Texting while Hanging out

The other day I was at lunch with an old friend I hadn't seen in a while and while I attempted to enage in conversation I noticed the entire time she was on her phone. This bothered me a little bit since I was trying so hard to talk with her. I think this is the case with a lot of teenagers and in my opinion when you are spending time with friends, text the person on the other end of your phone and tell them you will reply in a few hours, you are with friends. A good, understanding person would accept that and give you that time. It hurt me a lot that whenever I told a story the only response was "what?"

Psychics, Numerologists and Mind Readers

I'm not quite sure what to believe. I can't seem to find how one person can tell what another person is thinking or what they will overcome in the future or even how people can talk to the dead. I've seen  it all second hand for example my mother always goes to psychic fairs and records all the sessions. She tells me things about myself that the psychic mentioned and it's strange how similar some of the things are. My mothers friend (who was white skinned) was married to a black man with a black daughter and when she went to the fair with my mother she sat down at one of the booths and said nothing about herself to the man sitting in front of her. He started talking about past lives and past lives of the people in her family and when he spoke about her daughter,  he said she was a white woman in her passed life who owned slaves and was very racist. Now, she has grown up black. This was supposedly teaching her soul a message. This freaked my mothers friend out and it also freaked me out because he had no information whatsoever to understand that this lady had a black daughter... so what can I say, how else would he know other than speaking the truth by saying he was truly a psychic? I guess we will never know.

Winter over Summer?

I'm pretty sure I am the only one who gets depressed when we are reaching our warmest season! To be honest I hate summer! When I grow up I'm moving to a place where the air is dry, not humid and the weather is mostly cold and snowy! There are so many reasons why I hate summer, for starters, the clothing is great on some people but summer clothes just does not work for me. Secondly, I hate being hot and having to go to sleep sweaty and gross. Its very hard to fall asleep sweaty and gross as we all know! My school doesn't have air conditioning either and I cannot concentrate in heat, my legs always stick to the chairs and it's awful! I get a lot of pimples in the summer time yet in the winter my face stays completely clear, also my hair never works in the summer because of the humidity and always curls back up! I don't like the look of summer, and I know this is opposite from other people but I hate being out of school that long, I feel like it throws me off schedule from a healthy lifestyle and lastly, though I love going to camp sometimes I hate having one month of my summer taken up by working without coming back home once for the last half of my summer. Winter is great for its coziness, christmas obviously, and the beautiful white landscape. I love the fashion, the holidays and the cheer the season brings! Sadly, most people think exactly opposite from me!

TIME

It's strange how quickly time goes by and I feel like it keeps on gradually moving quicker and quicker. I remember as a kid summer used to feel like a year, it was ever lasting and now it goes by in an instant. A year feels like three months and its getting to the point where it's scaring me. we only have 80-100 years to live or even less and I've already used up 16 of those years, if one year goes by this quickly how fast will life go by? I've been thinking about this a lot lately and I hope and pray that in my lifetime some genius will find a way to keep us alive longer or forever! These chances are slim but not knowing what happens after death I am keeping my fingers crossed that some brain will figure this out!

Bath Salts

recently all this news has been going around about this new drug and I'm not sure what to believe anymore, I find these articles completely outrageous! It's strange to find that all of these stories about people eating other people, being practically invincible, cutting themselves open and acting like zombies are all true! I'm not sure if people aren't making a big deal about the bath salts issue anymore or if they are just not talking about it anymore because it's an old issue. I am hoping the number of people trying it out has calmed down a bit from two weeks ago and less people keep on trying this stuff out! The last thing anyone wants is it to start happening in our city. I think that this is a very serious drug that not only puts the person taking it in risk but it is very dangerous for all the people around this person. I think that we need to find a way to put a stop to this awful drug.

