The Past is in the Past

yrreskrap2 Comments

It’s true. Sometimes, we just have to let go.

Life is a learning process. Learning about our limits, our purpose, our favorite types of candy, our soul mate, our best friends. We have been learning from the very beginning. We absorb the most knowledge in the first five years in our life. We learn how to recognize faces. We learn how to walk. We learn to smile when we are happy and frown when we are not. We learn from experience, from our mistakes.

 

But we also learn about avarice, heartache, anger, prejudice, hatred, poverty, and murder. And through the years and our experiences, these unwanted emotions begin to build, some changing us for the better, others blinding us from the positive things in life.

That is why I love this quote so much.

We must leave the past in the past. I am not saying that we must forget about our past completely. No. That would be unwise at the least; the past is what defines us and makes us individuals. It is our past that helps us learn and grow. But it is equally important to learn to move on, recognize our faults, and realize that tomorrow is different from yesterday and even today.

Leaving the past behind may be the hardest part, but life should not be bogged down by our past but rather influenced and benefitted from it.

College already?

rangerthecatLeave a comment

College.


Just hearing that word makes me cringe.

A few years ago, I didn’t even think I would be applying to colleges. I figured I would be attending a community college.

But now, college is so close, and all of my friends are stressing out about it. All I hear is “I’m working on my college essays” or “I had a college interview the other day.”

And I just think Umm, I don’t even know one single school that I’m applying to yet…

I have no idea what I want to study either. I really wish I was one of those people who knew what she wanted to do and went for it. It would make it so much easier!

I have confidence that I will be accepted into a good school, but the first step is figuring out where I am going to apply.

Bring it on, college apps. I will figure it out. It might take me a while, but I’ll figure it out.

Consumerism.

Yourcupatea1 Comment

monopoly man

I am a victim of consumerism. Yes, I admit it I love to shop, spend and snap up those sales. Shamefully I am a greedy, lustful consumer. But you know what, that’s what a lot of the world is shaped around these days. Ok, so I’ve always been a keen consumer but today I really realized the error of my ways.

The simple scenario that mapped out my sinful deeds began with a fast food shop they like to call McDonalds and the simple game of monopoly. Yes that time of year is back, Monopoly at McDonalds.

The sinful time when you are encouraged to buy fatty goodies in order to win cars, holidays and spa days has returned and I have been its first victim. Today I bought two McDonalds. Yes I repeat two McDonalds, breakfast and dinner. The concept of winning a prize from a meal was just too much, but no I did not win.

So whilst I counted the individual monopoly tickets I realized how I had become a victim. I had become a victim to games and consumerism. Now it’s time for me to change.

Taste your tears.

thehungryrunnergirlLeave a comment

If you don’t know why you’re crying, taste your tears!

When was your last time you cried? What did it taste like?

According to a Japanese trivia website, I found an amazing fact about tears.
The taste of a tear depends on the situation. This is something to do with tear secretion. When you’re angry or feeling remorseful, you would be in a highly wrought-up state that makes the sympathetic nervous system active. This nervous system makes the tears contain more sodium and makes it more salty than usual. On the other hand, when you’re happy or just sad, the parasympathetic nervous system would be active to calm yourself, so it would contain more potassium that makes the tear watery and less salty. Moreover, when the parasympathetic nervous system is active, the tears would contain stress hormones so it releases your stress.

Such an interesting fact isn’t it!? When I cry, I mostly taste really salty tears! I thought there was only one kind of taste!

ROV: Underwater Robotics

kirbyfullyloadedLeave a comment

When I was four I modeled for a book.  You know those progressive, interactive books for kids?  I posed for the back cover of My Little Blue Robot.  My friend Max and I stood in a hot studio for a few hours playing with this little cardboard robot.  Each page of the book contains a piece and the idea is to put the robot together as you go through the book.

Ever since then I’ve been fond of these little mechanical things.  They’re fun, easy, and don’t (usually) talk back to you.  It’s nice.  And personally, I like to make things in my free time so robotics seemed like an interesting subject.

The summer of 2009, I took R.O.V. at CIMI.  The class description said we could build underwater robots and I decided to try it.  Having no idea what I was getting into, I entered the course completely out of my element and loved it.

R.O.V. stands for Remotely Operated Vehicle.  We made simple ones at Sea Camp and the controls were already wired and ready for us.   All we had to do was make the frame out of PVC pipe and zip tie it together.

I decided to make one for my 8th grade science project.  Not so much for the science part, but just because it was fun to build.  My dad and I measured and cut all the pipe, laid out the dimensions, and glued each piece together.

We gathered a mountain of materials; zip ties, PVC pipe, drills, film canisters, propellers, a control box, piano wire, electrical wire,toggle switches, batteries, glue, scissors, a car battery, wax, wire cutters, wire strippers, screw drivers, rubber bands, an old razor phone, plastic zip lock bags, and food (of course).

