Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving, a tradition that started in the sixteen hundreds, is still a holiday in America today. Thanksgiving started when the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag Indians shared a harvest feast. It wasn’t until the eighteen hundreds that Thanksgiving was declared to be a National holiday, celebrated in November. Since then, its traditions have become a part of every family in the U.S.

Ok, this boring blog is going personal. Over Thanksgiving, I drove around 14 hours and to visit my relatives from both sides of the family. It’s kind of funny how much these two families differ. My relatives on my mom’s side are more of everyday people. My uncle is a security person who works for the government and my aunt runs a cleaning business. All of my cousins are pretty much my age, give or take a few years. That grandma’s house is smallish and kind of cramped creating a very hectic Thanksgiving Day.

The relatives on my dad’s side are very different. One of my uncles is in charge of a company that owns a lot of buildings and he travels all over the world promoting different products. Another uncle is the CEO and CFO of a major bank and lives in orange county California. I have yet another uncle on that side and he is a plastic surgeon that owns his own practice and a spa besides. Even though they are rather well-off, they grew up on a farm so they are actually very down to Earth people. My cousins on that side of the family are a hoot. The oldest of them is three years younger than me and there are about six kids younger than her. I think the youngest is three. We always meet at our lake and spend the Saturday after Thanksgiving together.

Let me assure you, two Thanksgivings are plenty. Not that I don’t enjoy the varying company, because I do, but I am so tired after break that it is not even funny. I also come back home with a full belly having eaten enough food to feed the kids in Africa.

Sleep Deprivation

                Falling asleep in lectures, hitting the snooze button multiple times in the mornings, the tell-all dark circles around your eyes…sound familiar? According to a Maas, Power Sleep Quiz, these are all symptoms of sleep deprivation. In AP Psych, we learned ALL about sleep and how much everyone should have. I personally think it's funny that people don't expect teenagers to be sleep deprived. I mean, think about it, everything we do is just meant to keep us awake.

                If we want to improve ourselves for college and juice up our college resumes, we take more AP classes and work hard to get good grades, especially if you are in your junior or beginning of senior year of high school. Teachers assign a whole lot of homework in AP classes and if you are taking more than one…good luck living life. Don't get me wrong, it does depend on the classes and if you choose to brush it off but it all eventually accumulates, creating a very long night of studying.

                Social network sites, television, and even music are all distracting to us. I will definitely admit that I spend way too much time on the computer when I have homework. I think the problem is that they are just so addicting to be on and so much more fun than doing the assigned homework. Even hormones in teenage bodies keep us awake longer.

                College kids are even worse. My sister is currently in college and I think she gets around four hours of sleep or less on a normal day. It's simply unhealthy, and then people wonder why college kids resort to drugs, a lot of them having an intended purpose to keep the student awake longer. Who knew that  trying to promote schoolwork also promoted drug use?

                I think that the simple fix to all of this is to tell teachers to limit the amount of homework they give out. If they don't assign as much, then students will get more sleep and actually pay attention in class. I'm sure the teachers would appreciate also the lack of dozing heads lying on desks.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, A Novel, review until page 278

            The last books I read, The Help and Water For Elephants were stories that dealt with America in the past. This is a definite change because it is not centered in America at all. It takes place in Sweden, probably because it was written by a Swedish author. This makes the book a lot more challenging because a lot of the language and names of places are Swedish or Swedish based. Since I am not familiar with the country, I found myself having to look up the locations of places mentioned in the book. I really enjoyed the authors descriptions of Sweden and the adventures he chooses to take his characters on. I think he adds a lot of depth to his characters.

            I can't say that I have read it completely, because I am only about half-way through. From what I can see though, the books starts painfully slow and gets a lot better as you keep reading. The characters in the novel really come alive and I have gotten more and more familiar with them.

            I enjoy that this book is kind of like a mystery, or investigation, or at least along those lines. I haven't really ever read a book like this before and it really sparks my interest. It took me a while to really get "hooked" but I can tell you that I have been reading this book a lot lately, aside from the past week due to finals. I chose this book because I had heard a lot of good reviews about and I will be sure to tell you if I recommend it to others, although at the rate its going now, I don't think that I will give it a bad review.

            I will be sure to update my review of this book after I finish reading it and I will be sure to repost it.

What Is Learned During Swim Lessons

In my last blog post, I talked about what a WSA and WSI was and what my experience was while learning to be one. In this post, I will talk about what an instructor actually does when they teach the lessons and what they have to deal with.

As I said previously, I had no idea what to do when I started teaching lessons. We were given lessons plans and progress checks but I found myself asking the other instructors A LOT about what I had to do, and how to teach certain skills. It took a lot of trial and error, and I send my apologies to very first class because that was mostly my error part.

Some of the skills we are supposed to teach in level one include how to enter the water, blowing bubbles in the water, teaching them supported back and front floats, and the arm and leg actions of swimming. Level one is basically to get the kids a lot more comfortable with the water and prepare them for the entry-level skills in level two.

The skills in level two basically add on to level one and this is where parents will see their kids start to actually swim and float on their own. Children in level three need to learn how to do their front and back floats on their own, as well as front and back glides. They also need to learn how to swim. Their method in swimming turns out more like a very basic stroke but it keeps them floating for the next level.

                Level three is basically stroke refinement. In this level, the instructors review the swimmers skills from level two and add on to them. Swimmers will be taught rotary breathing, back crawl, and basic dives. In the class I taught, we learned sitting dives, kneeling dives, and standing dives in the deep end. We would usually do this at the end of class for something fun to do. The last levels are more stroke refinement and just improving on the swimmers skills. There are also courses in level five where you can learn dives, and lifeguard skills. (366)

WSA Experience

            In some of my older blogs, I talked about what it took to be a lifeguard and the people at the pool. Another thing that people may not know about lifeguards is that we actually teach swim lessons as well.

