Track conditioning=good. Not in my book

This happened to me on Friday.

I rolled out of bed at 6:05, which is forty minutes earlier than I usually get up. As I clumsily got ready for conditioning I decided to skip makeup and threw my hair up in a bun (which means that it wasn’t going to be a high maintenance morning.) As my dad drove me to school in the dim morning light I wondered if conditioning was going to be worth it. I am planning to join the track team this year and as the intercom announcements said “anybody serious about track should be there” I decided I had better go. Conditioning itself isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Pretty much we jogged laps around the gym for a half hour; that was it. Nothing I couldn’t have done at home around my neighborhood. Then I realized a horrible thing… I had left the bag which contained my change of clothes, cell phone, etc at home by the back door. I called my mom and asked her to bring me my bag, she said yes but wasn’t happy about it (it was around 7:15, she needed to drive my brothers to school and this really got in the way of her schedule.) Since I didn’t have my cell phone for her to call me on when she was outside, I had to wait by the office and watch for her. Yes, it is my fault for forgetting my clothes, but that didn’t make the situation prettier. So there I am… 7:15 a.m. dressed in gym clothes, sweaty red face, no makeup, hair falling all over the place, you get the picture. And OF COURSE this happens on the ONE morning, the morning of the talent show, that there are ACTUALLY going to be people in the commons at 7:15. Everybody even semi-involved in the talent show was required to be there at 7, so I got my fair share of weird looks from people I don’t even know. Ugh… NEVER AGAIN will I put myself through such an experience! Track conditioning is hereby canceled from my life. I will condition on my own, thank you very much. Let this be a warning to all you who go to conditioning…

A couple of Poems I wrote....

My Brother Ate My Homework

“My brother ate my homework.”
I told my teacher one day
I don’t know how he got it
but he chewed it and ran away.

I chased him all over
under tables, chairs, and the bed.
He thought that he could get away
“but he will not!” I said.

He ran from me for quite some time
then stopped to catch his breath.
Though tired too, I caught his arm
and said “you’ve met your death.”

Of course I would not hurt him
I’m kind and loving you know.
But when I saw my ripped up work
I wanted to give him a blow.

Fixing up the broken mess
of the homework my brother ate,
was really hard! At last I said
“homework, for you it’s too late!”

I told this to my teacher
But she would not believe me.
Instead she said “go down the hall,
the principal you must see.

That is why I sit here now
in a huge chair, soft and new.
The principal says I’m telling lies
but you believe me, don’t you?

Where do my poems hide?

I smell them in
the enticing scent of the first warm breeze
which fills your lungs and tosses your hair
as spring announces it’s coming.

I feel them in the utter
stillness
that encompasses the land
as fresh snow blankets every stone and tree in the rolling hills.

I hear them in the
snap
of a leaf being crushed beneath your boot
while passing under an oak tree
shedding its autumn plumage.

I see them in the
sun soaked fuzz
of a tabby cat’s fur who is basking
in the warm soil of a vegetable garden among the
cantaloupe blossoms.

I taste them in the
sticky scarlet juice
which bursts from a plump segment of an overly ripe raspberry
drooping on its stem.

It is here I find my poems.

This makes me sound like an ET chaser… great.

Ok I have been thinking lately. In science we have been watching these movies on whether or not there is “intelligent” life like us out there in the universe. It goes through all these reasons why there could be and why there couldn’t be life out there. All of their reasons make sense, but even before seeing that video I always sort of assumed that there was something else out there. I mean, the universe is huge! Earth is tiny compared to our sun, our sun is tiny compared to our galaxy, and even then there are hundreds of billions of galaxy clusters scattered throughout the universe. In my mind, there is no way that we are the only ones that exist in the huge inter workings of it all! There is tons of space out there, how can we be the only dot of life existing in the universe?

There is no way to prove it of course. We have never ACTUALLY seen life from other planets, but who’s to say that it makes it impossible? I realize that we ourselves are only beginning to consider travel to Mars, a planet only a few thousand miles away from us. In a few centuries, if at all, may we even be able to send humans to another star. And we say “well, if there is life out there at all, then they would have visited us by now.” I don’t think so; I think that they probably just having as much trouble getting to our planet as we are to theirs. If there are planets close enough to us who have life, have the resources to make some sort of spaceship, and even care enough to wonder if we exist, then maybe one day we will meet them. But so far we are doing a pretty lousy job of creating the sort of “war of the worlds” simulation for other planets that we so often dream will happen to our own; we have yet to attack another planet. Since we cannot leave our planet and “invade” theirs, they probably can’t do the same to us.

I am not trying to prove anything; there is no way to know for sure that there is life besides us. But there are slim chances that we are the only ones out there. Whatever way you want to look at it… if you believe that God made us and we are the one and only then that’s your view, and if you think that God made multiple planets then that can be your view. If you believe that we were one of the lucky few whose planet came to support life then you can have that view. There is no right answer. My view just happens to be that there must be more than us in the universe, that’s all I’m trying to say. There is too much space out there to have us be the one speck of life that exists.

Don't you hate it when you are done with a blog and still have 17 words to go? I'm done!

Culture...where would we be without it?

Where would we be without culture? Without our art, literature, music, dance, etc we would be nearly as uncivilized as our ancestors of thousands of years ago. It is these elements of fine art and culture that set us apart from them.