Toddlers and Tiaras

God... could I go on for days ranting about pageants for little girls! First of all the idea of dressing up a little girl as young as 9 months old into what looks like a twenty year old is ridiculous! They end up looking like prostitutes and the pressure that the mothers put on their girls to achieve the mother's dreams is also ridiculous. Yes, little girls always dream of looking like Barbie princesses but I am sure pageants are not what they're thinking of. Kids of that age are far to young to be asked this kind of thing and to be put into this type of act. I linked a video below and as you can see pageants are a complete waist of money and make the kids spoiled and rude. I think the things that these mothers are teaching their children are awful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtNPxwEJY7M&feature=g-vrec

The Crown Attorney

Okay, so maybe this isn't the job for me. Seeing Sydney get all choked up while describing her job really put me off. It seemed like she was scarred for life with so many of these stories! If I was a lawyer I'd want to work with someone other than the criminally insane. Yes, it's interesting and cool but no, I don't want to have to carry that pain and disturbance around with me for the rest of my life.

Being a Therapist

I have always been really interested in social work and therapy yet I know it's very hard to get into and the pay is low. I think it is a great was to help people and I've always loved helping friends out by listening to problems that they have. When it was mentioned that after hearing stories about abuse and severe problems in the lives of others that you start to get very paranoid and it does in fact conflict with your life outside of work. So honestly I think after hearing a bit more about the job actually made me less into the idea of being a therapy. But there are many similar things like therapy involving social work that I could do. That option is still open for me though:)

The Midwives

Oh my god! Who would have ever thought I'd be interested as much as I was when these two woman came in? I was completely intrigued. Before they came in I didn't even have the slightest clue about what a midwife actually was! After hearing from them I was convinced that this would be an amazing job to pursue! I mean, yes the hours are one downside to the whole thing but aside from that, being able to watch the whole experience of starting a family from beginning to six weeks after the birth just amazes me! good pay to! I just feel like it would be a really good thing to contribute to, these girls both seemed like they loved their jobs and they'd said some very good things about it!

Amy Beamer- Human Resources

I've actually never given any thought to this job but I have to say once Amy came in my interest in pursuing this career went up in seconds. I know I've been saying that about all the jobs that have been discussed in class but after hearing these people talk about their proffessions I become very fascinated with all of them. It was nice being able to listen to what she said about interviewing people and what to do while you are getting interviewed because it made me a lot let nervous knowing the people understand where you are coming from and knowing that they also have a very open mind. I was worried it would be hard getting a first job without any first hand experience but she taught me that there is a lot more to an interview than just your work experience. It seems like her job is a lot of work but A LOT of fun! I can imagine I'd enjoy a career like hers.

RIM

I have to be honest I've never ever in my whole life even considered working at RIM but after our guest speaker came in the other day I realized I could definitely take that job into consideration plus, I'm quite fond of the idea that we get to test out all the latest gadgets (even the ones that haven't been released yet!) having Scott Wahl come in to the class proved that working at RIM isn't so boring after all! It actually seems like it'd be pretty neat! It also made me even more desperate to buy a blackberry! I think creating new technology, phones and features for all of these things would be really interesting, I'm glad our city takes ownership for this fantastic company!

The Mathematic Lecturer

Math has never been a strong point for me so when I asked myself if I'd consider this as a future career my honest answer was no. For a person that is interested in the math and science world, I think this job would be of great interest! For people like me on the other hand, the more arts and literary types... I'd say this isn't the job for us! The speaker seemed like she loved her job and when she spoke about it, it truly showed. I think teaching would be neat or 'lecturing' at a university but perhaps an english coarse or anything other than mathematics or sciences! (unless it was marine biology of coarse).

The Firefighter

Several weeks ago when Garrett's dad came in I wasn't sure what to expect before he began talking about his profession. Obviously I knew it was there job to hose down fires but as he began telling stories of his past I realized how much of a sacrifice you'd have to make in order to be a fireman. They truly are heros. I, myself could never risk my life on a daily basis like he does. It's too much, but for the people who can truly dedicate themselves to something like that, I truly thank you guys. So, this job isn't for me and probably will never be, but it does sound very interesting and fun at some parts. I understand why people would like this job.

Melissa Durrell

I've always been very uninterested in politics and any job relating to it. When Melissa Durrell came in was the very first time I had actually spoken to someone with that profession and to my surprise i found it really interesting, she had a lot to say and her life seemed like it was a constant adventure! listening to her speak actually made me consider if I'd like a profession in politics!

I deVOTE myself to NDP!