            Some people choose to become WSIs which stands for water safety instructor. WSIs are trained specifically for teaching swim lessons. I am not a WSI but I am a WSA or a water safety assistant. WSAs and WSIs are trained in basically the same thing, and do the same things, but WSIs are able to pass kids in swim lessons and get paid more. WSIs are able to get paid up to fifteen dollars an hour if they teach a private lesson but they got paid around 9.50 for group lessons at my pool.

           

            My WSA training pretty much consisted of us learning what to do with each age group and what each level or age group is like to teach. After the training, we were required to watch someone teach a lesson and then help co-teach a lesson with our own lesson plan.

           

            My pool was kind of short of guards to teach lessons so I really only watched one lesson being taught and was then assigned to teach my own lesson. My first day was a disaster. I taught level ones who were all around three and four years old. One of my kids was extremely rowdy and I wasn’t really sure how to control him. He ended up crossing the pool a lot of times. After my first few times of teaching lessons, I learned how to control the kids a lot better and control my schedule a lot better. At the end of the season I had improved a great deal and was actually very good at it.

           

            Throughout my lifeguarding season, I taught around six lessons in four sessions of the swim lessons. I taught five level one classes and one level three class. As I said before, the level ones were almost all three to five years old and my level threes were around seven years old. My experiences teaching swim lessons improved a lot of my skills involving children and it was overall a pretty good experience but sometimes got to be a little stressful and exhausting. (386)

Review of Water for Elephants, a novel, by Sara Gruen

            After previously reading The Help which was centered in the early 1960's, Water for Elephants took me back even further in time to the early 1930's. This is a great story that retells  the life of a man in a train-pulled circus. It is filled with drama, love, hate, abuse, and problems faced during the depression. By choosing to write in this time frame and about this type of circus, the author was able to add a lot more interest I think than if she had written about a circus in present times.

            Gruen uses more popular diction than not, making the book easier to read. Each of the characters in the book uses their own dialogue. The performers have their own language as well as the working men. Some of the content is probably for an older audience, I guess if it was a movie it would probably get a pg-13 rating.

            The book basically has two main sections, a story of an old man named Jacob Jankowski as well as a section of the same man when he was younger and in the circus. When I started reading the book, I was a little confused on what the story of the old man, and then the man in the circus related to. It was not until the first few chapters that I figured out what was going on. I was pleased to find that the two stories connected at the end.

            I think I fell in love with the book not only because of the storyline but also because of the depth. Because the author wrote two parts to the story, the old man and his younger self, I think it really added depth and created empathy for the old man. Even though I thought the old man was pointless at the beginning, I figured out what his purpose was which really tied the book together for me.

            Like the The Help, this book was also exceptional. I was blown away by how emotionally attached I got to the characters and their experiences. I would absolutely recommend this book to everyone (again, probably over thirteen) because it is phenomenal and so cleverly written.

Review of The Help by Kathryn Stockett

             I usually read books that center around the twenty-first century so reading The Help was a refreshing change. In this book Stockett illuminates the harshness of living in Mississippi during the 1980s. She does so by telling the stories of three different characters; two colored maids and a persevering white woman writer. By choosing characters from this time-frame and education she was able to write the book in a way that is relatable to most readers. Although the slang is dated to that time, Stockett keeps the dialogue simple and easy to understand which makes the story more genuine and personal in my opinion.

            Overall the book is not extremely challenging. Of course, it is in no way an easy book to read and I wouldn't recommend it to younger than high school readers, but the author was able to write it in more of a popular diction. Even thought the wording was not entirely challenging, I did find myself rereading parts of the book to get a better understanding.

            In the beginning of the book, I found it a bit challenging to keep track of each of the characters because they switch off every few chapters. It also made it kind of difficult to really connect with who they were. As the book progressed however, the characters became more clear and pronounced and I got used to the style of writing. I found it interesting how each character, seemingly unrelated to each other at the beginning, began to get tied in with each other's stories.

            It didn’t take long before I could admit that I was in love with this book.  The story was interesting and it was an entirely new setting compared to my usual book choices. The more I read, the more hooked I got to the characters, the plot, and the lifestyle of the people in the "Old South." After finishing the book, I agree with the authors choice to switch the characters. By showing the different views and thoughts of completely different people really added depth and made the book more addictive. I would absolutely recommend this to everyone, it is fantastic.

Christmas Before Thanksgiving...What?

                The day after Halloween I went to Wal-Mart to buy up all of the clearance Halloween candy, makeup, costumes, glitter, basically anything that was a good buy. I was surprised to find when I got there that out of the five aisles that were full of Halloween stuff before, was now down to around two and a half. I went through the aisles and picked up some of everything. I was even more surprised to find that in the Halloween aisles that were empty, had been converted to Christmas aisles and instead of Halloween candy, they were already being filled with Christmas Tree shaped Reeses and more.

                What happened to Thanksgiving? You know, that holiday at the end of November. I am thinking they should be selling goods for that instead of the holiday more than a month AFTER Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving itself was designated to be the fourth Thursday in November because the government though it would be a good day to set in regards to Christmas. That way stores wouldn't start selling Christmas merchandise BEFORE Thanksgiving because they thought it would be rude.

         

          President Roosevelt was the one that set Thanksgiving's date. Before then it fell on November 30th and stores didn't like it because it only left 24 days for shoppers. Roosevelt was also the president during the Great Depression so the stores wanted to get the most "bang for their buck" and give the shoppers the most days they could. Hasn't anyone ever thought of how Black Friday is the day AFTER Thanksgiving and its one of the most shopped on days of the year because everyone then starts to get ready for Christmas (unless you are one of those super organized people that start Christmas shopping in February.)

         

          If Wal-Mart knew all of that, why would they already be getting ready for Christmas? I guess the part I was confused most about at Wal-Mart was that they didn't even have any Thanksgiving merchandise. It was only Christmas stuff. I mean I might have missed it even though I went up and down almost every aisle in that section.