I sat down and pondered this for a while, and came upon the following ideas:

Without literature or even a written language we would have a completely different lifestyle. We wouldn’t have computers for there would be no binary code, the written bits of data that make our computers run. With no computers there would be no television, no cars, no microwaves, no calculators (now isn’t that a scary thought, we rely on them so much we could not function without them) and many other things which we rely on daily to perform simple tasks we have grown so accustomed to have the computers perform for us. Without writing we would have no way of recording history and would still bargain for things with objects instead of money, since there would be no way to write down a price for each item. Can you imagine going to the market (if there even was such a thing back then) … you step in with a chicken under each arm, stroll up to the manager and say “I will give you these two chickens for a pound of apples and a new hunting knife.” Then with your new hunting knife and the pound of apples you return to your shack (there are no bulldozers or other devices to build the sort of houses we have today since the way to make them involves writing.) For the rest of the day you work in your garden to grow a few crops or wander in the surrounding valleys to find food (since there is no other option now that you have traded in your only chickens.)

Sounds pretty fun right? Not in my opinion. Luckily someone invented writing so that all of our modern conveniences exist.

And again, where would we be without art, acting, dance, etc.? Since almost all of our forms of entertainment revolve around these things, without it we would have no fun, ever. Think about it, television- it all started with actors and actresses which then turned into cartoons and soap operas. Before that there was acting on stage to entertain us with stories much like those we would see on TV nowadays. Then there is dance. We can go see dance performances or participate in them for entertainment. And art… besides enjoying drawings, photos, and paintings, we would not have writing without it because writing evolved from art. So basically, without culture, we as humans would be NOWHERE. So don’t take for granted electronics, entertainment, even the books we read for school. Somebody somewhere in time had to invent these things and without it our lives would be incredibly different.

My Persuasive Essay, Privileges for Teens

There are times when a rule could save our lives, and the again there are times when they can cage us beyond reason. We could be in trouble and a rule could prevent us from tipping over the edge of disaster. At other times certain rules are unnecessary and only prevent us from being free. At our school, Fairfield Junior High, we have a lot more rules than many of the other schools around the country. Students at Fairfield should have more privileges than we currently have.
Removing some rules or adding a few privileges will not only make students at Fairfield happier, it will also make the teachers and administration less stressed. For if there are fewer rules that need to be enforced then they can deal with the bigger problems and not have to worry about all of the little problems that go on. They will be able to handle the really serious problems with drugs and violence instead of spending their valuable time reprimanding a student for having a small dress code violation. Also, students will be much happier and willing to come to school if they know they will not get in trouble for reasons some of them don’t even understand. I remember vividly nearly receiving points for breaking an unknown school rule. The rule? I forgot to put the time I left class on the hall pass I was using. It was terrifying to a young seventh grader like me. The rule I was in trouble for was unnecessary and only put pressure on me and the woman giving me punishment. Some may say that every rule exists in order to make the school run smoothly, but I beg to differ. Some of the rules at our school could be eliminated, and we could still have a peaceful school. To name a few of these rules, the rule that you have to sign in the time and reason of leaving class with the hall pass, the rule that you must pick up trash as you walk down the halls with the hall pass, the rule in which you cannot wear clothing with holes in them, etc. Having unnecessary rules puts unneeded stress on faculty and staff at our school, and the students build resentment toward the punishers who are only doing their jobs. By eliminating some rules, the faculty, staff and students will all be much happier. Besides creating a peaceful school environment, giving us more privileges will allow students to express their individuality.
One of today’s teen’s favorite ways of expressing themselves is through dress. Our school, Fairfield Junior High, we have many more dress standards than many of the other schools around the country. This isn’t all bad, but many of us would enjoy being able to wear a greater variety of clothing. My friend told me of a time when she and her friend from another school went shopping and got matching hats. Her friends wore hers to school; my friend did not and really wanted to. Another way that we like to express ourselves is through our talents. We have many programs at our school but we are not allowed to use cameras. Many of my friends and I scrapbook and to me it would be fun to be able to put together a scrapbook of my friends. However, I cannot take pictures of very many of my friends because I only see them at school. I believe we should be able to use cameras at school. There will be consequences for using them inappropriately; the privilege of using them will be taken away if this happens. If we cannot be allowed to use cameras all the time then perhaps we will be able to use them on the last day of school. It may be said that teens are not responsible enough to handle the privilege of dressing according to our wants and carrying cameras, but I have observed at our school a great many responsible students. By this time in our lives most of us are responsible enough to handle these privileges in the correct manner. As for the few who are not, as soon as the rule is broken by them, the privilege will be suspended from them for an amount of time appropriate to the offense. Besides letting us display our individuality, giving us simple privileges now will prepare us for the future and making good choices in behalf of America.
Teens need to have more privileges so that we will be able to make wise choices when we are the future of the country. We are the ones which will someday be the presidents, lawyers, military commanders, teachers and other important figures of our country. We need to learn now, in our youth, how to make wise decisions. If we were able to choose the sort of language we use, the sort of things we carry with us at school, and so forth, the more prepared the future generation will be to run our country one day. According to Parent Trust for Washington Children, it is wise to eliminate rules or add privileges to produce better behaved children. Also, since we will be running the country one day, we need experience in leadership privileges. The student government has plenty of opportunities, but the rest of the school does not. If the privilege of leadership responsibility was given in more ways the rest of us could learn how to lead our peers early on, so that we can be the leaders of the future. Of course some may say that we are not prepared enough to hold positions of leadership, and that we may abuse our power. The power given to the leading students will be supervised power and the decisions given to them will be limited. Therefore there is no need for concern on behalf of the leading students.
By giving students at Fairfield Junior High school more privileges, we will be in for a brighter future here in our country because we, the future commanders of this country, will know how to make good decisions when the time comes. The students at our school should receive more privileges. The students will be much happier because they will feel less confined by dress code and other rules that limit heir capabilities to express themselves, and the teachers and administration themselves will be much less stressed because they will not have to enforce so many rules. If we simply give teens more privileges, we can look forward to a wonderful future!

Time, why is there never enough?

Every notice how nowadays everybody seems to be in a hurry? Where could they be going that they need to get to so fast?