I am more of a left wing type of person. I agree with all of the left wing thoughts and very few from the right wing. I'd say I'm all for green, to be honest I would have no problem voting green, yet considering the number of seats they had in the last election, their chances are limited. So, I am moving myself to a party with a better chance of winning the election; NDP. This party agrees with a lot of the ideas I agree with, such as increasing government control over businesses, decreasing strength of police, better welfare (though I do agree if people work for their money they should keep it instead of being forced to give it to those who have not worked), equality, no death penalty, lots of change in society, allowing immigration and abortion, government having less control over our actions therefore giving us privacy, increasing pensions for seniors, avoiding the rich/poor gap in society, decreasing military budget, increasing public healthcare, seperating religion from society and allowing same sex marriage. All these ideas truly make me lean towards NDP.

The Snooping Law

I think that letting the government be allowed to snoop through our personal messages and searches on the internet is taking things a little too far, scratch that, way too far! Inboxes, e-mails, etcetera are privatized for a reason, those messages aren't meant for the world to see and to be honest, the government really doesn't need to, it's understandable if they are suspicious of a certain person for committing a crime and need to look through their files but if it's just an average citizen minding their own business, it's out of the question, we should be left alone! This is around the time where the government truly needs to back up and realize they are going way over the top.

My thoughts on FFP

To be quite honest the FFP coarse is not for me. I hate sitting in one spot for two hours and some days when english, civics or careers needs to follow through into the next period we end up working on a certain thing for the whole two periods, a lot of the time I really need an hourly change up! It's nice that we don't have an exam but is it worth it? I'm not so sure, it's difficult to keep on top of whats what in this course and I'd much rather stick to one period subjects. I'm not sure if this is part of the coarse but I've noticed a lot of the things we do is all technology, most assignments are given or marks are recieved on the computer and I find I like it much better having all of my rubrics, notes, worksheets and assignments filed away in a binder. The FFP course is definitely not for me!

I commented on the following blog posts:

http://just-another-hand.blogspot.ca/2012/04/olivia-and-duke-orsino-cruel-or-just.html?showComment=1334183914312

http://hockeygarrettsblog.blogspot.ca/2012/04/how-do-men-and-women-love.html?showComment=1334184128580

http://latoyawedderburn.blogspot.ca/2012/04/immature-hospital-employees.html?showComment=1334184265796

http://jelenavujadinovic.blogspot.ca/2012/04/twitterfacebook.html?showComment=1334184488242

http://robitscavok.weebly.com/1/post/2012/04/instagram.html

http://tednik.weebly.com/1/post/2012/03/who-would-i-vote-for.html 

 http://emacer.weebly.com/1/post/2012/04/homework.html#comments

Most Painful Childhood Moment

As a self generated post we were asked to tell our saddest, funniest or most embarrassing childhood moment. Well, there are far too many to count so I decided to write about something a little bit different. My most painful childhood memory. Since I've never broken a bone or torn a ligament I figured it would be fairly simple to think back to my most painful injury as a child. I came up with one thing that hurt more than anything else.
Several summers back when I was about twelve years old my family and another family rented a cottage together up in grand bend. It was a very old cottage and it was massive. In the living room they had an old fashion stove that was perched on a ledge in the center of the room. One night we were all sitting around the stove for warmth, playing games and having fun. My sister and I got up and started dancing around, unfortunatey I got a bit wild and tripped over the ledge and onto the old stove. The pain was probably the worst pain in my life, I pushed myself away from the fire with my left arm burning the whole underside of it. I can't imagine the pain for people who are caught in fires because I was in pain all night, my whole arm was fried and a mixture of black and red. I had blistures all over my arm for quite a while. The good thing is my scar isn't too noticable. You can only really see it in bright lights, thank god! My whole family swore it was going to be an awful scar. That was probably my most painful childhood moment of all.

Do MEN and WOMEN Love Differently?

This is a difficult question to answer. I feel since men and women have a lot of different traits this may seem so.  I guess it's different in all relationships. Sometimes the women are more attached and as some would say 'whipped', and in other cases the man is. You can't say that men are assholes because often times women are the ones who couldn't care less. I am in a relationship right now where I feel our love is completely equal. We treat each other with the same respect and it feels like everything is equal. I think everyone loves differently, not just men and women but every individual.