Water

                Water is an amazing thing. It is needed by basically every single organism, there is more water on Earth than land and if you are looking for extra terrestrial life on other planets the first thing you should look for is, yep you guessed it, water!

                http://www.allaboutwater.org/water-facts.html lists some interesting facts about water. One of them is that 70% of an adult's body is made of water and 80% of a newborn is water ( we're like un-popped water balloons!) By the time a person is thirsty they would have already lost over 1% in water weight (good news for wrestlers eh?) Another fact from the site is that an average person in the US uses around 80-100 gallons of water per day and most of that comes from flushing the toilet. So if you want to save some of your water stop using the restroom so much!

                With all of this water around its kind of surprising to know that one in eight people lack access to safe water (http://water.org/learn-about-the-water-crisis/facts/). Sounds pretty bad when you figure that a five-minute shower would amount to the total water other people have in a day.

                I think we could solve this crisis pretty easily if we could only figure out a way to make the water. So far chemists haven't succeeded in that feat though. Apparently it is a lot harder than just making a chemical solution, or gathering up a bunch of Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms and sticking them in the same container.

                Living in the United States is a lot different than living in a third-world country that has trouble finding clean water. I guess for sanitation purposes people could make filters and boil the water but they still have to find water and make a filter with supplies that they probably don't have. If I can, I would like to go on a mission trip somewhere to help people get clean water. It might help me understand how they live and what they would have to do to get clean and sanitary water. 

Too Many Colleges, Too Little Time

                I'm a junior this year which means I am expected to start taking my college exams and applying for colleges. I guess if you really wanted to, you could save the application process for the beginning of senior year but that’s kind of pushing it. It is so amazing how fast time flies and how quickly the time of apply for college has come up. As soon as you get to this point, you start asking "What college do I want to go to?" The big and well-known ones like Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc., are obvious choices I guess but if you don't have the grades or brains or want to go to any of these you have to find one college out of the thousands out there.

                When you take the test preps for the actual tests (like the PSAT and the PLAN tests) you fill out your information (your address, e-mail, phone number, etc). You are then given the choice to receive information from colleges. I decided to choose this because I thought it would be a good way to learn about the colleges. I assume it would be, but the colleges send you SOOOO much information that there is just too much to sort through.

                For all of the big environmental people out there, telling colleges to send emails instead of mail would save like a million trees. I guess mail is sort of a better method because I open all of my mail, and basically none of my emails but in the past two years I must have gotten at least ten college flyers per WEEK. That is just ridiculous. I get about twenty five emails per week, of which I really don't open but still! My advice to those colleges would be to find a good slogan, plaster all over, and make yourself known in a different way than other colleges because it just is not working.

                College fairs are another way to learn about colleges but from my one experience, there are soo many. It is also kind of awkward if you go up to the table and can't answer what you're looking for in a college or what major you're going into.  I felt like they also didn't know what to say, of course when I asked they gave me their generic speech and I took a flyer and left but honestly I don't think I benefited from more than ten percent of the things there. (419)

Winter, Winter, Go Away, Please Come On a Later Date

When I woke up this morning, I was unenthusiastically brought to my window. The weather channel had said that it was supposed to snow but I refused to believe it and unfortunately, the morning blizzard only confirmed their prediction. When I got ready I kept on thinking, “the roads won’t be bad”, “there won’t be any snow sticking to the ground”, “there is no way today will resemble winter. “ When I got into my car I was again proven wrong.

                The snow and slush combination gave the roads an unfamiliar slipperiness and I found myself driving slower than my usual speed. The snow seemed to have trouble deciding its consistency because every snowflake that hit my windshield splashed like a rather large but flat raindrop. When the snow landed on the road, it might have been able to keep its shape but, like my windshield, the road turned out to be warmer than the snow. The longer I drove, the more snow/slush built up on the roads making them more and more dangerous.

                Finally I reached my destination. The snow had decided to not stop in order to let me reach the building without getting drenched causing a shivering body. Call it spring fever, or reluctance of the winter, but I decided to grab my umbrella to try and protect my coatless body. I got the spring contraption out of my car and opened the umbrella. Instead of a nice free fall of snowflakes, the weather decided to produce raging winds, which caused the snow to turn vicious. Instead of the normal upward position of umbrellas, mine was positioned in front of me to protect me from the irregular winds. I then charged into the building from the parking lot and managed to keep semi-warm and semi-dry.

                When I got into the building I was pleased to find that I managed to stay the driest of everyone.   I guess my wrong-seasoned thinking turned out to be a good thing after all.

Pandora

          Pandora.com, otherwise known as the online radio designed specifically for you, is in my opinion the best invention ever. Pandora is a website that you can go on and pick a station you want to listen to. The stations are made by a song, artist, or composer that you like. Pandora takes the artist, song, or composer you said you liked and compiles a list of songs similar to your choosing. It then plays the songs that it thinks you will like and asks for your feedback. If you say you like the song (a thumbs up) then it will find more songs like it has, and if you say you don't like it (a thumbs down) it determines what about that song you didn't like and comes up with different songs for you to listen to. You are also able to indicate whether you are tired of the track. If you are, it doesn't play it for a while but still keeps it in the possibility of being played again.

           

            If you create an account on Pandora, it saves your stations for you which allows to keep multiple stations. Pandora also answers questions you have about why the track was selected and if you don't agree with their reasoning you can move the song to a different station.

           

            If all this wasn't enough, it has even more! For each song played, it provides you with lyrics, a brief biography of the artist, and lists similar artists you might enjoy listening to. It also works kind of like YouTube in that you can see what other people are listening to and you are able to join with friends and share stations. I am pleased to admit I am listening to Pandora Radio right now and currently have ten stations I can choose from. Pandora is available for access on a computer, iPod, phone, and in your car. The possibilities on Pandora are limitless which is why I think it is one of the best inventions ever.