The other day I was walking in the hall at school when one of the seventh graders flew past me, almost knocking me and a few other people over and dashed into a classroom a few doors away. By the time I got to my own class a few minutes later there was STILL two minutes before the tardy bell would ring. Sure we all have been worried sevvies, always afraid of being late to class and so forth, but you have to wonder what exactly was so important that he needed to be to his class before a full minute had passed between periods.

Again, there are always going to be the people on the highway going not ten, but twenty miles over the speed limit practically causing an accident with every car they pass. You again wonder, where could they be going in such a hurry? Is the capital building on fire? Is their first grandchild being born at that exact moment? Or is there simply a clothing deal they can’t bear to miss? My point is that except in rare occasions we don’t have a reason to be in such a rush that is inconvenient to those around us.

I admit, I have many times been in a hurry for a stupid reason and people around me give me the looks that mean “could you slow down a few hundred miles per hour please?” For example, I hate getting up early in the morning, like I REALLY hate it. So I push the time to its limit and end up dashing around the house trying to pack my backpack, grab some breakfast, find my shoes, etc. all in the last five minutes before my bus comes. This seems to happen on a daily basis. So I did a little experiment. A few days ago I set my alarm clock five minutes earlier thant I usually do. That morning I actually got to eat breakfast at the kitchen table instead of on the bus. Just five minutes made my morning way easier.

As I thought over this experience later I realized how much this could help us all be less stressed. The more I thought about it the more it made sense. The more time we allow ourselves to do things the less stressed we are when we don’t have to crunch a ten minute task into a two minute time period. Assuming that I don’t normally encounter a day where I absolutely cannot drag myself out of bed in the morning, I will start setting my alarm five minutes earlier to put less stress on myself. What if everyone else did this too? I think that everyone could be a lot less stressed if we did this. Think about it, when we really get stressed it is because we don’t have enough time to do something. If you have an incomplete homework assignment it is because you didn’t have time to finish it (or because you are a slacker). You are late and you needed ten minutes to finish wrapping the birthday present. Just allow yourself a little more time by not packing your schedule to the brim and you will probably be a lot happier.

Haha. Sure. That is way easier said than done, but seriously if you choose what to fill your day with and say no to a few things then we could all be much happier; the people who are the victims of car crashes due to speeders and those of us who just need more time.

A little privacy please!

This week in my English class, my teacher handed us all a copy of a newspaper article published a few years ago stating that teens don’t have the right to privacy. The reason? Columbine high schools shooting spree. The woman writing the article believed that it could have been prevented had the students involved been more supervised by their parents. Perhaps she is right, but the ideas that she laid down to supervise us went too far in my book. She said that until we get old enough to be responsible, we don’t deserve to have privacy. By no privacy, she meant zero privacy. That meant no phone, computer, TV, and other things like that in your bedroom. It meant no retreating into your bedroom with or without a friend accompanying you, they said that if their kids ever did that then she would pull them back upstairs and involve them in a family activity. She also said that her kids could never have a personal journal that she and her husband were not allowed to read.

I talked to my friends after class and they all agreed that her point of view irritated us. Some of her points were valid, but many of them we saw as a little extreme.

To start off, I agree that perhaps we shouldn’t have our own computer passwords. I can see a few of us getting into trouble with stuff online. As for the rest of her arguments, I think that there are ways we can give and take on each side. For example, having a computer in your room is ok. Many of my friends have one in their bedroom but their parents have put locks on certain websites and the computer is connected to the one upstairs, so that the parents have access to the places they go online.

A part of her article that really bothered me is the part where she stated that there would be no retreating into your bedroom no matter what, if you did so then your parents would be “wise” to bring you back out and involve you with the family. I am the oldest of five children, and at my house it gets REALLY hectic with all the little kids running around and having arguments here and there, not to mention half the time one of them has a friend over which adds to the chaos. My bedroom is my escape from this, and I would go insane if there was no place for me to retreat when everything is crazy. My brothers have a little game they play whenever I have a friend over, it’s called “annoy starchild as much as possible until her friends leave.” Again, in the article it mentioned that if your children had a friend over and went into their bedroom, then parents should drag them out and have them do something with the family. When my friends come over, my bedroom is the only place I am allowed to push my siblings out of, the rest of the house is fair game for them. I don’t believe that my friends would ever want to come to my house again if they had to play a board game with a five year old every time they visited.

Another point I want to address is where the article stated that we should not be allowed to have private journals. Our blogs are different; the whole world can read them, so I put things I would be ok with the whole world knowing in them. But I also have a private journal. The things in my journal are things that I would never repeat to anyone. In my personal journal I vent frustrations on my family and peers, say things about others which would be pretty embarrassing if they were repeated, and organize my thoughts about personal stuff my friends have told me about themselves. Therefore, if anybody were to read my personal journal, it would be catastrophic to me and everybody mentioned in it. I mean I don’t write horrible stuff in it, but if it were to get out then me and my friend’s personal experiences and problems would be exposed to whoever happened to get a hold of the knowledge. How am I to know that whoever reads it will not let something slip? I am sure that my parents are trustworthy people and wouldn’t tell anyone what was in my journal, but it is nice to have one place where they don’t know the innermost details of your life, you know what I mean? And I hardly think that we are going to plan a murder in our journals.

There are other things that me and my friends didn't like about the article, partcularly her know it all voice, but i won't go into those at this time.

Frankly, I bet that the kids that cause the problems like the ones at Columbine High School are the ones who are either REALLY troubled, or cannot find another way to express their frustrations on the world besides shooting some stranger. I mean I wonder what I would do if I couldn’t get the stress from everyday problems out somewhere. I imagine it would build up until you burst and do something irrational, like shoot someone. Being in your kids face every moment of every day would drive them farther below the surface than where they started. If a parent is trying to get you to open up, then I know from my experiences that the absolute worst way to do so is to give them no opportunties to retreat. Please, if we want to talk to you about something, we will come to you. Forcing it out of us will not work!

