FRANKIE B. JEANS

Jeans. One simple word that describes the endless world of denim we as Americans know and love. Although jeans are worn for work, play, school, going out on the town and infinite other reasons, form and function meet in the ultimate concoction known as Frankie B jeans. These jeans are growing popular all over the world and are worn by celebrity's, teenagers, and trendy women everywhere. But despite all this popularity it's difficult to determine just what makes this brand all that. Could it be the tremendously low rise cut that every pair sports, transforming any outfit into an eye catching number? Or is it the curve hugging material that makes any butt resemble that of Jessica Alba and legs look instantly longer? Maybe it's the huge selection of cuts and styles ranging from skinny jeans, boot cut, to flare and coming in a variety of looks always with an interesting and eye catching pocket detail they offer, that allows a girl to make a statement even while wearing a well known basic such as the jean. Yes, it's difficult to put your finger on just what makes Frankie B.'s the quintessential pair of jeans and entirely worth their costly price tag. But I've decided that's it's all of these quality's put together that make it the toal package. These sassy jeans have the ability to make their wearer look and feel good, having at least one pair is a complete neccessity for teenage girls of today.

BEL AND SERPENT EXTRAVAGANZA

In literature circle today, my group and I discussed a lot of interesting connections and foreshadowing we found in Bel and the Serpent. It starts off with Nathan talking about the scripture story of Bel and the Serpent. Bel is a statue believed by the Babylonians to be a god because of the tons of food she ingests everyday. A boy Daniel proves them all wrong when he lays ashes around it and catches the priests who were stealing all the food by their footprints. Supposedly this story was ment to be much scarier than the summary I provided because it comes from the Old Testament, which was best known for manipulating people into becoming good christian believers by the way it "scares the dickens out of you," as Leah puts it. At the end of the chapter when the readers are hit with the Death of Ruth May we are somewhat put into the detective Daniel's position as we discover the culprit to be Tata Kuvudundu by the six toed foot prints he left behind when he brought the snake. The green mamba snake was ment for Nelson, however, as an animal sign to carry out his profecy that the animals would turn on the people of Kilanga on account of their ignorance towards the old ways. In one way, Tata Kuvudundu was acting almost exactly as the priests by tricking the people into thinking certain things were being made to happen by a god when in reality it was mere mortals. In another sense he was acting similarly to Nathan Price because he was using scare tactics to trick people into believing.

Another foreshadowing we noticed was the title of the chapter. In the summary we get of the scripture there is no actual mentioning of a snake. The title also closely resembles the belle and the serpent which would mean "girl and the serpent" possibly repesenting Ruth May and the snake. I got to thinking that maybe Daniel was the sneaky serpent in the scrispture because he ratted out the ministers, in the actual story the snake incident is responsible for ratting out Tata Kuvudundu. These were just some things I noticed and they led me to a few questions.

Do Nathan and Tata Kuvudundu have more things in common besides their teaching tactics?
So far I'm not sure although being priests they both have to deal with coming up with ways to inspire followers and have both seen the benefits of scaring people into believing. They both believe they know best on religious matters and both seem pretty crazy in the head. I think they both have been scared themselves lately in the book because both of them have experienced a loss of followers. Does fear lead to fear?

Why do scare tactic's work and are they the best way to accomplish things?
When emotion is incorporated into any type of teaching I think the biggest results occur. If doing/learning something gives you desirable results (happiness, laughter) you will want to do that thing. If something makes you scared, sad or threatens you on the other hand you will definetly stay away from that. I think using this theory is a pretty intelligent way Nathan, Tata Kuvudundu, the bible, teachers, parents, and friends have realized using emotions can achieve a certain outcome. I also believe fear is one of life's strongest and most powerful emotions.

Why is fear such a strong and intense emotion?

9th guide

I started to write this post about a month ago, but never fully got around to putting the thought into what I wanted to say. The idea came to me when I was preparing for 9th guide. Because I'm in peer helping I am required to T.A. 9th guide, and lately I surprisingly have been getting a lot more out of it than I did the first time around.