Fame

            Taylor Swift, Taylor Lautner, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, need I go on? As you have probably figured out, all of the listed people are famous. Whether singers, actors, or famous for being famous, everyone knows them and either wants to date them, or be them (with the exception of Lindsay Lohan perhaps). I guess I can't speak for the entire population because I myself am not included in this statement, just the general trend.

           

            I personally, and I am sure others are included, do not understand everyone's fascination with these people. I mean sure, they are very talented, or entertaining, but why is everyone so enticed by them? After all they are only people. Having people watch me 24/7 would definitely get old very fast.

           

            Every aspiring actor or singer probably has a dream to make it big and be a household name. Why? Is it for the money, or the fame, or just being known? My guess is a little bit of each. When someone actually becomes famous though, I think it is probably a lot different when they become famous though, I am sure there are a lot of things famous people would be willing to go back to, or get back. Like privacy for instance.

            How awkward would it be to be famous? I mean think about it...you have no privacy. Everyone knows what is going on in your life and who you are, but you have no idea who they are or what is going on in their life. Not that you would necessarily care, but still. If you were to screw up, or make a mistake, it is automatically front page news and the whole world hears about it. And forget about secrets, I am sure that it would be extremely hard to keep any with random paparazzi people following you around looking for just that.

           

            I am not saying that famous people hate their life and wish they hadn’t become famous, because that is almost definitely wrong. I just do not understand people's infatuation with famous people. After all they used to be ordinary people, trying to make something of themselves. They just hit a lucky strike and had enough talent to get there.

Halloween

                Ghosts, vampires, werewolves, princesses, pirates, goblins, and ogres, welcome to Halloween. Halloween, otherwise known as All Hallows Eve, takes place on October 31, and involves costume, candy, parties, and trick-or-treating.

                According to http://www.halloween-history.org/, Halloween originated with the Celts who lived in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Northern France. The end of their year, November 1, signaled the end of the summer and the beginning of winter which would often result in many deaths. Because of the imminent deaths, they believed that the night before the New Year, the souls of the dead were able to come and mingle with the living. The people believed that the souls would possess living, cause mayhem, destroy crops, and look for a passage to the after-life. Some stories said that some of the Celts dressed up to try and scare the spirits away, others say that fairies would dress up as beggars and go from door to door, asking for food. Those who gave it to them would be rewarded, and those who didn’t would be punished. Eventually Christianity spread and the holiday was changed to All Souls Day and was meant to honor the dead. People would go door-to-door asking for food and in return would pray for the givers lost relatives. Children eventually adopted this practice.

                In the United States, Halloween was not originally popular because most of the people were protestant. When immigration increased, many of the Irish brought the holiday over with them. Catholics hoped to preserve their traditions and worked to get Halloween made into a national holiday and put on the calendar. Over time, it transformed into more of a family tradition than a religious one.

                Personally, I love Halloween. I think it is fun to find a costume and dress up and go out with your friends. I am sure it is also fun to stay at home and hand out candy to the cute little trick-or-treaters, but unfortunately I live out in the country so I don’t really have that option. I think the history of Halloween is interesting because I had never known it before. I would never have guessed that it was a religious holiday, or that the America did not start it. I will have to go to Ireland some day and see if they still celebrate Halloween, or All Hallows Eve.

Stereotypes

                On my way home from school, I drove past a biker coming onto the interstate. He was dressed in leather from head to toe, had a mid-sized beard, and was driving a black Harley motorcycle decked out with saddlebags. From the parts of his body I could see, I saw a tattoo climbing up his neck. As I passed him he pulled out a long, white cigarette from his pocket and put it in his mouth. He then reached down into his saddlebag to pull out his lighter and proceeded to light his cigarette. I couldn't help but take notice of this perfect example of a biker stereotype.

                I found nothing abnormal or strange about him due to that stereotype. But if I were to go to my local physicians office for a check-up and this man walked in as my doctor, I feel like I wouldn't be able to help question his credentials.

                As I continued my drive home, I couldn't help but think about this man and my reaction to him. The way this man dressed had nothing to do with the man he actually was. For all I know he could be superman, or a lawyer, or the top surgeon in the state, and yet I am still not able to see past his biker-façade. Why do we have all of these stereotypes? I remember reading about stereotypes in my AP Psychology class last year. The book conducted a study that tested how well people relied on stereotypes. The study described the stereotype of a professor of literature and asked people whether it was a professor or a truck driver. Most people answered the professor, and it turns out that there was a lot higher percentage of that man being a truck driver.

                Thinking back to that biker, I can't help but feel the influence of the biker-stereotype. I know that under his disguise is a man like any other lawyer or surgeon out there, and for all I know he might be one. I guess my point is that stereotypes affect our judgment of people and cause us to make snap decisions about what they can do and how they act. If you have ever heard the phrase "never judge a book by its cover," it is made for situations like this. I had no right to decide on his characteristics or behavior before I had even seen him for more than ten seconds, and neither should anyone else of anyone else.

Do Something Different!

I feel like every holiday has its traditions; Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Halloween, etc. Each year may differ a little but it is basically the same thing. Don’t get me wrong, all Holidays need to be traditional and have their own traditions, but some can change right?

                I guess it probably depends on the holiday. Religious holidays are the most traditional I think. Take Christmas for example, every year my family reads The Night before Christmas on Christmas Eve and then attends church and opens presents on Christmas Day.  Other religious holidays like Hanukah and Kwanza are probably even more routine. I think that national holidays like Thanksgiving and Halloween should be a little less routine than they sometimes are. Thanksgiving has one big event that everyone should do, Thanksgiving Dinner. But should everything else going on around Thanksgiving be the same? I don’t know about you but I go through the same thing year after year. Halloween I feel like is the same thing over and over for every age group.

                When you are little, you go trick-or-treating, and when you grow up you still may have the urge to do so but the candy-givers are a little less than pleased when you show up at their door in your teens. If you decide not to be any kind of festive and stay home I guess you can do whatever you please with your time. Others that are older and not with children may go to parties, usually costume required. These may be fun but in my experience they all have pretty much the same schedule.

