuba\/us-cuba-relations\/p11113\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Relations with Cuba mended after over 50 years.<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/04\/21\/us\/women-currency-treasury-harriet-tubman.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Harriet Tubman will be the new face of the twenty dollar bill and MLK Jr. will be the new face of the five dollar bill.<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2015\/09\/09\/world\/welcome-syrian-refugees-countries\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dozens of countries around the world are accepting syrian refugees.<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/2016\/07\/india-plants-50-million-trees-uttar-pradesh-reforestation\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India planted 50 million trees in one day.<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/california-powered-6-million-homes-solar-energy-beats-state-record_us_578f94b3e4b07c722ebd24ec\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now over 6 million homes in California are powered by solar power.<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/oscar.go.com\/news\/winners\/watch-leonardo-dicaprios-acceptance-speech-for-best-actor-2016\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Leonardo DiCaprio won an oscar.<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mnn.com\/family\/family-activities\/blogs\/firm-upholds-pledge-send-children-911-victims-college\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The bank firm Sandler O\u2019Neill &amp; Partners is paying for the college tuition for the children of employees who passed away on 9\/11.<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think it is misguided to label a whole year as \u201cthe worst ever\u201d, especially when most of us reading this article are in the top 1% of people in terms of wealth, opportunities, freedom, education and safety. Any year spent with friends and family, safe, and in good health should be considered a good year. If recognizing positive events in 2016 is too optimistic for your taste and you really are set on defining the past year as \u201ctrash\u201d, then why not redirect the energy you\u2019re using to complain to instead make 2017 awesome! We all made it to 2017, why not be grateful?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This New Years all I heard was how terrible 2016 was. Now don\u2019t get me wrong, I love me some David Bowie, and I am not too excited for the&hellip; <span class=\"read-more-span\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/what-a-year-to-be-here\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;What a Year to Be Here&#8221;<\/span> <span class=\"genericon genericon-next\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[27,28,121],"appful":[],"class_list":["post-689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions","tag-27","tag-28","tag-newyears"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9uEnr-b7","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689"},{"taxonomy":"appful","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/appful?post=689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}