French in High Schools

I still think it's a very good idea to learn french in high school. We are a bilingual country which means we should take part in knowing at least a little bit of each language, correct? It also expands are knowledge for jobs, knowing more languages is a good trait when applying to businesses, they like to know you can offer help to all sorts of different people, especially if you are looking to be a flight attendant or another job where you travel to different places often. Even at restaurants they like it if you speak different languages in case they need some one who can help out costumers who do not speak english. My point is that taking french in high school is a good learning experience and in the long run, it'll help students out big time!

The Hunger Games

I've read the first book of the series twice but none of the sequels. I can't say I am as crazy about it as a lot of other people are but it was a good read. I found the whole idea of kids murdering each other kind of disturbing but aside from that I enjoyed it. 

Usually movies that are based on books can never compare to the book itself but I found with The Hunger Games, they did a really good job. I felt that the characters were reenacted very well and the setting was also well done, they left out a few things from the book but I think they still really nailed it. One thing I noticed was that different from the novel, during the movie you didn't get as attached to the characters. In the book when rue died, tears practically came to my eyes but in the movie we literally just met her and then she was dead in the blink of an eye. I felt this with a lot of the characters, there wasn't a lot of time to get attached to the characters. I feel like if they divided the movie into two parts it would have been more of a thrill, we would have had more time to get to know the characters therefore their deaths would be much more heart wrenching. 

In the end, I actually ended up liking the movie just as much as the book. They did a very good job with it!

http://thoughtsofapoet775.blogspot.ca/2012/02/am-i-ugly.html?showComment=1333741411633
I commented here!

Don't regret something that once made you smile

I've always thought it was the most stupid decision for someone to get the name of their partner tattood on their bodies. A friend of mine just recently got his girlfriends initial on his side and I was furious! But once he started telling me about it I got an idea of where he was coming from. He told me that she had gotten him through a really tough stage in his life and if they do break up the L on his side will represent the time that he was helped through something you thought he would never conquer. I still think it's not a good idea, who knows how things will turn out in the end, something awful could happen and their name, portrait or initials would be a constant reminder of that. Yet, if that person once helped you, once made you laugh and once made you the happiest person you thought you could ever be, why regret it? So, it's easy to see I am completely torn about the idea. I, myself would never do it but do I think it's stupid for others to do it? I don't have a single clue.

http://jelenavujadinovic.blogspot.ca/2012/03/girls-these-days.html?showComment=1333060177611
I commented here!

http://latoyawedderburn.blogspot.ca/2012/03/am-i-ugly-article.html?showComment=1333059854736
I posted here!

http://just-another-hand.blogspot.ca/2012/03/are-we-good-or-evil.html?showComment=1333059617020
I commented here!

Bullying

Why do people bully? Well, there are so many answers to that question. The first reason is to bring up our own self esteem, for some strange reason putting others down seems to make some people feel better about themselves. The second reason is because people get bullied in their homes or other places and they tend to take their frustration out on people they think won't fight back. And the last reason is simply because it makes them feel like they have more power, many people like to be in control and bullying is one of the best ways to feel that way, though it is also such a bad way to feel like you are in control. I've been bullied many times and I know how awful the feeling is but, speaking as a kid who's also bullied others at one point or another I also know that it feels just as bad hurting someone else's feelings. Bullying is overall an awful thing to do and there are so many other options to make you feel more confident, to let out your frustration and to feel in control. sometimes just talking to someone about the way you feel helps instead of just hurting those around you.

this is a video that relates to the post below.

Air brushing and Body Image

For many years now teenage girls and even little kids are worried about their body image. Magazines constantly keep on showing us pictures of air-brushed woman who, compared to their normal selves, are unrecognizable in the magazines and media! It's completely bizarre to me why the media chooses to mess with our heads, it has caused so many eating disorders and self-confidence issues and it's only telling us that we still aren't good enough.
This isn't only in magazines. An example is barbies! Little girls toys! I read an article about them a few years back and realized if a barbie doll were to be a real human being they would need plastic surgery removing several bones from the body and they would die within a week from lack of food and water. Take a look at a barbie's stomach and compare it to a photo of a regular sized girl and you will see the crazy difference. So why do we do it? Why do we get this picture into the minds of young girls? It's a question I myself can't answer.
I think magazines should try something new, they should start putting pictures of real women in their catalogues and see what happens next, I think the readers will be much happier after finishing their magazine when they see that they look how they are supposed to, because girls, we look fine. And though the media constantly keeps on telling us differently, I am telling you the truth. To me, us curvy, real women are what's considered beautiful, not some caked up, computerized version of ourselves.