                You may argue that you can go to haunted houses or other “haunts” but again, there is only so much you can do with a haunted house. I think people should just do their own thing and be a little spontaneous, especially on Halloween. If they cannot think of their own things to do, they could even combine holidays. For instance, instead of trick-or-treating, organize a group of carolers and sing ghostly songs at people’s doorways. Or, host a Thanksgiving dinner with a twist. If they feel really creative decorate a palm tree as a Halloween creature, or give out May baskets and see what happens.

                See what I mean? Holidays could be so much more entertaining if people did not stick to their typical traditions and were a little spontaneous.

Toddler's and Tiaras

               

                 Earlier today I was watching Toddlers & Tiaras, a show on abc family. It is a show about a lot of little girls that dress up, get spray tans, painted or fake nails and wear an extreme amount of make-up.  Most of the girls they showed seemed to be already self-centered and proud of their "assets." I can't imagine what they will grow up to be and how they will behave. The thing I noticed was that the mothers seemed to want their daughters to win more than their daughters themselves.

                I guess I can't really make this assumption without actually meeting the people in person, but I just thought the kids did not really want to be in it. At the beginning of the show, it introduced the names, and lifestyles of each of the girls that were going to be competing. Some seemed like alright girls, and some seemed very snobby. One of the girls, who ironically won the most pageants, refused to practice with her mother. She threw tantrums any time her mother asked her to stop jumping on her trampoline to go and help with some detail on the upcoming pageant. Other girls reluctantly practiced their walks, and smiles, and turns with their mothers.

                I was surprised how many of the girls did not like getting ready and glamorous but were fawning over themselves when it was all done. The snobby girl I mentioned earlier was crying the whole time they were getting her ready for the pageant and yelling at the stylist. She also threw a fit when she needed to get a spray tan and her nails done. Of course this girl had the most doll-like qualities when they were all done.

                Unfortunately I did not continue watching the episode because as soon as the actual pageant came on and the girls started doing their routines and walks across the stage I realized I was kind of tired of watching the screaming girls and obsessive mothers. I think I must comment on how addictive the beginning of the show was. I was in a trance watching it, although it was more of an "Is this really happening?" thought process going on in my head.

Not Enough Time in the Day

There needs to be more time in the day, just saying. A twenty-four hour day is simply not long enough for school, homework, extracurricular activities, and if you have a job you can say goodbye to your social life. The planned hours of my day do not make any sense. I have regularly scheduled classes from 7:00 am to 3:30 pm and if my sports practice goes until 5:00 or 6:00 at night that would be a total of ten hours of my day spent at school. Not including the hours of homework some teachers expect students to finish in their "free time"

Workers during the industrial revolution went on strikes because their work hours were too long and their pay was too little. I have not heard of students working toward fewer hours of school, or less homework. They may have thought about it or even acted upon it but I have not heard about a single instance where students actually succeeded in reducing the amount of hours of school and homework. I think it is because students have no respect. Adults do not care to change what they went through when they were in school because they want the new students to suffer as much as they did.

            My Spanish teacher shared her opinion the other day of how school should be handled. She thought that the school day should go from around nine to five. This way there would be more class time and kids would get more sleep. There would also be no homework assigned, rather teachers would use the extra class time to do more work. She thought it would also be beneficial to change all sports so that they are strictly club. That way school funds could be used for academic programs. I agree completely with her ideas. Even though more hours at school may take a little while to get used to, if there was no homework, kids would be able to get a lot more sleep and spend time doing extracurricular activities.


            To summarize my argument; either extend the hours in a day or the hours of a school day.

Job Interviews

                Job interviews are brutal. Whether it’s the hour of asking questions you don't know how to answer, or the fact that you will spend days after it wondering if you got the job, interviews are simply brutal. I just finished with the second job interview I have had in my life and even after my little experience, I can assure you that they are not fun.

                As if going into a new place, and meeting with a person that will decide your employment future isn't enough, they go and ask you questions as well! Questions I might add that are completely self and experience-based. I know that some people can talk about themselves for hours, and bring up their positive attributes on cue but I definitely cannot. Second of all, they ask the same questions over and over expecting a different answer every time! I think that is the worst method in the world because if someone can't answer it right the first time, what makes them think that the interviewee can answer it again?

                Let me provide some examples of the questions asked at an interview. Question number one: "Why should I hire you?" Really, could you get any worse than that? Obviously, that is a question for you to answer, not me. I feel like that is just asking for selfish/vain answers. Which brings me to question number two; "What are your best qualities?" Well, I am a great ear-wiggler, and I can sleep through a fire alarm. Hmm, maybe they should be a little more specific. Number two here clearly shows that they are looking for selfish people. Interviewers also ask questions like number 3: "What did you do when you got into an argument with one of your coworkers?" This would be what I like to call an open-ended question with a pre-generated response. What if I haven't gotten in an argument with a coworker before? Even if I have, it's not like I would say I punched them in the face or something (which I wouldn't) because that would almost guarantee unemployment. Which is why I am sure the majority of applicants would say "I would work it out in a calm and productive manner." Yeah right, because that’s what people always do in a fury. "Calmly talk the problem out."

                I understand the reasoning behind the questions; to find suitable people to fill the job. But will the questions really rule out people with anger issues or bad qualities that they don't want to say because it would make them look bad? I would assume that any one stupid enough to comment on their extremely bad qualities aren't really expecting to get that job. I am just saying that the interviewers need to reconstruct their interviews.

Procrastination

                Why is procrastination so prominent? I am someone who procrastinates and I can say from experience that it sucks. I think it is because I can think of so many better, or more fun, ways to spend my time. Take homework for example; that is about the least entertaining thing in the world. I guess I should bite my tongue before I figure out something worse. I guess the phrase "watching paint dry" would apply. Although, I personally think it can be interesting sometimes depending on the color, and which parts dry first.