The core idea of 9th guide is knowledge is power. We provide the freshman with information about relationships, sex, drugs, decisions they'll have to make, and most importantly we have them decide what the 5 main morals and values that they base their entire lives around are. This class has opened my eyes and made me realize that our own personal and individual morals are the only thing we have to back ourselves up. We have to live with every action and decision we make as well as our reputation, no one else does. The only way sure fire way to prevent regrets is to have a core set of morals and values to base decisions and actions on. This way no one can make you feel bad about yourself and most importantly you'll do the right things for you because they are all done in accordance to what is right to and for you. This also goes to say that what's important and moral to one person will not and should not be exactly the same to another, and because of this those morals and values can't be decided by anyway but the individual.

This idea of the importance of morals as well as the importance that they are decided by the individual strongly relate to the practice SAT essay we just wrote about moral choices and social values. Because of my 9th guide experiences I have realized the necessity for strong morals and the need for time to be given to student's to realize their own. I think 9th guide was a perfect place and the way it is done is pretty good to. Pretty good in the way that no particular morals or opinions are pushed on them only information and time is given.

As I got to thinking more about personal morals and decision making vs. morals forced on by others such as teachers, religious figures, or families, I got to thinking about P.W.B. and specifically Nathan Price. He on the one hand has an incredibly strong set of morals that he basis his actions and decisions. He has no regrets because of the way he makes decisions based on his rock solid ideas of morals ad what is right, so where and how does he go so wrong in being a good person? In the way he goes about forcing his ideas and beliefs in what is right onto others. He has a strong set of morals suitable for only him, and when he starts to force them on others is when the problems start because he has no way of knowing what is important them. He has no understanding of what's important to them because he refuses to open his mind to their lives and how different they are from his own. If the headstrong Nathan Price can't even do it, it should be an example to schools about how forcing idea's on students won't work either. Everyone is an individual, therefor everyone requires individual morals and values, but they're needed nonetheless.

All this brings me back to some essential questions:
How can i be a good person/how should I live in this world?
The only way I can live a life that I will be proud of in the end is to live morally. I am my own judge and if I live in accordance to my core values and what's most important to me, then I have lived a good and important life. Community service, relationships, giving back and etc. are necessary for people who consider say sharing, responsibility, or being humble important because that is the way they believe themselves to be living the proper way.

Numero 2

It is my understanding that the role a school plays in a student's life is a huge one, with lasting effects. The job of a school is to best prepare each student to have a sucessful life in the "real world," a.k.a. after all schooling is finished. A huge part of getting along and succeeding in life is not the square root of 117, but knowledge of current events, social issues and having a solid structure of moral values to help you make make decisions along the way. For this reason I think it's absolutely necessary for schools to help student's understand their own individual morals and give them information and current social issues. This is imperitive because it is these things that supplement, complement and allow the application of things learned in school, such as math, in the real world.
The talk of values and moral choices has always been a sensitive subject for schools, which has led them to avoid integrating either of them into the curriculum's. This is an easy way to quiet controversy and steer clear of problems such as the pledge of allegiance "under god" wars. However, I believe this to be cowardly, and if the true intention of a school is to send it's students into the workplaces and leading positions of the world best prepared to succeed, which the it should be, they must address moral choices in school. However, this isn't to say they should project any particular morals, values, or choices onto the students. There should simply be time set aside for the student's to come up with morals and values that are true to themselves. That way they are more likely to stick to their decided morals having agreed to them themselves, and this makes it more likely that they will follow them and use them to make moral choices for the remainder of their lives.
A person's entire life is a very long time, and I acknowledge that morals can and will probalby change due to many things, one of them will probably be social issues. "Social issues" can mean anything from bullying, to the Iraqi war, to gay rights and abortion. These issues going on in the world will undoubtedly will affect one's moral choices and values and vise versa. Because evryone's choices and stances will differ it's not appropriate for teachers to decide what stand the students should take on the issue but present them with information about it. Knowledge is always key and with the proper amount of info adn a strong set of morals, students will have much less difficulty making moral choices and forming opinions on social issues.
Success is a difficult thing to define, as it is different for all people. But usually it includes happiness and achievement. Neither of these things are easy to come by and to obtain them it takes hard work. Success is not achieved by taking the easy way out, and schools need to recognize this and however hard or time consuming it may be they must help students understand moral choices and social issues. However, they by no means should push any particular stance onto their pupils. If this begins to happen our world will undoubtedly become a more informed place and consequently a better one.