To all you parents out there: GIVE US SOME PRIVACY PLEASE!

Respect

I was thinking not to long ago about what causes most of the problems between people. As far as I can figure out, excluding wars, almost every disagreement between two people is caused by lack of respect for each other. I mean think about it, if you and your parents do not get along it is probably because you think they are wrong and therefore disobey them a lot. Your parents also don’t have much respect for you, for each time you disobey them they trust you less and less and see themselves more and more as the one in charge of you, this almost always means that they don’t respect you.

If there is a quarrel between friends it is because they don’t respect each other enough to view each others ideas as anything important, or they don’t care about them enough to respect their image in front of other people so they gossip and say bad stuff about them.

Say that someone doesn’t complete a task they were assigned at work. It is probably because they don’t view the project as important or urgent because they don’t care what their boss thinks about them.

Here is something that happened to some people I know: They owned a duplex and the people occupying one of their apartments had zero respect for their landlords. In the six months they stayed in the apartment they did not once pay their rent on time, they kicked five holes in the walls, they broke a window and the door, and then moved out without paying a penny towards repairs. This caused a huge conflict between the renters and the landlords which all could have been avoided had they shown any respect for the landlords or the house they were occupying.

I am sure that there are more examples, but my point is that there is more to stop having conflicts between each other than merely not fighting, if we would respect each other than I think almost all problems between us could stop.

The way to do this is harder than it seems. To some this may be easy, but to others it is the scariest thing in the world. In order to stop conflicts between parents and teachers, we have to admit that most of the time they are probably right. You sluff class, Mrs. Hall Nazi catches you. Well frankly, there is hardly a chance anybody is going to believe you when you say that you are doing nothing wrong, and if you complain that you got twenty points there is really no point to doing so. In reality I don’t think anybody besides the friends that sluffed with you are going to give you an ounce of sympathy. You can say that the teachers aren’t fair as much as you want, but the more you think like that the more you are going get in more trouble and it is all because you are trapped in the silly mind frame that teachers are not justified in giving you disciplinary points, and if you are one of these people then it is obvious that most of your problems at school are caused by your own lack of respect.

I could go on but let me leave you with this, if you have a lot of problems with other people and can’t seem to get along with anyone then try looking at your view of the people around you. I am not perfect but I know that I get along with people so much better if I respect them. If you find that you look at most people as idiots then you probably need to switch your view. It will make your life tons less stressful.

Pride and Prejudice

Surprisingly this does not have anything to do with the extraordinarily long book that many of us have chosen to read for our honors English requirement. What I have chosen to write about is how many of us have something we are very proud of: our amazing artistic talent, our good looks, our athletic ability, our good grades and so forth. There is NOTHING wrong with having a something special that no one else has; in fact without our individual talents the world would be incredibly boring. What happens, though, is with our individual gifts we sometimes raise ourselves above others and think that whatever it is we have makes us a lot better than our peers. We become proud and sometimes a little conceited and that can make us prejudice against others. Don’t try to say that you haven’t, we all have at one point or another done it, myself included.

What I mean by saying that we are prejudice, is we judge others before we know them. We see someone that does not have the talent that we have, and write them off as a “not as special” person.

Let’s say that you have a great ability to make friends and meet new people without worrying about what they will think of you. There is someone who is in a few of your classes that is obviously extremely shy because they never ever talk to anyone, as far as you can tell all they do is hunch in their chair at the back of the room. Whenever they are forced to answer a question or get up enough courage to say something they stumble over their words in a tiny voice. Their statement comes out sounding silly and everyone in the class exchanges disgusted glances. You know that you are “much better” at speaking in public situations, as they have little or no friends, and so you write them off as a “socially impaired” as does most of the people in the school. What you don’t know about them however is that around their few friends they are the most trustworthy, caring and wonderful person you could ever meet and if only people would reach out and talk to them instead of making them start the first conversation they could have the best friend they have ever met. Your talent is meeting people, theirs is keeping friends, the two are very different and if people would look past the outer shell and see the true person they would see how special the person actually is.

This is only one example of how we are prejudice against others before seeing the hidden gifts that we all have. If you ever find yourself ridiculing someone you hardly know behind their back for some stupid reason, realize they have something in them which you will never have, and without their certain talent something in someone else’s life, perhaps someone whom you know and love, would be a bit darker and less happy. You never know if the very person you are making fun of is highly respected by another person standing nearby for a reason that you don’t know about. Think about that the next time you are tempted to bring into the conversation something nasty about another human being.

Change

A fact of life: people change, not always for good and not always for bad. We have all seen our close friends turn into “one of those kids” and we have seen our friends turn into some of the nicest people with the best reputations around. There is no stop button in the direction of change; you are always going either one way or another, towards being a better person or a worse one.

There are people in our lives who affect which direction we are changing, obviously we have our families that for the most part, pull us in the right direction. We have our teachers who will also push us in the right direction. But everyone knows that these are not what influence us the most. I have to say that our peers definitely affect us the most at this time in our lives. I know that I look to my friends as examples on how to dress and act. I don’t mean to sound like I copy my friends; I am just saying that when a friend of mine has an admirable quality, a fun personality, a cute style and so forth, it makes me want to have it too. So I guess you could say that I take all the things I like about my friends or all the things that make life good for them and squash them together to make me. I don’t know for certain, but I suspect that most people do this too.