                Back to my original topic; teachers know their students will procrastinate. The other day, my AP Biology teacher assigned us a journal article review to write. He kept saying, "Don't put it off until Sunday night because you will be up late if you do." As much as he said it, there were a whole lot of people, including myself, who were sitting at their computers Sunday night, typing up their article reviews. If teachers know our behavioral habits, why do they assign the homework in the first place? I will save that topic for another post.

                I think the main cause of my procrastination is due to the fact that I can think of so many other things I would rather be doing. The only difference between a procrastinator, and a non-procrastinator is that the person procrastinating goes and does that other thing. Whether it is playing outside, watching t.v., reading, or going on the computer, the person that ends up procrastinating goes and does it. Unfortunately, the smarter of the two people figures if they finish their homework first, they can go and do fun things later. I just don't think it has the same effect.

Seussical the Musical

I know this is a little bit late but I realized I never wrote a review about the Kennedy Play.

                This year the chosen fall theater production was Seussical the Musical. The musical was a mixture of different Dr. Seuss books with its own little twist. The play was about an elephant named Horton that finds a little world the size of a speck of dust. Since Horton has big ears, he can hear the people talk to him when no one else can. To the rest of the jungle, this makes Horton look crazy. During Horton's mission to keep this little world safe, he encounters love, hate, and challenges to overcome.

                I thought the play was very well cast, but the costuming and makeup wasn’t as great as previous years. Other than a few pitch problems, everyone sang very well. I thought they adjusted to each other's voices rather well and the songs were lovely. I saw a snippet of the play in the school's play preview and came back to watch the show the following night. Everyone I was with thought that is was great and I know the parents and babysitters appreciated that it was kid-friendly.

                During the play, a chair malfunctioned and the "bird" that fell through handled it rather well when it happened. She did try to fix it and I thought that it would have been fine if she hadn’t. I heard afterwards that she was extremely angry with the tech person that set it up. I don’t understand why though, I guess it could have been the heat of the moment but I thought she reacted a little harshly.

                Even though there were a few problems during the play, I thought it was really great overall. I could tell that the actors added their own little touches here and there which really added to the quality of the play. The boy that played the narrator - the Cat in the Hat in this case, was very funny and the perfect choice. The singers all had very beautiful voices as well. I thoroughly enjoyed going to the play and look forward to going to the next play production.

Scream Acres

                Last Saturday, a group of friends and I went to Scream Acres up in Atkins, Iowa. When we got there, the eighteen dollar entry fee kind of startled us but at the end of the event I think that it was worth it. Don't get me wrong, I definitely  think they could reduce the price but with all the construction I understand that they needed to pay for it. At Scream Acres, there are three "haunts" that you go through. There is the Curtain Chaos, Slaughterhouse, and the Haunted Cornfield. Each haunt gets increasing scarier, starting with the least frightening and ending with the most.

                The Curtain Chaos is the first haunt. Walking into the building, the door which looks like a very large and creepy clown is a little intimidating. The building is basically like a maze that is laid out like what a convention would be. You are guided back and forth around the building while random people jump out and scare you. To describe what it is actually like, you will have to imagine it while I'm describing it. basically you come to a small closet size area and there is a wall to the front of you, and two to the sides of you. Each are covered with red and white curtains that touch the floor, only one wall is only a curtain. That would be the path you would take.

                The slaughter house basically describes itself. It reminded me of a creepy old house with lots of butcher shop qualities. There was a lot of "dead bodies" and cut up meat. At one point in the slaughterhouse you get to a floor that is not there, only it is. If you have seen spy kids, it was kind of like walking across the falling floor.

                The last haunt was the Haunted Cornfield. If you have been to the Bloomsbury  corn maze before it is kind of the same set-up as in turns, but a lot less easy to get lost in. Being in the corn maze at night has its own eeriness but add in creepy monsters that jump out and scare you, and run after you with chainsaws; eeriness turns to frightening.

                If you go there I would recommend going on a warmer day or dressing appropriately for the weather. The line took us about two hours to get through and after each haunted area there was another line to get into the next area. This line however didn’t take as long as the first. It pretty much only took about ten minutes to go through but you are so jazzed up about the last haunt that the time flies by fast. If you get to Scream Acres closer to opening time, there is a lot shorter waiting time. Aside from waiting awhile my overall experience at Scream Acres was a positive one. I personally hate being scared but being with your friends and going through the haunts is a lot of fun for everyone. 

Bow Wow Wow

So when I got home today, I let my little dog out of his cage only to find that he was covered in pee. Of course the first thing he does when he gets out of his cage is run round and round. Since his cage was covered in his urine, he was  clearly also covered in urine. As he ran around my house, he got his nasty pee-footprints all over. I hastily let him outside and got to work cleaning all of the doggie-footprints up. I guess the real question is how to get them out of my carpet. Obviously, I couldn't leave him out there all day so I reluctantly let him back in and carried him up to the shower to give him a bath.

                Why can't dogs just take care of themselves? Or at least learn how to use a toilet. I did actually learn when I got a dog that they are a lot of work and very expensive. There are people in the world that have not learned this lesson. They will go to the pet store and buy a dog that they expect will feed itself, and water itself, and let itself out to go to the bathroom. I don't understand why people are so astonished that there is so much animal cruelty when it’s really not that hard to figure out where it is coming from. I'll admit that there are fancy new mechanisms that you can buy that make taking care of a pet easier, but they still require work! For instance, if you buy an automatic feeder, you are still required to FILL IT BACK UP! It is not that automatic. Dog doors are also a nifty invention, but you still have to train your dog how to go out of it, and not to run away. The point I am trying to prove is to take care of your pets! They can be a little nasty at times, but remember, you were the one that got it!

People and the Pool

                After we lifeguards go through the hours of training, the pool finally opens for the summer. It is amazing how often I am astonished by the people that actually come to the pool. There are four main types of people that come to the pool; the regular families, the non-swimmers, the pool rats, and the absolutely crazy attendees.