Good or Evil?

There is no question I think people are evil. I remember in class the list of the bad things people do the world kept on getting bigger and bigger yet the list of the good stayed small. Isn't it true. Human's have caused practically all the damage thats gone on in the world. So many of us ignore what's happening to our environment even after seeing the outcome in so many places around the world. We cause innocent animals to suffer, not only because of global warming affecting their homes and habitat but in terms of animal testing, fighting (bulls, dogs etc.), building over their homes and making them roadkill. We also are very racist, we are constantly discriminating and judging the hell out of one another until it gets to the point where those being discriminated against cannot take it any longer. We refuse to spread the wealth, healthcare and luxury to the countries that don't have enough and we keep it all to ourselves, we are cruel and selfish and it needs to stop soon. Mainly we do all this because, if you think about it, isn't it much easier to be evil than to do good? It's easier to toss garbage on the ground instead of throwing it in a trash can that might be further away. It's easier and more convenient to drive places than to walk or bike, and it's far more easy to ignore the suffering people in foreign countries than to put a stop to the deaths and all of the starving children. Lastly we are so very hypocritical, even right now. I am writing down my hatred towards our actions as human beings, though I am doing half of the things myself!

Plato said that we are only good due to our fear of punishment... isn't it true?
So I guess this explains my opinion on things, humans are for more evil than we are good.

KONY 2012

Isn't it strange how something can be so huge one day and the next day everyone has just forgotten? I've noticed that this has occurred with the Kony problem. People say that they are going to do as much as they possibly can to stop what's going on in those countries but not one person I know has made even the tiniest effort to help out. I find it hypocritical and rude, and to be honest I am one of those people. I said that I would help! I said I'd make a difference or at least do as much as I possibly could! Yet, like everyone else, I haven't done a thing. This happens with a lot of things, it gets let out into the media and everyone goes crazy and then the next moment it's like it never happened. Joseph Kony is still out there and this is still a very serious issue. He is still killing thousands and thousands of children and destroying the lives of all the people in those countries. It's an awful thought and it's a tragedy that it's been ignored.

Carrie Snyder

I've always had a huge interest in pursuing a career as a writer so hearing Carrie come in and talk about it was a really amazing experience for me. Though I knew it was a difficult job I wasn't aware of the many obstacles that she pointed out. I do think it would be a very tough career, it would take lots of patience and lots of time yet when I heard her talk about the novels she's written in the past, it seemed like all the time and effort was completely worth it. I feel like being in the writing business you would definitely need a job on the side. It would have to start as hobby and then form into a career. I used to think that you could write a book in as little as a few months, but over the years I've learned it takes much more than that. Carrie helped me understand how writing a book isn't always so organized, most books aren't written beginning to end but are written from middle to end to beginning, vice-versa. Having Carrie Snyder come to our class was really nice for me, it gave me a good idea about what her world was like.

Tattooing

     Kat Von D once said "I am a canvas of my experiences. My story is etched in lines and shading, you can read it on my arms, my legs, my shoulders, and my stomach. But like everyone else, I was born naked and screaming, waiting for my life to write itself on my skin" 
This quote truly defines my reasoning of getting a tattoo. To show what I've been through, to show who I am and to show the things that are most important to me. I'd like to design every tattoo I get, tattooing is an art form, those who decide to get tattoos are expressing the artistic side of themselves. To me, there is nothing more beautiful that a human being displaying beautiful art forms on their body and making the commitment to keeping this permanent image on them for life. Tattoos are one of the very few things that will stay with you for the short years that you're alive and retain after death. They are a trade mark to our existence. They are very odd and more expressive of sentiment than any other thing. They are more fascinating than jewellery, they cannot be lost, stolen or borrowed. They are our personal beliefs and opinions on things and no one can take that away. Most adults of this generation argue against them, but when they were young, kids with tattoos were rebels, unlike how it is today. Soon, we will be the people in charge, we will be employing the young kids, we will not judge them on their tattoos but we'll admire them for the art covering their bodies. 