The problem with this is different people like different things about other people. Say that a friend has a quality that you admire because they look cool or everybody knows them because of it, but it is something frowned on by society unbeknownst to you, and then you want to be like them so you try to apply that quality to yourself, now we have two people with a bad quality influencing their friends in bad ways. It can go the other way too, someone has a good quality and then a few of their friends take on the quality and you have more good people. In this way people are constantly changing, by influencing and being influenced by other people.

Another way that people are influenced is by example, and not necessarily good example. If someone is actively trying to be a better person, then they can learn from example in two ways, the first is by good examples, and the second is by bad. I have learned not only from the good people in my life but also from the ones that made bad choices. I know people who were happy and then started on a bad path and are now unhappy, I now know from observation how to not accidentally get on that bad path. We learn from the bad people what NOT to do to be better people. I think this applies to everyone except for those who are trying to be bad, and in their case I see no purpose in them doing so.

“I do believe I have been changed for the better, because I knew you.”- Wicked

If that could be said about all of us, what would the world be like?


** I have heard from a lot of people that my blogs are “really serious” and “make you look like you have no fun.” I guess that they are, but I want everyone to know that the topics for my blogs are things that I think about when I am on my own, the things that I explore in my mind when I am in a thoughtful mood. Please don’t think that I go around school and discuss philosophical questions with my friends, except with a choice few who also have lots of things going on inside their minds. I like to do other things than ponder the mysteries of mankind. **

Traditions and Habits

Tradition: (dictionary definition) the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, etc, from generation to generation by word of mouth or by practice.

I am not sure that I really like that dictionary definition, it is really boring and does not tell me what a tradition really is to most of us, things we do every week, month, year and so forth. A weekly tradition could be to always go to the movies with your friends on Saturday night. A monthly tradition could be to go to your grandparents house every fourth Sunday. I have never met a person in my life that does not have at least one or two traditions they do on a regular basis, most have at least fifteen.

Habit: (dictionary definition) Compulsive need, inclination or use, addiction.

Once again, I am not sure that I totally agree with the dictionary definition, as it doesn’t really state what a habit is, though it comes a lot closer than the tradition definition. To me a habit is something you do because you have always done it, or something you do because you can’t seem to stop yourself from doing it. As with traditions, everybody has habits, and everybody has good ones and bad ones.

What exactly are traditions? I guess you could call them habits, if that is an accurate way to express them. They are more advanced habits. By that I mean that they are things you always do; only they are more elegant, they have more meaning to them and involve more planning than the average habit. That is why they have a nicer name than habits. From my point of view, I think you could probably call brushing your teeth before you go to school in the morning a tradition because you do it every day at a given time. This means that we could likewise say that going to neighborhood Easter egg hunt at Easter every year could be called a habit.

Of course, nobody wants to use an elegant word like tradition for brushing your teeth, so we gave that the word habit, and let tradition be used for bigger, better events that we would much rather look forward to. Every family is different, we all have different habits and different traditions, I can not speak for everyone, but I really look forward to my family’s traditions every year. Traditions can range from huge to very small, my extended family always has a big Christmas Eve party with all of my aunts and uncles and cousins and second cousins; this would be huge tradition. A small tradition that also happens at Christmas, my cousins and I do this wooden Santa puzzle, and it is always near impossible but we do it every year because we call it a tradition.

Traditions vs. habits, they are really not that different from each other, but when you say the words one after another you think of a big elaborate party when you say tradition, and you think of a nervous compulsion when you say habit. Why is that? Nobody has a good reason, but all I can say is I love my traditions a lot more than my habits. Anybody who reads this, please tell your favorite tradition in a post, I have heard some wild ones from my friends and it is entertaining to see what fun things everyone else’s families do.

Promises promises...

Everybody loves a person who keeps their promises, but is there anybody who honestly can say that they keep EVERY one of their promises? I don’t think so. We all would like to, but it is impossible unless you are a superhuman. Everybody is human, so we all forget about things that we promised someone else we would do; we accidentally are late for a dinner we promised a friend we would be on time to; sometimes we even purposely break a promise. Wouldn’t it be great if everybody kept all of their promises? Actually it would not be, we would have no free will and our lives would be ruled by the things we told each other we would do. There would be no “I actually don’t feel like going to work today, I will take a sick day.” No, that would not happen, we would have to go to work because when we took the job we told our boss we would come in every day unless we were deathly ill. I think the world is actually better because every now and then we don’t keep our promises.

One example of what I am saying is in politics. I think most of us know that there is hardly a politician out there that keeps EVERY SINGLE PROMSE that he makes while running for office, they might be able to keep most of them, but not all of them. They can say that they will keep us completely safe from terrorism. That would be nice, but it is a really hard promise to keep. Now, nobody wants to be killed by terrorists, but I’m saying that if we were 100% safe from them then we would be in trouble if one somehow snuck in, we would not know what to do or how to handle the situation if that happened. Do not think that would ever, ever want a terrorist to attack us, and I would love to be 100% safe if I could, but the fact is, it’s never going to happen. It’s impossible to be certain we are completely safe. (Also, if it sounds like I am saying we are doomed because the government can’t protect us, I’m not, I’m just saying we should always be on our guard because it is one of the promises the government can’t fully keep.)

There are a lot of examples I can go into besides the one about the government. Who hasn’t ever told your parents that you will clean your room, do your chores, homework etc. after you go to your friend’s house and then don’t do it? Who hasn’t left your homework until the next day to do during reading time so you can play video games or something after you promised yourself at the beginning of the school year you would always do it the night before?

All I’m saying by this is that life is more interesting, and possibly more enjoyable because of the promises we do and don’t keep. Am I saying it is ok to break promises? No. I’m just saying breaking one now and then is not the end of the world because it makes interesting experiences for us as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone in the long run.