                The regular families are usually pretty well behaved; they watch their kids and if they get out of line they will normally correct their children's behavior. On occasion they will also apologize to the guards on duty. Although guarding family is nice and serene, unfortunately it makes for a boring evening.

                Pool rats are kids that attend the pool the most often. I don't understand how they do it, but they will come and swim at the pool every single day in the summer. Some would think that if people attended the pool enough times they would gain an understanding of the rules that need to be followed. However, for some odd reason, the more time the pool rats spend at the pool, the more they seem to break the rules. I have to say that my pool was lucky to have genuinely good kids that were regulars. Although I must say that it made it harder to discipline them, and they should have been punished more .

                Pool Rats are more of a term that describe the kids who actually swim in the pool. Other children come to the pool and just sit. They sit and talk the whole entire time they are there. This situation is all fine and dandy until they come on slow days and raise the people count. In case you are unaware, the pool has to have a minimum amount of people at the pool to stay open. If the people count goes below that pool's minimum and stays there for an hour. The pool is eligible to close early. The absolute worst feeling as a lifeguard is when the minimum amount of people needed is 30 and there are 32 people at the pool. This would be easier to deal with if all 32 of those people were in the pool and not just sitting and talking in the grass or concession area . Needless to say the non-swimming group should either go in the pool or just leave.

                   The final type of patron is crazy. When I say crazy I don't necessarily mean insane asylum, it is just the way they behave that distinguishes them in their own category. I can't specifically define the crazy patron, I can only share recollections of my personal encounters. Crazy person number one, nicknamed "octo-mom," came to the pool one afternoon with her Chinese- tattooed  regions, bare ring finger, and her eight or so children. This delusional woman thought that her 2, 4, and 6 year olds would not be a problem and decided to just not watch them most of the trip. If her three children under 6 were actually capable of watching themselves maybe it wouldn't have been a problem. However they are only 2, 4, and 6 years of age. At the end of the day, the kids were rescued about 5 times each. At the second showing of octo-mom, she grew a few brains and brought fewer children under the age of 6 and her strange looking boyfriend. I must say although it was smarter to bring older and fewer children she still, did not watch them. Unfortunately this is not the craziest person I have seen, and I am sure other lifeguards could tell stories of their own pools' "loony bin." Examples might include over-parenting parents, bi-polar patrons, and of course the anti-management rebels.

                In my next blogs I will be sure to write about other experience I have had as a lifeguard.

Men Ruling the World

Throughout history the leaders of countries have been primarily men. My only question is why? Men seem to be primarily trigger-happy, aggressive, have WAY too big of egos, and tend to get their feelings hurt too often. Now before I start hating on all men, let’s get something straight. I am not referring to every single man out there; these are only my observations of past events and recent news. My observations may seem kind of stereotyped but whose aren’t? I am sure there are a lot of kind, gentle, and caring men out there, I am only writing about the typical trend…

Men. There are too many of them in leadership positions. If you think about it, most of nations’ problems can be directly routed back to the fact that a man was in charge. Think about it. The US is in debt, a very large debt I might add, and a large amount of it is because so much money is going to the military. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that big guns cost a lot of money but if we weren’t in so many wars then we wouldn’t need as many guns.

                My theory of why we are in so many wars is that men are very aggressive.  If some foreign country pounces on their egos, they go and write a war declaration. I think we should play a little cat and mouse. Haven’t you seen the cartoon Tom & Jerry? The mouse sure wins most of the time, he just goes around doing his business and the pouncing cat gets hammered on his own.

                The attacks on 9/11 were tragic, but did we really have to be so quick to go to war? They might have tried to figure out who actually did it before they went to war with the wrong country! Not even counting the fact that it wasn’t even a country that did it. It was a terrorist organization. There is no such thing as an organized terrorist country. So why in the world would we pick a fight with a country in the first place? Why not CSI or someone to go and kill/capture the terrorists without going to war with the country they are residing in? We have been in Iraq now for 10 years. Doesn’t anyone else think that’s a little ridiculous, considering we assassinated the person responsible for the attack years ago?

                Now if women were in control of nations instead of men, I feel like we would have a lot more periods of peace. The overall stereotype of women is that we are calm, kind, caring, and thoughtful. Women wouldn’t retaliate after an attack. I’m sure we wouldn’t leave it be, but there would be no war declaration. Women can be viscous, but they are not rash. Even in adolescence women think of tactical ways to get inside the enemy’s head. We make relationships and pick and choose alliances.

                Even though both sides can be mean in their own ways, how would history change if the world was not always ruled by men?

The Steps to Becoming a Lifeguard

          Lifeguards. Anyone that has swam in or been near a supervised aquatic area has seen us. We are primarily described as tan, wearing our signature red swimsuits, and just sitting in our high chairs watching people. All day long. However, I don't think people actually understand what it truly means to be a lifeguard and everything included in its job description.

          Before someone becomes a lifeguard, they have many hours of training to complete and many tests to pass. The first step is to take a lifeguard certification class which normally takes anywhere from 30-40+ hours. After each class, the normal person is completely exhausted. Normal:  meaning not a conditioned swimmer. In lifeguard training we are taught rescue skills, first aid, and CPR/AED. To pass the class, each lifeguard is asked to perform final skills that were taught at some point over the duration of the class. We also need to pass a written exam with a certain percentage per section.

          After the initial class is over, and each guard is certified, we still have to apply for a job and go through an interview process just like everyone else. After actually getting the job, we have even more training. We also have to pass another skills test (as well as many throughout the lifeguard season) to ensure that we still know how to save drowning victims. The training process at my pool took about ten more hours overall.