L.I.T Circle Book Choices: Question 3

Into Thin Air:

  At the moment I am reading another one of Jon Kraukauer's novel "Into The Wild". I've seen the movie and I love the book, I feel like I would love this novel just as much, because of the suspense and adventure of it all.

Thirteen Reasons Why: 

   My sister read this book when she was in the tenth grade and I remember her saying she absolutely loved it. I also like the story line and the fact that this novel has a little bit of romance in it too. It seems to me this would be a must read novel.

L.I.T. Circle Book Choice: Question 2

  It wasn't easy narrowing my choices down to two. Many of these novels seemed really interesting but I mainly focused on books that were alike to books I've enjoyed reading in the past. These books mainly  had romance, suspense, and gave me that feeling of being unable to put the book down. After reading through all of the summaries of the book choices I became really interested in the book "Into Thin Air" and also "Thirteen Reasons Why".

L..I.T. Circle Book Choice: Question 1

  The first two books I crossed off my list were "A Discovery of Witches" and "The Book Thief". "
  A Discovery of Witches" didn't interest me because I am not particularly a fan of novels about vampires, which I've heard are in this novel, and nor am I a fan of novels about magic, therefore I can not see myself liking this book.
  "The Book Thief" is set in a time of war and I find war stories depressing, uninteresting and definitely not pleasant. 
  Those are the reasons why these two books were not my pick.

A man to look up to

This is a photo of Chris McCandless in front of his bus.

    For a couple of years now, Christopher McCandless has been my biggest role model, no question. I am currently reading a book about him called "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer. I've seen the movie and his story is absolutely remarkable. It started in April 1992 when he decided to hitchhike to Alaska. He traveled alone in the wilderness north of Mount Mckinley. Previous to his trip he gave up everything. He donated $25, 000 in savings to charity and burned all the cash in his wallet, he abandoned almost all of his belongings, even his car and at that moment he invented a new life for himself and stepped into the wild. The bus that he lived in still rests in the same place it had when he lived in it, my dream is to take the hike he took to get there and see the bus for myself. I think it would be an amazing experience. I love this man for his integrity and willpower to keep going. I've always thought of him as a hero, though he died in his journey after being poisoned to death by wild berries. 

This is the novel I am currently reading, "Into the Wild" 

To All Those Against Abortion

Should sex really be considered a crime? It should be something to look forward to, something that should make life more fun, not something that should be feared and frowned upon. Making women young and old, rich and poor, sick and well have babies every time they want to make love is flat out wrong. As women, we have to go through the side-effects of pregnancy; morning sickness, weight gain, giving birth, and most importantly raising a child. Shouldn't a child be loved and treated with the patience they deserve? Throwing a child into the hands of any old mutt isn't the way to go, children should be brought to the earth in excitement and because the two people that conceived this baby really want it, because they will promise to love it until the end of time, definitely not as a punishment. Another point I'd make is that the women have to receive all the consequences while the men could walk away at any given time, so really, making abortions and birth control illegal is only punishing women, not men which is completely unfair. 

Complying with Euthanasia

   To me, euthanasia is just another form of mercy killing. There are so many diseases known to mankind that are untreatable. The only way out is death. People who suffer with these diseases or sicknesses like ALS and all sorts of cancers have to suffer for months and sometimes even years. This is pure torture. Shouldn't we end our lives as happy as we can be? Shouldn't we die without pain or agony? Why are we torturing the people we love most? If a person wants to go, why force them to suffer until they can't live any longer? Let them go if and when they please. 
    Think of it like this; household pets are put to sleep when they are too sick or too old, as owners, we don't want our pets to be in pain throughout the rest of their lives. It may be difficult but it's for the best. Animals don't have the choice whether they'd like to be killed or not. As humans, we can say whether we want to make this decision or not. We should have the right to go when we please. 
    In my opinion, doctors should be licensed to do the same thing to humans as they do to animals. Euthanasia should definitely be considered by law because really, who wants to live their last breaths in pain?