More than 7 wonders of the world

America is absolutely amazing, we live in the place where we can do practically anything we want, we can worship whoever we want in whatever way we choose, we can say anything we want, we can do anything we want to do as long as it is legal, we are all given equal opportunities to do whatever we dream we can do, providing that we are willing to work for it. There are plenty more reasons that I love living in America. There are thousands of people around the world that would give anything to come and live here. So why do some people want to get out of it and live somewhere else?

My guess is because they want to have a change of scenery, or have a new experience, or something else like that. I personally plan on living in our amazing country for the rest of my life, but I, like others, would love to experience a change every now and then. I am not talking about ever living there, but I think it would be cool to be able to go to all of these other places that I see in pictures and movies that look so beautiful and different.

I guess i'm one to talk about wanting to see the world, I spent a year in Western Europe when I was four years old because my dad was relocated to Germany, and then again when I was eight years old. While we were there my family and I took mini trips within our big trip and saw most of the countries surrounding Germany and The Netherlands where we stayed. This is something that most people can't say they have done, most have never left our country before. I wouldn’t have except that my dad’s work paid for our air fare and stay there. Because of going to Europe, I know that there are things out there that are really cool I never knew existed. Which means there are other wonders somewhere on the earth which are beautiful and worth seeing.

To name a few things i've heard about and want to see are the Aztec ruins in South and Central America, Sydney harbor and the Sydney Opera House in Australia, the coral reefs in the Caribbean, Mount Everest. I want to see everything in New Zealand, Ireland, and Norway because the pictures I have seen of them are so beautiful. I want to see Africa, all the animals and the beautiful sunsets there that I hear about all the time. I want to see penguins in Antarctica! There are lots of other things I want to see elsewhere in the world, and I am positive there are other things in every one of these places which are equally special yet not as publicized. Of course, these are all wants, with a lot of hard work and a little luck I may be able to someday see a few of these places.

My point in writing all this isn't to share my wants, but to point out that our planet is filled with beauty, it’s all around us and all we have to do to find it is look. Most of us don’t realize there are people around the world who hear about our one of a kind Great Salt Lake, and want to come and visit our vast salt flats. We (me included) don’t realize the beauty of the lake, because we see it drying up and it has always been around us. That may be how others see their things, and they don’t realize they're beautiful either. I guess that all I’m trying to say is we may not be able to ever see penguins in Antarctica, we want to, but it will never happen. Instead we should notice what we have and be thankful for it.

A few thoughts

This week I do not really have a definite thought that I want to go on, so I am going to write about a couple of things that I have been thinking about lately.

This week was Thanksgiving. The main things that people think of when someone says Thanksgiving are: long weekend, turkey, feast, giving thanks, football, etc. Of course everyone is excited for a long weekend, who doesn’t love to sleep in and relax rather than working or going to school? And at Thanksgiving we always have turkey and a big feast, it is almost the biggest thing that Thanksgiving is about, although it probably shouldn’t be, and neither should football. Everybody says at Thanksgiving “I am so thankful for everything I have.” Well, truth be told, most people are thankful for everything they have, or at least most of what they have. So whoever says that they are thankful for everything they have is a good person, because they are really grateful at least in that moment, but it does not seem like their thoughts are really on being thankful for the whole time. They go and watch football or do something else like that. I don’t see anything wrong with this; weekends are meant for having a lot of fun. I am pretty sure though, that while they are watching football they are probably not thinking about how blessed they are. I think that all of us, me included, should try during the next Thanksgiving season and the rest of the year to stop every ten minutes or so and name one thing that we are glad we have. This may be easier said than done, but I hope that we can at least try.

One other thing I have been thinking about is something I have never really realized before, but is sort of interesting if you ponder it for a while. There are people out there that I have never met before that may become my best friend, might teach me something that I will remember forever, might save my life even. I don’t know who they are, but I will meet them someday. I realized that when I was four years old I didn’t know most of my friends that I have now. There were little four year olds running around living their own little lives that would someday become my friends, they were out there and I didn’t even know it. They had their own lives, challenges, and they had good times and bad times just like I did. They didn’t know I existed, I didn’t know they existed, but now we are friends. I know this sounds stupid but I just haven’t realized before that there are people whose lives will cross with mine somehow, either I will move to a new area or they will or I will meet them at a party or something and my life might be different from that point on because I met them. Probably not, but I know that my life would be enormously different had I not moved to Layton seven years ago and met all my current friends. Would my friend’s lives be dramatically different if I hadn’t moved here? What I am saying doesn’t make any sense now that I read over it, but it is just such a weird thing if you do understand it!

Politeness

What would happen if everybody went out of their way to be polite? What about helpful? Everybody would be so much happier, the givers AND the receivers. It might inspire the receivers to give more, thus making a cycle of charity. What if everybody didn’t go out of their way to help others, but at least did a good deed when they saw the need of one? Society would still be a much happier, crime free place, because the people that were helped would not need to break the law or starve in order to survive. What if only a few people did good deeds and hardly any went out of their way to help others? Then nation would be a corrupt nation, in my opinion. Luckily, in this rare case, I am not talking about the United States.

I once read an article in a magazine or some other source that had done a politeness test in many cities around the globe. They tested in a few different ways. They did all of their tests outside Starbucks coffee shops, and did three tests. The one I am telling about happened in New York. The first test was to have a reporter come in with a handful of items and order a cup of coffee. Then the reporter would stumble his or her way to the door. The test was to see if a person would hold the door for them. I don’t remember the exact results, but I think that they said that 45% of the people tested held the door for the reporter. The second test was to have the reporter carrying a faulty briefcase and then have it suddenly pop open, strewing papers everywhere. This time the test was to see who would help to pick up the papers. The results were that 30% of the people would stoop to the ground to help them pick up the paper. I do not remember what the third test was, but it had a similar outcome. These were really good results, higher than the rest of the averages of other countries, aside from the fact that apparently people are more likely to help a woman than a man. There were nations above us in politeness, and below us.