          During the job training we improve our skills that we learned in our certification classes and go over pool procedures, rules, and whistle blowing. Some of the specific skills are how to save active drowning, passive drowning, and submerged victims. We learn how to rescue some with a head, neck, or back injury. We also learn skills required when the victim is out of the water such as CPR and all of the different ratios, the Heimlich, first aid, and whistle blowing. I presume whistle blowing does not seem like a skill that needs to be learned. Let me assure that in order to get a crisp, clear, and short whistle blow, it actually takes practice. There is a specific amount of breath needed and a correct tongue placement. My first attempts sounded like a train's whistle but eventually I figured it out.

          In my next blog I will be sure to talk about the experiences after learning how to be a lifeguard.

Gay Marriage

          I know the controversy on gay marriage has basically settled down now since the gay marriage law was passed, but honestly I do not understand why people cared so much about it. What did gay people ever do to them and why is it any of their business?

          Some people’s argument against it is that is against God. There are passages in the bible that comment on homosexuality.  One quote from Leviticus is “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” Obviously this strongly opposes gay relations, don’t you think that people that are gay are aware of who disagrees with their sexual preferences?

          Even though the Bible opposes gay relations I do not believe that it is our job to judge the people it is opposing. The Bible portrays God’s opinions, and laws, and wisdom. This may just be me but I do not think that we have the right to judge homosexual people. Judgment should be saved for God, not us. We do not have a right to make people feel inferior or out of place from our own doing. Isn’t it the whole point of the Bible to make us better, and nicer people? Free from judgment, jealousy, hate, and fear.

          I guess the point of this blog is to discourage people from openly voice their opinion about gay people, and to create laws prohibiting gay marriage. I know many homosexual people and the ones I know are the nicest people in the world. I would hate to see them discouraged because some disrespectful person openly voices their opinion to them without even knowing them. To put it plainly, it is not very nice.

The difficulty of colorguard

When you go to a football game, you probably go there to either watch the football game or use the four quarters as a time to catch up with friends and to have fun cheering on your time even if you know they will lose. Very few people go there to watch the marching band at half-time, and the number decreases even more if you count the number of people that go to football games to watch the colorguard. Colorgaurd is known to most people as flag twirling. The people twirling the flags/other equipment are simply the flag-twirlers or flag girls. I believe colorguard is a very misunderstood sport. And yes, I guess it was certified as an actual sport some time last year. People are too quick to judge how easy and make an ignorant decision on how well or badly the colorguard did.

I think the thing that most people don’t realize is that colorguard is actually very difficult. Don’t get me wrong, it does get easier after time, and for some people it comes naturally; but I have never seen someone who has never been in colorguard before pick up a flag, rifle, or even sabre for the first time and throw it perfectly, or do work perfectly, or do anything perfectly for that matter. There are many different tosses that you can do with each of the pieces of equipment. It starts with a single, it spins one time around. Next it goes to a double; two times around. Then it keeps going up, triple (3), quad (4), and so on.

I guess I should start with the basics. Most people know what a flag is; it would be extremely sad if you didn’t, considering every country/state or province has one. The flags we use for colorguard are non-country flags taped onto 5’-6’ metal poles depending on what they are being used for. The poles with the flags can range from 5-15 lbs depending on what weights you put in them or how many pieces are sewed onto the flag. Any of the equipment used in colorguard also feels a lot heavier when you start doing work and tossing them.

          A rifle is a piece of wood, shaped like a rifle (as in a gun) with a metal “bolt” on top.  A bolt on a gun rifle would probably be the part underneath where the scope would be. A rifle is my favorite type of equipment on guard. Rifle hurts a lot and it very hard to get used to.

          The last is sabre. Sabres are shaped like slightly bent swords. They have got plastic handles and a metal blade attached.  They resemble more of a samurai sword but differ in handles. If my description was not clear I suggest you Google it.  Sabres are by far the lightest in guard equipment but hurt the most when you catch them. You may be wondering how it would hurt to catch them. By catching everything in the right spot, and catching it hard and firm, it kills your hand on impact. If you accidently hit yourself, it almost guarantees you a enormous and gorgeously colored bruise where it hit.

          These three things are just the basic equipment that colorguards will use. There are so many factors that go into an overall performance. Each guard has to learn drill, which I will come back to in another post, learn work, try to get everyone together and on the right counts of the work, and try to make uncoordinated people to look graceful when they perform during dance work. So next time you go to a football game and actually watch the colorguard, try to think about how hard it is before you make any snap judgments about if the guard is good.

Homecoming Over the Years

                Homecoming is defined by dictionary.com as “an annual event held by a college, university, or high school for visiting alumni.” Does anyone besides me think it’s a bit ironic that Alumni aren’t even invited to go to the dance? Don’t get me wrong, they are still able to come they just have to be invited by a current student. It’ amazing how much the homecoming tradition has transformed and taken on a new meaning.

                During Spanish class the other day, we were debating what homecoming was really about. Some said it was all about the football players, and others said it was about the people and school spirit. Our teacher set us all straight. She told us that homecoming used to be nothing when she went to college. It was originally for colleges. They invited their Alumni back for a dinner, probably to try and get some money out of them. These dinners were also informal; men would maybe wear a nice shirt and a tie if they felt like. That was it. There was no dance, DJ, or perfect dresses.

                Over the years homecoming grew and developed and expanded to what it is today. At homecoming dances now, there are kings and queens (not by blood of course) and LOTS of dancing. Girls now shop for the perfect dress, sometimes taking hours and days. It also takes more time after shopping to find perfect shoes to match their perfect dress. After finding the perfect ensemble, they must wait around for the guys to ask them to be their date. The guys, of course, have to find the perfect way to ask their hopeful dates to homecoming to increase their chances of getting a yes. After all of the students have paired up, there is of course the planning of flowers, dining, and transportation before they get to the dance. When they finally get to the dance, every couple has to find the courage to go and, potentially, embarrass themselves on the dance floor. All in all homecomings is an ever-changing experience from year to year. It either gets better or worse but has changed so much from its original definition. It is now not only “an annual event held by a college, university, or high school for visiting alumni.” It is a must high school experience.