This was our work table:

WARNING: Active Construction Zone

Read More »

Philadelphia Freedom…not so sweet

backinphillyLeave a comment

The Eagles…what can I say about the Eagles? As I sit here typing on this beautiful San Diego night, I look back on the day’s occurrences. While my family and I sat down to a game of Scrabble without one “E” tile, we discussed the most recent failure of our beloved Philadelphia Eagles. “It’s the coaching”, my mother said. “It’s all Andy Reid’s fault.” I have only ever followed the Eagles while Andy Reid has coached them. Yes, I feel it is time for a change also. But, how would this even feel? Certainly wouldn’t feel right for a few weeks. Seeing a new coach on the Eagles sideline. Turnover after turnover occurred for the Eagles and once again found themselves on the losing end of a very sloppy competition. This time, it was made even more humiliating because they suffered at the cleats of the Buffalo Bills. What is happening with the supposed “Dream Team”? Are they really all hype? Are they really just a high payroll franchise? How can this be corrected? I’d welcome any comment on this very pressing matter.

null

Please, think of the Philadelphian children.

Scary Scary Time!

r3t5nom1 Comment

halloween

Halloween is coming up and man am I ready to scare some people! Halloween to me is the most fun day because you get a chance to dress up as something you’re not and go get candy from all the houses around your block. That is unless you go to a boarding school haha.

candy

BUT being at a boarding school is not that bad. On Halloween I will make sure to have a lot of fun scaring people out of their minds. Plus we have a nice Halloween dance, and a best costume contest, which I never win.

This year will be fun though, we have a lot of people who share my passion with scaring people and that is what makes Halloween fun. Scaring people.

me
Get ready OVS cause I’m going to scare you all!

What do you think about Halloween?

Climate Change

therightliberalLeave a comment

In a time where the word “change” is constantly being used as a positive, climate change is sneaking up from behind.

It could just be me, but it seems as though all the talk about how quickly we are changing our climate has quickly died off. This worries me.

I am not a radical in my environmental thinking. I feel that people should do what they can to reduce their personal effect of the environment. I am not one to say that we all need to ride bikes and never buy a product that does not contain recycled material.

However, there are so many simple things we can do to prevent our home from becoming a lot less nice than it is now.

We can recycle at every possible moment. It really is not that difficult to put things in the right bin and purchase products that can easily be recycled. We can make conscious choices throughout our day that are little yet make a difference.

I am lazy so I understand that making these changes can be tedious at times. But in the long run it seems worth it. We can work now to slow the damage that we are increasingly doing to the earth.

From a political standpoint this is a prime example of what is wrong with our political system. By far the majority of the people of the US realize we need to change. And yet, there is hardly any political movement because of sticking to party lines.

How about we all just admit we need to change the way we live. Remember how change can be used as a powerful and great word? Lets change our path to avoid extreme climate change. Let us change the little things to achieve the big things.

Banned Books Week topic in World History

r3t5nom1 Comment

                                                         BBW
This past week we talked about National Banned Books Week. In my opinion, banning books is wrong. Why wrong you might ask? Wrong because by banning a book we are hiding and keeping information from the people. Wrong, because in most cases the content of a book is merely a reflection of a real life issue or occurrence.

A book touching on the topics of homosexuality or racial differences is not a valid reason to ban a book. A book about the old south that has the “N” word in it is not a fair reason to ban a book, especially because the “N” word is being used to provide the reader a feel for how things were in the south way back when.

Books shouldn’t be banned because there is a bigger possibility that the people reading a book about a war will be shocked and learn that war isn’t the answer, than for those people to think that they should go out an mass murder a crowd of people due to their influence from that book.

If people are this afraid of what a books content will do to the minds of those who read them, then I wish you luck with real life problems because you are clearly unaware of what sort of things life brings to the table.

If a book can change every bodies mind of what a government is doing and lead the people to revolt and demand a change, then the government was definitely doing something wrong.

Books are powerful tools for understanding and for expression, but most of all books are a way to describe a situation or a period of time in the highest about of detail possible. even if it means there is foul language, racial differences or sexual implication portrayed in the novel.

BBW

What do you think about Book Banning?

Confined.

theycallmedame3 Comments

They primp you hair.

They give you a glowing tan.

With the help of plastic, your smile has never been bigger.

They make you beautiful.

Well, they tell you you’re beautiful.

But all you feel is trapped.

Imprisoned in your gaudy, sparkly outfit, preparing to dazzle the audience.
All you want to do is scream.

Tear the frill of your dress, smear your makeup, and let out a grotesque growl to prove that you’re not just peachy-keen.

Beneath this facade you’re crying for freedom from the rusted shackles clamped to your free-will.

You have the dream and the wish and the will power to run away from this fabricated life, but you don’t.

You’re scared of the outside world.

Terrified of what is inside of you.

You know that once you tear away at all the cosmetics, all the clothes, the shoes, the glamor, the guilt, the pure rage that has been embedded into you since day one, that you will feel just as ugly as you do now.

That without all of the attention, all of the glamor and fans and trophies and doting mothers affection, you’ll be nothing.

You’ll look in the mirror and you’ll see a pale, skinny, scared and ugly girl gazing back from sunken eyes.

You’re broken. Defined by your reflection.

A stranger stares back at you.

You shatter.

And each shard asks the question: Why?

Broken.
Ashamed.
Frightened.
A worthless little girl.

You and me?
We were never a beauty queen.