Some advice for Nathan Price;

A few days ago we had our first entire class discussion about the Poisonwood Bible, and let me tell you it got heated! Ok, well most people were in agreement on many opinions of the characters and book itself, but the things we dicussed and the questions that were raised were still quite interesting.

Our discussion mainly revolved around the highly complex Nathan Price. Basically, from what we know of him, he comes of ass completely selfish, thinks the world revolves around him, and he is both physically and mentally unable to see any point of view other then his own. These traits are beautifully displayed in Revelations, where he is argueing with Anatole about the stupidity of idolatry. And how the Congolese people are unable to change and see what could be actually helping them. I think this scene is pretty ironic because it is shadowing his complete inability to try and understand the Congolese people and compromise. He can't accept that his beliefs and teachings stand no chance if he doesn't take into consideration how different the people in his village are from his hometown. A good metaphor for this situation is in Genesis when he is talking to leah about his plants not bearing fruit. He seems to understand the necessity of adaptation when he explains to Leah how you can't just make African bee's pollinate American plants and you cna''t bring American bee's to the african plants. This perfectly mirrors the way he can't show up and force the African people to accept Christianity unless it is adapted to fit their lifestyle. He can't try as much as he wants to plant the seeds of his religion into the heads of the Congolese people, but he can't force them to follow it just as he can't force hisplants to bear fruit. It takes some sort of adaptation, or something like the planting mounds to bridge the gap from American religion to religion in the Congo. Nathan Price is a character I find very frusterating and it seems as I delve further into the book the more I am aggravated by his extreme stubborness, and disrespect towards nearly everyone besides god himself, especially his family members. I have not even started to address the sexist/gender issues in this book which I will attempt to do in Revelations. But on an ending note, as our class discussion was winding down someone playing the devils advocate brought up the fact that he thinks he is doing what's best for the people of Kilanga and for his family he just has a completely messed up way of carrying out his wishes. This raised some hard questions for me;

If someone had good intentions, but a bad outcome or way of going about it, does that make them a bad person?

If your intentions are good and pur is it ok if the results are not?

Nathan's Prayer

"Heavenly father, I have never once doubted or questioned your plan for me. Not even as I stood in the middle of a fruitless garden in Africa surrounded by confused and indecent sinners, not then did I doubt our ability to help them. But as I sit here in a chapel, for crying out loud, I am almost brought to tears by what surrounds me. I had only taken a few steps here when I spotted the first indecency. Girls running around like prostitutes with their boobs and midriffs showing, flaunting there nail polish and sex itself. And as if that wasn't bad enough. I saw two kids kissing in plain view of absolutely everyone! That combined with the profanity that carelessly runs from nearly everones mouth and the single ratty copy of the bible that this school has is enough to make me livid. That's why I came here to the chapel, because I doubt you would want to have anything to do with a single other place on this forsaken campus. Noone here seems to see you like I do. Could there possibly be some mistake, not to cast doubt upon you father, but is there any possibility you might have led me wrong, accidentaly to the place where you keep your mistaken creations that just weren't suitable for living and believing with the rest of us? I never thought these words would come from my own mouth, mine that has turned ignorant into believers, sinners into followers, and women into suitable disciples. Please send me an answer quickly, father, your wish is my command. But in all seriousness I think that this wretched place is too far removed from what miracles even I can perform. Amen."
-Nathan Price

P.W.B. (lexicography)

Most people know that vocabulary is not my strong suit, so I decided to challenge myself and incorporate lexicography into my Poisonwood bible reading.