I did not just write down the results of a whole experiment for nothing, I wrote them to show how good our nation does in politeness, and how much we could improve. In seminary recently, we watched a video about a man who left almost complete strangers his few meager belongings when he died. Every one of them had hardly ever met him, but through small acts of kindness they greatly influenced his life. It amazed me that I may have influenced someone out there and that they are eternally grateful to me, or hate me because of something I had done many years ago. After I thought about it for a while, I also realized that there were people who would never remember me, yet they had either helped me or hurt me without even knowing that I would remember it to this day. This has made me a little more conscious to what I do to people every day. If we were all more polite, then nobody would have to have bad memories and we may have found the one way to be truly happy, which is through charity.

The information age

The information age, that is what we live in, according to the historians anyway. Over the past few years technology has skyrocketed, there are new devices for researching the smallest particle inside and out or exploring the furthest reaches of our galaxy to the maximum. There are laboratories that research every topic we could barely think of, there are even devices that can extend the human life twenty years beyond what was thought to be our maximum life span a quarter of a century ago. But what has come with these spectacular new inventions and what has been left behind?

Everybody knows what an ipod is, it is a little box with a microchip inside capable of holding hundreds hours of music and entertainment. Who doesn’t want an ipod? Nobody. A color television; these three words seem so basic to us now compared to our super advanced computer language and flashy names for our new gadgets. But back only a quarter of a century ago color TV was just barely coming out, it was the most amazing thing in the world, to be able to see color on television! Wow! What will they think of next? How about the basic computer? It didn’t have color, or icons, or games or anything, it was a black screen with white type that could do basic computations, but it was absolutely stunning to people back then. What about Pong? Pong was the very first video game. You moved your control stick back and forth and watched a grainy white ball bounce across the screen to the other end, it was returned, and then you hit that little white, grainy ball back to the other end again. That was the game, the entire game. NOBODY would want to play that game now, with all of our new games with amazing graphics and tons of challenging levels, I know I would much rather play those that hit a grainy white ball back and forth across the screen, but back then, it was amazing! The idea that the movements of your hand on a stick could control where that ball went was totally new and wonderful! These are the good things that have come with the information age, longer lives, amazing entertainment, and much more “fulfilling” lives altogether. But every good thing has its bad things about it too.

I realize that playing Halo 2 is much more fun to play than Pong will ever be, but because Halo 2 has so many levels and is so intriguing to many people (boys) that the people who play it become so mesmerized by it that they may sit there for hours on end and do nothing besides stare at an illuminated screen shooting virtual people and running around in a virtual world. There are many reality TV shows about teenagers that captivate other people (mostly girls). This is probably the reason that we have so many overweight people in our country, without this technology, yes some of us would still sit around and do nothing, but many more of us would, say, go and do something productive! Thus the information age has its downsides.

The examples above send my message, but really what I want to say is that, though I love our new technology, as I’m sure many of us do, we have lost something through our technological breakthroughs. I watched “A Christmas Story” not to long ago, despite it not being near Christmas. It is based in the 50’s, an age without ipods, reality TV or Halo 2. Life seemed so simple back then, if you had some time on your hands you took a walk or went to the ice cream parlor. I am glad I live when I do, but some days I wish that life could be as it used to be, simple and steady.

Some people disgust me

Sometimes I look at someone and say, “Why don’t they try a little harder?” I realize, according to our counselors, that Utah has an excellent high school graduation rate, but every single day I think I could pick out a new person at our school alone who gets bad grades, and could get good ones if they tried even a tiny bit.

There is a myth at our school; at least it is a myth in my mind, that getting bad grades is “cool.” In my opinion, if you get bad grades because you didn’t try in class, you look like a lazy slug. If you get bad grades because you are happy to do work in class but homework is a no no, then you do no have my respect, but at least you are somewhat motivated. If you get bad grades on purpose however, then I have absolutely no respect for you or the person you are choosing to be. My only exception to having bad grades is if you really do give every assignment and test your very very best and still can’t get anything decent out of it, then in this case and only this case will I take your side of the bad grade issue.

Trust me, I think that every teacher and most of our peers would agree with me that if you try to get bad grades so you can improve your social image, your efforts are in vain. You don’t look cool by looking stupid, maybe to some of your “cool” friends, but they are getting just as bad of grades as you.

I know of many specific examples, but this is one of the really ridiculous ones. There is this boy in my science class, this certain kid manages to keep a C average, which is not bad but it is much less than he could do. He has more potential in him, I know because he was in my second grade class and was one of the kids that always raised his hand and got the answer right. These were his exact words after getting an A on a quiz a few weeks ago; “What!? I got an A? I didn’t even try! Now I look like a nerd!” I couldn’t believe it; he was disappointed that he got a good grade! He was so worried about his social image that he couldn’t stand to improve his grade that will count toward plans for the rest of his life! Chances were nobody, including his friends, would have even know about his good score unless he had shouted it out to the whole class. People like him make me scared for the future of our earth.

I am sure that every one of us in our honors English class at least has enough sense to realize how stupid people like him are. Hopefully it will be the people like us in our advanced classes and not people like him that will eventually run major companies and become president and things like that. Most likely they WILL be people like us, since people like him will be the ones working night and day to get enough money to go back to college and get a better life for themselves while the rest of us, will working at successful jobs because we decided early on that education does matter. Thank you, one and all who actually work at succeeding in life and not sitting on your butt waiting for something to come that never will, the day when stupid people like those who I have mentioned many times in the above paragraphs will no longer exist and everybody will work hard for what they really deserve in life.

