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.