SMOTE; (past of smite) verb, to strike or hit. Ex. She smote him on the back with her umbrella.

EMISSARIES; noun plural, representatves sent on a mission or errand. Ex. They were emissaries to negotiate peace.

GALLIMAUFRY; noun, a hodgepodge, jumble, confused medly Ex. I am a lame galllimaufry and she is always perfect.

CONSORTING; verb (from consort), partnering, associating, a husband or wife. Ex. He had been consorting with the locals.

CONTEMPTUOUS;adj., show or expressing contempt, didain, scornful, open disrespect. Ex.In Georgia I had seen people angered by my father before, or intimidated, but never comtemptuous. (p.40)

PAROXYSM; a sudden violent outburst, fit of violent actions or emotion. Ex. He had a paroxysm of anger.

PESTILENCE; noun, A usually fatal epidemic or disease. Ex. The bubonic plague.

CASTIGATED; verb (castigate) to reprimand severly or punish in order to correct. Ex. She was castigated for her use of a swear word.

INSOLENCE; noun, rude behavior or speech. Ex. She was punished for her insolence towards her elders.

LATRINE; noun, A toilet or something used as one. Ex. He was forced to make a nearby bush act as a latrine.

REGALED; verb (part of regale), to entertain lavishly with choice food or drink. Ex. They regaled their honorary guest for many days.


Definitions from; www.dictionary.com

My future in Psychology...

I will now attempt to disect the brains and personality's of the extremely interesting and complicated minds of the lead characters of the Poisonwood Bible.

I have just finished Genesis, and for this chapter in addition to taking note of and learning new words I thought analyzing what we know so far about each main character would be helpful when it comes to reading and understanding this book.
For this Chapter I decided to especially observe Orleanna, Ruth May,and Leah, but I couldn't help but take note on all the complex and interesting characters in the book.

ORLEANNA PRICE- She started off the book with a beautifully written, descripitive intro about the being in the forest with her daughters. I now realize the significance of the fact that she desn't once mention her husband. I believe this is because she would rather not have him in her life and somewhat resents him for the life he has forced upon her and the degrading way he treats women. She also states in the beginning that being a part of this mission adn seeing what she has seen somewhat contaminated her. She asks, "What more is the conquerors wife then a conquest herself? For that matter, what is he?," (p.9). I believe this quote eludes to the regret she feels for having coming and her guilt for what happend because of it. In the rest of the chapter she is not mentioned too much other then when she is silently defying her husband in small ways. When Ruth May is talking about her mother and Mama Tataba discussing the lady that almost got burned to death but didn't actually die, her mother says, "..that was the poor woman's bad luck, because now she has to go right on tending after her husband and her seven or eight children," (p.52) This quote may either be establishing the idea that Orleanna doesn't like being a wife and mother or that she just realizes how difficult it is and feel sorry for a woman thathas to do it with no legs.


RUTH MAY PRICE- She is only five and is very innocent. She does believe many things she hears from her parents to be facts and relays them to the audience like there is no question in her mind about them. The tibes of Ham story is a good example of this but it is unclear as to how she came upon the conclusion that the african were black because they descended from the bad son of god. I have feeling that she will play a bigger role as the book continues.She is, however, useful in getting information and unbiased observations across to the audience.

LEAH PRICE- This character continues to perplex me.