Another thing to be thankful for

America is clothing hungry. Let me explain, many people in the United States own more than twenty pairs of clothes. Now if you ask me, ten or twelve is average, while thirteen is pushing it and seven or eight is maybe not quite enough. Still at school I see people that have any assortment of odd clothing mixed and matched outfits. This is not bad of course, but why do we need to have so many choices? Our ancestors who came to America came with “only the clothes on my back and the food in my stomach.” They made it through their experience. By today’s standards this would mean that you were dirty and a social outcast, I have to agree with this, for if you wore the same clothes for weeks until you could find another pair cheap I would imagine that you may not smell or look very good. This is not my point, however. Despite the need of hygiene, they still got along just fine in their voyage to America, or else none of us would be here at this present time.

Here is another example. This is a corny example but it once again proves my point. Remember Dobby the house elf from the Harry Potter series that I am sure that most of us have read? Now he did not even have a pair of clothes! He got along fine (Ok, not fine, he had an evil owner, but he made it in only a pillowcase). He shows that even in extreme poverty people could make it through with the most meager of apparel.

Last year my family had some friends from France come and stay with us for a few days. I could not help but notice that they wore the exact same outfit every single day; it sort of grossed me out. When I asked my mom why they did not change their clothes, she replied that in France they routinely wear the same clothes every day until they get a stain or until they are visibly dirty. This seems really gross to me, my whole life I have been raised in a home where after you have worn something, you wash it, but in France I guess it is not like that. I guess that it does not make much difference to them if they have already worn the clothes, which goes to show that different countries have very different customs than others.

Now please, if you are reading this, don't think that I am saying we should all go and throw away all of our clothes but one pair, or that we should walk around in pillowcases. That would be really, really gross. I am just saying that in numerous cases other beings have been alright without twenty pairs of clothes. Also don't think that I am encouraging us to wear our clothes four times before we wash them, that is also gross. Just be thankful for the clothes we have and not be constantly in the want for more.

So next time you go to the store and decide to spend your recently earned twenty dollars on a great new shirt, just imagine yourself next to Dobby the house elf and consider how much you really want that shirt, and if you really do want it, then buy it by all means. If you don’t really need it, then don’t buy it. The choice is simple as that.

A very interesting person indeed...

I have this very interesting friend.To protect her identity, we will call her Cass Jones. Many people may consider her “weird” or “crazy,” some people may even say “she is really strange sometimes.” To me though, I consider her to be all of the above. It's what makes her so much fun to be around, and such a good friend! She has many interesting things about her, to name a few she has Asian background, another is that she is very talented in many ways, and another is her strange interests and the powerful urge inside which must be what must make her love to annoy people, but the most amazing thing is that through all this she is still one of the best friends I have ever had.

Both of Cass' parents come from Asia, her mom from Vietnam and her dad from China. She and her sister have a cool way of life, theirs is like this, they speak fluent Vietnamese at home, and in the Jones' house, they eat lots of very cool food that I had never tried before like dried squid, fried shrimp, and sweet rice that her mom cooks and buys from Salt Lake. She has also become enthralled with Asian actors and actresses, with everything she writes and owns, comes something to do with Asian movie stars, or her favorite Chinese TV series. Her series' stories are normally based on some sort of war hero, I watched one with her one time and it was pretty cool. Her house is cool too, her houses' yard is covered in roses and other cool landscaping.This summer all the Joneses went to Vietnam for a month to visit her grandmother who had previously lived with them for a few years. She says it was a very cool experience and made a lot of new Vietnamese friends while there. While already being bilingual, she has many other talents also.

Speckofsand is one of the most talented people I know. If I had to pick a brilliant mind from my school, hers would be it. For one thing, she has had a 4.0 every term in junior high so far except for one term where she had a 3.952 and was really mad about it, so in other words she has an amazing brain. She is also trilingual, not only does she speak fluent English and Vietnamese as I have mentioned before she is also learning french in school. Whenever there is an assignment in school that involves a lot of looking things up she is awesome and speeds through it with ease. She has amazing handwriting and isn't bad at cartooning. But I believe that perhaps her most amazing talent is her piano skills. Cass' piano books songs that she plays from have very hard songs. She can play dozens of tough songs on piano and have over ten of them memorized; I think that this is really amazing. She doesn't ever make mistakes either, or hardly ever at least. Of course, every amazing person has their strange sides too.

I think Cass must have some invisible yet powerful urge inside her that makes it irresistible for her to pass up the chance to poke someone. She might hide one of their belongings, or step on their heels, or tickle them, or scare them and make them shriek very loudly, or tie them to a desk by their shoelaces when they aren’t looking, or even recently she started keeping a journal in which she records the date and time that one of her friends did something weird or got tongue tied; the list goes on and on. Of these qualities, I think her most tortuous tactic is that she loves to play with people’s minds. Many a time I have talked to her and she will say “I know something about you, but I’m not supposed to tell.” And then she will grin her wide, cheesy grin and walk away very smugly. It is its aggravating sneakiness of her torture that really amazes me. Who doesn’t go crazy trying to figure out what someone else knows about them? Other times on the internet someone will be chatting with her, she will say something nonsensical like saying something in an abbreviated form, and when the person she’s talking to asks what it means she says “Oh, I might tell you someday.” Yes, Cass loves to annoy people. Despite her strange habits, Cass is still a very good friend.
Cass was my first friend when I moved to this area eight years ago, and has remained one of my very best friends ever since then. She is so much fun to be with, she has a great sense of humor, and she is always laughing if you can get her in the mood. She is always ready to do any activity when we do things together. She is a good listener and usually has some very enthralling stories to tell also.
Cass is a very interesting person, she has Asian ancestry and family, she is really talented in many ways, she loves to annoy people, and nonetheless remains a really awesome friend. I think that my life and many of the rest of our lives might be pretty dull without her there to stir things up a bit, so I am glad that she is here to make things interesting for me!