SAT Essay Analysis

I would say that i am dreading taking the SAT, but that would be a giant understatement. Ever since I've known of it's very existqnce I have found it terrifying. And worst of all, the newly introduces SAT essay. When we first started to practice the essays in class last semester I was told that the point of this essay is to prove you have a voice and that you are able to convincingly argue and support a point of view. From doing a couple practice essays like this, and from reading those of others I have compiled a brief list of pointers to follow and work on when dealing with the SAT essay.
-Have a voice; upon realing the graders of this essay will have seen tons of essays already it is important to make them interested and want to read on, because this is part of the SAT is really the only way they can get a sense of your personality and who you really are.
-A good angle on the answer of the question; I was told before that it is best to choose either yes or no to the question so as not to make it seem like your wishy washy and can't clearly support a point. However, now I have learned that the best way is to come up with a point that clearly explains why it is yes and no bcause in life nothing is ever black and white, there is always a grey area. This part of the exam exemplifies this because it's not like a scantron where theres right or worong they want to see your views on right and wrong.
-EXAMPLES; examples are the only way to convincingly support your point besides "because I said so," they are also a good way to show off your worldly-ness and flaunt your knowledge of things going on in the world.
-Vocabulary; besides the english section of the test vocabulary is a great way to earn points here to. Showing off your correct usage of sophisticated words can only benefit you in the long run and grading of the essay. This is a skill that I definetly should invest in improving and I'm sure many other people can relate.
- Flow; If you don't got it fake it, making your essay flow and transition well from paragraph to paragraph will leave the readers with the idea that you had the essay under control even if you struggled a little in other areas. It's kind of like the after taste.

Kailua Beach..Part One

Imagine a blue so deep and endless that her eyes couldn't help but drown in it. Sand so fine that her toes felt sinful digging in to it. In the eyes of the overlooking palm trees she and her friends are one of thousands of visitors unknowingly drinking up the beach's beauty and slowly stealing it away for themselves. But on a day like today even the selfish crabs wouldn't dream of hording this beauty for themselves. Even the wind couldn't help but to be immersed in the relaxing lazyness of this beach as it slowly floats from person to person as just enough of a breeze to keep the visitors cool under the glowing sun. And under the smiling sun as small as the microscopic flea that naps under a shady grain of sand her and her 2 closest friends walk the beach surrounded by the laughter and weekend gossip that constantly consumes them, as the rising and falling waves devour then spit-out the sand in the tide's on going struggle for domination. Her name is Leah and she too has an ongoing struggle.

To be cont'd..

Updated essential questions..Part 2

Some important question that dawned on me during the writing of this post:

Does being a stand out person, especially good at one thing make you any better of a person then one who is behind the scenes who is good at just a normal job?

what will really come in as important in my life and how will I know how to prepare?
should i be focusing on geometry which is a made up math that may never serve me, getting out int he reall world and getting a job, studying for the SAT, learning about nature, gathering connections to different people to serve me later?

If I am not actively helping stop a problem either with friends or dealing with environmental health am I really just as bad as those who are worsening it?

I guess you could say my brain has been on hyper speed lately. The last few weeks have been incredibly full and hectic and one of the results of that is evident in my being behind in this blog. As I hadn't posted in a while as of a few days ago I had gone a bit a stray from my essential questions and observations to the world around me. I think that part of that was actually do to the breadth of new knowledge I have been presented in english class lately. All thing's considered it's really starting to blow my mind about the gazillions of pieces of information all around me that I am so oblivious to. Like the chimpanzee-human communication studies, affect of technology on education, expansion of people in the world; http://mrwatsonsclasspages.blogspot.com/ etc. All this imformation on top of the two words I'm supposed to master this week being contamacious, and impute have led me to a new essential questions to add to the list. Will I be happier/ more fulfilled as a person who knows a lot about a few things or knows at least a few things about alot. I used to think that I would eventually be placed in the first category but when It dawned on me about all of the knowledge and advances in the world that I know absolutely nothing about, I decided that slowly I'd like to ease myself into the second category. I think that this will even help address a few other of my previous essential questions like how should I live in this world? and How can I be most beneficial to the world as a whole while still living my life to the fullest? I truly think that knowledge is power and the more I and everyone else have the more helpful we can be to our world as a whole. It's also pretty darn cool all the technological advances our world is making everday and if I want to be a part of them I have to start by knowing about them.

Sat Practice Essay

We were given 25 minutes to write an essay in response to a topic that was given to us. The question was; Do newspapers, magazines, radio, movies, the internet, and other media determine what is important to most people?

Newspapers, television, magazines, radio, movies,, the internet and the endless types of media we are exposed to daily play a large part in influencing what is important to most people but don't necessarily dtermine it.
It is not uncommon to hear about the media poisoning the minds of people evrywhere by instilling in them the nedd to be skinny, ot the want to party, smoke, and wear desighner labels. But to say that the media dtermines what is important to the masses is an oversimplification. The media plays off of trends which are determines by the masses of people. They find ingenious ways to market products, brands, and people, for example, using what they know to be true about what is currently popular. They couldn't make people want to be skinny and wear brand names if the want and importance for those thngs wasn't already there. The reason this topic connot be answered by a simple yes or no is because the effect of the media on people and people on the media works somewhat like a circle or chain reaction. Advertisements, news articles, and movies could not be profitable if they weren't being well recieved by most people. That's where advertisement strategy comes in. And consequently s reaction is triggered because people are influenced further by the advertisements, articles, and moves they're surrounded by. Incredibly skinny people wouldn't be placed all over ads if people didn't want to like them,, and people wouldn't want to look like that if they weren't bombarded with advertisements of very skinny people in a glamorous light all the time.
Another reason there's no black and whitet yes or no answer to the ongoing media questions and struggles, is that the masses of people are really made of of many individuals. And what's important to each individual person cannot be determined by anyone or anything but them. There can be heavy influences on the decisions, morals, and what's important to them, such as the media that surrounds them but that by no means is there only influence. Family, traditions, religion, and personal experiences are all other factors that help to determine what's important to a person and in addition to the media they all aid in contributing to what's important to a person.

NPR This I believe's

Sweet Friday: This women believes in the power of tradition. In this essay a middle aged woman talks about her increasingly difficult life as a mom of five and struggling with a divorce. She talks about the power of tradition as sort of a glue that she believes can hold her family together. Her kids nad her every friday after school and work have a sort of desert feast that they work together to prepare and eat as a family. I think what this woman is doing is incredibly smart. She's keying oin something that many people don't realize but I think tradition is an extremely powerful thing. It's based on what makes family such a close and important thing which is history. History and habit in the past I think leads to a similar future. This is probably why that saying "past behavior is the best map for future behavior," rings true so often, and why bad habits, especially, are so hard to break.

I Always Have a Choice: Catherine Royce believes that no matter what, she always has a choice. This woman has spent her entire life being active but has recently been diagnosed with a disease that deteriorates every one of her muscles and will eventually kill her. But because she is a trooper and fighter she has learned that she always has a choice and instead of giving up and letting the disease take over she has made the choice to find other ways of communication and has opened herself up to the idea of letting others into her life and letting others help her. Although this essay was short it was very touching and rang true to me. Things in life will definetly never be easy and sometimes there may seem like there is no way out or any options unless you recognize that you always have a choice whether it is going against peer pressure, standing up for your beliefs or doing something the hard way, there is always a choice.

Just Like Pastrami: This essay is by a man who grew up surrounded by his father's jewish delicatessan and has found pastrami as a perfect metaphor for life which he believes is best enjoyed when "marbled and savored for it's rich cmplexity,". I think this man has an ingenous point in the fact that no matter how much we can attempt to sepereate work from play or our school and outside lives, we can never truly seperate the because they all affect each other through us. The best and most practical way to live a good life, I agree, is to accept it for the blend of work, play and relationships that it's made up of and incorporate them all together.

I Believe In Acai Bowls...(podcast)

http://cheeeeepono.podOmatic.com/entry/2007-02-26T00_36_41-08_00

I Believe In Acai Bowls...(paper)

I believe in Acai bowls, and if your talking to a real stickler for pronunciation they'll tell you how much they love a-sah-ee bowls. These bowls come in all different shapes and sizes with varying ingredients, toppings, granolas and garnishes, but at the core of every one of them is the antioxidant rich Brazilian superfruit that's quickly becoming popular all over the country. This deep purplish red fruit is acai. Every person likes an Acai bowl for a different reason, and for me it's not just about the incredibly tasty and satisfying thick smoothie-like substance filled with blended acai, fruits, apple juice, and topped with granola, bananas, and anything from coconut and seasonal berries to honey and yogurt, but it's about the metaphorical filling it holds as well.
Every place and person makes their bowl a bit different but usually it is the blended acai smoothie taking up 2/3 of the bowl and the top is layers of the standard banana's and granola usually with honey, coconut and seasonal fruits. Although the layout probably sounds quite appealing, to some, the mixed up bowl full of chunky purple stuff may not look the most appetizing. Fortunately, upon sampling, all pre-conceived notions are dropped and the taster is instantly converted to a raving acai bowl lover. This example is much like the popular saying "don't judge a book by its cover," because you truly never know what you might get. There are endless ways to make a great acai bowl and the key is in the balance of acai and the other added in ingredients. Too many extras and the acai's flavor gets drowned out, similar to a person's life, I believe that to a good extent, like granola, bananas and seasonal fruit, sport's, hobby's, friend's and school enhance a persons life but when to much is added in to the mix of one persons life or even acai bowl the core gets drowned out. Luckily, acai bowl are forgiving, and for some reason or another they almost always turn out great. As there are endless ways to make an acai bowl there are just as many ways to eat one. For me, in the beginning, I like to go vertically layer by layer to sort of sample my options, as in life I like get a feel for things at first, but soon after I dive right in and mix everything together. I believe that in life everything we learn and experience, like and dislike is mixed together all the time and the best way to experience it is to go head on into the mix.
Unfortunately there is one down side, besides the purple residue and acai bowl can leave on the eater's mouth, and it's the trouble of acquiring it. Acai bowls aren't free and as a popular saying suggests "nothing in life is free," Even if you make your own you had to buy the acai and put your time and effort into making it, and if not, you had to go out and buy it and maybe wait in line for over 20 minutes. But somehow it's worth it, and when you finally dig into your bowl you feel a sense of satisfaction and fullness for at least a moment because you've worked for it. No Acai bowl no matter where you go or what you put in it will be the same as the last or next one you'll have. That's why it's important to enjoy it while your eating and savor the full and complete feeling you get after finishing it. It's so important to cherish what you have while you have it and live for the moment because you never know what's coming in the future. That's how I live my life, for the now, for the acai bowl I'm eating right now, in a mix that I'm happy with because it's mine and I've worked hard for it. I believe in Acai bowls.

This I believe (draft)

I believe in many things and there are a lot of things in my life that I enjoy
and although they are not the most metaphorical they are as follows:
food- not just one in particular like the salami example but all sorts of foods, I believe in different types of ethnic foods and the balance of the different types of foods in my life is like the different types of people in my life, I think a plethora of different types foods and different course (breakfast, desert, snacks, cookies!) are as important as a balance of school, work, play, time with friends and etc. when a person balances the activitys in their life evrrything runs smoothly like within ones body when a good mix of foods fruits and vegetables is being eaten then the body runs smoothly.
excercise-i think excercise eis important not only to maintain ones appearance but because in excercising you are making time to do something for youorself. I think it builds confidence...hmm
the holidays
clothes
make-up
accessories-accessories can be anything from bracelets, earrings, necklace, bags, clothes, embellishment of any kind. someone buys and wears an accessory to embellish and improve how they look on the outside. This parallels the things we do in life that are to improve our inside whethre it be our intelligence, our health, our happiness...
dancing

An unlikely church experience..

Religion is usually considered one of the biggest and most essential parts of a person's life. However, I am not one of those people. Although I was baptized a long time ago I don't go to church, except for christmas eve, and I kinow almost nothing about the religious path I will follow later in life or which of the many would fit me best. All this aside on most sundays I am at my good friends house and she is forced to go to church every sunday. Consequently, I am dragged along with her. She goes to a lutheran church and although I don't know where there that falls on the spectrum of religions I do believe that I have learned many useful things in the times I have gone.Just last week we heard ina sermon something that really made me thing. the pastor was talking about how our role in life is to serve, and to search for the way that we can best serve the world and god. I don't know exactly how I feel about the god thing but I thought it was an interesting point. They kept talking about how instead of looking to "get" the most of life, we need to see how we can best put the most into life. I never had really understood the difference between the two expressions but I now noticed that I should decide if I wanted to be a giver or a taker. I know this was pretty random but it made me realize that going to church, and religion is definetly not only about the savior, and bible story like I always thought it had been. It's more about having a community around you that shares similar morals and values and that are very likely to support you. It' about learning to become a better person and serving others. I think that type of community is extremely rare and I know that I definetly want to bee a part of one but not necessarily a congregation.

getting vs. giving

Essential questions....part1

When we were first given the challenge of thinking of the essential questions that fit our own lives I was immediatly worried because I didn't even know where to begin. But after making an effort to pay more attention to my life and the reading we have been reading in english I have thought of some possibilty's of potential essential questions.

-How should we live in this world? And how do I specifically?
-to survive only?, to make the world a better place?, better for others?

-What makes us/me happy?
-getting vs. giving?

-What is our purpose?
-To get the most out of life vs. put the most into it? Does religion greaten my experience of life?

-What is the balance of taking risks?
-are they worth it?, do I way risk and reward? doing potentially dangerous things (ex. sky diving) do things like that enhance life or are just too risky?


thats all for now but there will defiently be more...

4 generations of water buffalo

My understanding of the water buffalo movie may be a little off due to the fact that I could only hear it because the computers in the computer lab don't have the right software. But in spite of that, I could find some similaritys between this man's video and Singers essay. Both of the two are focussed around the idea of giving to people in need, and each of them found there own solution to lessening the amount of pverty around the world. However, Singer's solution was much more extreme then the water buffalo idea and called for world wide participation. Robert thompson on the other hand took the approach of helping world poverty one family at a time. He wasn't concerned with what measures other's were taking towards the problem and relied only on his actions to provide a good example to others. Both works were effective in the aspect of making there audience consider what they could/should do towards helping world poverty but differed completely in their approaches. Singer's strategy was to manipulate his audience and accuse them into wanting to do good works for others. Robert Thompsons approach was to simply capture the effort he was making towards helping others.

Singer's Solution to Poverty

I'll have to admit that in class while we were attempting to correctly assemble Singer's essay I only briefly scanned the huge mass of words. But after reading the essay completely I was completely surprised with the way it affected me. Although many aspects of the paper pertained to me, the first part that grabbes my attention was in the begginning where Singer writes about the, "people who would have been quick to condemn Dora if she had not rescued the boy go home to places far more comfortable than her apartment,". I realized that I could easily have been one of those people and may in fact be one right now as I'm in the middle of planing my Sweet Sixteen with my best friend. A few days ago my mom suggested that instead of presents we ask our friends to give an amount of money to a charity of our choice. It would be an understatement to say that my mom's request was not met with open arms. Reading this paper forced me to think twice about the answer I had given my moher and momentarily forced out of my world of happy oblivion. Singer addresses this many times and part of the success of this essay is the way that it shoves the reader out of a world where they can ignore poverty around the world and makes them examine what they're not doing to help it. Although each point that Singer presentes was powerful I thought the paragraph where he actually listed the organizations names and phone numbers was the most influental.
It was at that point where reading this esay went from an assignhment to something that I actually had to consider. Once I was given this information and the challenge that I could no longer be oblivious I seriously considered Singer's idea. Not only was this paper an excellent piece of writing it held ideas that could actual change the world. And although what Singer asks for is not simple and requires particiaption and caring from many people that are unlikely to give it, "knowing where we should be going is the first step to moving in that direction."